Catskill Mountain Fibers

Posts Tagged ‘spinning’

I’m so happy to have had a few sales of my hand spun yarn in our Etsy shop. Until now, I hesitated to list it because . . . I wanted to keep it all for me!  Had to start letting some go, and for it to move so quickly makes me feel really good. I hope those that purchased the yarn are thrilled with it, too.  I’d love to see what is created with it.
I have more to list and need to get photos. I also have some gorgeous batts that I made up a couple of months ago to get in the shop. More roving . . .

OK! 

There is a second Nor-easter moving into our area this morning. Unusual for snow threats to be issued in mid October. I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised since we had such a cool, dreary summer. There had been reports that we’d have a mild winter here in the northeastern USA, but I doubt that so we’re preparing – having extra pellets delivered soon.

I’ve dyed up a pound of milk protein fiber in the Painted Desert color-way and will rinse and finish that up this morning. I also put wool into six Ball jars, added dyes and popped them all into the oven in a water bath to heat activate the dyes last evening. That all needs to be rinsed and then put on the rack in front of the pellet stove to dry. I hope to be able to start spinning some of it this evening.  I’ll be making items for raffles for a charity event that my aunt is helping to organize.  I’m thinking of some colorful cool hats for the event. . . maybe one hat in the colors of Poland’s flag.  I’ll post photos of the dyed fibers later today.

The final day of summer. The day before our darling daughter’s 19th birthday. Another year almost over. Time travels much too quickly! An understatement.

Autumn is my favorite time of year. The scent of leaves in the air, cool nights, beautiful crisp, cool days, the colors of the leaves on the different varieties of trees. Truly amazing.

Once the leaves have all met the ground dreaded anticipation of winter sets in. Muted browns and grays are predominant and dreary. The ground becomes hard with frost and eventually freezes. This is the period of time that slows considerably as dreams of spring seem so far reaching, almost unobtainable.

Winter is the time to spend handling wool and other fibers. Preparing them for spinning or felting. Creating yarns of color that promise change in the dull landscapes. Hope for the new year that will bring color, perfumed air, animal babies, and so much more.

Today I’m organizing my fiber stash in preparation for the coming months. I would like to participate in a couple of local fiber festivals next year – whether offering yarn or dyed spinning mediums, I want to be there.  I have enough to keep me busy for the entire winter without having to purchase anything but there is roving available from a particular seller that I would like to buy lots of. I’ve had two lengths and the yarn spun from it is truly amazing. MORE!  As soon as we have enough sales on Etsy to allow me to buy at least 10 lengths I’ll be quite pleased.

I would also like to make stuff for family members but spinning seems to get in the way. I just enjoy spinning so much. I have two “Spontaneous Spinning Clouds” from Loop on Etsy and plan to core spin these. I just want to be very sure of the technique before diving into them.  Leave it to Steph to come up with another brilliant mix of fibers to spin from.

I have a batt that I created on my carder that I would like to blend one more time. It reminds me of sterling silver. Quite lovely blend of wool, silk, bamboo and angelina.  I’ll consult my “Intertwined” book to figure out how this fiber might be spun up.

ciao! 

Just wanted to say that even though the package was damaged quite badly it was complete. I weighed the opened bag of locks and found they weighed 2.5 pounds. I had only ordered 2 – Bonus!

I haven’t opened the plastic bag containing the 20 pounds of wool yet. The bag has expanded to its limits though, and is HUGE!  If I were to open it all of the wool would pretty much pour out of the bag!  Lots of spinning & dyeing in the very near future.

I’m starting a new length of roving – 10 ounces – and it’s a myriad of colors and actually kind of ugly. I’m spinning it super thin and will then ply it – maybe Navajo, depends on the single, for use with a shawl pattern that I’ve found.

Ugly super-fine merino roving!

So, like many other people we’ve adjusted to the horrible economic times by cutting back and simply not spending. This has actually enabled us to catch up on almost ALL of our past due bills and I find myself just $900 away from being totally ‘current’ with absolutely everything.  This $900 will be resolved by the end of July.

Why is it that Americans (in general) were so damn reckless with spending since the Clinton years? Finance, finance, re-finance, spend, spend, spend more!  Damn! If I could have looked at things over the past 15 years as I’m able to see them now we’d be close to having this house paid off!  We had started with a 15 year mortgage. We’d have less than 6 years left to go. But – re-fi’s put us waaaaay off, dammit!

Oh well – such is life.  .  . as we KNEW it. I will continue, financially, as we are now. That should mean a nice savings surplus as DH gets close to retirement. We’re buying his employer’s stock again and expect it to split several times before he retires. That will be a nice chunk of change, too.

Non-economy – PAIN! Damn hip pain is back with a vengeance. High pain tolerance allows me to get through the days, but I wish I didn’t have to live with it.

Today I’d like to continue working with the drum carder until I use all of the roving up intended for carding. I have some pretty batts that will be available for sale soon. DH also made me a new whorl for my wheel. HUGE low speed whorl to try out. It should work so perfectly for art yarns. He’s just so into the word working stuff. His first beer brewing escapade is going well. When he gets in from work tonight he’ll be bottling his first batch. Water all boiled on the stove for sterilizing. Once it’s all bottled he’ll put it in a box to shield it from light and it’ll sit for at least two weeks to ferment a bit more in the bottles.

Time for meds. Later.

These are two of the yarns that I’ve recently spun. Unfortunately, the other photos were horrible. I need to get the camera book and figure out exactly how to set this one up to the way I need to use it.  Old eyes don’t help either!  Can’t use my glasses while on the computer. . . have to use them for other things – I guess photo taking and editing is one of the other things.

Corriedale hand spun

Merino hand spun

Yes, I’m still trying (not hard) to find the damn camera!

Spinning a lot. Spun up some roving that I dyed that the darling huzbeast said looked like . . . VOMIT! Damn man!  It spun up quite nicely, thank you very much. It looks like a blend of Victorian colors – shades of pinks, dark rose, greens, pale yellows.  I decided to ply it with black and spun up about 150 yards of hat black merino – but then spied leftover neon green roving and spun that into a single. Used the green to ply with instead and I like the result. Photos (ahem!) soon! LOL