Paint Spin Knit

More New Mexico

2011-11-14T07:20:00.001-08:00

Thought I would add a few more pictures of the trip Michelle and I took to New Mexico. These are balls of churro yarn that I bought at the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center. These were dyed with natural dyes by a local woman, Glenna Dean, who is from Abiquiu. She used madder root, brazilwood, black walnuts, cottonwood catkins and cota (aka Navajo tea). These were spun very thin and are used in the native Colcha embroidery. I plan on using them for stitching and bought a book on Colcha.

This is Michelle adding some fringe to a beautiful felted piece she was working at our B&B in Chimayo. She included a little Lincoln lamb pelt in the piece.

While I did some decorative stitching on one of my eco print shawls.

One of our first stops as we pulled into Taos was a beautiful fabric store that we love -- Common Thread. This is hands down one of the best fabric stores ever. We bought loads of beautiful silks, cashmere and silk shawls, buttons and ribbons.

After spending the night in Santa Fe, our last day took us on a smaller road down through the old silver mining town of Madrid. It is now a community of artists and is very quaint. Lots of little shops to wander around in.

Since we were on our way to the airport in Albuquerque, and loathed the idea of eating airport food, we stopped at wonderful little Mama Lisa's Cafe, all good freshly homemade food. And, of course, my last opportunity to have New Mexico enchiladas.

We ate our lunch out on the front patio and enjoyed the pleasant weather.

As we pulled out of Madrid and started our journey to Albuquerque, a few raindrops began falling and within about 15 minutes we were in a torrential rainstorm, driving through the mountains until we descended into to Albuquerque. No more exploring -- we went straight to the airport, which turned out to be a wise choice.

I am now in the process of washing the next fleece we bought at the Taos Wool Festival. This is another CVM/Wensleydale cross and it is jet black. More pictures when it's done.

Blogging Again!

2011-11-13T11:35:00.001-08:00

Deep into autumn -- travels over and shows done -- I'm ready to tackle blogging again. Started out fall with a very relaxing trip to Northern New Mexico with my friend, Michelle. This was our second year attending the Taos Wool Festival. It's hard not to go because we have such a great time. And we actually reserved rooms for next year. We started out with two nights at the Casa Escondida B&B in Chimayo, a very quaint weaving community about halfway between Santa Fe and Taos. We explored around the area, visited the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center, ate good food, drank wine and spent some relaxing days knitting and stitching on our deck and the front porch.

The view from our deck was spectacular and we had perfect weather.

Can you imagine a more idyllic spot? Night time brought a million stars and even the Milky Way.

The next stop on our adventure was The Old Taos Guesthouse in Taos, of course. I have stayed here many times and Tim and Leslie, the owners, make this a more than special play to stay. One night, we even had a "camp fire" in the fire pit out back with many of the guests sitting around chatting and enjoying a glass of wine.

A nice cup of tea and knitting in the afternoon with a view out over Taos.

Onto the Taos Wool Festival for much shopping and visiting with people we have met along the way. We bought fleeces at Black Pines Sheep booth.

We also bought fleeces from one of my favorite booths at the wool festival -- The Rocky Mountain Natural Colored Sheep Breeders -- three that we couldn't resist -- a cocoa brown, variegated gray and a black one. We split those between us.

The wool show is outside on the grass at Kit Carson Park in the heart of Taos.

After four days in Taos and serious damage to our pocketbooks, we spent a night in Santa Fe -- much more commercial/touristy atmosphere than in the little town of Taos, but it was still fun and we had great New Mexican food. Oh, I do miss those enchiladas.

This week, I finally found time to start processing the fleeces I bought in Taos. This one is a CVM/Wensleydale cross, and believe it or not, this fleece has all of these fabulous colors in it. I can hardly wait to start spinning it so that I can knit with it.

Now that I actually posted something on my blog -- yes, I'm going to try to keep this up on a regular basis. Fingers are crossed!

Taos Sweater Finished!

2011-09-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-09-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

SURPRISES IN THE MORNING

After cooling down and sitting in the dyepot overnight, my bundles were ready to be unrolled. There's always anticipation (and excitement) as I undo each bundle.

This bundle was wrapped around a copper pipe and was a piece of lightweight wool.

Nice clean prints.

Interesting greens from the copper pipe, I think.

The next few pieces were dyed using the nuno felt pieces that I made.

Lovely eucalytus -- vibrant rusty orange prints.

More eucalyptus -- greens and golds.

Love these prints -- various eucalypts and many colors.

2011-08-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

END OF SUMMER APPROACHES

I am finally emerging from my summer "cave" -- my self-imposed exile from the blogosphere. I was pretty much burned out after two back-to-back trips in June.

First, I attended a weeklong felting workshop at Shakerag (Sewanee, TN) taught by Jeanette Sendler and Allison Mountain from Scotland. This was one of the best workshops I have ever taken and I (along with many of my classmates) was in the workroom until midnight every night -- so excited and inspired by our teachers. And then back in my room, knitting, reading or whatever until 2:00 a.m. I could not turn off the mind. Suffice it to say, I was exhausted after a week of getting about 4 hours of sleep a night. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

In fact . . . I have already signed up for Shakerag 2012. It is one of the all around best workshop venues. All inclusive and they feed you the most wonderful gourmet healthy food -- breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will either take natural dyeing with Michel Garcia from France or wearable art with Jean Cacicedo, an amazing artist from Berkeley. I am leaning toward Jean. I took her class at Shakerag in 2006 and loved every minute of it.

As soon as I arrived home from Shakerag -- and running on empty -- I had to pack my van for another weeklong trip heading up to Eugene, OR, for the Black Sheep Gathering with my friend, Miryha, of Blarney Yarn. We had a wonderful week and a very successful show but by the time we got home, I dropped into my big cushy chair to catch my breath and get recentered. Just couldn't bring myself to do anything but relax and spin and knit, and knit and spin -- some sewing, too -- well into July and August.

August took our family, both sons, one girlfriend, and my husband and myself, up to the June Lake area of the Sierras. One day we took a ten-mile hike in Yosemite through Tuolumne Meadows up Tuolumne Falls. This is a glorious hike, fairly easy, and the scenery is to die for -- as is most of Yosemite.

At the falls, more water this year because of all the rain and snowpack.

Upon returning from the Sierras, all relaxed, I was ready to start doing some dyeing again. I made my rounds to the various places in and around my neighborhood and collected some eucalyptus and other leaves, and raided my garden. I then made up some bundles for the dyepot. Here are some of the results.

Close up -- you can see prints of the black sunflowers from my garden.

Windfall dried eucalyptus leaves.

Windfall oak leaves that I collected in Tennessee, yellow coreopsis from my garden.

After this dyeing venture with eco printing, my dyebath was still a vibrant rusty orange. I just hated the thought of wasting it, so I poured the liquid into two big pickle jars and put some alpaca/silk yarn into each jar -- no mordant. I set these in the sun for four days and was pleasantly surprised at the lovely color the skeins absorbed from the dyebath.

When I was in the Sierras, I collected some plant material for dyeing. Here are some of the dyepots and the results. The first is white sage -- no mordant.

Yarn simmering.

This dyebath rendered a beautiful beige -- again the alpaca/silk.

The next dyepot is rabbit brush.

These two skeins of alpaca/silk were in the same dye bath. The top skein had no mordant and came out a pale yellow. The skein below was pale yellow and then was placed in an ammonia afterbath, which made the skein brighten up, almost to a maize color.

My rabbit brush dyebath was still quite vibrant, and again, I didn't want to waste the color, so I rooted around and found some pieces of silk and wool and placed them in the dyepot. After simmering for a couple of hours, this is the result. I am letting the pot sit overnight to see if the fabrics will absorb more color.

And while all this was going on, I made some panels of white nuno felt so that I could do some eco printing on felt. These have just gone into the dyepot, will simmer, and then cool down overnight. Oh, surprises in the morning!!

So, all my friends out there who have been wondering, "What the . . . ?" I am ready to get back to it after a summer of lots and lots of playing around -- mostly with my fibery stuff.

Next trip up: Taos Wool Festival at the end of September -- a week in northern New Mexico with my friend, Michelle. This is just fun and relaxation. I can hardly wait.

2011-05-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO???

Oh, my word!! When I logged on and saw the last time I posted, it was a bit shocking. I have definitely been neglecting my blog. What with having a pre-Christmas flood in my house and having all the repair work done. Then removing everything out of every room to have new tile and carpeting installed and then . . . going through everything before putting it back. So much was thrown out -- stuff, you know -- that stuff that accumulates over 20+ years. And then there's getting ready for Black Sheep Gathering in between. Well, when put like that, it's no wonder I've been distracted from posting here.

So happy that it's finally warming up. . . I think. My Eden roses are magnificent. I've made some bundles of lavender that are hanging in my studio. Hope we've seen the last of the cold weather for a while.

Lots of flowers.

Bougainvilla in bloom.

My tomatoes are in. Marigolds and coreopsis planted -- good dye plants.

Took a few days off recently to spend time in Cambria, along the "Gold Coast", with two of my high school girlfriends. Nonstop gabbing for four days -- can you believe that after 44 years? Totally, one of the best times ever.

And in between "life" as it happens, I've been readying fibers for Black Sheep Gathering.

Black Sheep Gathering is set for June 24, 25 and 26 in Eugene, OR, at the Lane County Fairgrounds. I will be sharing the booth again with my friend, Miryha, of Blarney Yarns. We'll be in Booths 49 and 50 and will have lots of good fibery things. Miryha also plans on having some handmade soaps. This is definitely one of the best fiber/wool festivals on the West Coast. Hope to see lots of our friends there.

2011-03-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

FIRST MONDAY STITCHERS

Today was our first Monday of the month stitch group. We have a great little group of women that meet (usually about six) and there's always good show and tell. Today we had a new stitcher -- Kristine Brooks, who was brave enough to venture up from San Diego in the rain.

Margie (our "Ma Belle") was stitching on some nuno felt that she made with me last week. After our felting session, we went foraging down near San Juan Creek for leafy materials. She left my house with rolled up bundles that, after a little simmering, produced some magic.

Kristine brought a sampler piece for a class that she will be teaching -- woven strips of silk fabric -- on which she stitched and embroidered.

I continued stitching on a sweater that I eco printed.

A little herringbone stitching and some blanket stitch. Another of my many "works in progress", scattered about.

Claudia was the hit of the day with her artistic and creative shirt -- which she said started out as a plain ole white shirt.

She used a lot of rusty old stuff for her dye job. And then she added wonderful appliques that she hand printed herself.

She also stitched on little appliques, added buttons and did lots of hand stitching all over the shirt.

The back was really great -- her handprint. Girlfriend, we were impressed! Job well done.

While on vacation recently, I brought along some of my handspun yarn ("Tiger Lily") and knit a pair of socks from Janel Laidman's "The Eclectic Sole" -- the "Simplicity" sock. I know it's hard to imagine, but I sat on a balmy tropical beach knitting merino/silk/angora socks.

And finally -- TOOT! TOOT! -- can I toot my own horn? I entered my handspun Helix scarf in the Spin Off call for entries, and it made it into the magazine.

I'm tickled pink.

Our next stitch group will be Monday, April 4th.

2011-02-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

PROGRESS IN MOTION

Remember those pieces of nuno felt that I posted yesterday? Well, they have found themselves into a garment that I am working on. I have made great progress since yesterday and I am stoked!

Cutting out the pattern and piecing together panels of nuno felt.

Time for a little draping on my anatomically unreal dress form.

And voila, a long vest in very rough form -- indeed a work in progress.

And because this is made of nuno felt -- it is like being enveloped in a soft blanket.

Now, I am off for a walk on this most glorious day. I mustn't waste a day like this moldering inside.

2011-02-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

FRESH FROM THE DYEPOT

As I listen to the weather channel talking about a major blizzard in the heartland -- 20"-25" of snow, the weather here has warmed up (70's) and we've got our Santa Ana winds so that means good dyeing weather. Yesterday, I made three pieces of nuno felt and then rolled them up with some plant materials and popped them into a dyepot.

This morning, I had magic.

Second beauty.

Third beauty.

Close up.

These are destined for a project I'm working on -- for which I needed more nuno felt.

2011-02-08T10:28:00.000-08:00

FIRST MONDAY FEBRUARY FUN

Our small stitch group met yesterday and had a wonderful time. Again, we were so involved in our discussions and stitching that we almost forgot to eat our lunches. Margie arrived in her beautiful handknit sweater, the result of a fleece she bought at the Monterey County Fair fleece auction.

Close up of the little neck warmer she designed and knitted with her handspun yarn, on which she has done some beautiful stitching.

Michelle brought the quilt she is working on, using pieces of eco print fabrics that we dyed and exchanged.

Close up of her work.

My piece laid on top of Michelle's.

My project for the day was stitching on a piece of nuno felt I made and eco printed.

Michelle pieced together a duster she's working on.

View of the back.

Later, Michelle and I handpainted some 20/2 spun silk in variegated colors to use for stitching on some of our projects.

All dry and skeined out.

Perfect colors for the stitching I want to do on this silk jacket.

Note to self: remember New Year's resolution -- try to blog more.

2011-02-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

TOO BUSY TO BLOG

Okay, the fact is . . . I have been too busy to blog. There's just not enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do. Been having too much fun dyeing, felting, stitching, spinning and knitting to sit myself down at the computer and update my blog, but the guilt finally got to me when all of a sudden it was February. Here are some of the fruits of my eco print dyeing from January.

Oh, and then there were the many forays to the local consignment clothing stores to find inexpensive treasures, like a beaded and embroidered linen top, that I deconstructed and began making into a dress, adding some of my dyed panels, doing decorative stitching along the seams of each of the five panels. My idea was to finish this before my trip to Maui in two weeks. Oh, well -- I'll take it along and stitch on it.

Another project -- a true labor of love -- is continuing to take shape. These were the various panels of eco printed fabric that Michelle and I exchanged in January. I finally pinned my shawl together and started hand stitching it together.

I began adding many new stitches, embroidery, and handmade appliques.

I decided I needed a backing, so I dyed some silk charmeuse in a brew of black tea bags. The result was a perfect beige piece of fabric which goes quite well with the eco printed pieces.

The final part of the construction was an edging. I took a panel of eco printed fabric and made long strips and hand stitched those around the entire shawl.

The whole idea here is to do the entire piece with hand stitching -- no machine involved.

Still a work in progress. Much more stitching to be done.

Can't wait for our little stitch group this Monday (Feb. 7th) to see what Michelle has done with her pieces.

Another thing that was on my mind for the longest time was to make some pieces of undyed nuno felt so that they could be used for some of my eco print bundles. I got around to this last week. And here are a couple of the results.

I've been up in the hills and down around the nearby creek collecting eucalyptus leaves and other plant materials. I'm sure people wonder who that weird woman is, because what could be so interesting about those dried up leaves on the ground.

And here's piece of wool that I bundled up the other day and put into the dyepot. I especially love this one.

Feel better for having blogged a bit. Now, back to spinning - a bag of luscious pygora calls to me, as does a new episode of Grey's.

2011-01-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

JANUARY STITCHING

Haven't blogged for a while, still reeling from the pre-Christmas flooding in our house from the monster rains we had. It was good to have our little stitching group get together on January 3rd -- comforting to have friends around the table stitching and chatting, with a fire going in the fireplace. All snug, the four of us, having the best time, while the rest of my house is in disarray. At least this little part of my world is calm.

A couple weeks prior, Michelle and I had gotten together and shared some of our eco print fabrics.

I had begun stitching my pieces together.

I worked on my piece during our sewing circle, experimenting with some new embroidery stitches. This is a learning experience and every new stitch we try is such fun. Even these little stitches give you such a sense of accomplishment. I love when you get one of those "Ah-ha" moments - like, wow, I figured that one out.

Claudia brought lots of the eco printed garments she has been dyeing. Did I mention the word "obsessed". Here's a jacket she eco printed.

Some lovely stitching with beads she did on the front.

Karen used some rose leaves on one of her eco prints.

Margie stitched with her hand-dyed and handspun yarn on a felted scarf she made -- in which she used some merino fleece she had gotten on her trip to Australia.

Our next sewing circle is scheduled for Monday, February 7th. Can hardly wait to see what our stitchers are working on and creating.

So excited. My 2011 is shaping up for traveling. Shakerag in June to take felting from an awesome Scottish felter, Jeanette Sendler. And the other day, I sent in my application to Haystack Mountain on Deer Isle, Maine, for India Flint's week-long workshop at the end of August. Still waiting to see what Morgaine and Judith have in store for Golden Gate Fiber Institute. Despite the destructive results of the Pineapple Express that rolled through here in December, life still looks pretty good.

2010-12-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

WE'RE STITCHING IN THE "O.C."

Inspired by India Flint of Australia, I and a few of my friends have started a sewing circle here in South Orange County, CA. [http://found-stitched-dyed.blogspot.com] We had our first meeting this past Monday and had a wonderful time stitching, chatting and learning from one another. We had planned on getting together for a couple of hours and before we knew it, three and a half hours had passed. There was not a lot of "show and tell" this first day, but each person had something to contribute and share. All in our group are also handspinners and knitters; some are weavers, too.

Margie stitched with her handspun yarn on two baby sweaters she knit from wool dyed during a natural dye workshop we attended at the Golden Gate Fiber Institute.

Our youngest member, Miryha, brought a T-shirt that her late husband had worn. She sought help deconstructing the shirt to make it into a garment for herself as a rememberance. Karen helped Miryha with the deconstruction and piecing and fitting it to her.

Claudia shared some of the silk scarves and shawls she recently dyed using India Flint's eco print techniques.

I shared some of the eco prints I made the week before.

Prints on silk remnants I found on an excursion to the L.A. garment district with my son several weeks ago.

Michelle and I laid out some of our eco prints on the floor -- a bit of a collaboration. We plan to cut all of our pieces in half and share. We'll then each sew the cloths together by hand and stitch on them. I can't wait to see what each of us comes up with and how different they will be.

This is a lovely thing that India has promoted. This coming together in small groups working with your hands, stitching, carrying on these age old needle arts. It's like comfort food for the soul. And, although our small group spans several generations from the early 30's to the early 60's, age differences are not noticeable. Friendships are forged. We all feel invigorated by the exchange of ideas and thoughts -- creative juices flow.

This is how we all felt as we stitched away in the company of friends: Peaceful

Such a wonderful time was had -- we've set our next sewing circle for January 3rd -- the first Monday of the month -- the day we've chosen for our monthly get together. We await some good stitching show and tell.

2010-11-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

WEAVING AND FIBER FEST

This Sunday, November 7th, is the Torrance Fiber Fest that is put on by the Southern California Handweavers' Guild. This is a great local show and well worth attending. I will again have my booth, Capistrano Fiber Arts Studio, and will be sharing with Margie "Ma Belle" Bell. The show is from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Torrance Cultural Center.

We will have lots of handpainted spinning fibers, handspun yarns, handpainted sock yarns, hand-dyed mohair curls and bags of washed fleece.

Hope to see you there. For more information and directions, check the SCHG website at: http://www.schg.org/festival/index.html

2010-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!

This was just too good to not pass on, especially for October 31st. Here is a piece of art from Ben Cuevas, who is apparently more than an amazing knitter. (In the lotus position, no less.)

For more pictures of this amazing piece of artwork, go to: http://bencuevas.wordpress.com to see his project "Transcending the material". This gives me goose bumplies.

2010-10-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

SUMMER 2011 IS SHAPING UP

Well, it's never too early to start planning your next summer. I was absolutely delighted to learn that the 2011 Black Sheep Gathering will be a little later in June. What this means is that I can once again attend one of the Shakerag workshops in Sewanee,Tennessee. I literally signed up the moment registration opened and am all set to take a felting workshop from Jeanette Sendler, a felt artist from Scotland, from June 12th-18th. Here's a picture of some of Jeanette's work from the Shakerag website.

The title of the workshop is "Hills, Heather, Lochs and Bogs". I checked out Jeanette Sendler's website: www.sendler.co.uk and went to the "Felt Interiors" page. There I found some pretty amazing pieces. I am hoping to gain some new knowledge on felt and texture and I'm looking forward to creating hills and bogs. Can hardly wait. I've attended Shakerag twice before and had such a good time and learned so much. Because of the conflict with Blacksheep Gathering, I was sad that I was not able to attend India Flint's workshop this past summer where I would have "dyed" and gone to heaven.

Other things to look forward to in summer 2011: I'll be a vendor at Black Sheep Gathering from June 24th - 26th in Eugene, OR, and have already made my reservations for Taos to attend the Wool Festival in early October. And, of course, I'm waiting to sign up for Golden Gate Fiber Institute's summer intensives. And then I see that India Flint is going to be at Haystack in Maine at the end of August. Whatever am I going to do!

Been working on felted pieces -- scarves and shawls -- for the upcoming Artistic License Faire (Oct. 29th and 30th). The piece below has already sold but I'll have many others.

Lots of stitching with my hand-dyed handspun yarn -- many skeins of which I will have in my booth.

Information on Artistic License can be found at www.ArtisticLicenseFair.com

And be sure to mark your calendars for the Southern California Handweavers' Assn. annual Weaving and Fiber Festival at the Torrance Cultural Center on Sunday, November 7th. This is a great one-day show at which I will have a booth with Margie "Ma Belle" Bell. We'll have handpainted spinning fibers and yarns, handspun yarns and bags of natural colored washed fleece. This show features many vendors with weaving, spinning and knitting products. For more information on this festival, go to: www.schg.org

2010-10-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

FALL ECO PRINTS

I continue to gather plants from the areas surrounding where I live and from my garden/yard. I have been using these gathered plant materials to do eco printing as talked about by India Flint in her book Eco Colour. I am fascinated by the beautiful colors that come from these plants. Here is a wool sweater.

A sleeve

The back.

Close up of front.

I have since done some hand stitching around the collar and down the button band with my hand-dyed handspun yarn.

I finally finished piecing together the eco print shawl I worked on during my trip to the Taos Wool Festival.

I constructed this shawl using many different sized pieces of silk charmeuse and wool crepe that I had eco printed. Although the silk charmeuse was recently purchased, the wool crepe was formerly a skirt (from my days as a lawyer) that has been redeployed into this shawl so there's a part of my past in this project.

This shawl was all put together by hand stitching. Then, I took strips of silk charmeuse and used them as an edging, sewing them by hand all around the edge of the shawl.

This is still a work in progress as I plan to do more top stitching on it. I may try some embroidery.

We have had wild thunderstorms starting about 4:30 a.m. this morning when the power went out for the first of five times today. Much lightning and thundering -- something we don't often see here in Southern California. And hoards of rain, hail too. We definitely welcome this precipitation. And, now, I am hunkered down for the evening, with a glass of merlot and my stitching to keep me warm and content. (My husband is at a conference in Dallas, Texas, where it is 85 degrees.)

2010-10-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

TRIP TO TAOS WOOL FESTIVAL

My friend, Michelle Hoffee, and I attended the Taos Wool Festival this year (Oct. 2nd and 3rd). I have been twice before and love this event. The vendors must be from New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas so there are booths here that I don't see at other shows. And there are many small cottage industry vendors who are raising their own animals, making things with their hands, etc. I love to patronize people who are raising their own flocks and working so hard to bring beautiful fibers to the handspinning world.

We started our trip in Chimayo, a small weaving community about halfway between Santa Fe and Taos, and spent the night in a wonderful B&B called Casa Escondidas. This is alovely little inn about a mile on a dirt road off the main highway.

Next to Casa Escondidas is a winery. This beautiful yellow plant, Chamisa, proved to be the bane of the trip. A good dye plant, thousands of them blooming along the road and in the hills, but a cause of much sinus distress to my travelmate.

On the way out of Chimayo, we stopped in to Centinela Weavers, the business of of Irvin and Lisa Trujillo, famous local weavers who have won many, many awards for their weaving. Their work is amazingly beautiful. To my delight, we were able to see Lisa weaving a beautiful blanket and had a great talk with her.

Next stop on the way to Taos was a visit to the Espanola Valley Arts Center, just down the road and over the Rio Grande River from Chimayo. We bought an assortment of dye stuffs and I bought a book on the Colcha embroidery.

On the road to Taos, we made two stops for New Mexico red chili powder and some Hatch chilis and chili powder. Many people had their chili roasters going. Guess this was the season. I went for medium hot and Michelle got extra hot. Oh, boy! Here's a shot of the Taos Guesthouse with the afternoon thunderheads looming in the distance. Although it threatened rain every afternoon, we only had a few drops one day.

Here we are on our way to the wool festival, walking up the quaint New Mexican streets of Taos. Our B&B was up this road, Kit Carson Road, about a mile.

This was the front of a small museum.

The road to the middle of town -- looking the other way up Kit Carson Road.

Here we are at the festival, which is held outside in Kit Carson Park.

One of the many fiber booths.

Another booth with lots of fleeces and fibers.

The first morning was our time for "serious" shopping as we sought out our three favorite vendors: Kai Mohair, Anniroonz, and Rocky Mountain Colored Sheep Breeders co-op booth.

On the right at the Anniroonz booth is Myrtle Dow -- Mama Sheep (Black Pines Sheep) -- who has been instrumental in breeding some of the most lovely award-winning fleeces. To the left is Nancy Irlbeck from Anniroonz Ranch and Ann Morrison from Wind Dance Ranch. Michelle bought a few fleeces: a jet black Wensleydale, a white Teeswater and a white Wensleydale, a very curly white Wensleydale lamb, and we split a beautiful white Wensleydale with a staple length of about 5-6 inches. At the Colored Sheep Breeders booth, we split a cocoa brown fleece of CVM, Cotswold and Corriedale.

Our first stop, though, was Kai Mohair, owned by Lisa Shell from Texas. She has the most gorgeous mohair. Both Michelle and I bought tons of Lisa's solar-dyed kid mohair rovings and mohair curls. All of her fibers are very soft and beautiful and we'll use them for spinning and other fiber arts projects.

Here is Michelle showing Lisa a skein of art yarn she spun using some Kai kid mohair and curls.

Some of my stash from the Kai Mohair booth. Luscious colors.

Here are some sheep that are waiting to be sheared and some that have already lost their fleeces. There's always a sheep shearing demo.

After attending the wool festival, we meandered around some of the shops in Taos. LaLana Wools (owned by Luisa Gelenter) is a must -- beautiful naturally-dyed yarns, handspun yarns and sample garments of the many patterns they offer. I love this very artsy shop. We also stopped in at Weaving Southwest, now in a new larger space.

Weaving Southwest has stunning weavings, art to wear, hand-dyed yarns and weaving and spinning supplies. Another must on a trip to Taos.

And we happened upon an absolutely fabulous fabric store -- Common Threads -- where we bought buttons, ribbons, fabric and silk scarves. If we only had such a treasure in our area.

Had to have our picture taken in the fabric store. We had many nice comments on our felted pieces that we were wearing.

Last stop on our trip to Taos was a drive out over the Rio Grande River Gorge and a visit to the famous Earthships. These are ecologically friendly houses that are built into the ground using all manner of recycled materials. A little eerie out there, but very interesting.

Michelle at the entrance to the visitors' center.

A close up of the spire with recycled bottles.

A new structure that is being built -- using old tires and cans.

A beautiful wall using recycled cans and colorful bottles -- the afternoon sun shining through.

Well, it was a more than wonderful trip and I've reserved my room for next year. Lots of trips and adventures to look forward to in 2011.

2010-10-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

WORK IN PROGRESS

I've just returned from New Mexico where I attended the Taos Wool Festival with my friend, Michelle. Had the most wonderful time -- the weather was gorgeous, unseasonably warm, big white clouds, blue skies. Will upload pictures later from the festival and our time there. While in Taos, we spent a relaxing day just sitting out in the backyard of the Old Taos Guesthouse on a picnic table stitching and knitting. I hand-stitched together a shawl of various pieces of wool and silk that I had dyed using India Flint's eco print technique. This is still a work in progress but here are some pictures:

First, the idyllic environs

For some of the pieces, I cut up and dyed a wool crepe skirt that had been hanging in my closet from my long ago days of practicing law. Glad to put that skirt to good re-use. I used an iron trivet in one of my dyepots -- hence the black areas.

I also used some pieces of silk charmeuse that I had dyed with eucalyptus leaves, sagebrush and other plant materials I found up the hills and in my garden. I threw a handful of madder root into another of my dyepots and ended up with beautiful rusty brown areas.

It's hard to see, but I used a laceweight 20/2 spun silk yarn -- something I had hand-dyed for weaving -- to do my stitching. The color is a rusty pumpkin and goes really well with the natural colors derived from the plants.

This is a work in progress, so there will be much more stitching. I might try some Colcha embroidery that I saw in New Mexico and I am planning to stitch a silk edge around the entire shawl. It felt really good to sit around with a friend, enjoying some quiet time together, stitching.

ARTISTIC LICENSE FAIR

Almost forgot, Michelle (Hoffee) and I will be exhibiting and selling our fiber arts at the Artistic License Fair at Estancia Park in Costa Mesa on Friday, Oct. 29th and Saturday, Oct. 30th. We will have an array of our handspun yarns, handknits, felted scarves, shawls and such and plant-dyed wearables. I'll also have some handpainted fibers in my booth.

2010-09-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Summertime Ventures

In August, my friends and I attended Golden Gate Fiber Institute at Point Bonita YMCA camp just north of San Francisco on the Marin headlands. This is a picture of our dorms and classrooms. The weather hovered in the 55-60 degree range, while 10 minutes away inland, it broiled.

It's been almost a month since we returned from Golden Gate Fiber Institute, having had the most wonderful time at "summer camp". I roomed with four of my good buds -- Margie, Pam, Karen and Caryl -- and we had a week of great classes, from spinning art yarn, spindling, weaving, shibori dyeing and sock knitting. Amazing food by culinary institute chefs -- lots of vegetarian fare that was so delicious. And camaraderie with almost 75 other fiber lovers. Far from the bustle of the city, Point Bonita offers a rustic, isolated environment with a view back towards San Francisco.

The remnants of the military installation and bunkers are scattered around the headlands. I think I read that the base and bunkers date from the early 1900's.

Over the hill from us, there is still a working military base.

Our dorm room was perfect and we snuggled up at night when the fog rolled in and the wind whistled through the windows and we could hear the fog horn.

Our art yarn spinning class was in the big meeting room.

We had a great teacher -- Sarah Anderson -- who stepped in at the 11th hour when Jacey Boggs wasn't able to make it due to complications that arose after the birth of her son in June. We missed Jacey, for sure, but Sarah did a fantastic job. We were amazed at her knowledge and skills.

Some of Sarah's beautiful sample yarns. We all drooled.

Students spun coiled yarns.

And core spun yarns -- among the many yarns we learned.

Tracy shows off a skein she spun using everyone's fluff and stuff that had fallen on the floor, while Karen ponders on what belly dancing technique she'll show us that evening.

Spindling with Abby Franqemont was more than we could ask for. Abby's skills with the spindle were amazing. I was so happy to learn to use my bottom whorl spindles, which I have always avoided. Abby learned to spindle at age 5 when her family moved to Peru. Her ability to spin cotton blew us away. We started the class by spinning on a rock, then we made our own spindle with a ball of clay and a bamboo skewer. On the last day, our class took to the road and walked from classroom to classroom spindling the whole way.

Some of my classmates.

Here's Judith's shibori and weaving class with their dyepots going.

A dyepot pot with shibori and a dyed warp.

Out of the dyepot and drying in the sun (??? no!)

Margie models her indigo-dyed shibori scarf and a skein of art yarn from Sarah's class.

On the way home, we stayed in San Luis Obispo for the night, but stopped for tacos in San Miguel and visited the mission there.

A room with an old spinning wheel, loom and drying rack for wool.

And even though it's not been a month since we returned from GGFI, we're all anxiously awaiting word on what wonderful teachers and classes Morgaine and Judith will have in store for us at summer camp 2011. It doesn't hurt to have something to look forward to for the coming year.

2010-07-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

LORI'S JACOB'S WINDOWS SWEATER REDUX

Ever since I knit my first handspun sweater, my Jacob's Windows sweater, I have been wanting to knit it again in a longer version. At that time, I only had part of a gray Jacob lamb fleece -- not enough for a whole sweater. Working with the amount I had, I supplemented with other handspuns in my stash to finish the sweater. That sweater and pattern was featured in The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweater book (p. 68-74). I have always loved the idea of using a natural colored fleece/yarn as a backdrop for designs in colorful handspun yarns.

Since those first days, my spinning has improved greatly so I wanted to revisit this sweater. With this project in mind, I sought out a gray CVM fleece at the Taos Wool Festival in October 2008. I bought a beautiful variegated gray fleece from Dawn and Mike DeFreese of Windy Hill Farms of Casper, WY. Once home, I washed, carded and spun the fleece. Finally, in late 2009, I cast on and because things just happen, it has taken me until yesterday to finally finish. I can't be more pleased with the results.

This time around, I made the body of the sweater somewhat longer and then I added a 6.5" shawl collar. My alterations to the original pattern were easily made using Lynne Vogel's "Fitter List" and schematic in her Twisted Sisters Knit Sweater book. This is a soft and comfy kimono type sweater with the fronts crossing over and buttoning.

The chartreuse green yarn is an alpaca/merino/silk yarn that I spun and then dyed in a workshop with Darlene Hayes at Golden Gate Fiber Institute, using mullein and then indigo.

The gold/yellow yarn is also alpaca/merino/silk and was dyed using coreopsis flower tops from my garden.

I spun the white yarn from a cormo wool/silk roving I purchased at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival from Barbara Parry of Foxfire Fibers.

The other varigated yarns were spun from my handpainted rovings and are merino, cashmere, and blueface leicester wool. This sweater should keep me quite warm and cozy out on Point Bonita at Golden Gate Fiber Institute in a couple of weeks.

2010-07-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

STILL SMITTEN

I am loving my continuing experimentations with India Flint's eco print process. In between things I must do, I have my rolled up bundles simmering in the dyepot and I am really testing my ability to be patient. I know I can do better on that score, but it is, oh, so hard, to stop myself from opening up the bundle to see what magic might have happened. A couple of experiments -- a silk camisole.

Close up.

The back.

A silk tank top -- the back.

I am also working on a sweater knit with my handspun yarns -- the background of the sweater is knit with a gray CVM fleece I purchased at Taos Wool Festival last year and washed, carded and spun. Here's a teaser of the sleeve. I have about four rows to go on the collar and then I'll be done. Yahoo!! I'll be able to wear it at Taos this year.

Summer camp at Golden Gate Fiber Institute in coming up in about two weeks. I am more than excited to be taking drop spindling with Abby Franquemont and spinning art yarns with Jacey Boggs. What a "grand" time we will have, as Judith M would say.

Freezing our butts here in So.Cal. -- just heard we have had some of the coldest July temps on record. Of course, last week, we were in the low 100's and having heat stroke. Can't we just have some regular summer weather??

2010-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

INDIA FLINT - ECO COLOUR

A couple of years ago I bought an amazing book from Australian fiber artist, India Flint -- "Eco Colour". It wasn't available in the U.S., until recently, so I bought it through an Australian textile association. Since reading her book, I have been totally intrigued with the idea of using plant materials and other things to print on fabric.

Then I found out that India Flint was going to do week-long intensive classes at the Shakerag Workshops in Tennessee this summer. (I've been to Shakerag twice before.) I was so excited, only to find out the classes fell at the same time as the Black Sheep Gathering. Drat! Well, I have been able to vicariously experience India's workshop through my friend, Michelle, who was able to get into one of the workshops in June. When I saw what Michelle accomplished during her class and afterwards, I was awestruck -----

I have now read India's book cover-to-cover again and parts of it several times and have been doing my own experiments. To say that I am obsessed is an understatement, and at this rate, my garden is going to be decimated. Here are a few experiments.

Scented geraniums.

Eucalyptus leaves.

Madder root on silk.

Fresh and windfallen eucaplytus leaves.

The experiments continue!!

2010-06-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

BLACK SHEEP GATHERING CONTINUED

As I always do each year at Black Sheep, I entered some of my handknit and handspun creations into the fiber arts show. These are my entries and I was so tickled to have gotten three blue ribbons and one red ribbon. The first entry was a pair of socks I knit using the Waving Lace pattern from the Interweave Knits 25 Favorite Socks. I spun my colorway Sargasso Sea which was handpainted on Blueface Leicester Wool/Silk.

I received a red ribbon on a capelet I knit with 100% pygora handspun yarn. This was my original design. I bought the fiber from a small flock in Oregon owned by Wendy Hallman.

A blue ribbon was awarded to my wet felted scarf. This again was one of my originaldesigns.

I entered one handspun skein. This is 100% pygora and I received a blue ribbon.

And, of course, no Black Sheep Gathering is complete without the purchase of beautiful fibers and such from the many small farms and vendors who attend the show. One of my favorite booths is Rainbow Yarns Northwest from Kelso, WA. Susan Prechtl and Terry Mattison have beautiful batts and their specialty is pygora fiber. Terry can be found on Ravelry as "Spinpygora". http://www.rainbowyarnsnw.com

I bought two lovely batts in a deep rust color called "Adobe", of 50% pygora, 40% merino, and 10% silk. I can hardly wait to spin these. I will probably ply this blend with one of my handpainted baby camel/silk rovings.

One of my objectives in shopping at BSG this year was to find some hand-dyed mohair locks. These kid mohair curls were purchased from The Pines Farm of Maple Valley, WA. http://www.thepinesfarm.com

Next was a beautiful batt of jacob wool from Kenleigh's Fiber Studio, www.kenleigh-acres.com. This batt is actually quite dark charcoal, even though my camera shows it dark gray.

A continued search for mohair locks turned up Cloudspun of Monroe, OR.

Here are a couple of Blueface Leicester wool rovings from Kelly Ward of Ward Farm from Schoolcraft, MI. Lovely fiber from a small farm.

Mini batts of alpaca and silk from Beacon Bend Alpacas from Eugene, OR. www.beaconbendalpacas.com

A bigger batt from Beacon Bend -- alpaca and silk.

Much to keep me busy for a while. And looking forward to the 2011 BSG show.

2010-06-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

BLACK SHEEP GATHERING CONTINUES

One of the events not to be missed when you attend Black Sheep is the Spinner's Lead on Saturday night, emceed by Trish Anderson of Tanglewood Fibers. This is where participants wear a garment that they have made from the fleece of the animal they are leading around the arena. All entries are made of handspun wool or mohair or felted from fibers of their animals. This year there were some especially beautiful garments. And it is always fun to watch the participants leading their animals, sometimes wresting a bit with those that are squirming around and don't want to stand still. Here's a young gal with her handknit vest.

Here are some of the other entries. A handwoven blanket of Jacob wool.

Beautiful handknit shawl. I think this was Blueface Leicester wool.

Handknit vest -- also BFL, I think.

Another amazing handknit shawl.

Beautiful handknit sweater -- and a bit of wresting.

A felted capelet.

A magnificent handknit Estonian shawl.

A cape of Jacob wool. And a felted bowl to feed the sheep.

A handknit lace shawl of Shetland wool.

A beautiful handknit swater with images of sheep -- again Shetland wool.

A very whimsical felted hat.

A sheep wearing a braided rug.

Later, one more post about Black Sheep -- fiber arts entries and swag.

2010-06-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

FIRST DAY IN EUGENE, OREGON

After spending Tuesday night in Ashland, Miryha and I made our way to Eugene, checked into our favorite La Quinta Inn, relaxed a bit and headed over, by way of a nice path, to a P.F. Changs for a glass of wine and dinner. Over and back to dinner, we marveled at how perhaps it might be February and not June in Oregon, with a brisk, chilly wind cutting through us. Cooler weather is actually a plus for Black Sheep Gathering since it can get to be sweltering in the marketplace barns at the fairgrounds if the temps are high.

Thursday morning, before heading over to the fairgrounds for set up, Miryha and I took a nice walk around Eugene, heading over the MacKenzie River into the downtown area.

Love the wide MacKenzie River. We just don't see such waterways in Southern California.

One destination on our walk was Soft Horizons, a cute yarn shop on 13th Street,in an old two-story Victorian house. Lots of wonderful yarns and spinning supplies, too. Then over to Full City Coffee to fortify ourselves with a latte for the walk back.

WooHoo!! We have arrived to set up for the 2010 Black Sheep Gathering.

Here's our marked off area and our "stuff" ready to be assembled into a booth. The buildings look so austere and empty before everyone gets set up. On Friday, when the show opens, the rooms and the booths will be full of all manner of fibery things and will be bustling with people.

Big bags of rovings waiting to be hung up.

The sign goes up. Next year, we'll also have a sign for Miryha's "Blarney Yarn".

TA DA!!!! We're all set up and looking very colorful. Yarn tree full of handpainted sock yarn.

Many racks of Blueface Leicester and Silk -- handpainted by both me and Miryha. A big hit at the show.

I don't know how she did it,but Miryha managed to fill this rack -- front and back -- to the max with our Blueface Leicester rovings.

Cloths on the tables and racks full.

Baskets of our colorful handpainted merino/silk rovings.

More yummy merino/silk rovings.

Handpainted Polwarth wool rovings.

Mid-afternoon, our friends Margie and Karen showed up. By about 6:00 p.m., the booth was all set up and we were ready to relax. Our little group headed over to have dinner at Johnny Oceans, one of our favorite restaurants in Eugene. Coconut curry, the best.

2010-06-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

ROAD TRIP TO BLACK SHEEP GATHERING

Miryha and I set out at 5:00 a.m.from San Juan Capistrano on Tuesday morning to head up to Oregon for the BSG. After many hours of driving, Mt. Shasta looms in the distance.

Out the window and on the bridge overlooking Lake Shasta.

Woo Hoo!! Mt. Shasta -- we're almost there.

Downtown Ashland, Oregon.

Wednesday morning in Ashland, Oregon. We visited a great yarn store, The Websters.

And our favorite soap store.

At noon, we hit the road again with Eugene as our destination. More later.

2010-05-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

TOO BUSY TO BLOG

I have been working so hard getting ready for the Black Sheep Gathering that alas I haven't had time to blog. But . . . that said, I just wanted to let my friends and other knitters in the area know that today I dropped off a big, big batch of my handpainted sock yarn to Strands and Stitches yarn store in Laguna Beach.

This batch includes many of my popular colorways and lots of new colors.

Here are some samplings of what I've been dyeing.

So take a little road trip to Laguna Beach, have lunch, enjoy our beautiful weather, and stop by Strands and Stitches, located at 1516 South Coast Highway.

2010-04-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

WORKING HARD TOWARDS SHOWS

Now that the year is starting to get away from me -- mid-April already!! I have begun working hard towards the shows I will be doing. One of the shows I participate in is Artistic License (the last weekend of October). This is a great arts/crafts venue. I've been working on some felted pieces for AL -- here's a sampling of a couple scarves.

Close up of stitching using my hand-dyed handspun yarns and applique.

Another piece, with dred lock like fringe. Lots of stitching with handspun.

I've also been making up batches of a fiber mix that I call "Pastiche". This can be used by handspinners to create art yarns.

Like this skein --

Another batch of "Pastiche".

Another skein of art yarn.

Here is a skein of "coiled" yarn that I spun using one of my handpainted rovings of merino wool and bombyx silk. I love the little cocoons.

Another skein of "coiled" art yarn. This one was spun using a roving of merino/silk/angora in my colorway "Herb Garden". These are more than fun to spin.

I love these art yarns because they're all one of a kind and very unique. More to come!

2010-04-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

SHEEP SHEARING IN ESCONDIDO

Yesterday, Margie and I drove down to the K-9 dog training ranch of Terry Parrish in rural Escondido for the sheep shearing. The Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild had emailed about this event. A glorious day and unbelievably beautiful country not far from city life.

The ranch is across the road from the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which is in the distance.

We brought our spinning wheels and spun along with some of the other guild members.

There were about 100 sheep that were going to get haircuts. These were predominantly Dorset and Rambouillet sheep.

Sheep waiting to be shorn.

Here is the shearer at work. He is from Oregon and planned to shear about 100 sheep during the day. He puts this Rambouillet sheep on its back end to immobilize it during the shearing.

Almost done. The fleece comes off in one piece.

Here's one of the dark brown sheep being shorn.

The fleece intact.

Margie discussing the characteristics of the dark fleece with some spinners.

Bags of fleece ready to be chosen by spinners.

Here are some of the sheep after their haircuts.

The other fun thing of the day was a short, very informative talk and demo by Terry on sheepherding by her dogs. Based on the whistle commands given to the dog, he corraled this little flock of sheep. Terry said that each dog can distinguish the subtle difference between his owner's whistle and that of another.

There were many, many sheep dogs at the ranch yesterday. These dogs were just dying to get out there and herd the sheep, but most of them had to stand and watch. All of them seemed focused on the sheep and had their ears perked up like this little guy.

What a great day!

Last week I worked on a couple of new fibery things. I recently got a shipment of some fibers I have not dyed before: Polwarth wool and Blueface Leicester Wool blended with Tussah Silk. After dyeing a batch of each of these, I spun up some sample skeins. The verdict is in -- I love both of these new fibers. This is the BFL/silk in "Sargasso Sea" colorway, 380 yards.

Polwarth wool, randomly handpainted, 425 yards.

I am also continuing to pursue my interest in felting. Here is a felted scarf in progress -- it still is in need of embellishments and stitching.

Happy Easter or whatever you're doing today ---

2010-03-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

MORE SPRING TIME FLOWERS

Here's a little walk through my garden. I just love this time of year. Irises!

Calla lillies and camelias.

My garden.

Lavender in bloom.

Roses in bloom and the rose arbor getting ready.

Very special pink rose bush.

Tomato garden and herb garden.

Salvia Eveline - pink.

More irises and lavender.

A monarch butterfly catepillar munching on butterfly weed.

And, here's a pile of rovings I dyed yesterday. Just messing around with Spring colors on some merino/silk fiber.

Just having a fun day, enjoying the weather, and thinking about my summer trip to Oregon and summer camp with my buds up at Golden Gate Fiber Institute.

2010-03-21T20:30:00.000-07:00

SPRING IS HERE!!!

Well, it's been a while. I've been busy at the dyepot readying my inventory for Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon mid-June. Hunkered down is what I've been. It's less than 3 months away and I can't believe how this year has flown by so far. But . . . daylight savings time was last weekend. Oh how I love it to be lighter in the evening. Here is the first work day of daylight savings. We actually got to go take a walk down at our lovely Dana Point Harbor after the end of the work day. Did I mention, we are so spoiled.

Everyone was out in their boats, on their paddle boards enjoying the evening.

And could there be a better sunset, with Catalina Island as a backdrop?

So, the first day of Spring was yesterday and it was warm enough to have dinner on the patio.(Believe me, this won't last.) We had been talking all week about driving out to the desert to see the wildflowers. Since there has been an abundance of rain in the desert this year, that makes for awesome wildflowers. This morning, we decided to make the trek out to the Anza Borrego State Park. One of our favorite spots in the park is Coyote Canyon. We parked and walked about 2 miles down a dirt road/trail to the Desert Gardens and on the way the following pictures show what we saw.

We were stunned at the beauty. And all of the citrus groves were in bloom, too, so the fragrance of orange blossoms perfumed the air. Here are some little delicate white flowers.

Blue and yellow flowers.

These large bushes of yellow flowers were everywhere, all over the hills.

Purple lupines in among varied yellow and white flowers.

Dark pink desert verbena in amongst various white flowers.

Vibrant yellow flowers and verbena.

This big reddish boulder was almost like a grotto with yellow everywhere.

The ground was blanketed with flowers.

A desert lily.

Many of the cacti had not bloomed yet, but we did see some vibrant pink blooms.

Note the blanket of white button flowers on the hillside behind this pink cactus.

And finally, we reach the Desert Gardens -- what I call the Ocotillo forest. Beautiful, majestic Ocotillo with red flame flowers everywhere.

Close up of the flowers.

Close view of the Ocotillo trunk.

And totally amazing -- this Ocotillo laying over on its side, dead? well, flowers were blooming out of it. The desert comes alive in Spring.

What a lovely day and hike. I feel rejuvenated and ready to get back to work tomorrow. I hope to be a better blogger in the days to come. Well . . . we'll see. I'm working on some fun stuff and sometimes blogging just gets put at the bottom of the list.

2010-02-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

CHECKING IN

I'm going to try to be a better blogger instead of waiting to so long in between posts, so I'm just checking in with some of the things I've been working on. Of course, I try to spin and knit every day. Here is the skein that I spun from a batch of my "Pastiche" that I posted last time. (63 yd. 4.7 oz.)

I am still trying to figure out how to photograph my "Pastiche" so that I can post some of it on Etsy. I am such an amateur photographer that no matter what I do, I just can't seem to capture the beautiful qualities of these fiber mixes, but I'll keep trying.

I have been doing more felting this week. I can't tell you how much fun this is. I am flying by the seat of my pants, just being creative and throwing fiber and stuff around. What fun!

If you want to see some truly amazing and spectactular felted pieces, take a look at Pam DeGroot's blog -- http://pamdegroot.blogspot.com It is well worth perusing her blog. Pam is from New South Wales, Australia. I am in awe of her work. What an inspiration!

I've been spinning cashmere/silk (50-50), natural colors, and started a scarf -- very soft, luxurious and silver.

And in getting my ducks in a row for traveling around this year, I registered for Golden Gate Fiber Institute's summer intensives. I'll be taking Abby Franquemont's spindling class and Jacey Boggs' novelty yarn class. And I reserved a room at the Old Taos Guesthouse for the Taos Wool Festival first weekend of October.

This coming Sunday, I'm off to Seattle for a week to visit a friend. Our explorations will take us to the Madrona Fiber Retreat in Tacoma. This is a fun event and entrance to the marketplace is free. Last year, there were some great vendors. I'm looking forward to spending some $$$ on fun fibery things -- you know, things I really NEED.

2010-01-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

BACK TO THE BLOGOSPHERE

Because we have been having some gnarly rainstorms the past few days and I'm all cooped up, I thought it was time to communicate with the world. I haven't blogged in ages -- two months to be exact. But, sometimes there's a need to step away and treat yourself to a time out. So, I have been nurturing my creative spirit these past couple of months, just enjoying myself. I have finished projects, spun miles of yarn, done some dyeing, felting, and a lot of knitting and crocheting and spent time with friends. I used this time to experiment with things/ideas that would swirl around in my head as I was getting ready for shows last year. I finally put the finish on my Lendrum Saxony wheel, and it is a beauty. Love this wheel.

Another project I finally finished -- it's only taken me two years -- is the Lizard Ridge blanket, which was knit with Noro Kureyon. This blanket was supposed to be 24 squares big and after 16, I just had had enough. And I'm not sure I want to sew 16 squares together again, but . . . I do love the beautiful colors and it looks great draped across the back of my couch.

And no sooner did I get that dang blanket sewn together than I had to knit something else using that pattern. This time it is a shawl or maybe a poncho, but there will be little or no sewing. I just love the undulating pattern and the way the colors knit up. I am again using Kureyon, with one colorway as a main color and alternating with other colorways. I just knit one ball until I am done and then pick up another ball.

Another thing that completely drew me in was this shawl that I saw on Ravelry. As soon as I saw it, I thought OMG! my handpainted sock yarns would look amazing crocheted in this pattern. Of course, I only knew how to do granny squares. This shawl is crocheted lengthwise, and colors are changed as you run out of one ball and switch to another.

Literally within minutes of seeing this pattern, I jumped in the car and ran over to Barnes & Noble and purchased the book by Kathy Merrick -- of the "Babette" blanket from Vogue Knitting. I have to say this is one of my favorite crochet books. Kathy has done a wonderful job of creating fashionable updated pieces. I think this book is a must have for anyone who loves to crochet.

Well, since I had only done granny squares before, I decided to teach myself to crochet using Kathy Merrick's pattern. After about four unsuccessful starts, I all of a sudden had that AHAH! moment and I started to get it. Since this was my first attempt at something other than squares, I decided do to a smaller scarf, and I am liking the way it is turning out.

Felting has also been one of my interests and I have been tapping my creative side with some shawls and a scarf during my "time out". The thing I like about wet felting and needle felting is that you just start laying out fibers and then you let the project take you wherever you end up -- it's very fly by the seat of the pants. First shawl.

Here's a second shawl.

And a scarf.

So here are "some" of the things I have been spinning. Spinning is my favorite thing to do and I have been on overdrive and loving every minute of it. I have been doing some of my chunky novelty yarns using my "Pastiche" mixture. Here are a couple skeins:

Some "Pastiche" waiting to be spun -- maybe today, with the darkness and rain and wind pummeling my windows.

Having fun spinning coiled yarn -- inspired by Jacey Boggs' article from the Winter 2009 issue of Spin-Off.

And then I had some rovings I bought from Lisa Millman (Dicentra) last year at Madrona Fiber Retreat, and I have been wanting to spin these, so I did that the other day. These are merino/silk/angora. I plied her colorways "Periwinkle" and "Eowyn" -- just lovely. (430 yd., 3.6 oz.)

I also had some Dicentra "Edora", which I plied with my "Cranberries" colorway. This is superfine merino/tussah. Lisa's colors are brighter than mine and I love the way mine and hers ply together. (420 yd., 3.5 oz.)

For this skein, I spun a superfine merino in my colorway "Cowgirl Blues" and plied it with one of my random handpaints in a blend of alpaca/merino/silk. (566 yd., 4.9 oz.)

I wasn't kidding when I said I'd been spinning a lot. Here's a skein spun from two randomly handpainted rovings, one ply was baby camel/silk (50-50) and the other was merino/bombyx silk. (328 yd., 3.4 oz.)

And my most favorite of fiber to spin -- unbelievably soft pyrgora. I have two skeins and just can't make up my mind what to knit with it since it is more than special.

And I have planned some of my travels for 2010. I signed up for Golden Gate Fiber Institute's weeklong summer intensives. (Aug. 8th - 15th) I am taking Jacey Boggs' workshop on spinning novelty yarns and Abby Franquemont's workshop on spindle spinning. I hope to learn much more about both subjects. This will be my third summer at GGFI. It is adult fibery summer camp out on Point Bonita just north of San Francisco. I have had so much fun each summer that I just cannot pass up a chance to go again.

I also made my reservations at the Old Taos Guesthouse so I can attend the Taos Wool Festival, the first weekend of October. This is a fibery event that I absolutely love. I've gone the past two years and just love getting away to Northern New Mexico.

Guess I've rambled on enough, which is what happens when you haven't blogged for two months. I'm done for now.

2009-11-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

TAOS TRIP

At the end of September, my husband and I took a trip to Northern New Mexico to attend the 2009 Taos Wool Festival and to explore the area. We spent two nights in Chimayo, the weaving center of the area, and did some hiking in Ghost Ranch (Georgia O'Keefe's home). We hiked up Box Canyon and along the way saw some old Indian sweat lodges.

We also visited the Espanola Valley Arts Center and drove up to see Tierra Wool Works. From Chimayo, we journeyed north to Taos for the wool festival. We arrived early so that I could take a two-day workshop on dyeing with native plants at the dye studio of Luisa Gelenter, owner of LaLana Wools, a beautiful little shop in Taos. Here's a view from the LaLana dye studio -- it was a glorious day.

Here, Luisa (in green) lectures some of the students. We had 14 in attendance.

Measuring out a pound of dried marigolds.

Three of our many dyepots.

This is Mary-Alice, Luisa's assistant, lecturing on indigo, ready to immerse some of our yellow snakeweek skeins from day 1 into the indigo pot to create green.

Pulling the green skeins out of the indigo pot.

Our green skeins fresh out of the indigo dye bath.

Luisa let us forage on her property for Chamisa (a bush with yellow flowers) and for leaves from her peach trees. Below, we have pulled the peach leaves out of the dye pot and the yarn is ready to go in.

Peach leave pot with yarns simmering. Amazing color!

Here are some of the skeins hanging to dry: mullein, kota (Navajo tea), black walnut, snakeweed.

Skeins dyed with walnut hulls drying on racks.

Chamisa skeins drying.

Kota (Navajo tea) produced a beautiful rusty orange.

Indian paintbrush -- a beautiful champagne color.

Black walnut, chamisa, snakeweed, indigo.

Absolutely one of the best workshops I've taken: the teachers were wonderful and all of the students worked so well together. Hope this is offered next year -- I'd love to do this again.

TAOS WOOL FESTIVAL 2009

Saturday morning, we headed out early for the festival which is held at Kit Carson Park and we lucked out with beautiful weather. I had three destinations and I wanted to be there right when the festival opened up. The park was already full of early birds, but I managed to get everything I wanted before the crowds arrived.

First stop, Myrtle Dow's booth. I had heard she was going to have a booth this year for the first time in a while. Myrtle is a champion breeder of sheep from the Rocky Mountain areas. I bought a beautiful white Teeswater fleece -- this is a curly long wool.

Second stop was Kai Ranch Mohair (Lisa Shell) from Texas. I bought from Lisa in 2008 and, of course, wished I had gotten more from her. Her mohair is beautiful, is unbelievably nice quality, and she has an amazing color sense. I just had to stock up on Kai mohair curls and rovings. Just look at these gorgeous colors.

Like a fiber candy store. So hard to choose. I want some of each.

My third destination was the Rocky Mountain sheep breeders booth. Friends, Dawn and Mike DeFreese, from Casper, Wyoming, always bring the most beautiful fleeces. This year I bought two CVM's (California Variegated Mutant) fleeces, a white and a moorit. Just lovely.

Colorfully dyed wool all around.

The local spinning guild was there spinning.

I loved the colorful skeins of handspun mohair in this booth.

Here are a couple little kid mohair goats. Too cute!

I love the Taos Wool Festival because I see vendors there that I don't see at some of the other shows. I'm hoping to go again next year.

LAZY DAYS OF SPINNING

Since my last show on November 1st, I have immersed myself in spinning all of those rovings and fibers that I have been eyeing over the past few months while I was getting ready for shows and had little time for spinning.

On Thursday, the Winter 2009 issue of Spin Off arrived. As I flipped through it, one of the articles jumped out, hooked me and reeled me in -- Jacey Boggs' article on coiled spinning, which I read from beginning to end. After reading the article two more times, checking out the pictures, I just had to try. So today, I rummaged around in my stash of rovings and found some of my handpainted merino rovings. With Jacey's article by my side, I spun a thick and thin singles which I then plied with some silk/kid mohair laceweight from Habu Textiles. Here's my first attempt, which I think looks pretty good. And this is absolute FUN!!! Especially for a control freak fingering weight yarn spinner like me.

This is my second skein.

Yes, this is fun!

2009-11-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

ETSY SHOP UP AND RUNNING

Just a short post today to say that, after a month's hiatus, my Etsy store is back on line with lots of beautiful fibers and some of my gorgeous handspun yarns.

I'll be adding more fibers in the days to come -- some superwash blends, merino/yak, handpainted sock yarns, and some of my handknits and handwovens, which would make wonderful holiday gifts. My Etsy shop can be found at: http://CapistranoFiberArts.Etsy.com

Also, a reminder that our spinning group will be meeting on Friday, November 20th, at Common Threads in Encinitas, from around 10:00 a.m. until about 3:00 p.m. Anyone with a spinning wheel, drop spindle or even your knitting is welcome to join us.

2009-11-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

LAST SHOW OF THE YEAR!

Well, and whew!! the last fiber show of the year for Margie and me came and went yesterday -- the Torrance Fiber Fest -- hosted by the Southern California Handweavers' Assn. What a great job they do. This is an amazing one-day show with marvelous vendors. Despite dire reports on the economy, the show was literally a mob scene. It was wonderful to see so many fiber enthusiasts in the Southern California area, many who traveled distances to come to this show. We were happy to see all of the new vendors, too, as well as the regulars. Unfortunately, this is a once-a-year event, and if you missed it, you'll have to wait until next November. But, don't despair, many of the vendors have websites and can also be found on Etsy.com.

Margie and I arrived at 6:50 a.m. and had our booth set up an hour early so she had time for a leisurely cup of tea before the rush. Once the doors opened, we were practically nonstop busy, with a lull during the fashion show. Do we ever love this show.

Both of us had many skeins of our hand-dyed and handspun yarn. Here's a rack of Margie's beautifully spun mohair with curls.

Here's some of my fingering weight handspun skeins -- lots of merino with baby camel, cashmere, silk, and other luscious fibers.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the popularity of a new item I have been making up for shows this year -- my "Pastiche", which I use to spin up "fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants" chunky novelty yarns. Every skein is a one of a kind beauty. This is a concoction of beautiful fibers like merino, cashmere, alpaca, angora, kid mohair, mohair curls and cut up commercial novelty yarns like eyelash with some glitzy angelina tossed in. It's hard to photograph the bags of Pastiche and do them justice, but here are a few. I seem to sell out every time I bring these colorful bags.

And, of course, I had the big rack of handpainted rovings at the show. Most of the hanks on this side of the rack are superwash blueface leicester wool.

And I had regular blueface leicester as well as handpainted mixed (brown/white) BFL on this side.

So, now . . . . catch my breath, take a little rest, have a few glasses of wine, do some spinning and knitting for Christmas presents, and then in a few days, I hope to get my Etsy shop back up and running. I'm also looking forward to spinning again with my friends down at the Common Threads spinning group in Encinitas and getting back to the Wednesday night knit group.

2009-10-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

ARTISTIC LICENSE - COSTA MESA

I have been blog compromised recently as I wind up my preparation for two shows but I'm coming up for air to post about last weekend's Artistic License Fair. This is a wonderful juried crafts fair held annually at Estancia Park in Costa Mesa. The weather this year was beautiful. I enjoyed seeing so many friends who stopped by.

I brought my spinning wheel and spun on it to show that, yes, there are still people making yarn by their own hands. Many of the handknits and handwovens in my booth were made with my handspun yarns.

I had many skeins of handspun yarn and loads of handpainted rovings.

Handspun chunky novelty yarn was a hit. And my "Pastiche" fiber mixture that I put together for spinning chunky novelty yarn flew out of my booth -- I sold every bag I brought. Yeah!

Another surprise was the overwhelming interest in my felted shawls and scarves.

It was such fun to see some of my other vendor friends - Carrie Sommers - of Sommer Designs.

And Michelle Hoffee in her Lovecraft booth. She had beautiful handspun yarns. And shawls and scarves made with her yarns.

Michelle also brought her spinning wheel and was spinning.

TORRANCE FIBER FEST - SUNDAY, NOV. 1ST

My final show for the year is coming up this Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Torrance Cultural Center. This is the fiber fest hosted by the Southern California Handweavers Association -- a fun day with great local fiber vendors for weavers, spinners and knitters. There is always a raffle and a fashion show, too.

My booth will be stocked with handpainted rovings and yarns. My boothmate, Margie Bell, will have some of her beautiful handspun chunky mohair yarns and she'll bring lots of bags of washed fleece. We hope to see you there. For more information, check the handweavers' guild website: www.SCHG.org

2009-09-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

WEAVING WITH HABU

This week I decided to experiment a bit with some of the other Habu yarns in my stash. I put a warp on my loom sett at 15 epi and 9 inches wide. In both the warp and weft, I used Habu overtwisted wool crepe (white) and Habu wool and stainless steel (black). I alternated these yarns in one inch sections, both warp and weft. I used a very light hand in weaving to create a gauzy fabric. Here is the scarf just off the loom -- very gauzy and black and white squares.

A close up view.

After taking the scarf off the loom, I laid it out and painted it with some dyes and then steamed it to set the dyes. As soon as it was out of the steamer pot, I placed it in some cold water and then hot soapy water and agitated it vigorously to full it. Here's the finished scarf. Quite gauzy, artsy and light as a feather. I like!

I am really having fun with the unique and unusual Habu yarns. Excited about trying more of them.

2009-09-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

THINGS I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS WEEK

I finally started working on a sweater with the yarn I spun from the gray CVM fleece I bought at Taos Wool Festival last October. Ever since my very first handspun sweater, I have been wanting to reproduce that sweater again, mainly because my spinning has so improved since that time. This is the "Lori's Jacob's Windows Sweater" that appears in Lynne Vogel's "The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters" book (pg. 68). Using Lynne's diagram and her great knit-to-fit workshop list, I am knitting the current sweater on size US5 needles instead of US8 needles, so I have had to make appropriate adjustments in number of cast-on stitches, rows, etc. I have also made the sweater somewhat longer and am thinking of adding a shawl collar to this sweater. Here's the progress so far.

Here's a close up.

This picture shows the other handspun yarns I am using for the windows. The apple green is from the natural dye workshop I took with Darlene Hayes and is a yellow (mullein?) yarn overdyed with indigo. The white was spun from a Foxfire Fibers cormo wool/silk roving. The other three yarns were spun from my own handpainted rovings of merino, cashmere, angora, and silk.

The other project this week has been handpainting a new sock yarn that I will have available at the Torrance Fiber Fest on Sunday, November 1st. This is a fingering weight superwash bluefaced leicester yarn. Takes the dye beautifully.

This pattern is the "Waving Lace Socks" pattern from Interweave's "Favorite Socks" book.

Because this yarn is a bit thinner than the superwash merino sock yarn I dye, I knit this sock on a US1 needle, which seemed to work quite nicely. For a lacey scarf project, I think a US4 might do.

And I am getting excited about attending the Taos Wool Festival again on October 3rd and 4th and our week-long visit to northern New Mexico. We will stay two nights in Chimayo and five in Taos. I signed up for a two-day workshop with Luisa Galanter, owner of La Lana Wools in Taos. It will be held at her dye studio and the title of the workshop is: Native Dyes: Consider the Flowers of the Field. Oh my!! does that sound like fun or what? I can hardly wait. We'll also visit some of the weaving shops and the Espanola Fiber Arts Gallery and Tiera Wool Works.

We're still squeezing the last drops out of summer. Headed down to San Clemente State Park beach yesterday afternoon -- me with my knitting basket and Paul with his boogie board. He spent some time in the water and said it was quite warm. We spotted some tremendous whale spouts out a ways off the coast. They were very high and columnar -- and we're pretty sure they were from blue whales. Yes, we do get blue whales off the coast here and especially since this has been deemed an El Nino year. Quite exciting to consider that the largest mammal in the world was so close.

2009-09-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

HANDWOVEN SCARF #2

Yesterday, I wove the second scarf off the warp I had put on my loom. This time, I used a hand-dyed variegated wool yarn from Plain and Fancy Wool Co. This was a laceweight and in their colorway "Stained Glass". I bought this yarn at the Taos Wool Festival in 2008. I wove this one longer so it was 92" long before finishing and 8" wide.

Here is the scarf just off the loom -- very see through and gauzy.

After fulling it, I have set it out on the rack to dry in the warm breeze.

After fulling, this scarf shrunk to 82" in length and 6" in width. It has a nice drapey hand.

Here is a close up.

I just love weaving with the Habu yarns with stainless steel in them. And so . . . I'm off to warp the loom again, but with some other Habu yarns in my stash.

2009-09-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

HANDWOVEN SCARF #1

Well, I finished weaving the first scarf off the loom. It was 8 1/2" wide and 76" long when I took it off. I wanted to full (felt) it to make it shrink some, so I put hot water with Dawn dish soap in my laundry sink, threw the scarf in and began agitating it with my hands. I wrung it out, balled it up and threw it many times onto the counter. Here it is hanging on a rack drying.

After fulling and drying, the scarf ended up 5 1/2" wide and 65" long, and because it has lots of merino and angora in it, it is soft and drapey. Here are two photos, one with the flash --

And one without the flash.

Here's a close up that shows the little windows of Habu silk and stainless steel yarn that didn't full but puckered.

Tomorrow, the next scarf. Haven't decided what color of handspun to use -- maybe something darker, purples.

2009-09-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

FELTING CONTINUES

My fascination with creating felt continues. Here are a couple of new pieces I have done this past week. This is more than fun. The first one is a shawl.

I have been having a great time making a felted piece and then adding stitching and needle felting. It's almost like painting with fiber.

The next one is a scarf and also includes some stitching and needle felting.

A lot of the handpainted roving used in these two garments were from my stash of Chasing Rainbows merino/bombyx rovings (by Nancy Finn up in Mendocino County). Nancy's colors are different than mine and they worked perfect in these garments.

Here's a close up of silk gauze that was felted onto the face of the scarf and fringe which was prefelted and then needle felted onto the edge.

Another goal for this past week was to warp my loom. At Golden Gate Fiber Institute in July, I wove a scarf with my handspun yarn and Habu's silk/stainless steel yarn. I was so taken with the result that I have been wanting to do this again. I hand-dyed some of the Habu yarn in violet and hand-dyed some Toots Le Blanc merino/angora in sour greens. The chunky skein in the picture is handspun yarn, which I spun from one of my merino/silk/angora rovings in a colorway I call "Violets Marl".

Here is the woven piece in progress on the loom -- 9 inches in width. I warped the loom for two scarves and this is the first one. I will probably use a different handspun color for the second scarf. This is woven with a loose hand so that when I "full" the scarf, there will be room for shrinkage.

Stayed tuned for the finished scarves -- hopefully they will be completed in the next few days.

It has been hotter than hades for the past week and a half. We are all sick to death of the heat. My husband and I have been going down to the beach in the evening and taking dinner with us. Here's a parting shot of one such evening sunset. It was divine.

Don't forget that we have our Common Threads spinning group down in Encinitas on Friday, September 18th -- 10:00 a.m. until about 3:00 p.m.

2009-08-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

FUN STUFF

I continue to work on fibery things that I have been wanting to do -- while working on getting ready for the Artistic License Fair (Oct. 23rd and 24th) and the Torrance Fiber Fest (Sunday, Nov. 1st). I have been dyeing some new fibers, including merino/yak (50-50) and some mixed Blueface Leicester wool and superwash BFL. Here's a sampling of what I'll have on hand at those shows:

Last Friday, our little spinning group met down in Encinitas at Common Threads yarn store. We had the largest turnout yet, 10 spinners. How cool is that?

A couple days before that, my friend, Miryha, and I got together to do some lichen dyeing using the lichen we collected on our way back from Oregon in June. We used some undyed Blueface Leicester yarn. One batch was simmered for about 24 hours in a crockpot.

The other batch was done on the side burner of my barbeque, since this type of dyeing seems to make quite a smell in the house.

Here is the finished yarn. The skeins on the right are from the crockpot.

In between all of my other projects, I managed to finish my "Badlands" scarf -- knit with my handspun using Rovings.com polwarth handpainted roving.

And here is another felting work in progress. This is from the hand-dyed silk chiffon that I posted a week ago.

Close up.

Here's the back.

I must like doing this felting because I ordered more silk gauze and more needle felting supplies from Dharma today.

And really good news from the weatherman -- a heat wave is on the way -- actually, it's arrived. Temps will be in the 90's and 100's. I am so ready for Fall.

The other good news I learned this week is that Morgaine has posted the dates for Golden Gate Fiber Institute for Summer 2010: August 8th through 15th. I am so there!

2009-08-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Week of Fun

This week I have been just messing around knitting, spinning and dyeing -- doing some things I have been wanting to do and a little bit of experimentation. One thing I wanted to do was dye some of the "mixed" blueface leicester roving that arrived about a week ago. This is a mix of ecru and brown -- heather like. I am always telling my spinner friends to ply two very different colorways together to see what happens, because you might be very surprised at how beautiful the yarn turns out. So . . . . just to prove the point, I dyed two quite different rovings:

Here are the singles on separate bobbins:

And then plied --

And skeined -- wow, do those two colorways look good together. What a fabulous pair of socks this skein would make!

I had been forever eyeing a skein of Polwarth handspun that I had spun months ago from some of Francine's "Badlands" colorway (Rovings.com). I found a chevron pattern that I really liked and began knitting this scarf. I really love knitting this kind of pattern because the colors create bands that look like you have changed yarns but with the handspun, there is no need to change yarns and no ends to weave in. One of the best reasons to spin your own yarn.

Another thing on my "to do" list is to continue working on the felted vest I started at Golden Gate Fiber Institute. This is a work in progress as I continue to add top stitching with my handspun yarn. Hem stitching to clean up the raw edges:

Stitching on the back.

Full view -- front and back. Buttons and beading to come. Armholes need to be finished, too.

Another thing on my lengthy list was to break out the silk chiffon that I had in a drawer in my studio -- the same silk that Loyce Ericson dyed for us for our felting class at Golden Gate Fiber Institute. I wanted to dye the silk I have and then do another felting project using the skills I learned in Loyce's class. This, again, is an experiment and a work in progress and here's what I have so far. Silk chiffon with dye, ready to be zapped in the microwave:

Yippee! It worked -- my silk fabric drying in the sun.

Silk fabric all dry and ready to use. Here's one of my merino/bombyx silk hand-dyed rovings that I will use in this project -- probably end up being a shawl.

And did I mention that Loyce's class was one of funnest (?) classes I have ever taken. I would take any of her classes again in a heartbeat.

Pictures from Golden Gate Fiber Institute

While perusing the Carolina Homespun group on Ravelry, I saw that Heather had posted pictures she took of some of the classes and Point Bonita, many from her dyeing class with Darlene Hayes. If you missed GGFI this summer, are thinking about going in the future, want to see what it's like, check out these pictures. They give you a nice sampling of the fun to be had. I am ready to sign up for next summer.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hlflanagan/TheGoldenGateFiberInstitute#

Spinning at Common Threads - Aug. 21st

Just a reminder that a few of us spinners will be meeting at Common Threads in Encinitas this coming Friday, August 21st, from about 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Anyone who wants to join us with their wheel is welcome.

Sunday afternoon -- gotta go have some more fun!

2009-08-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

MONDAY MUSINGS

I saw these pictures on someone's blog today and just had to share. Is this the handspinner's dream wedding? Apparently this bride made her wedding dress using fleece and locks from her own award winning handspinner's flock of rare Lincoln Longwool sheep -- she's from the UK. I think this is one of the best wedding dresses I have ever seen.

Speaking of fleece, I have made a significant dent in the washed fleeces I have piled up around here. My goal is to card all of my fleeces (all five) before I go to the Taos Wool Festival in early October so I can justify buying more. This is a charcoal gray CVM that I bought from Windy Hill Farms (Dawn and Mike DeFreece) of Casper, Wyoming. A lovely fleece with only a few pieces of grass -- so, so nice -- about 2 1/2 pounds worth.

As you can see, I have started spinning this up. I have another two full bobbins on the lazy kate waiting to be plied. This is going to be a sweater, probably with cables and horn buttons.

I came home from Golden Gate Fiber Institute to find that my tomato bushes had gone berserk -- all tomatoes ripening at once. I have three more BIG bowls of these beauties, ready to be made into marinara sauce. I so love homegrown tomatoes and once you grow your own, you can never eat another pale pink store bought tomato.

A beautiful palm down at the beach. I love the lacey fronds of flowers hanging down.

And here's why I love living in South Orange County. Yes, there is traffic, lots of people, but in 10 minutes, every summer evening, we can be down at the shore eating our dinner on the beach and watching the sun go down. Yes, it would be hard to beat this.

2009-08-04T10:26:00.001-07:00

GOLDEN GATE FIBER INSTITUTE - 2009

On Saturday, July 25th, I headed up to the SFO Bay Area to attend week-long workshops at the Golden Gate Fiber Institute -- the brainchild of Morgaine Wilder (Carolina Homespun) and Judith MacKenzie McCuin. My husband came along for the ride up and our first stop was the Los Olivos Grocery in the heart of Santa Barbara County wine country for a great breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. This little grocery is a very laid back stop for relaxing with an awesome view of the blue skies, vineyards and surrounding hills.

I could definitely get serious about this area.

And here I am arriving a the Point Bonita YMCA camp, the location of GGFI workshops. This is a rare sunny day with a view back to the city and the Golden Gate Bridge. Point Bonita sticks out in the ocean on the ocean side of the bridge, is quite isolated, and a wonderful place to just focus energies on creativity. And they feed us, too, so we don't have to think about anything but our classes.

For most of the week, we were hunkered down in our warm clothes, handknit socks, scarves, hats, gloves as the fog came in and receded by the hour. Pretty drizzly, cold and clammy for much of the week. A view looking the other way towards the headlands and the ocean.

Donna - a hardy spinner sitting outside our spinning room.

Spinning class with Judith. The focus of this class was spinning yarn for weaving. Theresa is seated at her rigid heddle loom (before breakfast no less) and has begun her weaving.

My felting instructor, Loyce, was in my spinning class spinning on her Lendrum wheel, which she dyed a beautiful green. I had never seen a green spinning wheel before. It was just lovely and it was so Loyce.

Judith shared her wonderful spindle whorl collection with us. These were primitive, carved and spin as well today and the day they were made. She has collected these during her travels all over the "whorled". Most of these fit in the palm of your hand.

Judith also brought along her little handmade Royal Rat, who was our mascot during the class.

Here is my project from the spinning class. I spun a fingering weight two-ply yarn for use in both my warp and weft -- handpainted merino/silk/angora. The sett was 12 ends per inch, 9 inches wide, and I combined my handspun with Habu silk and stainless steel laceweight.

Here is the finished scarf after it was fulled and shrunk. I lost about 40% in width but not too much in length. A grand experiment that went right. I am ready to do this again!!

Close up -- see the little windows of silk and stainless steel.

On to felting class with Loyce Ericson. The focus of this class was to design and make a felted vest out of strips of felt. My pictures will hopefully show some of the steps along the way from the beginning of laying out the fiber to the finished felted product. Here Theresa has begun to lay out three layers of wool. Many of our pieces were laid out on a length of very thin silk chiffon onto which the fibers fused.

The next step is to wet the fibers, roll them up into a piece of matting, and start to slowly roll the matting until the fibers start to come together and do not pull apart. This is pre-felting and we did this with each of the strips to go into the vest. Here is Theresa's piece after it has been assembled and it is ready for the final felting process.

Here are a couple of Dixie's pre-felted strips.

A few of Dixie's felted strips. She decided to assemble the pieces after the final felting process was complete.

Marta decided to do a shawl rather than a vest. This is her pre-felted piece.

Marta's felted shawl after finishing the felted process. [Sorry I cut off half your head.] Sheila is holding her pre-felted vest in luscious fuschia colors.

Here is Barbara working on felting her vest. One step requires bunching up the wet garment and slamming it onto the table numerous times. You can let out your aggressions on the wool because the process requires you to really beat up your project, but it works to bring the garment together and to create felt from those loose fibers.

This is Christine's "tide pool" colored pre-felted garment. The colors were scrumptious.

Here Pam is using a tool with needles to do some needle felting onto her vest before she does the final felting process.

Brenda is using a steam iron to stretch and smooth out some of the places in her vest.

Brenda's vest is almost done. She included pockets and side ties.

Ann is trying on her damp vest and Loyce is helping with the fit.

Below, Loyce is stretching the edges of Ann's vest to accentuate the ruffled edging.

The back of Ann's vest.

My vest project is below. I ended up using seven strips. Three for the back and two for each side of the front. Here I have started to lay out layers of merino wool onto the matting for one of my strips.

Here is the back after pre-felting. I stitched the three strips together by hand and then needle felted over the seam areas to hold them down and to prevent them from curling up during the final felting process.

A close up -- still loose and not felt yet.

This is the pre-felted front. Again, the panels are stitched together as the back and needle felted -- the fiber is still loose and the garment has not shrunk to size. I laid across a couple of grid panels that I felted to perhaps include as part of the vest. Still thinking that through.

Here is my vest after the final felting process. First the front.

A close up.

The finished felted back. And the garment is now ready for embellishing -- embroidery, beads, buttons and such.

I am sorry I didn't get a lot of pictures of the other classes but there was a horoscope weaving class with Bonnie Tarses. Believe it or not, some of the weavers managed to weave 5 yards of gorgeous fabric. Jean DeCoster taught a class on designing and sizing a garment to fit.

Darlene Hayes taught natural dyeing and included in the class was lichen dyeing in the crockpot and some dyeing with natural materials on silk scarves. Here are some of Heather's skeins hanging to dry and her indigo dyed rubber gloves.

Aside from the amazing classes at GGFI, Morgaine had her Carolina Homespun store set up with lots and lots of fibery goodies. And after dinner every evening, we all assembled in the "big" room for announcements, show and tell, and door prizes. There were door prizes galore and I think almost everyone won at least two or three. What marvelous fun!! Then we all retired to our various classrooms for spinning, felting or weaving until late into the night. I think I managed 5 hours sleep a night and it's going to take a few days to catch up.

During my stay at Golden Gate Fiber Institute, I managed to finish a knitting project I started the day before leaving. I aptly named this scarf the Bonita Headlands Scarf since it is reminiscent of the colors of the natural foilage on the headlands. I used my handpaints, handspun alpaca/merino/silk yarn for this scarf.

Teary eyed was I as I drove along the little road out of Point Bonita back to civilization -- leaving a little piece of heaven behind. I was jarred back to reality as I merged onto the 101 freeway south. It was slow going over the Golden Gate Bridge, but the perk was the awesome view over the railing. So seldom do I get to look out over the bridge when the traffic is speeding along. Bumper to bumper on the Golden Gate is a treat.

I am already thinking about and looking forward to Summer 2010 at Golden Gate Fiber Institute. It can hardly get better so I won't miss it.

2009-06-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

BLACK SHEEP GATHERING -- JUNE 19th - 21st -- Eugene, OR

This is my last post before heading off to the Black Sheep Gathering up at the Lane County Fairgounds in Eugene, Oregon. The show is scheduled for next weekend, Friday, June 19th through Sunday, June 21st. Blarney Yarn (Miryha Runnerstrom) will join me in Booths 49 and 50 this year. Please stop by and see us. We'll have loads of handpainted rovings in many different blends; handpainted sock yarn; hand-dyed cotton/bamboo yarn by Miryha; and many of our own patterns. We'll also have some beautiful handcrafted knitting bags by Laurie Weinsoft from Oregon. Here are some of my handpainted merino/silk rovings, ready to be labeled: "Chili Peppers", "Embers" and "Golden Eye".

The Black Sheep Gathering is one of my favorite fiber/wool festivals. I'm hoping to come home with a couple of new fleeces from the big fleece sale. Here's a skein of superfine merino yarn I spun last week, using two of my colorways plied together: "Brandywine" and "Sangria".

Another skein spun last week -- randomly handpainted baby camel/silk plied with merino/cashmere.

Lovely Miryha kindly offered to model one of my patterns, "Margie's Braided Cable Tam", which we will have available in our booth. This version was knit using my handpainted sock yarn.

And these adorable little booties are "Lois' Baby Booties", designed by Miryha, knitted with yarn I spun from a merino/cashmere roving I handpainted. This pattern, along with 100-yard balls of handspun yarn, will be available in our booth.

So we look forward to seeing many of our fiber friends come next weekend. For those who can't make it to Black Sheep Gathering, I will be reopening my Etsy shop and posting many new items upon my return -- after June 24th. www.CapistranoFiberArts.Etsy.com

2009-05-31T08:16:00.000-07:00

BLACK SHEEP GATHERING -- JUNE 19TH - 21ST

In between all of the things taking up my life right now, I have been working diligently every day to dye up beautiful fibers for the booth at Black Sheep Gathering. (Booths 49 and 50) BSG will be held at the Lane County Fairgrounds in Eugene, OR, from June 19th through 21st. Lots of classes and tons of vendors. This is a wonderful show with many indy dyers, lovely spindles and wheels available. And some of the best fleeces from the area will be for sale at the wool show. Here's a rack of blueface leicester wool drying out in my backyard, and I will have loads of other fibers, too, as well as my handpainted sock yarn.

I will be sharing my booth this year with my friend, Miryha, who has a hand-dyed fiber business called Blarney Yarns. [Blarneyyarn.com and BlarneyYarn.Etsy.com] Miryha's hand-dyed organic cotton/bamboo was recently highlighted in the Knit 1 Magazine and she'll be bringing this yarn to BSG.

This is lovely Miryha modeling one of my new hat patterns, "Margie's Braided Cable Tam", which will be available in our booth. This was knit up in my superwash merino sock yarn, but I've also used my handspun yarn to knit this hat. Miryha also promises a cute baby bootie pattern. We are hoping to put together some baby bootie kits with the pattern and our handspun yarn for anyone who wants to try knitting with handspun.

Here are bobbins of two of my colorways that will be available in our booth, "Chili Peppers" and "Crayola".

I love the result of plying two different colorways together. Here's the two-ply yarn on the bobbin.

I used this skein to crochet the last five to six rounds of a baby afghan. I began the center of this little blanket with "Crayola" plied on itself.

And I used five other balls of miscellaneous handspun from my stash as the blanket grew.

The skein below was spun using my colorways "Brandywine" and "Sangria" plied. This is superfine merino wool and these colorways will also be available in our BSG booth.

With our ususal "June gloom" in full swing, my house is full of racks of drying fiber since it is wet and misty outside -- not the hot dry Southern California we're known for. But things are getting done and soon I'll be ready to pack up the van and head up to Oregon with Miryha riding shotgun. For those who can't make it to BSG, I will be restocking my Etsy shop with lots of good spinning fibers when I return on June 24th. CapistranoFiberArts.Etsy.com

Just a mention of a few other fibery things. The Irvine Art Center will be holding its annual studio art show at Heritage Park (the site of the art center) on Saturday, June 6th. The guild to which I belong, South Coast Weavers and Spinners, will have a booth there and we will be selling members' creations and will have demos on spinning and weaving.

Also, I must mention the Golden Gate Fiber Institute that I will be attending in the Bay Area at the end of July for week-long intensive workshops. This is the brainchild of Morgaine Wilder of Carolina Homespun and Judith MacKenzie. I attended last summer and had the best time ever -- natural dyeing with Darlene Hayes and spinning with Judith M. The gourmet food was to "dye" for. This summer I'm taking spinning again as well as felting with Loice Ericson. If you want to have a week of unfettered creativity, fabulous food, walks on the Point Bonita headlands, and best of all, hanging out with a wonderful group of fibery people, GGFI is worth checking out.