The WoolWytch

The Diva’s dance intensive workshop is done, and now it’s just M-F with one to two classes a day vs M-F with two to three classes a day… less driving and it’s giving me time to work on more spinning.  I still haven’t figured out the espinner for reverse, but am going to hold off on doing plying for a bit anyhow.  I have a nibble on the HitchHiker, and if it works out and I can figure out what I’m selling it for then I’ll have the expense of the espinner covered at least.  In the mean time I’m spinning like a fool and putting the new spinner through it’s paces.  I’ve gotten about a mile of yarn spun and will need to get another swift soon to be able to put it into skeins properly so it can be measured and dyed. continue reading…

Friday after the Diva’s multitude of Dance classes, we had a girls night out.

Have you ever had a girls night out with a five year old? You never know what you are going to do or eat …  in this case she wanted Sushi, and I was thankful that it wasn’t McDonalds that she had requested as she’s on a growth spurt and I really would rather she get protein without garbage and carbs without preservatives, not to mention that her vegetables be green and not coated in oil and salt.

So with that in mind we went to a place called Tokyo Sushi in Southington CT, and got a couple of Salmon Nigiri for her, and an Alaska roll for me.  They started us out with a lovely salad with crab and cucumbers and we enjoyed our sushi and salad and made it out with time to spare to pick up flowers for her teacher who was in a performance of Chicago that night.  While the content is a bit mature, she really loved the show and was just absorbed and entranced with the singing and dancing.

… it helps that she adores her teacher Miss Marissa and listens to her as if she was the deepest authority on subjects most important in life, which I suppose to the Diva, her dance teachers may just be that.

She had a relatively quiet weekend, and we’re back to the grind today…

• 

  a blur of motion, or how I see the Diva during the week

  Monday – Ballet here in our town, and then Ballet and Tap in the next town over

• Tuesday – Tap, Ballet Solo – both in our town, and then Jazz and Hip Hop dance in the next town over
• Wednesday – See Monday’s Schedule
• Thursday – See Tuesday’s Schedule
• Friday – Ballet here in town, and then Acro and Musical Theater in the next town over.

Next week we cut out the classes in the next town over and I can start seriously working on her costume for the dance recital.  We purchased a chiffon fabric that has crystals embedded in it… and a matching darker chiffon – still translucent like the first fabric and some beaded trim to make her costume out of.  The teacher has cut a special version of her song for the recital making it only a minute and fifteen seconds long, but those will be the proudest 75 seconds in the world for those who love her you know…

I look forward to September when she will return to Home school four days a week and Dance only one day a week.  This running around is exhausting and I’m presently running on low to begin with.

I did find something interesting to introduce her to though – online math flash cards!
Cool eh?  It keeps the whole theme we have going on – she is convinced, as is Calvin, that they really aren’t going to school, that they are playing computer games, which they can not get enough of and their father and I have to pry them off the computer.  I can see this interactive math program being used for a long while in our family, and I’m tickled pink that my Cousin Dee has decided that she will be introducing her little man to Time4Learning in the near future as well.  She also will be doing some guest posts here soon and I’ll do some in her blog too – something we’ve both toyed with for a while and it’s a chance to get some of my readers exposed to her work and vice versa… all two of you

I’ve been working hard at spinning when I am not knocked out by my antibiotics or driving miss Diva… I have over 1000 yards of Ramboullet spun up right now, and will be working on learning plying on my e-spinner next, and then going on to dye this.  I may exchange this fiber for the one I was going to use for the custom order as it’s spinning easier and will be a guaranteed volume to meet the order.  It’s really coming along nice, and I am happy with the results I’m seeing.  Once it’s done it will go into the dyepot en masse to guarantee a uniform dye job.

During classes I have been reading.  I have a Nook from Barnes and Noble that I love to pieces.

Originally purchased with the intent of using it for my Doula studies as it has highlight and note features, it also has a functioning MP3 player and with it’s beta web browser and built in 3g access, I have net (albeit basic with no flash and in black and white only) anywhere I go to.  I love my little Nook and have read so much in the past three weeks of owning it that I have managed to get the Diva interested in reading at a level that she needs to be, vs just trying to read whatever Mom is typing at the time.  I grew up with a love of books, and it was troubling me that she wasn’t getting to see that outside of me sitting on the laptop, but in no short time she has adopted my fervor for reading, and we’ve got kids ebooks on my nook too.  I read so fast that I’ve been reading a lot of the public domain books and online fiction as my book habit can be pretty pricey!

I considered the Kindle, but I have really fallen for my Nook, and would be very upset if it were damaged, stolen, etc…  Barnes and Nobles did a great job, and I’ve already got the memory card I bought for it as auxiliary memory filled with my favorite authors, and books on herbalism etc.  I will probably be scanning and converting some of my notes from classes I’ve taken into PDF format so I can reference them here as well.  It’s darn useful I tell you.

To that effect I have to say I’ve been reading Diana Gabaldon‘s Outlander series.  It’s darn addictive I tell you… I woke up in the middle of the night the other night and hadn’t realized it but my bathroom trip had me carrying my Nook.  Between ease of reading and my choice of reading material, I’ve just not put the thing down.

Well this week is rehearsals, spinning, dyeing, spinning, dyeing, and more dance classes than you can shake a stick at.  Once it’s over we’ll just be down to the three classes until her Recital on Aug 10, and then I get a blissful few weeks of not driving her hither and yon, and may try to get the little man out to the train that runs down the Naugatuck River as a treat for not getting as much Mama time as his sister has gotten.  His time will come too, and I expect that he will be dancing as much as his sister….

This is the forecast for today’s weather from Weather.com – it is much more conservative than the local station would say…

At 9am the Diva will be in Tap class.  At 2:30 she will be in her one on one ballet class preparing for her solo.  I get to sit in the hot building, or the van while she’s in both.  She is not getting to wear what she thinks she’s getting to wear for dance tomorrow, as I’d like to not have her parboil herself… her favorite outfit consists of the bubble wrap, extra fluffy tutu over a body suit, tights, and legwarmers.  That to me is a recipe for overheating if I ever saw it.

I think we will be bringing her bottled ice water for both classes, and when we get home, I’ll plop her down for homeschooling via  Time4Learning on the desktop in front of the air conditioner, or I might introduce her to “Hangmouse” at Spellingcity.com – provided of course she’s not feeling “Icky” still as she was yesterday. Ceiling fans will be on, and the air conditioners will be at full roar… obviously if I am doing laundry – it’s happening at night, nor during the day or we might  blow a fuse, not to mention contribute to a brown out.

Me – I will be spinning as much as I can and breaking out some Alpaca I have before I get into that custom order – and maybe drive up to In Sheeps Clothing in Torrington for a new drive band for my Kiwi (although that could wait for Thursday and being medically cleared to drive the distance, I’m paying for driving up to Northampton Mass on Saturday still, and my body is very upset with me.)
I don’t want to screw up the custom order when working with the new spinner, and am having fun with it.  I already have one bobbin full with Ramboullet.  That will get taken off and set in cake form to rest tomorrow, before I try to figure out how to reverse the spin on that sucker so I can ply.

When all else fails I still have this site and the dance school website to do some tweaks to or of course the Netbook restore to install…

Keep watching for updates, and hey – share your ways you stay cool with me!  I look forward to reading your notes on how you beat the heat!

So on Saturday while the family was out, the mailman left me a lovely box on our front porch. I thought the mail had already run when we left for our afternoon out, so you can imagine my surprise to find my husband bringing in a box from Heavenly Handspinning late that night… “Honey, would you run down stairs if I brought in a box from Georgia?” Of course I would!!!

Gingerly removing it from the box, I examined each part of my new electric spinning wheel and admired the craftsmanship.  It was raw red oak, just waiting for me to choose something to finish it with, and my mind immediately leapt to the the idea of giving it a nice coating of it when the humidity died back down and it was warm and dry out.

• All three bobbins?  Check.
• Motor attached to base unit? Check.
• Drive Band? Check.
• Pedal to operate it with? Check.
• Orifice hook?  Check.
• Other doodads and supplies that were with it?  Check.

and with it also came some roving that I really should have used to break it in with.

I gently put everything back in the box and then went to bed, as it had been a long day and I was tired.

Sunday morning came along and I was awoken by a pair of Moppets. “MOM! There’s a big box in the living room!”

Yep – it was the spinner they discovered.  So I took it to the back of the room, set it up on a craft table and asked the Diva to grab me a bag of Roving.

She of course brought the white as snow and fluffy white Ramboullet.  Beautiful stuff.  Don’t know that I’d recommend it for use for breaking in a new spinner… not when I tend to spin as finely as I do.

I spun on it for a little but with two little helpers who were just as excited as I was to have the new wheel here, I didn’t get much done.  Fortunately little hands know to stay away from the mechanism, but they do like to try to scale Mommy to see what’s going on or help get the roving out of the bag.

I waited until Sunday night, and after bed time and the cherubs were out like a light I came back down stairs and for two hours got to spin in peace, just the pleasant company of my husband as he watched TV and we talked a little.  I had a hardtime at first as I think the drive band is a bit loose, but once I got the hang of it, I was whirring along, sitting in front of the air conditioner and just enjoying the lovely little electric spinner in front of me.

I have decided I will be selling my Hitchhiker Roadbug, it’s been converted to dual treadle, with Jumbo Flyer assembly and is a sweet little wheel, just it and I never really meshed.  I will clean it up, give it a fresh coat of Watco and then post it here or on Ravelry, as I am sure someone will want to buy it.  I would not reccomend it for a short round person with knees that might knock the orifice assembly while spinning.  That’s been mostly my problem – my own body dimensions, but it really has been a lovely little wheel.

But now – back to the electric spinner.   It’s taken a little getting used to but it’s been well worth it.  I have a few pics to share:

Spinning 40 WPI

After two hours of learning what to do and what not to do

After a couple more hours of spinning this afternoon, and mastering my spit joins LOL!

I have to say that so far, I love my little Vespera.  It’s a sweet little spinner, and for the money spent I think I have gotten a decent value.  I will revisit with a review after owning it a bit longer, but for now I have to say we are thumbs up!

Much to my husband’s amusement last night I looked at him straight in the face and said “I think that with this I will need to pick up more fleece to go to the processors by the New York Fiber Festival…  ” That’s in October… but if I keep on top of things, I might just need more before then.

My poor husband.

G doesn’t take as well to spur of the moment trips as I do and as such shocked me today when after lunch I suggested a trip to Webs and he thought it was a great idea.

My drive band for my Ashford Kiwi is AWOL, I needed to pick up some Cushings Dyes for a project I have to have completed by early August, and I knew he was in need of felting needles.

So we hopped in the van, and headed north with the kids happily reading and singing.

Somehow ‘Row Your Boat’ got turned into the Nine Lives Chorus – with all Meow’s, but they were well behaved for the trip and at Webs.

Of course the Diva headed straight back to the Schacht Ladybug and tried to set herself up to spin on it immediately, but she gave one of the salespeople a heart attack as they don’t want small children touching spinning wheels, never mind that she’s shown a degree of proficiency and was being ever so respectful to the wheel. This is the wheel she truly desires, and after I finally got a chance to spin it myself, I can see why.  The wheel spins smoothly, quietly, and in no time flat I had a laceweight yarn that was soft, strong, and pretty.

I want one now like you wouldn’t believe.

Calvin was bored, wanted to spin and then discovered the toys.  G sat with them while I tried out the Ladybug my self, and then looked for the dyes.  Much to my chagrin, they did not have a replacement drive band.

We then drove around Northampton Mass, and fell in love with the community.  I foresee trips back there later in the summer, especially as I have to replace my swift (you wind yarn on it) and I will undoubtedly need more dyes.  I am getting in my e-spinner this coming week, a Vespera (see right) by Heavenly Handspinners, and I promise to have a review on it as soon as I can.  I need to get my Etsy shop re-stocked and with breaking and rebreaking my ankle I’ve not gotten through a couple of custom orders that I need to… so I am hoping that the Vespera will fit the bill and that I don’t burn out the motor from use.

It’s a lovely July Fourth weekend, and we’re taking a little time off homeschooling this week – I need to do a reinstall of the kids ASUS Netbook Operating System and figure out what’s wrong with their Dell, all while I’m supposed to be taking it easy from Diverticulitis.  While Mama recovers the kids get a break from Time4Learning, but the Diva still has dance school as she’s signed up for a Solo in August, hence the need to pick up the dye as I am making her costume for the recital.  I’m finding that the drive today was a bit much on me and I am now going to head off to bed, listening to fireworks outside the window, and enjoying the lovely summer night.

We all slept in today, and went out to our favorite diner for a late brunch. We’ve started ordering one order to split between the kids when we do go out with them – as otherwise the food goes to waste because they only eat a small part of the meal.

Afterwards we dropped off the hubby and then went out to a new park to us – “Rockwell Park” and while it was lightly raining the kids still got time to play while Dad rested at home.

Rockwell Park is a historical fixture in our town and they have several different playscapes, a skate park, water park, town pool, and a lagoon that has been drained that used to be the place where everyone went to and hung out all summer – until evidently they all started getting some sort of a rash.

hrm.  Yeah – probably a good idea they drained the lagoon and are plowing out etc…

it is a beautiful park however, and someplace I really enjoy going to.  I’ve driven through the back roads there but we’ve not checked out the playground before.  I have to say and the kids really had a blast.

This will be a place I see us spending many a day at this summer.  it’s so peaceful and I look forward to getting my own pictures of there.

While there I sat in the center of the two larger playscapes and as I had brought my Hitchhiker spinning wheel.  I’ve been feeling better so I figured I’d give it a try and see how lugging the wheel (not a huge wheel) and worked on some yarn that is a special order for a lovely Canadian woman.

I have to say, spinning is certainly theraputic.

My big task this week is to excavate the work room and organize it so we can get it set up for production work again.  I have a local shop that has been interested in my work.  After I get this custom order finished I will start working on restocking so I can bring something into the local shop, as well as get my Etsy shop stocked again.

Hope all reading me are in a good place and have had a good weekend.

Night!

Oh ok I know it doesn’t rhyme, but humor me

So I have been experimenting with soap making.  Namely Lanolinized Wool-Wash bars.  It only makes sense since I’ve been making wool yarn for a long while.  Of course yesterday I had a bit of a crisis while making wool wash bonbons LOL.  My soap pot over ran while I was melting in the Lanolin – as I had gone to the other room.  I came back in to find my kitchen counter covered in hardened soap.  WHOOPS!  My counters are clean and soft now and they have a lovely Eucalyptus scent.

Along with a whole lot of Sunshine Colored Southdown Wool Roving I’ve been busy with making an Eucalyptus scented wool wash with pharmaceutical grade lanolin and Eucalyptus oil.  Why Pharmaceutical grade?  Well it’s the purist forms I have available, smells neat, clean and has no debris or detritus in it.  I’ll leave the veggie matter for my raw fleeces, not for the things I clean finished yarn with.

So on my counter finishing setting up and drying out fully are Little Cups about the size of a small Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups™ candy and while I normally re-stock on Monday’s, I needed to focus on meeting that I had this afternoon.  (Silly little day job stuff   I enjoy working in IT, and have been scouting a new opportunity or two out… today’s meeting was one that I would love to be a part of and we’ll just have to see how that sorts itself out.)

With that out of the way I can now do some more store re-stock tomorrow, and hope to list some of these soaps tomorrow.  I happen to have some small packs that I will be offering as a give-a-way of one roll of wool wash soaps, consisting of 4 Shea Butter / Goats Milk / lanolinized wool wash soaps. (while these are good for washing wool dedicates and children’s wool diaper covers in, the soaps are geared to be extra moisturizing for sensitive skin as well.)

What do you have to do to win it?  Leave a comment for an entry, and then retweet via that little twitter retweet button there at your left.

This is open to anyone who can get mail service that the US PS will ship to.   We’ll let the Diva Randomly pick out a winner at the end of seven days, and I’ll have it in the mail on the next mailing day.

Sound asleep, listening to the soundtrack of his young life.

So my days have started extra early recently thanks to a lovely little helper who wants to be awake before anyone else in the house…

Throw in a side of exhaustion and top it off with a wood mold induced asthma attacks, and you will have my average days this week.

The little helper of course passes out and takes a nap again – just while everyone else in the house is getting moving, as is the prerogative of every happy and healthy toddler.    Of course this is the modern toddler, who has to have his morning nap time with a sound track provided by NickJr.com – Diego’s video’s from their website.

Image courtesy of Piotr Bizior - stock.xchng

The past couple of days have been spent focusing on the administration end of things for my Etsy shop. Paperwork, phone calls, getting to the bank to make sure all deposits are in, getting more ink for my printer, running over to the work-shop at my mother in law’s to pick up some finished products so I can get them shipped, and of course making sure that the orders are packed properly, labels applied and boxes closed to be shipped.

I am meeting my self coming and going, and fortunately tomorrow I get to get back into the swing of actual spinning.  I have to make more headway on that custom order to Canada, but my Asthma has held me up – as when I’ve gone to sit down from rushing around my body has cried enough and my lungs demand down time.

I have several bundles of roving that are waiting for the Canadian Custom to be finished so I can stock the shop with new spinnings, and once I’ve got that done I’ll also be taking a small selection of my hand spun back to the yarn shop that is interested in my spinning there and maybe teaching as well.  We’ll see how that all plays out.

Speaking of that – I think I’m going to go spend a half hour working on that aforementioned butterscotch roving and get it set aside to set up before plying.

My 'Baby' Brother, the soldier

I’d like to sleep – but I just said good bye to my brother via text as he got on the plane for Afghanistan.  he’ll be there for the next nine months, and it’s already become a hard thing for the family.

His pre-schooler is very unhappy with him right now, and I can’t blame the little guy.  He had his dad back for a few days and now he’s going away for a while again.  It’s rough on us all, but especially on little Lee.

I spent the evening texting with him as he was on the bus to the airport, and then leaving from an empty and previously closed airport terminal wing… such a send off for our fathers, brothers, dads, sons.  Let me just say it sucks.  Royally.  I’ll be counting those 9 months down and looking forward to the emails from him just as much as I’m sure he’ll be looking forward to them from us.

Ya’ll have a good night/early morning where-ever you are…

This might be a bit dry for some readers. I understand… really.

My workday Wednesdays in relation to the fiber arts are going to be a little stilted for the next few weeks. On Fathers Day my daughter has her first recital, and my Wednesdays have generically been filled with preparation for that particular event recently, instead of dyeing, or spinning or even drum carding wool/assorted other fibers.

However, as I have a custom order over my head for ten skeins of superwash merino that must get done as rapidly as I can, my husband helped me with getting several batts processed on my drum carder this evening. He sat and picked the wool – fluffing/spreading it out so I could run it through the drum carder. I’ve had to treat this order like it was done from the grease wool stage, and it’s not been pleasant. I look forward to having all the colorways ready to spin and then finally skeined up.

I’ve also been working on some crewel embroidery yarn, the latest colors are in the last post. That’s a much easier order, no running that through the drum carder, just putting it into the dye pot. No sore arms the morning after when working on the Crewel.

We’ve considered the attachment that will mechanize my drum carder, but it looks like my priority is a tool that will fluff the locks out and get it ready to go through the drum carder, picking any loose bits of vegetation out in its wake and removing matting – thus getting the wool ready to just slide through onto my drum without any clumps that could damage the teeth of the carding cloth.

I have plans for building one of my own, but I purchased those a year and a half ago, and haven’t done anything with them yet, leaving me to ask if it’s realistic to think we will build our own… it’s pretty much the same design as an average cradle picker. We’ve priced Cradle Pickers from Fancy Kitty, the maker of my drum carder, and they are just a bit out of our range right now.

As we have small children, we’ve decided that the best route for us may be a box picker, but again the model made by Fancy Kitty (a bench picker) is out of my budget range for the time being – plus the covers for it are add ons which also add on to the price. Doing a little research on the net however, the Lil Dynamo Wool Picker from woolpickers.com appears to fit my basic criteria – easy to use, safe around the kids, and not going to break my wallet.  If the wool is picked and ready for the carder, I should be able to card a lot more in less time. I’ll take the plans I bought online and if they are feasable (as in I’ll see how expensive it is for a machine shop to make some of the parts the plans call for being made in a machine shop) then we might make it at home. I just know I get more done in less time with less impact on my tools if I have the right tools from the get go.

I like that little box picker however, and after talking with my husband, no matter whether we build it or buy it, the increase in productivity should have it paying for itself in no time.

I got a phone call from my mother in law today, she had stopped into a new LYS and had chatted up my work, plus gave the owner a business card. By the end of their conversation the store owner was interested in meeting me, so I popped in there this afternoon and chatted for a while. She has a Canadian Production wheel that is being repaired by Dave Paul of the Merlin tree, and she truly wants to learn to spin. While I don’t think that learning to spin on a production wheel is the best course of action, you use what you have – and so she may just learn on that.

I was asked if I teach Spinning, and told her yes, I do… she also wants to see some of my batts and hand painted rovings and yarns. I don’t carry a large enough stock of hand spun yarn to actually keep some on consignment in a LYS, but I could probably keep batts and rovings as well as basic learn to spin kits going in that environment.

It was nice to be able to talk about what I love so much however, and it certainly made me smile. I’ll be back in a week and a half or so when I am not slogged under with the recital, the custom orders and the SchoellesPhotography.com website. I’m certainly looking forward to summer break and won’t be putting my daughter in any activities outside of maybe a swimming class or her step-dance bootcamp my daughter wants to attend so much.

So – after Fathers Day – hopefully it will open up for me. I’m certainly crossing my fingers.

Alright – it’s late, and my littlest has been down for a couple of hours. I my self need to get some sleep as my Thursday will not be a slow one.

Alright – I’m sunburned and a little underslept thanks to my kids having problems going to sleep last night.

I am going to post pics from yesterday and I’ll reply to questions in notes if ya’ll have them.

OH – and this is currently soaking up the rain in my backyard…

You can bet that I’ll be harvesting the raspberries as soon as they bloom, but the leaves themselves are useful for making tea as well. It’s all organic back there – so making our own organic raspberry leaf tea is just an awesome thing.

I also picked up some started vegetables yesterday. They are outside in the rain right now, but in the old dog crate to keep the critters from getting to them. To make sure that they don’t get over watered by the rain I have a sheet over the crate so they get moisture but not drowned all at once..