Heritage sheep breeds, ink as the new souvenir sock skein, and Marsha's realization that she needs to get out of her basement are all on the agenda this week. Plus, a reminder that we have just over a month left of our Summer Spin In.
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Marsha’s Projects
Spinning the brown and green merino.
Atlas (Ravelry link) by Jared Flood using Navia Tradition. The pattern is also available at his website. I have completed the body to the armholes and almost completed the first sleeve. I’ve washed and blocked it to see how it looks and to be able to measure the body.
Kelly’s Projects
I’m continuing the Oxford spinning. I am still keeping my options open for a 3-ply where I’m more careful about the twist. I’d like the yarn to be more loosely plied than my 3-ply sample. I have almost three full bobbins of singles and plenty of fiber left. I carded about 400 grams. Here is the project page for this handspun. Information about Oxford fleece: Livestock Conservancy status is “watch.” Fewer than 2,500 annual registrations in the United States and an estimated global population less than 10,000.“
- originated as the result of crossing Cotswolds and Hampshires.
- imported into America in 1846.
- one of the largest breeds of sheep and is only surpassed in body weight by the Lincoln.
- Not only does it lack uniformity in body type and size, but there is also considerable lack of uniformity in color markings and in the weight and quality of the fleece
- The new breed that we know as Oxford today is a bit smaller, only 200-250 pounds, a result of that push in the 1930s for a more compact animal followed by the resurgence of the older type.
- staple length, generally around 1-2”.
- remains rare in the United States, having been supplanted by the Suffolk. This situation is difficult to explain, as research has shown time and again that the Oxford excels as the sire of market lambs and the breed’s overall profitability may be second to none.
I’ve made good progress on the Dark Green Forest cardigan (Ravelry link) by Christina Körber-Reith. She also has the pattern at her website, Strickhauzeit. I’m using handspun 3-ply (fingering to sport weight) from a CVM (Romeldale) fleece that I overdyed. I’ve gotten down to the pockets. The sweater has a ribbed front band and honeycomb cable down the sleeve and on the pockets. It has saddle shoulder construction and a square “sailor” collar that also has ribbing.
Information about CVM sheep: status is “threatened” with fewer than 1,000 annual registrations in the United States and an estimated global population of less than 5,000.
- American fine wool breed, and the California Variegated Mutant, or CVM, is its multi-colored derivative.
- Romney-Rambouillet crosses were bred for several years and became known as Romeldales.
- colored lambs appeared in the Romeldale breed. Glen Eidman became interested in these sheep and linebred them for several generations
Sheep breed resources: Livestock Conservancy, Oklahoma State Breeds Directory.
Discussion Topics
Marsha talks about mistakenly donating some of her favorite children’s books by Bill Peet.
Ella Elephant, Jennifer and Josephine
Great documentary on Netflix by the actress Geena Davis about equality in the media. Here is a link to the YouTube trailer of This Changes Everything.
Pens--SF Pen Show August 27-29. Held about 35 miles south of SF in Redwood City, Kelly and Robert will be there Saturday, August 28.
Summer Spin In - Ends September 6th
Just over a month to go!
Prizes from Three Green Sisters
Full Show Transcript
Kelly 0:03
Hi, this is Marsha and this is Kelly.
Marsha 0:05
We are the Two Ewes of Two Ewes Fiber Adventures. Thanks for stopping by.
Kelly 0:10
You'll hear about knitting, spinning, dyeing, crocheting, and just about anything else we can think of as a way to play with string.
Marsha 0:17
We blog and post show notes at to use fiber adventures.com.
Kelly 0:22
And we invite you to join our Two Ewes Fiber Adventures group on Ravelry. I'm 1hundredprojects,
Marsha 0:29
and I am betterinmotion.
Kelly 0:31
We are both on Instagram and Ravelry. And we look forward to meeting you there.
Both 0:36
Enjoy the episode.
Marsha 0:43
Good morning, Kelly.
Kelly 0:44
Good morning, Marsha. How are you?
Marsha 0:46
I'm doing well.
Kelly 0:47
Good. I want to ask you a question. Okay, so Marsha, what knitwear Are you wearing today?
Marsha 0:55
Not a stitch?
Kelly 0:57
Not a stitch of knitwear.
Kelly 0:58
No.
Kelly 0:59
Well, now, that actually makes sense. Because what season are we in here in the Northern Hemisphere?
Marsha 1:07
High summer?
Kelly 1:08
Yes.
Marsha 1:10
And... but not where you are I take it, based on this question.
Kelly 1:13
And I'm not complaining. I'm just providing you information.But I am currently wearing ...although probably some of it will come off.
Marsha 1:23
Wait a minute, let me get a pen. I have to write this down.
Kelly 1:25
So I'm currently wearing from head to toe... I'm currently wearing my Rikke hat. I'm wearing the Habitat sweater that I crocheted. And I'm wearing handknit socks.
Marsha 1:40
Kelly Kelly, you need to book a flight ASAP to Seattle.
Kelly 1:43
I heard that, that there's, you know, all this heat going on all around the country. And I feel bad for everyone who is you know, going through all the heat and the fires and, and, and then there's, you know, flooding. I hope that all of our listeners in Germany are okay, so I don't want to complain about my lot in life. But let me just provide you with some information. Anybody who's suffering from heat should come to Monterey County, because in the last month... I looked up the history in the last month, we've had two days above 70 degrees.
Marsha 2:22
Oh, my goodness.
Kelly 2:23
And guess how high we got in those two days above 70 degrees?
Marsha 2:25
71?
Kelly 2:29
Yes. And 72. Oh, my God, it was a heatwave. Yes. So yeah, we do have some higher temperatures coming. Next week, we get one... But by the time it gets here, the the prediction of these high temperatures almost always goes down by about four degrees, four or five degrees. So we have 80 predicted for Tuesday of next week. So we'll see if that happens. You'll have to check back. Good thing I have knitwear that's all I have to say.
Marsha 3:06
It was interesting thinking about these changes in the weather because it's happening around the world and and some terrible, terrible things are happening. But that heatwave we had here in Seattle, where it was you know, 110? There's been many effects of it. I mean, people died. That's terrible. But I was listening to our local NPR station. And they were saying that over 50 people have become ill by eating shellfish. Because it got so hot. There's a bacteria that forms in shellfish in hot weather. People have been getting sick because the temperature is so high. They also lost a lot of oysters and other shellfish because they literally cooked in their shells because it was so hot.
Kelly 3:59
Oh my gosh.
Marsha 4:01
So it's really... There... that heat way we had is going to have a real impact on food production here in the Pacific Northwest, just those few days now.
Kelly 4:12
Yeah,
Marsha 4:14
It's really interesting the impact that
Kelly 4:16
well, not just the shellfish. I know when we have had high temperatures here, they typically will come in, like in September, sometimes even as late as October. But when we get those high temperatures in September, we've had apples on the trees, and they're like applesauce. I mean, if you don't have the apples off the tree by that time, then after those couple days of you know, high 90s or mid 90s. Those apples are terrible. So I can imagine the impact that has had.
Marsha 4:53
Well I wonder if this cool weather you're having is going to have an impact impact on production because you live in an agricultural country community, right. And they're kind of cool weather crops.
Kelly 5:03
Yeah.
Marsha 5:04
But this is awfully cool for them.
Kelly 5:07
So we grow a lot of strawberries here. Lettuce is not having any problem. There are... there are more and more berry fields-- regular berries. And I don't know, I don't know if the lack of heat has has affected them at all. We have an apricot tree and a plum tree and the apricot are just now starting to get ripe, which I think is really late for apricots. I don't know because this tree hasn't produced very well in the past. So I don't know what its typical timing is like, but I seem to remember apricots being a more early summer fruit when I was a kid. We had an apricot tree when I was growing up. It's probably not super abnormal, honestly, for us to have this kind of weather here in Salinas. I mean, it's not-- I don't think it's normal, normal, but I don't think it's super abnormal. If I went back and looked at the history, I mean. I remember when I first moved here, I didn't take off a sweatshirt all summer long. It was-- I was freezing to death all the time. And that's kind of how I feel this year. And maybe I just like to complain! Well, and the house would be warmer if I closed the windows, but I have to have open windows in the summer. [laughing] And that's dumb because it's not warm outside. But that's just the way it is in summer you open the windows and sleep with the windows open. So anyway, yeah.
Marsha 6:42
Okay, this leads me to something Kelly. Because we are...are we complaining?
Kelly 6:49
No,
Marsha 6:50
a little?
Kelly 6:50
I'm not gonna... we're not...
Marsha 6:54
just a tad. Anyway. So I I have something just I have something to say. So the last episode, I was walking Enzo and listening to the episode. And about halfway through the beginning before we got to any fiber stuff. I texted you. And my text was, Oh my gosh! Shut up about your basement!
Marsha 7:24
And I was... I don't remember know what your response was. But anyway, I went back and it was like 10 minutes, Kelly, that I talked about my basement. As I was walking along my thought was first like, Oh my goodness, shut up about that basement! Nobody cares. And my second thought was, You need to get out of that basement.
Kelly 7:44
Marsha, get a life! [laughing]
Marsha 7:47
And so I'm here to announce. This is the last time I'm going to talk about my basement. It's not healthy. And I got out of my basement and I went last Tuesday or this... Tuesday of this week. This is Friday that we're recording this. Tuesday, I went up to Index, Washington and for people who are out of state, that's a small former mining town up on highway two. It's near-- on the way to Stevens Pass, which is you know, big mountain pass
Kelly 8:17
And north on you right?
Marsha 8:18
North of me. Yeah. And the reason I went up there is Ben, my son is working up there on and off during the summer. He met up... Well, I should back up and to say Index was originally a mining town. That's how it started. But now it's become a huge destination for climbers. And apparently it's world renowned, this area, for climbing. They have great rock. Like I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just quoting Ben, because I'm not a climber.
Kelly 8:49
Yeah, like what makes a great rock as opposed to just a rock?
Marsha 8:55
So anyway, he goes up there and climbs. And there's a guy who lives here in Seattle who goes up there all the time and climbs. A guy named Richard. Apparently he bought a house up there, a small cabin. And so Ben has been going up and helping him fix it up, make it sort of... It's it's kind of rough. And so he's been helping him and so he goes up there for about five days at a time and then comes back. So I thought a nice outing would be to go see Ben in Index and do a hike. So I went up on Tuesday, I finally found Ben. That was kind of, well, I will, well... Do you want to hear the story about how I found Ben? Because he said to me, Index is really small. I have no idea what the population is. A tiny, tiny town and there's like two streets when you come into town. You can go left or you can go right and so he says, when you come into town you go left and you just go down to the--you know, keep going down the road and you'll see the house. I go into town. I go left. I can't find the house. I'm driving all the way almost to the end of the road, I'm now getting into Forest Service land. I'm going-- I go back. That can't be right, I go check again. So I go up and down this road about three times trying to find him and I finally gave up and thought, I'm just going to go walk the dog around the town and check it out. And then I'm going to go do my hike. And I was just getting ready to leave when I get a text from him because there's very poor, so there's no real cell service there. It's very hit or miss, I get a text like, I'm glad you're coming. You'll see the house. It has a whole bunch of free stuff out on the road. So I'm like, Okay, well, I'll go down this highway, you'll go left down this highway, which I did. And I finally see some free stuff by the side of the road. But it looks like it's been there for a long time, because there's like weeds kind of growing through it. And I don't see his car at that house. But I see there's like a driveway and kind of a long like alley kind of thing. And so I decided to go down that maybe the house is down that road. And I go down this little driveway and I see a guy working on a house or a garage or something and I just get out and I said, Are you Richard? And he said No, I'm not. And I said, Oh, I said. Well, do you have a minute to hear my story? And he's kind. He said, Yeah, I have a minute to hear your story. And so I said, Well, my son is up here working for a guy named Richard from Seattle who bought a house and I give a little story because there's a little story about how he got the house and who used to live in the house and how they got that person out of the house. And he says, Oh, I know that house. Because it's a tiny town anyway. You're probably ahead of me in the story. It's that when you come into town you turn right. Not Left. [laughing]
Kelly 11:51
Right. Oh my god.
Marsha 11:53
The details, right?
Kelly 11:54
Yes.
Marsha 11:55
So I go. Oh, I know. Yeah. So anyway, I and I, because I said to him, Well, it's a small enough town. I figured somebody would know the story. And he said yeah, I know the story. That was really funny. Anyway, I went back the correct direction, found Ben, immediately saw the house. We chatted for a little bit and then I went on my hike. So I did do a hike. So that was really nice to see. So this is the point of my story it's-- what's the phrase? Oh, the devils in the details?
Kelly 12:27
Yes.
Marsha 12:27
That's the phrase? Yeah, yeah.
Kelly 12:30
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you got out of the basement, Marsha. Yeah. So it sounds like you had a nice a nice little outing.
Marsha 12:37
Yeah, it was really nice. And it's beautiful up there. Really, really beautiful. And, yeah, so that's the last time that wore is going to cross my lips in this podcast
Kelly 12:49
Ok, right! Good to know.
Marsha 12:54
Let's see if I can do it now.
Kelly 12:57
Oh, funny. Anyway, all right. Well, okay, since you aren't going to talk about the thing that will not be named. What about your projects?
Marsha 13:09
Well, I...not a lot, well, not a huge amount to report. I've been spinning. So I have ... I'm almost done with a second bobbin of the brown for that brown and green that I'm making. Okay, and so I have one more bobbin that I need to spin and then I can ply that together. So I work on that in the afternoons. You know, sit out on my deck, and spin for a little bit. And so I'm making progress on it, but it's not, I'm not working on it exclusively. And then I do have progress to report though, on the Atlas pullover that I'm making for my brother and I have knit the body. Keep in mind though, I have not done the ribbing yet, because I did a provisional cast on. But I've knit up to the armholes and then set that aside. I did wash it though, and block it. Because as you know what we talked about the last episode, it looked like a holiday wreath, a big sausage tube kind of. So I did wash and block it and I can... now it's laying flat, so it'll be much easier to measure. And then I did a provisional cast on for the first sleeve. And I'm almost done with the first sleeve I have about 10... Let me look at my pattern. I have about six more rows. And then I will set the sleeve aside and start the second sleeve. So it's going pretty quickly. I think because it's on size seven needles. I find it's not really...maybe it's because I am normally working on three to five somewhere around... or socks or on ones. Yeah, I find it's a little more challenging to knit with. It's like, I've heard this before. Sometimes with larger needles and thicker yarn, like this is a worsted weight. You're a little harder on my hands and there's something about this yarn too. It's a little hard to knit with in the sense that it doesn't really slide along the needles very well. And it's interesting.
Kelly 15:29
You have you have metal needles?
Marsha 15:32
Yeah, right.
Kelly 15:33
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Marsha 15:35
And it's much better. I'm doing okay, Kelly, I'm drawing a complete blank. What's the technique called where you have the long circular needle? Magic loop! Oh, my God. Okay, now I remember that. Magic loop. [laughing] I'm doing that and that's pretty easy. The body was I was kind of struggling with it. I finally put it on long a longer cable and it seemed easier, you know, having a longer cable for some reason. They seem like they slide it slid better along the needles. I don't know why that would be.
Kelly 16:06
Well, maybe because they're just not so tight. I don't know.
Marsha 16:09
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. It was interesting, too. This is, I don't think I mentioned this in the other episodes that the, I've mentioned, the name of the yarn is this Navia or Neyvia? tradition. But it's from the Faroe Islands. Oh, and I, which I had forgotten. And when I looked at the label, later on, I realized that and when I washed it, it kind of bloomed. It's still a woolly wool. You know, you definitely would want to wear this over like a flannel shirt or something. But it's, it feels a little softer having been washed. A lot of dye came out of this yarn, too. This is a bright green and a lot the water it just--the water was almost the color of the yarn. It really lost a lot of dye
Kelly 16:58
Did it fade?
Marsha 17:02
It didn't fade. It had excess dye. Which might affect the feel of the yarn.It had excess dye in there. So it feels it feels different. It's it's never gonna, I mean it's softer. It's never gonna be a soft yarn at all.
Kelly 17:20
right
Marsha 17:20
I mean, you're always gonna have to wear a shirt, you know, under this, but, and it kind of bloomed. It's very hairy, kind of. It's really it's really nice yarn. And I think it's gonna be super durable, too.
Kelly 17:34
You'll have to put a picture in your project page, as I'm looking at your project page right now and you just have the wreath. I guess you'll need to take some more pictures now that it's been blocked and flattened. So you can actually see it's a sweater.
Marsha 17:49
Yeah, I'll do that. And I'll put the sleeve in there too. I did think I was talking to Mark and we were talking about the sweater and I said this sweater is going to be the kind of sweater that you wear to the beach. You wear it when you work in the garden. I mean this is gonna be a working sweater. Just like, remember the sweater that you made for gardening at 90?
Kelly 18:09
Yeah,
Marsha 18:11
Yes. And I said to him, You cannot-- you not cannot save this sweater for something nice. Not, you know, I don't just mean to abuse it because you never abuse anything but it's not going to be a fine sweater that you save. You go out and you chop wood in this sweater. Actually it would be too hot chopping wood. You go sit outside
Kelly 18:34
during Snowmageddon in this sweater. [laughing]
Marsha 18:36
Yep. Anyway, no this--it's like it's a working sweater is what it is.
Kelly 18:45
Yeah, nice. That'll be really nice. Anyway, looking forward to see to seeing it.
Marsha 18:51
So that's all I really have to report. I've not picked up my socks and not picked up my simple shawl at all. So nothing to report on those.
Kelly 18:57
All right. I had thought the last time we recorded that I would get the blanket finished. The Faye's Flower blanket, that Persian Tile Blanket, by the next episode because I wanted to be able to talk about it but I did not. I've been screaming along on my other project. So the sweater. The blanket is just still sitting with not very much left to do in terms of sewing it together but then quite a bit of edging to do but none of that happened so I probably shouldn't even be talking about it. But what I have done, worked a lot on, is the the sweater that I'm making out of handspun it's... The pattern for that sweater is called Dark Green Forest. And it's by Christina Korber-Rieth or Reith, I think is the way it's pronounced and it has that square... What did you call it? Sailor collar?
Marsha 20:04
Mm hmm.
Kelly 20:05
Which I think is the right way to describe it. Saddle shoulders with the cable. Anyway, I am all the way down to the pockets. In fact, I'm right now I'm working on it. I'm on the third of the honeycomb cables that goes down the pocket. So I think I have maybe... 2-4-6? I maybe have about six or eight more rows to go before the pockets are finished.
Marsha 20:37
Wow!
Kelly 20:37
I know! Yeah. I'm excited about how fast it's going. And so then once I finished the pocket... Its top down. So once I once I finished the pocket, or you know, the body down to the bottom of the pockets. I think there's a there's no ribbing at the bottom. I should have looked. Let me just check here. Yeah, there's the regular, you know, the the ribbing on the front band. Oh, yeah, there is a ribbing at the bottom of this sweater. So the pocket cables, open up into a ribbing. So that's all that will be left. Once I finished the pocket. All that will be left is the ribbing on this on this sweater. And then of course finishing the sleeves.
Marsha 21:32
So I guess I'm not understanding. Are the pockets are knit separately and attached to the sewn on front of.. the front side of the sweater or is that pocket the front side and there's a piece in the back?
Kelly 21:45
Yeah, I'll have to go in the back and make the back part of the pocket. Oh, you open up a slit.
Marsha 21:54
And okay, I do have to say I have never made-- I've never made pockets before.
Kelly 21:56
I haven't either. Well, no, that's not true. I made pockets in the orcas run sweater. That's the only sweater that I put pockets in. But I did make pockets there. I do have to talk about something odd in this pattern. Not, not bad. Just it cracks me up. I don't understand it. You do the colla, gotten done with the collar and the yoke, the yoke of the sweater, you're into the body. So you divide it for the sleeves, separated the body and the sleeves. And then you get into the step that's called "finish the body." Step six. So you do like three and a half inches under the... after the underarm after you split. And then it says, "set this aside and prepare the pocket edgings." And I thought well, that's weird, because the pockets aren't until you get to the bottom of the sweater. So I was confused about why you would do that. I read it like, I don't think I have to set this aside now and do the pocket edgings. So when I got to the place where I needed to put in the pockets, I went to do the pocket edgings the pocket edgings are literally four rows of ribbing that you then attach. You like split for the pocket. And then on the-- you put some of the stitches-- at the top, you put some of the stitches at the top of the pocket hole on waste yarn, and then the bottom of the pocket hole you attach this ribbing so that it kind of the ribbing kind of pokes up above where the hole of the pocket will be.
Marsha 23:32
Mm hmm.
Kelly 23:32
Why would you set aside your sweater at the armholes, do four rows of ribbing twice, then set them aside? If you're me, something that small could actually get lost doing it so much..so early. Like, I don't understand it!
Marsha 23:53
because you don't need it for I mean, how many more inches?
Kelly 23:55
For another like 12 inches? Or ten inches at the least.
Marsha 24:00
I have a... I have a theory, okay. Maybe it's like, you know, when you're doing socks, you know, you do the ribbing and you do like top down, you do the ribbing. You do the ankles, you know the length of thing and then just as you're getting bored and sick of that you start doing the heel flap, maybe and then we and then when you get tired of all that detail of heel flap, turning the heel, the gusset Oh, you get to back go back to that mindless stuff.
Kelly 24:27
Maybe it's to give you a break. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. My original thought was that it was to prevent you from you know, have you do it early so that you wouldn't just skip the pockets because you were afraid do you have enough yarn. But they're only four rows. I mean, this would not even get you... four little rows. This wouldn't even get you... this much yarn wouldn't even get you one round. Right? It wouldn't even get you all the way around the sweater.
Marsha 24:56
Yeah, maybe it's a joke. Yeah. It's maybe the pattern designer thinks, You know what, I'm going to mess with you!
Kelly 25:03
Yeah. She's messing with my mind. Because literally, that when you get to the body, you work three and a quarter inches like this. And this is for all sizes, you work three and a quarter inches after the armhole. You know, after separating. That's step 6A and finish the body. And step 6B is prepare pocket edgings. And then you go to Step 6C and that's when you do your shaping and knit for rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows and rows before you get to the pockets. It's a mystery. But, but I did them when I needed them put them on. They look great. Because I always like everything I knit, right?[laughing] It all looks great. So I'm really happy with this. I'm really happy with the progress. It's going really fast. Seems like it's going really fast. So yeah, I'm loving this handspun sweater it's going to be another one of those sweaters, I think, that gets a lot of that gets a lot of wear.
Marsha 26:08
Mm hmm.
Kelly 26:09
The only other thing I've been working on....Oh, let me just say a little bit about this. I will put some information in the show notes about the two different sheep breeds that I'm working with. Since it is the Summer Spin In. I put some information... But this is CVM. And that stands for California Variegated Mutant, which is the multicolored version of the Romeldale. Remember the judge Mark Eidman. I think his first name was Mark,
Marsha 26:41
Who just passed away?
Kelly 26:43
The one who passed away. It was his father who discovered some colored lambs that were appearing in his Romeldale flock, and instead of culling them they actually bred them for the color. And so that's where the California Variegated Mutant comes from. And I have a CVM fleece in the garage, it's a darker than this one, it's more of a, it's more of a dark gray. This one was more of a beige that I overdyed. But I really like it. It's not, you know, they call it a fine wool. I wouldn't say it's like, a super fine, at least not this one. It's not a super fine wool. It's a little it's a little more fine than like a Corriedale. It's gonna be a nice sweater, and I like CVM to spin. And then the other thing that I have been spinning is Oxford. And I have a little bit of information about the Oxford sheep also. They were imported into the US in the 1840s. And it says that it's one of the largest breeds of sheep, only surpassed by the Lincoln. Although this fleece was quite small. I think it was quite small. It's probably about five or six pounds. And that's I mean, if I when I bought a Lincoln fleece, they've been bigger than that. So skirted heavily, or maybe a smaller or younger Oxford sheep. I don't... it didn't say lamb, but it was in the market class, I'm pretty sure. Anyway. The staple length is one to two inches, which is true. That's what I'm finding in this, this fleece that I have. So it's one of the livestock Conservancy breeds as well as the CVM is also a livestock Conservancy breed. So... but I've been spinning that I'm, I'm on my third bobbin. I decided to spin all my singles first and then ply them, which I hardly ever do. But I still was kind of undecided. Remember, I talked last time about how the three ply seemed too tight. I mean, that's kind of silly, because I can just ply it more loosely. That's not a characteristic of three ply, so much as it is a characteristic of my spinning. So I'm still, I'm still debating whether I'll make a two ply or a three ply with this. But if I do a three ply, I want to experiment and, you know, ply it loosely. I don't want to ply this really, really tight. I want it to be kind of a fluffy, fluffy yarn. So I have enough bobbins, I think, that I can just spin the... well maybe not the rest of this, but I can at least spin four bobbins and then I can either ply three of them together or I can ply them two and two so I think that's what I'm planning to do is spin four bobbins and then decide whether I'm going to make a two ply or or three ply. So yeah, I'm I'm making good progress on that spinning, it's a little bit boring because it's a white. It's a white fleece. I think I'll dye the yarn when I'm done. Well, that's it for my projects, Marsha. I know that you aren't going to talk about a certain part of your house, but you were doing some cleaning out. And I have a question about that. So you posted on Instagram that you were taking two big garbage bags full of yarn to destash at the Goodwill. And I just thought it would be interesting to hear, like, how did you decide what you were going to get rid of?
Marsha 30:42
Well, it actually was pretty easy. I'll tell you what I got rid of. It was spirit yarn that I got from the Goodwill.
Kelly 30:50
Okay,
Marsha 30:50
Those days when I would go to the Goodwill. I have used some of it. Like, for example, I remember I was getting all kinds of worsted weight yarns for that Afghan that I made that I used my dad's old sweater then took apart and combined it with other yarn.
Kelly 31:09
Yeah.
Marsha 31:10
So a lot of that worsted weight Goodwill yarn went into that.
Kelly 31:14
Yeah, it wasn't that wasn't that blanket, like five pounds or something? I remember you weighed it. You went to the pet store or the vet. Yeah. [laughing]
Marsha 31:19
Yeah. Yes. I went to the vet to use their scale. Because my scale wouldn't hold it. It wasn't big-- you know, the scale, my bathroom scale wasn't big enough to hold it. But I and then I still kept a lot of that worsted weight yarn that I got at the Goodwill because my plan was to make an afghan for my brother. And I'm still determined to do it. If I don't do it in the next couple of years, then I'm going to have to just get rid of that yarn.
Kelly 31:47
Oh, okay.
Marsha 31:48
And then a lot of it came from the destash room. So if Gayle and Charlene and Barb and Tracy are listening to this... Do you remember the first year we went to the knockers retreat? And I could not believe! I could not believe people were giving away yarn for free, I could not believe it. And I was like going in there and like, feeling guilty that I was taking it and they're all laughing at us because we-- I was sneaking in there Every time I left the room.
Kelly 32:15
Every time you couldn't see Marsha it was like, Oh, where's Marsha? I bet she's in the destash room.
Marsha 32:24
Well, here's my takeaway. There's a reason why all that yarn was at the Goodwill. And there's a reason why it was all in the destash room. But I was just, you know, I was so excited. And I had all these possibilities of things I was gonna make and how could anybody possibly get rid of it? It's so wonderful. And I have used a lot of it. I have to say I did use a lot of that yarn.
Kelly 32:48
Yeah.
Marsha 32:50
And there's some things I did. But I thought, you know, I've not used it in how many years? And I have so much yarn that I purchased at Stitches, and yarn crawls, and two trips to Scotland and a trip to Iceland. And I'd rather be knitting with that yarn, that I've invested money and it's beautiful yarn.
Kelly 33:12
Yeah.
Marsha 33:12
And so I thought it was pretty easy decision to make... to decide. But I did think it was funny people's reactions to the Instagram post about what I was getting rid of. Because one person's comment was, "Is it wrong that I'm trying to read the labels?" So funny. [laughing] And somebody also wanted to know what Goodwill I was dropping it off at, you know. And then it was interesting, on--because I have it set up when I post something on Instagram it posts to Facebook. And there was one woman that commented that-- I can't remember how she worried but basically, oh, that I've reached that age where? Because I think my comment in my post was-- and I was joking. I truly was joking when I said this-- I won't live long enough to knit all that yarn. She really thought.. like her response was, Oh, you've reached that age where... and that, you know, I'm preparing for my death by clearing out my house so that my heirs won't have to deal with it. And it's like, okay, I never--that is not what I was thinking at all.[laughing] That is not at all what I was thinking I don't consider myself to be that age. I just tried to lighten my load and I somebody else should have it.
Kelly 34:35
Yeah, who who is this person? A friend? A friend would not consider you to be old! [laughing]
Marsha 34:44
Anyway, so it was... that was amusing to me that comment because that's not how I see it. You know, I was really... I guess you have to be careful. what I think is funny is not what other people think!
Kelly 34:56
Right?
Marsha 34:57
Or some people think when I say things I think are funny, they take it literally like I'm preparing for my death.
Kelly 35:04
Right, right. Well, thinking about the the feeling of being so excited about all the yarn at the destash room at the NoCKRs retreat and how there's a reason some things are in destash. I remember when I was doing the Master Gardener class and they started having, cutting, you know, cutting giveaways and seed giveaways, and they started encouraging us to bring things that we were...you know, bring cuttings and so they'll put stuff out in the patio, and oh my gosh, it was like, you had to be careful not to get elbowed in the ribs or, or knocked aside, when all these gardeners would just, like, practically make a run for the patio. And, I mean, honestly, it looked like a bunch of yard waste. [laughing]
Marsha 36:02
Yeah,
Kelly 36:02
You know, I mean, that's literally what it was, was people's yard waste. And, and, and I just... I was right in there, you know, getting excited and throwing elbows to get my thing that I needed. And then I found out about this cutting day that they had in Monterey and I went to that and I got some of that, you know, some of the stuff that people were giving away and when you plant it, you realize why they're giving it away. Like not not that they're getting rid of it out of their yard.
Marsha 36:36
Mm hmm.
Kelly 36:37
But the reason that they can give you all these cuttings is that it's super invasive and spreading all over, they have to dig it up every year to get rid of some of it. Like Alstroemeria was one of them that, you know, there was just always always somebody bringing Alstroemeria And anyway, I don't have to go into all the...
Marsha 37:02
I have it in my alley. That alstromeria in the alley and is it just takes over you know, yeah, it takes over. Yeah.
Kelly 37:09
Which is good in some settings, but, it's just kind of funny that it's the same, you know. Yeah, free plants. Destashing plants causes the same sort of frenzy.
Marsha 37:23
The other thing I was gonna say about the NoCKRs retreat, and that was the first time I experienced that people are just giving this yarn away and my... But many of the attendees didn't even go in the room. Right? Or they went in the room to put their stuff there and they never went in, or they just go in there casually look. And, and I really, but now I understand. They were able to do because they have so much at home, but they could exercise restraint, probably because they had so much.
Kelly 37:52
And maybe had done the same kind of clearing-- done the same thing.
Marsha 37:56
Yeah. So I'm sure at the time, people were like, Oh, yes, she will learn.
Kelly 38:02
Right, right
Marsha 38:03
Give her a few years. And she will learn!
Kelly 38:05
Yeah, everybody's at a little bit different, different stage in that in that process.
Marsha 38:11
Yeah. But I will say though, I did order plastic boxes. Well, I should say I had all my yarn in, you know, these plastic like drawers. I got them at the Goodwill. And when my stash... and I had one and then a my stash got a little bigger and then I found another one, it got bigger. So they're all from the Goodwill. Anyway, I just pulled all the yarn out. And the stuff that I decided I was going to keep I just temporarily put it in paper bags labeled it and then I ordered plastic bins and those arrived actually just yesterday. And so last night I started putting my yarn in there and then I'm gonna be... because some of the...I will say some of the wool, one batch, like a sweater quantities worth of yarn, actually, I discovered had some moth damage. So I I just threw that in the garbage. And I didn't even give that away. I just threw it in the garbage. And then I... so I have cedar and lavender which I'm going to put in those bins to protect it somewhat. It'll be much easier to see what I have, too, because some of the bins were clear. Some of them that I had before, and some were not clear. It was in bags, it was just all kind of random. So now it's going to be much more organized and I can actually can see what I have, visually being able to see everything every time I go down into that place in the house because I can't say the word.
Both 39:39
[laughing]
Marsha 39:45
Oh no, I'll call it the cellar. There we go! When I go down to the cellar. I think then it it'll be reinforcement. No you don't need to buy anymore. I really don't need to buy any. So like I'm going to show up at NoCKRs...
Kelly 39:58
We'll check back!
Marsha 39:59
Yes, I'm going to show up at at Stitches when it happens again. And when Black Sheep happens again, I'm going to show up, but I am really going to try not to buy anything because I seriously have enough yarn. And it's a crime to just buy something and put it in your stash and not use it, I need to use it. It's not a crime, that's too harsh, right?
Kelly 40:20
It's just, it would be nice to use it. if it's a crime. everyone listening to this is a criminal. [laughing]
Marsha 40:29
That's true. That's too harsh. It's not a crime, but it'd be nice to knit with it, you know? So anyway,
Kelly 40:36
And if you truly aren't going to knit with it ever, and you know, you're not going to ever get to it, then yes, it is. It's time to get rid of it. It's the whole, you know, I mean, that's what all those seed packets and cuttings represented. And that's what yarn in the destash room represents. It's like, hope and possibility. You know, I can... I mean, I still have that have that feeling about some yarn that's been sitting in my stash forever. And like, really? Is there still a possibility or a hope that I'm gonna use it? Um, yeah, maybe?
Marsha 41:16
Yeah, I think that's hope. And I think also a lot of it, I was just inspired by it. Oh, just, you know, oh, this is... I have these ideas about what I was going to do with it. And it'll go to somebody else's idea. So, right. Well, and what about you? I see we have a note here about fiber books.
Kelly 41:37
Yeah, I still...So there's the inside studio, it's been painted, there's a bookcase there now. Actually, yarn shelving that, you know, that was was put in. It's still not painted, but I've got my stuff on it. But the boxes of stuff that came out of there, I still haven't put away. They're still sitting in the living room. And I was looking at them the other day thinking, Okay, I've got to do something with this. And, you know, there's not enough room on the shelf, the shelf unit, to put the books and the yarn. So now I have to make decisions about about books and, and some of them are not knitting books. And those are going to be hard, hard decisions to make. But I have a whole box...probably box and a half maybe--of fiber books. And so I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with them and whether I'm going to destash them. What am I going to keep.
Marsha 42:39
Do you look at them?
Kelly 42:43
Some of them. Yes. Like, I know for sure I have the book. It's old. It's called Socks, Socks, Socks. And it's just a whole bunch of different sock patterns. I have. And I've made, I've made quite a few pairs of socks out of it. And then I used it a lot before I really was experienced knitting socks to know like, how many stitches should I cast on given the given the, you know, the height of the sock or the type of yarn, you know, I go and look at the cast ons for the different socks to know how many stitches I should cast on before I just kind of got to the point where I just know what to cast on. But I think I'll keep that one because because I've used it so much. And so there's not just there's not just useful information in there and patterns that I might use again, or patterns that I might use. But there's memories about my early knitting days connected to that book. So like that book, I'll keep but I bought, I bought two really nice hardback books by Nicky Epstein of edgings. So one is called like knitting on the edge. And the other one is called something else. So there's, there's two different types of edging, I can't remember now. There's, like edgings that are part of the garment and edgings that you add to the garment. It's kind of like a stitch dictionary, but of edgings. And they're beautiful books. I've never looked at either one of them past, you know, just like flipping through when I first bought it and then flipping through when I put it in the box to put it away. And will I ever really use that to create an edging on something? And probably not, you know, but then I think oh, but there's so many really cool things I could do. And then I keep them so... And they're really pretty books.
Marsha 44:35
And they're so small and you have a big house.
Kelly 44:37
Oh, they're not small. These books are not small. They're a lot more like coffee table
Marsha 44:40
They're big and you have a big house.
Kelly 44:43
They're more I mean, they really are like the coffee table. They're an odd size. Actually they don't fit on the bookshelf there. They're like legal size length. sideways. Like they're oh they're wider than they are tall. So they're an odd shape. They don't fit on the bookcase. So they'll probably end up going, but but you know, there's a lot of things kind of in between that spectrum of I'll definitely keep this and, and these books are pretty, but I will never use them.
Marsha 45:17
Yeah.
Kelly 45:18
And so I have to make some decisions there about what I'm going to do with them. So I kind of don't want to even open the boxes. Because I know I mean, I know that the number of books that I can actually keep on that shelf is, is small. And they've been in boxes for like, two years. Three years, maybe. Yeah, I haven't missed them. Yeah, right. So yeah. And then I have the other books. I have a box of dog books. Dog Training books, dog picture books, dog breed books from, you know, the, when we had labs and water spaniel, and, and there's just too much emotional connection to all that stuff that I know I don't really want to think about it, but I don't need it. I clearly don't need those books. They've been in a box for a really long time. There's been only a very few that I've dug into the box to get.
Marsha 46:24
Yeah. Well, I mean, I in terms of books, I have cookbooks, you know, my cookbooks. and then combined with my mother's cookbooks, and I some were duplicates. So I got rid of duplicates, obviously. But...
Kelly 46:39
And those are possibilities and hopes of what you could cook.
Marsha 46:42
Exactly. And and I you know...But there's I don't know, like I...the truth is, honestly, there's just certain cookbooks, I make stuff out of all the time I go back to. The rest, I don't really look at that much. And then a lot of times I get inspiration. It's like, Oh, I have these ingredients. What can I make out of it? And I just do a little Google search. Right? And so I'm actually using the internet a lot more.
Kelly 47:10
Yeah,
Marsha 47:10
but I....ugh... someday. I'm not ready.
Kelly 47:14
Right, right.
Marsha 47:14
I'll go through them and get rid of things.
Kelly 47:16
Yeah. But you have a...you have a bookcase for them. Right? They're all sitting on the shelves.
Marsha 47:22
Yeah, they're all in the library.
Kelly 47:25
I knew when I got rid of those shelves, that I was gonna have to get rid of a lot of books. And I did. But it's gonna take me several rounds of destashing to get rid of the number of books that I need to get rid of. Because they're just... there's... Yeah, there's some emotion attached to them. So...
Marsha 47:45
Well. All in good time.
Kelly 47:47
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That is true. The the closet behind me got cleaned out. I don't know if I was talking about that I wanted to do that. But the closet behind me here in the... where I record, the dressing room in the other bedroom? We got that cleaned out and I got it put back together, there's a lot of room in there now. I could put the boxes of books in there and not think about them for another three or four years. [laughing] And at which time that I might be ready to get rid of them. We'll see.
Marsha 48:20
So I just... I just... as we're talking about this, I'm just thinking about emotional attachment to books. And I I've gotten rid of pretty much all of Ben's books that he had when he was a little kid you read to him and he had a lot of books because I worked in a bookstore, right? So I would just buy stuff, which I realize now in hindsight, I should have just gotten them from the library. But there were some books that I hung on to because I loved reading them to him so much. And all this whole series of books by the author Bill Peet. Do you know him?
Kelly 48:53
That doesn't ring a bell, no.
Marsha 48:56
Last name is P-e-e-t. And he was the author illustrator of these books. And I love the the art, the illustrations, I love them. And then the stories were great. Like there was-- Ella was one of them. And Ella was an elephant from the circus. And she she lives in... she was very pampered. And she got a little bit too big for her head and decided to to leave. Run away from the circus. So she runs away from the circus. And she gets captured by a farmer who realizes that this is really great to have this elephant you can work on the farm, to work on the farm. And it's a story basically, you know, sort of be grateful for what you have, because it's not necessarily greener on the other side. So there's that story. There's another one that we loved to read called is Jennifer and Josephine. And now I can't remember which one was which. I think Jennifer was a cat. And she lived in this old car.
Kelly 49:57
Oh, I see the illustrations. I went to his website. And I'm looking at the illustrations, so cool.
Marsha 50:02
Yeah, anyway, Jennifer and Josephine and I think Jennifer, as I say, was the cat. And Josephine was the car. And it's like an old Model T. The cat, this is her home, and some salesman comes and buys the car, and they throw some new tires on it. And Josephine is shocked that she's now being driven. She's been sitting for years in this junkyard, and the cat's distressed and driving crazy and the salesman is just a horrible person. He treats Josephine the car terrible, he doesn't realize the cat's in the car. And he crashes the the car, and it goes into the river. And so the cat goes and sees a farm, goes to the farm and gets... draws attention...A little girl, the farmer's daughter goes out and finds the car, tells the dad. The dad comes and gets the car and pulls the car out of the river. Saves the car, saves the cat. They're excited to have this cat now. And he's excited to have this car because he couldn't afford a car. So he he now fixes the car up and Josephine the car is super happy because she's never driven over 15 miles an hour. I don't know. They're such charming stories. He was so charming. Anyway, I'm going off on this, telling about these stories, about the this author Bill Peet but I used to read those to Ben all the time. And there was another one Lyle, Lyle Crocodile.
Kelly 51:42
Oh, yeah.
Marsha 51:42
I don't remember the author. But Lyle is a crocodile that lives in New York City in a bathtub in some family's apartment. And he's very erudite and and is a good conversationalist. And that people invite him to tea parties and cocktail parties and stuff. This crocodile. And we would read those all the time. And so when I moved, I had saved those books to come to the house. And there's bags of books to go to the Goodwill and of course, you're ahead of me. Mark took them all to the Goodwill. All the Bill Peet books are gone and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile are gone. And I was devastated. I'm still kind of devastated by it. Now the reality is, am I ever going to read those books again? Probably not.
Kelly 52:27
And some child is getting to read them.
Marsha 52:30
Yes, exactly.
Kelly 52:31
Which is what books should have. A book that's not being read is sad.
Marsha 52:36
Yeah. Right.
Kelly 52:37
I mean, I don't know if books actually feel sadness. But...
Marsha 52:41
You know, anyway, they were just...Maybe what I should do is just go out and buy a copy of Ella and Jennifer and Josephine, because those were kind of my two favorite from that. Those books anyway, of that from that author, anyway,
Kelly 52:55
Well, I'll put the pages in the show notes. Okay, because I was just looking at the pictures while you were talking. And they are. They are really cute. Very cute.
Marsha 53:10
And since we're talking about it, since I was not planning on making a book recommendation, but I here's that that was a recommendation. I've been watching Netflix and working on Mark's sweater. And I watched a documentary the other day, which I just wanted to mention that because I thought it was really interesting. And it's called, people have probably heard of this. But if you haven't, it's called This Changes Everything. And it's a documentary made by the actress Gina Davis. It says here in 2004, Davis launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters and media. So this documentary talks about her, why she started this institute. And then different actresses' experiences female directors' experiences trying to make it in the film industry. And how most media are... a lot of the entertainment that we watch in the United States and around the world is coming out of Hollywood and how women are portrayed on film. And how... so it's it's an excellent documentary, and I highly recommend it. It's really good. I will say the one thing that sort of...At the end of the film...One of the things they talk about is how difficult it is for women directors to get jobs, directing films. And they actually have lists of when studios are going to make a film. They have lists of directors that they pass around that you know who's made it. This is who you want to consider first, this is who you would consider second. If none of those are are available, way down the bottom of the list are these, are the people you might want to consider. And one of the women--who is way, the only woman on the list--who was way down at the bottom was Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Academy Award for The Hurt Locker. So she's an Academy Award winning director, but she's at the bottom of the list, right? Because men are getting the these jobs. Anyway, this does not take away from how good the documentary is. But at the end, I'm reading the credits. And you know who directed the documentary?
Kelly 55:24
A man?
Marsha 55:25
Some guy named Tom! And I'm like, I'm sorry, what?
Kelly 55:34
Oh, yeah.
Marsha 55:36
Now, that doesn't take away from it really, because it was an excellent, excellent series or documentary. I recommend it because it really sort of opened your eyes to how women are portrayed in film and in television shows. And how many women who when they do get a chance, how much money they're making for the industry.
Kelly 55:54
Yeah.
Marsha 55:56
Interesting. You know, but they still selected the man. Not to take away from the man either right? He did a great job, but it's just humorous to me. But anyway, I'll put a link in there.
Kelly 56:09
That'd be good.
Marsha 56:10
What else we got going on here? Are you going anywhere at all? Or?
Kelly 56:13
Well, in August, I am going to be at the San Francisco International Pen Show.
Marsha 56:21
Yeah, who knew?
Kelly 56:22
I know. Well, you know, they have a conference for everything.
Marsha 56:28
Right. Mm hmm.
Kelly 56:30
I'm sure that the pen people would be surprised that there's something called Stitches.
Marsha 56:35
Yes. Right.
Kelly 56:36
So I'm going to go check it out and see, see what that... see what that world is like. And I'll be there on the Saturday. It's in Redwood City, which is actually south of San Francisco. That's actually really nice. It's it'll be an even an easier drive to get there. But yeah, we're planning to-- planning to go and take a look at the the pens and if any of our listeners are going, also planning to go to the Pen Show I'd love to love to see you will have to let me know.
Marsha 57:13
Say Kelly, pens don't take up very much space in your house!
Kelly 57:17
Yeah. But you know, what's funny, is, you know, the the sock yarn skein that you buy the souvenir sockyarn? Apparently, in the pen world, the equivalent of that is ink. I saw an ink cupboard on Instagram yesterday. Like, oh my gosh, that is definitely more ink than you could use in a lifetime. I mean, because every time you you put your put ink in your pen, I don't know, three to five milliliters, I think. And these, you know, jars of ink are like 20 milliliters, 30 milliliters, some of them are like 70 milliliters.
Marsha 58:06
Wow.
Kelly 58:07
So definitely more ink than you could use. It's definitely an ink collection. As opposed to a stash of ink for use, I think. But yeah, you know, because you can buy a bottle of ink depending on the ink you can buy a bottle of ink for you know 10 bucks. Whereas a pen
Marsha 58:26
Cheaper than... cheaper than yarn!
Kelly 58:29
And, and then you know, some of the pens are some of the pens are quite inexpensive. Some Chinese fountain pens are quite inexpensive, they're you know, their pens, you definitely... you can get for under $20. But a lot of pens are more expensive than that. And so yeah, if you don't have... if you can't satisfy your collection urge by buying a pen, you can get a souvenir. You can get a souvenir bottle of ink wherever you go. So anyway, that's on my that's on my agenda for August. And I'm really looking forward. Really looking forward to it.
Marsha 59:12
Yeah, it'll be fun.
Kelly 59:15
It'll be interesting to see another, you know, another world. So another hobby world.
Marsha 59:22
Mm hmm.
Kelly 59:23
But my box of pens, my one cigar box that I converted into a pen box is full. And so I'm calling my collection complete.
Marsha 59:34
But I happen to know that you have more than one cigar box. [laughing]
Kelly 59:36
I do. Yes. And actually. Well and that Mark. Mark did yeah, I have three of them. So but only one of them has been outfitted to hold the pen so far. Yeah, but we did go to dinner with a work friend the other night and he gave me, he gave me a Chinese fountain pen that he had, like, Oh, this is really nice. And he's like, yeah, I think it was about five bucks. And I can't believe you bought this pen for only $5. He's like, why don't you take it? So, so in full confession, I do have one pen that doesn't fit in the box. So I could start a second box, but I will not do that anytime soon. So, but I might find something that I like at the pen show. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely bring home a souvenir bottle of ink
Marsha 1:00:39
Well, I guess the last thing that we need to talk about Kelly is the summer spin in. Just to remind people it's going on. And it... we just have about a month to go before it ends. Labor Day, which is September sixth. We'll have some prizes from Three Green Sisters. And we'll have more details. But...
Kelly 1:00:59
Yeah, and I have also some fiber from Sincere Sheep. That will be... I never took a picture of it and put it up on the thread. But I also bought some fiber from sincere sheep. That'll be our prize too.
Marsha 1:01:11
Okay. All right. Yeah. So keep spinning. Yes. All right. Well have fun at the pen show! Well, I'll talk to you before that.
Kelly 1:01:17
Yeah, it's not till the end of August. We'll record again.
Marsha 1:01:19
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, then I will let you go so you can get out there and start spinning.
Kelly 1:01:24
All right.
Marsha 1:01:26
All righty.
Kelly 1:01:26
Bye bye. Thank you so much for listening. To subscribe to the podcast visit Two Ewes Fiber Adventures dot com.
Marsha 1:01:34
Join us on our adventures on Ravelry and Instagram. I am betterinmotion and Kelly is 1hundredprojects.
Both 1:01:41
Until next time, we're the two ewes doing our part for world fleece.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai