Here is a quilt I just finished. A few months back, Kerrie sent me a wonderful bunch of Amy Butler fabric squares. One day, I just up and sewed them all together and then that was that. I folded all the sewn squares up and put them in a closet and sort of forgot about them.

Then one day I remembered it and when I went to Chicago I brought it along to show it to Carolyn and her mom. Their advice on what design to quilt it with inspired me to finish it.

It was originally just going to be a lap quilt, but Becky took a shine to it, so I decided I would give it to her. When I finished it last night, I sneaked up and put it on her while she was sleeping. She woke me up this morning with it wrapped around her and she was saying, "Cool Mommy!"

Brown linen binding. I used a linen binding because linen can stand up to more abuse than cotton. And I just liked how it looked. (I prewashed all my fabrics before cutting to allow for shrinkage.)

Channel quilting
I love my walking foot.

A finished red sock.

Let me just say I did finish a second of this sock (such discipline, no?), only it's in a different color. And now I am somewhat bored with the whole pattern and what do I have to show for all that knitting? A red sock and a blue sock. And I would definitely consider wearing them together because I don't have that need to match all the time. Only one sock isn't even close to being the same size as the other. And I have a problem with that.

What's my solution? Start another sock--in an entirely different pattern!

Perfectly logical.

I'm making this hat for my friend, Eric, who I do the historical flax processing and spinning demonstrating with. We'll see if he actually will want to wear it out in public when I am done! He does seem very fond of funny but charming hats so we'll see.

Hat
Click for a close up of the yarn.

I was going to go full tilt and actually spin the yarn and then dye it for him so that it would be historically correct (sort of), but I accidentally messed up the shetland wool I had planned to spin.

So instead, I got some fisherman's yarn from Bartlettyarns. I dyed it using a mixture of onion skins procured surreptitiously from the grocery store's onion bins, coreopsis stems and flowers, coneflower leaves, zinnia flower heads and a few black-eyed susans for good measure.

As always, the color is slightly different than hoped for, but at least it is in the yellow family. Last year, with natural dyes, I would try for purple or yellow-green and get brown.

Progress I tell you. Gotta love progress.

Here's some interesting history on Monmouth Caps.

Here is a picture of the hat from Colonial House.

Look what happens to freshly-spun flax thread when you put it in a pot on a Sunday afternoon with baking soda and liquid dish soap to wash it and make it all pretty and shiny, and then you go promptly upstairs, forget about it and fall asleep because you were out late the night before only to have your husband come in and wake you up from a nice nap, saying, "Yaknow ya got sumptin boilin' on the stove, don't ya? And ya know it sorta stinks."

Yikes and Holy Moly! That woke me up quick* and I ran downstairs to see this:

Not a tragedy--au contraire--very satisfying.

The dark coffee-colored water is normal. I will boil it in 3 more washes before the water sort of clears up. When the skein is all dry, the thread will be very shiny and pearlescent. The skein will also be slightly softer and lighter in color than it was before the washes.

Here is the finished boiled skein (L) next to an unboiled skein (R).
The skein on the right was one of my first tries at flax spinning and it's pretty hairy. This picture shows the difference between the boiled and unboiled flax, but only a little.

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*I have had bad experiences in the past with boiling pots on stoves so I tend to take notice when someone is warning me about a boiling pot these days. One time, while living in my 2nd apartment, I went out on the fire escape to catch my cat who was making a break for it. Only I forgot to hit the lock so it would not lock me out. Well, to make a long story short, the door blew shut! I turned around only to remember that I'd just put on a big pot of pork and sauerkraut boiling on high. Dave was supposed to come home on the train in about 20 minutes and I thought I could squeak by and just stand out there watching the pot boil. Everything would be O-K. But the minutes went by and Dave never came. Apparently today was the day he decided to work late. Curses! I started to get desperate. I saw a shovel on the fire escape and started saying, if he doesn't come by the time I count to 30 I will break the window with the shovel. Well, 30 came and he didn't so I picked up the shove and raised it over my head and whapped the window once with abandon. The shovel went, "boooiinnnngggg!" But nothing. No broken window. Inconceiveable! How many times in your life do you get the opportunity and have a valid reason to break a window and it turns out to be more difficult than you thought? Come on, it's glass!

Meanwhile, the pot is down to just pork and sauerkraut. No more water to stave off the smoke.

I start to worry (you might ask, weren't you worried before? No not really, I thought the shovel would solve my problems if it came to it.) and then, finally I see Dave coming up the steps, through the smoke inside and looking confused.

"Hey, what's for dinner? It sure stinks!"

I have been thinking for a while, "Why not dispense with that boring edging on the Magickal Earth Shawl? Apply it last! Let's get at it!"

So I "got at it."

Tuesday night, I start. I use a crochet cast on with linen thread. The shawl calls for 1000-some stitches. I know it calls for a few more, but figure, take it one step at a time, get to 1000 and then go check in the book for the right number. Remembering exact numbers is just too fussy. (It is an offshoot category of measuring over here. Here in my mind that is.)

You see, I had a plan, tailored to my short-term memory.

So, I am doing my casting on, I get 300 stitches going, I separate them with little red thread markers. All is good. I am a little bored but whatever. My mind begins to drift and suddenly it hits me why it's probably not a good idea to start a shawl knit in the round with 1000-some provisional stitches.

The freaking join. What are the odds that I will get a twist somewhere in those bizillion (excuse me, thousand-some) stitches and begin a Magickal Moebius?

Odds are pretty damn good, I would say.

I've got some lame-brained ideas* though, like basting the crochet cast on down to a wide strip of fabric to hold everything the right way, then ripping it off once I've got it going.

Seems like more work than following the directions, don't it?

Now, where did I put that book?

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*Whoops, did I say ideas? I meant idea. I've got only one and it's got to work.

I haven't been doing much spinning of wool lately but while rooting around in the fiber cupboard looking for something, I found some beautiful white sliver.

I have no idea from whence it came. Where did I buy this? When?

It sure was pretty, so I decided right then and there to spin it up.

While sitting at the wheel, the voices in my head kept saying, "What is this fiber? Geez, it's like all that fur my cat is shedding right now and that I have to vacuum up from under the dining room table everyday! Did I buy this? This can't be Finn fiber. Can it? And I know I didn't buy that bunny hair fiber... What is it?!"

I was so thrown off, and didn't even consider the obvious possibility that it could be alpaca because I remembered incorrectly that I hadn't bought any alpaca.

But apparently I had!

And it was then that I realized what I was spinning, but still how could it be alpaca if I don't remember buying any? Usually I can remember every fiber I've bought and everything going on when I buy that fiber and I think about it when I spin it up. But this was a mystery! A mysterious alpaca roving.

Click for a closeup.

103 g Alpaca, 74 yd, 2-ply Aran weight
(I was going for bulky weight but missed it by a hair...or a few fibers such as it is...hahha. Just a little spinning humor there for you. That's the cheese.)

Yarn
Heavish worsted weight. I used a wool/mohair handspun. 150 ish yards (Warning: guessing here!)

Gauge
In Stockinette stitch & 2x2 ribbing: 6 sts/inch
In Moss stitch: 5 sts/inch

Needles
Whatever you need to achieve above gauges.

Stitches

Moss:
Rounds 1 & 2: K1, P1
Rounds 3 & 4: P1, K1

Pattern
1. Cast on 44 stitches with larger needles and work 18 rounds moss stitch.

2. Switch to smaller needles and K22 sts, PM, M1, PM, K 22 stockinette stitch.

3. K 2 rounds

4. Increase thumb gusset round: K to marker, slip marker, M1, K across gusset, M1, slip marker, K to end of round. (3 gusset sts)

5. Work steps 3 and 4 until there are 9 sts in gusset

6. Work 3 rounds

7. Work Inc round (11 gusset sts)

8. Work steps 6 and 7 one more time (13 gusset sts)

8.5 Work one round.

9. Put gusset stitches on waste yarn

10. Work one round, increasing (use backward loop method) one st where thumb gusset is.

11. Work K2 P2 rib, decreasing to 44 stitches somewhere on first round.

12 Continue about 1 to 1.5 inches in ribbing or to desired length, then cast off loosely in ribbing.

13. Thumb: Transfer sts to 3 needles. Beg rnd: pickup 3 sts, working first rnd in St st. Next rnd: beg working 2x2 ribbing and cont until thumb is desired length. Cast off loosely in ribbing.

Copyright Leigh Spencer
Not to be sold!

On Sunday, the family and I drove up to Glen Spey, NY to pick up a spinning wheel.

Bob Barker says, "Spin the wheel, going for a dollar!"
Click for another view.

I find it interesting that the biggest wheel I own was also the cheapest to buy. I bought it on ebay and when I was talking to the woman who owned it she said when she was 5 years old or so, she used to ride on the table part of the wheel like it was a horse. I like that story!

Needless to say, it definitely hasn't been spun on for the past 35 years at least and maybe more. All the parts are there, but I haven't put the spindle on yet. It had some flax wrapped thingys to hold the ends of the spindle to the mother-of-all, but they rotted away over the years and only the ends were left.

It was made by Frederick A. Farnham in Owego, NY and could be anywhere from 150 to 165 years old. It has all the hallmarks of a genuine Farnham great wheel. I feel lucky to have found one that is complete and not a hobbled together collection of random old wheel parts.

It probably has not been taken out of the state of New York...until now!

Now, where am I going to put this wheel?