Somethings Gray… and Green

At last year’s Valley’s spring spinning retreat, I purchased two large balls of Shetland fiber.  About 9 oz each.

 

Colette, the sheep that the wool was shorn from, lives in the Valley.  I think it’s kind of neat to know the name of the sheep whose wool you are spinning.

I’m not sure what the true term for how the fiber has been prepared, it is like a long skinny batt.  The fiber is hairy but I still like how it spins up.  I am planning on doing a 3 ply. 

About a month ago I visited Pamela (the lady who started me spinning) and she let me tryout her 30″ Schacht-Reeves Saxony Spinning Wheel.  Very nice!  I have seen the long draw method used but I hadn’t learned how to do it.  Pamela was able to penetrate my thick skull teach me.  The orifice/bobbin on her wheel is on the left while I use a right setup on my wheel, so it felt awkward but I better understood how to do it.  The hand in front of the bobbin is to stay still and allow/direct the amount of twist to pass to the newly drawn fibers as they are being drawn by the other hand.  So I was eager to try the long draw on my wheel Majacraft Alpaca.   I thought the gray Shetland would be a great to properly learn the long draw method on.

I was contemplating changing the orifice/bobbin but I thought I’d give it a try with the way it was.  Yeah I was lazy.  So I change to my right hand directing the twist and the left hand drawing out the fiber to match the orifice/bobbin set-up on my wheel.

It was extraordinary what happened next…

I did it… not awkwardly, but like I had done this many times before.  It was weird that it seem so natural.  I was not looking a gift horse in the mouth but why was this so easy?  A day later it dawned on me, the arm and hand motions are very simular to fly fishing!  I haven’t fly fished much lately but there was a 12 year period that I didn’t hardly have a dry line.  The hand and arm motions are very simular to what are used after the line has been casted onto the water.  One hand holds the rod and controls tension on the line and the other draws/takes-up line.  See here.  

Now for something else gray.  Well not all gray.
My DH celebrated his 50th birthday last week.

Here are some of the places he likes to play.

The trail heads for all these places are less than an hour drive from where we live.

And now for something green…

 

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Plan C, Silk and The Last Great Race

Now where was I… ah yes.  

I was planning to cut new arm holes for Rosemarkie.  I picked up stitches and knitted a new arm band, before I cut the arm holes I tried the vest on.  The arm holes looked too big and I didn’t like it at all.  So I frogged the new arm band.  I put the vest back on, but this time I used a shawl pin as a closure and I liked it a lot better.

So here is Rosemarkie  by Alice Starmore finished without buttons.  I would have had some pictures sooner but one of the little darlings “borrowed” the camera and neglected to mention it to me.

This is also the first time I used a wooly board  for blocking.  I like it a lot.  Thanks to Carolyn who gaving me good advice for selecting which one to buy.   The drape of the fabric is wonderful.  I am very impressed with the yarns from Virtual Yarns.

I also spun the purple silk hankies I dyed.

Here are some sites for info on how to spin silk hankies. Here, here and here.

Congratulations to Lance Mackey for his back to back win of the Iditarod aka “The Last Great Race.”   A “nice guy” finished first.