Spinning on the Skagit and a Skeinwinder

I am taking a breather from packing and cleaning to post a quick post. My spinning wheel is living nicely in its new home and the repair I did to it seems to be holding up too.
Our Pacific Northwest weather has suddenly turned glorious. "Sucker weather" is the term that is often used. Many people that happen to be visiting when the weather smiles as it has been suddenly feel compelled to move to the area, not realizing the stunning emerald green of the land is due to many wet grey days. The land is breathtakingly beautiful in the sunshine though.
We can see two significant volcanoes along the chain, Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier. The San Juan Islands which stretch out to the west and north of us are crystal clear too and the Olympic peninsula rears up to the south. Is it any wonder that people want to move here if they happen to be visiting when all of this is at its most beguiling?
I celebrated the lovely weather by spinning on the bank of the Skagit river (the "g" in Skagit is pronounced like a "j" so it sounds like Ska-jit) which is about 25 feet from our trailer door.
Our house sale reels from one potential catastrophe to another but is still going forward (knock on wood). I am still braiding my fingers and trying not to hold my breath. We have 8 more days before closing and anything can happen. Yikes! So much to do still.
I had a new comment from Priscilla on my old post about my dream skeinwinder I built. She was asking about my homemade manual skeinwinder! I hadn't really thought about posting pictures of that with an explanation about how my husband built it until she asked. I want to do it justice so I won't be posting about it in this post. I have found it in the studio (I thought it was packed! It is now.) and took some pictures so I will be posting the details soon. It is nothing fancy but it does the job nicely.
I have been reading everybody's recent posts but haven't had a chance to leave a comment or two. As soon as we move time will ease up and I will be able to catch up. I can hardly wait!
Skeinwinder post coming soon Priscilla!
-Renee

Up and Spinning Again!

Well, I managed to get my spinning wheel repaired and working again. A big thank you to Ellen H. who left a comment about a fix she did on my last post. I didn't need to replace the actual bearing but I got a neoprene washer that held the bearing nut in. I haven't had my camera and my wheel in the same place to take a picture yet but will soon.
We are now camped by the Skagit River out in the farmland. It is quite picturesque but the Whidbey Island Navel Station has fighter jets flying quite a bit and at times they come right over us. It often sounds like they are about to land right on top of us!
Today was warm enough that I finally got to do what I had envisioned. We put the awning up and I sat outside our trailer with my husband and dog and spun for about an hour. I am spinning a three ply sock yarn. I am not using the fibers pictured to the left yet. I pulled up an old photo to post today until I can get a new picture. At the moment I am spinning a 54's Australian wool roving. Not as fine as a merino wool but almost as soft.
We have been quite busy since the last post. Our house has an offer on it! There are a few complications but so far the buyer has stuck with us. If all goes well (knock on wood, fingers not only crossed but braided) we can be rolling out of here by the middle of next month.
Our trailer has undergone a few modifications and now has a special place for my spinning wheel and the Jane loom. I haven't brought Jane to the trailer yet but soon. Little by little the shakedown continues and we are settling in.
I hope to have triumphant news in my next post. Now to go catch up with what the other weavers are up to out there. -Renee

Roving Weaver

I haven't exactly been on the road but I, along with my husband and dog, have been living at an RV park beside a lake in our travel trailer. It is on the left. This is the first time we have lived in it for any length of time. We figured since we plan to live in it for quite a while, now is a good time to give it a shake down trial. We aren't too far from where our house and property is. That is convenient since some of the things we thought we needed we brought back to the house and various items we actually did need were brought to the trailer after we had been there a few days. My husband has been busy modifying the interior to fit our needs, for example, room for his trumpet and my Jane weaving loom. I haven't actually brought it out to the trailer yet as I have visions of weaving on it during a warm spring day underneath the awning. So far, we have only had one really warm spring day. That is, warm for here. It actually got into the 70's! We spent the day being tourists in a near by town as it actually fell on my birthday (and a lovely present the sunny day was too).
I wish I could say I have the warp off the Jane loom. Unfortunately I have only had about 5 minutes here and there to weave. It is getting there but oh so slowly. At the moment I am traveling between our trailer and our house to keep it maintained and ready to view by potential buyers. I will be one excited weaver when the house is sold and we are on our way at last. In the meantime, we endure.
Spinning has come to a screeching halt for me as well as my spinning wheel has mysteriously lost a little tiny part that holds the bearing where the flyer is inserted. My wheel is a Schacht Matchless double treadle. It is about 12 years old now and has been a wonderful wheel for me. I contacted Schacht to see if I could get a replacement part. It is a little tiny metal clip. Unfortunately so far they have quoted me a price to replace the whole assembly. I will have to call them directly and see if I can get the part. I might see what I can do on my own as I like to repair my own appliances and things.
So, all of the above is part of the reason for the lack of posts. I hope to make up for the long silence soon. In the meantime, I have some weaving blogs to catch up on. I look forward to seeing what my weaving friends have been up to!
-Renee

A Reflecting Interlude

I have to beg indulgence from one and all. This is such a strange time in my life. It is definitely a time of transition. I have been away from the blog for a time. My meager online time has been devoted to researching some of the choices my husband and I have on where to go from here.
As I have mentioned from time to time, our house is for sale. This is a house that my husband and I designed in our mid-late 20's then built in our 30's. The house is now 16 years old and it sits on our 5 acre property that is becoming increasingly surrounded by the encroaching city of Stanwood.
It is time for us to move on and make a mid-life transition. It has been a long wait from the time we first put the house on the market until now. A lot has happened in this time period such as the economy and housing markets crashing, and a new U.S. president being elected. It hasn't been always easy to wait in limbo but when looking at the pain that other folks are going through, we feel we have been fortunate so far.
The silver lining has been the time to really think things through and take a look around. After a lot of reflective work, journaling, and digging through the layers of oneself, I have decided to take a rather huge leap...
I have drawn and sketched pretty much most of my life. I can't help myself it seems. I have sketch journals and sometimes when looking through my weaving folders I find odd sketches here and there. I once sketched my water bottle when sitting through a particularly long (and, yes, boring) business meeting at the Seattle Weavers Guild! Deep down inside was always the thought of "what if?" What if I were to pursue this?
I don't think I need to tell any weaver, artist, or fiber artist what happens when you pursue a higher calling. The obstacles, the nay-sayers, the wet-blankets, the cold, icy water flingers, all come out of the woodwork. As if your own feet didn't get in the way!
I drew the above drawing a few years ago. It was donated to one of my weaving guilds for a fund raising auction for the guild (Marie take note, you have one of my early works!). I recently started another weaving related still life drawing and it was as if I were coming home. A lot of things fell into place that just felt right. The result of all of this preamble that you have kindly read through (5 gold stars for making it this far!) is that I am going back to art school. I am going to seriously train in the fine arts.
There, I have said it! I am older, stronger, and hopefully a little more wise enough now to stand fast when the waves of Resistance* come flooding in.
I am still a weaver. I love fiber. It will have to find its place in my life. It might take a few years to settle in its place but it will still be part of my past, present, and future. Thank goodness!
I have been focusing on getting our house sold and getting resettled. The potential buyers are starting to come out of hiding and we have actually had a few stop by recently. I have been getting drawings put together for a school application but will be getting back to the warp on my loom soon. The story will continue...
-Renee
* The idea of Resistance is from Steven Pressfield's book, The War of Art. I highly recommend reading it to everyone. I have read it many many times. I will warn folks, it contains very blunt language. I enjoy that sort of thing but not everyone does.

There's That "S" Word Again!

I debated whether or not to take the time to sample this warp. I just put the warp on to get to know my new Jane loom. I don't really have a particular end use in mind. I finally decided that there was no sense in weaving four yards off on a table loom unless I have the sett just right. As I have done in the past, I cut off the bit I wove and divided it into thirds. One of the thirds I kept as is right off the loom and it is the sample on the left. The sample in the center I washed in the sink with a bit of detergent and warm water and swishing it around.
The third sample, on the right, I threw in the washing machine and dryer with a load of towels!
I have mentioned this technique before after Daryl Lancaster mentioned it on the Sew Your Weaving Weavecast episode. On the right is a close-up picture of the three samples. You can see the third sample looks fuzzy and the stars are smaller than the others.
I am using an unknown wool yarn in the warp. Even more reason to sample. My sett was pretty close, I sett it at 15 epi.* After the samples were dried and given a quick steam press, I decided that I am going to nudge the sett together to 16 epi. It doesn't seem like a huge change but I know from experience that it will make a big difference in the final fabric. So now I need to change the reed and re-sley. It shouldn't take me very long on a small table loom. If this were an expensive fiber or a very special fabric, I would sample again but I think I am going to just re-sley and go on from there. It will be close enough.
On a different topic, I have to give a shout out to the magazine Wild Fibers. This is its fifth anniversary year. I got my current copy in the mail the other day and stayed up late reading it from cover to cover. If you have never read this magazine and have any interest in fiber or fiber animals, I highly recommend it. It isn't full of projects but Linda Cortright, the editor and publisher is, compared to me, an incredible adventurer. She takes her readers around the world and to remote places in pursuit of fiber stories. I have a link to the magazine in my Fiber Links or you can take a look at the website here.
I will be back soon with the results of another project I am working on. In the meantime, is that a whiff of spring I smell in the air?
-Renee
*see glossary