Etherknitter

The Fold

Imagine your own private fiber festival.  Picture your wilder fiber fantasies, then add a wise, calm, knowledgeable, centered guide.

That's The Fold and Toni Neil. 

We park in the driveway.  Toni is in the garage with an armload of skirted fleece.  Her CVM ram has just been shorn for the first time in two years.  The staple length is daunting, the smell intoxicating.  She offers a taste.  "Here, smell this.  Isn't it great?"  And it is.  The fineness of the fibers teases my spinner's eye.

Inside, the shop is cooler.  Eric (the German Shepherd) and Al (the husband) wave hello with tail and hand, respectively.  One fights hard to not look everywhere at once.  There is so much.  Dropspindles, handcards, bags of fleece, bags of roving, shelves full of exotic fibers, a room of yarn.  Blue Moon Fiber Arts dyes more than just STR.  Some of their yarns are humdingers.  Ask Toni about Koi. 

Last year, I spun briefly on a Lendrum Saxony.  This year, I'm looking at travel wheels.  I cannot resist the call of the Lendrum, however, so I sit down and spin for a bit.  It is a smooth, quiet, seamless,  efficient wheel.  I'm trying SO hard not to be a wheel ho.

I spend some time with the Majacraft Little Gem II.  Toni says that the Little Gem I had problems with the driveband leaping off unpredictably.  The problem is solved on the Little Gem II.  I am now totally a wheel ho because I like this one, too.  Toni then forces me (!) to try a regular Lendrum.  I understand why I see this one at spinning gatherings as the most popular portable wheel.

This is not just about playing with wheels.  Toni encourages me to spin the fibers I want to try.  This wall of fleece takes words away.  It encompasses an entire wall, and represents only a small portion of the fiber in the shop.  I try Rambouillet, merino/silk/alpaca, Debouillet, yak, Icelandic, CVM, and more.  It is a banquet of roving, a feast.

Debouillet is an American cross of Delaine-Merino and Rambouillet.  It spins like rambo, but has a longer staple length.  It is SOFT.

I bought it all.  Kathy was smart enough to say, "Yes! Me too!" when I called her.  I was clearly giddy and excited over my find.  Debouillet was on my Life List of fibers to spin.  I didn't think I would ever find it.   (Birdwatchers have Life Lists.  I decided that I would have a fiber Life List.  When you see me buying 2 ounces of this or that weird fiber, that is what I'm doing.  My guidebook is In Sheeps' Clothing.)

Toni is a source of fiber from www.rovings.com.  I have some Polwarth/mohair from last year.  Mr. Etherknitter's cap had half of the yarn (one of the plys) as Rovings Polwarth.  I troll their website regularly, unable to order because I've been unable to narrow down colors and fibers.  I asked Toni what she had.

"Oh!  I just got in four boxes from them.  Shall we open them and see what's there?"

FOUR BOXES?  Oh.  Yes.  Now.  Me.  Ooops.  I tried to act coolly unconcerned and indifferent.   I failed. 

I am surrounded by bags from Rovings, all colors of the rainbow.  For Cassie?  That's a fleece washing sink behind me to the right.  Let the record show I did not buy blue.

Another product unique to me was yarn from Rovings.  All natural colors, there was Polwarth (aran and fingering), Polwarth/silk, cashmere, cashmere/silk, yak, and more.  Several came home with me, including a dark brown/grey fingering Polwarth/silk skein destined to be Swallowtail.

My box of fiber has not yet arrived.  I can't show you what came home with me yet.  I did not buy a wheel.  I bought no STR.  Oh, and by the way?   The maple wheel at the bottom of the picture of the fleece wall is the Lendrum Saxony.  There is a year's waiting list for them now.   It's a temptation, isn't it?

C00l Gl0bes in Chicago

One pound of microfiber yarn pushed me over the knitting edge.  Soon, it will be in the West, where a talented knitter will bend it to her wishes.

How about thirty-two pounds of polypropylene yarn?  An artist, Lindsay Obermeyer, knit a sweater for a globe in the Cool Globes exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago.  Mr. Etherknitter's mom took us there. 

It is reviewed here.  The artist's statement reflects many of our knitting sentiments.

Mr. Etherknitter left me speechless when he critiqued the decreases on the bottom part of the globe.   (These people in our lives appear to be paying no attention whatsoever.  And then we find out how wrong we are.)  ETA:  The artist left a comment.  Her blog includes a picture of reknitting the bottom part of the globe.  Take a look.                                
               

It feels farther into the summer than the calendar suggests.  I'm having startitis issues.  The ambient temperatures discourage wool, but the season feels half over.

I'm going to play around with Rio (yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts) for a summer top.  The skein label says "Gauge = swatch".  I have my marching orders.

The White Heat of a Thousand Suns

I must post this before I foolishly change my mind.

I am selling three skeins of Tess microfiber ribbon yarn.  $40 plus postage.  You get three skeins for less than the price of two.  The color is bronze, 333 yards each.  One skein has a small swatch subtracted from it.  I'll send you the swatch.  That skein is wound into a reasonably stable construction.

I hate it with the white heat of a thousand suns.  Please get it out of my sight:  etherknitteratgmaildotcom.

A sampling of nectars

My camera went blind.   I was sighting through the viewfinder, and the world went dark.  The internets identified a common Nik0n problem - a defective CeeCeeDee chip.  It was sent away for therapy. 

The tree peonies have been magnificent enough to overcome a ski camera handicap.  Ms. White is Godaiashu, Ms. Screaming Pink is Shichikufujin (Paeonia suffruticosa):

These ladies require a certain amount of attention.  Killing the competition (weeds) is important.  Feeding them takes time.  Mulching must be done to forestall having to kill the competition over and over again.  It's a wonder the tired caretaker ever gets a chance to knit or spin. 

The Fleece Artist socks need toes kitchenered, and then they will debut here.  I, of course, have started another st st sock.

I don't know the name of the colorway.  It is Judy yarn, so I call it 'Suite Judy Blue-Eyes'.   I'm hoping she'll stop by in the comments and fix my ignorance.  The color changes are subtle, and soothing.

The Coopworth sweater is four bobbins strong.  The last one was thicker grist, so I need to pull myself up and Get Some Discipline.  I have the requisite card with sample on it, but the sample has lost some of its twist.  I do need to reswatch to see which of the four bobbins is the closest to my target 5 st/1".  Then a new card, with yarn FIRMLY wrapped will help keep me on target.   In the meantime, I do homage to the summer bees.  Flitting from one roving to another, sampling, sipping, smiling.  Nothing gets 'done', and that is fine.

The occasional good read

"In Owl Babies - by Martin Waddell, with pictures by Patrick Benson - little Sarah and Percy and Bill are three baby owls who live in a hole in the trunk of a tree.  As the book begins, 'One night they woke up and their Owl Mother was GONE.'  Sarah tries to react intellectually:  'Where's Mommy?'  Percy is stunned:  'Oh my goodness!' and Bill goes directly into shock:  'I want my mommy!'  Benson's picture of the forlorn Bill is a marvel:  The little fellow looks perplexed, burdened with sorrow, a bit comic, yet still an owl.  On the following pages the small white birds try to account for their mother's disappearance, but each such gambit ends with Bill repeating the primal wish of all who suffer, 'I want my mommy!'

Eventually the fearful siblings cluster together on a single branch for comfort and mutual support.  Then 'the baby owls closed their owl eyes and wished their Owl Mother would come.'

The next two facing pages carry only three short words:  'AND SHE CAME.'  Across the full expanse of this oblong album, her wings spread wide, a full-grown brown owl swoops through the night.  The next page shows us her view of three fluffs of white, hunched tight together on a tree limb.  Then Waddell presents the sheer joy of the baby owls as they 'flapped and they danced and they bounced up and down.'  This would have made a wonderful end, but Waddell doesn't stop there.  The Owl Mother looks down and says, 'WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS?  You knew I'd come back.'

At this point, any child will be smiling at this grumpy, realistic mom.  Maybe you will be too - at least until remembering that for each of us there will come a time when we can wish and wish but the Owl Mother will never come back again."

Fiber by itself is a fulfilling, but unidimensional avocation.  One needs people for dimensionality.  A sense of personal and human history also grounds me in this time and this place.  So I read. 

Michael Dirda wrote "Book by Book:  Notes on Reading and Life".  I thought I might pick up a few hints on interesting books.  Instead, I found this powerful excerpt (quoted above) which is not just about owls.  It is about family, friends, ego strength and coping.  And it's about knowing that since life's battles are continuous,  one's preparations should also be continuous.

Lamb and ewe at Cummington.  It fits.

The White Queen

She swooned last year.  The pesticide treatment in 2005 (done on a 92 degree day by the tree and shrub company) acted as an herbicide treatment.  She wilted badly in 2005, and didn't bloom in 2006.

She's back.  I am so happy to see her young and beautiful again.  This is a standardized wisteria.  I bought her as a teensy whip at Allen Haskell's nursery in 1997.  I pruned her viciously for several years to transform Her Woodiness into a tree form.  When she refused to bloom in the early 2000s, I threatened her.  "Firewood, I tell you!  I'm going to make you into firewood next year if you don't bloom!"  (Last year's sulking wasn't her fault.)

It worked.  There she is, in full formal dress.

Her beauty attracts all kinds of creatures.  Different species respond with different senses:  sight, smell, hearing, taste.