Historic Fibers

Fourth Grade Redemption

Over the weekend, I journeyed to Lubbock, Texas to present a paper at the North American Society for Sport History conference. The trip there was arduous, since thunder and lightening storms had the Dallas/Fort Worth airport in a snarl that resembled what you would get trying to ply silk singles from a center pull ball. My flight out of Sacramento was delayed, which meant I missed my connecting flight. But I called on my innate understanding of Texans to ameliorate the situation, an understanding I had gleaned during fourth grade.

When I was in third grade, we lived in Southern California and I attended a "progressive" grade school. Our classrooms were called "pods" and they were an open layout, with the three third grade "pods" directly opposite the three fourth grade "pods" and all were connected by a center "pod" that was for shared group activities. It's hard to describe, but you get the idea that this was not a traditional school. Then my dad got transferred to Houston, Texas, and there I spent fourth grade. Talk about culture shock.

At that time, Texas grade schools were ultra-traditional. They may still be, I don't know. But  teaching the young 'uns to respect their elders was paramount, and we had to call our teachers "Sir" and "Ma'am" (as in "Yes, sir," and "No, ma'am"), and corporal punishment was a daily occurrence, with infractions calling for a student to be yanked aside and paddled in front of everyone. Needless to say, this new school environment was a difficult adjustment for me (although as a generally obedient kid, I never got into trouble). Still, I developed a variety of ailments such as the ever popular "stomach ache" to get out of going to school whenever possible. My parents split up in Houston, and my mom took us back to California at the end of the year. I generally thought of my time in Texas as a traumatic and wasted experience. But what I didn't realize at the time was that I also gained an inherent ability to function in Texas, which came in incredibly handy this past weekend.

So there I was, at the Dallas airport. As soon as I got off the plane, I knew I was in Texas. There was a miasma of Texas-ness about the place. I instantly switched into my fourth-grade-acquired-Texas-cultural-response mode, and sashayed up to the airline counter, unconsciously lapsing into Texas-speak. "Hi there!" I said brightly to the ticket agent. "My flight was delayed and I have missed my connecting flight. Is there any chance that I can get on another flight?", all of this said with a gigantic smile and hopeful expression. "Well, all the flights were full the last time I looked, so you may have to wait awhile," said the bleached blonde attendant apologetically. "That's okay, they've got barbecue right here in the airport!" I gushed gleefully. "It's gooood barbecue too, melts right in your mouth!" responded the attendant encouragingly. "Oh, look, a space on the last flight opened up just as I was talking to you! Here's your boarding pass!" With a twangy "thank yew soooo much," I then sashayed off to have myself some barbecue. It was gooood barbecue, too.

My friends, so that you may benefit from my fourth grade experiences, if you ever find yourself needing to chat up the airline attendant in Texas, the magic word is "barbecue." Texans are immensely proud of their barbecue, and rightfully so. Lest you doubt the power of the magic word, you should know that I leap-frogged over about 10 people on standby for that airline seat, and the seat next to me on the plane was empty. In this instance, "stand-by" was code for "10 people who didn't know the magic word."

So after a 14 hour marathon, I ultimately ended up in Lubbock at 1 a.m., and collapsed into bed. The phone rang at 6 a.m., since my roommate had put in for an early wake up call. I had thought our presentation was at 1 p.m., but it turns out I was wrong. I had to get up, get myself fully caffeinated, and present my paper at 9 a.m. It was okay, but it could have been better with a few more hours of sleep. The conference planners had generously provided "thank yew" goodies:

A tote bag, because one does quite a bit of toting in Texas, and some cunning little bales of cotton wrapped up in Texas Tech bandanas. I got an extra bale of cotton after I exclaimed to one of my panel presenters that I could spin that cotton. She donated her bale to my cotton-spinning cause. Lubbock has an agricultural research center devoted to all things cotton, which is why such an interesting memento was provided.

My co-presenter, Amy, also had a most excellent gift for me. At the last conference we attended together, I gave her a copy of the book, "Subversive Cross Stitch," because she is a cross stitcher. At the time, I hinted broadly that there was one project in the book that I would love to have. She obligingly stitched the following sampler for me:

This will be lovingly framed and hung on the wall of my office. And it will never, ever be shown to an airline attendant in Texas, because they just wouldn't understand, unless we were referring to barbecue.

The flight home that evening was thankfully uneventful. My first flight was almost delayed by a spectacular lightening storm, which is the other thing I like about Texas. Their summer storms make our California rainshowers look like spit. Texas storms feature big, fat raindrops that pour down by the bucketful, with truly impressive thunder and lightening, and it's all over usually in less than an hour. I felt like that storm was in my honor, and it passed so quickly that it didn't impact my travel a whit.

It's great to be home, and even better to feel like fourth grade wasn't wasted after all.

Class/No Class

I got a surprise package from Laurie in Manchester, one of the winners of the Spring Cleaning Blog Contest. She sent a fantastic little handknit kitty, and a kitty card to say thank you:

It even smells good! Laurie, thank you so much! I love the kitty and would like to know where the pattern came from - it's a perfect knitterly goodie, and has a place of honor on my nightstand where I can keep an eagle eye on it to protect it from the voracious felines that roam my house. Sending a knitter a knitted gift is true class!

All of the other prize winners as well sent me notes to let me know their packages had arrived and to say thanks, and I really appreciated that! So thanks for all the thank yous, and if I had any class at all, I would have acknowledged your efforts privately. Let me make up for my lack of communication skills lately and send my very public appreciation!

And speaking of no class, I will literally have no class in very short order. Tonight I give the final exam for the history class I have been teaching, and then once the finals are graded, I will have two weeks off before the summer classes commence. Unfortunately, I have to get on a plane on Friday to fly to Lubbock, Texas to present a paper at an academic conference. Because I will likely still be grading finals, I have used that as an excuse to make my stay as brief as possible. I'm flying into Lubbok at 7 p.m. on Friday, and flying out of Lubbock at 7 p.m. on Saturday. Weather is expected to be in the high 80s with rain, which means I will get to experience that awful Texas summer humidity. It's only 24 hours, I keep reminding myself.

As a treat for myself for surviving grading finals and presenting a paper on the Gay Rights Movement in the heart of homophobe land, I have scheduled myself (yes! It's on my calendar and everything!) for a dye marathon over the first weekend in June. I've stocked up on natural dyes and am starting to sort through the roving and yarn to see what will be transformed. If I can find a likely dye pot at a thrift store, I may even try starting an indigo pot of my very own. I can't wait for June!

White Noise

I do still knit, but I've been working on kind of boring knitting projects lately. They go on constantly in the background, like white noise. The knitting projects are there, but they are so ubiquitous that you hardly notice them after a while. I've knit nearly every single day for the past 9 years, so it isn't something I'm likely to stop suddenly. Here is photographic evidence:

These are blue socks knit in Paton's Kroy using my standard sock pattern. They are wool, and they probably won't be worn until winter again. But it's nice to know they are waiting.

Here is another pair of socks in the same standard sock pattern. I'm calling them my "thrifty" socks because they were knit of leftover bits of yarn from four other pairs of socks. The cuffs are leftovers from the blue socks pictured above, the legs are a blue/grey marl from socks I made for my mother-in-law, the heels are grey leftovers from some socks I made for Dan, and the very tips of the toes are a lighter grey from socks made for my father-in-law. I kind of get a kick out of knowing that I have parts of four different projects in one pair of socks! This project also made me realize how little yarn I actually NEED to make something useful and nice. Which doesn't mean I don't WANT more yarn :-)

This is the current pair of socks, in the same standard sock pattern, knit from the gorgeous Froelich Wolle Blauband Regenbogen sock yarn that Katia sent me from Switzerland. This sock yarn came with its own matching reinforcement thread for the heels, so it has been interesting to work with that. I love the colors, and the reinforcing thread makes for a very substantial heel that will not wear out very soon.

Of course, the other "white noise" project going on in the background is the Scotland sweater. I keep plugging away on it, and in another 5 inches or so I'll be setting the armhole steeks. Here is the progress on that sweater:

This is one of those projects where you keep plugging away, knitting and knitting, and it never really seems to get any bigger. Each round is over 300 stitches, so I can only manage a few rounds each day before my concentration gives out and I have to go knit socks for a while. I do enjoy this sweater, but it's one of those projects where you must pay attention to what you are doing. I have skipped some days working on it lately - I build it up in my mind as a huge, awesome undertaking and psych myself out of working on it. But then when I actually do get to work, it isn't so bad and I wonder what all the fuss was about. Kind of like my dissertation, but that's another story!

Staple Length

I took a class on the preparation of raw fleece for spinning, appropriately titled Fleece Day, at Deep Color this past weekend. I went into the class dubious that I would ever actually want to buy a raw fleece and wash it myself, partly because I have heard that it is a very labor intensive and tedious process, and partly because I live only a few miles away from a most excellent wool processing facility. But I came away from the class a true believer.

My first surprise was that washing fleece turned out to be no more labor intensive or tedious than dyeing. The process used the same equipment that I use for dyeing, and had the same intensity - periods of activity puncuated by periods of waiting -that I am accustomed to with dyeing. I had expected to be working hard the whole time and come away exhausted, but we had plenty of time inbetween separating locks and loading them into lingerie bags, soaking them in very hot water, moving them into very hot soapy water, and finally putting them through a "wash line", which was a row of buckets full of hot water where we rinsed the wool . In those periods of  waiting, we sat outside in the dappled sunlight and carded or spindled. It was a very pleasant day.

The wool we washed included more of the Icelandic Fleece, and also a very interesting fleece from a local farm. The fleece came from a ewe who had managed to evade shearing for an undetermined length of time, and ended up with an astonishing staple length:

The ruler at the bottom of the photo is 6 inches long, so that's a staple length of between 7 and 8 inches! Apparently the fleece weighed in at around 20 pounds, and surprisingly the wool has no breaks or weaknesses, spinning up into very bouncy, crimpy yarn.  I can't help thinking that the ewe must have been very relieved to lose all that wool!

While I started the day doubtful that I would want to wash fleece for myself, I ended up being converted into thinking that this is something I would actually enjoy very much. The transformation from dirty, stinky fleece to clean and bouncy wool is highly enjoyable, and I look forward to having a chance to try it on my own.

Wild and Wooly

I attended an intermediate spinning class last week on Icelandic Fleece, and had a great time learning all about this fiber. I was first intrigued by Icelandic fleece when Cassie talked about it last year, but never had the opportunity to try working with it until now.

The fleece itself looks wild - with the long outer coat (the "tog") combined with the downy soft undercoat (the "thel"), this fleece looks a little intimidating:

But it's really not so scary, and is very easy to work with - just by pulling on the tog strands, they easily separate from the thel. There are also other finer long guard hairs, so essentially you end up with three distinct types of wool to work with and combine in various ways. I spun some of the tog by itself, and thought it would make a great string shopping bag, as it was coarse and strong, and not prone to felting. I also spun the finer guard hairs alone, and then carded them with the thel, and liked the carded variety the best. I knit a simple stockinette swatch and was impressed with its soft, bouncy quality.

Icelandic fleece can be a bit more difficult to come by in the U.S. than your more garden variety fleece types, but the wool we were working with did come from a U.S. supplier - Tongue River Farm in Montana. This fleece was really of excellent quality, so if you've been thinking about experimenting with Icelandic fleece, give them a try!

And if you are really more comfortable with the idea of spinning with roving, I've decided to part with some of my spinning stash. I've had some unexpected bills this month, and am selling some gorgeous commercially dyed roving. The roving comes from my smoke-free home, but you may have noticed that we do have cats, so those with pet allergies are forewarned. Check out my "Roving Sale!" photo album for more information about the items I have available, and email me if you are interested. Thanks!

Warped

Sorry for the silence last week. I went to my academic conference two weekends ago, and it was a good time, but exhausting. I came home wanting peace and quiet, and not a little bit of rest. I did ultimately get word that I did not get the job, and I also needed some space to work through the disappointment. I think that it is for the best, since it would have meant a long commute every day, but still the income would have been nice! Nevertheless, I am scheduled to teach two classes during summer at a more local college, and two classes in the Fall as well, so I am not completely devoid of work opportunities!

I spent my week of relaxation and reflection working on the loom. I managed to get the threads wound onto the warp beam, and after that it was a matter of threading 490 ends through 490 heddles, reading the threading chart so everything ended up where it was supposed to be. I did half of the threading on one day, only to realize that I had made a mistake in reading the pattern draft and I had to take out around 100 threads and redo them. Many of the lessons I have learned from knitting came in very handy, such as paying close attention to my patience levels and stopping for the day when I got frustrated. Also, I called upon my knitting experience when deciding whether or not to redo the threading - I started to try and convince myself that the first warp really didn't matter, and I could probably make the mistake look purposeful, but I knew that I wouldn't be happy with it in the end, and it was better to take the extra time to make it right. Here is my attempt at an artsy shot of threading the heddles:

By the time I had gotten this far, I had a good system for following the pattern and keeping track of where I was in the sequence. I actually began to enjoy threading, and even though I am not a morning person, I woke up at 7:30 a.m. the next morning, all excited to begin threading again and finish up this warp. That was a happy day, since I did finish threading the heddles, sleying the reed, and tying the warp onto the front beam all on the same day. I got to start weaving, which was very exciting. My first attempt at weaving showed all the tension inconsistencies I had inadvertently included, and I took out those first rows (again calling on my knitting experience and knowledge that I really wanted to make it right).

The second attempt was much more successful, as I took care to correct the tension, checking and rechecking the threads for loose stragglers and keeping a close eye on my treadle tie-ups, since one had slipped earlier and had contributed to the inconsistencies. Here is the weaving as it stands now, ready for a concerted effort at completing the first dish towel:

I was pleased with this result, and will go ahead and keep weaving without interruption. I really enjoy the rhythm of weaving, and have even learned to enjoy the warping process.

Over this past weekend, I also washed out the fabric I had woven in Brooke's rigid heddle and shibori dyeing class, and I cut the shibori threads. While I handwashed the piece, I did run it through the dryer since I wanted the weave to tighten up a bit. I still need to finish the ends, but I love the pattern that the shibori tying followed by indigo dyeing produced on this fabric:

I used four different weights of cotton threads for this piece, and each took the indigo a bit differently. I also placed the shibori threads randomly, resulting in a more haphazard pattern. This fabric is not quite long enough for a wrap, so it will probably be a table runner instead. But I am really inspired to do another longer piece to use as a rectangular shawl, and think it would be a perfect summer garment for throwing over my shoulders in those chilly air-conditioned rooms. I'm already pondering what colors I could use for the weaving and how to overdye them - there are so many possibilities for really great combinations with this method!

Hope you all had a wonderful week and I'll try to be a bit more communicative in the next few days! I have some other interesting things to talk about, so thanks for sticking around!

Baby Steps

The only way I seem to be accomplishing anything these days is by taking baby steps. I typically identify a few small tasks that I want to accomplish each day, things like "finish socks," or "wind yarn into balls" or "do a few rounds on the sweater," or "spin a bit" or "put the warp threads in the raddle." Oddly enough, this is how I write, too - one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time. It all adds up in the end.

I went to Meridian Jacobs last week after the interview to wind the first warp that will go on my floor loom. Although I had taken a class and had good reference materials, I wanted an experienced weaver to be there to double check that I wasn't setting myself up for difficulty. There were a few other beginning weavers there, and they showed their projects - small baby blankets woven with thick cotton threads, which were soft and lovely. They were also quick to warp and to weave. And there I was, winding off 490 threads, 6 yards in length, of somewhat fine yarn. I started to wonder what the heck I was thinking in tackling such a challenging project for my very first warp. I started wondering why Robin didn't stop me and make me do something easier. Then I realized that if I just took it step by step, I really could do it. Sure, it would take me longer to thread the loom, and it would take me longer to weave off the length, but the steps were the same whether I was using fine yarn or chunky, so I continued.

I got home with my warp still on the warping board, and studied my books for the next step. I put a stick through the end loops and lashed it to the loom. I spread the threads, inch by inch, in the raddle and secured the top so they wouldn't go anywhere. I started to wind the threads on the warp beam (called "beaming the warp") and I had to stop. One of the things that needs to happen is a fairly stiff sheet of paper needs to separate the various layers of threads as they are wound on, and I didn't have any paper wide enough. I ransacked the house and could not find anything that would work, save for a couple of old posters. So I tried to use the posters, only to find that they were a wee bit too small. I was stalled. I sat and thought. I looked on the Internet and priced rolls of kraft paper (sheesh, they are expensive!), and finally I hit on an idea. Flexible corrugated cardboard, available in the Art Department of the university bookstore, would be a good solution.

I called the Art Department, and they said they would have to order the cardboard from their warehouse, but they would have it on Monday (it was Friday when I called). I had to leave the warp partially beamed over the weekend. But I checked again yesterday, and they said they had gotten the cardboard, so off I went to pick it up. I will spare you the details of this long and confusing transaction, but suffice to say that what they had ordered from the warehouse was stiff cardboard and not what I needed, HOWEVER, they did have a big roll of flexible corrugated cardboard in their backroom and in the end, after much discussion and confusion, I ended up with what I needed. Now I just need to find the time to finish beaming the warp, and this is a busy week. Maybe Wednesday night would work.

Here is the partially beamed warp, waiting patiently to be rescued from obscurity and transformed into a beautifully tensioned arrangement, perfect for my project:

You can see the handy clamps holding the raddle to the loom. If you don't have handy clamps, you can also use bungee cords or garden variety C-clamps to hold the raddle on, and you can use rubber bands across the pegs to hold the threads in once they are spread into the raddle.

And what, you may be wondering, is this esoteric and amazing project that I am toiling over with such fervor? Dishtowels. Yup, cloths to dry my wet hands and cutlery. But I can assure you they will be truly fabulous dishtowels, step by baby step!