Fiber Arts & Furry Critters

Happy New Year!

Today I will begin a running streak - a mile a day (minimum).  I will also return to the gym tomorrow (Monday, Jan 2) to get back to my biking & swimming.  Too cold to bike outside right now!  I do have several triathlons I'd like to shoot for next year, including the Black Fly Tri and possibly the King Pine Tri.  Hubby and I will continue to attend walker-friendly 5Ks during the year as well.

I managed to talk DH into letting me get a Kindle Fire a couple of days after Christmas, after I played with a friend's Kindle Fire and helped her figure a few things out.  Yesterday I logged into our public library system and borrowed a book, and had it sent to my Fire.  Today I logged into Amazon and copied the book to my Kindle 3 (same account).  I found out that you can also "return" a library book, so you could presumably get another!  (There's a limit of 3 audio or e-books through our Overdrive system).  It turned out to be a very simple process.  The library requires your library card number, then when you "check out" the e-book, it sends you to an Amazon webpage to get it.  Amazon sends it to your device, or allows you to download it to transfer via USB (if you don't have access to wireless).

I also found out that the least expensive Kindle, like the Fire, doesn't have the text-to-speech feature.  We gave out 3 of those for Christmas.  I hope the recipients are able to get as much enjoyment out of them as I do.  I am almost as much of a fanboy for Kindle products, I think, as I am for Apple products.

I was not able to find a case for my Kindle Fire when I bought it.  I tried several Wal-Marts, several Radio Shacks, and two different Best Buys as well as one Target.  Seems the Kindle Fire must have been an extremely popular Christmas gift!  I did end up ordering one from Amazon and it should be here by next Thursday.  I do have certain things I like in a case - it has to have a stiff cover, to protect the screen, and I didn't want a slide-in or sleeve-type cover.  I want something that holds the entire device.  I worry about it bouncing around in my bag or pocketbook.  My Kindle 3 has been very well served by the M-Edge cover it has lived in since I got it.  My iPod touch is always in its DLO "Action Jacket" (although those have gotten hard to find - had to order the last one from Ebay) and my iPad is in an "A-Case".  Love that case, too!  Interestingly enough, all my cases (including the one for my cell phone) are purple except the iPad case - even my Bible cover! :D

Countermarche Loom, In Detail

This is going to be a long, picture-heavy post about my loom.  Apparently there aren't a lot of this particular loom out there, and those that are out there are not well documented.  The company apparently went out of business in the mid to late 1980s. 

This post is not necessarily exhaustive, and not necessarily entirely correct.  This is just what I have found out about this loom and about operating this loom.  If anyone has any corrections or any further knowledge, please let me know and I'll make corrections.

This is a countermarche loom, and the company that made it was called Berga Ullman.  (There are some Swedish or Norwegian accent marks in there somewhere, too.)  As looms go, there are only a few variations in functional type.  One is called a jack loom, and the other is called a counterbalance loom.  On a jack loom, the harnesses or shafts are individually controlled.  You can raise just one harness.  On a counterbalance loom, one harness is raised and the opposite one is lowered; picture a teeter-totter.  One side goes up, one goes down.  In a countermarche loom, one harness goes up, and all the other harnesses go down.  Or two harnesses go up, and the others go down. 

The devil is in the details, and that's where my pictures come in.  If you click on the pictures, they will get a little bigger.  If you need close-ups of other details, let me know.  Here goes:

This is a picture taken from the back of the loom.  This loom is in a very small room; there is literally enough room to walk around one side of the loom, and that's about it.  In this picture, you can see the upper lamms, coming together in an upside-down kind of "V" at the top center of the loom.  You can also see the individual harnesses (shafts) in the middle.

This is the lower part of the back of the loom.  On the left-hand side is the brake cable.  You can see the lower lamms through the loom, visible between the back breast beam and the back warp beam.

This is a picture taken from the left side of the loom.  I call it the left side because it would be the left if you were sitting in position as if to weave, in front of the loom.  I hope that makes sense.  In this picture you can better see the upper lamms (slanted), the wires that run from the harnesses up to the lamms, and one of the cats walking on the back breast beam.

Close-up from the left side, of the harnesses, beater bar, front cloth beam, treadles, front breast beam.

Upper lamms.  I had to hang a sheet to cover the stuff on that shelf behind as the visual was too distracting.

The wires that connect the upper lamms, lower lamms, and harnesses run up the center of the open space in the middle of the loom, then divide near the top; one wire goes to the left set of upper lamms, the other wire goes to the right set.

The wires run in front of each harness.

From the front of each harness, they go through a hole in this cross bar, then separate so that one set attaches to the left lower lamm, and the other set attaches to the right lower lamm.

The lamms connect to the treadles with pins.  The pins have a U-shape bend on one end, and an L-shaped bend on the other. 

There are also wires that connect from the outside edge of each harness to the outside edge of each of the upper lamms.  These work to raise the harnesses.  You can see these wires on the left side of this and the following pictures.

 

In this picture you can see a little bit of the warp, along with the cloth beam and the treadles.

This picture shows the treadles and a little of the lower lamms.

Treadles and lower lamms; each of the lamms has five hooks.  Five hooks go to the left, for the treadles on the left of center, and five on the right-hand lamms.

Close-up of lower lamms, with treadle hooks and wires connected.

Now, this loom has 8 harnesses and 10 treadles, for various treadle combinations.  For each harness there is a lamm that makes that harness go up, and one that makes the harness go down.  So there are 16 lamms - one for harness 1 up, harness 1 down, etc.

To do a tie-up for a countermarche loom, you have to understand that every harness needed in the pattern has to be connected to every treadle.  For example, say you are going to make a 4-harness pattern in a 1-2-3-4 order.

For harness 1 to go up, harnesses 2, 3 and 4 have to go down.

For harness 2 to go up, harnesses 1, 3 and 4 have to go down.

So you move the lamms until you identify which lamms function to move which harnesses, and identify which lamm makes it move up, and which lamm makes it move down.  Then you have to attach the U-shaped end of the treadle pin to the eyelet (on the previously identified lamm) that lines up with the treadle you need, and slide the L-shaped end into the slot in that treadle.

For a 4-harness pattern, you will need 16 pins - 4 pins for each treadle used in the pattern.

If this is as clear as mud, contact me and I'll do my best to help.  If you need any other detail pictures of the loom, let me know that as well.  I'll do what I can.

Kindles

We have purchased several kindles for people as gifts this holiday season.  I love my Kindle (I have a Kindle 3, with the keyboard) as well as the Kindle apps on my other devices.  Amazon has done for reading what iPods did for music.  They make it fast and easy to buy and read books, and they have done it with (retail stores take notice!) excellent customer service, for the most part.  Having been a Kindle user (of both a Kindle 3 and Kindle apps on multiple devices) I thought some new users might find the following information helpful.

One of the great things about Kindle, besides the fact that you can make text bigger, is that there are a lot of free books for it!  This makes it worth setting up a Kindle app if you have a compatible device.  Sure, a lot of them are fluff romances, but there are also quite a few mystery, thriller, horror, and paranormal-everything genres as well.

Another great thing about Kindles - although this doesn't work for the Kindle apps (I wish it did!) is that you can set the book to read to you!  If you're into a book, and have to leave for work or shopping (or even exercise) you can turn on the text-to-speech and the mechanical voice in the Kindle will read to you while you do other things.  Some people hate the mechanical voice, some people don't mind it.  You'll have to make up your own mind.  I mostly don't mind it, but it does sometimes get words wrong.  I do wish it were available on the apps, though!

Kindles also keep track of the last page you read.  This is a great feature!  It remembers where you stopped, even if you sampled several books.  It keeps track of your last page read in all of them.  It even lets you switch between devices.  If you have a Kindle, and a Kindle app on another device, whether it's an iPad or a smartphone, you can start reading on the Kindle, and pick up the same book on your other device (assuming it has had a chance to sync over the WiFi "Whispernet") and keep reading at the same place you left off. 

Here are some helpful websites for new Kindle owners (or new Kindle app users, for that matter!)

The first is Pixel of Ink. On their website they have links to free books on Amazon.com and you can also find them (and get their links) on Facebook, or via a daily email.  One of their other endeavors is Inspired Reads.  That deals with Christian books for Kindle, both fiction and non-fiction.

Please note that not all books offered are free, and that some are free when offered, but prices sometimes change.  Follow the link, and if you're looking for free books, don't click "Buy" unless the price says $0.00.

You can also find Kindle-compatible books, some of them free, at other websites.  One of these is Smashwords.  Most of the books there do not have DRM (Digital Rights Management). 

There's also Kobo.  Like Smashwords, Kobo has some free books, but most of them have DRM.  Only get books that do NOT specify "ADOBE EPUB DRM". 

Baen Books has mostly science fiction and fantasy books.  They have a bunch of free books as well.

Project Gutenberg has all free books, classics & out-of-copyright books. For books from places other than Amazon, pick Kindle format, or .mobi format. You can also get a computer program called Calibre for free that can do conversions from one format to another. You can then side-load those books to your Kindle.  Please ask if you need more information as to how that is done.

You can also download some books from author websites (J.A. Konrath has a few at http://www.jakonrath.com/ ).  If you find books in PDF format, you can email those documents in PDF form to yourself at your kindle address (ex. yourname @ free.kindle.com ) It will convert those to Kindle format and put them on your reader. Your kindle address is set up when you first set your kindle up for use.  It can be found under the settings screen as "Send-to-Kindle" email.

There is also one particularly helpful podcast - The Kindle Chronicles podcast.  It's free, and can be listend to or downloaded on your computer, or set up to download automatically through iTunes.  He talks a LOT about hints & tips, and also does an interview in every show (mostly weekly).  The last 2 or 3 episodes have included the Kindle Fire. There's another Kindle podcast called Kindle Women that is very chatty and does some read-alongs and book reviews.

Some books are available on more than one website.  If you want to search for a specific book, it may be cheaper on a non-Amazon site, from which you would have to download it in a Kindle-compatible format and "side-load" onto your Kindle from a computer.  Inkmesh.com is a search engine specifically for e-books and audio books.  You can search for a specific title, an author, and even include or exclude by format (audio or e-book).

One thing I recommend unquestionably is a cover.  Get a cover that has a STIFF top and bottom.  These devices are plastic, and the inherent flexibility of plastic has been known to result in a cracked screen if not protected.  People have discovered that doing something like carrying it in a purse or backpack without protection can crack the screen. 

For more helpful advice, information on where to find free books, and industry chat, check out the MobileRead Forums - an online website where people can post and talk about their e-reader devices.

Most of the above websites will require you to register and create a login ID and password, but they are all websites that I use regularly and are generally considered safe.  If there are other websites of use that I should add, please feel free to let me know.  If I can answer any questions, ask away.  I'm happy to help.

Just found a Kindle help page on Facebook that seems to cover a LOT of ground.  This could be very helpful! https://www.facebook.com/kindle?sk=app_10442206389

My Christmas gift has arrived!

Yesterday the UPS guy brought me this:

This is my box from Ron at Fancy Kitty!  There was a handwritten thank you note in that plastic pouch in the front, with the receipt, and I love the "MADE IN USA" stickers on the box! 

And this is the carder:

It's huge!  It's capable of making a full 4-oz batt (some people get bigger ones!), 36" long!  I'm looking forward to making some fantastic spinning blends, mainly wool/alpaca (75 or 80% wool, 20-25% alpaca, maybe a little angora fiber in there, too - ooooh!)  I ran it for a few minutes just to try it out - without weighing or measuring the fiber - and it's so quiet, too!  Amazing!

My hubby buys me the BEST gifts!  Thank you so much, sweetie!

I'll be working hard at finishing my Christmas knitting, so I can get to some drum carding - all those gorgeous fleeces I've been washing lately! -  and for that matter, so I can get around to replacing the heddles on the loom!  I got those awesome Texsolv heddles in the mail, and have not yet had time to cut the warp off, restring all the heddles, and re-thread and re-warp the loom!  Go figure...

Christmas season!

OK, now it feels like Christmas is coming!  I'm making good progress on the purple cabled sweater for my great-niece (grand-niece?  DH's niece's daughter...).  It's the "Lavanda" pattern by Elena Nodel.  I'm probably about half done.  I still have the black hoodie to finish, and hope to have time to do a couple of "Pirates" hats and one other toddler cardigan.

The big news, though, is that today I ordered my "Big Tom" motorized drum carder from Fancy Kitty!  I have to thank my wonderful DH for coming up with a most awesome gift idea!  Can't wait til it arrives, even if I will have to make myself wait for Christmas knitting to be finished before I play with it!

This is the first half of Lavanda - still have about 1/3 of the body left to go (and the pockets) as well as the hood and the sleeves.  I love how the Patons Merino works up, though!

New Arrivals

Knitting continues apace.  Right now, besides the Clapotis for myself that was interrupted for Christmas knitting, I have one more baby sweater on the needles (in black Wool-Ease), a child's sweater in progress in purple Paton's Classic Merino, and socks (one half-done so far) for a friend at church.  I also have a hat started - the "We Call Them Pirates" pattern - and one other children's sweater I'd like to make.  We'll see what gets done before Christmas!  I finished the body of the Wool-Ease cardi.  It's a 12-month size, and just needs sleeves and the hood (and buttonband).  My focus will be the purple sweater; everything else will be extra.

Meanwhile, a couple of new residents arrived yesterday.

Buffy is on the left, Cookie is on the right.  On the other side of the fence are the two Jacob wethers, Daniel & Jack.  Cookie is 7 years old - rather elderly for a sheep, but she is a Corriedale/Shetland cross, and Corriedale, from my research, tend to be a little more long-lived than other breeds.  Buffy is her 3-year-old daughter, again crossed to a Corriedale (so 3/4 Corrie, 1/4 Shetland).  Both of them have been bred to a colored Corriedale ram, for April lambs, God willing.  Both have lambed before, and have only had singles.  Despite the poor coloring in the picture, they are shades of gray.  Buffy has a gorgeous variegated fleece.  They are a little bigger than the Jacobs, but not huge.  I am looking forward to spinning those fleeces next year!  (The Jacob boys are growing some wonderful spinning wool for me, too!)

Just a little obsessive...

Still knitting!  This morning I finished a baby sweater from the Baby Sophisticate pattern, which I got for free on Ravelry.  This one took me about two days.  All the ends are sewn in, and I have buttons for it, although I haven't attached them yet.  I could have finished it yesterday, but there were two church services so it didn't get finished until this morning.

Next up is the Toddler Raglan Hoodie.  This was another freebie pattern found on Ravelry.  I started it this morning with the intention of using up the rest of the green Jelly Beenz yarn, but I'm convinced I wouldn't have enough of that yarn to do the whole sweater.  I don't have anything that would work for the yoke stripe, either - I have no idea what else would look good with this green, in the amount required for the large contrast yoke, without looking garish.

While trying to find some yarn to work for the yoke, I came across a long-ago abandoned sweater.  This was something I started for DH out of Wool-Ease "Sprinkles" held double, probably 10 or 12 years ago.  I disassembled the whole thing, separating it into two piles as I went, and re-wound it on my ball winder.  I ended up with 29.2 ounces - over 9 skeins' worth of yarn!  So I started the Toddler Raglan Hoodie over in this yarn instead.  I certainly have enough of it!  It's the right weight for the pattern, too, even though Wool-Ease tends to be on the light side of worsted weight.

Prolonged knitting time is being enhanced by watching episodes of Star Trek: DS-9 on Netflix!  I'm also spending lots of time reading everyone's Ravelry write-ups on the patterns I'm doing (and planning on doing in the near future), and exploring options for new patterns.  I have a couple more children's sweaters I'd like to get done before Christmas, but I'd also like to weave some towels...  and there's also those corn bags I need to sew up and get mailed.

In any case, being too busy here is far more compelling than braving the Black Friday sales at the stores! :D

More yarn

I finished washing both parts of that fantastic CVM fleece, but haven't done anything since.  I think the first two fleeces (small CVM and big Jacob - or whatever the two-color one is) are finally dry, and I plan to bag them in big Ziplocs and add them to my fiber closet.  The big CVM fleece still needs probably another day.  I have two more raw fleeces that need to be washed - one is dark brown and quite small, and the other is a gray one I purchased from Georgia Wolterbeek in Rindge, NH in 2001!  That one is big, and heavy.  It may need a very hot soak before I wash it at all, and I'm pretty sure it's going to have to be washed in two parts.

DH has offered to buy me a motorized drum carder for Christmas.  I've decided, after comparing what I think are all of the motorized drum carders on the market, to get a Fancy Kitty "Big Tom."  I'm looking forward to making wool/alpaca/angora blends!  I've also been watching some videos on getting a batt off the drum carder in a roving form (using a diz).

Other than that I've been knitting.  I seem to have landed full force in the middle of Christmas knitting.  I started and finished the (hopefully) size 3 top-down toddler sweater.  It still needs buttons, but all seams are sewn, and ends run in.

As it turns out, I had decided to make the other grand-niece a sweater in something closer to a size 6 or so.  I think she's 3 now, and I want to make sure I make something that will fit for a while.  The green Jelly Beenz yarn I got at the yarn crawl, though, won't be enough to make a size 6, so that is being re-routed.  I found a pattern on Ravelry called "Lavenda" that I really like, and got some dark purple Patons wool from the basement that will be sufficient for that sweater.  Can't seem to find a picture or pattern reference outside of Ravelry, so that will have to wait until I have my own picture to post.

In the meantime, the green Jelly Beenz may become two sweaters.  I've started with a 6-12 month size baby sweater called "Baby Sophisticate" (another freebie on Ravelry) and I'm about half done, just in one day.  There is a second pattern I'm interested in, a toddler "hoodie" cardigan, if this first baby sweater doesn't use more than two skeins of this green.  We'll see how it goes.  I'll get a few Christmas gifts done while the knitting fire is burning, anyway!

FiberArts Galore - and more Furry Critters

Last week I made a trip to Rumney, NH and purchased two ewes to join my small spinner's flock.  Some time in the next week or two I'll go pick them up, after they've been bred.  Cookie is a 7 year old dark gray Shetland/Corriedale cross ewe, and Buffy is her 3 year old daughter (3/4 Corriedale) with a fantastic variegated fleece.  Both will be bred to a black Corriedale ram.  We should have lambs in April!

I have been busy with Christmas projects this week.  I've had a tremendous case of start-itis, so I thought I'd get going on gifts.

The Berga Ullman loom has a waffle-weave warp on it that's been sitting for months.  I was unhappy with the shed on the loom, and very unhappy about breaking warp threads.  One thing I've considered for some time is replacing the string heddles with Texsolv ones.  It occurs to me that replacing them with slightly shorter heddles might improve the shed, too.  This is a countermarche loom, which means each treadle will pull some shafts up, and the rest of the shafts down. 

Today my heddles arrived.  I ordered them from The Woolery on Monday.  Great service, and free shipping!

While waiting for the heddles to arrive I did start winding a warp to go on the Harrisville 4-harness jack loom.  That one will be orange-and-white log cabin towels.  I got about 80 threads done, of a 440-thread, 10-yard warp.

I've also been washing fleeces this week.  So far I've washed a small amount of a CVM fleece (I think that one was the neck fleece and "seconds" as it's a little uneven in length and on the short side, but gorgeous colors), and an incredible black and white fleece with a great staple length.

I was thinking this may be a Jacob fleece, but I'm not certain; there was a tag in the bag that said "Elderberry", but nothing else.  It has quite a silky handle to it.  The locks are actually variegated, though, with a really dark black on one end (very little brown) and white on the butt ends - as if the sheep was changing color or going gray.  Interesting.

Today I washed a CVM fleece.  Great crimp, great staple length, great color!

It was big enough that I had to split it in half to wash it in the machine.  I had to get a "before-and-after" picture of this once I had the first half out of the washing machine.  It got much lighter, showing off the gray, and very fluffy once washed.

This is a close-up, showing the crimp in this fleece.  There are a few sections with darker brown coloring, too.

I would so dearly love to find a CVM ewe or wether to join my growing little spinner's flock!

I went through the basement to see if I could find any other unwashed fleeces.  I found two.  One is a small amount of unidentified dark brown fleece, and the other is a fleece in shades of gray that I bought in Rindge, NH in 2001.  About time that one got washed, I think!

I'm also working on a couple of baby sweaters.  I'm doing one in a DK weight yarn in pastels (in my Ravelry queue, for those on Rav) in a child's size 3.  This one is being done top-down.  The yarn and pattern were acquired during the North Shore Yarn Crawl in Massachusetts last March.  I have one other child's sweater to knit after that, with yarn & pattern bought during the same event.  The current sweater has only taken me 3 days so far, and might get finished up tomorrow.  This one, the child's sweater, and a pair of purple variegated socks are all slated for Christmas gifts, as well as something from the loom and possibly a few corn heating bags.

Sock pattern

Karen asked me about the heel of my socks, so I thought I'd post my sock pattern.

99% of the socks I knit are the same pattern - just basic top-down.  I keep wanting to try toe-up, and Cookie A's fancy patterns (as seen in her two books, and on Knitty - among others, I'm sure).

For reference, I wear a men's size 9 or so sneaker, in an extra-wide width.  These will fit, with minor adjustment, a women's 8 or 9 up to a men's 10 or so, with just minor variations.  I use five double-pointed needles (stitches on 4, knit with the 5th) but this would be easy to adapt to two circulars or "magic loop" methods.  The needles I use are a 2.25 mm (but I keep thinking of using a 2.0 mm with some of the thinner sock yarns - need to get some of those).

Sock pattern

Cast on 72 stitches (on 4 needles, I space them 16 sts/ 20 sts/ 16 sts/ 20 sts)
Knit 2, Purl 2 ribbing for 20 rows (longer for entirely ribbed leg / foot).  This is why I do the 16/20/16/20 stitches; each needle starts with 2 knit stitches instead of with purl stitches.
Knit a total of 72 rows (same as the number of cast-on stitches) before the heel flap.

HEEL:
Knit 36 rows on 36 sts.  I don't do any slip stitches or anything, just stockinette.
Next is the heel turn:  Knit 18 stitches (to the center of the 36-stitch heel flap), then knit 3 stitches, Knit 2 tog, K1, turn
Slip 1st stitch, Purl 7, Purl 2 tog, P1, turn.

Continue until 22 stitches remain, end on a knit row.
 
Pick up 21 sts across heel flap, Knit across next 2 needles (18 sts ea), pick up 21 sts; divide 22 remaining heel flap stitches across both pick-up needles.

K 1 round.  Next round -
K to last 3 sts, SSK, K1
Knit across next 2 needles

K1, K2tog, K remaining stitches
Alternate with plain Knit round & decrease round until heel stitches are back to 18.
Knit plain for 70 rows, counting from pick-up row.  I use small coil-less brass pins to mark every 10 rows.  This helps me make the socks the same size.

*For Mom's socks, 65 rows; for Dad's, 67 rows
For my socks, 70 rows before beginning decreases

German Round Toe decrease:
 Do 1 decrease round, 3 plain -
Decrease round:  K1, K2tog, knit to end of needle; on next needle, knit to within last 3 sts, SSK, k1;
repeat for next 2 needles.  K 3 plain rounds, then:
 Do twice: (1 decrease round, 2 plain)
Do 4 times: (1 decrease round, 1 plain)
Then decrease every round, until you end up with 3 sts on each needle
Thread tail through needle, close toe, run tail through stitches until secured.

This decrease was taken from Flor's Knitting Pages, now sadly only available via the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040603131106/http://flor.trix.net/gtoe.htm