I recently had a birthday, a landmark one, the kind with a zero in it.  DH likes to buy me toys, and this one is special.  A really landmark toy.  A Strauch finest double wide motorized drum carder (whew, that’s a mouthful, too).

Just this week he gave me the perfect accessory for it.  Sears.com sells a Bosch “gravity-rise wheeled table saw stand” that happens to be the perfect size for my extremely cool birthday present.  This gives me some very appreciated capabilities.  1) I can use the drum carder while seated.  No hunching over, reaching, wearing my back out.  2) I can move the drum carder from place to place myself.  3) Smaller footprint when folded, taking up less precious space.  It’s getting crowded around here, what with all the stash and toys.  I am NOT complaining about that!

folded for travel:

and set up for work:

The drum carder is cleverly attached to the table by heavy duty cable ties, cheap, very effective, and won’t leave any marks on the wood.

I thought it appropriate that DH should have my first handblended on the new carder (with fiber I hand dyed) and also my first handspun FO, modeled here by a young friend, not DH:

Can you see the fuzzy little bit of halo?  There’s colonial top, corriedale, fawn alpaca, tussah silk and a wee bit of angora (halo).  It has a nice soft hand and should be very warm.

It’s a little bit more than 4 oz. total and looked like this before carding:

and like this after carding:

and then pulled into a roving:

and like this after spinning:

Here’s another batt which consists of 1) corriedale dyed in the crockpot along with 2) some tussah silk, and 3) a hint of green/blue firestar.  I pulled the dyed roving apart and sorted by color, then did the three color sections separately.  I think it will be a 2-ply yarn, with the colors sequential, not mixed.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I’m still so new to all this stuff!  And so obsessed.  And having so much fun.  I wonder if I would enjoy weaving?  Would the structure of my family unit survive yet another fiber craft?  I’d better not even think about it.  Forget I even brought it up.  No, really.

Denise and Lisa joined me in a little dye workshop. I hope they had as much fun as I did! DH swathed the entire kitchen in plastic sheeting (reusable) for the event, and did most of the setup. He’s such a sweetie.

My colors are Lanaset/Sabraset in 4% stock solution, ready to mix and dilute for handpainting.

I love the results!

I really wish I had written down Lisa’s formula, because in the middle there, she’s come up with the perfect breast cancer awareness pink, and I’d like to duplicate it.

Denise aimed for, and got, denim blue, just right.

I did a few more skeins later that night.

In the middle there are 2 skeins I decided to call “flame”.  I was shooting for medium rose and gold.  I guess I missed a little.  Practice, practice, practice.

I need to be a little more careful with my ergonomics in future.  I spent all day Sunday recovering.  Someday I’ll learn.

I’m having such a lazy summer. It’s a wonderful thing.

DH and I did an eastern NC fiber crawl last week, and I can report that Murfreesboro is charming, and so are the folks at the Woolery. This is Tim, and a glorious array of wheels and spindles.

loot! spinning toys, Yarn Meter with tensioner!! fiber, fiber, fiber. Oh joy. I was hoping to see a Schacht-Reeves saxony wheel set up, but no luck. Maybe there will be one at SAFF in the fall. I’m such a material girl. For shame. I never have enough toys.

On to New Bern, where this guy is looking the very picture of serenity, in the midst of the chaos of construction. I suspect DH would rather have been hanging out with him than yarn crawling with me!

A short stop at Weaver’s Webb, and more stash enhancement.

I’ll have some fun with that merino superwash in the dye pot. Don’t know what the Noro will become, but I just couldn’t resist the colorway.

A very late lunch at the Chelsea restaurant. I can’t recommend anything in particular, because I think it’s all particularly good. Nice history about the address, just don’t ask for a Coca-Cola.

Since I’ve gotten home, I’ve been spinning a probably fingering, maybe sport weight 2-ply from (remember this?) a sheep named Ganache, a lovely chocolate color when spun. Singles on the bobbin, 2nd bobbin almost done, I’ll probably be plying tonight.

I’m still knitting on my peacock and plum feather and fan stole, (ravelry link)

which is more than halfway done. I’m ready for it, because I have these fancy thingies from the Wondermat outlet page to block it on. I bought 12 standard 2 ft tiles in latte, which lay out to 48 square feet total, one possible configuration being 6′ by 8′. That ought to be big enough for any lace object I might ever knit in my lifetime. There are no visible defects in any of them, and they were half price. They are the same product that the Yarn Harlot blogged about here, and I so agree with her that they are “freaking brilliant”. I have the blocking wires and pins, I’m ready to go. When I finish knitting the stole, I mean.

This is not my first blog entry dominated by shopping rather than actually using the products. I’m sure that says something about me, but I don’t want to think about that right now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.

took place last Saturday in Big Island, Virginia, at the Sedalia Center, which used to be an elementary school, was bought by the county, and now hosts various events. Not a large festival, very cozy and friendly. Look at this setting! at the foot of a few gorgeous peaks in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

My friend Denise and I drove up on a last minute whim, and had a wonderful fibery day. I’m still upset that I didn’t win the drawing for the Kromski 16″ Harp loom, but look at this loot!

Furthest left there is honest to goodness combed Cormo top from Overlook Manor Farm, so wonderfully soft, most likely spins like butter, though that sounds very messy, doesn’t it? Spins like a dream? Better. Then a pattern for a swirly shawl, and jojoland melody yarn to knit it in. Then the Holiday 2007 issue of IK, which is sold out everywhere, what a find! A beautiful skein of potential socks in colorway “cherry blossom” from rock creek yarns. A tool for making braid, and a book to learn how, from Lacis, by way of I See Spots Farm. Last, no photograph could do it justice, because you really have to stroke your face with it to appreciate it fully, and the colors are complex and beautifully blended, but that roving is 50% Polwarth, 50% angora from Woolybuns by way of Greenberry House, in Meadows of Dan, Virginia. What a glorious Stash Enhancement eXpedition (that’s yarn SEX to you). I’m so proud of my self-restraint in coming home without a new spinning wheel or drum carder. When I go to SAFF in the fall, an intervention may be in order.

Today’s flowers for you include:

The first hydrangea mopheads of the year. This is an endless summer original, which bloomed pink it’s first year, and a beautiful light red-violet since, and:

white clematis henryi with flowers the size of dinner plates, and:

this lovely blue clematis on my front lamp post which might be variety rhapsody, but I never can remember. It has a profuse habit, and a long blooming season too.

I think I may have just topped my personal record for most links per post.

I believe I’ll start with a recipe. I made tropical island slaw to share at a fabulous event which took place on a local fiber farm. This recipe is my own, and you may print it, wad it up, paper the bathroom wall, ignore it entirely or post it to your whole mailing list, as you choose.

Tropical Island Slaw

toss together in a large bowl:

2 bags tricolor slaw mix
2 cans pineapple tidbits, drained, juice reserved
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup dried cherries

mix together in a smaller bowl:

1/2 pt. non-fat sour cream
1/3 cup of the reserved pineapple juice
2 tb cider vinegar
2 tb sugar (optional)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice

Pour the dressing mixture over the slaw mixture and toss lightly. Keep refrigerated.  Garnish with toasted walnut pieces just before serving.

There were many good things brought to Little Meadows yesterday, and many good things resident on the property as well. I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures of the animals. Liese has better pictures of them here, anyway.

I have some pictures of the visiting fiber folk:

The two in the background there were both celebrating birthdays, and our charming hostess produced a heart-healthy and extremely yummy birthday cake:

carrot cake with coconut glaze. Nom nom nom. DH ( in tie-dye) was delightfully surprised and ate 2 very low guilt-index pieces.

The birthday girl made her very first wheel-spun yarn, and skeined it on a niddy-noddy. I’m such an airhead, or I’d have a picture of that too.

But I did catch:

a good hat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a good batt:

The rain came when it was just about time to fold up anyway, but I made off with some really excellent chevre (the origins of which I scrubbled about the ears) and some lovely scented goat’s milk soap (likewise the scrubbling — delightful.)

And I leave you with a visual treat currently starring in my yard:

magnolia grandiflora. Just grand.

It was my daughter’s idea to take me to climb a mountain for Mother’s Day. It was also my 23rd wedding anniversary. This turns out to be an excellent idea, though it had many opportunities to fail. We got a late start from home, arrived at our hotel in the wee hours, and didn’t get much sleep, but I used my Mighty Bright Xtra Flex Super LED Light in the car (use a rav link to amazon if you want to buy one) and got a lot done on my loksins here, and on rav

On Saturday we slept in a bit, then mosied up the Parkway, stopping at the Folk Art Center so DH could go in and see if the road was open ahead, since it had been closed for maintenance all winter. He came back to the car, the wife, girls, dogs, with his shoulders bent, head hanging and miserably mumbled “You have to come in, it’s Fiber Day till 4pm.” He’s the best DH ever. We petted sheep, and watched shearing. I saw unique spinning wheels including a great wheel, and a Dutch wheel that had a skeinwinder, distaff, and lazy kate right on it. I managed not to buy anything just to thank him.

So we got back in the car, cruised up the parkway to the parking area we had in mind. We meant to wander around Craggy Gardens. Instead, we blundered onto what was probably the Snowball Mountain Trail (8 miles round trip strenuous) and got probably 2 miles or so straight up the mountain before we decided that might be enough for an old guy with a heart attack and an asthmatic old knitter to do. I think the snowballs were not quite enough in bloom yet, but they looked pretty anyway.

I found three different varieties of trillium as well. This one at the foot of the trail,

This one halfway up,

and this one at the top.

This low marker was at the top too.

I can figure out that USDI is United States Department of the Interior, and NPS is National Park Service, but if anybody knows what the rest means, please tell me.

This is what we looked like at the beginning of the hike (minus me who took the picture, and Merlin at my feet)

I didn’t take a picture at the end, because we weren’t a pretty sight then. But there was one more treat in store for us–driving down the parkway on our way back to Asheville, right in front of us, a young bear nearly stepped into the road, paused, took a look at us, thought better of it and hightailed it back into the forest. I’ve been in those mountains so many times, and I’ve smelled bear before, but never seen one. And in broad daylight! The NC black bears are usually too shy to be seen by passersby. He must have been very inexperienced. We got a really good look at him. Close enough to see the alarm on his (or her) face!

On Sunday we shopped at the Grove Arcade. The girls created custom fragrances at Bath Junkie, and I of course, bought yarn.

I think there’s a pair of socks for DH in here somewhere. He certainly deserves them.

On the drive home, smack in front of us there was a glorious rainbow most of the way. I was too rapt to think to take a picture, but they never do justice to the real thing anyway. Use your imagination. And then we slept.

Chalk on pavement.

My young friend Zack is a visual artist, as you can see. He’s also a newbie knitter, showing a lot of promise, and he’s got all the talent and inclination to be an outrageous designer. So when he’s all the talk of the knitting world, I’ll be remembering that I was the one who put needles and yarn into his hands. Yeah, that feels pretty good.

SO MUCH! I missed knit night last week to watch my daughter in concert at her school, wherein she showed us that performing arts high school is the right place for her! She was tops. I missed again this week because Chip, her former guitar teacher (scroll down the link a bit for a video of cool jazz) of 8 or so years gave us a call yesterday , and invited her to participate in a Master Class given by Douglas Niedt. If you checked his credentials you can see that yes indeed, everything IS up to date in Kansas City.  Mr Niedt (pronounced NEET) has been a visiting artist at Elon University this year and gave his farewell concert  tonight.  His program is astonishing, including such varied works as “Mack the Knife” which was romantic, haunting, and almost unrecognizable as the same song Bobby Darin sang, and “Peter Gunn” which is instantly recognizable across all generations as crime-fiction supercool.  Henry Mancini wrote it for a TV series, and got 2 grammys and an emmy nomination.  The Blues Brothers version can be heard here.  I couldn’t believe how Douglas Niedt got it to work solo on an acoustic guitar, but he most certainly did.  Daughter Juliet was enthralled.  We bought 2 CD’s and some sheet music.  practice, practice, practice.

but I do have a good excuse. And my husband now has a very heart-healthy diet, because he doesn’t want to stay at this particular bed and breakfast again any time soon:

Edited 4/17/08 to babble on a bit about why I included this image here.  First, no, that is not tape on his face, just a little photo-doctoring to spare you (and me) the full impact.

I don’t ever want to forget how those few days felt. I especially don’t want him to forget how it felt. I want him to take better care of himself because this experience scared the hell out of me. I want myself to remember to cherish him, remind him he is the love of my life, and show him I feel this way in every little thing I do for him. I’ll see this image fairly often if it is published here, without having to put it in a frame on my bedside table. That would be too strange, even for me!

Me, I got a lot of knitting done, and Sorelle (my version on rav) will be forever the sweater I “Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises.” -EZ. At least, I knit on it through maybe the scariest one so far, and I credit knitting for my calm and confident outward demeanor through the whole ordeal. Anyone who knows me knows that calm and confident is not my usual inward demeanor. He’s doing very well now, and starting his cardiac rehab tomorrow. I don’t think the rehab staff will have any trouble with getting this patient to comply with diet and exercise recommendations.

So that you’ll forgive me for the depressing family emergency stuff, and not judge me for the tackiness of taking that picture AND the nerve of then publishing it, I’m lifting our spirits with this collection of spring photos.

These are from my yard:

I’m going to grab a color palette from that dogwood closeup to dye yarn with. I just love those colors together. They say spring to me.

I just love the show Piedmont NC puts on in the spring. These next are from the arboretum, one of our favorite places to take a walk. We’ll be doing that a lot, now. If I can pry the boy away from work sometimes.

That last was a buttercup growing defiantly by the otherwise well-cultivated path. I like its moxie.

This next I don’t know the name of, but it’s a beautiful ground cover:

and some more moxie:

This is an old tree with a very large trunk, and all round it an enormous, glorious, homogenous bed of yellow pansies, with this little bunch of blue close to the trunk. It’s either artfully placed to look like a volunteer, or else it is in fact, a volunteer. Either way, I like it. I especially like that if you examine the yellow pansies closely, you find this:

Sparsely scattered throughout, every so often you can find a rogue blue petal! It’s worth looking closely, and looking at a lot of all yellow flowers, to enjoy the rare blue petals. I could so easily have missed them. There’s a life metaphor here, which a more clever blogger would surely be able to put into words. Me, I’m just happy when I have a chance to enjoy a rare beauty.

I’m so excited that I figured out how to embed a video! DH designed a skeiner for me, and wrote up instructions in case you like it enough to make one too. It works very well. The loop shown is just the right length to stretch out a skein on my dyeing table, which is a six foot folding plastic banquet table. I’m going to make a loop of waste yarn just that length, and tie my current project yarn onto it, so each skein is the same length.

Using the Hose Reel Skein Winder

Our purpose in designing the Hose Reel Skein Winder was to have a device that would allow us to wind skeins of any length, including very long ones, to facilitate special hand-dyeing projects. We also became frustrated using two wooden posts, because passing a ball of yarn around was unwieldy. This design allows us to have one person stand next to one unit and turn a wheel that winds the skein relatively quickly and easily.

The length of the skein is not limited and infinitely variable, because it is established by the yarn itself and not by any fixed setting on the winder. The first step is to measure the desired circumference of the skein from the end of the yarn, hold the point measured to, then tie the end of the yarn to that point. It is best to add a little to the measurement to allow enough yarn to make the knot. One technique is to measure exactly one inch more than the desired circumference, then tie the knot so that the measured point connects with the other end of the yarn exactly one inch from the end.

An alternative to forming the loop out of the yarn being skeined is to make a loop out of another non-slippery yarn, with a small loop to which the yarn can be tied. This would be particularly useful if the user often makes skeins of the exact same size, as measuring for successive skeins could be eliminated.

The resulting loop of yarn is placed over the hose reels on the 2 units of the winder, which are then moved apart until an appropriate amount of tension is placed on the loop. While we do not wish to stretch the yarn too much, we need enough tension that the loop will not droop too much between the units (not a problem) and there will be enough friction on the yarn at the driving reel that turning the reel will cause the loop to turn like a fan belt. The non-driving reel can be held by a helper or held still by tying to something, sticking the base under a chair or plopping something heavy on it. Movement, while it might interrupt the process, does not cause any serious problem, because the length of the skein is determined by the length of the loop tied in the yarn, not by the distance between the units. Similarly, adjustments to tension can be made by moving the driving reel around, without causing any problems with the length of the skein.

After the loop is mounted on the units and appropriate tension is obtained, the driving reel is turned so that the yarn from the ball or cone is pulled over the top of the driving reel. Left-handed users will probably want to put the driving reel on the opposite end of the loop from right-handers, and turn counter-clockwise, while right-handers turn clockwise. The other hand can be used to steady the unit and guide the yarn onto the reel to get a smooth, even skein. We have found it easy just to let the source ball or cone sit in a box at the feet of the operator, where it can bounce around happily while yarn is drawn from it. The entire skein is driven around the two units and becomes larger and larger as more yarn is taken from the source.

edit added 6/15/2008:  DH bought another hose reel, so that I will have 2 with slippery surface.  This is useful when using the device as a swift, to make a ball, or different length skein.  Because they detach easily from the framework, this presents no difficulty, but does add $10 or so to the material cost.

If you want one of your own, copy and paste the instruction pages below to your own file.

I hope this will have all of us dyeing with greater ease.