Uggly Roving and Dyepots Galore!

You thought I was kidding about the dyepots didn't you?

8 different pots

This is what I got for my efforts:


A nice hodge-podge of colors to mix and match. They were produced from kool-aid and Easter egg dyes. The purple, green and small orange in the middle are mohair. The rest are anonymous wools from sheep shed studio. I'm going to mix them with some black to add depth.

While I was busy with dyepots, this is what was going on in the living room:

I think they must've been sick or something. I'm not used to quiet cooperative play in my house. Maybe the tent city had something to do with it. Oh, and yeah,that's Cessna. She's still kicking, so far so good.


This mixing and matching with the hackle is very addictive. It makes the artsy side of me very happy. I took a bunch of little pieces of fiber that I've been saving in a quart jar on my desk and mixed it with some gray/black/white roving last night when I was supposed to be knitting on the wedding shawl.

Here's a closeup of how it looks on the hackle:

What did I get out of it? Well, most people have Ugly Batts, I have Uggly Roving!


I spun up a little and loved what I got. I apologize for the poor pic of the singles. My camera hates macro stuff.

DIY! My new toy!

This weekend I found a new DIY project to tempt me away from all other responsibilities. I made a Hackle.

What the H*ll is a Hackle you ask?

It's a tool used for combing out and blending fiber which is then pulled through a Diz to make roving for spinning. That's it in a nutshell.

First, I'd like to thank Travis (who is married to the Yarnzombie) from the blog The Land for coming up with this idea which costs about $10 bucks to make. Brilliant. They have a couple of videos at The Land that show you how to use the Hackle along with the how to for making it.


What you need for the whole project:

Combs or hair picks
Board
Self Drilling Screws
Drill - If you use a screwdriver it make take you two years to complete
Diz or Button
Crochet Hook
Board
C Clamps

I made one modification to the project and that was using combs instead of hair picks. That way, I wouldn't have to cut anything off at the bottom. My hubby already gets really nervous when I start these kind of projects. I can't imagine the apoplectic fit he would have had when I went for the jig or circular saws. :)

It's very simple. I grabbed a large vise while working on the project and put the board in it to hold it steady. Then I placed a comb on the edge of the board and used masking tape to hold it steady. The masking tape also helps to keep the screws from traveling all over the place while your drilling and it helps cut down on the scratching and/or splitting of the combs. Then just grab your drill and screws and go to town attaching those combs to the board.



The length of the board is up to you. The longer the board, the longer the piece of roving that you will end up with.

Here it is complete and clamped to the table with the C-clamps:

Here's the button that I grabbed to use as my Diz and the crochet hook used to pull the fibers through the button holes:


Now why on earth would you want to do this? Here's one example for you.

Here's some roving that came in a grab bag when I placed an order at Sheep Shed Studio. I love grab bags, you never know what you'll get. This, though, was fugly and matted. It looked like the hair that comes off the rear end of a mangy dog:

Yuck!

How does it look now after putting it through the Hackle?

Lovely

I'm dying to play with blending different color fibers now. I've got some roving (some wool and some mohair) soaking in the sink now in preparation for dyeing. I'm going to dye 8 different batches of color and then play with the new hackle.

Spinning epiphany and a Knitting FO!

Spinning:
I had a minor epiphany today while spinning. I have been spinning with the short draw technique for a while, but I've not been very pleased with it. So I did some research on ravelry, google and youtube. I love the youtube videos that you can find for spinning. There are some that explain things and there are those that just show.

I read up on the long draw and tried it. Disaster. Couldn't make it do a thing. I watched the videos of it. It worked a little better. But the epiphany came when I loosened the scotch tension so that it wasn't pulling the yarn up onto the bobbin until I "helped" it along with my left hand. I also learned when to tighten my fiber holding hand and when to loosen it up. Wow, what a difference it made. I'm now spinning softer thinner yarn! Very cool.

Knitting:
I apologize if I've had few FOs lately. I know they've been few and far between, but that happens when you have kids around during the summer.

For the record, I'm soooooo ready for school to start. Aug 7th is the date for the Eldest to start and the Youngest will begin pre-school just a few weeks later. I can't wait.

I do, however, have a FO for you today. I know that I said that the Kitty Pi would be distraction knitting only, but it turns out that I can't knit the wedding shawl with the Youngest around. It's just too complicated and the Youngest is a huge distraction.

This is a good example of the kind of distraction he is:

The cats are ready for school too. Their tails are sore.

But there is some cuteness to be found. Especially at naptime:

Sound asleep with a trader joe's balloon for company

So, Kitty Pi was complete as of last night.

Inverted Kitty Pi

When upright, all you see are the pink sides, not the white and blue stuff on the bottom. but only because I ran out of the white and blue.

1 out of 3 kitties approves.

before, during and almost finished

The cedar chest is proceeding slowly, but fairly well. Want to see what it looks like now?

First here's a couple of befores:

Before w/ Stripper on it

After Stripping

And here it is now:

After one coat of stain

Big difference huh?

I sanded it down again and have applied a second coat of stain. I'm ready to start the polywhateverthane next. I've also been working on the lid and I'm almost ready to thane it too. I've got some rough spots to sand down and restain on it first though.

I can't wait to get this thing finished and put my stash in it!

The Knitting Want List

There's so much that I want to accomplish with my knitting before I die.

Here's my want list:

I want to design a custom sweater.
I want to knit well enough that I can get gauge - both stitch and row, every time I pick up a needle.
I want more time to knit.
I want to be the knitter that can make a sweater that fits her every time she sits down to knit a sweater.
I want to be free of extra WIPs.
I want people to be in awe of the finished products.
I want to design a shoe. No, really.
I want to learn how to write a pattern that will fit multiple sizes. (No clue on that one).
I want to knit fast. then faster.
I want to be a better blogger about knitting.
I want to work with all types of fibers.
I want to knit with what I spin.
I want to have the money to knit what I want, especially silk and cashmere.
I want to knit things that have no deadline.
I want to be able to knit without a lifeline being a necessity.

I should have done this list in January, but as a New Year's resolution, it would fall way short. I need time, more time! One day, I will have accomplished everything on the list and then the list will morph and I'll still be left with a list. It'll just be a new list. I hate lists.


Anyway, I have two new WIPs to show you. This now makes for about 6 unfinished projects.

The first has a deadline. My cousin is getting married in September. So, I am making her a wedding shawl. It's the Baltic Sea Stole. I'm doing this with SRK Ovation, a kid mohair and silk mix.


The second is something that I've been wanting to do for a while now. The Kitty Pi. I'm using all of my beginner hand spun for it. Most of it is singles that were incredibly bulky. So bulky that if they were plied with anything else they'd end up being ropes. I'm also adding in a few leftovers from other projects and some of the hand spun yarn that I made early on as well. I don't have much more to do and it will be a great mindless knit to go to when I'm about to scream from looking at all that lacework.


Oh, and just for smiles, look what I found in the Living Room toy box today:

Dog Crisis

At the end of last week we had a dog crisis. Cessna,

Wishing the photographer would go away...

a 16 year old (that's right, 16 years old) spaniel mix who is incredibly cute, has a couple of slipped discs. She was walking like she was drunk and she was in so much pain her back was arched like a spooked cat's. I found out that this is the fetal position of the dog world.

This lead to a major dilemma. There were three choices:

1. operate
2. drugs
3. euthanasia

At this point the important thing is quality of life versus quantity of life. It would be crazy for us to operate on a dog that is 16 years old. Not going to happen. I decided to go with the drugs. At best, its only a temporary fix. Her spine will never be fixed and she will be in pain again. I don't want her to live in that kind of pain again. It won't be long before we have to put her down. I'm gearing up for it. She's been in our lives as long as we've been married. We rescued her from the pound about a month after the wedding and that was almost twelve years ago. So sad.


To offset the sadness, how about a 9 month old puppy?

Silly puppy

News tomorrow about two knitting projects!

Really Quick

Just a quick drop by to let everyone know that I'm off to the lake for the holidays! See you Monday!

Have a Safe July 4th!

Redneck Weekend

Finally I get to tell you about our "Redneck Weekend".

On Saturday, the Eldest and I went to DukeFest. He is a huge Dukes of Hazzard fan, so I took him to the celebration and after we got there, I got taken to the cleaners. So to speak. I was nickeled and dimed from the moment we went through the gates to the time we left.

It was held at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Now, let me say up front that I don't do Nascar. Not interested, never will be. But, I was impressed at the size of the place. It was huge. The festival was held in the middle of the track and was tiny comparatively speaking.

We met Roscoe P. Coltrane, sherriff of Hazzard County. He was incredibly nice and still funny. While we were in line to see him though, the Eldest got sick. There was so much sun. It was intense and there was no shade and no place for the poor kid to go to be sick in private. Just portapotties everywhere. So he walked off to the side and was sick all over the place. I felt so sorry for him. He was a trooper though. He refused to leave, there was still way too much he wanted to do and see. I dumped water on his head to cool him off and poured more down his throat and he was fine.

While there we saw Bo Duke (John Schneider) twice. He stood about 10 feet away from us and both times I missed getting a pic, dangit. Let me tell you here and now that the man is mighty fine. I didn't much care for him 20 years ago, but now? He's aged to perfection.

We did meet Adam West, the original Batman. Very self-centered and egotistical. He was charging $80.00 for an autographed pic of him. I can't think of anyone who is worth that. And then, when we finally got a pic with him (he charged for that too) the bozo didn't even look at our camera. The Eldest was impressed with him anyway, even if he was wearing a peach colored "grandpa" shirt. Batman is one of his heros and he loves to watch the original Batman movie.

Lee Meriwether (Catwoman) was there as well and entirely sweet and gracious. I only have a profile pic of her. I've decided that I want to age as gracefully as she has.

What do Batman and Catwoman have to do with the Dukes? No idea. But the original Batmobile was there.(Notice the Batman shirt on the Eldest? He couldn't wait to meet Batman and see the Batmobile.)

There were also mullets galore. Oh, and rednecks wheeling around huge car parts (like hoods) to be signed by the stars. Weird if you ask me. But to each his own. Eldest loved it all anyway and that was what counted. I wasn't there for me anyway. He came away with a new baseball cap and a smile and the day was pretty good over all.

We did some carnival rides there and looked at a bunch of General Lee cars and then it happened. For some reason I started feeling jittery and panic-y. I told the Eldest we were leaving right then. It took an hour to get home and I was so sick by then I was crying when I went in the front door. Mild case of sun poisoning or heat stroke, not sure. This was followed by a massive headache and chills. Not fun, but we're doing just fine now that we're in the shade again. :)

The Secret is Out!

The Secret Project can now be seen! Meet "Mini Minnie":


This was my Mom's B-day gift. She's a Westie (the toy, not my Mom) look alike from Alan Dart's Perfect Pups series. The pattern is Sirdar #2101. Done on size 6 and 2 needles, but I substituted Bernat Boucle and Bernat Softee Baby yarns for the suggested Sirdar yarns.


I found a dollar store collar that looks very similar to the one that the real Minnie wears. It's red with white paw prints on it. You can get a glimpse of it here:


But details are everything in a gift. Check out the tag that I had made for this:


The Youngest wanted this toy so bad! He kept crying for "Minnie" . He got to her a couple of times when I wasn't looking, but it was so cute. He sat down and kissed her over and over.

I have to move this past weekend's doings to tomorrow. But I promise, it was Redneck heaven. Hmmm...

Step Two of the Strippin' Saga: The Chest

Yes, I missed a day of blogging. Sickness will do that to you. But now, I'm back and strippin' away for your pleasure. Today I'll show you how to strip your, um, Chest.

As I said before, this cedar chest was an old find of my Mom's. Turns out, it's older than we thought. The original tag is still stapled inside it. It's a Caswell-Runyan Treasure Chest originally purchased for $24.95. The chest was produced in a factory that was open from 1907 to 1956ish. It looks to have been made sometime in the 3os or 40s. I've compared it to all the old ads that I can find and those two decades come closest to the look of this chest.

Here it is just after I began applying the gel stripper that I used. You'd think that after several years of blogging that I would learn to take a good before picture prior to beginning a project, wouldn't you?

Before

After

See that little piece of painter's tape? Yeah, bad idea. Part of the front was splitting and coming up. I put glue behind it and then made the mistake of listening to my Father in law who said put tape over it to hold it down. Um, no. Instead of holding it down, it pulled it up further. So. We put it on it's back and put this God awfully heavy vise thingy of the hubby's onto the top of it. That worked. It doesn't look like there was ever anything wrong with it.

I've filled in a few tiny spots with stainable wood filler and will be sanding that and then I'll be able to start the staining. It already looks way different, no?

Wait until you here what the Eldest and I did on Saturday. More on that tomorrow! Oh, and the Secret project will be revealed then as well. See ya!

Mom, I have a confession to make

I've come to the conclusion that my spinning fiber and my yarn are taking over the house. The closet is booby trapped. Just try to open it and not have yarn fall all over you. It's like a bad cartoon. My dining room table has my spinning stuff on it, including my wheel. I have no clue where the wheel will finally call home, but the fiber and the yarn? I have a solution!

Years ago my Mom found an old cedar chest. She painted it white and it became my toy box. Years later, she got into painting. She did tole, reverse pen & ink, water color and others. She painted a stool for me. It was the cutest thing. It lives in my attic now until I can grow up and get my own craft room. She wanted the cedar chest to match the stool. She painted it baby blue and put a white oval on the very front where she planned to put another painting that would be similar to the one on the stool.

She had good intentions, she really did. But the chest stayed that way for another twenty something years. Until now.

No, I did not suddenly become a fabulous artist and paint me a picture on it to match the stool. I'm afraid that won't ever happen. I'm crafty, not artsy. I don't paint nearly as fabulous or as beautiful as my Mom. My talents lay in other directions.




I do have a confession to make here to you and my Mom though, before I go on with my story.




Mom, Dear Readers,

I've become a stripper

Yes, that's right, a stripper. And I'm not ashamed either. Dammit. I'm 38 years old and I can strip if I want too!

Wanna peep show?

Fine, I'll start with my Upper Chest. The Lid, actually.

Before

Middle

The End, sorta

I finished this a few days ago. I've only stripped the paint off the chest, I haven't begun the next steps. The actual chest I finished this afternoon. It's drying so I'll show you more tomorrow and give more of the history of the chest. Wait 'til you find out how old it is. (A girl is always proud that her chest looks younger than it actually is. wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

I can't wait to store my stuff in it. I suppose I could have just gone ahead and skipped the trouble of stripping it and restoring it and just put my yarn and fiber in it. But this is something that I've wanted to do for years.

Besides, the chest lives in the Eldest's room. Baby blue was fine when he was younger, but a 7 year old has his dignity to think about. Right?

The Groin incident

There's been a groin incident at Chez Shea.

The two year old parrot has struck again. The other night the boys (dad, eldest, and youngest) were watching America's Funniest Videos. On that show there is a segment where someone in the audience guesses where a person in the video will get hurt, in the head, gut or groin. Truly barbaric I'll tell ya, but it must make for good television.

Well, the two year old parrot (the youngest for those just following along) was in fine fettle that night and latched onto the favorite of the three words, groin. For hours we heard "groin. groin. groin...." etc. Which, of course, he said with a grin. He also changed the tone of each "groin" as he said it. experimenting to see which would make the guys laugh more. Most of them worked.

Do you know how hard it is not to laugh when a young child finds a very inappropriate word to parrot about everywhere? And do you really think that he has limited saying it to just our house? Oh no. Think at Grandma's, the library and the grocery store. Particularly embarrassing at the library, let me tell ya. All those rule following folk being quiet in deference to others and then my offspring wanders in and says at the top of his lungs, " Groin!"

If you try to shush him, it gets louder, trust me on this one.


New project up for show and tell tomorrow, but it's not what ya think...

Black Rose

I promised you a new dye project didn't I? Well, here it is.

I wanted to experiment with some Kool-aid dyeing. I still had some of the black/white wool/mohair roving to play with so I grabbed that. I used it all, 11 oz. of it.

I knew wanted a dark red, but I also knew I didn't have enough of the red koolaid packets to go around, so I did some experimenting. The rule of thumb is one packet to 1 0z of roving or yarn. This is what I used:

2 grape, 2 black cherry, 1 strawberry, 1 tropical punch, 1 cherry, 1 watermelon cherry.

I wasn't at all sure what would come out, but hoped for the best. It didn't turn out red, but I got the most gorgeous rose ever!

Black Rose Colorway

Pre-drafted

Look how it softens up when it's predrafted. So pretty!

This was done on the stove top. I soaked the roving in water and vinegar before beginning. I then placed it in the pot, I had already mixed the packets with water and dumped those in as well. I added water to cover and then simmered it all for about 40 minutes. I didn't stir it once it went in the pot for two reasons: I was afraid of felting it and I didn't want it completely uniform. I like uneven colorways. It makes the magic of spinning it up so much more fun. Then I turned off the pot and left it to cool for several hours.

This is the first time that I've had wet sheep fur that didn't smell like wet sheep fur. The kool-aid made it smell so much better! I can't wait to get started spinning this!

Spinning FO

I got off my duff and got some stuff done this weekend once I got home.

First off, I got over feeling sorry for myself. That was a biggie folks.

Second, I finished spinning and plying the silky soft wool/mohair Mint Chocolate Chip colorway that I dyed last week:

On the bobbin - this color is correct

Skeined - color is off, see above

There's approximately 328 yards of yarn there. I apologize for the bad lighting in the second pic. I went outside for the first one and was attacked by a mob of mosquitoes. Not wanting to face any more of the critters, I high-tailed it inside.

It's amazing how much my spinning has bitten into my knitting time. I'm still knitting, just not as much.

I did make major progress last night on the secret birthday knitting though and I'll make a little more once the kids disappear for the evening. It's an acrylic project and it's killing my hands to work with it. I missed my deadline getting it done, but since I was with the gift-ee all last week, it wouldn't have been a secret if I worked on it in front of her now would it?

I've got a dye project to show you tomorrow. Stay tuned!

The Non-Thinking Week

I'm still at the lake, we'll be leaving tomorrow evening to go home.

This has been a disappointing week to me for several reasons. One of which is my knitting. I brought a knitting project and some spinning stuff with me. I've done some spinning and dyeing, but I just haven't been able to pick up the knitting.

I think it might be because it requires thinking and I just haven't been up to that this week. I seriously needed some non-thinking down time and I've gotten it, thank God. I should have brought a plain stockinette project instead of a lace one. Bad project for this week.

Would you like to see the view from the back porch of my folks?

Beautiful, Isn't It?

That's the party barge in the lower left corner. A little further to the left is the bass boat. My kids have changed the name and call it PawPaw's "fast" boat.

There are a bazillion spiders here that love to perform their art everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. You can't move without finding a web. I love the webs, But I seriously despise spiders with a passion.

A Gem of a Museum

I found a little jewel of a museum in the sleepy little town of Anniston, Al. If you're wondering, Anniston is about 2 hours outside of Atlanta, GA.

It's called the Berman Museum and guess what? It was founded by two honest to God spies. How cool is that? But wait, it gets better. The man, Farley Berman, worked as a spook for the CIA before it became the CIA. He was assigned to watch a French spy named Germaine. She, in turn, was assigned to watch him. That's how they met, then fell in love and then married. I absolutely love the story. They retired to Anniston (where he was originally from) and that is how this lovely museum ended up there.

Over the years they amassed one of the most amazing collections I've ever seen. All of it was kept in their home until right before they died. Your eyes will pop out when I tell you what they have there. There is no way that every thing was gained in a legit manner. I suspect a little black market stuff went on, but that's just my opinion. Over half of the collection is still kept in a vault and most of that will never be seen by the public.


So what did they have? (As always, click to enlarge the pics for better detail!)



The most amazing things to me were:


a. Adolf Hitler's Tea Service - When the looting during WWII occurred, this little gem made it's way to the States. Notice the engraved A.H. on everything and the Eagle and swastika. I am a tea fanatic and have quite a large collection of tea cups and pots, but nothing as pretty as this service.

This pic doesn't do it justice.

The Silver

b. Napoleon's Dressing Set - This set was with Napoleon in his exile on the island of St. Helena. The detail around the mirror is something to behold. It was very surreal gazing at myself in the mirror that he looked at every morning as he dressed. It is made of hand carved ivory. I always pictured him as sitting in a stone chamber with nothing but a cot and a bucket. Obviously his imprisonment was quite a bit nicer than I thought.

Cheese!

Notice the tweezers. Think he plucked his nose hair with those?

c. The spy guns were amazing. There was a belt buckle gun, throat lozenge gun, flute gun, pipe gun, tire gauge gun, etc. Most of those shot a .22 caliber bullet. There was also a fountain pen that shot tear gas.

Check out the screwdriver gun

d. The Coronation Crown and sceptor of the Czech republic.



e. Mussolini's Sword, bell pull that was by his bedside, his parents photos that were on his night stand, many of his medals and the original photo that was taken by American soldiers about an hour after he was hanged. This became an incredibly famous photo.

The Sword

Ma & Pa Mussolini

f. Stuff I don't have a pic of - a pair of executioner's swords from China, The Sword of one of the Persian Kings that was encrusted with tons of diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires. There was also numerous oil paintings, Remington bronzed sculptures of the old west, about a bazillion types of guns from every war and the old west.


I could go on and on. We had our own personal tour guide. We were pretty much the only visitors so one of the employees walked around with us and told us the stories of a lot of the stuff on display. If you ever get a chance to go see this, do. I was absolutely amazed. Fabulous!

Oops. Missed a day. I'm blaming it on the lake atmosphere. I headed out of dodge for the week and I'm still here. I figured that if I stayed at home I would just fret and worry about the camp that I'm not at. So, here I am at the lake.

But! Here's something cool that I dug up at my folks place. A pair of hand cards that belonged to my g-grandmother and possibly to hers. They were made in the mid 1800s or so.

There is still a stamp on them that is just barely visible. It took some time doing internet research to fill in the missing blanks, but it reads:

"The only genuine Old Whittemore Patent, Improved, No. 10 Cotton, L.S. Watson & Co., Leicester, Mass."

The tines are in horrible condition, but the wood (maple) is fine. I would like to replace them with tines for wool if I can find some. Not sure where to look. I'll ask on Ravelry to see if anyone knows.

Mama Poole's Cotton Handcards

Horrible condition
Here's some cuteness for you. She was "helping" me take pics of everything:

Miss Minnie

Something else that I did this weekend was dye more roving. The roving is from Sheep Shed Studio and is a merino/mohair combo. It looks like Mint Chocolate Chip to me, especially spun up. I'll show you some of that later.


Yum, Mint Chocolate Chip!



I'm not extremely pleased with the dye job. I may go back later and overdye the yarn, we'll see. I used dylon dyes in lime and bahama blue.