So, the kidney stone has passed and I’ve healed. Yay. The bizarre shooting shoulder pain has passed and seems to be healed, with the help of a lot of gentleness and stretching. Hope to start some stabilizer and core restrengthening and stretching work today so this doesn’t happen again. Those small muscles get you every time, and I just haven’t been keeping them up.

Dissertation continues. I wish I had a better way to estimate if I was making good progress, or if it’s as slow as it feels.

Will get update about the vacation shortly.

Anyway, there is new fiber! Much of it because…

About 25 pounds of processed fiber, were waiting on my doorstep when I arrived home from the trip! Making space for them was a trip!

Lots of totally new to Gnomespun fiber, and a new concept for Gnomespun, small samplers!

Inspired by my visit to Arthur’s Seat outside Edinburgh in the spring of ’03… Spring comes, to rich dark earth, and the heath blooms, yellow and green washing across the hills, warm and deep. This is the softest BL I’ve ever felt. I’d wear it next to my skin.

Spring on the Heath – Border Leicester – 4oz – 114g – Carded Roving

A really hard to photograph one, in a new fiber to Gnomespun, Cotswold, a member of the illustrious longwools. The coiled photo is probably a little more accurate in the way it shows the purple. The thing really does glow though. It’s luminous, not neon, but it glows.

Fire arcs into the purple night sky, brilliant luminous gold and red, flickering as the sparks fly…

“And there’s fire, fire, out in the barn, Father,
Fire in the chicken house, too.
And the flames run so high they are scorchin’ the sky.
And there’s not a damn thing we can do. ” ~Fire by David Mallett

This is softer than any cotswold I’ve met before, with all the luster and drape.

Fire in the Barn – Cotswold – 4oz – Carded Roving

Water crashes down almost obscuring the grey brown granite New England stones that peek out from the center of the river… This is a nice heathered romney, on the finer end of the breed, but still within the standard.

Water on the Rocks – Romney – 4oz – Carded Roving

Warm, ooey, gooey, sweet and sour orange marmalade, curled up with your cat in the sun on a summer day…

Marmalade – Clun Forest – 4oz – Carded Roving

Another new Gnomespun fiber, Gotland, and another longwool. Similar in overall feel to Wensleydale, I think.

Emerald crystals, growing in abundance, a veritable city of shimmering green…

And finally, ANOTHER new fiber to Gnomespun, Old English Southdown. Oh BOY, I love this fiber. It’s a downs wool, spiral crimp, with all the loft and spring of the other downs wools, but so SOFT! It’s like a cloud! Not at all like the spongy stuff I’ve sampled. I’ll be spinning up a bunch of this for the trade for the original fleece, and maybe some for myself!

Warm reds and heathered golds blend and swirl in the breeze, raising a soft susurrus around your feet…

Autumn Leaves – Old English Southdown – 4oz – Carded Roving

Now, another new concept for Gnomespun, small samplers. These are a little more work to put together, but they seemed to be something people were interested in.

First, small downs wool samplers in “Bryophyta” and “Heady Brew” colorways.

4oz total (1oz each) of: Dorset, Clun Forest, Tunis, Southdown

Then an 8oz and a 4oz version of “Natural Greys” samplers, undyed (since that’s the point of this one)

8oz or 4oz (2oz/1oz each) of: Southdown, Border Leicester, Romney, Gotland

And that’s all that’s new for the moment. Everything’s up on the shop.

Oh, And here’s a set of stitch markers I did for a large order that also went out late.

And that’s all for now. Back to writing. Oh right, and lunch.

~The Gnome

Canada was great, but I felt “off” and lethargic the whole time. As I arrived home, I figured out why…

Low level bleeding in my kidneys. Ugh. Now, note that this is not a new phenomenon for me. So I pumped the fluids and…

Passed a kidney stone on Sunday night. Though one of the less painful ones (didn’t go to the hospital) it was one of the scarier ones. Got up to answer nature and get a drink (as I often do about 1 in the morning) and was suddenly incredibly dizzy. Figured it was because of the oxyocodone (which I don’t usually take, prefer hydrocodone) and went to get a drink and grab a slice of bread (it’s especially bad if my stomach’s empty). Almost threw up just walking that far, and in the course of a minute went from comfortable to pouring sweat, literally dripping off my nose. Oh boy.

Climbed back into bed (after the drink and bread), took my temperature (low, but that’s normal). Ok, so it’s the kidney, not a fever, that’s… well that’s that. One of the things kidney trouble instantly borks is my temperature regulation. And when my body is stressed, it sweats. So… I lay there for 2 hours passing a stone. Ow. Yay. Drifted off to sleep once it passed. Never got quite bad enough to call the hospital.

So, I’m in the refractory period, I hope. Wherein my ureter and kidney repair themselves and I stop being lethargic and, essentially, anemic. It is, unfortunately, impossible to know if I have another stone waiting to come out.

Drinking more lemonade (increases pH of my kidneys) and trying to get an increased dosage approval on my potassium citrate.

Also, writing my dissertation, which is annoyingly slow. And it keeps refusing to write itself.

In other news, there will be several postings upcoming. I have a metric ton of new fiber. Super gorgeous soft fiber. Mmmm. In a couple fun breeds. Also photos from the trip.

But for now, trying to write dissertation and get back on track bodily.

Whee.

~The Gnome

Like I said, here’s an update. Any orders made by Saturday mid-day I should be able to get out. Orders made after that will go out Saturday of next week.

We’re in the middle of getting my paper out for review, so the descriptions will be sparer than normal.

New fiber: Finn, SW Merino, Tencel/Merino, Wensleydale, BL, and Undyed BL

The summer is warm and dry when the storm rolls in. The lightning strikes the dry ground and thunder rolls… soon, all that’s left is smoke and ash, leaving the way open for new growth and new life.

Smoke and Ashes – 4oz – Combed Wensleydale Top

Long fronds sway in the “wind” of the current, hiding fish, urchin, and mystery in their shadowed fronds…

Soft Seaweed – 4oz – Combed Wensleydale Top

Soft iridescent feathers glowing with warm browns reds and golds… I struggled with this photo. This top is quite luminescent and warm, it almost glows. Could not get it right. It’s one of my all time favorites.

Pheasant – 4oz – Combed Wensleydale Top

Deepest blue sapphires buried in glinting white quartz, waiting to be discovered. Not normally a fan of SW, but this is a nice non-squeaky prep of it.

Sapphire Surprise – 4oz – Superwash Merino

Shadows and play across you, tinted green from the leaves, weaving patterns of light over the world as you slip into the Greenwood…

Into the Green – 4oz – 50/50 Merino/Tencel (not superwash)

The fires burn low, leaving the air thick with the smell and sight of ash, figures littering the ground in the aftermath…

Blood and Ashes – 4oz – Combed Finn Top

And finally, my fiber is starting to come back from the mills. This batch is pin-drafted which is a little tricky to work with for dyeing…

The rain falls and water rushes down the mountain in a torrent, pouring over rocks and earth…

Water on the Mountain – 4oz – Pin Drafted Border Liecester

And undyed… naturally heathered pin-drafted roving. Expertly prepped at a small local mill without stripping out all the lanolin, leaving the fiber with a lovely luster and crimp. A gorgeous prep. Border Leicester, a longwool with a great lustre, and a wonderful handle. This batch is similar in softness to a romney, but with longer staple length and more shine.
This is a pin-drafted roving, which means it’s a thinner, more open roving than the “ropes” you may be used to. Easy to draft.

Granite – 4oz (or other) – Pin Drafted Border Leicester Roving

Whee! Ok, back to finishing off edits and helping boss with the bibliography (I use some fairly obscure sources to the field).

Oh, and tomorrow I’m picking up another rather interesting fleece. Hush, I totally don’t have enough fiber. Really. Yeah. Ignoring the fact my 40lbs are coming back in the next few weeks…

Paper.

~The Gnome

But first a few announcements…

I will be updating the shop tomorrow. Border Leicester, Merino/Tencel, Finn, Wensleydale, and SW Merino.

I’m heading up to Canada with some college friends on Sunday to Friday of next week. Any orders placed by mid-day Saturday, will go out Saturday. Any orders placed after that will be held until I can get them out when I’m back, next Saturday.

I have written the first page of my dissertation. This doesn’t seem like much (it’s likely to be a 100+ page document) but the first page is in many ways the hardest. Because you have to get something, anything, on the paper to help lead into writing the rest of the thing. So that’s done.

We’re looking to get my paper out for review (this is the published paper, which will be the central chapter of the dissertation) today/tomorrow I believe.

Ok, and now…

The Great Fleece Adventure, Part II
(Or part III if you include carrying 40 lbs of fleece across NHS&W with the Tsocktsarina part II)

So, you might remember, the Great Fleece Adventure Part I where I picked up a billion and twelve fleeces, brought them home, skirted them, etc.

I dropped most of them off with a mill for processing into roving. All but two, in fact. The mill is almost done processing those, so I suppose it’s fitting I finally got to the two I kept to process myself.

I’ve been waiting for a good weekend to do this at my parents’, when the weather was ok, there wasn’t super important things to do there, and I had the weekend to spend if I needed it. Well, this summer has not cooperated on the weather front, so I settled for the second two and a passable day.

It was muggy and hot, but not too too disgusting. The yard ended up smelling a little, as my hyssop retting experiment failed (making very nasty stinky water). Looks to get those fibers out (I know they’re there, we’ve seen them) I would have to go with a lot longer dew/snow retting method. ::shrugs:: No biggie.

Anyway, the first thing to do, of course, was make hot water. Luckily my parents’ hot water heater makes water almost too hot to put my hands in, and Mom has 3 very very very large buckets (which we use for all sorts of things from weeding to dirt, originally for toys). So I put the buckets right out back of the kitchen so I only had to carry water about 15 feet. This is good, since it takes one metric ton of water to fill these things. Ok, so only 3 trips with a 5ish gallon bucket. Still, a lot. And add a bunch of soap. Mmm soap.

Here are the fleeces in their first washes. Note that this is about 5 minutes after first putting them in their baths. And the water on the edges of the dark one especially are already brown as brown can be. The dark was a larger fleece to begin with, and I gave away less of it. There’s probably… 6ish pounds or more? And it was dirtier. Vera (the white one, and my Great Grandmother’s name) was apparently a pretty clean sheep and after giving away much of it is probably 2-3 pounds, but stuff still came out, of course, beyond just lanolin.

They soaked for a few hours in this wash, soaking out dirt as well as lanolin. Then they were transferred to another hot wash, and sat for a few MORE hours. Then, because there was still some crap coming off, I put them in a final hot wash.

You can see the water’s much clearer now. Much of the remaining fog is soap. Vera’s fleece went from this into a cold wash, without soap. Cocoa’s fleece (the brown one) being so much bigger and dirtier, went into Vera’s still hot wash for a little more hot soaking. From there, Cocoa’s fleece followed Vera’s through 3 cold water soaks to get the soap and such out. Vera’s was done after 3, but Cocoa’s got a 4th cold water soak (since there had still been some residue in #3).

Here’s Vera’s fleece in the last cold soak. It was too late for a photo of Cocoa’s by the time that one went in. You can see there’s almost nothign left in the water.

The tips are still slightly “antiqued” but that’s not actually lanolin still built up, but staining from the fleece sitting (2008 fleece). More about that in a bit.

The next question was, how to dry close to 10lbs of soaking wet fleece? And by 10, I mean 10 dry, full of water it weighs a lot more than that. Well, luckily, being an old farm, we have a lot of random things. My first thought was an old window screen or screen door. No such luck… BUT we do have a bunch of old fencing we used for making mobile duckling/chick fences. While up getting those, Dad found these old boxes, screened on 4 of 6 sides. I’m not sure what they were originally for. But they worked great for this…

I pulled out one lock of the white and dried it indoors overnight (the fleece was still quite damn, being in the humid outside). In the morning, I flicked it open with an old cat-comb I found in the drawer.

Yeah, that’s an 8 inch staple right there of shiny antique white fluffy, soft, lustrous, wavy border leicester. You can see that the “antiquing” visible on the tips in the water is almost invisible once opened up.

The drying fleece got moved to the garage, so they wouldn’t get rained on, and are drying there this week.

The lock, I spun, because… how could I possibly resist? Spun up on my Bossie midi.

Mmm single… A little underspun, I’ve never spun from the lock before. So I wrapped it up into a little plying bracelet, and plied it up. Of course I had to overply a little to make a “useable” yarn, all 3yds of it (yeah 3yds of 2ply from one lock, not bad in my mind).

Yeah, it’s overplyed and underspun enough that in the “miniskein” it basically becomes a super cabled yarn. ::chuckles:: But still, nice, fine, shiny, laceweight sample!

I’m pretty happy. I can’t wait for it to dry. That’s a lot of fiber. Fiber I think I’m going to have to spin myself. Eeep!

Aaand that’s about it for today. Back to writing.

~The Gnome

I have official permission to write my dissertation.

This means that as soon as I get this paper edited for publication, I will be spending the next 2.5-3 months writing a massive massive paper. Hopefully at the end of that, at the end of Octoberish, I will then stand in front of a big room of people and explain everything I’ve done. Then I’ll stand in a room of 5 people and defend what I’ve done. Then they’ll tell me everything I did wrong, and what changes I need to make to the paper. Hopefully this will not involve many (or any) new experiments.

Once those are done, I will be Dr. Gnome with a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences, focus in Biochemistry, a B.A. in Neuroscience, and a background in Circadian Molecular Neurobiology.

Woo!

Right now, though, I feel old, and am still working on edits to the paper. Yes, at almost 8:00PM

~The Gnome