Knitting Bandages for Lepers

How to go from Bond to Passap in 2 easy steps

2009-03-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

A LOT has happened in the last 9 months- check the new man (right) in my lifehttp://www.ourguythai.blogspot.com/ . Wonderful, transformational, terrific and now it's time to get back to the needles more than the 1/2 hour I've been able to eek out each week after cookies, wine and gossip at Tangled Skein on Wednesdays. SO here's the story...
I'm at my favorite second hand boutique and just as I was leaving I saw it , a knitting machine. Now I have a Bond "Incredible Sweater Machine" that, in all fairness has provided me with many afternoons of entertainment and lots of blanks to dye and re-knit. If you don't know about this fanciful idea check out how cool it is here

It has it's very quirky side though, and if not purchased with a Joann's 1/2 off coupon, I might have felt a bit upset by it's performance. Casting on is hard and it gets stuck mmmm" jammed" in K.M. (knitting machine) talk and really needs weights which are not included and so people construct them out of bent forks and fishing tackle- no I am not kidding.

But this machine, the thrift store one looks like a winner it has a little yarn tension antennae and a big carriage. It's a Singer LK100 and I find out that "Singer" and "Studio" are synonymous in K.M. land and that 30 bucks for an used one is good. I take it out and start playing with it- What a hoot, in 10 minutes I have a piece of stockinette large enough to be a baby blanket.

Very quickly I became obsessed- this could be the answer to my SMYSLT (so much yarn so little time) problem. Plus it is just cool AND my daughter will do it with me. But it is plastic, a hobby machine, they call it and it does just what it does- No ribber, no fancy stitches, no clever little hole punched cards to make automatic design.

Next thing I know I am on the doorstep of a lovely family who is selling off their fiber mom's equipment for We need to get this stuff out of here prices so now I have a beautiful Passap Duo 80 with 4 color changer and deco. For those of you who don't have a clue...stop back by there will be more to this story, I promise!

My Guy Thai

2008-05-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Yes he is real and he is on the way! Check out his knitted toy. Wish I'd been the one to give him his first knitted toy.

Each one teach one

2008-03-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

She right, a darling shy freshman girl from Cameroon who is often overshadowed in class. She left, a senior from El Salvador, popular and sweet- a Kodak moment for sure.

Apparently I have now become obsolete in the the teaching of knitting- now they are teaching one another and cutting out the middle man.

Oh well, they still need me to get yarn...hopefully they won't discover that I'm not the only source for a little while longer...

I get by with a little help from my friends

2008-03-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

When I put the word out that I'd be working with kids and needed needles and yarn...boy did you guys come through...boxes and boxes of fun fur, a budging bag of cotton and various sundry yarns I might have bought myself and decided much to late were just too bright... teens LOVE this stuff.

I start by showing the...STAB the hole, AROUND the tree, UP-SIDE DOWN, GET RID of me. Then I have them put their hands on mine as I do it and Voila, so far every kids has picked it up and done it...really, I am totally blown away!

1 little class grew to 3...one at my daughter's aftercare and two at the high school where I teach. A student came in today and asked me if I'd teach her to "do the sticks," she said she is seeing it everywhere in school now and doesn't want to be the last one to get it. Very Very fun!

This is my budding fashion designer...this is her second creation. The first was an enormous fur shawl that was the shape and volume of a stomach. We decided to hang charms off of it. She is planning to wear it to the prom...more pictures later of that! Very cool!

These are my homeroom students. I teach knitting to them in the mornings when I'm SUPPOSED to be teaching them about the value of patience, persistance, hardwork and planning ahead...oh, never mind...I guess I am.

China, Haiti, Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala in the house!

These are the kids in my AFTERNOON knitting class, who bring me yummy snacks.

Cameroon & El Salvador in the house

Just plain FIBER yes, damnit, that's what I said

2007-10-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

This is my story and I'm sticking to it!
So how many months did I wait feeling like the last chubby girl to get picked for the team??? How many Tuesday Night Knitting groups did I endure where everyone else exchanged inside jokes and prattled on about all the "projects, stash, needles, and more." How I ached with envy when everyone compared little wallet sized cards recording all their needle sizes and strategized as to how best to laminate them.

Finally, Finally, my moment had come. I GOT MY RAVELRY INVITE. Unfortunately I was in the middle of teaching High Schoolers something about Gerunds...so I did what any REAL knitter would do in this situation... I immediately gave them seatwork so I could sign-up for the hottest ticket in cyber knitting history...There I was
The PICK YOUR SCREENAME box right in front me with a Highlighted warning :BE SURE YOU LIKE YOUR SCREEN NAME YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CHANGE IT
OMG, I so want to be cool. Let's see what about "Roving Around" - since I do like spinning. Or "Fiber Freek", or "Fiber Fanatic", " Fiber Friendly" or "Roving around the Whirled" or a 1000 very cool things I could be... mmmm I really do like Fiber Freek- It has the word Free in it and lord knows, I love free stuff. It's a fun play on spelling, It's memorable, its plucky.

Suddenly I am interrupted by, can you believe it, one of my students.
"What's that, what are you asking me...can't you tell I'm busy, please sit down and do your grammar work. I'm sorry if you don't understand gerunds. Can't you see I am doing something important here? I can't be bothered right now. I mean really, I have some important...(to self) sh%t the screen just went dead, must wake it up, hit a key or too, OMG, did I just, submit, OMG I can't believe I am seeing this...

hiya, ! logout
1 new message

I JUST NAMED MYSELF F-I-B-E-R , Fiber just plain fiber. I stifle a scream. My students look up started, I say
" I'm sorry, I just received some very bad news."
" Did someone die?"
" Yes, in a way they did. "

hiya, !

Cool things I really had nothing to do with...

2007-10-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm and English teacher and I like to end my sentences with prepositions-besides..." Cool things with which I had nothing to do" sounds, well, queer -as grandma would say.

I have some very cool things of my own to share soon but at this moment how about these:

This is not your granny's automobile, no wait, maybe it is! http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1879263.html

My preference would have been a knitted Prius out of recycled yarn but you gotta admit this is pretty damn cool.

Unexplainable knitted things in inexplicable places...http://knittaplease.com/KNITTA_PLEASE.html
I am ready to quit my job and become Washington D.C.'s Knitting answer to Cool Disco Dan

Love me tender...
http://www.theshed.co.uk/elviswig.html
Too cool for school! I wish I had time to whip one of these up for Halloween.

Firsts

2007-03-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

FIRST HANDSPUN YARN

FIRST SPINDLE AND SPINNING BOOK

FIRST CHILD IN FIRST HANDSPUN OBJECT

FIRST PRE-FELTED HAT-

Noro -Kujaku

FIRST FELTED HAT with Unfortuanately NOT

the FIRST DEAR FRIEND WHO DIED FROM HIV/AIDS.

We miss you Marc

April 29, 1960-February 8, 2007

2007-01-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

Often in my classroom, I knit. Sometimes quietly behind my desk, sometimes smack dab in front of students from 22 different countries. I consider it a better option than nipping at a bottle and so I knit.

This has created interest and sharing with/among the students about the fiber arts. One is crocheting little white booties for the baby no one in class but me knows she is carrying.

Another is working on a baby blanket for a baby who is already here. But today, TODAY I was speechless when my student from Congo, Brazzaville - Yes that Congo, as in Darfur, Year of conflict, the worst place on the planet for children, Congo- showed me this .

She taught herself to "yarn" she said to help her not be nervous. Someone gave her the yarn. She didn't have a hook so she made one...

Out

AN OLD COFFEE STIRRER...

Did you GET that? Are you as Humbled as I am?

AN OLD COFFEE STIRRER!

Get-um while they are young

2006-12-12T08:03:00.000-08:00

News of the weird would like to hear that every time (o.k. it's only been twice) I set out to adopt a child, young people I have unofficially "adopted" over the the years magically appear. Maybe they appear just to meet the new member of my great extended family, maybe it is to catch some "mother energy" from me before every drop is sucked from my soul and I am unable to remember my own name. This time around the daughter of a man she and I last saw alive in 1985 found me through a six degrees of separation chain that ended in a reunion over the weekend. She is grown and wonderful and wanting desperately to find any pieces of memory of her father that might still be lurking on the planet. It was a wonderful reunion but the best part was meeting her 7 year old daugher, ...my distant granddaughter of sorts and what did I do?
TEACH HER TO SPIN OF COURSE!

The Silent Auction Lesson

2006-11-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

Silent Auctions-love them. Know one? E-mail me.
This time however, it was me doing the offering at the Strawberry Festival at my Quaker Meeting House- 'A Spinning Lesson Guaranteed-You will spin a hank of yarn.' My ~~optimistic victim~~ winning bidder, thankfully gave me lots of lead time to practice but how in the whirled was I actually going to send someone home with a presentable piece of handspun considering the hank my last optimistic victim did after an entire evening was thick and thin-as in THICK for about 2 yards and then really really thin .

The W.B. arrives, I have fiber spread over the entire livingroom. Raw greasy fleece, lbs. and lbs. of colored Merino and assorted other lovelies. I like to start people off with Corriedale, because it is so easy to handle. The W.B. loves the crimpy Cotswold fleece I paid a pretty penny for at MSWF last year. Not a beginner fiber but we roll in it for a bit.

Finally we begin. My plan- have her start on pencil roving. WOW- harder than I thought it would be and it doesn't look so good. I think top or batts might have been easier. Then a brain storm---throw in some gorgeous mixed stuff

I've been saving from MSWF and have her spin them togother. It will be fatter, easier, and possibily more satistifying. I pull off strips and lay them along side the pencil roving. Voila- The W.B. is delighted. It is easy to see the twist, the bobbin is filling up and most importantly-

it looks like very cool yarn. WOW- I wish my first handspun looked like this.

Doggone Cheap Sheep

2006-11-16T17:17:00.000-08:00

April 2006, I'm at my little bros. house in Waynesboro VA. I see a flyer in 7-11, yes, 7-11, for Sedalia Spring Fiber Festival, in Bedford VA. On a whim we go and one of the gems from that day is this roving that I bought from a 86 year old man and his big ole dog. The man processes and dyes the roving himself on his farm on the edge of valley . I pick it up. It feels great. No machine evenness, fresh. I read the label.

Dog, mohair

Cormo

I love it so much I buy two Colorways.

It's quintessential quaint.

I love it even more on the bobbin.

I'm already dreaming about next year. -April I think it is. The sweetest little fiber festival in the East. http://www.springfiberfestival.com/index.htm Leave me some dog hair. (Cheingora)

Where the Buffalo Roam

2006-11-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

My partner and I in a car late last spring.
D.P. "Was that a Buffalo?"
ME: "Oh my god, is that American Cashmere on the hoof?"

We stop and ask the neighbors until the owner, Ray, is I.D.Ed and a phone # given. Ray, also owns the only gasoline station in town and is mildly amused that I want a bag of Buffalo hair. He tells me the field is full of the stuff and if I can help him find a way to make $$ off of it, he'll give me all I can carry.

The next morning--there's a scary bag of hair/dung/ vm waiting for me at the Citgo. As a spinner you run into some pretty gnarly dark corners with the stuff you plan to wash, dye and beautify, but this was truly over the top. It looked like what our friend Roberto pulled out of the shower drain last year that made me want to sell the house. It's hair, not fleece, not silky llama hair, but coarse you-know-what textured hair. Ooooooowwwwww.

SO how does one begin? I do an internet search and find to my great consternation...the directions for how to clean Buffalo hair and separate the down, or good stuff, from the unspeakable hair is patented. YES patented, read the whole "hairy" story here:http://www.girlfromauntie.com/journal/index.php/2005/the-buffalo-gal/

So I figure, what do I have to lose. I have a garbage bag full of yuck with potential. First, I dump it all a big laundry tub and start going through it...then I remember left over rubber gloves from this week's hair change...Finally I find that the buffalo down looks really different than the guard hairs and is all together in one clump. Good news, except it also looks like it may be felted already.

On the left is guard hair

On the right the good stuff

Look at all the Petty Pusses Pretty Purses

2006-10-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to
accessorize. -Clairee Belcher, in "Steel Magnolias"

Somewhere along the line my yarn obsession branched out from how to stuff it all in my Yarn Barn(left) to how to pack it out in fashion. My primary directive became how to "look cool haulin' the wool" without spending actual possible stash enhancement capital.
My first bags were Chic, Lightweight and imprinted with a timeless logo, however, I found they were not as durable I had hoped and my partner keep "borrowing" them when she walked the dog...strangely, they sometimes disappeared. ( Coincidently, this was during my Eyelash yarn phase)

Next came what seemed like a great find at my local slightly used boutique. If I remember correctly it was 1/2 Price Saturday that day, why back before the hordes of badly behaved bargin hunters overwhelmed the beleaguered security guard and...oh sorry, I think that case is still pending. Anyway, in retrospect, this may not have been a much better choice than taking a job at Value Village but here she blows...

The not so cool bag . Close up ... smell the lobster? I wonder if a Kennedy owned this bag?

After the Kinnybunkport debaucle, it seemed prudent to review my primary directive. It seemed like there was more TO this bag issue. Finally it hit me- THE RIGHT BAG FOR THE RIGHT YARN. It wasn't about being cool. It was about being aligned. Garbage bags for garbage yarn, Maine bags for wool sweater projects...

Silk bag for Silk yarn projects...

Sock Monkey Bag for Socks...

Sock monkeys meditate too. Is it me or does this monkey look like an extreme makeover BEFORE the reveal.

Then there is the yarn condo. A gift from dear mamma. It is pretty groovy and has lots of little compartments AND a shoulder strap. I love the little holes in the top for the yarn to peek out. It is my go to bag when hauling roving or trying to hide new stash from not so new partner. Mom claims it was a steal from http://collectionsetc.com

And finally my HRC messenger bag- http://www.hrc.org/

Trying to look festive with wild, party roving. This bag has taken the train to New York, a plane to the Bahamas and my little old Rav 4 to many many fiber festivals. It has held silk hankie, soy silk, ingeo, llama, alpaca, mohair, dog hair and 10 different kinds of wool. It is a bag that loves diversity.

P(r)issy Premier

2006-10-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

TODAY of all days, the first day of my Blog

I wanted to be here..........
A wheel, a woman, a warm sun.
Is there anything more?

But I had to be here......

A Sub(urban) High School

"Chalked" full of teenagers

Just to make myself go this morning I had to sing my morning song that goes like this...

"Gotta go to work today, If I don't then I won't get paid. And we'll have no food to eat or socks on our feet. Sooo... I Gotta go to work today. "

The pookie 5 year old cuddled up with me singing backup said" but mommy, you can just make socks...and indeed I can!. Just finished my first pair of them anyway.

Paton's Kroy some generic Paton's pattern and size 3 dps that by my knitting groups standards seem on the order of kindergarten pencils but all the same cuz' pookie 5 year old has announced she's not wearing them because they are not pink and tight.

More later...perhaps I will have recovered and be less pissy and more prissy.