disjointed words

The 11th hour

2011-12-31T19:29:00.007+02:00

I meant to blog at least 12 times this year... and am one post short. But to finish the year, I'll recap what's been doing the last few months:

Cross stitch!

Kai-Mei socks!

And 100g woollen-spun yarn from Värtsilän Villa!

Plus other stuff, but that was for Christmas presents and is already gone where it's supposed to. What next year? We'll see...

Spinning flax with a spindle

2011-10-25T13:05:00.006+03:00

For a good while now, I've been interested in spinning flax. Last Tour de Fleece, I finally got around to digging up a little long line flax that I had stashed - and it took me a little longer to finish the yarn. But now I'm done...

Tässä vähän juttua pellavan kehruusta värttinällä, kehruut kesällisiä mutta projektissa kesti.

I started with dressing the distaff according to the pictures in Veera Vallinheimo's book Das Spinnen in Finnland. First I took a flax strick (hobby shop quality, really bad with lots of tow in the middle):

Ohjeita luin Veera Vallinheimon kirjasta Das Spinnen in Finnland. Ensiksi, askarteluun tarkoitettua pellavaa:

Which was shaken out and worst bits stripped off:
Huonolaatuinen, mutta tässä pahimmat roskat poistettuna:

Then I pulled off small bits and spread out the flax in a kind of a "batt", overlapping layers of strick to make it longer:
Vedin irti pikku palasia ja asettelin ne limittäin levyksi:

Then I rolled it into a jelly-roll:
Kiersin levyn rullalle kuontaloksi:

Which got fixed onto a DIY paddle distaff (made out of cardboard and a paintbrush extension stick, with a card-woven band), here at front:
Kuontalon laitoin kiinni maalisivieltimen jatkovarren päässä olevaan taiteltuun kartonkipalaseen, mikä sai toimittaa kehräpuun (kuosalin) virkaa:

And the back (the band was pinned into the cardboard at the top):
Takaapäin:

And then I started spinning from the bottom end of the jelly roll, dipping my fingertips into water every once in a while (note recycled yoghurt cup edge on the side table):
Kehrätessä kostutin sormia vedessä, huom. kierrätetty jugurttipurkki pöydällä:

Then the yarn was done:
Sitten tuli valmista:

A long break ensued. After I'd pondered on different kinds of instructions, and bought soda ash, I dug out an old dyeing kettle and boiled a few litres of water with a few drops of dishwashing detergent and a few teaspoons of soda ash, and plonked the flax skein there for a half an hour, which turned the water a dirty, dirty brown:
Viimeistely tapahtui keittämällä lankaa (huom! värjäykseen jne. pyhitetty kattila!) parissa litrassa vettä, johon oli laitettu pari tippaa tiskiainetta ja pari teelusikallista kidesoodaa, lanka sai olla padassa puolisen tuntia:

After it was rinsed and dried, it'd gotten shinier, paler, and more flexible (even if still crisp):
Huuhtelun ja kuivatuksen jälkeen lanka olikin jo vaalennut, pehmennyt hieman ja saanut kiiltoa:

As a bonus, I'll show a tiny sample skein of cosmetic cotton (see: Spinning cosmetic cotton) and boiled that before the flax - which did absolutely nothing except maybe set the twist:
Lisäksi keitin vähän puuvillaa, mutta sille ei tapahtunut mitään kiinnostavaa, kierre ehkä asettui:

Next, I'll use real flax strick meant for spinning, and possibly my wheel. Flax is fun and it spins up pretty fast.
Seuraavan kerran käytän kehruuseen tarkoitettua pellavaa, ja kokeilen miten se sujuu rukin kanssa. Värttinällä ainakin kehruu oli hauskaa ja kävi aika nopeasti.

Sock knitting

2011-10-25T12:59:00.005+03:00

They've been in the making for a long time... but now they're done:

Näissä meni pari vuotta, mutta viimein valmistuivat. Ovat jo jalassa:

Bayerische

Then I started a new pair of socks (that look thin... but they stretch a lot):

Ja sitten piti heti aloittaa uutta:

Tension!

2011-10-12T12:36:00.006+03:00

During SOAR, there was an informal Ravelry challenge to do Something. Well, I've been curious about different tensioning systems especially after learning that you can set up a double drive wheel with all 3 main types: Scotch tension (flyer-driven), Irish tension (bobbin-driven) and double drive (natch.)

Amerikkalaiset Ravelry-tutut kävivät kehruutapahtuma SOAR:issa ja kotiin jääneet järjestimme virtuaalihaasteen. Minä päätin tutkia erilaisia rukkien mekanismeja: lyhtyvetoinen (ns. skottilainen), rullavetoinen (ns. irlantilainen) ja kaksoisvetoinen (tai tuplavetoinen tai kaksinyörinen tai kaksoisnyörinen, eli se perinteinen mummon rukin systeemi).

Then, there was a tantalising mention in another Ravelry discussion about Scottish and Hebridean wheels that they used an extra bar above the maidens for attaching the brake band, which wouldn't require drilling holes or screwing hooks into my wheel... (Writing this post, I found a discussion with a link to a video with a wheel set up as she mentioned: In Sheep's clothing, also at 2:28 in this Youtube video: The Road To The Isles)

Sain inspiraation kun toisessa ketjussa mainittiin että skottilaisissa rukeissa pistettiin joskus ylimääräinen keppi korvakoiden väliin, johon sitten saattoi kiinnittää jarrunyörin ruuvailematta ylimääräisiä koukkuja rukkiin. (Postia kirjoittaessa löysin vielä linkit kahteen videoon joissa tällainen rukki esiintyy: In Sheep's clothing, kohdalla 2:28 tässä Youtube-videossa: The Road To The Isles)

And so it was that one evening I rummaged in my craft box, came up with a chopstick and some finer gauge seine twine, and 5-10 minutes later I had this (since there already was a single-loop drive band waiting on the wheel for bobbin winder purposes):

Kotoa löytyi tarvikkeeksi syömäpuikko ja kalalankaa, rukissa olikin jo yksinkertainen nyöri ylimääräisenä odottamassa:

Scotch tension
Lyhtyvetoinen

The band goes around the bobbin groove, and tightness is adjusted by twisting the chopstick so that the twine is rolled tighter or looser around the stick.

Jarrunyöri menee kerran rullan uran ympäri, kireyttä säädetään rullaamalla sitä lisää tai vähemmän puikon ympäri.

It worked and provided both very light and very strong take-up as needed, but the hissing sound of the brake band was noticeably louder than I liked. In addition, the feel of the take-up was more "dry" or non-responsive than DD. After that I've had a chance to test other ST wheels (Majacraft Pioneer, Little Gem and Rose, and Schacht Sidekick and Ladybug) and while the responsiveness isn't the same as a DD, I'm willing to chalk my own wheel's lack to my faults in setting up the tension. A different brake band material and drive band could well have improved it considerably - and my mechanism was, to say the least, primitive.

Tällä sai rukin vetämään lankaa rullalle sekä vähän että voimakkaasti, mutta tuntuma oli kuivakka tuplavetoiseen verrattuna. Osa pitää pistää primitiivisen toteutuksen syyksi, koska muut tällaiset rukit eivät ole olleet yhtä kuivia. Jarrunyöristä lähti myös kovasti ääntä, mutta kalalanka ei ehkä ole paras jarrumateraali ylipäätään.

The following day I re-tied the bands in a different way:
Seuraavana päivänä kokeilin jotain muuta:

Irish tension - front
Rullaveto edestä

Irish tension - side
Rullaveto sivulta

Adjustments also made by turning the chopstick, band goes only over one side of the bobbin. I eventually left out the brake band altogether, because it wasn't necessary - the flyer drag alone provided enough braking for wind-on to happen, and even the slightest touch of the brake band on the flyer provided more than enough extra take-up!

Nyöri menee vain rullan toiselta puolelta. Jätin jarrunyörin lopulta kokonaan pois, sillä näköjään pelkkä rukin siipien ilmanvastus riittää vedon säilyttämiseen, nyörin kanssa rullavetoinen rukki vetää tosiaan voimakkaasti!

Irish tension felt simply better and more responsive than ST, at least with my wheel; there was not such a noticeable difference with the modern ST wheels. It still wasn't as responsive and resilient like the DD, but it does have one possible advantage. In DD the take-up weakens when the bobbin gets really full, which is not so much of a problem when spinning, but is noticeable when plying. So I may well test this tension when the time to ply comes!

Tästä huolimatta pidin rullavetoisesta enemmän kuin rullajarruisesta. Se ei vielä tuplavetoista voittanut, mutta tuplavetoisella on ikävä tapa vetää heikommin jos rulla on kovin täynnä. Kehrätessä en ole huomannut sitä ongelmaksi, mutta kerratessa kylläkin, joten saatan kokeilla rullavetoa uudestaan kun seuraavan kerran kertaan lankaa.

As for DD, I dug out this old photo, showing the two loops of the drive band:

Ja tässä bonuksena vanha kuva rukista perinteinen tuplaveto päällä:

Double drive
Kaksoisvetoinen

It's what I like best so far. No accident here as it's what my wheel was designed for, and it works well for both almost non-existent as well as strong-as-a-draught-horse take-up. And after having tried Schacht Matchless... if I thought my wheel's DD take-up was more responsive than ST, the Matchless in DD is like telepathy. It just works.

Tästä pidän eniten. Vetoa voi säätää olemattomasta vahvaan, ja tuntuma on herkkä ja joustava. Tosin uudenmallista rukkia (Schacht Matchless) kokeiltuani, oma rukkini ei edes ole siitä kaikkein herkimmästä päästä...

Does that all mean I'd spit in the eye of somebody offering me an ST/IT wheel? No! I'd shower them with flowers and ply them with fresh-baked delicacies instead :) But these tensioning systems do feel different to use so it would take a little time to really get comfortable with them.

Ei silti, ottaisin lyhty/rullavetoisen jos sellaista tarjotaan! Mutta eri mekanismeissa on eronsa ja uudelle mekanismille kannattaa antaa tutustumisaikaa.

Random assortment of things done last month

2011-10-05T12:51:00.002+03:00

I have been lazy with pictures, but here's proof of life: finished a lace shawl (Pitsigootti) out of teetee Elegant, and a longdraw project with an industrial wool batt from Pirtin Kehräämö.

Uusi kamera on aiheuttanut hitautta kuvien julkaisussa, mutta sarjassamme tehtyä tuli: Pitsigoottihuivi, ja villalankaa pitkällä vedolla Pirtin kehräämön karstalevystä.

And then I asked dad to turn two onion holders into wool combs (my design input and sanding and filing):

Lisäksi, isän varrettamat villakammat sipulinpidikkeistä:

They do work!
Ja toimivathan ne!

Showing off an old project

2011-08-10T10:23:00.007+03:00

This is an old project indeed - it's been a finished object since Midsummer, but I just got the photos organised and thought I'd tell a little about it. I am, if nothing, a leisurely spinner... but the FO was done in about 2 months. Go figure!

Esittelen tässä vanhan projektin, kun löysin kuvia. Kehruussa kesti kauan, mutta valmis shaali valmistui parissa kuukaudessa!

It started out with this merino-silk top from Limegreenjelly at Etsy, in October 2009:
Lokakuussa 2009 oli Limegreenjelly:n merino-silkkitopsia:

From Melodrama-2010-2011

Which I split from the middle into two thinner pieces:
Jonka halkaisin kahtia:

From Melodrama-2010-2011

And spun with my 15g Bosworth top whorl:
Ja kehräsin Bosworthin 15g yläpainoisella värttinällä:

From Melodrama-2010-2011

Then, in August 2010, it came time for the singles to be plied:
Elokuussa 2010 kerrattiin jo:

From Melodrama-2010-2011

But finally, I had finished yarn:
Lankaa!

From Melodrama-2010-2011

Which I used to make a Laminaria shawl, this year in June:
Josta tuli tämän vuoden kesäkuussa Laminaria

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

What I did on my summer holiday

2011-07-01T09:24:00.004+03:00

Having spent the Midsummer holidays in the peace and quiet of rainy countryside, I've finally dug up the camera and can give the report.
Vietin juhannusta viikon maaseudun rauhassa ja sain jotain valmiiksikin!

Just before leaving to the country, I put together these fancies from a couple of skull beads and jewellery parts I'd had laying around for ages:
Ennen lähtöä pistin kasaan pääkallohelmiä ja korunosia:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

Finished the small size of Laminaria, from my own handspun:
Sain valmiiksi pienemmän Laminarian itsekehrätystä langasta:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

Detail:
Lähikuvaa:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

And the Drops cardi (modded to fit, switched to moss stitch edging):
Ja sitten Dropsin ohjeesta muokattu villatakki:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

Then I finished one of the Bayerische socks and started a new one (had to change from the KnitPicks wooden needles to metal, because was constantly scared of breaking the 2mm:s with the twisted cables):
Sain myös toisen Bayerische-sukista valmiiksi ja aloitin uutta, kirpparilta löydetyillä metallipuikoilla sillä puiset 2mm puikot olivat pelottavan ohuet:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

And finally, started practicing hand quilting stitches with a quilt block I'd made a couple of years ago:
Ja lopuksi, kaivoin esiin vanhan tilkkutyön ja aloin harjoittelemaan tikkaamista käsin:

From Crafts - Jun 30, 2011

Considering that I spent most of my time watching bad reality TV, reading and feeding the horse and myself, not bad!
Suurin osa viikosta kului huonoja telkkariohjelmia katsoessa, lukiessa ja syöttäessä vuoroin itseä ja vuoroin hevosta, mutta ilmeisesti laiskottelin vähemmän kuin luulin!

Stress Test for Yarn, cont'd

2011-03-15T17:46:00.019+02:00

In an earlier blog post (Stress test for handspun yarn), I tested how different yarn structures handle stress. This is a continuation of the earlier experiment, because while it's interesting to know how heavy shopping bags you can hang from wool yarn, it's also interesting to see how wool handles abuse under stress.

All photos are clickable for a bigger version with more detail; measurements are in metric.

Test set-up

The equipment

The highly scientific and extremely rigorous test set-up consisted of two S-hooks, a cloth shopping bag, and paperback books plus packets of instant oatmeal (for weights). I tested the yarns by tying a certain length of yarn to the hooks, and then hanging the hook on one end to the bar for hanging coats in the hallway, and suspending the bag from the hook tied to the other end. Then I increased the load by adding books/oatmeal (or applied abrasion) until the yarn broke.

String heddles for abrasion test, singles of yarn used in testing

Some notes about the yarn used for the tests:

Fibre: 100% merino wool, commercial top
Tool: Spun with a wheel, plied with a Bosworth mini spindle
Drafting method: short draw across the top
Twist direction: Z-spun singles, all yarns S-plied
Type: worsted
Notes: The twist angle is not completely consistent, since I scavenged extra singles and remnants of a 3-ply sock yarn, and for some samples had to unply and re-ply to get enough material. This may have skewed the results for some experiments.

I first tested how much weight would be needed to break one singles of the yarn. This turned out to be ca. 640 g (22.5 oz). After determining that, I tensioned the length of yarn to be tested with a bag full of books and oatmeal packets weighing the aforementioned ca. 640 g (22.5 oz) and repeatedly pulled a cotton string tied in the shape of a heddle over a 10-20 cm section (4-9 in), at the same time pulling the yarn about 5-10 cm (2 in) to one side from the straight line, and counted how many times I could move the heddle into one direction (up or down) before the yarn broke.

Side note: wool, especially worsted-spun wool, is stronger than you'd think. It ate through my string heddles (as you can see), and I had to repair them several times. And this is rug warp for rag rugs - the same stuff that carves deep grooves in the wood beams of the loom.

Yarn breaking in numbers and pictures

Intact yarns

Baseline:
Singles - intact
Breaking from weight alone: 642 g (not pictured)

2-ply - intact
Breaking from weight alone: 1472 g

Chain ply (1) - intact
Breaking from weight alone: 3016 g

3-ply (1) - intact
Breaking from weight alone: 2306 g

Chain ply (1) - intact
Abrasion at the knot: 219 passes (2nd try: 263 passes; not pictured)

3-ply (1) - intact
Abrasion: 464 passes (1st try: 76 passes; yarn not comparable with significantly softer twist; not pictured)

One strand cut

3-ply - 1 strand cut
Abrasion: 69 passes

Chain ply - 1 strand belonging to the “straight line” in the knot cut at a distance of ca. 3 cm from the knot
Abrasion at the knot: 56 passes

Chain ply - 1 strand belonging to a loop in the knot cut at a distance of 7 cm from the knot
Abrasion at the knot: 3 passes

Thoughts

Chain ply and 3-ply are structurally different, but in many situations they are just as strong. However, while parts of 3-ply and chain ply are identical, the knot in chain ply has interesting behaviour. When any of the strands forming the two locked loops in the knot is broken close enough to the knot that friction can’t stop the loop from slipping open, the end result is only one intact singles at that particular point, so the yarn behaves as a singles yarn. But if the “straight line” strand is broken, the locked loop is intact and behaves comparably to a 2-ply (a 3-ply with one strand cut becomes a 2-ply at that spot).

Sounds scary? Well, even in weaving, where the real life (i.e. yarn under tension and abrasion from heddles) more closely follows my experiment, you may not run into any problems. After all, with the yarns I hadn't deliberately and maliciously sabotaged, it took literally hundreds of passes before the yarn broke, causing it to become fuzzy and visibly worn long before it broke. Also, I found that with wool, twist energy and the friction between the plies kept the yarn hanging together for a good long time even when a strand broke. Fibre and spinning can also make a difference - if you look at the results in the earlier blog post, the thinner woollen-spun yarn was significantly weaker. Someday, I may repeat this experiment with silk, to see what happens if you use a slipperier fibre...

So, what does that mean for practical purposes? Nothing much. In normal wear, I'd have no qualms making socks out of chain ply, let alone a whole sweater that faces much less abuse. Even if a weak spot snagged at a nail and the yarn broke, well, who's to say that the same thing wouldn't happen to a 3-ply?

But there can be some circumstances where the properties of chain ply vs. 3-ply can make a difference. As my sample size was small, the results changed significantly with the type of yarn used, and special circumstances are, well, special (such as weaving a thin silk scarf with a backstrap loom, or knitting a tablecloth-sized wedding ring shawl from whisper-thin frog hair you're planning to stretch and block aggressively) - if you're worried, it's best if you do a sample of your own first.

Lautanauhaa

2011-02-06T22:21:00.004+02:00

Tässä se nyt sitten on:

Toinen harjoitusnauha Maikki Kariston kirjasta

Sain tämän valmiiksi jo perjantaina ja otin heti tuoreeltaan kuvat, olen sen jälkeen kyllä päätellyt langanpäät ja siistinyt tupsut. Lanka on pehmeää virkkauspuuvillaa, Punaisen Ristin kirpparilöytö joten merkkiä tai mallia en tiedä. Muuten hyvä, mutta nyppyyntyi lautojen kulutuksessa vähän.

Nauhalle ei ole mitään erityistä käyttöä, mutta kirjan kaikki eri vaihtoehdot kokeillessa oppi kyllä aika hyvin ymmärtämään miten laudoilla kutominen toimii! Nauhan eri puolille syntyy erinäköinen kuvio, joistain on vaikea päättää kumpi on se nurja ja kumpi oikea puoli. Kutominen oli myös todella nopeaa poimintakuvioisiin nauhoihin verrattuna, tosin huomasi taas että viiteen (tai kolmeen) laskeminen on yllättävän vaikeaa...

My first long card woven band, samples of different variations of a basic pattern. And some mistakes. Very fast compared to weaving pick-up patterns!

Kudontaa ja postin tuomaa

2011-02-02T08:09:00.004+02:00

Ensiksi, vähän silmäkarkkia:

Vasemmalta: kaksi perulaista värttinää, ensimmäinen Independencian kaupungista Cochabamban maakunnasta, toinen from Cuscosta, ja sitten tuettu värttinä puuvillan kehruuseen Guatemalasta (Chichicastenango), viimeiseksi bolivialainen wichuña (laaman luusta tehty kankaankudontaväline, jolla painetaan kude paikoilleen).

Sain nämä vaihdossa Lavernelta, joka kutoo kaikkea todella kaunista yksinkertaisilla vartalokangaspuilla - hänen Backstrap Weaving -blogissaan näkee lisää. Kuten huomaatte, en millään malttanut olla kokeilematta värttinöitä - kahdella ensimmäisellä testasin vähän villaa ja viimeisellä puuvillaa.

Ruskealla värttinällä (ensimmäinen vasemmalta) on tarina: viime syksynä Perussa järjestetyssä kutojien ja kehrääjien konferenssissa pidettiin pikakehruukilpailu, ja Lavernen kämppis Maxima sai tällä värttinällä jaetun ykköstilan, tuloksella 6 metriä kahdessa minuutissa. Siinä olisi vähän tavoitetta seuraavaksi 30 vuodeksi...

Lautanauha

Edellisen kirjoituksen loimesta on tullut sitten tällaista harjoitusnauhaa Maikki Kariston kirjasta Lautanauhoja. Välissä on melkoista sotkuakin, mutta en ole pahemmin virheitä purkanut, koska tarkoituksena oli nimen omaan kokeilla kaikkea mahdollista! Lointa ei ole enää paljoa jäljellä, saa nähdä ehdinkö kutoa enää siihen kapenevan pään.

"Doubleweave" - kaksipuolista sidosta

Ylempänä mainitsin, että Lavernella on kudontablogi. Tämä on sitten hänen ohjeidensa mukaan kudottua kaksipuolista sidosta (one weft doubleweave), jolle en ole vielä ehtinyt etsiä "virallista" suomalaista nimeä. Hauskaa mutta hidasta, sillä jokainen loimilanka täytyy poimia viriöön erikseen sekä kuvion että taustan kohdalla - vähän niin kuin ristipistotyötä siis...

Vuoden alkua?

2011-01-31T23:40:00.003+02:00

Tässä vähän maistiaisia viime vuodelta:

Ja jotain tänä vuonna aloitettua, joka on ehtinyt kyllä tästä vaiheesta jo aika paljon pitemmälle...

edit: Ja innoituksena kaikkeen tähän puun, pahvin ja langan kanssa näpertämiseen on ollut joululahjaksi toivottu ja saatu Maikki Kariston Lautanauhoja...

Matonkudontaa

2010-10-31T23:05:00.003+02:00

Olen pitkään (siis pikkulapsesta asti) halunnut oppia kutomaan kangaspuilla. Tänä syksynä tajusin että voisihan tuota käydä vaikka kurssilla, ja lähdin sitten Pirkanmaan Kotityön järjestämälle kankaankudonnan peruskurssille Verkarannan taitopajassa. Mainostan että siellä järjestetään paljon muitakin kiinnostavia kursseja, niistä ei vain kuule koska niiden mainokset on piilotettu yhdistyksen omaan lehteen ja Verkarannan nettisivuille.

Kurssilla oli ensin teoriaosa jossa sai kyllä myös käytännön opastusta ja harjoitusta kangaspuiden kokoamisessa, loimen luonnissa ja rakentamisessa. Sitten saimme kukin kolme kudontapäivää, joilla tehdä mitä huvittaa. Itse olin saanut kaverilta matonkuteita, joten aioin käyttää ne loppuun. Matto ei ole ihan valmis vielä, viimeinen kudontapäiväni on huomenna, mutta tältä se näytti lauantaina:

Ei hullumpaa ensikertalaiselta, vaikka itse sanonkin! (En kommentoi miten monta kertaa kuvioraidat piti purkaa ja tehdä uusiksi.)

Briefly, I went to a weaving course and learned how to wind a warp, set up for weaving, and now I'm making my first rag rug ever, and am very happy about it - even if the first pattern stripe had to be re-woven about 10 times.

Old lace, new lace

2010-09-07T14:32:00.004+03:00

I found an old bobbin lace pillow (probably homemade) on a flea market. It had a project pinned on, and an instruction book from the 1950s with it. The project was in a horrible tangle and one bobbin was broken. I untangled it, and glued the bobbin together:

Löysin nypläystyynyn kirpparilta halvalla! Siinä oli ohjekirja ja kesken jäänyt pitsiprojekti mukana. Nypylät olivat solmussa ja yksi oli poikki, mutta selvitin sotkun ja liimasin nypylän kokoon:

I noticed that there were some mistakes in the lace and unwove it a bit. There were still more mistakes left (a frustrated beginner maybe?), but I decided to leave them in to remember the last owner, as they weren't so bad:

Edellinen tekijä oli mennyt mallissa sotkuun, joten purin jonkun matkaa pois (ehkä työ oli jäänyt turhautumisesta kesken?). Jäljelle jääneessäkin pätkässä on virheitä muttei niin pahoja, joten päätin pitää ne muistona edellisestä omistajasta:

And this is how far I've come! I haven't taken a course, but bobbin lace was one of the things I played with as a kid/teenager, so I remembered the basic stitches with a little help from the instruction books (and a lot of weaving and unweaving). It's fun!

Näin pitkälle pääsin - en ole käynyt kurssilla, mutta opettelin pienenä itse kirjoista. Lunttasin vähän oppaista, ja kyllä se palasi mieleen kunhan tarpeeksi tekee ja purkaa. Kivaa!

Spinning fireweed fluff

2010-09-06T11:14:00.010+03:00

Let's talk fluff.
Höttöistä asiaa...

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium, a.k.a. Great Willow-herb, or Rosebay Willowherb) is a pretty, red-blossomed weed:
Kaikki varmaan tietävät maitohorsman (Epilobium angustifolium)?

Every fall, the seed pods (those long, narrow things under the blossoms) break open and release a cloud of fluff. And every year, I wonder if you can spin it. This year, I grabbed a takhli and decided to find out:
Joka vuosi kun maitohorsman höytyviä lentelee ilmassa, mietin saisiko niistä lankaa. Tänä vuonna nappasin intialaisen tuetun takhli-värttinän, ja pitihän sitä yrittää:

Left: dry, open fireweed pods; middle top: discarded bits of broken singles; middle down: discarded pods; right: takhli with a cop of cotton, and spun fireweed singles wound at the top of the shaft.
Vasemmalla: maitohorsman siemenkotia, kesk. ylhäällä: katkenneita säikeitä, kesk. alhaalla: siemenkotien kuoria, oikealla: takhli, jossa puuvillalankaa ja varren ympärillä kierrettynä maitohorsmalankaa.

Fireweed fluff has a staple length of ca. 0,5-1 cm (+1/4 in), has no elasticity, will fly off at the slightest breath when dry and stick to anything damp (your hands, itself). You can't get the seeds out, but luckily they fill mostly fall off while spinning. In short, it's a pain to spin and will make a big mess. Nevertheless, after a while I started to get the hang of putting in just the right amount of twist to keep it structurally sound while not too much so that it snapped, and managed to make a bit of Z-spun singles. I then folded the singles in half and plied them S - twice, because the first go didn't give enough twist and the plied yarn drifted apart when tugging.

Maitohorsmakuidun pituus on 0,5-1 cm, eikä se jousta ollenkaan, lähtee kuivana lentoon pienimmästäkin henkäyksestä ja tarttuu kiinni kosteisiin käsiin tai myttäytyy yhteen. Siemeniä ei saa pois, mutta enimmät putoilevat irti kehrätesssä. Jos lankaan laittaa liian vähän kierrettä, se hajoaa ja jos liikaa, se katkeaa vetäessä. Onnistuin kuitenkin kehräämään vähän Z-kierteistä säiettä, jonka taitoin sitten kaksinkerroin ja kertasin tiukasti S-kierteiseksi (koska jos kertauskierrettä ei ole tarpeeksi, lanka voi hajota vetäessä).

And here it is:
Ja siinähän se:

There's a 5 euro-cent coin for scale. It's probably about 30 cm (1 ft) long bit of string altogether, fluffy and soft and a bit fragile.
Vertailun vuoksi 5 sentin kolikko. Lankaa on ehkä 30 cm, se on pehmyttä ja vähän haurasta.

An old Finnish source talks about the properties of fireweed:

Flora Fennica. 1866, written by Elias Lönnrot and Th. Saelan (via Henrietta's Herbal).

Folk usage: Fluff is good for stuffing pillows etc.; it may also be spun as yarn for candlewicks. The sprouts can be eaten in spring. Cows give plentiful milk when eating this plant. It would be good sown in stony dirt, where forest etc. is being allowed to grow. Roots spread over a wide area.

Löysin viimeinkin lähteen, missä kerrotaan maitohorsman haivenien kehruusta, eikä aivan vähäisen, (Henrietta's Herbal):

Flora Fennica. Suomen Kasvio, 1866, kirjoittaneet Elias Lönnrot ja Th. Saelan.

Epilobium angustifolium L. Maitohorsma. (R98: Epilobium angustifolium L. (Chamaenerion angustifolium (L.) Scop., Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub), maitohorma (rentun ruusu); duntrav, mjölkört.)
Muist. -- Haivenet sopivat täytteeksi tyynyihin j. n. e.; niistä taidetaan lankaaki kehrätä kynttilän sydämiksi. Juurivesat keväällä kelpaavat syödä parissina. Lehmät lypsävät hyvin tästä kasvista. Ansaitsisi viljeltää kivisessä ja multaisessa maanlaadussa, jossa metsää ynnä annetaan kasvaa. Juuret levenevät laajalta.

I have another fireweed (and nettle) project going, but more about that another time.
On minulla toinenkin maitohorsmaprojekti, mutta siitä lisää joskus toiste!

Summer stuff

2010-08-19T19:11:00.006+03:00

Some thing done this summer... I got a drum carder:

And carded some batts:

And spun some yarn:

And did some demo in the kitchen:

And now I'm off to pick blueberries.

Tour de Fleece 2010

2010-07-12T14:11:00.002+03:00

Reporting late, but I'm in the Tour de Fleece again this year. The goal?

1. Spin every day (One make counts.)
2. Try something new on the challenge day
3. For the Team Suck Less challenge of spinning a mile I’ll probably walk a mile while spindling, or something else since I am slow.

Today (day 10) is actually a rest day, but I've already done point 1. spinning today...

Stress test for handspun yarn

2010-06-13T18:01:00.009+03:00

We were discussing relative strength of Navajo ply in Ravelry the other day. As I found myself bored and in need of entertainment this weekend, I did a little test, and here are the results.

The photos are clickable, and clicking will take you to Flickr if you want to see the details - but they are cell phone photos and I wasn't paying much attention on the settings, so apologies in advance for the horrid glare!

Test setup for measuring tensile strength

1 metre or 50 cm of yarn, each end tied to an S-hook with a square knot. One hook was hung from a laundry hanger thingie on the balcony, and a bag was attached to the other hook by its handles. Paperback books (and for more accurate measurements, bags of instant oatmeal and individually wrapped biscuits) were added into the bag until the yarn broke.

Notes on fibre, technique and the singles

Fibre: Ronaldsay pin-drafted roving from Scottish Fibres (medium wool with some kemp and VM that I didn’t bother to remove.)
Spindle: 11g "gingerbread" top whorl spindle from Rina's Spindles.
Drafting method: short draw with twist in the drafting zone
Twist direction: Z-spun singles, all yarns S-plied, all cables re-plied Z (including the double Navajo ply).
Type: semi-woolen
Length of material available: a rough couch-length of singles (ca. 1,8m) was measured for plying all different yarns
Twist setting method: yarn was dunked in hot water and left to dry hanging freely.

Here you can see all the yarns lined up:

Results

In the following there's first an image of the break, followed by the technical details of the yarn and the breaking point (all measurements are in the metric system):

Singles: ca. 38 wpi, twist angle 30-35° (1 metre sample)
Breaking point: 153g (+/-126g)

2-ply: ca. +24 wpi, plying twist angle (TA) 25° (1 metre sample)
Breaking point (BP): 556g (+/-196g)

3-ply: ca. 20 wpi, TA 20°
BP: 813g (+/-35g)
BP, second test: 838g (+/-35g)

Navajo ply: loop length: 20-30 cm, ca. 20 wpi, TA 20°
BP: 878g (+/-30g)
BP, second test: 767g (+/-35g)

4-ply: ca. 19 wpi, TA 20° (1 metre sample, stretched so much I had to move to using a shorter sample length)
BP: 1512g (+/-209g)

2x2 cable: ca. 18 wpi, TA 20°
BP: 1512g (+/-209g)

6-ply: ca. 14 wpi, TA 25°
BP: 2080g (+/-196g)

Navajo-ply, which was Navajo-plied with itself (comparable to a 9-ply): both initial and final loop length: 20-30 cm, ca. 12 wpi, TA 25°
BP: 2842g (+/- 180g)

Intermediary notes

Plying structure didn’t seem to matter very much: cabling didn’t give a dramatically greater increase in strength, and Navajo ply and traditional 3-ply were both roughly equally strong (In the first test Navajo ply survived 65g more than 3-ply and in the second, 3-ply survived 71g more, both with a tolerance of +/-35g, so the results were fairly close).

All Navajo plies showed the same distinctive pattern in breakage, as expected: in all weight tests, the break occurred at a “knot” point, usually leaving one loop in the chain intact and breaking the other one. The other structures show fraying and snapping, but it isn’t possible to predict in advance at which point of the yarn a break will occur, unlike in Navajo ply.

Stress testing continues

I still had lengths of yarn left, so I decided to perform another test - namely, how long would it take for the yarn to break, if I rubbed one point of a 30-cm long length of it against the metal radiator edge? Times varied, because I'm not a consistent machine and the yarns have weak spots, but if you are curious, here are the results of approximately how long it took to break the yarn:

Singles: 2 seconds
2-ply: 5 seconds
3-ply: 8 seconds, (second try: 23 seconds)
Navajo ply: 16 seconds, (second try: 23 seconds)
4-ply: 16 seconds
2x2 cable: 8 seconds
6-ply: 27 seconds
Double Navajo ply: 38 seconds

Still not content, I tried breaking one strand in the yarn and see how it held up to tugging (at this point, all pretense of scientific method had to be abandoned, as I don't have a device for measuring strength of pulling):

Singles: Broke easily.
2-ply: After one strand was broken, broke the same as singles yarn.
3-ply: Broke fairly easily.
Navajo ply: Broke fairly easily like the 3-ply, but if the break in the strand was close to the "knot" in the chain, the distinctive breaking pattern showed.
4-ply: Needed a little force to break.
2x2 cable: Same as 4-ply.
6-ply: Needed quite a bit of force to break.
Double Navajo ply: Needed a lot of force to break. Breaking pattern was similar to 6-ply, but if the break occurred close to a "knot" in the chain, the distinctive breaking pattern showed.

Conclusions

The single most important factor proved to be the number of plies. The strength of the yarn increased almost exponentially, when just one strand was added. The plying method was much less significant - cabled yarn and a 4-ply were roughly equal, as well as 3-ply and Navajo/chain ply, but either a 4-ply or cabled yarn was much stronger than a 3-ply or Navajo/chain ply.

The Ravelry discussion centered on the relative strength of Navajo ply. From this test I can say that at least for this fibre and these singles, 3-ply and Navajo ply were comparable. Because of the fuzziness of the fibre and the fineness of the singles, I had to check the yarn very, very closely to tell the two samples apart!

The main difference between the structures was that while the 3-ply would break at some unpredictable point wherever it was the weakest, Navajo ply would usually break at the "knot" or loop in the chain, showing the distinctive "strand and loop" pattern in one end. The exception to this was in the experiments with "sawing" the yarn through or breaking just one strand and tugging - if the break didn't occur near a knot, the yarn would behave in a similar manner to a 3-ply.

What can you conclude from all this? Surprisingly little, actually. The tests, as they stand, only comment on the suitability (or lack thereof) of using yarn for hanging things with and show that woolen spun yarn doesn't take abrasion kindly. If you change one factor (singles thickness, twist angle, drafting method, fiber preparation...) the yarn strength will change, sometimes more, sometimes less, so these results aren't the whole truth about yarn. Also, yarn in a knitted, woven or crocheted fabric will behave differently than yarn alone. Felting and level of wear and tear will also affect durability.

So don't take my word for this, but try it yourself and sample! Your yarn may yet surprise you.

(Use of these pictures (despite the less than stellar photography) and results is permitted if anyone so desires, I officially don't mind.)

Where the yarn ended up

2010-05-07T18:40:00.007+03:00

So, the Ravelympics have been and gone. The yarn got finished in time, and almost immediately I cast on a pair of socks. Never mind that this was fairly high micron-count merino, and while it was a 3-ply with a fair amount of twist, it could've had more. I'm wearing the socks now, and although they are pilling and looking a bit bedraggled already, they are very, very comfortable.

On to the pictures:

3-ply Merino from Merinovilla, 217 m / 92 g, wpi: 14-18, spun with short draw across the top - on the wheel, natch.

Haruha socks, pattern by Kristel Nyberg.

What, another beauty shot?

And of course, the badge.

After that I have spun up some more stuff - but that's enough for one post, don't you think?

Ravelympics: midway report

2010-02-23T22:35:00.003+02:00

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this:

There is now a faint possibility that I might finish the third bobbin before the closing ceremonies. Faster, wasn't it?

Ravelympics 2010 - Day One

2010-02-13T22:16:00.006+02:00

I should've probably started the year by recapping the previous year, but eh. Maybe later. For now, I'm in the Ravelympics, trying to complete a WIP - spinning 100g of merino top into 3-ply sock yarn. Here's what I started with:

I figure since I started that last December (I think) and have managed only 5 min every now and then, I'll have more than enough challenge trying to spin it all in little over two weeks.

And progress for day 1? I did manage to make that length of top noticeably shorter, and bake both cookies and bread (from the 5-minute artisan bread recipe by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François), so even if I don't reach my goal, at least I won't starve trying.

Hand card renovation

2009-10-31T23:21:00.006+02:00

I've done this a while ago, but never got around to posting pics. Here goes: I bought a pair of hand cards by Toika at a local craft store, but they were pretty coarse (32 tpi), and since I was mainly carding Finn, I wasn't happy with them. Besides, they were heavy. I started scouring local flea markets for old hand cards, and finally found a pair for 3 euros (dirt cheap!). The price was low for a reason: the card cloth was disintegrating and all the tines were rusted.

Tästäkin on jo aikaa, mutta kerrotaan nyt kuvien kanssa: Ostin aluksi Toikan karstat, mutta ne ovat vähän turhan karkeat suomenlampaalle (n. 5 piikkiä/cm2). Aikani kirpputoreja koluttuani löysin varsin huonokuntoisen parin kolmella eurolla - puuosat olivat kunnossa, mutta piikkimatto oli mätä ja ruosteinen.

Not daunted (my tetanus shots are in order), I took a pair of pliers and jiggled all the old nails out:

Vanhan piikkimaton naulat sai pois pihdeillä:

After stripping and a vigorous brushing to remove the dust and rust, the cards started to look OK:

Kun karstoista oli vielä harjattu ruoste ja pöly pois, ne alkoivat näyttää jo paremmilta:

The final step was to find a replacement card cloth. After looking at several online vendors, I decided on Wingham Woolworks, whose fine card cloth was a good size for my cards and had a good number of tines per inch (108 tpi) compared to the original cloth, which I measured to be at around 100 tpi. The price was very good, shipping from UK to Finland came cheap as these were sent as a letter, and the company answered my questions promptly and thoroughly.

Viimeiseksi piti löytää vielä jostain varaosia. Tilasin piikkimattoa sitten Wingham Woolworksilta, joiden hieno piikkimatto oli oikean kokoinen ja sen piikkien tiheys melkein sama kuin alkuperäisessä eli n. 17 piikkiä/cm2 (alkuperäinen n. 16 piikkiä/cm2). Hintakaan ei päätä huimannut, paketin sai kirjeenä ja yrityksestä vastattiin auliisti kyselyihini.

The only thing left was to staple the card cloth to the cards (dad helped with a medium heavy-duty stapler) and get to work:

Sitten ei muuta enää tarvinnutkaan kuin niitata uusi matto karstoihin (isä auttoi omalla raskaamman luokan nitojallaan) ja alkaa karstaamaan:

Overall, I couldn't be happier. The renovated cards are light and easy to use, and the card cloth is working very well. A nice bonus is that they came cheap: 3 euros for the card bases and 12,56 euros for the card cloth makes the total cost 15,56 euros altogether - and brand new Louët cards will set you back 50 euros. But the best thing is that now I can make lovely rolags, and my coarse cards have found a good use in untangling matted fleece!

Olen ollut näihin todella tyytyväinen. Hinnaksi tuli tosiaan 3e (karstat) + 12,56e (pari piikkimaton paloja), yht. 15,56e. Kaikkein parasta, nämä karstat ovat erittäin kevyet ja mukavat käyttää, ja niillä tulee hyvää jälkeä! Karkeat karstatkin löysivät käyttöä: ne kelpaavat hyvin takkuisen villan selvittelyyn.

On washing fleece

2009-09-30T21:28:00.013+03:00

I've procrastinated about this post like crazy, but now I have something to show for it! You see, last April I bought a paper shopping bag full of brown and white Finn fleece, a bit completely unwashed and most hosed down with cold water, and I was happy. At least until I got home and started sorting it. The pile of dirty white on the left all went to the rubbish bin.

Parempi myöhään kuin ei milloinkaan! Ostin pussillisen villaa lammasmarkkinoilta huhtikuussa. Kuvasta näkyy ettei se ollut kovin ihmeellistä, likaisenvalkoinen kasa vasemmassa reunassa on menossa kokonaan roskiin.

The cold-washed bits turned out to be mostly skirtings with yellow stain, lots of vegetable matter (VM), and what's worse, they were matted. Felting is caused by heat, agitation and alkaline environment (and I suspect, water) - sometimes only one of these is enough, and Finn is famous for being good for felting. I did try to spin some of the white in the grease, but quickly decided that a hot wash wouldn't hurt.

Osa villoista oli suihkutettu kylmällä vedellä, mutta siinä oli silti vielä likaa ja heinänsilppua ja se oli pesussa takkuuntunut. Kehruuta kokeiltuani päätin pestä siitä lanoliinin ja lian pois.

I used an old mesh curtain to lift the fleece out of the water, and did the first was with hot water (the hottest that came from the tap, with some boiling water added) and regular dish soap. For the dirtiest bits, I did two soaks with dish soap for about 10-15 minutes and took the fibre out before it had cooled off. Then I did several rinses in water that was only warm, and finished by spinning out the excess water from fibre in the big spin dryer our apartment building's laundry (also inside the mesh curtain to keep the machine clean). Next time I'll start with a cold water soak overnight to get the loose dirt out, since it would've saved me the second soapy wash and probably a few rinses, and softened out those tips that had been stuck together with dirt.

Käytin vanhaa valoverhoa villan siirtelyyn, ja pesin kuumassa vedessä tavallisella tiskiaineella, lisäten hanaveteen vähän kiehuvaa vettä. Liotin vain 10-15 minuuttia ettei villa ehtinyt jäähtyä, pesin toistamiseen saippualla jos vesi näytti vielä mustalta ja huuhtelin useampaan kertaan lämpimässä vedessä. Lopuksi linkosin vedet pois talopesulan isossa lingossa (verhon sisällä, tottakai). Ensi kerralla liotan villoja ensin kylmässä vedessä, niin pahimmat liat lähtevät eikä tarvitse sitten kuuman kanssa lotrata niin paljon.

It took a few weekends, but by June everything was washed and dried. The bit of brown wool that had been freshly sheared was also washed, and it taught me the importance of NO AGITATION! The cut ends got a bit matted together...

Kesäkuulle siinä meni ennen kuin kaikki oli pesty. Opin samalla ettei märkää villaa parane sörkkiä - mukana oli ollut vähän vastakerittyäkin villaa, jonka leikkuupinnat takkuuntuivat vähän käsittelyssä...

Then the renovation/move came, and spinning took a back seat. In September I took a Ravelry challenge for spinning fleece, and started on the white. Due to the matting, it had to be carded twice: first untangled with the coarse 32 tpi carders, and then made into rolags with the fine 100 tpi ones, and there was still a lot of waste (pile on the top right):

Elokuu kului remontteeratessa, mutta tässä kuussa innostuin Ravelry-haasteesta ja aloitin käsittelemään valkoista villaa. Takut piti ensin selvittää karkeilla karstoilla, ennen kuin villoista sai tehtyä kunnon lepereitä hienommilla - ja vieläkin löytyi roskavillaa (toinen kasa ylhäällä oikealla):

I spun it woolen on a spindle. It all fit!

Kehräsin valkoiset villat värttinällä pitkällä vedolla - kaikki mahtui!

Because I was practicing my woolen spinning, they yarn got a lot of thin spots, but there's a whole 100g skein of it, also plied with a spindle:

Yhteensä sitä on 100g, kertasin sen myös värttinällä. Ohuita kohtia löytyy paljon, koska pitkä veto on vielä hakusessa:

I've sampled the brown, but haven't decided on the yarn specs. We'll see what happens.

Olen ehtinyt tekemään vähän koelankaa ruskeasta, mutten ole vielä päättänyt mitä siitä tulee. Katsotaan.

Coming up for air...

2009-09-02T08:52:00.004+03:00

Oof. For the last month I've been renovating and moving. Just 500 metres away, but the new place is much, much nicer - and it's all mine! (And the bank's. But I'm the one with the keys.) There was loads of work to be done, though it may not look like it:

Before and after:

You know, looking at the picture you might be tempted to say that before is better than after (minus the horrid early 90s lamp), but believe you me, picture does not tell all. The old, dirty wallpaper that was full of nail holes is off and the walls have been painted, painting the ceiling white made the room higher, and finally having the old, yellowed and badly scratched birch parquetry floor sanded and refinished made it like a completely new floor.

You might think that I've had no time for anything else, but you'd be wrong. The Tour de Fleece was luckily completed just in time before everything started (and yes, I spun every day and even completed my challenge of spinning silk), but even in the middle of all the fuss I found reaching for my spindle. I've been meaning to talk about my adventures in wool washing since... er... the spring, and this project ties into it. Also, there has been progress with the Bayerische socks, although now that the first one's past the heel, you can't really tell!

Spinning cosmetic cotton

2009-07-06T22:47:00.007+03:00

In this segment we shall see what happens when a desperate spinner grabs a bag of cosmetic cotton and makes mock-punis.

Tässä jaksossa näemme mitä tavallisesta kaupan puuvillavanusta voikaan saada aikaan, ja kuinka tehdään korvike-puni (eli puuvillalepere).

First, you can separate the layers on the carded cotton batt:

Ensiksi karstatusta vanulevystä revitään sopivan kokoinen pala ja siitä kuoritaan ohuita levyjä:

Then you roll the layer around a convenient pencil:

Sitten levy kääritään esim. lyijykynän ympärille:

Finish the mock-puni by rolling it against a surface a few times until it's smooth:

Puninkorvike viimeistellään pyörittelemällä se tasaiseksi:

Ready to spin:

Valmiina kehrättäviksi:

End result:

Lopputulos:

Notes:

The little top whorl is from Rina's spindles, and it's zippy. Me likes it!

Cosmetic cotton (at least the Rainbow brand) is a short fibre. This is the stuff that didn't make the grade for spinning, so it's neppy, noily, and short. As in 1 cm staple length. Use long draw. Seriously. Using a short draw would mean short as in 0.5 cm short, so just take a deep breath, let the twist into the fibre supply and draw. It'll work out, trust me - or better yet, trust the fibre. No idea what I'm talking about? Try this article from the Spin-Off magazine's website - you need to register to read it, but it's free and worth it.

By the way, it's not necessary to make punis. You can tear off a piece and start spinning straight out, but I liked the puni format better and thought it was easier to spin.

This was a fun experiment! I don't know if I'll do any more with the cosmetic cotton - the fibre quality is not that great and apparently it's not that much more expensive to order some textile-grade fibre. Though if I'm ever jonesing for a spinning fix, it's comforting to know that I don't need to go further than my toilet cabinet!

Huomioita:

Pieni yläpainoinen värttinä on Rinalta - söpö ja nopea kapistus. Tykkään.

Ainakin Rainbow-merkkinen puuvillavanu on hyvin lyhytkuituista, eikä ihmekään, sillä tähän varmaan käytetään tekstiilinvalmistuksen jämiä. Nyppyjä löytyy, eikä kuidun pituus ole 1 cm enempää. Tavallinen lyhyt veto ei kovin pitkälle auta, joten jos tätä haluaa kokeilla, voi samalla tutustua pitkään vetoon. Spin-Off -lehden nettisivuilta löytyy englanninkielinen artikkeli, jossa tekniikka on selitetty kuvien kanssa - lukeminen vaatii ilmaisen rekisteröitymisen, mutta se kyllä kannattaa.

Punien teko ei ole lainkaan välttämätöntä, mutta minusta ne olivat mukavampia käytössä. Halutessaan voi repäistä pienen tukon vanua ja alkaa kehräämään siitä suoraan.

Kokeiluna tämä oli hauska! Jos oikeasti haluan puuvillalankaa, saatan kyllä ostaa kehruuseen tarkoitettua kuitua - laatu on parempi eikä hintakaan kuulemma niin kovin paljoa pahempi. Silti on kiva tietää ettei pahimman kehruuinnon iskiessä tarvitse mennä vessan kaappia kauemmaksi...

Next time... wool washing, probably. Or handcard renovation. Tour de Fleece is rolling along smoothly - my goals are so low that there's not much more to report on that front!

Ensi kerralla katsotaan ehkä villan pesua - tai vanhojen karstojen korjaamista. Tour de Fleecen tavoitteet olivat aika alhaalla, voi sanoa vain että kaikki menee suunnitelmien mukaan!

Tour de Fleece

2009-07-04T23:10:00.002+03:00

Even though I'm only mildly curious about cycling, I still enrolled into the Tour de Fleece (Flickr group), with the following goals:

Spin something every day (except for rest days, if desired). Anything. One minute counts. Fiber prep is an acceptable substitute if I run out of fiber and don’t want to spin straight from the lock.

For the challenge on 22nd, select one of the following routes:

spin silk

spin from the fold

spin/ply for at least 30 mins (stops to fix broken single/yarn, change bobbins etc. count in the time)

find out how to set the twist in that skein of cotton and actually do it

Day 1 has started the tour well, since I've both spun and prepped fiber. I doubt I'll be posting a day-to-day basis, but I may do some (photo-less) updates to keep track of my process - or lack thereof.

En seuraa pyöräilyä, mutta olen mukana Tour de Fleecessä. Heh.

The picture post

2009-05-31T22:10:00.003+03:00

There's been a lot done but no time to write - as usual! So I'm showing a few pictures of what's going on.

A heel has been achieved:

There's something new to play with:

Wool, wool and cotton (of which more later):

And more baby blue merino!

Pipa

2009-04-25T21:48:00.003+03:00

Tässä on edellisessä postissa mainitun pipon ohje suomeksi, koska halusin harjoitella neuleohjeen kääntämistä. Täytyy varmaan kokeilla myös kaavioiden tekoa, sillä kaiken auki kirjoittaminen käy työstä. Välikerroksia on tähän versioon saattanut tulla sittenkin liikaa, sillä olen huomannut pipolla olevan pientä taipumusta tehdä suikkaa päälaelle...

Pipa

Puikot: 3,5 mm (joko 80 cm pyöröpuikot tai 5 sukkapuikkoa)

Lanka: n. 97 m / 41 g suomenlampaan villaa, 2-säikeinen, kehrätty epätasaiseksi karstalankatekniikalla (pitkä veto). 12-13 kierrosta/tuuma.

Neuletiheys: n. 15 silmukkaa ja 30 kerrosta = 10 cm vähän venytettyä 3n, 3o joustinneuletta.

Valmiin pipon päänympärys: 56 cm.

Oikein neulotut kavennukset:

Vasemmalle nojaavat kavennukset:

Ylivetämiskavennus (yliv.): nosta yksi neulomatta, 1o, vedä nostettu silmukka neulotun yli

neulo 2o yhteen takareunoistaan

nosta 1s, neulo 2o yhteen, vedä nostettu silmukka kavennetun yli

Oikealle nojaavat kavennukset:

neulo 2o yhteen

Nurin neulotut kavennukset:

Vasemmalle nojaavat kavennukset:

neulo 2n yhteen

neulo 3n yhteen

Oikealle nojaavat kavennukset:

neulo 2n yhteen takareunoistaan (nosta kaksi silmukkaa oikein neuloen, palauta silmukat vasemmalle puikolle ja neulo nurin yhteen takareunoistaan)

Muita lyhenteitä:

(m): silmukkamerkki (jos halutaan)

...: jatka *3o, 3n* -mallineuletta merkkirengasta ennen kuvattuihin silmukoihin asti.

--

Luo 84 s.

Neulo *3o, 3n* joustinneuletta suljettuna neuleena joko pyöröpuikolla tai sukkapuikoilla.

Neulo 16 cm (48 krs); halutessasi voit asettaa viimeisellä rivillä merkkirenkaat jokaisen 4 x 21 silmukan mallikerran väliin.

Aloita kavennukset:

1: *yliv., 1o, 3n... 1o, 2o yht, (m), 2n yht, 1n, 3o... 1n, 2n yht takareunoistaan*, toista.
2-4: mallineuletta (4 kerrosta, 8s kavennettu)

5: *yliv., 3n... 2o yht, (m), 2n yht, 3o... 2n yht takareunoistaan*, toista.
6-8: mallineuletta (4 krs, 16s kav.)

9: *2o yht. takareunoistaan, 3n... 2n yht., (m), 2o yht., 3n... 2o yht. takareunoistaan*, toista.
10-12: mallineuletta (4 krs, 24s kav.)

13: *2n yht, 1n, 3o... 1n, 2n yht takar., (m), yliv. 1o, 3n... 1o, 2o yht.*, toista.
14 and 15: mallineuletta (3 krs, 32s kav.)

16: *2n yht, 3o... 2n yht. takar., (m), yliv., 3n... 2o yht.*, toista.
17 and 18: mallineuletta (3 krs, 40s kav.)

19: *2o yht., 3n...2o yht. takar., (m), 2o yht. takar., 3n... 2n yht.*, toista.
20: mallineuletta (2 krs, 48s kav.)

21: *yliv., 1o, 3n... 1o, 2o yht., (m), 2n yht., 1n, 3o... 1n, 2n yht. takar.*, toista. (56s kav.)
22: *yliv. 3n... 2o yht., (m), 2n yht., 3o... 2n yht. takar.*, toista. (64s kav.)
23: *2o yht. takar., 3n... 2n yht., 2o yht., 3n...2o yht. takar.*, toista. (72s kav.)

24: *nosta 1s, neulo 2o yhteen, vedä nostettu silmukka kavennetun yli, (m), 3n yht.*, toista. (80s kav.)

Katkaise lanka ja vedä langanpää viimeisten 4 silmukan läpi. Päättele langanpäät ja pese valmis hattu, että lanka pörhistyy.

Huomioita:
Kavennusten tekotapa tekee piposta käännettävän, kunhan päättelee langat näkymättömästi. Jos et halua pipoon taitetta, neulo 12-14 cm ennen kavennuksia; voit siinä tapauksessa neuloa myös 2-3 cm 1o, 1n -joustinneuletta alkuun. Jos haluat leveämmän taitteen, neulo 18-20 cm ennen kavennuksia. Suurempi tai pienempi koko on helpointa saada muuttamalla neuletiheyttä eli käyttämällä paksumpaa tai ohuempaa lankaa tai eri numeron puikkoja, mutta kavennusten periaate on varmaankin tarpeeksi selvä ettei ohjeen muuttamisen eri silmukkamäärille pitäisi olla liian vaikeaa.

The hat post

2009-04-23T22:40:00.003+03:00

I mentioned a hat a while ago, didn't I? Well, long story short, I needed a hat and happened to have some fresh handspun just waiting to be used. For inspiration, I started with the Jacques Cousteau hat by Typy, but with different decreases. This the first time I've ever done anything with my own handspun, and I've worn it every day ever since finishing it!

Taisin joskus mainita, että tulossa olisi pipoasiaa? No, tässä sitä on - kuvina ainakin. Ensimmäinen kerta, kun käytin itse kehrättyä lankaa, ja tälle on ollut käyttöä! Inspiraationa omalle mallille oli Typyn Jacques Cousteau -pipo.

From the top:

Ylhäältä:

From the side:

Sivulta:

By itself, so you can see how stretchy it is:

Joustaa kivasti, kuten kuvasta näkyy:

I'm calling this a "pipa", which means a woolly hat or toque in the Finnish dialect from the town I'm living in. Finnish version will be posted, later, and separately due to length.

Tunnustan sen verran tamperelaisuutta, että annoin ohjeelle nimeksi "pipa"... Tällä hetkellä vain vieraalla kielellä, käännän kunhan ehdin. Ja toiseen postiin, kun tähän ei mahdu.

Pattern:

The Pipa hat

Needles: 3,5 mm (either 80 cm circulars or set of 5 dpns)

Yarn: ca. 97 m / 41 g of wool (Finnsheep), 2-ply, spun thick and thin with woolen long draw, ca. 12-13 wpi

Gauge: ca. 15 st, 30 rows / 10x10 cm over somewhat stretched k3, p3 ribbing

Finished circumference: 56 cm.

Decreases:

Left-leaning knit decreases:

sl, k1, psso: Slip one stitch as if to knit, knit one stitch and pass the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch.

k2tog tbl: Knit two together through the back loop (i.e. slip two stitches as if to knit, return them to the left needle and knit together).

sl, k2tog, psso: Slip one stitch as if to knit, knit two together and pass the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch.

Right-leaning knit decreases:

k2tog: Knit two together.

Left-leaning purl decreases:

p2tog: Purl two together.

p3tog: Purl three together.

Right-leaning purl decreases:

p2tog tbl: Purl two together through the back loop (i.e. slip two stitches as if to knit, return them to the left needle and purl together).

Other abbreviations:

(m): stitch marker (optional)

...: Continue in the *k3, p3* pattern until you reach the specified stitches before the marker.

--

CO 84 st.

Join and begin knitting in the round in *k3, p3* ribbing, using either the Magic Loop technique or with stitches divided over 4 dpns.

Knit 16 cm ( 48 rows); If you want, place markers between the 4 repeats of 21 stitches at the last row.

Start decrease rows:

Row 1: *sl, k1, psso, k1, p3... k1, k2tog, (m), p2tog, p1, k3... p1, p2tog tbl*, repeat.
Rows 2-4: Knit (4 rows, 8 st decreased)

Row 5: *sl, k1, psso, p3... k2tog, (m), p2tog, k3... p2tog tbl*, repeat.
Rows 6-8: Knit (4 rows, 16 st decreased)

Row 9: *k2tog tbl, p3... p2tog, (m), k2tog, p3...k2tog tbl*, repeat.
Rows 10-12: Knit (4 rows, 24 st decreased)

Row 13: *p2tog, p1, k3... p1, p2tog tbl, (m), sl, k1, psso, k1, p3... k1, k2tog*, repeat.
Rows 14 and 15: Knit (3 rows, 32 st decreased)

Row 16: *p2tog, k3... p2tog tbl, (m), sl, k1, psso, p3... k2tog*, repeat.
Rows 17 and 18: Knit (3 rows, 40 st decreased)

Row 19: *k2tog, p3...k2tog tbl, (m), k2tog tbl, p3... p2tog*, repeat.
Row 20: Knit (2 rows, 48 st decreased)

Row 21: *sl, k1, psso, k1, p3... k1, k2tog, (m), p2tog, p1, k3... p1, p2tog tbl*, repeat. (56 st decreased)
Row 22: *sl, k1, psso, p3... k2tog, (m), p2tog, k3... p2tog tbl*, repeat. (64 st decreased)
Row 23: *k2tog tbl, p3... p2tog, k2tog, p3...k2tog tbl*, repeat. (72 st decreased)

Row 24: *sl, k2tog, psso, (m), p3tog*, repeat. (80 st decreased)

Cut thread, leave an end and draw it through the remaining 4 stitches. Weave in ends and immersion-block (wash) the finished hat to give the yarn a chance to bloom.

Notes:
The decreases ensure that this hat will be fully reversible, as long as you are careful when weaving in your ends. If you don't like a turn-up at the brim, you can choose to knit only 14 or even 12 cm straight, and possibly start with 2-3 cm in k1, p1 ribbing. A longer turn-up is produced by knitting 18-20 cm straight before beginning the decreases. Larger or smaller sizes would be easiest to get by using yarn and needles to get larger or smaller gauge, but I think the principle of the decreases is clear enough that it's possible to adapt it to other stitch amounts.

Winter spinning

2009-03-30T21:42:00.006+03:00

H'm. I've got lots of stuff I should probably post about - but let's start with the spinning.

Minulla olisi paljonkin näytettävää, mutta aloitetaan kehräämisestä!

First, five skeins:
Ensin viisi vyyhteä:

From the left:
Vasemmalta:

White 2-ply Finnsheep, 31g / ca. 190m, laceweight. This is an older skein that was badly, badly plied. I re-un-plied it with a spindle (took ages) and it's now balanced... but I do not want to go through that again. Next time, I will take the time to adjust the wheel.

Valkoista suomenlammasta, 2-säikeinen, 31g / n. 190m. "Korjasin" epätasaisen kierteen valmiista langasta värttinällä, ja kesti sen verran kauan että ensi kerralla kulutan mieluummin sen viisi minuuttia rukin säätämiseen.

Brown 2-ply Finnsheep, my first attempt of one-handed woolen longdraw on a spinning wheel, 41g / 97m, 12-13 wpi. Thick and thin and partly overplied, but all in all, I'm happy!

Ruskeaa suomenlammasta, 2-säikeinen, 41g / 97m, 12-13 kierrosta/tuuma. Ensi yritys kehrätä villaista "pitkää vetoa", joten lanka on epätasaista, mutta aika kivaa siitä kuitenkin tuli!

Green 3-ply Finnsheep, 7g / ca. 26m. First 3-ply, and pretty thin at that. I was going to do sock stripes from this and a few other batts, but we'll see how much I get at the end.

Vihreää suomenlammasta, 3-säikeinen, 7g / n. 26m. Tuli ohuempaa kuin suunnittelin, mutta ehkä tästä jonkun raidan sukansuuhun saa...

Red Navajo-plied Finnsheep, a test mini-skein on my new spindle! My dad actually spun a bit of the single just so he could "see how it works", and my sister tried too... didn't take, yet.

Punaista uudella värttinällä navajo-tyyliin kerrattua suomenlammasta. Koekappale, joku pätkä on isän ja siskonkin tekemää.

Then, the latest:
Viimeisin:

2-ply laceweight merino spun and plied on a spindle, 19 g / 171 m. I Andean-plied it; NOT going to try that again with thin singles! Or at the very least I'm going to make the plying bracelet big enough to actually go around the wrist. In any case, just a tip: winding 300+ metres on the plying bracelet will take a long, long time.

2-säikeistä merinovillaa, 19 g / 171 m. Kehrätty ja kerrattu värttinällä. En muuten suosittele laittamaan 300+ metristä ohutta säiettä perulaiselle kertausrannekkeelle - tai jos yrittää, pitää muistaa tehdä sen verran löysä ettei verenkierto tyrehdy ja ranneke mahtuu kämmenen yli!

Here's a in progress / spindle glamour shot:
Tässä kuva kertauksesta käynnissä, sekä värttinöistä:

Upper spindle is used now as the "bracelet holder". I used it for spinning the single. It's plywood and (I think) pine, and weighs about 20 g. The bottom one is new, also plywood and pine, and weighs ca. 31 g.

Ylempi on vanha värttinä, 21 g, tässä kertausrannekkeen pidikkeenä. Kehräsin säikeen sillä ja kertasin sen uudella värttinällä, joka muuten painaa 31 g. Kummatkin on tehty vanerista ja puutikusta (todennäköisesti mäntyä), eikä osia ole liimattu yhteen kun tuntuvat noinkin pysyvän paikoillaan.

That's all for today! But there will be something new upcoming soon: an adventure in hat knitting.

Siinä kaikki tällä kertaa! Olisi vielä kerrottavaa piponkudontarintamalta - mutta se onkin jo tarina toiselle päivälle.

Cookies!

2009-02-12T20:34:00.006+02:00

Normally I don't blog about cooking, but these were so good I am going to make an exception. (Incidentally, this post contains nuts.)

Nämä leivokset olivat niin hyviä, että oli pakko laittaa ohje muistiin!

Raisin and cashew oatmeal cookies

Rusina-cashew-kauraleivokset

I got the recipe from the blog Hannan soppa - the original blogger had halved the recipe found at the Sekasoppa blog. I substituted raisins and cashew nuts for the original chocolate and nuts.

Resepti on Hannan soppa -blogista - puolitettu resepti on alunperin Sekasoppa-blogista. Laitoin suklaan sijasta rusinoita ja cashew-pähkinöitä.

So, the recipe:

Makes for ca. 18 good-sized cookies (two baking sheets full)

125 g butter (softened)
2 dl brown sugar (I substituted 2 dl ordinary sugar and 3 tbsp syrup)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 dl wheat flour
3 dl oat flakes / rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
ca. 1 dl raisins
ca. 30 g cashew nuts

If you are using sugar and syrup, mix them. Cream butter and sugar. Add the egg, and beat mixture well. Add all dry ingredients you have mixed together.

Lift blobs about the size of a generous spoonful on a baking sheet covered with baking paper and bake ca. 15 minutes in 175 C until golden brown. Allow to cool before eating - these cookies are chewy and will be a bit fragile until they are cool.

Resepti:

n. 18 kpl / kaksi pellillistä

125 g voita
2 dl fariinisokeria (korvasin näillä: 2 dl sokeria ja 3 rkl siirappia)
1 kananmuna
2 dl vehnäjauhoja
3 dl kaurahiutaleita
1 tl leivinjauhetta
½ tl suolaa
noin 1 dl rusinoita
noin 30 g cashew-pähkinöitä (puoli pussia)

Jos korvaat fariinisokerin, sekoita ensin sokeri ja siirappi. Vaahdota voi ja sokerit. Lisää muna voimakkaasti vatkaten ja lisää viimeiseksi kuivat aineet.

Nostele taikinaa pellille leivinpaperin päälle, noin ruokalusikallisen verran taikinaa riittää hyvänkokoiseen keksiin. Paista 175 asteessa noin 15 minuuttia. Anna leivosten jäähtyä esim. ritilän päällä ennen kuin liikuttelet niitä, sillä ne ovat varsin hauraita ennen jähmettymistään.

In other news, I'm still knitting and spinning. However, I am slow about blogging! I even have pics on my PC - but until next time, we can make do with a little something in green...

Neulomista ja kehräämistäkään ei ole unohdettu, vaikka kuvat viruvat kiintolevylläni. Seuraavaan kertaan asti pieni maistiainen...

Bayerische socks, Eunny Jang

2008 recap: knitting

2009-01-06T13:05:00.004+02:00

The part II of what I did in 2008, or, belated pics of finished objects! I had to tweak the images a lot, because the lighting and my phone camera were not cooperating. Comes with living this far up North, I guess (and not having any time to take photos when it actually is light.

First, I do shrug, back view:

Detail:

This has actually been done since... September? But I only found the right bead in November, and then the shrug-wearing period had already been and gone. Sigh. I think I chose the wrong yarn for this - it'd be great in a laceweight yarn, but this stuff is too drapey for the lace. I may still wear it, next summer.

Next, Ivy from the front:

And the back:

It fits OK, but honestly, I did the top in size XS and the bottom in M, and it still is a bit too tight. I probably should've used size S with the skinny sleeve option the designer has put up on her website, but never mind. I've already worn it a lot, because 100% merino wool is exactly the right option for cold winter mornings. And the colour is great!

I've also knit a variegated top-down red mohair beret for myself (from the beret recipe at Through the Loops), and other bits and pieces (such as socks for my goddaughter), but no pics of those. Yes, I've been busy and lazy when I wasn't busy.

2008 recap: spinning

2009-01-01T22:03:00.006+02:00

OK, so last year was busy. Very busy. Not so busy that I didn't have the time to do anything, but busy enough that I didn't have the time to write about it. So, here we go:

Viime vuonna oli niin kiire, etten ehtinyt kirjoittaa mitään vaikka paljon tulikin tehtyä. Tässä loppuvuoden tuloksia:

From somewhere around - err.... August (!) Blue Estonian wool spun on a wheel, 2-ply laceweight, 52 g, ca. 265 m. The pic is bad, but there isn't much light and my phone camera just can't do it, not even with flash. The yarn itself actually came out pretty nicely.

Elokuulta: sinistä vironvillaa rukilla. 2-säikeistä, 52g ja n. 265m.

Showing off the new niddy-noddy I and my dad made from an old broom handle (recycling!):

Viipsinpuu on kyhätty kokoon vanhasta harjanvarresta ja kahdesta ruuvista isän kanssa. Ei tarkkoja mittoja (olisiko keskipuu ollut 30 cm ja ristikkäispuut n. 20 cm?), mutta tällä saa aikaiseksi n. 60cm pitkän vyyhden:

And for a tech explanation - I spun first one bobbin full of singles, then put it on the noddy and divided roughly in half. Roughly, but not exactly - so I did an Andean plying bracelet and connected the short end with the long end and Andean plied the rest:

Kehräsin ensin yhden rullan täyteen, jaoin sen sitten kahdelle kerälle ja kertasin ne yhteen. Toinen kerä oli isompi, joten kun pienempi kerä loppui, kertasin lopun langan perulaisen kertausrannekkeen avulla itsensä kanssa (Abby Franquemont on kirjoittanut tästä hyvän artikkelin.

From November, there's this white Finnsheep spun on the same wheel, 2-ply laceweight, 31g, ca. 185 m. I got my first pair of hand cards and made some rolags for the last bit of the wool, and it was fun! Unfortunately, I had trouble with tension when plying and was too tired to actually solve them, so as a result this skein is half overplied and half underplied. Oh, and the colours are off, this is a creamy white and not bluish-green!

Marraskuulta on tämä valkoinen suomenlammas, myös rukilla kehrättyä 2-säikeistä. 31g, n. 185 m. Ikävä kyllä en ollut tarpeeksi kärsivällinen rukkia säätäessäni, joten lanka on puoleksi yli- ja puoleksi alikierteistä.

The colours are true in this photo of my plying setup - I put knitting needles through the bobbins to create the improvised lazy Kate with the (traditional Finnish wood-strip) basket:

Tässä kuva kertauksesta - pärekori ja pitkät neulepuikot ovat oivallinen apu tähän!

In November, I also tried one-handed long draw with some brown Finnsheep. As you can guess, it came out thick and thin - I noticed that the better rolags you make, the easier it is to do; also, adjusting the drive band tension correctly is important. I still have some brown left, so I'll practice more. Fun!

Lopuksi, kokeilin englantilaistyylistä "pitkää vetoa" yhdellä kädellä (English longdraw). Jos tätä kokeilee, kannattaa karstata lepereet huolella ja kokeilla, mikä rukin säätö parhaiten toimii. Huomasin, että kun muuttaa hihnan kireyttä tukin isosta ruuvista, rukki vetää lankaa puolalle joko nopeasti (hihna kireällä) tai hitaasti (hihna löysällä) - hitaasti on hyvä ohutta lankaa varten, nopeasti taas paksua lankaa varten.

I've also been spindle-spinning some lovely white and baby-blue Merino, but more of that later. I still have some roving left!

Värttinällä on vielä ihanan pehmeää sinivalkoista merinoa, mutta sitä on vielä jäljellä!

Ties, I has them

2008-09-29T18:05:00.004+03:00

Now, only the blocking and finishing remain. And seaming. Mustn't forget seaming.

Approx. 1 metre long, x 2. Natch.

Actually, these have been done for weeks, but I had - literally - 5 minutes to spare, so here they are.

Rip 'n stitch

2008-09-22T22:06:00.004+03:00

Lots of stuff done... I've actually finished both sleeves of Ivy, and spun a good deal. Then I also kitchenered and ripped the bottom of the back piece - because no way was I going to re-do it. I've already ripped and re-knit one front piece (left) and parts of every single piece, some several times. Enough is enough. And now I only have the ties left! The pattern calls for a whopping 130 cm a piece, far too long. I'm going to knit ca. 1 metre and then measure. We'll see. But now, on to pictures:

Grafting the bottom to the finished back:

Ripping off the old and too small bottom part:

Too tired now to do the spinning pics. Maybe later, in another post.

Home improvement and passport woes

2008-08-04T11:32:00.005+03:00

I got up today at 7:00 am and headed straight to the railway station... only to find out that the photo booth was not the right kind, and the earliest photographer would open at 8:30. Why, you may wonder?

Nousin tänään ylös seitsemältä ja kiiruhdin rautatieasemalle, vain huomatakseni että ainakaan Tampereella siellä ei ole oikeanlaista valokuva-automaattia.

The explanation is pretty simple: I'm going to London on a holiday for a few days, and when last night I checked my passport - I found out it had been invalid for four months. It was, of course, my first passport, valid for 10 years, and I'd completely forgotten that it could be invalidated, ever.

Oikeanlaista passikuvia varten, siis. Huomasin eilen passini vanhentuneen neljä kuukautta sitten. Onneksi lento lähtee vasta kolmen jälkeen, muuten olisi oikeasti iskenyt paniikki.

Things to note: the Finnish police office ladies are very nice and helpful, and there is an automatic photo booth for those who don't want to spend extra money for a real photographer. Also, if you are there at 8:45 am, there's hardly a line. It cost me 80 euros to get that temporary passport, but still, it was cheaper than buying a new flight. Sigh.

Poliisiasemalle kannattaa mennä ajoissa, koska jonoa ei aamukahdeksalta oikeastaan ole. Ja käteistä tai pankkikortti myös mukaan - väliaikainen passi maksaa 80 euroa (vähemmän kuin uusi lento!) - kannattaa ottaa tarpeeksi myös pysyvää passihakemusta varten jos on siivonnut ylimääräiset kortit matkan takia lompakosta. Muuten poliisin neidit (tädit? rouvat?) olivat mukavia, ja huomasinpa myös valokuva-automaatin (edelleen, Tampereen) poliisiaseman aulan nurkassa, joten turhaan odottelin valokuvaliikkeen aukeamista. Helsinki-Vantaalta lähtevä saattaisi oikeankin passin saada pikana. Lisää tietoa poliisin sivuilta.

One reason for my forgetfulness may have been that I painted my cupboards (with the permission of my landlady, who also paid for the supplies). Pictures to be added after vacation. Maybe.

Olisivatko maalinhuurut sekoittaneet pään - maalasin nimittäin vaatekaapit sisältä, vuokraemännän luvalla ja rahoilla tottakai. Kuvia (ehkä) loman jälkeen.

edit / muokkaus:

Kaapit ennen

Kaapit jälkeen

The Spinning Post

2008-07-30T20:23:00.006+03:00

Did I mention something about spinning? Well...

Postin aiheesta johtuen riskeeraan ylipitkän sepustuksen ja kirjoitan myös suomeksi.

Last year I decided to learn how to spin. I'd seen lovely pictures of people spinning and yummy wool on Craftster and elsewhere, and then one day, I decided to try. I found some felting wool - figuring that it was already carded, so why not give it a go - put together a spindle out of a cardboard-cutout circle, a hair stick and some yarn and got to it. The proto-spindle was very, very light and very wobbly (hairsticks are not designed for a smooth spin) and the yarn was, predictably, lumpy. If I did manage to create a tolerable single, it fluffed out while plying and I couldn't figure out why!

Viime vuonna päätin opetella kehräämään. Kun kerran olin idean päähäni saanut, pakko oli yrittää vaikka sitten Tiimarin huovutusvillalla ja nutturapiikistä ja riisipaketin kyljestä leikatusta pahviympyrästä kyhätyllä "värttinällä". Tulos oli äärimmäisen kevyt, mutta kyllä sillä jonkinlaista langantapaista aikaan sai...

Later I got my hands on more wool (again, felting wool) and with my Dad's help, made a real spindle out of a plywood circle and a wooden stick. It comes apart, because it isn't glued, but I convinced myself that this is actually a feature as it makes traveling easier. Never mind that before you have spun a fair amount of yarn, the whorl tends to move around, which makes it harder to spin.

Löysin sitten lisää villaa, virolaista huovutusvillaa tämäkin. Isän avulla kasasin vaneriympyrästä ja puutikusta toisen värttinän, joka pysyy koossa alkulangan avulla. Seitsemän veljestä näyttää sopivan tähänkin tehtävään hyvin!

Then, I went to Belgium for 5 months and despite taking my travel-ready spindle along, I didn't do anything with it. Instead, I bought yarn and needles and knit - but that's another story. After I had got back and settled down, I dug my wool out again...

Olin sitten ulkomailla, ja kehruu jäi vähäksi aikaa, mutta kotiin tultuani aloitin taas...

And then, after almost a year of practicing, I finally learned to ply. (Who would've guessed that you need that much twist?!) Isn't the blue colour wonderful?

Vuosi siinä meni, mutta viimein opin myös kertaamaan. Kierrettä pitää olla enemmän kuin arvaisikaan!

The next step was (of course) finding a wheel. My both grandmothers had spinning wheels, of the Finnish traditional type. The wheel that belonged to my late gran on the dad's side was lovely and very old, and after much examination and cleaning I realised that it would need to be taken apart and put together again before it could be used, because it has spent the last 30 years in a barn. However, it is pretty! (I experimentally spun some rough flax fibre - you can't really use the pedal, and the string keeps popping off the wheel, but it almost works.)

Seuraavaksi ei kun kyselemään suvun perintörukkien perään. Kummallakin mummolla sellainen oli - isänäidin rukki on kaunis ja vanha, mutta niin heikossa kunnossa 30-vuotisen riihessä oleskelun jälkeen että se tarvitsisi perusteellisen entistyksen. Siitä huolimatta onnistui silläkin tappuroiden kehruu kädellä pyörittäen.

My gran on the mom's side also had a wheel, which she borrowed/gave to me. It's factory-made in the 1940s, and had a prolonged stay in the cold attic, which means that the paint was flaking and all parts that could rust, had.

Äidinäidin sodanaikuinen ja tehdastekoinen rukki oli jo paremmassa kunnossa, mutta siinäkin rukin lyhdyn koukut tarvitsivat viilan ja Pata-patan apua ruosteesta päästäkseen. Huonolaatuinen maali oli myös kärsinyt kylmällä ullakolla oleilusta. Viimeksi sitä oli käytetty kangaspuilla kudottaessa tarvittavien lankarullien kiertämiseen, ja siinä apuna ollut tikku oli katkennut ja juuttunut torven sisään.

I cleaned it, scrubbed the rust off, replaced the leader string and tested it... and it works! Later Granny told me that they used to use 2-ply for woolly trousers and sweaters, and 3-ply for socks. The thread was wound on balls for plying.

Puhdistin rukin, poistin ruosteen, vaihdoin nyörin ja kaivoin kepinpätkän torvesta ulos... ja sehän toimi! Myöhemmin kuulin mummolta, että ennen 2-säikeistä lankaa käytettiin villahousuihin ja villapaitoihin, mutta 3-säikeistä sukkiin. Kertaamista varten lanka kierrettiin kerille.

Unfortunately, I can only use the wheel when I'm at my parents' house, so meanwhile I'm relying on my traveling spindle. I've since found a batch of lovely baby-blue/white ~~mohair~~ edit: merino! top, and it's so smooth. So it's a fair guess that this won't be the last time I'll be talking about spinning.

Koska rukki ei ihan yksiööni mahdu, se saa asua vanhempieni luona. Käytän vieläkin useimmiten värttinää. Löysin Taito-shopista ihanaa vaaleansini-valkoista ~~mohair~~ edit: merinohahtuvaa, joka kehräytyy kuin unelma, joten lisääkin asiaa kehräämisestä saattaa vielä tulla kirjotettua.

OMG! It's a sleeve!

2008-07-19T10:13:00.003+03:00

So, there's this one project that I haven't written about in a while. And the reason was that it was languishing in a heap.

Why?

Well, because when I'd finished the back, I had some reservations about the XS size bottom. Now, I do not have an XS size bottom. I do, however, have an XS size top. Combining these two facts has proved to be difficult, especially when the result of the equation should be a wrap cardi.

The end result of all this is that I think I need to re-knit at least the bottom parts of both back and left front. Yes, I actually finished these two pieces, I have proof of my bad estimation skills - the front would actually be okay for a zipped cardi!

And that's why I'm now knitting the sleeve. That at least seems to be fitting reasonably well, and I'm still in love with the yarn. It's soft, light, knits well, and quickly!

For the next time, I think it'll be spinning. Yes, spinning, wheels, spindles...

Yes, I still knit (FO extravaganza!)

2008-06-13T18:42:00.007+03:00

I've always wanted to use that word somewhere.

Now, a project I've been wearing for months and months, but hadn't uploaded the pictures yet... ta-dah!

The Red Socks

Wunnerful, innit? The lovely object in the background is my gran's spinning wheel. Certainly antique, and she may have got it from her gran - we're not sure. About that wheel, and my other gran's not-so-antique but much more functioning wheel, more later (maybe). As for the socks, I'm really happy how they turned out. The colourwork is done and mostly even, the pattern looks good, and I love, love, love the red colour. Just thinking about it makes my feet warmer.

Soleil

Back

Front

Finally finished, in time for a graduation party. I really can't decide how I feel about this one now that it's finished. Mostly it's the yarn, which is already starting to pill (cotton-acrylic mix, I'm just saying...), and is so drapey that the edging started to curl back up the same day I finished blocking it. And I do mean blocking it - I soaked the thing in hot water and let it dry for a day and a half, pinned in place. Concerning pattern mods, I made it a little bit longer than the pattern, but probably should've made it at least 5 cm longer yet. This is a pattern for short-waisted ladies (of which I am not one). Another thing was to do the 2nd round of crochet (well, I did it twice, first try was much too twisty and big, due to my inability to read the instructions) in crab (or backwards) instead of normal single crochet stitch.

As for the UFOs? Well, I think that's a tale for another post. Actually, I do have one almost-FO... but like I said, that's for later.

And now, for something completely different...

2008-04-20T10:20:00.031+03:00

I've been meaning to do a link list of my favourite webcomics for a long, long time. I thought I'd start here and then in the future when I have more time for coding, go on...

First, comics that update Monday-Wednesday-Friday:
(these are really good!)

Dailies:

Starslip Crisis
Sluggy Freelance
Laugh-Out-Loud Cats on Flickr or the blog
Skin Horse

Monday and Thursday updates:

Comics that update on Tuesdays and Thursdays:

(also on Saturdays)

Updates mostly weekly without warning:

Monday updates:

Tuesday updates:

Wednesday updates:

Friday updates:

Comics that update sometimes:

Finished good ones:

Banner pics may be added after I figure out the coding (and bother to do this).

Something started and UFO sightings

2008-03-02T22:04:00.006+02:00

Well, I finally started Ivy from Knitty's 2006 fall issue. The yarn is Novita Wool and I'm using 80 cm 3,5 mm circs, which gives me the exact gauge specified in the instructions (24 sts/32 rows = 10 cm).

Well, it almost does. I noticed that the ribbing is a little tight, and the stockinette immediately after is a few stitches off by 10 cm to the tighter side, but I guess (hope!) that it'll do. As a precaution, however, I'll be knitting the ribbing for the front pieces in size S instead of XS, which is what I started the back piece with. It's coming along gratifyingly quickly, and I find I like doing stockinette. Ah, so soothing...

Here's where I've come so far:

Then another progress report, this time on the Red Socks. I managed to get through the first sock and the colourwork, and now I find I'm stuck at the second sock:

I hope I can get them done tomorrow. Seriously, it's not that much work, and I'm thinking that I'm finally getting a hang of the colourwork. Tension is a problem, as always, but practice makes perfect, right?

And about those UFO:s... The I do shrug is still missing the final touches (i.e. The Right Bead, which I haven't found yet), as is the Soleil top. I know everybody says they hate seaming, and usually I don't mind (it's the weaving of the ends that gets me), and there are only two short seams to Kitchener (count'em! Two!), but the top still languishes in its bag on my sofa. It must be the winter - or that's what I keep telling myself. Well, maybe I'll get them done by May 1st.

Loads of progress (or, I'm a masochist)

2008-02-04T21:55:00.000+02:00

So, the "Leaves falling on Snow" socks are done, just in time for Christmas.

I've knit cute baby mitts:

The Soleil top is almost done:

And I've started Red socks:

I'm insane. This isn't because of Soleil, or the baby mitts (as cute as they are) - it's the Reds' fault. I'm doing Fair Isle, again. I can't help myself. It's like I think socks, and where other people would happily think lace, I think colourwork.

I must like pain.

On another front, I'm playing with the idea of starting Knitty's Ivy. It's a lovely pattern, and I know of a nice 100% wool yarn I can get the right gauge with. But the colour! Pea-green or off-white? We'll see. Something bright at least.

Now I remember why I hate Fair Isle knitting

2007-12-06T14:25:00.000+02:00

Oh, yes. Every once in a while I start a new project involving colourwork, and think: Yes! That's exactly what this needs! Then I get to the point where I need to actually start doing Fair Isle knitting, and... gah. Do you have any idea how tough it is to keep an even tension while knitting socks with two colours? The yarn is either too tight or too loose, and all colour changes mean stitches that are (you guessed it) too tight or too loose. Then I have to go back and start evening them out later, one by one.

I really don't know why I bother, unless it's in the faint hope that some day, it's all going to magically click and I'll get perfect tension. Eh, I still have one more sock and 17 rows of colourwork to go, and Christmas is creeping closer. At least 75% of this knitting is plain!

Snow's on the ground, and so are new projects

2007-11-18T21:34:00.000+02:00

Here we go again!

I managed to start the Soleil top, with the same yarn and needles as the I Do shrug, so it seems that I'll be getting that twinset! I haven't yet calculated the pattern tweaks, but I'm sort of considering just winging it. It's close enough that I could, but I think I'll use measuring tape one of these days. Progress pic here:

As you can see, it's not very far along. But that's because my attention's been divided with this other project (yeah, and you all can believe that if you want. Truth is, I'm just lazy.): socks as a Christmas present. No pics, and I won't tell who they're for - the recipient doesn't read my blog, but just on principle, I'm keeping mum :D

Yarn: 1 ball (150g/300m) of Novita, Seitsemän Veljestä
Needles: 3mm dpns

And that's it for the day. More to come later, perhaps.

I Did!

2007-11-01T22:18:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I finally finished the I Do shrug. Yay! Not even the Kitchener stitch could faze me! It only took me this long to actually take the pic and post it, and it's still unblocked. Anyway, I liked how it turned out, even though midway the first sleeve I was afraid that the drapey yarn wouldn't be as nice as something crisper, or mohair. I still need to attach a bead in one end so I know which way to wear it - otherwise the 'blank' spots caused by careless increases are on the outside of one sleeve, not inside and invisible. Gah.

Anyway, here's the badly-lit picture:

Isn't it lovely? I'm thinking of doing Knitty's Soleil next from the same yarn. That would give me... a twin-set. Isn't every lady supposed to have one of those in her wardrobe?

More progress, and some sun

2007-07-20T08:28:00.000+03:00

The thing is starting to get its shape! Exiting. But there are some problems:

Maybe you can't see it, but I can. The elbow-to-shoulder increases give you some more stitches to play with, but they're not enough to follow the pattern, so you get these annoying, shapeless patches... I tried to do some stuff with them, (it seems to be a good idea to at least do CP rows 1 and 10), but as you can see, not too successfully.

Here you can see it in its full, washed-out glory:

I've actually done the armhole and moved into FP. And because of the teeny-tiny pattern mod on elbow-shoulder row 1 (remember, its CP row 10, not 1), I didn't have to do the modification detailed here, but could do CP row 15 on the short row 60, and then turn the work and use FP row 6. Note that after the short row, you have 'moved' the first pattern repeat of CP to the first/last repeat of FP. Confusing? Slightly, but not impossible.

Soon, it'll be time to cast on for the second half...

Golden rings of Progress

2007-07-04T16:23:00.000+03:00

Long time no update... but at least I can show some progress, here:

Observe the lovely 'golden' rings for stitch markers (I kept one of the hair ties as a reminder of changing rows). Really, they're curtain rings, but strangely appropriate for this project, don't you think?

I did one modification to the pattern. To keep the lace pattern continuous, the 1st row in the elbow-to shoulder section now reads like this (right sleeve):

Row 1: CP row 10, m1 (right needle), place marker

Then of course I had to twist the 1st stitch of the 2nd row, but that's trivial. I'm now halfway to the shoulder section, which is good. Now if I only can finish this before the winter!

I Do Too Shrug!

2007-05-18T22:46:00.000+03:00

I knit, therefore I... blog?

In any case, after a long needle-less break, I cast on for the I Do shrug from Knitty.

There is a tale unto itself in how I found the yarn shop (practically local!), how I finally found the yarn, how I forgot to buy the needles and then tried desperately to find another yarn shop in Brussels that a) would sell #4,5 needles in any length and b) would be open when I went there.

Finally, I bought the needles in Bielefeld, Germany. From an ordinary department store.

List of materials:
Needles: Prym 80 cm long circulars #4,5
Yarn: Phildar Tribord in Azur, 70% cotton, 30% acrylic
+/-115m (125 yds) per 50g (1oz) ball
Stitch markers: at the moment, rubber hair bands

Here are my materials - the instructions are copied on the sheet of paper:

I'm experimenting with keeping track of the rows on another paper. Here's to show the start of the right sleeve with my temporary rubber hair band stitch markers:

Also note that I'm using the magic loop technique. Should've bought a longer circular, but this works. Sort of.

So, that's it for now! Hopefully, I'll remember to add more progress pictures.

5-7-5

2006-06-09T22:20:00.000+03:00

Apple trees blossom
in the old folks' home courtyard;
snow has left the ground.

Winter turns to sping, and spring to summer

2006-05-24T20:47:00.000+03:00

It's a rainy day today, after many weeks of sunshine. But what a change! What only a short time ago was a dusty scene of bare branches and winter-dry grass, is now a lush green, where it isn't blooming white and yellow with dandelions and apple blossoms.

I know, it happens every year.

It started when I spotted the First Motorcycle of Spring. Don't know why I notice these things, but I do. In the town, the bikes are just as reliable a harbinger of spring as swallows, and rather earlier on the move. When the streets are finally free from snow and sludge, some brave motorist will invariably dig out their beloved (or at least so I assume) machine and go out on the first spring run. Me? I'm still waiting to take my bicycle out of winter storage.

Not quite bilingual

2005-12-06T20:30:00.000+02:00

Lately, I seem to be using more and more English. This is understandable, because the majority of what I read - or write - is in English. But that's not my first language. I don't even live in an English-speaking country. So why does this language of the angles and the saxons fall so trippingly off my foreign tongue?

I suppose it started when I was five or six, and encountered my first English textbooks before even going to school. I remember vividly how later on, after having my first formal lessons, I stumbled upon one of those easy reader books and puzzled over the irregular verb forms. The context showed that 'ate' must signify the act of eating, but the verb looked funny. That dilemma resolved itself soon enough, and with time, I graduated into regular science fiction, fantasy, romance, classics etc. etc.

Another strange milepost was when I encountered the wide reaches of Internet. There I saw hordes upon hordes of native speakers, all using their language with varying degrees of proficiency. There was 'teh' for the, 'thier' for their and 'oppologize' for apologize. Not to mention the wild irregularities of British vs. Irish vs. Australian and (naturally) American English. And there I was, floating on the tumultuous seas of actual linguistic practice without the anchor of a good prescriptive grammar. Or nearly so.

You see, I'd been taught how to use this second-learned language of mine in a manner that was polite and grammatical, and this technical knowledge of the standard form (or forms) of English was better than many of those who were speaking English as their first language. But this only meant that whatever mistakes I did make were often of the foolish and ridiculous kind no true native speaker would make! Yet I persevere.

For despite living in a country where another language is spoken, English has become the favourite of my adopted languages. I may catch myself thinking in French or Swedish if the situation calls for it, but not with the clarity and fluency of my English thoughts. In times, the first word coming to my mind for some object or phenomenon may even be - English.

And so, despite the innate foolishness and frivolity of this excercise that is doomed to an occasional failure, I continue using English as my second language. 'Coz, y'know, I <3 English.

The English language and its varieties are the property of their native speakers. All mistakes, idiocies and grammatical errors mine.

Displacement

2005-05-04T21:45:00.000+03:00

I thought of this when seeing a headline about a drunkard sleeping in a kindergarten bed. Now there isn't (obviously) anything unusual about drunkards, or sleeping drunkards, or beds in kindergarten, or human beings sleeping in kindergarten beds, but the combination of the person (male, intoxicated, asleep) and the place (small bed, kindergarten) was so unusual as to be newsworthy.

My first reaction was the usual and natural one: after all, the word 'drunkard' recalls a person who may be violent, dirty and disorderly, and therefore shouldn't be around children. I imagined all the ensuing brouhaha with accusations of not enough supervision (how did he get in anyway?) and general upset (he might have hurt somebody).

The problem was one of displacement. The person was somewhere he was not supposed to be. There was no scheme ready for the people around him to deal with the situation; it was unexpected. A normal scheme for a sleeping drunkard might take place almost anywhere (bed, roadside, under an upturned rowboat). On the other hand, the scheme for a kindergarten bed allows only for the children who go to that kindergarten to sleep there.

My point is, we humans process reality through stories and schemes. Life is tolerable, because it is to a large extent predictable. You go to work and do certain things, go to get groceries, clean house, read books and so on. If something happens outside the scheme, we react to it and try either to create a new scheme for the situation or force the events to conform to an existing one.

A truth is that our lives consist of events, and the connection between these events is created by our minds. No physical force causes you to go to work in the morning, like gravity causes objects to fall down on earth and the Earth to orbit the Sun. Instead, the memories and thoughts stored in your brain create a scheme for going to work that you follow.

For the purposes of my speculation, it is only important to note that we rely on schemes, that is, we have a good idea of what's supposed to happen in a given situation. The question of displacement is one which causes interesting effects: consider our drunkard.

I posit that in addition to the potential risk of violence and the general ickiness of dirty old men, the situation was disturbing because it did not follow the normal scheme. It required the personnel to resort to another scheme (most likely, calling the police), or perhaps even write a completely new one. The person was displaced.

This displacement is also a frequent source of humour (although not the only one): consider the amount of jokes where a person, who is normally expected to behave in a certain way, is portrayed committing an act , which is normally expected to be committed by a different kind of person. Two incompatible schemes are mixed. For example, a horse in a bar, the bishop and the actress, a small child saying something adult-like, etc.

What's fascinating is that all this happens inside our heads. The displaced element or person is not necessarily doing anything evil or funny, the humour or distress is born of our perception of wrongness. After all, the drunkard was merely sleeping (a peaceful action if anything is), he was not trashing the place. And in the case of jokes, none of the actors are actually present. The physical reality does not - quite - match the one in our mind.

So the next time when something bothers you, think about it. What's wrong with this picture?

Dr. Catharine Keatley: An Introduction to your mind

Schrödinger's Cat

2005-03-29T19:04:00.000+03:00

I just completed the fist draft of the Sullivan translation. Curious, how I've done a dozen different drafts in my head; one stanza at a time, one sentence or metaphor. It is difficult to know what any expression means when it can mean a dozen different things at the same time: and any translation collapses this beautiful amorphous field of meaning much in the same way as opening Schrödinger's box collapses the probability wave which results in either a living or a dead cat. Or no cat: my favourite interpretation of this thought experiment is the one where on opening the box, it is found empty.

Some time ago, I read a novel by Ursula Le Guin where conducting Schrödinger's experiment in the fictitious reality resulted in the whole world's becoming completely unpredictable, with the breaking of the law of cause and effect. In the end, only the cat was left licking his (her?) whiskers while the storyteller her(him?)self dissolved in a wave of improbabilities.

Does my translation, in its first and purposefully very literal draft collapse the wave and kill the cat? Surely, a better solution would be to find the poem alive after its transformation. How to achieve this? Some degree of metamorphosis is necessary to create a new probability wave, for the readers to collapse in this or that meaning at their whimsy.

It is difficult to achieve this when I do not know what the writer wants to say in this poem, what are the thoughts and feelings she would like the reader to experience when faced with this text. What were the thoughts which inspired this poem? Does it have some personal significance to its author, did some particular incident (a car crash? suicide?) cause her to write this?

Of course, I could ask her, she is still alive. But I'm not sure if I should. There is a tradition among the Canadian feminist translators of discussing and/or altering the text with the original author, but I question its helpfulness with poetry. What if I did ask her and found out, for example, that the poem was written after the death of a close friend/relative as a result of her (the author) attempt to understand the situation and her own mortality - if I knew, would it change the words themselves? This is a poem, without any room for explanations or footnotes. There are only so many changes that can be made without moving from translation to rewriting.

This is something I must consider. In some degree, this poem also becomes mine through the translation/rewriting process, but I acknowledge a debt of loyalty to the author's original creation. Whatever the end result will be, it won't be something done blithely or off-hand.

The box is still closed.

Warning: may cause shortness of breath

2005-03-23T09:50:00.000+02:00

Things such as motorcycle maintenance manuals. Oh, not just those - physics equations, java programs, math problems too. Notice a trend here?

For some reason, I start panicking a bit while trying to figure out How Stuff Works, or to solve certain types of problems (Such as maths, physics and programming languages). So why do I do it? I guess there's a certain fascination in trying to push your limits.

You see, it isn't the easy stuff, it's those thoughts that I almost understand. Almost, but not quite. And trying to bend my mind around this new idea is frightening. It's like when I tried to grasp the concept of eternity and the void of space when I was a child and ended up having nightmares. It just wouldn't stop.

I feel like I have to somehow build a model of the concept in my mind. With usual things like fiction books this is easy; after all, there aren't that many original plots in existence. Philosophy is harder. But so are java programs.

The concept of void stopped frightening me after I grew up and understood that I could not understand it. Accepted that there are some things that a common human brain is not equipped to handle (but I won't vouch for Stephen Hawking).

The problem is, however, that my brain refuses to accept that I can't run a computer program in my mind, or to create an animated model of a bike's gearbox in my imagination. There must be people who can do that; after all, somebody wrote the program and invented the gearbox. And when my stubborn, stupid one-track mind can't accept that yes, there are things beyond my imagination, it goes into panic.

One of these days, I'll learn. Before that, though, there's this description of the inner workings of a carburettor that I've been meaning to check out.

Remember: slow, even breaths.

Motorcycle Carburetor Theory 101

The Sullivan poem

2005-03-22T01:23:00.000+02:00

Today, I had the thought to do a blog. As you can see. I was actually supposed to do about a dozen other things, but as usual, I wanted to do something else. It could've been coffee deprivation, I suppose. But after all the trouble of finding the right place, and setting up, I seem to have forgotten what I was supposed to say. Is this much of a loss?

After all, I created this page to have a place where I didn't need to have something to say.

It isn't a stream of consciousness. While writing, I always find myself editing what I've written, deleting, rewriting and thinking things over and over again. Sometimes just to find the exactly right word. Sometimes changing entire paragraphs and rearranging the things on a page. It was no different when I was restricted to pen and paper at school - why not now, with the incredible speed and smoothness of a keyboard that turns pixels on and off on the screen?

One of the things I am supposed to do (now) is translating a poem.

I waded through a dozen poems, several books, many pages on the web but nothing spoke to me and said: Do Me. Like Alice in Wonderland and her magical potions? But no. And one day (last year, actually, if I'm totally honest, and why should I not?) I stumbled upon a poem by Rosemary Sullivan: "The Universe Is As Close As the Veins In Your Neck" and knew that I might translate this one.

It flows nicely. The words seem to say nothing and everything, at once. It could be about love, or about death, or about existentialism, and as I have flirted with that particular line of thought these days, or perhaps because of some completely different reason, I wanted to translate it.

Then, of course, it was written by a woman. Somehow I wanted - no, somehow I did not want to deal with something written by a man at this point. Why? Simple prejudice, I suppose. Although I should say that I shied away from one text by a woman, well written, because of its unashamed sensuality. Not sexuality as such, but the thought of translating it, thinking about it, writing about it and analysing it both by myself and in the group, was disturbing all the same.

This is not the case with the Sullivan poem. It could be about love, as much as anyting might be, but love in the abstract. It is very much a poem of the mind, rather than the body. Or is it only the way I read it?

Rosemary Sullivan: The universe is as close as the veins in your neck