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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.