Missy B

Falling Behind

I got a really bad cold last weekend and now I feel like I am struggling to catch up.  Please bear with me while I do my best!

  Last night I went over to my dad's house to wash fleece in his top loading washer.  I bought him dinner as compinsation.  Pictured at left is the "black" merino fleece that Connie and I bought at CWFF and split.  I washed that fleece, "Joey" the 2.7lb cormo fleece, and the two half pound bags of white merino (named "Amigo" and "Kate") all of which were from CWFF.  I wanted to get it all washed before the rainy season started and drying wool becomes near impossible.  As you can see from the button on the left I have joined the Twisted Knitters Dye Spin Knit-along and I might dye some fleece for this -along.  I haven't decided yet.  I also have some BFL roving that I naturally dyed as an experiment to make semi-self striping socks.  I may end up using this if I run low on time.  Goodness knows I have plenty of dye roving in my house much of it dyed by me.  Plus I have a natural dyes class coming up this weekend that I am assistant teaching at Deep Color .  In fact Julia of Knitting History will be one of my students.  There is no shortage of dyed roving at my house just a shortage of free time in which to work with it.

  Speaking of students, one of my knitting students just gave birth to a baby girl.  I made her a Mason - Dixon Kimono sweater and a burp cloth our of Mission 1824 cotton.  She was very happy to receive something handmade.  I can't wait to meet her daughter, named Margot, was born this past Friday by emergency C-section.  They hit 40 weeks a week ago so Margot was plenty big but it appears she and mom got a virus that necessitated an emergency C-section.  The good news is that both mom and daughter are doing great even if the birth wasn't what they had planned.

  Here are the funky skeins of yarn that I spun recently and haven't shown because for one reason or another they haven't been in my possesion.  Starting from the left is the one skein of non-funky yarn in the group.  It is the oatmeal merino that showed in my previous post. Next to it is the yarn with the big, pink felted bobbles on it.  The two green skeins were spun from a crazy batt that I threw a little bit of everything into and then plyed against a single that I spun from 3 colors of wool that I used in the batt.  The red is a single plyed agaist a thread and then scrunched up to make a super coil yarn.  The purple-ish yarn (that looks a bit like a hair ball) next is a mohair halo yarn.  The purple yarn is Colonial wool 2-ply with copper jump rings and beads hand tied onto one of the plies.  The red single next has some super slubs on it and last but not least is stripped our silk fabric spun with with wool.  Not sure what I am going to do with most of these yarns but they were fun to make.  I might make a whole series of hats that have stripes of these funky yarns.  I'll have to think about it some more.

In a week I leave for New York.  I am going to the city first to visit friends from college and high school and then heading up to Rhinebeck.  I'm very excited.  As you have more than likely guessed by the button on the left I am participating in Rhinebeck Bingo.  I am a square.  I've noticed around that many are noting what they are going to where.  Frankly I have no clue.  I still have to block my hand spun Polwarth sweater but depending on the weather that may be too warm to wear.   I apologize that I can't give any clues as to what I will be wearing but my hair is past my waist and I will be wearing my "I'm a square" button.  Hope that helps and I am looking forward to meeting people!

CWFF - Part 1

The California Wool & Fiber Fest in Boonville was a lot of fun.  Nancy Finn of Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks (no website) is the main organizer and does a great job.  It is still a relatively small show because they have only been putting it on for the past 4 to 5 years and I think all of the vendors felt that their sales could have been a bit better.  I felt like a lot of the people coming into the building were looking at us like another exhibition hall rather than as vendors.  The great thing is that a lot of people were very curious about spinning and asked a lot of questions.  I am working with Jeane of Elemental Affects to try and get classes going for next year.  Should be fun if we can pull it off!

The above picture (click to see it bigger) is just 2/3 of the fleeces there for judging.  Connie (my business partner) and I would wander back and forth from our booth to listen to the fleece judging comments.  That was one of the great things about the way this event was set up.  Everything was right there.  On Saturday and Sunday they had shearing demonstrations in the hall and an angora bunny shearing demonstration as well and it was very fun to be able to hear it all going on.

As you might  imagine I wasn't able to escape the lure of greasy fleeces.  I bought a small white cormo fleece, and am splitting a larger charcoal gray merino fleece with Connie.  I also bought two half pound bags of two different white merino fleeces.  Connie has the gray fleece and is bringing my half to me on Saturday so I figured I would take pictures then of all the greasy locks of wool that followed me home.  We have a guild class on skirting, evaluating, and washing wool that Connie and I are facilitating this Saturday so I might get some fleece washing done as well.  I can't wait to start playing with them!

  I also bought a 4oz ball of oatmeal colored merino roving from Jean Near and spun it up as I was talking to people about spinning.  If you click on the pictures you will notice that my spinning is not that consistent.    I think this is partially because I was talking to people a lot while I was spinning and not really focusing on what I was doing.  The other reason is that I found the roving to be a little neppy and still had some vm in it which made it harder to get a consistent single.  Plus I was spinning over the fold and I think if you spun with a forward draw you might be able to control the quality of the single a bit more.  Excuses, excuses.  I bought 4oz of her "black" merino roving as well and I am going to try and spin a more consistent single out of it.  Regardless of how fuzzy the yarn looks it is still incredibly soft.  I have sensitive skin and this has a zero prickle factor.  Jean has beautiful merino fleeces that are covered and come in many colors.  They are a bit pricey but very high quality fleeces for the handspinner.

  The other major accomplishment was that I took this sweater up to Boonville with me and managed to get one sleeve finished and started the other sleeve.  This is a sweater that I started at least a year ago I think and put it in time out when I picked up way too many stitches for the sleeve and discovered it after having knit quite a bit of the sleeve.  I think I was just so excited that I wasn't interested in a reality check.  The design is my own.  It has short row bust shaping and the sleeves are knit top down using short rows to create sleeve caps.  It was knit in the round from the bottom up and has small vents at the hem and at the cuffs.  The yarn in my handspun from a polwarth fleece.  Of course I don't have enough yarn to finish the second sleeve so I have been flicking open more locks so I can spin up some more yarn.  I am really excited to finish this sweater right in time to start wearing it.  That so rarely happens.

More or Less

  We're moved in more or less and I am happy to report that life is slowly getting back to normal.  I have been knitting throughout out this whole process.  I took this picture before we moved but I don't have a more recent picture to show you.  I am just about done knitting the green cardigan for my mom.  All that is left to knit are the front bands.  The hat on top is a hat for my husband.  He requested a gray hat.  I couldn't knit just a gray hat so I added a small strip of my handspun, indigo dyed yarn at the bottom.  I also almost have one of the striped socks that my dad requested done.  Just need to do the toe.  So I am feeling good about my holiday knits and things are looking good that I will get a good chunk of them done with plenty of time to spare.  What a change!

  I am also working on this sample for my LYS out of Rowan's Yorkshire Tweed 4-ply on size 3 needles.  It is going along nicely and is great for when you need something mindless which has been all I have been able to handle during the whole moving process.  I am still working on my log cabin bedspead but haven't done much on it recently.  My in-laws still aren't here so I still have some time to get it done for them to use while they are visiting.  Worst case senerio I turn it into a lap blanket.

  I completely forgot to mention that I went up to Gold Country and went to "Camp Pluckyfluff".  It was great.  The location is stunning and Lexi is a very relaxed, supportive teacher.  Here is one of my yarns with felted bobbles that I made beforehand.  I spun this yarn on an Ashford Country Spinner that I borrowed from Claudia at Deep Color.  It actually has a large enough orifice that I could fit the bobbles through with a little pushing and pulling.  I lent my yarn to a friend and just got them back so I haven't had a chance to take a picture of them all yet.  I'll post them when I do.

  On the other end of the spinning spectrum this is what I finished right before the Pluckyfluff class in order to free up my bobbins.  The two on the bottom are cotton the big one in the middle is 3-ply and the bottom is 2-ply.  The top is some dyed polwarth from Rovings that I spun very fine and then navajo plied.  I have more in this colorway to spin this was just a bobbin's worth.

For all of you in Northern California: Don't forget that this weekend is California Wool and Fiber Festival in Boonville.  We will be there as vendors.  Come say hi!  It is also the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Fair so there will be lots to do for those who aren't addicted to fiber as well.

  Here is Taz tucked in bed.  He did this all by himself and is actually very normal for him.  Often times he has his head up on the pillow as well.  Such a silly dog! 

I'm off for Boonville tomorrow so I will update next week.  Wish us luck and I hope I don't fall over on Monday from exhaustion.  Have a great rest of the week and I hope some of you can make it up to Boonville!

Queen Cici

  My father found this silly mini couch for Fili (our three pound chihuahua) and got it for him for the holidays.  It turns out that it's Cici's new favorite place to sleep.  No matter where I put the sofa she finds it.  In this picture I had put the sofa on the chair so I could sweep the floor over the weekend and never put the sofa back on the floor.  Well, Cici has been sleeping up there for the past couple of nights even though it is at a cock-eye angle and really too small for her.

  I realized I forgot to show a picture of the sequin yarn that we made at the intermediate spinning class last month at Deep Color.  Here it is knit up as the beginning of a lacy scarf.  It is not nearly as garish as I thought I would be.  I may rip it out and see what it looks like woven up.  One of the students in the recent weaving class used some sequins and beads in yarns that she then wove up into a monochrome shawl.  It was very subtle and sophisticated.  I wouldn't normally characterize myself as a sequins kinda gal but I really liked it.  Needless to say the sequins do slow the spinning process down a bit a little do go a long way.

Currently I am trying to weave off a cotton warp that I have on my table loom.  It has been on there way too long and I would like to clear the decks.  I am not participating in the Knitting Olympics but I may try and set the goal to finish the sweater that I started on New Year's during the time period of the Olympics.  I am knitting 'Liv' from the Viking Knits booklet by Elizabeth Lavold in the called for Silky Wool.  I have the majority of the back knit up already so finishing the front and the sleeves shouldn't be too hard.  The tough part with me is always the finishing so I am going to try and seem it as well during the games.  I haven't shown a picture because frankly it makes for a super boring photo.  When I do the cables on the front I will share photos.  Wish me luck on my goals and know that I will be rooting for all of you who have decided to "compete".

The Weekend in Review

On Thursday last week I went down to Deep Color to hold a weaving studio.  Claudia is currently offering a weaving class on rigid hettle looms and we decided to offer a studio for any one who wanted a little extra help or to just come in and weave for a couple hours.  This is a shot of what I am working on for this class.  The warp is wool from Henry's Attic that I dyed in a class last year.  The weft is superwash that I also dyed at some other dye class last year.  The colors are a bit more pastel than I like but the warp was something I had on hand so I went with it.  I am spinning the weft rather fine and not worrying about evenness too much.  I am not packing the weft very tightly so that the hand will be soft when I take it off the loom and to preserve the colors in the warp.

On Friday I drove back down to Deep Color to assist with a natural dyes class that went all weekend long.  This class went really well as the group of students we had were great.  I also got a chance to teach more this class which was a great opportunity for me that I really appreciated.  Here is my stuff hanging on the drying line at Deep Color.

Here is a clearer shot of the rovings and yarn that were not dyed with indigo.  The rovings that were dyed with indigo are marinating in a plastic bag to let the dye set even better.  I will rinse it and re=acidify it tomorrow or Friday.  In this picture on starting on the right you have 2 rovings dyed in an open pot of cochineal, next cochineal with a little madder and logwood gray, next half cochineal and half madder, the next 2 rovings are madder in a long simmer, the next 2 lighter ones are madder in a short simmer, the last roving is osage orange and logwood gray.  The two skeins on the far left were in the cochineal open pot.  The one on the left that is more orange red is Targee and the one on the right that is more blue red is Cormo.  I love the fact that different breeds take up dye differently.  So cool.

The other rovings that are missing from the above picture, besides the indigo dyed ones, are three multi-color rovings that I painted.  On Sunday I was so jazzed from the class that I sat down and spun the two rovings that were superwash in fine singles.  Since I took this picture I Navajo plyed what I had.  I'll show the picture tomorrow.  There is one other painted roving that is on Blue Faced Leicester that I haven't spun up yet.

On Monday I went over to my guildmate Kate's house to use her knitting machine.  She and I had seen the items that Nancy Roberts has been doing and we were curious to try it out ourselves.  Nancy recently had a class that I was unable to attend but you can see pictures on Janine's blog if you are interested.  So on Monday we knit up a few blanks and I mordanted them last night.  On Saturday we are going to paint them using natural dyes rather than the synthetic dyes that Nancy uses.  I will take pictures and show you the results of our playing.

Needless to say by Tuesday I was a bit tired but today I am feel more energized and have just about finished the child's sweater that I showed a while back.  I have a few more things to show but I will save them for the next post.  Tomorrow night I am going back down to Deep Color for the intermediate spinning class.  The topic is sequins.  The results should be flashy is nothing else!

P.S. - I am not ignoring the request for pictures of our "mountains" but with the rain we have had lots of fog and mist which hide all views of the hills.  Maybe tomorrow?

The after picture

Here is the 'Vintage Velvet' scarf after the washing. It looks alot better. I never would have expected that the Touch Me would change so much. Again, not my favorite knitting experience but the end product is nice. Plus, the idea of doing a cable in K1, P1 ribbing so that it is reversible is a good one to remember.

I fixed my handspun sweater. I only had to rip a few rows on the front and the back. It was not the big deal that I was making it out to be in my head. I think more than anything I was frustrated at myself for having made such an obvious mistake. Once I got myself back on track it was very little time until I was able to do the three needle bind off for the shoulders. I then picked up stitches for the arm and started to knit the sleeve but I ran out of yarn. In order to make more yarn I need to finish up this lace weight yarn from the last spinning class at Deep Color. I wish you could feel how soft this yarn is. It is made of 50/50 yak and merino. So soft and very easy to spin. I don't have the high speed bobbin for my weel so I was peddling my little heart out.

Tonight I had my knitting class. It was a fun class. I showed one woman how to cast on, knit, and purl. She knows how to crochet so she picked it up quickly. I showed another woman how to use dpn's. I showed a third woman how to make a mitered square. My fourth student learned how to pick up stitches.
It was a good night!

I forgot to mention that I tried on my sweater after binding off the shoulders and it fits really well. Needless to say I am a happy girl.

Fleecy Business

As promised here is the sample that I knit up for my sweater that I am knitting from a polwarth fleece along with a sample skein and a sample lock. Sorry the color is so wonky in the background. I am in the process of spinning up full bobbins to start plying so I can start to knit. I will reshoot when I get started so that you get a better idea of the fleece's colors. Polwarth is genetically mostly merino with a little lincoln thrown in for shine. The fleece I have is very merino-like. It is very fine and the locks are not as distinct as other polwarth fleeces I have seen. I can't wait to start knitting! The sweater is one of my own design but based on the description of the Danish natroje (the o should have a slash through it) from the book Knitting in the Old Way by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts and Deborah Robson. Have I mentioned how much I love this book? I love this book. If you are at all interested sweater design at all this is a must have. It is hard to understand how much information that is in this book just by flipping through it. I read a little bit before I go to sleep every night and dream of all the sweaters I want to make. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

After having a wonderful "play date" on Monday with Erika and Connie, who I know from classes at Deep Color, I was so inspired that I washed a whole fleece in my washing machine! This is the fleece that I showed a while back that I bought from my friend Mimi who has Windrush Farms in Chileno Valley over in Sonoma County. Whew! It was dirty. I got the worst of it out but I am going to remember to give the skeins a good washing after I spin them up. Do you see the three pure white spots in this fleece? When the fleece was all rolled up in the bag you couldn't see them. They were quite a fun surprise when I unrolled the fleece to devide it up to wash it. How exciting!

Here is a close-up of part of the fleece so that you can see all the colors. It is just about dry. I think that when I spin this up I am going to separate out the colors and spin them individually and then knit a sweater with it. But first things first, I have to stay focused on the Polwarth sweater. I think I may go ahead and wash up the other small fleece that I got from Mimi before it gets cold. That way the fleece can dry quickly out in the sun and I will have fleece all ready to spin this winter. Sounds like a good plan to me!.

I may be going to LA this weekend Quique's nephew's baptism. We are going to try to leave Thursday night and come back not too late on Sunday. I will try to squeeze in another post before then but if not Have a good one!

Results and Competition

First the results: The weekend before last I spun up about half of the polworth locks and here is the resulting skein. I carded the locks and made them into rolags. Because the locks were dyed in a "rainbow pot" the locks vary in color. I started with the lightest yellow and progressed through to the bright salmon color. I spun the singles relatively thin then navajo plied it to keep the color shift. I haven't had the time to sit down and card up the rest. It has been quite hot here and the fan, that is so necessary at mid-day, blows the rolags half way across the room.

I just thought I would share with you the crimp on these polworth locks. I'm not sure why but those squiggles get me every time. It is amazing how much each lock fluffs up when you flick it open. Can you imagine having hair like that? Humidity would be your arch nemisis. Talk about an afro!

Quique and I had to go and pick his parents up in Sacramento at his sister's house. So on the way we stopped in Dixon to go to the Lambtown, USA faire they have every year. It is a small one day event that is well attended. They have music, vendors, sheep shearing competitions, and a sheep to shawl contest. It is only a dollar donation(!) to enter and worth going if you are in the area next year.

I am proud to say that my guild fields a fierce team every sheep to shawl season! They won at Dixon last year and won at the Black Sheep Gathering this year as well as the Alameda Faire competion. Here they are at about 3/4 through. They should have been done by this time but unfortunately the shearer didn't show up until noon when he should have been there at nine. Oh well.

Here is an in-progress shot of the shawl. In this competition they dye the wool on the sheep with kool-aid. Apparently they had not done the dying in advance and so this was another reason the three hour delay. They had to dry the sheep with hairdryers before they could shear them. Each team could request the color they wanted. They requested grape as you can see. I don't know how it ended up but I am sure that all went well. There was one group that was knitting instead of weaving. They must have had some sore wrists at the end of the day.

Speaking of sheep shearing we went and watched the sheep shearing competition. The gentleman doing the into gave alot of very interesting info. Apparently a shearer will burn as many calories as a person running a marathon. Most marathon runners only run a handful of races a year where as a shearer will shear six days a week three to six months a year. They are paid by the head and current prices are at about $2.25 a head. The record for most sheep shorn in one work day (12 hours with 9 hours of active shearing) is 716 and is held by an Australian (sorry I don't remember his name). Most shearers wear moccasins that have almost no sole. This puts them closer to the ground which is important because the have to be flexible enough to bend over and put their palms on the ground. They also where these special blue pants that have pegged legs and last forever. They also wear elastic belts so that they don't develop "plumber's crack" during the course of all that bending and standing. Very considerate, no?

I have more interesting tid-bits but I will spare you. On Sunday I say 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and nearly squeeled out loud when they go into the room with the pink sheep. The machine that the oompa-loompa is using to shear the sheep is actually what most shearers use to shear sheep in real life. Go Tim Burton. The oompa-loompas really made that movie for me.

I was very restrained and only bought a few batts of cormo and a few batts targhee wool. I am interested in seeing the difference between the two and also I have never spun from batts before. The batts are from Merry Meadow Farm, Inc. They are located in Willits. Her email is [email protected]. They also have beautiful raw fleeces as well.

I have been knitting as well. The owner of my lys comissioned me to knit a pair of fingerless gloves, a hat, and a scarf. The pattern for the fingerless gloves is a leaflet from Mac & Me and uses the Blue Sky Alpaca Sport Weight. If you haven't knit with this yarn yet you should. I have finished one of them and have started the second.

The hat is the 'Piper Hat' from Jo Sharp's Contemporary Knitting. It uses her dk wool. I have already finished this item but haven't blocked it yet. I will show you what it looks like when I do. It is written to knit flat but for no good reason. If you make this hat just go ahead and do it in the round and save yourself the seaming.

The scarf is the 'Vintage Velvet' scarf from Scarf Style. I only have about two inches on this so far. It takes five balls of the ggh 'Touch Me' and is very long. I wonder how this yarn would hold up if you wove with it? It is way too expensive to use very much of but it is very soft comes in nice colors and has a wonderful sheen.

Time to get back to my knitting!

Color Swatch

I Navajo plied the stuff from the intermediate spinning class on color blending using hand cards this weekend and knit it up. It was fun to knit just to see what was coming next and how it would look. I thought I would show you close-ups of each part in an effort to inspire you to pull out your hand cards or drumcarder and play with color!

This is silk that I just barely blended with the hand cards. The first part is just yellow and blue together. The next part is yellow, green, and blue. The last part is red, purple, and blue. The silk gives the yarn a nice shine and the light blending gives it a painterly effect.

This part is white and black blended at different ratios. Following is blue blended with black and white in different ratios. I think this could really striking done on a larger scale. This is an effect that is hard to get with dyeing but not overly difficult to do if you spin.

This portion was black and white with just a very little bit of red, yellow, and blue. It is a very subtle effect but adds interest to black and white. This could be done with other colors as the dominate color as well.

This part of the sample represents a fun comparison. You take two equal piles of various colors and you blend one of the piles with the hand cards. The other pile you just sandwich all the colors together and spin them over the fold so that each bit of the different colors stays separate from each other. It creates a yarn that every few inches the color changes. You could go on and grab another pile of colors and spin it from the tip and create a marled yarn to compare with the other two.

These are all fun things to do. I think it is good to try new things and color combinations with very low risk. Who knows, it might inspire your next project.

A Wealth of Polworth

Last night I assisted with a spinning class at Deep Color last night. The topic was color work primarily using hand cards. The class went really smoothly and everyone had a good time. We were looking at the effects of blending two colors in different amounts with the idea that you could create gradations in your knitting or weaving. We also looked at blending very small amounts of color into white and black. We did all this and more. I didn't get a chance to navajo ply my sample up yet. I will show you when I do and what it looks like knitted up too.

Claudia, the owner of Deep Color, has been periodically getting in bags of beautifully dyed polworth roving. It sells out within a week or two of it arriving it is so popular. Last night she had a little bit left of two colorways. So I purchased some more to add to my growing collection of this polworth. The three balls that I purchased last night is the big green ball that is to the left of center and the two balls of bright purple that are at top right. I am not sure who she gets if from but it is beautiful stuff. I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet.

Claudia also had some naturally dyed polworth locks from an earlier class. I couldn't resist so I bought all of it. It is about a half pound. I think I may make a baby sweater using these locks and some natural white polworth locks that I already have. I am really excited to start spinning this.

Have a good weekend!