Mama Hughes’ blog

I went a little crazy this week.  I was looking at our local Craigslist ads and I found a listing for a spinning wheel for $50.  How could I not look??  What I found was a Canadian Production Wheel.

Cpw

Autoknitter

This is my other purchase this week.  A complete Auto Knitter made in Canada.  It has two cylinders and two ribbers, plus the bobbins and bobbin winder!  I am really excited about this find.  I have been wanting one for a while now.  There are quite a few good youtube videos on this and I can't wait to receive it.  I found it on ebay and I think I paid an okay price for it.  I have seen these go for over $1000 and this one has all of it's parts, including it's original wood shipping crate. 

Time is counting down for Level 5 of the Master Spinners Class.  I will need to have over 300 yards of a cellulose yarn for dyeing during class.  I have done some linen and some hemp.  But I think the winner will be cotton.  You get to see the colors of the dye a bit more clearly.  I am looking forward to this class.  One step closer to my Master's Certificate!  After this, just one more level to go.

If you could enforce one rule of etiquette, what would it be?
Submitted by S@ngarang.

Simple.  Learn how to answer the #@$@! phone.  I don't know how many times I have answered the phone, only to hear: Who's this, from the caller.  Then I say, No, that's not how it's done.  You called me.  Who the f are you?  or  Call back when you learn how to use the phone properly.  Yeeesh.

I am done.  I have just finished my Level 4 workbook for  the Master Spinner course.  Very intensive spinning workbook.  A 150 hour project that turned out to be 220+ hours and a bit of research.  Thank goodness I am a book buyer.  Most of the information I needed was right on my book shelf. 

One thing I didn't count on was losing my notebook.  You know, the one with the notes that aren't in the handouts.  Thank goodness for wonderful people like Mad Knitter.  She came through for me with the notes I needed. 

Here is a list of the work that had to be done.
Wool

Use wool from the same fleece for requirements 1-7 in order to
Compare the best method of preparing and spinning of that particular fleece.
  
Prepare wool by elongating wool locks and prepare a plied semi worsted yarn.
   
Prepare wool by flick carding locks and spin a plied semi worsted yarn
 
Card wool the woollen way and spin a plied yarn the woollen way.
 
Card wool the woollen way and spin a plied yarn the worsted way.
 
Card wool the worsted way and spin a plied yarn the worsted way.
 
Card wool the worsted way and spin a plied yarn the worsted way.  (Reversed on bobbins before plying.)
 
Prepare wool by combing and spin a plied true worsted yarn (25 yards.)  reversed on bobbins before plying **
    
Spin a plied wool/mohair blend yarn.  Provide percentage of blend, characteristics and suitable use of this yarn.
   
Spin a 2 ply cotton yarn on a support spindle.  Provide note of suitable use for this yarn.
    
Spin a 2 ply cotton yarn on a spinning wheel.  Provide note of suitable use for this yarn.    

Bison   

Spin a plied yarn using bison    fulled **   
   
Spin a plied yarn using bison blended with another fibre of your choice provide a brief note why you chose that blend.  Provide percentage of blend, characteristics ad a suitable use for this yarn.  
   
Spin a plied yarn using camel hair.  
   
Spin a plied yarn suing camel down.
    
Spin a plied yarn using 25% camel down and 75% silk.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using 50% camel down and 50% silk.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using 75% camel down and 25% silk.   
  
   
Spin a plied yarn using cashmere.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using cashmere/wool.  Provide a brief note why you chose that blend.  Provide percentage of blend, characteristics and a suitable use for the yarn.
  
  Reel several silk cocoons at the same time.  Mount reeled silk.
     
Spin a plied yarn using 25% silk/75% wool.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using 50% silk/50% wool.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using 75% silk/25% wool.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using a tow flax/wool blend.   

Spin 4 yarns (of 6 yards each) using line flax by using the 4 methods (muff, damp towel, Estonian, comb or board).      

Spin a plied yarn using line flax from a distaff.   
   
Spin a plied yarn using natural tow flax.       

Spin a plied yarn using bleached tow flax.    

Spin a blied yarn using natural flax.  Bleach the yarn and note the recipe for bleaching of flax.
    
Research and describe the processes of Bettling, Calendaring, Mercierizing, Sizing, Wrinkle resisting.  Describe the effect of these processes on finished linen textiles.
    
Spin a lopi yarn using Icelandic Fleece.    

Spin a lopi yarn using mohair/ wool.  Mohair, wool, camel hair**      

Spin a 3 ply spiral yarn.  Provide description on how the yarn was created and how to use this yarn in a project.
    
Spin a tufted yarn.  Provide description on how this yarn was created and to use this yarn in a project.
      
Spin a 3 ply bouclé yarn.  Provide description on how this yarn was created and how to use this yarn in a project.  

Blend and spin nine wool skeins using the percentage of weight system to produce colours from black to white with seven shades of grey in between.  The white and black wool have to be blended by hand carding.
   
Use two colours of wool top on hackles to produce a homogeneous blend.  Spin that blend into a plied yarn.  Include a sample of the blend.
 
Use 3 colours of wool top on hackles to produce a multicoloured blend.  Spin that blend into a plied yarn.  Include sample of blend.
   
Specific End Use
150 hour project
The 150 hour project will be marked on the following (the total 150 marks will be distributed as follows):

 Appropriate fibre used.
 Handle of finished poject.
 Spinning technique appropriate to end use.
 If dyed, include recipe.
 If blending fibre or colours (are they well blended?)
 Spinning consistency of yarn.
 Design.

Include a skein of each of the yarns being used in the project together with the finished project.

Also include a chart of time spent on each task.
   
Perform a burn test on protein fibres.  Resent the results of the burn test in a table.    5   

Chemical Dyeing on Protein Yarns   

Dye 12 wool skeins for a colour wheel using the three primary colours:  blue, red and yellow.  Mount the 12 colours as a colour wheel.  Provide recipe and calculations for each colour.
   
Dye 6 skeins using the Ombre dyeing technique (as described in module C10).  Make an 8” x 8” swqtch using these dyed yarns.
   
Dye 2 skeins using the injection dyeing technique.  Describe a project for each skein or for both skeins in one project.
   
Dye wool fleece by using the rainbow dyeing method.  Include a sample of the dyed fleece plus a spun skein in your workbook.
 
Dye 8 skeins using different percentage of dye stock solutions either for different hues of one colour or different colours on the colour wheel.  Make a small project from these 8 skeins or they can be used in the 150 hour project  (the marks will be added to the 150 hour project.)
     
Compile a bibliography showing all the reference materials that were used to complete the assignments for level 4.

Not a small list.  But I am done.  Now, to get ready for Level 5 that starts at the end of June!!!
       

What would you like written on your tombstone?  I used to want:  "I told you I was sick"  Now I don't even want any kind of marker.  cremate me, put me in a bottle rocket or the dumpster.  In the big scheme of things my life really doesn't warrant that much effort on anyone's part.

While the whole house cleaning continues I can see my studio taking shape.  Today SB and I started on the space.  It will also be a spare bedroom.  Right now there is a full size bed, a small desk, 6 drawer lo dresser, a small tv (it really belongs to d2) and a small closet.  With sb's help, I can envision a cork board wall, a pegboard behind the desk and shelving, lot's of shelving.  There may even be a drop down work table over the bed, kind of a reverse murphy bed!  I am very excited about the possibilities.  I haven't really had a studio space for a very long time.  I can see all sorts of awesome things for the future.

Some not so awesome things.  Got a call from my mother and next week my sister and I will go to California to be with her when she talks to a dr about what might or might not be growing on her lungs.  I have a bad feeling that it is small cell carcinoma that has metastasized to her adrenal glands.  That is not good. And then the figuring out what comes next.  What kind of treatment, or if there will be treatment.  What will she want for the future, will one of us  need to stay with her?  What will happen after?  What will happen to the house?  My parents are still leagally married although they haven't lived together for over 20 years.  How will my other sisters and my brother feel?  I am out of contact with most of my family.  Mostly by choice.  I am the middle of 5 and really only talk to my younger sister. I don't really talk to my older sisters or my dad.  Oh, it's going to be interesting. 

In other future notes, youngest graduates with her bachelor's degree next weekend.  We are delighted for her. 

What's your best tip or trick for keeping your closet organized?

Amy

I've been gone a while. Part of it was just me hiding from the world.  Other parts were me just being somewhere else.  DH has been going through surgeries since the beginning of the year.  #1 was right carpel tunnel.  Last week was Right rotator cuff repair.  Sometime down the line will be the left carpel tunnel.  This is a guy who prides himself on being 'the guy who can do things'..  Not now he can't.  He is not supposed to raise his shoulder on his own for the next 5 weeks (one week down, 5 to go).  Our biggest concern was how he was going to get in and out of our waterbed.  Yes, we still sleep on a waterbed.  He's been sleeping on one since he was 16 and now for the two of us it's been over 30 years.  Turns out that isn't the biggest hurdle.  Try not using the hand you normally use for, well you know, hygeine.  I spent a few hundred on a bidet-esque attachment for the commode.  With heated water no less.  Problem solved.

The next thing was trying to get him to realize that I don't need reminding about what has to be done and when, the things usually done by him, but also me.  Things like watering the animals, feeding, taking out the trash, normal stuff. 

But we're getting worked out.  He starts PT on Wednesday and I'm wondering how that will work.  I think the clinic has purposefully set him up with a woman therapist so he can't whine.

I am ready for winter to be over, at least the cold and grey winter.  Some sun would help all of us feel a bit better.

For the sake of the sanity of almost everyone in the Pacific Northwest, Gray Skies, go away.

It has been almost two weeks since we've seen the sun.  This is detrimental to the health and sanity of almost everyone I know.  I slept for 17 hours.  I went to bed at 7 pm and didn't get out of bed until almost 1 this afternoon.  I think I must be part grizzly bear. 

Had a bit of a scare earlier this week.  Wasn't feeling so hot Tuesday night.  Couldn't get comfortable in bed.  Wednesday wasn't any better.  Was abdominal and then moved to chest pain.  This was how DH's heart attack presented back in '05.  Didn't want to take a chance seeing as we were to leave for Oregon this weekend (now postponed for a week).  Went to the ER.  My EKG said a history of past heart damage.  Doc's don't think it's so.  My blood sugar was way high.  So, after spending the night in the hospital and in talking with my doctor it looks like we will get more aggressive with treatment of cholesterol and blood sugar.  He's thinking the pain was gastric.  I know, deep down it's cardiac.  Even if the tests don't comfirm it.  Oh, well.  At least now we are going to be treating things a little more seriously around here.  My fasting blood sugar when I woke up was 114.  Way too high for fasting that long. 

Time to get serious about losing this weight.  In 30 years I have gone from weighing 100 # to 185#.  Too much.  Give me strength.

How is the world treating everyone?  It's looking pretty shitty for some this new year.  One of my pet peeves is the way talking heads bemoan the worlds problems, with "news" outlets (yes FOX, I mean you) filling precious air time with blah, blah, blah and yada yada.  Enough.  And celebrity family tragedies.  Yes, they are tragic, but they are not the only families that suffer day to day.  It is a good reminder that fame and money doesn't = happiness.  It is still in the thick of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and here in the usually lovely Northwest of the US nature is showing all who is in charge.  Flooding, avalanches, mudslides and earthquakes are but a few of the delights that are starring in our evening news footage.  At least we have gotten rid of the absolutely bone chilling temps. At least for now.  The area I live in boasts 300 days of sunshine a year.  What the neglect to tell newcomers is that all of the other 65 days are foggy and icy.  Or frozen rain, or snow or near hurricane force winds.  Yes, it is a lovely place.

Sorry for sounding so "cheerful".  DH has just had his first surgery for the year.  Right hand carpel tunnel repair.  Later this month he will have right rotator cuff surgery and then a bit later on the other wrist.  He tells me he will be off of work for about 5 months.  If he lives that long!!!  Not really.  It's just that after over 20 years of him doing the same type of shift (he's a firefighter) you kind of get to like having a day to yourself.  I will also be his right hand for a couple of days with all that entails.  Lucky for him after 30+ years we've seen each other at our asolute worst and best and been there to help the other through it.

Have any of you made resolutions???  I don't officially write or announce my intentions.  Less of a heartache when things don't happen as I'd hoped.  However, this year I hope to do something about this craptorium of a house.  I am a bit of a hoarder and unfortunately I'm married to a pack rat as well.  Between the two of us and raising a couple of kids and countless animals we have accumulated a fair amount of what can only be called rubbish.  As I am now officially over 50 I have to figure out a way to de-clutter before I end up like those old people buried under newspapers and magazines.  It really is a burden.  I know the shit needs to be tossed, but getting it through to the follow through is horrendous.  He's as bad as I am.  Between the two of us, we have probably lost more tools than most people ever own to begin with.  And I do love gadgets.  Of all kinds.  It's a sickness when one of your favorite places is a hardware store or salvage yard.  Oooooo, look at all the things you can make other things with!!!!  Or, I might need that one of these days for that project I've been thinking of for the last 25 years.    Guh.  But then, I look at folks how own no books, not hobbies, no anything and I think "How boring" are these people.  Nothing to learn or think about for them anymore.  What do they Do??   I don't  have the faintest idea. 

Oh well.  At least I've started to declutter.  Got rid of the old furniture and replaced it with some nice new stuff.  Leather sofa and love seat.  It looks great, if only I had a bit more room.  Maybe it's time to get rid of the 101 year old piano.  Except that the case is beautiful with ivory keys which is one of the reasons I bought it in the first place, plus the girls were taking lessons.  Hmmmmm. What to do, what to do