knitting with new friends did help take my mind off my mover woes. cookies. wine. knitting. nice folks. what more could a girl want?
someone in the group is knitting a great big multicolored bag for felting, so i couldn't resist telling them about the biggest felting debacle ever. the group consensus was still that that thing could be sewn into a lovely (and proportionate) bag of some sort. i don't know what ever happened to it though...
so knitting was fun, and when i got home i called karrie and got the full run down on sheep to shawl. the good news is that the girls finished their shawl in time and won some nifty fiber prizes. apparently, though, it was a pretty stressful experience in terms of on the ground logistics. it sounds like i've missed my life's only chance to do a sheep to shawl, though.
that's okay, though, because that means next summer they'll be free the weekend before lambtown to meet me at the salt sping island fibre festival! which is undoubtedly more fun than sheep-to-shawl-ing in 100 degree heat.
the most exciting development on my fiber front is that karrie is sending me a pair of cards in exchange for the fleece, roving, and alpaca goodness i'm sending her. what a deal!! and i'm starting physical therapy for my shoulder this week, so perhaps someday i'll be strong enough to card all this wool!
in other exciting household news, i picked up a bunch of big clear rubbermaid containers to put all the fleeces in. as terry kindly noted, "the house is smelling less like a farm already."
the suspense is killing me! all my knitting pals from the mel-o-dee are knitting and spinning their hearts out in the sheep-to-shawl competition at lambtown usa today. it's about 55 degrees out here but i've been thinking sweltering in wool thoughts all day for them....
not about spinning or knitting except that my spinning wheel and ginormous stash are still on the moving truck....
so yesterday afternoon around 3:45 i finally get ahold of the movers who say that they are finally going to deliver our stuff ... tuesday morning. (e.g. 6 weeks and a day after the picked it up??)
you have to pay us first, they say. and by the way, we have your final shipment weight (since everything was based on a non-binding estimate).
that's when she tells me that our shipment (allegedly) weighed TWICE their estimate, so the cost of the move suddenly doubled.
the good news (well, there's no good news) is that they HAVE to deliver our stuff is we pay them 110% of the original estimate. the bad news is (they claim) we still have to pay the full amount within 30 days.
needless to say, when we were getting drunk last night with all the lawyers we know we were assessing the range of options here....
but you can imagine how the mood has shifted chez purl,interrupted..... :-(
maybe knitting with the nice yarn store ladies after hours tonight will cheer me up!
I've gotten so much helpful advice from the folks at Spindlers. Finally decided to take the plunge and wash one of my new fleeces -- a white shetland-cross lamb. In retrospect, I should've started with one that was skirted (some of mine are, some not). I think I definitely didn't do enough sorting/skirting (e.g. much at all!) before starting to wash it. Nonetheless, I think it turned out pretty well. It's still drying, so I won't really know until I have the chance to spin it, but here's what I did:
(Sadly, I didn't take photos, which I will do next time. I think I was too nervous!)
I sorted the fleece into mesh laundry bags, and, with about half of what I had, ran it through 3 or 4 soaks in soapy lukewarm water. I used Seventh Generation lavendar dish soap. Smells purty.
My only real problem was that as it turns out, one of my washer settings doesn't give you warm water even when it's set on warm, so the very first rinse was just cold water. I was worried I'd have a felting problem, so once I took it out of the first soak I waited a little while for the temp to normalize before doing the second soak. (As I said, the fleece is still wet so it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure it didn't felt.)
After the initial problem with the water temps I figured out the washer a little better. I also discovered I could cut my time in two by using the sink next to the washer to do a soak while the washer was draining/filling back up. So I did three clear water soaks to rinse the soap out, and by the end the soaking water was pretty much clear.
I repeated this all with the other 1/2 of the fleece, and spread it all out to dry on big rubbermaid container lids.
I did this all at night so left it out to dry in the living room overnight. When I got home from work today I set it out in the sun for a while, but then it got too windy so I took it back inside (good thing, too, since then it started to pour!). It's still al ittle damp so I'm going to ask Mr. Purl,Interrupted to set it out in the sun tomorrow.
Anyway, it looks a lot better (and brighter) than it did when I started. Because I didn't clean it well enough up front there are still a few sections that have little bits of grass and stuff in them. Hoping it'll come out when I comb it.
Speaking of combing, I bought a dog comb at the pet store to try flicking open the ends of the fleece. I tried this with one of the skirted white shetland purebred fleeces and it seemed to work well, although of course your finish product looks like big balls of hair instead of, say, roving. Again, I'll have to wait til Suzie gets here and see whether it spins.
I've gotten so much conflicting advice about carding/combing. One person on Spindlers recommended getting a hackle as a good way to process fiber without killing your joints. Then I can do color blending, too..... But I really still want a drum carder. Hmmmm.
today's anchorage daily news has an article about the musk ox industry. the article reports that raw musk ox fiber goes for $150 - $200/lb. wow. i guess i'm going to have to keep playing the ponies.
incidentally, i'm a little offended by the guy who says he's going to start selling musk oxen but not to people who want to keep them in their yard. what does he know, anyway?
still no pictures, although rumor has it that the movers have made it to Anchorage and are going to call us to schedule a delivery. yahoo. in the meantime, i've been doing a lot of poking around on spinning-type webpages, so thought i'd share a few new links.
first, the icanspin folks linked me to a ginormous yahoo discussion group, spindlers, all about spinning. it's really huge -- there are apparently several thousand members and so thousands of archived messages -- makes it pretty impossible to search archives to avoid asking questions folks have already discussed ad naseum, but what can you do? they seem really nice, and there's a TON of information on there.
also, this guy's blog ("the spinning guy") is pretty interesting. it's all about alpacas and spinning, two of my favorite things. he has another blog called "alpaca talk" that's a little bizarre (since it's written from an alapca's POV) but has some damn cute alpaca photos.
perhaps you have too much time on your hands? then try the virtual sheep herding website. i don't make this stuff up.
in non-fiber news, i had this crazy idea that i was going to get up in time to go to the 6:00 a.m. t'ai chi class (the shoulder thing, y'know), but that'll have to wait until our bed gets here and i'm no longer sleeping on an air mattress. i just can't imagine getting up that early tomorrow. or, um, ever.
so i've been spending sometime on carolina homespun's webpage trying to figure out what sort of fiber preparation tools i need now that i have the fleeces of an entire herd of sheep in my basement. not to be dense, but ... what's the difference between carders and combs? i mean, i can physically see that they're different, but when do you use one versus the other? and what about flickers? i'm so confused!
sheeptacular. lamb-o-ific. sheep-pendous. lambalicious. i just returned from palmer - i went back today and bought more fleeces. um, five more, to be precise. so now i have eight, whic is NOT including the one i'm mailing to karrie!
(and yes, i will confess that my house is beginning to smell a little bit sheepy)
absurd, you say? er, maybe. :-) but pretty damn cool. as several people have pointed out, i've really stumbled upon a once in a lifetime opportunity --- the sheep farm is *closing,* and they're practically giving away wonderful fleeces!!
and in case you hadn't heard, AK winters can be long and dark.
so what i got today were light-colored fleeces in case i want to do some dyeing. two are 'badgerface" (variegated); the others are just white (although really more off-white/beige) -- and one of them won best fleece at the AK state fair last year!
the little craft room is now 45% full of fleece and roving. i wonder where my desk will go.... i'll figure it out when the movers get here. (ha! as if i'm doing anything but spin once the movers get here!!)
we've now been in anchorage for two weeks -- hard to believe it's only been that long. somehow you lose all sense of time when sleeping on an air mattress and sharing your household's lone spork. but i digress.... it's ALSO hard to believe we've only been here two weeks because we just feel so at home here.
so tonight t and i decided to go hear music (a string band from SF, actually) at organic oasis, a little hippie restaurant/music venue sort of near our house. we got there a little after 8, and as we were parking i remembered that one of the LYS (the one i haven't actually been to yet) was in the same parking lot. and strangely enough (at 8:15 on a saturday night) it looked like they were open.
so we went over there and there were about six women hanging out knitting and drinking wine. my kind of place! they were officially closed but invited us in to look around and chat. turns out they have a semi-regular after hours knitting group on saturdays, and invited me to come back next week! excellent!
i also talked to them about helping me coordinate a knit lit knit-in at the local bookstore (title wave books) when knit lit the third comes out in september. i'm very excited to have finally met some real live anchorage knitters. and they were so nice!!!!!! as an added bonus, the store seemed to have a really great selection. and they told me about all sorts of knitting groups and guilds they've heard about/know of.
speaking of which, noelle at the jumping double-ewe farm told me the local spinners guild is really great and that there are lots of friendly and helpful folks who would he able to give me some guidance about the finer points of fiber preparation.
also, about the fleeces, i'm now trying to decide if i should go back for more. the only bad thing about them is that they're not skirted. but they're super cheap, really clean, etc. when we got home, t was incredulous that i'd actually come home with any money left in my wallet... so i might call them in the morning and see if i can come back tomorrow!
it is nothing short of tragic that i don't yet have my computer and related equipment up here. because without a photo, i don't know if i can possibly convey just HOW MUCH fiber i got today from the good people at the jumping double-ewe farm in palmer. holy moly!!!
first, there's easily 10 lbs of roving -- huge bags of white, grey and tan -- plus she threw in a big bag of angora she had lying around!
and i bought fleeces, too -- all purebred shetland lamb. i got a lovely chocolate-colored one for karrie, and black and charcoal grey for myself. the woman who sold them to me said not to try machine carding them (bummer), but also said that a lot of people find they can just spin the locks "in the grease." hooray for no carding!
and wow they are clean! those who had the misfortune of handling the fleece now known as "speckles, the dirtiest sheep ever" will not believe how nice these are! pluis apparently shetlands are reltaively low in lanolin, so it's not all gross to the touch. i might try washing (or at least soaking) some of it, but i'm definitely going to try just spinning "as is" and seeing what happens!
i can't wait until the movers get here with suzie!! and my computer stuff, so i can show you photos of all the delightful treats now stacked up in the "fiber room"!!
or proof of the supernatural? look at this ad i just found on the anchorage spinners guild website:
JUMPIN' DOUBLE EWE FARM, Palmer AK Moving Sale- July 2005 After 15 years of supplying handspinning fleeces to Alaska. We are moving to Spokane Washington in August!! Almost everything is for sale...including all fleeces, wool, roving, yarn and sheep!! I would prefer to sell ALL my whole fleeces to one buyer as a package deal
anyone wanna help me run a sheep farm?
Eureka. It looks like sheep-to-shawl won't escape me so easily! The Anchorage weavers and spinners guild participates in a sheep-to-shawl at the Alaska State Fair! At least I'll finally get to watch one (I doubt there's a knitter's category -- but maybe next year....!)
Incidentally, the Alaska State Fair is in Palmer. Palmer is home of the musk ox farm. Perhaps they should start a ... musk ox to mucklucks contest?
okay, so it's the end of my first day of work, and i really have nothing to do and our tv is "on the moving truck" (see below as to where i really think our tv is), so i've been randomly surfing webrings. i found this cool page on felting over soap, something i remember kate h. talk about. check it out. i'm going to try it!
the other night i was in a great local bookstore, title wave books, that does a really nice job of selling used books without making you feel like you're at a yard sale. anyhoo, in the craft section they had a little pamphlet-type book on how to build your own saxony style spinning wheel! they also had one (by the same folks) on building your own table-top yarn swift.
(i mentionned to terry that the back of the book says the series includes one on how to build a lazy kate. he said (looking a little hurt), "but you already have a lazy kate." right....)
still no pics, i'm afraid, because most of my computer equipment is "on the moving truck" (by which I mean "probably being sold on the streets of LA"). stay tuned, though ... i promise pics of roadside sheep and buffalo! plus the mondo-huge bags o' roving and other goodies from salt spring island!
meanwhile, the good people at knit lit suggested that i should get plugged into the anchorage knitting community by convincing a local bookstore or LYS to host a knit lit knit-in when the book comes out in september. i trust that the mel-o-dee will host its own knit-in in my honor. extra olives for everyone!
today was my first day of work, so i'm pretty happy to have survived in one piece and not even traumatized. now if only we could find a job for mr. purl,interrupted....
my exploration of the anchorage fiber world continues. i've located two yarn stores -- "knitting frenzy" and "far north yarns" (I think that's the name?), plus two quilting stores with a decent yarn selection ("seams like home," and "the yarn branch" (inside "the quilt tree"). plus the musk ox place, which doesn't count because it's way too expensive to ever think i could buy something there.
on the thinking-about-sewing front, my new neighbor, ilene, has a sewing machine and has offered to teach me how to sew and to lend me the machine if i decide to take a quilting class. yahooo. i told her i could try to teach her to spin but that i doubt i'd be able to actually convey that knowledge, given the, er, spottiness of my own spinning skills.
speaking of my questionable spinning talents, i've been able to wear the fanta scarf twice since we got here -- it's been warm in the day but cool at night -- and several folks have made nice comments about it. so i'll be glad to get back to spinning once our stuff gets here. (poor suzie, all alone in the moving truck.... i will make it up to her with alpaca!)
in the meantime, today is my last day of blissful unemployment, so i'm going to spend at least some of it knitting in my wonderful new rocking chair. it looks like i'll finish the lace scarf iin time to start wearing it for fall. man i've become a slacker....
musk oxen deserve their own entry. if not their own blog entirely.
on our way into anchorage friday night we took a detour past the musk ox farm. incredibly, they weren't open at 10:30 p.m. go figure. but we were able to spy them in the distance. wow are they cute.
i really need to figure out a way to acquire a baby musk ox....
in the meantime, i think i'm going to head up to the musk ox farm today or tomorrow to check it out. also, the musk ox cooperative has a store in downtown anchorage (near our house) that i may walk to this morning. i suspect they don't sell roving there, though. or that if they do it's still way out of my budget. and that the only way i'm going to get to spin or knit quiviut is to adopt a baby musk ox....
well where should i begin? maybe with last things first -- we made it to anchorage and i finally have access to my blog again!!
we pulled into our apartment saturday morning around 1:30, after 10 days on the road. coming here felt pretty surreal, since we've moved back into the apartment i lived in 4 years ago. so we just let ourselves into the apartment, crawled onto the air mattress and went to sleep. until the sun rose ... 3 hours later.
the drive was pretty leisurely overall -- with the notable exception of "the worst night of camping ever". we followed the worst night of camping with 2 nights at the one of the nicest B&Bs in the world, the inn on the lake, abt 30 miles from whitehorse, YT. (check them out at http:// www.exceptionalplaces.com) but friday we decided we were both pretty much worn out from being on the road, so we drove from whitehorse to anchorage in a straight shot. incidentally, that's just too long a drive for one day.
fiber-wise, the highlight of the trip was unquestionably salt spring island, at the beginning of the trip. for the uninitiated, salt spring island is one of the southern gulf islands between vancouver island and mainland BC. part of the same island chain as the san juans. it has a reputation (well-deserved) for being a really funky, arty kinda place.
we'd never been there before, and had planned to go at the end of july for the fibre arts festival. (incidentally, next year i'm there. who's in??) when the move to AK came up, we decided to use our gift certificate (at the incredible salt spring island spa & resort) en route. best decision ever.
salt spring island rocks. it's chock-full-o' artists' studios and sheep and alpacas and incredibly friednly people. what a wonderful place. on saturday there's a big open market in town, and the fibre arts festival folks had a table set up. one of the ladies was even spinning on rose (suzie's little sister).
while on salt spring i visited st mary lake alpacas -- twice. the first day i bought a bunch of roving for myself. it was $8 CDN for 4 ounces, so i baically bought as much as i could carry. ;-) the second day i went back and got something magical for karrie, who took care of me and fed me popsicles when i was supersick after my surgery. i will write more about what i got once i get it in the mail to karrie. hate to spoil the surprise.
not that she'll have time to play with it before the end of july, anyway, since the knotty knitters of the mel-o-dee are in heavy training for sheep-to-shawl.
i can't believe i'm missing this....
i'm sure i'll find nice knitters in anchorage, too. although the anchorage SNB i'd read about appears to have disbanded. the only thing i can find info on is the "knitters of the north" knitting guild, which meets one saturday a month (just missed 'em, too). but the LYS seems pretty good and the folks there are very friendly. they have a series of free lunchtime talks on thursdays that i guess i'll check out.
how dangerous that they're basically a block from my new office!!
other fiber news is that i really want to learn how to quilt. i don't know how to use a sewing machine. but how hard can it be? there's a 5-week quilting class starting next week and i really want to take it but can't unless i buy and learn to use a machine in the next week. hmmmm......