I did it!

Yes!  I finished more than half of the knitting part of my self-imposed 2014 Winter Olympic Challenge!  I earned a Silver medal!  Ask me if I am proud!  I am...because I didn't give up and I learned a new technique and, all in all, I had fun doing it.  Now I am ready to settle down and sort out my tax stuff and get that done!

By the way, I think the "Silver Medal"  will be a huge York's Peppermint Patty!  What do you think?!

I like it!  It is wrapped in silver, it is cool and refreshing like a beautiful winter day....and it's chocolate.  It's PERFECT!  It will definitely make me feel like a winner when I bite into it.  Getting it to hang on a ribbon around my neck will be hard ....may have to skip that part....

So I suppose you want to see what I created with my challenge.  Are you ready for the unveiling?!  Here it is, and I must tell you that a week ago I didn't think this would be such a success!  I really didn't!  Sometimes we surprise ourselves....

My first entrelac knitting

I learned (and re-learned) some things with this challenge, I am proud to say.  I have listed 10 of them below:

     1,   That you can change your plans in midstream if necessary.

     2.   That you can over-think things a bit too much. (I have been told that numerous times!)

     3.   It is fun and rewarding to knit something out of your own hand spun yarns.

     4.   It is best not to take shortcuts if you really want something to work out/end up a certain way.

     5.   Just because something looks difficult doesn't necessarily mean it is.

     6.  I can learn something new easily even at my ripe old age.

     7.  Sometimes what you think you want is not what you end up wanting.

     8.  Colors are not only birthed in the spinning and plying, but in the knitting, too!

     9.   When making a finished project with yarns it is important to go beyond colors in your choice. 

    10.  Entrelac is truly magical!  I want to do more!

I have struggled many times with #9 above, and that is probably one of the reasons I spin skeins of yarn that I just prefer to look at and not actually use to make something.  I tend to lean towards "color making" in my yarns, and not the texture or draping quality or diameter in them.  In this challenge I think, and hope, I have finally learned that color is not the most important aspect of knitting with yarns, hand spun or otherwise; the physical aspects of the yarn is just as important when designing to knit with your yarn. (I am thinking that it is less important and more flexible for weft yarns in weaving, and I did know it was  very important for the warp yarns on the loom.)

How this project brought this home to me is that even though the brown alpaca roving was lovely and the perfect shade of brown, when plied with the merino top it made a yarn that, although beautiful color wise, was of a completely different feel from the other....thin and delicate... almost too delicate, in fact, when knitted on the same size needles.  And even more, when plied with itself, the alpaca, which is much softer to the touch than the merino (which is a pretty soft and fine fiber for wool), tended to be way too delicate to be paired in a finished article of knitting with the merino/merino of the same number of wraps per inch.  And, wool has elasticity...alpaca does not.  Take my word for it if you are not a knitter or fiber person.

And so as I knitted along with my newly acquired knowledge of the mysteries of entrelac this past week, I learned and I realized and I was happy with it all, and I decided that I could not/would not pair the brown alpaca/alpaca yarn I had spun with this project.  I would save it for something delicate, like lace, and its lovely shade would be used to enhance the colors of a more appropriate collection of my hand spun fibers.  I had changed my mind in midstream!  And I survived!

I also decided this week that what this entrelac learning project begs to be is.... a purse!  I adore the colors as they grew on my needles, rich and jewel tone, that remind me of my beloved Texas Renaissance Festival! They make my heart sing!  I love the look and the texture of what I have knitted so far, and I will finish up with these yarns, and then look through my stash to find an appropriate textured as well as colored hand spun yarn...I think that one of my batches of Welsh Black Mountain wool will be just right for what I intend.  

To be continued.....

Time to work on taxes at HeartSong Farm...ugh!

Taking Big Bites

Okay, I confess.  I "bit off more than I could chew" with this Olympic Challenge thing.  As my mother would say, "my eyes were bigger than my stomach."  Don't you hate it when your mother is right?  It was the entrelac that put the gold medal out of reach for me, but being so dad gum indecisive about which pattern, what to make, and which yarn to start with sure didn't help the situation one bit!

Like our Olympic athletes, I tried my best and did what I could to accomplish a major feat, but I had to make some adjustments to the field.  I realized that I could finish a hat or a scarf or cowl by the end of the Games, but only if I changed my mind about creating it in an entrelac pattern.  But, taking entrelac completely out of the equation made it just too easy and without competition, so to speak....a "no brainer"...and I would not have felt good about "winning."  For those of you who are unfamiliar with entrelac, I realize I need to show you an example so that you will understand my dilemma!  So here you are:

Here it is "growing" on your needles

A lovely scarf in entrelac....

..... a hat or cap in entrelac....

....and even socks in entrelac!  OMG!

So, now you can see just why I really want to master this technique.  The beauty!  The possibilities!  And you may also see how difficult and involved it looks. I can't even imagine how long it took to do ONE sock, let alone, TWO!  Could I learn this technique within the confines of my self-imposed challenge that included time constraints as well as spinning all the yarn for said project. I don't always catch on right away and I tend to get extremely nervous when the clock is ticking!

I mulled all this over in my mind until late last Sunday night, and decided I would do my best, as I always do, but that completing the project by the end of the Games was probably a long shot.  (Just being realistic here, not pessimistic.) I finally decided that I could, and would, be content with having spun the lovely yarns and learning a new technique....much like when the athletes say that they would love to medal, but that the real prize was just being able to compete in the Olympic venue.  I would not throw in the towel and succumb to knitting a simple pattern in order to win the Gold!  No!  I must give it my all and I must be true to my Self....and see how much I can accomplish, even if I don't come anywhere near to completing the project!   YES!

It is at this juncture that I must confess that although it may not appear to you to be so, from all that I have just related, I am not a competitive person, and never have been, ever, in the true sense of the word. I do, however, give myself challenges once in awhile, and I do hate to give up on things.  I came really close on this one.  It was the time constraint, plain and simple, that caused my extreme anxiety, for I also really hate to be rushed!

By Tuesday evening when I sat down to knit after work, I was ever so pleased with what was already on my needles, and I took heart.  It is indeed true that entrelac is not as hard to knit as it looks, but it does take some concentration, at least at first.  I love the colors of my yarns and how they are knitting up.  I intend to finish this project, although I still haven't decided whether this will be a full-fledged scarf (somehow I don't think there is enough of the brown alpaca for a scarf the length I prefer), or a panel for a purse or bag.  Maybe I will frame it and hang it on my studio wall?!

Back to my knitting here on HeartSong Farm.

Going for the Gold!

Yes, I am going for the gold this week!  That is to say, I have finished spinning and plying all of my pretty fibers into beautiful 2-ply yarn in 11 lovely colors, and now I am starting on the knitting part.  So far I have qualified for at least the bronze medal, and if I finish the knitting completely, I will earn the gold medal in creativity!  I will give myself a silver if I get at least halfway finished with the knitting.  These happen to be my very own rules, but hey, I am the one that decided I wanted a challenge.  I needed something special to focus on right now and this was just perfect for that. 

I did try to engage a spinning and knitting buddy of mine to take up my challenge but she had a challenge of her own already, and besides she is not big on sports or watching TV.  (You know who you are .... Patty!) But when I threw down the gauntlet, she already had a more challenging project on her knitting needles, and I know that she is ready to complete it.  She had previously set herself the goal of knitting a Guernsey frock in a dark blue yarn, without a pattern to follow, for her hubby who is a Mountain Man reenactor!  How cool is that?!  She did, however, promise me that she would knit on it while watching figure skating, which she does enjoy.

As this blog site gets more established, there will be other challenges that will be thrown out to you, my readers, so don't despair.  This is all just a Great Experiment at this point.

Before the unveiling of the yarns that were made since last I wrote, I must relate that Spring is trying to peek through the cold down here and some aspects of Nature are working as they should.  Amber showed me her tulips peeking through the garden soil yesterday, I have seen the bluebirds house hunting, and yesterday the eastern phoebes returned to check out my front porch light to see if last year's clay nest just needed a bit of simple refurbishing or if they will have to rebuild from scratch.  My forsythia and tulip magnolia are forming buds, and tiny fragrant bunches of narcissus are already blooming in yards and along the highway at long-abandoned farmsteads. Spring definitely wants to burst forth.  I am excited that She does.

And today I hung out the year's first batch of laundry on my clothesline to dry along with the skeins of yarn I spun during the past week.  Hanging clothes outside is one of my very favorite things to do!  I love the activity, the sight of the fabrics blowing in the breeze, the fresh smell of sunshine and laundry soap, and gathering them in my arms once they are dry and ready to fold!  Do you know what I am talking about?  Ah, delicious! Not to mention saving energy, which is another of my favorite things to do.

Not that hanging clothes on the line is a true sign of Spring.  When I lived in the Midwest, I was able to have a clothesline (you know some subdivisions outlaw them!) and I would hang clothes out even in the winter to let them "freeze dry."  That was truly weird, but also quite effective!

Yes, that is my "Johnny afghan" and no, you can not borrow it!

And yes, I am digressing from the main topic of this post....my newly spun yarns!  As you can see from the photos, the change from the fiber into yarn is truly magical.  One's creative mind can picture ahead of time what a particular fiber will probably look like when it is spun up this way or that, but it is not until the actual spinning and then plying takes place that the truth is finally told.  And, for me, that is one of the places where Joy resides!  See for yourself, below. I especially love the way the blues came out.

The chosen fiber before spinning

All of the yarns from the chosen fiber

All 4 yarns made from plying with same color, called self-plying

Yarns made from plying with the gold

Yarns made from plying with the brown alpaca

Godfrey asks:  Are these for me?!

The yarns are now dry and ready to turn into small center-pull balls in readiness for my knitting.  I am still undecided about what to knit, but I definitely still want to experiment with entrelac, so I will look through my book to see what I can find that makes me smile.... maybe a hat or scarf or cowl, something small.  I have thought about knitting a simple length of the entrelac that could be used as a side panel on a purse.  Hmmm, now where's my entrelac book...


Got to get a-knitting here on HeartSong Farm!

A different spin on the Olympics

The Olympics in Sochi are finally here, and I have begun my self-imposed Olympic Spinning Challenge!  It will be a fun thing to do and after this weird winter that we have had so far throughout the country, I am ready for some self-imposed fun, aren't you?!

If you will recall, I picked out my fiber and colors a number of weeks ago...before Christmas, and after much deliberation, as usual, on my part.  I chose a nice dark brown alpaca roving, and some merino top in four colorways.  Three of the colorways were multicolored blends, and one a solid, and I saw a common factor of brown in their shade or shadings.  

My chosen fibers for the Olympic Spinning Challenge

 I must confess right here and now that I used to think of brown as drab, uninteresting, and only existing when one mixed the wrong colors together, and thus creating a "mistake".  That was more than forty years ago. My opinion began to change when I began to really "see" the various shades of brown surrounding me, beginning with the feathers of the female Cardinal.  

Female Cardinal

As I began to notice more and more of the browns around me, I also began to really see and have a greater appreciation for all of the colors of the world around me, something I had taken for granted up until that point.  What a beautiful world we live in!

Weeks ago I had chosen exactly which fibers in my stash I wanted to work with while watching the Olympics on TV, and how I wanted to spin them and ply them.  I had also decided that I would experiment with learning "entrelac," a knitting technique I have only, so far, admired from a distance.  I am fascinated with the way basic entrelac mimics the over and under of weaving, yet it is knitting!  Remember, I am a weaver as well as a spinner and knitter.  And fellow knitters all say that entrelac looks more complicated than it really is. So I will be ready to find out for myself as soon as I spin up my selected fibers during the next 2 weeks while watching the 2014 Winter Olympics.

I also needed to decide how I would ply the singles once they were spun up.  Did I want to ply them only with themselves, each only with the brown alpaca, some with the brown alpaca and some with each other, etc.?  So many considerations and decisions that it made my normally indecisive head spin!  I took a deep breath and over the next several hours I considered every possible angle and decided that I probably really couldn't make a mistake with the beauty of what I had assigned myself to work with, and then I made my decision.

Next, I decided that I would split each of the four colorways of merino top into five strips and spin them "from the fold" using a modified short draw.  The brown alpaca roving, however, would be pre-drafted and spun from the end, using a modified short draw. By doing this I would, hopefully, end up with a nice balanced semi-worsted yarn for knitting.  This is not important for non-spinners to understand, but it is important for the outcome of the yarns created.  Take my word for it!  

Spinning fiber from the fold

Brown alpaca roving pre-drafted

I began by pre-drafting the alpaca into a diameter about the size of a pencil.  Then I turned to the merino top and realized that the colors in the blend were not consistent across the width of the strips, and if I wanted to include all of the lovely colors in all of my yarns, which I most certainly did, I could not merely strip the top down its length into five pieces as I had originally thought.  I would have to make my "strips" by dividing the fiber into five equal sections across its width.   And that is what I decided to do, because I really did want the consistency of including all the colors in each of the yarns I would be creating.

Light multi-colored merino roving up close

Red merino roving up close

Blue merino colorway up close

Lastly, I decided to go ahead and spin up a full bobbin of the brown since I had 4 ounces of it and only 1 ounce (split into five fairly equal sections) of each of the 4 merino colorways.  And so that is where the spinning is at the moment....all brown, but what a lovely brown it is!  It is dark, luxurious, with hints of natural maroon (it was labeled "Black Cherry" when I purchased it) that I can see as it slips through my fingers to twist and wind onto the bobbin of my Ashford Joy spinning wheel.  It is spinning up quickly thanks to the pre-drafting, and I believe that by tonight I will have my bobbin full of this first leg of spinning, and be ready to decide which of the merino I will spin first.  Oh no, another decision!  HELP!

Brown alpaca roving on the bobbin

Sometimes life has me spinning here on HeartSong Farm!

Haiku as Therapy

Yellow, white, pink  Spring

Lush green freshness all around

New beginnings here.

A few years ago, I began writing haiku poems as a way of creative expression, initially the beauty and joy I saw around me.  I was fascinated by the easy limited structure of this ancient Eastern verse form that is made up of just three non-rhyming lines.  The first line holds 5 syllables, the second line holds 7, and the third goes back to 5 syllables.  Simple rules.  Originally haiku themes were limited to the four seasons, but it has more recently been Americanized and therefore open to the expression of anything you wish.

Seasons of our lives

Flash in front of weary eyes

Stop!  Savor what’s left!

During that time, I found myself driving down the highway into town to work and words and phrases would pop into my head and the next thing I know I had figured out a way to put them into haiku form!  When I got to work I would write it down first thing and marvel at how the use of just a few select words could be used to express so much.  I was enthralled and intrigued with it.  It was “minimalist poetry” and I liked the idea very much!

Kitten energy...

Scamper leap twist stalk then pounce!

TigerCat within.

Fingers in the soil.

Dig plant water wait then pick.

Wash cook eat enjoy!

A few months after my first venture into creating haiku, I found myself in a state of depression due to so many stresses in my life at the time.  I quickly realized that the haiku I was creating was helping me express the emotions I was feeling and that I felt much better after putting those emotions down on paper.  I began at that point to consciously address my feelings in haiku and soon I was feeling much less depressed.  In fact, I felt empowered by the act of my writing it down concisely and having to choose the perfect few syllables in precisely the right order to express those feelings.  Awesome!

So much on my mind.

Thoughts muddled, unclear, hazy

Can’t seem to think straight.

Pick, choose and express.

I come back to this haiku.

Help to figure out.

Over the next several months, my mind just raced with ideas for haiku and the excitement of thinking creatively about the words and syllables to use, then getting them on paper became a very enjoyable endeavor and my depression lifted completely!  I shared them with two dear friends and each told me that they could see what was going on in my life and heart just by reading what I had composed at the time.   I read back over my poems, looked back on what had been happening during the time each was written, and they were quite right, and I realized that in the writing I had been healed, uplifted, and empowered.

When a dream has died

It is hard for your Spirit

To release...let go.

In the Quiet I

Knit read spin weave write listen

And feel Peace arrive.

So I am proposing to you here and now that I believe that haiku can be quite therapeutic….and I heartily recommend that you try it!  It is also fun, creative, and great exercise for maintaining a healthy brain.  I have a separate page here on this blog with some of my haiku poetry and I invite you to check it out for yourself.   You just might find yourself becoming addicted to it like me!

Take a leap of faith ....

It is something I must do.

Have faith and just jump!

Haiku rocks on HeartSong Farm!