Maia Spins

Last Minute

You know how you can get busy and neglect to do things?  Important things.  Yes, that is me raising my hand.  I don't mean blogging (as much as I love you all).  I am neglecting to tell you about Tactile events.

Color: A Fiber Festival
Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California
Saturday April 26, 2008
10am - 6pm

Tactile will be there with A Verb for Keeping Warm, Pigeonroof Studios, and Girl on the Rocks.  We will have drop spindle classes, fiber tastings, and lots of space to hang out and spin or knit with a view.  The weather is promising to be nice.  Bring your wheel or spindle, or knitting, bring a friend, we look forward to seeing you there.

We will also be vendors at the Conference of California Handweavers (CNCH) in Sacramento and Maker Faire in San Mateo next weekend.  Both events are Saturday and Sunday May 3 & 4, 2008.  We have teamed up with our good friend Kristine of A Verb for Keeping Warm again. 

Regular blogging will resume soon with tales of Louisiana and a blog contest.  I may have some knitting content too.

Austin in April

We left Denver for the second leg of our trip.  Austin.  After the arid climate of Denver, I really appreciate the moisture in Austin.  Thankfully, the temperature was in the perfect range of 70-80 degrees F.  It was mostly sunny with one day where we had thunderstorms.  Nothing is better than warm rain.  Well, warm rain when you aren't stuck outside.  Some cooler areas had golf ball to soft ball size hail.  I was happy to miss that!

Roger had a conference at the convention center downtown and I had my days to fill.  I discovered two things: cafes with wi-fi and Hill Country Weavers. 

Don't be fooled by the name, Hill Country Weavers (HCW) is mostly a knitter's yarn store.  And, oh what a yarn store it is! 

It is a converted house full to the brim with yarn.  I looked through every room a handful of times and probably still missed half of it.  The best part is the friendly staff.  This much helpfulness and generosity clearly starts at the top with Suzanne, the owner. 

And, Stella!  Stella is doing her part to make customers feel welcome.  It was nice to get a dog fix.  I am missing my Sammie-boy.

On Thursday, I stopped in to look around and found some lovely silk yarn from Habu for a shawl. 

I asked for a recommendation on where I could find a cafe with wireless.  What I got was a comfy sofa in the new hang-out at HCW called Knit Buzz.  It is created to build community among knitters.  Who doesn't love sitting around with other knitters?  Have I mentioned how friendly Texans are?

That evening, Roger and I went to a local bar, Rio Rita, that has been converted from a biker bar to a crafty/scrabble crowd (funny story from the Austin Statesman newspaper).  Thursday night is knitting night at Rio Rita.  We crashed a group of friendly local nighters and had some beer.  Afterward, a bit of research on the interwebs (love the new "experimental" search on Ravelry!) turned up the gorgeous Laminaria, the Estonian inspired shawl by Elizabeth Freeman in the current Knitty.  Gotta love the beer, bar, knitting, and free wi-fi combo! 

With a pattern in hand, I went back to HCW to show my meager progress and get another skein of yarn (I didn't have quite enough yardage).  I ended up in Knit Buzz again visiting with Suzanne, Stella, and a crowd of regulars there for the official opening of Knit Buzz on Saturday.  Wine, cupcakes, knitting, and socializing; I was feeling like family now.  This is the LYS of my dreams.  Too bad it is so far from home.

My Laminaria has had several starts.

The first showed my that the star pattern is asymmetrical. Can you see the vertical lines on the left and horizontal lines on the right?  Click on the picture (as always) to get a larger version.

My inner perfectionist was bugged, so I started over.  The modification for symmetry was to do the 3-into-3 star on the left panel by k3tog-tbl, yo, k3tog-tbl.  It is not perfectly symmetrical because of the twisted stitch, but also not terribly noticeable in this yarn.

The next chart perplexed me because the stitch count once it is completed is smaller than when it is started.  What to do?  Log in to Ravelry and look for a Laminaria group of course!  A reply from the pattern author taught me three things: the stitch count is correct, the pattern looks symmetrical once blocked, and it looks way better when knit at a loose gauge.  Was my gauge loose?  Nope.  I am on hold until I can find a yarn store in Southern Louisiana with Addi Turbos.

I have almost finished clue 2 of Mystic Light.  I'll have a picture of that in the next post. 

Meanwhile, here are some Texas wildflowers seen along the roadsides everywhere.  They are a part of the legacy of the late Lady Bird Johnson.

Bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas.

More from Colorado

Colorado is rich with fibery goodness!  On our last full day I got to visit Schacht Spindle Company in Boulder.  Besides being wonderful and friendly people, they make high quality spinning wheels and weaving looms.  I am happily owned by a Matchless double-treadle.  Since Tactile is a dealer, I thought it would be fun to take a tour of their facility.

Pictures kept small since there will be a lot in this post.  Click on any picture for a larger version.
A tall stack of wheels waiting to be sanded.

Partially built Matchless wheels.

Every spinning wheel is built by one of these two people. 

Hand cards waiting to be finished and have the carding cloth attached.

Gotta love a workshop with velvet Elvis painting!

I have a few more Schacht pictures on my Flickr.

We had a great time.  My inner nerd loves to see how things are made.  A big Thank you to Jane for showing Roger and I around.

Our next stop was Jefferson Ranch at the south end of Denver.  Jane has paco-vicuñas.  If you aren't familiar with these animals and their fiber, you should be.  Vicuñas are related to alpacas (and llamas).  They are endangered and not easily domesticated.  Paco-vicuñas (or P-V for short) are alpaca crosses that have many of the qualities of the vicuña while gaining a domesticated temperament and longer fiber length from the alpaca genes.  The fiber is very fine (can be 12-14 microns! which puts it in the same range as cashmere). 

The animals look very similar to alpaca, but with big soulful eyes.  Isn't she beautiful?

A P-V momma and her baby.

They are very curious animals and very tolerant of people walking among them.  In this picture you can get a better idea of their color range: white to fawn to chocolate brown.  All are beautiful.

Look at this fleece on one of her boys!  It is sooo soft, like a warm cloud.

Who can resist a cute baby? 

They have great personalities too.  Jane says they are smarter than dogs.  I believe her.  It is enough to make me move to the country and start a fiber farm. 

I took a lot of pictures.  More on my Fickr.

Lest you think it has all been about fiber, let me assure you that we sampled the local beverages.  I can strongly recommend the Milk Stout (on the nitrogen tap) from Left Hand Brewery.  Well crafted beers all around.  We sampled 6 (a sampler, not pints, we aren't total lushes) beers and didn't find a dud.

We can also recommend Redstone Meadery.  They make mead also known as honey wine.  These are also very well crafted.  The traditional is light, crisp, and very clean on the palate.  My personal favorite was the juniper.  I expected it to be like gin, but it was much more subtle with a bit of spiciness.

Finally, the best coffee in town is from Vic's.  Our favorite location was the one in Prospect.  Prospect is interesting too.  It is a housing development based on New Urbanist ideas.  The basic premise of New Urbanism is to integrate housing, retail, and a job base within the community.  Services and sometimes light rail are within walking distance and housing density is greatest near the town centers.  It makes for a very pleasant community.

Next stop is Austin, Texas!  Yee haw!!!

Fiber Fun in Boulder

The first leg of our vacation has had a lot of fiber.  Inspired by an article in Spin-Off Magazine (Fall 2007) by Anne Merrow, I have been exploring the Colorado Front Range area. 

I started with a stop at Woolen Treasures in Loveland.  It is a cute shop in a converted house.  My apologies for not having a picture of it to show you.  I did get a couple of skeins of Pagewood Farm's sock yarn.  I needed it for the Mystic Light shawl KAL. 
Here is my shawl after completing chart 1.  There will be five parts.  I am liking it so far, but now I need another project to work on until the next chart comes out on Wednesday.

It is hard to photograph without being able to pin out the lace.  It is a very pretty pattern edged with cables.  I love lace and cables together.

We went over to see Susan at Red Barn Fiber Processing.  She has yaks and llamas.  She processes her own fibers and those of other local farmers.  I had a hard time choosing from all the lovely fibers.
Soft mohair in a charcoal grey.  (I have a lot of pictures; I'm making them small.  Click on any image to see a larger version.)
Alpaca in a gorgeous, natural red brown color.
Yak!  I knew I had to have some.  It is not dehaired and has a bit of VM, but still pretty nice.
Llama in five colors.  I have a fun idea for this.

Her animals are so cute!

Llamas, these are her girls.

Sir Ocelot - one of her llama studs looking at the camera.  He has so much personality!

I love his coloring.

Yak!  They are big animals.  Not that you can really tell from this picture.  More pictures on my Flickr. 

Susan is moving to Nebraska very soon (within the month?).  I hope it goes smoothly!  She doesn't have a website, but you can reach her by email at redbarn1 @ juno.com (remove the spaces).

My next stop was the famous Shuttles, Spindles, & Skeins.  It is huge!  Knitting, spinning, weaving, whatever your fiber needs, they must have it.

They have a great selection of old issues of magazines.  I found a bunch of Spin-Offs that I wanted plus a few books.  (Don't remind me of the folly of traveling with so much paper.)  I am excited about the new book from Maggie Casey, Start Spinning.  A quick look at the book shows lots of pictures that show her methods clearly.

Then there was the Buffalo Gals Bison fiber.  Can you say delicious?

I hope you aren't sick of naturally colored fiber.  It seems to be my interest these days.  That and lace.  I haven't knit a sock in a while.  Call me streaky.

Still a bit more fiber fun from Colorado for the next post.

Traveling

Roger and I are going on vacation to Denver, Austin, an New Orleans!  I know there is fun fibery stuff to do in Boulder.  High on my list is visiting Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins.  I hear so many good things about it.  We understand Austin is in the heart of Texas' BBQ country.  Roger is excited about that.  And, New Orleans!  I am happy to do my part to return tourism to the city.

Got any suggestions for what we should do in any of these cities?

Project Round-up
The spinning and knitting energies have been rather fractured around here lately.  There is progress. 

I am almost done with the North Roë shawl, just a few more rows.

The rectangular stole from the Toots LeBlanc yarn is getting longer. 

I just weighed the remaining yarn to realize that I have knit more than half way.  Good news except that I started at the center back with a provisional cast-on.  I had made a guestimate on how far I could go on half that yarn based on a large swatch.  Must have made an error in my calculations.  It is on hold until I figure out how to deal with this turn of events.

The red and white roving got side-lined by a slipping drive band.  All I need to do is replace it.  Too easy.

I'm spinning some just red, some grey, and some combined.  It will be fun to see how it looks when plied.

What is my solution? 

Start something new.  What?  I need a simple travel project.  The yarn was on sale and intriguing.  A quick and dirty shawl is calling me.

Okay, it is not all stalled. 

My BFL sock yarn is done.  It will be my simple travel sock project.

It isn't my best spinning ever.  I like my handspun sock yarn spun firmly, this may be too firm.  Oh well.

Our fierce guard dog will be staying at home with Kay.

Somebody has to sniff the flowers.  Spring is here with a vengeance.

My apologies to those folks who still have snow.

Spin A Hat

I have been promising Roger a handspun hat for probably two years.  I have even started hats before.  One was from some yummy Polwarth Locks in various natural colors.  I wonder where that is?  How hard can it be to spin for and then knit a hat?  Really people, this is a small garment.  Granted, I had a mandate for a lightweight (read fingering weight) hat.  Still.

Obviously, I wouldn't be berating myself like this if I hadn't completed the task.  I'll start with the yarn. 

While dividing up roving to dye for Tactile, I end up with bits and pieces left over.  I had Camel-Silk (50/50), baby Camel, Merino-Yak (50/50), Yak, and a handful of mixed luxury fibers.  I hate waste, especially when the fibers are this wonderful.  The color (all natural as in how they came off the animal) range is white, tan, camel, and brown.  Sounds like a striped hat to me! 

I spun up about 3 oz of fiber.  To keep them separate, I used a small amount of a green roving in between each fiber.  Once it was all spun up I carried my wheel over to my ball winder and wound each fiber off into a separate center-pull ball.  I was ready to ply.

I wanted the stripes to be crisp rather than have the colors barber pole at the fiber (therefore color) changes.  How to do this?  Start with the first color.  I chose the brown.  Spin for a while ( my "while" ended up being 5-6 rows including the cast on).  Break one of the plies.  While holding that broken end, pull out about a foot of the other (still attached ply) and break it too.  Overlap the two broken ends and ply just past the join but not to the loop created by the longer end turning back on itself to reach the first broken end.  Yeesh, I am confusing myself.  Let me try a sketch since I didn't take photos of the actual joins while spinning. 

(No laughing at my artistic skills, or lack thereof.)

Okay, now take one end of the next color and put it through the loop.

Extend this end a foot or so past the loop and join the ends as before.  Note: like the first color, the ends referred to are the inner and outer ends of the same center-pull ball.  Ply for a while.  Repeat as many times as you wish to create the stripe pattern you want.  Don't expect a high level of precision in stripe widths; it is an intuitive process.

A craptastic picture of one of the joins.  It is hard to photograph something so fine in a meaningful way.

The result is a self-striping 2-ply yarn.  No extra ends to weave in.  I'll admit that this is a bit fiddly to spin and not recommended for people who dislike plying from center-pull balls.

A couple of thoughts on the joins before I go to the knitting portion of the program.  When I divide up the fibers, I break the yarn in the middle of the green separating fiber.  To splice the ends at a join, I untwist the section where the green fiber and the main fiber intersect just enough that the two fibers slip apart.  This gives me a tapered end to overlap with the other tapered end.  My joins are not noticeably thicker this way. 

The other trick is to put the end being spliced into the plying twist so it is secured.  Before I started doing this, I would have loose ends in the fished yarn.  Not only is that annoying, it weakens the yarn at that point.  Another sketch to illustrate (ignore the smudge where I erased stupidness):

The tan end is a different color just to illustrate my point.  It is the same yarn looping around.  The loop is not shown.

Finished yarn! 

I fulled it slightly by dunking it in alternately hot and cold water baths.  I like to do this with short fibers (in this case camel and yak) to help lock them into the yarn.  And, especially when the yarn is softly spun and plied like this one.

You can see the stripes in the center-pull ball. 

Do you see the green tail coming out of the middle?  I leave the green here because this end will be trimmed off when I sew in the end.  I could remove the green, but it is easier to leave it in.

There is no photographic evidence of me knitting the hat (I swear it was me!).  Here is the proof that it was knit.

Meet Roger's Dee-Luxe Hat.  I didn't use all of the yarn, probably about 1.5-2 oz.  No idea on the yardage as I didn't calculate it.

The full hat.  The brown is the Merino-Yak, White is either 100% Yak down or the mixed luxury fibers, the darker tan is 100% Camel down, and the light tan is Camel-Silk.

Roger likes his hats to roll up, so the cast on edge is 7-8 rows of stockinette to facilitate rolling.

I love the way the crown looks.  I used 9 segments for decreasing.  You can see that I got some laddering between the double pointed needles.  It is hard to avoid when the yarn is so light and the needles are metal.  I'm sure they will disappear with a washing.  If he will give it up.

Dude!

Please forgive the "Dude!", I am feeling my silly streak today. 

Speaking of silly (yes, an oh so clever segue), we are interviewed on the current Stash & Burn podcast!  We recorded the interview Friday night at Stitches West and our Silly-Fu was full strength.  I could make excuses (like we were sleep deprived, overwhelmed by our first time as vendors at Stitches, or overwhelmed by our first podcast interview).  But, I won't do that. 

I was very surprised to hear my voice.  It sounds quite different in my head (insert pithy quip about the voices in my head here).

A I recently confessed, I am new to podcasts.  Truth be told, I hadn't listened to Stash & Burn when Nicole & Jenny interviewed us!  The horror!  I have now and I love them. 

Speaking of podcasts, check out Y Knit by Michael & Stephen.  They are brand-spanking-new podcasters.  And they are fantastic!  The second episode deals with the issue of art vs. craft in a thoughtful and thought provoking way.  I'd give my opinions on the subject here, but it is so not a silly mood topic.

I forgot to post this picture in my earlier post.
That would be Sammie sitting on Roger's bag so he can get a view out the window!  Silly boy!  He loves to G O.  Maybe he needs a booster seat?  Only if it will match the car interior though.

One more picture.
A new project, heretofore unmentioned.  What could it be? 

Bolinas!

A picture crazy happy post!

On Friday afternoon we went to Bolinas.  Bolinas is a quirky, hippy, friendly, mellow, rural Marin County kinda place.  If you go, take a map.  There are no signs to guide you (the locals take them down).  Sometimes there aren't street signs.  The good thing is that if you find your way there, everyone is very nice.  It is the kind of place that plasters a tussahfluffing smile on your face that doesn't go away until you leave. 

Our friends, Rick & Heidi, of 5 Cent Coffee, had a gig (do people still say that?  or have I just horribly dated myself?) at the local bar, Smileys.  Smileys is also a dog friendly hotel (yay!) so we booked a room.

We got into town early enough to take a nice walk on the beach.  This place is freaking gorgeous!  It was late afternoon and the sky was overcast.  I love the light in these conditions.  So I took a few pictures.  Okay, I took a lot of pictures.  Here are a few, more at my Flickr page.

The sky and the water are barely differentiated and everything has a monochromatic groove.

The shadows enhance the textures.

Surfers!  Dude!

Aw,my sweet guys.

I was bewitched by all the fabulous textures.  A very low tide exposed the sand, tidepools, and rocks.  So I took a few pictures.  Okay, I took a lot of pictures (not funny the second time?).  More on ze Flickr.

I love the mixture of sand and polished rocks.

A bit of seaweed art.

The sand.

The 5 Cent Coffee show was fabulous!  Love them!  They are a self-described "Neo Skiffle Junkyard Blues" band.  Whatever that is.  I'm not smart enough in the ways of music to understand.  What I do understand is that they are awesome and play all sorts of fun and funky junk and music springs forth.  So I took a few pictures.  Okay, I took a lot of pictures (funny now that I am obviously abusing the idea?).  Here are a few, more at my Flickr page.

For the record, we got a complete costume change from Heidi for each of their three sets.

Megaphone AND precussion!  That Rick is multi-talented.

So much earnest cuteness! 

They have a fabulous new CD out called Bourbon & Beans.  Don't be the last kids on the block to get it.

While you are on their website, be sure to check out their show flyers, works of art they be.  If you are in Japan, be sure to check out their Japan tour schedule, including a gig at the Yokohama Jug Band Festival!

Afterwards, we went to their room and partied until 3 am!  I am getting waaaaay to old for this! 

We did come prepared though.  Roger has a great travel cocktail kit that doesn't get out nearly enough.

The following morning we had a late breakfast and another stroll on the beach.  Surely you are expecting me to mention something about all the pictures I took?  I would, only my camera died after just a few shots.  (sad for me, lucky for you!)

High tide and sunshine!

Note to self: when you take a bazillion pictures, you need to charge the camera battery or the camera will not work.  Sigh.  I really wanted to show you a picture of the local filling station, Bo Gas (say it fast). 

Current Projects

Life is returning to normal.  I have come down from the adrenaline rush that was Madrona & Stitches.  It took four or five days for me to get it out of my system and start sleeping more than five or six hours a night.  The pendulum swung to nine or ten hours of sleep.  I think I am back to my regular seven hours a night and beginning to feel like myself. 

At Madrona, I had a small challenge with Michele of Toots LeBlanc.  She dared me to start on my shawl from her yarn before she started on socks from my yarn.  I lost.  I don't know why I thought I would have time to travel 800 miles, dye, fluff, and package more product, AND start a new project of my own design.  I always think I can do more than is realistic.  Is that a blessing or a curse?  Both probably.  Michele showed me a stranded sock with a beaded picot edge no less.

Here is the start of my shawl from their Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair fingering weight yarn.  My design is a simple stole in a geometric pattern. 
I LOVE this yarn!  It has the firmness of the Jacob wool, the softness of the alpaca, and a slight fuzz and luster from the mohair.  It is quite delicious and very unlike any other yarn I have knit with.  All of the fiber comes from farms in Oregon and they have it processed and spun in Oregon.  It definitely has a handspun quality to it (a big plus for me).

There is spinning too.  Not in a state to show you just yet.  Here is the fiber I'm using:
Sincere Sheep* roving.  Half of it was naturally dyed in various shades of red and pink and half was left the natural light gray of the fleece.  The big coil has slumped over exposing the core of the coil.  It looks really cool this way.

It has been a while since i have posted a picture of my Sam.
I love the specks of white fur on his jowls and paws.

* Sincere Sheep is our "think local" line of products.  The most environmentally conscious wool (in my humble opinion) comes from local sheep raised on grass (as much as possible) whose fleeces are naturally dyed (with Fair Trade organic dyes) and locally processed.

ETA:

Dee has started a KAL (involves swapping too!) using my Big Bag pattern.  How fun is that?!?  There is a KAL blog here.  Sign-ups end on March 7th.  There is a Ravelry group full of friendly folks for this KAL/Swap too.

Join A Guild, Get A Wheel

I joined Spindles & Flyers and came home with a hand-built Rick Reeves Frame Wheel!
It is so pretty!
I am in love!
The details are magnificent.
Built-in whorl storage.
The medullary rays of quarter-sawn oak.

It is in great shape.  I also got a lazy kate and four extra bobbins.  It could use a general cleaning and dusting.  And the treadle connection could stand to be updated.
I doubt the wheel came with shoe lace technology.

Time to put a new drive band on it and take it for a spin (I admit it; the pun is intended).

What I don't know about this wheel is when it was built.  The woman I bought it from ordered it directly from Rick Reeves (I think).  If it is signed, I don't know where to find the signature. 

It was an impulse buy.  It didn't help that Renee, Kathleen, and Sara were all egging me on to buy it.  (Such enablers!  Truth be told, I think it was to save them from buying it.)  I have no regrets though, just questions.  Anyone out there have any thoughts on the wheel?