Summer Update 🍹 ⛱️

 

Sitting at a waterside seasonal restaurant called Jiggers, waiting for friends to join us and enjoy a meal together.    We've been taking a much more relaxed time of things lately!   As luck would have it, we all chose fish and chips and it was yummy!  

Next up is the surprise crop of young green beans, that Hub grew in a pot behind the shed by chance !   He says there are many more beans coming along.... 

I have been spinning steadily for the past six months and once they are off the niddy noddy, they got tossed into a bin.   So the day arrived to wash them all up and so what you see below is 16 skeins of handspun that is almost dry after a day outside on the patio in a gentle breeze.   I washed up one more skein the next day so the skein count went to 17.   (Plus the ones previously shown here so.... much more!)

Spinning while waiting for my back to heal was a sanity saver!   😳

Weaving?  well, yes there has been some but I do small time increments at the big loom and so have 62 inches done on the first scarf, with a second scarf to go after that.  My legs will need time to regain their 'mojo' again.  The new dobby will go on after this project is all done. 

On the Spring loom I discovered three serious threading errors and decided that I'd rather fix them now and so pulled almost all the warp  back and now working on rethreading the loom again.    

So some progress on that front..... but I did say the pace and  focus of my studio was going to change and it has.

It's a long weekend here and so we are doing a 'staycation' and taking things easy!    Stay cool 🍹 ⛱️

Just William

 

So when you buy a batch of rolags from Fellview Fibers, Carol slips in a complimentary rolag to tempt and tease you!    She added one of these beauties and what could I do?     I ordered some more!  😁  I was a total push over as I fell for the jewel colours. 

I don't know the story behind the name "Not Just William".... I'm sure its a good story.

I got busy and soon had three skeins of plied yarn. Here's a skein to show the colours and two have been wound into cakes. 

There's a variety of blues and turquoise, a dash of green and some black.   I'm very pleased with it and would order again.  But after I've tried some others of course. 🤩

On the personal front:  I'm waiting for a MRI  for my lumbar spine (which will take months to get) but in the meantime I have a physio appointment scheduled and also to see someone to talk about orthotics.   According to the orthopaedic surgeon "your feet and ankles are a mess.... and sadly there is not much that can be done".

So.... I will be making some changes in the studio and so have started making a list of what is going to find new homes and owners  down the road.    I knew this day would come sometime, I just thought it would take longer!   

Silk Road Red

So as I explained in my last post, spinning is all I can do for now while my back heals and I have been enjoying the time.  I have become much more familiar with my Hansen e-spinner and how to get the best out of it and my spinning / plying has improved.  It's a different approach to a regular spinning wheel and takes some time to get used to. (Or it did for me at least).  Anyhow, it has saved my arthritic feet and I enjoy the portability of it.    

Some how I found this web site: FellviewFibres on line and bought some of their rolags to spin.  There is always a little bonus rolag as a tease and it sure works!   Her rolags, puni's and batts are literal works of art and a joy to spin!   Each one is prepared by hand and takes time to build an order, and she's very popular..... so orders can take some time to arrive.  (Subsequent orders get a 10% discount which is nice.)

I spotted this selection called Sogdian Rolags and the inspiration really spoke to me. I'm a huge fan of ancient textiles and so have researched the Silk Road, the various cultures along the route.   The Sogdians were a very sizeable empire along the silk road and controlled a great deal of the traffic along the Road.   They faded into obscurity and their descendants live in the general area still..... and a tantalizing glimpse of their history is in grave goods and mummies and some ancient city sites.

click to enlarge and read the inspiration

I have 'borrowed' these images from Fellview's web site as I failed to get decent pictures of the rolags before spinning. You can see how rich the colorway is.  It's a fine micron merino and tussah silk and a touch of ruby bamboo. 

I had approx 400 grams of rolags (or just under a pound.... 454 grams is 16 ounces or one pound)

I got four skeins of varying weights and they are simply yummy. Its difficult to photograph skein and red ones  properly so it will take me some time to find the right method to show them to their best advantage.

I recommend this book if this sort of ancient textile 'mystery' appeals to you. 

I discovered that my little Royal ball winder is not up to the task of winding the skeins into cakes so I have this ball winder on order and due to arrive this coming week.  Fiber Artist Supply Company made my fringe twister (with 10 clips) and they also now produce and sell Woolhouse Tools table looms.    

So that will take care of the winding....

Plus I have one of these yardage counters from Stanwood so I can tally the yardage properly as I wind them up.

Then next task is to design a paper sleeve to wrap around the cakes to have all their data listed ahead of (gasp!) selling them.  

 I'm not a knitter, an occasional crocheter and while I do plan to weave with some, not all will be kept.   I spin as I enjoy the process and find it calming, relaxing.   After the winter we had, I needed all the stress reduction I could get!

On a personal note:  Hubby is doing much better and we will soon find out if he is infection free, and a CT scan in late May will show how effective the kidney stone laser treatment was.    He back to puttering in the yard, and doing odd jobs, albeit with a daily nap.

Me? well the sciatica has reduced so it doesn't involve my entire leg and seems more localized to the hip area, but I'm still relying on pain meds to get through my day. So it's improving, but ever so slowly.....

It seems to be time to take a long hard look at how things will be going forward once I can weave for a time. I doubt whether I can be working two looms as quickly and often as I did before and must take a more sedate approach. I'm leaning more and more  to reducing to one loom only.   The Louet Spring would be the choice to sell as even with lifting the loom up and sitting on a stool, you still need to bend forward to do the tie up's.    I don't think my back will be so forgiving anymore, and I certainly don't want to go through all this again!    

So more downsizing to come......

Cobbling Things Together

I have a confession to make. It seems I might have pushed things a bit and had a bit of a set back this past week. I suspect strongly that sitting on my weaving bench, even with a cushion, to do that one weaving repeat I showed you in my last post aggravated the nerve. My physiotherapist agrees. So I resumed my 'resting' and left the loom alone. Its so hard  NOT being able to weave...

So the hard edge of the wooden bench(s) is an issue, even with my elevating the rear legs to angle the bench. Its a problem now and I can see where it may contribute to future flare up's. So Hub and I did some talking about what might be a good fix.  I heard that Fireside looms makes an angled bench but its a bit spendy.  We went to our local Staples office supply store and looked at chairs, all kinds of chairs. At first we thought a  tall drafting chair would do as it can be raised to higher positions than normal chairs, but the edge of the seat was hard and not really rounded or soft.  Your normal office style chairs will only come up to 21 inches at full height and my bench at the Louet is at 22 1/2 inches. That small difference is actually a lot up top at the breast beam ! The Woolhouse Tools CM loom has an even higher bench at 27 inches, so being able to make adjustments is important.

So here's what we have come up with:

It's a regular style office chair but it has the added bonus of being able to adjust just about everything! You can move the back up and down, the entire back will shift to adjust the lumbar support, the seat will be flat or even tipped forward, the entire seat will drop or rise  and finally the arm rests can be moved up and down, moved in or out from the chair or even removed entirely.

 There is some good news and some bad news though...   The good? It was on SALE for $99.00 !!  The bad? it will only rise to 21 inches. So we want to see if the chair meets my basic needs which is to not cut into the back of my thighs and and be comfortable to weave with. If not, we can return it , no questions asked. 

If it works then there is a special extension base that can be bought separately that will increase the rise by either 8 inches in one model, 10 inches in another. With the part being a special order, it can't be returned. If this test of the chair works, then the 8 inch additional riser will do as the other loom will be covered too with 2 extra inches to spare.

So today I felt good enough to give it a try. The focus is the chair and seeing if it will work so...

I gathered up my usual bench cushions on the chair and sat and wove for a bit. Well, one repeat! I can't stop half way you know or I'll lose my place. My ample butt compressed things down a bit too far but there was no pressure on the thighs! The arms didn't get on the way and I actually needed them to hoist myself up on the cushions. I needed more height so I found one more pillow for the pile and tried that.

It looks ridiculous but it helps to boost me up the needed right height and hey, I wove a repeat or two more as well. It was right there in front of me after all.  So I think this will work out nicely and with the new special base I can use the chair at either loom. I'm going to order the part this coming week. So for someone who was only going to size up a chair and take 20 minutes, I wove up 21 inches and then called it a day. Don't tell my physiotherapist okay?!

So what else have I been doing? Not a whole lot to be truthful but I have kept my spinning wheel humming. I have a lot of singles to ply up. This is 70% merino with 30% silk in a pumpkin shade and no, I'm not sure what it will become (yet)

I'm one of those spinners who will buy another bobbin over plying.  I have quite simply run out of bobbins so plying will be ongoing for while!

I have also been using the time to catch up on annual paper work, reports and writing letters. I have family living in the flood zone in Queensland Australia and between water and cyclones they have been well tested. But  my great aunt is 94 and has survived fires and floods before, plus a world war so she's doing fine. I would like to thank reader Gay in Melbourne for your assistance to our family during what has been a difficult time for Australia.

If you have followed my blog for any length of time, then you'll know that this time last year we were in the middle of a full kitchen renovation. Well, it was much, much more than that but I won't force you to live through it again. I know I don't want to do it again! Hub, Bruce found a wonderful new area rug for our new dining room walnut hardwood floor. Its not the usual Asian style pattern and I love the colours. In fact, it looks like a tapestry! It was on clearance and came home with us that same day.

Here's another view!  Its made from 100% wool from New Zealand.

The light cream portions match the cream of the new kitchen cupboards. It was worth the wait to find it. Thanks Hun.