My Daily Spin – Getting Ready to Travel

I’ve set myself a goal. Not only am I taking my silk – both spun and still in hankie form – I’m going to ask for help in plying it. The colors are so gorgeous, I don’t want to ply the different sets together, I want to ply each bobbin with itself. And I’ve had some challenges with that, so since I will have experienced spinners right there I’m going to take advantage of it.

I’m almost done with the blue & gold hankies, they are so gorgeous on the bobbin. I will finish that up tomorrow. That leaves the purple & blue ones.

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – Am I Doing This Right?

My mind is an amazing place sometimes, and not in a good way. Since I’ve decided to take my spinning wheel to use in my class next week, I’m also thinking about taking my remaining hankies to spin in my spare time outside of class. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I came up with all kinds of reasons why I shouldn’t.

Here’s the thing: yes, I might not want to do my own spinning outside of class. Class might be plenty. But why not at least have the option? There’s some fear at work here.

And what that fear boils down to is this: what if I’m doing it “wrong” ? And everyone sees that? Which is really funny, in a skill where it’s right if you like it. And I might even learn something useful.

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – Pretty, Pretty Colors

The new packet of hankies is spinning up very different than I expected. There are light golds and blues along with the deeper tones, and they really complement each other. I like them a lot.

I’ve decided I’m definitely taking my wheel next week to John C Campbell. I talked with the resident fiber artist there, and that seems like it will be a good choice. I will be able to try some different wheels for plying, and I’m looking forward to that. I love mine for spinning, but plying with it can be awkward and uncomfortable.

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – The Next Batch of Hankies

Yes, I’ve finished the first packet of silk hankies and moved on to the next. I’m doing the gold-and-blue ones now. I’ve included pictures of a whole hankie and today’s spinning of another whole hankie. Quite lovely.

On a different note, I’m getting excited about my class at John C Campbell Folk School next week. I leave Sunday, so Saturday afternoon will be spent getting all my stuff together for the trip. I’m still debating whether I will take my own wheel or not – I keep meaning to call them and find out if they have a wheel like mine that I can use. I’m quite fond of this model. Maybe tomorrow, if I set myself a reminder.

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – With Hankies, Thinner is Better

I finally figured out why I was having such a hard time drafting this silk, making the pre-drafting so attractive. Each hankie is composed of layers of silk fiber, and to work with it you peel off the layers and spin them one at a time. Well, I was seriously misjudging how thin one layer can be. When I first started with this fiber, what I thought was one layer was really 2 or 3 or even 4. Now that I’ve figured out how to get to THIN layers, and gotten used to working with this silk, I’m not having to do the major pre-drafting any more.

It is definitely different to work with than the wool and wool-blend fibers I’ve work with up to very recently. It’s even different than the Tussah Silk I worked with last. I have to hold my hands much farther apart, and PULL much more firmly to get the fibers to slide until they are the thickness I more or less want.

I’m nearly done with this first bobbin / first packet of hankies. Tomorrow I’ll finish it and move on to the next packet.

Until then.

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Real Food Sunday – Baking Bread and Braising Lettuce

Today’s big stars in my kitchen are the Crusty Bread – Roasted Garlic, Rosemary, and Robusto cheese – and my newly-invented braised lettuce recipe.

This week’s CSA delivery from Pinckney’s included a giant head of Bibb lettuce. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t eat that much lettuce. So I decided to try something different – braising it with some other veggies and beef broth.

I searched for a recipe online, but didn’t really find anything other than the one recipe that gave me the idea in the first place, that I had tried before. That recipe was for braised carrots with Bibb lettuce. But I’m not a huge carrots fan, so I didn’t want to do that either.

I don’t have a picture of it, but my experiment came out delicious. So I will share it with you. It would probably be good with other greens, too.

Braised Peppers, Mushrooms, and Bibb Lettuce

1 large head Bibb lettuce, washed and torn into pieces
10-12 mushrooms, sliced thin
2 red bell peppers, sliced long-wise into thin slices
1 med onion, sliced long-wise into thin slices
2 C beef broth

Put a little olive oil in a large flying pan, and heat over med-low heat. When the oil is hot add the peppers, mushrooms, and onion. Let the veggies brown a little – only stir them every few minutes. You want to let them brown without actually cooking very much.

Once the veggies have browned a bit, turn up the heat, add the beef broth and bring it to a boil. Add the lettuce and stir until it wilts. Keep cooking, stirring occasionally, until the broth is mostly reduced.

Enjoy!

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My Daily Spin – Lobster Hands!

If you are old enough, you probably remember the old commercial for some hand lotion where the poor woman literally had lobster hands – that’s how rough her skin was. Well, that’s how I feel today. Yikes! Those fine silk fibers stick like crazy.

I spun the rest of the silk that I pre-drafted Friday night, and I’ll go do some more now to be ready for tomorrow night’s spinning.

Until then.

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My Daily Spin – Saturday Silk

Last night I was on a roll – I drafted out 3 hankies’ worth of silk. Today I spun about half of that. I am getting more used to this fiber. It will be very interesting to see how it come out in the end. I might have mentioned before that this form of silk is quite slubby when spun, or at least the way I am spinning it. The pictures in my book about spinning silk bear out that I’m not the only one! One of the challenges is where the skin on my hands is a little rough, the fibers stick as they are VERY fine. It’s not really a problem while actually spinning, but handling the fiber itself prior to spinning and when joining is a bit tricky.

My plan is to spin each of the three packets of hankies on separate bobbins – they’re pretty close to the same weight – and then ply them together. This packet is primarily gold, as you see in the pictures. Of the other two, one is gold and blue, and the other is blue and purple. So I think they’ll be quite pretty together. Plying will also help even out the slubbiness some.

I definitely won’t finish this fiber before I head to John C Campbell next Sunday!

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – More Hankie Lessons

It’s a good thing that I got all those months of daily practice under my belt before I tackled this particular project. This form of silk really is not easy to spin. I found that the extensive pre-drafting I did last night was, in fact, very helpful when I went to spin it tonight.

When I did the pre-drafting, I wound each layer up into a little coil, which was good for storage, but I found that I had to be careful when spinning from them. It was all too easy to let it get wrapped around itself. Fortunately, that became obvious very quickly, so another lesson learned.

Tonight’s pictures show a single hankie out of its package, one of the little coils of pre-drafted fiber, and tonight’s progress.

Until tomorrow.

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My Daily Spin – Silk Hankie Lessons

I spun my first silk hankie tonight, and right away I learned a valuable lesson. It’s to my benefit to draft out those fibers ahead of time a whole lot more than I did this time, because it’s WORK to draft this stuff – the fibers are very long and if the twist starts getting into it, it’s very difficult to try to even out. But it’s very pretty, and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.

So now that I’ve done one, I’ll do the one for tomorrow tonight.

Until tomorrow.

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