ahhhhh...sun light...for about five minutes!

Our family just spent three days on Whidbey Island. I had plenty of time to spin so I spun up some of the top/roving that I dyed on my birthday. This morning I went out on the beach and took photos in the natural light. That's right, NATURAL LIGHT. Being that it was the winter solstice, the days of course were short. But I'll take what I can get. The skein above was mostly orange and purples, which sounds like a bad idea. The roving looked a little strange but it spun into a complex rosy brown.

I spun the second skein of the light blue with spots of red.

The roving that became this yarn was quite unappealing. I try to steer away from mixing pink with blue. Again, the yarn turned out better than I had expected. All these Merino skeins are very soft and will probably get knitted into little items like mittens or hats one day.

Spinning and Knitting

I have been spending some time spinning and knitting, but not writing about it or putting up photos. Again, I have to blame the lack of light. There are only a few hours a day that the natural light comes though the window in a way that works for photographs.

Now that I have all that newly dyed Merino top and Shetland roving, I have plenty of interesting fiber to spin. I also was given some Alpaca for my birthday and I'm hoping to card some of that during the holidays. I've been knitting this orange shawl for weeks now, but I'm taking a break for a while. I'm so happy that the Christmas holiday is here because it always leaves me with more time to spin and knit.

Passings

My Grandma passed away yesterday at the age of 94. She was a lifetime knitter and stashed before stashing was cool. Sadly, I only kept these stockings that she knitted. They have been brought out for the holidays so I thought I'd put this photo up. My stocking was knitted in the late 60's I think. It's wool. My husband's and kid's were done in the 90's. Of course my grandma was a huge influence on me in many ways and I am sad. That's all I can say now.

The Best Day Ever

Today was my birthday and before we went to Cupcake Royale (yum) I opened presents from my family. My husband gave me about 5 pounds of Targhee and the book Teach Yourself Visually - Hand-Dyeing. The kids gave me wonderful non-fiber-related gifts. I received these gifts after spending the whole day dyeing. It was awesome just to listen to pod casts all day and dye roving/top in my kitchen.

I started with about 3 pounds of different types of top.

I tried several types of space dyeing. I heated some in the oven in tin casserole pans with tin foil lids.

I steamed some of the roving/top in the canning pot.

And now it's all drying on the rack. I can't wait to spin up these samples and see how they come out. Once the roving is dry I'll take more photos. Today was the best day ever!

Schwartzie the Icelandic/Navajo-Churro cross

When I lived in Montana I obtained a whole fleece from a young woman named Mandi. She had owned an Icelandic/Navajo-Churro crossbreed named Schwartzie. Beloved Schwartzie fell into an ice pond and died. Her first (and only) sheering was all that was left. This whole black fleece has been in my possession for several months now and I have finally begun to process it.

I have decided to comb out the long course fibers and then I will probably drum card the soft undercoat. The photo above is a charged hand comb and the photo below shows the results of combing this fiber. The little ball is the combed course fiber ready to spin. The fluff on the left is the "seconds" - the soft undercoat. I put quotations around the seconds because this is the soft part that I'll actually have more of a use for. I'd like to blend it with something in the future.

Yucky Cakes

I finished the wool/cotton-denim 2 ply and wound them into cakes. These are going in the storage bin and my guess is they will never get knitted. It's a lot of work for yarn I do not like. :(

ps I'm not searching for complements. When I like my work I like it. When it sucks I'm not afraid to say to.

Keepin' it Warm

This is my new design: Oxygen Tank Cozy. It was created out of necessity. Now that I'm living in such an urban and densely populated area, I'm experiencing parking troubles. I'm constantly stressed out about finding a parking spot. The neighborhood is packed with cars and there's new condos going up all over. There are no parking spots and I find myself driving around and around looking for a place to put the car. Being that I'm a home birth Midwife, I need to be able to get in my car with all my equipment and go fast. I figure there are Midwives in Manhattan, so they must know how to deal with these issues. I've decided to consolidate all my birth bags into one huge birth bag for easy traveling.

The problem that arose with my new system was that the Oxygen Tank would slightly rattle around in it's new container. Problem solved: it get a sweater---or "cozy". The other benefit is that it looks kind of covered up when it's in peoples homes. The typical home birth aesthetic is that the medical equipment is "out of sight, out of mind". The tank usually is set aside with a baby blanket over it; covered, but easily accessible. Now after it's unpacked at a home birth, it can look friendly and warm in it's sweater. I know, I know...it sounds silly, but home-birthers don't think of birth as a medical event. If it means putting a sweater on the medical equipment, so be it.

The Oxygen Tank Cozy was knitted with a solid colored yarn and a self-striping yarn. Both were hand spun left overs. Knitting in the round, I alternated the solid and the self-striping every two rows to get the effect.