Monthly Archives: July 2012

Day 211 of 365 Blog Project – Hot Enough To Pop Corn On The Cob

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Hot enough fer ya?

I did a small project today to help me handle it.  I made a cool scarf with some denim fabric and a couple teaspoons of water-retaining polymer beads.

I got the beads in the floral department of the new Michaels store near home.  They are usually used in floral arrangements to supply water in a decorative manner, or in potted plants to hold water.

The two teaspoons dry beads swelled up to a quart when fully soaked, and they are sewn into the center of this nice damp scarf that will stay damp for hours because of the water-holding properties of the polymer.

The package of dry beads will let me make four scarves, so it was a really good buy!  I’ll make a couple for a friend of mine that has to work outdoors.  It’ll be a good gift.

 

 

Day 210 of 365 Blog Project – More Beautiful Things

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In keeping with my recent posts on having more well-made and aesthetic tools for my work, I made some beaded stitch markers today.  Sure, I have used bits of yarn, small elastics, paper clips, twist ties, the plastic bread bag tags and such in the past.  I suspect that other knitters are nodding their heads at the list.

I got some beads and findings at the new Michaels last week, and I had some fun creating earring sized dangles and loops.

I’ll get photos tomorrow.

 

Day 209 of 365 Blog Project – Why Create Beauty?

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As an artisan, I’ve sometimes heard something along the lines of “You can get socks (or sweater / yarn / fabric) at the store.”

I can reply in a number of ways: from the fact that what I do is the basis for all that manufacturing capacity, to I rarely find something that really fits me, to I don’t like the styles, colors, quality, details, to – and probably most honestly – simply because I want to.

That answer would beg the next question of WHY?  Why would I want to create something  that speaks to my own sense of aesthetic appropriateness?  Why did the untold millions of people back through history create?

We do seem to be hardwired to create order out of chaos, and not just humans, but all of nature.  Look at the cross-section of a nautilus shell, or a snowflake, or even the various orbits of our solar system.  We reflect this in our mathematics, architecture, and how we diagram what we observe to understand it better.

What makes a snowflake more or less beautiful than a volcanic lava flow?  A building?  A Campbell’s soup can?  This is the wild answer – because the only possible arbiter of this is the person observing it.  The statement “I don’t know art, but I know what I like”  is only possible because most don’t understand the simplicity of the idea.

What defines art is the decision of the person viewing or creating it, and this is the only possible definition.

My art form is what I do with fiber and textiles.  I do it because I want to.  I’m happy that it gets appreciated by others, and I’m also glad that the ones that can make the dismissive statement at the beginning of this post are very small in numbers.

Create because you want to create, appreciate the creations of others because you want to appreciate them, and the aesthetic level increase can create a better, saner, more beautiful world.  This is a level of beauty and creativity that is definitely worth striving for.

 

Day 208 of 365 Blog Project – Local Food At Farmer’s Markets

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This morning, I went to the farmer’s market nearest my home.  I had not been in several weeks.  Since we’re now in mid-summer, the options at the market are probably the highest possible.  The vendors at this market are required to offer only foods that they have grown or produced themselves – no re-sellers.

Local food is guaranteed in this way.  The farmers and producers at this market have an opportunity to learn over time what crops and food products are most successful for them.  There is a cattle rancher that takes orders for his grass-fed beef, the artisanal breads, the local honey, olive oil, herbs, tamales, vegetables, fruits, eggs, and on and on.  Choices abound, connections are made, people get good foods.

It becomes something of a festival as well.

I got a new variety of melon for me – “Israeli”  It’s a very striking melon visually with multiple shades of gold, yellow, orange & some green in an oblong, slightly netted melon.  It smells great!

I haven’t cut into it yet, but the point I wanted to make is that farmer’s markets are a fantastic opportunity to find varieties that commonly don’t make it to the grocery stores.  This melon is an example of that.  I saw it in one of my heirloom seed catalogs last winter, and was curious then.

Day 207 of 365 Blog Project – Ravellenic Games Kickoff

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Well, the 17 days of the Olympic games have started, and so too have the Ravellenic Games.  After the kerfluffle with the Unites States Olympic Committee over the prior name, we  – the members and supporters of Ravelry — went to one that they couldn’t complain about.  It does not change our activities one iota.

I wasn’t able to view the Opening Ceremonies on line, though I was able to view some clips on YouTube, and particularly enjoyed the short film of James Bond escorting the Queen to the games.  What fun!  I hope the Queen was mightily amused by the notion of “her” parachute entrance. I thought it was genius.

I did cast on for the gift version of the Lady Hedgehog lace mitts, though I have yet to sit down at my wheel for the first spinning project.  The two ounces of “Suriland” alpaca blend fiber shouldn’t take me long, and it will be nice to have my first “medal” in the games.

Day 206 of 365 Blog Project – Ruminations On The Rewards and Responsibilities Of Community

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I was reading a post on Ravelry a few days ago, and Cindy of Jacob’s Reward Fiber Farm  made a post regarding a new “lens” she discovered for looking at how she ran her farm and work.  I really think it qualifies as a paradigm shift in how we think of what we do in any form of connection-based agriculture.

She has been running a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture operation – but she reversed the model – I’ll let her speak for herself.

Here’s the text of “We’re NOT A CSA”  The whole post, including pictures is at: http://jacobsreward.blogspot.com/2012/07/were-not-csa.html

“Been doing a bunch of soul searching since my last blog post and I wanted to catch you up on a huge breakthrough I had Saturday…

First, let me back up a bit. After Wednesday’s post where I admitted I was worn out and wondered what the heck was wrong, several things happened. My friend Amy offered to help me wash alpaca fiber, which was so humbling, but such a welcome gift. Amy’s good at it and fast, and turned this huge roadblock in my life into a teensy tiny little speed bump. Huge problem nearly conquered. Wow. I’m still amazed. That helped me lurch forward here on my end, skirting and prepping even more fiber. Funny how when the log jam begins to shift, everything starts to flow… Can’t thank you enough, Amy. You started to help me open my eyes…

Then, I got a call from a new friend, Roni, who just recently bought American Livestock Magazine. She wants to enlarge the focus of the magazine to include more fiber stuff, and wants to write about our farm, and rare breed sheep, and fiber CSA’s. Wow again. Roni and her husband stopped by the farm on Saturday and we had a really great visit – we decided we’re peas in a pod, as she’s a spinner, knitter, alpaca breeder and all around fiber fanatic. She and her husband were pure delight to spend time with. Does it get much better?

Anyway, back to my Big Revelation. I was thinking and thinking before Roni came over, about how to tell her the story of the farm, and how to explain just who we are. And then it hit me like a bolt: We’re not a CSA, as in “community supported agriculture.” We’re an ASC – Agriculturally Supported Community. I just made up that title and acronym, so don’t try to Google it. Here’s what I mean…

We started out being about the fiber – the animals, the processes, the crafts, and the people who are into all that. But we’ve grown into primarily a community, held together by the fiber. It’s People Before Product at the LRB. The fiber is like the engine that drives the life of the community, but the community is the vehicle itself, that takes us where we want to go.

Think about why you love the farm. Is it because you can’t get alpaca fiber or wool fiber or knitting classes anywhere else? Nope. Thanks to the internet, and living near a big city, you can get that stuff almost anywhere, with a snap of your fingers. What makes the farm different? The people. Your sisters. The gifts and passions that each friend brings to the group. Old friends and new friends, and always another chair for a newcomer. We have so many different talents and skills and personalities represented that the mosaic or tapestry of our community is breathtaking. Our community isn’t only local – we have friends in the virtual worlds of Ravelry and Facebook and Local Harvest and Meet Up, who depend on this sense of community just as much as the regulars who gather at the LRB on a third or fourth Saturday. We’re here for each other. And we’re here for our wider community, through the generosity and gift-giving of our members.

I pushed the analogy nearly to the limit as I thought about felt and how it’s made: wool fibers agitated by hot water or dry needles to interlock together into a seamless fabric. Kind of like us. Locked together in friendship through lots of interaction of ideas, fun, trials, victories, and creativity. And this is so much greater than any dream I have ever dared to dream for the farm.

Now don’t panic – not much about the farm will change because of this new vision of who we are – nobody in the pasture will change, the shares will still be there, as will all the fun in the LRB. The critters you love and the life we document will all still be here. But this special focus will help me prioritize and make decisions about how to plan for the future with our resources. Maybe I can stop trying to be all things to all people – a guaranteed meltdown waiting to happen. No, this new lens will help me see much better where we need to go.

It may be a while before the acronym ASC catches on, but I think we’re on the cusp of a very important social construct. And I’m so happy you’re along for the ride with me. Maybe, everybody else figured this out ages ago and I’m just now finally able to articulate it. That wouldn’t surprise me. I’m great at missing the forest for the trees.

What do you think? Is this a better way to describe who we are as the JRF family?

Day 205 of 365 Blog Project – Ravellenic Games Start tomorrow

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I put some time in today to pull my various projects together to start the 17 days of the Ravellenic Games.  Cast on time coincides with the start of the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics.

I’ll have several projects in the WIPs Wrestling.  These are all projects that have languished for some time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m also doing some more spinning.  I’m starting off with the 2 ounces of Suriland blend fiber I got from Fancy Fibers at the DFW Fiber Fest.  I have lots more of other fibers, but the Suriland is the only one I’ve entered in the tags for the Games thus far.

I’ll also be doing some lace mitts for my cousin.  The picture is of my pair, but hers will have other lace patterns.

Day 203 of 365 Blog Project – A Spinner’s Logic Problem

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We’ve all had experience with “logic problems” where we’re asked to figure out something along the lines of ‘If train A is traveling toward train B at 80 miles per hour and train B is traveling toward train A at 35 miles per hour, and they’re 300 miles apart; how long will it be until they meet up?’*

A spinner is frequently confronted with something of a logic problem when they have a number of bobbins full of single-ply and want to make two-ply yarns and come out as close to even as possible.

Making a center-pull ball of the left-over is possible, but has the risk of the single-ply snagging and tangling.  Making this left-over amount as small as possible is a good idea.

So, how to set this up?  I had five full, or nearly full bobbins, and one small amount on a sixth.  If I need to add a new single if one runs out in the middle of a plying bobbin, that’s not a problem.

Here’s how I went about it:

Bobbin 1 – quite full – started off with bobbin 6 – the partial one
Emptied bobbin 6, and added in bobbin 2 – filled the first plying bobbin.
Broke off bobbin 1, added in bobbin 3 – filled the second plying bobbin.
Broke off bobbin 2, added in bobbin 4 – filled the third plying bobbin. At this point, I needed to wind off the yarns onto my niddy-noddy both so I could wash all the skeins when done plying, but also to empty some bobbins to finish plying.
Then back to plying – broke off bobbin 3, adding in bobbin 5. Now all the bobbins have been started, and I went back through the series, matching up the most full bobbins.

When all was said and done, I had less than ten yards of singles that I needed to ply back onto itself.  I did this by winding it in a figure-eight over my hand to get at the end, and then controlled the singles back off my hand to finish up.  Having gone through 3,740 yards of singles to end up with 1,870 yards of two-ply, I’d call that pretty darn good!

 

* If you’re interested, since the two trains are traveling towards each other, the speed vector adds – making it the same as one train traveling 300 miles at 115 miles per hour. Time needed: Two hours, thirty-six minutes and 48 seconds.  As extra credit; who can reply with the mileage each will travel?

Day 202 of 365 Blog Project – Another Specialty Yarn Project

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My post for Day 200 covered a ruffling yarn, this one is on Bernat’s Boa – this could be classed as either a fur or an eyelash yarn.  Fur because the knitted fabric is fluffy and pet-able, but eyelash because it has a spine like that of false eyelashes.

This yarn doesn’t require any prep work, but it is somewhat difficult to work with, as it is very easy to drop stitches or accidentally knit two together with the fluff obscuring the stitches on the needle.  It does require a larger needle – size 7 to size 9.  This lets the fluff fill in the stitches without getting too dense.

With the fluff of the yarn, stitch patterns will not show, so simple garter stitch is the easiest and fastest way to work with this.  Bernat’s free pattern for a scarf calls for a garter stitch border and stockinette body of the scarf.  I found that this was not needed for me.  I simply changed to garter stitch throughout and saw no difference in the fabric.

I do like the resulting fabric for the most part.  It is shiny, rich in color, and the surface is soft.  My only issue is the somewhat scratchy spine of the yarn.  I would hope that Bernat gives this some thought and perhaps some reworking.