Ask The Bellwether

What online spinning forums are there?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:08:00 +0000

Two more than a week ago ... no, seriously. And I hear more are coming.

I like to "collect" online forums, as there is always something new to learn from the folks there. Sure, there's overlap, I run into various on-line friends in several, but there are also people who have to limit their internet time, so they choose, and stick with, one or only a few of those out there.

Here are the ones I've found.

Yahoo Groups -- for spindle spinners, spindlers and spindlitis are tops! Spin-List and TechSpin are more generic, also very helpful. There are more fiber, dyeing and spinning groups on Yahoo too, these are the main ones. I've definitely seen some fading of activity in Yahoo due to the increase in interest in ...
Ravelry! -- yep. I joined waaay back and saw only one, teeny-tiny spinning forum, not much on it. Now, spinning on Ravelry is h-u-g-e. There's a great Spindlers group there, Beginning Spinners, Spinner Central, and Ravelers Who Spin are also big groups welcoming to every sort of spin. There's a group for every major wheel maker, one for Charkas, one for studying fibers, and more.
LiveJournal -- has a great Handspinner's Community and several sister groups to it, too. A little slow for dial-up but terrific for DSL and T1 lines.
Knitty Forums -- has a nice spinning forum to accompany KnittySpin.
Craftster has a fun spinning board with useful FAQ's compiled and active posters.
Knitting Daily has started a forum for Spin-Off readers. Yay! A fun way to have immediate input to the crew at Spin-Off, with the "What are You Spinning" thread and the re-cap of what you found and enjoyed at shows (as I write this, Estes Wool Market just past, SOAR's up next!)
Handspun Collective looks like a great new home for yarn spinners of all sorts. My invite came through the Spinning On The Edge Yahoo group (see, I said there were more!), and I see quite alot of gorgeous art yarns there already. Nice flavor!

Now, add a comment and let me know of others!

What classes are coming up?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:50:00 +0000

It's the fall, and that means a new round of teaching at A Dropped Stitch in Sequim, WA as well as classes at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival later this month!

At A Dropped Stitch I'm teaching:

Tuesdays, 10:30-12:30, September 16, 23, 30:
Learn to Spin on a Wheel, $40 includes materials
minimum 2 students
Please note if you have a wheel already or not.

*** see Oregon Flock and Fiber below for more September classes!

Tuesdays, 10:30-12:30, Spinning Two, $15 each or $40 all three
minimum 2 students
Tues., October 7, Wheel details: controlling yarn thickness and more
Tues., October 14, Color in spinning: striping, spirals, neutrals and more
Tues., October 21, Plying Around: Navajo ply, Cable, boucle, coil and more

Tuesdays, 10:30-12:30, Spinning Again, $15 each or $40 all three
minimum 2 students
Tues., November 4th: Spinning Slippery Fibers: silk, alpaca, mohair, bamboo
Tues., November 11th: Spinning Fine Yarns
Tues., November 18th: Spin a necklace or keychain for lovely gifts

Saturday, November 8th: 1:30-4:30, Weave a Hat, $15
No weaving or knitting skills required. Bring 5 ounces of yarn (leftovers are great!), a yarn needle and scissors. This hat is a Beret or Tam style hat. Weaving template and instructions provided in class. A great gift to make!
Minimum 2 students

Spinning With Amelia, one-on-one instruction at A Dropped Stitch, 2 hours, $30. Spindle or Wheel, beginner or experienced. Great if you'd like a refresher or want to get started right away! Scheduled at your request.

At Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, I'm teaching:

WS 807 Drum Carding for Spinners & Felters: Using the Batt Machine
Fee - $48 (Fiber Prep- all levels)
Friday, Sept. 26 ® 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

WS 810 The Woven Hat: You Wove What ? ! ?
Fee $54 (Weaving--no weaving or knitting experience necessary; see above for details)
Friday, Sept. 26 ® 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm

WS 827 Beginning Spindling aka I Wanna Spindle
Fee - $55 (Spinning--no experience needed)
Saturday, Sept. 27 ® 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
and a second time, WS 861 Sunday, Sept. 28 ® 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm

WS 856 Drop Spindle Ph.D.
Fee - $48 (Spinning - be able to spin a continuous thread)
Sunday, Sept. 28 ® 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

You can see descriptions of these classes in What Workshops Do You Teach?

Would you recommend an Ashford Joy?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:05:00 +0000

Jeannine asked,

I am looking into raising White French Angora Bunnies and White Angora Goats for yarn. I have been looking into spinning wheels for making this mixed yarn. I am thinking I want the Ashford Joy Wheel because it is portable. Its ratios are 6, 8, 12 & 15:1. Do you think these ratios would work for the French Angora Mohair yarn mix?

Thanks for asking, Jeannine!

Now, as readers of my blog know, I love portable wheels. Why haven't I written about the Joy before? Well, because I don't have one ... I'm a tall lady, and the Joy sits just a little low for me. I suppose I was influenced by my local guild -- almost all of them have tried the Ashford Joy for some length of time. Alot of them have them, still -- anyone of average to short height. The tall ladies either sell them on, or don't buy them to begin with.

I've been giving that some thought, since Jeannine's question came in a few days ago, and I wonder about it. After all, my pocket wheel sits very low -- I may even sit so I can't see the orifice, just the fiber in my hands and yarn just in front of my hand. I admit, it made me feel a little insecure. But then I realized the yarn was just as good. It was definitely a "Look Ma, No Hands!" kind of moment. So, perhaps personal height is not really an issue.

So, my friends with a Joy ... love its bag: Beth packs in a ton of fiber, so she never runs out at Spin-Ins; Melissa stuffs in bobbins galore; and Kym has personalized hers with a patch or three (or was that Mikie's?)

Melissa has a very early Ashford Joy. She's had it a long time, and takes it everywhere. Her stay-at-home wheel is a Schacht Matchless, so you know she likes good wheels! Recently, the Joy kept popping off its bobbins -- the flyer wouldn't stay screwed in place. She called the USA distributor, who conveniently lives about an hour away. And I went with her ("road trip!") when she took it in for repair. It was repaired in about 2 hours, we had a nice lunch-and-shop around Bainbridge, and then we took it home.

Melissa has spun for years on her wheel -- always without a WooLee Winder. Recently she's taken to one of those, and does enjoy it (it had nothing to do with the other problem, as the WW came after). I would let you know, though, that Ashford USA doesn't recommend them with the Joy, because of the additional weight. Nathan Lee has engineered the Joy WW to be as lightweight as possible, but it's still heavier than the normal flyer.

On the other hand, Kym's had a WW on her Joy for many years, and not had any issues.

The Joy comes in Single Treadle and Double Treadle configurations. The Single has a nice treadle, so you can put both feet on it and "ride tandem" (or would that be sidesaddle? If I rode sidesaddle, the horse would be forever going to the left...)

Now about fiber, I'll be honest with Jeannine and everyone else who has read this far. Angora and Mohair? Wow. That will be one slippery combination! My first hat was a 2-ply of Romney and Mohair, with a little 2-ply Angora band in it. Spun on: a hooky stick, a CD spindle, a Mongold spindle, and a Louet S-10. The Louet S-10 is not an easy wheel to spin slippery fibers on -- its Irish Tension pulls the fiber in fairly strongly; you can lace across the bobbin to decrease the pull, but beginners don't generally know that. I didn't. In fact, the Angora at that time was spun just on the hooky stick. I think I realized that, as a beginner, the Angora was going to be really tough for me.

The Joy has Scotch Tension, which can be adjusted minutely to allow for minimal draw-in ... a necessity with slippery fibers. For me, personally, the ratios are a little limited, but I love to spin fast. There is a lady I know who spins lovely laceweight cashmere on her Ashford Joy, using 12:1 for the singles and 8:1 to ply. If you want to get technical (but who does), then you want to look at what thickness of yarn you want to spin, how much twist per inch it might need (here's a great table of WPI/TPI match-ups for basic knitting yarns), and how long a length you're likely to draft at a time.

For example ... my draft with that combination might be about 4 inches (probably less at the start!) If I'm shooting for a DK (14-15wpi) 2-ply, they recommend 3 tpi (which honestly seems a little low, to me). That means the singles will be about 21-25 wpi, and would need about 4.5 tpi. So, my 4 inches of drafted out fiber needs 18 twists in it -- or, at 12:1, 1-and-a-half treadles. Not too bad.

The Joy has ball bearings in all the right places, so its treadle action is smooth and easy. It would be a suitable wheel for many uses. In fact, my local Joy-owning friends spin pretty much the full gamut -- fine high-twist weaving yarns, thick low-twist knitting yarns, art yarns, singles, 2-ply, wool, llama, wool/silk blends, and I bet some angora and mohair along the way, too. Melissa isn't the only one to pair the Joy with a Schacht Matchless; Kym does, too. Beth has some Ashford Traditionals as well, as she teaches and is a wonderful local enabler. I believe Mikie has just the Ashford Joy -- she's tried a few others along the way, and this suits her spinning and lifestyle as an "only" wheel.

So, in conclusion ... the Ashford Joy is a very portable wheel, and would spin your fiber combination just fine. For finer yarns, you may find yourself treadling alot or drafting more slowly to ensure enough twist -- but it's hard to find a wheel with a ratio above 18:1, especially a portable wheel.

If you are shopping around wheel brands, The Woolery has a very nicely done wheel comparison and another that focuses on several folding wheel. I expect their focus is on wheels they carry -- so the SpinOlution Mach 1, the Journey Wheel, the Pocket Wheel, and others may not show up there. The Fall 2008 issue of Spin-Off (appearing soon!) contains a big wheel review section covering many wheels. Spin-List on Yahoo is a good resource for wheel information, if you like searching archives; Ravelry's Spinner Central is another good place, as well as the wheel-specific groups that abound there.

If you've fallen in love with the look of the Joy, then go for it! Enjoying how your wheel looks and feels is as much a part of the process as ensuring it's suitable for the fiber you intend to throw at it and the yarn you want to take off of it afterwards.

What is a Bedouin Spindle?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:52:00 +0000

Recently, on flickr, I posted this photo:

Now, there are a ton of fun spindles there. Top to bottom (or, back row to front row):

Top (or mid, if you like) turkish spindle. Made by Ray's Spindles, bought from him on-line a few years ago. A fun little spindle.
Niddy-noddy spindle. From The Woolery. Pretty cool, you wind-on like a niddy-noddy as you spin. Wa-la, skein when done! Not sure how much it holds, but it does actually work.
Bedouin spindle. From Detta's Spindles, also made by Ray. All purpleheart, pretty cool.
Flax spindle. Made for me by a local wood turner. I wouldn't recommend it; we tried several models, and never got one to spin satisfactorily. Which may be why the lady in the picture this was copied from looks so grumpy! (Hmmm, I always thought it was Italian, but it says Portuguese. C'est la vie...!)
Balinese spindle. Bought at Estes Wool Market a few years back. Pretty, no? I've not spun on it, though I imagine it's a support spindle of some sort.

I was asked how well the Bedouin spindle spins.

It's a decent spindle, as spindles go. I love that it's all purpleheart :-) that's fun! I honestly don't think that I've ever filled it full with yarn, just tried it out and used it randomly on scraps here and there. It has a notch-and-groove arrangement, so you can half-hitch it near the top (if you find you need to) and then bring it up through the groove so the yarn comes down the middle of the shaft, for a reasonably well-balanced spin without a hook.

Give the whorl can be removed, it would be handy to have two of them, then you could fill up two and wind a two-strand ball from the two full whorls -- the shape of the whorl would probably keep your spindle-full from rolling away, that is, if you would around the whorl as if it were a Turkish, rather than below the whorl like a top whorl. The whorl piece, however, being one piece, would remain stuck in the center of the ball ~ you would have to unwind the yarn from it.

From a little bit of internet research, it appears that current Bedouin spindles are quite a bit larger ... see this picture in this post, and that they use their spindles as top whorls, filling below the whorl. There was also a man (a man! hooray!) spindling at a Bedouin market. His spindle appears to be a mid-whorl, and he's completely covered it with yarn!

There isn't any mention of the Bedouin spindles in Bette Hochberg's "Handspindles", though she has the whorl shape drawn in her diagram, "Basic Spindle Whorl Shapes". I also don't recall mention of it in any other books, so if you've seen one, let me know!

That about sums up my experiences with it -- happy spindling!

Ten things I learned on my summer vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:41:00 +0000

10. From New Jersey's Liberty Park, all you can see of the Statue of Liberty is her backside. Her hair, by the way, is in a bun (we debated this during the plane trip from Seatac to Newark).

9. Eating a Van Dyke's ice cream cone every day (almost) is a sure way to gain 10 pounds on your summer vacation. That, and the Italian birthday party for Grandpa Zac. Who knew there'd be, like, four entree courses?? and two desserts???

8. Winding your two cakes of singles from your Turkish spindle into one 2-strand ball is the best way to manage the yarn for car plying.

7. Plying is by far the most satisfying way to spend a car trip (as passenger, not driver, ha ha).

6. Leaving yarn on a spindle is almost impossible for me. Bring on the portable niddy-noddy!

5. Knitting is a good way to relax my hands and arms from car spindling.

4. Stitch markers are important to remember - thank goodness I did!

3. A row counter would have been handy too, so I made an impromptu one (a pure MacGyver moment, I assure you!) ... using the tail of yarn at the start, I put one finger-crocheted chain in it for each row of the pattern (it had a 5 row repeat). One, two, three, four, on the fifth row I ripped out the chain and then started again on the next row, one, two, three four ... by the time the fingerless glove was done, the tail of yarn wasn't too over-fuzzy from all the chaining and ripping. I think this could be a new staple "tool" in my yarn basket!

2. For knitting in the round, magic loop ... if the round starts with a knit stitch, bring the yarn up so it won't get hung up in the loop; if the round starts with a purl stitch, bring the yarn down so it won't get hung up in the loop. Once I figured that out, the knitting was alot more fun!

1. If you want to finish a fingerless glove, be sure you have the first one with you -- otherwise you'll be waiting until you get home ... well, it's done now!

0. (bonus!) Good things come to those who wait ... my new Pocket Wheel was ready to be picked up by the time I returned (ordered in April ... I hear the wait is 6 months now).

Click on any picture for bigger or more flickr-d details :-)

What did you learn on your summer vacation? Bonus points for knitterly or spinnerly things learned!!

North Olympic Fiber Arts Festival, October 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:03:00 +0000

It's that time again! we're all busy here organizing the upcoming North Olympic Fiber Arts Festival, with its theme of Natural Material / Material Nature. The festival is held in Sequim, WA, October 3, 4, and 5.

I've volunteered to organize the vendors, with terrific indoor three-day vending and fun outdoor one-day vending (Saturday). If you are nearby and sell fiber art supplies, tools, or finished items, please check out the paperwork and consider having a booth at the show!

We're also offering a full slate of classes again after having such a blast last year! Spinning, knitting, crochet, felting, weaving, kumihimo, card making, dyeing and lots, lots more! For details on the classes and registration information, please see details here.

More information about NOFAF's exhibit and all the activities occurring that weekend are available on its website, www.fiberartsfestival.org.

See you there!

Bellefeathers! 16 July 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:18:00 +0000

Guess what! I'm going on vacation ... as posted on TheBellwether.com, I'll be out of town visiting our nation's capitol and my New Jersey in-laws, July 18-29. So orders made July 17-29 may not be seen until my return, and I'll be busy catching up on those and new orders until about August 30 7th or so ...

Please be patient as this is something I don't do too too often. It'll be a nice change, though you can rest assured that my traveling spindling is coming with me.

I'll leave the answer machine empty for messages, and the email folder cleaned up for emails. If you get lucky and hear from me while I'm away, please understand that all I can do is rely on memory for the shop inventory, and the robotic order packing unit hasn't quite fit the budget yet ...

Happy summer spinning everyone!!

- Amelia.

p.s. Stay updated -- subscribe to the whole blog for regular spinning tips and news, Fiber Mine for links to spinning tips I find on the internet, or Bellefeathers for the Bellefeathers newsletter (for Bellefeathers by email use this link). Thanks, and happy spinning, knitting, nalbinding, weaving, crocheting, felting, and more!

Which Lazy Kate?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:06:00 +0000

A Lazy Kate is very handy for plying. Several wheels have built in kates, or come with kates to hold 2-3 bobbins. You can fashion your own lazy kate with knitting needles and a shoebox.

I own and use three kates, in addition to those on or with my wheels. My preference is for a tensioned lazy kate, so the bobbin doesn't over-run the plying and let the singles kink up before they reach my hand.

First, here's my Alexandria Crafts bobbin tree – this is great because I put the tensioner on the bobbins I’m using and not the rest, and it “stores” six bobbins for me. This picture is of it folded against the wall, out of use. This kate mostly works with jumbo bobbins, but folded they may rub against each other, so I offset them when I fold it up. Bobbins are held horizontally, ensuring a side feed (very mandatory in plying, so you don’t wrap the post). Got mine from Woodland Woolworks last year at Oregon Flock and Fiber; I saw a smaller (3-bobbin) one at Black Sheep this year in a few vendors’ booths.

Second, is my Nancy’s Knit-Knacks Katie-A-Go-Go – great for spindle-fulls (slid onto straws) and it holds big bobbins ~ Majacraft bobbins, SpinOlution bobbins, plying bobbins. Tensioned, too, with an orifice for ensuring a side-feed. Picture here holding the (really big!) bobbins from the SpinOlution Mach 1. I got mine, well, from me, to be quite straightforward. Nancy’s Knit Knacks also sells them directly, and many fibery places carry them – all her tools are solidly made and very functional. This can be taken apart and put into a small denim zipped sack, great for your spinner's basket.

Third, my Will Taylor JMM/Clever Kate, which has 3 pegs that are held at a 45-degree angle. This acts like a tension-string, without the string (woo-hoo!). I really enjoy this kate, as it’s great for putting thread bobbins on, too – on the Alexandria, thread bobbins tended to wrap the post (I haven’t tried thread bobbins on the NKK Kate). It also stores the pegs so it is almost flat when not in use. It’s great for plying with thread. I have had yarn wrap the post from bobbins once in a while, but if I make sure it’s side-feeding, that doesn’t happen. There are two other shots of it in my flickr. Got it at Carolina Homespun’s booth in the June NwRSA conference. A friend said she saw these and promptly put a door stopper under her Katie-A-Go-Go, to good effect. Yay! that means I now have 6 45-degree angle pegs, since I have one of those, too :-)

~~~

For related posts, see:

Why is my plying thread tangling? for a great thread management tip.

How can I control the bobbins on my non-tensioned lazy kate?

~~~

What's your favorite Lazy Kate? Let me know, I'm always looking for great tools!

What do you teach in Color Whirl?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:53:00 +0000

Color Whirl is a fun, colorful class that will give you new tricks for your fiber paintbox!

Spinning can be on a wheel or spindle; to get the most out of the class, you should be able to spin a consistent single and ply.

Previously taught: sessions at my LYS, A Dropped Stitch in Sequim, WA.
Being taught to the Seattle Eastside Spinners, July 13th, in North Bend, WA.

Please bring: wheel or spindles, 3 empty bobbins, Lazy Kate, ball-winder or nostepinne, niddy-noddy. I'll provide handouts, fiber, and plenty of chit-chat ;-)

We cover:

Candystripe
Faux Cable
Self-striping ... singles, Navajo-ply and two-ply methods
Fractal plying
Neutral effects ... black, white, grey, brown, and the perfect neutral
Nub yarn
Color texture ... coils, snarls, beehives; great with nub singles

Along the way we'll talk about color selection, space-dyeing roving, carding, and more!

To read more on color in spinning, I most heartily recommend Color in Spinning by Deb Menz. And a new one, The Painted Skein, is in the works by Janel Laidman. Techniques from those, Intertwined by Lexi Boeger, Mabel Ross’ Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners (once again out of print, darn it!), and the video Spinning and Plying Textured Yarns by Patsy Zawitoski are featured in this class!

A Spindler's Bibliography

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:45:00 +0000

Well, I am thinking about writing a book on spindling. Okay, so I'm actively writing already. Here is a list of those who have walked that path before me, for those interested in reading more about spindling while I'm putting fingers to keyboard and pencil to sketchpad.

I can't guarantee you can find all these books -- many are out of print, they were out of print and second-hand when I got them(the rarest was a surprise gift! ah the sweetness of the human spirit). But they are all on my bookshelf amidst the myriad more-than-spindle or other-than-spindle books, well-thumbed and referred to on my path to becoming the spindler I am today.

The Akha Spindle Workshop by Wendy Whelan. A great pamphlet on spinning in the traditional way with the Akha spindle. No date, mine was purchased in 2003 from Gemini Fibres.
Gossamer Webs: The History and Techniques of Orenburg Lace Shawls by Galina Khmeleva and Carol R. Noble has a section on Russian spindling, including their interesting plying method, from spindle to plying disc.
The Handspindle ... Not Just For Demonstrations Anymore by Paula J Vester (2002). A good pamphlet to learn with, nice photographs and concise text.
A Handspindle Treasure: 20 Years of Spinning Wisdom from Spin-Off Magazine by Interweave Press (2000). Selected articles on spindling from the first 20 years of Spin-Off. Covers quite a few spindle tips like quills for top whorls, as well as methods for Tahkli, Akha, Russian, and Navajo. A nice diverse collection.
Handspindles by Bette Hochberg (1977,1980). The most amazing range of spindles from history, and in use today. It inspired a whole generation of wood-turners urged on by spindlers to re-create the Victorian Silk Spindle for one!
Hand Spinning Cotton by Olive and Harry Linder (1977). Covers almost all the tools to spin cotton -- Support spindle, bottom whorl spindle, top whorl spindle, Navajo spindle, Charka, Great Wheel, and spinning wheel. (No mention of Akhas, though). Punis, natural dyes, and use of cotton yarns. Very concisely thorough.
How Nikki Shared Her Coat by Detta Juusola (1994) a children's story with notes on collecting and spinning dog fur (factual part overlaps Yes, It's Made from My Dog's Fur, same author).
Introducing Spindle Spinning by Mike Halsey (1982) from scouring fleece, picking open locks to spin, to all the bottom whorling you can handle, singles and plies. Great sketches, thorough treatment of the material. Love the fact that it's clearly photocopies of typewritten pages, too -- can't beat that typeface!
Learn to Spin Cotton from Cotton Clouds. Support spindle instructions included in their learn to spin cotton kit. Nicely written. No date provided, I purchased mine in 2002.
Learn to Spin Cotton into Thread A nicely diagrammed pamphlet of support spindle instructions, included in a kit purchased about 2002-2003.
Learn to Spin Silk on a Top-Whorl Spindle by Ruth MacGregor (2002). A nice book on choosing a top-whorl spindle suitable for silk, silk types, and managing silk while spinning and plying.
Learn to Spin With a Turkish Drop Spindle by Wanda Jenkins (2004, 2008 with a DVD). Clearly written text and thorough photos walk you through learning to spin with a Turkish spindle. Includes the author's own wind-on for a great flat-bottomed ball of yarn. As of 2008, sold with a DVD too!
Navajo Weaving Way: The Path from Fleece to Rug by Noel Bennett & Tiana Bighorse (1997) has a nice section on Navajo spindle spinning (26 pages on the topic, from fleece to yarn).
Russian Drop Spindle from Peace Fleece. A short note about this spindle (a Turkish variant, not a Russian Lace spindle) was included with the spindle. A nice little spindle, I enjoy mine! No date, purchased in 2002.
Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot by Handweaver's Guild of America has spindling articles from time to time. I think they may have reprinted a collection too, but I didn't find that book on my shelf for compiling this list (darn it!)
Simple Spinning on Sticks and Spindles by Lionel Jacobson (1977). Gets you spindling from zero to the bottom whorl spindle in no time. Plenty of sketches and rich in 1970's style. Touches on using the bottom whorl as a support spindle, too!
Spin It: Making Yarn from Scratch by Lee Raven (2003) a nice adaptation with new, color photographs, of the spindling portions of Lee Raven's earlier learn-to-spin book, Hands on Spinning (1987). Covers hand carding, has some nice small handspun knitting projects in it, too.
Spin Yarn on A Spindle by Detta Juusola (1994) a more thorough writeup of spindling, still touching on collecting dog fur (which, granted, you are more likely to have on hand than a sheep in your back yard, if you're a city dweller!) Features her signature potato spindle and hangar niddy-noddy.
Spin-Off Magazine by Interweave Press, in particular the Spring 1995 issue with its focus on Hand Spindles. Many other issues before, after, and since the 2000 Handspindle Treasury collection, of past articles also touch on spindling topics (or at least have great ads! get your hands on a current copy to find out who peddles spindles online or in your area).
Spin-Spin by Heidi of My Paper Crane (no date, mine was purchased in 2006). Covers top whorl spindling, a little ungrammatical at times ... very current voice, I found it an interesting reflection on what the internet has done to open spindling to a wider audience.
Spindle Spinning (Needle Crafts 13 from Search Press) by Patricia Baines (1984). This was the surprise gift! I'd heard of it but couldn't find it on eBay, alibris, or elsewhere. A nice, easy read geared to teaching the reader to spin primarily on a bottom whorl spindle, with mention of Hip Spindles (see Handspindle Treasury for an article on the topic of Lapland/Icelandic spindles) and support spindles as well.
Spindle Spinning Cotton by Patricia Baines (1994). A great pamphlet on the topic from picked cotton, making punis, to support spindles. Practical and clear. Also a useful discussion of charka spinning.
Spindle Spinning: From Novice to Expert by Connie Delaney (1998). Covers top whorl, bottom whorl, a note on Turkish, tahklis, and Navajo spindles. Connie Delaney also has pamphlets on Akhas, Russian, and Balkan spindles -- get them to round out her book. (available on www.spindling.com) Her earlier pamphlet, Drop Spindling (1995), is completely covered in the book.
Spindling: The Basics by Amelia Garripoli (2003). For beginning spindlers, how to spin on a top whorl spindle, with troubleshooting tips and further projects in fleece preparation and dyeing. (See, I said I'd been writing! This one is self-published and would be used in the first section of the new book.)
Spinning In The Old Way by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts (2006). I see this book as mostly supplanting her former (1998) book on the topic, High Whorling. Covers high whorl spindles, with a mention of Salish (looks like a Navajo in the drawings) and Akha spindles. Covers fiber processing as well.
Spinning With A Drop Spindle by Carol Cassidy-Fayer (1997). Covers top and bottom whorl spindles. Not many drawings, but her website has some additional useful photos.
Spinning With a Drop Spindle by Christine Thresh (1971). A bottom whorl spindling instruction book from raw fleece through plying.
Spinning With a Turkish Drop Spindle by Martha Moore (1996). Came with the Valkyrie Turkish spindle. A brief instruction pamphlet covering how to spindle in minimal words (very concise!) including winding on, that great mystery of Turkish spindles.
Using a Navaho-Type Spindle (sic) by Jan Symonds (1997) Covers the basic technique for spinning singles on a Navajo spindle. Great illustrations!
Yes, It's Made From My Dog's Fur! by Detta Juusola (1995). Covers fiber collection, preparation, and spinning from dog fur. Yay for our woofy friends!

Often, learn to spin kits are sold with the Interweave pamphlets on spindling singles (Low Tech, High Satisfaction) or with handwritten pamphlets on spindling singles on the type of spindle in the kit (top whorl or bottom whorl). Of the ones I've purchased, generally I find them readable and reasonably understandable -- enough to get you started with singles, and itching to move on to plying.

Most books of wheel spinning may touch on spindling; The Spinner's Companion, for example, mentions spindle types. And Aldon Amos's Big Book of Handspinning has several sections on spindle types, use, and even construction (tahkli, top whorl, bottom whorl, Akha (Thai), Navajo (Southwestern)). And any book on fiber processing, textile history, and fiber types is as helpful to a spindler as it is to a wheel spinner.

Your learning need not stop at the printed work -- there are also a ton of on-line resources and forums for spindlers.

Did I miss a Spindle-focused book? please let me know -- there's room for more on my bookshelf, always!

You know, it's amazing I am even writing a spindling book, given the richness of the list above. Well, the hunt for a publisher is underway ... if you know of one wanting to publish a book that is a modern take on spindling, do let me know!

Bellefeathers! 29 June 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Whew! Show season -- what a fun time that always is! This is my booth at Black Sheep -- in the beginning. The Mach 1 and the Louet went home with people, and much fibery and spindly fun was had by all (including me).

The greatest thrill for me was selling my handspun yarn. And it's not too late -- there are new listings on my Etsy shop, By Our Hands.

If you want to purchase some handspun with a Ewe'Niquely Yours Knitting Pattern, all of the By Our Hands handspun are available on TheBellwether.com too!

In addition, I've updated the Bosworth spindles and will be getting the newest Kunderts up next -- a nice assortment of solid wood, plying weight spindles to choose from!

In upcoming news, The Bellwether will be taking a brief vacation at the end of July ... we're travelling to New Jersey and Washington D.C. to see family and take in a bit of our nation's capitol. Until then, it's business as usual. Happy shopping!

Stay updated -- subscribe to the whole blog for regular spinning tips and news, Fiber Mine for links to spinning tips I find on the internet, or Bellefeathers for the Bellefeathers newsletter (for Bellefeathers by email use this link). Thanks, and happy spinning and felting!

Should I get the quill head for my spinning wheel?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:20:00 +0000

Quill heads for spinning wheels have been having a resurgence in popularity, due to the interest art yarns fueled by fiber artists such as Lexi Boeger and her book Intertwined.

Quill heads have the advantage of being able to take up yarn of any size -- there is no orifice for doll parts, sequins, bows, or other whatnots to travel through. Also, there is no take-up to have a tug-of-war with, but a nice stiff quill to keep tension against. I found this terrifically helpful in spinning elastic thread core yarn!

However, on standard spinning wheels, there are some things to consider. Castle/upright wheels and many Saxony/traditional wheels put the orifice right above the treadles. The quill attachment on most wheels sticks out a good 4-6 inches further than the orifice. For short folks, this puts it really close to your hands when you treadle. And you're going to need to treadle.

This however deserves consideration, because you spin off the quill by keeping your fiber/yarn in the making at about a 45 degree angle to the point of the quill -- quite an arm stretch if your quill is just above your treadles.

Some wheels have the flyer/quill off to one side -- my friend's Jensen Saxony is this way, and my own Majacraft can have the flyer tilted to be at one side of the treadles.

My all-time favorite for a quill attachment, however, is my electric wheel -- no treadles!

If you are curious about quills, try an experiment first. Check your wheel's orifice:

Delta orifice -- sorry, you can't do the experiment. But most delta orifices will let a fair bit through them, so depending on how broad your art-yarns get, you may be fine.
Elliptical orbiting orifice (Louets have this) -- sorry, you also can't do the experiment. Luckily, Louets have big orifices, so they also let most insertions through.
Orifice simply rotates around the center of the orifice -- yay! continue with the experiment.

Measure the diameter of your rotating orifice (not when it's rotating, silly!). Go to the hardware store and buy wood dowel of that diameter. Usually this comes in four foot lengths ... that would be a bit long, so if you need to pick up a hacksaw too, do it. Cut a length about 6 inches long (heck, cut a 4.5", 6.5", and 8.5" length -- you'll still have leftovers!). Use a penknife or really big pencil sharpener to put a blunt tapered point on one end. Guess what -- you've made a quill!

Put the quill in your wheel's orifice. You might want to wrap masking tape around the end (sticky side on the quill) to make it fit more tightly in the orifice. Now, you can spin on this. It's up to you if you put a bobbin on your wheel or not ~ you won't be using it. Double drive wheels can simply put both drive bands in the flyer whorl if you don't put a bobbin on.

Put a leader on the quill up near the orifice, just like you put a leader on your bobbin. As you treadle (or turn your electric wheel on), the leader will barberpole up the quill and then flick off the end ... it will go flick, flick, flick off the end. This is normal, you are putting twist into the leader. OK, attach your fiber and start adding twist to it, instead.

Once you have an arm's length, you'll have to stop, unwind the barberpoling, and then build up a cop on your quill. I'd recommend an X-style wind-on for speed, just like I use on my spindles. fill the top half (closer to the orifice) with your yarn, barberpoling back out to the tip and continuing to spin a new length of yarn.

So, if you've used the dowel-quill, you can evaluate the layout of your wheel for quill use. And then decide if the dowel is good enough, or if you'd like the more formal quill attachment if your wheel maker provides one.

What I did on Friday ...

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:53:00 +0000

Friday was one of those once-a-year days. When I walked down to the barn, Deneb was well inside, clearly catchable, so ... time to roo! If you have a really good memory, and have been reading this blog since early last year, you'll remember the discussion from last February about Soays shedding their fleece (rooing).

So, this is Deneb now, on the far right, compared to his still woolly field-brothers on the left:

And this is his crop:

It came to 1 pound, 1.5 ounces ... average staple about 2 inches unstretched.

Meteor (the darkest one) is leaving clumps of his wool on the fences now, so I think he'll be next!

~~~

Do you like posts about sheep and fibery beasts? Then I can heartily recommend these blogs:

Devon Fine Fibres -- a Cashmere goat farm in Devon, UK. Lovely pictures and interesting news about the farm.

Soxophone Player -- an almost-daily post on his sheep, dyepots, and hand-cranked socks!

Sheepwreck's posts on sheep breeds -- a terrific resource with a spinner's real-life experience with fleeces from sheep.

Benny's Blog -- an infrequent but hilarious blog written by Benny the sheep!

Shepherd's Notebook -- news from the world of Maryland shepherds, the most recent post was about the Maryland Wool Pool (where farmers got 76 cents a pound for their nice white wool!)

I know there are more, Spinning Spider Jenny and Leigh's Fiber Journal also post quite interesting entries on sheep breeds alongside their amazing spinning, weaving, and knitting postings. And I've been listening to Yarnspinner's Tales, her terrific podcasts on handling fleece were a nice listen.

Feel free to add links to sheep and goat blogs and podcasts you've found ... I'm always looking for a good read (or listen)! Thanks!

What is a Pocket Wheel?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:36:00 +0000

Spin-off is collecting names and contact information of custom wheel makers. I sent them two Washingtonian makers ... Betty Roberts (see this post) and Doug Dodd.

Doug's Pocket Wheel had a big thread on the spindlers Yahoo group recently, I suppose because it is such a portable wheel, at just over 6 pounds.

I own one of these -- or I should say, my daughter has claimed it for her spinning. It's a great little travel wheel, very light. It has its own flyer/bobbin -- the shaft is similar diameter to Ashford shafts (smaller than Majacraft shafts), but the bobbin is larger than Ashford's, it fits a good 4++ ounces on it -- I have 4 oz. of about 20 wpi singles on mine (don't tell DD -- I borrowed it for a cafe craft night) and it isn't full yet. The flyer is released by twisting the orifice (which is shaped a bit like a padlock -- big metal sturdy at the bottom, delta opening at the top, more delta than the usual U of a padlock, though) -- it's a pressure screw, not an actual screw. You give it 1/2 a rotation and then the flyer comes off, similar to the Fricke style (though they have a pressure screw separate from the orifice itself). Then you take the bobbin off the shaft.

You can take it apart -- the treadles and stand come off, and it fits in a grocery-bag sized tote. I just keep it together and use my wool-show-buyin' tote for it, or carry it as-is.

It is a similar idea to the Hitchhiker in that it is a direct-drive wheel. Rather than changing out a set-location wheel for the ratio, though, you move the drive wheel up and down a metal rod to set the ratio -- so there isn't a "set list" of ratios, just anything you care to get, between a minimum and maximum (about 3:1 and 12:1, in the standard model). He's working on a new model that goes up to 15:1, as well.

And I think they're showing up more on blogs and other places, as he gets more made and out there. Mine was #7, purchased last year :-) I guess you'd call me an early adopter.

The Pocket Wheel isn't bobbin-led, rather, it's direct drive -- it uses scotch tension. A wheel rotates the flyer shaft (not the bobbin) by rolling against the big wheel that your treadle rotates. Louets' basic wheels are bobbin led, with a drive band that goes around the wheel and the bobbin. There is very strong draw-in on wheels like that. The Pocket behaves just like the scotch-tension, flyer-driven wheel that it is.

The Scotch tension is around the back of the bobbin, so it's pretty hidden by the bobbin in pictures of the wheel that try to take it all in.

Comparing the Pocket Wheel side-by-side to the Hitchhiker (thanks for asking, Jessie!):

Hitch: direct drive, 3 ratios of 7, 9, and 13:1 by changing out the drive wheel
Pocket: direct drive, officially any ratio from 3.5:1 to 10:1 (or so, mine goes a bit higher) by sliding the drive wheel along a shaft.

Hitch: flyer rod/hooks comes out and stores in the foot.
Pocket: flyer stays in place generally (when you remove it, just the flyer comes off, the flyer rod (aka spindle) stays on the wheel. You can undo the nuts that hold the treadles on and take off the treadles, stand, and flyer for more compact "tote-bag" storage.

Hitch: about 9 pounds
Pocket: about 6 pounds

Hitch: on-board bobbin storage
Pocket: no on-board bobbin storage

Hitch: standard Ashford bobbins, has been modified by Woollywormhead to take an
Ashford Jumbo Flyer.
Pocket: has its own bobbins; Ashford and Lendrum bobbins also fit. To use Victoria or Majacraft bobbins, you need an eight dollar sleeve that fits around the rod; Doug has them available, and I believe you can find them at the hardware store too. I expect you could ask for one to be made with a larger flyer to fit their plying bobbins, but I've found this one to be a healthy size. The rod is usually too short to fit Schacht bobbins, but you could request a longer flyer rod (since it is a custom wheel...)

Hitch: bobbin size about 2-3 oz of fiber generally
Pocket: bobbin size about 4-5 oz of fiber generally

Hitch: hooks on flyer arm (standard Ashford style)
Pocket: slider on flyer arm (like Majacraft)

Hitch: tube orifice; has an on board orifice hook
Pocket: delta orifice; no orifice hook needed

Hitch: screw-in flyer (fair amount of twisting ... I have RSI, so this is something I take note of generally)
Pocket: tighten/loosen bolt for removing/placing flyer

Both: present bobbin at an upward 45-degree angle, about the same height (my knees) if memory serves me okay.

Hitch: either left-treadle or right-treadle.
Pocket: double treadle. You wouldn't want to wear a long skirt and spin on it ... but I haven't had and problems in my jeans.

Both have their own particular treadle considerations ... I find with any wheel, I need to learn its rhythm, and then I can simply treadle without thinking about it. The Pocket is fairly similar to my Majacraft, I've also heard it compared to a Jensen Tina. The Hitchhiker is heel-toe like the Journey Wheel.

Hitch: standard footman leather (I think) connector of treadle to drive wheel.
Pocket: has bearings that ride back and forth under the treadle, no footman connector used.

Hitch: standard woods used.
Pocket: variety of woods used ... he takes some requests, but mostly is re-purposing woods. I love the patchwork of mine, but I realize others like consistency.

Hitch: $278 standard with 3 bobbins
Pocket: $450 standard with 3 bobbins
These are current prices as I write this, "subject to change" as they say.

Now, disclaimers ... I have only ever really played on a Hitchhiker; maybe filled 1-2 bobbins, and took some videos of how to put one together and take one apart. So it's not a wheel I have studied in depth. I've used my (DD's) pocket wheel a fair bit more.

My new pocket wheel has just arrived!! (August, 2008). Pictures on flickr here!!

Whew! Let me know if there's some attribute I've missed ... I'd be happy to expand this review. And if you have blogged about your pocket wheel, please post a link in the comments of this post so the world of spinning blog readers can find out more! Thanks!

What Workshops Do You Teach?

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:24:00 +0000

From time to time, I get asked what workshops I teach. So here's a current list. I've taught all of these topics to at least one person, though I will be the first to say, some have been informal. Almost all have been taught in more formal situation already (i.e. I was paid!).

Background: I "fell" into spinning when a house purchase included two llamas. Since then, spindles of all sorts invade my bookshelves, and there are wheels and charkas in every spare nook. Spindling: The Basics is my first book, and I am having a blast with my blog and teaching workshops.

You can find me on ravelry, flickr, and blogger as askthebellwether, on youTube and LiveJournal as thebellwether, and by my real name, Amelia Garripoli (nee Carlson, if you go back into the archives) on various Yahoo groups.

I sell a wide variety of spindles, amazing batts and rovings, and more on TheBellwether.biz, and my young daughter and I sell our handspun and gadgets on ByOurHands.etsy.com.

Program fees: cost is $30/student per workshop plus materials and travel for most programs, which are 2-3 hours in length; group rates are available, typical workshop size is 2-15 participants. Day long programs are $50/student plus materials and travel. Presentations are 1-2 hours to any size audience, for a flat cost of $80 plus travel.

Expanded day-long versions of most topics are available, with more in-depth exploration are an additional $20 per student. Or, combine 2 topics for a day-long workshop, 4 for a weekend retreat.

For a complete list of materials, experience and equipment needed, and more in-depth description of each class, please contact me if there's no link to the full description here.

Spindle Programs

Program: I Wanna Spindle!
Description: Top whorl spindling for beginners. You'll be spindling and plying by the end of the class.

Program: Drop Spindle Ph.D.
Description: Drop spindling for spindlers -- techniques for speed, plying, top and bottom whorl, Turkish, Mid-whorl, Balkan, and more specialty spindles.

Program: The World of Support Spindles
Description: Navajo, Ahka, Tahkli, Russian ... travel the world without leaving your chair! Learn traditional spindling techniques and fibers on each, each has their own culture, uses and methods.

Program: Spindle Mania!
Description: A presentation of myriad spindle techniques with discussion of their place in history, around the globe, what they're used to spin, and how they all inter-relate.

Weaving

Program: You Wove A Hat?
Description: Weave a hat on a cardboard tear-away frame in an evening. This is fun and great for leftover handspun, novelty yarn, or a dedicated project. No knitting or weaving skills required. The hat is a tam or beret style hat, and can also be felted down to make a fun fruit bowl.

Nalbinding

Program: What is Nalbinding?
Description: You will learn the basic looping stitches of Nalbinding and their use in creating a hat. We'll discuss its place in history and use in the world today.

Program: The Nalbound Edge
Description: Have you heard of nalbinding? Use this technique to edge and embellish a knit or woven garment. You'll walk away with knowledge of the history of nalbinding and a new skill you can do with yarn you already have!

Felting

Program: Needlefelted Pins
Description: Learn to needlefelt a flat design that can be turned into a brooch, badge or pin. For beginning and experienced needlefelters. We'll discuss fibers, design, texture, and finish.

Program: Silk Fusion
Description: Make a lovely piece of silk "felt" using silk and fusion material. The fabric can be used in many places ~ quilts, book covers, notecards, lampshades, vests and more. A great way to approach this lustrous fiber!

Spinning on a Wheel

Program: Learn to Spin
Description: a weekend or long-day program from scratch to plying on a wheel. Includes handcarding and combing, spinning singles and plying on a wheel. Participants need to have a wheel.

Program: Spinny Gritty
Description: Have a handle on your spinning and want to take it up a notch? Explore ratio, wraps per inch, twists per inch, crimp, grist, worsted and woolen, repeatable yarn and correcting yarn.

Program: Plying Around
Description: Looking for some new ways to twist your fiber? This will have you plying up a storm of new creations in no time! We'll ply our way through Navajo ply, cable, boucle, plying with thread, coil, snarl, beehive, diamond and more.

Program: Color Whirl
Description: play with color in singles and in 2-ply: we'll create rainbows of color with a variety of techniques for mixing solid rovings and for getting the most out of space-dyed roving. Learn about nub yarn, candystripe, faux cable, self-striping, coils, fractal plying, exploring plying colors.

Program: Spinning Slippery Fibers
Description: We'll spin the slippery stuff -- fibers without wool scales to help them hold together. Silk, bamboo, alpaca, mohair -- Join me to explore some really "out there" spinning fibers ... with a life vest on!

Program: Spin a Fine Yarn
Description: Learn techniques to take you beyond laceweight; make your wheel do the work, explore fiber handling and plying techniques.

Program: Spinning Sock Yarns
Description: Learn how to spin a great sock yarn: we'll tune our wheels for socks, pick fibers, spinning style, and plying methods, and play with color. Discuss knitting with handspun vs. commercial sock yarns.
Explore the world of spinning sock yarns!

Program: Constructing Yarn
Description: Explore the world of created yarns ... from designing blends to designing art yarns, we'll have a go at garnetting, nubs, loops, inclusions, beads, batts, swirls, and more. Bring yarns you'd like to copy and topics you'd like to try out!

Program: Explore Boucle
Description: Boucle, the pinnacle of a spinner's repertoire. We'll do a boucle entirely from handspun (no thread!) then move on to simple boucle, fuzz boucle, coil boucle, and even Navajo boucle. Who knew there were so many boucles?!

Program: Spin Soft Singles
Description: Let's teach our wheels how to spin soft singles. From laceweight to bulky, we'll pick fibers, tune our wheels, and spin! Woolen spinning and long draw will be explored, and how to finish skeins for non-biasing knitting.

Fiber Processing

Program: Using The Batt Machine
Description: Bring your drum carder and learn how to make terrific batts and roving for your next spinning or felting project. We’ll start with basic drum carding of a clean batt of wool, then move on to fiber blends, color blends, texture blends, and self-striping batts. Let's get batty!

Program: Combs, Flickers, Handcards
Description: Learn the techniques and appropriate fibers for each of these hand-processing tools. Combing fibers for worsted spinning, flicking for spinning from the lock, and handcarding for woolen spinning. Then take it a step further with variations and blending techniques.

Dyeing

Program: Pot Dyeing Wool Roving
Description: Turn 3 colors into 6 with this fun dye method. Dye wool or wool blend roving with acid-mordanted dyes.

Program: Dyeing Self-Striping Sock Yarns
Description: Have fun turning undyed or pale solid colored sock yarns into interesting self-striping sock yarns. Fair-isle, rainbow, and shadow techniques are covered with microwave dyeing using acid-mordanted dyes.

Circular Sock Machines

Program: Circular Sock Machine Demonstration
Description: A demonstration of sock machines -- a sock is created while the history of the machines and the techniques used are discussed.

Program: Using the Circular Sock Machine
Description: A workshop for those with sock machines, to get them up and started with a basic mock-rib sock. No ribber needed. This can be tailored to the class's experience level -- we can go on to explore ribbed socks, argyles, mittens, lace patterns, i-pod pouches, or more.

In Conclusion ...

Whew! I know, that's alot of workshops ... What can I say, I like variety ;-) And some of these are taught much more often than others, as interest in the topic comes about in the venues I've submitted applications to teach. I'm happy to do individual instruction on pretty much any topic, even more than are here -- spinning on a charkha, washing fleece, knitting, warping a loom ~ so if you don't see a topic you are interested in pursuing here, feel free to ask!

Me-me-me-me-me (Meme, of course! About Me!)

noreply@blogger.com (Amelia, belle of The Bellwether) — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:43:00 +0000

When one is tagged by Abby, one rushes to get meme answers up, of course!

Her great blog was encouraging to me when I started, that there was an audience for all this stuff in my head, and I greatly enjoy finding her posts on her blog, email lists, ravelry, and all the other internetty places we run into each other. Some day, I may even get to meet her in person (Ohio - Washington. Okay, so not this summer...)

So, here we go ... on with the meme!

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago, my son had just turned 2, so we had a little party for him at his daycare. I was working at a tiny startup in Oakland called Cloudscape ... the software lives on in several incarnations, the proudest of which for me is Derby, the JavaDB that is in Apache. How cool is that. I'm tempted to sign up and download it just to see if some of my old tags and comments are still lingering in it.

It was around that time that we decided it might be a good idea to have another child. My daughter didn't show up for another year and a half. It was a great time, the energy of the startup was invigorating. The worst part of it was the trouble I was having with my wrists -- that turned out not to be carpal tunnel (thank goodness) but recurring tendonitis (not so good). Once I found the Kinesis keyboard, though, I was back to pounding the keys night and day. 60 hour weeks were "easy", 80 hour weeks were far more common!

I was knitting here-and-there, but with days so full, that was it. I'd just found Straw Into Gold in Berkeley, and wandered the "other" side of the store with its wheels and looms in perplexed amazement.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Following up with a customer on the SpinOlution's warranty information (done -- added it to the blog, too).
Answering this meme (in progress!)
Packing orders (ok, so far, order, but the day is young!)
Writing up the next issue of the All New Rhyme Times, and the old-style Rhyme Times.
then I get to pick from the myriad list of possibilities ... tagging handspun for the Shepherd's Festival on Monday in Sequim (MacLeay Hall, 290 MacLeay Rd, 10 am - 3 pm); putting together a restocking order for Cushings; printing and stuffing Rhyme Times; finishing spinning a new Three Bags Full color; uploading some fiber club and handspun snapshots; vacuuming the carpets (hey, someone's gotta do it); start finishing my SpinOlution wheel ... I'm sure there's more, and it's most likely I'll end up doing something not even on this list!

3. Snacks I enjoy:

There's a bag of nut-and-fruit-crunch things in the pantry right now, they are nice, salty and sweet. Before that I had a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, but they disappeared *way* too fast, so I won't get another one of those real soon.

My DH keeps me supplied with Lindt dark chocolate bars, he's amazed at how slowly I eat them ... a piece a day, if I remember, and all is well with the world. He's also purchased fancier chocolates for me, my favorite are Joseph Schmidt truffles. Mmmmm. When I lived in Alameda, popping over to San Francisco to buy them fresh was a treat!

Peanut M&M's ... my car-summer-emergency-food. You know, you're on the road, and you just don't feel like fast food. Pop a few of those and keep going. Yay!

Beyond that I don't snack much ... probably because we have afternoon tea and bedtime rooibos, so I keep a nice supply of treats on hand for that ... scones (made by me) or the local bakery's danish for afternoon tea; cookies or biscotti (sometimes made by me, sometimes from the store) with bedtime rooibos.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Oh wow. You know, I just don't think of this. I'll never be one, so I don't tempt myself with the possibilities. Philanthropy, I hope. Letting myself explore more, I bet. I've had the great good fortune these last two years to choose what I do, albeit within the constraints I place on myself (I do believe customers prefer to get their orders in a timely fashion, rather than hear I'm off cavorting on a beach somewhere). A billion dollars would cause me to throw almost all those constraints to the wind, albeit in an orderly fashion.

There seem to be two choices ... use the money to fix some problem in the world, which would likely eat all the money up; or use bits and pieces of it to fund others' efforts, while living off of some of the interest. Heck, at 5% interest of 500 million, you'd still be seeing $250,000 a year, or $175,000 after the tax man got is cut ... which is *way* more than what I live on.

And, left to live with no concerns, I'd likely explore spinning more, weaving, take alot of classes, and write and teach more myself.

5. Places I have lived:

England, Massachusetts, Colorado, California, Washington. I've had the great good fortune to travel many places ... almost all 50 states (not Hawaii yet, though I have been to Alaska); Canada; England, Wales and Scotland, though never mainland Europe; Japan; and Brazil (the best place to beat winter blahs in February!!).

6. Peeps I want to know more about:

Now, you all know by now I don't tend to pass memes on. I always want to know more about Abby, but she's already answered these six questions so she's off the hook. Teyani, Amy, Melody ... if you're reading this, I'd love to find out more about you!

And if anyone else wants to chime in, please take this post as license to do so. Add a comment to this blog post to let me know!