Woolybuns

Wednesday WIPing 2/30/08

How about that?  There was actual knitting this week.  Not too much, but at least I picked up a sock and added about an inch to it.  Last time I knit on the Corrugated Rib sock, I decided I was tired of knitting corrugated so I switched to stockinette.  That means the sock can hope to be knit on.  I still love the look of the corrugated rib, just got tired of the slow pace when I'm knitting it.  Goal: finish the leg, maybe work on the heel flap.

Even bigger surprise: I spun a skein, and then plied it.  After carding about a pound of merino and angora together, I had to see how it spun.  I spun an ounce and got about 160 yards out of it.   I'm quite pleased with it.   I didn't get any more carding done this week, and might not until first of the week.  Barring any unpleasant surprises, I'm going to MDSW this weekend and need to finish up some bunny chores before I go.   (Anyone need a baby bunny?  I have a doe, and possibly a buck, too, available and can bring them with me.)  Goal: see how little money I can spend.  Hey!  Quit laughing. 

No Maybe About It: Fleece Was Definitely Involved

What does it mean when a friend greets you at CTSW by growling out "B-I-I-I-I-T-C-H-H-H"?  Heh.  It means she read this post and might perhaps maybe was - ahem - a bit enabled?  Heh heh.  Still River Mill's yarns are simply too irresistable.  A bit of redundancy in that statement, but ya know, it fits the yarns.  I do need to correct my description of the lace weight I fell in love with.  Deirdre tells me it is cashllama, a super fine llama down with no cashmere in it.  It's just so dang fine and soft, you think it's cashmere.  They do have an assortment of cashmere yarns but the cashllama is not one of them.  Somebody beat me to all the black (which apparently isn't black but darkdarkdark brownthatlooksblack) but there will be more.  I could have - and may still - succumbed to the siren of Stampede.  That's an indescribably exotic blend of bison, yak, quiviet or some such.  All that luscious blending still noodles my neurons.  You try going into their booth and come out knowing all those yummy mixes.  I dare ya.  You can do that at MDSW in less than a week.  And yes, they will have a nice assortment of the Greener Shades dyes in stock.   I confess, I bought nothing in their booth.  Yet.  But, I did not come away from the festival empty handed. 

I started my day at the sheep festival with a T-shirt, 100% cotton from the lovely Cotton Sheep.  Never heard of a Cotton Sheep?  Well.  You just never know what the minds of fiber festivaling folk will come up with. 

This lovely scarf slide, my second purchase of the day, is the work of Leslie Wind, a very talented jewelry artist.  She teaches workshops, too. 

Towards the end of the day, I wandered into a booth I didn't recognize, drawn in by a whole wall of beautiful batts of fine wools.  Two of them caught my eye and I stood there fondling both.  The woman tending the booth at that moment briefly explained about them to me, and said something about my making a choice.  Choice?  I said.  Whaddaya mean choice?  I'll take 'em both.   Would you have left either one behind?  I see nuno felt shawls in both of these batts.  And then the booth owner returned.  Turns out she is a friend, Sheryl Amaral of Spin A Bit (no website that I can find) so no wonder I felt at home.

As for fleece... well.  Yes.  In previous years, CTSW has always meant some polwarth fleece for me, but the Australian supplier's spouse is dreadfully ill, so there were no plowarth fleeces this year.  Please take a moment to send healing thoughts to someone in need.

I did find a booth with two fleeces sitting there that must have been saved just for me.  It was the end of the day.  The fleeces are not only brilliantly white, crimpy and cleancleanclean, they are soft enough to warrant an intimate experience with my angora.  One fleece is an ultra soft cormo from a 7 year old ewe named Bella.  The other is an almost as soft cormo x border leicester from a ewe named Sara.  They live in Vermont and I may just have to reserve a future fleece or two.  And no, I'm not naming the sheep breeder until I secure that reservation.  Ha!  No pictures of either fleece though.  I took them straight to Greg and Deirdre with instructions to wait for angora to grow, then blend and spin for lace weight.  7 or 8 pounds or so, depending on how much angora I decide to add.  I could add silk to some of it, too.  Most of the yarn will be for sale, so if anyone has a preference on content, let me know.

After the shopping spree festival a number of us stopped for an Indigo Di spin in.  What a lovely home she keeps!  And the lady makes a delicious tart.  If you didn't go, you missed a nice time.  I pulled out Sonata and started spinning some of the merino angora I carded and dizzed a couple weeks ago.  My wheel wasn't quite so enthusiastic, perhaps lazy because I exercise her so little.  I oiled her up, then adjusted drive band, fiddled with the bobbin - still cranky.  Treadling was distinctly not effortless as it should be and has been.  I sort of sat there looking at it, just saying huh cause I was stumped.  So Marcy took a look.  I swear, that's all she did.  She gave Sonata a look.  And Sonata just straightened right up.  Some people you just don't mess with. 

All in all, a delightful day.

A Pretty Pink Post

Since I pulled out my drum carder last August (September?), I've carded and blended several pounds of wool and angora, but always starting with wool that was already processed, either commercially or from my friends at Still River.  And most of it was for felting batts, where neps don't really matter. But starting with the turquoise batts I did earlier this month, I was aiming for spinning fiber, which to me must be of very high quality.  I'm pleased with my results, both with the one pound of turquoise and 10 ounces of natural white angora and merino, but again, I started with a very high quality merino top: that luscious stuff from Nick's Farm Meadow. Today was put up or shut up for me.  Earlier this week, I dyed 8 ounces each of angora and cormo wool.  With the amazingly warm temps this week, the angora dried in record time and I finished fluffing it last night.  Time to see whether I could card it or slaughter it.  While I really wanted it to come out as beautiful spinning fiber, I knew that if I nepped it up, I could still use it for a delicious felting batt, so that takes some pressure off.  I weighed out equal amounts of cormo and angora, 15 grams of each.  I fed the cormo in first, in very small amounts, gently fluffing and straightening it as I went. There's the batt after it's first pass through the carder.  Looks kind of sad, doesn't it?  But, again, I can always felt with it.  Next step: I split the batt in half along the length, split 1/2 of that in half width wise, then separated that into two halves like a geode (am I explaining that right?).  I then sandwiched about a 1/4 of the angora between the two geode like halves and carded, continuing that process with each 1/4 of the batt.  The resulting batt, second pass through, still looking a little sad.  Oh, well.  It will make some glorious nuno felt.  Then I fed it through as above for it's third pass through, knowing all the advice is make as few passes as possible to avoid those dreaded neps.  This is what I got after the third pass through.

Yep.  I'm pleased.

Wednesday WIPing 2/23/08

Well, yeah.  Not so much fiberly progress this week.  Although there are a few more nekkid buns out back.  And another pound of dyed fiber drying on the deck.  Pink.  A soft pleasing pink, but no pictures because by the time I got it done today, light was fading and my muscles all said Sit. Down.  Now. 

I did get a sneak preview of some really.  Really.  Luscious. Yarns.  No photos but you need to touch these yarns to get the jaw dropping effect.  Trust me.  I know soft.  And these yarns are a Jack Kennedy not just soft.  The are amazingly delicous.  Created with obvious pride by the geniuses at Still River Mill.  They've got some llama that almost defies that label.  I think Deirdre said it was 22 or 23 microns or so.  And some cashmere blends to tempt even me (can I admit this safely publicly?  I'm not normally a fan of cashmere).  Especially the natural black lace weight cashmere llama blend (I think - all that exotic softness kind of kerfloozled the old noggin).  They've got a samoyed yarn dyed up in their new line of non-toxic non-hazardous acid dyes, and a sample hat knit in stripes of each color.  Adorable!  Not everything is on the website yet but I believe that's coming.  The stuff is all dreamy.  When these folks get the time to dream up yarns, they go all out. 

Wednesday WIPing 4/16/08

Progress continues with fiber but I knit exactly 3 stitches in the past week, and realized again the dang sleeve is pooling.  I have to cut the yarn and take out a chunk of the now offending color.  It aggravates me so I've ignored it.  And the drum carder keeps calling.  I finished up the pound of turquoise angora/merino and took it with me to the mini fiber festival on Sunday.  Two ounces got snatched up before I even had my table fully set up.  Yesterday, I measured out 8 one ounce lengths of merino roving and started blending it in equal amounts with white angora.  I did three batts, each weighing one ounce.  I drafted two of the batts through a diz for some roving to hand paint.  My original plan was to draft all the batts to hand paint.  But the batts have an allure that the rovings don't.  I still intend to hand paint at least a pound of roving, but the natural white batts - well.  I'm quite taken with them.  Goal: one pound of hand painted rovings by next Wednesday.  And cut the damn yarn and get it over with.

As I've been carding and fluffing angora, I've been saving the bits that either stick to the drum, or turn out in the fluffing to be shorter than I want for spinning fiber.  Once I have enough, I'll card it all together for a felting batt.

The Scope May Have Been Small But It's A Start

Second Sunday Fiber Artisans  is a small roving band of folks who gather  monthly (can you guess which day of the  month?  Nope, no prizes awarded for correct guesses) at various locations (hence the "roving").  Yesterday, we put together a micro mini fiber festival, held at Dudley Farm.  The purpose was to introduce local non-fiber folk to what we do.  The farm provided a wonderful location and a sheep shearing demo.  I brought Hop Tuit and put him through a public bunny strip.  After all these years of doing that, I still get a good giggle out of watching folks discover first the fuzzy critter, then the transformation to nekkid.   I'll be doing that demo again at the end of this month at Connecticut Sheep,Wool and Fiber Festival.  Guild members also set up vendor tables.  That purple felted wrap over there on the left: Wow!  I curled up in it for a brief moment and ya know?  I want it.  I didn't buy it but it's kind of sitting there in my mind ... whispering.  Betsy, the maker, uses a very light lacy touch that I'm gonna have to try.  But still the wrap whispers...  Other luscious offerings included yarns, rovings, tri-loom shawls, woven goods ... in short, for all it's smallness, our little festival had a bit of almost everything.  I love the can do spirit so prevalent in the fiber community.

Will Work For Grass

I got my moss patch front lawn raked, seeded, fertilized and crabicided. I am impressed at what wonderful moss cultivators we've been.  Except, of course, I want grass.  That patch to the left is the part of the yard I didn't dump bunny poop on last fall.  Over there on the right is the part I did poop on.  Better but it's got a ways to go.  Now I just have to remember to lightly water every day until it germinates.  The water part is easy to remember.  It's the lightly part that gets me. 

I also got the half pound of bunny foof dyed, again using the color salmon, but much less.  That gives me a nice range of soft melon color to add to the last batch, all of which is destined to hook up with a natural brown fleece.  I think when I have some extra angora (that not needed to blend with a fleece), I will dye up some of this soft melon color for a pure angora spin. 

And now I'm off to the first (annual?  remains to be seen) little fiber festival the Second Sunday Fiber Artisans is participating in.  The camera is packed but whether I take any photos ... well.  We'll see.  Or not.

Am I Making Lemonade?

This is that time of year where outside chores compete for attention.  The patch of moss covered dirt lawn needs attention now or it's too late.  Crabgrass takes over.  But bunnies need clipping.  And under all the hutches is all that stuff that accumulated over the winter which all needs removing.  Yeah.  Which do I tackle first?  The weather today is kind of making decisions for me.  Sometimes it's dry, sometimes it's drizzly.  I got the bunnies fed extra early, just as light overtook dark.  While it was dry.  Then after they finished eating, I brought Bunjamin Braddock inside.  Looks huge, doesn't he?  He's 7 months old and not yet full size, so under that foofy stuff, he's not as big as he looks.  But he did offer up half a pound of prime and lovely crimpy foof, plus a couple ounces of felting grade angora.  The prime stuff?  Promptly popped it in a soapy vinegar bath.  And by then, the drizzly stuff stopped, and my back needed stretching, so I grabbed a rake and pulled up a wheel barrow full of moss.  Now it's time for a rest.  And maybe a tall glass of refreshing lemonade.

Will Work For Carrots

Yesterday was too beautiful a day to spend inside on fiber.  Besides, my muscles needed some activity, too.  I spent the afternoon horsing around. CC was sunbathing when I got to the barn. She is shedding out with lots of nice golden color coming through, though that's not the color you see in these photos.  The color you see is basic dirt.  Her mane and tail look sort of ... well, not the brilliant shiny white I know is under all that dirt.  And she was sporting a dreadlocks do, so I took about an hour detangling.  And reminding her that standing still is too a perfectly acceptable activity.  She begs to differ.  And for carrots. 

After I had her ... well, not clean, but at least brushed, I sacked her out with a saddle pad.  She yawned.  Then I put the headstall and bit on her and turned her out in the riding ring for some deal with it time.  Her teething issues must have settled down because she's finally closing her mouth around the bit.  A couple flicks of the lead rope in my hand and she took off running and bucking and had herself a merry kick up the heels adventure, working up a nice little sweat.   She doesn't know it but this is the start of spring conditioning.  Next time, she gets the longe line as well as the bit.  And some more carrots.

Wednesday WIPing 4/9/08

I seem to have slipped into knitting ennui.  I've done just about none.  Well, I knit about an inch on the koigu ribbed sock.  Of course, I did take off on Saturday for a quick trip to Maine, returned Sunday night.  It was a can't miss trip, and since I was driving both ways, there was no knitting opportunity during the drive.  And all my other fiber time has been devoted to bunnies and blending fiber, not knitting.

Why can't miss?  Because you don't often get a chance to help some dear relatives celebrate a 70th wedding anniversary.  Aunt Helen and Uncle Al.  Helen is Dad's sister, born 10 years before Dad.  When he was orphaned at the age of 12, Helen and Al were already a married couple and took him in.  As my sisters and I were growing up, we enjoyed many a pancake breakfast at their table. What a privilege to toast such a wonderful couple.

As for knitting goals, well.  I might get some done, but right now is spring bunny chores and fiber prep time.  I'll probably get more knitting done after mid-May.