Cormo and Haflinger

[altivo]

Cormo and Haflinger
Originally uploaded by Altivo

Lazy weekend, mostly. I did get a number of small things done, including some yarn photography. Here is a photo of the yarn I mentioned last week, made by blending white Cormo wool with spring shed from my Haflinger ponies. You can see the wool and the chestnut horsehair lying on the cards at the left. Spun and plied, the yarn is stretchier and softer than I expected, though of course it is still "hairy" from the ends of the horsehair that stick out. You wouldn't want it for underwear I think, but it will make good mittens or a hat that will shed rain. I'm pleased with this result and will make up enough additional yarn for a pair of those mittens to go in the show this fall. See additional yarn and projects here.

Comments

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Hm, yarn photography.

Imagine a camera with spools of red, green, and blue thread, and pressing the button makes the camera sew up a picture of what it sees.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's photography with yarn.
This is photography of yarn. ;p

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Yarny goodness. :)

Hmm... I wonder how 100% haflinger yarn would work out. :)
Definitely something I would want to wear, dyed stripey.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

100% horsehair wouldn't work out at all. In order for animal fiber to hold together in the form of yarn, it needs certain characteristics that hair fibers, like horsehair or dog hair, simply don't have. Even if through great effort you manage to spin it into yarn, it is likely to fall apart the first time the garment is cleaned if not sooner. That's why I mixed the horsehair with a soft clingy wool. The wool fibers form the body of the yarn, and also grip the horse hair tightly enough that it won't shed. I think the practical maximum for horsehair in this type of yarn would be about 33%.

A century ago they used to make upholstery fabric for chairs from horsehair. That was mane and tail hair, and was processed in a different way. It held up well as a sort of shiny, slippery woven upholstery (today we would use plastics probably) but it wasn't anything you'd want to wear. Stiff, harsh, and no insulating quality to speak of.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

You know, it seems kinda cool to be able to go from wool to
clothes in one long go.

Somehow that pleases me.

o.O

I guess its a self-sufficency thing. Not survivalist, maybe more
the way they thought during the Depression.

Anyway, good job sir!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's self-sufficiency. I'm no survivalist, but I grew up in a family with parents and grandparents who survived the Great Depression. They knew how to butcher their own meat and how to can their own veggies and fruit. They knew how to sew and repair their own clothes. They repaired their own vehicles whenever possible. My father tried twice in his life to build his own house. The first effort was cut off by World War II when he went off in the Navy. The second was blocked by neighborhood codes and restrictions for no particularly good reason other than it would cut into the profits of the builders.

Even if I don't do all these things myself any more, or at least not consistently, I know how. Well, I don't think I'd try to build my own house, but I can do repairs. Knowing how means you understand the whole process, which factors into your responsibilities for pollution and waste it might cause, social and economic effects, and so forth. But it also means you can catch someone when they try to rip you off. ;p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there's another factor in my case. I'm stubborn. If I want pickles that aren't loaded with salt and preservatives, I make some. If I want to make mittens with horsehair in them, I make some. This is stuff you can't buy anywhere for love or money. The only way to get it is to do it yourself. XD

[saythename.livejournal.com]

DIY is never wrong.

Sometimes sure, I mean, my dad was an electrician
and he worked in a steel mill so he was aware
of not trying to DIY in certain situations.

Me, on the other hand...well I'm more daring.

*replaces the entire panel of ciruit breakers*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNHdW3ZOEWA

*stands, with blackened burned fur, holding
a switch, and falls over*

Stick with mittens.

@.@

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

I know about that. When I was still really small, about 3 or 4 years old, my own father tried something like that. I'm not sure just what he was doing, but it was in one of those old fuse boxes with the screw in fuses. There was a big flash and he was knocked on the floor. When they looked for the screwdriver all they found was the handle with a stump of the blade in it. The rest had been vaporized, apparently.

I think he decided not to play with that any more, and called my uncle who was a certified electrician to do whatever it was for him. ;p

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Just so. Theres an old French saying that goes;

"I don't know everything, still...many things
I know"

I can do SOME electrical stuff with confidence.

What I can't...

You don't play with that if you can't do it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's it. I wouldn't think of trying to overhaul my car's transmission. But I can change the oil or replace the battery.

I can work in the circuit breaker box too, but ONLY if there's a separate master switch that kills all the power to the box. That means, in our present house, I'm not touching stuff in there, but I can do the panels in the barns because they turn off from the house.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

The terryfing thing about the circuit breaker
box is the hotline that you can't turn off that
comes from the pole (or underground).

I'd rather make jokes about Mohammed and Fatima
than actually start pulling apart the circuit
breaker panel. @.@

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep. Some installations do have a master switch ahead of the panel that kills everything inside the box. Or else a master breaker in a separate box, which amounts to the same thing.

Since our barn panels are slaved off the house, they can be turned off at the house and are totally dead while you work on them. But I won't touch the inside of the house panel. We called in an electrician for that and it was worth the dollars not to risk it.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Mittens? *looks interested* I must say that the yarn looks fantastic you know your stuff...it looks...very..very......tantalizing *reaches for it*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'll post a photo when I have the mittens done. Gary saved me some lovely soft wool from our sheepdog when he was brushing the dogs this weekend. I'm going to try mixing that with this nice white wool too.