Keep calm and hand spin on.

I learned to spin about three almost four years ago while I was living in West Virginia. I was at the very beginning of my I want to learn textile arts adventure and decided if I was going to learn how to spin I was going to start at the beginning. This means I started with hand spinning. Now the hand spindle is the oldest tool and one of the most widely used tool around the world. Estimated to be over 10,000 years old[i] it is older than the wheel (3,500 B.C) and was the main source of fiber making for around 9,000 years. They are found in stories from around the world and are the tools of Gods as much as the tools of man. The Navajo’s are gifted the spindle by the spider woman. The Three Fates in Greece spin the threads of life and weave our stories and cut our thread. They are decorated and are made from wood, ivory, stone, bone, clay, amber, copper, and the list goes on and on. Today they are mostly made of wood.

So how does one spin on a hand spindle. Well the easiest way is to park and draft. Now no matter what your spindle or fiber is this is a good way to learn and how I was taught. First you need to find your staple. To do this gently hold your fiber in one hand and gently pull out some fibers from the top. The length from the top to the bottom is how long (or the staple of) your fiber and is how far you want to put your hands apart from the top.

First 6 pictures are how to create your lead string. The last is your staple 

Next you want to hook your fiber to your spindle. You can use a lead string if you like but when I am working with a hand spindle I prefer to start from the fold. So you take the hook of your spindle and hook a small amount of yarn and gently pull. When you have a good hold on your fiber by pitching it where you want the spin to stop, gently spin your spindle in a clock wise movement and let the spindle twist your fiber. To tight it will break, too lose it will pull apart, it may take a bit to get 

this down.

Once you have that slightly spun you have created a leader and now you can spin your yarn. Holding your spindle, between your knees keep your right hand in the spot where your worked fibers (yarn) start and unworked fibers (roving) end. Gently pull some of the fibers apart (draft) sort of thinning it as you go. When you are happy with that you want to use your left hand to pinch where the new stuff to be worked starts and your roving ends. Gently turn the spindle in the same counter clock wise movement.  You want to stop your spindle as soon as it start to slow down and starts back spinning. 

Repeat.

Park and draft

When your yarn gets too long take it off the hook and wrap it around the shaft and re-hook the yarn above.

If your yarn doesn't want to come apart first try putting your hands further apart. This goes back to the staple length. When you are pulling it your hands should be that far apart. If that doesn’t work you may try losing it up with your hands and try again.

If you find that your yarn keeps breaking, you either have too much twist or your spindle is too heavy for your yarn. Thick yarn can use a heavier spindle while thin yarn needs a lighter one.

If your yarn is uneven, that is alright, save it and later after you have spun for a while go back to it and see how you have improved.

A cool way to wrap your thread to hold it while you rotate it on to the spindal

Eventually you will naturally start to draft as you spin and you will no longer need to park and draft as you spin as you draft while you spin.

Great books to help you learn, Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont has and is still very useful for the novice spinner and the advanced. And Carol Kroll’s The Whole Craft of Spinning was a great help for me when I started. Handspindles by Bette Hochberg I stumbled upon a few years ago is great at showing different techniques with different spindles.

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[i] Bette Hochberg, Handspindles. Bette and Bernard Hochberg, CA: 1993.

Deep breath and go....

There are many days I am pretty sure that my Grandpa K is laughing at his little princess. I am sure amongst the laughter is pride but I am pretty sure most of it is laughter at my expense. You see I was willing to try and do certain things but the whole getting dirty and gross was not my cup of tea. I would fish, but I would not hook a live worm or take a fish off the hook. At that point I would look to my Grandpa and make him do it. I think that is why he stopped taking me fishing when I was 8. When a 4 year old does it you expect it, when an 8 year old does it you stop fishing with that 8 year old. My dad put up with it until I was 12 and then my brother did it till I was 16 and after that I stopped fishing. See I still hate putting worms on hooks. Worms are gross. They are slimy, wiggly and so good for my garden that I can’t help it, I feel bad killing them. So when I was old enough to know I didn't have to kill them I started using fake ones and flies, as for the touching fish part, it still grosses me out but I am getting over it.

Grandpa and I after fishing in Florida. 

That is one of the bonuses of my crazy job. Things that used to gross me out I am getting over. I still can’t deal with fish eyes. I can’t cook fish heads at work for this reason but touching the slimy fish doesn't bother me so much anymore. I have learned how to scale and gut a fish. I used to watch my Grandpa do it when I was little and would attempt to help but I had never really done it myself. When all of a sudden I had to do it I had to suck in my fear of not only touching fish, and dealing with fish eyes, but the idea of pulling out the gills and the slimy gross guts and do it. So I did, like a boss I might add. I think I handled it so well that when my finger punctured something yellow and it squirted all over me I went oops and kept going, meanwhile a few buy standers went nope and walked away. I think between the accidental puncture, my face as I tried to pull out the guts and everyone else’s reaction, if my Grandfather K had witnessed the whole thing he would have been laughing hysterically and not much could make that man laugh out loud. He was the one who had an amused smile.

A fish I cooked at work but didn't have to clean. 

I am not going to lie though learning how to gut a fish made me wish I had paid a little more attention when we were fishing. Though my last memory of us fishing was us in the middle of the lake and I had caught 3 small pickerel and he was getting annoyed he hadn't caught any.

My Grandfather’s fish cleaning knife

See that is the thing some of the things that I used to fear doing I don’t any more, or as much. I am still disgusted by fish guts but they don’t scare me anymore. After eating the fish that I cleaned it not only made me want to start fishing again but clean one again (I did a few days after I wrote up the draft of this post).

Historically though cleaning and gutting fish is something everyone in a household would help with. I a lot of paintings of fish in the market are being sold by women. The larger ones that a housewife might not be able to pick up a husband would do but smaller ones a housewife would clean and cook rather easy. Even if she couldn't fish she would easily clean it and cook it to feed her family. A lot of families in the country side would have a space just for this purpose, and old barrel outside the house that they would put a board on to clean the fish on. (Trust me you want to do this outside, when you are descaling the fish scales go everywhere.)

Beucklear's Four Elements painting, "Water"

Who knew fish could be historical, now let’s go find me a rod, a reel, a hook and some bait so I can do a DIY blog on how to scale and gut a fish.

Norman Rockwwll's "Gone Fishing"

Dress your salad

Why did the tomato blush? He saw the salad dressing.

So now that your garden is growing and maybe you have some lettuce and spinach growing I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes with you.

Raspberry Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

2 tbls raspberry vinegar

2 tbls raspberry jam

1/3 c. of vegetable oil (olive oil works well too)

Combine your vinegar and jam together in a blender or small bowl.  Add oil place in a bottle and shake well. Pour over salad. This recipe makes ¾ c.

Enjoy!

Mix it up, don’t have raspberry jam, use grape, strawberry or peach. I sometimes use cranberry sauce. 

My Aunt J. makes a wicked good homemade cranberry sauce that adds a little more tang to my salads. 

Knit along

So this week is a knit along… or learn to knit with the Historic Stitcher

What you will need….Size 7 knitting, scissors, crochet hook, stitch makers (optional) and Lily the Original Sugar’n Cream yarn. It is worsted 4 ply cotton yarn and I use it for my sponges and towels. You can find it in the yarn isle at your local Jo-Ann’s, Michaels, A.C. Moore or Hobby Lobby.

This is my basic pattern for my large towels. If you know how to knit skip to a part you don’t know or find the pattern on the bottom.

First you will make a slip knot. With both hands you start by making a small loop in the yarn, take the piece the top and pull it underneath the loop. Continue to pull the yarn through the loop closing your original loop, take the loop you just made and place it on your knitting needle.

Now you will cast on, I do the two needle cast on, I find I have less slack then when I do it with my fingers. Take the needle with knot in your left hand and your empty needle in your right slip the R(right needle) into the front of the slip knot towards the back. With your right hand wrap the yarn around the needle from back to front. Now slide your right needle through the loop on the L (left needle) keeping the wrapped yarn on the R. Bringing it through creates a new loop. Pass the L through the loop on R and remove R. Now you should have two stitches on L. Repeat this 38 more times. 40 Sts in total.

Now you are ready to knit. Hold your full needle in your left hand and your empty needle in your right hand from now on. The yarn will be behind the work. Now insert R into the stitch from front to back as you did with casting, Wrap your yarn from back to front as you did again and pull the loop through. Slide the loop that you just pulled the yarn through off of L. Repeat across, turn your stitches and repeat 5 more times making 6 rows.

Now you are going to purl. You will repeat the K (knit) stitch for 5 stitches. Taking your yarn move it from the back to front between the stitches, this will prepare you to P (purl). Take your R and slip it from the back of the stitch to the front wrap your needle from bottom to the top in a counter clock wise move. Slide your new loop though the old loop to the back of your knitting. Leaving your new loop on R, slide your old loop off of L. Repeat across for 30 stitches, Move your yarn from the front of your work to the back of your work, knit the finial 5 stitches.

K the next row

Repeat the K5 P30 K5 for the next row

Continue these two rows for 13 inches.

Knit for 6 rows.

Cast off: To cast off the simplest way is to slip R through the first two stitches on L. Knit these two together removing them both from L. Now move the loop you just made from R to L. Repeat across. Pull the yarn through the last loop you made in entirety and cut.  Weave in your ends with a crochet hook. And voila you have a cotton dish towel. Yes you could buy it at the store, but your first knitting project doesn't have to be a scarf. 

For helpful books on knitting, start with a knitting encyclopedia, one that shows different methods, stitches. For me the more pictures the better. See what you like better, the pattern written out or charts. Personally I have trouble following charts but you may like it.

Cast on 40 sts.

K for five rows

Row 6: K across

Row 7: K5 P30 K5

Repeat rows 6 and 7 for 13 inches

K for 5 Rows

Cast off.

Chart for towel, a blank box means K, while a * means purl

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