Out and about we were today. For once the weather forecast was right! Pretty puffy white clouds lazed in the spring sky and the sun was shining. Yes, yes, the birds were singing too. Nice when that happens and we don't hesitate to pull on boots and jackets and take a hike. We decided to head up the hill towards the next village to explore the set of paths we'd spied on a previous excursion.

As we entered the trail we immediately had to choose, left right or up. We went up up up. We climbed high up along the ridge that the cottage is on crossing over two little waterfalls on the way and making note of other trails to go back to for further exploration in the near future. People come from near and far to traipse around the mountains here, I feel quite fortunate to have those trails right outside the front door.











































The first time I'd seen one of these we were walking to friends house taking The Shortcut. It happen to be right after the last snowfall and everything was cold slippery and my only focus was not breaking anything as we navigated roots brambles and fences. An odd yet wonderfully convenient spot to leave a bench, I'd thought. The stiles certainly do come in handy!

I'm still waiting for that time I go over one, look up and see a naked sheep leaning against a fence post swinging a bag of fleece round asking what the heck too me so long. Oh that reminds me of a sheep joke.. I'll stop now.

Scooch

I was talking with a friend who is also a fiber artist, though of another kind, and we got on the topic of the tools we use to design. I have never found one bag/organizer that had exactly what I needed to keep the tools I need at hand organized. Well it so happens Emma specializes in Bespoke canvas structures. Not only structures but bags, organizers, and baskets. The canvas she uses is 100% industrial waste that would otherwise go into the trash. She accents the function with curves and shapes that reflect your workspace. The organizers are then accented with antique fabrics. So, imagine that ideal work organizer, the one with all the features you need, then, imagine the one that you want, then, write it down. I had no idea I'd come home from tea with homework!

Color above is "Emmazure". Bright, vibrant, full of cool energy, sky and sea with a splash of sun. Made from wool waste, those messed up bits from the combing machines. Hand color blended, spun in to Z 2-ply. I'm mixing this with creamy white alpaca, also hand spun, a bight lighter in weight with a beautiful halo that will bond with the wool creating a lightweight, colorful warmth.

According to the modern Celtic calendar, tomorrow is Imbolc, the start of Spring. The Hedge Druid has an informative post on the holiday and the traditions that come along with it.

Now, I'm off to recover from Snowman Building 2 [ ~ Yes, we learned how to roll giant snowallsl! Hurray!] spinning, knitting and pondering that ideal organizer.

Rainyday Spin

And a Great Rainy Day was had by all. I've held on to very few fibers and yarns. One that did not leave my non existent stash is a hank of Handmaiden Seasilk, my Viking Wool and a bit of fluff. The Sirri yarn was one of my early political fiber purchases. Exercising political opinion by being a consumer, right. In this case, a protest against the emargos cross the mid-East after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. It's quite versitile. Finely spun singles spun from Farose Island sheep at 600m a hank. Just too much of a bother to measure when designing. But, it's great as a play yarn. It felts and fulls beautifully. Even a simple St st scarf on large needles then fulled in alternating hot and cold water with a bit of conditioner makes the yarn double in thickness as the fiber blooms. Even better, though delicate in appearance the wool strengthens as the fibers lock together.

The single Vikings also work well as, well, singles! I plied them with some random bits I'd spun up of wool waste. And spun up a bit for Kiddo. The first with the tan, second with the cream. The blue/green/white hanklette was immediately claimed by Kiddo, she wanted cuffs with the squiggle on it.



Kiddo got a long lesson in color theory, applied maths and then hand blending. She came up with the next two wooly colors we'll be creating.

Then we baked peanut butter cookies and a fine Rainyday was had by all.

Today's Walk

A Wee Bit of This

A Wee Bit of This takes about fifteen minutes to hand fluff and floof. It takes a wee bit less than fifteen minutes to enjoy spinning it all up. I really do have to step up my mad blending game. While I continue slow and steady, I have gotten a few more colors to play with. Bright, vibrant "waste". More once I clear off the spindle of the soysilk/alpaca and experiment a bit this evening. Yes, parked in front of the fireplace is where I'll be. They are predicting snow again. Yay! Snow is fun! Nooo! We been exploring the walking trails and came across another network that goes to new to us places.

It's so cool how the Wee Bits look like cocoons. When you squeeze them the colors darken giving you an idea of how they will spin up. Today's walk was spectacular! Pics will be up soon. Those new trails, wow. We left the cottage at 2pm. We'd discussed the trails we'd take to make a nice loop woods walk and a bit of village walk. Near the end of the second segment Kiddo spied the next string of trails. After the second trail we had to choose from a split we thought it best we turn back and come back mid morning so we'd have more time to explore. The point at which we had stopped had a grassy lush green trail to the left and one to the right was one heading up a hill and around to another ridge. We stopped, had a look around, both blurted out ~ We're goin UP THERE next time!

A new neighbor moved in this last weekend. Today a van pulled up out front. I was sitting out on the front deck weaving in endless ends, glance up, see a man hop out of the van and immediately hoist up his trousers. Eyes glance down to my fine weavinginendlessends job then back up as a second guy hops out of the van and immediately hoist up his pants while turning and look over towards me on the deck. I stopped messing about with the ends wondering if they were indeed coming here and not to the neighbor. Then, a third man exits the van, hoists up his pants, turns back to get something out of the van and shut the door. They head to the neighbor's house. It was then that I noticed that they were plumbers.

Made my day.

Eeks! Leeks!

This is part of the view from the front deck. Open the door and voila! The surrounding valley in its wintery glory - sans snow! I love how the strands of evergreens mix with the deciduous trees, colors muted in the distance, once closer, tis an endless riot of green. The distant side of the valley is obscured by low fog. Fog, not smog. Love it.

I have learned that the leek is The Vegetable of Wales. That explained why they were so readily available and on the one pound coin here. Leeks leeks leeks. Leeks are a new veggie for me so I asked a couple of people how they normally prepare them and googled recipes as well. It was only fitting I give the leek and potato soup making a try. A very basic soup was prepared with leek, potato, garlic and herbs. I didn't have any cream on hand so I added a splash of milk. Kiddo thought it was quite tasty, just asked for pepper and suggested I add more potatoes so it would be thicker. The UK divas over at glittyknittykitty have up an awesome leek and potato recipe as well as olive, feta and sundried tomato scones which immediately went to the top of my To Do List. I've never had a scone, high time I made some.

I still can't get over how the sun is not OVERHEAD where it belongs. We're at a latitude of 52, much higher than any place I've ever lived. NOW I get the whole winter gloom/lack of sunshine thing. It took me a few days when we first got here to realize what was different. The sun always seems shoved to the south. Sure, it rises and sets but it's always so low in the sky. Quite unsettling, frankly, but I suppose one gets used to it. I'm told it doesn't set till round 10, 10:30 in the summertime, so there is a good flip side! When the sun does come out the jackets and boots come on and out we go. Today we walked to the village of Ysbyty Ystwyth to have a look around. We saw horses, sheep (of course), the village cemetery with the small war memorial in front of it.

On the way back down to our village we discovered the entry point for a new set of walking trails to explore. We also saw early signs of spring. Big green buds on the rhododendron trees that line the road and the first flowers of the season. No idea what they are but they are quite tiny and lovely.






*grumbles*

Zibspin ~ Hand Blending

Here I posted a couple of photos of a soysilk spinning project. Yes, I had been calling it bamboo, then.. I actually read the label on the bag, whoops. I had spun the soy into energized singles while manipulating color and weight then knit it right off the spindle. The most challenging part of that was spinning thick after a stretch of finer spinning. Knitting it up I changed from knit to purl rows as color and weight changed. I now have a long, narrow scarf with great weight, drape, tactile and visual interest. I had a second bag of the soysilk that was earmarked for a matching hat. I thought about spinning up some alpaca and doing colorwork or a band in the same style of the scarf and the rest done with alpaca etc.

But but but, spinning lovely white fiber for meters on end gets quite tedious so simply plying a single of soysilk and a single of alpaca was out. After reading this article in Fall 08 Knitty by the Loop lady, I was quite inspired. I should be able to mix the fibers, blend those colors in to the alpaca, right? Of course, I have neither drum carder or the hand carders, dog brushes or whatnot around.

After a couple false starts I found the only way to achieve the blending I wanted was to break the fibers down to comparable lengths so they would draw fairly evenly. I alternated several thin layers of the alpaca and soysilk making sure to keep the fibers going in the same direction. Then I patted it down and squished (oh yes getting technical here).

Once the pile felt dense I gently pulled the ends as I twisted the fiber. This allowed me check for any soysilk globs/clumps that snuck in and time to further floof them out.


Out came the trusty spindle, gift from a goddess and it was time to see if the fiber would succumb to my demands. The fiber must bend to my will! It must! I love the warmth of the alpaca and lightness of it and the colors of the soysillk. Is a lovely, tough, fine, strong, able to handle being handled and shuffled about without having a complete collapse too much to ask for from spindlespun? I don't think so.











As I spun, the single formed with ten to twenty cm stretches of soysilk then alternatively spun with both mixed in equally.




I did about thirty meters before winding it off on a nostepinne for a quick ply z-spin two ply job.






Once plied, I grabbed some needles and knit up a stitch that had been in mind for a few days now. I am quite pleased with how the color behaved on the tiniest of swatches. I know it will lay differently in the full blown project which prompted some design features to showcase, if you will, the play of color.

Starting with 100g of alpaca and 100g of soysilk. Shooting for at least 300m of two ply. No idea if that is enough fiber or way too much for the wpi I'm spinning. Humm.

Instant gratification is not had oft in spinning or knitting. It does take time. Since spinning the soysilk/alpaca up for the project will take a few days, I started a design draft of the project subbing in cotton. I had picked up a couple balls of Peaches & Creme while in Charleston intending to submit a fab summer bag design to Amy but we had to relocate and I completely missed the deadline. So I've repurposed the cotton for the first run, already a variation as I had to take in to account the very different behavior of the cotton compared to the soysilk/alpaca blend. No, I can not explain why I would purposely design something which would have you wind up with an assload (another high falutin' technical term) of ends to weave in other than - it makes it look pretty.