First Fruits

I love my new spinning wheel – it spins like “butta.” Here’s my first real skein off of it. Kickapoo Creek Alpacas cloud of alpaca/silk/merino. I spun the same fiber in a white combination a couple of years ago using a supported drop spindle. It spun like a dream but the cloud is not the best format to use with drop spindle. But I’ve never been able to spin it with my Louet wheel. I spun this using Scotch tension with a “z” twist which allowed me to spin it very softly. Then I used double drive with an “s” twist to make the 2-ply. It looked really strange to me because I’m used to spinning my singles with “s” twist and ply with the “z” twist. But nevertheless, I think it came out beautifully and 4 oz of fiber came out to 472 yards. Don’t know what I’ll make with it but should be enough for something scrummy.

I had some challenges with the cloud but that’s down to my inexperience, not the quality of the fiber. The fiber is absolutely wizard.

Not sure what I’m going to put on the wheel next but I’ve got some fire red bamboo that I’m wanting to try so maybe I’ll do that.

The gansey is progressing but 2 inches of garter stitch and 2 inches of stockinette don’t really rate pictures! I’ll get a shot of it once I get to the patterned part.

I did get involved in knitting some Christmas stockings for a friend at work who had the foresight to ask in February rather than November. She and her siblings had stockings knitted by her Grandmother. But now there are nieces and nephews who never got a knitted stocking so I’ve agreed to do four of them – each with the name knitted in and a Santa’s face. I’ve almost got two of them done already but I will soon run out of the green. I never realized that you can’t get Christmas green this time of year.

I’m not really too much of a Christmas person so I’ve never knitted Christmas stockings before. Guess this will be my target effort!

EEKS!

How time flies. I kept thinking, I need to post something, but last week was a bit scatty and, obviously, I never got to it.

Part of the problem is that I’ve been at the end of several projects you’ve already heard quite enough about so didn’t want to post about them. I’ve had a sweater that you haven’t seen but I’m thinking about submitting it for publication so can’t show you that (although I am wearing it today and it looks loverly!). I’ve been spinning (a lot) but once you’ve seen one picture of a singles, you’ve seen them all. I’ll post about that when I’ve got the plying done (which I’m close to getting to).

Now I did find some Galway (I think it’s color 164) at a local yarn shop and I love Galway. It was one of the first real wool yarns I ever worked with and I’ve loved it ever since. This is in a royal blue which drew me right in so I broke down and started a Gansey with it. Sometime last year I finally broke down and got Beth Brown-Reinsel’s Gansey book and I’ve wanted to get one made for ages. (By the way, Beth is the teacher from whose class I made the Danish sweater.) Since I’ve only got about 10 rows of garter stitch done, I’ve spared you pictures but I’ll get something posted when I get a little further along.

One of the things I’ve been trying to learn is about knitting sleeves from the top down. The sleeves for the sweater I’ve just finished were done this way and I had to rip out and redo about 4 times before I had the number of stitches right. So along comes Beth, wonderful teacher that she is, and says, “Here’s the easiest way to do it. Measure the circumference of the sleeve, leaving out the bound off edge at the bottom, and use your stitch gauge to determine how many stitches you need for that distance.

I mean, how simple is that? How logical is that? How did I not know that? Everyone should know that. Does every knitter in the universe know that? Is it just me or is that a perfectly simple and logical thing to know and why didn’t I know that? Why did I not know that deep in my knitterly bones? Duh.

Anyway, now I know that. For my Gansey I will know that and will use it, oh my knitting hero.

In the Kitchen

As in other things, I’m apt to experiment a lot in the kitchen. Results vary but I hit on a great combination this weekend.

Here’s what I did:

1 lb of ground meat (I used ground sirloin)
1 medium onion - chopped
1 small green pepper –chopped
1 large clove of garlic
1 cup corn
1 tsp each of allspice, cinnamon, and cloves
1 tsp of steak seasoning
salt
½ cup beef broth or water
2 large potatoes (use the kind with the waxy skin)
1 can cream of broccoli soup
1 cup milk
2 cups grated cheese

Sautee the onion and green pepper until the onions begin to caramelize then add the garlic and sautee a little longer. Put theses in a bowl. Brown the ground meat, adding the spices and salt to taste. When the meat is brown, add the corn, onion, green pepper, onion and broth (or water). Put the meat mixture in a casserole dish.

Peel the potatoes and cut in very thin slices. Arrange the potato slices on top of the meat mixture.

Mix the can of cream of broccoli and the milk and pour over the top of the potatoes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (or until potatoes are done). Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top and bake another few minutes until cheese is melted. Remove from the oven and let sit 5 minutes before serving.

And that’s it. I’ve almost eaten the whole thing. Of course, you can use any kind of cream of whatever soup and any veggies in with the meat mixture to suit your tastes.

That’s about what I got accomplished this weekend although I did get another batch of fleece washed. The problem with it was that I thought it was going to be warmer on Saturday than it actually turned out to be so I put the batch on the porch to dry. Instead I got a fleece-cicle.

I love my new wheel!

I’m learning tons and tons already with my wheel. Here’s my first skein-lette, spun worsted and Navajo plied. It’s really overspun but it was my first attempt at double drive spinning.

Next I tried Scotch tension and worked with some Kickapoo Creek alpaca/silk/merino cloud. It’s a whole new world. Whole new world, I tell you!

Me and My Baby

I have a new baby. Let me introduce you to my new Kromski Minstrel, just arrived and welcomed into its new home.
It came unfinished and I wanted to stain it a dark walnut. Not that I’m the best furniture finisher that’s ever been but I’m thrilled with how it’s come out. After applying the oil, some of the pieces have come up a little lighter than I thought they would but it’s still beautiful. I just couldn't wait for everything to dry to get it all put together.

I’ll have lots to learn since my Louet is basic, basic, basic. There were no ratios or adjustments or double drive or scotch tension so I have never bothered to learn any of that! Now it’s time to graduate from kindergarten spinning to elementary school spinning.

I've already been spinning on it today but I did have to call my friend Karen with a couple of questions this afternoon already. Karen Poulakos Fiber Arts Studios. She's just started carrying Kromskis and I have her to thank for this! I've been wanting a Kromski since I first learned to spin. Well, from early on. Well, at first I wanted an Ashford Traveller but I've always loved the look of the Kromski wheels. Many thanks to the folks on the Ravelry Kromski group who had so much helpful advice on the differences between the Mazurka and the Minstrel.

Gotta go do some more spinning. See ya later!

A couple of years ago a few of us bought some Harrisville fiber for spinning. I had a vision of a yoked sweater and I wanted it to be in a solid color up to the yoke and then I wanted to spin a yarn out of yellow, orange and red with really long color repeats to knit the fair isle pattern for the yoke. Well the fiber came but it was not at all what we were expecting. It must have been made up from floor sweepings because there is a lot of vegetable matter in it and the fibers are wool but all really short. It was really beyond my spinning abilities at that time but I kept it and looked at it from time to time, sure in my heart that it had character and would be something lovely someday.

This week I started pulling fiber stash out of my workroom closet in preparation for a program at the Weaver’s Guild and of course, my 3 half-pound bags of Harrisville fiber came out with everything else.

So I sat at the wheel and decided that, instead of trying to fit this beautifully dyed fiber into my little preconceived notions, I would just let it be what it is. With this in mind I spun and spun and spun and fell in love with the end result. Although heavier than I would normally like I just got more and more intrigued by the depth of color in the batts. The fiber isn’t really a roving or really a batt but sort of a combination. It’s a very, very thin batt that worked much better when I spent the time to unravel it a bit.

Here’s a photo of the fiber and the result.

The multi-colored skein-ling (because it’s only little, after all) was because I wanted to see how it would do as a 3-ply (a bit like a rope, actually) and the orange skein-ling is a 2-ply. As I was plying it, all I could think about were those great Paton’s patterns from the 50’s of coats knit out of those wonderful bouclé yarns. There might be a plan developing here.

Ahemmm...

Quite enough said, I think.