Thursday, February 21, 2008

Southwest Fiber Festival - Arizona

'Southwest Fiber Festival Announces Plans'

Late in 2007 a group of 'area fiber people' thought this area was long overdue for a true fiber festival. You know the kind, we've all visited at least one or twice during our fiber journey. The scene…….. oodles of vendors, booths overflowing with hand-dyed roving and yarns, fleece fresh from the sheep, beautiful wood drop spindles lathe turned by a master and perhaps the unexpected artist selling the perfect hand felted vessels.

Next, on to the barns……….a myriad of sheep, goats, rabbit, llamas and alpaca. How interesting to meet the animals that provide the fiber for our passion. The aroma from the stalls become hypnotic and we envision ourselves one day owning 'just a few' animals for our very own fiber stash!

Well, we can dream and until those dreams become reality there are plenty of opportunities in the fabulous Southwest to meet our fiber needs!

To that end, those crazy fiber people; ranchers, fiber artist and purveyors, decided to create their own fiber festival!

They're gearing up; enticing vendors, ranchers and fiber artist from around the Southwest to Amado, Arizona, a lovely little spot south of Tucson. Come and join them for the 1st annual Southwest Fiber Festival, Saturday October 25th, 2008. Revel in the fiber, take a class, smell a sheep!

Visit www.southwestfiberfestival.com for all the latest information. We are currently seeking; vendors, teachers and participants. We will have space for area guilds to host a booth; great for demonstrating, handing out literature and showing examples of guild interests.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

CactusPatch Peace

Daylight at the CactusPatch is usually as glorious as sunset. Roadrunner sitting on pillar on the patio
Bitsy, Lab/G. PyraneeseX, having supper in the weavery.

Some days are more peaceful than others. The salmon sunrise did indeed turn into a nightmare afternoon with the patio furniture being rearranged by Mother Nature. A few days later it snowed about an inch. The roadrunner brought me her offering then fluffed up on the pillar to wait for the sun to come out.

Bitsy feels like one of those really fluffy plush toys! Her fur is so soft and thick. Here she is about 3 months old. Growing like the proverbial bad weed, she will be a good guard for my front door.
Posted by Picasa

Friday, February 15, 2008

Washing Garments, Yarns, and Fibers

I am asked over and over, How do you wash wool garments? When do you wash your spinning fiber? What should I do to wash the wool? There are several good answers to this. Wash wool in a mild detergent, with no chlorine bleach, in comfortable water, with absolutely no agitation. The other answer is to fill your washer with water to the desired depth, add a little detergent, with no chlorine bleach, toss in the wool, let it soak, spin it out and repeat. Those are the easy answers.

Now for the harder part: What kind of detergent? This depends on your budget. There are a lot of good wool washing products on the market and some are scented with lovely herbals to repel moths. You can also use your regular laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent or my favorite the same shampoo you use on your hair! When using either laundry detergent or dishwashing detergent, make sure by reading the label that it contains absolutely no chlorine bleach. There are a few brands out now that do contain bleach and this weakens and destroys animal fibers. The chlorine in your water is not strong enough by itself to do much damage. It would be far better to use non-chlorinated water, but most of us have no choice in that matter. Your hair shampoo is made to be mild to animal fibers. After all, isn’t your hair an animal fiber? It works very well to clean any type of animal fiber, wool, alpaca, vicuna, camel, llama, dog, cat, human, mohair, angora, anything that grows a long enough fiber that can be spun.

I use water of a very comfortable temperature. If you can put your hands in it comfortably it won’t shock the fiber. To heck with the idea of cold water. That hurts my hands, so I expect it will hurt the fibers as will hot water except in a few instances. Baby bath water is just such a lovely temperature. Add a cap full or about a teaspoon of shampoo or detergent to the water, swirl it around a bit to blend well. Toss the fiber or garment on top and let it soak for about fifteen minutes. This will remove most of the dirt without removing the spinning oils or the natural oils such as lanolin. Squeeze out most of the water. Remove the fiber or garment to a towel or another bowl. Empty the dirty soapy water. If needed repeat this washing as many times as needed until the water is no longer dirty.

Rinse with comfortable, baby bath, water the same way. Never run water over a fiber garment. This has a tendency to felt the thing. Rinse as many times as needed to get all the shampoo or detergent out of the fibers. Final rinse, use your hair conditioner. It is made to control the static. Put a capful or about a teaspoon of conditioner in the water as it is running into the bowl. Swish it around a bit to blend so there are no clumps of conditioner. Squeeze the water from the garment or fibers.

When you have squeezed as much water as possible without actually wringing the fibers, roll the fibers in a large Turkish bath towel. Now you can wring the towel with the fibers safely encased in it. Do this about twice using a dry towel for each roll up.

Spread unspun fibers out on a nylon screen to dry. Hang yarn, colors in the shade, to dry. Spread garments out on the back guest bed on a plastic table cloth covered with a couple of Turkish towels. Stretch the garments to match the drawings you made of them before washing. Turn these over daily until dry.

Store all animal fiber garments, yarns, and fibers with aromatic herbs and/or cedar chips. Do not let the cedar chips touch directly the fibers. The fibers will absorb the oil in the chips and probably get discolored. For aromatic herbs, I like lavender, cloves, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and sage leaves. Most work as long as they are strong smelling and you like the smell of them. Moths don’t like them. NEVER store a dirty garment, yarn or fibers. They attract the nastiest of critters.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

As a jr teen I asked to take over the chuck wagon, camps and kitchens. I was about 12, not really old enough to drive the trucks that held the chuck wagons, but on a ranch on ranch roads, who cared. There was nobody gonna run me over out there in the back 50 of a 200 section high mountain ranch.

Girls being girls, I didn't want to ride one week. I asked my mother if I couldn't just stay in the kitchen and get lunch ready and she could go with the rest of the crew. She really hated being tied to the kitchen when there were horses, cattle, and no telephone!

She said yes. She gave me specific instructions on when each part of lunch was to be started, the recipes for things I hadn't made yet, and left. Mostly with several misgivings I'm sure.

Menu for that day and every one like it ever since, hasn't changed a bit, was: Roast beef/potatoes, gravy, green enchilada casserole, frijoles, tossed green salad, green beans, the can of peas!, corn, frosted cake, ice tea, coffee, bread and butter.

I found out in a big hurry that absolutely no one even my grandfather or father ever cussed the cook!!! No matter what happened, the cook never, ever got cussed, kicked like a dog, or even spoken to in a not so nice manner. That made me the only person on two ranches that absolutely could do no wrong as long as I was in the kitchen!! Everyone said Please and Thank You!

Neat, nice and I liked that treatment much better than being "one of the boys"! I kept the job for the next 10 years! I got hired to cook for the neighbors brandings. All the best cooks in the 6 county area gave me their hints and recipes!

The only time one of the cowboys gave me any grief was when I forgot the sharp axe when going to one of the camps. This camp was on the backside of our ranch, about 40 miles from the main house. Forgetting anything was a huge sin. I was out using the dull axe kept at this camp to cut wood (beat it to death?) when one of the neighbors rode in. He was just older than me. He sat there on his horse and laughed! Funniest sight in his world was his tagalong "little sister" beating up the wood to build a fire in the big wood stove to make coffee!

Another year at this same camp, the rats had knocked the coffee pot off the warming closet on the stove. They built a nest in it. The well was about a quarter mile down the canyon and all water used in the camp house had to be packed. I had carried several buckets of water to the house, then proceeded to boil some and scrubbed the coffee pot. I used Babo and a lot of elbow grease getting the thing cleaned up so I didn't think the men would be poisoned by the rats nest. I then scalded the thing with boiling water.
Got the coffee started, the cobbler in the oven, and other things well under way for the crew to come in for dessert and drinks.

My uncle who only drank ice tea came in first and raised his eyebrows and grinned. He said absolutely nothing about the shiney coffee pot sitting on that old black stove. My grandfather followed and shouted, "you scrubbed the coffee pot!" My dad followed him and in his usual quiet way stated, "you scrubbed the coffee pot!"

I replied, "Yes Sir! It had a rat nest in it. Coffee isn't quite ready yet!" I shoved a couple more sticks of wood in the fire box. Temperature outside was about 100 already at 9 am! In that little house with the cookstove going, it was around 150! And when I shoved more wood in the fire??? I burned the cobbler! I burned the biscuits! I boiled that coffee down to where they could float a horse shoe on it with the horse attached.

Dad and Granddad never said a word about the taste of that coffee. Mom, Aunt Ann and Grandmom all opted for ice tea. Coffee pot was back to coated with coffee oils!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Some Adventures of Princess Beauty


Princess Beauty lived in a castle in the southwestern desert with her parents. She had almost everything a girl of her age could want, except for the one thing she wanted above all else. She wanted a pair of soft, pale pink wool socks and mittens to match. Now you might ask why a princess couldn’t have her every desire. Well it’s this way!

Like all girls her age at the time she had chores that must be done. She might only be 12, but she was in charge of the Spinnery and the Weavery at the castle. She had been charged when she was 9 to make sure that every person in the kingdom got enough wool or yarn to make a new pair of socks and mittens every year. She discovered on the first year that everyone wanted the nice soft Debouillet and Rambouillet wool for their socks and mittens. The whitest and finest of wools went to the spinners first. Then everyone else in the castle could choose their wools after that. Even the lowest scullery maid had a choice before Beauty was allowed to choose her wool. Always there was only the very coarse Churro wool left. And it was always a muddy gray color and couldn’t be dyed to a nice pink at all. Oh, yes, it never wore out, but what was the point in that?

This year, she ran up the staircase in tears. She ran right up three flights to her old Nursery where Nanny was resting before the fire, knitting her new socks. Now, Nanny was old and had Alzheimer's disease, but most days she was lucid enough to understand what it was she was supposed to do. She said, “Why, Child, what ever is wrong with you this fine morning? Why are you in such a state?”

Beauty dropped to her knees beside Nanny’s rocking chair and put her head in Nanny’s lap. She cried, “Why can’t I choose some wool first? I know it’s my job to see to it that every one in the kingdom has new socks and mittens, but it’s just not fair! All that is ever left when it is my turn to choose is that old grey Churro wool that is fit only for rugs and saddle blankets! Why do I have to wait ‘til last?”

“Oh, dear me! Let me think now! I believe that your father the King had all the spindle wheels put up in the attics when you were born. I can’t remember, now, just why he did that, but he had it done,” said Nanny rubbing her forehead. “And if I remember correctly he had all the wool of that year also put up there. Now dry your eyes and wash your face and run up to the attics and see if there might not be some of the very fine Rambouillet or Debouillet wool up there.”

Beauty dashed up the stairs to the attics, there was dust everywhere above the fourth floor. No one had swept or dusted in years. Spider webs were everywhere. They covered the windows, they connected the equipment to the old chairs and other furniture. Beauty was amazed at the walking wheels. They were beautifully made pieces of walnut and mahogany. The wheels themselves were higher than her head. And there were bags of wool just laying there under each wheel.

She played with the wheels a while turning the wheel so it drew the spindle round and round. She picked up a bit of combed fleece to see how this worked. Wow!! It would spin the wool much, much faster than she could ever get it done with the drop spindles down stairs in the Spinnery. She got a lot of wool spun that first day. And as night fell, she went to dinner as expected. Then she went to the kitchens to see what Cook might have that she could dye this beautiful white wool pink. Cook said, “I have some raspberries, but you know they don’t stain my aprons, so that won’t work. But I will be using some Cactus Apples tomorrow in the salad. That stains really nicely. If you add some vinegar to it, it would be a beautiful rose pink color.”

Beauty barely slept that night. She was so excited, but knew she couldn’t go to the attics until she had completed all her chores downstairs in the Weavery the next day. Fabric for the new cloaks and shawls was being made and she had to make sure all the looms were up and working before she could do anything else. If someone were ill, she would have to fill in for them. As spinning was finished for the time being she wouldn’t have to do more than make sure the Spinnery was clean and all spindles and baskets were stored properly.

At breakfast, Princess Beauty just couldn’t sit still and kept fidgeting until the King got after her. He said, “Well, I see you are all ready to go to work. So get on down to the Weavery and make sure every loom is ready
to weave. I, too think it will be a long cold winter, and early as well.” Beauty took off in a very unprincess like manner.

She was in luck, every weaver was in place and ready to work. Of course, all weavers know that a little cold won’t keep them from dancing the treadles as this is hardly work. The only thing that will keep a weaver from her job is a broken arm or leg. Beauty loved to weave and did at every chance she got, but today she wanted to be in the attics spinning. She was so looking forward to her soft, pale rose pink socks and mittens. And there was even enough wool up there that she could have a cap to match. The weavers didn’t need minding, so Princess Beauty was able to be out of there in a flash.

In the attics there was enough light coming through the dormer windows that she had no trouble at all seeing what she needed to do this morning. She did the walking wheel dance, three steps back and three forward again, taking on the ages old rhythm of the old spindle wheels. She mused as she was spinning, .”these are spinning wheels, these are walking wheels, these are wool wheels, these are spindle wheels. Why oh, why did Father put them up here all hidden away!”

She missed morning tea, she missed lunch, she missed afternoon tea, she missed . . .! She was getting tired and bent over to her basket to get the last piece of roving and raked her arm on the tip of the spindle. She fell asleep instantaneously. Just as the wicked fairy had predicted twelve years ago, she had pricked herself with a sharp pointed object.

Now at the same time as the wicked fairy had put the curse of the pricking on Beauty, she had also condemned all the handsome princes in the world to live as ugly green frogs. They all knew the tale, but none knew who was the real Prince Handsome and who was just an ugly green frog. But, being told from birth that one of them would turn into Prince Handsome upon kissing a beautiful princess, they were all looking forward to finding one. The tale of the poor Princess Beauty asleep went out all over the kingdom and spread around the world. Every ugly green frog had to make the trip to the Fair Kingdom to try kissing the beautiful sleeping princess. Do you know how many ugly green frogs kissed that beautiful sleeping princess over the next 100 years?

Well, now it really doesn’t matter at all does it! Finally the one who was the Prince Handsome kissed the sleeping princess. She awoke immediately and he turned into the Prince. Wow!! Did she say, “Oh, my! What a handsome prince you are!”? Oh, no! Not our dedicated Princess Beauty.

She said, “Oh, Dear! Cook will have tossed out all the cactus apples she promised me so I could dye my white yarns a nice soft pink!” and down the staircases she ran. She ran into the kitchens, Everyone was different. Not a soul she knew! Clothing styles were different! No one was even wearing socks, let alone wool socks!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

What is a Spinning Wheel

Just what in the world is a spinning wheel? Is it a wheel that spins? Or is it something that actually works?

In my opinion a spinning wheel is an old piece of equipment that actually spins fiber into yarns. I have new wheels and antique wheels. I have plain jane wheels and those that have really fancy turnings on them.

I have heard the arguments that if a wheel doesn’t have some really fancy wood turnings on it really isn’t a spinning wheel. Do you really think the turnings on the legs, the wheel posts and the mother-of-all have anything to do with the way a wheel works, it’s efficiency? No, that is all for the professional home decorator. The maker of a wheel might take a lot of pride in the looks of the spinning wheel and other fiber equipment, but it has nothing at all to do with how smoothly the wheel turns, how easy it is to spin fibers into yarns or what pleasure one gets from using the wheel.

One of my spinning wheels has a wheel made from plywood. The rest of the wheel is made up from sanded, stained and varnished one by fours and two by fours. I think this is a beautifully simple little wheel. It was my first and came in kit form. On another of the wheels I have collected, no two pieces of it are identically turned. Does this affect the way this particular cobbled together wheel spins fiber? Absolutely not! I do not have one of the Babe wheels, which are polyvinylchloride piping and a bicycle wheel, but it would spin fiber just as well as one of the really fancy turned wooden products.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to our useful “house decorations”. Yes, I love wood products, polished to a high shine with beeswax! None of my furnishings have the same woods, stains, or finishes on them. The thing I prize most in each of the seven spinning wheels in my house are that they work! Two of them are around one hundred fifty years old, two of them are only about ten years old, the rest are somewhere in the middle. They are oak, maple, walnut, beech, and pine! They all have attitude!

I don’t prize any maker of any wheel over any other. Each type of wheel has it’s use and it’s individual idiosyncrasies. One wheel will work better for coarser wools, one will work better for things like the new silks. One will work great when the air is really dry and hot and another requires a rainstorm to work well. We all just need to be mindful of the use we put these little machines to. If they are purely for decorative purposes, they need the fancy turnings and high polish. But if they are for use as a yarn making piece of equipment, then they need only work well and not be really fancy at all, just plywood and a few boards will work just fine.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Parts of a Spinning Wheel

Footman? What’s that? Why does this wheel seem to have 2 drive bands? We’ve all heard these questions if we’ve been around non-spinners or new spinners at all. If you have ever been to a spin-in, you know that the visitors are really curious about how the wheel works, and when you use a term unfamiliar to them, they want to know more about it.

All spinning wheels have a lot of features in common. The wheel itself, a wheel post, a bed, a drive band and the mother of all. To the novice most of these terms are like Greek or Martian. We need to be able to identify the terms and to define them so everyone can understand us.

Wheel: It can be as small as nine inches in diameter to about thirty-six inches across. It only matters to the individual how big their wheel is for the ratio of wheel size to whorl size. It can be made with turned spindle work or a solid disc, or have cut outs in the solid disc. It can even be a bicycle wheel or wheelchair wheel.

Whorl: This is the other “wheel” or disk that the drive band is connected to. The whorl can be as small as one inch diameter to 6 or 8 inches. The larger the whorl the slower the spin you can put in the fibers.

Drive Band: This is made of cotton, linen, or sometimes leather. It connects the wheel and the whorl. Some drive bands are double. They go in the grooves of the wheel and around the whorl and the bobbin. This system gives the tensioning for properly getting the spin into the fibers. Single drive bands go only around the bobbin.

Bobbin: It looks like a very large spool. It sits on the spindle in the flyer. It has a starter line tied on firmly. It receives the spun singles.

Flyer: This is a large Y shaped piece on the mother-of-all. It has hooks on it for carrying the singles up and down the bobbin, usually. It has an orifice with three holes in it. It also has the spindle for holding the bobbin and the whorl. Sometimes the whorl is a permanent part of the flyer.

Orifice: Usually made of metal but sometimes carved wood, it has a hole in the end and either one or two holes in the sides. The fiber goes into the end hole, then out the side across one face of the flyer and is held in place by the hooks.

Hooks: These are to guide the singles yarn onto the bobbin. The yarn must be manipulated by hand so it does not pile up in one place on the bobbin.

Treadles: Most spinning wheels have either a single treadle or double treadles. It is up to the individual as to whether they want to exercise only one leg or both legs. These drive the wheel by way of the pitman rod(s) and footman.

Pitman Rod: Rod that goes up the back of the wheel post connecting the treadle to the wheel.

Footman: A flexible piece of leather or nylon to make connecting the treadle to the footman possible.

Mother-of-All: The mother-of-all is the whole spinning head.

The two Maidens are part of the Mother-of All. the flyer is connected to them.

Bed: All of this must rest on some sort of frame.

Terminology of each craft is unique and individual. In this case, most of the terminology is from Old English, Old Scots, or Gaelic. To learn a craft is almost to learn a new language. We really do learn a bunch of new terms when we start a new craft.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Troll Hair

Weavers have a term for warps that just don’t work. We call it “mad dog ugly” warp. The easiest cure for it is to cut it off the loom and start over. Sometimes we get fleece that is hard to spin. Is it “mad dog ugly” or is it “troll hair”?

The first roving I got that was really hard to spin was old. My friend had had it in her stash of weaving supplies for about ten years. When she sold her loom and all her stash, I wanted to spin the roving she had stashed. My mistake!! It took me about 3 years to spin a pound of orange Merino. During this time another friend asked me where I got the “troll hair”. It was just the shade of orange that matched the old troll dolls hair.

When fibers get older they get drier and much harder to spin. This is especially true of wool. All of us have read in the spinning books to only use “new” fleeces for our spinning. This is especially true for raw or grease fleece. After a few months the lanolin and dirt set up and it is really hard to get it to draft out of the locke. It helps a little to lay it out in the sun for a while and let the sun soften the grease, but the best bet then is to clean the grease out of the fibers.

You especially don’t want to get raw fleeces that are more than a year old. The lanolin and dirt or grease, will be very hard to wash out It will be hard to break the fleece down into the locks to wash, and the grease just doesn’t want to wash out. Then there is a rancid odor to the whole fleece that is most unpleasant to live with while spinning that “troll hair”.

Old dry roving or top doesn’t stick together to spin very well. It is hard to get the twist into it and it won’t stay very well at all either. This can be referred to as “troll hair” for sure, especially if it was dyed a vibrant crayon box color. It feels harsh to the hand. You might be able to add some spinning oil to it and ease the “hand” a little. It doesn’t help much.

My suggestion to everyone is to go through your stash, label all the bags of different things with type of fiber, date of purchase, where purchased and price you paid for it. Do not keep it in plastic! Plastic causes it to age faster by not allowing the fibers to breathe. Toss anything over five years old. Make some tulle bags to keep the fibers in so they can breathe and still be separated. To keep moths and other critters out of the stash, add aromatic herbs and spices to your cabinet or shelves.

Prevent “mad dog ugly” and “troll hair” by never letting your stash get old. Use up all that really nice fleece you have put back for a rainy day. Rainy days don’t come often enough. Never keep fleece or any other fiber for more than five years, preferably no more than 3 years. Use the yarns in the same time periods or they might just become as ugly and hard as my orange “troll hair”.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Devils Fun Cake

This was my dad's favorite cake. It takes most of a day to make, and very little time for the family to eat it. My mom copied this recipe down from a radio program in the early 1940's. You can cut the recipe in half but why deprive the family of so much good fun.

I usually make it into 6 layers, 3 for each of 2 cakes. Be sure to refrigerate.

Make this for your Valentine! See if he doesn't react as my dad did.


DEVILS FUN CAKE

cake:
6 squares baking chocolate
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 3/4 cup cake flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs

Pour boiling water over chocolate and butter; stir to dissolve. Stir in sugar and buttermilk. Add sifted dry ingredients, stirring just enough to blend. Add eggs and beat 2 minutes. Pour into greased, floured, lined pans. Makes 3 or 4 10-inch layers or 6 9-inch layers. Bake 25 minutes in 350 F. oven. Test in center of cake with toothpick and check edges to see that they have pulled away from sides of pan just a little. Cool 15 minutes and upend on plates or waxed paper.

Chocolate Custard Filling
4 egg yolks
4 cups milk
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 squares baking chocolate

Mix eggyolks with milk in top of double boiler. Mix dry ingredients together and blend into liquid. Grate chocolate into mixture, stirring constantly until thick, cover and cook an additional 10 minutes. Cool and spread on cakes. I like to make 2 3-layer cakes. You may have to toothpick the layers together so they don't slip. That is the Devils Fun part of this cake.

7-Minute Icing

4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 tablespoons water
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

In top of large double boiler blend all except vanilla. Beat while cooking with electric mixer until icing stands in stiff peaks, about 7 minutes. Add vanilla and beat in. Frost tops and sides of cakes.

Very happy eating this super devils food fun cake!!!

Thursday, February 7, 2008

llamas are so cute

My llamas are trying to unload some feed from the truck this morning. They are such smart animals. Maybe even easier to train than pigs! Pigs are supposedly the smartest animals on earth.

Show a llama something three times and they have it down pat, even bad habits. If you want something that is easy to train get a couple of these really cute animals. They don't particularly want their heads touched, but otherwise, they are so cool to be with.

My brother brought me nine beautiful ladies a couple of years ago. They are all colors of the fiber artist's rainbow. Everything from light tan and white to chocolate and jet black. They do not care to get sheared, but it can be done easily. Just hobble them so they can't rear and stomp you and tie up their heads so they don't spit or bite.

Of course, they don't bite hard as they only have one set of teeth like sheep and goats. Their care is like sheep and goats also. But they are good foragers. They have pruned all my trees perfectly around the bottoms. The problem is they will probably prune my rose bush when it leafs out too.

Their gestation period is almost a whole year. And I can control that fairly well as "Joe Camel" the male my brother got lives at his house seventy miles away. "Joe" will be coming to visit in April. They can withhold giving birth until the weather is right, so we don't have to worry too much about unexpected snow storms freezing the babies. And they only give birth during the daylight hours!! That way this "midwife" doesn't have to be checking them all hours of the dark night!

I am thinking of spinning the wool just as it comes off them without dehairing. I can spin both the warp and weft threads for rugs without dehairing the wool. If I want some for sweaters, I will have to send it off to be processed. I have not decided on that yet.

Listen to the llama song: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The Voting Snafu

The Democratic party of New Mexico did a very poor job setting up for the Caucus yesterday. They estimated about 7% of the registered voters would go to the polls. Boy, were they wrong. About 2 hours after the polls opened at noon, most precincts were out of ballots.

Oh for the days when we had those push button voting machines!!! There were lines waiting at all polling places that stretched around the blocks and at a snails pace in the icy winds!! It took til well after 10 last night before all the people lined up at the polling places got to get inside and vote. Polls were to close at 7!!!

From the time I was in the 4th grade New Mexico had electronic type voting machines up until the last election!! The first ones I remember were huge boxes with curtains on the front. You went in and threw the little switches and opened the curtain for the next person. That is over 50 years of something working nearly correctly most of the time. Since the mess up with the "hanging chads in Florida" we have been tossed back in time to paper ballots.

Some people do not know how to make a solid block with a pencil, so the electronic readers toss the ballot back out. It takes time to fill in each of those little blocks, go back and check that you didn't miss a crucial one then go feed the thing the proper way around to the electronic reader.

Printing all that paper is nonsense!!! A total waste of forests and recycled paper also. In the age of computers, with most people having cell phones and microwave ovens, why do we have to go back to the PAPER ballots??

Everyone can read a notation next to a button and push the yes or no button!!! If they can't they should not be voting without a seeing eye dog and a caregiver. The law allows for an assistant to help a person vote. All they have to do is sign an affidavit at the Election Judges station. I assisted my grandmother and several other ladies for the last 20 years to read and vote.

Come on People!!! This is the 21st century!! Voting lines running around the block and the fire Marshall making sure there are not too many people standing in a school's halls is totally ridiculous. With only one question on the ballot it should have taken about half a minute for each to vote!!!

Monday, February 4, 2008

Angora Bunny Mistakes

The first time I saw a rabbit being spun, it was in molt, sitting quietly in the lady’s lap. She had her little spinning wheel at the rabbit show and was drawing a strand of fiber from the bunny and spinning. Just like that. And it looked so very easy the way she was doing it.

Angora is from a rabbit. Mohair is from an Angora Goat! Don’t get confused here. So this little white Angora rabbit was sitting in the lady’s lap and seeming not to mind that he was loosing all his fur to the spinning wheel. Since most show rabbits are groomed daily, this bunny didn’t have any knots or mats in his fur and it was easy for her to draw off the loose fibers into her spinning.

A friend of mine had some Angora bunny fur from her rabbit in a gallon pickle jar in the fridge. She brought it to a show where we were demonstrating spinning and weaving. She wanted to use my carding machine to comb this stuff out. Total failure!! This fur was so very fine that my carder drums were way too coarse to comb it. We tried blending it with wool, silk, and in desperation with some Pima cotton. It still wouldn’t blend, comb, nothing. It was clumped on the carder drum just as nastily as it was in the jar. I tried hand picking it out, I tried flicking it and then trying to spin it. Nothing was working with this Angora fiber.. Spinning was just a series of clumps, not the smooth thread she wanted for trimming a sweater.

A couple of mistakes she made were: 1. she didn’t have time to daily groom this bunny. That would have saved us a lot of time and cursing in trying to comb it, and 2. she clipped the fur off the bunny rather than combing it off or plucking it off. I have worked with some other bunny spinners since getting this fiber and it is much, much easier to deal with the Angora if the bunnies are combed or brushed at least once a week.

Much care should be used in removing the fur from the rabbit. They do bite when hurt! Don’t try to pluck tight fur. Just take that which is loose and would shed off anyway. If the rabbit is groomed frequently it might be alright to shear them as with sheep. Take care not to let the Angora felt. It is too much trouble to card it back out. Don’t allow alfalfa and other feed stuffs to get in the fur. It doesn’t come out. Much less likely to come out of that than out of sheep’s wool and it won’t come out of that either.

Angora bunnies should be housed in clean, comfortable hutches with air conditioning or fans in hot weather. Other rabbits can have their frozen water bottles, but the moisture from these makes the fur clump as if you deliberately felted it. Bunny fur must be spun very tightly as it is so very fine and very slick surfaced. It will fuzz out when washed and look like the bunny itself.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Tuna Casserole

TUNA CASSEROLE

this will make enough for 4 servings:

preheat oven to 350.

peel and cut 2 potatoes into half inch chunks
the same with 4 stalks celery and 2 carrots
dice one medium onion

Put them into kettle and just enough water to cover them. salt if you wish. Cook til carrots are just tender. Remove from heat.
Stir in 2 small cans tuna that has been drained.
Also stir in one tablespoon each chives, parsley, and cilantro

Line a 9 x 9 baking dish with foil and spray it with pam (cleanup is easier)
Pour the potato blend into the baking dish.
Top with 9 canned biscuits and spray the biscuits with pam or brush with melted butter.
Bake in 350 F oven about 45 minutes. Or until the biscuits are nicely browned.

Serve with a nice colorful tossed dark green leafy salad.

For dessert I suggest

BROKEN GLASS CAKE

1 3-ounce package each green, red and orange Jello gelatin

Prepare in individual 8 x 8 pans according to directions. Allow to set firmly. Dip in hot water about 5 seconds and unmold. Cut in 1 inch cubes. Set aside.

1 large package yellow Jello gelatin

Prepare according to directions using Ice to chill rapidly to egg white consistancy. Stir in other Jello cubes gently. Put into 9 x 13 pan. Put in fridge to set completely.

dip in hot water about 5 seconds and unmold on nice plate. Keep in fridge while making the icing.

1 8-ounce brick cream cheese softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 8-ounce container sour cream

beat these together and spread on Broken Glass Cake.

Garnish with pecan and/or walnut halves sprinkled all over the top center.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Yarn Plys

The number of plys a yarn has is NOT the size of the yarn. Yarns come in a variety of sizes and plys. Sizes range from Extra bulky to Lace weight. Most of the yarns we buy commercially come in two different weights: worsted weight and fingering or baby weight. These lie in the middle of the vast number of weights of yarns and are used for most patterns. The number of plys just means how many separate strands are used to form this particular yarn.

Why do we spin fibers into yarn? Why do we ply? How do we ply? There are answers to these questions if you just stop to think about them. A single strand of silk is nearly as strong as spider web and nearly as fine too. We spin fiber into yarn to make it stronger! Just think if we could spin spider webs into yarn. We could do away with the steel industry. The more strands we can put together just makes the whole thing much stronger.

If a person takes a locke of wool between their fingers and pull it a bit, it comes apart fairly easily. But if they then take that locke and stretch it so the fibers overlap some and put some twist into it, it becomes much stronger. Then taking several of these spun singles and re-spin them, makes them nearly unbreakable.

We spin the fibers in one direction making our thread. Then spinning the opposite direction to combine 2 or more plies makes a balanced yarn. I have been in a number of discussions lately on the best way to ply the singles to make the 2 or 3 bobbins of thread come out more or less even so there is not too much left over on one of the bobbins.

The method I use is not the preferred one, but is to my liking as it leaves no leftover singles at all. I use the ball winder, winding the singles fairly loosely. Pulling the thread from the center and the one from the outside and allowing it to twist together for neutral yarn, then tying it to the starter yarn on the bobbin, works for me. The ball must be held firmly so the yarn from the outside comes off smoothly and the yarn from the inside doesn’t throw too many kinks. I stick my fingers into the ball and wrap my thumb on the outside allowing the threads to pull to the wheel with a fair amount of tension.

The preferred method is to not worry about it if you have leftovers. Just spin some more thread from the same source. Take one line from each of 2 or more bobbins, allow them to twist together, tie them to the bobbin starter, and start plying the threads together.

Another method of dealing with the amount of singles is to make a Navajo ply yarn. This is loose chain from crochet using only fingers to chain the length of yarn. It will keep the colorways in the spun thread, but tends to be a bit “knotty” when working with it.

Now what to do with the small bits of singles that are always left over after finishing with all the source fibers? How about making a novelty skein from a bit of everything? This can be used for small projects.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Breaking Roving Down to Pencil Size

My wheels were sitting in the shade of a tree at the Fair. The painted roving was lying there in the basket waiting for me to finish my coffee. I sat down to get busy. Picking up the five-yard length, I broke it into one-yard lengths and started stripping it down into smaller diameter pieces. A lady standing there watching suddenly said, "I was told it was cheating to do it that way. You are supposed to spin from the end of the whole thing". Well, maybe some people do, but it doesn't necessarily need to be done that way. It is much easier to break down the pretty colors into pencil sized roving strips then pre-draft a little to loosen up the fibers.

There is a mystery and magic about how to get the fibers ready for spinning. Roving comes in large balls most of the time in pure white. Here, the roving has been painted and dried, broken up into eight-ounce pieces and put into packages to be sold. Painted roving can have from two to five or more colors blended in them. In order to keep the colorways intact in the spinning, the spinner must strip the roving down into pencil size pieces or break it apart in handier sections then down to pencil size roving sections. It is very difficult to maintain control of singles diameter or the colorways if spinning from the tip of compacted roving an inch in diameter.

Take the length of roving and pull it in half down the whole length of the piece. Pull each of these in half again and again until you have a strip about the size of a pencil. Now draft these out a little until the fibers are all airy and the length is about doubled. This is called pre-drafting. Wrap this around your hand keeping the tail of the roving under your thumb so it can be pulled out of the little spiral easily.

This prepares the length of roving for the long draw spinning demanded of a walking wheel or the regular shorter draw of the treadle wheel. You could, of course, pre-draft all the roving so it moves easily to spin, but this would not preserve the dye artist’s colorways. It is just much nicer to not fight with the bulk of a compressed roving when trying to make nice singles. It is absolutely easier to deal with roving prepared this way when just learning to spin.