Etherknitter

Random November before it is over

I cannot believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone.  I know I spent hours shopping, days cooking, and there were 10 people here at one point on a Thursday.  The  dirty dishes alone could have told me that something had occurred.  

That leads me to the randomness that has been swooping through my thoughts as the busy days get shorter.

1.  My favorite radio station does an unfavorite programming trick every year:  start in mid November and play Christmas music for six weeks.  It gets old.  My second favorite station doesn't always keep me awake on the drive to and from, so I am left with carols and musing.

Some carols just rock the genre.  Anything by Burl Ives and Bing Crosby is perfection.  Frank Sinatra pegs it also (even though he was a pig).  Johnny Mathis doesn't do it for me.  I think it is the whiny tenor that knocks him off the list.  Brenda Lee, meh.  Baby sopranos work only if it is Eartha Kitt doing 'Santa Baby'.  

I have to confess to incredible inconsistency in preferences.  Mannheim Steamroller does a nice job of electrifying the music in a way that doesn't murder the mood.  Dean Martin is good, and almost any pop singer starting with Elvis just plain sucks and is doing it for the money.  (There may be a Josh Groban exception here.)  You are not obligated to agree with any or all.

I can't hear a Karen Carpenter carol without feeling sadness.  Her death (cardiomyopathy from ipecac overuse, among other causes) was premature and preventable.  I never really liked her music at the time, but her voice lends sweet purity to the seasonal classics she recorded.

2.  SOAR always leaves the spinner with as many questions as answers.  Both Robin Russo and Deb Robson clearly stated that fiberistas should NOT store their fiber in plastic bags.  Their rationale is that the changes in temperature in a normal house leads to condensation in the bag, and subsequent felting.  Storage should be in paper bags or pillow cases.

Tear out my hair.  Beat my chest.  Angst.  Everything I own is in plastic bags, except for a few fleeces.  The obvious reason is higher mil plastic to slow down the potential for *m*s.  The visibility is helpful also.  Am I jeopardizing the health of my fiber IRA?  WHAT SHOULD I DO?

The first answer is stop stashing.  Ha.  Yeah, I've slowed down a LOT.  But the backlog needs to be stored.  MelissaG raises an excellent question:  doesn't felting require a friction factor?   There is no friction in quietly sleeping fiber in plastic.

My fiber is stored in a room that allows no direct sunlight.  I have seen no condensation during any trip through the stash in any season.  Which is more deadly to my stash, *m* or felting in storage?  In my work, I am called upon to seek evidence-based data by which decisions are made.  Is the felting idea an urban myth we all quote, with no data?  Was felting observed in a damp fleece in a plastic bag?  (There are no damp fleeces here, only processed ones.)  I don't know what I should do, so I have done nothing different.

3.  My current mindless knit other than a sock is Terra, by Jared Flood.  Shelter is a lovely, squooshy yarn that I purchased during our SOAR field trip to Harrisville Designs in NH.  I got gauge, off by maybe 1/8 stitch per inch.  I bought five skeins.  Not enough.  (All of Rav says 4+, maybe 4.5, but that 1/8 stitch is clearly enough to push me over the edge.)  Irony will show that I probably will run out just as I need to bind off.  I debated eliminating some of the edging.  Instead I called Harrisville for a skein in that dyelot.  It took them five hours to call me back.  *wringing of hands*  Success!  It is the world's most expensive skein of Shelter (add $4.95 shipping), but it was worth it.  (Picture me calculating number of stitches per row as the shawl increases in triangular size.  Then picture me adding up all the stitches.  Then picture me knitting a defined length of yarn to see how many stitches per foot of yarn I get.  Math follows.  I am about 14 yards short. And I am being so typically me, it is almost embarrassing to post this.  It falls squarely into random, so there you go.)

4.  I have begun the Concept2 indoor rowing challenge, for the third time.  100,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.  That is 30 days, or 3,333.33 meters per day.  The day after turkey, my foot hurt.  I'm icing.  Crossing fingers that this is not derailing the best way possible to get into cross-country skiing shape.  I'm prepared to row one-legged, even if it takes me twice as long.  (My, won't my heart love THAT.)  My HDL cholesterol, drawn this month, is 93.  I am so proud, and I want to keep it there.  Red wine, exercise, and genes rock.  

5.  December promises more full tilt, flat out busyness.  Me and the squirrel, we do the psychic mirroring that brings you this--

 

 

10 Ways To Use Fresh Cranberries

1.  Cranberry orange nut bread.  Yum.  I use a recipe from Boston Magazine from eons past.

2.  Apple/cranberry cobbler.  Or crisp.  Or Betty.  The versions that add less sugar (Nick Malgieri's book) are stimulating.

3.  Three nut cranberry tart.  An etherknitter signature dessert, occasionally brought to fiber gatherings.

4.  Put it in stuffing for Thanksgiving.  Confession:  I use craisins more often I use fresh for this.

5.  Make really good cranberry sauce.  It is not difficult.  This was originally from Bon Appetit or Gourmet....http://blogs.courier-journal.com/recipes/2010/11/10/simple-cranberry-sauce-with-raspberry-vinegar/

6.  Leave them in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator to die a quiet death over many months.  

7.  I suppose you can string them with popcorn and use them for holiday decorations.  I have never done that.  That also means there isn't a #8, #9, or #10.

This is my third basket, from my third Wendy Jensen class.  She calls it a field basket.  I may be addicted to Wendy Jensen classes. 

 

What I learned about getting even at SOAR

Three years passed after SOAR 2008.     For the first time, I am ready for classes again.  I have the smallest expectations for this technique class (Getting Even with Michelle Boyd).  That means, of course, that it was the BEST time.  

Her initial exercises made me twitch.  She had us put inch-wide tape on our legs, with an inch in between, so that we had our own 1, 2 and 3 inch ruler.  Then she gave us a long staple fiber to spin.  Do 1 inch drafts.  Then do 2 inch drafts.  Then 3 inches.  Predictably, the 1 inch draft had me fighting the fiber, and the 3 inch spinning looked great.  Then she gave us Ashland Bay merino.  One inch, no problem.  Two inches was dicey.  Three inches was a horror.  I raised my hand.

"I understand the one inch looking good, but is the three inch supposed to really suck this bad?  Or do I just suck as a spinner?"

Of course.  Can't make a staple do what a staple doesn't want to do.  She had us count treadles, as we drafted a uniform length of fiber.  This is Mabel Ross, yes?  It worked.  Nice looking yarn.

Many railed against the discipline.  Few like to count.  I did it for several weeks after SOAR, and now it is intuitive.  The rhythm is in the hands and the feet, without counting.  My yarn is more even.

What else?  Draft in one direction.  Obvious to many, but not to me.  This lazy spinner drafted in whatever direction seemed to feel the best in any given moment.  A bit of long draw as the twist went past the fingers, some attempt at discipline with short forward draw, then a switch back to short backward worsted draw.  No wonder my yarn did not make me happy.  

Michelle agreeds with Judith on working with the fiber prep that you have:  don't split the top, don't split the roving, avoid pre-drafting.  Drafting seems easier, but doing this actually sets up thick and thin areas that make good, even drafting more difficult.  

The best ah-ha moment was how she handles the thinning of thick spots.  I was taught to stop treadling, go back to the thick spot, roll the twist backwards to release the fibers, and pull the dense spot thinner until it matches the rest of the yarn's grist.

That puts more aligned (worsted) spots interspersed into a woolen yarn.  (The idea is that the thick spots happen during long draw drafting more often than in short forward worsted draw techniques.) Yarn will be more even if you do this:  Roll back the fiber in the opposite direction from the spinning twist.  Do this at the end of the thick spot closest to the orifice.  Then ease the pinching hand back through the thick spot, away from the orifice, gently rolling as you go.  That allows the twist to enter the thick spot more evenly.  

(Of course, if you are spinning a worsted draw, and get a thick spot, go with the old release-the-twist-and-pull-gently to distribute the fibers more evenly along the yarn.  Then you are simply putting worsted spots into worsted-spun yarn.)

Internal mirth almost got the best of me when, three hours later, in a color class, Deb Menz said STRIP your roving, SPLIT your top, predraft EVERYTHING, and draft however YOU want.  The goals were different, of course.  Spinning for color, spinning for even yarn, all are arrows in the quiver of the spinner's skillsets.  We swap out whatever works for what kind of yarn we want to produce.  

The rigid heddle loom (borrowed from Lynn) has a Mission Falls cotton dishcloth in progress.  I warped for two towels.  Youtube made hemstitching easy.  Chalk up a new skill that will make my woven ends more cohesive.  

I have bit off somewhat more than I can chew right now.  There are too many projects, too many new things.  NaBloPoMo would have been perfect, but I forgot.  

I am SO far behind.  A picture from Rhinebeck.  You-know-who to the left, Angela Ho to the right.