Shawl of Sharing

Some time back, a group of fibre artists I belong to banded together to support one of our members who is dealing with cancer.  Of course we did this in the way we know best ... knitting and spinning. I coordinated part of the project, which involved an awful lot of hand spun yarn being shipped to me from all over the world. 

 

The extra yarn has been sitting here waiting for a project ... and just the other day it finally told me what it wants to be.

 

I've been knitting Shawls of Sharing: some are set aside for members of the group that was involved in the larger project, but I decided to post one of them for a wider audience, and share the love a bit further.

 

This shawl is knit from handspun yarn – wool and assorted other fibres (though I don’t believe there is any mohair – there is probably some angora, definitely some silk, and mostly pure wool). It is a slightly curved triangle shape, so it will sit easily on the shoulders, or can be wrapped up tighter like a scarf, or closed at the front with a shawl pin. Colours vary from browns and greens and blues through to a burgundy edging … it’ll go with absolutely anything you choose to wear it with, given all the colours it contains!

 

 

 

Here's how The Shawl of Sharing Project works:

 

If you would like to have this shawl (or have it sent to someone else), perform an act of kindness or make a donation to charity then tell me about what you've done and you'll be entered into the draw. It doesn't have to be anything big: drop some coins into the Salvation Army kettle, make a donation to the food bank, give the mail carrier a cookie, buy a cup of coffee and a muffin for a homeless person, whatever. Small acts of kindness can change the world one little bit at a time … and we aren’t bragging about what we’ve done, we are sharing and inspiring others to find ways to spread a little kindness in the world too.

 

So spread some love in the world, tell us what you have done, and maybe this Shawl of Sharing will come to you!

 

Responses can be made here on the blog, or on Facebook. I’ll draw a name on December 21, to celebrate Solstice and the return of the light!

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

If you haven’t yet seen Frozen, I highly recommend it. Even if you haven’t got kids. It’s got a lot of thought-provoking things to say: many of which seemed particularly relevant to me, like the idea that trying to control everything you feel is likely to lead to an unexpected eruption of power that hurts the people you are trying to protect, for instance. Like the idea that love, not fear, not control, is the answer to the pain and confusion.

I loved it. It’s also visually just stunning.

And when I saw that icy crystal gown, I knew there was a shawl design in there.

Some time with a spreadsheet and a bunch of beads and yarn resulted in this:

It has a lot of beads (close to 300), but it didn’t take all that long to knit, really.

The pattern’s up on Ravelry, if you need one of your own. The first fifty people to use the code LetItGo can have it for free. :D

Another hat

I finished the embellishment on the "Sunday go-to-meetin'" hat today ... A few more leaves and a pretty yellow button.

Then, over about 3 hours, I made the "Annie get yer gun" hat. :)

They could both do with a wee bit more fine shaping, easier to do at home where I have a sink with warm water at the ready, but they can be worn just as they are. Felting is so quick and fun!

The Alpaca People are planning a felting workshop later in the spring. That'll be fun too!

Wet Felting

You know, I actually like wet felting. It’s a lot of physical work (well, it can be, depending how big the thing is you are felting and how emphatic you have to get with the washboard) but the results are so unbelievably FAST and COOL.

I made this today at the Alpaca Show, at Northlands, in about two or three hours.

It’s straight-from-the-alpaca fibre, carded quickly just to fluff it open so the locks didn’t make the fabric too lumpy, embellished with some locks of different colours. There’s also a funky flower thing on the front which is made from a vessel that didn’t quite work out as planned – plain alpaca fleece embellished with some sparkly stuff I brought from home. I had no sewing tools with me today, but tomorrow I’ll stitch the leaves in place and probably add a button or two or three.

Fun day. More tomorrow!

Boots are finished and on the feet they belong to!

Didn’t take much scrubbing at all to get the final fitting done … and with the top cuffs turned down they look fantastic!

They also fit nicely inside her existing snow boots … she says she’s gonna wear ‘em all day now, which is good, because if they finish drying on her feet, they’ll be the perfect fit.

Yay! I’m so happy with how they turned out.

Barter: hand work for hand work

A friend of mine has been experimenting with processing hides in her barn – she has room to do such stinky, smelly work, she has access to hides and eggs and she is a clever girl with lots of energy! When she told me about her hide-processing adventures, I told her I was hoping to make some moccasins for myself – I know how hard it is to clean, scrape (and scrape and scrape and scrape) and smoke a hide, but if she had any extra and might be interested in a trade…

She likes my felted boots. Those are also a lot of hard work – getting the initial felt shape isn’t too bad but there is a lot of scrubbing and rolling and squashing involved in getting them shrunk down to size (which also thickens and solidifies the felt, so it’s essential to the procedure). My green boots took two days of steady work to construct, so it’s a fair swap.

I’ll make her a set of purple boots, she will give me a piece of buckskin. That is one good trade!

I picked up the skin today – it smells so good, having been smoked. And boy is it soft!

I’m not sure which kind of animal it came from, I’ll have to ask. Probably cow or sheep.

Holding up my end of the bargain, I started on boots:

As I mentioned, they begin very oversized. You have what looks like a pair of giant Christmas stockings, and then you scrub and roll and scrub and roll until they shrink down to a foot-sized boot.

I got this far:

The black plastic is the original size: that is the resist, used in the centre to hold the boot hollow while the felt takes shape. I’ve gotten a good couple of inches off the size, but there’s a lot more shaping yet to do: they are too tall and too thick at the ankle, and still a good two or three inches too long. More scrubbing to be done. However, I’m done for today – if I do any more, even Advil won’t be enough.

When the brain is on overdrive

Lately, my brain is on overdrive: scattered, frazzled, hard to focus on anything, trouble remembering things, the usual. After effects from the relapse, I am sure.

My family have been wonderful about helping out – The Boy has done chores for me so I can stay inside and rest, and everyone’s tried hard to help me feel better. I appreciate all their efforts, very much.

I’ve been doing my fibre arts work as a coping strategy: I can’t focus well, though, so I have a bunch of projects on the go and I keep switching from one to another, it’s like being in kindergarten and going from one station to the next! I have a sock in progress out of some stunning yarn from Mayhem and Chaos, the Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater, which is now getting a lace border added to the hem, some mittens, and a hat that I am inventing as I go. Oh, and some merino/silk on a spindle, because, hey, merino and silk makes any day better, much the same way a cup of tea improves even the worst day at least a little bit.

I was at a knitting party last night, working on the hat, and I explained that I had been feeling very scatterbrained and so although I’d looked at a bunch of patterns and even started one or two of them, following a pattern just wasn’t gonna happen so I had to make something up myself.

It was pointed out to me that for most people, feeling scatterbrained means they need to follow a pattern, not that they immediately go off and design something brand new right out of their heads.

Yep, I have a weird brain. :)

But it’s a cool pattern, I think it’s gonna work well. Yes, I’ll publish it when I’m done … if it really does work out as planned. I’ve decided to call it Ekaterin, for Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan, from the fantastic universe created by Lois McMaster Bujold. It seems like the kind of hat she’d wear.

Linen stitch. Integrated i-cord. Variegated hand dyed yarn. I think it’ll work.

 

ETA It’s posted on Ravelry now!

Working

I love my work.

Hand dyed yarns which will be packaged with my knitting patterns as shawl or sock kits.

Gradient dyed alpaca/wool lopi, which will be weft for a coat/vest/blanket (not sure which yet).

One blanket finished, the next started.

You might be able to tell that the twill direction changes at the centre: if you look at the second blanket, with the lighter weft thread, you can see the diamond that forms at the centre of the dark purple stripe which is the middle of the blanket, that’s where the angles meet. It isn’t particularly noticeable on the first blanket, but it’s showing up nicely on the second.

Fair Weekend 2014

We are home from the Fair!

Tired, of course, but we had fun.

I help out at the Bench Show, taking notes for one of the judges and stapling ribbons on the tags and so forth. I helped the Handcrafts judge this year, which I probably shouldn’t do as I have things in those categories, but she didn’t know which things were mine as the tags are all folded up, and I really wanted to hear what she had to say about everything!

There weren’t very many entries this year in the fibre arts categories – local spinners and knitters, join in the fun! A ribbon is nearly guaranteed, and it’s really cool to do. You even get prize money!

Here’s my collection from this year:

The Creamsicle Coat had to be entered in the ‘any hand crafted item’ category, which this year only had one other entry – a lovely wicker basket. It’s so hard to judge apples and oranges that way, but the judge did put first on the coat and she said she liked the use of buttons – there are four different buttons but they do all coordinate. The pink shawl is made with yarn my friend dyed with natural dyes, in the Prism Polygon shawl pattern. I had a few loose strands that should’ve been better woven in, but this was a last minute “oh heavens, what can I enter in this category?” entry so for it to have even gotten a ribbon was exciting for me. The ecodyed scarf took first in the natural dye category, I think mostly because it was so different (the other two were yarns, both very nicely done and the judge had a hard time choosing how to place the whole cateogry – in fact, she left it for last and came back to it, it was that difficult). She liked the subtle colours on the fabric, as do I (this is one of the amur cherry and common ninebark scarves). The merino/silk yarn was up against my friends’ Shetland, which she had done a lovely job of very fine spinning … again the judge had a hard time choosing, but she liked the poofy woolen spun and went with that in the end. The socks took second to my friend’s STUNNING handspun, hand knit shawl – but the judge did comment that the knitting was very even and that it was a good use of Corriedale fibre!

The kids didn’t have as many entries this year, but they came home with ribbons too (including a first place ribbon for the eggs that The Smaller Boy selected and entered, and a second place for the Princess Girl’s chocolate chip cookies). The Boy was busy volunteering and is, in fact, still at the fairgrounds, helping with cleanup.

The Reluctant Farmer was out today with the fire crews, demonstrating how to use a fire hose and putting up the giant sprinkler, which is a huge hit with the kids on a day as warm as today:

Some of the kids were too sandy (from digging in the pile of sand mixed with money that is dumped on the fairgrounds every year by one of the local construction companies, it’s called the Money Pit and it’s great entertainment for the kids) and asked to be hosed down:

So yep, we’re tired, we’ve had a lot of sunshine, and we are, as ever, grateful to all the people who make the Fair possible.

Frazzlehead’s Handspun Sock Recipe

I spun up three 100 gram Frazzlebatts.
I plyed them together and made two big balls of 3 ply yarn. Sparkly, purple and red and blue yarn. Thick yarn that wanted to be boot socks.
I experimented with needle sizes. I experimented with toe shapes. I experimented with patterns and leg shaping and in the end, I made knee high socks.

Then I thought, I should write that pattern down so that next time I want to make socks out of handspun, I don’t have to do so much experimenting. And I should share it, in case other people want to make socks out of their handspun yarn too – a recipe for figuring out how to make socks with a bit of trial and not too much error.
Quote from the start of the pattern:

So you got a lovely batt and spun it up. Maybe you got two or three. You have this pile of lovely yarn and it really wants to be something awesome, but … what does it want to be?
Perhaps what it wants to be is a pair of socks.
Well, sure, you say, but did I make “sock yarn”? What if my yarn is thicker than the usual stuff you get for socks? What if I’m not sure I have enough for socks? Will I run out partway through the second sock? How do I know how many stitches to cast on when I’m using non-standard yarn?
Fear not, brave knitter, Frazzlehead’s Handspun Sock Recipe addresses all these problems.

It’s free. It’s here. Help yourself! :)

Spinning at the Garden

Today I was at the local Garden - it’s an old homestead that was made into a historical site: the old house is still there, and the guy who homesteaded there originally was determined to grow all kinds of plants. There are trees there that “shouldn’t” grow here, like a black walnut and some others .. the crazy guy even imported poison ivy (it doesn’t grow here) to see if it would grow! (It does! It has a big fence around it, but it grows here!)

Anyway, today was ”History in the Garden”, celebrating the centennial of the homestead, and I was there doing a spinning demo on my 100 year old wheel … in period costume (or close to it) and spinning rovings done at Custom Woolen Mills, here in Alberta, which uses equipment from around the turn of the century as well.

So I was at my wheel all day - and I spun up another 4 bobbins of singles, so about 400 grams more.

It’s nothing special - it was some random CWM rovings I found in my stash, don’t even know what it is, but I know it’s their stuff, I recognize the characteristic structure of the rovings - but it’s another 400 grams of wool spun up during the Tour, which officially ends today.

Oh - and today I also sold two books, a knitted scarf, and two balls of my Tour yarn, which I had on display and a lady asked if I’d sell it. :)

So yep, I had a fun day, even if I was spinning in shoes (shoes!?? at the wheel??!). The rhubarb punch was good, too! :)

Ecoprinting, Canadian style

I’ve been working on some test ecoprints, as there is a workshop coming up in August at the Pegg Garden and I need to have some examples to show – and I need to know which plants will give us good results, too!

I’m basing my experiments on the information in India Flint’s wonderful book Eco Colour. The book is fabulous, but the author is based in Australia and our plants are, of course, quite different from the ones she has available.

This means experimentation is required. Oh, how tragic. ;)

Experiments with leaves and plain, untreated cotton were disappointing. Cotton really does require pretreatment to take up colour from plants very well, I see. I’ve got some more pieces of cotton that are being soaked in some premordanting, and then we’ll see how they work out.

Silk, though … silk loves plant colours. Silk is easy to dye: just put the plants on the fabric, wrap it up in a tight sausage shape, dampen the whole thing and leave it in a plastic bag for a month or so.

I bundled up a bunch of plants in silk while I was in Ontario – pictures are here. I was going to leave it bundled until the workshop in August, but the colours were very clearly set and I was worried that the plants might start to rot in our warm weather so I unbundled it today. Also, there is some treatment required for it to look good, and I wanted to have something pretty to show people who might be considering attending the workshop, and so … unbundling happened today.

Here’s what it looked like before I unwrapped it:

You can see that the silk has turned many shades of brown, and that the string it’s wrapped up in has been dyed completely chocolate brown.

Unrolled, you can see that the leaves and other plant bits have indeed turned into slimy bits, for the most part. There were still pinecones and chunks of cedar, and some of the maple leaves were “peelable” but mostly, the plant stuff had just disintegrated.

I brushed off what I could, and spread the cloth out on the floor:

See that green? That’s a maple seed: it sprouted! I stuck it in some dirt, I dunno if it’ll grow, but it’s worth a try.

The next step is to let it dry and press it with a hot iron and a pressing cloth.

The colours are set by the heat, and the longer I can leave it now before washing, the better the colourfastness.

I unwrapped another small piece of silk that I had rolled up a few days ago, this one had ‘ditch weeds’ in it: clover, dandelions, alfalfa, vetch, and some yellow something or other that grows in the ditches here. I only left it for a few days, dampened and rolled tightly then put in a plastic bag on a window ledge, and the colours came out quite yellow and green, instead of brown:

There are a few spots where the plants didn’t make any marks, and a few where the purple flowers stained the fabric darker, but mostly it’s an interesting mix of greens and yellows.

Here are the two pieces after ironing:

I think that if I’d unwrapped the Ontario one earlier, I’d have had more greens and yellows – possibly even some purple from the flower heads, but of course I can’t be sure. More experimentation is in order! I did see a couple of small holes in the fabric, so perhaps a whole month was a bit too long, or perhaps something got in there and munched on the silk, I am not sure. I can work around it, of course, but it’s interesting to note.

I have another length of premordanted cotton (with alum and then milk) in the steamer today, it’s wrapped around dock (which is high in oxalic acid) and pineapple weed (which is just interesting), so we’ll see what happens with that – it was looking like there was green and brown coming through as it steamed, so I expect to get some good colour from that. I also have a length of silk wrapped around various leaves (poplar, willow, saskatoon, wild rose) and some weeds (goldenrod, and some small plant with leaves that look like the ones on maple trees), so we’ll see what that does. Both of those got a bit of time in the steamer, and then will sit on the window ledge for a few days until I see signs that they might be ready for pressing.

It’s an interesting adventure, to be sure – I will be at the Pegg Garden on Sunday so I will take some collection bags with me and hopefully pick up some flowers and other plant material so I can do a few more tests … there are some interesting techniques for dyeing with flowers that I want to try!

If you are interested in coming to the Pegg Garden workshop (August 25, 2013) you can register by contacting the Garden – information is on the right hand side of their web page, here. Hope to see you there!

All plyed.

I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I plyed it all up.

Starting at the top left we have 2 balls of a very soft Frazzlebatt (there was some mystery fibre in there, my much-more-clever-at-fibre-identification friend says it might be a blend of alpaca and mohair, whatever it is, it’s super soft!) that have been plyed with one strand of Malabrigo Lace – which is a super soft merino singles yarn, and about the same weight as the singles I had spun, so it worked out nicely.

Below that is a reddish/purple batt that was spun in two chunks – so it got plyed against itself.

Under that we have two balls of a nice and thick three ply yarn from a reddish/purple batt, a purple/blue batt, and a blue/kinda purple batt … it’s a really rich colour all blended together like that, and the yarn has a wonderful smooshy softness. Of course it does – three ply woolen spun yarn? What else would it be but soft!

On the top right we have a purple batt plyed with a purple Malabrigo Lace, and below that a pink batt plyed with some bright pink Texel yarn that I had spun up at the Art in the Garden event. I had just enough to ply with!

Under that we’ve got the mystery blue/gray fibre, all plyed with itself: there was about 175 grams of it all together, so it made quite a bit even plyed against itself.

Last but not least we have a green Frazzlebatt plyed with an orange/brown Frazzlebatt. I think that wants to be mittens, but I’m not sure yet.

I had originally thought I would weave with this yarn, but I am not sure now. I’ll let it sit for awhile, I’m sure it will tell me what it wants to be eventually!

Tour de Fleece: GOAL REACHED!

Yes, I have spun a whole kilogram of Frazzlebatts.

First, proof:

1059 grams. That’s just a wee smidgen over the one kilogram of Frazzlebatts, which was my goal.

And the Tour doesn’t officially end until the 21st, so I am done EARLY!

Yay. :)

And now for the eye candy…

The final four batts:

Wheel spun yarn from those final four:

Group photo of everyone all together at the finish line:

I’m really thrilled.

Some of this was spindle spun, most was done on the Canadian Production Wheel. I’ve not had the energy to do much wheel spinning for the last couple of years, but I was finally in the mood to just sit down at my beloved wheel and let ‘er run. I worked hard to keep the singles fairly thick (all things considered – that’s not to say I spun bulky by any stretch, just that it was about double my default thickness). My next job is to ply: the first stuff that was done, the sort of hairy frizzy light blue and gray, will be plyed against itself and probably used for a small bag of some kind as it’s got that ‘sturdy’ feel to it (I have no idea what all is in it, that one was a blend of some stash mystery fibre plus Corriedale from the Batt Bar). The rest is likely to be plyed against things I have in the stash – stay tuned for some more interesting experiments in that regard.

In addition to finishing off my Tour goal today, I also went outside and did a bit more work in the barn (getting it cleared out is a nasty but necessary job), and thought a bit more about the fencing changes I plan to make while I shovelled.

I may actually go do a bit of plying now – the Babe is waiting for her turn to contribute to the Tour’s adventures. Maybe I can get all this stuff plyed up by the official end of Tour … maybe. No pressure though!

More than halfway to the TdF goal!

My goal for the Tour de Fleece is to spin a kilogram of Frazzlebatts … as of today, I have completed 600 g!

Here are today’s accomplishments:

Good Things: Tour de Fleece

It’s always important to balance the hard discussions with some easier ones, so let’s talk about the Tour de Fleece! After all, fibre arts are the biggest part of most of my days – I love making beautiful things, and encouraging others to make beautiful things with whatever talents they may have, too!

I love the Tour. It’s a chance to focus on spinning (or other fibre arts, but I generally go with the spinning) – which for me means getting some extra rest time in, which I really need after such a busy June. My goal this year is to spin a kilogram of Frazzlebatts during the Tour, which started June 29 and ends July 21.

So far, I have done 400 grams – I kind of got on a roll yesterday and filled two bobbins on the CPW, I was in a wheel spinning kind of mood. I finished off all the batts I’d originally carded up, then went upstairs and made more! Having a Batt Bar in your house is a wonderful thing, really.

I did a bunch of this blue stuff: it’s a mix of fibres from the stash and had some really textured stuff in there, so it came out a bit on the hairy side when it was spun. I think it’ll weave up into something neat though, maybe a bag or a tablet case type thing.

Here’s all that blue, wound into balls, plus the big fuzzy pink and purple batt all spun up:

Then I had two smaller batts made from some really soft something or other found in the stash (it might be alpaca) blended with some mohair locks and some Corriedale. There are two different batts here, I just spun them one after another and squashed them both onto the bobbin, then wound off into a ball – you can see the colour change in the middle.

Then I had to card up more batts … I’m in a pink and purple kinda mood, mostly, but I got some really nice new green shades for the Batt Bar so I had to try those out as well:

And I couldn’t resist the sparkly purple one, so it got spun up too!

Today I think I’m gonna be doing some more knitting: I’m working on a vest design with some yarn I got at Fibre Week from the lovely people at Riverstone Yarns: it’s their gorgeous mohair blend, and the colours are just amazing! I should have something photographable by tomorrow.

It’s a lovely, sunny, breezy day here at Apple Jack Creek – I hope you are having a beautiful day where you are, too!

Post Fibre Week

Once home from Fibre Week, there was the unpacking to do – which necessitated reorganizing the upstairs fibre studio to make room for a permanent batt bar, as I’ll be doing more blending now than before and I need the drum carder and all the raw materials right out where I can get to them. I got all that sorted (well, mostly, there are still some things just shoved in piles) and wore myself out even further.

Then I had a two day first aid class to take, as I plan to get my instructor’s certificate in September. This is a job that I think I can probably do even with my fluctuating energy levels: there are companies here that hire instructors just on a contract basis, so you pick up the gear, go teach, drop things back off, and get paid for the gig. No up front costs besides your training, very straightforward, and the work is the kind of thing where you can do as much or as little as suits you. So, there was that.

Then, there was the inevitable crash. I could feel it coming and I did all I could to mitigate, but I just couldn’t stave it off indefinitely. Something pushed me up and over the edge (doesn’t matter what, exactly, it was just one more straw on a heavily laden camel) and down I went. Two very, very dark days and then I managed, by sheer force of will for the most part, to drag myself up and out of the hole. I’m still pretty wiped out but at least I’m not as fragile as I was.

And, on my way back up out of the Dark, I handed my FAC license (the card that allows me to buy firearms or ammunition) over to my husband. We’ve chosen not to own firearms, given my periodic descents into Darkness, but I could, presumably, go and buy one as long as I have the card, so handing that over to the local Responsible Adult seemed like a good idea. I’m scared of guns anyhow, but still, better to just be proactive and take the option away entirely.

I am now in rest mode, spinning my fibre for the Tour de Fleece and watching Seaquest DSV on Netflix and doing as little as possible while I get my feet back under me.

I’ve made a lot of pretty string, though, see?

That’s about 275 grams so far, I hope to do a full kilogram by the end of the Tour. Which is in eleven days, so I’d better get back to spinning!

Ontario, Day 7

Today was the final day of the Handspinning Seminar, which included Wheelwright’s keynote speech and demonstration of how to turn things on a lathe. My job was to operate the camera that provided a close up projected view of the spinning wheel parts or the work he was doing on the lathe, so I have no photos to show you as I was otherwise occupied! The demonstration was wonderfully informative, it was really cool to watch wood turn from a square piece of lumber into a curved and beautiful orifice hook handle.

Oh, even though I didn’t get a picture of him working today, I do have this picture of an orifice hook Wheelwright made for me – mine’s even got a captive ring on it. I saw a set of partially completed captive ring orifice hook handles in the toolbox on Saturday and exclaimed that they were lovely and I definitely wanted one like that … so Reed got out his tools and finished one off for me, right then and there.

See that little circle that goes around the neck of the thing? It’s carved from the same wood as the rest but it moves freely around the stem of the hook. I love captive rings, they are so cool.

My next stop was the GO Train station, and I had a relaxing journey from Burlington to Oshawa, where my friends live.

 

Trains are, in my humble opinion, the most civilized way to get from one place to another.

I’m here now, having been fed a lovely dinner, entertained by the Small People who live in this house, and topped up with cup after cup of tea. I’ll be heading to bed early tonight I think, as I am very sleepy … I keep yawning!

It’s been a fabulous trip and I am very glad I came. I knew it would take a lot out of me, which it has, but I’ve been pleased with how well my energy has held up for such a whirlwind of events and emotions. As much as it’ll be good to sleep in my own bed again, I sure miss living close to the people I love, and I don’t want to go so long without seeing everyone again.

In all the rush of the past week I’ve not had much chance to catch up with everyone individually, so I’ll just take this moment to send out my thanks to everyone who has made this trip possible and wonderful. You’ll be hearing from me soon, personally, I promise.

Ontario, Day 6

I should be sleeping, but the adrenaline rush is still on full blast so I might as well post today’s update while the valerian/hops blend kicks in!

The great news is that I slept 7 solid hours last night, which I desperately needed, so that was awesome as I was then able to face (and enjoy) the day.

First thing this morning I went down and got a cup of tea, and poked my head in the door where the conference session was on. The organizer person at the door said I should go in and participate if I wanted to, so I got to play! The theme of the conference is “spinning tales” and we were given an excerpt from a book and fibre to spin a yarn that somehow went with our story. I had the bit from the first Harry Potter book where Harry is at Hogwarts for the first time – the dining hall with the sparkling candles in midair, the silvery ghosts, and the ceiling that shows a sky spangled with stars. That was fun to spin!

As I was heading out of the seminar, I saw this wheel:

I stopped dead in my tracks, set down all my stuff and dug out my camera because I had to have a picture of it! I found the owner later on – her husband made the wheel for her, it’s really (REALLY) impressive. I hear he may be doing custom orders … I have contact info, email me if you want it. :)

Then it was time to get things going in the market. A lady brought a double flyer wheel for Wheelwright to have a look at:

(That swift in the foreground is an actual antique that was repaired – it’s got new bars, but the upright and screws are original. Yes, it’s for sale.)

There were a lot of gorgeous wheels.

A Paradis with the original pumpkin paint (in fabulous shape, boy does this thing spin beautifully):

A reproduction CPW done in pine; a very old, very wonderful (really, really wonderful) screw tension wheel that was at some point painted (or partially painted) blue; a Bisson that isn’t quite fully refinished yet…

A lovely little flax wheel, a marked Philias Cadorette, and you can just see the leg of a really cute little child’s wheel (which is part of Wheelwright’s personal collection). All but the baby wheel are looking for homes, and I spun on every one of them and loved them all! It’s a good thing I came here on a plane. That pumpkin wheel or that once-blue-screw tension would probably find their way into my car if it were here.

So my purpose here was to spin on the wheels and help folks who wanted to try them out. Basically, I got to sit around and play with gorgeous wheels and talk to people … it was awesome!

My aunt and uncle came down from Brampton and we got to visit for part of the morning and then have tea during our midafternoon break. I never did get a picture, we were too busy chatting and having a good time, but boy oh boy was it wonderful to see them. It’s been way too long.

We convinced other spinners to test the wheels (see, Aunt Sharon? she spins barefoot too!)…

And I spun and plyed up 100 grams of lovely black fibre. When I had the bobbin all filled up, Wheelwright suggested we skein it up on the antique swift. Now, I’d been sitting there spinning and chatting to this lovely gentleman who told me, after some time, that his career was making spinning wheels.

I was sitting next to Gord Lendrum. Yes, *that* Gord Lendrum.

So, my yarn was skeined by the man behind a Canadian wheel manufacturing company and a wheel repair expert, while I stood there and watched.

They even wound it into a ball when it was time to pack up for the day.

Do I have an awesome life or what, eh?

In the evening there was a dinner and a fashion show (inspiring, as always) and then a spin-in … during which I spun up another bobbin full of yarn and plyed it, this time on a marked Dejsardins. Yep, it’s been a fun day.

Tomorrow morning Wheelwright is doing his keynote speech, all about assessing and repairing/restoring antique wheels. I’ll be operating the camera that will be used to project the detailed view of what he’s discussing (a part of the wheel, for instance) onto the screen so that everyone in the room can see even if they are at the back.

I suppose that means I should get some sleep, since I need to be downstairs in about seven hours. Uh, make that six.

Tomorrow is another busy day – conference in the morning, train in the afternoon, visiting with some of my Chosen Family in the evening … then sleep fast and get on the plane to go home the day after! What a whirlwind this trip has been … but it’s been a wonderful time.

Seeing my family was just like coming home, didn’t seem like anything really out of the ordinary, we were just … all together. Like it ought to be. It isn’t like that very often though, and I’m really, really glad I came … because I have so enjoyed being with everyone ‘for real’. Add to that the chance to meet Wheelwright after four years of online friendship, to play with lovely wheels and meet wonderful people and make pretty string (all at once!), see my aunt and uncle, and see one of my very best friends and his family … and well, things just don’t get much better than that.

I’m very blessed, and very grateful.