Stash busting-weekend weaving by the seat of my pants

Just like many other knitters and spinners I have this constant need to clean out and use up my stash of yarn!  I don't think I'm the worst of hoarders but I do tend to buy beautiful yarn and make a lot of beautiful yarn -even though I love it as it is, eventually I would like to make something with it.  Or give it to someone, or sell it.  Also, I really enjoy knitting socks and for some reason I keep being attracted to those variegated and multi colored sock yarns in the store and when I look at patterns I discover I really want to knit solid colored socks.  So I have a lot of these types of yarns and the ones that aren't hand dyed and super special might be nice as something other than socks.

A few months ago at one of my guild meetings a fabulous weaver Deb Jarchow shared a scarf she had made on her cricket loom out of stashed sock yarn.  It was really lovely was soft and warm not too fuzzy and a great use of the many colored sock yarn.  I have kept that scarf in the back of my mind ever since.  So when I found myself done with my recent big weaving project and not ready for another big project I decided to warp up my loom for one of these scarves.       

This is a great thing to do over a weekend.  I measured the warp in less than an 1/2 an hour 72” scarf + 22 inches of waste & shrinkage. I just used up the whole skein giving me 63 ends.  This is sort of backwards of the way I normally do things, but I didn't want to get too hung up in planning.
I decided to use a set of 10epi so the piece has a width of 6+inches.

With only 2 skeins of yarn I wound the bobbins I only got 6 1/2 of them. That worried me a bit because it wasn't quite enough.  I wove one bobbin finding that would give me 6” of weaving…meaning I would get about 36” altogether not quite enough for a good scarf.  To the rescue- The Internet!   I found another skein & ordered it for $8. Ok not too much expense but is it really stash busting if I have to buy one more skein?

I have concluded that the next round of yarn stash busting, if doing a scarf, I will be more careful with how much yarn I use for the warp. Maybe make it a bit shorter, thinner, maybe blend some left overs from sock knitting that matches there are many options.  It's all a good experience for me.  Making mistakes does allow for a lot of growth.

The Road Home and the Kitchen

The last few months have been challenging to me mostly because I've had some health issues that have taken most of my time.  I started having a pain in my neck that made it more and more difficult to teach my dance classes and I was experiencing an incredible amount of fatigue.  Instead of winding you through the entire process, I'll advance you to where I am now.  I have a large nodular goiter which is consistent with Hashimoto's Disease -that is an auto immune disease that attacks the thyroid.  Anyway, I'm going to have surgery and I'll be on meds.  I feel good about all my choices to get back on the road to health especially to learn to rest more, practice more meditation and heal any emotional spiritual issues that may be at the root of developing a disease that has your body attacking itself.  All good.

Even though I haven't been blogging I still took lots of pictures...I'll just take the time over the next few days/weeks to document all that fun stuff that happens between doctor appointments and sleep.

Did I ever mention that my husband is of Portugese Hawaiian ancestory on his father's side of the family?  Probably not.  One of the first things we did together when we started dating was to make french toast with "Hawaiian Sweet Bread"  he loved that stuff because it reminded him of the Portugese Sweet Bread that his grandmother used to make when he was a little boy visiting her in Hawaii.  And I've always wanted to see if I could replicate that for him.

It turns out that the packaged bread they called Hawaiian Sweet Bread is indeed one and the same as Portugese Sweet Bread, brought to Hawaiian culture by those long ago whalers and sugar plantation workers from Portugal.  I learned this from the Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.  My intention is to work my way through this book and learn to be a fabulous bread maker.  Even though I shouldn't eat large amounts of wheat, I'm still fascinated by the process of bread baking-fortunately other people will help eat my experiments!

So I made Robert a lovely loaf of homemade Portugese Sweet Bread and to round it out I also made him a pot of one of our favorite soups also Portugese Soup (looks like it was ravaged before my camera got there).

Here is my recipe for Portugese Soup:

Saute 1 finely chopped onion & 4 crushed cloves of garlic in some (maybe a 3- 4 tablespoons) olive oil and if you are not vegan a pat of butter.

When those are nice & clear and not burned at all toss in 5 medium chopped potatoes.
Coat that all with the oil for a minute.

Then add about 8 cups of broth (I use the boxed kind from Trader Joe's) or add 2 bullion cubes, allow to soften for a minute and then add 8 cups of water.  Sometimes I use a mixture of both of these things.

After the potatoes are nicely cooked, about 15 minutes, you can use your immersion blender to blend everything.  I never completely pulverize everything because Robert likes some potato chunks.

Then add a package of Soyrizo (vegetarian sausage) and a big bunch of chopped kale.  Let the soyrizo get warm & the kale get lightly cooked.

Taste before adding salt.
My family loves this stuff...I'm going to make them some right now!  If you want to make the bread too you should look it up in the Bread Baker's Apprentice I bought my copy from Amazon.com

Here's my happy Hawaiian Portugese man!

Fairy Garden

Robert & I went on a trip to Cambria for our anniversary...if you've ever been there you know there is a place called Moonstone Beach, with a very long boardwalk.  It's an unbelievably magical and lovely place.  We had an ocean view room and we just lazed about drinking wine, eating, & walking on the beach.  What did we bring home?  A bunch of rocks!  This is what we did with them.

2/2 Twill Rug Weaving class

I just had 3 days of class learning 2/2 Twill Rug weaving from Jason Collingwood and wow am I tired!

There was so much information I am going to spend the next few days trying to reinforce what I learned and saw.

Unfortunately at this time I don't have any photos of the workshop but I have some of my weaving in progress. 

In the meantime here is a link to Jason's website. jason collingwood If you ever get a chance to take a class from him I think you should do it. He is a very kind and patient teacher who is extremely knowledgeable in his craft.

February 1

Time to rededicate myself to blogging every Wednesday again. I have been so over scheduled for the last 3 months that I have not had much time to do some of the fun things I want to do. Or maybe the fun things I do have really taken over my life? Not sure.

In the dance teacher part of my life I've started class sessions again and I'm preparing my student troupe Tandava to dance in Bohemian Roadhouse in a few weeks. We are all really excited, it's a Mardi Gras themed show and we'll have Sherri Wheatley & Sooz teaching workshops as well as being featured in our show. My class is wearing these wrap around skirts that are short in front & long in back, black & green bras, masks, feathers, fish net stockings and they are going to look fabulous. I'm not sure why but this round not many of my students are sew-ers so I have to do a lot of the skirts myself. Oh what I go through to make everyone pretty.

Tandava after our Circus piece at TFF '10

The exciting weaving news is that Jason Collingwood is coming to California and Ventura Guild is hosting him for part of his tour. I'm excited and have to warp the loom I've borrowed from the guild to be ready for the class. I can't wait to try my hand at rug weaving!

As a spinner, I've been doing much of what I always do...spinning yards and yards of yarn and I got Jacey Bogg's new book Spin Art. I am involved with her Insubordiknit group on Ravelry and we are working on all the techniques in the book. Even though I've done most of them before it's really good to make a study of each one to solidify my understanding of each yarn.

The first yarn in the book included a racing stripe. I did it a few times and wasn't happy at first. I spun a thin single out of a Mohair blend -that was very hard to draft- with S twist. Then I attached that single to a leader & spun a thick merino single and allowed the mohair to spin around it simultaneously. After a few miserable attempts I realized that in order to make the thicker yarn AND control the thin racing stripe at the same time I really had to get a larger whorl for my wheel. This made a world of difference...now I may actually do the yarn again. Since I have also spun some other thick singles just for the fun of it.

Multi Mohair Racing stripes with White merino/Teal merino/Black merino

My dance troupe She'enedra performed in a show called Bands and Bellies in Hollywood on January 22. It was fabulous fun! Princess Farhana was there as well as Monica Fernandez and many other beautiful performers.

Heidi, me, Tonantzin, Karma (yes those are their real names)

I also had a lot of fun with my friend Carolena, she came over to hang out and spin with me and stayed the night at the beginning of the month and then came out AGAIN last week and we had an indigo dye day with the craft grou. It was a very windy day and we had to work in the garage. If you've ever dyed with indigo you know how smelly it is. I'm waiting for some people to contribute pictures of the day so I can post them.

me & Carolena

I'm making these spindles for my Etsy shop and will be posting them soon.

That's the report on January! I'll be more consistent from now on so I don't have to put a whole month of news in one post!

I'm always spinning

Even when I'm so overwhelmed with everything else in life I keep spinning. Sometimes I feel like Dorrie from Finding Nemo only my song is "Just keep spinning spinning spinning." Here are a few samples of what I've done in the last 2 months while NOT blogging!

There is more I haven't photographed, and I seem to be enamored of singles all of a sudden! What is wrong with me? But to make up for it I'm doing a laceweight camel silk blend too (slow going).

Alpacas hum

Did you know that? Well I didn't! Until Riley & I took a field trip out to visit Windy Hill Alpaca ranch. Apparently it's the largest Alpaca ranch in the state and it is mere 20 minute drive from my home.

This must be why I've been gifted (yes I used that word) with so many beautiful alpaca fleeces in the last year, they are in abundance and some of these people have no idea what to do with them.
Good thing I know what to do with the stuff!

One of these days I'm going to get my own alpaca but I want it to live in my yard, I don't want to drive to visit it, it won't know me! I will name it Gandhi.