Cabin Crafted

Tag: spindles

  • Day 3 of beautiful garden weather…

    but it is going to end tomorrow, 20 degrees f colder and 100% chance of rain. I took advantage of the day to do the fencing work on the garden. The chickens lost about half of their run around the garden. The south edge of it was about 6 or 7′ wide between the inner and outer fence and had 36″ high fencing on the garden side, plus there were gaps beneath the fence they could get under. I also realized that there were asparagus growing almost to the fence on the north side, and the chooks could reach my comfrey through the fence on the west side. That section was only about 3 feet long. I secured them in their pen and and removed the inner fence, set better posts, shifted it away from the asparagus bed and reset it only on the north and east edges of the garden, a narrow open topped tunnel about my shoulder width and 48″ fencing on both sides of the run. They have scratched nearly all the weeds out already, but because of my shifting of the inner fence to narrow their run, I have some areas in the edges of the garden that now need attention. I put a “gate” at both ends in case one of us has to go in the run.

    This morning, we drove to daughter’s house and picked up the post pounder and I set 3 T posts from our supply and used a guide rope between the outer two so that the inner two were in line (that doesn’t usually happen when I am fencing). The sturdy exterior welded wire fence was moved in the 6 or 7′ to the south edge of the area that I plant. After I move a few rocks, that area can now be mowed and the working garden is fenced.

    The tall weeds and grass are the old fence line.

    I didn’t get to the spoiled hay down today because it was recover and dinner prep time by the time I was done. After dinner, I hung the gate.

    And pulled down the solar charger so I can get a replacement battery for one of the two we own. All of the extra fencing was rolled and stored. All of the short cuts were folded up to be taken to the “convenience center” where we have to take our garbage and recycling.

    While I was doing that work, the tiny spindle I was awaiting arrived in the mail. I thought the spindle I used the most was tiny, but this one is as small as it’s name, Bee Humingbird.

    The ruler is for scale. It came in a little tin with the brown alpaca for me to spin. Tomorrow as it rains, I will spin, knit, and recover from 3 days of hard work. On Wednesday when it is dry and cool, I will move spoiled hay to cover the cardboard and weed mat. I will grab some old deck wood from the barn and terrace the upper third of the garden and get spoiled hay down on that path as well. One more day of weeding and hay moving and then it is plant and maintain. If I work a few minutes a few mornings a week into summer, the maintenance shouldn’t be too bad. My garden plan is done, the worst of the prep work is done. Now to start enjoying the fruits of that labor.

  • Slow I go

    My favorite knitting needles developed a flaw, a major flaw. The nickle plating on the brass tips wore off of the needle I was using on a scarf for my daughter. I fear that the set purchased from Amazon were seconds as they were about $30 less expensive than the same sets from online yarn shops. Amazon agreed to allow me to return them and refund my money. I ordered a new set from a well know national yarn store and now must await their delivery. I can work on one of the three projects I had on needles using a wooden circular needle I had on hand.

    This has provided more time to spin on my spindles. My two favorites are a pair of Wrens, turkish spindles by Ed Jenkins. One is cherry, the other Osage orange. The Cherry one has a substantial cop of plied silver Shetland wool, the Osage orange had just been removed from the smaller cop of dark gray Shetland wool that was a sample that came with the spindle.

    Lately, I have spent much more time with the spindles than with my wheel. I spun a braid that was about 4.5 ounces on the wheel while I was at the retreat two weekends ago, but this is the production on the spindles, plus another mini skein of the silver Shetland that must be in hiding tonight.

    Everything here were samples that came with spindles or with fiber purchased from independent shops, except the silver Shetland. I am working my way through a pound of it. It is delightful to spin, especially on the spindles.

    I had made good progress on getting through my stash of fiber before I went away. I scoured some Cotswold and brought it home, carded some Jacob that I had previously scoured. Then at spinning last week, one of the spinners brought a huge bag of various fibers that she wanted out of her house, FREE. I came home with two of her offerings. I will continue on the spindles, but some time needs to be spent on the wheel or I will run out of places to store my wools.

  • Precision

    I enjoy spinning on my wheel. It is more production as I can fill a bobbin, ply and make a skein of yarn in a few hours. I started spinning less than a decade ago on a drop spindle. The instructor was excellent, though the class was brief. She brought many different wools for us to experiment with and I was quickly hooked on the process and though I moved on to the wheel after a couple of years, I still find a great deal of joy in making yarn using a spindle. The process is much slower, I find it very relaxing and I love the portability. The soothing precision on the Turkish spindle of the winding on of the cop, a God’s Eye pattern that creates a center pull ball that can be plyed on itself, or the cone on a top or bottom whorl drop spindle is. That one has to be wound off or two spindles worth of singles plyed off onto a third spindle or onto a bobbin on the wheel.

    I will never use or get rid of my first skein of drop spindle spun yarn. It is thick and lumpy, a sample of about 4 different wools.

    When I spin on my wheel, my yarn is now consistent and fingering weight or dk weight unless I really work at making a thicker worsted or aran weight yarn. On my spindles, the yarn is generally much finer, lace to light fingering weight and very consistent.

    Both of these spindles have silver Shetland being spun on them. There is a pound of it and a half pound of white. Already spun on my wheel is a skein of light fingering weight pale gray Shetland. I am hoping to spin all of the silver and the white on spindles and have enough for a Shetland shawl. With two Turkish spindles and two top whorl spindles, I can spin quite a bit before it needs to be plied and the plying will probably be done on the wheel working to fill a couple of bobbins.

    The cop on the Turkish spindle is the yarn that I have spun today when there was time to sit and spin.

  • A Sucker Born…

    A few weeks ago, I began a destash of some fiber tools, mostly spindles I didn’t use. I own a 2018 Jenkins Aegean Turkish Spindle and a new Golding 3″ ring spindle and I use both. They travel well, pack nicely, and allow me to spin whenever I feel the urge. I am currently working on a pound and a quarter of Shetland that I want all drop spindle spun to knit a shawl.

    Today I went to our spinning group. One of my friends has sent out an email that she was bringing spindles and weaving yarns to spinning, some she was giving away, some she was selling to destash. She had a 2012 Jenkins Delight Turkish Spindle (they are discontinued) and two Golding ring spindles. One of them was another 3″, a Celtic design and the other a 2 3/4″ with a cut out flower. She had another Turkish spindle, several heavier top and bottom whorl plain wooden one, several 3D printed ones. I couldn’t resist. I bought the Jenkins and the smaller Golding, so now I’m back to 4 spindles that will get used. She gave me a 3D printed one for kids to use and they will join the wagon wheel ones I make for kids.

    At least these are ones I will use regularly and they don’t take up much room. They are spindles that hold their value as well. But enough is enough, I must stop.

  • Wheel Wobble

    Yesterday when my friend was using my Kromski Prelude, I noticed the wheel was wobbling a bit and as I watched, I realized that the drive wheel supports were both a tad loose. I have two Allen wrench sets in my tool box, one metric, one American standard. Since the Kromski is Polish made, I brought in the metric set, which is missing the 3 mm size. I feared that the Allen head screws were 3 mm, but got lucky, they were 4 mm. Now the set is missing two sizes because I put the 4 mm one in my wheel repair kit. Hopefully if I need it elsewhere, I will remember where it is. The design of the wheel makes it very difficult to get to those two screws and I feared I was going to have to remove two legs to tighten them. That would have been a hassle as the treadle and its connected footman are attached to one of the legs. With some difficulty and the short end of the Allen wrench, I managed to get them tight and the wobble is gone.

    As I was so enamored with my new spindle, I continued working with it last night until the entire fiber sample was spun. Then I hand wound it off the spindle into a tiny center pull ball and plyed it on itself. It was such a tiny amount, that it produced only 24 yards of light fingering weight yarn.

    With the 73 yards spun on the Jenkins Turk recently, if I can find a good coordinating fiber to spin, I will use those two as garter ridges in a hat.

    Tonight, I am spinning on the wheel, some Coopworth and Alpaca roving, and on the new spindle, I have some silver Shetland. I want to finish the fiber on the wheel, there is very little left, but the bobbin is getting full, so I may be playing chicken with the bobbin. When I leave for my fiber retreat weekend next Thursday, I want to leave with empty bobbins and some fun fibers to spin. I have one colorful BFL braid, two others at least 4 ounces and a 2 ounce due in the mail, hopefully to arrive before I leave.

    I also need to make some lip balm that has been requested by friends prior to my leaving. Hopefully, the bobbins will be emptied, the lip balm made and I will concentrate on knitting the Close to You mini shawl and the strandwork hat both on the needles and spin on the spindles until I leave.

  • A New Treasure

    I knit because I make yarn, but given the opportunity to just sell the yarn I make, I would just spin.

    Today, a friend that I started on spinning about a year ago came over with a bag of gorgeous Leicester Longwool lamb roving, and an entire Leicester Longwool lamb fleece in the raw. After she started spinning with a drop spindle I gave her, then a Turkish spindle I sold her, she bought several more spindles on her own, and then the travel wheel that I had tried her on. I had gotten a small Saxony wheel made by Kromski and previously owned by a good friend who passed away. The little Saxony is one I can take to retreats and to costumed demonstrations and the travel wheel was not being used. She has become quite a good spinner, but is having some difficulty with the travel wheel due to it’s size. She came over to discuss how to clean raw wool, to try my Kromski to see if it might be a wheel for her to seek out, and a lesson in using wool combs. We had a very nice afternoon playing with fiber and broadening her scope a bit.

    After she left, I anxiously dashed up to the mailbox as I was awaiting my newest spinning treasure, a Golding spindle that with it’s dark wood and black ring will be one I can take to demonstrations. Each Golding comes with a small sample of wool usually from Inglenook Fibers. I had just ordered some fiber from them and looked at the colorway that was sent as a sample. If I had just waited a few days, I not only would have bought that colorway, but would have gotten a discount from them. Maybe if I sell another pair of fingerless mitts or a hat, I will return to their online shop and purchase more of it.

    This spindle spins forever. I love my little Jenkins Turkish spindle, it is fun to use and to ply from but very limited in amount it will hold, but the Goldings are primo.

  • Olio-9/4/2019

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    Some weeks are spent in the kitchen, others doing fibery crafts.

    About a week ago, I left for a fiber retreat in the south west part of the North Carolina mountains. The venue was delightful, as was the company of the friends that gathered. It began a week that has been devoted to fibery crafts. For the retreat, I had packed plenty of fiber to keep me busy spinning, but half way through the first day, I got bored with the natural colors that I generally spin and indulged in a grab bag of sunshine yellow and heirloom tomato red Romney wool. The idea was to work a gradient beginning with the yellow, but as I pulled it out of the bag, I realized that though they looked lovely together in the bag, they would not gradient, so the slightly more than 3 ounces was spun separately and it plyed up finer than I had hoped for as I wanted to weave a shawl with the 8 ounce grab bag. Once home Sunday afternoon, I began on the red using a long draw technique and got 4.9 ounces of yarn heavy enough to weave, but not enough yardage.

    At the retreat, we do door prizes and have a dirty Santa exchange and in the exchange, I got a 4ish ounce bag of Pohlworth that I realized was very compatible with the Romney.

    It was spun yesterday, plyed this morning and though I haven’t measured it off the bobbin yet, it is 4.2 ounces or similar weight long draw spun yarn.

    This day is too hot to garden or cook anything more than a stir fry this evening, so the morning was spent playing with other fibers as well. The last of the Santa Cruz wool was washed and rinsed for a 4th time and set to dry on the deck. It is so full of vegetable matter, mostly feed or weed seed that I may never get it prepped to spin.

    Before I left for the retreat, I realized that a lovely little Jacob raw fleece that I had improperly stored had several moths in it. Hoping to save it, I put it in a black garbage bag and threw it in the deep freezer. This morning, I removed it and hung the black bag in my closed car. It is supposed to get up into the 90’s today which in the superheated car should kill off any eggs that may have been layed. The freezer should have killed any moths and larva. After it has had a couple of days in the car, I will open it and examine it for damage and wash it if I caught it in time to save it.

    Though today is stifling hot, there are signs of autumn, some of the early changing trees and scrub coloring, the Autumn Joy turning pink.

    At the retreat, I took a class in Rigid Heddle weaving. It is not new to me, but looked like fun. The instructor had prewarped the looms with white cotton and I grabbed a skein of Aran weight Acrylic to use as my weft. We made two mug rugs in class and after. I failed to leave enough space between my two to get good fringe, so did rough easy to remove knots until I got home. Last night I sat and hem stitched the edges after removing my temporary knots, and evened the fringe on them.

    A gal never has too many spindles so about 10 days ago, I ordered a Jeri Brock Turkish spindle. It came today and is cute with it’s laser cut out. It is a bit stockier and more substantial than my Jenkins and looks like because the shaft is heavier, it might be better to carry in my bag with a bit of fiber to spin and save the more delicate Jenkins for home or when it can be securely packed in the middle of a suitcase along with my Snyder turk that I use for plying. When traveling not to a retreat or demonstrating event, I always have a spindle or two so I can still spin.

    My Facebook memory of today was jars and jars of tomato sauce canned and cooling on the counter. Not this year, the tomatoes failed early and the bed sits idle. I’m still toying with buying a 25 pound box when the weather cools again and getting at least a pot of spaghetti sauce cooked down. The cost is about the same as buying the Organic store brand at the local grocer, but then I would have to “doctor” it up. Indecision.