Rescue Chair

I rescued this chair this afternoon. Okay, I really didn't "rescue" it in the true sense of the word. But it has been severely abused and neglected. It's solid wood and probably the sturdiest chair I've ever encountered. I'm not sure yet what kind of wood it is because it has so many coats of paint on it. It appears that in addition to its original dark stain, it's been red, gray, off white and it's current coat of white enamel. It's going to be a challenge, but given it's strengths, I think it will be well worth.

It's biggest positive (which is almost oxymoronic - if that's a word) is it's size - it's small, so it fits me perfectly. Not that I'm a little person, but let's just say I'm small for my age. Because of it's smaller size, it is very comfortable and will be great for spinning. The best height for spinning on an Ashford wheel (of which I have two), is 17 inches. This one, once I get the paint off the seat will be 16-1/2 to 16-3/4 inches high. It appears the seat is contoured, as is the back; but again, given the layers of paint it's a little difficult to tell.

I'm not sure of the period of furniture or when or where it was built, but given the color of the stain, I'm guessing it's from the early part of the 20th century.

Spinning Update

In addition to all the top secret knitting I've been doing for the holidays, I have been doing quite a bit of spinning. I've completed the gray-overdyed-with-blue I purchased at North Country Fiber Fair. It ended up as a 1 pound, 13.5 ounce/1142 yard bouncing ball of Navajo-plied wool.

As for the Vulcan & friend spinning, it wasn't consistently working out the way I wanted to so now I'm spinning the alpaca and wool separately and then plying them together. It took a little bit to get used to how slippery the suri alpaca is, but it's fine now and I'm loving the results.
For a little bit, I was wondering why I bought so much; but now, I'm really glad I did.

Spinning Vulcan

Sorry, this caramel swirl is not edible: It's Vulcan's fleece and that of some of his sheep friends swirled together in this delictible combination of suri alpaca (that's Vulcan) and wool. Since suri alpaca is slicker than black ice, Vulcan's owners combined his rich brown fleece with wool for easier spinning. Fortunately, I bought a lot of this because I keep changing my mind how I want to spin it up. Right now, I'm thinking three strands of as closer to barber pole as I can get it in one strand. In case you aren't familar with the term "barber pole" that's with the white and the brown spiralling separately like, you guessed it, a barber pole. What I've done so far has kind of a tweedy effect on the spool and it's keeping the rich brown color with just little flecks of white. What I wanted to avoid was having it blend into tan. Whatever garment it turns out to be, it'll be nice and warm.

Incidentally, Vulcan's photo is on his owner's website at http://www.rachalpacafarm.com then click on alpacas - his photo is near the bottom.

Wool Kitty

Here's the yarn I spun from Sally Sue, who belongs to a friend about 75 miles north of where I live. The fleece was just beautiful and just about spun itself. Since it had a bit more suint than I like to knit with, I washed it in Dawn before setting the twist. The photo to the right shows what happened to the yarn after the twist was set. I hung it over a chair before winding it. Neither of my cats was particularly interested in it up to that point. As I walked into a nearby room, I caught both of them heading to the chair with the yarn. I heard their chatter and thought they were getting ready to play - wrong! When I walked back into the room, Hans was all rolled up in the skeins and making little noises. Greta, his partner in crime, was watching from a safe distance with a look on her face like she couldn't believe that's why he wanted her help getting the skeins down.

I found a new knitting mystery series!

I've been reading Maggie Sefton's series for a few months now - unfortunately, jumping around enough that I'm a little confused as to chronological order of events. Recently i discovered another knitting mystery series, this one by Mary Kruger. I wasn't blown away by the first in the series, Died in the Wool. There were a couple of things that I felt were technical errors and unfortunately, it bothered me. I really liked the characters though, so I read the second in the series, Knit Fast, Die Young. I am so glad I did!

The main character in the series (and the unintentional sleuth) is Ari Evans, who is a divorced mother of a school-aged daughter. She owns a yarn shop in a northeastern state and has a widowed mother, a well-intentioned aunt, a close friend who is a spinner, a grumpy ex-husband and a potential love interest, who happens to be a detective with the local police department. Ari comes across dead and dying people in very unlikely places and circumstances, who die in very unconventional and contrived ways and means. But it doesn't matter! It's still fun, fast-paced reading!

This time, a publisher of knitting magazine, who is known to be very critical of just about everyone, dies in Ari's arms with a knitting needle stuck in her back at a small wool festival in the New England town where Ari lives. Ari had met this woman earlier when she lived in New York. The cops decide to hold everyone at the wool festival who knew the victim; personalities and tempers flash and flare, but eventually Ari flushes out the murderer.

Unless there is a category for knitting mysteries, this book isn't going to win any huge publishing awards, but for a fast-paced read and interesting characters, it's a winner.

Sugar Maple Socks

I just finished another 2-at-a-Time Socks pattern by Melissa Morgan-Oakes - Sugar Maple Socks. Although in the Kaffe Fassett sock yarn, they don't look too sugar maplely. These worked up quickly and the while the pattern looks like a cable, it is just two stitches, one over the other, so no cable needle is needed. So okay, technically, it is a cable. As you can see, it's a great pattern for self-striping yarn.