Carding by Osmosis

The getting-ready-for-fleeces adventure continues, with the addition of a new (to me) set of hand carders. Actually, they're old, perhaps very old. This, I think, is a good thing for me. While I may know nothing about carding, I'm hoping the carders will remember the motions from well-skilled hands and lead me along. I actually love the idea that my hands are holding tools held by women long before me who knew sheep and wool and how to make clothing for their families.



I bought them on eBay from Freshwater Fibers for $20.50 ($28.00 with shipping) -- a good deal for carders, considering that the new ones go for anywhere from $45-ish to $80 or more. Better yet, my theory is holding up, because with these very carders, I've been turning out rolags of Corriedale that look like this (dining room chair for size, and also because that's where I was):


This skill-by-osmosis theory also worked with one of my doctoral exams. I attribute my passing the Spanish translation exam to a friend's watch. I had forgotten to wear mine on the day of the exam and begged hers off her wrist as I ran into the exam room. I had no thoughts of passing the thing, but I wanted to be able to time myself on different parts to improve for the next time around. Miraculously (really -- I'm not fluent in Spanish, especially literary criticism in Spanish), I passed. Susan (the watch's owner), however, is fluent, hailing from San Antonio. We presume that the watch passed this knowledge to me through the walls of cells in my wrist.

So, how old are the cards, and how much skill memory do they hold? I'm working on finding out. They have a maker's mark:


Turns out that Whittemores have quite a history in Boston and environs, and the technique invented to manufacture these things was progenitor to lots of mechanized manufacture in the U.S. and Great Britain. The original Whittemore card mill opened in 1799 according to several histories of the area (all this is available online -- unbelievable). It closed in the early 19th century and opened again in 1837 or thereabouts. After that, the story gets more murky. Several additional factories were opened, and the history of the Whittemore and Watson families appears to intertwine in many ways. The latest reference I could find to L.S. Watson & Co. was in a May 5, 1885 New York Times article that reports a burglary of Watson's home in Leicester, Mass. and then his store safe by means of keys stolen from the home.

I can't find any handy references to dating the cards manufactured under Watson's mark. I have an auctioneer and gallery-owner friend who may be able to help me out. If you have any ideas, shout 'em out in the comments. Regardless, I'm banking my carding future on the fact that these things will remember what's supposed to be happening.

As the Kiwi Spins

I was going to title this entry "Plying My Trade," but, as it turns out, it's a very good thing that spinning isn't my trade, or surely I'd starve. Although I've had my Ashford Kiwi spinning wheel for over a year now, the real impetus to get going with the spinning practice has come from these two fleeces I've got on the way: one from a sweet little alpaca named Abbey and another from a Finn ewe named Dolly. Both are yearlings.

So, I started off with some Jacob roving I'd purchased from a LYS (along with one spinning lesson). The roving is lovely, although the Jacob is a bit coarse compared to the Merino I've been knitting with lately. The resulting two-ply is lumpy-bumpy, as we're all told that first attempts will be. Do people really keep this stuff around? I'm wondering if we speak reverently of first spinning products just because otherwise we'd all quit.


To be absolutely honest, this isn't my very first attempt. There was a misadventure with a beautiful hand-dyed roving in superwash Merino that ended up somewhere on the far side of lumpy-bumpy. Conclusion: Superwash is too slippery for beginners. Also, several hours with the Corriedale top sent along with my wheel from the vendor ended in various versions of disaster. Let's just say that hands-on learning is important, but so is instruction of some kind -- at least some background reading.

I wouldn't call spinning meditative yet, at least for me. But a glimmer of things improving keeps me slogging on. My cousin Dave observed last year, on seeing the then-new spinning wheel in our dining room, that I was embarking on a very sentimental project. Sentimental it may be, but apparently the kind of sentimentality that proves to take its own flavor of dogged determination.

Of Lace, Lampshades, and Lacerations

For my inaugural blog post, I give you my inaugural lace project. It's KnitPicks' Lace 1,2,3: Shadow Scarf Pattern. I'm doing this one on size 5 needles with Fearless Fibers handpainted merino sock yarn in the Chastity colorway.


The scarf -- here lounging on a lampshade for its glamor shot -- will be a Mother's Day gift for my mom. It's about 18 inches long so far, and I've used about 1/3 of the 550-yard skein. I figure that'll get me to nearly five feet unblocked. There's lots of room in the lace, so I'm hoping for some nice extra length in blocking. I'm thinking I need to figure out how to block lace in the next week or so and find a six-foot-ish by two-foot-ish space untrammeled by dogs and kid to pin it out. Ha.

The knitting is fairly simple for a lace piece, since the patterning happens on only one out of four rows in the repeat. Ripping back to a straight knit or purl row is easy in the case of mistakes or dropped stitches (yes, I know this first-hand).

I've had lots of time to knit this week, being on spring break from teaching. I intended to spend time working on the endless dissertation and also taking in a few documentaries at a film festival. Instead, I've been spending lots of the week confined to the main level of the house watching my dog while my dog watches me. Poor greyhound Grover had a spill on the stairs last Friday night. He got a big cut on his upper front leg, but the city was pretty much shut down all weekend with a big snowstorm, so he had to wait until Monday to get stitches. Now he has to wear one of those awful cone collars -- which we're affectionately calling his lampshade -- to keep him from doing what dogs do and ripping them out.


While nothing on the to-do list is happening, I suppose there are worse things than being required to sit still and listen to spinning podcasts while working on a lovely project. Why listening to spinning podcasts? Because I've got two fleeces waiting on two animals -- a Finn ewe named Dolly and an alpaca named Abbey. I need to figure out how to skirt, wash, card, and spin this stuff, and shearing weather is fast approaching. More on that later...