Anne’s niece has recently had her second child, so I am racing to get this project finished and mailed. I’m following a design which I have made before. It used 4 colors of Vintage DK which I get from Yarn Barn of Kansas. Anne chose the colors which arrived quickly.

The skeins were converted to center fed balls prior to warping. I chose the color order of the stripes.

There are three repeats of these stripes in the blanket. With the same sequence in the weft for a checkerboard mix of colors. It also has a fringe all the way around the outside.

I’m weaving on ‘Big Mac’ which is another reason I am hurrying. I’ll need this loom for the 2026 Christmas towels. I have all the yarn for them but need this loom as it has the required 8 shafts.

Also underway was some further work on the hot tub. I know it’s not strictly fiber related, but as the hot tub is right behind the studio/workshop I can load up the fire then back in to the studio work so the jobs work in parallel. I have just made an improvement to the tub by adding some insulation around the outside. The last major upgrade was to put insulation underneath which helped with heat retention. The extra outside insulation has cut the amount of heat in half which means quicker re-heat and use further in to winter. Sadly is does take away the ‘wood’ look, but we can live with that.

Left to right is; the heat exchanger, the new insulation fitted, and the old look.

The blanket is now finished. Weaving was completed in a day, then once off the loom the fringes had to be trimmed up to be uniform (mostly) then each group of 4 was twisted and knotted. Finally it went through a gentle cycle in the washing machine and dried flat.

I was at work a little while back and received a call from a guy who wanted to know if I/we (the store) knew anyone who might be able to repair a spinning wheel!! Well, I was able to say, that’s exactly what I do. Not as part of my work at R&M Yarns, but as part of the Oak & Fern package of services. He said he would be able to bring it to me at work to look at, but he did also say that he was guilty of the damage as he had somehow dropped the wheel.

Very shortly thereafter he turned up with the wheel in the back of the car which we quickly brought in for a quick look. It was a Kromski Prelude, a very popular small saxony wheel, great for beginners and established spinners who don’t have the room for larger wheels. It had definitely been dropped! It was mostly in pieces, but I was able to re-assemble it into a spinning wheel shaped thing.

This is how it was dropped off to me – in bits and there was definitely evidence of a drop. There were some minor breakages and as it turned out once I really started to look into it, some missing parts. The wood was very dry, so throughout the project as I cleaned I applied Howard’s Feed and Wax wherever needed. The major ‘restoration’ was where the mounts for the main wheel bearing had been broken, presumably in the accident. I told the guy who brought it in (it was his wife’s wheel) that I wouldn’t be aiming for restoring it to pristine original which would have meant finding original parts or making replacements. I would instead make functional parts that would restore the original operation but not look like original. He was happy with that.

Another part that slowed me down was a missing main bearing shim on one side. Luckily I could measure from the original and order some some brass tubing with the correct inner and outer dimensions.

The left photo is of the main bearing with the replacement shim and the small wooden part that now holds it in place which replaces the broken original . The right photo is the first re-assembly of the wheel with everything cleaned and most repairs done.

Once everything was back together there was a need to actually test it. As it didn’t have a bobbin on the flyer I had to make do with using one of my own bobbins that was a close fit. The owner had bobbins for the wheel, but they didn’t come with it to me. With some adjustments to get the tensions etc correct I was able to spin some fiber.

A mini 2 ply skein hung on a flyer hook. A few of the flyer hooks had suffered and had to be re-bent and aligned properly. At this stage the job was pretty well done.

The wheel all restored to working, clean, new drive band and to the right – the payment. And on a comic note – I rang the guy to say the wheel was ready, and he was working that day (he’s a para-medic) so came to the store pretty well straight away. Took the wheel and paid me. What’s funny though – the neighbor across the road who has known my boss for many years called her to ask if ‘they guy’ who works in her store was all right as he’d just seen an ambulance pull up then quickly head away! That notwithstanding, hopefully the husband is now back in good standing as his wife can now continue with her spinning hobby on a very nice ‘small’ wheel that will now last for many years to come.

I was given (free to a good home/owner who would use it) a complete kumihimo set up some time back and have been using it sporadically when I have time. After some quick tests I started focusing on making shoe laces.

So, some background, kumihimo is Japanese braiding and goes back centuries. Used on Samurai armor and high end kimonos and everything in between. Traditionally braiding is carried out on a marudai which is a small table type thing with a round top with a hole in it on a larger base. In Japan you would likely kneel on the ground to braid, but old age and arthritic knees mean I stand and raise the marudai!

Braids would most often be done in silk with the number of strands for each tama (bobbin) and the length all being part of the initial calculations. Good record keeping is essential if you need to repeat! I have been using a cheaper option than silk, with 20/2 pearl cotton at 6 to 8 strands per tama depending how thick the eventual lace needs to be. Several books came with the equipment and all but one being by Jacqui Carey are the best to be had. The one booklet that is not hers I have since found out came with the Majacraft marudai and tama sets and is by a well known, but sadly no longer with us NZ expert on kumihimo.

This picture shows the marudai, tama, booklet, and the box (with the Majacraft logo) for the tama of which there are two should you need to go beyond 8 strand braids. I haven’t yet! Majacraft no longer sell these items, but I did touch base with them and they confirmed that this was indeed manufactured in NZ and was most likely made of NZ rimu.

The first laces I made were for my ‘work’ shoes and served a dual purpose as well as being unique. Since I have demonstrated and talked about kumihimo braiding I can show my shoes with laces and tell them that they were ‘Christmas’ laces (red/green) but also from my Navy history they are ‘Port’ and ‘Starbord’ so that I know which shoe to put on which foot!!

We’ve made many pairs for gifts and experimented with putting the laces in a custom sewn cloth drawstring bag. The following were laces in the ‘Red, White, and Blue’ series done around the 4th of July then packaged up for birthday gifts for Jack and Sue.

When I started braiding it was taking a number of days to complete a set. Since then, and with some strategies in place I can make a set of laces in just one day. Nowhere near any sort of return for the amount of work, but I think I can happily sell them at a price that should be attractive to festival buyers. If there is any interest I’ll aim at making some laces for sale on line, as they’re small enough to be posted relatively cheaply, notwithstanding the every increasing cost of shipping here in the US.

As I continue with my laces, Anne is going to develop a more specialized product in beaded kumihimo (see an earlier blog). We have a large collection of yarn and there are an enormous amount of variations of braids (at the level I can braid – a newbie) that will work as laces. I’ll post more photo’s periodically as new laces appear.

Anne and I jumped into the car and headed north to visit the fair. Not to take rides or eat hot dogs, but to demonstrate along with other members of the Tennessee Valley Handspinners Guild https://tnvalleyhandspinners.org/ A member of the guild has been a long time attendee, as she raised her kids and her farm animals in particular sheep. It’s been two years since the last group demonstrated there – I’ve done it numerous times so when the chance came up we took it.

The organizer of the group know we drive from Old Fort to Knoxville so just has us there for a couple of hours after lunch which gives plenty of time to soak up the sights and sounds of the sheep pavilion or in Anne’s case further afield to check out some of the animals and food options.

Just one of the lineups with very enthusiastic kids and remarkably well behaved sheep. Needless to say these animals have received VERY special attention for the show. No quick shearing with a couple of cuts and tufts resulting.

The winning fleece.

We headed out to a local Knoxville brew pub for lunch and then headed south for home – with some traffic delays and quite a bit of rain. The latter we hoped also occurred in Old Fort, but sadly the drought continues. If there was any it was not even enough to settle the dust and nothing really forecast for another week. The gardens are surviving but only because we water them daily or more.

One problem with owning ‘slightly’ older spinning wheels is the bobbin size. Once at the plying stage you can only fit so much onto a bobbin. On both my Ashford Traditional, and Rappard wheels that amounts to about 2 oz. That’s on the smaller size compared to commercial and a lot of home spun skeins for sale which can range up to 5 oz or more.

Asford Traditionals are still being produced today so spare parts can be bought and retrofitted with ease. The solution was to order an Ashford Sliding Hook Flyer, which just drops in neatly in place of my original flyer.

In the picture the flyer is fitted and has an original bobbin with singles on it. I can now fill it completely, and another, and then ply them (for a 2 ply) onto the new bobbin and fill it up completely. That makes for a 5 oz skein plus or minus. That’s it to the lower left. I don’t need to buy more large bobbins as I will continuing with the strategy as outlined of using old bobbins for singles and the one new bobbin for the plying.

Now I make this all sound relatively simple, but the whole process was far from it. Those of you who do not want to partake in the technical details feel free to scroll down to ‘what’s cooking’ below…

I ordered the new flyer from the ‘Twist and Fell’ Amazon on-line store, a dependable company that have been in business for a long time and were actually, I’d find out later, the only Ashford dealer in the US. Anyway, the flyer arrived and when I opened the box I straight away noticed the metal rings/hooks on the flyer were aligned in parallel with the slider. In that configuration it would mean that you could not fill the bobbin 100% as the flyer hook could not get yarn completely to one end of the bobbin. I questioned both the Twist and Fell store and Ashford themselves. Both replied quickly and were extremely helpful. Twist and Fell quickly sent me new hooks which are at right angles to the slider. Ashford solved the mystery. The early models did have hooks as I originally received, but in 2015 they changed them to the later version. It seems the one shipped to me was of the early lot so had probably been in the warehouse for some time – the only indicator is the serial/batch number and that would not have been a concern to the sellers. A very easy and simple fix for me. I’m not sure if a beginner spinner would have worked out why they could not fully fill the bobbin!

This is the new SFH. The old hooks have the ring/hook (the black ring wrapped in wire) in the same line as the slider.

And for some other activities at the Oak & Fern – not quite fiber, but it is that time of year when it needs to be done so none of our garden harvest is lost and we have a longer term storage solution rather than fridge and freezer.

On the left, blueberry jam in two varieties: Rosemary/Lemon/Blueberry and ‘almost’ plain Blueberry (it has a splash of Peach Schnapps in it). To the right is Okra mixed bourbon pickles. Tomorrow we’ll finish with a few jars of blackberry jam some with chili.

I took up Japanese braiding some time back and have primarily focused on making shoe laces (another whole blog on that!). At the last Birchwood Fiber Festival (https://birchwoodfiberfestival.com/) Carla, who shares our booth, brought along some beaded kumihimo bracelets and they sold well, but more importantly a lot of visitors said they would like to learn how to make them. As we are always looking for new courses to run at the festival it started us thinking. Anne said she would help with the course if she could get familiar with the process herself.

So that led to me building a somewhat cut down marudai as a trial. That’s definitely going to be the topic of another blog – but here’s a hint; blank clock face from Hobby Lobby was the starting point. With that built and a trial braid to work out a few technical parameters, I was ready to finally try some beaded kumihimo.

The design for the braid came from Jacqui Carey’s book ‘Beads and Braids’ and the beads were ordered via Amazon – I ordered several varieties.

The process as outlined in her book is relatively simple and excellently described with words and photo’s. The number of strands per tama was dropped from 8 to 6 to thin the braid down and a fixed number of beads was put onto each group/tama.

Before each strand was moved (in the sequence for this braid)a bead is slid up the braid to the point of braiding where it is effectively trapped by the next strand and so on.

The finised (test) braid that could be a necklace with the beaded section in the middle or a bracelet. Appropriate fittings are still needed. Overall it could be taught in a 2-3 hour class if most of the set up was done, so it would not be a complete kumihimo class. There has been a beginners class taught in previous years on a foam disk – a popular method used that doesn’t mean buying the full marudai, tama, etc package. But it might be possible to have an option to buy those things at our booth or at the end of a course. It will depend how I can speed up the manufacturing process and keep the price reasonable. Time will tell.