Freshisle Fibers

Week 1

The first real week of holidays has just zipped by.  We've had rain, cool weather, and some really beautiful summer days.  A mix of everything!

I had my day in Sudbury and satisfied my need for city shopping for a bit.  Fibery purchases were limited to one measly book - Twelve Months of Knitting.

Many of the projects appealed to me and I was taken in by some of the gorgeous photographs.  I know I'll never ever probably knit the red cable cardigan, but it called to me and sometimes just looking at such beautiful things is enough.

Today is my first full day of planned dyeing.  I've done a few skeins here and there since last weekend, but today is dedicated, solid, dyeing time.  Watermelon yarn, here we come!!!

Sock knitting also continues slowly.  I received a number of old knitting magazines published by the Canadian Knitting Guild.  There was the neatest sock knitting tip in one of them.  The length of the ribbed cuff should be the length of your thumb from knuckle to tip, the length of the foot to toe decreases will equal the length of your hand from base of palm to tip of middle finger.  That's how to know when to start decreasing for the toe.  It works!  Everyone I've tested this theory on has gone through the contortions.  No more measuring feet for me!! 

Time for Tags

Summer means I actually have time to enjoy blogs instead of rushing through them.  Summer means I have time to actually answer being tagged.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago, I was building a new house.  My husband was doing the actual building, I mostly just wrote the cheques and nodded my head.  We lived at my parents' camp that summer, scrimped every cent, and by fall moved into our new home.  I was teaching Grade 7 and living on Manitoulin.  I knit like crazy, hadn't started dyeing yet, but was dabbling with learning to spin.

Five snacks I enjoy:

(1) cheese and crackers
(2) Cherry Blossoms
(3) peanut butter chocolate ice cream
(4) Pringles
(5) cherries

Five Things on My To-Do list today:

(1) iron shirts for dear hubby for work.  I'm done, he's not!
(2) machine knit some blanks for dyeing
(3) organize my shopping list for a day to myself in Sudbury later this week
(4) wind more watermelon yarn
(5) walk the Shadow puppy

Five Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

(1) never teach another day in my life!
(2) build another house.  This is in the plans for the future but it would be lovely if it would happen faster.
(3) make all of our immediate family members mortgage-free, debt-free, and financially comfortable.
(4) travel
(5) dye to my heart's content

Five jobs I have had:

(1) babysitter
(2) sales clerk - I worked in my uncle's variety store all through high school, all through university, forever and ever.  I loved it!
(3) teacher
(4) teacher
(5) teacher - Not so many jobs!  But the teaching experience is varied - Core French, Library Resource, Grade 1, Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 4, Grade 8, Computers, and courses for Nipissing University.  This coming year it's a 4/5 split in the afternoon and Computers for JK-Grade 8 in the morning.

Five of my bad habits:

(1) lack of patience
(2) I am not a morning person.
(3) My husband/brother/mother/father would say I'm controlling.  I just say I like things done a certain way.  The right way.  My way.
(4) I bend corners of books to mark my place when reading.  Drives my husband crazy!!!
(5) I detest cleaning the bathtub.

Five places I have lived:

(1) Gore Bay, Ontario
(2) Hamilton, Ontario
(3) North Bay, Ontario
(4) Arden, Ontario
(5) Verona, Ontario

Five people I would like to get to know better:

(1) everyone on my blog list on the side.  That's why they're/you're there.  I think they're/you're interesting and I enjoy getting a glimpse of their/your lives.
(2) my brother's partner's sister, Lucy.  I've only met her twice and liked her very much.
(3) a certain someone on my husband's side of the family!
(4) some of the parents of children I've taught.  It's been a teacher/parent relationship and with a few, I'd like to have had an opportunity to know them better as friends.
(5) that's already way more than five people!

Five Random Things:

(1) I am named after my mother's best friend.
(2) I sometimes miss city things more than I'd like to admit.
(3) I made my last car payment this month.
(4) I check my horoscope every morning.
(5) In spite of the count downs, the moaning and groaning, and the exhaustion, I really do love teaching.  I picked the right career.

Done, Done, Done

Done, finished, and over with.  Wave another year good-bye.  That makes 24 years of teaching.  I remember looking at teachers who had 10 or 12 years of teaching and thinking that was absolutely ancient and I'd never teach that long.  Ha, ha.

So here I am.  One of the older staff members and still at it.  Most of the time I don't feel ancient and I still think I have a lot to offer the kids.  Most of the time.

And now the summer truly begins and the oh, so many plans.

Sleep, knit, dye, read, garden, spin, design patterns, clean house, and repeat.  Swim, visit friends, pick berries, play with Shadow puppy, travel, organize 'stuff', play Internet games endlessly, bake, and so much more.

Also done are the Sky, Sand, and Sea socks.

I used my basic Single Ply Socks pattern and they fit beautifully. 

I'm quite pleased with the length of each colour and even if someone knits a size a little larger or smaller, it should still work out pretty close to this.  I think I'll try for a little less white in the sky section with the next dyeing, but not as much as I originally thought.

These went fairly quickly as I was quite excited to see how they would look.  Now to dye more to put up in the shop.

There will be no lazing on the beach today however, because it's raining on my first official holiday day.  Not a bad thing.  It just means that I can start on the first three things on my list.

Sleep, knit, dye.

Pink Trillium Shawl

I've been waiting for this.  My yard may now be lush and green but it's been a long time coming.

Ontario's provincial flower, the trillium, fades to a lovely pink as it ages and always means to me the end of spring and the start of summer.  That usually seems to happen around the end of May, early June.  Not this year.  The shawl has been completed for a while now and I've been waiting for the trilliums to turn in order to take the perfect pictures.

Presenting the Pink Trillium Shawl.

Knit by my talented test-knitter-friend with two skeins of Freshisle Fibers Mixed Breed single ply yarn naturally dyed with cochineal. 

It's a deliciously cozy and large wrap with lots of little spaces to resemble pretty pink flowers.

I need to dye more pinkish cochineal yarn to make some kits, so for now, just the pattern.

Three more hyper-student filled days, one professional activity day, and a summer of dyeing time will be mine!

Inching Closer

It's getting closer.

I can start to feel the summer holiday spirit.  One more week.

The dyeing has begun!

I saved all sorts of blossoms from my flower bed plantings - red geraniums, pansies, marigolds, coreopsis, petunias .. and simmered them together in one pot, alum mordant, and the results are drying on the line.

There were lots of red geraniums so I think it's very close to the last batch from May - a Ravenclaw bronze.

Meanwhile two pots of dyestuffs are soaking.

The left pot contains some dyer's chamomile stalks and leaves which should yield a soft yellow and the right pot contains lily of the valley leaves which should yield a lovely spring green.

We've had so much cold, damp weather but this weekend has been sunny and especially nice.  Perfect for the beginning of summer dyeing!

Time to Dye - Almost

Report cards are done.  My life is my own again.  Almost.

There are still seven days left of school with students, one more field day, a class trip, awards day ceremony, ..... and a hundred other little extras to remember to do in these last few days.  But, the end is in sight.

I'm anxious to spend my days dyeing and couldn't resist a little.

I've seen and read many things about machine knitting blanks and then dyeing them.  There've been blog posts, magazine articles for the last few years and now, Conjoined Creations Flat Feet and the latest KnitPicks blanks.

It took me all of 15 minutes to knit the blank on my machine and a little bit longer to do the dyeing, but still not bad.

It has, however, taken me since last summer to finally try out the idea.  A Sky, Sand, and Sea striping sock.  Sky for the leg, sand for the heel, and sea for the foot.

Let the knitting begin and we'll see if it works.

Of course, the knitting will be going much more slowly than the dyeing did, but hopefully not until next summer!!

I'm happy with the sand colour and I think the sea blue is going to be fine, but the sky blue needs less white for clouds and a little more blue for the sky.  Next time.

It's dyed so that I can knit two socks at the same time - one from the outside of the yarn cake and one from the inside.

I have a zillion more ideas for dyeing this way and with any luck, I'll be able to try some out over the next little while. 

Tonight the last of the flowers will be planted.  I don't think I've ever been this late getting my flowers in.  I hope they will still do well.

The Ultimate Distraction

The Internet is the ultimate distraction, the best time waster, the most exceptional procrastination tool.

I have no energy after today's track and field day.  I do not have my report cards finished.  I do not have all my flowers yet planted.  AND, I have no significant knitting to share.  BUT, I do have Meez.

  I created a little meez!!

And you can, too.

Tell them freshisle sent you.

I'm going back to play another game.

Jumble Solitaire is my current distraction.

Farm Visit

I had a break from report cards yesterday and we visited another farm making our last pick-up of fleece for this year.

Freshisle Fibers wool is wool that is collected from various sheep farmers on Manitoulin Island.  We collect the fleece, sort and skirt it, then send it off to the mill for processing.  It's a lot of fleece.

My husband constructed a kind of loft area in the top of our garage and we store the fleece there until the mill is ready to take the fleece.  It makes our garage smell very much like a sheep barn for a while and simply drives dear Shadow puppy crazy.  He's sure there's sheep in there somewhere, but he just can't find them!

I love the lambs.  They are so adorable.  Some of these lovely sheep are used to being petted and stroked by small children.  The moment I went up to the pen, a few came over to greet me and have their ears scratched.  Real pets!

I'm frustrated with Typepad's new look and functions.  I've lost the last three posts part way through and had to re-do, the spell check jams, the image insertion crashes.  Ugh!  I must remember to click save after every sentence!!!  This is not good.

More report cards today.  Soon, soon they will be done.  If I can stop finding other distractions.  Soon. 

Made It

I made it.  Friday night.  14 more days with students to go.  1 Professional Activity Day at the very end.

Report cards await me this weekend.  Doesn't that sound like fun?

More beautiful sock yarn to put on hold for a little while. 

The orange and green skeins are Estelle Cadenza, superwash Merino wool and Tussah silk.

The blue is Estelle Arequipa, superwash wool, Alpaca, and nylon.

Both are fingering weight but the Cadenza seems just a titch heavier. 

All are lovely, soft, and squishy yarns and I think will make gorgeous socks.

Between the rainy weather and the colder-than-normal weather, the flowers have not been tended very well.  My other job for the weekend, if the weather holds, is to plant a few annuals and generally make those flower beds look like someone cares.  I know come July I'll be glad I did.   

Road Trip

We had a bit of impromptu travelling over the weekend.  It was a completely whirlwind visit to see my brother and his partner in Ottawa.  My feet haven't hardly touched the ground yet and total unpacking still awaits.

We weren't quite sure if we were going to make it at all this summer to Ottawa if we didn't grab the opportunity.  So off we went.

Trips to the city always mean stash enhancement opportunities and in spite of the short visit, I did manage to find a few lovely things.  Sock yarn bonanza!

Everything I'd read about the new Noro sock yarn reminded me of my own Mixed Breed single ply.  I was right.  The weight of the Kureyon sock yarn is almost identical.  I think ours might be just a touch softer in the skein and I'm anxious to knit the Noro and see what it's like after washing.  Again, everything I've read suggests it will soften up, just like ours does!  It is 70% wool and 30% nylon different from our 100% wool so it probably will be a bit stronger.  Time will tell!

Dear brother preferred the more muted green and brown skeins, but I talked him into this wild purple, yellow, and orange skein - #185 pumpkin, purple, pea, maroon.  We'll see how it knits up and if indeed he'll wear the socks it makes.

I also couldn't resist a skein of Lucy Neatby's Cat's Pajamas.  The combination of Merino, Cashmere, and nylon should make for amazing socks.  We agreed on these colours so that wasn't a difficult choice.  It seems to be more of a DK weight although it says fingering on the skein.  Very soft.

There's more to share as the week goes on provided I can squeeze a few more minutes out of my evenings to take pictures and post.  The actual knitting of my new yarns will wait.  Field days, report cards, class trips, the general mayhem of June and the end of school are all consuming.  The story of my life!