Category: Knitting/Spinning

Olio August 16, 2014

Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things.

On Thursday, I returned our eldest grandson to his home. He had been with us since July 3 and it was a wonderful 6 weeks. He enjoyed playing with our dogs, learned to ride his bike, traveled to Florida with us to visit his Aunt and Uncle and cousins for a week, swam, had outings with Granddad to the batting cage and several movies. He and Granddad played catch in the yard and had batting practice. A few times, he cooked with me, learning to make his favorite blueberry muffins and getting some math practice with measuring and calculating which measuring cups would give him the quantity he needed. It was a relief to his Mom and Dad to not have to try to find summer care for him and figure out how to get him to and from that care when they both left very early for their jobs.

Yesterday after playing with his neighborhood friends, showing off to his Mom and Dad his new bike riding skills, having Grandmom take him to his guitar lesson, they all left at 9:30 last night on the Metro to Union Station to catch an 11:30 p.m. Greyhound bus to Virginia Beach, where he and his Mom will spend the next week with her parents. Our son will return home to Northern Virginia on the train tomorrow so he can be at work on Monday. His Mom’s summer job has ended and her school begins just before Labor Day. I returned to their house to spend the night before traveling home this morning. As I was avoiding the interstate and taking a leisurely cruise down the Skyline Drive this morning, I received a text from son saying that they were stuck in Richmond, VA, only a couple hours from their home and a couple hours from their destination almost 12 hours after leaving on the bus. Their 4 hour trip lasted 14 hours. There is something truly wrong with Greyhound’s business model that passengers with tickets can not have a seat on a leg of their trip. If they hadn’t had to disembark at the transfer station in Richmond, they would have been at their destination in the early hours, not the next afternoon.

After enjoying about an hour and a half of scenic drive, I got back on the interstate, so my 4 hour trip wouldn’t take all day and like Thusday, was again stuck with the semis.

I followed these two for miles and miles doing less than 60 mph in a 70 mph zone. Behind me was a line of at least a dozen more.

It is amazing how quickly chicks grow. These little guys and gals are a week and a half old. They can almost get out of the brooder which is a huge stock watering tank. I guess I am going to have to put a screen over it soon. They are all darkening and growing wing and tail feathers. The one center front is the one I named Chipmunk because of the dark stripes on his back when I uncartoned them from the Hatchery.

Egg production is picking up. The pullets are getting the hang of the laying bit. In the past 6 days, we have gotten 7 pullet eggs, so I know that more than one of them is laying. We also got 5 hen eggs, though Broody Girl is still insisting on empty nest sitting. This has gone on now for over a month. Perhaps I should get her some fertile eggs and just let her give it a go.

The pullet eggs are so small compared to the hen eggs. At least we are getting some again.

The garden loved last week’s rain, the tomatoes are ripening in the sun, peppers are swelling and I am nearly overrun with Tomatillos. I haven’t looked under the row covers to see how the transplants are doing, but they will have to be watered today or tomorrow.

My purple thick skinned grapes are ripe. Perhaps I should attempt some grape jelly.

The weather feels like fall already. I shouldn’t get too excited, it will probably get hot again soon.

This week, we tackle power washing the decks to re-stain. I’m trying to figure out how we are going to keep the outdoor cats off while they dry and how we will get the dogs in and out. I guess they will have to go through the garage, but neither of them are used to doing that, so it may require leading them out on a leash til the decks dry.

Hubby took off early this morning on a ride on his BBH (Big Bad Harley) with the Hog Club from where his bike came. It is a ride to just get there, over an hour. They were going to have breakfast then ride into West Virginia. He texted me that he did go and that he was in West Virginia. I guess I will see him later this afternoon when he returns.

When I was in Northern Virginia to pick up grandson in early July, I bought some variegated yarn at a local shop. The yarn is one that isn’t available around here and I knit a Hitchhiker scarf from it. I decided that I wanted a cardigan sweater of the same yarn and returned yesterday to the shop to try to purchase it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough of it to make a sweater, but I did get a worsted weight solid that coordinates beautifully with it. As soon as the weather is cool enough to sit with the bulk of a sweater body in my lap while knitting, I will make myself a sweater to go with my scarf.

Though it is only mid afternoon, I am tired from my travels and contemplating a short nap. Life is an adventure!

August 16, 2014
Sew Pretty

My baby girl (well, she a big girl now with two kids of her own, but she will always be my baby girl) and I text back and forth often. Short little conversations, just keeping up. Oh course we talk on the phone too, but not daily.

A couple of weeks ago while shopping at one of our two natural food stores, I found the blue market bag on the left in the top picture. It is a One Mango Tree bag, made in Northern Uganda. One Mango Tree provides sewing training, steady jobs, a daily meal, school fees stipends for children, bicycles, etc. and the bags are eco-friendly and fair trade. I texted a picture of it to my daughter. She at some point had purchased one off of their website to use as a purse and decided it was too large for that purpose. She asked me how big mine was as it was sitting on the back seat of my car full of groceries and I measured it when I got home. It is about the same size as hers, but has a matching fabric strap where hers has a braided handle which she says hurts her shoulder when it is full of market goodies. I asked her what she was looking for size-wise to use as a purse and she gave me the dimensions she was seeking and told her the style of bag would be so easy to make, that I would make her one.

Last Wednesday on my way to knit night, I stopped at the fabric store and selected fabrics in the colors that she likes, taking photos and texting them to her (we live 850 miles apart). Once the outside fabric was selected via text message, we started on the lining and the questions about whether she wanted it stiffened with Pellon. She didn’t know what Pellon was but did want it stiffened to use as a purse. On my way to get bias tape, which I didn’t use, I found a card of buttons that matched perfectly. The sewing supplies sat in my spinning chair for a week. I haven’t spun or sewed all week, though I did start a knitting project and read two books, worked in the garden and yard.

Yesterday, I did make a pattern out of butcher paper and added it to the pile. Today after lunch, Jim went out to do a bit more with the weed wacker and I set about to make the purse. About an hours worth of cutting, ironing and sewing and my baby girl has a new purse. A few texts back and forth for her to see it compared in size to the other bag and to decide whether she wanted the button and if so as a decoration or functional and she is happy. I have plenty of the fabric left and think I will make her a matching market bag them mail them off to her instead of her having to wait for us to visit much later in the summer.

June 11, 2014
Spinventory

I’m on a spinning roll. As soon as I finished the Random Colors Merino last night I started on a top of Romney that has long color gradient.

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It starts with yellow and moves through sunset colors to midnight blue.

After reading a Yarn Harlot post quite a while ago, I have wanted to try to spin a long color gradient yarn and I found some lovely tops at The Homestead Hobbyist on Etsy. After dividing the top down the middle lengthwise, I spun two bobbins beginning with the yellow and ending with the midnight blue.

The result after plying today is a skein 136 yards long of light worsted yarn, named Midday to Midnight. What else could it be called.

Once it was finished and I was rummaging around in my fiber basket trying to decide what I want to spin next, I decided that I really should put my inventory on Ravelry in my notebook. If you are a knitter or crocheter, please feel free to browse, http://www.ravelry.com/people/Mountain-g-mom, maybe something will catch your eye. Some of my yarn is for sale at Greenberry House in Meadows of Dan, VA, some I still have here and can’t decide whether to use it or sell it too. At least, I now know what I have on hand, well most of it, there is a sampler of fiber that are tiny hanks that haven’t been spun or inventoried. They will likely be added to my Funky Fiber yarn that will some day become a knitted throw. I didn’t decide what to start. Perhaps I should finish the Tunis with the Finn X Jacob and have that yarn ready to knit when I get out of the spinning mode and want to make the Rib Warmer for fall.

May 30, 2014
Olio May 29, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Today’s harvest, a bowl of fresh eggs and a basket of chard for our dinner.

The beautiful Merino roving became this lovely 125 yards of Navajo plied yarn. I can’t decide whether to make a scarf out of it or put it up for sale. It has been soaked is currently drying. It seemed appropriate to Navajo ply it as the book that I am currently reading is

Navajo Autumn, R. Allen Chappell

The morning was humid, but not too hot, so some more of the breezeway flower bed was weeded and more mulch applied. A few more mornings and that task will be complete. The afternoon turned stormy, thunder, lightening and heavy rain showers, so the garden is getting a good soaking, but no work in it.

May 29, 2014
Crafty Wednesday

Since the spin in last weekend and the completion of the Tunis/FinnXJacob yarn, I stalled on spinning for a few days. Last February, just before David took his stock of Green Dragon yarn and roving to Hawk’s Nest, he had the most luscious hanks of Random Colors-Merino for spinning. He sold every last one of the ones he had made but since they were so popular, he made more for his shop. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased one to try and it is so delightful to spin. The one I purchased has rather muted colors, maroon, teal, camel with shades of lighter colors that blend into a wonderful single. The Merino is so soft and the fiber is long enough to make the drafting smoother and consistent. The colors of the single are interesting on the bobbin and I can’t decide what to do with it to not dilute the beautiful colors. It could be Navajo plied, but that significantly reduces the yardage of finished yarn. I’m afraid that plying two bobbins of it together will muddy the finished yarn. Maybe I should ply it with a solid, fairly dark neutral. The hank of roving is 100 grams. My single is fine, so the yarn is going to be lightweight.

Spinner readers, any suggestions?

Tonight is knit night. Jim is taking his motorcycle over to the dealer to get his Tour Pack installed and I am a bit leery of taking my car as the other day it acted as though the starter motor may be failing. I guess if it does, I’m only a few hundred yards from the Honda dealer and Jim can come get me after knitting in his car once he gets home on his bike.

May 28, 2014
Payback Day

Yesterday I played, all day. After the spin in and potluck, I came home and finished the last few yards of the Finn X Jacob roving and started plying it with the Red Tunis. I ended up with 230 yards of lovely yarn to add to the 202 that I had previously spun.

Today Jim took off on his motorcycle around 10:30 a.m. and I started on some house cleaning, trying to rid the house of a few pounds of dog hair. I took a break for lunch and then tackled outdoor chores. Mowing first on the tractor around the house and between the house and barn, then with the lawnmower to get closer to the house, around the garden and chicken pens and also around the fruit trees. The tractor will do most of the orchard, but not close to the trees.

Yesterday at the spin in, one of my friends gave me a handful of sweet potato slips, both white and orange and I put them in water overnight to perk them back up.

I wasn’t sure where I still had space in the garden and I still hadn’t planted the Seminole Pumpkins and the winter squash and while I was working I had a flash of inspiration. Last year when I started raising chickens and bought straight run chicks from Tractor Supply, I ended up with more than my share of cockrells and needed to do something about them until our eldest son could come build the chicken tractor. I lined one of my 4 compost bins with chicken wire, put a tarp over the top and fenced in pen in front of it. I was delighted that they cleared all of the weeds out of it. This year when I got the 10 Buff Orpington chicks and divided the coop into keepers and culls, I again employed the compost bin idea, but put the chicken tractor in front of two of the bins then used two sides of the coop run as two sides of the cull pen and added some more fencing to give them a run too. Again, they cleared all the weeds for me. There is still more than a foot of good composed horse manure mixed with chicken manure. I moved the chicken tractor parallel to the coop, changed the fence arrangement, taking away some of their space, but still giving them a good grass area and two compost bins to scratch in.

This opens up the two compost bins that they have so kindly cleared for me, leaving me only two young pokeberry and one burdock to dig out. The bins were forked deeply to blend the chicken manure into the compost and to turn any seedling in and planted 14 sweet potato slips in one bin and the pumpkins and winter squash in the other.

Two more 5 X 5 foot beds instantly with nice rich soil. Now hopefully, the flea beetles will leave the sweet potatoes alone and the squash borers will leave the pumpkins and winter squash alone. They will all be nice additions to the fall harvest. The chickens are doing a nice job of breaking up some large stalks in the other two bins and dispatching the weeds. I do need to dig out some pokeberry and burdock in them.

Tomorrow, I am finally going to put the tomato starts and most of the pepper starts in their beds.

For now, I’m tired. Tomorrow is another day I can work the garden while Jim rides his motorcycle to meet our youngest son and maybe his family for lunch a couple of hours from here.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

May 25, 2014
Food and Fun
Today was the Spunster, my spinning group’s annual Spin In and Potluck located in a beautiful valley in our mountains at the home of our delightful hostess and host. We get to sit around and spin on the lovely porches, socialize, and eat and our significant others are encouraged to participate with us for this event. An afternoon of crafting, walking the woods, touring their business, Strauch Fiber Equipment (http://www.strauchfiber.com/) and enjoying the delicious food contributions.

Today, I contributed two salad favorites.

Ranch Pasta & Potato Salad
- 6 small Red Potatoes with skins on cubed 1/2″
- 6 oz spiral pasta (approx 2 c) {Gluten free is fine}
- 1/2 c chopped red bell pepper
- 1/4 c chopped green onion, bulb and stem
- 8 slices bacon cooked crisp and chopped
- 1/2 c mayonnaise
- 1/2 c Ranch dressing (I use the light version)
Boil the potatoes for 3-4 minutes, add pasta and cook about 9 minutes til pasta is soft cooked (not al dente). Rinse with cold water and drain well. Toss with chopped vegetables. Blend dressing and toss into salad with bacon. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

This makes about 8-9 cups of salad. I got this recipe from my daughter, who got it from a friend, who got it from ???? I have seen variations of it on the internet, so I don’t know where to give credit.

My other contribution was:

Three Bean Salad

I think this one came off a can of beans many years ago, maybe…
- 1 each 15 oz can of Red Kidney, Cannelini, and Garbanzo beans
- 3 c chopped vegetables ( I use the other half of the red bell pepper, carrot, onion)
- 2 Tbs Olive Oil
- 1/3 c wine vinegar or Apple cider vinegar
- 2 finely minced gloves of garlic
- 1/2-1 tsp Italian Seasoning (I don’t buy mixed seasoning, so I use basil, oregano, thyme, parsley)
- 2 Tbs Parmesan cheese
Drain beans and combine with chopped vegetables. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Blend Olive oil, vinegar and herbs well in blender or with wand blender and pour over bean mixture. Stir and chill several hours.

This makes about 7 cups of salad.

There was a lot of yarn spun, some knitting done, much eating, socializing and a beer or two consumed. It was a delightful afternoon with a wonderful group of friends.
May 24, 2014
Olio

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Today the post is all over the place. First, chickens are mean. This is the result of the hens establishing pecking order.

One of the hens has pecked the upper wing of several of the others, plucking their feathers, but not drawing blood. The shake up has allowed the feathers to begin growing back in.

Her bare back is the result of the over zealous rooster. He is picking on the hens in the cull pen now and this gals feathers are coming back out as well.

Go away and give me some privacy! I’m trying to lay an egg.

The lace on the shawl on which I was working, did not win! I did. The shawl was completed this afternoon as Jim watched the last rounds of the football draft. I am pleased with the finished product. It is fairly generous in proportion, the color is rich, and the leaf lace border is interesting. It is currently being blocked with hopes that it will be dry to wear with a skirt to Mother’s Day Brunch at Mountain Lake Lodge tomorrow.

It is pinned to a double bed to give you an idea of it’s size.

This afternoon, our daughter sent an adorable picture of her daughter and she gave me permission to share. I particularly enjoyed the photo because when our daughter, our second child was born, I was excited to have a little girl to dress up. I took a smocking class and made dresses and bonnets. As soon as she was old enough to assert her opinion, which was quite early, she always wanted pants, sweaters or t shirts and mismatched socks. I would buy her skirts for school and she would pull out pants instead. She was an athlete, playing soccer for years and softball in middle school. When she found out she was pregnant for the second time, she told everyone that if she had a girl, she would not put her in pink. She decorated the nursery with a musical theme in greens, blues, teal and brown. Now that this little princess is old enough to assert her opinion, she chooses skirts and dresses. This is her afternoon outfit.

Life and good, I love being a Mom and a Grandmom.

May 10, 2014
A Spinning Lesson

Several days ago, I blogged about my crafty hobbies and got several responses about how great the photos were, but they didn’t have any idea what the terms were. This will be a short lesson with photos about how thread, yarn, string or even the huge rope that tie up a ship are made. Spinning is a very ancient art that involved twisting fiber by hand, spindle, spinning wheel or machine into strands or singles and then taking two or more of those singles and spin them together in the opposite direction, allowing the twist you created to hold the strands together, called plying.

Many fibers can be spun. Wools from dozens of varieties of sheep, llama, alpaca, cashmere goat, angora rabbit, yak, buffalo, whatever has hair of sufficient fiber length to twist together. Silk cocoons, cotton, hemp, flax, and synthetic fibers such as acrylics to name a few can also be spun.

I am currently working with wool processed two different ways. The red on the left is called a batt. The wool is combed out to line up the fibers and left in big clouds or sheets. The dark on the right is pencil roving. It is also combed out to line up the fibers but the fibers are then rolled into long loose ropes with no strength. These are two of the more convenient ways to process the fiber for spinning. A chunk of the batt or the roving is pulled off, fluffed apart to make it looser, called predrafting, then spun. The single that you make is much stronger that the product at the start, but even stronger if it is then plied to another single.

The red batt is Tunis wool and the dark pencil roving is a blend of Finn and Jacob wool, so three different sheep breeds represented. All of these are fairly soft and have a long fiber, making spinning very easy.

Once the spools, called bobbins are full or you run out of fiber, it can be plied.

My spinning wheel is equipped with a built in bar with two pegs that fit through the center of the bobbins to hold the full bobbins for plying. This is called a Lazy Kate. You can see in the photo, the two singles being fed back up to the top bobbin for plying.

This is a two ply yarn for knitting, crocheting, or weaving. You can see the twist because of the use of the two colors in my effort to make a tweed like yarn. The coin is an American dime to give you some reference to the thickness of the finished product.

Once it has all be plied onto the bobbin, it will be wound off and measured then washed and hung to dry before it will be ready for use. We will save knitting terms for another lesson.

For you curious or scientific minds, go grab a few inches of kitchen twine and you can reverse the process to see how it works. The plies will pull apart and you can see the twist, then if you take a ply and start unraveling it, you will see that it twists the opposite direction. It is really quite an interesting product.

Long ago, our ancestors would start with the raw fiber, wash it, comb it, spin it, then knit or weave it into a garment for warmth. My end goal is to reach the point where I can do a process called sheep to shawl where I will do everything except sheer the sheep. Last year I did help with an alpaca shearing http://wp.me/p3JVVn-mU but that is another story.

May 8, 2014
Fiddle-dee knit

My crafting has been slow of late. The knit project that gets the most of my time is Lola Shawl by Carrie Bostick Hoge published in the most recent issue of Taproot magazine, issue 9::Breathe. The shawl as published is a triangular shawl knit from either fingering or worsted. I wanted a heavier, larger shawl than I generally make and selected Quince Lark a worsted weight yarn to make it. After about 1 skein of knitting and looking again at the photos in the magazine, I decided that I didn’t like the way the edge on the shawl lay and feeling adventurous, frogged what I had knit and started over, making the shawl a mitered square shawl instead, using the border that was on the Lola pattern. Yesterday while we were on our road trip, I decided that the stockinette part was sufficiently large and I wanted to save two skeins for the leaf pattern border. The lace pattern is an 18 stitch by 18 row pattern and to keep it a mitered square, I needed to keep my increase pattern going, breaking up the border into 3 sections instead of one continuous border. Row 1 was a piece of cake. Row 2, the wrong side row is purled and has a P2tbl stitch. No matter what I did, it didn’t work out right. Instead of looking it up, I plodded along and realized at the end of the row that it couldn’t be. This morning, I tinked the entire row of about 300 purled lace stitches and after a well doggie vet visit for our 210 pound baby, I watched a You Tube on how to do the stitch and started again. This is the most fiddlely lace pattern, but I am determined to make it work.

At night I have been spinning. I finished a little more than 2 ounces of Tunis singles in a color called Sebastian.

This is going to be plyed with a Finn/Jacob that is being spun.

I’m hoping it is going to make a tweedy yarn. There is enough of the Tunis that I hope to make enough yarn to knit a rib warmer.

The other task of the day was transplanting the tomato seedlings deeper into larger pots. They are getting a few hours of filtered sunlight each day and spending the rest of the time under the grow light. Another couple of weeks and the peppers and tomatoes will go in the garden.

May 5, 2014