Just Keeping My Hand In

I am just keeping my hand in, as it were, by knitting a new mitten in grey store-bought wool for a family member.  Nothing big, nothing complicated or ambitious.  But hopefully useful.  I like usefulness.  The mittens are meant to coordinate with the hat with Fibonacci stripes I did.

One pair of my Susie's Reading mitts is complete and the others are sitting in a project bag with a little bit of work still to go.

I made a pair of dangle earrings stamped with the words "knit" and "purl." 

knit purl earrings

 

Kitchener and Kitchener and Kitchener Again

When last I posted, there were two pairs of identical handknit fingerless mittens whose tops needed to be folded over and Kitchenered.  There are three pairs of mittens now and I've just started to Kitchener.

I have read another book on getting things done that advises a person to eliminate, automate, and delegate tasks as much as possible.  Apparently the rule is to do tasks that can only be done by you, and nothing else.  Sounds like a rather expensive and sterile way to live.  

The white Romney wool has been machine-spun into yarn for me and is awaiting pickup the next time I go to B.C.  I hear the mill's financial situation has improved.

I made some earrings out of Egyptian coins, and I am waiting on more of the same coins to arrive from Poland.  I have coins coming from Italy and a small packet of jewellery components coming from Singapore as well.  It is a rather cool feeling to source from exotic places.  It entails a lot of waiting, though.

earrings made from Egyptian coins showing a handspinner

Still Life with Mitten

Here's a photo of my fourth mitten in progress.  (Below is a copper and sterling barrette I made for myself in a workshop.)  Three other mittens, in the same yarn and pattern, are in a project bag.  They need their tops Kitchenered for a seamless look.  The blue waste yarn is going to come out of the cuff, it was there so I could pick up stitches and make the cuff hem seamless.  These little tricks are what make handknits so satisfactory.

I read over the plan I made this summer and realized I should say something about progress.  I have the knitting machine and have done nothing with it.  The mitten above is made of the same yarn I mentioned in that post.  I took the sewing class and learned some, but not enough, which explains why I've signed up for another one.  I still need to get more structure and routine into my time spent on fibre arts, and more time spent making things for me, really.  I have not gotten into clamp resists or block printing.  I bought paint for block printing and a blank linoblock to carve, on the theory that I can use labour and save money that way.  I still think a custom-made block would be nice.  I got distracted by the thought of using mordants and chemical resists in dyeing.  Nothing has come of that beyond acquiring supplies.  I did spend time in thrift stores there for a spurt and I bought a small selection of interesting clothes that could be upcycled.  Nothing made its way into my wardrobe.  My locally-sourced Romney wool roving is at the spinning mill; this campaign on Go Fund Me has me worried about the mill's future.

Started Another Pair of Susie's Reading Mitts

I started knitting a mitten with Solitude Wool Coopworth sport yarn I bought at either the Fiber Farmers' Market or Shenadoah Valley Fiber Festival.  It is good to have something to work on while watching TV or meeting up with friends.

The pattern is Susie's Reading Mitts, adjusted for yarn gauge.  Love the lustrousness of the yarn.

Bobbing for Walnuts

black walnut dye bath

A black walnut dye bath smells to me like ginger beer.

I made a batch and tinted a thrift store print dress to turn the white background into a light shade of brown that is more harmonious with the red and brown in the print.  I dyed some cotton jersey fabric with walnut and then with a rather exhausted indigo vat, and got a dull blotchy brown.  I dyed a couple of silk scarves and got a rich, warm shade of brown with lighter shades where I bound the scarves with yarn.  One scarf has a small blotch.  I am getting a lot of blotches with indigo from the sediment and from the fabric popping above the surface.

I don't know what I am doing with walnut, really, since brown suits me very ill.  But other people like brown and the walnuts were gleaned.  Love gleaning.  I picked up some more black walnuts this week and dropped them in places around town right at the edge of trees and meadow where they will get light and space to grow.

I am reading India Flint's book Eco Colour again, and this time I am thinking of doing some of the techniques.

silk dyed with black walnut

Spinning Wheel Post Earrings

 

Am rather pleased with my self for turning wee sterling silver charms of spinning wheels into post earrings.  Didn't melt them to bits when soldering, hurray.  

Mordants, Discharges, and Resists

I am learning more about dyes and ways to use them with mordants, discharges, and resists which fix, remove, or resist colour.

I also went to a fibre festival and paid attention to what people were doing and saying.  It was interesting to see what was popular.

My roadside-gleaned walnuts are in the bag and waiting for me to get around to them.  So is a second vintage silk scarf in a pale print that would be improved with an over-dye of indigo.  Did I tell you about the first one?  I have two.

Looming Deadlines

No particular fibre arts progress or insight to report, other than deadlines are useful even if you procrastinate and only partially finish or make tiny steps in the direction of finishing.

Waiting for Walnut Harvest

I went to visit one of the area walnut trees.  The walnuts have not yet fallen.  I want to dye some things brown with the hulls.  Patience.

Old and New

I tested out fine gauge copper for knitting, to make jewellery.  I got an okay result.  The process was a so-so experience.  I will try again with fewer stitches and smaller needles.

Have washed the bulky-gauge grey wool vest that I got at the thrift store.  I am quite sure the vest is handknit, one of the cables is crossed backward.

I found a fisherman's sweater from Ireland at a thrift store and bought that to pass along to someone.  There were a number of other things in the shop that looked interesting but nothing I had to have.  I had my eye on white linen blouses and a white slubby cotton cardigan that would look good garment dyed or resist dyed with indigo.

Since I feel my indigo vat management skills could be improved to get stronger colour, I poked around on the Internet and found some blog posts by Catherine Ellis and India Flint about managing an indigo vat using fructose.  So that's good.

I got my sewing machine serviced, and a generous friend came over to walk me through cutting, piecing, and finishing edges.  I am using linen fabric, of course.  My knowledge and experience of sewing is still rudimentary but I possess more than I did a week ago and that pleases me.

I was thinking, if most cotton raised in the U.S. is now genetically-modified, then perhaps people will start to think of vintage cotton clothing as extra-valuable because the material was raised from non-GMO seed.  Perhaps.

Toxic Clothes, Benign Clothes

Newsweek's article, "The Environmental Crisis in Your Closet" by Adam Matthews, August 15, 2015 is worth reading.

I went to a number of thrift stores this week.  Found some things, mostly things that would need upcycling, not so much that can go right in my wardrobe.

The Plan and the Parameters

I may have mentioned, I was talking to a friend about handmade projects, completion, diligence, and accomplishment along with the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be.  She mentioned structure and scheduling, like the way your mother made you brush your teeth at a certain time every day.  I should build some in to my day, regarding fibre arts.

Regarding my wardrobe and phasing in handmade garments, I have thought about what I want to do.  

I consider myself fortunate that I do not have to market myself for an arts grant or crowdfunding, or position a personal brand of any sort.  I don't have to come up with a catch phrase or elevator pitch.  

I was reading a free publication about local food and local food producers and processors, and really wished someone would do the same with clothing.  A couple of people recently have said that we've had the national and international conversation about local, ethically-sourced, biodiverse, and nourishing food but we haven't had that conversation about textiles.

Onward to the plan.

I am going to continue to avoid merino wool and synthetic dye, to avoid synthetic fibres, to prefer organic cotton over conventional, to prefer linen over cotton, to keep silk to a minimum if any, to prefer breed-specific wool with as much longwool as I can get, to buy some secondhand textiles, to seek out natural colour (i.e. from wool from black sheep), and to prefer materials that have travelled the least distance with exceptions for hemp and indigo.  This suits my taste and also addresses a number of issues that I'm interested in such as increasing biodiversity, reducing pollution and erosion, fostering local economies and local capacity for processing or production, treating animals kindly, and reducing contact with materials that may harm the body like resins in superwash or petroleum-derived substances.

Assuming all is well with the mill, I will have five pounds of local white Romney wool spun for me into yarn.  I was thinking two pounds of two ply for weaving and three pounds of three ply worsted weight for knitting, but maybe I should get all two ply.  

I have signed up for a basic sewing class.  

In a couple of months, I plan to try using a friend's knitting machine.  

I have some weld that I ought to use.  It is a lovely, lovely lemon yellow dye.  I redid the madder but got a rusty orange-red that displeased me.  The store-bought cashmere sweater is dyed a deep indigo, not evenly but good enough for me.

I bought yarn for two sweaters, undyed local Coopworth that never left the East Coast for processing.  Some is 3 ply sport weight and some is 2 ply lace weight.  This commits me to knitting lace, which is a bit worrisome given how aggravated I felt about knitting lace the first and only time I did it.  

I learned about Quince & Co. yarn, which is entirely domestically sourced.  Their bare 3 ply sport weight yarn interests me.

True to my record of loving fibre arts tools, I now want to custom order a clamp resist for dyeing and a block printing block.  We shall see if I can afford them.

I love books too.  I ordered some secondhand books about sewing, making clothes with handwoven yardage, and using knitting machines.  I borrowed some as well.  There is a fresh heap of books by the chesterfield.

I did some people watching at church, looking at their clothes, especially the detailing.  I need to do some window shopping, the new season's clothing should be out.  My sense of what's in style could use some sharpening.  

I need to spend more time more regularly in thrift stores and consignment stores, and look at the racks for items to wear.  I've been drawn to linen things that I would not wear but I keep in a box because I like them.  My wardrobe is on the meagre side, by design and also because I am hard to please, hard to fit, and not fond of dressier styles.  

For fun, I bought a piece of secondhand clothing to make over.  It was very cheap.  It will take some time to alter, but it will be fun to do.  I won't want to wear the results, we will see what happens to it.

I repaired the metal catch on my shorts with pliers and am feeling smug.

I was with a small group of people I don't know that well and they started talking about clothes shopping, specifically buying lots of clothes from cheaper retailers.  I didn't challenge them on the implications to workers or the environment, I got a bad reaction once when talking up the Buy Nothing Day campaign with a stranger.  Then one of them started talking about the thrill of finding clothes in thrift stores.  I fostered the conversation along those lines and found some of the others were thrift store enthusiasts.  So that was fun.

As I said, I don't have to worry about putting a label on this course of action.  I was talking with someone and she said that once I have made handdyed, handwoven, or handknit clothes and wear them then the goal is that people would see and ask, and I would urge them to make their own.  And I just felt that, no, this is not about activism.  Or, I'm not about activism.  Now, possibly I am kidding myself about this.  I love to enable, I will give folks way more information than they need all about how to do this.  I'll give them tools and supplies.  I wore my "will knit for love" button to the store and the clerk asked me to teach her to knit.  I said yes.  You know my personal photo on this blog is my fist holding aloft a spindle as if to say freedom through handspinning.  Still, I'm am doing this to clothe myself well just like I buy organic vegetables, dry organic rice, and rosemary garlic lamb sausage so I can eat well.  I hope that makes sense.  The difference is that few see my supper.  And I don't eat organic or local or home-cooked food all the time.

One last thing, I have listened to the first episode of the podcast Woolful and quite like it.

The Proper Response

I watched the documentary, The True Cost, about the cost of mass-produced clothing including the cost to labourers, the environment, and farmers who produce raw goods.  It made me want a handmade wardrobe even more.  I don't want my money perpetuating that.

I recommend the movie, which is on Netflix streaming in the U.S. right now, or available to buy on iTunes and Amazon.  I know some people won't like the content politically because it talks about unions, worker's rights, pollution, and government regulation.

I wish the documentary had touched on the issue of synthetic dyes, as well as non-commercial alternatives to the conventional system.  And given more commercial alternatives.

I don't think I learned anything new, except that one expert who was interviewed said she believes that the socially responsible sourcing guidelines of major clothing companies are worthless.  As in, the companies don't stick to what they say they do.  That shook me up.

Mostly the value I got out of the movie was the human face it put on the issues, on the balance of power.  It is really hard to see people tear up or express anger over what has happened to them.

I have been reading the blogs of a couple of fibre artists, Katrina Rodabaugh and Victoria Pemberton, who have found artistic expression by putting limits on their work, such as no new clothes or no synthetic dye.  It has made me think about the criteria I want and what I want to do.  I'm still thinking.

Some friends and I were talking about slow clothes, handmade clothes, and locally-sourced and locally-made clothes.  Things like the deaths at Rana plaza, how a move to slow clothes would change how people look, the difficulty of getting everything local in an outfit even down to the shoes, and how weight fluctuations would be accommodated in a wardrobe that takes a lot of effort and time to make.

Madder Powder, Ruined

I ruined 3 ounces of madder powder by letting the water get above 140 degrees F, and am cross with myself.  Another pot of water is heating.  This one will come to temperature and stay there for a bit until I am satisfied, then I'll put in the dye.

I did my first Periscope broadcast, looking at my madder dye bath and then some fibres dyed with various natural dyes.  Didn't retain any viewers or get any live chat, oh, well.  It is up for the next little while and then it is deleted.

Was successful at drilling a hole in the pewter whorl I cast, so that was good.  Have to figure out what to string it on, for a pendant.  Probably it would be better for me to fit it with a shaft and make a spindle.

Picked up a piece of horn at auction and made it into a diz (a tool used in wool combing).  Loved working with the material, loved that it was up-cycled.  Somehow I managed to make the diz with the beautiful golden ratio, about 2 x 3 inches, even though I didn't measure.  I need to learn how to polish horn to a glossy finish, so a trip is in order, to see the tinkers at Colonial Williamsburg.

Finally finished knitting the baby hat with sock yarn.  Still love that pattern.  Still have more sock yarn to use up.  Another hat went right on the needles.

There's someone in Australia, I heard about it though Fibershed's Facebook feed, someone who is doing an entire outfit entirely of local materials, local processing, local production.  It's called one year, one outfit.  I think it's great.  She's asking other people to do the same.  The yarn I have that's local to where I live, I don't know if it left the area for processing so I don't know if it qualifies.

Elusive

My goal of a handmade wardrobe continues to elude me.  I would ideally like it to be made by me but in the meantime I could make do with pieces from other people.  After scouting around on Etsy I have concluded that most of the naturally-dyed clothing is too muddy and blotchy looking for me, and the handwoven clothing is too busy and geometric looking.  Few of the handknits appealed either.

I thought some things were interesting or well executed, and put them on my list of favourite items.  But some of the appeal might have been the photography.  A lot of them would need modification before I would wear them, such as a different colour, a thinner yarn, natural fibres, or some shaping.

Also, in Etsy clothing, apparently the key to sales is to chop old lace tablecloths up into abbreviated tops with string for straps, dye them with mushrooms, and allude to faeries and woodsprites in the ad copy.  How anyone does that with a straight face, I don't know.

What else.  I gathered from the Internet images of a number of old Roman spindle whorls in glass, lead, and clay.  I successfully cast a pewter whorl in sand on my own without help, and now have to cut away the sprue, file the edges, and bore a hole for the shaft.  If I can do that, especially the hole part which worries me, then I'm in business. 

More dyeing with indigo today.  I am going to put a perfectly good, unworn cashmere sweater in the vat.  Hope the colour comes out evenly.  Wish me well.

Holland Covers

There is this thing in historical novels where the author describes a room with the upholstered furniture covered with white fabric cloth to protect it.  The name for it was holland covers.  It was something you did as a maintenance chore for when you were away from the house, travelling.  I've always thought it sounded rather nice, all that white and an uncluttered feeling.  Not livable, but interesting and out of the scope of my ordinary life.

I was recently given a vintage damask linen tablecloth with yellow stains and holes to see if I could revive it.  The woman said, "lemon juice and sunlight."  I used citric acid powder in the wash, followed by time to dry in the sun out on some grass.  Had to wash the cloth twice, and then the stains were gone.  Then I gave the cloth two dips in the indigo vat, a vat which was successful by the way.

I threw the mottled blue thing over some boxes of packing supplies and buckets of wool in the wool room to envelope them and get them out of sight, sort of like holland covers.  It's mottled because the cloth was too large for the dye to penetrate everywhere.

Over top is a thrift store linen dress, bright blue flowers on a white background.  Someday it may become an apron.

I still have most of an indigo vat outside, dormant, and am thinking what I could do with it.  When I finish knitting the baby hat, I will pop that in the vat.  I keep forgetting to pretreat some wool with alum mordant overnight for a madder dye pot.

See and Be Seen

I've been spending my time acquiring supplies and skills, which is to say my to-do list has gotten longer.  I've been doing this largely to the exclusion of working on projects and as a result I am a little cross with myself, ready to instate resolutions and revolutions.  Maybe I'll track every day I make stuff for at least an hour.  Or maybe I will slough off again, lying on the couch reading the messy stack of how-to books I have out from the library.

I heard a quote from Ted Wright about the difference between hipsters and yuppies: "Are you doing it because you want to be doing it, or are you doing it because you want to be seen doing it?"  Certainly I do fiber arts because I want to do them, and so do all the fiber artists I know.  And yet, we love our show and tell.  In person, at exhibitions, online, in print.  Blow by blow, or in a big reveal.

Speaking of being seen, last month I went to a World Wide Knit in Public Day event.  It was fun.

I went to a local meeting for the Society for Creative Anachronism, to see inkle weaving and tablet weaving, and while I was there I got to see a centuries-old lead whorl and got to hear about probable methods of making shafts to go with such whorls.  I should have taken a photo of the whorl but I was intent on taking measurements, and forgot.  The whorl was about 1 inch in diameter and shaped like a donut with a hole about 3/8 inch in diameter.  The height was a little over 3/8 of an inch.

And this is why we are seen doing fiber arts, for the free flow of information to better our understanding, our skills, and our stash.  And for delight.  Because it's fun to make someone happy by showing them your yarn.  We don't see knitting and weaving much in ordinary daily life as the traditions got interrupted, and so we compensate.  Each conversation is like finding another puzzle piece to construct an idea of what is possible, what was done and what can be done.

Today I plan to manage my first indigo vat.  I've invited a friend to come over and dye some yarn, and I must say that this is helping me get to it and not put it off.

Shreds

I managed to shred one of my handknit hemp dish cloths, scrubbing lime scale off a stock pot.  The dish cloths are good at scrubbing but poor at wiping counters, having little absorbency.

I managed to properly calculate the number of rows and put them into the revised felted cloche-style hat so that it had the desired final dimensions after two trips through the washing machine.  The hat is in the mail.  The only photo I took shows the hat modelled by a friend, who didn't sign up to have her face on my blog, so you will have to go without photographic evidence.  I didn't show it off at a guild meeting either.  I was impatient to get the hat in the mail and to the intended recipient to find out if it fits.  Fit is important as I plan to make another for her and garment dye it.  I saved the reject hats to chop up and test dye on.

Some of my friends tell me they like making new things all the time with plenty of variety.  I like production work.  Making the same thing again, or with a small variation.

The språng loom, alas, remains bare.  And the wool room messy.

And I may be about to cast on another Norwegian Sweet baby cap, just because I like production work, I have extra sock yarn, and I want something to do before and after supper in an unfamiliar restaurant with a group of strangers.  The one wrinkle is, it has been so long, I have forgotten all the modifications I used.

Losing My Amateur Status

I like to write and I like to make up jokes and clever sayings to make people smile.  Recently I have had a lot of fun writing witty sayings about fibre arts and putting them on pin-back buttons.  I am very fortunate that a friend lent me her button maker.

Here are some examples.  "Give fleece a chance" is not original.  

buttons for knitters

Looking forward to festivals and SIPs

My thoughts are turning to Spring wool festivals and spin in public days.

A farmers' market expressed interest in having members of our guild come out and demonstrate handspinning but we don't have a volunteer coordinator to take it on.  It's a good location: I can think of two guild members who found the guild because we were at that market doing a demo.

This month at another location, the guild is doing a demonstration, fiber prep through weaving, and I am participating.  I am trying to decide what wool to spin.  The yarn I make at a demo comes out irregular with thicker spots, so the yarn has to be destined for a suitable project.  There is a wool festival coming up where I'd like to display some yarn that looks like a beginner did it, and I was thinking some indigo blue would be eye-catching.  There's all that BFL I dyed with natural dyes in the fall.  Some of it is indigo.  I must quit being such a miser and use it.

As for current projects, the sweater is on hold, I haven't started the språng pullover yet, and I am knitting another hat to felt.  In other words, I'm doing the easy stuff.

Fulling Woes

I knitted a hat and ran it through the washing machine a couple of times to full it.  I think the shape is too short in the crown and too flared in the brim for a cloche shape.  My head is too large to fit women's hats so I need someone to try it on and tell me.

When you full knitted fabric, you can't undo and redo your work.  But the resulting fabric looks terrific.  Also, the knitting is very easy.  It is done with large needles in the round with knit stitches only, no purling, and the shape is simple.

You Made That?

There you are, photographic proof that I have finished the watch cap with Fibonacci stripes.  I would like to rip out the crown and make the hat shorter so the brim doesn't need to be turned up, but it stands as it is right now.  I have other things to make.

It has been six years since I learned to knit and spin yarn.  I showed this cap to someone, an ordinary guy.  He said, "You made that?" and I remembered what it was like to lack the skills to select yarn and turn it into something wearable, to live where a handmade hat is remarkable.  I mostly discuss knitting with knitters, and forget how impressive a finished object can be.

Fibonacci Stripes on a Hat Brim

I'm knitting a watch cap with Fibonacci stripes on the brim.  I'm using up some leftover yarn to do it, plus I bought a ball of grey.  Not crazy about the synthetic dye but am living with it.

Felted Bowl

Took some leftover Paton's Classic wool yarn, knitted it, and fulled it to make a bowl.

For my upcoming språng project, I bought some gorgeous Border Leicester yarn from Solitude Wool dyed with real indigo.  I wetted the skeins and hung them to dry with weight on them so that when I warp the loom the yarn won't give much and the tension will be consistent.

Waiting and Planning

If all goes well, this spring I should be at a public event where I could show people examples of språng.  It follows that I have to make the språng examples, språng being a rare sort of textile.  So I am in the planning stage and hope to get to the creating stage soon.

The first question is what yarn to use.

I don't have enough time to spin the yarn, except for språng patterns where a little yarn goes a long way, such as all-over holes.  The Wensleydale roving I have might be good there.

I want to spend a sensible amount of money on the yarn so I have to balance practicality with my desire for quality and the attributes I like (local or domestic, cruelty-free, undyed or naturally dyed, lustrous).

I will do well to go against my natural orientation to monochromatic yarn suitable for textiles with interesting structures, and instead consider yarn with colour and språng with colourwork because the majority of fibre artists respond to colourwork more than structure.

The second question is what sort of items will I make and with what patterns and dimensions.  I would like a number of things that look good hung on coat hangers.  Artwear, if you will.  I'll have to work this out myself, as I don't know of any suitable patterns.  Even if I just get one piece done, I will be pleased.

It's a puzzle to figure out and hopefully execute reasonably well.  I like planning, and I like doing språng.  I expect I will like the products very much, as språng is so pretty.  This is good, as the products could wind up being part of my wardrobe.

I've been in the planning stage for this project for a few weeks now.  Just in the last few days, I've become more optimistic about the whole thing's chance of success.  There are other things I need to make this spring for the same event and I just recently found a better method to get them done, which means I can be more productive and have more time to give to språng.

Språng Waistcoat in Skrydstrup Pattern

språng waistcoat

I finished my språng pullover.  You can see it is more of a waistcoat than a sweater.  It is in the Skrydstrup pattern from Collingwood's The Techniques of Sprang, so four rows of S twist alternate with four rows of Z twist.  The pattern of twists cause the fabric to curl a little but not distort to one side the way all Z twist would.  The curl is visible in the edges of the armholes.  

I am more pleased with it off the loom than I was when it was on the loom.  

The drape of it makes the armholes look curved but they were done straight.  

The construction is a lot like what we used to wear in kindergarten to keep our clothes clean while fingerpainting, a plastic garbage bag with holes cut for the neck and arms.  Except you don't cut språng just anywhere.  I didn't cut this piece at all.  

The hole for the neck is a slit formed by treating the threads on either side as a separate section.  You work to the middle of the row, move the threads as if you'd come to the end of the row, move the next threads as if you were starting a row, and go from there.  I picked the easiest row in the pattern to start this on, row 7.

The armholes are formed by seaming the sides partway.  They look rather deep but they are correct because when you put on the vest, the fabric stretches horizontally and shrinks vertically.

Eight Feet to Propinquity

I steeled my heart to take the incomplete, lackluster språng pullover off the loom to discard it, and then I couldn't do it.  I like things to be useful and this project still has something to give.

So I ignored the loom as it sat out of the way next to the window of the wool room.

The last few inches of warp are the most difficult to complete, not mentally but physically, as there is little room to maneuver and interlink the threads.  This is why so many traditional objects in språng are not worked right up to the middle.

However, it turned out that it wasn't the interlinking that was holding me up, but the position of the loom in the room.  Once I moved the loom eight feet over to my desk within reach, I felt a lot more like finishing the project.

Of course, feeling like doing something is not actually doing something.  You'll know I've finished the project when you see one or two new språng how-to YouTube videos from me featuring a white pullover vest in the Skrydstrup pattern.

Speaking of making things convenient, stuck to the top of my loom is the pattern copied from Collingwood and on it a bobby pin marks the row where I left off last time.  I don't have to figure it out from the strands' positions in the last row.  Learned this from my weaving lessons.

I'm trying to think of a språng pattern where I would have a hard time figuring out where I left off, and can't.  Not even the Coptic turban pattern, you just have to count how many holes down from the apex of the diamond.  I have some trouble following that pattern.  It's easier now that I've improved the chart I made.

The next large piece in språng I make, I'd like it to be in the Coptic turban pattern.  I'd like to make a more polished piece than I've done so far, an eye-catching stole that would get people interested in doing språng.  Unless, that is, the next large piece I do is for my dad on the loom he made for a permanent installation piece.  Coptic turban would have too smooth a texture and too understated a look.  That loom needs something with texture, like Gothic arches.

Now, I have no use for a stole myself, so it would not in the least fulfill my goal of handspun wearables for me in natural colours.  You can tell I still lean toward making things that allow me and others to learn about techniques and tools.  I expect this to continue.

Started Knitting a Sleeve

By Christmas Eve, I had knitted the body of the Cullercoats sweater and started knitting a sleeve.  It's progress.

I don't know if I have firm fibre arts resolutions for 2015.

Assuming Cullercoats is not an absolute horror to finish, I'd like to knit another sweater, this time in plain stockinette.  Maybe a pullover in commercial linen yarn.  Or one in wool.

I need to wash the Gotland fleece.

We'll see how the rest of it goes.

Rose Bead Stitch Markers

Here's another look at the rose bead stitch markers I have made.

Funny things, beads made of rose petals.  They're rather nice.

Good-bye, Hampshire Wool

I gave away the Hampshire wool.  I'd washed some, combed some, dyed some, and spun a little but I never made any more progress than that.  I feel good about this move.

I also owned up to how much I dislike the yarn in my current språng project compared to the handspun in a couple of early språng pieces I did.  I could complete the project, show it off, and then shelve the finished object.  Or I could undo the piece and reuse the yarn.  Or I could skip any further effort entirely and scrap the project.  Decisions.

Let's say skip.  I have other projects to work on, and the piece did teach me some things so it wasn't a total waste.

A Brush with Cotton Towels

The other day instead of my handwoven linen Ms and Os bath towel, I had to use a cotton bath towel.  What a dismal experience.  I never want to go back to using a cotton towel.

The linen one was well worth the work and money.

This is one of the reasons to appreciate fibre arts, because the end product can be superior to mass produced common things in materials, structure, fit, or colour.

Now, to produce more fibre arts items and get more value.

Store-bought Hemp Yarn

I got some hemp knitting yarn from Hemp Traders delivered and straight away I wound a ball and knitted the start of a dish cloth.

I like knitting that particular dish cloth pattern because it's easy.  There's very little casting on and a lot of knitting with the occasional yarn over, or decreases after the halfway mark.  I can even knit it while watching subtitled videos.  The only thing I dislike about handknit dish cloths is the cotton yarn, so much so that I give all of mine away and never keep any.  This hemp yarn is a great improvement in my mind.  It has a crisp feel and a sheen, even in bumpy garter stitch.  I keep looking at it and feeling the cloth.  The yarn is skinny: I am using size 2 needles.

I'm glad I took a chance and ordered the yarn sight unseen.  I can knit dish cloths mindlessly and I can replace my ratty woven cotton ones.  I suppose it's the chatelaine in me, fussing about the state of the linen cupboard.  I've been putting off replacing the sad things because I didn't know where to get my usual brand, my old source failed me.  Now I can have hemp cloths and lots of them.  They should perform well, hemp is durable and doesn't moulder when damp.

I ordered a large quantity of white Romney roving from Qualicum Bay Fibre Works, wool that will be picked up and stored for me by a kindly family member until my next visit.  I have masses of unspun wool already.  This purchase is less about need that it is about my desire to support a mill that deals in local fibre on Vancouver Island.  I think it's important that an area keep the means of production.  The mill needs more sales to stay in business.

I have asked the mill to put my name in the queue for their spinning services.  At the proper time the roving will go back and be spun into yarn much like the stuff I'm knitting my Cullercoats sweater out of.  Ideally I would spin the wool myself but again, I have lots of other roving to keep my spindles busy.  Moreover, yarn from this mill gives a lot of what I look for in fibre.  It's not like buying mass-produced yarn from a craft store or yarn shop.  It's traceable to a region, undyed, and breed-specific, and it supports local producers and processors.

The hemp yarn is mass-produced and imported.  I am okay with that because it is good quality and I doubt it's possible to get anything comparable that's small batch and traceable.  The laws on cultivation in North America are restrictive.  I don't know about machinery to process and spin hemp, whether there are small-scale setups that bridge the gap between hand-processing and a factory line.

The Cullercoats sweater is coming along.  After getting stalled for a while near the top of the back, this past week I cast on the left front and knitted quite a lot of it.  Good thing I've made progress or I'd feel guilty about starting the hemp dish cloth.

I have a språng project on the loom that's about two or three hours from completion.  I hope I gauged the width correctly.  It's hard to tell.

Weld Dye and Over Dyeing

I went to a natural dye day and got to dip some wool in the weld pot.  We dipped yarn and wool into large pots heated over a fire.  I discovered that I really like the colour weld dye gives, a clear lemon yellow.  I plan to use it again sometime.

Besides weld, I dyed with indigo, woad which I like better than indigo, walnuts mordanted with iron for black-brown, madder overdyed with indigo for purple, weld overdyed with woad for green, and brazil wood.  The base wool was Blue Face Leicester, a pound divided into two ounce portions.

I would have liked to have dyed the Romney wool I brought back from Vancouver Island a while ago instead of the imported BFL but I didn't get the Romney ready in time.  I pulled it out and washed it all but a considerable amount of grease remained in the locks, and the grease would have resisted the dye.  I need to pick and tease the wool thoroughly to loosen the locks so the hot water and detergent will penetrate when I wash it again.

I want to dye with woad over weld again sometime for Lincoln green since I didn't get that consistent or strong a result.  It looks like mottled lemon and lime.  Someone else got a beautiful clear green.  I think she got such excellent results because she dipped earlier when the dyes were stronger, more concentrated and also because she dyed skeins.  My wool was scrunched up in a cotton bag and the woad did not contact all of the fibre.

Not only did I go to a natural dye day, I went to a synthetic dye day before that.  I got a good result by filling up two cups of dye with the same colour tinged with a little black, then dividing a cup into two cups and topping them off with different colours, then using the resulting three related colours to paint a skein.

You may remember that I am off synthetic dye.  I had not intended to dye anything but rather knit more of my sweater, but a friend persuaded me to dye a spare cotton skein she had.  It went home with her.

I was asked recently why I avoid synthetic dye in my fibre arts.  I explained how I was influenced by the Fibershed project.  Later while I was at home finding links to the founder Rebecca Burgess' interviews to pass along, I watched one of the videos on YouTube about the 150 mile wardrobe.  It was a good refresher.  I still find the clothing and the philosophy meaningful and inspirational.

More Acquisition

Another week, another fibre festival.  I bought a fleece.  This is unusual for me.  I have limits and my rule is to buy wool that is at least washed if not processed.  Not to mention I've run out of places to stow fibre in the wool room.  However, the colour and texture was so very much my taste that I found myself standing in front of the fleece warding off other shoppers with my presence as I made up my mind.  The fact that it is a local product is a bonus.

Gotland fleece

I know that once it is spun into yarn, it will lose the contrast of silver against grey and thereby lose its beauty.  I know that I should have been satisfied with a photograph and left the fleece where it was.  But right now I don't care.  It is mine and my wool room is graced by it.

I helped people learn to use a spindle to spin yarn, and sent four people home with drop spindles and wool.  A couple of them, I let them struggle for a while.  They were trying to draft fibre after they'd allowed the twist to run up into the wool and lock everything up.  I was sitting beside them, spinning a little yarn or knotting handspun bracelets for kids, available but not intruding.  Finally I said, may I, and reestablished them at the place where the fibre drafted freely, winding the felted stuff onto the shaft out of the way.

I liked the setup of the demo area this year.  I was seated on my own between a table and a tent pole, with one empty chair beside me.  It was like a little nook.

Acquisitions

I haven't done much this past week, fibre-wise, except buy things.

Had the unexpected opportunity to buy the språng loom I borrowed before, so I took it.  May not be my taste in looks but it works and I don't have to take my chances trying to get a woodworker to understand what I want.  Plus I can fit it in the car and carry it with one hand, it was a good price, and språng looms are rare on the ground.

I got in the mail the most expensive textile I've ever bought, vintage Japanese hemp cloth dyed with indigo.  It cost about as much as a pair of pants, and is not large enough for making anything.  It is just for keeping and admiring.  The feel of it is crisp and intriguing.

Today there's a good prospect I'll be on the spot to help people try drop spindles.  I'm looking forward to it.

Foreign Parcel

I bought a copy of Fenny Nijman's Egyptisch Vlechten from the Netherlands.  It's a bit of a splurge, buying a book in Dutch, which I can't read, but it has pictures of finished objects and historical pieces in språng.

I tried making a pullover in språng.  The finished chest size came out at 76 inches unexpectedly, nothing like the small gauge swatch I made because it's harder to beat down a row on a wide warp and the rows are looser.  The piece looks better thrown across the back of a chair than it does on me.  At least I tried out false circular warp.

I made some stitch markers using fragrant beads I made from rose petals.  Here they are on my sweater.

rose petal beads

"Finish Him!"

My sweater is still very much an unfinished object and all urgency has gone from that project now that there is no deadline for it.  I have just done the armhole decreases on the back and that's all I have.

I am still using a kanban board to track the flow of work on my projects.  Each task is written on a card which I move left to right from the "ready column" to "in progress" to "done" by turns.  I'll get annoyed when a card is stationary too long, and do something about it.  The saying in kanban is, stop starting, start finishing.

I finished more Norwegian Sweet baby caps.  I assembled drop spindles that I painted with woad.  I posted YouTube videos that show someone processing dogbane and kudzu fibre, and someone spinning dogbane into yarn.  I pinned pictures of språng.  I dyed commercial yarn with tumeric and walnut.

Am glad I went to the kudzu fiber workshop.  Am probably cured of wanting to use kudzu.  Wasn't the smell of the composted vines, it was how little fibre came out of all that material.

I had another whack at the Tegle stocking språng pattern and still could not suss out the last few rows of the pattern repeat.  Oh, it's pretty though.

Once More, With Feeling

I finally got gauge on my sweater after a couple of false starts and a regrettable lapse into procrastination.  I have completed seven inches of the back and that's all, not counting all the knitting I did with too small and too large needles.

I am on the right track now for a handknit sweater in the correct size.  Sadly, I won't finish in time to enter it in the festival competition.  I'd like to aim to be done in time to wear the sweater at the festival but given my rate of progress I fear all I would have is the makings of a thick knitted waistcoat, if that.

Woad Oil Paint

Added woad powder to enamel paint and got a good colour.  The original glossiness turned flat from the powder.  My brushwork is sloppy.  It doesn't matter as it's a piece I'm assembling into a spindle to give away.  Next time I tint paint I will add less powder so the paint stays runny.  I did this in a hurry outside at dusk.

Hampshire Wool gets Dyed Indigo

Someone put on a dye day and I took the event as a spur to finishing up some fibre preparation.

I washed the remaining two pounds of Hampshire wool that had sat greasy in the stash for three years.

I dyed a pound and a half in the indigo vat, then took two ounces of that and over-dyed with walnut.  Here are thrice-dipped bags of fibre hanging to dry and oxidize:

The bags in the foreground are cotton and the other bags are polyester mesh.  Inside is the wool.  The zippers on the mesh bags were convenient for checking the shade of blue on the wool.

Also convenient was having someone else manage the indigo vat but someday I am going to have to learn to do it for myself.  Out of a feeling that I should do some re-skilling, I made my first ever madder dye bath on my own and dyed some more Hampshire.  It came out a red-orange colour.

indigo overdyed with walnut

A Close Deadline as a Strategy

Since I hope to enter the sweater in a competition a couple of months from now, I'm not going to post photos or write about my progress until afterward.

It is hard to tell if I have a chance of finishing on time.  Have heard that a sweater can take a month or as much as a year or more depending on whether it gets regular attention.  I do like a deadline and figure it is better to aim for a close one.  Even if I miss the cutoff, I will be closer to done then than if I pick a distant date like Christmas and slough off.

The Simple, Complicated, and Complex

The rate at which I do fibre arts projects, it can vary.

I'll stall and drop momentum until I can get help or get in that useful state where desire for the finished object exceeds the reluctance to face the technical problem.  It is usually a technical problem, like getting gauge or sourcing materials.

Simple and small or weird and complex with original stuff to figure out, somehow with those I'll move along at a good constant clip.  I've made quite a few babies happy this year with Norwegian Sweet Baby caps.  I tried weaving overshot and found it as easy as promised.  My experiments in the technique of språng were diverting.  Unfortunately they are the sort of projects that don't get me moving directly toward my goals.  If velocity matters, value matters too.  I want finished objects for me.  Actual wearable clothing, not accessories, for me, out of local traceable materials that are naturally coloured.  Anything else is practice.

What I want is complicated, by which I mean complicated to achieve.  It means a narrow choice of materials, long-term projects, and realization of a specific aesthetic and fit.

I have begun a sweater for me, in natural grey Romney commercial aran yarn from the Salt Spring Island Wool Co.  I picked Alice Starmore and Anne Matheson's Cullercoats, a cabled sweater pattern published in the early 80s.  The cables and border designs are attractive, the lines are dated.  I mentioned the pattern on this blog a few years ago, writing, "I don't know if I have the high level of understanding and stern degree of determination I would need in order to alter it to suit my taste."  

I've written the modifications, I've gotten gauge, and I've started a sleeve.

Norwegian Sweet Baby cap, swatch for sweater

SSI Wool Co.'s sheep pasture with Romneys

Portrait of Anna Codde

I happened to pick up a book of a hundred paintings held by the Rijksmuseum and saw a portrait of Anna Codde by Maerten van Heemskerck.  It was done in 1529 and shows a woman spinning a fine light-coloured thread from a distaff on a double-drive wheel which she turns by hand.  She is not looking at her hands as she works, and she wears fine clothing.

Open Sesame

Some time ago now, I looked at Dagmar Drinkler's pdf "Die Rekonstruktion eng anliegender Bekleidung aus Antike und Renaissance,' online at www.teppichfreunde-norddeutschland.de/de/img/treffen/Drinkler-Sprangtechnik-09072011-72dpi.pdf.

This summer I went looking for more primary evidence that would bear out her findings on form-fitting sprang pants and sleeves in the ancient world and medieval Europe.  It was like knowing that someone before me had said "open sesame" and seen a treasure trove, as it were, full of exciting information.  All I needed was to find the right place and the right keywords to search with.  I found some form-fitting pants shown in tapestries from around the 1500s.  I did a broad search of Attic pottery on the British museum website and saw hundreds of images of pots, mostly showing fillets that might have been made with the språng technique.

I saved my place and didn't get back to it for a while.  Then one day I picked up the search again and came across a reference to an Oriental, a rather dated way of saying someone from Asia.  The figure, on British museum number 1912,0709.1, wears pants and sleeves that correspond with Drinkler's research.

From there I searched with the that keyword and found more examples, then I searched for Persians and Amazons and found many more.  A couple were wearing form-fitting garments on their upper bodies that looked integral to the sleeves, for example numbers 1867,0508.941 and 1837,0609.59.  The patterns are a lot of fun to look at.  I've pinned as many as I could on Pinterest, here http://pinterest.com/thesojourningspinner/språng-leggings-and-garters/.

Paddington Knits

Was reading a old English children's book full of dry humour, Michael Bond's More about Paddington:

Paddington's convalescence had been a difficult time for the Browns.  While he had remained in bed it had been bad enough, because he kept getting grape-pips all over the sheets.  But if anything, matters had got worse once he was up and about.  He wasn't very good at "doing nothing" and it had become a full time occupation keeping him amused and out of trouble.  He had even had several goes at knitting something–no one ever quite knew what–but he'd got in such a tangle with the wool, and it had become so sticky with marmalade, that in the end they had to throw it away.   

Sheep in a Meadow

Sheep in a meadow.

Emulsion Woad Paint

I bought some Bleu de Lectoure woad powder from Maiwa.

Bleu de Lectoure also produces ready-made paint tinted with woad, beautifully-looking in the advertising photos.  Maiwa just carried the dyestuffs.

Knowing woad paint was possible made me want to try to make some for myself.  The powder didn't incorporate into the paint that well, though.  The dark blue smudge on the top of the wedge of wood is woad plus boiled linseed oil.  The greyish-blue sides are painted with woad in linseed oil with egg and water.

I wonder if it would mix in better and give a better result if added to regular, ready-made white paint.

one hundred, eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh skeins

I spun up the Gale's Art Blue Face Leicester wool in the colourway velvet Elvis.  That is, I spun up all that I could.  The bag got subjected to friction, the wool felted, and I had to leave an ounce or so undone.

That, I believe is that.  All that remains in my fibre stash is naturally-coloured and naturally-dyed, apart from an ounce or two of mohair.

Summertime

Let's see, what have I been doing.  I saw some beautiful white Romney wool that had been put through a drum carder in small quantities, then rolled for woollen spinning. 

I acquired some madder, cochineal, and woad because I had the opportunity and I do mean to try dyeing with them sometime. 

I've set aside the white Targhee wool for a while and am spinning the last of my supply of synthetically-dyed wool, some Gales Art BFL in Velvet Elvis. 

I bought a hemp shower curtain meant to resist mould naturally by virtue of the fibre properties.  

I got around to taking out of the stash a certain sealed bucket of wool and re-checking for insect infestation in the sealed bags inside.  All was well.  But I won't be tying up the necks of cloth bags with wool yarn again.

Rukinlapa

A foreign word or phrase can mean all the difference to finding out information about fibre arts tools.

Take for example rukinlapa for distaff in Finnish and ручная прялка (ruchnaya pryalka) for distaff in Russian.  Run them through online image searches.  You'll get some unrelated results but mostly you'll see bat-shaped distaffs with carved designs.  Imagine a man carving one for his sweetie back in the day.

The search results are a lot more satisfying than results with the other Russian word I found last month for this sort of distaff, lopastka, which is more like the word blade, shoulder blade or trowel blade.

There's a china pattern called Rukinlapa by Raija Uosikkinen‏ based on these distaffs' shape and carving designs.

British Museum no. 1756,0101.485

In my delightful forays into online museum collections, I found a piece of classical Greek pottery decorated with a closeup of a woman's head clad in a cap.  It is British Museum no. 1756,0101.485.

The cap's structure looks similar in at least three ways to some styles of extant Coptic språng caps that were made a thousand years after the pot was painted.

A quick look at thumbnails for the same search results shows there are more pots like this.  It's exciting.  Most everything I've seen to date has shown figures head to toe not close up, and as often as not with the cap-clad head positioned at a spot on the pot that curves away and can't be seen easily.

It's exciting not so much because this information will help me make a cap.  It's more that I am starting from a premise that the Greeks used språng for headgear and I'm out to find primary evidence.  The premise comes from research-driven authorities on språng construction and ancient Greek culture, for example, Peter Collingwood in The Techniques of Sprang, Margrethe Hald in Old Danish Textiles, Elizabeth Siewertsz van Reesema in her works including the article "Old Egyptian Lace," and Marina Fischer in her thesis, "The Prostitute and Her Headdress: the Mitra, Sakkos and Kekryphalos in Attic Red-figure Vase-painting ca. 550-450 BCE."  I like to compare and contrast things to draw conclusions.  In this case, a Greek picture compared with a Coptic piece.  I'm following clues for something is a bit of a mystery.  It wouldn't be if we'd had an unbroken widespread tradition of språng.

If and when I do plan out the specs for a cap, I have dimensions for quite a few existing Coptic pieces and I think I can estimate the dimensions of the looms on a few pieces of Greek pottery.

Spinstokje

I recently came across the word spinstokje, meaning a stick for spinning.  It is a spindle without a whorl, shaped slightly thicker in the middle.  I am not sure if it is spun in the hand, suspended, or rolled on the thigh.

The Dutch word stokje means stick, bar, or wand.

I've been told it is used as the word for double crochet, and that makes sense for the long slender shape of a double crochet stitch.

Elizabeth Siewertsz van Reesema's second edition of Egyptisch Vletchwerk includes the word stokje in a chart's key to indicate a similar thing in sprang, where two threads twist around each other multiple times creating a slit on either side.  An example can be seen in the Whitworth Art Gallery's Coptic cap T.9864.

How I Feel About It and What I'm Going to Do

After my recent post full of analysis and conclusions about my efficacy in my fibre arts projects, you might wonder, how do you feel and what will you do.

I feel okay.  It's better to know how work flows and to know what to change.  It's understandable why I have the WIPs I do.  It's a given that the opportunities that move me to action involve gathering, understanding, and giving out information.  But my motivation for learning to spin yarn was to re-skill, to learn to meet a basic need independent* of fossil fuel or as close as I can get.  My hope is that, by subordinating the scholarly WIPs to practical WIPs for handspun clothes, I will make what I learn into something tangible and visible, and the experience will make me better able to pass along knowledge about how handspun clothes are made.

I should say, my post only discussed prioritization and limiting WIPs but kanban has more improvement areas than that in Anderson's book, Kanban.

For now, these all look like places to start.  I have some doubts about being able to stick to them, but I will name them.

• reduce the amount and the depth of fibre arts correspondence I initiate
• reduce the time I spend searching for språng items in museum collections
• maintain blog posting but cap the time spent preparing posts
• set a minimum and maximum number of pages to read per day in whatever textile book I have going
• spin yarn on a more regular and consistent basis, yarn intended to go into a finished item for me
• look at the two WIPs that are at a standstill and get them going again somehow instead of starting new ones
• either delay working on the fixed date WIP, since the deadline is far in the future, or work on it soon to get it off the kanban board, making sure it results in a wearable handspun item for me
• look for opportunities to fix dates for tasks that relate to my goal of handspun clothes
• stop fixing dates for tasks that fail to result in handspun clothes, with the exception of a weaving class project

*a good thing to remember today on the Fourth of July.  The thirteen colonies in British North America that had a revolution went for textile independence among other things.  So did colonial India under British rule.

Cost of Delay and Class of Service

I posted last month that I'd set up a kanban board for my fibre arts projects in anticipation of getting clarity on what I do and how, so that I could improve my efficacy.  Efficacy, producing the right thing at the right time, is something a person can't get enough of.  It's right up there with being healthy, wealthy, and wise.  I set up my board the way I'd been shown and was happy, putting my task cards in columns for backlog, to-do, doing, and done.

Then I read David J. Anderson's Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.  Turns out kanban is more sophisticated and more capable of making workflow visible than I thought.

I was particularly struck by his use of cost of delay and classes of service to prioritize tasks.  Certainly we all know the four classes of service.  We are taught them as children and we are told to mind the cost of delay.  There are some tasks we must do on time, some we do roughly in a first-in-first-out manner but not on a deadline, some we do whenever we like, and some we expedite when the cost of delay is exceptionally high.

For me and my tasks–I make yarn, make things out of yarn, learn new yarn skills, and pass on what I learn–whatever the cost of delay, it will be arbitrary.  No one in my household will go cold if I fail to knit mittens before winter sets in.  No one will set herself down on my stoop and wail because she can't learn the obscure art of språng until I help.

I'd been posting for ages here that my goal is to make handspun clothing for me.  I'd been wanting to wear clothes made with my own handspun, preferably un-dyed and local, for a number of compelling reasons.  And I hadn't made any.  I'd hardly spun any yarn to the purpose.  I had to figure out why.

Across the three columns of to-do, doing, and done on my kanban board, I put four rows for the classes of service which Anderson names expedite, fixed date, standard, and intangibles.  Then I put my task cards in their places.

Of my works in progress (WIPs), I had one expedite, one fixed date with two pending, no standard, and six intangibles.  Two of the intangibles had red Xs on the cards to show the tasks were blocked by difficulties I hadn't resolved yet.  They'd been blocked for a long time.  The fixed date card had recently become unblocked, and hadn't been around that long.  The higher the row, the faster WIPs were progressing toward completion.

Also, the higher the row the more the WIP involved a third party and thus an extra cost of delay, loss of face.

I didn't see my goal of handspun clothes reflected in the expedited or fixed date tasks.  The standard class was empty.  I had an unrecorded expedited WIP, "search museum collections' databases for språng items."  That search might move me closer to my goal if I find an item I'd like to imitate or interpret, but the search has more to do with intellectual curiosity.

I had an unrecorded fixed date WIP: post daily one blog entry about fibre arts, with the exception of Sundays and days when I travel or fall ill and my capacity contracts.  It contributes a little to my goal because my blog is where I record my progress and think through what I do and learn.  But as they say, fine words butter no parsnips and time writing on the blog is time not spent spinning yarn.  I had an unrecorded standard WIP, correspondence about fibre arts.  It's a chance of coming across information that will aid me as I spin yarn and make clothes but it's more about my goal to pass on what I learn.

I looked in the intangibles class, trying to find a practical WIP like "spin wool for pullover."  However, even there I found all but one of the WIPs were tasks way off in the rhubarb like "read textile history book" or "knit small object with yarn I didn't spin and won't use myself but give to someone who can get along with store-bought."

There was one intangibles class WIP that related to my goal.  It had recently been a fixed date class WIP: I was going to make something in time to wear it to an event.  The event passed, so the cost of delay dropped to almost nothing.

Some productive friends were kind enough recently to talk to me about their fibre arts projects; I realized most projects were fixed date class while the rest were treated as standard class, given sustained attention.  Moreover, their projects were congruent with their goals.

As a side note, the Tour de Fleece on right now is an example of a fixed date commitment that handspinners make.  For Tour de Fleece, you spin yarn daily while the Tour de France race is on.  Miss a day too many times and the delay costs you something to show, making you ineligible for the prize drawings.

Many fibre artists arrange their year around fixed dates for project completion.  Examples include an agricultural fair needlework competition, guild challenge or competition, gift-giving holiday, conference, fibre festival, commission work, gallery show and sale, charity collection of knitted goods, knit-along or spin-along, and month-long or year-long cold sheep resolutions.  In a knit-along, people knit projects from the same pattern in a given period of time.  Cold sheep is like cold turkey except you avoid the yarn shop instead of the tobacconist's shop.

Intangibles class tasks have no deadline.  In the backlog I had more intangibles-class tasks than any other class by far.  Some related to my goal.  My capacity was allocated to expedite, fixed date, and standard class WIPs with no room for intangibles, so the good tasks weren't moving from backlog to priority queue.  All of those faster-moving WIPs, they bypassed the backlog.  I need to tell them what we used to say in school, no budging.

I've been saying that deadlines are good.  And research is good and so are projects done in the public eye.  But they're counterproductive if they move you toward a lower-priority goal.

Språng by Correspondence

I have been corresponding about språng with a number of people.  Sometimes it's a brief exchange and sometimes a sustained effort.  Last week I got to answer a puzzler about historical språng items partly by using a quote from Shakespeare's King Lear.

To pass skills and information back and forth, ideally people stand shoulder to shoulder and model things and talk about things in real time.  That is not always possible so I'm using a few different methods to deliver my content.  Am using email, online discussion boards, my YouTube how-to videos, and my Pinterest pins.  And now, I present, sprang by mail.

Specifically, I made a warp and sent it to someone by post.  In a small way, it's similar to chess by mail which I read about once in a novel, except I am supplying physical parts not just a charted or written move and I don't expect the warp to come back.  To change the game metaphor, it's like an assist in hockey.  The recipient has a goal, and I'm setting up the conditions for meeting the goal.

This is targeted at the skill of interlinking only.  There are a lot of skills to learn with sprang and it's the recipient's goal to eventually be able to do all the steps in sequence independently, to plan a project, select suitable yarn, calculate the warp specifications, warp a frame, interlink threads, and so on.

I put yarn on a frame in two colours.  I chose a flat sprang warp setup because I thought its best chance of arriving intact would come from having the yarn loop tightly around the sticks, and that means flat warp not circular.  I changed the arrangement of the colours from AABB to ABAB, so it will be clear to the recipient which threads go in the back and which in the front.  Then I tied up each cross with green yarn and tied the warp with blue yarn.  Here it is, ready to go in a padded envelope.

It cost less than two dollars to make and two dollars to mail, and it arrived quickly.

I Sing the Song of My People

Happy Canada Day!