December in the Maritimes

One of my big reasons for moving to this part of Canada is that the bitterest cold usually doesn't arrive until January and then only lasts for a few weeks. The down side, there's always a down side to winter in Canada, is that in exchange we have days like today--freezing rain is forecast to last for many hours with potential for dramatic icing of power lines and tree limbs with the additional happy thought of all roads as curling rinks. And then tomorrow, it'll be +12C, with of course, more rain. I can never quite decide what clothing or foot gear will work for the entire day. 

For you prairie readers, I admit to enjoying the rain. I know that's hard to understand in the land of 'dry cold' but trust me, the dry cold thing is a myth, -35C with a hefty wind chill factor is simply unbearable. Oh, and I wear my parka a couple of times a winter.

In other news, the web site and project work for my new venture are both beginning to take shape. I'm very excited about the direction my life and work are taking. It's under wraps yet, but expect an announcement and launch some time in early 2009--once I sort out all my funding issues.

The Xmas knitting list is slowly acquiring check marks for finished projects/objects. Yay! Now if I could just figure out how to set up for regular photos of WIP and FO's I'd no doubt be able to create a much more interesting blog experience for you all. It's on the list, with a gazillion other things, but closer to the top than otherwise.

Time to get the wood stove going, which requires that I dump the ashes first, something I ought to do before I have to skate to the ash bin (see freezing rain, above). Then it is lunch, some soup from a rich chicken stock, decision on what exactly still pending and from there we'll go to Xmas knitting for the afternoon along with note taking for project tasks for the new venture.

Ciao.

Fibery decor

Today I propose to own up to the fact that all things fibre is my decorating standard. The sofa is completely overwhelmed with projects, there are baskets of yarn everywhere in my sitting room (the room with the wood stove). Slightly further afield, in the living room the spinning wheels, a drum carder, swift, ball winder, skein winder and rocking chair jostle for position with baskets of fleece or prepared fibre and more baskets of yarn. 

There's no way this decor could be considered tidy in my current application of it. I do live in hope of organizing the stash(es) one of these days, or perhaps simply creating space to move in each room. Every available surface in the living room holds fibre in some form: batts, roving, skeins, balls and bobbins. I'm a busy, and clearly very disorganized little worker bee. Oh, and do spider web swags count as fibery decor? And no, there will NOT be pictures!  

The kitchen is not immune from this decor style either. There's a bag of fresh fleece (fresh from the sheep!) by the door and a bucket of draining washed fleece by the sink. Gotta keep the supply coming, eh what?

Now if only I could figure out how to spin or knit in my sleep.

There's currently almost a sense of urgency to my efforts with fibre. I feel I've lost so much time. Time I've spent doing other things like making a living, and then not working on fibre projects. Then again, cruising to 62 and being a Capricorn messes with my sense of time anyway. Could be we need a bit of balance. And how bloody likely is that??? 

Post-election blahs

Wouldn't you know it, all that exposure to electors made me sick! Not from them being electors of course, but because many of them were generously sharing viruses. My theory about a virus is that it won't leave me alone until I share it with you. 

The election itself was probably enough to make me sick. In the poll I worked the turn-out was, in a word, pathetic. Less than 50%. Either nobody cares that we have a democracy or as I also heard during the day, that people whose families have lived in the same place since before Confederation refused to vote if it required them to show picture ID. I mean really, people. What's the big deal? We show picture ID in lots of other contexts. Apparently elderly rural folk find this requirement beyond obnoxious. But while others in the poll knew these folks, I didn't. In an urban or any large poll you wouldn't know the people. A requirement for identification (and there were dozens upon dozens of options) hardly seems a good reason to stay home. I think what I find so appalling about the voter turn-out, whatever the reason for it is that in so many places in the world people pay with their lives to vote and we can't get our butts off the sofa to go do this? Sad, very, very sad.

And then there was the outcome. Not a surprise but a great disappointment to me. My wish (okay, fantasy) was for a NDP/Green party coalition to run the country, not a increased mandate (albeit still a minority one) for wacko Tories who don't get the urgency of environmental issues, and in fact deny there are issues at all. I was very impressed by the moxie of the Green Party leader. One of these days Canada will elect someone with vision. Meanwhile I promise not to hold my breath until that happens.

I took a jaunt to Wolfville on Friday to look for likely properties. I'd hoped to stay overnight in the valley but felt too rotten to inflict myself on dear friends, and didn't want to share my virus there. I prefer to share anonymously so you (whoever you are) can't track it back to me.  How very nice of me, eh?

One of the highlights of my day trip though was a view of a house that meets all my criteria in terms of cuteness, breathing space, location, size, studio and office space, but fails to meet the price range I'm working with by a mere $100K. Ah well, can't have everything I suppose--but it's good stuff to be dreaming on even so.

The other thing that was a spectacular first for me was apple picking. How is it I have lived 10 years in Nova Scotia and have never before been in an orchard to pick apples? We found a U-pick place where they had Northern Spy apples as well as the usual Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, Ida Red, and Russet varieties. I now have 10 pounds of handpicked Northern Spys in my pantry and as soon as I share my virus with someone and it leaves me alone, I'll make something deliciously apple-y.

Finished the chocolate lama/mohair sweater coat and it is wonderful, everything I hoped it would be. I think there may be enough sunshine today to take some photos. The next spinning project: beige lama/mohair will make a good lap blankie. I have a pattern for one that uses a variety of gansey patterns. That might be fun. Need to track the pattern down so I can figure out how I need to spin the fibre for this. 

We had hard frost overnight so that's done in the geraniums I forgot to take in last night. Ah well, I felt too rotten to bother with them and believed the weather channel that the temperature wouldn't drop below freezing.

My only activity in the last 36 hours has been to throw logs into the wood stove to try to get warm. The ambient temperature is fine, but the virus tells me that I'm still cold. No amount of wool sweater layers seems to make a difference either. Some part of me believes that if I keep knitting sweaters I'll be warmer this winter. While that works once I'm up and dressed in same, it doesn't do a thing to get me out of bed on a morning when the house is cold. I still have the oil furnace thermostat set really low as it isn't winter, but I might have to reconsider for the duration of the virus.

In my quest to share my virus anonymously I believe I'll head to 'China-Tire' for a replacement wheel for my wheel barrow--one that can't go flat. Wish me luck?

Late summer thoughts

I have two sweaters on the needles which is sure indication that my hard-wired thinking about fall has kicked in as a result of several cooler nights. I'm grateful for the coolness because it is more pleasant to knit wool or mohair when I'm not suffocating in the heat and humidity. I've already mentioned the lama/mohair jacket which is coming along nicely. Thursday I began the 'Rhinebeck' sweater from A Fine Fleece in a superwash/bamboo blend, in a deep red-bronze colour. Yummy yarn and an easy pattern to knit. Pictures to follow as soon as there is a bit of sunlight. Which reminds me I need to set up a photo shoot place indoors soon for woolie projects and other things.

I'm having a lazy morning after several challenging and sleepless nights. Not sure what had me awake but I resolved many of the world's problems in the course of these hours, if only I could remember what I came up with. The entire week had a rotten smell to it, waking and attempting to sleep. Need some tweaking in my meds no doubt and I have a plan, perhaps even a 'cunning plan'.

Another cunning plan is underway to make not quite enough lama/mohair into a finished sweater. I searched the stash and found fleece that is dark and has a longish staple. I will spin that into a singles and then ply it with the last of the lama so I have enough yarn for sleeves. I think that will look okay. I'm loving the texture of the knitting for this piece, but it is most definitely a fall jacket. In fact I suspect it will be warm enough for winter camping in the high Arctic, but happily won't be required for that as I have no current plans to take me to the frozen north.

Since we're discussing my list of cunning plans I have one as well for a 50 year old sweater I own. It was made for me by my Oma van Veen when I was twelve and doesn't quite fit anymore. So here's the plan. I'm going to unravel the sleeves and use the yarn to knit panels between the front and back to attempt to convert this to a vest. I've always loved the colour of this sweater and refused to throw it away simply because it no longer fits all that nicely. The yarn is still beautiful after all these years. I think I now have sufficient knitting skill to pull this idea off; if not I'll unravel the whole thing and do something else with the yarn. Wish me luck.

I seem to have sweaters on the brain at the end of August (it happens every year). It isn't cool enough for sweaters and probably won't be for a month or more if we're lucky and have a nice autumn on the East Coast.

Yesterday was a sad day for CBC radio 2 fans when we heard the last of our favourite programs and program hosts. Disc Drive has been the sound track of my life for 23 years and Jurgen Gothe has entertained me with his witty rants and quips for all that time. Whatever CBC comes up with, they won't be able to match JG for content or audience loyalty, I'd bet on that. The Last Show yesterday was a lovely nostalgia piece that made it a tear-jerker finale for me. Those of us for whom CBC is the sound track of our studio/working lives take these things very hard. I wish I could believe CBC programming knew what it was doing, alienating such a loyal following of listeners in a misguided attempt to attract newer ones. I doubt it will give them joy and then there will be new calls to dismantle the Corp. Great work and vision guys, I'm impressed (not!).

The process

This is what I like.  I have an idea for a project, in this case, a sweater.  I have a fibre stash so I go stash diving to find something likely to make a sweater.  I start spinning a lama/mohair blend, do a swatch (yes, occasionally I do have some kind of fit and actually swatch).  I settle on a gauge and go back to the wheel and spin masses more yarn, ply it and knit.  In a month or six weeks I will have a sweater, made absolutely from scratch (well maybe not, I have this fibre as roving, not raw fleece); but for the sake of my argument I'll say from scratch.  It takes a while to spin enough yarn for a good size sweater but I'm making excellent progress.  Have the back knit and the yarn spun for the front so far; a couple more bobbins and I should have the yarn for the sleeves spun up.

No, it is not cheaper and certainly not faster.  But it is great fun and immensely satisfying to someone endlessly fascinated by what she can do with fibre. And I never stop dreaming of the next thing and the one after that...gotta try that; wonder what that will do; can I make that work at this grist or that gauge. 

Next project: excavate the stash and find the Border Leicester fleece I bought last summer to see what I need to do to it in preparation for the natural dyefest planned for next month.  I need a good think about what I want to make with this fibre as it is very yummy to spin; what I decide to make may influence the colour I'd like to dye it or not.  I now have half of what I need to do basic alum mordanting; tomorrow I need to find cream of tartar somewhere, hopefully at the grocery store.

Some nights I can't sleep for all the projects dancing in my head.  Go figure....

We may have a problem...not!

This morning I got a copy of A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd.  I have now had a quick flip through this beautiful book and I want to make everything in it.  Not only that, but I want to start right this minute, allocating fibre stash to projects and deciding what will be dyed with natural materials and what will get the Magic Carpet Dye for colour.  Then I want to spend the next three months spinning that up and getting going.  I want to do this without the least bit of personal restraint or consideration of things like meals and showers.  I want to dive in and play and play and play until I have everything knit up and wearable. Oh for heavens sake, how am I going to do that?

It isn't as though I don't have a rather extensive WIP (work in progress) knitting queue mounded on the end of my sofa already and in several baskets besides. I wonder how many socks I have on the go? Six? Eight? More?  Shawls? Only 5, not to worry. Nor am I lax in terms of spinning queue--I'm currently working on a dark lama/mohair blend for a sweater which I've begun to knit; laceweight mohair for shawl(s); qiviut laceweight for a scarf or small shawl; sock yarn; and Gotland for my first gansey.

Okay I see the problem.  I need several more lives and need to be able to live them concurrently. What? that's not possible? Why-ever not? Somebody should get on that--and hurry will you.

Just because I stopped weaving (oh, so many years ago) doesn't mean I've in anyway lost my passion for fibre. And weaving, you're on my list for when I, umm, retire.

I can't possibly wear, or use all of this stuff I'm making myself so being on my friends list may prove quite beneficial.  You can start a wish list in the comments, but I can't promise anything by a specific date--I'm much too fickle a spinner and knitter for any such thing. You've figured that out by now I suppose?

Three months and counting

Oh the joy of paid unemployment! I'm having the best summer in five years, even though the weather has been too humid for me to get outdoors much, or move more than my knitting needles some days. Summer is a great time to knit socks, preferably with an oscillating fan nearby slowly moving air across my person. I don't even have to be upright to knit socks--bonus!

There is a bit of work being done of course. Not enough, but some. We'll ramp that up in the next few weeks and get the book draft done. I also have a web site draft and a couple of workshops in draft.  Stay tuned for that!

Wednesday I had an energy audit done on the house by a guy from Sustainable Housing. I knew I had a lovely wind tunnel effect going and that air leakage was so pronounced I did wonder if there were actual walls behind the wallpaper in winter.  Now I have proof!  Apparently I have all the energy efficiency of a tarpaper shack with paper windows.

So this perhaps explains why I spin wool and knit sweaters, shawls and socks at the rate I do--I need them to keep something approaching warm for at least 8 months of the year.  That said, I'd not be happy in a warmer climate as I do enjoy wearing wool sweaters and socks.  My biggest complaint about the air leakage and lack of any insulation is that it costs so much money to pretend to be heating the house.  I don't mind the thermostat set at 16C, but I'd prefer not to pay (or require help to pay) a king's ransom for heating oil to achieve that stupendous amount of warmth.  And the costs are rising at phenomenal rates: in 2000 I paid 54¢ a litre for heating oil; now it is in the $1.10 range (I'm afraid to call and ask for the official cost, and the tank is near empty).

Now I do have a wood stove, a very pretty and efficient blue Pacific Energy, and without it I'd be really cold.  This heating source works best when I'm home during the day so I can keep it going and I sit in the room where the stove is located.

My mind is on winter heating as a result of the energy audit, but today we've got a pleasant summer day, big fluffy clouds, a bit of a breeze and about 25C.  Too bad there was no way to store up summer heat for winter use.  

And just in case you thought that cobwebs had no earthly use (except for spiders of course) I can report that they do show air movement rather well as pointed out by the energy audit guy. That made me chuckle.  Good thing he wasn't looking at dust bunny drift, that might have been embarrassing.

Pesto, oh pesto

Handsome eagle, ain't he?

I found lush bunches of fresh basil at the Farmers Market in Lunenburg Thursday so made up two batches of pesto in the amount of 2 cups for the freezer. This is pesto without butter or cheese so it actually goes a lot further than two cups may sound. If however I use this pesto as a pizza sauce, two cups won't go very far at all. I'll have to consider the best use of my little pesto stash, or perhaps make another 2 cup batch.

What hasn't yet happened is dill pickle production. The baby cukes are coming on fast they tell me at the market garden up the hill, but I'm not in gear to take advantage of the bounty. Perhaps tomorrow I'll see what I need to do to prepare, make a list of supplies and get on with it. We'll see, I may be compelled to spin for a good part of the day instead--which would be a different sort of comfort in the winter. Last time I made pickles I put up 18 jars of tiny cukes--each wee cuke needed to be scrubbed clean in several changes of cold water so the whole process took many hours. Tracking down sufficient fresh horseradish for my recipe is always a challenge as is peeling masses of garlic cloves. Barry and I usually did 50 pounds of cukes, and that with water that had to be pumped and hauled by hand, though with two of us working it only took a day to do that much. That was in another life or course.

Have begun spinning the fleece from Pia's 'Dottie' and oh my is it some lovely. It just flows onto the bobbin and I don't want to do anything other than sit there and facilitate such a wonder. Life as usual has a way of intervening and insisting on pesto making, nagging about good dills which won't pickle themselves.

Writing work on the current project has begun again, so spinning is reward for serious head work. But then so is talking to people, hanging out at the Biscuit Eater in Mahone Bay or knitting on the half dozen projects I have in the WIP piles. Began the Fiddlesticks Rainbow Shawl (3, count 'em, 3 charts to knit through!) today, though I'm knitting it in a single colour Zephyr called Ruby. Also knit most of a sock in handspun merino which is so lumpy that it looks 'handspun' as that is understood by the untutored. I have 4 skeins of this yarn which was the first spinning I did in over twenty years. I've improved considerably in the three years since and now couldn't spin such 'novelty' yarn no matter how hard I tried. Now ask me for fingering weight 3 ply--that I can do.

A very soggy day on the south shore of Nova Scotia today so I stayed in and played with fibre all day long. Even cleared space on the work table to try the wool combs I borrowed from Sharon, but there seems to be something missing in my understanding of the process for I didn't get the result I thought I would. The Cotswold cleans up nice however, even if the combing process needs some refinement. Will read the instructions I found on-line and try it again tomorrow.

Work in progress, but not THAT!

'Tis summerish here, and today that means no fog and warmer temperatures. What I love about NS is just how variable the weather is. What me and the books don't love is 87% humidity in the house, though I suppose winter heating with a woodstove brings everything back into something like balance, but meanwhile it tries the patience and makes me sweat like a litter of piggies. Air conditioning would probably just give me snow in the house.

Works in progress? No, nothing in the writing line as yet, wait for the production loom to be safely moved to its new home, then we'll talk writing projects. So, w-i-p is a lace scarf knit out of many plies of very very fine silk thread. Same thread used to make the 8 harness silk satin at 90epi on the production loom. It makes me feel a tad nostalgic, but only a wee tad.

[pause for taxi service for Ms C and her friend...]

Supper completed, laundry in from the line, and two mesh bags of wool soaking in hot water and Orvus paste in the washing machine. This is a lovely soft white fleece from P and I'm really looking forward to spinning it up into fine sock yarn and then doing something fun with it in the dye bath.

Now the Cotswold, what will I do about the gorgeous Cotswold I have? Do I wait patiently until I can research and purchase combs and then comb this fleece, or do I just fling bits onto the carder tray and hope for the best? It is such lovely fleece that it seems to me to make sense to learn to use the combs and a diz, but I'm all for jumping in with my usual impatience and just getting what I get. I read recently that this fleece is called 'poor woman's mohair' and it certainly has the lustre and dyeing it gives luscious results whatever the colour.

I ought to be doing chores, vacuuming, organizing, clearing a path for the removal of the Lervad loom but I'm warm, weary and attached to a cold drink, my recliner and the macbaby. At least until I have to drain the washer and give the fleece a rinse in about 20 minutes.

The next couple of weeks will be summer busy, so I need to carve out as much time for the scarf project as possible so I can get it done in time to mail it for a September birthday gift. It would help immensely if I didn't have to take it apart every so often when confronted by a glaring error. Minor errors I'll live with, glaring, not so much. It does require a great deal of persistence when knitting the same 4 inches over and over again, so when I get to pull yarn from the ball I let out a cheer, yes, we're past the point of the last......umm, ____up. Way to go girl.

Considering going to Lunenburg after work tomorrow to see how close I can get to the Tall Ships in port. I mean if I have to walk from Mahone Bay or Blockhouse due to massive traffic snarls and zero parking, I'll be turning around for home without so much as a second thought about it at the earliest opportunity. I'm hoping to have a 'window' around 4:30 where I can get into town and find some place for the car and be homeward bound again by 6:30 or so.

Okay, so the strawberries are wonderful this year and I've made 16 cups of jam and have it stowed in the freezer for winter. I don't know how I found room, but I did. I know, I know, I've promised to excavate the freezer but I'm waiting for more information on the correct method, grid layout and possibly an historical artifact removal permit from the county. And then of course I have to carefully select my highly trained team. It could take years.