Changing my mind about things

Initially, I thought I'd be blogging about knitting. But life has changed. There is so much more I want to do. I was going to just start blogging, but I think I'd like to do a motivational preview of upcoming things. Who do I hope to motivate? Me!

Wheels. I bought a bunch of antique spinning wheels in need of refurbishing. And I bought tools. All at auction for much less than you'd think. I have 4 or 5 Saxony style wheels, a castle double flyer wheel, and 5 great wheels. Several boxes of flyer parts. A lathe and a scroll saw. I intend to get all wheels operational and sell off some. The double flyer wheel is insanity in operation, so I'll have to keep that! 

 Looms. I have been stockpiling these, too! 2 free counter balance floor looms: a Union rug 2 harness and a JL Hammett 4 harness; these are currently disassembled and tucked into a closet. I know I need to do some fixing, and I may not have all the necessary hardware to assemble them. I spent money at auction for three other looms. A Beka rigid heddle with a seat that I've been weaving on. It needs some tweaks, but I love it. A Leclerc 8 harness table loom that is warped but I want to re-thread the heddles. And a Leclerc Artisat 4 harness jack loom that has a bit of warp on it that's going to be a blanket some day. 

Spinning. Well, I've got all those wheels, don't I? I forgot to mention the entirely functional Clemes & Clemes modern wheel. I have a bunch of roving accumulated. 

 Flax. I have seeds to plant. And a journey of discovery going from the plant to woven fabric. 

 Building stuff. Two wheels, a bunch of flax processing equipment, wool combs, fixing a wool carder, bobbins for tapestry weaving (AKA, learning how to use a lathe). I designed a wee inkle loom plan that creates 2 out of a 14.5" square of plywood and put the first together as a left-hander. I'll have to post the build of the second. 

 Sewing. I have plans to make a matching set of fiber arts equipment luggage. And some Norman and Viking garb.

Phew!

Oh, look! I still have a blog!

So, I haven't posted anything in a while, and I really don't have much time right now. But, something is better than nothing, right? And if it works, then I can keep going.

Climbing Mount Knitverest

Wow. I really have learned a lot about knitting, test knitting, pattern writing and how these things might be a danger to my sanity. And I've finally done a technique that I've read about, seen pictures of, but never worked a pattern that called for it. Attached I-cord, and I-cord bind-off. All in the same I-cord. That was nifty!

Dracoclava is coming along quite nicely, though it's slow going. When I finished the main helmet section, I was terribly worried that it would be far too large. But the eye sockets are in, and that pulled it together a bit. I knitted the ears out of sequence (before I tried the I-cord brow) because I wasn't quite ready to try something new (it was late, I was tiring). As it turns out, having the ears ready before doing the eye sockets helped me when it came to picking up stitches for those sockets: I was not visualizing how the ear went into the main helmet correctly until I very roughly basted one in. And then the big knitting lightbulb lit up above my head. Aha! Eureka. And all that.

Working on the snouts, which should pull it in a bit more. That big rectangular opening in the front is about to go bye-bye!

I am a tad worried that it may end up being too small now! Go figure. I agonized over the gauge starting out. 7's got me very close - about a half a stitch off. 6's gave me a tighter fabric. 8's are what the yarn recommends. I went with the 7's. Why? Because when I started, I didn't want to have to rewrite the pattern to adjust stitch counts for a different gauge. Who knew I'd be doing it anyway, to get my poor old brain un-confused. And now I know that I'd have given up if I'd had to adjust stitch counts! And I feel quite prepared to edit just about any pattern any one might give me. Just about.

There are quite a few things that I find intensely cool about this pattern. The wee short rows in shaping the final rows of the ear were too darned much fun to knit. And I still think that there's something magical about having a 4-row decrease pattern for an 8-row pattern that works. I had a moment of doubt when I started, but... I honestly put down the work after the second repeat of the decrease pattern and admired just how cool it was that it did indeed work. And, yes, geeky moi did in point of fact repeatedly say, "That's soooo cool! It's like magic!!!"

I may end up knitting a second one, as I'm proofing my pattern rewrite as I'm going along, and, oo, did I make a bunch of typos. And I'm still worried that the eye sockets aren't quite what they should be.

And, the most frustrating thing: somehow I manage to skip the same 2 rows in working the ears. The ears went pretty quickly and I wasn't being as meticulous about advancing the row counter to keep track of things. After quite a few rows, I'd suddenly realize that I hadn't advance the counter, and over-advance it. I find it quite interesting that I did that at the same point on each ear. I guess there's something to be said for consistency. And maybe having so much fun doing those little short rows was against me, because in my rush to get to them, the one I skipped was the very first.

Well, so much for my break. Back to the upper snout. I am looking forward to seeing how much it snugs up the current looseness caused by that rectangle...

'Tis the Season to Rewrite Patterns, Fa-La-La-La La

Well, it's been interesting. I'm dead-set on knitting Dracaclava for Keith's nephew, but, OMG, pattern was just too... Words I've seen on Ravelry to describe it are "vague", "confusing", "poorly written". Really, it struck me more as "notes to self on how to recreate what I've done" than "pattern to sell to general public." Some of the techniques were strange to me - why on earth would I knit 380 stitches only to completely remove them later? I couldn't see any structural advantage to doing that, so I didn't. Everyting is actually in the pattern, it just... well, it's hard to sit down with yarn on one side, paper on the other, and just knit. Way too much thinking. So, I rewrote it, start to finish, with every single row/round numbered. And without using "row" when really the work was in the "round."

I'm feeling a massive sense of accomplishment over that. And a little brain-fried. Happy, but fried.

I also rewrote the Basic Horse pattern that was knitted flat and then seamed up all over the place to knit everything that could be in the round. At least I did that last week, so I can take a break from Draoo and work on that.... And rewriting that pattern was a breeze in comparison, as the original was pretty darned tidy. Just... All those seams! Ick!

Hopefully, I will not be rewriting any more patterns soon. And if I do, hopefully they won't be as much of a struggle as Dracoclava!

I feel so very domestic!

I also feel sweaty and very, very tired....

I've just completed Adventures in Canning, Parts 1 & 2. Part 1 was a resounding success, but took a mighty long time. Wild Plum Jelly. Starting with a slew of wild plums. Washing and inspecting each and every one of those little buggers took much longer than I'd anticipated. I don't actually know how long, but the flour sack towels I bought to strain the mush made it through the entire wash cycle before I'd gotten half way. Gently cooking and not-so-gently mashing the little spheroids took just over an hour. Then stirring and stirring and stirring. Plum juice, sugar and pectin. Boiling and stirring and boiling and stirring. The friendly sheet of paper in the pectin package said I'd only have to boil hard for one minute while stirring continuously. Yeah. No. The stuff was nowhere near setting after a minute. After about six minutes, it finally started "sheeting" off of the spoon (aren't you proud of me? I now know official jelly-making terminology!). Twelve half-pint jars are cooling in my cupboard. And, of course, the hot water bath canner I bought only held nine. And it seemed so wrong to can just three jars of jelly.... So, Adventure in Canning, Part 2A: pineapple preserves spiced with Poudre Fine (or Poudre Douce, if you prefer)(officially "conserves d'ananas avec la poudre fine"). One 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple, 2 cups sugar, 1/2 teaspoon poudre fine. And another spat of boiling and stirring and boiling and stirring... Then the preserves began to set. Two and a half jars. Yeah. No. Adventure in Canning, Part 2B: another can of crushed pineapple, sugar, spice. Unfortunately, I was getting so very tired of the whole boiling and stirring thing that I rushed the second batch. I'm not sure that it's going to be pineapple preserves. It might be vastly tasty pineapple syrup. But, it's canned. And cooling in the cupboard.

Just in case you wanted to know, the coolest part of the canning process was gently lifting the jars out of the very hot water, coaxing them in to place in the cupboard without actually touching them, and hearing the "ping" of the lid going concave as I turned to get the next jar. Which means the seal is good!!

So, yeah, I have 12 jars of great jelly, 2 jars of great preserves, one jar that's half great preserves and half possibly-not-preserves, and 2 jars of possibly-not-preserves. And they are all perfectly sealed! And that means success! And I'm looking forward to tasting the stuff when it's cool enough not to burn my tongue (yes, jelly and preserves are quite hot after being boiled hard for much more than a minute... oops!)

In Praise of Ol' Reliable

Subtitle: My machine can kick your machine's butt.

Why the name? Well, Ol' Reliable is old... The copyright dates in the manual start at 1915 and end at 1950. The largest gap between any two is 3 years. So, Ol' Reliable is probably born no later than 1953. Ol' Reliable is reliable. Like no other electical device I've ever owned.

Ol' Reliable is a Singer Featherweiht 221, and is the sewing machine I use for just about everything. Why? It's a workhorse. It sews and sews and sews. Sometimes it gets a little cranky, and I have to clean and oil it very well. Usually, I just oil it from time to time.

How reliable is Ol' Reliable? Well, see, I'm working on repairing one canvas tent and changing the door design in another. "Canvas tent?!?!", you say. Yes. Canvas. Tent.

Now, Ol' Reliable does have limits, and I'm not actually doing all of the tent work on it. That would be cruel and unusual punishment for a wonderful machine. I'm going over to a friend's house, and she had an industrial machine that I'll be using to finish everything, like sewing through the places where there will be 9 layers of canvas. But, I didn't want to spend days on end camped at the Shaw residence. I like them; they like me; I don't think they want me invading their home for days and days and days. So, I thought I'd do some work in advance.

I'm replacing each and every stake loop on a Panther Pyramid tent. Did Panther put the loops in poorly? Oh, heck, no! Panther rocks. And if I could afford a brand new Panther Primitives tent, I would buy one in a heartbeat. Sadly, I cannot. So, several years ago I bought a used one. From someone who abused the poor baby. The stake loops are rotting, several have ripped and been repaired (btw, if you're camping in an old canvas tent, bring along a really big needle, some nylon webbing, and some dental floss... minty fresh repairs that last quite a while). I thought about getting Panther to do the work. It would be more convenient, but more expensive. I did chat via email with them for quite a bit, and they said they've switched to using canvas rolled around nylon webbing. I bought some canvas that I needed for the other tent (doors and fly), but I cut a bit off the walls of that other tent and had spare canvas. And some regular nylon webbing from an old ratcheting tie-down. And some tubular nylon, which is like regular webbing on steroids.

So... I knew Ol' Reliable could sew through 2 layers of butch tent canvas. I hoped it could sew through 3. I was right. I hoped it could sew through 3 plus one layer of wimpy nylon webbing. Ol' Reliable laughed and said, "Bring it on!" 3 layers plus one layer of tubular nylon? "Oh, please, I'm a Singer Featherweight, not a Singer wimp!"

Ol' Reliable can sew through 3 layers of relatively fresh tent canvas, one layer of tubular nylon (which is actually two layers), and two layers of old tent. I had to oil the needle frequently, and I swear I heard Ol' Reliable panting and saying, "Are we almost done? I would really like to take a nap... No? Okay... IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan..."

Oh, heck yes!, Ol' Reliable is reliable. I have ripped out each and every one of those rotting stake loops and basted its replacement in place. Perfectly.

I love this machine!!!

(And now, I'm going to go oil it and thank it for working so very hard for me, then put it away in it's nice box and let it sleep for several days...)

Addictions

Okay, so I admit I'm addicted to nicotine. And, yes, I am trying (and failing repeatedly) to switch from analog to digital....

But, socks. I am fabulously addicted to knitting socks. Easy socks. Complicated socks. Socks loosely based on a pattern but with wildly different yarn. Socks, socks, socks. I can knit socks 24 hours a day if permitted. Alas and alack, life generally does not permit me such luxury. But!! Socks are also the woolly equivalent of Valium (I think... never actually had a Valium...). So, when life through me a "you have to switch to Plan B" (and there was no Plan B... Ever optimistic, I figured Plan A couldn't possibly fall through), I picked up needles and worked on socks.

First up was the second sock of a pair of Skew in worsted yarn. No, the pattern is not written for worsted weight. But I successfully completed a pair in sock yarn, so I had a ready guide for diving in at the deep end. I called them A Leap of Faith - I had faith that I would be able to suss out what to do, and successfully translate the first left foot sock into the second right foot sock. Took notes and everything! And althought there are a couple of things I might do differently, I managed to produce a pair. And I love them. And they made me happy for a few minutes.

But, then that joy wore off. Sorta like the way they say you need bigger fixes more frequently for really nasty addictions (again, other than nicotine, don't know what those are like... Knowing that I have an addictive personality makes it very easy for me to say "NO!" to bad things... except cigarettes... and socks... but, I digress).

So, I whipped out another pattern I've been wanting to try (Zombie socks) and some yarn I picked up somewhere, and oo-ee, am I happy again!!

And just to keep me on my toes, I have to finish these bad boys in 2 more days so that I can cast on commissioned socks when the yarn arrives. Shipping from New York state tomorrow. And probably arriving on Thursday. Maybe Friday.

Socks, socks, socks.

I think just about everyone is getting socks for Christmas this year. Even those folks with wool allergies, because bamboo is really quite spiffy!!!

Socks, socks, socks.

Love me dem socks!!!