House renovation progress, help with Dutch pattern?

We were at the other house this weekend (as we do every weekend until it's in move-in condition) and the attic project is almost finished. It's to be my new studio, with lots of storage space behind the knee walls and my own air conditioner/heater. Here's a few before-and-now photos:

It's just a little lighter and airier now, isn't it? Can't wait to get my wheels and fiber moved in there. The space in the last photo is where I'll be putting my antique loom once I get it out of storage, cleaned up and set up. There will be track lighting with both indoor and outdoor fixtures so I can work in the best light possible. I'm so excited to se this project nearing completion!

On another subject, does anyone speak both knitting and Dutch? I'm in dire need of someone to translate a book for me. While living in Noord Holland last autumn, I bought the latest Filati Mens Sweaters booklet from a friends shop in Hoorn. It's full of wonderful timeless-yet-sophisticated mens sweaters. We thought it would be no problem to have Filati send us the English version, but then we discovered once I returned home to the US that they were discontinuing the English version with this issue. In February I gave the book to my Pittsburgh Dutch friend who has translated 3 of the patterns. She emailed me yesterday that she will be too busy to complete the translation (about 6 more patterns if I remember correctly). Is there anyone who can finish the translation for me? The patterns themselves are only about 1/2 page long in the book, which comes to about one page as a Word document. Help.....

Busy busy week

Phew! I feel like I've finally jumped off the merry-go-round and caught my breath! Last week started with our 'summer camp' at the store. My student was a lovely 9-year-old young lady with whom I spend 3 days, teaching her about fiber and spinning. She left with several balls of her handspun which Grandma was planning to knit into a lap robe for her American Girl doll. Then there was the dental crown--ugh, nuff said. Two dinners out, one with in-laws who I love dearly and another just because there was a restaurant offering fresh Dungeness crab. Then another (adult) spinning class on Saturday. Somewhere in there I managed to make some stock for my store and get a little knitting and spinning done. My latest knit project is a pair of gloves

in my handspun variagated yarn which I made to honor our local sports team colors, black and gold. Okay, so maybe they're ugly to most folks but in Pittsburgh no one would batt an eye if I wore these--think Steelers, Penguins and Pirates all of whom have done well or are doing well this year. And I will resist taking a jab at that football team up north who like to bend the rules to win (you know who you are...).

Today's projects include:
1. Finishing up restocking my store so I can work on the new line of sock fiber
2. Getting some spinning done, because....
3. I must rest my right index finger. Seems I jammed it somewhere and now it bothers me every time I knit. Bummer.
4. Dropping the F-Bomb at every opportunity in understanding company. This project is in honor of a great visionary who passed away this morning, the undeniable George Carlin. I hope you packed all your stuff, George. We'll miss you.

And....we have a winner!

malegra said...
Would that be Nazareth, PA?And then I'd have to guess that you visited Kraemer Textiles?

Although her post was in last weeks column, malegra has given the correct answer. I was indeed in Nazareth, PA on an extremely hot Tuesday. It was already past 90 degrees at 9:30 in the morning when I visited Kraemer Textile Mill, and their air conditioning had been out for several days. But I still had to shop for yarn, of course.

The other valid guess would have been C.F. Martin Co, the guitar makers. My brother, the bluegrass guitarist and singer (and that was another hint) deserved a Martin t-shirt because..... well, because he's my brother. And Martin's air conditioning was also on the fritz!

So, I'm interested in knowing how you came up the both answers so quickly?

Contest!!! Well, a mini-contest, sort of....

I was out of town earlier in the week, visiting places and snapping pix. It occurred to me that it would be fun to see if others could guess where I'd been, keeping in mind what I do for a living.

So, here's a little contest to see if you can guess:

1) The name of the city I visited;

2) One or both of the places I visited while in that city.

Your one hint is the photo below. Be the first person to correctly name the city and you will earn $5 off any item in my Etsy store. If you can ALSO guess one of the places I visited in that city, you will earn an additional $5 off, for a total of $10 discount in my store. Remember, you must be the FIRST person to guess the city. And that same person must also name one of the places I visited to earn the additional discount. Contest is not open to any employees of Natural Stitches in Pittsburgh (they already know where I was) nor any of my immediate family (same reason, but then again my brothers don't knit--especially the bluegrass player--so they probably wouldn't enter anyway!)

I thought it would be a fun challenge for folks to research and stretch their brains. Enjoy, and have fun with this.....

Advice for the fiber vendors out there

Today I finished spinning a combed top that I bought at a fiber festival recently. While the yarn is very nice, I had to stop frequently to pick out the neps and noils in the fiber--took 3x longer to spin this 4 oz of fiber than it would have if it had been well-prepared. It was quite obvious that there was low-quality fiber mixed in with mostly-supurb stuff. And I paid top dollar for this fiber. To be fair to the vendor, I grabbed the sales slip to contact her and try to be helpful (after all, perhaps it was a new mill that she used, or she let a hired hand run the carder). But no, there was no name on the receipt and I had paid cash so can't track them through a credit card. So, here's the rant.

For cripes sake, folks, if you want to enter the fiber vendor business, don't pass off shoddy fiber as top-notch goods. I had to pick out grass, neps and noils created by short bits of fiber (some as short as 1/16") and bits of seeds. I threw away a good cup (compressed) of fiber, for which I paid top dollar. What if I'd been a new spinner? This purchase may have turned me away from the craft completely, just because some careless or greedy vendor wanted to make a buck. Have some respect for what you raise and sell, and have the dignity to put your company info in the bag somehow. Instead of being able to call this particular vendor and chat, I'm here venting in public. I will definitely avoid this vendor next year at that show, and advise my co-travelers to purchase at their own risk. Too bad this seller has left her public with no way to provide her with feedback (positive or negative) and thus, no way to improve her business. sigh.....

Down for the count

Somewhere on Saturday I picked up a head cold. I'm struggling just to sleep through the night. Late spring is a lousy time to have a cold, I can't smell the peonies and roses that are opening. And I'm struggling to keep up with my business as the head congestion makes everything seem to happen in slow-motion. Very short post today, as I need to head for the box of Sudafed right now.....

Great Lakes Fiber Festival--woohoo!!

Just got back last night from the festival in Wooster, OH where we had a great time. I met up with one of my BFFs who was my maid of honor 13 years ago, and once a business partner of mine. We only see each other every few years so it was soul-warming to chat in person. This year we decided to stay overnight rather than do a 5-hr round trip, and it was a wise choice. We had sooo much stuff crammed in the car that it was ridiculous. Of course, some of the stuff was our wheels and luggage but that's not the important stuff, is it?


Here we have the famous and popular AMZ dragging her THIRD load back to the car--it was a feeding frenzy. Some of you who have been on KnitList for years may know AMZ in her other persona, Blankie Woman. Apparently, the Blurbles were hungry for knitting materials.....





These are my acquisitions. That tan/black/lime green one in the front is an alpaca/llama blend that I'll probably ply with some black Merino I have in my stash. The lime is MUCH brighter than the photo shows. I've pretty much decided how to spin and ply each one, but that orange/green one in the back right has me puzzled. Oh well, by the time I get the rest done I'll have figured out something.



The sky both days was cloudless, the temperature was perfect and the trip was all I could ask for. Next festival will probably be Fingerlakes in the fall, if I can find someone to tag along with me (be forwarned, I'm a world-class enabler).

Waynesburg, PA sheep festival

Yesterday we drove down to Waynesburg for the festival. I'd been wanting to go for several years but something always seemed to pop up and prevent it. This year I was determined to go. At that point Murphy's Law kicked in and within hours someone signed up for my Saturday spinning class. But this is a 2-day festival so not a big deal to miss Saturday. Sunday dawned rainy and cold, but the forecast was for decreasing showers in the afternoon and off we went!

Next time I'll know better. Although the festival was nice, it was evident that several vendors would not be manning their booths the second day. Which did not deter me in the least. I found a lovely project basket at one booth, a couple of good wines at another, and a third booth with the loveliest Rambouillet lamb fleece. Since I spin for a living, I never use raw fleece anymore because I just don't have the time to process it these days. I'd forgotten how lovely it is to stick your hands into a fresh fleece. I want to sit down and handcard this pound of fleece like I used to do in the 70s (except I had to dispose of those handcards because the lanolin ruined them). It brought back memories of sitting in my friend's barn in Chicora on shearing day, spinning up the fresh warm fleece as it came off the ewe. Maybe I'll just tease the locks apart and spin them? Or flick-card and spin? Or (ugh!) wash the locks and drumcard them? It's just such a nice bit of wool....just look at the crimp on those locks!

My Wildish Woman

So the past few days I've been re-reading my well-worn copy of Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It keeps me on an even keel, especially when things are going a little wonky with my life. And I recall some advice when I was in a business seminar, that our company logos should say something about what our business sells/does. I sell handspun yarn and fiber and teach handspinning (and sometimes weaving). However, I choose my logo (wolfprints) and name (Feistywoman) so I could say something about what my business does--it tells me that I've finally come full-circle, that I've recognized my Wildish Woman, that there's a reason the wolf in American Indian birth symbology is my totem, and that I will never again allow myself to be declawed. I have not behaved as my family would have liked, I have not behaved like a lot of the other moms in my area, and I almost died trying to follow the career that my family thought was "fitting" for me. And I stopped doing those things a couple of decades ago and have been immensely happy ever since. Not that there hasn't been a price to pay for this obstinate following of my muse. It's never easy to swim against the tide and takes it's toll on your energy. But when you reach the goal, it's ever-so-much sweeter than if you had settled for the average.

"The hallmark of the wild nature is that it goes on. It perseveres." (WWRWTW, Estes, p. 203)

It's Easter all over again

The new sock rovings are all dry and listed on my webpage. I had to keep one of the rainbow rovings for myself and started spinning it over the weekend. The first bobbin of Easter Eggs yarn is finished....ta da!

I seem to be suffering from mild pollen allergies this year. Not badly enough to dose myself with meds, but not satisfactorily clear-headed either. My car is covered in pollen every day, so it's little wonder that I'm muzzy all day. Spring is my favorite season, but my sympathies to all those who suffer seasonal allergies.

Off to the studio to get some work done.....

Transplant fever and dyeing

One of the advantages to having a year to move is that we can transplant all our favorite flowers and shrubs beforehand and make sure they thrive at the new house. So, in an effort to beat the incoming rains, we dug up the black raspberries and elderberries on Sunday and took them over to the new house. Poor little things were so droopy by the time they were back in the ground!









But we also found an area that was covered with violets! I'd never seen these at my Mom's house before, so I suppose they've popped up in the last year or so. I love violets, second only to lilacs on my list of all-time favorite flowers.

I also found the time to create some sock rovings for dyeing. This is my most recent effort drying in the breeze, inspired by all the forsythias and redbuds that are blooming right now.


Problem is, I want to spin this one myself and not sell it. I did some rainbow colored roving this morning and want to keep THAT for myself also. But a girl can only use so many socks, so I suppose they'll go on etsy in the next few days....sigh.

Ack! It's been a while....

Wow! I knew I'd been away from the blog for a bit, but I didn't realize it was almost 2 weeks. I've been busy coordinating work on our new house. It's the house I grew up in and it hasn't had any real work (or much upkeep for that matter) in years. This is what it looks like now. We're adding AC, finishing the attic as my new studio, putting in new windows, etc, etc, etc. And that's on the inside of the house--the lawn has been left to grow unmown for almost 2 years, and needs major TLC. We did manage to put in several fruit trees, tho and now just have to wait for them to make fruit. Remodeling never seems to be finished, there's always SOMETHING that needs redone.

In the meantime, as a stress-reliever I've spun up some of my Posy Toes sock batts and made socks. I used the first method on my instruction sheet so that there would be subtle stripes of color. Then I Navaho-plied so the striping would be maintained, and knit the socks toe-up on US #2 needles. They're a bit difficult to photograph because of the fine glitter blended into the wool, but they are soft, warm and very comfortable. And, as you can see, the wild violets are blooming in my yard!

I have a new camera!!

I finally finished researching digicams and found what I wanted for the price I was willing to pay. Drove over to the local big-box electronics store and picked one up, in addition to buying a new PDA. Just have to knuckle down and read over the camera brochure before I'm up and clicking--so exciting to have a new toy.

I've also been carding more sock batts and putting them up on Etsy. Long hours standing at the drum carder, but it's fun to see the colors develop. I've saved one Lunaria colorway for myself as I need some black/cream dress socks and these will certainly fill the bill. BTW, I've been blessed with a good fiber friend who now carries my fiber and sock yarns in her store. If you're in the Pittsburgh area, stop in to Natural Stitches and pick up my stuff without having to pay S&H charges.

Off to play with the new gadgets.....

Hills and valleys

We took a break today and went to our favorite honey farm down in WV. It's a lovely drive, especially when the Ohio River is high and looks like liquid glass in the spring sunshine. It's also on the top of one of the many ridges in the area, and it's quite a bit of fun to drive those roads in my little red sportscoupe. And I remembered how different it was living in the Netherlands where everything is flat, flat, flat with endless horizons--sort of like our American Midwest. I also remembered how I felt slightly nervous in that environment, a bit insecure and 'out in the open'. Someone from Ft. Wayne, IN once told me that she'd found that folks from flatlands didn't feel uncomfortable in mountains, but folks raised in the mountains tended to miss them when in flatlands. It recalled for me phrases like, "nestled in the valley" and "tucked into a hollow". I wonder if we 'hill people' feel comforted by the idea of being nestled and tucked, a little like being held in the palm of a very large and safe hand--if there is danger, we are protected from it by the big surrounding hills. Is that why I'm a bit nervous when out I find myself in a flat landscape? Or are my eyes/brain feeling bored by the unrelieved flatness? (I don't think so, as there's plenty of houses/trees/wildlife to see). Just an interesting train of thought, ruminating on our internal programming.....


Someday I'll buy a replacement camera (I've been using the hubster's when I can steal it away) and get more photos up here. But for now, we'll have to settle for verbal imagery.

Carder-dependant batts? Minor rant follows....

Maggie asks me what type of carder I use to create my batts, and I've been asked this question several times this week. I looked carefully at carders when I was ready to buy, as I'd been using an old Clemes & Clemes (anybody around here that remembers them back in the 80s?). The C&C was built for the days when we didn't have fine fleece or exotics available to us non-commercial processors. However, I needed a machine that would handle fine fibers and novelty stuff, and there are many carders out there that would do the job I wanted. I choose my carder out of several I considered because.....the shipping was fastest and cheapest on this one! And I gotta say, "Folks, it's not the carder that makes the batts, it's the operator." Any carder that will handle finer fibers/exotics will make nice batts, but you gotta know how to choose and prepare the fiber beforehand. True, you need to look for the features you want (motorized, large capacity, changeable drums, etc), BUT if you're looking for the carder to do all the work it just ain't gonna happen. Clean wool, nicely opened out, blended several times with whatever if you're blending, will yield nice batts.

Methinks that maybe I should add a carding class to my repertoire?

Edited on April 10: Ouch! Must have been a bad day if I started ranting about inanimate machines. Sorry about that...

If it's spring, I must be doing yardwork...

The crocuses are up, the daffodils want to be blooming, and the sun is out so that must mean I have to do yardwork. I'd rather be knitting or spinning, but I suppose that the winter trash must be removed if I want to look at those spring and summer flowers. Ah well....

Ran a few more colors through the carder this morning in the hopes that I can finish all the Posy Toes colorways, photo them and have them up on Etsy by Tuesday at the latest. These batts take quite a while to produce as I run them through the carder 3 times before I consider them ready to spin. That's a lot of arm-work! But I'm having such a good time playing with the colors, it's like having a box of 64 crayons. One of my fondest memories is the first day of school--really first day, like the first day of first grade--when I went to my desk and there was a box of brand new, never-used crayons on my desk. They smelled sooo good! Why don't crayons smell like that anymore, I wonder? Have they changed the formula?

Anyway, I'm heading outside to clear away old leaves and fallen branches. Perhaps I'll have a look at those seed catalogs tonight and order some perennials, maybe some bittersweet to climb on a trellis at the garage.

The new sock batts are up!

I finished half the new line of sock spinning batts and put them up on Etsy two days ago (http://www.feistywomandesigns.etsy.com/). They are all flower-themed, and I have 5 more colorways to prepare before the entire line is in the public eye. BUT, it's been great fun as I adore flowers and colors! This is a photo of the Gloriosa colorway.

Having spent all of yesterday carding batts in Impatiens and Lisianthus colorways and baking bread, I'm just too tempted to spin them up myself. Today, Friday, is for all that dratted paperwork that comes with having a business--pay the bills, make the invoices, enter the inventory---yuk! Isn't this why I left my old paperwork-pushing job, to follow my creative muse?

I have a 'digital' headache

I swear, I just wasn't meant to deal with technical stuff. Halfway through my photo shoot today, I had to download the photos because the card was full. Could it be because I accidentally put the camera on video for a few minutes? duh. Explain to me how I can understand the nuances of spinning wheels and spindles and cars, but digital cameras and VCRs and TiVos completely stump me?

All the photos of the new sock spinning batts are finished--phew! Some came out better than others because it's so tough to photograph something with glitter, even without a flash. The nylon just picks up every bit of light even when the lights are softened. As soon as I finish this post, I'll be putting the batts up on Etsy. New sock yarns should go up next week, as soon as the skeins are washed and dried.

And I think I've finally caught up on my everyday life after being out of town and out of the country for the past 4 weeks. Trips to Canada, LA and the Netherlands can sure put a damper on getting stuff done. But we/I had a great time seeing old friends and eating all that good food in North Holland--thanks, Annie and Gre!

I finally made it

Finally found my way into blogdom after retiring from my job, getting my life re-organized around having the time to do WHAT I WANT (shouting cause it feels good to do WHAT I WANT and not what's required of me), and hunting down a host I liked. And having the courage to actually post. No photo of me yet, as the Kodak decided to freeze up on me. Paid $20 for a new battery, charged it, and the camera still doesn't work. Will cost $125 + $48 shipping just to have them look at it. Decided to use hubby's Nikon, only to have the battery go dead on it. Now that $40 battery is charging so that hopefully I can finish my photos tomorrow. I simply must update my Etsy page with all the new spinning fiber I made last week and it's making me nuts to wait for a little bit of metal in a battery wrapper to charge up.