Fiber and Heat
Nov. 7th, 2022 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeSaturday, I went to New England Fiber Festival, which is an indoor festival because it's in Massachusetts in November. Except it was 70F and so hot. I wore my light sweater anyway because it's great. There were so many vendors there. Only about 1/3 of the people were wearing masks although that was more than I expected.
This was the first time I bought from a fleece sale and it was simply glorious. So many tables of fleeces for sale. They had them divided into types, primitive, fine, medium and long. There was also alpaca and mohair but I don't actually need any more of those.
I ended up with four fleeces even though I planned to get one. To be fair, I got small or cheaper fleeces because I had a limited budget. I ended up with one fleece from each section.
2 lb grey Icelandic
4 lb Border Leicester fleece that was discounted because it didn't fit the breed standard. I did not care about that.
A 2 lb Merino fleece that was a partial fleece. The Merino fleeces were the most expensive with very few being less than $100 which is why I picked this partial fleece.
An finally, a bag of several fleeces that weighted 13 lbs because they weren't top quality and variable lengths. It was $26 but I knew I could do a lot with it. It needs more washings and some extra skirting.
I got some yarn for F's birthday or christmas present from Sassy Black Yarns
Some dyed roving mostly for me but I'm going to give some todragonlady7 for easier spinning practice. These are from Essential Fiber and Dirty Girl Yarns
I also got some natural dyes that I haven't really seen much, wenge, purpleheart and padauk. I will need to alcohol steep them and I need to do some more research before I use them I think.
I got some cashmere roving, let myself be talked into it but it is very pretty.
Finally, I got a supported spindle, a bowl and a nalbinding needle. I've been practicing with them and I kinda have the hang of spinning. I don't super plan to nalbind but I've vaguely been thinking about it.
Sunday, F and I put the heat back in.
The only thing left to do at that point was cut some of the pipes down and hook them up. Inertia was hard to get going, it wasn't fun and I didn't want to. We had to take apart some of what we did last time. In the end, F ran out to get a tool to help remove the shark bite fittings better which helped a lot, I cut a pipe down too much and had to insert plastic pipe in, turns out it was good because the copper pipe had a small dent right where the fitting went so when we turned on the water, there was a tiny leak. More like a drip. But we turned it off, cut down to where the pipe didn't have a dent (dents were from whatever put the fins on, lots of little ones), cut a new plastic chunk and shoved it all together.
There were no leaks, I ran the pipe out the hose until it was water coming out, then opened the line back up. We're pretty sure there's no air in there now, it seems like the system has two really good bleeders. We turned the thermostat up and waited until it kicked on heat and then turned it back down.
Heat! And just in time because it's supposed to be 22F one night this week.
I worked from home today and around lunch time I bumped around, emptying book boxes onto my shelf in here and also the cookbooks to the shelf in the living room that's closest to the kitchen. I think I'm going to let F fill the other three shelves with her books because all my books fit on one shelf in my room these days. I cleaned one of the living room shelves off because it was still holding some random assortment of things like a trail cam, a peanut butter jar filled with rusty nails, stuff like that. Cleared one of my shelves of book boxes then filled it with things that used to live on my dresser and had been living in a box on the floor. Plus I put all my figurine keepsakes on the top shelf. We can also start putting the nice glasses into one of the living room cabinets now that it shouldn't be moving for major work anymore.
I still need to do some minor things like building little end caps for the baseboard heating since there weren't any ends, plus some corners, filling in some areas around the electrical work with wood filler. Turns out those little chunks of metal are wildly expensive so I'm going to make something that does the same thing with wood. Little stuff but not too bad. Lots of little projects to do which will be easy to do this winter.
This was the first time I bought from a fleece sale and it was simply glorious. So many tables of fleeces for sale. They had them divided into types, primitive, fine, medium and long. There was also alpaca and mohair but I don't actually need any more of those.
I ended up with four fleeces even though I planned to get one. To be fair, I got small or cheaper fleeces because I had a limited budget. I ended up with one fleece from each section.
2 lb grey Icelandic
4 lb Border Leicester fleece that was discounted because it didn't fit the breed standard. I did not care about that.
A 2 lb Merino fleece that was a partial fleece. The Merino fleeces were the most expensive with very few being less than $100 which is why I picked this partial fleece.
An finally, a bag of several fleeces that weighted 13 lbs because they weren't top quality and variable lengths. It was $26 but I knew I could do a lot with it. It needs more washings and some extra skirting.
I got some yarn for F's birthday or christmas present from Sassy Black Yarns
Some dyed roving mostly for me but I'm going to give some to
dragonlady7 for easier spinning practice. These are from Essential Fiber and Dirty Girl YarnsI also got some natural dyes that I haven't really seen much, wenge, purpleheart and padauk. I will need to alcohol steep them and I need to do some more research before I use them I think.
I got some cashmere roving, let myself be talked into it but it is very pretty.
Finally, I got a supported spindle, a bowl and a nalbinding needle. I've been practicing with them and I kinda have the hang of spinning. I don't super plan to nalbind but I've vaguely been thinking about it.
Sunday, F and I put the heat back in.
The only thing left to do at that point was cut some of the pipes down and hook them up. Inertia was hard to get going, it wasn't fun and I didn't want to. We had to take apart some of what we did last time. In the end, F ran out to get a tool to help remove the shark bite fittings better which helped a lot, I cut a pipe down too much and had to insert plastic pipe in, turns out it was good because the copper pipe had a small dent right where the fitting went so when we turned on the water, there was a tiny leak. More like a drip. But we turned it off, cut down to where the pipe didn't have a dent (dents were from whatever put the fins on, lots of little ones), cut a new plastic chunk and shoved it all together.
There were no leaks, I ran the pipe out the hose until it was water coming out, then opened the line back up. We're pretty sure there's no air in there now, it seems like the system has two really good bleeders. We turned the thermostat up and waited until it kicked on heat and then turned it back down.
Heat! And just in time because it's supposed to be 22F one night this week.
I worked from home today and around lunch time I bumped around, emptying book boxes onto my shelf in here and also the cookbooks to the shelf in the living room that's closest to the kitchen. I think I'm going to let F fill the other three shelves with her books because all my books fit on one shelf in my room these days. I cleaned one of the living room shelves off because it was still holding some random assortment of things like a trail cam, a peanut butter jar filled with rusty nails, stuff like that. Cleared one of my shelves of book boxes then filled it with things that used to live on my dresser and had been living in a box on the floor. Plus I put all my figurine keepsakes on the top shelf. We can also start putting the nice glasses into one of the living room cabinets now that it shouldn't be moving for major work anymore.
I still need to do some minor things like building little end caps for the baseboard heating since there weren't any ends, plus some corners, filling in some areas around the electrical work with wood filler. Turns out those little chunks of metal are wildly expensive so I'm going to make something that does the same thing with wood. Little stuff but not too bad. Lots of little projects to do which will be easy to do this winter.
