Paws2Trail

Paws2Trail, 1 month ago

@aiwendil1892 Looks like she's giving directions to fellow travelers!

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

Hiking with a friend is great because it gets us a chance to pose for some nice family photos with everyone in the frame. Amazingly, we got a nice photo with everyone staring at the camera with smiles all around.

#Hiking #Huskies

Amazingly, five individuals pose with nice smiles and looking at the camera in front of a tall solitary rock in the wilderness. Human Jeff stands with husky Tonttu, while human Dale controls huskies Zeena and Gypsy.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

Some select #Husky photos by Kio on our hike to the Magnetic Rock yesterday.

#DogsOfMastodon

Nearly all white husky Gypsy is lit in low afternoon light in front of pine trees on a snowy ground. She has dark brown eyes that look at you soulfully.
Tonttu, a young-ish gray-and-white husky yawns or howls with a wide open mouth in front of a stand of pine trees on a snowy field.
Huskies Zeena and Tonttu sit at attention at something up and out of view to the right.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

The one winterized, dog-friendly cabin at the Rockwood Lodge on Poplar Lake along the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota is truly a great place to spend a week, whether it's a polar vortex or El Niño heat wave like this year. Huskies love having multiple levels to explore and watch squirrels from above.

Another photo of Zeena at the top of the stairs to the loft, this time taken from the bottom of the stairs. Her mouth is open in a vocalization unique to Zeena that we call a "wuggle". She's acting like she can't get down the slippery painted wooden stairs, though she's really fine. She just wants attention.
A narrow deck across the front of a cabin on a lake looks out over a frozen watery surface with pine trees on the far shore. A bright red Adirondack chair and side table contrast the wood deck and dusty blue painted cabin clapboards. A husky head, Tonttu's, sticks out through the patio door at the right, his eyes, squinted shut against the bright sun, and his face mirrored in the door glass.
Husky Tonttu has ventured out onto the patio from the previous photo, eyes now wide open and alert for squirrels that may lurk below, his tail arched in a curl over his back.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

Despite the warm, sunny weather during the day (40-50F/4-10C) it's still below freezing at night. Cold enough to keep the lake frozen and safe enough for skijoring with the youngsters Zeena and Tonttu across the crusty snow. We got going VERY fast over some sections!

We discovered that resorts to the east of us had cleared an ice-skating trail between them, so you could have cocktails at the Poplar Haus, and dinner at White Pine (or vice versa!) But even by mid-morning the dark ice was already covered in a pool of melted water.

Still, Tonttu loved running on the skating trail over the snow, for some reason.

#Skijoring #Huskies #IceSkating

Two huskies approach a resort on the edge of a frozen lake, pulling the photographer on their leads. To the left, a wide path has been cleared on the lake surface, revealing dark ice, a ribbon just for skating along the shore.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

Tonttu does the dance of his People on the frozen surface of Poplar Lake.

#Huskies #DogsOfMastodon

Tonttu performs an acrobatic twist with his head and torso turned to the right, his hind end turned to the left and tail back to the right, on the frozen surface of Poplar Lake.
More of Tonttu rolling on Poplar Lake. He's on his right side here, legs tucked in, tail arched up along his back.
Final photo of Tonttu rolling on the ice, back curved in a C to the right.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

It's time to continue the 🧵 thread on spinning husky yarn! since the last update, I've experimented with:

• e-spinning on the EEW Nano 2
• washing & setting spin on early experiments
• hand-winding center-pull balls
• continued spinning on the Turkish spindle

Read on...

#spinning #HandSpun #FiberArts #chiengora

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

I'd mentioned previously that hand spinning on a drop spindle was frustratingly slow. Browsing the internet, I found that I could get either a treadle spinning wheel or e-spinning wheel for about $1000! Not something to invest in lightly.

But then I discovered the EEW Nano 2. At $US 125, it's just the right size and price for experimentation. https://www.dreamingrobots.com/product/eew-nano/

It took a fair amount of practice to get the combination of spin and tension just right to create consistent yarn that would take up on the spindle at a reasonable rate without pulling apart. You can see in the photos my first and second attempts. It's a LOT easier to over-spin with the e-wheel. (See the corkscrew textures sometimes present in the yarn.)

I also found the hand switch on the USB power cord way too fiddly, so I invested in a foot pedal (on and off only) to keep my hands free for spinning. I still do a fair amount of "park and draft" when working through challenging portions of the carded fiber.

The EEW Nano's 2 ounce spool mostly filled with first attempts at e-spinning. The single ply yarn is of rather variable thickness, but in particular shows over-spinning where the yarn doubles up on its twist in a cork-screw pattern in a number of places on the roll.
Comparison between first e-spinning attempt, on the right and second, in progress on the left and mounted to the e-spinning wheel. The right shows yarn of variable thickness and occasionally over-spun with a corkscrew texture, while the yarn on the left, in progress, is much more even in thickness and not overspun.
The full 2oz bobbin of second-attempt e-spinning husky yarn, showing relatively even thickness throughout.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

Since I hadn't washed the husky fluff before spinning, I combined that with setting the yarn in one step.

Setting spin involves soaking in warm water for ~20 minutes & then letting it dry. Normally folks use their bathtub & a bulky niddy noddy for this, but I decided to instead use a concrete mixing tub & frame made to fit of PVC. I then ran the fibers through a wash with doggy shampoo, followed by a "blueing" wash to help whiten things up. Not sure how effective the blueing agent was.

Also straying from tradition, I left the yarn on the frame to dry, and did not "thwack" it. Thwacking is a rough process that supposedly helps even out the twist along the strands, and also provides a little felting. I may give it a try on the final plied yarns I hope to work with, but for the early experiments, they seemed to be OK without.

I finished by using the thumb-wind technique to create center-pull balls of each: the 1st and 2nd spindle attempts as 2ply + the 1ply e-spinning first attempt.

The niddy noddy from the previous photo, removed from the bath and dried with the yarn in place. It leans against a wall holding a large old map.
Pre-washed balls of double-ply yarn held in their original Turkish spindle wind via chop sticks inserted where the arms of the spindle used to be.
A collection of four handspun yarns: top-left is the thick 2-plly first-attempt yarn washed and rolled into a messy center-pull ball; top right is the second-attempt, 2-ply yarn, somewhat less thick but still fluffy and wound into a center-pull ball; bottom left is the washed single-ply yarn from first-attempt e-spinning wound into a neater center-pull ball; and bottom right is the 2oz bobbin of unwashed single-ply yarn from the second e-spinning attempt.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

Should also mention fiber prep:

I've been using cotton carders and prep techniques on the short, fine husky fur. These most naturally create "punis" or elongated tubes of combed fiber rolled rolled into cylindars. It seems the only way to keep the fur together while you spin.

At first (left) I spun with a single dowel, using the friction to wind the inner fibers together, pulling in subsequent layers until the whole cylinder was incorporated. However, it resulted in a very tight inner core and looser outer layers, which led to uneven drafting and a challenge for a newbie spinner!

So, (right) I tried a looser spin, using two dowels clamped on the edge of the combed fibers to wind things up. This is indeed provided more even drafting, but some were loose enough that they fell apart under their own weight while spinning.

I've learned to work with both, and will try to find a middle ground for subsequent carding. I'm also experimenting with supporting the punis against gravity.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

Perhaps most surprisingly, I've continued to spin on the Turkish spindle and have come to find it a more relaxing, meditative process than the urgency of keeping up with the e-spinner. It's much easier now to get consistent, even thickness and spin, and it just looks so pretty wound neatly around the spindle.

This completes the fur I've prepared so far. I can't bear to unwind this spindle just yet! Time to switch back to the e-spinner for my next project.

...which involves digging out fur we've collected from previous, sadly-departed huskies and making yarn from them. My goal is to ply together all our huskies into a single yarn to knit scarves or hats or something.

More on that when this 🧵 thread resumes!

#spinning #HandSpun #cheingora

A slightly different angle of the previous photo of yarn on a Turkish spindle showing god's-eye type patterns.
More yarn on a Turkish spindle! This time the winding pattern is nearly full across the surface, creating a curved square of parallel lines. Out of focus in the background lies Gypsy a husky who is one of the sources of fiber for the yarn.
View of the bottom of a nearly-full Turkish spindle ball, showing a square window-like pattern created by wrapping around the cross-arms of the spindle.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

@NatureMC Thank you! We started collecting the fur years (decades!) ago with the intention of doing something with it "some day". After seeing how much great long fur came off of Tonttu when he first blew his coat after we got him, we realized that either some day would be soon or we'd run out of room for storing any more fur!

The nice thing about this hobby is that you don't have to spend a lot to get started. (But a little investment here and there does make the process much more efficient.)

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

🐺 🧶 🔀 🧵 Time to continue the husky yarn spinning thread!

Previously, I'd practiced spinning & plying on my Turkish spindle. Now it's time to practice plying with the new EEW Nano e-spinner.

This is my first practice spool on the Nano, which I'd washed & set, then wound into a center pull ball. That allows you to 2-ply from a single ball, drawing from the inside & outside at the same time.

The bottom shows the 2-ply on the left side. Because my yarn was pretty uneven, you often get areas of loose fluff wound with a tight thin strand. I thought the 1st try was rather loose (3rd 📷) so I sent it through the spinner a 2nd time to add more twist (4th 📷), which I believe helped.

The right side is Navajo 3-ply, a neat technique I wanted to try using one end of a single strand. You create a series of loops (basic crochet chain, but LONG loops) that twist into a 3-strand yarn. It tends to be more even b/c you're plying the same stretch of yarn against itself.

#spinning #HandSpun #cheingora

Crop of a photo of various yarn balls and spool, focusing on one ball that has thinner yarn than the others, though still somewhat uneven in strand thickness.
A small, 2oz bobbin held sideways that has been divided into halves, left and right, with a divider down the middle. The left side shows 2-ply husky yarn that is quite variable in thickness overall and within individual strands. Some ply is quite loose. The right side shows Navajo triple-ply yarn, more evenly and tightly wound together, and overall generally thicker and denser. The husky Gypsy is out of focus in the background.
The same bobbin of husky yarn as the previous photo, but the left side 2-ply yarn has been re-spun into a tighter coil.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

(You can find the places in the Navajo ply yarn where the strand loops back on itself, but it's more subtle than I'd expected.)

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

As much as I hate to destroy my latest, precisely-wound Turkish spindle, I needed to free it up for another project, so I decided to use it for more plying trials. To my surprise, the 1 spindle filled 2.5 2oz bobbins.

While it was very even and fine in the final outer layers, I started out a bit thicker and a little more uneven, as seen in the 1st 📷.

In the bottom 2 pix, the left is my 1st ply, inner & outer ends of the ball, which matched the thinnest & thickest together, leading to a somewhat uneven yarn. If you divide the whole ball into fifths, this was plying 1st and last fifths.

The middle is Navajo 3-ply from the latter end, so the 4th then 3rd fifths of the ball. It's mostly thin to start, but got a bit thicker as I went along. By the end, I was really struggling to get it through the Nano's "orifice reducer". Should have removed it!

The last half bobbin was the remaining 2nd fifth as a 2-ply from either end of the remains of the ball.

#Spinning

The same Turkish spindle from the previous photo, but filled with yarn to create a patterened ball about the size of a baseball. The thread here is quite even, thinner than in the previous photo, and neatly wound. Zeena, a husky, can be seen out of focus in the background.
Three small, 2oz, bobbins of husky thread in a row. First is 2-ply from strands that are often uneven: thin twisted with thick. Second is Navajo 3-ply that tends to be more evenly matched strands twisted together. The third, only half full, is 2-ply, but the strands are a bit more even in thickness.
Three hand-wound balls of husky yarn, created from the three individual bobbins in the previous photo. The first, uneven 2-ply appears slightly more uneven. The second 3-ply is still neatly twisted, but a bit thinner overall. The last, smaller 2-ply ball is more even than the first, with strands that are thicker overall.

Paws2Trail, 4 months ago

Because the bobbins show off best the final efforts of a particular ply, I decided to wind them into balls, which then have the earliest parts of the plying effort on the outside. These are the last photo in the previous post.

I think this better illustrates the thick/thin ply of the first 2-ply effort. (1st & 5th fifths combined)

The 3-ply (middle) ball shows the outermost, thinner end of the original ball (4th fifth) plied upon itself. Compare this to the bobbin photo, which shows the 3-ply created from the thicker middle (3rd fifth) of the original ball.

The third ball shows the overall thicker 2-ply yarn from early portions of the ball (2nd fifth) spun on itself, unlike the thick/thin (1st/5th) combo in the first. Also, by this time I'd remembered to remove the orifice reducer, which made plying the thick yarn a LOT easier.

Ultimately, I'm thinking a larger e-spinner would make plying a lot easier. Can't wait for the EEW 6.1 to become available!

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

🧵 Continuing the husky yarn thread!

I've broken into the rest of our ~20yr collection of husky fur, which fills the three tubs seen here. My plan is to combine yarn for each so that we end up with a 3-ply yarn from each of the huskies we've had over the years. Most will be done on the Nano e-spinner.

But! I'd forgotten that one of our huskies had a grayish undercoat in places, and found it compressed at the bottom of the oldest bag of fur.

I could have just blended it in, but instead I kept it separate to create a distinctly gray yarn. It is special and limited (that's all of it combed into punis in the 3rd photo), so I'm hand spinning it on the Turkish spindle. It's turning into a wonderful heather gray yarn that will be a great accent next to the white!

#Spinning #HandSpun #Cheingora

One of the tubs from the previous photo, lid removed, showing that the husky fur inside is white on the right, but a light gray mixed with tufts of white on the left.
Two clear plastic bins side-by-side organizing punis, long cigar-shaped rolls of combed fur ready for spinning. The group on the left are white, while the ones on the right are a striated heather gray.
The beginnings of a Turkish spindle on which the heather gray husk fur is being wound as single-ply spun wool. It criss-crosses the arms of the spindle in layers of god's eye patterns.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

The gray fur is from Rio, our first husky. She was 5 when she moved with Jeff to Minnesota back in 2002.

Rio gave us our first experience with skijoring and joined us on many hiking adventures. She was also our husky most prone to giving an actual, proper "woo" when excited, especially when greeting other dogs or people.

She particularly enjoyed finding clam shells when wading in the Mississippi River.

We miss her!

#Huskies #Skijoring

Rio, the black and white husky from the previous photo, is seen in profile while skijoring. Her feet are collected together mid-luge and she's pulling Dale on cross-country skis across a snowy field. There is a chain link fence in the background.
Husky Rio stands next to Jeff (human) on the edge of a birch woods in winter. Rio has her mouth open as she gives a "woo" towards someone off screen in front of her. Here you can see her lightly mottled darker gray fur down her back and sides, deepening to black along her back and shoulders, fading to white down her legs, and a white tail tip.
Rio wearing a floral neckerchief stands in front of Jeff wearing an oilskin brimmed hat, who is sitting on a low rock wall amid deciduous trees in shades of fall yellow foliage.

Paws2Trail, 3 months ago

For those who like spinning minutiae, an update on the various plied yarns in the previous post to this thread:

I've since washed and set the yarn, which gave a chance to appreciate the minor variations in the different plying styles and yarn thicknesses while wound on the frame/niddy-noddy. I then wound them up again into balls, with a little more care for neatness this time.

The differences are subtle at a distance. I like them both! Next: to decide what to do with them.

[Yikes, sorry for any edit notices, but one typo was just too egregious to leave.]

#Spinning #HandSpun #Cheingora

Closeup of the thick/thin 2-ply yarn at the top of the frame in the previous photo, showing the combination of fluffy and neat yarn twisted together in contrast to one another.
Closeup of the middle yarn from the first photo, showing the neat even twists of the Navajo triple-ply method, creating dense, even strands twisted together.
Five balls of yarn. In the back, a very loose, chunky and fluffy ball next to a slightly more refined, but still somewhat thick and fluffy ball. In the foreground, three balls, two larger and one smaller, from the previous photos' yarns. Left to right are the even Navajo triple-ply, the uneven thick/thin double-ply, and the smaller even double-ply, made from a portion of the Turkish spindle yarn that was most consistent on the thicker end.

Paws2Trail, 3 days ago

Has it really been almost 4 months since our last husky yarn update‽ Much of that time has been quiet, but things are starting to spin up again, as it were!

In that time I've completed spinning all of Rio's heather gray fur onto a baseball (softball?) sized winding around the Turkish spindle. It's so pretty and precious I still haven't done anything more with it.

I've also completed e-spinning one 2-oz bobbin of yarn from each of the three tubs of fur, representing 5 separate huskies we've had over the years.

My goal has been to ply all three bobbins together to create a triple-ply yarn of all our huskies in one. But herein lies a problem! Each bobbin holds 2 oz of yarn: how to ply all 3 together without breaking it into 3 more separate strands? I want to keep the yarn as continuous as possible...

#Spinning #HandSpun #Cheingora

A close-up of the Turkish spindle from the previous photo. It consists of two wood cross-pieces at the base of a central round staff, resulting in a weighted spinning element around which yarn can be wound as it is spun. The heather gray yarn forms a neat series of angular overlapping regions, reminiscent of "god's eye" yarn art.
A view of the bottom of the Turkish spindle and yarn. Here there is less precise alignment, with the strands creating a square grid with rounded corners. In the background, out of focus, is a white husky, Gypsy. R.I.P!