SpinnySpinny

It’s my blog, I can say that.

So I have totally screwed up the dress I was making for the opera. With only a couple days before we leave. I had it all ready to hem and decided to take in the side seam a bit under the arms. Since it was cut from a pattern with sleeves, it really needed to be smaller in the bust for a slip dress. I pinned and stitched and trimmed the seams, and then discovered I had somehow managed to alter the wrong seam. The side front, which is most assuredly NOT where it needed to be taken in. Dress trashed.

I have some different black fabric and a suitable pattern already altered to fit. I just need to adjust the length appropriate for a cocktail dress. And line it because it’s sheer. It’s about another three hours of work, not including hand stitching the hem. I’d have to hand stitch it anyway, so I’ll have two weeks to do it while I’m in Italy. The opera isn’t until the trip home, when we are staying overnight in Munich.

And I still have other things to finish, like stitching the sleeve lining and hemming the coat. How irritating.

This scarf started sometime in 2006 when, sick of spinning nothing but samples for the COE, I started several bobbins of singles from some black merino lamb fleece I had. I still have most of those singles, but I was talked into sending some to the county fair. My previous attempt to do something with it didn’t turn out so well. I’ve been wanting something just big enough to tuck into my coat, so I started a small scarf and have been working on it mainly in meetings. As a result there are plenty of errors, which I’m ignoring.

The yarn is natural color, from a lamb fleece I got a good discount on because it was full of VM. Since I comb a lot of fleece, this didn’t bother me much. This is almost as dark as you get with natural color wool, I could have cut off the tips and it would be a little more but I didn’t want to lose the fiber length.

The pattern is my usual simplified feather and fan with a 12 stitch repeat. One thing I like about this pattern is it’s easy to remember and the small row repeat means I can knit until I run out of yarn. It’s a little over a meter in length and about 16 cm wide, small by scarf standards but just what I was after.

I’ve been working on a coat for the upcoming trip, because I desperately need one. It’s Polartec Wind Pro Weathershield, a very dense fleece. It’s tedious to work with thick fabric and this stuff won’t hold a press for anything. But it’s warm, we’ll see how it holds up in the rain. It has almost no stretch, particularly lengthwise, so I can mostly ignore that it’s a knit. Handy, since my lining is woven.

I have the body and sleeves done, ready to put together:

The lining is some discount waterproof breathable nylon, I’m using it wrong side out because it’s impossible to match a printed plaid design. It’s a lining, so what if it’s brown.

Oh boy was that fun. Despite having to run back home to get forgotten spinning wheel pieces. A lot of people wandered in and out to see what the folks with the funny non-computer equipment were doing, some showed up with sewing machines, there were wedding invitations assembled and children throwing toys all over the floor. I spent most of the day carding and generally a good time was had by all. I took no pictures.

I finished the blending this morning, just to get it over with. I had a pile of junk fiber, both light and dark. I blended the mostly white stuff together, which included the last of the Grandma Wool, a collection of combing leftovers, a few things that Seemed to Be a Good Idea at the Time and some fleece that didn’t scour nicely. To improve the mix, I added odds and ends of fleece of decent quality but not enough or of a type I’d use alone for another purpose.

Here’s the finished pile:

There are neps and VM a plenty and I’m just not going to worry about it. I wanted to spread around the still somewhat greasy fiber to avoid having to scour batts and then try to re-card a semi-felted mess. Since some was already carded, I was blending mainly by the “One from Column A” method and ended up with a little of the greasy stuff left over. It’s not enough to go through blending the whole lot yet again just to mix it in.

I picked up the Leclerc warping mill I ordered a few weeks ago, I got the tabletop model. After a disastrous experience with a paddle and the warping board I determined it was time to have a warping mill again. I sold my old one with the loom before I came to San Francisco.

Previously I had the substantially similar Harrisville model, which is kinda nice as it has an integral brake to hold it in place while chaining off. I actually liked that quite a lot. But the Leclerc was about $50 less and comes already finished. The price was the smaller issue, more is that I just don’t have time to deal with the requisite sandpaper and can of oil. I can live without the brake, there are other options that can be temporarily installed as needed.

But now I get to assemble the thing. One difference is once this gets together, it’s not coming apart. The Harrisville was easier to put together (after finishing) because everything is held with wing nuts. That means it also came completely apart. That is a small advantage in storage as you can break it down to basically a pile of rods and the base.

The Leclerc has screws to hold the frame together. There are pilot holes but it is still difficult, I don’t have the strength to do it without assistance as it takes two hands to turn the screwdriver. I’ve got it partly assembled, and next time DH has a few minutes I’ll get the rest. And given that the screws go into end grain wood, it’s a one-way trip. The cross bars with the pegs do come off and the two pieces and the central rod come off the base, but that’s the extent of disassembly.

I haven’t decided if I want to sell the warping board, it does break down and there is something nice about having it to cart to demos or lend to students. This is what the storage unit is for.