spinknitfeltanddye

Rooing Gutes!

2011-07-06T13:25:00.009-04:00

Sweeping up the tufts of dog furballs around the house yesterday made me think of the Gute sheep we saw on Gotland. They were "rooing"...naturally shedding their fleeces... the way primitive breeds of sheep do, and I was able to capture a pretty good picture of it.
I took these photos of a small flock of the Gutes that remain on the south western shores of the island. In 1920 only 20 of these Viking age sheep remained, but thanks to efforts on both Gotland and Faro, this breed seems saved from extinction (tho' I wouldn't say it's thriving based on how hard they were to find!)

Originally belonging to the Finnish Landrace family of sheep, the Gutes from Gotland were horned (even the ewes and sometimes with 4 horns, not just 2!) and came in many colors, as you can see from the various photos here. The Vikings, who frequented Gotland, crossed them with Romanov and Karakul sheep that they brought from their travels in Russia. As a result, the Gute genes were diluted, the animals lost their horns, stopped rooing and became all grey. This crossed sheep, then became it's own breed and is what we know today as the Gotland (Palsfar) sheep.
I'd have loved to have found a fleece of Gute to buy while there so I could experiment with it- I imagine it felts really well- but the Gutes were hard to find and, as you can see, they still had their fleeces on anyway! Bunches of their wool was lying all about the paddock that the sheep had already rooed (sp?), but I could only reach a few locks that had dropped on the ground and nobody was around to inquire about purchasing a Gute fleece, so I'll have to content myself with felting this absolutely gorgeous Gotland fleece I was able to purchase there. The Gotland ewe pictured here with her triplets was grazing in the yard of an amazing 13th century church in Tofta.

Do you make to sell or sell what you make?

2011-06-23T15:18:00.007-04:00

The quilters were in town for the big annual Vermont Quilt Show last week. Groups of them stop back in each year when they're in Vermont and new ones find me. As one group checked out & left the store, I heard one say to another "oh, there was just so much to see and so much to feel there wasn't enough time"(they'd been here over an hour)to which another in the group responded "that is just the coolest shop we've ever been in, seriously, EVER, don't you think?"!
So I had to share (not because these remarks were so unusual... I am paid compliments directly about the shop remarkably often) but because it caused me to think about what aspect of the shop it was that made it stand out so memorably with that group that had essentially "knit-shop-hopped" the eastern seaboard on their way to the show.
This reflection led me back to that recurring dilemma I grapple with constantly ... for those of us who have turned our passion into our livelihood - do we make/do what we think will sell, OR, do we reserve our time & energy to make what we creatively want to and then hope the money will follow? I usually do some of each, but always ending up erring on the side of doing what I think more people would actually make and wear than making what I creatively want to (afterall, it's not the ohs and ahs that keep kibbles in Chloe's bowl!).
And yet, it seems to be these "outlier" projects that elicit the oohs! that seem to leave the lasting impression and which seem to be one of the main reasons so many out-of-towners hyperventilate when they visit(I wish I had tape recorded 2 ladies who stopped in from Montreal last week....it was about an hour of that famous scene from When Harry Meets Sally!).
So this year, newly reinspired by the art and traditions witnessed on my recent vacation to Russia, Estonia & Gotland, I'm testing that "field of dreams" approach and going for broke....I just chose 6 projects from my queue of "projects-I-want-to-do-that-probably-nobody-will-buy-material-for-because-no-one-in-their-right-mind-would-want-to-take-the-time-or-spend-the-amount-of-money-they-cost-to-make-them" and I've decided to treat myself to the indulgence of putting the time and money into them even if nobody ever buys the materials to make them too!
A new approach for me....let's hope I can stick to it. It sounds so obvious... of course you do what you're inspired to do and the money will follow, but since my vendors don't accept oohs and aahs for payment there may be times throughout the year that my resolve wavers!
If you struggle with the create vs. make to sell balance, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Pink Silkworms!

2011-03-22T09:38:00.007-04:00

If you've been to sheep & wool shows or seen colorful silk cocoons for sale on line (like the ones I dyed here), they are cocoons that have been dyed AFTER the cocoon was spun. And, importantly to the fiber artist, the dye will disappear from these pretty little cocoons once you enzymatically remove the sericin (the substance the worm ejects along with the silk protein to makes the cocoon hard and help protect the worm from predators while it develops into the moth). And you'll be left with either white or tan cocoons, depending on whether the cocoons dyed were the cultivated Bombyx Mori (bright white) or cocoons of the wild type moth (which eats leaves with tannin in them so the silk they spin is "discolored" a lovely earthy tan color). But now the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and REsearch has come up with a way of integrating the color into the actual protein as the cocoon is spun! So the cocoon is colored and the silk remains colored after removing the sericin. Even the worm turns the color of the dye it is going to produce (see photo below)! I'm not sure how I feel about this advance in fiber technology yet. The aim is to reduce the need to commercially dye silk to make it cheaper and I suppose this might be a better thing for the environment? Anyway... this week a customer (whose husband is a chemical engineer, I believe) brought in an article from one of his trade journals about introducing fluorescent rhodamine dyes in with the mulberry leaves so that the worm eats the dye right along with the leaves so the dye molecule is actually integrated into the fibroin protein of the silk and becomes a permanent aspect of the silk fiber. The range of colors so far developed are nothing to write home about (in my mind, anyway) and the story is still out on whether the color will be light fast and also whether the integration of the dye into the protein molecule changes the strength, sheen, or softness of the natural silk. But I thought it was interesting to know about, so thought I'd share it...

And by the way, if you want to learn more about how silk is harvested from cocoons or how to knit directly from the coccoon, I have more information here on the website. Here are a few last photos of some 8th generation Vermont silk cocoons I raised here a few years back!

Back to the Future?

2011-01-08T11:51:00.004-05:00

I finished up my Gottland project but forgot to photograph all the finished projects before shipping them off for XMAS gifts, so I only have these 2 knitting accessory pouches for show & tell....I ended up using them as a canvas to play with some embroidery stitching and as good practice for putting in zippers....after knitting 4 of these, I think I could add zippers to knitted garments in my sleep! The only mittens I ended up knitting -so far- from the Gottland fleece was a pair of solid dark gray pop up paws for my brother Eric, who resides on the Outer Banks and spends lots of cold blustery winter days casting from shore with his fishing buddies.

The fleeces were lovely to work with....I really enjoyed the way they felt to spin and knit. The lanolin was quite nice for my dry fingertips. I still have quite a bit of the fleece left and will spin it up at a finer gauge later this month so I can knit up a couple pair of the Gotland mitten patterns for store models. I was disappointed that the patterns I had intended to knit for XMAS just didn't look great at the gauge of yarn I had spun originally....so you work with what you have and these accessory pouches were fun to make and will be well used.

In the meantime tho', I've taken a break from spinning the Gottland and returned to a felting project I've been working on "on and off" for the past couple of years....felting every breed of sheep I can get my hands on! It's been fun to seek out representative fleeces of the various breeds...some typical (Cormo, Shetland, Icelandic, Wenslydale, etc) and other more unusual breeds (California Red, CVM, Tunis, Polwarth, Teeswater, etc), to see how differently they felt and how different the fabrics rendered are.

In addition to felting a 30 gm 10x10 sample of each, I'd been making a finished product of each, but realized recently that I'd either gifted or sold many of the finished goods. So now I'm embarking this winter on the task of re-making either a hat or bag or pillow in each of the breeds that I didn't keep a "finished" representation of so that in the end I'll have a pretty comprehensive "library" of samples for teaching purposes.

One of the interesting samples I came across as I was sifting thru my documentation last week was of a California Red fleece. The fine red "kemp" in the fleece wasn't so obvious in the batt, but after felting, it is really what predominated in the sample....not sure my photograph tells the picture as much as it shows "live".... and the difference in the finished felt is quite remarkable!

Worldwide wool market & Gottland Mittens update

2010-12-15T15:17:00.007-05:00

OK, so I've fallen behind on the Gottland mitten project! The yarn is all spun (these are the final 5 colors) and the first pair underway, but.....just 10 days left to go. So....

First I cut out the idea of lining them all with angora. Then, thinking that my sister in law would not really wear mittens anyway (maybe I'm trying to justify my actions here?), I thought I'd use one of the Gottland mitten designs (a couple of the graphs are shown above) and knit her a little knitting accessory case (what knitter can't use something to store stitch holders, ring markers, snipets, etc?).

And then this morning, I decided that maybe the knitting accessory pouch is a more useful gift for EACH of my sisters too! So now the Gottland Mitten project has evolved to the Gottland Knitting Accessory case to better suit my time (and sanity) and their needs!

So don't be surprised next week when you see little lined accessory cases and not mittens!

When spinning the fleeces, it was REALLY noticeable how much softer the American Gottland fleece (that was upbreeded from Finn) was compared to the New Zealand Gottland fleece (that clearly used one of the long wool breeds for upbreeding). Although it was clear from the original photos of the 2 fleeces that the New Zealand Gottland was more lustrous, as you'd expect from a long wool foundation cross, the Finn foundation fleece is still lustrous and so much softer.

I guess the takehome learning from this is that, since the American Gottland association allows so many and varied foundation breeds, the American Gottlands will be quite a diverse group!

On another note....I've been speaking with wool brokers lately since I'm trying to procure a bale of fine wool (a bale is about 660 pounds) and having trouble. Apparently, because last summer was so cold in New Zealand (I didn't realize this, but they had so much snow after lambing that over 1 million lambs died) the fine wool available from the last clip was much less than usual. And with demand from China, there is no merino wool anywhere that isn't spoken for. Not S. America, not downunder, and not S. Africa...unless you want 11,000 pounds! Which, needless to say, is beyond my current requirements! So I guess I have to wait for the fall clip this spring (since they're all in the other hemisphere!).

Sweaterhag or Lace Shawl Knitter?

2010-11-27T12:02:00.010-05:00

In reading for our upcoming "sister's trip" to Gottland, Estonia & St. Petersburg I keep coming across little tidbits of historical information that are not really useful to anyone but they are kind of fun and interesting, so I thought I'd pass a few along....for whatever value or insight they might have for you!

In the 1950s the Haapsalu shawl knitters were required to deliver a MONTHLY quota of either 9 scarves or 12 shawls to fill the enormous Soviet demand for their product.... it rather shames me that I'm still working on the same 6 projects I started last month!

In the early 1800s, the women of Gottland, who used to go around the island collecting handknit sweaters and mittens to take to Sweden to sell, called themselves "sweaterhags". I guess it was common for them to knit as many as 100 sweaters a year themselves...again, I feel just a little embarrased at how little I accomplish by comparison!

This next bit of historical insight I read in Wild Fibers magazine (which if you haven't seen or read this magazine, you need to check it out)....

The Vikings used Gute wool (Gute is a type of sheep from the island of Gotland...but it is not the same as the Gotland sheep) to make their sails. Some Swedish historian, interested in recreating a true Viking ship, wove some sails in the traditional manner using first Gotland wool, and then when that failed, true Gute wool. The Gute wool, which would have been the sheep breed around at the time of the Vikings, failed as well. Both wools failed because as soon as the sails got wet, they were useless. But then (because the third time is always a charm!) he wove the sails using wool that had been rood, not sheared. "Rooing" is the process by which ancient sheep "shed" their fleece naturally in the spring...it is not cut from them. When "rood" wool was used, when the sail got wet, it did not absorb the water and maintained it's functionability. That's because when fleece is "rood" both ends of the lock are sealed whereas when fleece is shorn off the sheep, of course 1 end of the wool is cut and the water was able to get into the lock and the sail lost its' functionality.

The photo has nothing to do with these little curiousities.....I'm just so happy it's spring and the garden is actually full of blooms already I had to share.....crocus, scilla, bloodroot, daffodils, miniature iris, and these....not sure whether they are blue gowns or wind flowers.... does anyone know?

2010-11-17T13:36:00.004-05:00

Two colors spun; three to go. And only a couple of days left in the week to stay on schedule. Yikes!

I did pick out the patterns this week so at least once all the colors are spun I can cast on "right out of the gate".

Isn't the yarn lustrous? I really love it.

So far, I've only spun the American Gottland. And although I've read that Gottland are not supposed to have much lanolin (and I certainly noticed how little there was when washing the fleece) my fingertips had that lovely silken coating after spinning up the gold and green this Sunday. I've got to keep in mind that added little benefit of spinning in the dry winter months when my skin needs every bit of moisture it can get! Perhaps it has to do with the American Gottland fleece being from a fine wool foundation breed (Finn)?

This exercise is also a reminder of how much darker the spun yarn always is compared to the fiber preparation. I think the photos do a good job of conveying that principle.

Anyway, I'm hopeful I can get the purple spun tonight and the 2 greys this weekend. If I am successful, that will keep me on track for having these done by XMAS! Then once it is spun, I'll just have a week to knit each pair....maybe I won't line them with angora!

Gottland Mittens-Week Two!

2010-11-13T15:46:00.007-05:00

There's nothing like a deadline to help me keep on task!

Had I not mentally commited to posting a weekly progress report on this project, I might well have blown off carding the Gottland fleece today in favor of dyeing some yarn that I'm behind on for the Vermont Yarn Club.

I had actually intended to comb this fleece....since Gottland is a long wool breed and very lustrous and because I want these mittens to wear a long time. I had originally thought I'd spin a true worsted spun yarn to a sport/d.k. gauge. But after combing a couple of handfulls, I decided I needed to rev up my production in order to get all 4 pair of mittens spun and knit by XMAS, so I decided to card the fiber and settle for a semi-worsted yarn.

So today, in between advising some of the weavers that were here working on their chenille scarves, I carded the 3 dyed colors up as you see here. The photos show a first pass with a pile of the locks and then a second pass (I used my motorized Louet), some fiber being combed and the final three batts.

I mentioned last week that I'd get more into the difference in the 2 Gottland fleeces I'm playing with. So I pulled out all my literature....a great article from Spin Off spring 2002, a pamplet from the American Gotland Sheep Society, and this beautiful new book I purchased about European breeds (although it includes Estonian and Russian breeds too!) of sheep called Wools of Europe.

As for the American Gottland I'm working with.....the fleece I'm working with is the result of breeding a Finn ewe with semen imported from Gottland, and then subsequently breeding this offspring with Gottland semen until the offspring is 7/8th Gottland (this is what the person who raised this fleece informed me of at the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival where I purchased the fleece).

I was surprised to learn when reading the pamplet of the American Gottland Sociaty (AGSS) that other "foundation" breeds are allowed (I apparently misunderstood that Finn was the only accepted foundation breed to cross with Gottland semen if one was breeding to be included in the AGSS). The other foundation breeds that are allowed are Shetland, Icelandic, Wensleydale, Cotswold, Lincoln, Border Leceister, Blue Faced Leceister & English Leceister. Anyway, as of 2008, there were less than 100 Gotland Xs in North America

The original Gottland sheep was established by the Vikings on the island off Sweden where my sisters & I are heading in May. The Vikings crossed the native Gute sheep with Karakul and Romanov sheep from Russia to create the Gottland breed. Today, both Gute and Gottland sheep inhabit the island. Both the Gute and the Gottland are hardy and well suited to the island's climate. They are both light grey to black.

I was expecting the fleece to feel coarse since Gottland can range from 35-45 microns, but it really feels soft!

The second fleece I'm working with came to me by way of my sister, who in turn got it from a friend of hers who got it from New Zealand. According to the Spin Off article, the Stansborough Gotland sheep (raised on the east coast of New Zealand) has special characteristics. The family that has been selectively breeding them there has produced a herd of 800+ that are lustrous, strong, long, and have none of the guard hairs typical of the traditional Scandinavian Gotlands.

Having carded the colors and realized how incredibly lustrous and soft these two fleeces are, I can't wait to start spinning!

Next week....I'll have yarn to show and will go about picking patterns from the Swedish Mitten Book I discovered on my shelf!

A XMAS present: for myself and my sisters!

2010-11-03T13:59:00.009-04:00

This blog is the first of a weekly progress report on a project I started this week and need to have complete for XMAS. I call it a "present" for myself too, because I usually have to subordinate the projects I'd really like to work on to those that I "need" to do for the store.

So giving myself the time to work on this...when it won't yield new store models and won't result in a new workshop for the class or even help sell fiber that I carry....is a holiday treat to myself!

So why this project? Well, as some of you may know, my 4 sisters and I (actually, I have 3 sisters and the fourth I'm referring to is a sister-in-law) are heading to Gottland, Estonia and St. Petersburg for 2.5 weeks next May. We did a similar trip years ago to England, Scotland and Ireland and had a blast.

Anyway, in anticipation for our trip we're all reading Swedish, Russian and Estonian authors to acquaint ourselves with their history and culture, renting films from Netflix that are by Swedish and Russian directors (if you aren't familiar with Swedish films, they are rather dark and need to be taken in small doses!) and boning up on their cuisine (this may be my chance to lose some of the pounds I've put on this past year!).

Since we're diving into their literature, film, history and cuisine, I thought it also only appropriate to acquaint myself with their wool a little more closely than I have to date. So I purchased a small American Gottland fleece (more about this next time) at the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival this past May and I have part of an Australian Gottland fleece (again, more about the hole Gottland fleece issues next week) that my sister Roby gave me for another project I have going (I have a going-on-three-year-now project of felting either a hat or bag from every breed of sheep I can get my hands on).

So while I was ruminating on the idea of working with these two Gottland fleeces, it so happened that I discovered a little and old mitten book on my bookshelf that...lo' and behold....is traditional patterns from Gottland! So it seemed destined that these fleeces become mittens and so here began the journey of deciding to wash, dye, comb, spin, and knit mittens for each of my sisters for XMAS! Oh, and in case you think this blog may blow the surprise for them....no chance of it....they are even less inclined to go surfing the web or looking at blogs than the man on the moon!

So...this week I washed the fleeces. I HATE washing fleece. And to boot, I was out of my Kookaburra Wool Scour, which I love. So I ran to Guys Farm and Yard to buy some Orvus. This is used by people to wash their sheep for 4H shows....so while the fleece is still on the animal. I've used it in the past for fleeces and it works well...I just switched to Kookaburra because I love the measuring system and it does an equally great job and has tea tree and eucalyptus oils to prevent moths and dust mites. But in a pinch, the Orvus would be great. BUT, I suffered from sticker shock when I discovered it now $40. So I decided to forgo the Orvus and make due with Dawn dish soap, which I know a lot of spinners use. I figured I could get by with that for this fleece and by the time I need to wash fleeces again, my Kookaburra would be back in stock.

So I got my water really really hot, put the fleece in garment bags (which I do to minimize handling of the loose fibers so I'm less likely to felt the wool), added the Dawn and washed away. Not once, not twice, but three washes and then a couple of rinses before I spun it in my washer to help it dry quickly.

I have to say that I didn't really like the Dawn....Kookaburra would have done a better job with just 1 wash ! But the Dawn got enough of the grease and dirt out for me to declare it "enough" washed and move on....since I'm going to comb, not card this fleece and will wash the yarn again before knitting, I thought it was sufficiently clean. OK, so I'm justifying not having to wash it YET AGAIN (did I mention I hate washing fleece?!)

Anyway, after drying I separated the light gray from the dark gray areas of the fleeces so I have 2 natural colors to work with (see left photo above) for patterning but decided I wanted more (I do have 4 pair of mittens to knit after all and I can't stand repeating myself!) colors for accents. So I pulled out the Greenershades organic dyes....love them....and decided to blend up my favorite green, golden orange, and purple colors (see center photo above). I used some of the light gray portions of the fleece to dye, so the colors are much more muted than these colors would be on a white fleece, but show up more than they would have over the dark gray fleece sections.

I'm keeping the American and Australian fleeces separate since I want to see if I notice much difference in their qualities/characteristics when I comb and spin them up.

My plan for this weekend is to comb the washed fleeces...I'll let you know how that goes next week when I go into a little bit more about the difference in the Gottland fleeces.

If anyone wants to share their washing secrets, feel free!

Sham Wow!

2010-09-22T14:54:00.001-04:00

Felting doesn't require many tools and the tools it does use are simple. Often I first get excited to find a new shaping tool in my ditchen drawer or at a flea market and then when I use it I find it does the trick but it doesn't usually knock my socks off. So I have a drawer of tools that "work" but I'd never go out of my way to recommend a felter go find them.

But my sister gave me some super absorbent towels that she found in Maine that are UNBELIEVABLE! I've never thought of a towel as a critical piece of my felting armamentarium, but I do go thru quite a few in the course of a big project....mopping up the floor from the drip, keeping the table tops dry and rolling in one for traction. But with these super-absorbent...no, uber-absorbent...towels you'll find 1 towel will keep an entire class dry and you won't spend so much time doing laundry afterwards!

I don't own any stock in this company, nor does my sister (at least I don't think so), so my recommendation here is completely without any vested interest. I just think that if you felt, you need to have some of these around. They are called Sham Wows...and when you use them you'll get the "wow" part. It's not that I use an excessive amount of water, but some seepage is bound to happen as you roll and, especially in classes, puddles form. I used to use 3 or 4 towels in the course of a project....1 to sop up the floor where the water dripped after rolling it up for the first time, one or 2 to keep the table neat and another to roll in. But now I roll my piece up in the bubblewrap and then roll that in a single Sham Wow and not only do I get fantastic traction, but it completely absorbs all the water. Your workspace is so neat and dry when you use these.

You're probably surmised by now that it doesn't take much to get me excited, but sometimes its the little things that make such a difference in life!

2010-07-14T11:08:00.006-04:00

So I played around with the bloodroot, and although I got a lovely yellow, I never achieved the red I anticipated and since there are so many abundant sources of yellow from natural dyes that don't require killing the plant, I probably will just enjoy bloodroot for it's flower in the future.
As several sources I read suggested soaking the bloodroot in alcohol rather than water, a common enough extraction method, I did so. As you can see from above, the roots look like carrots! Then I diced them and did a further smashing as best I could in my mortar & pestle...they were rather resistant to this, but I tried. Then I soaked the first batch (and I admit I was stingy with the quantity of root I used at first because I was experimenting)in an alcohol/h2o mix for a couple of hours until I saw a lovely orange fluid. Then I heated it up and threw in a sample skein. The color was so faint, even after additional alum was added and it cooked for an hour, that I decided I needed to up my starting dye material.
So I chopped up the all the remaining roots...probably about 20 more, extracted them for a couple of hours in straight alcohol, added the extract from them to the dye pot and threw in more yarn. This time I added a singles cormo/mohair (1 of the lovely yarns for the Vermont Yarn Club), a tightly plied merino (Gems by Louet), and a plied border leciester (another lovely Vermont Yarn Club sample). They all came out a lovely yellow, but never red, even after playing with the pH to shift the color. The only thing I thought to try, but found I had none in stock, was to add a pinch of tin to "bloom" the color (an afterbath of tin often "pops" the color in a natural dyebath).
Anyway, it was interesting, but since the flower is so pretty itself (see above) I won't be tempted to try it again unless someone shares with me the secret to getting the deep red....anyone have any ideas?

Natural Dyeing...bloodroot to indigo and the origin of denim

2010-06-12T13:01:00.010-04:00

I've always believed that when you start hearing or seeing or feeling the same, out- of-the-blue or obscure, message over and over again from different aspects of your life, you should follow where it leads....you know, like the universe is trying to tell you something important.
Of course, I followed such a series of messages once and it led me right out of a cushy, secure and lucrative corporate job and into this LYS venture, so maybe this approach is not always wisest! Still, I like to listen to these hints I pick up...I just don't follow them off a cliff anymore!
For me, it seems that all points lately have been directing me toward natural dyeing.
First, Chloe & I shared one of our favorite walks along the river in Richmond with some friends (if you haven't checked out my friend Kerin's argentium silver jewelry yet, you need to....it's beautiful and you can see it at kerinrose.com )and their dogs that had never been there before. The river edges were teeming with big bold beautiful ferns (see photo right) and, out of the foggy blue, I felt an urge to dye with the ferns. Since I've always found natural dyeing with plants to be just too much fuss this took me by surprise. I filed it away, thinking the urge would pass.
But then a huge tree came down in my parking area during the 15 minute gale wind storm we had here last week and when the arborist was here this week to clear it away, his limb walkers stomped all over a big group of bloodroot plants I had growing in a part of the garden beneath the tree. Bloodroot is great for dyeing but I had actually planted it because of its really early, lovely white flower (see photo top left) that is abundant in March and April when little else is blooming. I've never used it for dyeing, because unlike many other dye plants that you can pick the flowers or leaves from for dyeing and still preserve the plant for another year, its the root of the bloodroot plant that makes the dye...so there's no way around killing bloodroot to dye with it!

But now, this group is dead anyway and since I now have so many clumps of bloodroot in other parts of the garden, I think the fact that these were tromped upon means I should use them.

Lastly, I've been working on this new product for the store for the fall. The Vermont Yarn CSA. I'm really excited about it. I've got so many lovely Vermont Yarns being spun and that I'm currently dyeing, I thought I could offer a really unique and exciting monthly yarn club for customers. As I was developing the idea and trying to create each month's yarn and project really unique in experience, I came across two old things....both of which related to natural dyeing!
First, I came across an old dyeing notebook of mine that had some really great colors I had dyed one year from plants. In the face of seeing all the beautiful natural colors I had dyed that year, suddenly all the "fuss" of natural dyeing seemed worth the trouble, so I decided to add a naturally dyed yarn to the mix for the Vermont Yarn CSA.
Then I came across a really old newsletter I'd sent out in April 2003 that featured an article on "denim". The word which we now associate with jeans, comes from Nimes, France. In Nimes, indigo was used to dye fabric and so the fabric "of Nimes" (in French that's "de Nimes" and hence denim, referred to indigo dyed blue fabric.
So you see, I need to do some natural dyeing and so I'm heading out to the garden now to dig up the bloodroot roots and start extracting the dye. I'll post some pics next week to share how it's going.

Square Knitting Needles & Whether you're a Process or End Product Knitter

2010-05-27T13:03:00.008-04:00

It was interesting at the Yarn & Needle Tasting on Saturday that nobody liked the square needles I had out for "tasting". I'd been receiving a lot of calls recently inquiring about whether I stock them or not. I had decided last year not to stock them because I hated knitting on them myself. But after all the calls over the last month or so, I began questioning my decision not to stock them. But when not a single one of the Needle Tasters on Saturday liked knitting with them, I was assured that my decision was the right one.
I know there's some chatter out there amongst knitters that feel the square needles are easier on their hands, but for me, knitting on them is jerky...rather like driving down a road filled with pot holes....bumpy and jerky like the very very long dirt road we traversed on Sunday to get to the trail head for West Mountain (the views from on top you can see here). Somehow the square edge "catches" so making a stitch is not fluid. That's my experience anyway.
Yesterday a customer was in and mentioned that she's been knitting on the square needles but doesn't like them. That led us to a discussion about whether we knit for the "process" or for the "end product". I know I knit for the process more than the end product (not that I don't love the end product too!). But I know that even if I and everyone I know never needed another sock, mitten, hat, scarf, shawl, sweater, etc, I'd still knit, felt, spin and weave because it's an important creative outlet for me.
Where do you come down on this spectrum....more about the process or the end product?

As a side note, I too suffer from terrible hand pain sometimes when knitting or felting. My solutions include wearing the compression gloves & bamboo needles when I knit with the non elastic fibers like cotton, hemp, linen, soy, etc.(although I still love my Addi's for protein fibers), also stopping every 30 mins to stretch the hands, fingers, wrists, arms and front chest muscles really thoroughly, alternating between continental and my expedited version of throwing the yarn, and lastly, working in a crochet project between knits since it uses different hand motions!
And as for tips I have for saving the hands from felting strain... I am just trying not to do so much squeezing as I used to use in the final felting steps.
Does anyone else have suggestions or thoughts on saving our hands for our fiber addiction?

The St. Croix Hair Sheep

2010-05-09T08:09:00.002-04:00

Mother's Day and it's snowing like a blizzard out there! I thought the 6" of snow we had on April 28th was unusual and kind of fun in its novelty, but this is ridiculous! I had planned to garden today but knew as Chloe and I were returning from our early morning walk and I could see snowflakes building up on her black coat that we were in for it! So I thought while I enjoyed my second cup of coffee and before I laid out some felt slippers for next weekend's Footwear and Sox Extravaganza, that I'd blog about another one of the unusual sheep I encountered at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last weekend(there's a little blurb on the Ouessant Sheep in the latest newsletter which you can access from the website's homepage if you're interested)...
There were several sheep breeds at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last weekend that were new to me. It seemed to be the year for "island" breeds...the Barbados Blackbelly, the St. Croix, and the Ouessant (from a small island off the coast of Brittany)!
None of these are breeds that are going to take the spinning, knitting or felting world by storm since they either have no wool or little wool but just the same, I thought it interesting to learn about them if for no other reason than they are relatviely rare and it is nice to see that there are breeders doing what they can to preserve some of these unusual breeds. Diversity is a good thing.
The St. Croix is a hornless, all white sheep that does not have wool but rather a hollow medular hair that sheds on its own. While shedding, the St. Croix look rather ragged, as you can see from the photo of the sheeps back, above. I wish I could have gotten a photo of a ram's mane....it is really lion-like! Unfortunately,the only sheep I could get head shots of were the ewes, shown above. St. Croix's feature a fine grained, low fat meat(my apologies to all vegetarians for talking about them this way!) and since they don't require the cost of shearing, have few hoof problems and a great inherent resistance to internal parasites and fly strike, they make a lot of sense to raise if you're raising sheep for meat.
I suppose the St. Croix hair, like horse hair or the outer guard hairs of other double coated sheep, might be good for spinning into a coarse rug warp or into twine, but from what I gleaned from the handlers at the show about this sheep, if anyone offers you some hair from a St. Croix sheep for your fiber arts activities, you might want to pass on it and save your precious time with a nice wool!

Felting with Beads

2010-04-28T15:23:00.004-04:00

Oh....it's been a long time. I'm obviously just not cut out to be much of a blogger! Seems like it always gets put on the bottom of the "to-do" list!
Anyway, thought I'd share the results of an experiment my neighbor did last week. She asked me whether I'd advise her on a beaded felting project. She wondered whether she should sew the beads on with needle and thread after the felting or if I thought she should knit the beads in as she knit the bag. Not having ever added beads to a knitted-felted project before, I told her I imagined that the felting process could obscure the bead if it was small and therefore she might want to sew them on afterwards, but also suggested that the only way to know was to sample.
So a couple of days later, she brought by her sample for show and tell and it was quite interesting. The beads she knit in as she went were not obscurred, but nestled in nicely to the fabric yet still very visible, whereas the beads that were sewn on after the fact sat atop the fabric in an unpleasing and unstable way. Quite the opposite of what I had expected!
Tho', I suppose the results might have been as I anticipated had the beads been smaller. Since she used quite large beads, knitting them in before felting worked just fine. I don't know if you can tell from the photo much, but the beads on the left were worked in as she knit the bag and the beads on the right (those that have more surface protuberance and if you could see it up close, are literally hanging on by a visible thread, which is not visually appealing) were sewn on after the fact.
Just a good reminder how a little time spent sampling can make all the difference!

The Importance of "Playing"....not "Making"

2010-02-23T13:24:00.005-05:00

So a few friends & I got together here last night and played with colors on the drum carders. We decided to do this, instead of our usual monthly felting challenge, because not one of us has felt (no pun intended) particularly inspired or motivated lately to "create" anything. Willa's been trying to use up odds and ends of yarn so her stash doesn't take over the house; I've been too overwhelmed by computer & online stuff that I haven't felt my head was "clear" enough to take on anything new; Lynn's been busy writing and not motivated but hoping that the pressure of some upcoming classes would get her going again. And Linda's been busy teaching and hasn't had the time to do anything for herself. All situations I'm sure you've all experienced at some point or another!
So our hope was that just "playing" with color and fiber without the pressure of "making something" and in the guise of a social gathering, might spark the creative juices again and help jump start us.
And it worked! We all were mumbling about things we might like to try next on our way out the door.
I'm not sure any of us learned anything new about color, but playing reminded us of a couple of basics. First, as Lynn commented, it was a good reminder that everything is darker than you expect after felting so you really need to have some little burst of color or light to make things "pop". Also, as Linda's sample reminded us, for felting (as opposed to spinning) you really need to have thin layers if you want the colors beneath to show thru. We all liked the ability on the drum carder to add color "edgings" or highlights.
And we all were surprised we hadn't thought of this before: since we all make yardage and work with commercial merino or merino/silk top....rather than laying out yardage by laboriously shingling wisps it would be a TON faster to take the top and card it quickly into thin layers and then shingle the batts!
So my takehome from this little gathering....play more & work less! Something I'd lost track of lately. Don't always get caught up in feeling like every free minute for fiber must be used to "make something"! Simply "playing" without an end in sight is very freeing...there's no long term commitment to a project to weight you down and if you don't like what you "played" with, the garbage can is handy and easier to use if you've only invested a couple ounces of fiber and 15 minutes of your time! And it just might inspire something grander.
The samples of some of our playing can be seen on the gallery (I don't want to bother posting it all over again, so check out this link for the photos here.

Light at the end of the Tunnel!

2010-02-18T16:27:00.004-05:00

I can't believe it was October 16th when I last posted anything! Kind of pathetic if you think that my intention with this blog was to share some new information or technique that I'd learned each week about fiber.

It's not that I haven't been learning....it's just been that my learning was, most unfortunately, diverted these past 5 months to the realm of computers, websites furnaces & pellet stoves! I think that the aggravation and frustration of equipment & software not working well just didn't leave room in my psyche to create, play or experiment with anything fiber. It made me lose my muse and I really hated it...I have been so uninspired and unproductive.

But now that all is working again (fixed the pellet stove this morning with a metal tablespoon and a Lancome eyeshadow case - I bet that's a first!) I'm finally feeling open to diving back in the sandbox to play!

To jump start my muse this weekend (assuming Shutter Island doesn't traumatize me Saturday night!) I intend to play with fiber on the drum carder all day Sunday...I've got pounds and pounds of fleece I dyed this past summer I need to card and blend. I've already done a few experimental runs and spun it up and am looking forward to breaking out of my usual color prejudices and come up with some novel combinations (I was thinking this little trial was novel, but now that I look at it closely I see both my favorite orange and my tried and true lime green!). I'm expecting that perhaps some of my felting group friends will be joining me Monday night too, so, that will be fun and I should have some show & tell and some interesting things to share next week based on our gathering Monday night!
Until then, may your muse stay with you!

Art and Fear-The perils of art making

2009-10-16T13:47:00.002-04:00

Enjoyed an interesting and quick read a while ago that I never got around to sharing with you. You might be interested in it if you ever get hung up starting a new project. Whether it's because you have too many ideas and have troule deciding which one or two to attack or because your desire for "perfectionism" inhibits your freedom to "just explore", this book by Ted Orland and David Bayles is worth some time and contemplation. Art and Fear; Observations and Perils of Art Making.

Fibonacci & the Fiber Challenge ...ideas and incentives!!

2009-09-09T14:49:00.008-04:00

As you may know, we're running a Fiber Challenge here this fall (for more info, check out http://www.northeastfiberarts.com/) and this has generated some discussion among customers....both about the "challenge" of it and the fabulous prizes. So here are some thoughts on design ideas and inspiration....

For those that have expressed some anxiety about how to use the materials required, I've suggested something as simple as using the Fibonacci numbers to knit or crochet stripes for a pillow, afghan, or scarf! Or the Fibonacci could be used to weave the yarns into a shawl or to felt the yarns into a felt rug. The Fibonacci numbers are 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc (you see the progression?). Anyway, it has been determined that working designs based on these numbers creates a pleasing visual....so you could use the numbers to symbolize shots of weft or pics of warp, rows of knitting, or units of crocheted motifs, for example. The numbers don't have to be used in order....I've often used them to wet up warps (see the woven kimono jacket above) where I might thread 3 ends of blue, 5 of green, 1 of orange, 3 of black, 8 of green, 3 of orange, etc. It's a way of seeming to create a random design but assuring that it looks good and it can't be simpler.

Here's another option for design ideas....look to nature! The designer of the silver shawl pin prize, Kerin Rose, looked to nature for her design idea when I asked her about designing a shawl pin for the contest. You can see her design inspiration and learn how she made the pin for the contest on her blog below. And you'll want to check her blog out regularly as she's always got something interesting to write about and fabulous jewelry to put on your wish-list!

kerin rose: my creative space......

What does color do for you?

2009-09-04T11:40:00.004-04:00

The last couple of weeks I've been thinking about color a little differently. Usually I think about how colors "look" together or how they "look" on an individual.
But this week, partly prompted by some research for a little blurb I was writing for an email newsletter and further fueled by a funny discussion on Saturday at a social knitting gathering here, I have become fascinated with how we "feel" color! It really is a "physical" reaction we have. I'm relieved to know that studies have shown this and that I'm not (at least entirely) crazy to think my pulse raced when Martha pulled out her lap blanket on Saturday! The riot of colors was so exciting it was food for the soul. Even for those (like myself) who usually gravitate toward darker, murkier earthtones, seeing it really resonated in a way that made us all feel happy! I laugh now recalling the cackle our group of ladies made "oohing and ahhing" over which were our favorite squares.
I remembered reading years ago how a study had shown that painting prison cells pink had been demonstrated to calm violence among the inmates. And this notion of color affecting us physically & emotionally was reaffirmed this week as I read about a study of blindfolded individuals that consistently identified which hand was held over a red piece of paper and which hand was held over a blue piece of paper! The researchers attribute the results and our physical response to color to the fact that we truly "feel" the difference in the wavelengths of each color!
So now I realize that it's not just that we "see" colors differently, but we "feel" them differently too. And it must be this physical reaction that makes them so personally compelling. So next time my sister Joany rolls her eyes at me coveting another burnt orange, chartreuse or chocolate brown yarn (I'm definitely drawn to the warm colors), I can tell her it's a physical thing I can't control!
And, next time we're picking out colors to use in a fiber project, maybe we should ask ourselves how the color makes us "feel" rather than how it "looks" on us!
Happy day!
P.S.
As an interesting aside....some languages only have words for 2 colors (basically black and light) into which all colors are grouped. As languages evolve and get more sophisticated, they add additional words to further break the colors out. Linguistics scholars have found that in over 80% of languages, the order in which colors are consistently added as the language evolves is as follows:

1) all seem to start with black (covers blues, purples) and light (covers whites, yellows, reds).

This is interesting and makes sense since the eye sees "value" (light and darkness) before it sees "hue" (colors like red, blue, etc)

2) then they add red (so languages with 3 words for color have black, light and red)
3)then they add green next and then yellow after green
4)then blue (which had been either grouped with green or black to this point) is added!
Apparently "orange" wasn't used to describe a color until the mid 20th century...until then it had been always referred to as yellow-red until it took the name of the fruit it resembled!

How do you price your handmade items?

2009-08-27T08:14:00.004-04:00

I'm often asked by knitters, spinners and felters how to price the items they want to sell and since this question was also raised at Felter's Fling earlier this week I thought I'd share my thoughts and those that were discussed at Fling.
Most customers who have approached me about this seem to have heard that the rule of thumb is to ask 3 times your materials cost. I've never understood where that came from! In my experience, there is just no basis for that at all. Some crafts require relatively little material cost and are labor intensive whereas others are quick, buy costly in materials!
I've always looked at the time it takes me to make the item...that includes the time to dye the fiber and the fabric, do my test swatches for color/shrinkage, design the piece, layout and felt the piece and sew or trim it....and mulitply these hours by my rate per hour (how you come up with that is another issue entirely!). Then I add in my materials cost and something for my overhead cost which in my mind includes the cost of the dyes used, the propane gas for the tank, electricity. And then I'd add in any extra marketing costs....did I print up post cards for the gallery show to send out or hand out at the event or did I take out an ad?
When asked this same question at Fling, our instructor seemed to have the same approach to figuring her starting cost although she also added in the time and financial investment in workshops taken honing the skills over the years as well as the investment in R&D - you know, all those items you "experimented" on to get to the pieces you're selling. So all that comes to your "wholesale" price - what you'd sell it for directly to the buyer. Then she suggested doubling that total figure for a retail situation (i.e. if instead of selling it directly you are selling it thru a craft shop or gallery). She also had a friends discount for a while...the "mate rate"...until that got a little awkward.
I also think there is a much more ambiguous factor that I believe some artisans manage to work in to their price. So this "X" factor is how much BEYOND the starting figure you come up with based on the considerations mentioned above that you can ask (and get) because of the uniqueness and originality and scarcity of your product. My friend Linda commented that this X factor is what one can get for your stuff AFTER you die....and its higher if you die tragically and at a young age!
Of course the bottom line is that your success is a function of the marketplace...you know it's all about supply and demand . And demand is a function of WHO is shopping and that's why its important to know YOUR market. You can underprice yourself out of a market you know. As the instructor said....when one of her items isn't selling, she marks it up!
What are your thoughts!

Much needed R&R!

2009-08-12T10:18:00.007-04:00

My workspace this past week!

So I missed updating the blog last week because of a little R&R at our family place on Lake Sebago, Maine. If you've never been there, you must go. It is the most beautiful crystal clear water and sandy bottom of any lake I've ever visited-except perhaps for Lake Louise which was far too cold to swim in! But of course I'm biased having spent every summer of my life there and by all the years of fond memories...summer long card tournaments (a canasta-like game called Sanba), learning the butterfly stroke from a distant cousin, jarts contests over happy hour, the treasure hunts my aunt always ran using tricky limericks she'd write that sent us running for clues from the beach to the house, all the way to the point, and even out to the mailbox, plus waking to the revelry call of the bugle at Camp O-At-Ka (which is a boys camp just next door that my great grandfather -who was Episcopal bishop of Maine -helped get started). Ahh, summer fun!

Anyway, its not summer without a visit to Sebago and it's always a great time for me to get some relaxed knitting done for the store and it's a great place to contemplate life and refresh the spirit for another year.

And, its a time for me to collect lichen for natural dyeing. Lichen needs really clean air and prefers a north (or is it east?) facing exposure near water. Anyway, the woods and rocks around our house and along the point offer a perfect place for it. Since it can take 40 years for lichen (a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae) to grow, you don't pick the lichen, but there are always pieces around the base of the rocks that have fallen off during wind and rain storms (and haven't we had those this summer!). So I always take a bag and walk the trail to the point, side stepping into the woods to search at the bottom of the huge boulders on which the lichen grow. If you search right after a rainstorm, the lichen are green (not tan and black as you see above).

This year I also found another spot for lichen on the way home from Maine in the White Mountains. I always stop at the Wiley House center on Rt 302 in the White Mountains to stretch my legs and let Chloe take a swim in the pond. This year, we also walked a small trail leading from the Wiley house along the river bed, and there were many huge boulders covered with the mamulata (I may have spelled this wrong) lichen that's good for dyeing (the type I collect give the beautiful purple colors and I believe when I took a workshop on lichen dyeing with Karen Casselman all those years ago she referred to this type as mammulata lichen). Anyway, they are the ones pictured above that have the acid orcin in them which when exposed to ammonia (urine if you're a traditionalist) produces the purple dye orchil. I love to see lichen growing, not just for collection purposes since I dye with it infrequently, but becuase they are a sign of REALLY CLEAN AIR.

Remember that if you're going to collect lichen for dyeing, DON'T pick them, but collect the pieces that have fallen off the rock on their own or with the help of mother nature's wind and rain. The fact that they fell off their perch means they weren't healthy anyway and yet they still produce a good purple dye. It may take you a couple of years to collect enough for a dyebath, but as long as the lichen is dry when you put it away, it doesn't go bad or mold.

Ifyou haven't dyed with the lichen yet, here's what I do...

tear up the lichen pieces and put them into a really large jar (a Costco size pickle jar)

cover them with ammonia and cap the jar

let them sit for a couple of days, shaking the jar up twice a day (you need to oxygenate them for the process to occur)

add water to the mix (so the solution is 2:1 ammonia & water) and continue to shake twice a day and let the lichen ferment for 3-4 weeks until you see a good deep purple color.

strain off the lichen, add water enough so that your yarn or fiber is submerged and heat (do not boil) until the dye is set (could be 30-40 mins).

border leceisters

2009-07-20T13:27:00.008-04:00

I recently finished dyeing about 30 pounds of yarn I had spun from a local flock of Border Leceisters in Hinesburg and was reminded how incredibly lustrous this fiber is....as lustrous as mohair! Since it's a common breed around here, but not one most knitters hear about since it's not typically used for knitting yarn, I thought I'd share some specs on it with you this week, since if you stop by the store you'll see it available on the shelf.

The breed is know for its long wool which can be 6-10" after about a year's growth. It is not particularly soft, having a micron count generally in the 30 - 38 micron range, but what it lacks in next-to-the-skin softness it makes up for in sheen.

Because the fleece is wavy, rather than crimpy, it reflects light and so exhibits lots of luster (on a crimpy wool, the light gets caught in the little nooks and crannies and doesn't reflect back). Border Leicester has a lovely hand and, particularly when combed and spun worsted, is very durable. I have a hat knit out of it in the store and am working on some mittens right now. I did actually put enough of one color away for a sweater for myself...maybe I'll get to it in retirement?!

The Leiceister sheep, from which the Border Leicesters evolved, were first established in England (Leceistershire, of course) in the early 1700's and they played an important role in the improvement of the other long wool breeds in England. When Leicesiter rams were bred to Teeswater ewes, the Border Leceister breed was founded, its thought around 1767.

English Leceisters (also lovely, tho' more crimpy and not as long a wool as Border Leicesters) were first bought to the US by George Washington who kept a flock at Mt. Vernon, but it is unclear when the first Border Leceisters arrived here, although by 1920, there were 767 purebred Border Leicesters in the census.

In addition to the recently dyed yarn, I also have the fiber (blended with mohair) available in a natural grey for spinners. Hope you get a chance to either try spinning or knitting with this breed sometime. Jen

safer dyes

2009-07-20T12:10:00.005-04:00

If you ever dye protein fibers you should read this...

So I'm a little late posting my blog this week because I wanted to have a chance to work with the new Greenershades dyes I'm stocking at the shop. And with the weather what it's been here this past month...a bit of rain every day...it's been hard to plan time to dye when there was enough of a window to get it dry!

Anyway, I've finally had a chance to play with these new dyes. And I love them! They do not have the heavy metals that the other brands of chemical dyes have and they adhere to the standards for Organic Wool Processing. The colors dye really well - good uptake and clear exhaust.

What most excited me was that after a very full day of heavy dyeing with the other brands, even tho' I wear a mask and am careful handling the powders, I ALWAYS end the day with a metallic taste in my mouth and irritated eyes and nose.This has always freaked me out and so I have tried to avoid heavy dyeing (I'm talking quantity here...I've never experienced the taste or irritation dyeing 1 batch of yarn or a bit of fiber) because I just didn't feel good about the effects.

I have done a fair amount of natural dyeing in the past and know that if you stick to alum as a mordant one can avoid the chemcial dyeing hazards, but for the quantity dyeing I do for the store, natural dyeing has just never seemed practical for my needs.

So the Greenershades was a welcome discovery that my sister Joanie brought to my attention! After dyeing about 25 pounds of fiber and 5 pounds of yarn yesterday, I had no metallic taste in the mouth or irritation of the eyes. The colors were great...saturated as I had desired and clear exhausts that I demand.

For the saturation I desired, I found that a bottle of dye (1/2 ounce) dyed 2.5 pounds of raw wool and 1 pound of yarn perfectly. The only difference I found in using these dyes was that they didn't go into solution quite as quickly as the traditional heavy metal dyes I've used in the past. But a drop of Synthrapol to reduce the surface tension resolved that problem and then they were a cinch to use.

Anyway, if you are planning on doing a lot of dyeing or even if you're not doing much but you want to use a product that doesn't have the heavy metal, these dyes are great and I've posted them on the website at www.northeastfiberarts.com/books/dyeing

Happy dyeing...Jen

Cooper Hewitt Felt Show

2009-07-01T14:51:00.011-04:00

Between going to the Black Sheep Gathering wool show in Oregon last week and the felt exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in NYC this past Monday, I am feeling particularly inspired!

Although both I and the friend I attended the felt exhibit with had separately heard mixed reviews about it, we were both feeling happy and inspired when we left the museum. In particular, the "palace yurt" room was a highlight. And since there are no photos of it in the program book, I was particularly glad that the guards allowed me to photograph in that room. Despite my limited photographic skills, hopefully you can get a sense of the room and how lovely the felt was with the light pouring thru it.

To give some perspective, the ceiling height of this room was about 25' and the room measured about 20' x 40' oval. The ceiling and half the walls of the room were windows (I think it must have been the solarium of the old mansion that the museum is now in) and it was draped ceiling to floor in nuno felt!

The artist used primarily white on white, but with a touch of a bluish-grey and a fabulous coffee bean colored fabric here and there highlighting the otherwise natural ecru of the merino, brilliant white of the tencel and tan of the tussah silk.

Anyway, as a person whose default mode is color, color, color, the show has made me consider adding "white' to my palette! Plus, it has really made me rethink the types of fabric I look for as a base for felting....the central panel shown above was felted into a really coarse burlap-like fabric that produced a fabulous texture.

If you get a chance to go, I recommend it. I do understand where the "mixed" reviews come from...there are definitely some pieces in the show that you'll scratch your head and wonder how they got into a museum show! And of course, there were many great felters that were not represented at all, but there were some interesting home furnishings made with commercial felt and some lovely garments, along with the palace yurt that make it worthwhile.

Oh, and as an added plus, the Nature Conservancy has a show at the museum right now as well that is terrific...all about finding ways to use natural resources artistically. Very fun and even a few "fiber" related projects...one using Panama sheeps wool and another "jipijapa" (which is a fiber I'd never heard of before but learned that it's from the palm leaf and is most known for hats that bear it's name - have you ever heard of a jipijapa hat before?). Anyway, it's upstairs and well worth stopping into view while you're there!

Have fun!

washing wool

2009-06-17T14:23:00.005-04:00

Fortunately the weather's been great this past week so I've managed to dye another few pounds of yarn and fleece for the fall. I think between Betsy and I, we've washed about 60 pounds so far...another 40 or so to go and then the blending and carding begins!

Anyway, because washing fiber has been top of mind for me these past few weeks, I found it interesting to read this week that the Mongolian nomads wash their camel fiber in mare's milk! I guess you use what you have available and since water is in shorter supply on the steppes of the Gobi desert and horses are plentiful...? I also discovered that fermented mare's milk is what the Mongolian nomads drink for nutrition. It's called airag. And despite that the Mongolian nomads have the highest incidence of liver cirrhosis in the world (they are said to drink up to 5 litres of this slightly alcoholic beverage a day), apparently this beverage is experiencing renewed popularity in other parts of the world since the fermentation process converts the high lactose content to lactic acid, making airag drinkable by the lactose intolerant. That is, if they can stomach the taste!

Having had to drink the Turkish version of a fermented milk beverage at age 13 when it was offered to me in the home of some very poor and rural locals in a remote part of Turkey, I can safely say airag won't be making it to my table anytime soon!

What's "new" mean to you?

2009-06-08T11:33:00.005-04:00

The last 6-8 weeks I've been meeting with yarn reps to order my fall inventory...still 1 rep to go this week. It's fun and exciting to see what's coming out, but it also incredibly difficult to anticipate what you'll all be looking for.
Especially in this evolving era of online chatting, when, tho' there might be 10 fabulous new yarns of the same gauge and same fiber blend introduced in a year, momentum grows around just one of them and grows like a snowball rolling down Tuckerman's Ravine such that the others...equally as nice, perhaps even better in some regards... go unappreciated! It really makes you appreciate the power of the press to sway minds!
Anyway, I'm at that stage of sorting thru and weeding out the duplicates, trying to fill in the holes that I've missed with respect to gauge or other feature, and reconfiguring the quantities in hopes of trying to get my inventory "right". All in an effort to have "what's new". And I'm wondering... what you mean when you say "what's new"? Do you mean "what yarn is hot off the press", or, "what is the fiber du jour" or "remind me what great olides but goodies yarns I haven't worked with yet", or "what color is hot" or "what project is new and different"? What's the "new" you're looking for?
Just for fun, can you guess how many new yarns for fall 2009 I've been shown just from the following companies? The reader with the closest submission, wins 2 bags of Mission Falls 1824 cotton! Now I'm only talking about completely new yarns...not new colors of existing yarns...
Plymouth, Cascade, JCA/Reynolds, Noro, Debbie Bliss, Sublime, Ella Rae, Araucania, Sir Dar, Louisa Harding, Elsebeth Lavold, SWTC, Mirasol, and Online. Comment with your guess and next week I'll reveal the winner!
So one of the things I learned from meeting with the reps that I found interesting and thought I'd pass along, is something about the sourcing, processing, and general mission of Noro.
People seem to either love or hate Noro yarns. And interestingly, I run into people who seem to love to hate Noro! Anyway, Noro seems to be eco-conscious even tho' they haven't been that verbal about it the way other companies have. They use paper and packaging that is from 54-81% recycled paper. Their spinning equipment uses just 21% of the energy required to operate the industry's standard equipment at other mills. The wool they use for their Kureyon, Iro, etc is either from a particular flock of Polwarths in Adelaid, Australia or from Patagonia. Both the Polwarth breed and the sheep raised in Patagonia apparently have a natural resistance to mulesing and flystrike, reducing the agicultural chemicals used to keep insects at bay. Their wool is scoured in several places from Australia and Britain to Brazil, but in each place it is cleaned using an environmentally friendly natural detergent and further, the wool is also inspected after cleaning at an Australian inspection station that is known to be very strict in their clearance for chemically free fiber. They source their mohair from S. Africa...no surprise there since that's where just about everyone gets it...and their cotton is pima cotton from the San Joaquin valley in California!
It's not organic, but for those of you interested in supporting companies that are at least "concious" of their footprint, there you have one company's tale.
Happy knitting, spinning, felting, dyeing!

shellac for felt?

2009-05-28T12:32:00.008-04:00

This week I've been playing around with shellacking (sp?) felt. I wish I could share with you that I'd found the right recipie, but I haven't figured it out yet! Here, anyway, is what I've learned so far!

Based on Lisa Klakulak's recommendation that varnishes from the hardware store not be used on felt and rather that the raw, unadulterated shellac be used, I purchased some blond, unwaxed shellac flakes (http://www.shellacshack.com/) and did some experimentation.

Lisa had suggested that some dilution greater than 6:1 be tried. I started with a 20:1 and couldn't even get the flakes completely into solution. So I added a little heat...I guess too much (I did a minute in the microwave) and ended up with a goo suspended in, rather than mixed with, water. Upon removing the goo from the water, it hardened on my measuring spoon. I was able to chip it off, with some effort, so at least my spoon is still accurate.

Then I remembered Lisa had mentioned using alcohol, not water, so I tried a 40:1 solution of flakes to alcohol. Still, they didn't disolve completely. 30 secs of heat, and they did not congeal into a goo, but they still did not completely dissolve... even after another 30 sec and stirring! Enough had dissolved tho', that I decided I'd apply some of what I had made to a scrap piece of felt.

Good thing I used a scrap piece!

I was shocked at how little it took to completely soak thru the felt, which was what I was trying to avoid. REally, I thought I was using so little and it came dripping out of the felt. I suppose that the type of fiber (this scrap happened to be corriedale), the density of the felt, etc impacts the amount of shellac, but really this was almost pouring out! So I did a second trial being extra careful to have a VERY little of the solution in my paintbrush.

Since the vessel I ultimately want to shellac has lots of ridges and grooves (see the shell above), I decided to try a stiffening spray by Manco, which a friend had lent me. The spray will certainly be easier to apply to my vessel's inside, even if it is not what Lisa suggested using, so I thought I'd try it.

At least in this experiment, I felt that the spray (I did 2 light coats like the can suggested) stayed too much on the surface of the felt and produced a surface residue I didn't care for. I haven't given up on it, and will try it again but with a heavier hand to see if I can get it to soak in more next time, hoping that it will produce a firmer fabric without the surface residue.

As for the shellac flakes, now that the alcohol has evaporated and the shellac dried, I find that it hasn't really stiffened the felt to the degree I wanted either, but at least I have no surface residue.

In this week's experiment I didn't feel like I had a concentrated enough solution of the shellac to stiffen it to the desired degree, and yet it was too concentrated to get it all into solution! So I guess I'll try even a little less concentration next week, hoping that I get it all into solution, but will instead apply more coats on the felt in order to achieve the degree of stiffening I want.

I'll let you know how it turns out, but in the meantime, has anyone else out there tried this yet with their felt and have any thoughts or suggestions to contribute?

cvm origami felt bag

2009-05-20T15:28:00.005-04:00

So this week I had a chance to play around with some CVM (California Variegated Mutant) fleece, a breed which I hadn't worked with before.

I assumed it would both spin and felt up nicely...its very fine and has a lovely crimp... and I have been wanting to play around with a felt origami bag for a while.

So as a sampler, I decided to make a small change purse...just enough for some bills, credit cards, license and random change. I laid out a square of CVM batt (16" square) and added a border and button strap of merino top I had laying around. Then I felted the whole thing, evenly to be sure I kept the square shape, which is needed for the bag. It felted up quickly and with only about 10% shrinkage.

Then I folded the square in half to form a triangle and tucked the 2 "side" points in toward the same side. This fold is a bit different than that in the book, but it is what suited my purposes. I wanted 2 compartments, both with a flap. Anyway, after folding in the 2 sides, I hand stitched the bottom, sewed on 1 button and voila! The purse has 2 compartments; 1 large and deep and the other shallower, but secured, because both compartments have flaps. Both flaps button on the same button. It's quite cute. I have some revisions I make to future origami felts,but this was a satisfactory start and I enjoyed felting the CVM.

Now lets see if I can get some photos of it loaded?

Anyone else have any experience with either felted origami or working with CVM?

Big Cotton

2009-05-13T14:39:00.002-04:00

So I'm reading Big Cotton, by Stephen Yafa, and gaining a much greater appreciation for this fiber as well as for it's impact on world history.

I'm so used to thinking about what garment or accessory I might be able to create with a fiber or new yarn that I haven't paid much attention to the consequence of a fibers' production for society, the economy, even politics. Anyway, if any of you are interested in history (particularly that of early American), this book is a fun read.

Just some fun facts and figures about the fiber that came out of my reading...
Each cotton boll has over 500,000 fibers on it. Before Whitney produced the gin, it took 1 person a day to pull 1 pound of cotton from bolls. After the gin was developed, that same person could pull 50 pounds of cotton in 1 day!

Inspired by this book and the author's fascination with the cotton fiber, I decided to pull out my takli and some old cotton punis I had hanging around and give the fiber another try. If I get enough spun to do anything with, I'll post a photo next week!

Qiviut can't felt...Who Knew?

2009-04-30T14:37:00.005-04:00

So I just learned last week that qiviut (the soft downy fiber from the muskox) doesn't felt!

Maybe you all knew this, but I was so surprised! I've done quite a bit of felting over the years and never knew that. I've felted both yak and American buffalo (both also soft downy undercoats of other, rather beastly animals), so I guess I assumed qiviut would felt as well. Apparently, qiviut doesn't have the scales that other animal fibers have and that's why it doesn't felt.

What's funny is that I learned this curious fact from Lisa Klakulak when she was here teaching some felting workshops. Ironically, she learned this fact from my very own sister several years ago when taking a spinning workshop with Roby! What a small world. But imagine that it took over 2 years and a third person for that info to travel between sisters! I guess that topic never came up in conversation!

Cornwall Finish

2009-04-21T09:02:00.000-04:00

Ever heard of a Cornwall finish?

I had forgotten about this clever little Yankee trick for increasing the money made on selling their merino fleeces until I volunteered to give a little demonstration and talk to a group of 1st - 3rd graders at the local school last week.

The kids were studying Vermont history and the teachers thought spinning should be included. As I perused my old books for some fun facts and figures to give the kids, I came across an old handwritten note of mine...probably something my sister had shared with me at one point (she's full of interesting knowledge)...about the Cornwall Finish.

Cornwall is a town in Vermont in the heart of what was merino territory (yes, in the early 1800s Vermont raised some of the finest, award winning merino sheep in the world-we had 6 times as many sheep as people at one point!). Before sending the fleeces to market, the Vermont owner would rub a mix of linseed oil & burnt umber into the sheeps wool to mimmick lanolin (the natural grease of the sheep) . This increased the weight of the wool and since the wool was sold on a weight basis, these Yankee sheep peddlers got more for their fleeces! So that's what a Cornwall finish is!

It's a good thing to keep in mind as you buy your fleeces this spring. Not that anyone uses the Cornwall finish these days, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded as you make fleece purchases this spring that you are paying for the weight, so the cleaner the fleece (the better skirted it is, the less barnyard, etc) the better your buy is.

Happy spinning, Jen

2009-04-21T08:33:00.000-04:00

Despite my skepticism that anyone out there cares what I'm doing with or learning about fiber arts, enough friends, customers, and even strangers have encouraged me to blog, that I finally decided to try this out!

So here it is....the start of a forum for sharing ideas and information, current projects and inspiration, about my passions of spinning, knitting, felting and dyeing. And maybe we'll work in some weaving too! (I did just get my Fireside Loom out and am preparing a warp for it, afterall).

Despite having engaged in all these crafts since the early 80s, it seems that I still learn something new every day. Often ,whatever I've discovered doesn't seem to me like anything earth shattering, but as students have pointed out to me, its worth sharing.

So, what to blog? Well, as I discover interesting information or techniques, am inspired by something unusual, read something worthwhile, or come across creative tidbits to share about anything related to fiber or these crafts, I'll post them here. And I hope anyone listening out there will feel free to contribute as well.