Taking Yarn Inventory

The thought is making me exhausted. After our two daughter's and I spent eight hours together cooking for Thanksgiving, I'm not wanting to start all over on making pies. I know, I know, I don't have to do anything else for Thursday's dinner with my brother and sister in-laws but I'm simply tired. This body can only push so long and it's screaming STOP!!

Rather loudly since I have Addison's disease and my get up and go and all got up and went.

So I went on strike on Monday, after I took my husband to the airport where he left on a trip. I then drove home on the much improved highways ( We had over six inches of snow over the weekend leaving the roads solid ice.) and sat on the bed watching Hulu and Netflixs.

I watched Hulu so long a message popped up on the screen telling me I'd been watching for three hours wouldn't I like to stop?

The truth is I wasn't really watching for three hours since I was pausing the shows every little while to go and get something or answer the phone.

It was Kirk telling me he'd arrived at this airport or that. And what do you do at an airport while you wait for your next plane, call your spouse of course. Or I hope that's what you do.

Anyway, when I'm overwhelmed and need to take control, what do I do? Something I don't have to, of course. Something that won't help the long list of to do's get done.

 I copied free knitting patterns off the Internet and then realized I had no yarn to knit them with. Since all the patterns called for something I didn't have. 

No I'm not low on yarn. All three of these containers are full of yarn, but I didn't seem to have what I needed. I didn't think I did anyway because I really didn't know what I had.

Yes, you long time reader might remember that a long while back I drug out my yarn and corrected the twist on some of my hand spun skeins and labeled each skein as to what kind of fiber it was spun from.  It took me quite a while.What I realized then was I really liked to spin a few skeins of one kind of fiber or color of yarn and then I was off to another kind. This left me with only enough homespun yarn of one kind and color to make one sweater. Unless I was the size of my sweet small sized daughters. Nope, I need four more skeins to create a tent sized one for two ton Tessy here.

In enters goal one, to spin enough yarn of one for another wool or alpaca sweater.

Plus, I realized I love snoods, cowls, and scarves that fasten with buttons and pins. No, I don't necessarily love to wear them, except I do want a snood which I especially love the look of and think I'd actually wear.

 I do have a couple scarves that fasten that I wear out in the cold. But, as active as I am, scarves just don't fit my lifestyle that mixes house cleaning, cooking, and livestock chores. They are meant more for indoor jobs such as office workers and so forth who hold still.  

Not that that should stop me so -- Goal number two comes in. I want to make a couple snoods and some more scarves, and cowl thingies. I'm itching to adorn them with homemade buttons and pins I create in my husband's workshop. I've been doing a little this and that trying to figure out what kind of small art based business I want to create. So far I haven't found it but Kirk and I sat brain storming in the airport as we waiting for him to fly out and I became really excited at the creative latitude making snoods, cowls, and scarves along with fasteners. I could use those scraps of

Mastodon ivory, woods, and horns left over from Kirk's knife making.  

Some of these projects would be made with store yarns. Some of those luxury gifts my oldest daughter gave me during my yarn adoption visits to her stash. And the few skeins I've purchase on my own.

Some would be from homespun yarn.

But first I realized I needed to take an inventory of just how many skeins I had of what varieties of fibers, yarn diameter size, and yardage and keep it in a notebook. Then I'd know what yarn I had that would be suitable and enough yardage for cowls, scarves, and snoods. Other yarns I might branch a little off into making a few hats and gloves. Those that would be suitable for office workers and trips where you aren't wearing your Muck boots. I don't make many of those but city folks do.

How do you organize your yarn stash?

Stress Reliever

This will be a three ply yarn when done that I've washed the wool, carded it, and am now spinning. Each single added to the ply makes the yarn more round. After this sometime I want to do a four ply. Four plys makes the cable in a sweater jump out at you. Why I haven't done three and four ply before is beyond me.

Boy, oh boy, have I needed a good stress reliever lately. To keep from going in sane. Hmmm... okay I'll admit it, I'm already there. Who else would think of an experiment with a stinky buck goat and women who wish to become pregnant? So let's just say that to keep from needing a padded cell or hours on the couch with a psychiatrist, I've resorted to spinning and now I've added knitting too in the evenings. Sometimes even late at night like last night in order to calm my nerves. 

Fall and spring can turn one into a basket case with so much to do and so little time and energy. I think I have my life under control and then the real world slips in with grand kids needing help and a good deal on a buck, and yaks needing doctoring which means we need to find a good deal on a used squeeze chute, and... and... all those things that just weren't in my planned schedule.

So I dug out my packet of luxury fibers I'd splurged on at the Fiber Fest in Estes Park last June and finished spinning them. Three of the six fibers I've never spun before such as Paco Vicuna, Cashmere, and Quiviut.

The Paco Vicuna was somewhat like spinning Alpaca and a bit like spinning baby camel. Not as easy as Alpaca but not quite as short a fiber as baby camel.

Quiviut, which is from a Musk Ox, at first had me wondering if stress relief was the correct word or not for what I was doing.

Awesomely airy but the fiber length was maybe an inch long if stretched tight. Quiviut  doesn't have any cling to itself and therefore you have to make your singles very thin and do a really short draw of the fiber with lots of twist. The gal I bought the luxury fiber packet from said it was a super good buy since the quiviut down had risen to $50.00 dollars an ounce for fiber to spin. Ouch!!

On the Internet I saw Quivet yarn hats selling for $125 to $175 dollars in a single color with a fairly plain pattern. Yarn sells for $90.00 dollars an ounce for finger weight. Needless to say I won't be buying this fiber again unless I happen upon a bargain basement sale, NOT LIKELY. That made the $37.00 dollars I paid for the little packets of six fibers seems pretty reasonable.

Quivet comes from the Artic Musk Ox. It was inside me new book, that is a must buy for any fiber lover, that I found out that Musk Ox stay warm to -100 F. or -73 C. If only this fiber wasn't so expensive I'd make sweaters, hats, socks, and gloves from it and bask in its softness and warmth for I do get mighty cold being cold blooded, literally. I'm serious, my temperature frequently falls to the low 95 F. and even dips to the 94's on occasion. You think they'd give me a medical discount for this fiber? LOL 

The Angora, from the Angora rabbit, is soft and tends to want to fly away a bit. You handle it also with a short draw, thin singles, and lots of twist. I've a pair of socks I blended wool and angora to use in the ankle part. Is it called a cuff?

The baby camel as always was a shear joy to spin and I liked the Cashmere too. Other than the camel, I haven't bought any of these fibers. 

Some of you clever souls may of noticed I didn't mention the bison down. Either I had some poor quality stuff or it is simply nasty and after working with it for a short while. I quit. After all, I was suppose to be basking in luxury, not a prickly lane of desperation.

There isn't much of one fiber and what I'll do with this little bit of this and a little bit of that I think will be to add a few similar sized skeins of colored finely spun Merino wool and make a head band. 

I spun and knitted one years ago from what at that time was unfamiliar to me luxury fibers which included baby camel, Alpaca and silk. I loved that head band but set it down at the hospital on a chair and moved away from it, when I turned around and came back, it was gone.  This one I'm not letting out of my sight.

My oldest daughter shares this love of fiber and has begun to spin on my old Ashford spinning wheel. Looks like we may have a grand daughter that will join us when she's of age.

She just had to stop on our walk last summer to pet the clump of fur (nobody home inside it) in the middle of the road before walking on. I see myself a great deal in this little one of ours and just hopes she skips the not so good traits of Grandma's.



Toe Up

I've posted twice today to make up for yesterdays absence so be sure and check out my post They're a humming.

 Though my days have been beginning early and ending very late -because of a giant work load, I'm taking an hour and a half to two hours off in the middle of the day to relax and rest my weary body. One of the projects I'm working on during this quiet time is this yarn.

 Ever since I got back from my spinning class, I've had a whole different attitude and I want to blend fibers and colors. I had this matted light pink mohair, some deep purply blue Merino wool, and a seafoam green Merino wool I thought would make a great blend. The mohair would give strength and longevity to the yarn for socks and I figured light, medium, and dark would be a good blend of hues.

I'd borrowed a couple books from our oldest daughter when I was in Colorado. One was knitting socks from the toe up. This, I decided was going to be the yarn for my first pair using that technique and I am anxious to start knitting.

Instead of weighing each fiber and using set amounts to blend, I just used a haphazard method. The matted light pink was a problem and sometimes I had to use scissors to snip and other times I could teased most of the tangle out. Yet, despite my efforts I've ended up with a more uneven yarn than I'd of like, for thicker spots resulted from spots that I thought were teased smooth but weren't. Oh well, it won't hurt the socks any. 

The first layer on the cards was the light pink since it needed the most work. I used a light amount since a little mohair goes a long ways as its shiny texture is very noticeable.

 Then I put a little bit heavier layer of the seafoam green.

 With the heaviest thickness layer being the dark purply blue.

I couldn't wait for two full bobbins to ply for I wanted badly to see the result. Yes, I did twist a single back on to itself to get a peek but it wasn't enough to satisfy my curiosity. 

I loved the result and can't wait to see what it looks like knitted up. I hope to begin the socks this weekend. As for today, I'll spin some more if I have time between work and taking the grand kids to swimming lessons and a magic show. What I'd really like to do is rest all day or weed the garden but the contractor is here and he's drilling holes in my basement wall to auger out anchors stabilizing the walls. This means half my basement had to be cleared. Of course it was the basement side with the food storage room. I bet I made forty or more trips up the stairs with food yesterday and I'm not finished. I've still a freezer to unload and move to the next room after he is through in there.  Luckily, the other chest freezer can remain where it is and buckets and buckets of wheat and grain to can be shifted to another room of the basement when he finishes drilling in there.

With a little doeling that needed a horn scur reburned and tatooing done before her trip this morning at 6:20 a.m. to South Dakota my day yesterday was extremely full. 

 I'm still working on the food storage room and so I'd better get to shifting buckets and watering the lawn. High ho, high ho, it's off to work I go.  

We have a HUGE food storage room.

Yarn Stash and Yarn tips for Crocheters and Knitters

 I vowed within the next year I was going to go through every storage container I own. Now that is a lot of storage containers as I've 13 grade levels of home school books that my husband insisted I keep and the containers full of fleeces to spin. The overflowing large box of tax returns with is probably way over ten years worth. The boxes and boxes of fabric. Well, you get the idea. And with this going through, I'm going to toss and toss and better organize the rest.

When my temperatures plummeted to the high 93's Fahrenheit, I knew I was in trouble. Especially since I took my temperature under each arm and my tongue to see if they were the same. Not hardly. They  have continued to be two or better degrees difference.  In a normal body, they are close to the same with just a few tenths off. I know I had that once. That is what prompted the, "Your weird." comment from my doctor. Said with a laugh of course because we both know how strange this body of mine behaves and though medical books go to great lengths to describe the human body, mine when faced with these well researched facts replies, " But I don't wanna."


What does that have to do with too much in the storage department of our home. Well, since my family kept saying, "Holly your really purple colored." Then, "Your really red now.", and a little later, "Your really pale.". Know that they weren't describing my clothing. It was a bit disconcerting so I decided that being a chameleon probably wasn't good and low hypothermia temperatures weren't either so you'd be proud of me, I took a sabbatical from work.

Okay, your right, that would be a lie. I didn't really. I did sit on my hiney and watch movies for two days. All except the time to do a bit of quick cooking and livestock chores, the essentials. But to the shock of myself and my husband, I sat on the bed and watched movie after movie while I organized left over garden seeds, and uncluttered my yarn bins. Yes, I said bins as in plural.

I have not gone through them in years and after the fiber fest weekend where I included watching some videos on spinning, I was itching to see what treasures I squirreled away years ago along with some fiber I'd bought a year ago but managed to forget I had. Don't tell me I'm the only one that does this.

What I discovered was a mess. I had a lots of bobbins and many of those had a single ply on them but no mate to which to ply to. So I took them off on to toilet paper centers creating a center pull and an outer pull and plied the those two strands of single ply yarn together forming yarn. I've still two to go. Then there was the scads of balls of yarn which is not the proper way to store it. So I made them up into proper storing skeins. Why not store in balls? Well, it distorts the twist and stresses the yarn. So those in balls had to be rewound and sat in very hot water to relax the fibers. Those are the ones on the clothes line and in the bathroom.

Then there were those in small loops when I was spinning a great deal but had broken my kniddy noddy, (the thing you wind your yarn around). So they had to be rewound. I'm still doing that.

 What I discovered from the relaxing the skeins in water and some just tucked in the bins, was skeins with a balanced yarn like in this picture. See how it hangs in a perfect loop. That means I spun the singles and equally plied two singles back on themselves with equal twist so they balanced out.

 

And I found this wa....y under plied skein which I redid on the spinning wheel. No, I didn't take it a part but just added more twist in the proper direction. This is a good picture to show you. Look at the left hand side of the loop and how it twists to the right. Because I spun the singles with the wheel going to the right and plied with the wheel going to the left. If it is under plied the twist will be to the right.  

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READ THIS FOR TIPS FOR KNITTERS AND CROCHETERS

This skein twists slightly to the left which means it is over plied  just a little. One expert likes her skeins this way because she calls it energy and did you know that depending on whether you are crocheting a project or knitting and whether you are a continental knitter or a thrower, which way you should spin your yarn? I didn't but I did know that years ago when I crocheted if I didn't buy a yarn that haD a tight twist, I frequently split the yarns with my hook. A very frustrating thing. It is because you are untwisting the ply a little with the motion of crocheting said my daughter and the video I'm waiting on.

So if your project is crochet then you should do your single plies with the wheel going to the left and ply with the wheel spinning to the right. That will solve the untwist problem. Now most commercial yarns are made for knitters so beware what you buy. Look for a good solid twist, not an open yarn because remember you will be untwisting the yarn slightly.  

Commercial yarn is great for a continental knitter but not for a thrower knitter because the later style untwists the yarns slightly also. Blow me away. I learned so much in the first few minutes of this video that I had to have it. What video you ask? I don't know but when it comes I'll show you and remind this brain that was so over filled our fiber fest weekend which one it was. There is another one on color I can't wait until it comes out but it isn't ready for sale yet. 

I found in my bins, white yarns from different fleeces because they had a slightly different color and look but of what type of sheep I wasn't positive. Yup, should have labeled. As I spin up more of the fleeces in the basement I'm sure I'll figure it out so I tied the two different types together.

 Lastly, I put the balance and really closely balanced yarns in their proper twist storage shapes and labeled them. Very, very important. Though I could tell for the most part exactly what each skein was by sight and feel, there were those few mysteries. This organizing also allowed me to see how many skeins of each color and type I had so I knew whether I had enough to make hats, scarves, and mittens, or if there was enough for a sweater or vest. I confess, I spin far more than I knit and that has got to change. As for combining colors, it would be only possible with yarns of the same diameter. I'm spinning finer yarns than I once did and now I'm going to start making three and four ply yarns all because of this video I can remember who did it or what the name is.

Some of my yarn I knit for socks but now I've found out that you need a little silk, mohair, or nylon in the yarn for socks to give it a longer wear factor. So I'll be spinning yarn with silk or mohair from now on for socks. 

Stay tuned because I've asked my daughter to ask her friend who knits socks as she walks in the mornings. You heard me right, she knits as she exercises. Not only that but she knits all the socks she wears. That's impressive!!! What I want to know is 1. What types of fibers or combination of fibers she choose. 2. How many plies she prefers? I doubt they are two ply like all the yarns I prepared to make socks with for I've since found out that in a two ply yarn the fiber moves outward from each other. In a three or more ply, which is more likely her choice since it is rounded and the fibers turn inward. Mutiple plies makes the yarn stronger and more water resistant. It takes less yarn to make a garment from a three or more ply than a two ply. Did you know that? I didn't until the video. Cables should be done with a four or five ply yarn to make the cables stick out more pronounced for the four or five ply creates a very rounded yarn. See, I've just got to have this video for I'm paroting it when I talk about two and three ply or more yarns.

But, wait I was talking about socks. I want to know from this gal 3. if there is a favorite stitch for the heels and toes that aids in making them last longer. If anyone should know, this gal will. My goal is to make socks in the next year from the toe up because I've already make six or so from the top down with two ply yarn. I'm going to change to three and four ply and I want to do ones where you make two on one large circular needle at the same time. That is if only I can follow the instructions in the books. Not my strong point.  

Yarn Adoption Day

Oh what an awesome Mother/daughter weekend. They are so incredibly fun. We started them a few years ago and our oldest daughter and I do something different each year. Once we included a dinner theater and another time we browsed through art galleries. This year, I was in desperate need of some clothes and Toni found it the perfect opportunity to initiate a make over mom weekend. We started Friday night with a hair cut by her stylist and went to a couple discount clothing stores. Kohl's being one of my favorites.

The environmental, sporty area Toni lives in would give me a better chance at finding something. Toni had assured me we'd find lots. It didn't take long for her to understand why when her mother finds something she likes, she searches to see if it comes in two more pleasing colors and buys all three. My dread of clothes shopping has become so bad that if I was a guy, I'd say foo...wy with the whole thing and buy seven shirts alike and four pairs of the same pant and call it quits.

I figured Toni was beginning to catch on to the reason why I dreaded the whole thing so much when I saw her eyes set in concentration staring at me as I stood in front of the dressing room mirror, her little mouth contorted to the side denoting confusion. By the fourth shirt, confusion was replaced by dumb foundedness, and the by the fifth, her mouth wasn't just pressed to the side but frantically trying to escape, while her eyes doggingly looked on trying to dissect the reasons why nothing worked well. Good thing stubbornness is hereditary because she stuck with me and we narrowed the clothing paddock down, found a wild game sized trail of fashions that were so so and even gleaned a few why's and why nots out of the deal. And though it was kind of fun, shopping in the kitchen store was a whole lot funner. There I knew I'd find adventure and a perfect fit. LOL

On the way back to Toni's house, we glanced at Whole Foods store at the oil department as mayonnaise is still on my mind. Talkng to a clerk, we found out that there was an oil store downtown that we missed. We've got to go there next time and we heard there was a noodle store but we never found it either. Plus, I didn't make it to the place that sells home-made tortillas. Yes, you can bet we won't be doing much clothing shopping on the next trip. We've got food in mind.

*********************** We spent Sunday after church walking and then we had stir fried vegetables with a small tenderloin steak courtesy of the deceased Mr. Angus Fence Tearer Downer. The flavor and tenderness was out of this world good. You've got to pay big bucks for a steak of that quality from a restaurant and we haven't got them.

Then stomach full, I settled in on the livingroom floor as the lure that moved the mother/daughter date up several weeks was dumped all around me. Bags and bins of heaven floated down and I sorted it into categories and even some of those categories into companies for though it all made Red Heart look like something the garbage man brought in, there were still those yarns who could have had - for royalty only -stamped on the label.

My fingers and eyes feasted upon this soybean protein yarn carrying me to the beach, ocean waves lapping at my feet.

Then I was whisked off to the dessert as I cradled this Bacterian camel yarn, my eyes trailing off following the prints in the sand of a wandering caravan.

Then I sailed off into the blue blue sky with this mohair creation...

Landing on the mountain tops of the Andes amongst a clump of grass, llamas grazing around me.

I looked up from where I sat in the tall grass and gazed at the blue mountain ridges in the distance and longed for an alpaca of my own.
Or maybe I'll get two for you can never have enough alpacca. Just look at these exquisite earth tones and I dare for you tell me it isn't so.

Chilled, I headed to the sunny tropics where I munched on a banana and quenched my curiosity about just what banana yarn felt like. The bright orange colored yarn reminded me of a Tuscon sunset. No, I've never been there but my imagination has.

Just like I've never been to Italy, but this yarn reminds me of rich juicy tomatoes. The silk label has be questioning the kind. Surely not Tussah or wild silk as they have a satiny sheen. And over heated once more, I head to Tibet to run my fingers through some yak down. An animal my husband has longed for. I'm looking in to them. A subject we've really got to talk about. Since I'm close by, I slip on over to Asia and herd some cashmere goats though I've had a few dairy goats with quite a bit of cashmere wooly undercoats though I've never had it dehaired.

Then on my way home, I slip down south and run my fingers through the smooth slick cool cotton. And finally I land back home and determine once more that this will be the year that get permission to walk the pastures just outside of town where the deer, antelope and bison playand collect clumps of wooly under hair that the bison shed in the spring.

The one place I went but forgot to take pictures was the Merino sheep herds of Australia and the New Zealand countryside where the possums wreck havoc on the enviornment. Yes, these two fibers are blended into a wonderful yarn. I'll bring you along with me next time but right now I'm stuck since I left my bag of yarns on Toni's livingroom floor. OOOOPS!!! and it had the Merino/possum wool inside.

Lest any of you think she's lost her mind, no, none of these skeins came home with me. Toni kept them for her own stash. Who can blame her? But I did collect a heavenly pile of my own. And in case some of you have gotten the impression that we are filthy rich. It isn't so. Yes, some of these yarns are pricey and we both are yarn snobs to the core. I spin most of my own yarn and Toni is an Editor at a crochet magazine where these incredible yarns were part of completed projects for the magazine. Hence, many are partial skeins, some just one full skein left, and in rare instances there are two or more skiens. Many of these yarns find there way back into the magazine in the way of staff projects or technique visual aids. That's why Toni's worked for the company for four years and it isn't until now that this is my first adoption day. You can imagine my thrill.

Mittens and a New Thumb Design

Yes, the storm hit and though we didn't get very much snow yesterday, this morning it is snowing hard and we may yet get another inch making it a total of 2 1/2 to 3 inches of snow. Hardly a storm worth calling the National Guard out for but the transformation in our grand daughters from a year ago is astounding.

Until now, they have been coddled. They've lived in a house that was so warm they ran around in their underwear most of the time and the car was always heated up before they were put inside. Needless to say, they didn't adventure out into the weather much. But this grandma has other ideas. We keep our house in the middle 60's to upper 60's and wear sweatshirts all the time. At that temperature the cold and flu germs stay closer to the ground and don't breed so rapidly. That helps to keep the germs aways from our mouths and noses and the experts say lowers the chance of infection along with our heating bill. They also say your brain operates more efficiently and I could sure use that help.

We also heat with wood and coal that is put inside a free standing stove in the basement ,so the heat level fluctuates throughout the day. We have insulated curtains to close at night and you can really fill the difference when you open them in the morning to let in the light. The temperature in the whole house drops.

The change in lifestyles has changed the way our grand daughters view the weather outside. When it snowed, the first thing they did after school was beg to go out in it. They climbed into the snow pants I bought for them last year but they never wore and out they went rolling and playing in the cold white stuff. A far cry from the whining whimpering children of a year ago that couldn't stand it if their feet or hands got the least bit cold.

We don't have snow boots yet, though I did look a bit for some when I was in town last time but their rubber chore boots did fine for the short time they were out. Their hoods in their coats had to suffice until I can get some hats knitted up. So with new coats, where we are really hurting is mittens. I've one nice commercial pair of double layered ones for our oldest left over from when our kids were small but they are a bit large for her. The other two children were without. Last night, I stayed up to finish a pair for our middle grand daughter. A pair that I had changed the thumb configuration on. The idea came from a thin thin pair of grey mittens that our daughter bought to go with our youngest's mouse costume. The way the thumb lay out flat to the side made it so easy to get our littlest's thumb slipped into that it sparked my creative juices. Those of you with little ones know about slipping on a pair of mittens and then maneuvering a small child's thumb into the separate opening slot. Not fun. With this style there isn't any of that bother. Their thumb goes where their thumb belongs automatically.

Note the position of the thumb on the left and the traditional mitten on the right. The other thing that I don't like is that when you are making especially small mittens, the thumb opening isn't very big making handling three to four double pointed knitting needles with only a few stitches on each a pain.

The right mitten is for our youngest and the left, our middle grand daughter.

Lest you think I undertook quite a designing feat, think again. I'm not that smart. I just casted on eleven more stitches evenly around the needles after the ribbing. Then when it came to the thumb, I separated eleven stitches off onto a stitch holder and stitched around to those stitches again but then added two stitches at the end before attatching them to the stitches on the next needle. When I picked up the thumb stitches to knit them separately I picked up three stitches with a crochet hook filling in the opening that the two stitches from the main hand area left and proceeded to knit the thumb. Now hopefully for you knitters that was clearer than mud.

For an adult, I wouldn't put a thumb in in this manner but for small children, it is a real time saver when dressing them. The little bit of this color and that colored Merino wool yarn is left over from a hat I made. It is some wool I bought some years back and spun into yarn on my Ashford wheel.

Next, I'm going to try making up a pattern for double thick mittens. Ones with a mitten inside of a mitten but attached at the tip of the thumb and also at the tips of the fingers. I've had the idea in mind for years but no little hands needing mittens. I use to just let the grand kid's parents buy their things as I saw the snow pants I purchased a couple different times go unused. They never used the sled we purchased for them or anything else for cold weather we bought until now. The grandkids have big plans that include snowmen, snow angels, and sledding and that is just as it should be.

It brings back memories of snow turkeys and bears and our son with a home-made bow and arrow made from twigs off the willow tree out shooting his snow creations. Oh how our kids loved to play in the snow. I'll show you one of these days a pair of mittens I found from when our children were little. With all the time they spent in the snow, I had to have a bag that trailed around with me where ever I went just in case I had a few minutes to knit. Our kids frequently came inside covered in snow to exchange their wet mittens for dry ones making it necessary to lots of old towels to mop up after them and multiple sets of mittens for each child. And they wore them out at a rapid rate. I can see those days have returned and I'd better get to knitting fast and furiously.

Though I feel the results of staying up late last night, I did rather enjoy watching old reruns of M.A.S.H. with a cup of warm raspberry cranberry juice laced with cinnamon and cloves and my knitting in my lap. Now I'll start on those double layer mittens I've had in mind for years.

His and Her Weekend

As he stared into the fiery depth of the flames, I had hoped my husband would foresee his future. Of course a certain future that I had in mind. One where he quit making knives for a short period of time and built the entry table and front porch railing he'd been talking about for years. That was part of my hopes when we made the trip this weekend to Sheridan, Wyoming where Kirk watched demonstrations of how to create ornamental ironwork.
Though Kirk spent the whole day with his dad watching the demonstrators pound and twist metal into shapes, I did not. I had my own agenda for going to Sheridan. There was a shop I'd learn of on the Internet. It had been calling my name, luring and enticing me to visit. The store was more and less than I'd hoped it would be. For those that love to knit and crochet, room after room of the old home was packed with yarns, everything from wool and silk to possum. You heard me possum. They are making yarn from the pesky creatures that number 80 million in New Zealand and eat 21,000 tons of vegetation a night. They blend the fur with Merino wool and it makes a wonderfully soft yarn. Extremely warm too as possum is 7 times warmer than wool. My Mother-in-law and I surveyed the brightly colored yarns of every hue. Yet, what I really was after was fiber - luxurious, soft, cloudy puffs of heaven. They had but one kind - Alpaca. Little was left as their shipment for the year was to arrive in February. Lest you think I was very disappointed, I wasn't. Alpaca is one of my favorite fibers to spin and wear.

The black Alpaca, light brown, and light fawn color (the photo insists on making it white) I figured would go nicely with a section of an Alpaca fleece that was given to me by a friend.

So, I bought a pound of General Sheridan, that's the name of the Alpaca, and a few ounces of a fawn color (that's all there was), along with a small amount of a light brown (which was also all there was) and planned on getting pretty creative in mixing them with a warm milk chocolate colored Alpaca fiber I already had. How much yarn this all will make is questionable as I'm spinning it into a sport weight yarn to create more yarn length. My hopes is to combine all the colors into a vest. The design is still working itself out in my mind.

And though the stores Alpaca is straight forward to spin, the free section of fleece I had isn't. I thought I'd show you the process of preparing it to spin that I was working on before Christmas interrupted the project. First, I washed the fleece. Washing fleeces is far more complicated than throwing it in the washing machine so I'll cover that process in another blog. Besides, I haven't any pictures to show. The second stage is preparing the fibers to spin.

This lump of fibers appears to be a tangled mass but is really a sort of puzzle. When I start putting a puzzle together I find all the outer pieces that is a puzzle 300 pieces or less or I won't even begin (no patience for a project that takes hours and then all your work is undone and thrown back in a box). Look closely. See the light colored spots in the blob of fiber. That's the sun bleached tips of the outer most edge of the fleece.

I take hold of a light brown tuft with one hand and the mass of fleece with the other and pull, separating the tuft.

Next, with my wool card laying on my leg, the curved back conforming to the top of my leg, oh how I wish it still did for now I shift it slightly to the side to fit these fat thighs, then I lay one half of the tuft over a wool card, holding it down with one hand, while the other hand pulls the fibers through the wire bristles combing it out. If the fiber weren't so long I'd be able to place more of it across the cards. Since it is really long, I turn the fiber around and comb the other half.

The fiber is now ready to spin. Keep in mind that this is only one of many ways to use this handy tool. Different types of fibers, fiber lengths, and yarn types dictate using different

methods. I'll fill you in on those methods later, probably much later.

What remains after I get all the sun bleached tips is a confusing mass. This is where my next handy tool takes over.

Scary huh! This viscous looking instrument was once kept by my bed when our children were young and my husband use to work rotating shifts. I figured a burglar would think twice with a crazy lady heading toward him, a wild look in her eye and a Viking comb poised in each hand. So far, the only person I've bloodied is myself when I wasn't paying close attention and poked a finger. Nothing serious, for you learn quickly to watch what you're doing.

I fasten one comb in the holder clamped to a table, then took a mass of fiber, and from right to left start hooking it onto the tines calculating the distance carefully as to miss the tips of my fingers.

Next, I took the other comb and move the tines downward repeatedly through the fibers. This transfers most of the Alpaca to the second comb. Then I move the second comb repeatedly from right to left so that the first comb catches the fibers transferring them back. These two motions are repeated until you have a nice pile of hay and dirt mess on the floor to sweep up. On the bright side, your fibers are clean, separated, and nicely combed. What remains caught in the tines is short clumps - second cuts (we're the shearer goes over an area twice giving you very short fibers) and undesirables as I call them.

Picture of a clump formed from a second cut.

Then I pulled this fibers with my fingers. You're suppose to use a distall pulling the fibers through it but then when have I ever followed directions? I'm not even sure where mine is. I do know it is a cupped shaped small object made out of a piece of PVC pipe, though others have pretty ones made of horn or wood, and the center has a slit.). The distall is to form a more uniform shaped roving or rope. For me, I found it just impedes the progress of the fiber. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I don't really care what that is since I'm happy with my tug and pull roving.

So now you'ved either learned how I prepare my Alpaca fleece or not to come to my house unannounced in the middle of the night. I'm not sure which point stuck with you, take your choice but beware that though I may not have Viking combs by my bed at night anymore, my husband is armed and dangerous.