auntiemichal...

It was a good party.

2009-08-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

A spinning bud of mine had a micro booth at the Sock Summit, and I was a helper there and, for a shift, at SS registration. Both gave me an excuse to hang out at the biggest sock party in recent memory. It was a good party.

The biggest event for me was helping set the record for most knitters knitting simultaneously. I heard there were 935 or so of us knitting away; I worked on a dishcloth as circular and sock needles were banned. It was great fun, and I met some people from all over.

After all the shopping (see below), volunteering, and most of the booth responsibilities, the Luminary Panel was calming (a couple of hours knitting!) and enjoyable. Hearing peoples memories of Elizabeth Zimmermann (my knitting hero for many years), the backgrounds and anecdotes of nine Super Knitters, and Stephanie and Tina in their several roles (thanks givers, emcees, panel moderators) was worth the ticket.

While managing not to spend my whole August budget on yarn, I did buy some yarn and two knitting tools: a Susan Bates Handi Tool, (combines a crochet hook, US 3 knitting needle, cable needle in one) and a 9-inch US1/2.25mm HiyaHiya bamboo circular needle (you can shop around and find it for less; I paid $6).

The yarn I got, well let's just say that several vendors had bargain bins! I got three balls of Meilenweit for an average of $6.65: Mega Boot Stretch color 710, Fun & Stripes 633, and Multiringel 5050.

Then there was the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. I found a Socks that Rock Heavyweight Mill End skein of Treehugger.

But my favorite skeins were two from Lollipop Cabin. They're a Merino-free blend of four sturdy wools spun as singles by a local mill and hand-dyed by the proprietress who is Ialiuxh on Ravelry. The first skein (already on the needles!) is shades of black and blue with a few flashes of almost-white), and the second is similar to the STR Treehugger; funny that I didn't notice it until now! This yarn reminds me of the Kumo'Socki I bought in Klamath Falls in 2006; both pair are going strong.

Later, gators!

New yarn for old film

2009-03-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I was reading blogs, and Yarn Zombie put out an offer to trade fiber from her shop for old Polaroid film. Yes! My 4 packs of 10-year-old film flew off to Ohio, and this beautiful yarn flew here:

Mmm skeins, indeed. The whole process started Thursday and we both got our packages on Monday. Yay USPS priority mail. Trading is good; unwanted items stay out of the landfill, and it's thrifty besides.

Recently I bought a compact digital camera and made my first video:

We'll just pretend I used a tripod and that you can't see my reflection. LOL

Sock Needle Storage

2009-01-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

As part of a recent effort to gather most/all my knitting and crocheting tools in one piece of furniture that I could park next to one of my knitting spots for easy, fast access, I collected my sock needles and sorted them by size in plastic tubes provided by a Scrabble friend.

My P-touch made nice labels with both US and metric sizes. To the right of the tubes you can see my traditional needle gauge and the digital caliper (less than $15 at Harbor Freight) that I use to get more accurate measurements. I've never claimed not to be obsessive about some things. Plus, I like tools.

My larger-sized DPNs are still in the roll-up I made some time ago.

Holiday Knitting: Done at Last!

2009-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Louise's Christmas present, this pair of (size 11!) socks, is complete, presented, and modeled for the blog. Knit from Lion Brand Sock-Ease in the Taffy colorway on size 0 US/2mm DPNs, the pattern is the Yarn Harlot's basic recipe with two additions: an extra long heel flap to accommodate Louise's high arches and 2x2 ribbing everywhere except the sole for good fit. The heel flaps are about 3/4 inches taller than my usual square flap, making the gussets extra deep.

Here they are in her clogs. Her pants aren't high-water; she's holding the legs up so you can see the socks. LOL

Mattie was very interested in the new socks; she loves wool, especially if there's a squeaker inside. I admit to making her some wool squeaker toys out of failed felting projects and from heavy wool fabric. They're guaranteed to please!

Speaking of Mattie, she and I have a game we play in which she earns treats by begging, "talking", barking, and rolling over. Yesterday I got her to roll over a total of 13 times, 4 per treat and one extra. Once she figured out there wasn't a treat in my hand, she wouldn't do any more. She's not stupid!

Yarny and White Christmas

2008-12-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

See the blue recycle and tan yard debris cans? They're about 3.75 feet high. Here in Portland, we had a record amount of snow lately; as reported here:

The National Weather Service says the winter wallop that dealt the Portland area nearly 19 inches of snow in the last two weeks has by one measurement made December the snowiest month since January 1950 in a city more noted for winter rain. Based on the snowfall at Portland International Airport, meteorologist Charles Dalton said, the winter weather also gave the city its snowiest Christmas at least since 1940, when the agency began recording precipitation levels there.

The mythic desirable white Christmas was ours. Many Portlanders postponed gatherings to the weekend when major streets were clearer and safer. My brother's 4WD with studded snow tires got us to our family's gathering on the day itself. Here's what Powell Blvd looked like after repeated plowing and sanding. Sidewalks were often buried and pedestrians walked in the streets.

Here's a picture of my grandnephews and grandniece wearing the slipper-socks I knit for them from superwash wool. They were more interested in their new toys, but I'm hoping the slippers will be used and appreciated.

I don't get to see the kids often, so grandniece and I took the opportunity to do some finger knitting. That's grandpa, who was wearing the socks I made for him, napping on the sofa next to us.

My sister, who wore her felted clogs, gifted me with some Patons Kroy Sock Yarn and a gift certificate; I'd mentioned buying some sock yarn at Jo-Ann last week and she'd sounded unenthused at the time, but I understand why now. LOL The color she picked for me was the color I'd have picked if I'd bought one more pair of skeins, so it worked out perfectly.

In which I become a game

2008-12-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

I ran across this at knitnut.net and had to see if I was Scrabble, too. Yes, with reservations (added below in blue).

You Are Scrabble

You are incredibly clever and witty. You can talk your way out of (and into) situations easily. NOT You are an excellent decision maker. NOT You are good at weighing the options in front of you. You're the type of person who can make something out of nothing. You are very resourceful. You know a lot of things. Most importantly, you know when people are wrong - even when they won't admit it. NOT

What Board Game Are You?

On the knitting and holiday fronts, I'm moving at glacial speeds. I have 2/3 of the kids' 3 pair of slipper socks to knit and about 5/6 of a pair of big adult socks (toe-up Jaywalkers of Sockease) to go. I'd show you, but my brother has my camera for a few days. He's selling Dad's excess cable chains on Craigslist; they're hot sellers just now due to the snow and predicted freezing rain in our area. We might even have a White Christmas which sounds romantic and traditional but just makes the travel between homes problematic!

"A" My Name is "." My Husband's Name is "."

2008-12-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

Recently one of "my" bloggers posted 10 things she loved starting with the letter B and I opted to be tagged, winding up with the letter A.

First off, I thought of the alphabet jump rope rhyme that goes

A my name is Alice My husband's name is Al We live in Atlanta And we sell Apples B my name is Betty My husband's name is Bob We live in Boston And we sell Beans

The rhyme continues through the alphabet and was quite fun to jump to.

So 10 things I like that start with A:

Apple chopped up with celery, walnuts and cottage cheese or yogurt is a favorite meal. It's a variation of Waldorf Salad, something my grandmother made for Christmas Dinner (and others) every year.

Adhesive of various types is a necessity. Except when its remnants are stuck to my skin! One of my favorite adhesives is silicone.

Arse the word, not the thing. Stephanie, The Yarn Harlot, use this word and it cracks (ha ha) me up enormously.

Antigravity is a regular feature in Science Fiction stories, but beware that the mass is still there and can cause damage!

The A tile in Scrabble, drawn to determine who plays first, is beat only by the Blank tile. Drawing it ensures that my first word gets double points, a good thing indeed. On the other hand, the one who starts has to keep score!

Almonds are one of my staple foods. Tasty, full of mono-saturated fat, protein, and a few carbs, I eat them whole or chopped every day, often with cottage cheese and fruit, always in hot multigrain cereal, or any time I need to add a little good fat to a meal. I buy them whole at Trader Joe's and use my hand-cranked nut chopper as needed.

Alpacas are a favorite animal because they produce such soft fiber for spinning, knitting, and so on.

Air is my favorite mixture of gasses, though I admit to not thinking about it often. I'm starting to run out of ideas here! Do I have 10 yet? Only eight? OK. Two more. Where's the dictionary? LOL

Alligator, as in "See you later, alligator." If you get C, you can use "crocodile."

Arithmetic! It's so clear cut, black and white, with easy rules. Completely unlike history, literature, or philosophy. But let's not extend my favor too far into trigonometry or calculus!

If you'd like to play, let me know and I'll send you a random letter of the alphabet.

When life gives you scraps, make quilts

2008-12-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

It's like "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade." My aunt had lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees in her SoCal yard, so they weren't the bad things the homily would suggest. Neither are scraps if you're fortunate to have the skill or inclination to use them.

Well, I've recently been handed a lot of sour bits and pieces.

A close friend's cancer metastasized. An in-law's cancer is more resistant to treatment than previously. One of my nephews isn't coming to Christmas this year. I got another diagnosis that requires permanent lifestyle changes to help ensure an active life; this follows a probably-unrelated diagnosis 11 months ago. Let's not get into talking about "fair."

One of the Lemonade Quilt designs I've discovered is to think about possible positive outcomes and reminders to cherish what's good now.

The recent diagnosis is a very strong incentive to create a healthy lifestyle for myself. It has immediate numerical feedback and some dire consequences to avoid. I can do this.

The several-day hospital stay that just ended (in itself a set of scraps of a totally new color that will hopefully become a nice quilt in a couple of months) produced another sour fruit: the night nurse spotted a probable sleep disorder. It's treatable and treatment would likely result in more energy and clarity.

All of these sour scraps are scary yet at the same time provide some opportunities.

And did you know that the phlebotomists use a new giant rubber band on each patient to prevent spreading germs? I brought home a couple of mine to open jars, pull needles, stop skids, etc. They're a less bulky and more useful memento than the pink plastic tub and curved vomit basin, for sure.

Better now than then

2008-11-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

It used to be that people paid me to write. Paying attention to grammar, as well as other aspects of producing publications, was important; remnants are still lodged in my brain!

Recently I've been noticing the words "then" and "than" being misused frequently by people who ought to know better.

THAN is a conjunction that connects two things being compared. Turquoise is bluer than red. Barack is taller than John. Cinder has more fur than Jumper. This might be more than you want to think about.

THEN is an adverb of time or order. That was then, this is now. What did he do then? Jim burped first, then Nancy chimed in. When you get these two words straight, then what?

If you're interested in reading more about using these two words, this Google search is a good place to start.

Other often confused sets of words are its|it's|its', insure|ensure, and affect|effect. Washington State University hosts a set of pages clarifying the use of hundreds of words. Book and calendar versions are also available.

Multitasking

2008-11-10T13:13:00.000-08:00

Recently I got a vintage Schwinn exercise bike and rediscovered that time slows incredibly when watching the timer, even with the radio on. So I built and installed a simple book shelf for the handle bars.

The scrap of plywood is bolted to two smallish L braces which in turn are clamped to the handle bars with hose clamps. It's easy and requires no permanent modifications that might degrade the bike's collectability. LOL Just kidding; you can barely give these things away anymore.

Scrap of rubbery drawer liner keeps my book from sliding off. Now I can read and pedal until either 1) the timer sounds or 2) my rear goes numb. When it's the second event (which it usually is now that I'm building up a tiny bit of stamina), I get off the bike, march around for a minute, and get back on.

I'm exploring options and experimenting with available materials to prevent NBS (Numb Butt Syndrome). I'll report if I find a solution that doesn't involve temporary dismounts!

Balls of yarn: you're doing it different

2008-11-03T12:55:00.001-08:00

Socks, socks, socks, and slippers

2008-10-29T15:06:00.001-07:00

These are my 9th pair of socks, knit with Stahl sche Wolle Socka Color yarn purchased about 20 years ago for gloves never knitted.

I used Wendy's toe-up, short-row heel pattern. They're excellent with blue or black jeans and my Birkenstocks. These next two pair are now in the possession of my sister and BIL. Knit from the purple & gray Opal Batik previously blogged, they came out well and please their new owners. They look a little sick against the gold-ish carpet. This is a better representation.

Lurking behind socks numbered 10 and 11 are these felted clogs knitted for my sister. She and the green fuzzy feet never got along well but she wouldn't give them back so I could wear them! The solution was a trade: new slip-ons with non-slip soles for the fuzzy feet. We're both happy.

They already have a crumb on them!

The suede sole didn't require any "special" tools. I used a hammer, nail, ruler, and block of wood to punch holes at half-inch intervals around both soles "pinned" together with binder clips. Both just barely fit on one rectangle of Tandy Suede Trim Piece #4040 purchased at Joann because we have small feet (5.5 US).

The difficult part was getting them sewn onto the clogs; the threaded metal tapestry needle got stuck in the felted fabric; I ended up using pliers with taped jaws to pull the needle through. Here you can see the stitching.

The pattern is Fiber Trends Felt Clogs (AC-33), an oldie-but-goodie I hadn't tried before. It's a keeper!

Fall vegetables

2008-10-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

My tomatoes are finally ripening. I made turkey chili the other day, using tomatoes and baby zucchinni from my washtub garden. It was and continues to be yummy! It made enough that I had to freeze half of it.

It's hard to make out the tomatoes against the V8 juice. Also in there is a pound of browned ground turkey breast, celery, and onion. To be added shortly are black beans, pink beans, chili powder, and much later a splash of vinegar.

Also in vegetable news is this dirty carrot that blogless Louise grew and decided to share with me and, via the internet, you:

One part is perfect, anyway

2008-10-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

AskTheBellwether's Fiber Mine listed this site for testing one's visual acuity hue-wise. Sounds like a fun way to put off doing something really important, right? LOL

The test looks like this:

Click it to go take the test if you want to. My results surprised the heck out of me:

Perfect!

I've been trying to be perfect my whole life, and now I have achieved a small measure of perfection. Maybe I can stop trying so hard now.

A shocking cautionary tale

2008-10-23T14:05:00.001-07:00

Mondays are washday. While I was folding and hanging clothes out of the dryer, it bit me! See?

When I put a new belt in the dryer last year, I didn't make sure a cluster of wires was tucked away properly. When the drum rotated, it rubbed a wire, eventually wearing through the insulation, electrifying the drum. When my watch brushed the drum and the body as I pulled out some clothes, the circuit was complete and I was shocked. Fortunately only by 109 volts (as measured later). The temporary tattoo of soot is possibly from vaporized plating from my watchband.

This picture is from a few days later. You can see where the watchband links branded me.

BTW, it's almost as hard to photograph your wrist your feet! And that's a close as we get to knitting today. LOL

After I unplugged the dryer, took a few pictures for the blog, checked with the advice nurse, and quit shaking (in that order!), I called my brother who has more electrical experience than I do, and he came over and we fixed the dryer. He only told me twenty-zillion times that I could have fixed it myself, and he's right, but I was a little afraid of the dryer, even unplugged.

The moral of this cautionary tale? When you put electrical things back together, make sure the wires are away from moving parts.

OFF Goodies, Socks, & Mystic Earth Scarf

2008-10-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

Oh, my! That's a lot to blog about. Louise and I went to the Oregon Flock & Fiber festival Saturday; the weather was prime with the breeze augmented by thousands of spinning wheels in use. Well, maybe not thousands, but a lot. LOL I've been dithering about buying hand cards and finally bought these Ashford Wool Cards:

And Superior Fibers was selling Alpaca blend "craft batts" for only $1.50 an ounce, so I got this 7.5 ounce pastel colors wonder. It's very soft!

This blue Colonial Wool from Fantasy Fibers came home with me, too.

Altogether very satisfying S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement eXercise)!

As far as actually using some of the stash goes, I've been knitting "fraternal" socks for my sister and brother-in-law. Her's were easy as our feet are pretty close in size; his not so much. I got his shoe size and looked up size to inches charts. I also decided to do 2x2 ribbing to ensure a good fit around. Here are the 1.75 pair:

The yarn is Opal Batik previously mentioned here. Last night I started a Mystic Earth Lace Scarf (a subset of the Stole); it's a KAL with 4 clues in 4 weeks. Here's the bottom border with the body stitches picked up. Those vintage plastic needles are very light and contrast well with the yarn.

I'm using Knit Pics Bare 70% Merino, 30% Silk fingering weight. I'm hoping 440 yards will be enough! The scarf is 1/3 the width of the stole, and the stole takes under 1100 yards, so I have 73 yards' leeway. It will be difficult knitting with my fingers crossed!

Online Retailer Blames Knitting for Moon Boycott

2008-09-11T16:14:00.000-07:00

Woot, the one-item-one-day-except-during-Wootoffs retailer, blogged this afternoon with 12 reasons why we haven't gone back to the moon. LOL

Surge Protectors Serge Cleaning Cloths

2008-09-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

Paper towels last a long time at my house (a couple of years, at least, per roll) because I use these 99.9% of the time:

Those are well used, fraying towels cut down to approximately washcloth size. The edges won't fray because I do the cutting and hemming on a serger. The advantage to this size is that dish rags, washcloths, and my cleaning cloths fit this handy cleaning tool...

...purchased at a thrift store. No disposable Swiffer cloth has never crossed my threshold. If you noticed all the dangling thread chains, well spotted. The last two steps in cleaning cloth creation are dabbing on Fray Chek to lock the threads, and after that's dry, cutting the threads off.

Some of the cloths are much smaller—as small as 3x5 inches—because I had to work around holes or tears. These mini rags are also handy; one resides with my spinning wheel.

I see a number of other knitting bloggers post about knitting swiffer cloths, but I bet if they had a serger they'd be using it this way, too! Here are more swiffer options that Google revealed.
My cleaning cloths collection does include several old knitted dishcloths which do fit my swiffer and do a great job.

Cheerios for now!

Much closer

2008-08-02T17:42:00.001-07:00

See this?

That's two bobbins full of 2-ply Sunset. The bobbins in the basket held 2 ounces each of the singles. The left one is empty (what you see is red leader cord), and the right one is so close to empty they're almost a perfect match! I did divide the batts evenly by weight, and this tells me that my spinning was relatively consistent between the two halves.

For you Babe spinners, I discovered that I could ply faster by putting the drive band on the "hub cap" instead of the usual place. It stayed in place pretty well, but I had to leave the brake unfastened to keep it from slipping under tension. Has anyone carved a drive band groove into the axel? I've got this dremel-type tool....

Next I'll skein, count, and wash them. Then I'll do some math. Keep your fingerings crossed for socks!

Oh, did you see yet that sign-ups for Mystery Stole 4 are open?

It wasn't horse shoes

2008-07-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

I came close, but not close enough, to finishing spinning the Giant Batt goal and winning a yellow shirt. Using my nifty index card progress system, I got to 43/16ths. The goal was 48/16ths, so I "won" a red shirt. Kind of like winning green ribbons in 4-H. LOL!

Currently on the bobbin is 1 ounce of plied Sunset spun from the fold. Currently in the Kate are 3 ounces ditto. I found out in the wee hours of this morning that it takes a LOT longer to ply fine singles! And look at the striping on the singles turning into Trek-like yarn!

And previously un-posted, the finished 3rd quarter:

Sport weight (on average!) Sunset spun long draw with the many colors blending as they came into the drafting triangle. Very soft and squishy. There's 292 yards of beeyoutiful yarn showing off in my Russian Sage. I understand now why spinners talk about keeping some yarns nearby for cuddling.

Change of Command—oops!—Plan

2008-07-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

I *am* reading Elizabeth Moon's Change of Command (again), but that's not what this post is about! My goal for Le Tour de Fleece is changing slightly because of this:

That's the skein of long-draw Cheviot last seen on the bobbin here. It's Navajo-plied and 1 3/8 ounces of overspun unevenness destined for pet toys, felting, or rugs. The bobbin is spun much more evenly, but still has numerous lumps from what I've determined are second cuts in the batt. Grrrr. There's not enough of me to go around to hand-card or comb the remaining 8 ounces of the Giant Batt and spin it for Le Tour de Fleece, so I'm changing my goal slightly.

That's 1 1/2 ounces spun of this fiber I bought a few months ago. It spins so much faster! It's more beautiful! It has about 1% of the lumps and VM as the Giant Batt! I am in love and want to get more of this fiber at Oregon Flock and Fiber in September.

The quantity of fiber part of my goal is still the same: a pound. It'll just be different fiber for the second half. It's not cheating but a replacement part, like a new tire. LOL

In garden news, my tomato plant is blooming:

As are the lemon cucumbers:

Ta Ta for now!

Learning to spin from videos

2008-07-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Learning to spin (and card, comb, scour, ply, finish, etc) on my own involves using freely available resources from the library and the web. The latter has revealed (after much watching of pointless productions) several series of helpful spinning (and etc.) videos on YouTube.

The first videos I found were by Abby Franquemont (whose blog I enjoy) here.

Sue Macniven has several very good videos, too.

Amanda Hannaford has a great video on long draw plus others.

Rexenne, whose current primary interest is growing mushrooms, produced enthusiastic and informative fibery videos found here.

Do you have any favorite spinning videos? Post them in the comments please!

In Tour de Fleece news, yesterday's efforts produce another ounce of long-drawn single, so the bobbin is nearly full. I'm undecided about a plying method. For fun, here's Rexenne's Navajo Plying video:

Updates: Just found this tutorial and video on corespinning via Fiber Mine. Now I have to research what corespun yarn is good for!

You'd think a giant batt of white would be boring.

2008-07-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

And maybe it is. The Yarn Harlot is blogging about the possibility of boring her readers with all spinning all the time. IMO, not a chance. Here's the completed first quarter of my giant batt, posing without sunglasses in the bamboo bush.

Four ounces, 286 yards, Navajo/chained ply, 20-year-old Cheviot fleece raised in Southern Oregon. No, the sheep isn't 20; it was shorn and carded two decades ago.

Navajo/chained ply was chosen so I could practice the technique more; it's actually fun and fast to do, but requires more attention, dexterity, and fiddling than "standard" plying. The yarn would have turned out a light sport weight or heavy fingering with 50% more yardage (429 yards) plied with two singles.

Here's a picture in the shade so you can see more of its slightly overweight sport (or underweight DK) goodness.

One thing about spinning such old batts is that the carding oil had changed for the worse. The possibility occurred to me while flipping through a spinning book and finding a recipe for carding oil and the recommendation to spin it promptly. Hmm. So the second quarter of the Giant Battquickish trip through detergent and hot water, followed by a fabric-softened rinse. The noils and neps and snarls (oh, my!) that pestered me before are mostly not happening so far in this clean and soft quarter batt, which I'm practicing long draw on. Here's the first ounce.

The really thick parts are mercifully buried under the thinner parts! There's also more vegetation in this as it didn't have a chance to fall out during drafting or pre-drafting because I didn't do any! LOL Instead, I tore a chunk of batt off, shook and fluffed it, and started spinning.

Thanks for dropping by!

Flyer Fancies

2008-07-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Here's my spinning from last night. It's one of the balls of drafted giant batt plus a little of the second one. See the odd hooks by the pink asterisk?

This is what comes of being a self-taught spinner. The offset placement of the hooks seemed really strange to me and it bugged me that the bobbin didn't fill up on the end. So I added a hook. I moved the "real" hook to a newly drilled hole at the very tip and put a small brass one in the original hole. A few days later, I happened on a spinning post (3/2/2008 by the green/yellow-filled bobbins) about how you can use ALL the hooks to fill the bobbin more compactly. Duh. I thought that the ones on the right for Z-twist (spinning singles) and the ones on the left for S (plying). Nope. Not at all. Now I'm spinning using all my hooks.

This cheviott giant batt is, no surprise, behaving differently than the few other fibers I've spun. If I'm not careful, drafting introduces neps/noils/tangles that make lumps in the yarn. Also, since I'm doing a modified short/worsted draw (which is what I know how to do, sorta), I was sliding my pinched fingers along the yarn as I let the twist in. Well I stopped that because it made more tangles. Currently I'm just letting go and letting the twist travel up to my drafting hand which pinches of the undrafted part of the roving. The results are much more like real yarn!

After worrying a little about actually meeting my goal, I made up a schedule/progress tracker on an index card. After some math, drawing, writing and smudging of gel ink LOL, here it is:

Each remaining day has a 4-lined rectangle with day/date/total-to-date, fraction prepped, fraction spun, and fraction finished. I need to complete 48/16ths of the giant batt to meet my goal! I'm including plying in finishing because it goes pretty fast compared to spinning. And my card didn't have room for 5 lines per day!

A little math reveals I have 3/16 complete (2/16 predrafting, 1/16 spinning) and, on average 2.5/16 per day to go. The daily goal is on pencil on the sticky flag so I can update it and move it as needed.

Oh, and yesterday I ordered two spinning books: A Fine Fleece (and dye and yarn) at KnitPick's book sale and Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning at Interweave's Hurt Book Sale. Next I want to order a plying flyer and bobbins for my Babe wheel, but not today!

First day of LeTour de Fleece

2008-07-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

The first day of the TDF resulted in a pretty cloud! There's two balls of pre-drafted cheviot, 28 and 32 grams, a third ball just started, and a strip of roving that supposed to be 1/16th of the giant batt. We'll see what the total weight turns out to be. Maybe this is contest material? "Guess the weight of the batt." I'd have to have readers and a prize first!

The fiber has a fair amount of VM, though opinions probably vary based on experience and perfectionist tendencies. I was able to shake or pick out much of what didn't fall out while drafting, though I'm sure some migrated back or never left in the first place.

Onward!