Custom Blend - Ice Caves

Day 169: I've had several bags of Corriedale top sitting in the spinning cupboard for some time now, not really wanting to spin it up plain and trying to figure out a way I could spice it up a bit. In the interim, I've been spinning a Merino/bamboo blend which is rapidly becoming my favourite fiber. As luck would have it, my primary fiber supplier recently put a 100% bamboo top on sale. It was only available in one colour ("Glimmerglass," a mix of blues with a tiny touch of lavender), but it was perfect for my purpose. I blended a bit with the Corriedale using my hand carders and spun up a sample using a tahkli spindle. Although I was pleased with the result shown here, I've decided to add a little more of the bamboo, bringing the content up to approximately 70% Corriedale/30% bamboo. That should be a good combination for long-wearing socks. That said, I've become a little spoiled working with Merino. The Corriedale fiber seems much coarser than I remembered. I've dubbed this shimmery blend "Ice Caves" because it reminds me of the blue light inside the old ice caves above Paradise (Mount Rainier National Park) which now no longer exist.

Bobbin Along

Day 168: Just call me Red, Red Robin 'cuz I'm bob-bob-bobbin along! This week's spinning projects included finishing up a second bobbin (4 ounces) of a Merino wool/bamboo blend and allowing it to rest for a few days alongside a fully loaded companion. A short nap improves its disposition when it's time to ply. Most spinners prefer to let the fibers relax into the twist imparted in spinning for a day or two before plying. Call it "fiber yoga," if you will, for after having bent into contortions, the fiber now needs to maintain its pose to achieve the greatest benefit. In the meantime, I broke out a manual tahkli and a free sample which came with an order of wool top, a luscious moss green blend of Merino and alpaca. The freebie yielded a whole 16 meters of double-ply lace weight yarn, just enough to add a few rows to the top edge of sock cuffs. That said, it's not a fiber I would care to spin on a regular basis, the alpaca having a tendency toward fuzziness like Angora. I sneezed a lot during that spinning session, despite the fact that alpaca fiber is hypoallergenic. With a few days under its belt, the wool/bamboo blend is ready to be plied now, but must wait in line until I am finished with another colourway of the same product currently on the wheel.

Filbert In Flower

Day 167: A few days ago, the Nisqually Land Trust posted a photo in social media of a flower which they described as one of their favourites and posed the question, "Do you know what it is?" I leapt on the chance to be first to identify it by responding, "Beaked Filbert (Corylus cornuta)!" But that set me to wondering why I had never featured the female flowers on my Contorted Filbert, aka Harry Lauder's Walking Stick in my blog. Well, folks, here you have it as a Penny Perspective! It's hard to imagine that teeny-tiny little flower giving rise to a hazelnut at maturity, but that's the way it goes...providing, of course, that the birds don't eat the sweet flower buds first. Juncos in particular are fond of them (they like blueberry buds, too), so my tree has produced very few nuts over thirty years, and those were either carried away by squirrels or holed and devoured by worms. I have never found one with a nut inside. In case you were wondering, the long, dangling catkins are the male flowers. They produce the pollen which fertilizes the female flower. Filberts are wind-pollinated, so given the gusty conditions we've had for the last few days, my chances of finding a hazelnut or two this fall might be pretty good.

At The End Of The Trail

Day 166: Yesterday was a beautiful day for a hike, albeit rather chilly in the shaded woods on the north side of a ridge. For the first half mile or so, I was wishing I'd grabbed my mittens, but switching my trekking pole from one hand to the other occasionally while keeping the free hand in a pocket solved the problem. I hadn't really intended to walk the entire South Swofford Trail, but as usual, once I start, I find it hard to quit. The stillness and solitude of this little "nature walk" is unlike any other I've found locally, owing in part to the regulation which prohibits combustion motors on the reservoir pond. Small farms and homes dot the north shore sparsely, and only the occasional dog's bark or voice carries across the water. It is a good place to listen to waterfowl gabbling, to woodpeckers drilling, to Pacific Wren singing his complex, lilting aria or even to hear the splash of a trout's rise for an insect on the surface of the lake. The end of the trail is reached in 1.25 miles when it debouches into a grassland which remains deceptively boggy until the driest part of the year. A step or two beyond this point in the current season would overtop a boot with water, preventing access to a patch of Skunk Cabbage at the west edge. I found no early wildflowers blooming in the woods; no Cardamine or Oxalis buds, only small leaves, but I had come for Skunk Cabbage and quietness, and found both in plenty.

First Day Of Skunk Cabbage, Officially

Day 165: I do hereby officially declare today as the First Day of Skunk Cabbage. I say "officially" because I spotted a single spathe during my hike a week ago, but couldn't get close enough to take a photo. This image comes from my favourite bog on the South Swofford Trail, and I am happy to say that it was much boggier than it's been in several years, so much so that even if I had had my muck boots with me, I would not have ventured any closer for fear of being permanently mired. That said, the official First Day of Skunk Cabbage is a bit late this year, not only for me, but for Lysichiton americanus as well. The flowers are still young and small, and the leaves are barely beginning to show. After visiting the bog, I continued on the trail to its western end, a delightful if somewhat chilly walk in complete solitude with very few sounds penetrating the stillness. That in itself is worth celebrating.

Colaptes Auratus

Day 164: Male and female Northern Flickers are easy to tell apart. The males have "moustaches," i.e. a coloured patch on the cheek. However, where the Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted races intergrade, this marking may be either red or black. In 2019, I observed an intergrade in my yard. My attention was drawn by the distinctly yellow colour under the tail and the red spot on the nape of the neck, but the bird's malar patch was red rather than black which is typical of Yellow-shafted. Now, I again have an intergrade at the suet feeder. I doubt that it is the same bird since this one is obviously of breeding age (there is a courtship going on), and the life expectancy of Northern Flickers is seldom longer than 6-7 years for either race. The evidence that the male is an intergrade escaped my notice until I enlarged the image and saw the tiny red patch on the nape, a telltale which is not present in the Red-shafted type. Genetics in action! Right here in my own back yard!

Handcuffed To The Wheel

Day 163: And there I was, handcuffed to the wheel for the duration. No, I hadn't been arrested. I'd made a plying bracelet from the last of the singles on one bobbin and was finishing up eight ounces of a lovely Merino-bamboo blend, but I was going to be there a while as the yarn uncoiled itself from my wrist. Had I taken it off my hand...to answer the call of nature, say, or because someone showed up on my doorstep...I might never have been able to untangle it.

A few posts back, I mentioned a plying bracelet, referring to it as "a rat's nest," which isn't truly accurate. It's actually a means by which the thread can be drawn off from both ends simultaneously so that it can be plied with itself. The method for winding it onto the fingers seems complex at first, but once you've mastered it, the action is not difficult to maintain. Assuming the right hand will be the hand nearest the body when spinning, the singles is passed around the back of the hand (for this example, the left edge of the hand as the palm is facing you), brought to the front and counter-clockwise around the middle finger, taken to the back of the hand again following the same path, then brought around the opposite (right) side of the hand, clockwise around the middle finger, and then to the back of the hand again following the path it just travelled. The motion is repeated until all the singles has been wound onto the hand. Then the loops around the middle finger are carefully removed from it, and the bracelet is slid onto the wrist. The end is joined to the end of the singles on the bobbin which was emptied first, and plying can be continued normally. The singles in the plying bracelet feeds from both its outer and inner wraps, and only occasionally does the spinner need to dip between the two strands to keep it from tangling. This technique is sometimes referred to as "Andean plying," but its true origins are unclear and the subject of contention among spinners. In any event, the method was developed in the dim, dark days of drop spindles, long before the "modern" spinning wheel was invented. You have to admire the ingenuity!

It took the better part of two days to ply up eight ounces of Paradise Fibers Bambino plus 60 yards of cotton I'd spun on the charkha. With another bobbin already full of a different Bambino colourway, I desperately needed to free up a bobbin in order to continue. Now I'm back to spinning singles, but another Plyday is coming soon, and I'll undoubtedly have an hour or so when I'm once again handcuffed to the wheel.

Grosbeaks In The Snow

Day 162: Given the amount of activity at the feeders yesterday, I should have put more faith in the weather forecast, but they've been wrong more times than they've been right lately, often missing my nighttime low temps by as much as 10 degrees, so I simply didn't believe them when they said snow was a possibiility. It was coming down hard when I got up at 4:45, although only about half an inch had accumulated. By 6:30 when the first birds came to feed, it had piled up two inches deep. In conditions like these, it's interesting to observe the different foraging methods of the various species. The Towhees, the Quail and two Northern Flickers set to excavating, quickly clearing the ground down to the grass. The Juncos chose to forgo small seed, preferring a high-fat breakfast of suet, but the Grosbeaks focused on their favourite black-oil sunflower seed. The Mourning Doves sat moping on the fence, waiting for someone else to do the hard work, and then moved in to clean up the others' scraps. Very little goes to waste around here!

California Quail, Callipepla Californica

Day 161: In the thirty-plus years I have lived at this location, I have never seen a California Quail in my yard or, for that matter, even in this general area. Quail were a common sight when I was growing up, at least in rural areas. My dad would frequently have to slow down or stop the car to allow a mother to lead her chicks across the road when we were out for a drive. In later years, their numbers dwindled, but I didn't notice their absence until one day when I saw one sitting on a fence beside a bike trail. "Quail!" I said, stopping to grab a quick snapshot if I could. "Funny, I haven't seen quail in years." I was reminded of a Joni Mitchell song and the line, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the bird feeders were nearly empty. As I put my hand on the door handle to draw it back, I saw a speckled oddity among the Mourning Doves feeding on the ground. The bird had its back to me, pecking head-down at the scattered sunflower seeds. When it raised its head, the cute little topkknot told me all I needed to know. There, in my own yard, was a California Quail. It startled at some sound, raced for cover beneath the contorted filbert, and then a few minutes later, emerged to scratch a depression at the end of one of the timbers surrounding the tree. It hunkered down into the hollow, sat there for a few minutes, and then decided to explore for more food. I watched it for some time as it alternated between feeding and hiding, and once saw it fly up to perch on one of the tree's lower branches. With a ready food supply and good cover for safety from predators, perhaps my Quail will stick around and, if I'm lucky, maybe we'll even have some Quail chicks in the future.

Thataway

Day 160: Various land managers and agencies have widely varied ways of indicating designated trails and their specific uses. I was thrown for a loop when visiting the east coast some fifteen years ago when I thought I had lost the trail beneath a heavy layer of autumn leaves, only to have a friend point out the little pink diamonds tacked to trees about fifteen feet up. It was a new experience for me, and something of an eye-opener, having been accustomed to the more open trails in my favourite areas of the Pacific Northwest. Blazes and markers such as those are not something we ordinarily see. One exception to this can be found in Pack Forest. It has a "multiple-use" trail system, with some paths being designated primarily for use by people on horseback. I believe (although I am not certain) that is what this monstrosity indicates, although I can't imagine why a more subtle, less garish marker couldn't have been employed, especially since the map (a handout) clearly indicates which trails allow horses. As with any good marking system, others like it were positioned in such a manner that the next could be seen from the present location, eyesore after eyesore, keeping people and horses safe from getting lost in a three-quarter mile stretch of trail between roads.

Tea And Crumpets

Day 159: There is a lot of confusion regarding crumpets, especially in the United States. They are not the same thing as English muffins, no, although both were originally made on a griddle. Nowadays, English muffins are more likely baked, and they are breadlike in texture. A crumpet, on the other hand, is softer and full of holes. Imagine, if I may be so bold as to suggest, an English muffin crossed with a pancake: thicker than a pancake, but with a similar tender bite. There is no "crunch" to a crumpet unless it is toasted, and they are generally served whole, not split. Many cooks will insist that an "authentic" crumpet is made with milk in the batter. I'm not sure how much more "authentic" you could get than the recipe I use, which comes from a retired chef from Sunderland (northern Great Britain), but it contains no milk at all. Crumpets are made with a batter as opposed to a dough, stirred rather than kneaded. Some people say that they should only be cooked on one side, others flip them to brown both sides as I do. Perhaps the most important feature of crumpets is a surface dotted with holes. These serve to trap lavish quantities of butter, preserves or other toppings. Whatever recipe you use, crumpets are delicious. Just don't call them English muffins.

Spring

Day 158: Spring - snow possible later in the week
Spring - Nuthatches engaged in courting behaviours, gathering nesting material
Spring - leaf buds on the contorted filbert
Spring - the return of Evening Grosbeaks and a single swallow of indeterminate species
Spring - snowdrops in the garden
Spring - the best cat toy ever

It's Spring! Hurray!

Prodigal Parrots

Day 157: Phenology is all about good record-keeping. Even though this isn't the best picture I've ever taken, it serves to document the return of the prodigal parrots (all sons per my single observation) after an absence of roughly six weeks. They've extended their term here over the years, recognizing a Good Thing when they see one, i.e., a seemingly unlimited supply of the black-oil sunflower seed which is their favourite fare. They were only here for a few minutes to check out the feeders, moving on when the neighbour made a crash-bang in his yard. Their beaks are just beginning to turn chartreuse green, a biologic change which comes with mating season. As for their scientific name, that too is in a state of flux. The International Ornithologists' Union currently prefers Hesperiphona, however, the American Ornithological Society still places them in Coccothraustes. That said, both groups agree that they are more closely related to the Hooded Grosbeak and hawfinches than to Black-headed and Rose-breasted and the cardinals. In any event, they'll aways be "Porch Parrots" to me.

Graphic Script

Day 156: We all have our favourites. They don't have to be rare, special or otherwise distinguished. We just like them for one reason or another. Graphis scripta (Common Script) is one of my favourite lichens. It's tiny to the point of being hard to spot even when you have your face a foot from the trunk of a Red Alder you know you've found it on before, so it should be no surprise that the people who walked past me as I was crouched on my knees photographing it wondered what I found so fascinating about grey bark. It looks exactly like marks made with a sharp pencil until you get closer. Then you can see that the black lines are split lengthwise. These are the lirellae, the fruiting bodies of the lichen. The thallus (body) is what makes the bark look grey where it occurs. Other crustose lichens may also impart a grey appearance to the bark of Red Alder, so if you're hunting for secret messages from Lichenopolis, you'll have to make a close examination to find the code.

St. Paddy's Day Hike

Day 155: St. Paddy's Day dawned clear and crisp, and matured into pleasant temps by 10 AM. It's been months since I took any serious exercise, so I decided to go for a hike on the Bud Blancher Trail in Eatonville. Where exactly I was going to wind up, I had no idea, although I did want to check out the one spot along the trail where I've occasionally seen Skunk Cabbage. It wasn't blooming yet, so I went up a spur trail a little ways, finding that it didn't seem as familiar as it should have done. Was it because there were a few small trees down? I didn't think so. The lay of the land was foreign to me, and I have a very good memory for those kinds of details even if I can't tell you if a friend of forty years wears glasses. The trail took a sudden jog to the west, and I was even more convinced that I'd never been on it before. I followed it until it came out on a grassy secondary road. I definitely didn't recognize the intersection. How had I missed this one all these years? I kept heading west and connected with the familiar 1000 Rd. after about 3/4 mile. Not wanting to backtrack, I looped down past the Upper, Middle and Lower Mashel Falls trails without bothering to detour to the falls themselves (too many people), taking great joy in conversation with this chatty brooklet as it wound its way down to the Mashel mainstream. Out and about in the green! St. Pat would have loved Washington's forests.

What's That Fiber?

Day 154: Today, we're going to play a little game called "What's That Fiber?" I was curious as to whether my fingers could distinguish the bamboo/rayon in a mixed roving, so I put some samples under the microscope. There are two cellulose fibers here (as in "plant-based") and wool from two different breeds of sheep (Coopworth and Merino). Cellulose fibers are made by pulping plant material and treating it with chemicals to break it down into a solution which can be extruded, and therefore they tend to be smooth. On the other hand, wool is a protein-based fiber with a rough cortex (outer layer). As opposed to other sources such as rabbit or camel, sheep's wool varies in diameter from breed to breed. Merino is classified as a fine wool, rated at 15-25 microns; Coopworth comes in at 30-39. By comparison, an average human hair measures 70 microns. Cotton fibers average from 11-22 microns, rayon for fabric production falls between 8-25. Given this information, you should be able to identify the bamboo, cotton, Merino and Coopworth fibers shown above. In the top and bottom rows, magnifications are 40x, 200x and 800x. The second row shows a "mixed" fiber at 40x and 200x, with the two fibers isolated in the third row at 800x. Are you ready? Go! (Answers below.)

(Top row: cotton; Second row, mixed; Third row, bamboo and Merino; Bottom row, Coopworth)

Twice As Full, Twice As Fast

Day 153: After spinning cotton onto two tahklis in opposite directions, I redeemed one by making a plying bracelet so that I could ply the thread back onto itself. That's the skein in the photo. However, my attention is not on details lately, so when I filled a new tahkli to match the remaining one and sat down to ply them with the spinning wheel, I discovered that they were spun with an S-twist rather than my customary Z. I would have to ply them backwards to my usual manner. This is not a fatal mistake by any means. However, I will have to use the finished thread in separate areas of any project so that a casual glance won't show a difference. Not a problem! I'll just use them on different ends of a towel. That said, once I had spun up enough on a second tahkli, I was ready to ply on my regular spinning wheel. I've found this is the best way to handle cotton. With more than twice as much single-ply thread to work with, I sat down at the wheel 8:15 last night, thinking I'd have it done in half an hour, 45 minutes tops. That proved to be an ambitious estimate. I finished all but the last few feet which needed to be bracelet-plied at 9:15, double the thread in the same amount of time it took to ply the skein on a manual tahkli. I have now made a little note to myself, stuck to the inside of the charkha, showing the direction the drive band needs to go over the pulley so that the thread twists in the appropriate direction for a double strand plied S. "Spin Z, ply S." That's the formula I prefer.

Star Performer

Day 152: This marks one of those rare occasions when I have had to backdate a post, and I hope my readers will excuse the lapse. The heating company was here yesterday, installing a new ductless mini-pump (replacement), and that's enough to disrupt anyone's schedule. Well, except maybe a plant's. Even "intermittent" bloomers follow some pattern. It may be something as simple as length of daylight, soil temperature, chill period and so on, or it may be a complex of factors which even the best science is at a loss to explain completely. Huernia zebrina's calendar falls in the latter category. It blooms when it is inspired to do so, leaving me to say, "Oh, I've got another star!" when it does. Oftentimes, I don't notice the buds. They look rather like new foliar growth in their earliest stage, easy to overlook during watering times. Still, when ol' Lifesaver Plant is of a mind to perform, it does so in a spectacular manner. Only a few days ago, I found this inch-wide stellar phenomenon staring me in the face as I was advancing the warp on my floor loom.

Transplants

Day 151: Several years back, I was bulling my way through brush on an abandoned and badly overgrown logging road with no other reason than wanting to see where it ended when a little fleck of white caught my eye. "Snowdrops?" I said. "In the middle of bloody nowhere?" That to me was an invitation. Some time later (it might have been a year or more), I ventured on the same journey again, this time with a trowel and plastic bag in hand, thinking I'd dig a few out of the soil to take home to put in my garden. I was not thinking in terms of "overgrown logging road" when I made my plans, and thus was moderately surprised when my trowel penetrated only the top half inch of moss before striking hard, compacted rock. No amount of force, physical or linguistic, could release the bulbs from their prison. I had just about given up on the project, intending to come back with dynamite (or at the very least, a pry bar) when I spotted a few near the edge of the roadbed. The rock was less consolidated there, and I was able to free up about a dozen bulbs. From that rough beginning, I now have a nice little patch of one of my favourite spring flowers, enough that I may move a few further along the northside flower bed where they will be welcome to spread to their hearts' content.

Rookie Mistake

Day 150: To put this essay in the proper perspective, you must understand that I learned how to spin before I entered kindergarten. Admittedly, I could only make a simple and lumpy single strand, and I was unaware of the nuances in the twist (S versus Z), but I feel I can still claim to knowing how to spin for most of my many years of life. However, I am fairly new to spinning cotton. Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse making a rookie mistake.

I sat down yesterday morning to ply from two full tahklis, thinking I'd perform the task with my regular spinning wheel as I usually do. I tied the ends together on the leader and began treadling. Almost immediately, one of the strands broke. That's a common problem with cotton which hasn't been sufficiently twisted, and because I was at the end of the strand, I thought that was the cause. I re-tied and tried again, but had only spun a few inches before the strand broke again. Then I noticed something. One of the singles was twisting, the other untwisting. Both should have been untwisting slightly as they plied together. I looked more closely, and discovered the problem. One was twisted Z, the other S. Apparently when setting up the charkha wheel, I had inadvertently reversed the direction of spin for the second tahkli. At this point, I had a couple of options. I could spin more of each twist on two fresh tahklis, or I could wind off all the S-twisted thread and ply it with itself. I decided to follow the latter course, and began winding a "plying bracelet" on my hand.

What is a plying bracelet? I knew someone would ask. I have to say that the primitive person who came up with this seemingly impossible piece of engineering was the Einstein of their times. Basically, it's rat's-nest of single-ply thread, wound around fingers and palm in a complex pattern and then slipped onto the wrist, a tangled mess (or so it would seem) which feeds from both ends simultaneously to ply with itself. The principle works very well with wool, but with the much more fragile cotton thread, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to salvage my work. In fact, I was unable to ply from the bracelet using the spinning wheel, and thus resorted to putting it on a manual tahkli. The process of plying 38.5 meters of thread took over an hour, as I constantly had to remind myself to twirl the tahkli counter-intuitively. I achieved my goal without any breakage, in itself a milestone in the art of spinning cotton.

Alike But Different

Day 149: As I mentioned yesterday, spinning wool and spinning cotton require two separate skill sets. Both are alike in some regards, but also quite different from each other in the same manner, one might say, as barbering is to dog-trimming. In this case, the overlap is in the fact that fibers are being twisted together to form a cohesive strand of thread/yarn by using a rotating spindle of some sort. That said, the difference lies in the length of the fiber being spun. If "wool" is defined as coming from sheep (as opposed to rabbits, goats, etc.), almost any type is considered "long staple," i.e., having individual fibers an inch or more in length. On the other hand, cotton has a "short staple." Its individual fibers are roughly half an inch long. This means that more twist has to be imparted to a cotton thread than to a wool thread or it will come apart. Cotton is spun with a great number of revolutions of the spindle on which it is wound, even when the resultant thread is the same diameter as one spun in wool. In comparison, the wool fibers in that lovely multi-coloured top are about five inches long. Now you might suppose that it would take longer to spin 50 yards of cotton thread than it would for wool, but in fact because the spindle (tahkli) rotates so much faster, the time is fairly close to being the same.

Fine Spun

Day 148: This project is going to take a while. True fingering-weight yarns have become very difficult to find in recent years, at least at a price which isn't prohibitive (I am not willing to spend $30 on a single sock, or even a pair), so I decided it was time to make my own. I found a wonderful new fiber supply right here in Washington which caters specifically to spinners (Paradise Fibers in Spokane), and ordered eight ounces of blended Merino/bamboo top in a shade called "Hickory Dickory." All the colourways in this series are named from nursery rhymes. It's a bit pinker than I'd expected, but hey, it's going to be socks...at least three pair of socks for the grand sum of $24, offset by many hours of entertainment on my side of the coin. It is spinning up beautifully at 40 wraps per inch, and since I am spinning off the fold, I have better control over the colours as they come off my hand. Spun directly from the end, the colours would be more blended, but I wanted a more "tweedy" effect. The hand-feel of the Merino/bamboo blend is exquisite: soft, smooth, silky...and durable enough to make good socks, whether they're a little too pink or not.

A Different Spin

Day 147: Spinning cotton is quite another breed of cat from spinning wool. Cotton is a "short staple" fiber, i.e., the length of the individual fibers is much shorter than that of wool. This means that it needs substantially more twists per inch to make a sturdy thread. Although some standard spinning wheels can be set up to spin cotton successfully, mine does not accommodate a high-ratio bobbin, so I spin cotton on a charka wheel. Not many spinners work with cotton, but of course I am always looking for new challenges, so last year, I indulged a whim and bought my "book charka" after playing around with a manual, supported tahkli to see if I could get the hang of it. I am happy to say that now I can spin a consistent, fine thread which holds together nicely and can be plied into a double strand. If you study the photo, you will see that the big wheel in the foreground drives the smaller wheel at the midpoint. In turn, the smaller wheel drives the tahkli at high speed. Each turn of the main drive wheel results in over 100 turns of the tahkli to put plenty of twist in the thread. That said, this is where your long-draw skills come into play. One hand runs the wheel while the other manipulates the cotton fibers, drawing them out from roving or a puni as far as possible. Then the fiber can be pinched off as more twists are added. Then the thread can be wound onto the tahkli in a self-building cone called a cop/copp. Once you have two tahklis fully loaded, it's time to ply. Of course, you may choose to leave your thread as a single, but it won't be as durable.

Done And Dusted

Day 146: The Coopworth is done and dusted, and the amount of wool I was able to spin in the last three days using the "off the fold" technique was roughly equivalent to what previously would have taken me a week or more. Not only was it faster, I was able to spin more evenly. These last two skeins are significantly smoother than the first six. I decided to celebrate by purchasing some dyed and blended wool as a treat, investing a whole whopping $24 from my limited "entertainment" budget. And as sure as death and taxes, I was punished for splurging on myself when I discovered that one of my ductless mini-pumps had died in the night. It always happens that way. Any time I give way to temptation, something large and bad-tempered comes up from behind and bites me. Maybe if I treadle faster, I can stay warm until the repairman arrives tomorrow.

A Handsome Feller, Steller's

Day 145: As much as I envy the east its iconic cardinals, our Steller's Jays are gorgeous in their own right. Substantially larger than cardinals, their intense dark blue is an optical illusion. They are actually brown, and only appear blue due to the way light is refracted by the microstructure of their feathers. That makes you wonder how they look to other birds, creatures whose eyes perceive far more colours than our own. In any event, a treeful of Steller's is quite a sight to behold, and the snowy weather has brought them out in dozens, chattering and scolding from the branches of the contorted filbert and mountain-ask closest to the feeders. "Empty again! We want more seed!" and dutifully, I lay my handwork aside to answer the call. It's nice to know I'm appreciated.

Old Dog, New Trick

Day 144: Who says you can't teach an old dog a new trick? While poking around in YouTube for something else entirely (a recipe, I think it was), "Fractal Spinning" cropped up in recommended videos, and since I'd never heard of it under that name, I decided to watch it. As it turned out, the technique followed almost exactly the same method used for making tweed yarns, but the name had been brought up to the current era (I rather like the new one). However, the spinner was holding her wool differently than I'd seen before, so I checked her other videos and found one which referred to "spinning off the fold." Now I learned to spin before I entered kindergarten and have always held my wool the way my grandmother taught me. There are other ways to get the same results, certainly, and the draw method (long or short) is largely a matter of personal preference. That said, spinning off the fold, i.e., bending the wool fibers over a finger and allowing them to feed from their centers, intrigued me. I happened to have some nasty Coopworth wool on the wheel, hanging fire because it has been so unpleasant to spin, so I said, "Why not? It'll do for practice, and maybe I can get it out of here so I can spin that nice Corriedale in the cupboard." I pulled the wheel out of its corner and ripped off a chunk of Coopworth roughly as long as the wool staple (the length of a single fiber). Within the first few inches of spinning, I could tell that I had greater control over the amount of fiber being fed into the drafting triangle. Not only was I able to spin with a more consistent diameter, I could spin a finer strand even with the coarse Coopworth. Half an hour later, I was halfway through my alloted length of roving, which also told me that spinning off the fold was going to be significantly faster by virtue of not having to fuss with it so much. The Coopworth is nearly done but for plying (a quick job), and I will never, ever buy it again. And I am so impressed with spinning off the fold that I may just turn some of that lovely soft Corriedale into two-ply fingering weight for socks.

Friends And Relatives

Day 143: "Oh, I kinda thought from your name that you were Native American." If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I might not be rich, but I could at least afford a fancier spinning wheel and a dozen bags of good wool. "No, not Native American," I would reply. "I'm just a crow." Usually, the discussion closed there, but if any further curiosity was aroused, I'd say, "And my mother was a frog." My dad was a Luna moth, but no one has ever ventured that far into my genealogy. In fact, my dad was the first person to acknowledge me as a crow. Hoeing up hills for corn in the spring, he'd deposit four kernels in each: one for the worm, one for the crow ("That's yours"), one to die and one to grow. And I always got my allotment at harvest time. My hair was raven-black in those days, long and swept back into two "wings," and my beady eyes were almost as dark, and if that wasn't enough to give a clue, my peers kept me at arm's length or further, as if they found me socially unacceptable. I was curious about everything, and yet wary of new experiences until I had sized them up from all angles. There were other commonalities with Corvus brachyrhynchos as well, enough that I began to identify with the iconic black-feathered friends who seemed to share my personality (but oddly, not with ravens). Eventually, "Crow" became a nickname, and today there is hardly a person who calls me by my given name, or even knows it. No, I'm not Native American. I'm just a crow. And that's the size of it.

Sheeping Bags

Day 142: I've had a couple of requests for a photo of my "sheeping bags," and as you can see, there are several different versions, not only in the colours of the sheep bands, but in the lining as well. As you may also notice if you look closely, I've added my personalized "Made with Love" tags as a finishing touch. Now while I can't claim to have woven the fabrics, almost everything else about these bags is hand-done: the krokbragd bands, the sewing, the knotted cords and the setting of all those dang grommets, of which I only screwed up one out of 64. I managed to remove the bent one without damaging the bag, and reinstalled a new one properly. Actually, I think that was a record for me. As you might guess, I've learned a few things about grommet setting over the years. It has also occurred to me that I have not yet made a sheeping bag for myself. That will be remedied when my current fabric order arrives.

A Pineapple In The Hand

Day 141: The pineapple is a delightful single-strand terminal knot which conceals the raw end of a rope or cord. It is relatively easy to tie in the hand, and fortunately so. Over last night and this morning, I've tied 16 of the blasted things, putting the finishing touches on the "sheeping bags" I sewed up earlier in the week. I'm using a 4mm cotton macramé cord. It's soft and a bit floppy to work with, but tightens down into a firm knob. The pineapple knot is formed with a start of three bights, then doubled in a loose "cloverleaf." Working backwards from the running end, the bights are tightened to take up the slack a little at a time. The process may need to be repeated three or four times until the knot is fully tightened. Be patient! Taking out too much slack at once may disrupt the lay of the cords, making it difficult to continue. I like to put an overhand knot on the running end to serve as a core for the knob. It also prevents the end from popping out from between the strands while working.

They Know Where I Live

Day 140: It is an acknowledged fact that my birds have me well trained. If I let the feeders go empty, they will perch on the shepherd's-hooks outside my windows and stare into the house until the sense of being watched compels me to look up. Failing that, they will knock on the windows (imagine, if you will, a hummingbird beak tapping on glass) or flutter against them to get my attention. Some come to the back porch, knowing that Food Bringer comes out through it with the can of seeds. It's not uncommon for me to have to ask juncos (in particular) to move over so I don't step on them when I go out. A few days ago, this was the sight that greeted me when I went out to fill the feeders for the first time that morning. Note that all the little toe prints are facing toward the house. The lineup had been waiting for me. They know where I live.

Cat Scan

Day 139: The second "jeans rug" came off the loom yesterday and I wanted to measure it for my weaving records. I tossed it down on the living room floor, intending to go for the yard stick, and the next time I turned around, it was being cat-scanned. I hadn't even tied the fringe yet, but apparently it has the official seal of approval. The next (last) rug on this warp will be made from t-shirt strips. In fact, I realized I was running out of denim halfway through this one and had to put in an emergency call to friends in the hopes of someone having a pair of jeans they were anxious to retire. As it turns out, I have half a dozen strips left from the donation, the "seed" for another series of rugs somewhere down the line. How well do these hold up? Suffice to say that I am still using a couple I made over thirty years ago.