Well, crap o' lantern!

Although I really love the pattern, I was hoping to save a little cash by not buying the Twist Collective pattern Wisteria by Kate Gilbert. Then, the FO pictures came rolling on on Ravelry:

(Sweater by No Knit Sherlock)

It really is as pretty as it looks. Guess I'm going to have to buy it. *grumble*

Spoonflower

I've been so busy lately that I haven't been keeping an ear to the ground with regards to the things that are happening on the Internets, so I just found out about Spoonflower. They're in invite-only beta mode at the moment, so I signed up to the waiting list.

Per the website:

"Spoonflower gives individuals the power to print their own designs on fabric that they can then use to make quilts, clothes, pillows, blankets, framed textile art and many, many other things that might surprise you."

I'm intrigued. Are you?

Taking a moment

It occurred to me last night that I'm extremely, extremely lucky.

Not just for the usual reasons of having a job and my health and a great family and all that - I'm grateful for that of course.

I was looking at my three wheels and all the spindles I've collected over the past few years, as well as my stunning fiber stash and all my amazing and beautiful fiberart friends and I realized that not everyone has this. I'm so happy I'm friends with all of you guys and I have all this fiberart in my life.

Thanks!

Majacraft's so-called affordable wheel

I don't know what's been going on with spinning wheels lately, but it seems they've taken a jump in price across the board. Majacraft has introduced a nice little wheel called the Pioneer:

Definitely scaled back (pine and plywood) and being sold as an entry-level budget model, but I wouldn't turn it down by any means. It's being sold at $469.

Since when is $469 considered budget? You can get an Ashford Traveler made of New Zealand silver beech for $440, and that's with a bunch of freebies:

I was horrified when I found out my tiny little Louet Victoria, which I bought for (in my opinion a slightly high) $620, was going for $733. These are astronomical price increases.

Since most of the companies that make spinning wheels are not US-based, I'm assuming that this price jump is based on a combination of currency fluctuation and fuel costs, and not the fact that people with more disposable income are getting into spinning and the price increases are just a greedy grab for more profit margin, right?

All this is more incentive for me to start a spinning wheel company...someday.

Crazy, but it Feels Right

Although the fiberart hasn't stopped, the time I have to post blog entries has been drastically reduced due to the work I get paid to do (boo!). However, this acquisition was noteworthy enough that I had to post something:

It's an old handmade spinning wheel of a design I've never seen before. I bought it very inexpensively (by wheel standards) and it is still functional. The wheel and the flyer assembly are made of metal, probably aluminum. It's double drive, and the brake tension is adjusted by sliding the flyer assembly out along the wooden "rails" and anchoring with a wingnut. It's being shipped to me and I should have it in my home very soon. I can think of little else at the moment.

In other news:

• I completed the Morehouse Merino ChocolateMint Knit Kit
• I began a pair of socks with an all-over lace pattern out of three-ply yarn spun from Tactile Fiber Arts naturally dyed Wensleydale.
  

About that "sister knitter" rubbish...

I read Ravelry forums a lot. Usually, I can find some really interesting threads, but after the first few informative posts, I generally get too irritated to continue reading.

Part of the underlying set of problems that contribute to this high incidence of miscommunication is the popular romantic misconception that merely being a knitting or fiberart hobbyist means that you share a sacred bond with everyone else who does the same thing.


Oh, no, no, no.

Knitting is a a vocation for a few, a passion for many, and to still others, just something they do with their hands. We're not priests, doctors, or legal officers; we don't take any oaths to uphold any sort of moral or ethical ideal and we owe each other nothing. We're a big group of people which likes to make things on sticks with yarn. Just like any other group of people I'm involved with, I love many of them, I like most of them, and there's a small subset who I wouldn't stop on the street to piss on if they were collectively on fire.


So, when I read comments from people who say things like, "I don't want to have the ability to ignore other people who are demonstrated troublemakers; we're both knitters, we'll work it out", or "Everyone here should be posting pictures of their projects because that's a great resource to me and you owe it to the community", I sign off and go do something else. I don't need any sister knitters; I have three real sisters. We get along fine most of the time, but occasionally we can be judgemental, petty, mean-spirited, and sometimes senselessly cruel to one another.


Actually, now that I think about it, maybe most knitters are my sisters.

Natural dyes

After tying up my bandhani project, I got impatient to see what it looked like and got out my natural dye supplies. I'd totally forgotten how amazingly gratifying it is to do.

Although I only have one kettle and no thermometer, scale, or measuring equipment, I decided to throw caution to the wind and eyeball it to the best of my ability. The result was not a disaster.

I know I got the ratios pretty accurately, but I didn't have any way to weigh the cloth and I overestimated - the result was a dark purple cloth (even though I used logwood grey) and a lot of extra pigment left over. The hand of the cloth isn't great, but it's not terrible and I'll definitely be able to make it work.

Now that I know that I can do this with a minimum amount of hassle, I will be dyeing more in the future. I'm in the process of collecting yarns and finished pieces that bore me with the intention of overdyeing them to see what the result will be.

Bandhani

Last night, the gang headed over to Kristine and Adrienne's to learn from her friends, Jabar and Jabbar, about their particular textile techniques. We had so much fun, and we weren't even drinking.

Jabar does a specific sort of block printing and I bought a cotton shawl from him that was very unique; its got a pattern of geometric birds (I call them ducks) printed in indigo. It wasn't that expensive and it was really unique so I had to cave in and buy it.

Jabbar showed us how to tie bandhani and as Kristine said, it is very addictive. I got through most of a shawl in a very simple design last night. Jabbar suggested that I dye the shawl twice; first in one color, take out the knots, re-tye them in a different pattern, then overdye. I'm pretty excited about that. We'll see if I can get my act together enough to actually pull it off.

Fear and Desire

There's a Buddhist belief that people are unhappy because they are ruled by fear and desire. Case in point:

I'm on a fiber diet, because my stash has gotten to unmanageable proportions and my beautiful fiber will be reduced to moth food if I don't spin it up as soon as possible. I also need to pay off my credit cards and buy a new bike, so new fiber acquisition is supposed to be a really low priority for the next several months.


Nevertheless, in a moment of weakness I went out to Etsy, which is where my problems usually start, and saw these:


- Silk and flax batt from Crystal Creek Fibers
- Shetland, alpaca, and angora roving from Spiderweb Specialties


...that just grabbed my by the limbic system and shook really hard, screaming, "You want us now! We won't be here when you can afford us!" over and over.

Now, I'm in a semi-foul mood. I should have never opened my web browser this morning.

Classic case of suffering directly caused by fear and desire.

Some of us can find fiberarts anywhere

I was off the grid on a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands for the past two weeks, and the sun, islands, water, history and rum (oh, especially the rum) was beyond fantastic. I brought a knitting project, which actually went a little too fast, when it wasn't too hot to be working with wool in the first place.



On semi-deserted Cooper's Island, I found a whole new (but ancient) fiberart lurking in the form of a beaten-up paperback in the salty lazarette of a worn-out wooden boat:



Marlinspike Seamanship, or the art of knotting and weaving rope and canvas into decorative and utilitarian objects specifically to rig, furnish, decorate, or protect parts of a ship.




Some of the pieces are just insane - take this USMC emblem for instance:






This is what people do when you have a boatload of rope, a shortage of spare parts, and a hell of a lot of time on your hands.

Prairie Halter!

I don't usually get excited about commercial patterns, but I am pretty excited Interweave is selling the Prairie Halter by Cathy Carron:



It's simple, nice silhouette, top-down, and doesn't take a ton of yardage. I'm probably going to make a few pajama tops out of this pattern.

Stressing

I'm stressed to the limit right now, thanks to my attempts at living a life outside of fiberart (what the heck was I thinking), but a couple of things have made it a little easier:

- Forrester Akha in Maple and Olivewood. I bought a Kokovoko akha, and while it's probably a little more authentic, the Forrester is so much easier to use, because I'm not an Akha tribeswoman and the teeny weeny notch in the top of the Kokovoko is way too advanced for me. The Forrester has a nice, big cup hook.

- Golding ringspindle. It's a beautiful spindle for sure, but for some reason I was expecting something a little grander. I'm sure I'll get over it.

- I went to the Ravenswood winery this weekend and bought a wine chiller that is the perfect size to hold all my nicer spindles. I'm very happy about that.

Homme-made backstrap loom

This French site has some great pictures of the construction of a backstrap loom with rigid heddles.

Rigid-heddle loom tricks

I just ordered a second 10 dpi reed and extra heddle blocks for my Kromski Harp.

Why?

Because I found this: official Ashford instructions on how to do double weave on a rigid heddle loom using a second reed and two pick-up sticks.

So you're doubling the weaving width of your loom, which, combined with the relatively easy warping of the rigid-heddle, is made of pure weaving awesomeness.

Weaving

I'm thinking about getting my rigid heddle looms out again and seeing if I can make something. I wove a narrow scarf a couple of months ago out of handspun I liked so much I wanted none of it to go to waste. Now I'm wondering if I can do something more ambitious.

I stumbled across this technique/philosophy called Saori today. It's the kind of thing I'd be into.

I think there may be some Saori obis in my future.

Spindle collecting

So, I've been wondering why I haven't bought a Golding spindle yet.

I've been wanting a Golding ever since I first saw them about two years ago, but I haven't bought one. It's not the price; with the money I've spent on spindles over the past year, I could have bought a few Goldings. I've been investing my money in Bosworths, Full Circles, and Graftons actually - I have an ambition to have a small flock of fiberships in the relatively near future.

There are a few spindle makers - Golding and Cascabeles to name two - who make spindles I think of as "fireside spindles". They're big, heavy, ornate and spin beautifully (so I understand). They're spindles for spinning at home. While I do use my spindles at home from time to time, I spin with my wheels at home.


So the spindles I buy tend to be on the compact, sturdy side because I'm a spinner on the go - when I'm carrying my life on my back, I don't want to have to worry that my spindle is getting squished or weighing me down. Although Goldings are undoubtedly sturdy and well-made, I wouldn't be psychologically prepared to take it on a sailing trip or be able to sleep knowing it's in the bag I'm using as my pillow on a train.

I guess a true spindle collector wouldn't have such prosaic concerns; I guess I'm ultimately a pragmatist, which is something I wouldn't have thought to call myself when it comes to fiberart.

Pub knitting

Yesterday, I tried to take Sara and Ted out to the local GAA match to see the Ulster team play. In typical fashion, they'd cancelled the games due to Mother's Day (Irish lads love their mothers). Nevertheless, our trip into the city wasn't a complete wash, since we got the chance to do a little Irish grocery impulse-buying, I mean shopping at Roxie Market, have some pretty tasty burgers at Darla's, and spend some quality time with the local Irish senior citizenry at the Blackthorn Tavern.

Sara took her knitting out of her bag to show me the progress she's made on her spindle scarf, which has been christened the "Kathleen" by, well, I guess Sara, and I got to thinking about how I never knit in pubs anymore.

When I was living in Dublin working on my MBA, everyday life would sometimes get so difficult I'd head over to whatever pub wasn't packed to the rafters, settle in by the peat fire (most pubs had one), order a hot whiskey and knit until my fingers cramped - this usually took anywhere from four to eight hours. At the time (four long years ago) you seldom saw people knitting anywhere in Dublin, so a lot the tourists who came in assumed I was a traditional Irish colleen knitting an Aran sweater for my fisherman-husband. The fact I was in the middle of City Centre Dublin (many miles from any fishermen) didn't seem to budge their impressions, even when I put down my knitting to consult the pattern notes on my Palm Pilot.

So, next time I'm in the Inner Sunset to pick up some Irish bacon, I'll drop in on the Blackthorn with some knitting. Either I'll be completely ignored or harassed by curious punters, which is pretty much always what happened.

More pondering: Great wheel

I realized yesterday that I need a Great wheel.

No, really, hear me out.

One of my big frustrations with working with short-staple fibers like cotton (okay, only cotton) is that I have a really hard time getting enough twist into the fiber before the flyer winds on.

That's why I bought my Bosworth book charkha, which I love to death but I can't spin anything in large quantity on it. I was on YouTube a while back, and I was watching this gorgeous video of Indian people spinning and weaving Khadi:



They're not exactly spinning on book charkhas.

Enter the Great wheel - works on exactly the same concept as the production charkha, on the same scale.

Frustration two - spinning bulky. I'm getting to the point where i want to spin big, loose singles for felting, but I can't do it on any of my current wheels. I just can't reach a low enough ratio to get the effect I'm looking for. The closest I get is when I turn the drive wheel with my hand to get a super-low twist.

Once again, the Great wheel is perfect for just this - since you have to turn the drive wheel by hand anyway, I have total control over the twist:




So this isn't just another rationalization to spend more money on fiber tools. I've actually thought a lot about it.

I'm thinking more and more about the bike spinning wheel project and how this problem can be solved fairly neatly with that, maybe.

The best idea ever!

I'm a frustrated DIY fanatic - given the choice and the means, I'd make everything I own and buy nothing as a finished object. However, that sort of thing requires certain resources (i.e. knowledge, workspace, tools, time) that I don't always possess, so this is a state that exists primarily in my fantasy life.

This is why when I came across this book, courtesy of TikkunKnits on Ravelry, I knew I had to own it:



A spinning wheel from an old bike? It makes so much sense! They're practically the same machine! Flip the frame over, replace the front wheel with a quill assembly using the front fork as the maidens, the rear tire with a drive band, and rig a treadle to the pedal mount and you have a reasonable approximation of a Saxony-style quill wheel! A little more work on figuring out a braking system and you could attach a bobbin and flyer. You can even use any existing gears and derailleur to approximate different spinning ratios.

Think about all those abandoned, stripped bike frames you see chained up to the bike racks at the BART station - they could be recycled into spinning wheels!

It's so punk rock, I can't even stand it.

Anyway, I feel a plan forming in my head. I found a relatively-low-cost copy of this out-of-print book in Australia that I ordered on Alibris. This may be the impetus I need to go and finally join the TechShop in Palo Alto to take advantage of their tools, space, and expertise.

Can't blog - sleepin'

Too many things have been happening. I'm in a fiber vortex of activity:

- The inaugural launch of Color: A Fiber Festival, and A Verb for Keeping Warm/Tactile Fiber Arts booth at the Maker Faire Bazaar Bizarre (both loads of fun...and work, but mostly fun).

- The completion of the spindle shawl and new ideas for the next one, including mitred square, triangle, and circular versions.

- Finished spinning the 4 oz. of Tactile ramboulliet, and the acquisition of some more fiber at the aforementioned Bazaar Bizarre.

- My new spindles came in: the aforementioned Avi Wasserman, a Cascade St. Helens, and a Greensleeves Loki.

I am exhausted. But not too exhausted to finally start spinning up the "Spice Eyes" batts I got from magicalfibers forever ago!

I see what all the fuss about Mr. Wasserman is - my new spindle is extremely well-balanced, with the majority of the weight in the whorl and not the shaft, which is a finer point of drop spindle design a lot of spindle makers don't figure out right away. Kudos to him!

I haven't had a chance to spin on the St. Helens or the Loki, but I'm optimistic.