Maia Spins

Glamor Girls on Parade

You know how it is when all your friends are doing something and you aren't?  You start thinking that maybe there is a reason why they are all doing it.  Spindle spinning was this something for me.  In the last few months my spindle collection has grown from the Schacht Hi-Lo and and Ashford spindles on which I learned to spin.  Both are basic spindles that are good for learning on, but lack glamor. 

The first of the glamor gals was a spindle I haven't shown you yet.

A lovely little Apple wood spindle from Spindlewood purchased at CNCH in May.  As I recall it weighs 25g.  I immediately started spinning some cashmere from California Cashmere.  Lovely people and their cashmere is divine!

In a moment of weakness brilliance I bought another Spindlewood spindle at CNCH (previously blogged here).

The Spindlewoods are wonderful.  The craftsmanship is fabulous, they spin forever, and they won't roll away.  Plus, the folks that make and sell them are sweethearts.

At Black Sheep I acquired a Forrester Granny and a Bosworth Midi (previously blogged here).  In the previous post I mislabeled the Bosworth.  It is a Morado whorl with a Birch shaft.  When Sheila Bosworth corrects your error, you listen.  ;-)

The newest member of the clan is this cutie.

A brecciated jasper high whorl spindle from Butterfly Girl Designs.  I had been watching her shop and then one day this beauty showed up.  The stone whorl is 2 inches across and the spindle weighs 1.1 ounces.  It is a nice spinner, posing here with some madder dyed tussah silk.

I think this will be my spindle clan for now.  Although, Golding is going to be a vendor at SOAR.  It will be hard to resist getting a spindle from them.

People ask me if they should learn to spin on a drop spindle or a wheel.  I learned on a spindle, but didn't really feel comfortable with it.  A month later I took a wheel class and didn't look back. 

Until recently, I didn't even like spindle spinning.  What changed?  At CNCH, our booth was across from Spindlewood's booth.  Their spindles are so pretty that I kept going over to look at them.  Eventually I tried one, then another one, then another one.  Now, with more experience spinning, I like spindle spinning.  A lot.

For me, learning on the wheel was easier.  Other people say they were more comfortable learning on a spindle.  It certainly is cheaper to buy a spindle or two or twenty.

Which did you learn on?  Do you have a preference?  I would also love to here about your favorite spindles. 

Speaking of learning to spin.  Brooke (and sometimes me too) is teaching drop spindle and wheel spinning (scroll down) at Knit One One in Berkeley.  It is very near the Ashby BART station.  Currently scheduled is a beginning drop spindle class and a beginning wheel class.  We will have some wheels (Victoria, Julia, Ladybug) available for you rent (and purchase if you wish) during the wheel class. 

Secret Stash Questionnaire

Grrr! I am getting spam comments on my older posts.  I really don't want to use comment moderation or ask folks to validation their comments.  I am going to start closing old posts to new comments.  I am also banning the IP addresses that the spam comes from.  I hope that doesn't block any real readers.  Email me if it does.  If anyone has another suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

Flashback Eyecandy.  These are pictures from our trip to Hawaii (Big Island) two summers ago.

Driving down a small road in the SE corner of the island.

This a spot where tree come up to the water's edge.  There isn't a beach, just rocks.  I love watching the waves come in.  I could watch it for hours.

A tree that had the soil washed away from its roots.  I am guessing that the beach used to be further out and has eroded to the tree.  The waves lap at it now.

I signed up for Secret Stash Exchange.  It is a three month (a batt a month) exchange of blended spinning fibers.  I am looking forward to this.  I love making batts.  I don't think I've ever spun someone else's batts before, so it should be very interesting.

The obligatory Questionnaire:

1) When is you birthday?
January 19th a few years back.

2) How long have you been spinning?
2.5 years  The first couple of months was on the drop spindle.  Once I took a wheel spinning class there was no going back.  I lurve my wheel.

3) How long have you been blending your fibers?
2 years  I start experimenting right away.  My first blends were made with my hands, then hand cards.  Now I have my wonderful drum carder.

4) What types of blends do you like to make and spin?
I like to blend all kinds of things.  I'll try anything once.  For blending I have various wools, mohair, alpaca, llama, camel, silk, silk noil, recycled denim, sari silk waste, hemp, tencel, bamboo, soysilk, and other stuff I can't think of at the moment.  I have also played with sparkly additions.  I like batts with texture and batts that spin smoothly; also known as almost any batt is wonderful to me.  I like fiber adventure.  I am playing with sock blends right now.

5) What types of fibers do you NOT like? Are you allergic to any kinds of fiber?
No allergies that I know of.  I don't care for ACKrylic.

6) What are your favorite colors?
Yellow and orange top my list.  I also love earthy colors like brown, olive, and kahki.  And warm, bright or rich colors.  Okay, I like all colors unless they are really bright or neon.  I'm easy.  I will like anything that is made for me.  What I'll like best is something that speaks to you rather than something made to meet rigid specifications.

7) What are you least favorite colors?
Neons or really cool colors.

8) What type of yarns do you like to spin? (singles, plied, novelty, fingering, bulky, ect.)
My default spinning gets me a sport to fingering weight as a 2-ply.  I usually make 2 or 3-ply yarns, rarely above a worsted weight.  I like to play with novelty yarns too.

9) What type of blending equipment do you use?
I have a drum carder.  A Patrick Green Deb's Delux.  I also have mini combs and hand cards, but I don't use them often.

10) What type of wheel or spindle do you spin on?
A Schacht Matchless double treadle.

11) What do you do with your handspun yarn?
I knit with it, give it away, or toss it in the handspun basket.  I like to use handspun as prizes for blog contests.  I have also been using some of it for Dulaan knitting.

12) What are your interests outside of spinning?
Knitting, dyeing (mostly natural dyeing), reading, gardening, native plants, cooking, games.

13) What types of music do you like?
I like a lot of music.  In no particular order: Bluegrass, World music, R&B, Blues, Rock, Soul, Root Country (not current pop country!), Classical, Punk.  Some bands/artists I like are Wilco, Fountains of Wayne, Elliot Smith, They Might Be Giants, Bonnie Raitt, Ray Charles, Al Green & Elvis Costello.  Did I mention Wilco?  I don't like jazz, rap, or top 40 as a general rule.

14) What types of movies do you like?
Documentaries, comedies, old movies (B&W), drama, most anything that isn't horror or heavy on suspense.  My favorite movies are Sunset Blvd, Blazing Saddles, & Princess Bride in no particular order.

15) Do you collect anything?
Aside from yarn and fiber? No, my house is too small.

16) What types of candy and snacks do you like and dislike?
I like good chocolate, especially with hazelnuts.  I'm not a big candy and snack person.

17) Do you have any food allergies to common "goodies"? (ie: chocolate, nuts, etc.)
Nope.

     

Fiber Eye Candy Friday

A quickie post full of fluffy fibery goodness today.
I borrowed Brooke's picker last night!  This is almost a pound of my sweater fiber dyed with madder and cutch.  I don't see much cutch influence.  No problem, it is a dreamy color.

Here is the picker in action.  That is over 3/4 of a pound of my sweater fiber dyed with lac.

A shot of the teeth on the picker.  It is not meant to be a torture device, but it would work quite well in that capacity.  The teeth are extremely sharp.

ETA:  A picker is used to open up the locks of wool.  I makes it easier to put through the drum carder or hand cards.  Or you could spin directly from the picked fiber.

Roger just got us these cute baseball cups.  Cuppa fibah anyone?

Flower Power Friday

Yumminess is bursting out all over the house.

A few pictures from my California native plant garden:

A native sunflower (Helianthus annuus).  It is supposed to be 4 foot tall.  Mine are close to 6 feet tall.  This is the first flower to open.

There are oodles of buds ready to burst open on my sunflowers.

My Clarkias are in full bloom.  The white is Clarkia amoena 'Memoria'.  The purple is Clarkia rubicunda.

This is gorgeous pink flower is Clarkia amoena 'Aurora' "Farewell to Spring".

Yumminess from my organic herb garden:

Purple basil.  So yummy in salads.

Thai basil.  So yummy in Thai curries.

Yellow stemmed chard.  So yummy steamed and served with balsamic vinegar.

And the promise of many yummy figs this fall.  If the neighbors don't steal them all.

Doggy cuteness:

Sammie is built for begging.  He manages to look sad, innocent, sweet, hungry, and cute, all at the same time.  No wonder he is so spoiled.  He knows how to work it!

I think he needs to have his portrait done on velvet (remember the sad children with the huge eyes?).  If you look closely, you can see a tear running down his cheek.

Such a cute little prince sleeping with a pillow (carefully arranged for his snoozing pleasure).

My next knitting adventure:

The very beginnings of a shawl in yummy Zephyr.

Dyeing For Eyecandy

I am a woman obsessed!  With dyeing that is.  I confess that I can be a bit streaky.  My father once accused me of canning anything that wasn't nailed down.  I still have a huge collection of jams and chutneys to prove his point.  Anyone?  Jams and chutneys.  Anyone?

But, back to the (fibery) subject at hand.  After the Natural Dye Class with Brooke, I have been dying to dye (sorry about that, my better judgment stepped out of the room for a moment).

I am playing with colors.  Canning jars (I have a few of those!) make ideal vessels for small experiments.  It does mean that the jars won't be usable for food anymore.  Oh well, I just have to keep dyeing.

Each jar contains a piece of tussah silk (swoon) and a piece of superwash merino.  I will probably card them together in various combinations. 
From the left: cutch, pomegranate, madder, osage orange, and logwood grey.  I know you can't see the logwood fibers.  I wanted to see how dark logwood could go.  I plan to save and reuse the dye liquid.  It has more to give.

More tussah and superwash merino.  From the left: silk in cochineal, superwash in cochineal, superwash in fustic, superwash in mystery tan (leftover bits of dye), superwash in sumac, and tussah in sumac.

These jars contain a pound of tussah.  First is 4 oz in a blend of cutch, sumac, and madder.  I may sadden this fiber with an iron afterbath to darken it.  In the middle is 8 oz in a blend of osage, cutch, and madder.  I am hoping for an antique gold.  The last jar is 4 oz in cochineal with a touch of logwood grey to make a mauve-purple.  All will be blended with fleece and spun up for a sweater for me.  I know, I know, I don't make sweaters easy on myself.  I am seriously considering making a simple-simple sweater since my Maisle swatching is taking forever.

At the class I dyed some mohair locks from the stash.  They are currently drying on sweater racks over my tub.

We have lemon yellow (not greenish as the picture implies) from osage orange or perhaps it is fustic, peach from cochineal and madder, and a handful of tan made with cutch.

The sweater racks are stacked three high.  The middle rack has a bunch of cochineal locks at the back, madder at the front left, and indigo on the right.  The bottom rack is fleece for my sweater dyed in lac.  I'm not sure if the fleece is Polypay or Targhee (I may have lost track of my labeling system and have to guess).  I have some of each from Homestead Wool & Gift Farm.  The other one will be dyed to a warm brown color.

You may be asking yourself what I am going to do with all this lovely fiber.  Good question.  I want to blend some on the drum carder, maybe some sock batts (I never stray too far from my obsessions).  And, who knows what else.  Stay tuned.

Happy Mailbox

The mailbox has been very good to me lately.

First I got this wonderful handspun from Lunabud.  I won a contest!  I never win.  She was looking for patterns for using some sari silk yarn.  I thought to myself "self, go suggest your Scarf Around scarf pattern".  Guess what?  Someone else had already suggested my pattern!  That was pretty cool.  Anywho, I looked around and found a cute bag ( I want one!) and a book cover.  She picked the book cover.

But, you want to know about the yarn.  Pardon me, I got all excited about being scooped with my own pattern. 

The top yarn is a Navajo-plied soysilk.  I would guess it is a DK weight.  The colors are amazing.  There is purple, peacock blue, burgundy, and copper.  The spinning is very even and it is silky soft. 

The bottom one is soft, luscious alpaca in a stunning colorway of olive, mustard, and a touch of gray.  It is so soft I can't stop touching it.  It is richer than this picture shows (very hard to photograph).

Rumor has it that she sells her roving and handspun.  She is about to get married so there may not be much for a bit.  Thank you Lunabud and congratulations again on your upcoming wedding.

Next I got this book, Celtic Charted Designs by Co Spinhoven.  It has been on my list for so very long now.  It isn't available in the local bookstores I've checked and I was reluctant to spend $5 for shipping for a $5 book.  I finally got over that silliness.  Definitely the best $4.95 I've spent in a while.  The good folks at Schoolhouse Press carry it. 

Yesterday, I received some fiber I ordered from Abby.  She makes beautiful batts, in blends specifically for socks.  You may not know this, but I rather like knitting socks.

There are those colors I gravitate towards.  It is a superwash merino, silk, and mohair blend called Dandelion.  (bad flower, gorgeous fiber)

 

Oh, how I wish I had time to start spinning this now.  Should I spin it for 2-ply or 3-ply socks?  If I go with 3-ply, should I Navajo ply it to maintain stripes or go for a tweedy-blendy kinda thang?  Decisions, decisions.

She makes them from fiber she dyes and then blends on her drum carder.  Check out this great tutorial on how she does it.

I couldn't resist this lovely bit of Romney roving either.  Isn't it pretty?  I love spinning Romney.   

Please disregard the orange background.  My dining room table is made from a Berkeley street tree salvaged by my father.  The wood is Black Acacia.  It is naturally orangish, but not as extreme as the photo implies.

No knitting in the last day (gasp!). I have been getting ready for the natural dye class this weekend.  There is so much I want to dye.  There should be lots of fun to show and tell from the class.

On The Hoof

Just a quickie post to show off the first of the Debi Socks and a few pics from the garden.

Here it is "on the hoof".  The heel is a teeny tiny bit pointy for me, but otherwise fits quite nicely.  I think I'll do one less decrease round on the second sock  which is almost at the heel shaping.

Speaking of hooves, have you seen this?  Thanks to Ang and Rachael for the link.  Boggles my mind.  (ETA: Liz kindly points out that this is a hoax.  That's a relief.)

From my California native shade garden:

Tolmeia menziesii (Golden Piggy-Back Plant 'Taff's Gold').  You may recognize this as a houseplant.  It is a California native. 

Philadelphus lewisii (Western Mock Orange).  These are in full bloom.  The flowers have a light, sweet scent.

Yellow Pacifica Iris Hybrid.  This is a hybrid of a native iris.  I love yellow and couldn't resist this one.

Thinking Local

I hope you aren't tired of garden pictures.  I love the new growth this time of year.

These are Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophilia menziesii) that volunteered.  They are a sweet little native annual.  I planted some last year and it is great to see that they like my yard.  Such cheerful little faces.

Last month I showed you my Red Monkey Flower (Mimulus puniceus) and mentioned that the flower color is quite different between the two plants.  The one on the left is in part sun and the one on the right is in bright shade, maybe 15 feet apart.  Both colors are beautiful.  I am not complaining.  It is just curious.

Dudlea farinosa "Point Molate".  I got this succulent last year.  It is very local.  Point Molate is in Richmond next to the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. 

Point Molate had a rich and interesting history.  In 1908 it was a central point for processing wine in California.  The Winehaven Winery was once the largest winery in the U.S. is reported to have made 12 million gallons of wine a year at its peak of production.  Prohibition ended Winehaven even though they tried to stay afloat by making sacramental wine.  During World War II it became a naval fuel depot.  In 1998, the depot was decommissioned.  The land is now controlled by the city of Richmond and there is talk of a casino being built there.  Very controversial stuff around here.

For The Birds

When I went to buy the suet cage for the fiber I put out last week, I learned that this is a great time of year for suet cakes.  Birds need the extra nutrition for feeding baby birds and migrating birds need the energy to fly to their destination.  A little research on the interwebs and I found the idea of mixing up some homemade goodness and packing it into pinecones. 

My recipe:
1 cup lard (a.k.a. manteca, available at Latino markets)
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/3 cup dried currants
1/3 cup chopped raisins
2/3 cup chopped peanuts (unsalted)
2/3 cup rolled oats
4 large pinecones, 4 to 6 inches tall and about 3 to 4 inches in diameter

Any dried fruit should work.  I used what I had in the cupboard.  You can use birdseed and other nuts, basically whatever you have around the house.  Tie heavy twine around the top of the pinecone.  I used two doubled lengths of cotton warp (it is what I use for drive-bands on my spinning wheel).  Then fill the gaps in the pinecone.  The first one I made was so full of goodness I am afraid to hang it as is. 

I decided to pack the next one with half as much of the mixture.  The naked pinecone weighed 40 grams (1.5 oz).  Filled it weighs 200 grams (7 oz). I figure it is better to keep them lighter for two reasons.  First, there will be the added weight of a bird (or heaven forbid a squirrel) on the pinecone.  I am not worried about the string, but about the pinecone decapitating.  Hopefully, two strings tied at different heights will help to distribute the load.  The second concern is freshness.  I don't know how fast the birds will find this food or how long the lard will last before going rancid.  If temperatures are over 70 F do not use lard.

For a stiffer mixture, stir in cornmeal, flour, breadcrumbs, or a similar ground meal.  In this batch I added 1/3 cup of cornmeal and 1/3 cup of chopped pumpkin seeds.  Pack it into a half-gallon milk or juice carton and chill overnight.  Remove the carton and slice.  It will make 3-4 slices perfect for most suet cages.  I got 4 slices almost an inch thick weighing about 9 oz each.  Hang in a shady spot.  Store extras in a cool dark spot until needed.

Hanging in the tree (click for a bigger picture).

I have nearly finished my forecast socks.  It took four attempts at the cast of edge before I found one that I like.  I settled on a combination of garter and feather and fan to maintain the scalloped edge.  It looks a little too loose at the top but it fits perfectly.  Blocking should help it all look right.  Now I just need to reknit the top of the second sock.

The stats
Yarn: my Navajo plied handspun from Amy's roving (Forecast colorway in merino, the February offering from the Spunky Club)
Needles: #3 Boye double pointed metal needles
Pattern: my own toe up gusseted sock.

In The Garden

After a brief storm and a bit of rain, we are back to gorgeous, warm, and sunny weather.  It is in the high 60's, maybe low 70's.  My cherry tree finally decided to bloom.  The plum and pluot trees are done.

Every year we get volunteer borage plants.  Like the arugula, if you plant it once, you'll have it forever.  It is an attractive plant with big fuzzy leaves.  The bright blue flowers will start to open soon.  They have a cucumbery flavor and are delicious in salad.

In the front yard, I have a deodar cedar tree.  It is a graceful tree that provides shade and a nesting spot for several types of birds.  My native shade garden is under this beautiful (although non-native) tree.

This year I decided to put out some of the fluff I've accumulated from preparing fiber.  The birds will take bits for their nests.  It is in a suet cage.  Most of the fluff is Rambouillet combing waste.  The wool was natural dyed in madder and cochineal last summer.  I like this cage because it has little landing ledges that fold down.

I encourage you to put out fiber too.  You can use pet fur and yarn scraps too (I have a few in my cage).  Just be sure that it is animal fiber.  Plant fibers are cold when wet and we want to keep the birdies warm.  If you don't have a suet cage, use a mesh bag like produce sometimes comes in or a piece of tulle fabric, preferably with large holes.  If the holes in the mesh are fine use tweezers to start pulling some of it out through the holes so the birds can find it.  Easiest of all, you can toss fiber onto the lawn for the birds. 

Each year rabbits are bought as Easter presents.  Unfortunately, many of these rabbits are surrendered to rabbit rescues shortly after Easter.  If you are thinking about getting a bunny, check out this site to learn more about what your new friend will need.   I am going to  Make Mine Chocolate this year.