A Sheep In Wools' Clothing

Knitters' Companion - an iPad Knitter's Best Friend

So, having tech savvy kids, and a computer science major son, I am pretty well set for tech knowledge.  My computer science son is my personal IT guy - whatever issue I have (Mac or PC, personal computer or work), he is my go-to-guy.  I am a MAC fan.  I am on at least my third generation of iPhone (although all four of my kids are now Droid fans).

Last year, I bought the Knit Companion app (iPhone and iPad compatable).  While I am a fan of making copies of my patterns, keeping my notes and repeats in the margins, it was attractive to me to be able to enlarge charts and print, use row highlighters, row counters, repeat counters, etc in a format that is not prone to being lost, chewed by darling GSD puppies, or damaged from tea drippings.

And as of tonight, I can also attest to the awesome customer support from Knit Companion.  I hadn't used it since last year's Sock Madness.  When I went to enter in the PDF for the first round of this year's Sock Madness, the app kept crashing.  My contact with KC's support people met with prompt response and rapid resolution to the issue (which ended up being deleting the app & re-installing it).

And, there is a Knit Companion Ravelry group, as well as many free tutorials for using the program.  There are even webinars for learning how to use it easily and proficiently.

Knitting in the technosavvy world is awesome!

Portuguese Knitting

With my broken left wrist, knitting, spinning and weaving are extremely limited for me right now.  A few minutes of spinning or knitting (haven't tried weaving) causes soreness and aching for hours.  Between that and the discussion with the hand orthopedist about the high probability that due to the nature of my fracture, I will have long term "significant" arthritis issues in that wrist, I am truly trying to behave and not stress it during the healing process.

I have ordered a Shetland knitting belt and the long double pointed needles it requires in hopes that the left sided support from the belt might make knitting in my recovery easier and less painful.  While the belt is due to arrive this week, it isn't here yet.  Schoolhouse Press used to carry them, and for probably over 25 years, I've wanted to buy one.  Now that I can justify the purchase, of course Schoolhouse Press no longer carries them.  I did find them through Jamieson & Smith's website.

While at Fiber College of Maine, one of my instructors, Mary Lou Eagan, demonstrated how to knit in the Portuguese fashion.  Using this technique, the yarn is either looped through a hook on the left shoulder, or aroun the neck from right to left.  The stitches are approached in the usual fashion, but brought up to the front, where the left thum flips the yarn around the needle and one slips the new stich back through and off the left needle.  Andrea Wong has a website that sells the hooks and she has been on TV demonstrating this technique.  A YouTube video of Portuguese knitting shows the technique.

I've been trying it out tonight.  It truly does seem to inflict less stress on the left wrist.  My tension is tighter with this style of knitting than my usual loose-ish knitting in a hybrid Continental style of my own unvention.

The photos of the knitting pins are from Andrea Wong's website.

 

And so, my knitting education and my intermittent intensive reading of historial and ethnic knitting techniques and tools continues....  It's always nice to be able to completely justify the purchase of some historical fiber equipment!

Shetland Knitting Belt

Michele at Fiberphilia has fairly recently begun having yarn tastings on the last Thursday of the month.  I happened in on the day that in addition to the yarn tasting, she had Joyce Lovely demonstrate how to use a Shetland knitting belt.  Joyce lived in the Shetland Isles in the early 1960s when she was a newlywed bride of the local minister assigned there.  One of the ladies of her husband's  church taught her how to use a knitting belt.  Forty years later, Joyce returned, and was able to meet the same woman who'd taught her to use the knitting belt.  As you can see in this photo, her hands were flying so quickly that they and her knitting pins were a blur to the camera!  The belt is mostly covered by her right arm, but you can see the belt portion of it at her waist.  The pins are 16" double point needles.  Both of these tools are available through Meg Swansen at Schoolhouse Press .

Joyce shared her "pattern book" with us as well.  She said commercial pattern such as we have today were not available, so the women got a graph copy book.  Inside the front cover of Joyce's pattern book was her handwritten pattern, and on the pages within, were color patterns she'd kept in the book.  Inside the back cover, she had another pattern she'd written there.

I feel very fortunate to live where I do, and have wonderful shop owners around such as Amy of Spunky Eclectic  and Michele of Fiberphilia around to stimulate my fiber mind and creative drive, and stimulate the gray matter which drives the fingers and hands.... my humble thanks, ladies, and to the many others out there in our non-Muggle world!

Winter Cheer

I'm slowly getting back into the fiber swing.  I am in desperate need of organizing and tidying up my fiber - the chaos, although nice fiber, is starting to get to me!  I really need to be working on my sample for a knitting techniques class but I haven't started on it yet (sorry, Michelle!).

I have infused myself with color this week - I got Three Little Fish sock blockers (they match my goldfish orifice hook from Margene).  They have scroll work to help speed along the drying process for the socks, and even have a snail friend inching along the bottom!

And then, because my co-workers are younger than I and having babies, I got some teal painted superwash worsted weight wool for a Babies and Bears sweater for one of them.  The light in late New England afternoon didn't do justice to the colors - trust me,  Jessie did a great job on the colorway!

And my last infusion of color this week is from Yarn Wench - 5.6 oz of domestic wool dyed in "Carnation" just in time for Valentine's Day colors!  I need to start setting aside Tuesdays for spinning a la Harlot  - time slips by me, and I realize it has been far too long since I got into the Zen of my wheel!

Does anyone have any suggestions for a source of small scale chairs?  I want a chair with a back on it for spinning.  My problem is that I am short (5' 2"), and I have to sit way forward on most chairs in order to have my feet touch the ground or the treadles.  So, I am seeking a short person chair for spinning..... open for suggestions!

Spinning Orifice Hooks

This year, I have been able to join with a well-established group of spinners from time to time when my work schedule allows.  They meet every Wednesday at various members' homes, and spin.  Each person brings a brown bag lunch, and the hostess provides tea, coffee and dessert.

Since I do not control my work schedule, I either have to be post-call (having worked all night the night before) or on overnight call later that day in order to attend, so my participation is sporadic.

Each Christmas, there is a small gift exchange, and a larger gift added to the kitty to be selected on a rotating basis by those in attendance.  I found what I think are perfect little gifts for spinners on eBay this year!  Debbie Becker  of Beckerhill made these wonderful orifice hooks with glass beads.  I had acquired a few, then she listed the Christmas colored ones, so I acquired a number of them, sufficient for the spinning group members to each have one.  Debbie has been great at batching the shipping for me while I waited to see if I'd win an auction, and speedily shipping them my direction!

I also have a very special orifice hook for myself, via Margene .  It is a lovely little goldfish I fell in love with - a fish hook for my spinning.  Seems fitting, doesn't it?  I tried to photograph it, but my camera is trying to outsmart me about where it is supposed to be focusing, so all I got was a yellow shiny blur.   It came as a part of an exchange with Margene who is still waiting for her part to get to her.  I promise I'll make it worthwhile, Margene!

Stitch Markers

I received these in the mail this week from Kelly .  Kelly let me pick the colors of the little beads, the size of the rings, and whether I wanted a row marker to be different in some way - like the teapot, or a different bead color.   I just had to have the little sheepies and tea always goes with knitting and cold weather, don't you think?  Thank you, Kelly!

IMHO - Washing Raw Fiber

I've been processing lots of raw fiber.  It started out as curiosity, just to say I'd done it and just to learn how to do a raw fleece.  It has turned out to be a preference - there is something basic and bonding about getting to know a fiber the way I do when I see it raw, clean it, process it, and spin it.  The differences between the fibers produced by different breeds of sheep and fiber animals stands out to me when I spend this much time with it, in this many different ways.

And so with raw fleeces, I am also spending a lot of time with lanolin.  My hot water isn't really hot, since we have a hot water heating system that limits the hot water heater temperature.  Enter issues with cleaning lanolin from fiber.

Everyone I read indicated Dawn dish washing detergent was their cleaning agent of choice.  I followed the advice - who am I to question it?  That was my first fleece.  I washed it probably four or five times, and two rinses.  The fiber was carded twice with my drum carder.  I STILL wound up with a fiber that was virtually undraftable because it was tacky to the touch and the fibers wouldn't slide past each other well.

Enter:  experiments with various commercial fleece/fiber washing products.  Eucalan woolwash.  Kookaburra Woolwash.  Meadows Fibermaster.  Kookaburra Woolscour.  The wool washes made the fiber smell better than did the Dawn, but I can't say they moved the lanolin much better.  Last night, however, I took equal weights of my Rambouillet fleece which had both been washed in Dawn simultaneously and were now dry, but not finished.  There was still a lot of lanolin at the tips, and the fleece still felt like it carried a lot of lanolin.

I put one batch into a sink with Meadows Fibermaster and the other batch into the same sized sink with Kookaburra Woolscour.  They both got a LOT more lanolin out of the fleece.  My feeling was that the Fibermaster had gotten more lanolin off, but it was hard to really tell.  While drying, the Fibermaster fiber smells better - a softer, pleasing scent compared to a more chemical smell from the Woolscour.

My final comparison test was later last night, when I took some of the fiber from my first fleece, the one which is very hard to draft to damn near impossible to draft.  I wash it in the Kookaburra Woolscour.  I didn't get much additional visible stuff off, but as the water was drained after the second rinse, the wool STILL felt tacky to the touch.  So, I started over and used Meadows Fibermaster on it.  Success.  The wool is FINALLY soft and lofty and draftable.  It smells nice.  And as a bonus, the Fibermaster has natural moth repellent botanicals in it.  So, if you are interested, IMHO, Fibermaster is currently the best thing out there for cleaning raw lanolin rich fiber.  (And I've read that Fe-breeze is good at getting out goat odors for those of you wanting to rid goat fiber of the unique odor of goat.)

Walking, Great or Wool Wheel

Well, as I sell off a wheel or two to make room for a new contemporary wheel, I also added this to the household:  a Walking wheel, also known as a Great wheel or a  Wool Wheel.  I had passively been thinking about owning one for some time, but wasn't actively seeking a Great Wheel. 

The other day, I went to Debbie's  for a one-on-one spinning lesson to work on some issues I had with particular tasks.  We accomplished that goal very quickly, so Debbie let me take a trial spin on a couple of wheels - one she inherited from her MIL and the other she obtained through barter.  Her MIL was not a spinner, but she was a weaver.  For whatever reason, her MIL collected wheels.  I must say, she had good taste. 

The wheel I tried of the MIL's was a tiny little castle style wheel.  It has a little bobbin, but spins a very, very fine yarn - like even cobweb plied fine.  It is amazing. It does also speak for the wonderful combed fiber preparation I was trying on the wheel.  That wheel might go in to reproduction by a local woodworker, to be marketed by Debbie.

The other wheel I tried was the walking wheel.  After using essentially only double treadle wheels, it odd, but cool, to be standing, turning the wheel with my right hand, and holding the drafting fiber in the left.  I can be fairly ambidextrous, so it wasn't too weird, but if one were rigidly a right hander, drafting with the left could be uncomfortable.  With the walking wheel, the yarn is being produced on a spindle.  One spins and spins until there is no room left to draft out the fibers.  Then, one reverses the wheel direction only long enough to unwind the portion of yarn out the end of the spindle.  When the yarn reaches the base of the spindle where previous yarn has been wound, then one resumes the forward direction of turning the wheel and winds the yarn onto the base of the spindle.  When the yarn is wound back up, then one allows the yarn to work its way out to the end of the spindle and resume spinning....

This experience re-whetted my appetite to eventually own a Great Wheel.  I had seen one in a store window of an antique "mall" in downtown Bangor.  Today, when I was released from work, I went downtown to look at the wheel.  The Miner's Head was at right angles to the wheel instead of being parallel.  The spindle was no where near where it should have been, and was pointing at the ground.  It was obvious that the people did not know spinning or wheels.  That piece worked to my advantage, as I was able to get them to drop down the price because the Miner's Head would need repair.  It also needs drive bands, a cotter pin to keep the wheel from working its way off the axle, it needs two wedges of wood to maintain the front column on tension for the drive band, and the spindle needs new leather keeper straps, and maybe a new leather base.  All in all, not in bad shape.  The wheel is not warped (see photo, above, left).   It spins freely.  The join of the wood to make the circle of the wheel is intact, as are the spokes of the wheel.  This particular wheel is grooved to keep the drive band in place, whereas the one Debbie has was a broader rim, but not grooved.  It relies on the drive band tension to keep it in place on the wheel.  I am quite happy - it made its way to my living room!

Antique Reproduction Adjustable Niddy Noddy

While I was at The Spinner's Loft in Nova Scotia, Leslie had this wonderful antique reproduction adjustable niddy noddy made for her by her now-ex husband.  He also made a reproduction spinning wheel for her, which is her favorite of all her wheels.

I loved the niddy noddy so well that I took measurements of it, and photographed it in detail.  It is my hope that one day a woodworking friend will make me one! 

This niddy noddy has a handle below the arms where the yarn is being wrapped.  So, instead of using a lot of wrist action, one can simply turn the handle much like a nostepinde handle while winding the yarn.  The bottom horizontal bar is fixed, and the top one has a wooden peg that slides in and out that allows the top horizontal bar to rotate and/or slide up and down on the dowel. 

There is something about handcrafted wood items that seems fitting with hand spinning or knitting!

Kristof Arrived

In the recent issue of knitty.com  there was the column on new products out there.  I fell for the The Sockdiva's sock bug called "Kristof."  nine (yes, nine) different fabrics on him, and has a little Velcro closure pocket on his front hidden in one of the body stripes.  His antennae double as the drawstring closure of his mouth.  Diana even included little treasures inside of him and his smaller buddy, and inside the pocket - little hanks of yarn samples, cards from other Etsy shop owners and a "in craft we trust" button.  Aren't they the darling-est things you've ever stuck your socks in?  I'm starting to have quite a collection of sock project bags - guess someone out there knows my stash of sock yarn is amazing!