I had to post another quickie today…new yarn that isn’t dry yet, but here’s a photo of “Stormy Night” on my niddy-noddy before I set the twist. It’s blue-black Romney (I think) that I got from Christine at Now and Zen last weekend. It spun up deliciously fast, right off the bump with no splitting or pre-drafting needed. I saved about half as a singles, but the rest, shown here, is plied with a gorgeous thin fuzzy yarn by Rowan called Kidsilk Night (mohair, silk, poly, nylon). I plied it in a loopy, boucle style without adding the 3rd ’stabilizer’ thread usually used in a boucle. So yummy….I’ll probably list it for sale at Handmade, but only because I emailed her to hold the rest of the fiber for me so I can make some for myself later!

“Life, all life, has the twin drives to survive and to reproduce. Intelligence is an aimless byproduct except as it serves these basic drives.”

–Robert A. Heinlein, from ‘Tunnel in the Sky’, copyright 1955

AAAAAAH….acid dyes. I finally tried them out and have to say, no more Wilton’s cake dyes for me! This was so much better, fewer hassles. The dyes didn’t break, they set properly, there will be no bleeding. I understand what quantities I need to use to get colors…all in one try. Hooray!

Now, learning how to achieve the colors I want will take some time. Case in point is the roving at left in the photo you see here (and yes, I use a ladder as my drying rack right now–the old rack broke and the ladder is just sitting there waiting for somebody to work on the back room, so I’m making it work for me). Anyhow, I thought I could make two layers of wool in my pyrex for the microwave method, and use red and blue dye with some overlap for a red-blue-purple tie die effect. Unfortunately I didn’t check the bottom layer, which didn’t get saturated enough, and I ended up with half nice, and half ‘patriotic’ colors on this piece of roving. Not my desired effect, but they’ll blend up fine on the drum carder. The reason for this is that the Wilton dyes always sank to the bottom of the dish and then wicked up into the wool during the heating process. The adid dyes bond so much faster that they didn’t ever make it down through the wool.

The orange and red I dyed on the stove top in my enamel dye pot. I LOVE this one! I made a dye of yellow and after the roving was saturated with the yellow, I gently applied bits of red here and there for a nice spotting effect, being careful not to stir the wool around until after it was set. I love it, love it…did I say that I love it! More adventures in dyeing are sure to follow!

I can’t wait to post about an adventure that I hope will work out, for a group of freestyle spinners–myself included–who met at Camp Pluckyfluff East last fall. I can’t say now, but I’ll be posting a link to one of our next group adventures very soon….it’s exciting, and I just hope it’ll work out. Sorry to hint and run….peace.

I just wanted to post pics of my first work with raw fleece. I bought some Targhee wool ‘in the grease’ just before Christmas. I recently took some of it, and processed it myself, from raw to spun. I can’t even imagine the time and energy it must take to do this without the washing machine method of cleaning the wool (rinse and spin, no agitation) a salad spinner, and my drum carder. I know people still do this whole process by hand, and if you do, I bow down to you…you have perseverence, patience, and more time than I could possibly devote to the process.

So, though it’s still quite a bit of work work, even with all of the machines involved , I did take great satisfaction in going from grease wool to yarn, and will probably repeat the process when I can get my hands on some really clean, soft fleece again. However, at this point, I am not likely to become someone who dyes everything themselves. It’s just not me. I like incorporating other people’s color schemes into my work. I like supporting artists who make gorgeous hand painted rovings and locks and fiber and batts, and I also like the convenience and colors in some of the commercial blends, so I will most likely always supplement my stash with those items, because it’s a whole lot of fun to sit down with roving and have gorgeous yarn about an hour later, you know?

Anyhow, here’s a photo of 4 shades of the dyed Targhee. The upper right is undyed, and the rest are my colors:

Here’s a skein I spun up using the pinky/brown/reddish color. It’s named !Accomplishment! because of all of the work involved in getting it from start to finish. It’s plied with purple linen yarn and little knots that have gray felt scraps in each knot, like little bows. Despite having really short staple, and me overspinning a bit to compensate for that, and my carding that made it neppy, this skein is really soft…amazingly soft for a ’sproingy’, poofy yarn:

And that is all I have to say about that. Two posts in one day–whew!

You are Shetland Wool.
You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a
little on the harsh side. Though you look
delicate you are tough as nails and prone to
intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you
are widely respected and even revered.

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Quick post today. Over the weekend I sold nearly all of my yarn from the web site, which is very exciting and makes me nervous. How do I keep up? I’ve got to make enough yarn to bring to my not-so-lys that wants to re-stock. We’re heading out East this weekend and I want to have at least a dozen skeins for her to buy/consign/choose from (and I’m waaaaay behind). I desperately need to re-stock my store and can’t even think of that until next week, after the lys trip. I finally bought some real acid dyes and am “dyeing” to try them out, but have no time for that for at least another week. And of course, with the acid dyes, I bought some gorgeous, really fine hand dyed boucle fromthe Silkworker, and this morning I’m trying to spin my own from locks. Talk about things to save for when you have more time? Just silly! Especially since I’m going to spin up 100 yards of it, and then after plying I bet it’ll be 40 or so…labor intensive stuff, that.

Enough for now, but I’ll end with a fantastic quote about labor intensive spinning, from my friend Natasha, from her post of January 22:
“…i have been handstringing beads and sequins and plying them into the yarns and they look like fairies sprinkled them in. gorgeous. time consuming. but that is what art yarns are all about. fairies, beads and fluff. you know? otherwise, it is just yarn. not that there is anything wrong with yarn. of any color, creed or denomination. i love you all, yarn. you are ok by me!”

Me too. Thanks Natasha!

 I had a great dinner out with five wonderful women, to celebrate a friend’s Birthday. I am amazed by the transformation of someone I really don’t know extremely well, who is suffering through a terrible time with grace and strength that I appreciate from a distance. You are gracious and positive in ways that I appreciate, though you don’t know it, I suppose. I hope I get to know you, and all of these special women better as time goes by. May you have the inner strength to win your battle, may you continue to marvel at those around you, to help us see ourselves better, may you have the time to fully transform into whatever you wish to be, and bring us on your journey. Thank you.

Just a quick note tonight, since I stocked 5 skeins in my store, including the lovely complimentary pair of ‘lovers’ yarns shown below:

On another note, the crochet bowl from yesterday felted all wrong. I guess the yarn I used was not bulky (honestly, it wasn’t bulky at all–next time I bring my wpi tool with me to the yarn shop!), and it felted but kept holes in the pattern, so it looks like a felty beret, instead of a bowl. I think I’m going to crochet a tight edge on it with some fairly elastic yarn, and call it a hat! Oh well, you win some, you lose some, I guess. Editing to add the before photo:

Enough for now…dinner is burning!

My dear husband gave me a lovely book for Christmas, knowing that I did learn to crochet a long time ago (thanks Grandma, and Mom) but would like to get back into it and eventually do the freeform/scrumbling thing. Anyhow, to make that end a reality, I figured I should brush up on my skills and actually learn to do a pattern before I break from using patterns altogether. Why? I can’t answer that question except to say that I think that’s a logical progression of things. No real reason, honestly.

The book is Jane Davis ‘felted Crochet’ and I decided to work on the felted bowl. It looked easy and I’d like to own a felted bowl to store bits of stuff in, since I have so much stuff. So I used the felted bowl as an excuse to go to the lys today Cire Handknits, owned by a friend of a friend. It’s a lovely shop–much more cozy (and full) than her photo shows and Caroline–the owner–was extremely helpful and friendly. I bought two different yarns to try out for the bowl pattern, some tools, some novelty yarns to ply with handspun. Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I did mention that I spin my own yarn, just to plant the seed in her mind. I also found out that my next-door neighbor is a very good customer of hers…small world. Anyhow, I decided to try the Noro Kureyon in a purply/brownish color blend, for my first crochet bowl. Ok…easy peasy. I made it in under 2 hours. It looks great. Took a few photos for ‘before’ to post so I could throw it in the washer to felt.

I chuck it in with some jeans and other non-pilly clothing, to save some water. Completely forgot about it. Go rushing downstairs to the rinse cycle figuring I’d have a sake cup instead of a wool bowl. And, there it was…not even slightly felted. What the heck is up with that? Anyhow, I’m off to the basement for a second run, on HOT this time. Wish me luck. I’ll post pics when it’s done. If it doesn’t felt, it would make a nice beret I guess…

In other news, I actually spun about 7 skeins in the past 7 days! I think that’s a record. Hopefully I’ll update my store tomorrow. I am putting some yarn aside for the (not so) lys that I am desperately overdue to restock, but have about 5 for my own listings…matching sets this time! Recharging camera batteries tonight….ciao!

 Just a quick post today while I show off ‘Tradition’. It’s a crazy carded single ply of wool/cotton/denim that I spun up last week, with little embroidered vintage quilt hearts spun in. I sent it off to a friend as a gift, but I’m really feeling the need to make more like this. I think they would hit home with the ‘primitives’ crowd, among others:

I’m also thinking about making up little ’spinner’s goody’ packages for other novelty spinners, to sell on my web site. It would be little packages of things that would go together nicely in a yarn like beads, vintage lace or trims, quilty pieces, felt cut outs, needle and wet felted goodies, strips of chenille from old blankets, thread I have kicking about, etc. I don’t know whether I’d incorporate fibers or batts (yet) but maybe as a second step. For now, it would be a good way to help me ‘de-stash’ some of this vintage stuff I have floating around. Then I’ll be allowed to go to more yard and tag sales this spring (if I make room for new ‘old’ stuff).

Enough for now…off to buy groceries before the girl gnaws my arm off…the cupboard is bare!

I just paused to look over my little blog. I don’t post often, but when I do, I write way too freakin’ much! Yikes!

I know you’re having visions of fig wrapped in proscuitto when I say this, but I mean it literally…I finally wrapped my fig tree to see if it would fruit for me next summer.

Today, despite the little A and myself having nasty head colds, we really needed some fresh air. So we ventured outdoors for an hour or so because the weather is unseasonably, wonderfully warm here. Since the ground is not already a giant block of ice like in previous winters at this time, I decided to take some action to protect my sad little fig tree, Ficus ‘Peter’s Honey’. The poor thing has been here for 3 seasons now, and I’ve never done anything to wrap or protect it from the cold. Of course when I bought it, the literature stated it was exceptionally cold hardy (being cultivated from hardy Russian varieties). It may very well be, but I purchased it mail order from a nursery in the West, where winters are mild, the humidity is high, and they get a lot of rain instead of snow. I don’t think the poor thing was used to having frozen feet, dry air and lowlowlow temps, despite it’s hardy genes.

Anyhoo…3 years later, every spring the darned thing has been killed back to the ground and had to start from the base, so I have yet to taste a ripe fig from it, though it made a very good attempt this year…3 figs on the plant, none of which ripened by frost time, unfortunately. Since it was nice enough for me to actually drive stakes into the ground, I finally took some action today. My Italian and Greek neighbors who raise fig trees would object to my crude methods, but I’m just not willing to have a giant tar paper or blue tarp wrapped ‘mummy’ of a tree in my yard, so I did my best:

I put 4 stakes around it, and went around them with a sheet of landscape fabric, then I filled the resulting ‘cube’ with dry leaves raked up from around the yard. Hopefully this will be enough to hold those sticks from dying back again. Actually, I was quite surprised to find that there were tiny green buds at the ends of each branch, proving that I may have provided some insulation just just in time. If the plant is able to set leaves and flowers from the previous years’ growth, I’m hoping it can make me some tasty mature figs next summer. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other garden news…lots of leaves left to pick up. I think I’m going to break down and buy a small handheld leaf blower, just so I don’t have to rake and get on my hands and knees around every plant to clean the gardens. There’s so much growing now that it’s getting to be more work to clean up. I’m not in a rush, but if this weather holds out, it will be nice to do a little bit at a time all winter and have things just perfect by April? We’ll see.

Oh…and joy of joys, my favorite plant–a red witch hazel (Hamamelis ‘Diana’) is just about ready to start blooming–one little bud had a red petal sticking out of it today. I think there is no greater blessing to a gardener than a plant that flowers in winter. Last winter she bloomed for almost 3 months straight! I’ll post pics when it gets into full swing. It’s delicate but really stunning if you can take the time to look at details and use your nose–it’s delightfully fragrant too.

Off to pay bills and maybe do some spinning if I don’t collapse from exhaustion. I made two sets of batts today and would love to get one spun up. But I’m really tired and this cold is getting me down, so we’ll see what happens. Peace and goodnight.

I have ten minutes left to write this and post it on my birthday, so I had better type fast. So, I’m now 36…OK, I made it! If I can make it 36 more years, that would be great! More…and I’ll be thrilled! Only time will tell about that, though. No point in worrying about it I suppose.

It was an uneventful day, really. Little A and I had a nice playdate at our friends’ house today. We got home late in the afternoon, waited for hubby to get home from work, and ended up having Chinese food take out as a really late dinner, and here I am typing at my computer. No cake, a pretty uneventful day overall. I think we’ll make up for it this weekend, as we have a few things planned already.

So…36, another day, another year gone by. In honor of my birthday, I got a pimple on the end of my nose, and look like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. I guess that proves that I have a few hormones left in my old age, hehheh. Or maybe I need to scrub my face more when I wash…something like that.

I gotta get off this computer and make some yarn tonight…need to do it. I have a lovely birthday package from Craig on it’s way, due to arrive tomorrow. After fumbling with some wooly web sites to no avail, he finally just asked me to buy the stuff for myself, so I’ve got two new reeds for my rigid heddle loom headed this way (large dpi to handle bigger yarns). And I picked out a bit of fiber while I shopped because who can resist adding to their stash when the shipping is already paid for, right?

Signing off while it’s still my birthday. Happy Birthday to me.

OK, too funny…I had to edit to add that after posting this, I noticed that my East Coast blog is running on Pacific time.
OK, edited again, because it was only 2 hours difference…I guess this server is in the Central time zone? Whatever…

Ok, so I've spent the better part of the day spinning a corespun yarn of mohair locks. The yarn is spun in 'mohairy' style, wrapped loosely around a core of vintage lambswool 2 ply yarn I picked up at a tag sale. Honestly, the finished product is really gorgeous, though I'll never recoup the time spent making it by selling it--I've already named it "Labor Of Love" yarn due to the hours spent on it. For now, I'm considering crocheting it into a boa, maybe. Maybe not.

The fiber is from lovely, unprocessed angora goat locks (aka mohair), washed and dyed in shades of greens and pinks and browns. It arrived in yet another great big box of fiber. It looks gorgeous in the bag--like a bag of luxury. That is, until you start fiddling with it and realize just how much dirt is stuck in the locks. Now I realize that this is just the nature of the beast (literally), and I have no wish to insult the goat grower/owner/fiber dyer in question. I've already done that, unwittingly, once before, to an animal owner, and I promise not to do it again! That insult was due to my own stupidity of just not understanding how much dirt to expect in locks. That was as a novice spinner who has only bought piles of commercially processed rovings in their stark, straight rows, ready to spin without regard to the amount of feed and work and grease and hay and bugs and dye that's been added, removed and tended prior to their arrival in a neat little box from the USPS. Though I still have volumes to learn about spinning, I realize how stupid I was then. I know better, NOW.

However, despite my growing knowledge as I spin daily, I still have issues with mohair locks. My lingering and painful question about locks is how the HECK do you get all of the dirt out of them? I teased these open prior to carding, carded them on my brand new Strauch Finest 405 Drum Carder, hand picked them down to the tweezer level, and still there are chunks of vm (vegetable matter) in the form of hay and straw and thistles and a few bugs and who-knows-what else in there. And I know that when I wash this yarn to set the twist, I'll get to witness yet more dirt as the water will be gross for several changes until I get it to wash clean. The finished product will be great, but whether I'll ever finish this remains to be seen. Blech.

What's a girl to do?

In the midst of the holiday craze, rushing to get houses cleaned, extra food prepared and frozen for company, christmas shopping, and creating scarves and yarns and other stuff for holiday gift giving and (of course) sale over at my web site, Handmade, a really bright spot in my not-so-great-craft-fair weekend: Somebody bought my yarn purely to look at! This, I think is the ultimate compliment to an artist. Now I feel that the journey to transform my caterpillar-crafty self to a butterfly-artist is really beginning to move along.

Up until now, I really thought of myself as a craftswoman...but the artist in me is trying to emerge from my crafty exterior while I surround myself with fiber. As a medium, it is fast enough for my attention-deficit-crafting-disorder; in other words, I can make something from start to finish in a few hours so there's no guilt about UFO's (unfinished objects, for the uninitated craftaholics out there) cluttering up the house. But it's more about this imperceptible quality to fiber. There are so many things that raw fiber can become, and we just have to wait for the muse to draw it out of us, and then we'll decide what each fleece/dyepot/batt/roving/yarn is yearning to be.

Anyhow...all that aside as a much larger discussion for another day--this weekend, on Sunday at a craft fair, a woman bought my yarn purely to look at. She was allergic to lanolin/wool and told me so as she admired Jen and my scarves and creations. Then she came back and bought Feltalicious:

When I asked her what she wanted with yarn since she couldn't touch it, she told me she had a place to put it just for decorating. She thought it was beautiful and just wanted to look at it....my yarn....wow. There is no greater compliment. Hence my transofmation from caterpillar to butterfly is in motion. I'm in my coccoon and spinning away, trying to transform from hobbiest/craftswoman to artist. It's harder than it sounds, but I think I will get there, if I live long enough.

At camp pluckyfluff east, one of the questions Mike (our documentarian--is that a word?) asked: "Is your yarn a finished object?" And in my non-so-clear way, I tried to explain that I thought yarn is art. It is finished whan I decide it's finished. It doesn't need to be anything else, ever. It is just as useful as an object of art as it is when another artist transforms it into a hat or scarf or sweater. Honestly, yarn is the ultimate art, as it's both beautiful and functional. As a gardener, that's my focus. As someone who admires well made homes, and textiles, and furniture, that's my focus. As someone who drools over beautiful and tasty food and kitchen tools and pots and pans, that's my focus.

Form plus function. Indeed...