I finished this scarf over the weekend:

I love it. It’s made with one skein of Rustic silk and one ounce of tussah top.

I made it on the Rigid Heddle loom at the shop. The Rustic Silk was warp and weft with bits of top woven in (with rows of Rustic silk) to create the little bumps and oddities. I stole the brilliant idea from Beth. I wanna be Beth when I grow up….if I grow up.

So how does one get that twisty fringe? There are a couple of really cool gadgets that make twisted rope or fringe but if you don’t do a lot of it, you can easily do it by hand.

The first step is to figure out how many strings you have so you can do your best to get an even amount in each set. I did 4 in each half of the twist. Here I separated out the 2 that I will need to begin doing the fringe for the second half of the scarf.

Yes, I’m in sweat pants, it was an impromptu tutorial
Then you take each set and roll them. You can twist them in your hand but it’s easier to roll them down your leg to get the twist.

Make sure you are rolling the same way for each successive bunch you do. Do both of the sets of string you set aside making sure it’s overtwisted:

Can you see the extra sproing I have in there? Then you take the ends and knot them.

Just a simple Overhand knot will do. and then give it a tug and let it go. It will twist upon each other and voila! Twisted Fringe!

Doesn’t this make you want to go twist up some fringe? Or is that just me?

My Ipex bra saved my boob.
Yeah, Happy Monday. Are you awake yet? I’m going to be like the US News and tell you more about the boob later. But you might get the idea of what happened as we go along. It’s a story about “safety”.

Mmmm fleece:

This is a gorgeous Polwarth fleece. Grey Polwarth. Washed and dried and ready to do something with. I combed a chunk of it but I just didn’t get the fiber that I wanted. I was pretty sure I didn’t want a combed fiber but I persisted to prove it to myself anyway. What I wanted was this:

Light fluffy puffy gorgeous grey clouds.
It’s an easy process to boot. Easy with a flicker or a Pat Green picker:

Sheep fleece almost always have little ends that need to be split up before carding. If you’re going to comb, you don’t usually need to do anymore than load your combs. Of course, part of processing a fleece is getting a good fleece. If you get a fleece that is felty or full of VM then it’s going to take more time and be a bigger pain to get it prepped. Take the time to get something worth using. This article will help if you haven’t picked out a fleece before.

Back to the little ends. You can flick them, pick them apart by hand, or use the picker before carding. With the picker, I’m not even going to card. I’m going to spin right from the puffy fluffy clouds. Sometimes you need to do more than one picker pass if you’re feeding too much in at a time or if the fleece is a little tricky. It’s also a great way to blend colors. I’m going to do some of that later this week and I’ll take some photos of how that works.

I will separate my fleece out into small chunks that aren’t too much for the picker. And will slowly feed them into the picker, under the safety bar:

and it’s picked up by this swinging top arm

that grabs and drags it across the bottom row of teeth

You can see there how it pulls the fleece apart and how it makes it all fluffy. It works like magic. The fiber goes in the front and fluffs out the back. If you check out this photo

You can see the fluff out the back. It just fairly flies out the back. It’s a lovely site to watch.

If you have more questions about picking, just comment or email and I’ll post about them another time. It’s early Monday am and I’m sure I missed something important.

You’ve waited long enough, now to the boob part.
Did you notice the little yellow label on the picker? This one:

And those sharp points….Did you notice those?
So here I was swinging that arm and trying to take photos and wham! It grabs into my tshirt and bra. I squeaked and pulled free. I have 3 little holes in my bra now from that picker. So I’d like to add to that warning…Don’t try to take your own photos while operating the picker. This might seem like an obvious thing to most people but, um, well…..there are those of us that need to learn the hard way.

You can make your own. I’m not sure some people know this. Rubber bands can be re melted and for the double drive cords, you can put a new one on. Possibly something that was in your stash.

Please excuse the bad photos (it was a rainy day), the dyed fingernails, and the dust. I swear I didn’t notice it until I took the photos. Darn polleny time of year. If I don’t dust daily…

Let’s start with the rubber ones.
You know they need replacing when they’re too loose to turn what they’re supposed to well (whorl or bobbin depending on the model you have).

Take off the drive band so that it’s loose and you have control over it. If it’s a wheel that has to be taken apart to get it off off, just take it off the whorl or bobbin and the drive wheel so it’s slack. Get a pair of scissors and a lighter.

Cut out a piece of the drive band. Usually about an inch will take care of it and hold it in your hand so you can heat up both ends. photo shows it all in one hand but I needed one hand for the camera, you’ll need to use your imagination a bit here

Once the ends are heated, smash them together, but not too smashy.

Once it cools slightly you’ll need to rub them together with your fingers or between pieces of wood or leather or something.

Just a warning, if you use your fingers, you do risk getting burnt.

Wait for it to cool and then you’re good to go.

If you set up and start using it before it’s set then it will pull back apart. Give it a good 15 minutes or so.

If you don’t have a drive band (ie, you got a used wheel and it needs a band) then you should contact a dealer for that specific wheel and buy one. If your wheel is not in production any longer, you can make a tied cord band or you contact a reputable spinning shop and ask for a recommendation. Some currently marketed drive bands can be fitted to other wheels. There has also been rumored some success with lanyard stuff purchased at craft stores. I have not found anything that works as well yet. If you’re up for it, give it a shot but I can’t guarantee it will work. I’ll keep playing with things and if I find one that works, I’ll post about it.

On to the string drive bands.
For a single drive wheel (think Scotch tension or Irish tension wheels) you just go around the wheel and whorl once and then tie the band (as I specified below). These can be a little difficult to get tight if you tie it while it’s attached to the wheel and the whorl. What’s best is to hold up the string around the whorl and drive wheel, mark where it would intersect to be tight (not crazy crazy tight, but taut), then pull it off the wheel and whorl, and tie it so it’s a nice snug fit.

But what kind of cord do you want?
Cotton, hemp, some kind of blend or my favorite is mercerized cotton. I prefer the cords to be DK weight. You can experiment to see what you like and what works best for you and your wheel. Just know that if the string you choose is too flimsy, it won’t last long.

For a double drive wheel, loosen the tension. Basically bring the maiden closer to the wheel (tilt in or turn the screw depending on the type of wheel you have). Loosen the tension. This is so that once you tighten the drive band, when it stretches (and they usually do) you have room to tighten the tension.

If you are just tightening an old band, cut out a section and tie. If it’s a new drive band, having a 3rd hand helps but you can do it. You will want to go around the whorl and wheel 2 times. Mark where they intersect to be taut, pull off the wheel and whorl, and then tie as specified below. This is hard to just show in photos and in writing. If you need help bring it to a reputable shop. You’ll have one cross.

More than one cross and you’ve done something wrong, try again. You can see my one cross there below the drive wheel.

This is my tie and here you can see the two strands, one going over the whorl and one over the bobbin.

How exactly do you tie so that it doesn’t come loose?
I use a variation of the Square knot and the Surgeon’s Knot Basically I tie the first part of the square knot, get ready to tie the second part of the square knot, only I put the string through a second time when making the second knot. Pull tight. This makes it a slightly bigger knot but super durable. All that’s really required is a square knot, I just like the extra security of doing it my way.

Then I adjust the tension. You can see here that it’s not tensioned to the point that I can’t do this:

If you’re tension is too tight, it’s too tight. And you’ll hear a thump every time the knot passes over the whorl or bobbin. It can be rhythmic or it can be annoying. Your drive band shouldn’t need to be that tight to work and it will deteriorate faster

Not weave weave, but weave in ends.
I didn’t realize that alot of people don’t know how to do this so the ends stay secure and the weaving is flat. Thus, it doesn’t show when you are looking at the knit.

1.Identify where you need to weave and tighten the ends - look at the front to be sure it’s not too tight.

2. Cross them, this holds them together and stops you from having a gap there.

3. Weave in a diagonal fashion

4. Weave back diagonally

5. Do the same with the other side, but in the opposite direction - makes it flatter and helps hold the criss crossing you did a bit tighter - you don’t want it to slip and become a hole.

6. My join and weave is within that circle. And I assure that in real life it’s as flat as it seems.

On wool I use the spit splice. This technique here is something I usually only do for weaving in stripes, ends, and on materials that can’t be spit spliced (cotton).

Scary right. I hope some of you didn’t fall or anything when reading that. What the heck would possess me to say something so outlandish? No more coffee? Obviously I’ve hit a new level of insanity. I feel like I have.

For the past 6 months or so I’ve been battling with chest pains. In January they got so bad that I went to the doctor. I was hooked up to all the machines. I could have sworn I was going to die by chest implosion. She said I was fine and sent me home with some blood work to do. A week later, there was no doubt in my mind that my chest was indeed going to implode so I went back to visit my doctor.

This time she told me she thought I had heartburn. Heartburn? Seriously? Doctor you have to be shitting me? There is no way heartburn is going to cause such an explosion in my chest. I got the look from her that let me know I was being a ridiculous baby and that obviously I had no clue what heartburn was. Indeed I’ve had lots of heartburn in my time. Never had it tried to implode me. I was informed it could be a hiatal hernia, heartburn, GERD, Acid reflux, etc etc. Any one of those, or some combination. Here take these pills and stop being a baby.

Normally I hate to take pills without knowing what is wrong but at that point I really just wanted the pain to go away. It was getting hard to function. So I’ve been taking the pills as faithfully as my scattered little brain will allow. I just picked up one of those pill organizers so maybe I’ll be able to remember if I took my meds or not.

The coffee banishment…
Last week, I forgot to take a pill. I didn’t realize I forgot to take a pill until the next day when I had my morning cup of coffee. I drank half the cup and all of a sudden my chest started to implode again. Coffee bad. Right then and there, I realized I needed to say good bye to the coffee. I almost threw the cup across the room. I remembered that I like the mug so I simply poured out the coffee, cleaned the mug and made myself a pot of tea.

 **edit** it’s not the caffeine that gets me, it’s the acid in the coffee.  Plain and simple, there is too much acid in regular or decaf coffee.  It’s like drinking a cup of vinegar, which is another story for another day.  Decaf is just an insult. It’s not as good as regular and it still makes me hurt.  Sadly, coffee is out as a daily good morning.

I told that long story to give you a tutorial.
Yes, I know a bunch of you skipped the boring story to get to the pictures.

Now that I’m drinking tea I needed a cozy to help keep the pot warm. I needed the cozy now. I’m far to impatient to just knit one. Not when a pile of winter hats is staring at me from the corner. I’m using this opportunity to give a hat a summer life and I’ll get to make myselfa new hat next year. All pictures can be enlarged with a click.

Teapot and hat to be transformed (Fake isle hat)

I stretched the hat over the teapot. My very scientific way of seeing how it will fit.

While the hat is still on the pot, I start to pick up stitches and crochet a single chain around where I want the cut to be for the handle. Basically this is just doing a crochet steek technique. Make sure if you are using a fair isle item that you ar grabbing the carried yarn in with your steek so you don’t end up losing stitches when you cut. You can also sew and then crochet your edge if you are being really careful.

Then I cut!
I fit the hat onto the teapot again and do the crochet and cut steps for the spout.

It sort of fits. The bottom is too long and I want it to be felted anyway. Into the washer it goes.

All done!
The longest part of this was the washing machine filling with hot water. It was excruciating. I’m that impatient. Now I have a prettly little teapot cozy. The poor thing has a little Grizzly Adams thing going on and will need a bit of a haircut at some point. For now it’s just happy to be sitting on my little teapot.