A little fiber, a little cowardice

Guess what I have stashed, with no clue when they're coming out of hiding? Meaningful blog posts. I keep writing posts that have to do with personal progress, fears, emotions, achievement — all that philosophical stuff ;) — and then saving them as Word documents, thinking they need editing before I can release them into the wild. Then I let them quietly get old and fat in a folder on my hard drive.

Apparently, when I leave them long enough, I start to doubt whether there's any validity to posting them here. I start to make excuses as to why they should stay in hiding: They're too out of date now; nobody wants to read about that sort of thing; people will lose their respect for me and think I'm a crappy business owner if I post that kind of thing too often.

Notice that two of the three lame excuses I give myself are based on what other people think? (Yeah. I know. I probably "shouldn't care" what other people think, but that's a lot easier to say to myself when it has to do only with whether people like ME and nothing to do with whether they like the crafty stuff that pays for my house, food, books, and cats. ;))

So here's the moment of truth. I need you, dear invisible blog readers, to venture across the Intertubes and click a couple of times to help me out. Take my little poll and tell me what you think of "meaningful" blog posts, so I know once and for all whether I should get off my crafty arse and post them, or whether I really should save the whinging for the support groups. ;)




And oh, yeah. I haven't forgotten that I promised you fiber in the title of this post. I still need to take the "All this yarn got spun over the Tour de Fleece" showing-off photo, but in the meantime, this collage is as close as it comes:


That's a pretty accurate reflection, color-wise, of what I did, but imagine a few more bobbins of a couple of different colors and you have a more accurate amount-representation.

More soon ... and please vote, me hearties, for the future of my blog posts. ;)

Mushrooms, compassion, yarn in orange and green, and a geeky song reference

Did you see the new Tour de Fleece 2010 tab up at the top of the blog? I'll be updating that page to reflect my overall progress while I continue to blather in individual blog posts. Seems neater that way, huh?

Plied this Shetland in the wee hours of Tour de Fleece Day 4:


And spun these singles from a set of Wooly Hands batts:


Yesterday, Day 5 of the Tour de Fleece, I finished plying the green singles:


...made some new Waves of Compassion shawl pins to fill recent orders...


...and dyed a full pound of Corriedale fiber for the Phat Fiber sampler box. No pictures of that yet, but maybe if you wish at me, I'll get some soon. ;)

As a bonus from the world, maybe for getting so darn much done in one day, I finally found the tiny fairy ring that I was searching for a few weeks ago. Where was it? Fifteen feet from where I sit every day, under the huge live oaks outside the windows.


Looks like it's going to be another busy day today, but if all goes well, there will be a shop update tonight.

For some reason, I now have a song from Mulan stuck in my head.

Once you find your center/You are sure to win...

Inkle loom suggests a name; Tour de Fleece Day 3; and another flashback

Latest weavy discovery: My inkle loom is great for stashbusting. It takes so little yarn to make an inkle strip, and so little time to warp the inkle, and so little time to finish a strip, that my secret, till-now-unspoken goal to make an inkle strip a day for the duration of the Tour de Fleece looks almost too easy. (I'm sure it won't be, since something is bound to come up and hurt my productivity, but theoretically, I could double that goal and still make it.)

I may have to dub my inkle loom Stashbuster. Or something like that. ;)

Because seriously. Look what Inkle Love helped me make yesterday and today:


Two inkle strips I made on Day 2 and Day 3 of the Tour de Fleece. Both are made from dishcloth cotton. The blue one is something like plain weave, while the pink one is warp-faced, like inkle bands are "supposed" to be.
Interestingly enough, a look back at last year's Day 2 and Day 3 TDF progress shows that I was weaving on a new-to-me-but-not-actually-new loom (my 4-inch Weavette) last year, too.

Weird.

Anyway, I finished spinning the Merino/Tussah leftovers today, and plied them:


Which brings me to...

Tour de Fleece 2010 Stats — UPDATED July 6, 12:22 a.m.

• Yards spun, total: 264 yards singles-only, or 396 542 yards of singles + plying yardage
• Ounces spun, total: 0.6 ounces
• Skeins spun, total: 2 (2-ply hand-dyed Merino/Tussah in Oceany, 132 yds; 2-ply flame-colored Shetland, 146 yds)

TDF 2010 spinning records:

• Most singles spun in one day: 0.2 ounces
• Highest combined yardage (spun singles + plying) for one day: 200+ 346+ yards
• Highest yardage plied (2-ply) in one day: 278 yards
• Most skeins finished in one day: 2
• Fastest rate-of-ply (2-ply): 6.64 yds per minute (398.4 yds per hour)

If I spin some more tonight, I'll have to update that, of course, and I'm probably going to confuse myself soon, but that's okay. I'm trying. ;) — NOTE: I did indeed spin some more, so the stats are indeed now updated. :D

Of wool-washing, yarn-spinning, and reminiscing (TDF Day 1+2 update)

It's been a while since I posted photos of yarn, hasn't it? I must have been saving up for the Tour de Fleece. Here's what I spun yesterday and intend on finishing today (if I can ever meet my self-assigned inkle band weaving requirement for the day ;)):


There's also some Clun Forest wool drip-drying over the bathtub after a nice hot bath, which could get spun this tour — why not? I bought it from Maya at Springtree Road a couple of months ago and have been a lazy bum about washing it until now ... but really, taking a couple of months to wash a fleece is GOOD for me. There were a few that had to wait a couple of years ... and some hidden in boxes around here still need scouring. Maybe I should always buy fleece in 4-oz increments — makes it easy to just throw it into a mesh bag and drop in a wash tub.

Oh, I suppose I could divide it up as soon as it gets here, too, but that seems a little out of character for my current self. My uber-organized, ever-productive teenage self really likes the idea, though. Alas. I ought to have discovered spinning and raw fleeces while I was in college. That would have given me time to get really good at both before I got brave enough be publicly fibery online. ;)

Veering back onto the topic of the Tour de Fleece, I remember last year's TdF, and it seems like forever ago. I was still at the Office Job of Doom, and the tour started exactly a year ago today — on July 4. I came home late, thanks to Independence Day festivities, and I'm pretty sure I got mopey when I got home, since I really don't enjoy feeling pressured to do things that are supposed to be fun. But in the spirit of Craft or Bust (I even used the word "bust" in my blog post from that day ;)), I refused to let my mood and my lack of time beat me: I spun. I spun about two inches of yarn. With my fingers. But still I spun.


This tour, I'm yet again suffering from bouts of grumpitude at the idea that I have to spin every day — which is silly of me, and I intend on ignoring my grumpitude and pressing on this year, too, just like last year. But more notably, last year I was also suffering from Fiber Fright — the fear of "using up" precious, valuable stash. Thinking of it does make me a little edgy, but it's edgy because I don't want to end up with the fiber-artist's equivalent of writer's block again. My long-awaited point: I haven't actually had Fiber Fright this year. Maybe I ought to add "yet," but then again, maybe I ought not. I may have broken my Fiber Fright tendencies ... and that's a really nice thing to discover. Kind of appropriate to discover on Independence Day, too, I guess; it's a sign of my growing independent spirit? No? ;)

Well, happy Fourth again, anyway, and may the Fourth be with you all! ;)

Spinning and cycling, Chinese eyes, and my first inkle-woven band

The Tour de France, and thus the Tour de Fleece, starts tomorrow. Some of the fiber I'm going to try to spin in the next three weeks of mad yarn-making:








...and somewhere in there, I'm going to try to spin a mile of yarn in one day. Ha, ha, ha...

In other news, I got off my butt, warped the inkle loom, and made my first inkle band. I didn't even look up any directions until I needed to advance the warp, when I needed to move the knots at the ends of the warp. (I'd originally tied the ends of the warp to the loom, but they need to be re-tied to the band itself after warping, so the warp can advance.)

I swear it took me less time to finish weaving this band than it took me to figure out how to weave my first Weavette square ... which is pretty crazy. Especially considering I basically warped the loom for it twice. I'd love to be able to use the warping method in this YouTube video, but the heddle peg on my loom is closed on both ends, so I can't attach the heddles as I warp, like the video shows. I ended up using the loom as a warping board first, then wound a little ball with the free end of the warp yarn, then I re-warped and put the ball of yarn through a pre-tied heddle as I made every other warp. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, and the video doesn't help, well, maybe I'll just have to make my own? ;D

Anyway, this is what I made:


Inkle-woven headband on my head, and as a bonus, you get to look at my suspicious Chinese eyes! ;)
Yessss ... I foresee more inkle weaving in my future. (But after the Tour de Fleece? Or during?)