A Day of Darkness

I've had my darkroom enlarger for over a year. And for the entire summer last year (since the kids were gone) I had the darkroom set up in the kids' bathroom, but never mixed up the chemicals--never even plugged in the enlarger to see if the light would come on. So, even though I've been developing film at home for some time, I haven't printed a single negative.

Last night and for several hours this morning, I printed proof sheets for 14 rolls of film. I have more to print, but ran out of paper.

I took pictures of my hillbilly darkroom set-up with my digital camera, but screwed up loading them onto the computer and consequently lost them. Isn't THAT funny?

I LOVE it in the red-light tinged dark, and found that printing was waaaaay less trouble than I thought it would be. AND, it was also a lot less effort to mix up the chemicals and clean up than anticipated. So, I'll be at the store when it opens tomorrow to buy more paper and everyone on my Christmas list who doesn't get hand knit or hand woven stuff will get a B&W print of something I like.

How hot is it??

It is soooooo hot, I thought I'd get a ride in before it got to be 90 degrees. But, the cycling gods had other plans because the metal part of the valve on my front tube sheered off, which prevented me from pumping up that perfectly good tube and therefore required a tire change---well tube really.

The problem is, that although we have close to a dozen bikes in the garage and several sets of extra wheels, my bike is the only one to have size 650 wheels. So, although we have numerous spare tires for different riding conditions and a box of brand new tubes, there was only one tube of the size I needed. And, that one is the spare I carry on the bike.

Putting the spare on my bike meant, of course that I'd be riding without a spare tube, which is dumb and an affront to my belt and suspenders manner of operating.

I got my ride in, though. I stopped at LEE's my favorite bike shop and bought 4 tubes. The ride was great, even though the temp on my cycle computer showed 104 degrees before I finished the ride at 11 am. That temp is probably not too far off because it is always a LOT hotter on the pavement. In any case, the bank sign said it was 95.

When I got home, Kelly was no where to be found--out running errands. But he'd left his mark. There, stacked in the middle of the garage, were five tubes of a size to fit my bike.


Kelly had gone to the other branch of the bike shop I visited and got them for me.

THAT, my friends, is HOT.

Better Living through . . . chemicals??

My Saturday started with a romp through the attic to find the propane burner I'd promised to take to the Tulsa Handspinners picnic where it was to be used to support and heat a cauldron of wood bark, seeds or insect parts for use to dye wool. Then I loaded up the spinning wheel and took off to get a full tank of propane.

The picnic was held at Barbara & Dale's home and animal emporium. They have doves, ducks, chickens, geese, a koi pond, rabbits, goats and who knows WHAT ELSE. I know these little ducklings are one and two days old.



While the dye pots were heating up, Jeanine taught
us how to do silk fusion, which is a process kind of like making paper, only using silk fibers. I'm pleased with what I created. The idea is to cut the resulting fiber into bookmarks, but I think I'll use it to mat a photograph. It was super easy to do and the results were gorgeous.

Then, the dying began. I chose to dye some roving (to be later spun into yarn) and some already spun yarn. And, because one can NEVER have enough fiber, or I can't, I bought an alpaca and silk blend from Janice Robinson of JR Alpacas in Oklahoma City. Dyepots with osage orange (yellow), madder root (brown), cochineal (pinkish) were available.
I chose to dye my stuff in indigo (blue jean blue) and logwood (purple).



And, after the fusing of silk, dying of wool, and eating of barbecue, it was time to go home for more chemical fun.

On Friday night I mixed up fresh darkroom chemicals to work down my stash of 13 rolls of
undeveloped film. 10:30 pm all 13 rolls were developed, exhausting myself and a whole gallon of developer (that's a LOT).


And, what's a weekend anymore without bee fun. Kelly got into the hive and here is a frame full of honey. Our bee (mis)adventures are chronicled at beeabout.blogspot.com.

Triple Crown

Today, a little preview of Annie's world.

FIRST-- Bicycle Races

Tulsa Tough Races are 3 criteriums raced over 3 days, there are bunches of domestic pro teams in town because the races are on the National Racing Calendar, which is a BIG DEAL in the bike race world. Hoards of fit sweaty men in bike shorts (including Floyd Landis). . . what could be better?

SECOND-- Spinning

I'll miss the Saturday races because I'll be spinning at the RennFaire again. A day with no responsibilities except to keep the wheel running. . . . what could be better?

THIRD -- Soccer

The FA Cup (English Football Association) Championship match (Chelsea v. Everton) is Saturday. I've got the DVR set to record it TWICE. That way hopefully no one will mess up my recording. . . . what could be better?

Kelly reminds me that the weird combination of these passions places me firmly in an oddball lunatic fringe.

I LOVE IT HERE!!

Mini-Me (the other loom)

Jeanine, masterful (and generous) spinner, weaver, grower of silk worms, glass bead maker, and sometime knitter (she probably does more stuff I just don’t know about) loaned me a loom she wasn’t using.

The loom is of the same make (LeClerc) as my loom, but is much smaller and has hence been dubbed mini-me.

The big one, whom I call Bertha, sports 7 yard warp of a rayon boucle in a bright spring green, to be woven variously with coordinating (I hope) rayon knitting yarns into narrow springy/summery twill scarves. Mini-me is attired in a purple (I’d like to say plum, but it is purple) commercial bamboo warp with some bamboo handspun occasionally intermingled therein. Mini-me will be woven with bamboo handspun, also in a twill pattern.

About Mini-me, Alex commented that every time he visits home, I have some new trinket to play with.

And, speaking of Alex. He's my youngest, and he turned 20 yesterday. So, I'm no longer raising teenagers--whew!!! Although to be honest, it (raising teens) really wasn't much of a burden. Here is a pic of the birthday boy trying on a new shirt.

And finally, the bike perched at the top of the stairs is positive evidence that Alex is indeed home for the summer.

WEEKEND RECIPE

....................................and recipes

Since the kids have left home, weekends are enjoyable, but they don’t usually involve the type of frenetic activity we had with soccer games/tournaments overlapping with bike rides/races, and parties, etc. I miss that–a lot. For me, the recipe for a really great weekend involves doing a gob of unrelated activities. This weekend, for example, was GREAT.

Friday night I made two new recipes (savory cakes) to take to the Tulsa Handspinners meeting to share. One contained ham, emmentaler (swiss) cheese, and olives, the other had onions and emmentaler cheese. New recipes often sound better than they taste. These were delicious spread with cream cheese. AND, I finished warping up both looms. (both?? looms?? yes, more on that in a later post).

Saturday morning I went to the Handspinners meeting, spun yarns of the spoken and wool variety, got to try spinning cotton with a charkha which is the device Ghandi promoted as a means of self-sufficiency in India, and got some seeds for green, brown and plain ol’ white cotton. (to

grow???? we’ll see).

THEN, I rushed home to change into light colored clothes, grab my camera(s) in order to meet Kelly in Turley to visit Carl’s bee yard. Carl seems to be the go-to BEE-guy for equipment, fast advice and common sense concerning bees. Carl invites the bee club (NEOBA) membership on excursions in his apiary (bee yard). We got to see Carl open up five different hives, we saw a number of queens, and other bee stuff which we found interesting and which I’ll share through the mystery of photography.

Kelly & Carl approach the bee yard.

The Bee yard.

Can you find the queen??? Can you see the honey?? Can you you see the pollen??? Can you tell me why the font just randomly changed or why I can't seem to change it back???

AFTERWARD, Kelly and I stopped downtown to take in the Blue Dome Art Festival, the FOAM (fellowship of oklahoma ale makers) booth and the art car exhibit in particular.

My favorite art car was--the camera car, of course.

Not long after we finally found ourselves at home Alex arrived with his stuff to stay for the summer. YEA!!

On Sunday I got up early and got myself to the Castle at Muskogee to enjoy the day by

demonstrating handspinning, people watching and wandering around. Liz, one of my knit night friends, is a regular at the RennFaire. She stopped by to visit, we wandered around together, bought a glass of blackberry/honey mead (yum!), and I got this photo of her. (except for an adorable 3 year old--she was the cutest one there).

At the castle, the spinners share the barracks with these guys who kept clubbing each other with weapons.

and the gypsies had an enormous inkle loom that produced 80 feet of inkle band

SPIN-ergy

I've been on a pretty serious spinning jag. It all started with the purchase of two relatively innocent looking globs of bamboo roving. Bamboo is soft and silky, has an amazing sheen, and has the general property of being gorgeous. The colors of the two globs didn’t really coordinate like I thought they would, so I got a pound of white bamboo and some dye, thinking I’d dye coordinating colors.

After making these purchases, it occurred to me that since I apparently could not pick out coordinating colors when the already dyed fibers were displayed before me, trying to dye fibers to a particular shade might not be a successful endeavor. So, I had to (had to!) acquire different colors of roving in amounts sufficient to coordinate with each of the globs, which resulted in the addition of 3 more globs which, of itself, is no problem.

However, since I was planning a trip to the Route 66 Fiber Rendezvous and since I would probably succumb to the temptation to acquire more fiber, it seemed prudent to actually spin up some of the bamboo globs. I did. So, the bamboo yarn, formerly known as globs 1 though 5, are all ready to be tasked to the job of serving as weft threads for a yet to be woven something-or-other.

The problem, if it can be called a problem at all, is that now I can’t seem to stop spinning. I spun up a fiberclouds batt in shades of blue wool and silk that I designed at Gwen’s. I’m calling it Emily’s night sky because the yarn will become something for my mother who is named . . .

. . . . EMILY.

Here the finished yarn is shown atop a new bat of coordinating fiber I got today from Donna at the Route 66 fiber thing.

I have 55 ounces (that’s almost 3.5 pounds) of this natural colored wool and alpaca blend of fluffy loveliness, it too is rapidly becoming yarn.

I’ve spun 6 bobbins full since Monday.
Each bobbin holds about 2.7 ounces (about ? ha!! 5 of the 6 bobbins have been exactly 2.7 ounces -- yes I weighed them–that’s what you do) so, I’m looking at just over 20 bobbins of this stuff. Two bobbins plied together make around 163 yards of yarn (yes I counted the yards–again, that’s what you do). Anyway, I’ll have a decent sized mountain of yarn when I’m finished--somewhere close to 2000 yards. Oh! the possibilities . . . .

And, the new kids in town found themselves in my possession after a day at the Route 66 Fiber Rendezvous (which I could not even get close to spelling without spell-check)