Finis

Today's the last day of the Tour de Fleece 2010 and I'm very pleased with the outcome. All the spinning I did ended up with a nice 3 ply sock yarn of over 500 yards. The hot weather we're experiencing this weekend made finishing up the yarn quick. What I like to do to finish my yarn is boil some water, take it off the burner so it's not moving, dunk the yarn, then drain. When it's finished dripping, I hang it up on the back porch. A few minutes later I check to make sure it's not hot to touch and squeeze the last of the water out. When it's 90 degrees it only takes a few hours to dry.

Yesterday, I went out to Islay Hill Alpaca Ranch to help them with a fundraising party for Farmington View Elementary School. They needed a couple of handspinners to show that process. Several families came with their kids and I came with my wheel, fiber, and a bunch of handspindles including some for the kids to keep. The kids were fascinated by the process and all wanted handspindles. Gail came too with her wheel. She brought a silk hanky she was spinning on and shared what it looked like and where silk comes from. At one point we went out to visit the alpaca herd and feed them carrots. As thanks for our participation, Jan and Jim gave us alpaca fiber shorn from a couple of their herd. Mine's a pretty chocolate brown that will make for a pretty shawl.

So now that Tour de Fleece is done, my focus is finishing up plying up singles made of the Briar Rose BFL. They're laceweight to fingering so the plying is taking some time to do. I have one Louet bobbin nearly full and no sign that I'm coming to the end of the singles.

Sunny skies on a Sunday

Spring is now getting a good shot in the arm this weekend here in Stumptown. Portlanders who were huddling in their jackets and scarves are walking the streets in shirt sleeves and sunglasses, big smiles on their faces as they try to soak up enough sun to neutralize the winter dullness. I've opened up the house to let the skimmia fragrance waft into the house and the cross breeze push the stale air of winter out. The cats are lounging in the sunshine after a good roll on the sidewalk and the bushtits are flitting about in the trees and bushes. A lovely day for sitting outside and knitting or spinning.

Last week at knit night I brought home Susan's carder and processed some of the washed wools I had. I completed the processing on two bags of wool, a merino I had purchased a couple of years ago and the Columbia moorit I got at the Aurora Fiber Faire last year, and now have some lovely batts to spin from.

It's interesting to see the crimp on both being so fine so I'm looking forward to seeing what I come up with from both wools. The merino was my first attempt at getting a wool in the raw after being sheared, washing it and processing it to batt form. I was afraid I had felted it but found to my delight that it had not.

The Columbia was washed and picked but needed carding. I did some experimental carding at OFFF on Deb Accuardi's carder and liked the result. It's a lovely warm brown that should be enough for a sweater when spun up.

Getting naked

Imagine you're just minding your own business, just bopping around in your pasture with your buddies on a cool spring day.

Then some guys come along and herd you and your buddies into a barn. It's a little snug but it's warm and dry. There are some noises on the other side of the wall and some low chatter, but for the most part you're calm.

Suddenly someone grabs a hold of you and another bops you on your butt and starts shaving you. The noise is terrifying and the cool air hits your body before you know it. You're turned and twisted, the clippers buzzing all over your body and legs.

Next thing you know it's over. The guy who had shaved you lets you go, another guy guides you out to the pasture, and off you run. The cold hits you and you wonder where your friends are. You call and call and they answer, but some weird people show up. You realize then they are your friends, only shaven. Somewhere you hear the voices of women cackling with delight.

It was this Saturday that I and some of the members of the Portland Spinnerati went to Jon and Ronda Schultze's farm where we helped with the skirting of their Icelandic sheep. Eddie, a shearer from New Zealand, came to shear and eight of us took the shorn fleece and removed the vegetable matter, dung tags, second cuts, and mats.

Our reward? A car full of fleeces ready to be taken to the processors.

I'm trying to remember

Dear Supreme Being, whatever your name may be:

Hey there. I know -- you're thinking "It's that agnostic again. Make up your mind: do I exist to you or not?" Well I went deist some time ago. I just didn't pick one of the various faiths that offer their version of the path to Enlightenment/Salvation/Nirvana/whatever. So we can get that out of the way right now.

Anyhoo, I've been wondering lately just what it is that you decided that at the point a woman starts losing her hormones she loses her brain. I don't mean the mood swings or psychotic episodes that come with that (and by the way thank you for NOT having me go through that, since I went through enough of that prior to the hysterectomy). It's the memory loss. The DUH moments when you know exactly what that word is that you want to say and you're a perfectly intelligent person that has a college degree and a huge vocabulary but for some reason your brain misfires and the word just simply escapes you and you're stuck sitting there with your friend waiting for you to tell you the word as you sit waggling your fingers to try to FOR THE LIFE OF ME WHAT IS THAT WORD?? remember what you want to say. Yeah, that thing.

I'm sure you've heard from a multitude of women who have already gone through this and nod sagely. They look at me and nod. "Oh yes, she's going through THAT part." The big sisters of the grand sisterhood just watching you suffer as you try to remember what the last ingredient of that drink you had last night was -- it begins with a "c" -- or was it a "g"? Just what in hell was in that drink? They tell you later about all the post it notes they use and send you emails telling how you intended to go take the trash out but through a series of distractions ended up watching TV and going to bed.

Thank you for the Internet, Big Guy. It at least tells me I'm not heading for a life of sitting in a wheelchair with a vacuous look on my face and a big bib as my brain slowly rots. It's supposed to be normal for me to be like this. Perhaps not this soon but since I hurried up the process a bit I'm getting the results. Like remembering the routines of George Carlin word for word but heaven help me if I can tell you what I was doing with that handspindle last night is supposed to be normal.

So what did we do to deserve this? I know in the Bible it said that women were to bear children with the pain of leaving Eden. But did it have to include this? You'd think that the one thing you'd want us women to do is to remember. It was the point, right? But we don't. We forget, then recall just before we drop off to sleep that we left the groceries out on the back porch because we got distracted by a phone call from Maggie.

I tell you what. Do me a favor and for the next few generations test drive the possibility of allowing us women to remember things when we hit menopause. If you don't like it you can always undo the work. But I think you'll find that it will make your life simpler. After all, I can't imagine you'd want to hear the same prayers over and over again.

On the Fiber Front

Word reached me through Twitter that Phat Fiber is doing a giveaway. All you have to do is name a very cute baby goat and you get a chance to win a pound of lovely fiber samples. I've put in my entry after giving it thought. I hope I hope I hope I win!

In the meantime, I've been working on various things. The Queen Sized QAL is resting for the moment on row 75 (a little less than halfway rowwise and a third stitchwise). I'm back to work on the secret project and am very happy with the results. Earlier in the week I washed the remainder of the baby alpaca fleece and spent last night picking the locks apart into a big soft cloud. I'm less than halfway through the picking. I can see this being a very nice shawl.

I must make a recommendation to my fiber readers because these bags can be hard to find. I like to keep my projects in zip-closing bags to keep them clean and protected from potential snagging, but the gallon sized bags are sometimes just way too small. I use the Hefty Jumbo zip bags for the big projects. Shawls, sweaters, you name it. They hold a lot. But the tricky part is that they're not found just anywhere. This evening when I did my groceries I found my local Safeway had them in stock, so I snagged a couple of boxes. Surfing on the net yielded no results, so if you find them, BUY 'em! You'll be glad you did.

Sniffle

My latest allergy shot response was good and bad. The good part was I wasn't exhausted after the shot. The bad part was a cold that was waiting for my immune system to be valuable took hold. So I went home early yesterday and am home nursing the bugger. Is it a good sign that you have a dream where Dr House calls you to see how you're doing?

A couple of weeks ago I washed a sample of one of the fleeces I brought home from OFFF. This one was the Lincoln/Blue Faced Leicester/Montadale cross. I didn't use my washing machine as the fleece is very dirty. The couple of washings it took to clean it took out a lot of dirt and ca-ca. I'll have to go through and pick it before processing it more. But the locks are very pretty and white. I have the butt end going the wrong direction, but if you're not American, the ruler's going the right way. ;)