Fiber Musings

I have opinions. Lots of them, actually. But I rarely voice them here. Unlike my sister, I want to keep my fiber activities separate from my views on politics, religion, environmental & fiscal issues.

I believe everyone should have their own views, as long as they are informed views, I have no issues with them. If I decide to only have friends and acquaintances that agree with my point of view, my world would be very very boring, not to mention limiting. There are lots of people that I like, and maybe even admire in some manner or another, but don’t agree with their political or religious views. But our shared interests keep them in my circle of friends. Going into these friendships, I know what their religious and political views are, and that they may be completely 180 degrees from mine.  That’s fine. We still have shared common interests. And I still consider them friends.

This is why I was stunned when I received a mass email from a friend of mine that regurgitated the scare tactics created by the supporters of California’s Proposition 8. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t know how to respond. I thought that we had gotten past this point in our friendship and agree to disagree on our views.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not shy. I am more than happy to voice my opinions and have an exchange of ideas and opinions. But I’m also not confrontational, nor a masochist. I know that there are certain people that I will never be able to change their mind on a specific topic. I can talk myself blue in the face, and they won’t budge. They might as well be a brick wall. I don’t go there if I know that the end result is frustration and hurt feelings, instead of an intelligent conversation and exchange of ideas/ideals. I’m even willing to talk about the various interpretations of the Bible, differences in the Old vs the New testament, the Qu’ran.  (Martin was much better at this than I am.) As long as the premise is an open mind.

Back to the email. I reviewed the header. It appears that this person just sent it out to everyone in their address book, without regard to the context of why the person is in their address book or what their views might be. Yes, you might be able to change someone’s mind by discussing it on a one-on-one basis, but never in a mass email like this. I was insulted that she thought I could be swayed by an email such as this. If this was presented personally, then I would be able to talk to her and understand her position a bit more, and perhaps have a conversation about why Proposition 8 is wrong.  As it was, I was stunned silent. And I’m not proud of it.

Thankfully, there was at least one other that was able to provide a coherent answer.  You can read his answer on his blog. (His wife was the other one that provided a thoughtful response.)

And what about this friend? I haven’t decided yet. I do realize that I need to talk to her about this. But I want to do this in person, because I still value her as a friend, regardless of our views.

Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m voting No on Proposition 8.  And if you care to keep an open mind and have an intelligent conversation, I’ll bring the wine.

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Fall is in the air.  For Northern California, it means rain.  It’s a good day to curl up with a cup of tea and a good read.

Go ahead.  Pick yours up.  Exercise your right to vote.  Be an informed voter.  There are too many important issues at stake for you to sit back and ignore.  Read and study up on the issues, mark up that sample ballot.

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For the most part, my camera stayed in my bag during SOAR.  I was too busy spinning, visiting, and drinking to take it out of my bag and take photos.  I did, however, take some videos.

Aquilina and Denny dancing during the Spin-In on the last evening of SOAR.

Pendulum Wheel in action at the Home Textile Tools Museum.

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I’ve been fighting with my Schacht Matchless for the past several months.  I haven’t been able to find the sweet spot between the drive band driving the wheel and the scotch tension draw in.  If I get the draw in needed, the drive band is so taut that you can play it like a violin, and the treadling is stiff.  The ratio between the wheel and the bobbin is erratic.  I’ve broken countless drive band cords and sworn numerous times at the darn thing.

Today, I had an epiphany.  This all started when I changed the drive band cord to a new cord material several months back.  The new cord diameter is too small and doesn’t cover the same surface area in the whorls, so it slips instead of gripping the whorl.  When it doesn’t grip, the whorl doesn’t turn.  I can’t put much tension on my scotch tensioner because that’s just enough to cause the drive band to slip again.

I no longer have any butcher twine that was my previous standard.  Nothing in the house even comes close to resembling it in size or roughness.  I tried some Classic Elite cotton yarn that I had in the house.  It’s close, but still too slippery.

Then I remembered the stretchy band I purchased with the wheel, but never attached.  After a couple of test joins, I made my first stretchy band.  My Matchless and I are happy with each other again.  Perhaps I’ll be spinning more again, instead of putting the wheel aside after 15 minutes of swearing.

I prefer the cotton twine to the stretchy band.  I’ll put the butcher’s twine back on my shopping list.  In the meantime, the stretchy band will keep me going.  (The stretchy band is set for my fast and high speed whorls.  These are the 2 that I use the most.  I’ll need separate cords for the medium and the super high speed whorls.)

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I took a couple of dye sessions during SOAR.

These skeins were done during the natural dye workshop at HTTM. The skeins were pre-mordanted before we arrived. I’ve laid them out in a grid.  Mordants by row: top – alum; middle – tin; bottom – chrome.  Dye materials are in columns: left – cochineal; middle – logwood; right – chamomile.  The fibers were in the pots for about 30 minutes.

If I recall correctly, the dye pots for the cochineal and chamomile were copper, so that will have affected the final color.  We also did a small skein of indigo.  Indigo does not require mordant.  Since the entire workshop was only 15 minutes, the indigo skein had very, very short dip.  After pulling the skein out after the first dip of about 2 minutes, I aired it out to allow the indigo to develop a bit.  Then I put it back in for another 2 minutes.  Still, it was very very pale.  Not worth showing the photo.

I was very surprised at how bright the skeins were that were pre-mordanted with tin and chrome.  However, I’m still not sure that they will be a regular part of my natural dye repertoire.  I just don’t want to think about the disposal aspect.

I took a the Painting with Dye retreat session with Sara Lamb.  I chose to paint a silk warp. The color chip on the right are the colors I chose, courtesy of the Sara Lamb Color Consulting Services.  Flipping through her dye notebook, we picked out 3 colors that I liked.  Flipped her color chips over, it was paint by numbers.  Or, at least, mix by numbers.  It’s a bit like working with a bar recipe.  60% fuschia? check. 20% yellow? check. 20% blue? check.  And you paint. Unfortunately, I got carried away and accidentally made the yellow/brown at 50% instead of the red/pink.  But, in retrospect, I’m glad.  Since it was raw silk, it had a pretty strong yellow/brown base.  A stronger yellow/brown dye wouldn’t have made much difference, but a weaker red/pink would have been too washed out.

The colors aren’t as saturated as I had hoped.  I saturated the heck out of the silk without making it run.  I left it sit in the jelly roll and zip lock bag for 3-4 days.  (The dye session was Saturday morning, I finally washed the warp chain yesterday afternoon.)

The silk still stinks.  I’ve rinsed and rinse, and rinsed some more, and I still can’t get rid of the stink.  I left it outside for a day to air, and the smell is still there. Hopefully, it will fade over time.

This is the first time I’ve used fiber reactive dyes.  (Wait, I think I did a tie dye shirt at a company picnic once.  I leave the fiber reactive dyes to my sister.) I’ve always used acid dyes on silk in the past.  Silk is one of the oddities.  It’s a protein fiber that can be dyed with dyes for either protein and cellulose.  I’ve never noticed a smell with silk in the past before, so I don’t know if it’s an artifact of the raw silk and the soda ash that it was pre-mordanted with, or the combination of both.

Now, I just need to decide what I’ll use was weft when I weave this.  I know that it is supposed to be warp faced fabric, so I’ll need something a bit finer for the weft.  Sara recommends cotton.  I’ll have to see what I have in the stash.

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