Tea for two...or two hundred!

Many, many of you have asked if I really have over 30 pounds of tea. Well, at one time I did have over 40+, but that was over a year ago. I used to compile it all on an Excel spreadsheet, but that just got too time-consuming. So now I just guesstimate.

To give you all some idea of some of the tea I really do have, I took the liberty to start cleaning out my stash and reorganizing the cupboards. Note that the tea has been "spilling" out onto the shelves, in the extra sink, on the....you get the picture!

Almost all of the tea packets have 4 oz of tea in them. Maybe 20 or so have less than 2 oz; and the larger jars have anywhere from 2-8 oz, depending on how much tea is left in each container.

I emptied most of the tea out of the huge cupboard over the refrigerator. (top picture)
The shelves are about 30" deep, so I have been able to stash lots of tea up there!

In the next two pictures are most of the bagged tea and medicinal teas (echinacea, colds, sore throat tea, etc.) in the left picture, a smaller side cupboard; and in the right picture, the cupboard is devoted mostly to sencha and shincha (first sencha of the year, from Japan).

Next four pics:

First pic: Group picture of most of the rest of my tea.
Second picture: green teas, white teas, needle teas.

Third picture: oolongs, special china blacks, yunnans and gold teas; Assam, Ceylon, and Darjeeling teas.

Last pic: Flavored black teas, decafs, and in the back: chai teas.

I also have a number of pu-er teas, and samples from tea companies that I will be sampling and reviewing shortly!

Just thought I'd share!

And the Wheel Keeps on Turning, Turning...Summer Stash Bustin'!

No knitting. No swatching. No tea reviews. In the last week I've just been spinning. Spinning up a storm! I wrote a couple posts ago about this being the Summer of Stash Busting--knitting with yarns that I have stock-piled, and spinning yarn out of the stash of rovings and batts (rectangular sections of carded fiber).

Over the last week I spun up 600 yards (4.75 oz) of Lincoln/silk blend roving from something I bought way back at SOAR at Smuggler's Notch, Vermont in 1996; 475 yards (3.1 oz) of Cormo almost-lace my friend Joanne at Pine Ledge Studio carded with perfection for me over 8 years ago; 380 yards (4.1 oz) of alpaca/merino/silk roving from the Men's Spring Knitting Retreat in Easton, New York in May; and 255 yards (3 oz) of dark brown alpaca from my friend Maple at North Star Alpacas in Michigan.

First four pics are of the Lincoln/silk blend...
click on for larger view...

top pic is of the attenuated fiber
next pic is of the first attempt balled up
third pic is a close up of the second attempt of lace, next to the control lace yarn
last pic of this project is of the finished skein

The Lincoln/silk blend was fun at times to spin. I have oodles of it, about 12 oz, and spun up the best of it in this skein. I had to pre-draft it (attenuate it to make it easier to spin), as it was sitting around in a bag in our fiber room for years, which compacted the fiber in places. Lincoln is a long, shiny, hairy sheep fiber, very durable and strong, but not too soft. The silk blended in with it adds more sheen and shine, and some softness. My pile of this was a mixture of part rovings, which were kind of snarly (from the Lincoln), and some larger sections that I think were "clouds" which is kind of like a batt, but thinner.

I spun up about an ounce of the stuff, trying to achieve lace-weight yarn, but it was late at night and my spinning got worse as the night went on. I plied it from a single that I balled up on my ball winder, using the end from the center of the ball and the end from the outside of the ball to yield a two-ply. I washed it up, let it dry overnight. See the pic of it at the right. It's about twice as thick as my true lace sample I had hanging from my wheel, so I spent the second night spinning up another 4.75 oz onto two bobbins.

My second attempt (the third pic) was closer to the true lace, but I'm pretty happy with it, as the fiber just got more wiry the thinner I spun it. I could have spun it a bit thinner, but I think it would have been termed "iron yarn" at that point!

****************************************************************
The second spinning project was the Cormo, a supersoft sheepwool, that I think is 3/4 Merino, which is the softest sheep fiber. Cormo is typically white, and yields a brilliantly white yarn, although I believe there are now black and possibly gray Cormo sheep. I think that it is spongier than Merino, is extremely soft and is great for against-the-skin garments, but like Merino, it also felts easily.

Pics at right: first one is of the white Cormo batt
Second one is a shot of the attenuated fiber

Third pic is a shot of the spinning
Fourth pic in this group is of the two skeins of Cormo yarn

*******************************************************************************

The third spinning project was the alpaca/merino/silk roving I got at the Knitter's Retreat, and was really fun and easy to spin. It is a luscious yarn, and I can't wait to knit it up! Maybe socks...

The dark alpaca from Maple in Michigan was fun, easy, and quick to spin up. I spun it all up last night, plied it today, and washed/soaked it and it's drying right now. The true weight of the skein may be a little lighter, as it is still slightly damp. I absolutely love the dark color of it, I believe it is from an alpaca named Polaris--I'll have to check!

More later! Have fun...