And The Winner Is; Bulky Navajo Plying; Lotsa Birthday Celebrations; Back To Dee-troit And Another Visit To The Spinning Loft

Ikkinlala, a student from Canada, is the winner of the spider's 2 Year Blogiversary contest. The winner was randomly picked from slips of paper, each with a name of a reader who kindly took the time to comment on the last post, all put in Chris' black hat and chosen by Chris himself. Congrats Ikkinlala!!! The prize consists of 1/2 lb bag of purple/blue striated wool top from Ashland Bay, 1/2 lb bag of bright blue Corriedale wool top from Louet, and a copy of the book, "KnitLit (too)."

Here's Ikkinlala's tip: The most useful advice I've been given is probably an obvious one to most people, but I still had to make the mistake myself: alcohol and knitting do not mix well.

THANK YOU, one and all, for taking part in my Blogiversary contest. Have you seen the neat and useful tips...fibery and/or dealing with life in general? If not, be sure to check out the last post's comment section: 2 Year Blogiversary Contest!!!.

Above you'll find a pic of the prize. Do please let us know what you make from your handspun, Ikkinlala.

Hiccup. I was happily included in many birthday celebrations in July and August. July: Alexander, youngest of the spider and now 21; my Chris who turned 50; Jofran (also now 50) and Leslie (yep, that magic number 50). Can I just add that I'm glad these folks finally caught up to my being 50?!! Geesh, it's about time... August: David, oldest of the spider and now 28; and E (Elizabeth). As you know, if you're a regular reader, E and Leslie are Lunar Ladies both. And lovely Lunar Ladies at that.

Here's E and Paco as E opens her presents.

Above you'll find Maureen (left) and Jenna (right), two more Lunar Lady lovelies, lighting E-friendly birthday cupcakes made by Leslie.

That's Leslie mid-lick. One of Leslie's fave treats is soft-serve icecream...called Kreemies (or Creamie or Creamee...or however you'd like to spell it) in our neck of the woods. So what better than for the Lunar Ladies to take Leslie out for Kreemies, eh?!!

And Maureen brought scones for Leslie's celebration, which were lit in swanky, birthday fashion.

On to another birthday... Jofran, a friend of mine for 30 or so years, was asked by her husband what she wanted for her birthday? "Jenny," she said. Gee, I've never been a birthday present. Good thing Jofran wasn't interested in having me jump out of a cake or anything. What did happen was that I hopped a plane and spent 4 delightful days in da hood. Detroit. My hometown. Well, Jofran lives presently in Dearborn. OK, close to Detroit but no cigar. We sure had lots of fun, tho'.

For one thing, Jofran and I went up to visit Beth in Howell, MI at her wonderful shop, The Spinning Loft. Seriously, you're missing out big-time if you haven't had a visit to Beth's shop yourself. You'll not find a nicer or more knowledgeable proprietress.

Here's Beth herself, holding up two of her prettiest balls...of fiber: A carded Romney roving from Elemental Affects. A box of different, luscious colors of these beauties came in as we were visiting and nearly knocked the bras right off our bodies.

Two more well-endowed gals. That's Jofran on the left and the spider on the right.

Beth asked if we were up for lunch? You bet, considering Coney Island was the destination. Bring on the chile cheese fries.

Chile cheese fries prompty devoured. Beth's comment in the Blogiversary post was: O.K. I got it. If you like to eat Chili Cheese fries only do it when you are traveling otherwise you get a big behind;-)

To respond to Beth's comment, let's just say that Chris cooks more often than not and tonight I said, "Good tuna on rice, babes." Chris replied, "That's not tuna..." I blurted, "It's bloody tofu. You sure have a way of hiding tofu with spices and such in order to sneak it into my life." No complaints from the peanut gallery, however. For goodness sakes, what's Chris going to do next, make tofu taste like chile cheese fries? I can only hope.

Beth spinning on a spindle as we awaited the arrival of none other than....

Ta da da...Ted, Knitterguy! Ted didn't know we would be seeing him. We didn't know Ted was due for a Beth-visit until she mentioned it. Jofran and I didn't have much time to wait for him, as Jofran's little boy, Tommy, was waiting for us, but luckily as we were about to throw in the towel, there Ted was, in all his glory. Sooooo nice to meet you in-the-flesh, Knitterguy!! Wish we could have seen some of your incredible lace knitting in person. Next time...

Thanks Beth for EVERYTHING...especially the chile cheese fries.

While in Detroit Jofran and I did lots of other things...went to a carnival twice, watched fireworks, ate watermelon, and more. One thing Jofran wanted to do was to re-block her Mananita (lace poncho) that she recently knitted. In the above pic you'll see how Jofran makes sure her Mananita gets thoroughly wet prior to blocking.

And above you'll find Melanie, grey kitty, making sure that the blocking process proceeds without a hitch.

Lookee how Jofran stores her drop spindle collection. For a few bucks and a trip to the dollar store, you, too, can have spindle storage. Jofran's collection from left to right:
Left Arm: Inner (closest to the wall) ~ Black Creek Pioneer Village spindle from Jenny '98;
Outer (away from wall) ~ Greensleeves Molinar purchased from Beth '08;
Middle Arm: Inner ~ Adam Mielke from Jenny '05;
Outer Purchased in the early '70s in Camden Maine - my first spindle;
Right Arm: Inner ~ Louet, Tommy's spindle (used mostly as a sword); gift from Beth '08;
Middle ~ Bosworth Mini - wedding gift from Jenny '01;
Outer ~ Abby spindle from her class at Spinning Loft

While at the Spinning Loft, Jofran purchased a new Tibetan supported spindle by Tabachek. The spindle is a beauty...a walnut whorl and oak shaft. Jofran found a ceramic bowl to rest her spindle in when she went, albeit unwilling, to a carnival. Please note that I dragged her to the Polish tent at the carnival, as well, and made a date with her the next day to eat a plate of scrumtious Polish delicacies.

Here's one of the many things Jofran does when she's not spinning. An engineer by education and trade, she's quite at home playing trains with her beloved Tommy.

Thank you Jofran, Bob and Tommy for a fun and memorable visit!

Hiccup. One of the places I've recently taught spinning at was Peters Valley Craft Center in New Jersey.

Here I am at the check-in center, ready to set up my classroom.

Above is Chris, standing in front of a view I saw daily when I taught at Peters Valley. Just behind Chris, in the tall trees, our class saw a black bear sitting peacefully for several minutes. Did I have a camera handy just then? No. But I'd rather have a pic of Chris instead any day, so you'll just have to believe me that I actually saw such a bear. Or not...

There's our David, that just-turned 28 year old, with Chris at the beach at Coney Island in NYC (no, this is NOT the same Coney Island restaurant I ate the chile cheese fries at. You don't think I'd ever eat chile cheese fries in front of Chris, do you?!!!). What a delightful day! There's nothing like sinking one's feet into the wet sand along the water's edge with my men.

Hiccup. Below you'll find the spinnerly portion of this post. Below is some home-combed top from a Montadale X wool that had been solar and naturally dyed in the fleece.

Lots of different natural dyes were used, including onion skins, madder root, various wood chips/sawdust, hayscented ferns, yarrow and more.

Above is some of that Romney that I drumcarded previously, shown on the past post: Teasing Wool With A Picker; Simple Drum Carding; Shaded Lattice Hat And Mitts; Four Layers Over The Ears Hat; The Potato Party;and a Pee Story. There were too many noils and neps still in that fiber to use in the smooth-bulky-yarn project with the Montadale X, so I used my trusty Louet mini combs to cure the matter. The neppy/noily pile to the left is what was waste from the combing session. The pile on top hasn't been combed yet. The little nests have been combed. Worth combing? You betcha. For more on using mini combs, see the past post: Striated Blending Using Mini Combs; Slubs On Purpose; EZ's Hand To Hand Pullover; Funky Faroese Socks; Leslie's Half-Gloves; and 3 Fiberish Stories.

Look at the HUGE whorl I chose to put on my Schacht Matchless wheel. I did this because I was aiming for a low-twist singles, with the final resulting handspun to be a bulky Navajo 3-plied yarn for knitting. In other words, every time I treadled once, I wanted the flyer to go around only a few times (3.8:1 to be exact) in order that not too much twist entered the just-spun yarn. Coupled with slow treadling and fast hand movements, I achieved the low-twist yarn I was looking for. The various colors of the Montadale X and the indigo-dyed, blue Romney were spun randomly, aiming for different lengths of stripes.

I used a short backwards draw and Scotch tension for optimum control. I'm a control freak don'tcha know?!

The singles were wound into a loose ball and briefly steamed in order to make the twist not too crazy as I Navajo 3-plied.

Here's the little skein I spun in order to knit the swatch below. For more info on Navajo 3-plying, see past posts: Navajo 3-Plying, A Look At Ingeo & More, and Joining Unspun Fiber To Spun Yarn; Navajo 3-Plying Revisited; Drea and The Knittingsmith; Plus Another Visit To NYC.

Here's the swatch I knit from the handspun featured. At the bottom I used a size 10.5 U.S. needle (divided by a purl round), then a size 9 U.S. in the middle, and a size 8 U.S. at the top. The gauge was as follows: bottom ~ 3 sts=1"; middle ~ 3.25 sts=1"; and finally about 3.4 sts=1" (would need to spin more and knit a bigger swatch for an accurate stitch gauge with the U.S. #8...I ran out of yarn). That said, I rather like the feel of the middle section. For what, you ask? For a hat for Chris, who happened to comment that he really liked the colors. The yarn/hat might make it into the BOOK if I don't dawdle...

And here's a close-up of the swatch for those who want to look at things with a fine-toothed comb.

August is at the tail end and we're soon to go pick up Alexander, youngest of the spider, and his friend Kyle, from the airport. They have just spent one month visiting Japan and Alexander's girlfriend, Emi. Will surely have tales to tell next time of their trip...