Farewell Gift

Ever since getting the book "The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook" by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius out of the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild library for a month a little while back I have wanted a copy.  It is a very comprehensive listing of 200+ types of fibers, but with accompanying photo's, and a whole range of information.  They delve into the breed history, purpose, locations, as well as showing locks (clean and raw) and samples of spun, woven and knitted yarn.  It gives recommended uses, and appears to be superbly researched.  I was convinced when, in the Gotland section, they went on to mention the Stansborough variety and how the wool from them was used to make capes for the Lord of The Rings movies (I have a tie made of the hobbit cape material - it is all I could afford !).

Well anyway we were out to dinner with a friend and she gave us a parting gift: the book, and she's not a spinner/weaver fiber person in particular - she just went on line and found a book that looked appropriate.  What a superb piece of luck for me - so now I have the definative source book for any/all fiber I might encounter in the future.  Plus great reading for a long while yet.

Larger bobbins required

I finished of the chain plying of the blended wool last night, and the result was 110 yards 1.8 oz of yarn.  the downside was that at this weight of wool my bobbin can only hold 100 yards.  For this or other plying jobs I'll have to look at a wheel that can take larger bobbins.  Something to note for the future.

The skeins

 And now: give the wheel a good clean, apply some Lemon Oil to the wood and Vaseline to the leather bearings and it will be ready to pack away.

Final spinning

I had carded a 'blend' of Clun Forest, some brown Corriedale - with the resulting batts having some all white, some all brown, and some completely blended - in layers.

Part of a batt

Spinning from the mixed batt give some random stripes/bands of the three colours in varying degrees by just spinning as normal for these batts (short forward draw).

Half a bobbin of singles - random striping

Then for the first time I have tried chain plying (also known as Navajo plying).  Having heard about this technique for some time I was keen to try it out and see what it would do with this 'random' yarn.  I do have some books with 'how to' but of course, they are all packed.  Thank goodness for the internet.  I found a very useful and straight forward example of how to do this at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlwtojLXI8
It seemed straight forward and indeed that was the case - so I am now half way through the 2oz bobbin of yarn I intend to make.

3 ply

The brown colour is not coming out particularly well in the photo's - just my camera. The yarn is a very nice 'warm' variegated brown that should work for a hat or gloves perhaps?

This will be the last spinning before the wheel heads off to storage - some time later in the week.

Packaged and ready to go

The Colours of New Zealand Placemats are finally ready to go out the door.  We found a gift box that fits, and printed out the card and linen washing instructions to accompany.  This would have been a bit faster but the house is still a little chaotic as we sort everything out prior to the move to NZ.

The loom made it safely to storage - I lost a little slice of wood off a block of multi-ply on the bottom of one side of the castle when I slid it onto the trolley, but nothing some glue won't fix.  The only other problem was the time it took me to remove the bolts - next time I put it together I will put a little soap on them and maybe they'll turn more freely.

Ready to Go

Otherwise the packing is going well - we have a ready supply of bubble wrap substitute - put washed Clun Forest locks into a plastic bag and stuff them into any small spaces left in boxes :-)  Works perfectly and we have to store a lot of that wool anyway.

Starting the pack

With under two months to go to our departure from the US we have been slowly boxing things up and splitting up what has to go to storage vs what will be going to NZ (and the third option of: we're not sure why we had it in the first place - so give it away!).

This morning was devoted to packing up the Macomber and making some sense of the 'fiber cupboard' in the spare room.  4 hours later and it's all under control.

The Macomber all ready to be transported (next weekend)

While sorting through boxes and bags I found the first ever skein of wool I spun.  It was Merino with angora and was only a few days into my spinning (self) education and after making numerous starts and stops.  I did go on (persevere) to produce some 3 ply what was half-way decent and made that into table runners and a couple of scarves.

One of these won a blue ribbon, then other didn't :-)

So with the loom disassembled and ready to go, all the bits and pieces boxed up and listed - time to move onto the next challenge (the hiking gear), but not until after a great lunch of homemade pizza.

Packed and ready to go

Lunch: Anne's pizza (with a glass of red wine).

Finishing the CoNZ Placemats

Today the placemats were all washed after finishing the hems on them last night.  I put them through a regular wash/spin then lay them out on racks in the freezer.  Less than an hour later they were stiff as a board - so I took them one by one and gave them a hot iron (with a protective pillow case).  The roughness of the woven pattern (and original stiffness of the yarn) quickly disappeared to be replaced by wonderfully soft draping fabric with the pattern visible as the light reflects at different angles.

The complete set - with different colour schemes visible

A test 'setting'

 Now we will have to find a box and get them wrapped, boxed up and posted to NZ to my brother for his Christmas present.

Finished weaving

This morning I finished the final placemat (#9) and as has become the tradition, was handed a glass of wine to celebrate :-)

Finished weaving...

I remembered from the last placemats that the linen warp became increasingly difficult to make a shed - with a combination of the lack of stretch in the linen and the small amount of warp left.  While I couldn't solve the latter problem the 'sagging' of certain warp threads was solved by progressively moving the shafts up one link in the chain that supports them.  I started about 1/2 way through the placemat by raising #8 then each time I wound on I raised the next inwards (7 then 6 was enough to solve the problem).
 
Tomorrow I'll be sewing the ends before cutting them apart and hand hemming them.  Then they go in the wash, then freezer, then a good hard iron.  Hopefully they will turn out as soft and shiny as the first ones.