Traveling with Fiber

Today I'm packing for a trip. I'm going with my girl to a national-level diving meet in Orlando, Florida. I will be sitting at a pool for 5 days. The pool is covered but not closed, there is no air conditioning or even fans. The temperature will hover around 95F and it will storm every afternoon. Can you feel the schvitziness of it?

What do you think is foremost on my mind? What fiber projects to take. It doesn't matter that I will be in a heat coma and chewing ice like a cow on her cud will be all I will be capable of. I will still pack several projects, and there will be wool. I usually bring a little knitting, a spindle, a tiny bit of embroidery and now, a sample loom.

 I have to bring them just in case. What if we have a delayed flight? What if the temperature mysteriously drops 40 degrees? What if I see another knitter or spinner and have nothing to show them - no flag of solidarity to wave? If any of these things happen, I will be set and content. I do the same with books. I always bring too many (and always bring physical books) just in case.

I will admit that I mostly like to have them for comfort. I like to plan what to take. I like to see them in my bag. I like knowing they are there if I need them. The world seems rocky and unsettled these days and sometimes a little fiber time is what I need to get through.

I visited Schacht!

In June I went to Interweave to film two videos (coming soon!) and finally took the time to visit Schacht Spindle Company.  I have been spinning and weaving on Schacht products for more than 25 years. I might have been a little excited.

The factory is as amazing as you might imagine. I was taken on a tour by none other than Barry Schacht. I got to see wheels and looms in various states of production. I was amazed, but not surprised at the level of detail that goes into each step along the process. And yes, it smells wonderful in there, a combination of wood and the oil they use to finish the wheels. It was clear how Schacht turns out such high quality tools, passion for what they do starting with Barry and Jane and focus on every aspect that makes their tools legendary. I even ran into Maggie Casey picking up a part for her wheel. Since I can't do anything but talk about how great it was, I'll show you pictures, so you can see that even their process is beautiful.

Securing Storage Bobbins on a Quill

I am a huge fan of cardboard storage bobbins. They are relatively inexpensive, hold a good amount of yarn and I can write on them to keep track of my project.

I use my Hanson miniSpinner with the quill attachment as an electric bobbin winder to fill my storage bobbins. I have always been irritated that they don't fit - the bobbin openings are too big for the quill and don't spin without reducing the size of the bobbin orifice. I used to stuff fiber inside the bobbin to reduce the size of the opening and make the bobbin fit tightly on the quill, but I found that fiddly. For awhile I used rubber bands that I wound onto the quill, also fiddly.

I wanted a solution that was less fiddly because I frequently will take a bobbin off and weigh it in the midst of winding, if I am trying to divide the yarn from a large bobbin evenly between several storage bobbins.

One day I got irritated enough to take a trip to my local hardware store, quill and bobbin in hand. I found nirvana in the plumbing aisle. Rubber grommets. I couldn't find a grommet that both fit snugly on the quill and was thick enough to hold the bobbin in place. So I bought two sizes, one that fits tightly on the quill and one a size that is bigger than the storage bobbin opening. I group these on the quill with small grommets on either side of a large grommet, holding it in place.

Now I use my little grommets group on the quill on each end of the bobbin and it holds the bobbin in place every time, no fiddling.

Do you have a different solution?

Excited to Spin Cables and Read for Fun

I woke up this morning excited to spin something new. A particular yarn for an as-yet-to-be-discovered knitting project. I even know the fiber I want to use.

I love when that happens. I want to spin a fine cable, like this fingering weight cable yarn I spun from alpaca last year. And I want to spin it from this BFL/silk top I got from Woolgatherings at Madrona this year.

I'm also reading these three books to restock my brain with ideas and words.

What are you spinning? What do you like to knit with cabled yarn?

When You've Done Too Much

The year is half over and I have done too much, but I loved every minute of it. I taught at Madrona, Yarn Fest and PLY Away. I wrote several articles for PLY and Spin Off and a bunch of blog posts. I prepped and filmed two videos for Interweave and went to TNNA. I finally sent my book, after the last agonizing edits (do I even know how to spin?) to the printer.

On the family side, we redid our kitchen (that should count for at least three things). We ushered our youngest through the last of the first year of middle school and his first foray into competitive gymnastics. Our oldest made it through her ACT, SAT, Junior year,  a couple of college visits and a lot of diving. My husband started additional responsibilities at his job and I started working full time. For fun our entire family memorized the soundtrack to Hamilton.

All of this happened since January. I loved it all, would do it again in a heartbeat, but I am beat. I am almost to the point where I can take a break. I can see blue sky and it will be only caffeine that gets me through the next couple of weeks. This morning when my alarm went off I didn't know what city I was in.

The next six months will be slower, but with a lot of planning for next year. I want to clear out a lot of things at home, the kids want to redo their rooms, I have new classes to plan and prep and just what will fill all that space now that my book is done? My girl is going to be a senior next year, so she is planning like crazy and sometimes lets us help.

I am bone tired, but it's that type of tired that brings intense satisfaction. I met so many wonderful people, saw so many friends and did things that terrified me. I didn't think I could do it all, but I did.

Video Filming at Interweave!

I've been absent on-line for a bit. There have been lots of deadlines and prepping for two new videos for Interweave. Yay! I can't say the topics yet, but they will be out this summer. I flew into Denver for a quick 2 days of filming. It always seems fast when I'm there. I love getting really prepared so I can just zip through my taping. You can see how many samples and how much fiber and tools I bring. The orange suitcase is big enough to hold a Lendrum wheel and the duffle bag is ginormous, both were pretty full.

I had an incredible crew this time. You can see Lindsay and Andrew in the photos over there, as well as my incredible makeup goddess Keegan. Not pictured are my second cameraman Garrett and the woman who organizes all things filming and keeps me sane, Jill.

Nerves are constant with me anytime I teach, but when I film videos my nerves are crazy. I don't sleep much, fill up on caffeine and am sure that I am making no sense.  But having a great team on site and practicing helps to get me through. Every time I finish filming I'm excited to come back and do another day.

This time I let Keegan convince me to have fake eyelashes. I don't wear much makeup usually, but this time I went all in.  How much fun! I couldn't stop making faces. This one is all about being the Evil Queen in Snow White.

After filming I visited a great little shop in Fort Collins called My Sister Knits and I went to Boulder and visited Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins and toured Schacht. I'll have more on those next week. Now I have a couple of deadlines nipping at me and I have to get ready to leave for TNNA. I am certainly ready for summer and a little break with my kiddos.

How's your week been? Ready for summer?

The Getty: Threads Under a Microscope

Art Under the Microscope: Threads. The Getty, 2016

This post by the The Getty sucked me in for at least an hour. It's a photo taken with a microscope of the background threads in the tapestry Triumph of Bacchus (1518-1520). You can see not only how the piece was woven, but how the threads were spun. I can't stop looking at it.

Conservators use this type of photography to help preserve art.

Spinning Tip: Multiple Singles Samples On One Bobbin

I spin lots of samples. I make samples for writing articles and teaching, but a lot of my samples are spun due to the fact that I love the experimenting.  Before I started writing about or teaching spinning I spun lots of samples just to see what happened when I changed and element or two.

I don't make very big samples, some are an ounce, some are just a big ply-back sample. It depends what changes I'm making and if I will knitted samples are on the docket. 

I try to do as many sample as I can without switching bobbins. I think I've mentioned that I'm a lazy spinner, right?

I'm making singles samples right now and I filled a bobbin with about a dozen different samples. Here's how I did it the quick and lazy way.

I spun in a contrasting fiber between each sample. That's it. In the photos I used a natural grey fiber between a color blended fiber anda color blocked fiber. I spun in 2"-3" of the grey quick and dirty between the two color samples. My joins aren't pretty and they won't last much more than winding the yarn on and off of the bobbin, which makes removing the spacer yarn easier when I wind my samples off individually onto a niddy noddy.

When you try this make sure of just two things: 1) The spacer fiber has to contrast with both of thefibers it spans. When I make many different colored samples I change the color of my spacer fiber as I work through all of my samples.  2) Write down what you are doing! I write it down in detail, what's happening in each sample, so I can tag it after I wind it off. 

And don't forget to note if sample #1 is the first sample on the bobbin or the first sample off of the bobbin, I've made that mistake many times.

Happy sampling!