A project for Cuba

 January brought a quick trip to Cuba.   This was a pure R & R trip.  With only seven days, the idea was to sit on a beach.  Oh, sure, I admit to having a weak, ill-thought out plan to find the bee hummingbird (the smallest hummingbird in the world) but once I saw the beach, that quest was put away for another trip. We did manage to drag ourselves to Havana for a short day where I found a group of women learning to knit, but then it was back to the beach and a couple of novels.

[Photo: A group of women
knitting in downtown Havana]

With hours of flights and just as many getting to the airport and sitting waiting for the plane, I decided I needed a project and since I am behind in my spinning homework, I thought it wise to pick a project that would get me a little further ahead in my homework.  For my major project this year, I have to spin a yarn and then knit or weave it into something.  From start (preparing the fleece) to finish (a usable product), the project should take 50 hours.  I have so far spent 25 hours sampling (1 hour), cleaning and teasing fleece (8hrs), blending and carding (4hrs)  fibres (40% mohair, 40% alpaca and 20% silk), preparing skeins for dying (2 hrs), mordanting (1 hr) and dying the skeins (4 hrs), plus 1 hour on calculations.  This was to be for a woven scarf, but at the end of all this work, my weft which was to be a soft pink turned into a rather gaudy, vibrant, purple.  I had enough purple for a scarf in itself.  I was still happy with the yarn a soft 2 ply suitable for weaving or knitting lace.  So if the planned weft was too harsh to go with the soft, subtle colours of the warp, then knitting would be a good alternative, except I can't knit anything more complicated than knit and purl and even then my knitting is questionable.  This I decided was the perfect time to learn how to knit and knit lace at that.

[Photo: My first lace knit project]

So I 'googled' beginner knit lace and found this pattern from Knitty.com.    Perfect.  The description says it is good for beginners.  that's all the time I had to read before printing the chart, downloading a 'How to Knit ' app for the I-phone (complete with how-to videos, and packaging my purple yarn off I went to Cuba.

[Photo: From Knitty.com]

I want to point out a couple of items of interest in my photo of my WIP (Work in progress).  First, note the turquoise thingy, it is a Knit Kit, advertised as 'never lose your knit knacks ever again'.  I bought it from Knotty by Nature on my way to the airport, and am so glad I did.  It has a row counter, crochet hooks for those darned stitches you drop by accident, stitch markers, tape measure and even scissors apparently approved for air travel (personally, I think it is because they fold so cleverly that the x-ray machine can't see the sharp pointy bits).  If you are a knitter, never leave home without it.  The second thing I want to point out, is if you look closely about an inch below my needle is a blue yarn sewn into the knitting.  It's called a lifeline and it is. My knitting has improved but I tore apart the first 3 inches probably a dozen times, and even now, with a seasoned 164 rows behind me, I knit three rows ahead and often rip five rows back.  The lifeline allows me to rip back to the start of my ten row repeat pattern.  Every ten rows I use the handy dandy darning needle which came withe the Knit Kit and darn through the row.  Then when I have to rip out a few rows to get back on track, I can rip away right back to the lifeline without having any lost/dropped stitches.
On getting back home, I went back to Knitty.com to re-read everything and that's when I realized this wasn't actually a 'beginner's' beginner's project, it was for advanced beginners who are ready to tackle something more difficult. As the instructions say 'So, once you've knit this scarf you can knit just about any lace pattern.'  
And it is true ....I think.

Fondle this fibre!

[Photo: From top clockwise: Gray alpaca on spindle
and 2ply,  cream alpaca with cashmere and silk,
alpaca with nylon and wool]

At the Olds Fibre Week (last week of June, first few days of July) Alpaca Canada donated sample bags of Alpaca for the spinners to spin and samples of alpaca yarn for the knitters and weavers to use. Ooooooooh what beautiful fibre! This is fondle fibre. You just want to put one of those sample bags in your pocket to carry around all day to fondle ... or, as Jacey Boggs suggests (check out her blog, she is hilarious) .... I think it was Jacey ... if not it could have been Jacey...in any event, someone like Jacey, suggested that there are certain fibres, and alpaca is one of them, that you just want to stuff into your bra and fondle or squeeze a breast or both, all day.

[Photo: See the softness]

I spun some Kensigton Prairie Farm roving which was light fawn coloured 85% Alpaca and 15% Tussah silk. Exquisite! And the samples from Alpaca Farms Koksilah on Vancouver Island (I will be visiting this farm!) and Graycott Alpacas in Ontario were so silky and luxurious to spin. They were so soft and felt so good I did them all on a spindle to stretch out the fondle time.
Twisted Sisters Fibre Mill donated some rovings of an alpaca blend with wool and nylon. See the picture and you will get an idea of how the addition of wool adds loft. Sounds like a perfect sock yarn.

[Photo: The alpaca/wool/nylon blend on the
left and the silky suri alpaca on the right]

My Mother (Mom are you reading this?) offered to knit my niece, a pair of socks and let her pick the yarn. She picked a heathered blue alpaca yarn. Mother was horrified thinking these socks would wear out in weeks being made with such delicate yarn. So I checked out the characteristics of alpaca and was surprised to find it is 10 times stronger than wool, more shrink resistant, softer, smoother and with little or no lanolin it is perfect for those who suffer wool allergies. They should be perfect socks.  
And should they ever wear out, well, they will be good bra stuffing.

Alpaca - are calling

The Alpaca stars are lining up and calling me. First, I heard a fascinating modern-day story  about the olden days in Peru and it centres on the Alpaca. Twenty years ago, Jane Wheeler, an archaezoologist (read about her and the history of the organization she started--Conopa) was asked to investigate some mummified alpacas who had been buried with reverence and honour. Why? What was special about these alpacas? I believe that at the time of her study, alapacas were raised for primarily for meat and wool was a bit of a by-product, useful of course but not so much for the value of the wool compared to what their meat provided. Their fibre, was somewhat coarse, and according to one article, was only suitable for rugs. But the mummified alpaca had the finest, softest hair, much finer than the modern day alpaca.  
It appears that in history, alpacas were treasured and bred for their fine fibre, elevating alpaca as the backbone of the economy.  The Spaniards, when they arrived, destroyed alpacas and hence the economy.  When the alpacas lost their worth, they lost their breeding programs and the fibres lost their fineness.  Along comes Jane, her discovery, and her resolve to bring back the economy, the fine fibre, and all of a sudden after hundreds of years, an alpaca revival begins. A fascinating story. Read more of it here: http://discovermagazine.com/2001/apr/featalpaca/?searchterm=alpaca
Next, I read about an indigenous weaving conference to be held in Peru. A Gathering of the Weavers (it also included other textile arts) of the Americas/Tinkuy de Tejedores de las Americas held in Cusco Peru in November 2010. This event was spearheaded by Nilda Callanoupo Alvarez, a leader in supporting traditional textiles in the Andes. More information on the hosting organization can be found here http://andeantextilearts.org What an opportunity to see people from all over the America's, mostly indigenous weavers, gathered in one place sharing their knowledge. In hindsight, I realized I should have just quit work and gone. Alas, I was foolish and stayed. But here is an interesting account of one woman's trip, blogger, author, inspirer-er, student and teacher of indigenous weaving techniques, Laverne Waddington on her blog Backstrap Weaving.
Another coincidence. At the Duncan Distaff Day, I met a woman who volunteered for a month helping organize the hanging of the textiles which would be on display at the conference. She had met Nilda years ago at a weaving convention and Nilda had asked her to come and help. She shared her photo album with me and the colours in every photo was spectacular!
And even more coincidences. A very good friend returned from a holiday in Peru, and by coincidence was in Cusco, the town the conference was in. She is not a fibre nut but kindly bought me an Andean drop spindle in the market and some Alpaca to spin. And another whose graduate student was in the very same area, working with a weavers co-op also brought me a gift of Andean weaving done with superfine Alpaca yarns.

[Photos by Laverne Waddington from her blog at
http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/
backstrap-weaving-tinkuy-de-tejedores-2010/]

Recently, SpinOff magazine created an interactive magazine called SpinKnit. The magazine contains articles, interviews, and a ton of multimedia: slideshows, photos, and videos. Their first issue has a great section on Spinning and Knitting in the Andes and another section on Alpacas and Vicunas. The 'e-mag' can be purchased for just under $15 but be aware of the humongous file size, weighing in around 500 meg! This is fine if you have a high speed connection but don't even try if you are on dial-up. The video below shows one of the videos from that issue: Andean women spinning.


And to round all this up, it has culminated in an Alpaca Spinning workshop I just took, but this blog is getting far too long, so I will save the workshop for another blog.

Fur, hair and wool - what's it all about?

A human hair
Photo done by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
© 2010 University of Minnesota Duluth

What's the difference between fur, wool and hair? This is a question that has been bugging me for a long time, so I tried to find out the answer. Let me tell you right up front that I didn't find a simple answer. The following is what I have gleamed but please post a comment if you can add any clarity to this question.
Some of this confusion seems to be a matter of word usage, as they are all the same protein (keratin), so technically they are all hair. However, some features that help distinguish the usage of terms: The thickness for example. Hair has lower density with 500 follicles/sq inch although not all are active at the same time, so let's say @100-200 follicles per sq inch should define hair. Sheep wool on the other hand, have up to 60,000 follicles/sq inch (Merino) and if the density is high, like a sea otter which has one of the highest densities at 800,000 per sq inch, the hair is referred to as fur. 
Another characteristic that some use to distinguish between terms is the growth pattern. Fur grows to a certain length then stops, while wool and hair keeps on growing. Although, this all depends on species and genetics, but generally this seems a good separator. Fur tends to have a major shedding time annually. Only the primitive sheep (eg. Soay, Orkney, Hebridean) and the so called 'hair' sheep breeds (eg.Saint Croix, West African, Wiltshire Horn) shed annually. 

Churro sheep wool. SEM
Photo by Dave Lewis and the Ohio 
 Agriculture Research and Development Center in Wooster

Wool tends to be the term for sheep fleece. Some sheep have kemp (thick hairs) in amongst the wool usually in is found in certain breeds of sheep and certain locations (eg. rear end), other sheep and Llamas have double coats with longer guard-type hairs designed to shed water and shorter insulating down fur (eg. Icelandic, Navajo Churro) for warmth.

Alpaca.
Photo by Dave Lewis and the Ohio 
 Agriculture Research and Development Center in Wooster

And then there is the more technical characteristics, like the cellular structure. The hair shaft is made of cuticle cells (keritine) that form scales, overlapping each other and pointing towards the tip. The cells form a protective coating around the cortex (inner area). In the fine merino wool, the cells are one layer thick while human hair can be 10 layers thick. This cellular structure is different for each type of hair (eg. eyelashes, whiskers, hair) from different animals. The scanning electron microscope photos here show some of the different structures. Look at the difference between human hair, churro sheep and angora rabbit in the pictures here. But, it doesn't help much in distinguishing hair from fur from wool.

Alpaca  Light microscope photo
showing the medulation (dark areas).
Photo by Dave Lewis and the Ohio 
 Agriculture Research and Development Center in Wooster

Inside the hair shaft is the cortex. This is the middle of the hair/wool/fur. If the centre of the cortex is hollow we call the core 'medulla' or a medulated hair. The inner core can be a consistently hollow core, or contain sections which are hollow. This medulation can provide insulation, hence hairs with no medulation hold heat less well than medulated hairs. Alpacas and Llamas have medulated hairs while sheep do not, hence Alpaca wool is a better insulator than wool.

Angora. Note the very interesting V-shape cell structure
SEM Photo by Dave Lewis and the Ohio
 Agriculture Research and Development Center in Wooster

So why is this interesting? For a few reasons. The structure of a fibre creates its characteristics for: heat retention; strength, elasticity, felting tendency, light reflection, etc. And also because I want to be able to analyze a fibre and have a way to figure out if it is Mountain Goat or sheep wool or from the Coast Salish wool dog.

One left foot

One twisted ankle

Did I mention I signed up for a 'Learn to Run' class? Yup, they teach this. And there is a lot to learn (where to land on your foot for example) and a lot of homework (practise)! It's a great way to become a runner. I know this because I have taken the course before and had worked up to running 13 minutes, then a 2 minute walk and repeat the sequence. It got me through a 5k run in a respectable time. But that was a few years ago a a few pounds lighter.
Well, this time I failed. Flunked out. We got to the midterm and I had worked up to be running a full three continuous minutes, then a two minute walk and was feeling pretty good about this progress when I found a pothole, at the 30 minute mark, in the side walk and down I went. I limped back to work (this being a lunch time activity) where the first aid people bandaged me up, gave me a cold pack and strict instructions to keep it elevated as much as possible for the first 48hours. Apparently early care means an early heal (no pun intended).
I do not mind being housebound or couch bound, but here is the problem. My right foot is the sprained one and my spinning wheel is a single right-foot treadle. What's the good of being house and couch-bound with 36 more spinning homework kits awaiting and with only one left foot?

Alpaca and black walnut dyed wool, drum carded
 (on the left), combed (in the middle) and being
 dizzed into fine tops which were rolled until
ready to spin (on the right)

I returned to the guest bedroom aka the wool stash and without awaking Priscila the spirit, the-fleece-less-sheep-that-rules-the-guest-bedroom-wool-stash, dug into the homework bag that held the kits still to be blended, combed, carded and dizzed and spent today seated in the sunroom aka the production studio and carded, belnded, combed and dizzed a few more kits, so at least I felt I was making some progress. Back on the couch, I resorted back to the spindle and am now working on a blend of silk and mohair. Very deluxe. But I am getting ahead of the next post.
Count down: 150 days to go (using revised deadline date of March 31)

Nettles and Alpaca

Last weekend started with a conference on First Nations Traditional Foods.  Talks on Friday, then feasting and playing the bones game Friday night.  Spotted at the display was a dried plant with long stems, dried and looking like hay.  This was dried nettle. Wound onto a short stick, was line, somewhat like fishing line.    Saturday was a traditional food fair at the Snuneymuxw Long House.  Abe, who was studying First Nations root gardens, was cooking up a meal.  Potatoes done in a cedar box of water, heated by placing red hot stomes into the water.  The fire was removed from the pit to make way for ferns and salal which was quickly laid in the pit, vegetables added, more ferns and salal, a bucket of water, burlap and covered with a foot of dirt.  Abe removed the cooked potatoes with a handmade ladle, made of wood, twine made of young willow bark and nettle. 

Someone else had told me earlier that the Saanich First Nations used willow for their reef fish nets.  Judith MacKenzie McCuin (who taught me how to spin years ago) writes about indigenous use of nettles in the introduction of her new book The Intentional Spinner .

lipobibliophobia - the fear of being somewhere without a book.

Sunday, a bike trip along the old Cowichan Valley railway.



But first a stop at Pacific Sun Alpacas (by lucky co-incidence, just about on the trail) to buy some fleece. A very friendly and enthusistic owner who, of course, is a spinner, shows me how to sort a fleece.  I buy a sample--the neck fleece of Lumina, a cream-coloured alpaca-- to take home and try.  I'll bring it back and she will help me card it into rovings with her new carding machine.  Lipofibrephobia.  I buy a couple of bags of rovings to keep me spinning.