Monday, March 21, 2011

Another week slips by

So much for daily blogging!  Now that we are working 6 days a week, and a couple of those late, the blogging has taken a back seat.  Regular work time at the mill and diverting time to things like prepping to visit the accountant, figuring out on line invoicing, setting up paypal accounts, etc have taken its toll on my blogging.

We had a pretty good week.  We got a small order recently that was bigger than what we had gotten.  And to sweeten the pot, we were given creative carte blanche!  We got to try some things we had talked about but had not yet tested out.  And the good news is, they worked!  Something from my days as a handspinner still apply and others, well, they don't!  But color theory and the like do not care how you are spinning, just that you are!

And we had more bugs to work out on machines:  Tim has been diligently working on the needle felter, which apparently loves sheep wool but alpaca, not so much.  A few simple (and one or two not so simple) but time consuming modifications are getting that machine up and running.  If Tim hadn;t have knick the side of a finger on Sat with a needle, well, we would know more!  Both he and his finger are fine.  As is the needle felter.  Obviously, the safety guards were not in place during this incident!  I have put a felting needle in my finger a few times doing it the old fashioned way - needle felting small things on a foam square on my lap (anyone who has needle felted has doen this!).  It does hurt.

The splicer is also being tamed.  The splicer is supposed to make invisible joins in the yarn, so if it breaks during plying, or you want to change bobbins during skeining, no one should be any the wiser.  If you have ordered yarn from mills in the past (big or small or purchased yarn at Michaels or a yarn shop) sometimes you get knots.  because they do not use a splicer.  Sigh.  Ours works just veuatifully on 2 ply 1200 yards per pound yarn and not much else!  Our new chambers should be in soon, expanding our abilities.

Too many words....too many words....time for pictures:
Born Fri nite / Sat am

First cria of the year!
 




Z wrangles tumbled fiber
 



Eeyore "crunchies" (note R is the "Pin Draft Wizard!")

How many more needles?

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