Taos Sweater Finished!

Last October, my friend Michelle and I purchased a chocolate brown fleece at the Taos Wool Festival.  It was a CVM/cotswold/corriedale fleece. When I returned home, I washed, carded and spun my half into yarn with the idea of knitting a sweater to enter in the fiber arts show at Taos this year.  I also spun white cormo wool/silk and merino/angora yarns so that I could dye them in pastel colors to use in the sweater.  Over the weekend, I finished my project and I am very pleased with the outcome.  I saw Michelle today and asked her to model it for me.  

That's it for today.

Sunday Fun

Last week I got an email from Robina Koenig of Tumble Creek Farm up in the Pacific Northwest letting me know that her Fall shearing was done and she had some fleeces up for sale.  I had seen Robina's fiber at Black Sheep Gathering in June and asked to be on her email list.  I immediately opted for a small two-pound BFL lamb fleece.  It arrived yesterday so quickly.  Gorgeous little fleece, to say the least.

I kept looking at that fleece and knew there was no way I was going to be able to sleep unless I soaked a part of that fleece overnight, so that I could wash it today.  Here's the fleece drying out in the sun.  Very yummy.  Can't wait to spin it.

MORE BUNDLES UNVEILED

The other day, my friend Margie came over for a playdate and we made nuno felt with the idea of eco printing the pieces we made.  After a morning of feltmaking and lunch, we were off to forage along the local San Juan creek area.  We found some wonderful plant materials, one of which was a downed branch of eucalyptus, which had been laying in the middle of a field, hot sun mostly likely beating on it for at least a few weeks.  It was so dried up, we were skeptical but we collected some of the dried leafy branches as an experiment.  I still had a big pot of the golden liquid from the rabbit brush a few days before, so we used that dye bath as the liquid in our new dyepot.  After hours of simmering and then cooling down overnight, we had some very successful results.

These are the bundles fresh out of the dyepot.

My felted pieces drying.

And these are my eco prints on nuno felt. Some of the strongest rusty oranges, we obtained from the dried up eucalyptus branches.

Margie's bundles had to sit for a couple of days unwrapped and she got some very intense prints -- could be that the extra time in the bundle helped. A silk blouse.

 Her nuno felted pieces.

Margie also brought some plant materials from her garden:  sunflower leaves, avocado leaves, amaranth, and a few sunflowers.

Needless to say, we were pretty happy with our day of experimenting. 


And I have been making progress on a sweater I started knitting in January. This is my own design.

I purchased a small fleece at the Taos Wool Festival last October from Sheepfeathers Farm of Lafayette, CO.  This was a dark chocolate CVM/Cotswold/Corriedale cross which I processed and spun. The other handspuns are fibers I bought and spun from Toots Le Blanc and from Foxfire Fibers and then dyed in various pastel colors to go with the brown fleece. 

I am hoping to finish this sweater so I can wear it this year at the Taos Wool  Festival.  One sleeve and the collar to go.

On a Sunday, a dyepot of mullein is simmering on the barby.