Angora Rabbit - part 2

Today I am grateful for peaches.  I had a delicious one for lunch and just had to write about it.  As I live in Georgia, you would think I would eat Georgia peaches.  And you would be wrong.  Yes, Georgia does produce a lot of peaches, but they aren't where I live.  (We had a peach tree, but it died this spring.)   We have to go over the border into South Carolina to get local peaches.  I bought mine from a wonderful fruit and vegetable stand called Good Earth.  They handle truly local produce in season.  The peaches I got were freestone (my favorite), juicy, not too ripe, not too green,  and full of flavor.  If we want to drive about an hour, we can go right to the fruit stands at the orchards and get the picked-this-morning peaches.  Or if you want to make jam, you can get the slightly bruised ones for a very good price.  Maybe I'll make cobbler tonight.

Now on to our story about Smoky the Angora rabbit.  A trip to the pet store the next day filled all our rabbit supply needs - cage, water bottle, food, brush, etc.  I studied that original magazine article over and over.  It was really all the information I had about taking care of our rabbit. 

He was just as friendly and snuggly as they described.  He was a lot like a cat.  He naturally used one place in his cage for a bathroom, no where else.  He liked to sit on our laps and be petted.  He couldn't quite jump up on our laps, but he would bump our legs with his nose when he wanted to come up.  We let him out of his cage whenever we were home and could watch him, which was a lot of the time.

He did have one little habit that we had to watch out for.  He liked to chew - anything wood was fair game, as were electrical cords.  We were very concerned that he would electrocute himself, not to mention the damage he could cause.

Finally it came time to harvest the wool from Smoky.  Every 3 months he would shed his coat.  I would put him on a table, brush him (He had to be brushed most every day to keep his wool free from matts.), and then gently pull the wool off.  This is called plucking.  When the time was right, the wool came right out.  (It was vital that I do it a soon as it started to become loose.  Otherwise, he would pull it out himself, swallow it, get a big hairball in his stomach, stop eating, and die.  Unlike cats, rabbits can't cough up hairballs.)

Here was the magic.  A big cloud of soft, silky fluff ready to spin.  This is what I was waiting for.  And there was more every 3 months.  Spinner's heaven.


We truly came to love Smoky.  His personality was so sweet and loving.  He loved to be held and carried around.  He loved to hop around and play with the children.  He gave Angora wool for spinning.  We had found the perfect pet.

Home Grown Fiber - Smoky arrives

Today I am grateful for air conditioning.  I am grateful that I have power to my house to run the air conditioning.  I am grateful that I have the money to pay for air conditioning.  I am grateful that I have a house to air condition.  Today I have friends who, due to weather conditions and out-of-control fires, don't have many of these things.  I am praying for them and those who are working to help them.

In order to cheer us up a little today, I will tell the story of my first fiber-producing animal.  Many years ago when my children were small, my husband was in the US Army.  Consequently we moved frequently.  I had decreed that we would have no pets because they were harder to move than children and children were hard enough.  The children were not happy about this.

One day in Spin-Off Magazine I read an article about angora rabbits.  The pictures were amazing - fluffy balls of fur that looked liked stuffed animals.  They were said to be very tame and friendly, easy to take care of, and came in lots of beautiful colors.  And the fiber was so very, very soft.   I was smitten.  As I looked at the pictures over and over, I told the children that if we ever got a pet, it would be an angora rabbit.  I had never seen an angora rabbit, so I wasn't in fear of running into one any time soon.

As happens in so many of my stories, my mother came to visit.  While she was there, we went to the Culpepper Sheep Show.  I was part of a sheep to shawl competition with my weaving guild, so while I was spinning, my mother and husband were taking the children around to see the animals and exhibits.  After about an hour, the children came running back to me with the amazing news that grandma was buying them a rabbit.  They were so excited.  I was not pleased with grandma.

When grandma arrived she told me that they had come upon a woman selling angora rabbits in a variety of colors.  The children had explained that they were the only pets that I would allow.  So, what could she do but buy them one.  To humor me, I could pick out the color.  I did like the idea of having a rabbit, but I hadn't planned on getting one right that day.  But what could I do?  I couldn't say no to either my mother or my happy children.

I took a break from spinning to see the rabbits.  It was love at first sight.  They were more enchanting in person than in the pictures.  It was hard to pick out the best one.  I finally selected a soft gray 4-month-old which we named Smoky.  The woman put a Sold sign on his cage and kept him for us until the end of the day.

When the contest was over (We won. My mother bought the shawl at the auction.), we went back and literally picked up our rabbit.  He was so snuggly.  We had nothing to put him in for the 2 hour drive home, so I held him on my lap.  He was a good little bunny and didn't try to move around much, but this is not the ideal way to transport a new pet. 

At home we put him in a cardboard box for the night, along with a bowl of water.  The lady we bought him from had given us some food until we could find a place to buy the right kind.  And that started our adventure with angora rabbits. 

Next - are they really that easy to take care of?

Go Far

Today I am grateful for my daughter, my oldest child.  From the time she could talk, she loved to sing.  She learned songs quickly and always sang on pitch.  At night when we put her to bed she would sing herself to sleep - sweet little toddler songs with made up words or no words at all, just singing.  When she was quiet we knew she was asleep.  She went on to major in Music Education and teach singing to elementary school children.  Now she has children of her own.  One evening when I was staying with her family, I listened in the hallway as she put her two little girls to bed.  Tears came to my eyes as she sang them to sleep with a beautiful soft lullaby.

Last month I was able to again visit my daughter and her family, this time to watch her and her two oldest children run in the Go Far 5K.  Go Far is a running program in the elementary schools in their area.  Each school has a running club that meets after school in the spring for half an hour.  They teach the children how to train for the race.  They start out running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute, repeating the pattern for the whole time.  They gradually increase the time spent running until they are running 14 minutes and walking 1 minute.

 In May is the 5K to celebrate their accomplishments.  Only the children and family members can run, no professionals.  Hundreds of children and their moms, dads, brothers, and sisters, maybe even some grandparents, all run together.  Everyone who finishes gets a medal.  The start times are staggered, with the fastest children going first.  The winner knows who he is, but no big deal is made of it.  Everyone is celebrated because they did a hard thing, and they learned how to really exercise.  I think it is a wonderful program.  It doesn't require a lot of money or equipment for the school or the parents, and the children feel a real sense of accomplishment.

 We started out bright and early on Saturday morning for the downtown race location.  We eventually found a parking place and followed the crowd to the starting area.  The runners went to their appointed place and I settle down to watch with my 6-year-old grandson.  We were the cheering section because he was too young to run yet and my knees just don't run any more.  We went to one side of the large courtyard and watched as each wave of runners started down the street and around the corner.  Then we walked the block to the other side and cheered them on as they came down another street.  After our favorite runners had gone past, we headed for the finish line to see everyone come home.  Most of the children sprinted at the end.  Most of the adults were quite tired.

My daughter and her children decided that they would stick together during the race.  But as the finish line approached, the 8-year-old speedster couldn't stand it any more.  He had to run and get to the end as fast as possible.  He finished well ahead of the others.  At the very end the 10-year-old sprinted past her mother, leaving my daughter to come in last in their family.  So much for sticking together.  But it was a great time for everyone.  I was so proud of them all.

New Weavers

Today I am grateful for tomatoes - homegrown, right out of the garden tomatoes.  You know what I'm talking about - the ripe juicy flavor that only comes out of the ground, not from the store.  I remember being a little girl working in my mother's garden.  We had picked the vegetables for the day and as we were going in the house, I asked her if I could eat a tomato, right then, like an apple.  She gave me one and I bit into it.  Juice squirted out and ran down my arm, but I didn't care.  It tasted so good, and I was hooked.  Even as a little child, I loved tomatoes.

Recently I had the opportunity to share my studio space with 13 little girls age 8-11 from out church.  They meet every other week to learn a new skill or do a service project.  On this evening they had come to learn about weaving.  We all crowded around the loom and I showed them how it worked - stepping on the treadles, throwing the weft, beating the yarn in.  They were enthralled.  Then they all tried on shawls and became fashion models.

When we had finished with my loom, their leaders pulled out potholder looms for them to use.  We moved into the dining room and spread out all over the tables and floor.  Each girl picked out different color combinations.  ( Except the twins.  Even though they were working separately and had not even looked at what the other was doing, the colors were the same. )  Some were very conscious of color and pattern, carefully placing each looper in just the right order.  Others took a more spontaneous approach, mixing and matching with abandon.  All turned out beautifully.

It was so much fun to teach them to weave and to see their excitement at learning.  Their leaders and I helped them get started and then they just took off.  Most of them understood the under-over concept and got the mechanics down pretty quickly.  Some used the hooks that came with the looms, and some preferred their fingers.  I brought out some potholders that my daughter made many years ago when she was their age.  (I still use them.)  They loved the fact that they would be able to make something truly useful.

All too soon it was time for them to go home.  About half of them finished their potholders.  The rest took them home to finish.  I heard that some made many more at home.  It made me so happy to share something I love so much with them.  I hope some of them continue weaving in the future.

Two weeks later the doorbell rang and there were the girls with a pile of thank you cards.  They were made with construction paper, lots of glitter and love.  I cherish them.  And I will remember them for a long, long time.   I still have glitter on the carpet no matter how many times it is vacuumed.

The silk quilt - the gift

Today I am grateful for knees.  This is a "you don't appreciate something until you've lost it" type of gratefulness.  I hadn't used my spinning wheel for some months until yesterday.  I finally had a whole day to just do what I wanted.  So spinning was on the agenda.  I sat down with some of the dyed and carded 30-year old-wool and went into that peaceful bliss that spinning gives me.  A couple hours later, lunch called.  I know better than to spin without taking a break, but I was having too much fun.  This morning I woke up with a very stiff knee.  My wheel has double treadles, but only one knee was stiff - very stiff and a little sore.  Walking was difficult.   Fortunately, the only cure for that is more spinning, this time with rest breaks - and some ibuprofen.

Now for the final installment of the silk quilt story.  My mother and my mother-in-law had finished the quilt and decided that the only appropriate thing to do was to give it to my daughter when she married.  She was the first grandchild for both of them.  So several years later when she had found her forever companion, it was time for the silk quilt to go to it's final home. 

Quilts were a traditional gift for close family members, so my daughter expected some kind of quilt from the grandmothers;  but she was amazed when she received a king-sized sampler quilt made of silk.  It was beautiful.  It was big.  We hung it up and used it as part of the decorations at the reception.  She received instructions on how to care for it and faithfully follows them.

The grandmothers were now experts at piecing quilt blocks and didn't want to stop their collaboration.  They decided that together they would make a wedding quilt for each of my four children.  They made them ahead of time, just in case anything happened to either one of them.  This was a fortunate idea.  They were both able to come to the next wedding, but they were getting older.  The third quilt was presented to the happy couple without them.  The fourth child has not married yet, but he was presented with his quilt when he bought his first home so he could thank his grandmothers properly while they were still with us.  Shortly after, one of them passed away.  But they will always be remembered by their quilts.

The silk quilt: the sewing

Today I am grateful for my warp board.  It is a tool used to measure out the warp for my loom.  My husband made it for me many years ago when I got my first loom.  It can measure a warp up to 10 yards, and that is as long as I ever can stand to put on.  He was working on his Masters degree and needed something to do to relax.  He was going to the Navel Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.  (You don't have to be in the Navy to go there, but you do have to be military and be selected.  You can't just decide to go there.  It is run with military precision.  You work all day every day and the competition is intense.  If you don't do well, it goes on your military record and that is used to determine promotions.)  He and a friend both had wives who were weavers and needed warp boards, so they decided to make some in the wood shop, just for fun.  They both had very happy wives.

Now back to the story of the silk quilt.  My mother received all the materials for the quilt.  She is an accomplished seamstress.  She made clothes for me and my sisters while we were growing up.  She even made jeans for my brothers so they could have special stitching on the pockets.  If she could do all those things, surely she could piece some quilt blocks, or so I thought.

I made quilts partly because all the sewing was straight lines - easy.  But there were some tricks to getting all the lines to match and the corners to be square.  My mother had made quilts before, but they were mostly applique or whole cloth quilts, not pieced.  I felt that her sewing skills were so much more advanced than mine,  if I could do it , surely she could.  I was wrong.

My mother viewed the quilt I had designed a a huge puzzle that she didn't know how to do.  I felt that I had given her plenty of directions.  She decided to invite a friend to help her, another woman with tremendous sewing skills, but little piecing experience.  Her friend happened to be my mother-in-law.  They did not understand the design.  They didn't know how to sew the blocks together.  They struggled to cut out the pieces.  They had trouble deciding what color to use where.  The design had 2 versions of each block, so they decided that they would each make one of each block.  They worked together to divide out the colors.  They helped each other figure out how the blocks went together.  They did not consult any quilting how-to books for tips and hints, even though they were sitting on their book shelves.

Finally, after several years work, the top was sewn.  My sister, who made her living making wedding dresses at the time, got a big piece of white silk for the back.  After all that work, nothing else would do.  Then the fun, for them, began.  The quilt was put into the frame and they worked together to quilt it.  All the puckers were quilted out and it became a thing of great beauty.  The binding was attached and it was finished.  Now, what would they do with it?

The silk quilt - the handoff

Today I am grateful for Meyer lemons.  I had heard about them from Martha Stewart and other chefs on TV.  They sounded wonderful, but I never saw them in stores where I lived.  Last week I was in WalMart and there they were in a little bag - Meyer lemons.  I bought some and went online to find some recipes.  I made Lemon Pudding Cake and Chicken Piccatta.  They were both amazing.  I love the sweetness combined with the tartness.

Let's continue the silk quilt story.  The quilt was designed and I was ready to start sewing when our family had a major change of plans.  My husband was in the Army at the time and he was offered a chance to go back to school and get his PhD.  It was an opportunity too good to pass up.  So we were moving again.  This time we were going to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.  As I considered what I would be doing while he was going to school, I thought maybe it would be a good time for me to finish my degree. 

We were married while we were both going to college.  But I took a break after my junior year to have a baby, and he graduated and was commissioned into the Army, and we started moving around the world, and more children came and I didn't get back to my school work.  Now that I had four children, I felt that it was time to finish.

I applied to Iowa State and was accepted.  They even allowed me to pay in-state tuition because my husband was in the Army.  I changed my major, so it would take me the entire three years we were there to graduate.  I was very excited and absolutely terrified.  But I felt that I had to take advantage of this opportunity.  What else was there to do in a little town in the middle of Iowa?  (Ames is actually smack dab in the middle of Iowa.)

There was no way I was going to be able to get that quilt finished while I was in Iowa.  Going to school full time and taking care of 4 children would pretty much take up all of my time.  So I talked to my mother and we decided that she would just have to make the quilt herself.  I sent her the fabric, the design, the patterns for all the blocks, and wished her well.  I hoped she was up to the challenge.

The Silk Quilt - the design

Today I am grateful for robins.  We don't have very many who live near us year round, but in the spring big flocks of them descend on our yard and stay for a week or so.  You know that spring will be arriving shortly when you look out the window and see 30-40 robins in the front yard.  This year they came about a week ago and are still here.  I think they started their trip early because of the warm weather and then it got cold.  It is supposed to be warm again next week, so they will probably move on soon.  I like them a lot.  Their traveling companion, the starlings, I don't like as much.  They travel in big noisy flocks and pick one big tree to settle in.  The racket is very annoying, plus they like to attack our bird feeder even though they are too big for it.  Noisy greedy birds I can do without.

Now on to the story about the silk quilt.  I had the silk, but what should the quilt look like?  At that time I was very excited about designing my own quilts.  There weren't as many quilt books then as there are now, and most of them were just block books.  I didn't like making a whole bunch of the same block, so I decided to make a sampler quilt.  There would be 2 versions of each block.  I drew the quilt out on graph paper and then colored it in just in graphite pencil to get the values.  I wanted the quilt to be more intense in the middle and then fade out to the edges.  The blocks would be there, but they would be indistinct because of the coloring.  I felt like it was something new for me.  It would be exciting to build the quilt from the center out, deciding on the colors for each block as I went along.  I talked to my mom about it and she OKed the design.  I also decided to get some very thin interfacing to back the silk with so it would be easier to sew.  I was all set to start the project.

The silk quilt - Round Robin Quilt Project

Today I am grateful for washing machines.  In past ages people had few clothes because making them was labor intensive and cleaning them was a hard job.  I always think of this when there are very old houses on House Hunters and the closet only has room for a couple hooks inside.  Now we can have more clothes and wash them regularly.  It feels so good to put on clean clothes.  I also appreciate just dumping the clothes into the washer and letting the machine do the work.  I love labor saving devices.

On Sunday a group of friends and I started a Round Robin quilt project.  We each made a quilt block to go in the center of our quilt.  Then we each gave our block to someone else to add a border to the block.  Every two weeks we pass the quilt on to someone else who puts another border on it.  We pass the quilt on to the same person each time.  When all nine of us have had a chance to put a border on each quilt, we will have a big meeting and see all the quilts.  We won't know what our quilt looks like until the end.  I think it will be great fun because every quilt will be different and will need a different type of border.  I will have to be creative and dig into my stash to find the right fabrics.  Some of the quilters are experienced and some are not, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

The block I used for the center of my quilt was one I made a number of years ago.  My mother had come for a visit.  (I'm starting to see that many of my fiber and fabric adventures start this way.)  We were looking at quilting magazines and books and decided that it would be fun to do a project together.  We saw an advertisement for silk fabric remnants that intrigued us.  My mother said that she would pay for the fabric if I would make the quilt.  It sounded like a good deal to me.  Who would pass up silk?  So we sent away for the silk remnants.  Then as we looked at my newest books she found a block that she really liked.  That was the one for the silk quilt.

After my mother returned home, I decided to make a sample block to see how it went together.  It was very complicated.  I made one block for her and one for me and vowed that there would be no more.  (This is the block I used for the Round Robin.)  She would have to pick something else.

Then the silk arrived.  It was beautiful.  About half was in bright colors and the other half in taupe and muted mauve and neutrals.  None of the pieces were very big, but that was alright for piecing.  I was very excited to work with it.  What will it turn into?

My first spinning wheel

Today I am grateful for my mother.  Besides the usual things that every mother does for every child, my mother shared her enthusiasm with me.  She is a woman of many talents and interests and projects.  Currently she is involved in quilting - not just for herself, but for others.  She makes quilts to give to others who need warm bedding in her community and abroad.  She teaches others how to quilt and opens her home to a church quilting session at least once a week.  Then there are the good deed quilts - quilts finished for others who started them, but can no longer work on them.  She has been a leader in her church and community wherever she lived.  She assumes everyone is as excited as she is about whatever the current project is - quilt, park, blood drive, 4th of July parade, whatever.  You just can't say no to her, so you end up involved.  Enthusiasm is contagious and she spreads it everywhere she goes.

Thinking abut my mother reminded me of how I came to spinning. ( No, my mother doesn't spin.)  She and my dad came to visit me while we were living in Monterey, CA.  There was a Highland Games festival while they were there, so we went.  (My dad has Scottish ancestry.)  While we were there we saw some craft demonstrators with drop spindles spinning yarn.  I found it fascinating and commented that I would like to learn to spin someday.  "Well, you should have grandma's spinning wheel then.  I'll send it to you." said my mom.

My grandparents built a cabin in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming.  Sometime on their travels somewhere in eastern Canada they picked up a spinning wheel, purely as a decorative piece to put in the cabin.  As a child I remember treadling that thing for all it was worth to see how fast I could make it go.  All the grandchildren did.  I never saw anyone actually spin yarn on it.

When my parents inherited the cabin, they brought some of the more breakable pieces back home, including the spinning wheel.  A couple weeks later it arrived in the mail, in pieces.  My dear husband sanded the stained places, figured out how to put it together, and voila - I had a spinning wheel.

In Pacific Grove, the town next door, I found a spinning & weaving shop, and signed up for lessons.  At my first class I found out that I was very lucky.  Most antique spinning wheels don't work - most don't even have all the pieces.  I couldn't have told the difference.  But mine did have all the pieces and it would work, for the most part.  My teacher taught us where to oil the wheels (where all the stained places were.  I hated to tell my husband that I had to stain all those places back again.), how to adjust them, and what the different parts did.  Then we learned how the draft out the fiber and spin yarn while we treadled.   I was not a natural.

Most of the students had Ashford wheels.  They were the most common around and there weren't too many other kinds available then.  They had a nice medium sized orifice - good for spinning nice beginner Romney wool into irregular, overtwisted beginner yarn.  I learned that I had a flax wheel with a very small orifice good for making linen thread.  I had to draft my yarn much smaller than anyone else in order to get it to go through the orifice.  My yarn was overtwisted and irregular, but it was thin because it had to be. 

I could only practice at home for 15 minutes at a time because I got so frustrated.  Besides the small orifice, the wheel was warped just a little, so every once in a while the cord would jump off.  I would have to stop spinning and put everything back together again.  I did learn how to adjust my wheel though.  Little by little, I became more adept.  I had skeins of yarn all over the place.  I couldn't get enough.  I was a real spinner.

Trail Mix

Today I am grateful for ribbon.  It comes in an infinite variety of colors and patterns and sizes,  all useful and decorative.  I need things to be functional, otherwise they are just taking up space.  I have a few doodads that just sit there and look pretty, but not too many.  Their function is to bring back memories for me.  Ribbon can decorate just about anything - presents, clothing, balloons, quilts, you name it.  It's flexible , yet strong enough.  I have a box full of it that I save, even the little pieces.  You never know when it will come in handy.

I was assigned to make snacks to take to a meeting so I decided on Trail Mix.  I looked on the internet for recipes, but none were just what I wanted.  There are things I like in a trail mix, and things that I don't like.  I don't like filler and little stuff that falls to the bottom - like sunflower seeds, oatmeal, marshmallows, and coconut.  I like them for other uses, but not trail mix.  What I do like is fruit, nuts, and a little chocolate.  So here is what I came up.

Fawn's Trail Mix

1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried blueberries
1 cup dried cherries
1 cup dried apple pieces
1 cup dried apricots (cut in quarters)
1 1/2 cups peanuts
1 1/2 cups cashews
1 1/2 cups almonds
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup white chocolate chips

Mix it all together in a large bowl.  Store in an airtight container or a ziplock bag.

I could have just bought something at the store, but that wouldn't be as tasty and it would contain one more thing that I don't like - preservatives.  It turned out pretty good -- sweet, salty and a little chocolate.

My first garden

Today I am grateful for sunshine.  We have had several days of rain, and clouds, and fog, and generally gloomy weather.  It is winter, after all.  But today around 11:00 the clouds melted away and the sun came out and cheered everything up.  Sunshine is so uplifting.  I had to go for a walk just to take it all in.  In the middle of July, I'm not always so grateful.  But in January, sunshine is a wonderful thing.

Today I looked at my vegetable garden and starting planning what I want to grow this year.  In January all things are possible.  Plants will go in at the right moment, seeds will be planted on time, the weather will cooperate, and the garden will be filled with tasty produce.  We'll see what happens.  But I think some spring vegetables - spinach, snap peas, maybe something else - might go in next week.  Just to see what happens.

It made me think about the first real garden that I had.  We had purchased our first little starter home.  It was at the end of a cul-de-sac, so the yard was wedge shaped.  The front yard was small, but the back yard was quite large.  I loved it.  Even though there was a steep slope, it was great for a garden.  I had to terrace the rows, but that was kind of nice.   I started seeds inside, and as soon as the weather was warm, out they all went into the garden.  I had tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash, snap peas and sunflowers.  I would go out every evening and weed the garden while the children played in the yard.  I was in heaven.  I even canned tomatoes and beans to save for the winter.  I felt so domestic.

I wonder how things will grow this year.  Growing a garden is always a risk, but the rewards are worth it.  There's nothing like just picked vegetables.

30 year old wool - spinning on TV

Today I am grateful for chocolate. Most women are.  Some men too.  I got a chocolate cookbook for Christmas.  I don't even have to make anything out of it.  Just reading the recipes makes me feel better.  But I will make some things, just to make sure they are as good as it sounds like.  Chocolate can make everything better somehow.  Actually, scientists can tell you how, but I prefer just to think of it as magic.

Today I am going to tell you about an amazing experience I had last fall.  I had started carding the colors when my mother came to visit.  I was excited to show her what I was doing because she had given me the wool in the first place.  So we spent one afternoon on the porch carding wool.  It was fun.  The next morning the weather was great, so we went back out on the porch to spin the yarn.

We were enjoying the day.  I was spinning away when a car pulled up in front of our house.  It had the call letters of a local TV station splashed all over the side.  Two guys got out and walked up to the porch.  I thought they would ask us for directions or something.  (Just to clarify things - our town has a yearly festival, like all small towns are required to do.  Ours is centered around Oliver Hardy, who was born in our town.  The festival would be the next day.)  But no, they were looking to film a color piece to tie in with other things they were doing in regards to the festival.  What on earth was I doing, and could they film me while I did it?

This all seemed very strange to me, but I love to get more people interested in spinning.  So I said, "Sure."  I took the main guy into the house and we looked at hand spun yarn that I had laying around and a couple shawls.  He said those would be great and we took them back outside.  "When would we be doing this?"  I asked.  "Right now."  Seriously?

Because we were going to go out on the porch and spin wool that contained lots of debris despite the carding, I had dressed in my oldest jeans and a ratty old T-shirt.  I hadn't had a shower yet, no makeup, hair was leftover from the day before.  This was pretty much the worst I ever looked unless I was sick.

The guy said I could go put on some makeup if I wanted, but it would take me a couple hours to make any real difference.  I thought about it a minute.  I knew how these things really go.  They film all kinds of stuff and then show about 10 seconds in the real broadcast.  I just couldn't take it too seriously.  So I said, "Let's just do it."

So they put mikes on me and my Mom and I started spinning and they started filming.  The main guy asked us questions and we talked to him and the camera guy filmed different things.  I wasn't nervous because I didn't think anything would come of it.  Normally, doing anything in public makes me very nervous.  Very, very nervous.  It all took about half an hour.  They finished up, told us to watch the 6:00 news that night, and were on their way.

We had planned to go out to eat that night, so we put on the DVR to record the 6:00 news and left.  When we returned we decided we better watch and see which 10 seconds they decided to put into the broadcast.  I was very surprised to find they had done a remote broadcast from downtown and they were using a clip of my hands spinning as a teaser between every segment.  "Stay tuned to see who is spinning a yarn."  My portion was at the end of the broadcast and they used most of what they had filmed.  I got more time than the biggest industry in town - a pecan factory.  It was crazy.

I learned a lot from this adventure.  Don't take things too seriously - they turn out better.  And you never know what might happen.  However, I haven't spun out on the porch again since then.

Here's a link to see the film at 6.

http://www2.wjbf.com/news/2011/oct/01/out-theresomewhere-harlem-womans-sp-57298-vi-104965/

30 year old wool - carding

Today I am grateful for books.  Some people think they are old-fashioned, but I like old-fashioned things.  For hundreds of years they were the way you got information or entertainment.  I still like the feel of a book.  I like going to the library and looking at the covers.  (They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but actually you can.  Good artwork still stands for something.)  I like turning the pages and putting a real bookmark in to save the place.  I really enjoy real things.  (Don't get me wrong.  I love electronics.  I have an ipad that I read books on when I travel.  But it's not the same.  I think there is room in the world for both.)

Now on to the story of our wool.  Once all the wool was dyed, it was time to start the carding.  Each of the twelve bags had to be carded.  I teased each bag and then put it through the carder 3 times.  Each bag yielded 4 batts.   I worked outside on my porch during the nice fall weather.  Each color took most of an afternoon.  It was so nice to hear the birds and see what was going on in the neighborhood.  I like natural sounds when I work outside.

Now came the fun part.  I got all the colors out and decided which to mix together.  I didn't have enough to mix each with every other one, so I just picked what I thought would make the most different colors.  I saved one batt of each color to spin by itself.  The other 3 batts I paired with a batt of another color.  I tore each batt in half, saved one half of each color and carded the others together.  Now I had a batt that was a mixture of two colors along with half batts of each of the original colors.  There is method in my madness as you will see when we get to spinning.

30 year old wool - dyeing

Today I am grateful for rain.  Yesterday was cloudy and gloomy, but we got rain.  We have been in drought conditions in our area for several years now.  Rain is important.   I hope we get more, lots more.  Maybe our lawn will come back.  Maybe the garden will grow.  Maybe the lake will refill.  Lots of good things come with rain.

Continuing with the story of the 30 year old wool:  Once the wool was certified as moth-free, I tried to think what I should do with it.  I had recently bought a DVD by Deb Menz about carding different colors.  I had a drum carder;  I had dyes;  I wanted to play with color; and I had wool that could be used for experimentation.  So I decided a color project was in order.  I also had recently heard about dyeing with a crock-pot.  I enlisted my old crock-pot for the adventure.  (It forced me buy a new crock-pot, but some sacrifices have to be made.) 

First I mixed up a jar of dye from every color that I had - 9 in all.  (They are Lanaset dyes.)  Then I tried one batch in the crock-pot, just to make sure that it would work.  And to figure out how much wool could be dyed at a time.  It turned out that 2 ounces was a good amount.  So I weighed out the wool in 2 ounce piles and put each in a white kitchen garbage bag.  There were 12 bags.

Each day for the next 2 or 3 weeks I would wash a bag of wool, rinse it, mix up a color of dye, put everything together in the crock-pot and set it out on the porch to cook.  By the middle of the afternoon the dye would be exhausted, so I would turn the crock-pot off.  I let it cool down overnight.  Then in the morning I would rinse the wool, spin it dry in my washing machine, and put it to dry on my drying rack.  And start another color.  I loved seeing all the colors.  Of course, with 9 colors of dye and 12 bags of wool, in the end some mixtures had to be made.  But I ended up with 12 different colors of wool.  Wonderful.

30 year old yarn - the beginning

Today I am grateful for jigsaw puzzles.  I have been a puzzle lover since childhood. For as long as I can remember, I received a new puzzle for Christmas.  When I married and had to play Santa for myself, I continued the tradition.  I start my new puzzle on New Year's Eve and finish it while I watch football on New Year's Day.  Others may help.  Sometimes we have a lot of people celebrate the new year with us and sometimes it's just me and my husband.  This year it was just us.  My puzzle this year is one of my favorites.  It is of a painting by Kandinsky, Color Study of Squares and Circles.  I love all the colors.  It had 1500 pieces and it was harder than I thought.

Last spring while my husband was cleaning out the attic he found a forgotten box of wool that had been stuffed in the attic when we moved into this house 20 years ago.  It brought back a lot of memories. 

30 years ago when I was just learning to spin my mother wanted to be involved.  She lived out in the country and had neighbors who raised sheep commercially.  So she asked them if they had some wool she could send me.  It was shearing time, so they picked a couple fleeces off the shearing floor and stuffed them into a yellow plastic burlap bag and gave them to her. (Normally they shear all the sheep, stuff all the wool into big bags and send it off to the wool middleman.)

My husband's parents were coming to visit us with their 5th wheel trailer.  Since they are friends of my parents and live nearby, my mother asked them is they could take something to me when they went.  Of course, they said yes, expecting a birthday gift or book or other small thing.  They were taken aback when the something turned out to be a 5' tall bag as big as you could get your arms around full of dirty stinky wool.  They knew my mother well enough to know that you can't say no to her, so they stuck it in their trailer.  They were very relieved to hand it off to me when they arrived.

I was overwhelmed, and not in a good way.  The smell, the amount - it was all a bit much.   I read everything I could find, but there were no instructions on how to skirt a raw fleece in your living room with 3 small children helping.  (We lived in a second floor apartment - no yard, only a very small deck.)  And absolutely nothing on how to properly thank your mother for this type of gift.

I ended up spreading it all out on an old sheet on the living room carpet.  First I threw away all the totally dung-covered wool.  Then I divided the rest into different quality groups.  That's what the instructions I could find said to do, not that I knew what good quality was.  Then I stuffed it back into the bag and put it out on the deck.

I washed some of it by filling the bathtub with hot water and soap and putting in as much wool as I could fit in.  I let it soak for an hour or so, and then let the water out.  I held the wool back while I let some rinse water fill the tub again.  Then I let the rinse water soak for another hour or so.  Then I let the water out of the tub, squeezed as much water as I could out of the wool, and laid it out on a sheet in the living room to dry.  It was the best I could do at the time.  We moved soon after receiving the wool, so some of it had to be washed later at our new home.

The wool my husband found was some of this first wool to be washed.  It had been in white plastic garbage bags in a moving box that had never been open through 3 moves.  Would it be any good after all this time and poor handling?  I put it in quarantine in the guest bathroom for a month, just in case it had picked up moths, and decided that I would find something to do with it.

Could the wool be saved?

Design process - step 6 - finishing

Today I am grateful for my father.  He was always patient and kind, even when I probably didn't deserve it.  He also had a sly and dry sense of humor.  He liked to play jokes on people, but never anything malicious.  We didn't live close to my parents after we got married and had children, so it was a special time when the grandkids got to visit.  At that time my parents lived out in the country on about 20 acres.  Once when we were visiting my Dad said that he was going to check on the gopher traps.  Would my boys like to go with him?  They were 2 and 4 at the time.  I said "Sure."  It would be a great outdoor adventure for the boys and their grandfather.  Half an hour later my oldest son came back in the house.  He had been carefully coached on how to proceed.  So instead of running in with a "Look what I found!" He walked in carefully with his hands behind his back until he was right in front of me.  "Look"  he said as he held out a dead gopher by the tail in front of my face.  Of course I screamed - long and loud enough to delight all three of the conspirators.  I was surprised and horrified, both by the gopher and by the fact that my sweet little boy was holding it with a sneaky smile on his face.  After the gopher was properly disposed of, the children's hands were thoroughly disinfected.  (I must admit that one gopher was harmed in the creating of this joke, but supposedly he had it coming for digging up the lawn.)

Now on the the last step in the process - finishing.  After all the weaving is finished I unroll everything and take it off the loom.  I cut the dummy warp instead of untying all those knots. Eventually I will have to put on another dummy warp.  This is how the shawl looks right off the loom.

Next it is time to tie the fringe.  I divide the warp ends in groups of 4 to make the fringe.  I also add in one weft yarn from each bobbin to each group of 4.  I pull them through the edge of the shawl with a crochet hook, then tie an overhand knot in all 6 yarns.

It is rather tedious, but I put on some music and go as fast as I can.

This picture show the difference between the tied end and the untied end.  I really like adding the weft yarns into the fringe because it beefs up the fringe and connects the weft yarns to the warp yarns in a visible way.  It also makes each shawl look very different from the others on the same warp.

The last thing to do is wash the shawl.  The first wash a shawl has is for function as well a cleaning.  I soak the shawl in hot water and mild detergent for about an hour.  Then I gently squeeze it all over to wash and full.  The mild fulling is important.  I weave my shawls very loosely.  The fulling gets the yarns to grab hold of each other and become a fabric rather than just some yarns crossed over each other,  but because of the loose weaving the drape is still nice.  Then I rinse the shawl in cold water 3 times and put it on the spin cycle in my washing machine.  The shawl is then dried flat on my drying rack.  It usually takes 12 - 24 hours to dry.  The fringe is then trimmed straight and pictures are taken.

The final step is to put the shawl up on my etsy store.  Go to touchingfibers.etsy.com to see all the shawls available right now.

Design process - Step 5 - weaving

Today I am grateful for computers.  Many of us take them for granted because we don't remember a time when they weren't around.  But I am old enough to remember what it was like.  When I first started college out of high school I majored in Computer Science.  Not every university had a computer science department.  The computer at our school was a room-sized IBM.  They were so expensive that even a major university couldn't afford to buy one.  They only rented it.  We typed our programs out on punch cards, one line per card.  Then we put a big rubber band around the stack of cards and turned them in at the computer room.  The operators ran them through and gave you back a printed output sheet and your stack of cards.  We generally got one run per day.  Then you checked your output, changed any mistakes by typing a new card and trading it for the old one, and turned it in to the computer room again.  This continued until you got it right.  Now my phone can do way more than that room-sized monster ever could.  I think computers are amazing.

Now for the fun part - step 5 - weaving.  I start by spreading the warp with 2" strips of poster board.  I find this a quick and easy way to get started and measure out the fringe at the same time.  Between shawls I use the poster board strips again to measure out the fringe.

I usually use two different yarns for my weft - one a solid color and one variegated - to increase the visual texture.  Generally they are two different thicknesses too.  I use a shuttle that holds two bobbins so I only have to make one pass of the shuttle per pick.

I hemstitch each end of my shawls so I don't ever have to worry about things coming undone.  I measure out some of the thinnest yarn four times the width of the shawl for the hemstitching, and then I throw the first pick.  I weave four picks and go back and hemstitch the end.  Then I just keep weaving.  I gently beat each pick in place because I want a very soft fabric with lots of drape.

After I advance the warp the first time I pin a string 80" long to the edge of the shawl.  This lets me know how long the shawl is and when I should stop weaving.  I weave my shawls 80" long in hopes of getting a shawl that is about 72" long after it is washed.  I have tried many different widths and lengths and have decided that 18 x 72 is the optimal length and width for me.  It creates a shawl that can be used for many purposes - as a wrap, a scarf, a throw and a shawl.  If you are a lot larger or smaller than average you would want a different size.

I love weaving.  I love the movement, the rhythm, the feel of the yarn and the shuttle.  It is a very relaxing thing to do, but I also get a bit of exercise.  The back and forth movement keeps my core muscles in shape.

Next time step 6 - finishing.

Design process - Step 4 - winding the warp

Today I am grateful for buttons.  They are functional, decorative, and I have a large collection of them just in case.  You never know when you will need a button to fix something or make it look better.

The next step in the design process is winding the warp onto the back beam.  You can see that it looks like a big mess to start with.  I just shake it out until the yarns fall into place.  I tie the warp chains about every 2 yards with cotton rug yarn.  This keeps things from tangling too badly.

Once everything is nice and even I wind it onto the back beam.  I put craft paper between the layers.  I get it on a big roll and once it gets started it just winds on by itself with the yarn.

I wind until the tangled yarn gets up to the reed.  Then I pull on the yarn from the front of the loom to make sure that the tension is even.  The process of shaking, untangling and winding continues until all the warp is on the loom.

Finally I tie the yarn onto the front beam.  This picture shows the warp all straight and pretty at the back of the loom.

Tomorrow we start weaving!

Design process - Step 3 - threading the warp

Today I am grateful for navel oranges - so sweet and juicy and in the middle on winter no less.  Fresh fruit is the best.

It's time for step 3 - threading the warp.  I use a dummy warp that stays threaded all the time, so I just tie the new warp onto the dummy warp.  This makes it easy to design as I go.  I start with the yarn that I have the least of.  I want the two halves of the shawl to be evenly balanced although they may not be exactly the same.  So an equal number of the the ends of the yarn go on each side.

I gradually build up the layers of color as I add each yarn.

Some are evenly distributed and others are closer together to make stripes.

I try to alternate fluffy with smooth to avoid yarns sticking to each others during weaving.  Sometimes they stick together anyway.

The last yarn gets put wherever there is an empty space.  I shake the tied yarns to get the loose dummy warp threads to hang down so I can tell where to put those last few yarns.

Because I have lot of small warp chains instead of one large chain,  I just hold the cross in my hand and pick out the next thread to tie on.  I have to be careful, but if one thread gets out of place it isn't that big of a problem.  The warp threads are all mixed up anyway.

Tomorrow - winding on the warp.

Design process - step 2 - measuring the warp

Today I am grateful for paperwhites.  They are that little white flower that pops up in the middle of winter to tell you that spring is just around the corner.  In my yard they are flowering now.  They are fragrant and cute and remind everyone in the neighborhood that there is beauty even in winter.

Today I will continue my design process.  Step 2 is measuring out the warp.  Since I have varying amounts of the yarns I want to use, I start with the ones I have the least of.  I wind my warps 10 yards long.  That is the longest I can wind on my warp board and it also is a good length for 3 shawls.  Some yarns I only get 5 or 10 ends.  As I wind them I write down how many ends of each yarn I have.  When I get to the yarns I have a lot of I decide how much of each to use.  I want a good balance of color, texture and material.  It takes a little math to figure out how many ends of each yarn to wind.  My shawls are all 21" wide in the reed and sett at 8 ends per inch.  That means I need 168 ends altogether.  Sometimes I add one more at each side for stability.  It depends on the yarn.  I wind a separate chain for each color.  This takes a little longer than just winding one color for the warp, but I think it is worth it.  When all the yarn is wound I am ready to thread the loom which is Step 3.  Stay tuned tomorrow.

Design process - step 1 - choosing the yarns

Today I am grateful for my wonderful husband of 39 years.  I am grateful for his love and kindness, his generosity and energy, his thoughtfulness towards me and others, and his technical assistance without which my adventures on the internet would never happen.

I weave shawls and sell them on my etsy store - touching fibers.  I enjoy working with color and texture rather than structure.  All my shawls are woven in plain weave on my Toika countermarche loom.  I bought this loom because it is easy on my body.  I love the way the beater works and the ratchet system for advancing the warp.  Obviously, it can do way more than plain weave, and maybe I will some day.

Today I am going to start to explain the design process that I use to weave my shawls.  It is a little different than most people use, but it works well for me.  I start by designing the warp.  First I decide on a colorway - usually 1-3 colors that are next to each other on the color wheel.  I like close color harmonies.  Then I go through all my boxes, bags and bins of yarn and gather every yarn in that colorway.  Some I have a lot of and some just some leftover scraps.

Next I start the weeding out process.  I put all the yarn on the floor in my studio.  It is on the floor so I can look down on all of it at the same time and see it all at a glance.  It may take several days to decide.  Each time I walk past the pile I look at it and pull out the yarn that doesn't seem to fit.

Gradually the pile gets smaller.  Some yarn won't be good for warp - not strong enough, too fat, too stretchy.  The picture above is the final warp yarns.

  Some yarn is chosen for weft.  Usually I don't use the weft in the warp.

I put on 10 yards of warp at a time.  This is enough to make 3 shawls with a little left over in case of mistakes or just to weave up for samples.  I choose 3 different wefts - different in color and in texture.  This way I get 3 very different shawls from one warp.  The last picture shows the chosen warp and weft.  The weft consists of the cones and the skein next to them.

As you can see my warp not only has different colors, but different textures.  Some of it may seem like a poor choice for warp.  Some is wool, some is cotton, some is mohair, some is rayon, some is synthetic.  Some is stretchy, some is not.  Some will shrink, some will not.  This seems like a recipe for disaster;  but if everything is mixed well, it works.  I  make sure that wool is next to cotton, stretchy is next to non-stretchy, fluffy is next to slick.  This way they hold each other in check.

Next time:  Step 2 - measuring the warp.

Happy New Year! Starting Over

Today I am starting over. I will post to this blog every day. It will include a small part about what I am grateful for that day. Being grateful is something everyone can do without any cost in time or money. It raises your spirits and connects you to the rest of the world. It will start my day off right and hopefully, it will help you too.

Most of my blog will contain musings about things that are happening, projects I am making, processes I use, and stories from my past that relate to what I am currently doing. My interests include spinning, weaving, quilting, family history, church, children, grandchildren, and other friends and family - not in any particular order. The most important is my family. I have always liked the idea of a journal, but never kept one consistently. Hopefully, this will work for me and for you.

Happy New Year!