Stuck in silk

This is some of my tahkli-spun silk drying. I emphasize that it is only 'some', a small portion of my spun silk stash. And that stash gets bigger by the week. I can't seem to stop spinning silk. I know this may seem weird, or weak, perhaps perverse to the silk uninitiated, and they may think I just need more resolve, more backbone. But I have good excuses.
First, it is silk. SILK! Silk, as in lustrous, rich, shimmering, smooth silk!  
Then there is the awe factor. On the one hand it evokes the luxurious image, on the other hand, you are spinning worm spit. Really. Insect fibres. A protein used to cocoon a silk worm until it metamorphs into a silk moth. Just think about that! Amazing. If you want blow-by-blow instructions on how to raise your own silk moths and harvest the silk, go here.

[Photo: Bombyx, or cultivated silk.
SEM Photo by Dave Lewis]

Then there is the colour. Silk has vibrant colour. Even without dye, silk has rich depth in colour. Even white, cultivated silk, has more white, if that is possible, more absence of colour. The silk made from wild moths, such as Muga or Tussah have either a golden or honey colour. It shimmers, with or without colour. And that shimmering is due to the structure of the silk. One long continuous fibre, which means less fuzzy ends to break up the light reflection and the structure of the fibre itself has reflective properties. The Scanning Electron Microscope image to the right shows the structure. Compare the smooth silk fibrewith a Dorset sheep fibre which has layer upon layer of cells which make up the 2-3" long fibre.

[Photo: Dorset sheep.
SEM Photo byDave Lewis ] 

And lastly, I have been spinning on my small Tahkli spindle.  It is perfect for silk because each flick of the fingers, has that spindle spinning so fast and for so long, that it gives a high twist to the silk.  And the Tahkli spindle fits into a purse or backpack.  In other words, I carry it with me all the time, ready to pull it out of the bag at a moments notice and start spinning at airports, in cars, on ferries, at work, while camping, where ever I am.  As a famous anthropologist Ed Franquemont, pointed out, when asked what is faster, a spindle or a spinning wheel?:

[Photo: My Tahkli spinning kit]

" A wheel is faster by the hour, and a spindle faster by the week."
And so, with Tahkli spindle in my bag, I am fated to keep spinning silk.

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.

Olds Fibre Week

[Photo: Nunu felted peacock dress]

One of the things about being at Fibre Week at Olds, is meeting such interesting and creative folk. Last night I was sitting watching the fashion show (check out the nuno felting peacock dress) and a few seats down there was Syvia Harding knitting another fabulous shawl (check out her lace designs). Down a row was Carol Balogh who has some great knit kits available at her online store Nature's Knit-ch(click here to see some of them) And Barb Brown (one of the guest speakers at Sock Summit 2011), a very gentle soul and well known for knitting knee highs, was there with her book Knitting Knee-Highs, plus the socks in the book! One could findle them. Here's Barb's web site: Wild Geese Fibres.

I also met Caroline Sommerfield, a master of support spindling. If you aren't sure what support spindles are, check her web Ancient Arts Fibre and her book Spinning Exotic Fibres with Russian and Tibetan Spindles. Caroline it turns out also knitted a couple of the socks in Barb's book. It was sandle weather that day, so I did not bother to check out what socks she was wearing on her feet. I took Caroline's advice and bought a Russian spindle or, as Caroline puts it 'I liberated a spindle for the sake of the people'. This woman is persuasive if not downright subversive by converting every passerby into a spindler. The spindle is a walnut one (feels 'right' in my hand and is made by Dick Carney in Kamloops. To go with it, I bought a bowl with an ironwood centre made by Jim Leslie of Calgary. The bowl will fit on my lap.  
With a trip to Scotland, the Orkney and Shetland Islands coming up, and support spindle homework on my list, I justified these purchases as I will have something light and portable to take with me. She also sells fibre and I bought a mixture of Lllamam, mohair and merino but I was sorely tempted to get some mixtures of yak, bison and silk but ran out of cash. I am not too worried, there is always the online store.  

[Photo: Elizabeth aka Zemmie (Ravelry)
with her handknit traditional
Shetland shawl]

[Photo: Putting the shawl through
her grandmother's wedding ring]

Speaking of the Shetland Islands, Elizabeth from North Vancouver, who was in my Level 1 Master Spinners course in Victoria, was there wearing a hand knit shawl she had done in traditional Shetland-style. A true Shetland Island shawl is made from Shetland sheep wool (go figure) and must be spun so fine, that the whole shawl will slip through your wedding ring. I guess maidens are not good enough spinners. It must take years of spinning experience to accomplish yarn that is only a few fibres in diameter.

The Coast Salish Spindle

[Photo: Coast Salish whorls at the
Royal BC Museum]

I have been spending some time investigating the Coast Salish Spindle with the idea of having a friend make me one and thought I would share some of what I have found. 


The Coast Salish spindle was used mainly by the Coast Salish of Vancouver Island (e.g. Snuneymuxw , Quwutsun, Tsartlip) and the mainland Coast Salish (e.g. Musqueam, Yale, Spuzzum). The Coast Salish Spindle is distinguished from other spindles, not only due to its size: the spindle shaft usually measures 90-120 cms (35-48”) and the whorl is commonly 18-20 cms (7-8”), but also due to its method of use –tossing into the air (more on this in a later blog...once I have had a chance to figure out how that worked).

The whorl, often made from Maple wood (have you ever seen those beautiful Maple trees in Cowichan Bay?), is placed either midway up the shaft or between half-way and two thirds down the shaft. The shaft is tapered with the larger end at the bottom. The whorl is often decorated by incised carving on one side of the whorl, the side facing down towards the spinner. The upper side of the whorl is sometimes flat or slightly concave. On many whorls the center shaft hole is thicker than the surrounding wood, tapering down to a thinner outer edge of the whorl.

[Photo: Salish spindle on display at
the Royal BC Museum]

The Salish spindle was used for spinning goat wool mixed with dog hair from the Salish Wool Dog. The yarn created was a thick yarn used for blankets. Later the spindle was used for yarns used in the Cowichan sweater industry.


There are a few things about this spindle that I find intriguing: its size; the way it is held; the method of tossing and turning; the use of a tension ring to add the tension to the drafting process. Intriguing enough to try to recreate one and to try it out. I will let you know how it works.
Edited to suggest a great book on the history of Salish Wool and sweaters:

Working with Wool, a Coast Salish Legacy . Although it looks at the history of the Cowichan Sweaters, it covers the history of the wool too.

New Year, Old Spindle

[Photo: Spindle whorl found at L'Anse aux
Meadows, Newfoundland.
Image from: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/whorl2461.jpg] 

This spindle is a most unusual spindle, one that tells a story and proves a story.  The picture on the left is the Norse spindle whorl found at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.  This is the oldest spindle whorl to be found in Canada and is over 1,000 years old.  According to two Icelandic sagas that talk about the Viking settlement at Vinland (now proven to be L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland), this spindle probably belonged to Gudrid (aka The Far Traveller), wife of Karlsefni, and mother of Snorri, the first European baby to be born in North America, and my great-great (27 times great) grandmother.
In 1960, Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine Moe, an archaeologist looked for and found the Vinland of the sagas in Newfoundland. The site also proved that the Norse people had been to North America 500 years before Columbus.  It was the whorl (along with a knitting needle) that helped confirm that this location was indeed the Norse settlement that until then had been the Vinland of two Icelandic sagas. The Greenland Saga and Eric the Red Saga, which both spoke of Gudrid having lived in Vinland twice and the second time for three years where she gave birth to Snorri. At that time, only women spun hence the whorl indicated that a Norse woman had been there.  Gudrid was not the only woman to have been in Vinland, from the sagas we know that Freydis also lived there for one of the voyages.  She too most likely spun, but since Fredis had a reputation of being ferocious and a bit unlady-like, I like to think that this whorl belonged to Gudrid.
The whorl is made from soapstone and is very similar to the ones seen at the National Museum of Iceland in the picture here.

[Photo: Icelandic spindles in
 the Icelandic National Museum]

Eva Anderson in her dissertation research on Viking era textile production confirmed that the whorl weight and diameter of the whorl determines the rate and duration of the spin, the amount of tension and hence, the fineness or thickness of the yarn spun.  Often various whorl sizes would be found close together in Norse archaeological sites which reflect the variety of spindle tools needed for the variety of textiles produced.  From Norse archaeological sites, whorl weights range from 4-100 grams with 5-29 g being typical.  Whorl diameters range between 5-45 mm and the height of stone whorls is 5-20 mm, with a 7-12 mm hole.

The shafts of that era were almost always thinner at both ends and thickening in the middle.  Shafts would typically be 98-215 mm in length, with diameters from 5-13 mm, with 7-8 mm diameter most common (Andersson, 1999). 

In the museum (see the picture above) the spindles are displayed with the whorl at the top, but they were probably used as bottom weighted whorls.

See also:

• Historica Minute video re-enactment of Vinland and notes at http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10121
• Viking tools: http://www.stringpage.com/viking/spindles.html
• Parks Canada L’Anse aux Meadows Historical site: http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index.aspx
• Video of Nancy Marie Brown, author of "The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman" reading at Cornell University.

Afghanistan, rugs and Christmas

I received an email from my brother recently who is now in Afghanistan and there, in all that chaos, he had the time to read my blog ---he's probably reading it right now. Imagine that. Hello Bro'!--and inspired by fibre, he sent along a link to an article about the rugs of Afghanistan which had a lovely quote which he quoted and I in turn quote him quoting the article. "Read this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seema-jilani/the-carpets-of-afghanista_b_718812.html  - I especially like her description of what to do with an Afghan carpet: 

The rug is not just for you to place in your living room, or to be trampled upon by high heels at a cocktail party while people swirl martinis. Women have sewn their lives into it. They have whispered about their husbands, gossiped about in-laws, and exchanged riveting hopes and dreams while their fingers diligently worked the loom. Take your shoes off and don't tread heavily. Respect their stories." 

Spinning on the ferry as we came through Active Pass
to Victoria

 Doesn't that make you think twice when stepping on a carpet?! And imagine thinking about rugs and weaving while serving in Afghanistan.

Christmas travel spinning 

Here, we visited a our families over Christmas, we took the ferry to Vancouver to have Christmas Eve with the in-laws' then the ferry to Victoria to have Christmas dinner with my family. With so many ferry rides and the time spent in the car gave me productive homework time.
We missed my brother (and his family, who are in England), at Christmas and we watched the Canadian troops celebrating Christmas in Afghanistan on the news. We didn't see him but then, maybe he was busy reading this blog.

Adams River Sockeye Boondoggle and Kit #19

Sockeye salmon heading up the Adams River

Dead fish lining the shores of
Shuswap Lake

The river ran red. Really. This is the BIG BIG BIG year for the Adams River Sockeye salmon run. For some reason, every four years, there is a bumper year for sockeye returning fish--after their first year, spent in fresh water, the little tykes head down river and spend the next three years in the ocean before returning to their birth place. So a big year is every 4th year and this was a 4th year. Despite predictions from some quarters of a crash, this year was the biggest year since 1913, 34.5 MILLION FISH!. Compare that to last years 1 million fish. This was BIG BIG. Once in a lifetime. So we had to go see it.  Click here to see my slide show.

Spinning Kit# in the van

We've been to the last 4th year run and 8 years before, and they were impressive, so I didn't know how this could be even more impressive. It wasn't that we saw more fish swimming up river- maybe we did but I never counted--but what we saw was more dead fish. After they spawn they die. It's their destiny. So while the line of fish kept going up river, those that spawned and died, floated back down the river and lined the shores of Shuswap Lake. The mouth of the river was thick with dead fish. Now think about this. 34.5 million fish all spawning then dying and littering the shore. That adds up to a lot of dead fish with decaying, rotting flesh. The smell was, well, it smelt. Bearable but the smell did linger with us for hours. .....hmmm, I better have someone with a sensitive nose, check the aroma of kit # 19 - fine grade fleece wool spun and prepared worsted-style, spun in the van on the way there and carried in my pack while viewing and sidestepping dead fish.
Count: 4 down 36 to go

Day 3 and 4, Kit #38

Spinning in the car - not while I drove.

Okay, Kit #38 is supposed to be at the finish line, or at in sight of it but I panicked. I was worried about all the travelling I had coming up in the next week and thinking I would be a week behind with only 1, maybe 2 kits completed.
I was off to Victoria to meet with a curator at the BC Museum to look at historical photos of Coast Salish spinning (but that's another story) and then to go to the Victoria Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild meeting, which meant that I wouldn't have time to spin. Eureka, I would take my spindle and the Kit (#38) that required a 10 yard sample of a 2 ply yarn done with a drop spindle. I could spindle at the Guild meeting, and while the other half drove, I could spindle in the car. And this gives me a good idea. For all those trips, I will select some other kits that would be suitable to use the spindle. One big headache solved.
Which brings me back to Kit #38, a blend of beige llama blended with a Frieson x Suffolk cross both of which had a similar length staple and I had dyed the wool with Black Walnuts to get that ho-hum beige. The mix is a very nice, soft camel coloured yarn.
Time: 1.5 hours driving, 1 hour in a meeting, 1 hour plying in the car, in the dark using a flashlight! = 3.5 hours (including coffee stops)
Count: 3 down, 37 to go.

Victoria Spindles - Signs of the Lekwungen

Spindle whorl marking
 llqemasan (Camosun)

A few years ago the City of Victoria worked with the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations, to create and place seven larger-than-life spindles and whorls marking seven important Lekwungen locations around the city.  This picture was taken at what was a Hudson's Bay Fort, Fort Camosun, later known as Fort Victoria.  It marks the two worlds meeting.

“ I remember my grandma using a spindle whorl. She didn’t speak much English, and I didn’t speak much Coast Salish, but I understood that the spindle whorl is the foundation of any family – it can weave a tapestry of information.”  Butch Dick, Songhees artist and designer of the spindle whorls

The second spindle is at the highest point in Beacon Hill Park, 'Meqen' (which means warmed by the sun) overlooking the Salish Sea, and on the far shore, the Olympic Peninsula.  On the hillside, 'Coqwialls' a game similar to field hockey was played and lower down a village once stood until about 300 years ago.  Camus, a wildflower and bulb that provided a sweet carbohydrate is found in abundance in this area.  Just off shore, fish were caught using reef-net fishing techniques.

Beacon Hill Park, just below the spindle whorl

Thigh vs spindle spinning

A few years ago a student in one of my classes taught me to use tables to help organize thoughts, readings, etc. It is a helpful tool when trying to compare things. So when I was reading this article on ancient spinning techniques, I thought I would use her table technique to sort out all the information. She was right. It does help.

Spindle Spin-In on Salt Spring

Spinning on a Turkish spindle.

Back in April, I attended The Quadra Island Weavers and Spinners Retreat (see earlier post) and it was while standing in the buffet line that I got really impressed with spindling. Standing in front of me was a young woman who was spinning a very fine colourful mohair yarn on her spindle. The yarn in itself was impressive, so fine, so beautiful, but it was her spindling technique that blew me away. She used her feet to keep her spindle spinning! 'This,' I swore to myself, 'is something worth aspiring to do'. Later, I saw a picture of her with her spindle stuffed into her back pocket like one would put a handkerchief. These images have stayed with me. They represent spindling as it should be, an everyday casual activity.

So when the Salt Spring Weavers and Spinners Guild invited spindlers to a Simply Spindling event-- rain or shine to be held, gulp, in public, I decided to go. It was held in the meadows in down town Ganges, in the pouring rain. We had been in the midst of a heat wave. It lasted for at least two weeks (it is still on) with one short exception, and this was the day. It poured! Thankfully Cheryl had brought two canopies to keep the rain off us. A few women came from Victoria, including Sarah of the fancy footwork! So I learned how to kick up a spindle. It was great fun despite the cold rain. Everyone brought a variety of spindles to show and we shared techniques and stories.
Thanks Salt Spring Weavers and Spinners, and especially Cheryl for keeping the rain off our spindles.

Spindle Love

I have fallen in love with my new Tabachek spindle. I had seen them advertised, and heard them talked about. Then, I saw them at the Olds Fibre week merchant mall. I admired them and then thought 'Do I really need one?' There was a variety to choose from, dark wood, light wood, Russian spindles, supported spindles, top whorl, bottom whorl, all marked with their weight in grams. I lifted one, then another. They all seemed feather light and I was ready to buy one. But then I imagined Priscilla-the-fleeceless-sheep-that-rules-the-guest-room-wool-stash saying something like 'Oh, yeah, right, Another unused item to take up much needed space.' and brushing that image aside,thought 'Would I ever use it?'  
I put the 26gram, rosewood top whorl spindle, back down and went back to class, and that's when I found out my yarn was 'lacking in integrity' (long story, see the blog on it). And I knew I had to have one of those marvellous spindles. It would slow me down and let me learn how to spin consistently, spin thin lace weight yarns, spin yarn WITH integrity and I bought one.
I saw a man that night at a fibre event and he was spinning on a spindle. We chatted and it turned out he was Ed Tabacheck, THE Ed Tabacheck who makes THE Tabechek spindles!
'I used to sell the spindles out of the back of my van' He told me. 'But I had all these women coming with me into the parking lot to the back of my van. It didn't do much for my reputation! So now I sell through stores.'

So I spun on my new spindle all the way home in the car, and I spun and I spun during the dragon boat races between races, and I spun for a week on Cortes Island between kayaking trips and I spun on the BC Ferries between islands, and I am taking it to Salt Spring Island for a Spindle-in. And I am spinning thin, consistent yarn WITH integrity!

Breaking the beginner's barrier.

Most beginners spin thick heavy yarns. We are proud of them, they have texture and character, and, like a mother, we love all our yarns. Accomplished spinners with a few years under their belts, spin thin yarns and when they want a thicker yarn, they tend to ply a few singles together. When I proudly show my thick yarns, they all tell of a time in my future when I will spin fine, thin yarns and lose the ability to spin thick. Apparently I will yearn for those good ol' days when all my yarns were thick. I don't know how long it takes spinners to break that beginner's barrier but it took me 53 weeks. That is one week after being told my yarn lacks integrity. A week in which I concentrated on spinning thin and consistent yarn. Yarn with integrity. Using a spindle, so that I could go slowly and carefully watching my drafting triangle in order to draw out the same amount of fibre with each draft, I broke the beginners barrier. I took a picture of the occasion. Here it is.
Harrumph. "About bloody time." So sayeth Priscilla.

Twirling Spindles

I am trying to learn more about spindles and thought I would see how two different spindles handled twirling. These two spindles are close to the same weight but twirl very differently. The lower one was purchased in Husavik, Iceland last summer. It weighs 36 grams. The whorl is a little smaller than the top spindle, but the stick part of the spindle in short and, well, squat. When I twirl the Icelandic spindle it twirls to the count of four and then starts to untwist by twirling in the opposite direction. The top spindle, weighing in at 38 grmas, when given a spin, twirls to the count of ten before stopping and reversing. So for drop spindling, I much prefer the top one. However, If I were to use my thigh to roll the spindle to get the twist, the Icelandic one is preferable as there is more substance to roll against as I spin the spindle along the thigh.

Have spindle, drink scotch, will travel

Last year I attended a Victoria Hand Weavers' and Spinners' Guild meeting along with around 70 other people. I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of people knitting, while listening to the various speakers, as knitting in public seems to have waned ever since the French Revolution (or. at least the publication of Charles Dickens Tale of Two Cities in which he describes the evil tricoteuse Madame Defuge madly knitting away in the courtroom while the gentry were being condemned to the guillotine). But I was amazed to see three or four women spinning with spindles. I had never been in a public space where people spun with their spindles. One young woman was carefully taking note of everyone's spindle. It turns out that she designs and makes wooden spindles, turning the wood on a lathe.
A few weeks later I noted that the Victoria Fibre Fest (happening again this year) had a public event 'Spin around the Spindle and a Spindle walking tour. Outside. In public! Both events encourage spindlers to come out of the closet and spindle in public. And last month at the Quadra Island Retreat, a woman was spinning in the lunch lineup and then kept her spindle stuffed in her back pocket of her jeans ready for the next opportunity to spin.
So this is my travelling spindle kit which I keep in my backpack, ready to bring it out and spindle. My top whorl spindle, some dyed Blue Faced Leicester top, and a scotch bottle tube to hold it all. And next to the spindle is 66 meters of two ply yarn done on the spindle. I confess to only spindling in the car and, on one or two occasions, in a hidden location outdoors, but I am gathering my gumption and will burst forth in public spinning away one day.
My ultimate goal is to learn how to use the Salish spindle which has a technique, unique in the world, where somehow, the spindle is turned and tossed in the air, but before mastering that, I thought I netter figure out the plain ordinary ways of the spindle.

A New Twist of Spinning with a Spindle

Today, my new Spindolyn arrived.  I think the best term to describe it is 'sweet'.  I discovered this sweet spindle on Youtube when I was trying to re-learn how to spin and had decided to start with spindles -- they are slower and you can take your time, before the whirl and wind of a fast spinning wheel.  Here's the video: 
 The spindle has a brass shaft with a whorl and  the brass shaft  sits in a holder where it spins happily away without getting away from you.  This means you can sit and spin.  Think travel.  I could spin in a kayak!  Okay, maybe not, but it would be easy to pack it up and take kayaking with me.  And it spins so beautifully.  Smooth, swift.  Sweet.  Designed and created by  by Catherine Goodwin.