Gung Hai Fat Choi - Year of the Dragon

I've started getting ready for the weaving "demo" at next month's meeting at Limestone Creek. On Sunday I measured out 80 ends of 5/2 perle cotton, 80 in. long, for the warp. I warped the Dorothy today. I warp front to back, meaning I sley the reed first, then thread the heddles, tie onto the back apron, wind the warp onto the back beam (with a layer of paper grocery bag going in to keep the threads from burrowing into previous rounds), then finally tying onto the front apron. I'll also add two floating selvedges (selveges?) later. It should be plenty wide enough so everybody can see different patterns emerging as the weft goes in. I'm taking a bunch of books too, so they can get an idea of the hundreds of patterns possible. I've just done a "straight draw", that is, threading the first thread in the first heddle on shaft 1, the second thread in the first heddle on shaft 2, the third in the first from shaft 3, and the fourth in the first from shaft 4. Five through eight go into the second heddles on the shafts in the same order, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on, until there are 20 heddles on each shaft that have threads running through them. I used white, sort of an off white, for the warp. Then the weft will be one of four different colors, also 5/2 perle cotton which was left over from the overshot class, to show contrast.

I've also started collecting various things to take with me - sley hook, heddle hook, different shuttles, the aforementioned books, the few things I've already made, including the sample from the overshot class I took and the "Cats Track and Snail Trail" runner I made on the end of that same warp.

DGD pointed out the sliver of new moon in the sky tonight at sunset. It was new at 2:39 am yesterday (Chinese New Year), making it about 39 1/2 hours old when we saw it at around 6:10 pm, just about the youngest I've seen. I think the record for the youngest moon observed is around 19 hr. I don't usually see them until they're at least 45-46 hr. old.

Signs of Spring and How to Be An Enabler

Well, I told you the newness would wear off of this blog thing. lol Last post was on 1-3 and here it is 1-21. We're now a full month into winter and I can see it's staying light longer in the evening already. Instead of closing the chickie girls in at around 5:15 pm, I can wait until about 5:40 or so and still see to walk down there without falling on my face.

Back in October I had dropped a couple of fleeces off with Ozark Carding while I was at SAFF. I got a ship notice last Wednesday, the 11th. The post office finally delivered the box with the roving yesterday, the 20th. NINE DAYS! They must have been sent from MO to TN via Anchorage. One fleece is just carded roving, which I'll use for spinning students (if I ever have any more ) or other demo type stuff. The other, heavier, fleece I had pin drafted after it was carded, which aligns the fibers much more than plain carding does. It looks like it turned out really nice and should be easy to spin, although there is a bit of VM in it, as all the fleeces from "that" place do. I should mention that the box is about 12x14x14, and AFTER I took the fleeces out of the box and opened their bags, they took up 4 or 5 times that space. I've already rolled all the roving into balls so they'll be easier to use.

The first of this year's planting has been started. There are 25 each of small Chinese cabbage, broccoli, and red and green pak choi seeded in trays out in the little homemade greenhouse. They were all planted on Monday, the 16th - first day of the 4th quarter moon, in Virgo. Yuck! We also have seeds for full size Chinese cabbage; they'll be started in a week or so.

Now, about that enabler title - A new woman at the Limestone Creek Fiber Guild wants to learn to spin and weave, so I said I'd bring my small looms, the Dorothy table loom and the Harp rigid heddle. (She already tried her hand at spinning last Saturday) I have to warp the Dorothy with something small to play with and I'll just measure the Harp warp, maybe enough for a scarf, and will warp it when I get there, to show Betsy how to do it. I'll have to read up on it to remember. Plus I'll haul all the various accoutrements with me. I might even take that enormous fly shuttle. Now I just have to get my butt in gear and start measuring. And I have to get everything ready by Feb. 18th. I hate measuring warp. Gee, I can't even add a picture of the Dorothy because I'm on the wrong computer. Have to get that DSL line switched back.

The grocery store has hyacinths in bloom already. I ALWAYS stop and smell them. Spring is coming!

SAFF

Only two more days till SAFF. OK, so it's REALLY only one more day, since it opens tomorrow, but I'm not going until Saturday. It runs through Sunday.

SAFF stands for Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair. I've been going since 2002 (or 2003 maybe?). Can't remember exactly. It's held at the Western NC Agric. Center (read here: fairgrounds), right across the road from the Asheville Airport. There are a bunch of vendors selling all sorts of fibery stuff - supplies for spinning, weaving, knitting, etc., raw fiber, commercially processed fiber, yarn, stuff made out of yarn and other forms of fiber, books about fiber and what to do with it, plus live fiber animals - sheep, llamas, goats, and rabbits. There are also three days' worth of classes and workshops offered. There's even a guy who makes chairs, rockers, and weaving benches with woven cord seats. Way cool! It can be overwhelming for a first-time visitor, but probably just as exhilarating as for a Disney-phile visiting the Magic Kingdom for the first time. LOL

This is actually a small show compared to some others. The first one I went to is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Show, held the first weekend in May just west of Baltimore. That one is maybe twice or 2 1/2 times the size of SAFF. And the Dutchess Co. Fiber Festival (I THINK that's the official name), held in Rhinebeck, NY, is about half again as big as SAFF. There are other big ones around that I've never been to (yet). There are shows all over the country, but I've only been to Kentucky Sheep and Fiber (their first year in 2010), Michigan Fiber Festival (just a little smaller than SAFF), and Garden State Sheep Breeders show (small at the time, but may be bigger now; it's been at least 10 years since I was there), besides the aforementioned Maryland, Rhinebeck, and SAFF. Charlotte, NC, will host a new show next year that I hope to attend. Fortunately, it's not on a race weekend, so traffic will be manageable.

I have a few sheep fleeces that I've been holding onto for about five years now that desperately need to be washed and carded. I MUST take them with me and drop them off at Ozark Carding's booth. I think I might use the resulting roving to braid into a rug or maybe chair pads for the kitchen chairs and front porch rockers. It'll have to be dyed because the wool is white and there is no way I'm putting a white rug on the floor in OUR house. I'll just have to decide at what point I'll do the dyeing; while it's still roving or after braiding. Braids would be much easier to handle, but as roving, I can do different colors and then blend them as I braid. Or maybe a little of each. And I have a little bit of light gray roving left from a previous fleece, so I should be able to work that in too.