Spindle Camp 2013

It was warm. Really warm.

It was also great fun.  We hung out and spun/knitted/chatted/ate/drank/laughed and hung out in Lake Francis during a record-breaking heat wave. Some folks made great progress on projects.  I miscalculated a bit by bringing a nearly finished wool shawl to knit. No matter how light and airy, a lapful of wool in 104 degree heat is a bad idea. So I mostly spun cotton on a takli.  I did bring the firebird wheel, but didn't use it much either. Progress was not really the point anyway; it was all about laughing, chatting and sharing ideas with other fiber addicts.

Some folks brought stuff to sell.  Sharon wove these gorgeous towels that I snapped up for the little trailer.

We had a "pirate" exchange and I am going home with some great yarn. 

Here's a video Lucy took of Barbara Sue:

Spindle Camp 2012

What: 25 or so handspinners spending the weekend together to talk fibers, spin, eat, drink, laugh and swim in the lake. Some camped and some stayed in cabins. All perspired in the 100 degree heat.

Where: Lake Francis Resort in Dobbins, CA. 

When: June 13-16, 2012

This was the 3rd annual Spindle Camp, with spinners from both sides of the hill (and even one from Las Vegas). I took the little trailer (of course). Two years ago we dealt with freezing rain; this year the temps hovered around the century mark. I spent part of each day swimming in the lake. Although the focus of the informal event was on spinning, I spent most of my fiber-time finally finishing the cashmere Citron shawl I started over a year ago. (More about that another time.)

I did not take my usual boatload of pictures, possibly because it was just too darn hot to do much more than sit chatting in the shade, but I did get a few. I am not going to list folks names, in fear that I will get some of them embarrassingly wrong, but suffice it to say that it was great to spend the time with both new and old friends. Most of these pictures were taken with the Nikon AW100, which I am happy to report emerged from the lake without any hint of a leak. If you want to see all 100 or so, you can check out my Flickr set.  For lots more detail about Spindle Camp 2012, check out Sharon's blog: Here, here, here, and here.

Purple Hoodie - Resurrected and Completed

Does anyone remember my purple hoodie project from way back in 2009? I almost didn't. It has sat unfinished in a bag for over a year. Recently I stumbled over it and was surprised how close to finished it was when I forsook it. So I knuckled down and finished it up. I am exceedingly pleased with it and have worn it everywhere almost every day since. I made the pockets at precisely the right height and depth for comfy hand warming and carrying around lots of stuff. And I do believe this is the first project that I have finished at the beginning of the appropriate season for its use!

Who am I?

This cute little badly-neglected spinning wheel has come to live at my house. It is in pretty rough shape, but I think I can get it working with a hefty bit of TLC. Someone has left it out in the rain, but happily the wheel is not warped.
I've never seen one like it. In most ways it looks like a home-built, but the orifice and a few other bits look commercial. Anybody out there recognize the maker? It is double-drive, the flyer whorl screws onto the spindle, and the mother-of-all is hinged to flop to the side (similar to an Ashford Traveler).

1st Intermountain Spindle Camp

I am miles behind on reporting on the 1st Intermountain Spindle Camp at Lake Francis, CA. You can see my pictures here. Sharon, Heidi, and Birdsong have all blogged on the event. (Thanks, Birdsong, for the great review of my trailer! I love showing her off!) The brief summary of the events is that we all had tons of fun despite cold, rain, and hail. In fact, it was so much fun that we are already planning next year's Spindle Camp! I stayed behind and camped 2 more nights. What a great campground! It even had a restaurant that served a great lobster fettuccine! It was still a bit chilly for sitting around the campsite, so I took a few drives around the area to get in a little photography. The picture above is of the little Lake Francis and taken from a path down from the campground. I also visited the cemetery in Dobbins, and the old downtown area of Marysville. Driving home Tuesday, I stopped by the cemetery in Vinton. For photography, the Vinton cemetery is a bit disappointing, since it is so well maintained. (The tidy state of it says good things about the people of Vinton, but crumbling headstones are a bit more atmospheric.) I am still going through the images, so you will have to wait a bit before they debut on Flickr.

Back to fiberish pursuits

Time for an update on my various fiber projects. Despite many distractions, I have progressed a little. I have completed square 18 of the 45-square modular shawl. The slow progress would be discouraging if it weren't for how wonderful the merino/silk yarn feels.

I completed a pair of socks. I knit them toe up using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn (Gone Fishin' colorway) Mockery Socks stitch pattern.
It was hard to see the stitch definition past the stripyness of the yarn, so after I passed the heels I stopped twisting the yarnovers closed by knitting in the back of the stitch above. I like the result better than the basic Mockery pattern, but do not think I will use it again. One note to consider if you use the Mockery stitch pattern: the pattern skews the fabric so a flat toe doesn't line up with the heel. Using a round toe will take care of the problem.

About a month ago I finished spinning up some hand-painted alpaca in soft spring greens. The three loosely-spun fluffy skeins have been sitting on the coffee table, calling to me with an insidious siren song. For some reason they want to become a lacy, squishy, snuggly neckwarmer/cowl. I looked through scarf and mitten patterns, but no, they resisted any attempt to be diverted from a cowl future. I gave in and a cowl they will make. I am using the Ridged Lace Cowl pattern I found on Ravelry. The pattern calls for worsted-weight angora and results in a 15 inch deep tube that is scrunched down around the neck. The designer must live in the arctic! My yarn is 100% alpaca and I will be eliminating a pattern repeat or two, in order to avoid heat prostration. After knitting mostly with 1s and 2s, worsted weight on size 8 needles goes incredibly fast!

The only other fiber news is that I am spinning up some slightly hairy suri alpaca to make a new purse, and as soon as I finish the cowl I plan to get back to the purple hoodie. Oh! and I need to cast on another pair of socks.

That's all for now!

Purple

What do you see when you look at this basket of freshly spun wool? I see a deep purple hoody with roomy pockets to fill with pretty pebbles and other interesting things. The wool is extra fine merino raised here in Nevada. Oddly in an un-sheeplike manner, the fleece is white on the outside turning light gray on the inside (bit closest to the skin). Washed, carded, and spun it just looks kinda grubby. No problem - I planned to dye it anyway. I spun it up fairly lofty, but will need to hold 2 strands together to get the thick, squishy, warm fabric I want. For extra depth of color, I split the 3 lbs of yarn and dyed them two different shades of purple. Laura will be impressed to hear that I actually calculated weight of goods and measured out the dye for desired depth of shade. The first half was dyed with Landscape Dyes "Sarsaparilla", resulting in a deep lilac blue-purple. The second half was put in the same amount of "Sarsaparilla", but I added an additional 10% or so Landscape Dyes "Gravillea", resulting in an amazing intense royal purple. Unfortunately the pictures do not do the colors justice. I can't wait for it all to dry so I can see how the colors will look knitted up together!

Handwork

Today I read an article from a recent Publishers Weekly. Despite the overall book publishing business being in the toilet, there is one segment of the industry that is doing great. Sales of craft books are booming and the customer base is rapidly expanding. Great news for craft book publishers and crafters alike. What I don't buy is PW's explanation. Clearly the article was written by a non-crafter - someone with that age-old misconception that crafters hand make things to save money. Yeah, right. The two comments in the article that I do concur with are: 1.)In times of trouble there is an increased attention to home and family, and 2.)As the working world increasingly means spending all day in front of a computer, young professionals are turning to crafting for non-virtual balance.

The satisfaction of creating something by hand is hard to describe, but very real. It is more than pride in the execution. At its best, it involves an intimate relationship between artisan, tools and materials. When I took a class on Japanese style woodblock printing we learned that top quality barrens (disk-shaped tools used to rub the paper onto the inked block) are hand made from natural materials by skilled artisans. Could you get the same print using a low-end plastic substitute? Possibly, but the experience of the artist is integral to the product. Among my fiber craft pursuits, the most indescribably satisfying activity is to spin beautifully-prepared natural fibers on a perfectly-balanced, hand-crafted, exotic hardwood handspindle. Fiber magic.

Pleasure of a full bobbin

There is nothing like the joy of a full bobbin. It is something beyond the sense of accomplishment or the possibilities of finished objects to come. You KNOW that fiber. Every bit of it has passed through your fingers. You have put some of yourself into it, and thus it is a part of you. You have transformed it from one stage of its being to another, and knowing it so intimately, you see the beauty of its simplicity and form. I imagine woodcarvers and potters and other folks who make things with their hands feel similarly about their process and product. How does one distinguish an artisan from an artist? In my mind (as of this afternoon, anyway) an artist is all about the completed idea, while an artisan is about the interaction with the materials and the skill of the execution, in addition to the beauty and usefulness of the finished object. This is why I prefer to be an artisan rather than an artist.

Apparently a full bobbin inspires philosophizing, too.

Log cabin with a twist

Sorry for my lengthy absence. SO much to talk about! Since I last posted I have been to Kentucky, finished two projects and started 2 more.

I will start with the long promised debut of my mystery project. It is related to the trip to Kentucky, as it was a wedding gift for my nephew and his intended (now wife). I wanted to make the happy couple something extra special, so I spun up a fleece that I have had in my stash for several years. Here's a picture of Tippy, a cormo lamb whose hoggett fleece was fine, soft, and very white. I spun up the yarn, then immersion dyed it, first blue, then (after removing half) overdyed it with yellow to make the emerald green that is one of the bride's favorite colors. I held two strands together as I knit to make a very cushy, warm blanket. To give the log cabin pattern a modern twist, I varied the thickness of the stripes as I went along, instead of doing the traditional balanced squares. I thought I could finish it by the end of April, but with a busy schedule I found myself still knitting away until the end of June, sweating under a heavy blanket in 90 degree temperatures. I think it was worth it. I am so pleased with how well it came out that I want to make another in purples for my trailer. Here's the happy couple with the blanket.

A better mousetrap for plying on a handspindle

I am often asked about plying on a handspindle. There are a number of possible techniques. One is to wind a center-pull ball and (with your thumb in the center to avoid tangles) pull from both ends. Another is to roll 2 balls, put them in mugs with the ends threaded through the handles (this technique is oddly fascinating to the cat).
A technique I have long used is to wind off the singles around a paperback book, put the resulting little skein around my left wrist and pull from the two ends, sliding each loop off my wrist as I ply. This works OK, but is pretty slow since there is a pause each time you pull another loop off the wrist, plus tangles do happen.
Andean plying is the next step up. The downside is that wrapping high-twist, fine-spun fiber around the middle finger can be pretty crippling as it cuts off the circulation. (There are additional issues with the resulting impolite gesture that can be inappropriate when spinning in public.)
Thanks to a little web-surfing, and a blogger named Rosemary, I now can recommend a better technique that involves a paperback book and a popsicle stick: Andean Plying Bracelet Simplified.
This works amazingly well. The singles slide easily and evenly out of the bracelet requiring no pauses for untangling. It didn't even tangle or come apart when there are only a few loops left around the wrist. It is easy to control the tension on the singles. And although the traditional Andean method requires no extra equipment, I seldom travel without a book. The only extra baggage is a single popsicle stick. As a librarian and general book-lover I can not recommend the double-pointed needle alternative or anything else that would damage the book. I didn't have a popsicle on hand, so I used the handle from an extinct rubber spatula. It made a fine popsicle stick stand-in. Henceforth there is no excuse not to spindle (and ply) at the drop of a ..um.. spindle.

2007 Alpaca Festival

Saturday I drove up to Red Rock to attend the 5th Annual Alpaca Festival and to visit with Sharon. Linda and Mim were also at the Festival, so I got lots of hanging-out-in-the-sun-with-friends time in. The day started out cold and I was surprised by how much snow was still on the ground up there (it had all melted in Reno). Soon it warmed up, though, and it was mighty pleasant to sit and spin in the sunshine. The Festival is hosted by Sierra Nevada Alpacas. Jeannette has a large herd (flock?) of alpacas and it is great fun to hear the mama alpacas hum to their crias. Going back and forth from Sharon's to the Festival (we ran back to get Sharon's wheel and a bite to eat), I was able to try out the 4-wheel-drive on Mittens for the first time. (I love my new truck!)

After the Festival we went back to Sharon's Sage Creek Farm and Ian made us his fabulous burritos. I drove home across the beautiful high desert at twilight. You can't ask for a better Saturday than that.

And on Sunday I finished these socks. (For the fiberish among my readers: handspun blue-face Leicester, size 2 needles, short-row heel.)

Learning Scarf

Saturday I finished this scarf. Each step along the way was a little bit experimental. I spun the yarn a long time ago as a way to practice spinning a little bit chunkier (than my normal) yarn with oh-so-fine merino. Doubly a challenge, but it came out OK, if a bit, um, rustic. The skeins were tucked away for some time, then resurfaced at our everything-came-out-some-version-of-teal dye day. There I attempted to paint the yarn with very short color runs, in hopes of creating yarn that wouldn't get stripey when knit, yet would still have distinct colors. I think it worked! One more experimental step: I designed the lace pattern myself. Yes, I know it is relatively simple and I'm sure it must be available in any basic lace book, but I really did create it on graph paper using my admittedly basic knowledge of how knitted lace behaves. The lace pattern further breaks up any tendency toward stripyness.

And being made of merino, it is very soft and snuggly. I have one more skein - a matching hat, perhaps?

Nevada State Fair (a bit late)

Life has gotten in the way of my blogging lately, but I do want to tell you a little bit about the NV State Fair. It was tons of fun despite being REALLY hot. We demonstrated spinning and weaving and carding and other fiberish stuff to crowds of interested adults and children. We had a name-the-sheep contest for kids - I believe the winning name was "Grendel". Must have been an exceptionally literate kid! For the already-fiberish we had open judging, a spinning contest, and a fleece auction. Keeping to my resolve to work through my existing stash, I did not acquire a fleece. I did, however, win a lovely EarthHues dye kit in the spinning contest. Apparently all that lace spinning is paying off!

Here are a few pictures: