Catching Up… And There’s A Lot To Catch Up On!!

Wow, cannot believe how long it’s been!

Life has taken some twists and turns around here over these past few years – some exciting, some amazing, some surprising, lol.

My husband and I have embarked on an exciting and challenging adventure! We are working on a small property we are planning to move to and live on, sustainably and off grid.  We have just around two lovely acres – some of it forest, all of it beautiful!

In the beginning, we camped…

By year 2, we built the itsy bitsy cozy cabin 🙂

It’s a very good example of doing things on a budget! Most of our materials came from job waste and stores such as The Re-store. Definitely a project that I would never have predicted but super satisfying!

This year we are expanding a little and yet to add is the cutest wood cookstove ever. I am pretty excited about that 🙂

Going to get more done this weekend so I shall continue in my next post.  Have a fantastic day! Thanks for reading 🙂

Domain Change

Just a quick note – due to financial reasons, I did not renew the knitsnthings.com domain and this blog is now knitsnthings.wordpress.com. Hopefully links are working – please let me know if anything doesn’t seem to work; I’ve repaired anything I’ve noticed so far 🙂

Most Excellent! Textured Estonian Knitting Stitches….So Much Fun!!

Happy Wednesday 🙂

So, having checked out my ‘attendence’ for last year with this blog, I have decided to commit to twice monthly posts, at a minimum, I promise!

It’s been a hectic time for me, lol – new job and then a promotion to another new job within just a few months, lots of training, and uptraining, lots of pressure and lots of getting sidetracked on projects — NOT getting much actually ‘done’ but having fun for a little while with things I haven’t yet finished. Maybe even a few I will never finish. I have begun to suspect I am what I have heard called a ‘process knitter’. I will often start a new project because I am interested (or possibly fascinated by lol) in a particular technique or stitch or whatnot. Once I’ve ‘experienced’ or learned the method/stitch/whatever quite often I’m good.

This year for Christmas I got a Kobo tablet and have been collecting a few very nice knitting resources for it – I figure that I can take projects on the go a lot easier this way and that works for me! Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could work more time into our days?

The stitches pictured above are from a great tutorial with pdf written patterns provided as well as a great video demo of the stitches done by the sweetest lady ever! I purchased it as a digital download from The Interweave Store; “Creative Estonian Knitting” by Merike Saarniit — Textured stitches to swatch and explore. Just one thing though – the video did not play on my kobo and I watched it on my laptop. Not at all an issue for me but something that one should know going in. The pdf works great in my Adobe reader app on the tablet.

I love how the stitches are so textured and how they flow. The tutorial does not instruct you on how to build the blanket but instructs on how to work the basic stitches and helps one see how to expand on the subject matter — Merike does a fantastic job of giving you that ‘I can DO this’ feeling. I consider myself an advanced knitter and still appreciated having the video tutorial and would definitely recommend it. A lot of fun and something to use up that left-over yarn from your other projects!

Another thing I am working on is a spinning project – some beautiful baby suri alpaca blended with bombyx silk from india which is going to become a wonderful pair of silky stockings when it grows up!

A couple pictures of the blend….

Ok, so time to knit…or spin…or something 🙂

I’m Painting A Blanket! With Handspun Yarn…

I hope you are having a fantastic day!

I have found the PERFECT project for my handspun bits! It is a free pattern available through Ravelry, called “Patchwork Knitting”.

I’ve got so very many balls or small skeins which I have collected over the years and this blanket should be an excellent showcase for them. There are a lot of naturals as well as handdyes in the mix – plenty of silk, cashmere, camel and alpaca in addition to wools. I’m including nothing but handspun and I think it’ll be a great way to look back at my progress. Because the yarns vary in weight I’m stranding them together to an approximate worsted weight and knitting on a 4.5 mm circular needle.

I may have to spin some more yarns specifically for this blanket but we’ll have to see as I go….

Ahhhh….A Glorious 13 Day Holiday!

Good morning!

I’m fighting the urge to go in multiple directions at once lol. Holidays do this to me. I want to wash fleece, prep fleece, spinnnnnnnn (well that one was sort of a given!). Also wanted to super clean the house, arrange everything within an inch of it’s life and organize my already spun yarn so I can properly post it all on my handspunyarn.wordpress.com site.

13 days is not as long as it sounds…

So far I have accomplished some of my goals (we are currently on the 6th day). I have managed to build a database and to list all of my already spun yarns on it, or at least everything which I have not already wound into balls, and was labelled at least somewhat – there are some stragglers I admit!

Here are some of the new additions to the site…

I washed fleece, weighed fleece and took inventory of fibers…

The fleeces/wool….

The silks…I do love silks….

Just beautiful for blending with wools or spinning on their own!!

Then there are the odds and ends – a bit of cashmere, some camel, huacaya alpaca, suri alpaca etc…they really require another collage to show properly 🙂

So, feeling oh-so-organized and have also managed to rewash the targhee x fleece shown in the first collage – it is drying now. The cvm lamb and rambouillet fleeces were washed during the first couple days of holidaying. There is something so appealing about freshly washed, beautifully fresh smelling, soft and fluffy fleeces — truly addictive lol.

The side effect of building the database was that I ended up completely cleaning out and updating all my computer programs, and adding a couple more programs…even the computer feels oh-so-organized now!

I DID finish a knitting project (I think I hear the trumpets) and am so very very pleased with it!

I knitted it with the bond/rambouilet cross fleece/4 ply/light worsted weight or dk. I’ll have to get one of my girls to take a picture and post it as soon as I can 🙂

Have a fantastic day – I’ll be trying to figure out how to relax!

Please check out my handspun yarn site if you might be interested in any of my handspun – I’ve updated the pricing page recently as well.

Scandinavian Spinning Wheels!

Good morning!

Over the past month or so, we’ve been very very fortunate to find two wheels from Scandinavia. Both Kijiji finds, both very reasonably priced, both with all their parts and both in spinning order! One was in a ready-to-spin-right-now-and-i-cant-wait-to-get-started state, the other more of a help-me-im-smothering-underneath-all-this-nasty-oil-paint state lol but you’ll get to see how I saved her…she was sort of masquerading as one of those captains beds from the 70’s – you know the ones! – and had not been used much in her life but is definitely made to work. I took her for a test spin before beginning the stripping, just to reassure myself.

Ok, so, the first spinning wheel we found….

She was found in Trenton, Ontario and has a little bit of history (as told by the guy we bought her from). She was apparently brought from Sweden, by her Swedish family, and has been in the same family for her lifetime, save the time she spent with the gentleman we bought her from. The interesting thing is that she is actually a Norwegian style double table wheel with distinctive Finnish double upright wheel posts. The beautiful curving end caps on these double posts are also distinctly Finnish.

Check out her bearings! This wheel is absolutely THE MOST SOLID wheel in my collection – old or new. She is put together completely with wooden pegs and everything is in perfect shape. She’s like a miracle wheel, considering her probable age…

An amazing thing…she has all her bobbins! And the wood is beautiful….

After cleaning…

the third bobbin, on the flyer…

Her treadle has the comfy foot indent and she loves to spin…a cleaning, an oiling and away we went 🙂 Her wheel is large, partially hand carved and beautiful. It measures 26.5 inches, approximately.

God bless her original family, they took exceptional care of her.

Now, the second wheel…

We found this wheel on the local Kijiji, just about 30 minutes away. I couldn’t help but notice the double wheel posts with the curving cap which are secondary supports on this tiny spinning wheel and I was intrigued since I had just gotten the first a week or two before.

She was covered in thick brown oil type paint – very shiny. I could tell that it was not original paint because they had painted over her decorative end caps. She was doing a very good job of impersonating a reproduction wheel of some sort from the 70’s and I had more than one doubt when buying her.

My grandson, bless him, loves her. Grandma, for ME?!!! was his reaction 🙂

First things first, when I got her home I took her for a spin and she did spin!

Some pictures of her parts…

The painted over decorative caps

The flyer and mother of all

Yes, she has bearings

This was a job for solvent…and lots of gloves and paint scrubbie pads…

The wheel itself was a lot of work…

And then all the smaller pieces…

The pressure fit whorl

The flyer

The bobbin

The whole job took approximately 20 hours, lots of patience and plenty of elbow grease but now she is perfect!

Her flyer, with tool marks from the file it was ‘sanded’ with

The arched post cap

Tension

Side view/alignment

From the back

One thing missing – one decorative metal ‘cap’

It’s a super cute antique spinning wheel that has seen very little use. There is no foot indentation in the treadle, the hooks may be replacements but they are in good shape and well bent so I didn’t replace them. She has an odd arrangement with the front maiden on an angle to accomodate the flyer and a 14″ wheel diameter.

After stripping the whole thing, I treated the wood with orange oil, no wax so far.

Have a fantastic day! 🙂

This Yarn Is Delicious!

I spun this 2 ply out of rambouillet blended with baby suri alpaca on hand cards. It turned out so soft it doesn’t even feel like wool!

Also the colour is lovely – chocolate and tan with a bit of a shine! It has a really rich look and I love it.

I’m working on a pair of gloves for winter…I’ll keep you updated 🙂

Have a great day!

If you might be interested in purchasing my handspun yarn, please visit handspunyarn.wordpress.com

Dreambird Shawl in Handspun Yarn

I’ve been working on a special shawl for a special friend’s birthday and I’m finally done! Yay!!

It is Nadita’s Dreambird pattern, purchased from her shop on Ravelry. She is a really interesting designer with a lot of patterns I think would work really well with handspun yarn 🙂

A reminder of where this came from — the shetland lamb from earlier this year…(the handdyed coloured sections)

The grey is a rambo/bond cross.

The pattern takes some getting used to but is really easy once you get the hang of it. Highly recommended!

Have a great day 🙂

If you might be interested in my handspun yarn for sale, please check out my destash site!

New Destash Blog!

Check out my new destash blog http://handspunyarn.wordpress.com/

A Very Bright Baby Blankie!

It’s a pattern from Wooly Thouhts, available on Ravelry. Best of all, it’s based on math and really easy to improvise as you go, once you get the hang of it 🙂

I used some of the shetland lamb, dyed it in a multitude of colours. I use the Dharma Trading Co. acid dyes and they are excellent! I blended the dyed locks on hand cards and added a pinch of targhee cross to each rolag – each rolag was split in half so when spun, the plies pretty much lined up and created the blending of one colour to another. In total, 1060 metres of handspun two ply went into this blanket.

It’s Fleece Season!!

Oh yes, happy day!

It may still be snowing outside but I still love spring – I usually stock up on my fleeces and this year I’m pretty pleased with what I was able to find 🙂 (lol, to be honest, I have always been pleased – I just love fleece)

There is the Romney fleece – purchased from a seller on Ravelry.

It was very clean to begin with, hardly any vm.

I separated the locks and laid them in a basket.

I really like taking the extra time to do this – the results are excellent and the fleece cleans very easily. I place these locks in a wire waste basket from the dollar store and then this basket is placed in a large pot of simmering water on the stove. I keep an eye on water temperature with a candy thermometer. I do the same with the rinse water and I have a second basket so I can keep one washing at all times. The going is a little slow because I don’t overcrowd my baskets but it’s easy and the results are excellent!

And this is the whole fleece, after washing.

The next fleece is a shetland lamb fleece – really nice!

(our dog really loves this fleece!)

I purchased this from a little etsy shop.

It is a beautiful fleece with minimal vm, well skirted and soft. Count me as a happy spinner 🙂

I found some lovely suri alpaca – baby suri, just a little so I could try it…lol, I fell in love…

I ended up blending the suri with a little of the shetland lamb and have not yet plied the singles.

Happy spring 🙂

Swiss Lateral Treadle – A Very Sweet Wheel!

Good morning my friends!

Yes, we’ve added another wheel to the flock.  My husband has definitely earned his enabler’s certification, lol, as he very smartly and wisely guessed I might really REALLY love this little wheel as a birthday present/project.

Purchased off of our local Kijiji from an elderly gentleman who thought it was polish (though I’m not sure why and the gentleman did not have time to talk and did not share details on any known history of the wheel).

Very loose, very rickety but complete with all of her parts except the tension peg. A very experienced, well used (as evidenced by the oil stains and appropriate wear) lateral treadle swiss wheel! Not really very common where I live and I feel very blessed to have her 🙂

I took her apart as much as possible and cleaned her. Then a coat of blo and turpentine mixed about 50/50. She could drink that for days but I didn’t want to overdo so I’m waiting a few days now for another coat.

Be ever so careful if you are using this mixture – it will self combust and you MUST lay out rags or anything used outside to dry afterwards before safely disposing. Do not crumple up rags! Also, use in a well ventilated area.

She was definitely in poor shape. Her flyer had been bent off center, possibly by too much tension over too many years or possibly by a fall or some other accident. Her orifice leather needed replacing, her frame needed shimming from underneath to take out the rattle and the lean. The mother of all arm which holds the orifice needed shimming from underneath to take out the other rattle, lol.

Check out this treadle pin!

I actually love getting to know these old ladies. It’s like we have this long talk about their every ailment, and then I do my best to fix them one by one by one until the little old lady is ready tCo spin again. You know, the kind of work where you can spend nine hours or so before you even realize that the day has passed? A labour of love 🙂

She has captive rings, which I thought was pretty sweet. To me, it means that someone loved the lady who owned this wheel once-upon-a-time. In it’s day, a wheel was a necessary tool. Only people who love people specially decorate their tools, I was thinking…

So, after the shimming, she can now be carried with one hand, nothing moves and she is, perhaps, the most sturdy wheel in the house!

She stood for having her flyer shaft bent back into straight. Her bobbin degunked nicely for me.

It took a little work carving shoe leather thin enough for her orifice leather but she is now releathered. I did leave the top of the wooden orifice without having the leather come around and it works perfectly with the soft cord as a tensioner. I am planning to replace the cord with leather lacing for a brake.

The only thing left to do is to carve her a proper tension peg (I’m thinking captive rings are in order…) and to become much more skilled in the art of bobbin led spinning!! LOL. These are wheels that pull like crazy and want to put in light light twist. I left the original thread there from the lady-who-spun-so-long-ago. It’s good for the wheel karma. It appears she was a pro – it is very thin, very perfect flax.

A Fantastic New Craft – My Freeform Crocheted Carpet Project

It all started when I was sorting my wool the other day. I love how a bunch of wool can create a whole chain of thought and inspiration!

I’ve got tons of textured yarns which I’ve accumulated over the years and lots of basic acrylics that I use for blankets and toys. I had the idea to create an area rug for my son with various textured yarns held double with a strand of the base acrylics (worsted weight) in all the shades of beige that I had in my stash. The flat/untufted areas are base acrylic held with a strand of cone cotton and strand of cone rayon with a golden sparkle to it – each about fingering weight or less. It compliments the sparkle in the main ‘bling bling’ yarn I’ve used for texture. It’s the multicolour found in all the circles – pictures just don’t do it justice.

I had so much fun with this I’m planning to invest in some rug yarns to try to make a more durable/long lasting rug. This one is tightly crocheted and seems strong but it is just blanket strength acrylic I’ve used so I can’t wait to see what I can create with real rug wool and my tufted texture yarns! It will take away the machine wash option though if I decide to go with wool rug yarn (and I’m leaning to that option – seeing a guy with a factory full of partial cones which he needs to clear out later on today and there are a few different materials to choose from).

We all knew I needed a new hobby, seeing as I have nothing to do lol 🙂

Oh wow, almost forgot to post this pic…

It’s my new Polonaise! Yes, finally, I have been blessed with the one wheel I’ve wanted forever-since-I-thought-of-spinning!! A totally excellent early Christmas present 🙂

She spins like a dream and is just beautiful. The lady I purchased her from was excellent and her husband was even kind enough to deliver the wheel.

And a very cute grandson pic…he loves to jump!

An Adorable Knitted Doll And A Few New Books…

I recently purchased a few new books. I really LOVE books!

The one that got me started was ‘Knitted Dolls’ by Arne & Carlos. Then I found ‘Babes In The Wool’ by Fiona McDonald and also ‘Crochet Master Class’ by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss.

So, my sudden fascination with knitting some dolls is completely unexplainable but they are SO CUTE! One just leads you to wondering how the next one will turn out, lol.

In progress…

The eyes make all the difference…

Also, because the crochet book demanded I not ignore it….I started a couple of ‘squares’ for a future crocheted quilt I have in mind. The colours are awesome and the technique makes them really POP. This is a pillow cover project from the book….

Have an excellent day! I have a doll dress to finish 🙂

Final thought for today? I KNEW the acrylic was good for something!

Hand Carved Crochet Hooks!

An awesome, fun, new craft!

There is a pear tree in our back yard which has a dead, dry branch — so dry it literally snapped off the tree with a touch a few weeks ago. Add to that that I saw a tutorial on hook carving AND I love to carve in the first place….. 🙂

A little research revealed that pear is an ideal carving wood. Thank you, God.

And so I’ve learned to carve crochet hooks – what a fabulous way to spend a day off!

The finished hook in this picture is 4mm and about 5.5 inches long. It fits perfectly in the hand with the bend in the wood. The stick on the right was the second one I worked on. More picture of that one coming right up!

A raw stick, or how it starts – The second hook, which ended up being 5.5mm and about 6.5 inches in length with a really comfy thumb rest – The first hook and my favorite knife and blade.

I wanted to show the ‘hook’ itself, that is definitely the tricky part. I sanded these very gently to get them to a shiny smooth finish, especially on hook end. I love how the wood grain comes out in this wood and really love it best in hook #2.

Have a fabulous day!

Our New Shihtzu Puppy!

Good morning!  I have the CUTEST little guy to introduce today – his name is Charlie and he is a nine week old shih tzu puppy.

He’s from a local family and is so well adjusted and has settled in with barely a squeak.  Yes – he squeaks instead of making more likely ‘dog’ noises at this point.  I’m sure he’s going to have lots to say once his voice comes in!

For a little bit of perspective on his size…

His toys are mostly cat, lol – a small beanie stuffed with catnip, a few of those balls with the bells inside and a bunny rattle which the bunny never liked but Charlie thinks is awesome lol.

He even managed the steps up to the deck.  Next?  Learning how to go down stairs….

Have an excellent day 🙂

Sidetracked, Again (or is that always?)

Ok, I admit it, I just might have a BIT of an issue with sticking to one thing, lol. It’s like some kind of ‘ooooooh shiny, soooooo pretty’ disease. I have so many projects on the go that it’s truly ridiculous.

There is the sweater I am knitting out of handspun light fingering weight yarns, in stripes. The white is cormo/merino hand combed and blended with very fine alpaca, two ply. The coloured yarn is a hand carded silk/wool blend, 2 ply.

The yarn I really did finish (yay, one for me, save the part where there are half a bobbin of singles waiting to be plied into yarn, should I get around to finishing the other ply), created from hand processed, hand combed cormo/fdt fleece from mmfwool….

So far I have two skeins of this, around 700 metres, I’d guess. And I would be guessing, lol, since I have yet to count the strands 🙂

The ‘ooh shiny’ which I just started yesterday. Days off work are fantastic!

Hand dyed silk, cormo/merino fleece and super-soft-camel fluff…it is divine….

And, certainly not last, simply last for today – some super soft gloves I’m working on, created with handspun angora bunny/hand dyed silk blended yarn.

Thankfully winter is a few months away!

The ‘RED’ Has Turned Out Very Well!

I’d love to say ‘good morning’ but it’s afternoon, evening really… so happy day, my friends 🙂

I’ve been keeping busy with work and fabulous fiber. I managed to ply the red yarn and it came out to 380 meters of lovely lace or light weight fingering, I’d say. I like my socks on the thin side, comfy and perfect for normal wear in normal shoes. I’ll most likely put it in my shop but perhaps not for long, depending on how long I can resist it…

I’ve also spent some time working with the beautiful cormo/fdt cross fleece purchased from mmfwool on ebay…

It’s taking two washes to get the lanolin out, or mostly out, as the case may be. Really lovely fleece with a variety of greys in it starting with the lightest pearl gray and going to almost black in places! It combs as nicely as I suspected it would, too. Take a peek at this bit of hand pulled roving…

It’s SO very satisfying, turning a raw fleece into clouds of fiber-y goodness.

Have a fantastic night 🙂

Something Red

Hello!

I barely made it through my day at work, lol – could not wait to get home and get back to the gray fleece again, as I’m quite sure you all understand 🙂

What a beauty it is.

Check out that little washed bit, all separated into locks and dried now…it may well be worth washing this baby slowly because the locks couldn’t have come out more perfect, in my opinion….

I couldn’t help but spin a small sample; it’s virtually irresistible fiber.  I tried spinning from the lock and from hand carded rolags – from the lock wins hands down because the fiber is so fine.  Combing would be perfection, something I have to try and will certainly show once I do 🙂

I’ve been working through some bits of interesting fiber and have spun another skein of laceweight yarn.  This one is “Something Red”, created by blending the lovely white cormo/merino with hand dyed blue/violet silk and a wine red shade of predyed superwash merino.  I blend by sight and handcard my rolags.

Pictures coming soon of the actual plied yarn…I’ve got to skein and wash it first and we all know I’m probably lost in the land of grey fleece tonight 🙂  Have an excellent day!

What Could Be More Fun Than A Fresh New Fleece?!

I’m a little behind, here, and haven’t shown what I’ve been up to lately!  My apologies, my friends!  Work and family and (lets face it!) spinning have been getting in the way…

This is a beautiful fleece I purchased from mmfwool. It’s a cormo/merino cross and just awesome to work with – lovey crimp and length and so very, very soft.

Here’s how it looks cleaned up…(it only took one wash, two rinses);

And how it came out after combing…

I’ve also been blending – I treated myself to some excellent bits of fiber recently…

I’ve made some really soft yarns in all shades of natural…

I’ve just received another beautiful fleece, a grey cormo cross which is actually even MORE beautiful and super fine.

I’m washing this more carefully than I’ve ever washed a fleece — by the handfull almost, in a wire basket in a LOT of water, simmering on the stove for 20 minutes then two rinses in super hot tap water with some boiling water mixed in. Absolutely NO agitation.

The first batch came out excellently!

I’m surrounded in fleecy goodness! If you are interested, please visit my little handspun yarn shop.  Have an excellent day!

Opening A Little Internet Yarn Shop!

Good morning!  It’s TRUE.  I’ve finally decided (and worked my way through most of the steps involved) to sell my extra handspun yarn via webstore.

ok, well, I had decided but then discovered it is acceptable to sell handmade items via wordpress and so have, instead, set up a sister site – Handspunyarn.wordpress.com

My little shop is called ‘HandspunYarn’ and will offer a variety of hand spun yarns from laceweight to bulky.  Since I love a good fiber, there will be lots of unique blends and all offerings are one of a kind.

All my my wool is prepared in an environmentally friendly way using safe Dawn dish soap in most cases, sometimes purex naturals, vinegar and occasional hair conditioner in the rinse.  All dyes are food safe unless noted (for example my superwash merino is predyed)

I prepare my fiber by hand, carding/combing and blending with other fibers.  A favorite of mine is silk – sari and bombyx at the moment – and I also blend with camel, alpaca, llama, mohair, angora, yak and even cashmere and cotton, on occasion.

For a great selection of unique, knittable yarns, please visit my shop.

Have an excellent day!

Lisa

The Beautiful Birthday Wool And Other Fun Stuff

Good Morning!

Yes, again, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted 🙂 It feels like spring – a beautiful beautiful day in Ontario. Time to sort, clean and catch up…

A couple of weeks ago I had another birthday and wanted to treat myself to something special. I decided to make some pretty yarn inspired by amethyst…a little bit of sparkle (silk from india), a little bit of shine and bold bright colour (handdyed longwool) and a fair share of beautiful, bouncy softness (gorgeous handdyed cormo/merino cross recently purchased from mmfwool on ebay – I *highly* recommend it).

In the dye pot – the wools and some wilton’s violet icing colour….

I blended the fibres with hand cards and, voila!

The plan is to knit ‘Sabbatical’ by Connie Chang Chinchio…it should be awesome!

The wool from mmfwool is absolutely wonderful to work with…nice crimp, beautiful feel, lovely length….

The kids have been enjoying march break!

I’ve been working on some other wools as well…

black/brown suffolk mix – this is a three ply worsted/dk weight which will eventually become a sweater…

Finished pictures coming soon for this and some lovely wool/silk mix yarn which I’m just in the middle of finishing up! Have a fantastic day 🙂

Spinning And Knitting And Getting Things Done!

Happy New Year 🙂

I haven’t been posting much, I know, but I HAVE been getting things done, which is very unlike me lately….

Despite my ‘sweater guilt’ – caused by my recent inability to finish a full sized project’s – I fell in love with Aidez, a free berocco pattern which I found on Ravelry. Since it requires bulky yarn, I thought I would spin it, of course! I decided on the silver shetland fleece which I bought last year from Devine West Ranch – lovely, soft and I was sure there was enough fleece in the pillow case to make the required approx. 800 metres I wanted (since I am tall and always add a few inches in sleeves and body).

We all know about the best laid plans, right? Yeah. Not nearly enough, I ended up with approximately 400 metres of lovely soft, spun in the grease, bulky shetland yarn. I washed the yarn within an inch of it’s life to get out the lanolin and last bits of straw and then felted it slightly to make a really nice yarn.

Then, of course, I (queen of five or more projects on the go at the same time, lol) decided it was irresistable and knitted the Gap-tastic Cowl with it, a little bit wider than called for, about 16 inches. It’s awesome AND I FINISHED IT IN ONLY A DAY 🙂 LOL, did I mention I finished it? That’s my worst habit lately – not finishing things.

Today’s obsession is to spin up some suffolk fleece into a beautiful soft substitute since I still crave Aidez, lol.

It’s coming out nicely!

My Newest Wheel – A Little Bit Of A Project

Isn’t she sweet?

(her wheel is on backwards in these pictures)

We purchased her from a local lady and she’s missing her treadle, flyer and bobbin. Altogether though, she is in great shape!

Check out her ‘redness’! I think she was originally a red wheel with a black stripe on the wheel itself, on the inner ‘ring’ of the wheel.

Her hub is solid with only a couple small cracks. Her wheel is slightly seperated but should come back together with a little coaxing, oiling and perhaps the dryness of winter will help if nothing else does. Certainly, my other wheels become quite loose during the winter season.

The leathers are perfect and the rear leather is amazing….a solid chunk of leather!

Hoping to spend some quality time with this lady in the upcoming week and build her a new treadle. I’ll need to find her a flyer or see if one of my other wheels has a flyer which would work as a loaner for now 🙂

Have a fantastic day!

Aram! I’m So Glad You’re Here :)

Isn’t she lovely? I think so!

Please welcome my newest wheel – another little piece of Canadian fibre art history. She is marked “Aram Paradis” and was made in Quebec in the latter half of the 1800’s. To make her even more special, we purchased her from her original family. A lovely woman sold her to us, after refusing to sell her to someone the seller suspected was an antique dealer, because we would love her enough!

Bless her. She was right though, you know – I really will love her enough 🙂

The wheel belonged to the seller’s great grandmother, who used to spin on her often – I was even given a small amount of cotton sliver which was, according to the seller, her great grandmother’s and what she would commonly spin on the wheel. This same seller has another wheel (her grandmother’s) which is a Canadian Production Wheel, in perfect pristine condition. If she ever decides to sell it, she’s going to call us. I’ll let you know 🙂

It seems she has been modified to work with a spindle – somewhat like a great wheel. What remained of this modification when we got her was the whorl but no spindle piece. There was a second hole drilled (perfectly, might I add) in her mother of all for the front maiden, to facilitate the modification. She looked like this;

First off, she needed a coat of blo/turpentine – the poor baby was parched.

I moved the maiden back to the original hole and made her some new leathers (made from an old full grain leather belt, bonded together for the front maiden to create a sturdy bearing)…

For the back leather, I used a single layer of the same belt leather but since it’s a bit on the stiff/thick side, soaked it in water for a couple hours and then clamped it to create a tight bearing…

My baby had no flyer/bobbin whatsoever so I had to look around the house for something suitable. Thankfully the other wheels LOVE to share. My first attempt was an old lithuanian flyer that I have. Quite sadly (since this is my only flyer without it’s own wheel), it was too short and had some issues with spinning properly – sort of a dud. Second attempt was to try one of the cpw flyers (a Vezina, in fact). This was too long…

At this point it was very ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and, just like in the story, the third try fit just right 🙂 I ended up fitting ‘Grandpa’s’ flyer to her – a very close to perfect fit. In order for it to be a PERFECT fit would mean finding a flyer with about the same length of arms/bobbin BUT with a longer tail end for the back bearing. Since I didn’t have such a flyer, I added a rabbit skin ‘sleeve’ inside the back bearing, to hold the shorter tail end. Grandpa says he’s happy to have helped 🙂

Did I mention her perfect hub?? Really awesome for her age…

She’s stamped but this isn’t the clearest picture…

And in her glory – all glowing and spinning!!

We had a few issues as we began spinning together. I don’t blame her really since she’s not used to working after all these years 🙂 Her treadle kept trying to fall out of the leg nearest the spinner on the wheel end – there was an old injury to that leg and a groove there so I used a bit of belt leather and made a split washer which I placed on the other end of the treadle bar, at the leg closest to the mother of all. This keeps the treadle from moving over as far as it wants and falling out on the wheel side. Also looks very appropriate, which I like 🙂

The cross piece that the treadle sits on is so old and brittle with an old staple repair underneath. It did snap shortly into our spinning together BUT I didn’t want to replace it with a new piece of wood.

Cover your eyes now if you are particular about correct repairs! My solution was to fit the shattered old wood back together underneath and then bond the whole thing back together with some 5 minute epoxy. Yes, a woodworking sin. BUT! She looks original and that was what I wanted. If this doesn’t work in the long run I can always replace the cross bar. I wasn’t approaching the project in terms of resale value but from a working/original wheel perspective.

Finally…my little helper has been by 🙂 I’ve convinced him that the winder is ‘his’ wheel…

He has, however, gotten older and now he has noticed that ‘his’ wheel doesn’t seem to do it right. LOL. He brought his bobbins over to my wheel to see what was going on last time…

He really is the cutest little guy 🙂 Plays piano when he’s not spinning….babies are awesome 🙂

Have a fantastic day!