Spinning right from the source

This is too good. Spinning wool right from a Shetland sheep. This beats the traditional sheep-to-shawl competitions and demos.

Wool combing

[Photo: the
governor-scene from a stained
glass window from the area
of Soissons (Picardy, France),
early 13th century.]

I am still having a few computer issues (the new tablet which is not totally compatible with blogging tasks) hence sporadic posts. So here is one that has been in editing limbo for almost a month....
It was totally coincidental that the Mid Island Weavers and Spinners Guild held a Wool combing demo on St. Blais's Day, the patron saint of wool combers and throats .Yes, throats. Body parts had patron saints. Go figure! 
Legend has it St Blais either died from being combed (ie. his flesh was ripped with honking big sharp iron combs) or comb torture was just the warm-up to being beheaded . No matter how he died, he is remembered by those who use those combs.  
As I was saying, it was almost on St Blais's day that Karen Braun came to show us how to use those honking big combs but in a very gentle, well intended way. 
The large combs may have 3 or 4 or 5 rows of tines while small ones have one or two rows. Such powerful tortuous looking tools are used in a graceful gentle manner to produce soft, perfect fibres, all straitened and parallel with each other, without nips, noils, or foreign bits. Just pure lengths of perfect fibre. When pulled and stretched out, it is known as 'top' or' combed top'.

[Photo: large combs]

Karen's gentle technique was to separate the locks, lay them on a towel, all with the tips pointing in the same direction. Then she spritzed them with a little water and olive oil. Some people use hair conditioner. Whatever you use, the idea is to add a little moisture to keep the fibres slick and smooth and to cut down on static electricity.

[Photo: Small combs]

Locks, enough to half fill the tines, were then placed on the tines on the comb fixed to the table, cut end in the tines and the end tip out in front. The free comb then combed the fibers until most of the fibres now clung to the free comb. What was left on the fixed comb was tangles which are removed. Deftly, switching angles, one combs the fibres again between the combs and the fibres attach back to the fixed comb (you had to be there).
A few passes between combs and the fibre is perfect and ready to be drawn through a diz (a button hole will do) so a long length of parallel fibres is created.
The lengths are made into soft nests, ready for spinning.
I know this sounds crazy, but honest to gawd, this is one of the most satisfying sensory experiences. Almost a saintly experience, spinning the ultimate perfect preparation. No wonder there were Guilds of people who just combed wool. And no wonder they had a patron saint. Try it. Life will never be the same.

It takes a long time to create a masterpiece

[Photo: Black kid mohair and tussah silk]

As regular readers (my mother, my sister) of my blog know, having spun for three short sweet years in my youth before putting spinning away, I am now endeavoring to roll 25 years of non-spinning, into 6 years of intensive focused and guided catch-up. Hmm, one could read I am attempting to recapture my youth through spinning. Anyway, in other words, I am paying for those lost 25 years by working on a Master Spinning Certificate from Olds College. I am now in year four of the six year program.  

[Photo: Blending on cards and making punis]

Each year you are required to do a major spinning project--this is on top of the regular years worth of spinning homework. The first year required a project that took 25 hrs. This includes selecting the fleece/fibres, cleaning, carding, spinning and, as long as you did it yourself, the weaving or knitting into a finished product. By year three we were up to 50 hours. Year four requires 75hrs! You may think this seems counter-intuitive. As the years go by, one gets better at spinning, so you would think it would take less time. Why by year four, I should be able to dash off an exquisite evening lace shawl in an evening or two of spinning and a weekend of knitting. But it doesn't work that way. Spinning doesn't get any faster, it just gets better. Last year I timed myself and it turns out I can spin and ply a yarn a meter per minute. I timed myself again yesterday and that hasn't changed. It is just my spinning that has. I can spin a decent yarn now. My yarn has integrity even at 1 meter/minute. 

[Photo: Blending on a fur carder]

75 hours sounds like a lot of time but considering I have not finished the spinning of the yarn for this years project and haven't yet begun knitting, the 25+ hours I have already clocked, points out that 75 hours will be a breeze to achieve. Reflect on my lack of knitting prowess, and you understand it will take me at least a hundred hours to knit something given my penchant for mistakes leading to re-knitting a second or third time.
So, what has taken the 25 hours so far?  
Planning 3 hrs; teasing, 4.5 hrs; carding, weighing and blending, 5.5 hours; sampling 2 hours; spinning, 6 hrs; changing my mind, 2 minutes; dying, 3 hours; re-sampling, 30 minutes; spinning up a different batch 5 hrs 15 minutes. Total 29 hours 47 minutes.

This year I decided to make another Holden Shawlette, since 

1. I have extensive experience with this pattern having ripped it out and re-knit it at least three times, 
2. having made many, many mistakes in the Holden Shwalette I just finished, I can easily recognize mistakes earlier in the knitting process, and
3. I now know that I should stick to the pattern and cast on the required number of stitches and not think that I, a mere beginner, can willy nilly adjust lace knitting patterns.

[Photo: Subtle silk colours peek
 out of the black kid mohair]

The spinning goal: to spin a delicate lace weight two ply (two ply highlights the lace pattern) that is sophisticated, subtle, soft, and silky. I selected a black super soft and fine kid mohair and blended it 85/15% mohair and tussah silk. I loved the result and after spinning 408 meters decided the subtle sophistication needed a little jazzing up so I experimented and threw silk into various dyepots to find just the right colour to add the needed jazz. I ended up sprinkle dying the silk using a variety of harmonious colours. Next I experimented more with the spinning technique and blended the silk and mohair on hand cards, then rolled it into punis to spin in a semi-woolen technique. But that didn't produce much difference in the yarn (i was looking for more loft) from the semi-worsted method and it took a lot longer, so back to the fur drum carder and I blended the fibres into large batts and stripped off sections to spin in a semi-worsted style.
Stay tuned for adventures in the knitting.

Flax to linen

[Photo: Tow and line linen]

I have been spinning linen...or flax? I guess I have been spinning flax and at some magical Rumplestilkskinian moment the flax turns into linen. And like the captive maiden's spinning, mine too turned into gold!

[Picture from Franz Eugen Köhle'sr,
Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen 1897]

I didn't think I would enjoy spinning flax but I do. There is something about the neat, tidy, golden threads that tugs at your ancestral memories. It is comforting. Well...maybe not comforting in the same way that spinning wool is comforting, but linen satisfies. I don't know why, I am just reporting how it effects me. And satisfying is the way I feel after spinning flax into gold linen.

"The life of a flax plant is 100 days of thought..."

Be Linen

[Photo:Flax stem cross-section
Photo: Ryan R. McKenzie]

So here are a few things I learned along the way. Flax is a plant and the fibre comes from the inner bark or bast of the stem, so the fibres are, at the longest, the length of the plant, maybe around 2 feet. To make a long story short, during the processing of separating the fibre from the plant, you can end up with a pile of short fibres (the tow) and a pile of long fibres (the line). Okay, okay linen spinners, I know, I know, I am over simplifying, but we have to keep up the interest of non-spinners. If you want to know more about the very interesting processing of flax, check out this beautiful video 'Be Linen' video. I digress...

Each of these types of fibres can be spun. The tow will produce a fuzzy yarn and the line...oh, the line flax, sigh, will produce a beautiful golden yarn. There are a variety of spinning techniques from using the classical distaff to accordion folding of the fibres. Each method is designed o allow only a few threads to draft out into the yarn yet also allowing those threads to grab their following threads to keep a continuous line of yarn forming as you spin. Then, you can spin wet or dry. Wet spun will smooth the yarn and give it a higher gloss, and dry spun allows more frizz to show. Then we can get more technical and spin with water or spit. Yes, spit, as in drool, saliva. I haven't seen proof of this, but rumour has it that saliva works on the flax enzymes, making the fibres glue together, while water helps control the flax and makes it softer, easier to spin and creates a smoother yarn, but doesn't create the glue.  

But here's the thing...you can blend linen with wool, or cotton, or silk or....who would have thought? Endless possibilities!

EDITED Dec 31, to add 2 more pictures.

Spinning a cloud of camel down

[Photo:Spinning camel down
in Egmont]

The opportunity: to see the Sunshine Coast. 
The assignment: to spin camel--camel down, camel down/silk blends and camel hair and compare them. 
The resources: Spin-Off Fall 2007; hand carded punis of camel down, some with silk.
I usually mix up the two types of camel: Bactrian (2 humps from China and Mongolia) and Dromedary (1 hump from the Middle East), but I finally figured out a way to keep them straight in my mind. 'B' turned on it's side gives you 2 humps, just like the Bactrian camel.'D' turned on it's side gives you one hump, just like the Dromedary camel. Alice, the camel only had one hump, just like the Dromedary camel. There's 'a town called Alice' in Australia (also the title of a very good book by Neville Shute) where domesticated Dromedary camels have gone walkabout. Given the environmental differences between the deserts of Middle East/Australia (hot hot hot) and Mongolia (cold cold cold), which beast probably has a soft warm undercoat?  Yup, the B's, those 2 humped Bactrians.
I was given some of that Bactrian camel down, a soft carded light tan roving or top with 2" fibres. True luxurious fibres. Almost to good to spin on samples. To supplement that I bought what I can only describe as a cloud of camel down with shorter (about 3/4 to 1") length, but still very fine fibres.  I hand carded the cloud and rolled it into punis.
After spinning a few yards of the 100% down I found my spinning groove by using a point-of-contact (ie let the twist enter the drafting zone) short (around 1") backward draw.  The singles looked tight but I planned on plying them enough to open the yarn up and then have the yarn 'bloom' with a good finishing wash.
I'll include the final yarn in a post with the other samples.

Peaceful spinning

[Photo: Heading back down the
dock at sunset]

Spinning is relaxing, meditative,peaceful. I suppose that is why I do it. The sound of the wheel is like a heartbeat, woosh, woosh, and the feel of a double treadle gently messaging each leg reinforces the beat.
The other evening we held a spin-in on the island and I went to town to pick up a boatload of spinners and returned to tie up at a friend's dock. We sat in the warm evening sun spinning on her deck, spinning, chatting, enjoying the company, and looking at this view. What a relaxing way to spend a summer evening!

Lost in TPI land

Followers of this blog may wonder where I have been for the past month. Well, I have been in TPI land, or TPI hell which is more accurate. TPI=Twist per Inch. 
The assignment: spin 10 yards of yarn at 1 twist per inch. Sounds easy right. HA! Sounds simple. Deceptively simple. Deviously straight forward. Wrong! Anything but! At 1 TPI (count the bumps along the edge of a yarn in a one inch length and divide by the number of singles making the yarn - more on this frustrating formula later) most yarns tend to fall apart. It requires a very grabby fibre but after a few frustrating failed attempts I dug out my shetland roving bought at THE Jamieson's in the Orkney Islands. Sigh, such beautiful special fibre and it seemed a waste to just throw a lot of it away in attempting this sample. But after a while I was able to do it. On to the next assignment: spin ten yards at 2 TPI. A few attempts to achieve precisely (well, I have the marker doesn't look too closely) 2TPI and on the the next assignment. Spin 4TPI. Then 8TPI, 12 and 15 TPI.  
Somewhere between 8 and 12 TPI I realized I did not know how to count TPI. Seems silly, given my formula above but when your attempts to achieve these assignments, especially the higher TPIs do not work, then you start to question everything. Ergo: how do you count bumps? Just the bumps on one side of the yarn, or both sides of the yarn. One side it turns out is correct. But then somewhere between 12 and 15 TPI I forgot to divide by the number of plies. It seemed impossible to spin at 30 bumps per inch but 15 bumps more doable. At this pint I was producing unusable yarn with so much twist one couldn't use it for anything but a rats nest. Hence I was questioning all the instructions. They didn't work.
Then there are the questionable formulas to figure out how much twist to put into each single (this involves length of draft or fibre between you and the wheel, your wheel ratio (how many twists each time the wheel goes around) and how many times you let the wheel turn per draft. I double checked the formulas, yes, they were correct. Then how come my yarn turns into a hopelessly tangled twisted knot? This went on for, I am ashamed to admit this, but 3 months of cursing and spinning junk! So that is where I have been. TPI hell.
The solution turned out to be all in the fibre. Selecting the right fibres for the job was critical. Spinning to the crimp (think curls, waves, in a fibre) worked for the medium TPIs but at the extreme end, one needed to think and select carefully. Silk, for example is much easier to spin at 15 TPI than wool. Take my word for it.

Just like dinner

Stephanie from Knotty by Nature showed off her elegant silk shawl at the 25th Annual Island Weaving and Spinning Retreat in Parksville. The warp and weft are handspun silk. Stephanie was challenged when someone told her you can't use silk singles for warp. So she set out to do just that. She dyed the silk by, err, umm, mistake but the colours are subtle, harmonious and beautiful. It took her a year to spin the yarn and a week to weave it, 'just like dinner' she said. Think about it.

All tangled up

[Photo: Woolee Winder]

So there I was, excitedly spinning up thick an' thin à la Jacey Boggs from a wild batt that I got at one of Jacey's workshops. A splendid spellbinding splash of colours and sparkles that mesmerized me, which is my excuse why the bobbin filled up without me noticing and there was a publicly embarrassingly terrible tangle of yarn on my Woolee Winder bobbin. Sarah helped me out by unraveling the snarl which required stretching it out halfway across the room, which happened to be filled with upwards of 50 spinners, while I wound it on the best I could. Like I said, this was publicly embarrassing.

[Photo: Not the right way to
 thread the Freedom Flyer]

Jeanette kindly brought a Freedom Flyer for an Ashford Joy, which Hummingbird Fibres (sponsor of this spinning retreat) was selling, to show me.  The Freedom Fyer was designed for wild yarns--big eyelets to guide bulky yarn onto the huge bobbin. Perfect for plying. With a gentle 'I couldn't help noticing ...' Jeanette hinted I may need this item. Couldn't help noticing?! Between Sarah and I we were practically stuffing that yarn under at least 20 spinner's noses. It only took a short time for me to bite the bullet, decide to, gulp, sell my beloved Lendrum to assuage my guilt on buying yet another spinning tool and buy a Freedom Flyer for my new Ashford Joy wheel.

[Photo: Note the jewelry
clasp between the spring,
and the line to the knob]

However, Mr. Ashford, are you listening? The instructions that come with the Freedom Flyer are not complete. I know, I know, how could you expect an idiot to not know how to thread it, or which wire circles were guides for the yarn and which wires circles were really clamps and not guides, and which way was up for those wire circles. But I am living proof that someone can screw it up. Yes, I did get how to put it on the wheel, and get exactly where to cut the fishing line for the tensioning, heck, I even knew to use a fisherman's knot to tire the line to the spring (add that to your instructions) but that's the distinguishing point between the adept, the setup at which I, if I may say so myself, excelled at, and the idiots (which I also excelled at being), in the actual use of the contraption. It is the practical threading and spinning in which I once again got tangled up. Again, and ahem, again. I tell you what, I will share my brilliant tensioning solution with you if you tell your graphics people to add a few diagrams to the instruction sheet.

[Photo: The end that will clip onto the
existing screw]

So here's the problem with the tension line for the Freedom Flyer. It comes with a screw, fishing line and two springs (one for each end) and the idea being you unscrew the existing screw, spring and line (ahem, Mr A., something that should be mentioned...to us idiots) because it, the existing tension line, is too short for the bigger Freedom Flyer and bobbin. But that may work if I am never going to go back to my Woolee Winder (not a chance!) or regular Ashford flyer. No, I want them easily interchangeable. If I were to screw in and unscrew the screws all the time, the wood would fray and the screw would eventually fall out. So here is my elegant solution. 1) On the line attached to the tensioning knob, add a necklace-style clasp and use that clasp to connect to the spring on either the shorter or longer tension line. 2) On the screw end, add a jewelry clasp to the spring. 3) On the existing tension line you can either just let it hand down from the screw when not in use or add a clasp to the spring on the screw end. Voila. Interchangeable tension lines, just clip in the one you want. 
Now Mr. A. it is up to me to produce beautiful yarn that is worthy or the Freedom Flyer which I suspect I will fall in love with and I leave it to you to adjust those instructions.
PS. If anyone wants to learn how to spin wild yarns, check out Jacey's new hot-off-the-press book. It even comes with a DVD

Spin 'til you drop

[Photo: Spin. Sip. Spin.Sip. Repeat]

[Photo: Tools of the trade: spindle,
Ashford, Joy, Schacht Sidekick,  Lendrum,
Indian Head and traditional Ashford]

It has taken me a day (so far) to recover from a spinning retreat. Day one, go to work, go to lunch meeting, drive south, find the Lake Cowichan Education Centre, set up spinning wheel and spin, spin, spin, followed by dinner, then spin, spin, spin, sleep. Day 2, wake up, have breakfast, spin spin spin, eat lunch, spin spin spin, eat dinner, spin spin spin. Sleep. Day 3 eat, spin spin spin, eat, spin. Pack up and go home to spin.
I was amazed to watch Amy, who had just purchased her first wheel less than 24hr earlier. With only some spindling experience (for a total of less than 250 grams of fibre) behind her, she had jumped into the deep end, bought a wheel and signed up for an intensive spinning retreat. I mean, supposed she found she hated spinning in the second hour. What would she have done then? Something inside her must be driving her. By day 2, with a healthy 4 hours of spinning wheel experience under her belt, Amy was where I was at after a years' worth of spinning. By day 3, she was where I was at after 2.5 years of spinning! She was a natural! She was incredible. She was an inspiration.
And I was able to spin up three more homework assignments. Yes!

Reward time

My spinning has hit a new high! It's payback time. Reward time. In the last couple of weeks photos of my hand spun yarn, turned into objects have appeared. No longer are my spinning attempts orphans, sitting in the back room waiting for someone to bring them to life. They have. At least two objects of beauty have been created. First, on materfamilias's blog is a picture of her beautiful daughter wearing a cowl made from my hand-spun yarn! The yarn, the cowl, the daughter -- all gorgeous. I am lucky to have such a becoming young woman model the cowl.
On the right was the yarn before being knit. This was a special yarn, designed to reflect a poem to respond to P.K. Page's poem, but that's an old post over here.

I also received a photo by another friend whose daughter spun the yarn into booties for a friend's baby. They are sooo cute.

What's on the wheel

I love my new wheel (Ashford Joy WITH a Woolee Winder -- I am sure there will be a post on that later). I especially appreciated it's smoothness when I got stuck in TwistsPerInch (TPI - for those non-technical and hence, sane readers). The problem was too much information, not enough understanding and conflicting formulas in my mind. The homework assignment was to spin ten yards of a plied yarn at 15 TPI. Sounds easy but it ain't! To make a long story short, in my frustration at not succeeding in this seemingly simple assignment, I said 'bugger it, I just want to spin and picked up a beautiful roving from Hummingbird Fibre Arts, consisting of Romney wool, mohair and silk and spun my frustration away'.
But now I am stuck on a totally different problem. How best to ply this wonderful roving (on the bobbin on the right)? In order to keep the varigated colours vibrant, I don't want to ply it with itself as the colours will mute each other. I could navajo ply it but that would result in a beautiful 3 ply and I am aiming for a 2ply. So I had my mother pick up some pink tone soft and silky merino/silk roving from the Loom at Whippletree (on the bobbin and wound into a ball on the left). It too is beautiful but do I want to mix them together (the pink/blue sample in the foreground) ? Decisions, decisions. I think I will spin up a few bobbins before I decide. Perhaps by then I will have figured out how to spin a 15TPI plies yarn.

Off the wheel

Every now and then I get the urge to just spin. No thought to Twists Per Inch (TPI), nor Wraps Per Inch (WPI), no counting of Treadles (#T), just using a standard wheel Ratio (R), say 8:1,using a Length of Draft (L) as feels natural, no formulas written down like:
TPI=Ratio*#T/L or 
R=L*TPI/#T or
L=R*#T/TPI

None of that! I just want brainless spinning. Spinning for pleasure. And pleasure comes from colour and feel. So it was only natural to go straight for my stash of Hummingbird Fibre and spin up a blend of 60%Island grown organic Romney wool, 20% Silk and 20% Mohair.
Ahhhh!

Little Louie

Meet Little Louie, my new love. It wasn't love at first sight, but I must admit to being, well, on the look out, so to speak. I love my Lendrum, but it is getting old (30 years) and only has one foot treadle, while all the young ones have two. And Little Louie is small, cute, only 14.25" tall . and weighing in at 8 lbs. Louie comes with his own suit, a bag custom fit with pockets for all his bobbins and bits. And get this, Little Louie, in his suit, just happens to fit within the airline carry-on limits! He is born to travel!
He also comes with 3 ratios 6:1, 8.5:1 and 13:1. Sweet. But what I really love about him is his engineering smarts. The bobbin fits to the frame by a clever metal rod and magnets. So it is very easy to pull it off and change the bobbin or to pack him up for travel. The foot treadle to wheel attachment pulls off a centre bolt and a lever is pulled to allow the frame and wheel to collapse down to the treadles. The flyer metal rod then fits into a hole under the treadle and everything is ready for the suit. Nifty!
So when I saw a class mate at Olds, using the Louet Victoria and I commented on it, she let me know she had two and one was for sale. I hummed and hawed but realized I needed one, bought it and renamed it Little Louie. And then it happened. I used Little Louie for only an hour or two when I realized what a darling he was and how lucky I was to have met up with him. And then I read Abby's review. Yes, THE Abby Franqemont has one and she too loves hers. You can read about her love affair with her Victoria here.

[Photo: Spindle kit.  3 spindles support bowl ]

I was very tempted to pack Little Louie with me to take to Scotland. Very tempted. After all, he fits in carry-on luggage. But 4 people in a small rental car with luggage and needed room for purchases, i decided to take my have-spindle-will-travel kit.
I can fit 3 spindles: drop, takhi and Russian support spindle, plus fibre, plus a support bowl (the lid is actually a wooden support bowl turned upside down that fits perfectly as a lid.

[Photo: Spindles, bowl and a selection of
silk to spin]

Canadian Museum of Civilization

[Photo: Canadian Museum of Civilization] 

[Photo: Salish blanket at SFU Museum
of Archaeology & Ethnology] 

Last week I was lucky enough to meet with one of the Curators of Ethnology at the Canadian Museum of Ethnology who gave me a tour of the back rooms where the Coast Salish Textiles are stored.

[Photo: Coast Salish blanket at SFU
 Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology]

It was amazing to see so many in one place. I was allowed to photograph them but copyright of the objects only allows me to use the photos for educational/research use not for posting on my blog, hence I found a few others which I can post. The one on the top right shows the more Interior Salish style blanket, very close woven, with many colours. To me, this style rivals the famous Navajo blanket. These should be just as highly valued as the Navajo blanket is. I suspect the only reasons these blankets are not, is because they are not as well known.
The one below it shows the Coast Salish style - mostly white, often with a red stripe woven into it. In this case the red strip is actually a strip of commercially woven fabric.

 

[Photo: Chief George and his daughter 1902
wearing Salish woven coats]

The Coast Salish blanket is typically woven in a twill pattern and sometimes, the added stripes or plaids are done in a plain weave. The Interior Salish usually use a twined weave where the weft yarn completely covers the warp yarn.  I am using the terms Coast Salish and Interior Salish very loosely.  Where does one group end and one begin? Even within one group, there are different First Nations.  They may share a similar language but they each may have their own unique culture, history and protocols. With weaving, the techniques will cross these artificial boundaries, so it is difficult to say that a particular style blanket would only be made by one group.  Chief Joe Capilano's blanket (click this link to view it) is interesting because it contains both techniques, the bulky Coast Salish twill style, bordered by the finely twined Interior Salish style.

[Photo: The Perth Blanket] 

The blanket next on my list to see is one of the oldest and rarest it is known as the Perth blanket, as it is in the Perth Museum in Scotland.  More on this one in July when I plan on seeing this blanket in person. 

Questions I have about these blankets and spinning - 

• what techniques are used to spin the yarn?  The yarn in the Coast Salish style is quite different than that of the Interior Salish style.  
• Did they use different methods?  Thigh, spindle, toss or roll?
• Different fibres? 
• Different size whorls? 
• S or Z twist?

By the way, the Canadian Museum of Civilization is a work of art in itself. The building was designed by architect Douglas Cardinal, a Canadian. Check out his website for some inspiring photographs of his work: http://www.djcarchitect.com/

Distaff Day in Duncan

[Photo: Pat's home grown linen and Iris leaf
place mats done for the Salt Spring 100 mile
fibre challenge]

Apparently, the first day after the Twelfth Day of Christmas (January 6th) is known as Saint Distaff Day (January 7th). A distaff is the tool spinners use to hold long fibres, usually flax/linen, while the fibres are spun. Distaff Day is the day spinners would pick up the distaff and start spinning again after the holidays. Consider that in the hey day of St Distaff's Day, i.e. when most people knew what a distaff was, most women were occupied with spinning. Hence, Distaff Day is the perfect excuse for a bunch of spinners to congregate and spin and spin and spin.

[Photo: Yarns dyed by local
 mushrooms]

[Photo: Anna's lace
 twist socks]

The Tzuhalem Weavers and Spinners Guild host a spin-in on this day which was attended by people from Deep Bay to Victoria. A gathering of spinners. Never, in my early years, did I ever imagine that I would be found spinning all day with a group of women. But it was fun! We went around the room, each person introducing themselves and doing a show and tell, followed by spinning, then pot-luck lunch, then spinning and chatting. Such a good way to meet people. For others it was a great way to reconnect.
What St. Distaff Day has to do with a saint, I have no idea. There doesn't seem to have been a saint called Distaff or a saint associated with Distaff Day...although many women are unacknowledged saints.

The Victoria Guild contingent,
4 women, 4 spinning wheels and a ton of fibre.

Homework - Kit #2 - Adding Memory

Black llama blended
with white wool and integrity!

Memory...wouldn't it be great to be able to add memory. I gave my father a memory stick on his 80th, what every ageing person needs -- more memory. Who would have thought that some fibres have no memory. They forget what they are supposed to be, how to hold their shape, how to return to their original state. Wool however, does have memory. Wear a wool sweater, and it holds it shape. If it does stretch, say at the elbows, wash it, lay it out to dry and it bounces back to it's original shape. Llama on the other hand doesn't have memory. Llama is beautiful, soft, warm, strong but draping clothes will stretch. Sleeves will get longer.  
For garments made with inelesatic fibres that will hang, you need to blend in some wool to give it a bit of bounce and bounce-back memory.
Which brings me to my homework where I decided to start with Kit #2, an exercise to mix two fibres, one without memory and one with. I chose some black silky llama and added 38% white wool to get a dark gray with some bounce. It was wonderful to spin. It glided out of my hand in a continuous smooth flow of fibres. I didn't have to do much work at all. And damn it, if it didn't have integrity!
Timing:
60 minutes to blend it = 60
40 minutes for each bobbin = 80 minutes plus 60 = 140 plus
20 minutes to ply it = 160 minutes plus
20 minutes to write up my notes = 180 minutes = 3 hours!
And then I have to figure out a way to mount a 10 yard sample skein, plus a lock of each original fibre and a sample of the blend before spinning. Say another 15 minutes.
That means I have to speed up or double up on the amount I do. This is going to be a tight, tight schedule! I either have to spin smaller amounts, and keep to the 10 yard requirements or make the most of some samples and make enough that the extra can be incorporated into my major project at the end. Inspired by this kit, I have an idea already for the project - a woven scarf made a various shades of gray.
1 down, 39 kits and 179 days to go.

Knitting geeks, a hobby for hackers.

Cover of Nature Genetics,
January 2002, Vol 30 Issue 1.
Knitted by Emily Poe based
on a double helix pattern
by  June Oshiro

Apparently knitting and spinning have become a geeky craft, or should I say a craft for geeks. This probably bodes well for a spin-in and kit-in to be held on campus. Listen-up locals ... 

Spin and Knit in to be held at 

Vancouver Island University

Thursday, Sept 30th.

Location: sunshine = the quad (in front of the library) rain = the Welcome Centre. Bring what's on your needles or spindles and your fibre friends.

There was a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, String Theory: Reflections on Knitting as a Hobby for Hacker Types which talks about why people at universities should knot, but a lot of what she says applies to everyone. In addition to convincing you to knit she has a lot of interesting links embedded in the article. Enjoy.