Belated Rhinebeck Report November 18, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, drop spindle, spinning.add a comment
It was so beautiful in Rhinebeck this year, contrary to all the dire weather predictions. Both of us were not feeling 100% so the warmth and sunshine really felt like a gift!
Our crew expanded this year! Kierstin, Tracy and Jeremie joined us and we weathered the cold and played with the sheepies together. Super fun!
Anyway, it was another good year for spinning as I said earlier, and I am delighted to have won a blue ribbon for the best Leicester Longwool skein. I was highly surprised, grateful, and amused (!) when I received this in the mail just a week or so later…
I love the blank letterhead… though thank goodness they included it because otherwise I never would have known why I was getting $50 in the mail. I like to tell myself that it paid for most of my favorite toy from Rhinebeck this year… an aromatherapy RingSpindle!
I love it! Not only does it sport a cauldron on the top but the delicious aromatherapy diffusion really works! I definitely commend this craft tool to everyone. There was of course much more delightfulness to experience, taste, and see! More on that soon….
Blue Ribbon! October 18, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, handspun, spinning, yarn.1 comment so far
Just a brief check in from the New York State Sheep and Wool festival, where we had an unexpected gloriously rain and snow free day yesterday. What a gift! I was delighted to walk up to the blue ribbon wall for spinning and find my handspun among these lovely submissions. My work is all the way on the right. I won a blue ribbon for spinning this year’s featured breed, Leicester Longwool. Hooray!
We are going back today even though the day promises to be wet! More soon….
Spun sample October 15, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in drop spindle, fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.1 comment so far
Sometimes the very best thing to do is take on something small and savor it.
During my last visit to The Fold, Toni introduced me to something wonderful! A new dyer (to me anyway) by the name of Kimber Baldwin, the creative force behind Fiber Optics. Her shop is worth a visit and I can tell you that her eye for color is spectacular. In my hand (above) I am holding a tiny sample of her pencil roving (Foot Notes, 80% superwash merino wool and 20% nylon) in the black coffee colorway.
This sat on my desk for just a couple of days, spun on my ringspindle in spare moments stolen from other tasks. So delightful. Simple, satisfying drafting, gorgeous colors, and a perfectly matched set of double pencil rovings that I split to create two singles.
Yes those singles were stored on bamboo skewers… inexpensive and long enough to fit into my industrious kate reasonably well. This was a very tiny amount of roving, and I wanted to use the same spindle for both plies. On that note I would like to sing the praises of the recent addition of Seth Golding’s work to the ringspindles collection. This one is an ebony ringspindle, 0.8 oz.
The result was 25 yards of laceweight in lovely colors.
The colors are easier to see here.
Simple. Satisfying. Utterly worthwhile.
Spinning Lately October 7, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, fo, pokeberries, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.add a comment
I have been pretty bad about updating the blog with recently spun yarns, but that does not mean that I have been ignoring the wheels completely! Here is a taste of what has been drafted between my hands of late…
This Leicester Longwool is lambswool actually, my first spun single! I was playing with this in preparation for Rhinebeck, where the annual New York State Sheep and Wool festival is held. Leicester Longwool is the featured breed for 2009. This is about 250 yards, spun at a low ratio (7:1) and unbelievably soft. I am working on a companion skein for some colorwork from the Leicester Longwool I dyed with pokeberries.
The roving that became this two-ply Romney came from a store near Edmonds, WA. The wool was from a local sheep named Chris and purchased mainly because I loved the colorway. This was also spun at a low ratio, and the resulting yarn is softer than I would normally expect Romney wool to be. That is not to say that it is super soft by any means, but it is sweet.
And finally some color graded Polwarth. This roving and I have had a rough time of it. There was a lot of felting and tons of little neps and pills. Highly irritating. I had been holding on to it because it seemed so terrible to waste wool as soft as Polwarth and then I finally had to stop myself. I got rid of all the terribly felted bits and and spun a heavier yarn (this is a heavy worsted) while simply allowing the neps to spin right in. At this weight they just became incorporated and we got along much better. This 200 yard skein will likely become a hat at some point in the near(ish?) future.
Spinning Milkweed October 5, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.Tags: spinning milkweed
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I have always been enamored of milkweed fluff. It floats beautifully, shimmers in the sun, it’s soft and light and magical. As a child I even decided to love monarch butterflies because they loved milkweed. Then one day someone told me that it can be spun. Into yarn. Really.
I started by carding those cotswald curls that you see at the top, opening the locks before adding the shimmering milkweed into the mix. I read that you can only use up to 70% milkweed in a fiber blend before the resulting yarn becomes too brittle to spin. It is best blended with wool. This blend was only about 5% milkweed, because it was just an experiment.
The drum carder took up the milkweed well, once in was sandwiched between two layers of wool. I removed all the seeds of course, but wish I had separated the fibers from their connection point before carding. The might have all floated away of course, but I think the blending would have gone better. It is amazingly hard to keep your milkweed from blowing away. There was much holding of breath in this endeavor.
Here is Devorah kindly modeling the fluffiness of the final batt.
This was spun up long draw again. Another 50 yards or so like the green curls. Shiny!
The Sheep Shed Studio May 11, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Ravelry, dyeing, handspun, spinning, stash enhancement.4 comments
So I finally (ok a month ago) entered into the lovely fiber artists’ world of the Sheep Shed Studio. This wonderful business in Wyoming provides all kinds of rovings, mill ends, rugs, mysterious bales of fiber and various other adventures for the fluff lover in us all. If you haven’t tried them out yet, I would highly recommend it. I decided to start small instead of ordering a 15 pound bag of yummy dyeable fibers. Hmmm… maybe after I move. Anyway, I asked for cotswald curls, some beautiful forest green roving, and a pound of soft grey roving that a number of dyers on ravelry had been raving about. Carol (bless her) added a little thank you sample of some black wool that you see nestled up there on the top. That grey fluff is super soft! I was ready to try my hand at dyeing greys but… first things first.
By now some of you will know that while on occasion I will accept the role of pink in gift giving, it is not a favorite color of mine. That has a lot to do with trauma overdoing the pink in my early childhood years, but that is a story for another type of blog. See that pile of pink? I think we can all agree that Carol did a lovely job with a variegated dye on those curls… sure to produce some lovely depths of color. However, pink does not go on my wheel for fun so after opening my box of goodies and cackling with glee, I pulled every pink or almost pink curl out of that back and threw it straight into one of two dye pots.
After some time in a marine blue dyebath and a high acid (for fast color striking) dyebath with blacks and mustards this is what our culprits turned into. Mwa ha ha. Soon there were batts to behold:
I did eventually get to play with some greys. I did a free form dye bath just as an experimental starting point. Whoops! Caught myself in that photo. The sun has been tricksy of late…
Here is a close up to show the color variety.
I still have a lot of fiber prep (and spinning) to do, but so far I am delighted with my Sheep Shed Studio experience. Definitely the go to fiber option for my upcoming grad school years. Hmmm… I wonder what my advisor will think of me buying fiber in bulk?
New Spinnings May 5, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in drop spindle, fo, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, yarn.3 comments
I have been watching with some envy the gorgeous rovings arriving at the homes of those participating in the Grafton Fibers Colorways club. I was proud of my resistance against joining immediately when I saw the pretty colors. Instead I do what I usually try to do. I ordered some of their fiber to experience it before jumping into any rash decisions.
Gorgeous. Soft, delicious corriedale wool in such lovely batts. I ordered three (as can be seen at the bottom of this posting) in what I hoped would be complementary colors for a nice three ply yarn.
bobbins
On the bobbins the variegations of color are nice and clear. These were jewel-like in tone and so easy to spin. The smooth softness was a joy to the hands.
I absolutely love how the colors complement each other. I wanted something with depth that resisted the traditional barber pole look. I think this suceeded nicely.
The shifting hues of color definitely keep my interest. This yarn has an overall blueish cast but mainly whispers lush, rich tidings at you quietly. This is about 3.5 ounces of corriedale, 162 yards of three ply yarn. Yum! That Colorways Club may well be in my future once I land at my new address.
Finally, I picked up a Ringspindle much more suited to my spinning style than the ponderously heavy Schacht drop spindle I was (attempting to use) using before. At 0.84 oz of weight this ebony wood spindle spins fast enough to create the types of singles that I adore without crashing to the floor. Much better for my ego than the clangs and bangs of my earlier attempts. My only remaining challenge is convincing myself that spinning 50 yarns of laceweight at a time makes any kind of logical sense! Oh well. Travel spinning. Yes. Um… I’ll keep you posted on that one.
Berries on Beltane May 3, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in dyeing, fo, natural dyeing, pokeberries, spinning.6 comments
POKEBERRY MADNESS!
This glorious tale owes its wonder to the unbelievable patience of Devorah. You are looking at three gallons of pokeberries. Three gallons! Talk about days and days of fuschia fingertips. We live in Florida (for another month anyway). The pokeberry bush in our yard got so big that it has an honest to goodness trunk at the moment and would have to be taken down with a saw. Devorah, who has long loved making ink from pokeberries, took it upon herself to find a way to dye with them. Well. For me to dye with them. But check out how many berries she picked! Two pots full over time. I helped. A bit. Such a wonderful adventure!
Devorah found this article by Carol Leigh for a nonfading pokeberry recipe. Scroll down a bit on her site to find it. Pokeberries are very tricksy about refusing to be colorfast and people have to go to extreme measures to get nonfading colors. See below.
The most important thing in dyeing with pokeberries (aside from a ridiculously high pokeberry to fiber ratio) is high acidity. These pots were prepared using 56% acetic acid. The mordant pots and dye bath both steeped overnight. There are Teeswater locks, Superwash Merino, and Bluefaced Leicester in those pots. Wool fumes! On that note. Boiling pokeberries stink. Really stink. Did I mention stink? Wow.
After a night in the acid the dyebath was intense. It is almost as black as that crock pot. Wow. There was so much dye! Magenta was everywhere! But soon wool and dyebath met in that heavenly combination that leads to spinning happiness.
It was hard to set that in the garage and walk away for a few hours. I kept wanting to poke it! Amazing how you can already see differences in color uptake between the merino and teeswater (on the bottom of the photo) and the BFL at the top.
After two and a half hours of heating in the crock the fiber sat in the dyebath overnight. Then out it came to rest on this fabulous screen set up (thanks again to Devorah) to oxidize for several hours. Can you see the cute binder clips holding the screening on this clothes drying rack? She is the best.
Later that afternoon when the sun was streaming into the garage I had to take another pic. No flash on this one, no adjusting to correct the color. This really is what that rack looked like during the afternoon on Beltane.
This was a fabulous adventure. It was well worth doing. The photo above shows the final fibers. This is after several rinses in water (no soap!) and includes the two fibers that got dyed in the pot on round two. I have no idea if they will be lightfast given that they went through the dye on the second round. The tussah silk (pink draped across the whole thing) was only in the crock for two hours. The Leicester Longwool stayed in overnight. But the crimson colors from the first fibers are not to be believed. They are just so rich and lush. While I hope that these will stay colorfast for years to come as Carol’s have, I can understand why people were willing to redye their fabrics with pokeberries once a year to keep them a brilliant red.
To think they call this plant a weed….
Yarny Goodness March 25, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in dyeing, fo, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, stash enhancement, yarn.4 comments
Hooray for the first yarn off of my new wheel! This is just over 540 yards of DK weight three ply yarn. The wool roving (breed unknown) was dyed by dudleyspinner. It started as 24 times more than this little nugget of fluff. About eight ounces.
Sorry for the blurriness. Cell phones just arent the best. I took the original roving, divided it randomly into three (by length) but then carefully separated each third into eight repeats. Happily, my attempt to balance out the rich colors seems to have worked. All suggestions about what to make from this are welcome!
I also had a ton of fun doing natural dyeing using beets. My housemate loves them, sadly enough, yet after boiling a pile in the crock pot I had a fabulous dye bath to work with. I used two different mordants on wool: alum and copper sulfate.
Here is the dyebath:
The cheesecloth was for straining out the beet bits. The pot below has wool mordanted in alum. That riotous orangey color definitely stuck! Fabulous! Time will tell if it will be colorfast, etc. I am thinking these rovings need to be turned into something that gets washed a bit less often.
Mordanting the wool in copper sulfate was beautiful! Aqualicious…
What happens to the color of beets once the copper sulfate is in the mix though… well, maybe greens should not be brought out of oranges. Lol. This looks a little too much like intestines. Ick! But the roving really is lovely. I cannot wait to see it spun.
Rinsed, dryed, and ready to spin! Both of these rovings are actually a bit darker than in the picture.
And finally I ordered some batts from Grafton Fibers! These are GORGEOUS! I am going spin them together. About one and one third ounce per batt… this is a three ply waiting to happen. We love the fibers!
HONK! March 15, 2009
Posted by lunarawe in Rhinebeck, fo, handspun, spinning, spinning - FOs, spinning fo, stash enhancement, yarn.2 comments
I want to begin with apologies for the lateness of my honk, and yet honk I must for I was one of the many caught off guard by this latest revelation. Fluffy, delicious batts. They are so much fun to spin! We all want them. Let’s be honest… making fiber potions of fluffy goodness is the main reason why any of us owns a drum carder in the first place. For example, I can’t wait to card some milkweed into… well, that is a story for another time. For now, suffice it to say that when I read on our beloved YarnHarlot’s blog that wool fibers should be loaded onto a drum carder sideways I was as stunned as most of the rest of you.
So here I am honking because yes, I was told to load my fibers facing toward the drum and yes, even my written instructions say to do the same. In fairness, I have an amazing drum carder. I got fluffy batts the other way… but nothing like this. The one drawback is that so much less fiber fit into this batt of lusciousness. Here is the story.
I started with this beautiful mass of wool locks that I purchased at Rhinebeck this fall. The vendor never told me the breed of sheep, and the locks were already dyed. While one of my friends tells me this looks a bit lke a diseased brain, I see only fibery goodness waiting to be spun up into something heavenly.
From this mass of potential I separated out the individual locks (above) and teased them open with my fingers (below).
I then did what I think we all ran to our carders to do (if we were lucky enough to have a drum carder. Mine was a gift for which I am constantly grateful). I loaded up my carder with overlaping locks laid sideways so they would be pulled at from their sides by the rows of tiny metal teeth.
Even the sound was different! I could almost hear a chorus of young girls complaining about their mothers being too rough with the tangles in their hair. It takes focus and grim determination sometimes to keep that handle turning. Oh the flashbacks of it all! As the fiber started teasing apart between the almost touching metal I could instantly see the depth of color that would be in the final batt. Lustrous. I don’t know what breed of sheep this is from but I wish I did.
The full drum looked like this after the first pass. It took three total passes through the carder to make the batt above.
By the time the batt was really finshed it had an even color, great loft, and a wonderful shine. I did a test twist that doubled back on itself into a two ply just to see what the fibers would do. Though in truth I really just have a hard time keeping my hands off of the wool.
I made three batts in all just 15 grams of wool each. I only purchased 70 grams to begin with… just pulling a bit out of the basket of fluff to try on my carder. I still have some wool in glorious reds from the same basket. I will have to card that into a blend with something fun. In the meantime I decided to start learning to spin using the long draw technique. It is humbling, and a good reminder, to start learning to spin all over again in a sense. So different from a nice (read control freak spinner) worsted method. The result is 50 yards of three ply. A happy and fuzzy green ending to my story.
