More Vacation, blending fiber for graduated yarn color

After a week back at work, my friend Deb and I met in NC at my brother's.  Its still nice here. Here's the lace that's not knitted

There are some new animals

I suggested the names of "Midnight" and "Ink" but that was rejected.  They may wind up as "kitty 2" and "kitty 3".

Deb is helping me to improve my hand spindling techniques.   She is also teaching me how to make my own graduated color yarn.

HOW TO BLEND TOP TO SPIN GRADUATED COLOR YARN

Pick four colors of top, split in half

 Move half of each color to the side for later.

Pick the first two colors that you want to grade from one to the next, split in to five piles

1) 100% one color A

2) 75% color A, 25% color B

3) 50% color A, 50% color B

4) 25% color A, 75% color B

5) 100% color B

Repeat with all colors, making similar piles, steps 2 through 5.  You'll have some left over.

 Within each pile, pull apart and put back together gently to mix by hand. 

Put in baggies and label cause you'll soon be unable to recognize. Decide if you want to spin the left over at the  beginning and the end or wherever, or save for another project.

Spin the best you can.  IF YOU'RE ON VACATION you use a drop spindle. Repeat with the other halves and make two ply if you want.  If you do and you've spun evenly, the color sequences SHOULD match up.  

Admire your friend's spinning technique.

Deb also taught me how to spin from the fold. 

Decide that you REALLY need the other type of spindle that your friend has (top whorl). 

Get tired and go work on some knitting.

Have a glass of wine, get tired, go to bed to rest up for jewelry casting class (more on that later). 

 

Book Report: "Trafficking in Sheep"

I enjoy reading about raising sheep and I just finished Anne Barclay Priest's book entitled Trafficking in Sheep.

Over a period of years, Anne bought an island in Nova Scotia, and decided to keep sheep on it.  I thought about this and it made sense, natural boundaries and all. (It of course put me in mind of the on North Ronaldsay in Scotland).  And, as it turns out, lotsa people around the world keep sheep on islands.

Anne kept Scottish Blackface sheep, which I saw in Scotland.

Not very soft, but practical.

Anne later build a home in Greenville, in upstate New York, where she would take her first year ewes to prevent the ram on the island from impregnating them, as the girls needed to be two years old before having lambs.

I googled Anne's name, hoping to get in touch with her, and discovered some information about her on this lovely blog. Here is another entry with great photos of sheep handling and shearing.

Anne later kept Border Leicesters on her farm in Greenville, enjoying the softer wool for knitting sweaters for herself.  She  mentions briefley in the book that she also was a spinner and weaver.

Another google hit, revealed Anne Barclay Priest's brief obituary in the New York Times, which indicates that she passed away last November (2010) while feeding her sheep.  So lovely that she published this memoir for us.

This book probably would be most interesting for those of us frustrated by not being able to be a real shepherdess ( a genre entitled agrarian fantasy by goodreads.com!), and also by those who already are. 

This all puts me in mind of my favorite Billy Collins poem

Flock

It has been calculated that
each copy of the Gutenburg Bible
required the skins of 300 sheep.

I can see them

squeezed into the holding pen

behind the stone building

where the printing press is housed.

All of them squirming around

to find a little room

and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible to count them.

And there is no telling which one of them

will carry the news

that the Lord is a Shepherd,

one of the few things

they already know.

Billy Collins

Vacation, Garden Shawl progress

My brother lives west of Asheville in a little town in the mountains of North Carolina

I'm here with preferred company for a week of hiking local trails

There are lots of fun things to do here other than hiking, for example

admire a 1942 Ford pickup that my bro is working on for a friend

 (it's my next ride)

look at wildflowers

talk to animals

(well, gumby's not an animal but I couldn't help it)

My KSH garden shawl is progressing, thanks again Evelyn

Yes indeed, I am coming back later this month for a week at John C. Campbell Folkschool...

My Peruvian Hand Spindle

I am trying to learn more about drop spindles.

When in Peru in summer 2010 I bought this little drop spindle

 I just discovered Abby Franquemont's blog.  In this post she discusses these Peruvian low whorl spindles.  Apparently the dark marks on mine may have been created by woodburning.  And apparently they are hard to find in the US, easier to go to Peru to purchase one. 

I could learn alot more about spinning if I actually took the time to read more of Abby's blog.  But the post I mention is fascinating, and Abby talks about how to easily make a similar spindle of your own with a trip to Home Depot or similar.

I bought my spindle above at the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco in Chinchero

 Here are some of the ladies spinning on the same sort of spindle:

And a poorly labelled but interesting video, courtesy of Youtube

 At another branch of the Center in Cusco, on a main boulevard

Could I look any happier?  I am wearing a bit of backstrap weaving, which was done by a schoolchild!

 I might recommend this

it's available here.

It has alot of basic spinning information for the novice not very good spinner like me.  Also some direct projects for knitting with handspun.  Abby has a couple of articles in it too, including one on high vs. low whorl spindles. 

Tiur scarf

My sister was an occasional knitter before she had twins.  Two weeks ago she dropped off two VERY big bags of yarn, some of which was mine to begin with, clearly given to her pre-pregnancy in an effort to destash.  Drat.  However, there is some nice yarn in there including a mound of Tiur, which was not something I had given her.

Now I've noted before how much I like Tiur and how well I think it does in lace, with its mohair content.  Low and behold, as I went through the de-de-stashed stash, I discovered a completed scarf that sister had done, all crumbled up.  Never one to back off from a blocking project, I grabbed my wool wash and blocking wires and got to work.

It's kind of a fan and feather thing with some yarn overs in between. The scarf is from Dalegarn 138 and does with this sweater.

Sorry, it's out of print.

OK, so I am starting a new shawl, photos in the future, and was trying to find some info on triangular shawls in Shetland.  Went to the Shetland Museum website, and located this interesting photo archive at their site, including old photos of spinning, fine lace, hap shawls.  Check it out.  I was at in Shetland two summers ago with Joyce James and made new friends, had a blast in Scotland.  I want to knit like a productive lass.

Hat thing

I am still working on hats for boys who are traveling to coldish places this summer.  Son R picked out the Utopia Cable Hat available here.  Thank you Smariek for a very nice free pattern. We ventured to Michael's.  He assured me that he would be warm enough without real wool, and besides liked the shine of the Red Heart Soft.  He picked two colors, gray and a mossy green.

I completed one in green but it was too short.  So, started again with the gray, and did 2" of ribbing before starting the cable pattern.  Much better.  He likes it!

I plan to pickup stitches on the green one and add ribbing, so he'll have two.

This same talented person baked this for my birthday

And here is a view of the sunset at Port Royal Sound taken from the "north end" of Hilton Head Island last night

Spinning churro

I am not a very good spinner, and am lousy at maintaining my wheel.  When it comes down to it, I often enjoy knitting more with commercial yarns.  Consistent tension and drawing are not my aptitudes.  However, I love the process of holding the fiber and drawing it out. 

I don't often use my drop spindles, but I have a few of them.  I really am fond of my Turkish spindle.  I LOVE that is makes a center pull ball as I wind on.  Mine was crafted by Ed Jenkins.  Beautiful wood and well balanced.

Matching a project to handspun or more precisely spinning enough for a particular project is also not my forte.  I can't see myself ever spinning enough for a sweater.  I'd rather just spin, and then do a top down shawl or somesuch, and hope I have enough for a lace edge.  I got lucky with my spring shawl.

I may have helped to alleviate this challenge with some Navaho churro roving, because I have so much of it.  My friend Cassie and her husband Kurt have a farm called Little Creek Plantation in Brunson SC, and keep  churros.  Son R and I visited a couple of years ago.  Here's a photo in her barn

and here's a photo of Cassie that I love; she's giving some poor sheep a dose of antibiotic

Here is information on churros from Cassie and Kurt's website, and here is some from wikipedia.

About two years ago I bought a whole sheep's worth of fleece, it's lovely creamy yellowy white.  Somewhere I have the name of the ewes whose fleece this is.  I have alot, and I do mean alot of it.  So, if I persist, I should have enough to do something and finish it, including lace edge.  The photo below is one of maybe 5 large balls of roving that I have.

I have spun some on the wheel, but this month I started some using my Turkish spindle. It's not the softest type of fleece, but maybe it's lack of slippery quality makes it a little easier to control.

Here's a little ball on the spindle

And here it is with the spindle taken apart and the ball slipped off.  It's so clever.