Washing One Last Fleece for the Season

I wasn’t going to buy any fleeces this year, since Maryland Sheep and Wool was canceled, and how am I supposed to buy fleece without my fleece concierges at Maryland?

But then Carol Densmore of Cross Wind Farm put up some of her BFL fleeces. Carol has beautiful BFLs. And just like that Steffi’s fleece was heading to my house. I am determined not to winter with a dirty fleece in the house. M*ths love dirty fleece the most. I will be washing this fleece over the weekend.

The three things I wouldn't be without for fleece washing are:

1) Mesh bags, also called laundry bags. I use the zip-close kind in hte large or extra large size. I put about a pound of fleece in each bag.

2) 5 gallon paint buckets, kitty litter buckets work great too. I wash the fleece in these instead of a sink or tub. I wash one bag per bucket.

3) Screens. I was lucky enough to score some textile screens from the university's anthropology mueseum when they were remodeling, but sliding door screens or window screens work great too. I balance them accross chairs outdoors to dry my fleece.

My runner up must-have is a top loading washer with a spin cycle. After I wash my fleece I spin out the bags (this is why you want zip-close bags, don’t ask), then spread then on my screens to dry.

I always pick at my fleeces, I know it’s been skirted already, but I still like to touch it all over. This one has a very long staple, I may comb instead of card. If you know me you know that is a bold statement. I may use my hackle.

I do my washing when it’s warm, then I do prepping when the weather is colder. I have 3 other fleeces to prep, and natural dyeing plans for one..

I'm Taking a Class: Weaving Tapestry on Little Looms

It took me a bit to realize that this is the perfect time to take online classes and listen to lectures and generally fill my brain with things I want to learn. I took the KNITSONIK Bullet Journaling class, and have been watching lectures from New York Fashion Month.

I have always wanted to take a tapestry weaving class with Rebecca Mezoff. She is a talented tapestry artist and has an incredible book coming out next month - The Art Of Tapestry Weaving.

I decided there is no time like the present and signed up for her Weaving Tapestry on Little Looms class. I plan on sharing my adventure here, first working through the class with commercial yarn, then , of course, spinning my own yarns for tapestry weaving. It will be a process that I can do a little at time, and I need that right now.

Of course, I went straight out and bought my tools.

I am not going to lie to you, one of the reasons I wanted to take this class is to have a reason to buy some of Alexandra Iosub’s exquisite tapestry bobbins. I have been lusting after these for years. I told her to choose the wood (within the category exotic wood) and left it to her as to how they were carved.

I was going to use a fork as my beater, but yesterday I ordered a Super Mini Weaving Beater from Threads Through Time.

I am sure that beautiful tools will make me a better tapestry weaver.

I’m using Harrisville Highland yarn. The photo show yarns from a casual sweep of my stash. I knew my love (and stash) of tweedy, crunchy wool would come in handy one day.

I’ll be using Mirrix Saffron Pocket Loom, because it has the ability to tension. I do not want floppy warp threads.

I bought cotton seine twine from the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Kansas.

Let me know if you have any tapestry weaving tips for me.

I can’t wait to start!

Curious about the class? There’s a preview video at the bottom of this page.

Interested in taking a class with me? I am teaching three classes at Virtual Vogue Knitting Live October 8, 10, 11.

Magpie in Irish Tension and Spinning Singles

I switched my Daedelous Magpie from Scotch (flyer led) to Irish (bobbin led) tension last week. It was so easy, I think it took me 15 minutes, and that included double checking instructions to make sure I was doing it correctly.

Getting my hands to remember how to spin in Irish tension was another story. I don't have an Irish tension wheel, and don't use Irish tension on my Matchless much. I won't lie there was a bit of tug-a-war, before I finally took the brake band off, then it was much smoother for me. The Magpie has a strong and steady pull.

What is a favorite yarn of mine that is happiest when it's quickly pulled onto the bobbin? Low-twist singles. I grabbed a braid of BFL from Frabjous Fibers (the color is Tourmaline) and spun. This is a prefect set up for low twist. It took some discussion between my hands and the ammount of twist, but I found the sweet spot, and I burned through four ounces in no time.

Here's the yarn before I finish it, just a few kinks and barely a twist in the skein. I soaked and whacked it, which helped the BFL to bloom and fuzz and stabilized the singles a bit. It's about 6-8 WPI.

The Irish set up on the Magpie is great for low twist yarn, I could dial my twist way down and the strong pull got my yarn right on the bobbin. I'll be spinning more yarns this way. My next experiments with this wheel will be with textured and art yarn.

Book Alert: Journeys in Natural Dyeing, and Ordering from Oxford

I write about new fiber books for Knitty and on this blog, so every once in a while I get a lovely package of books from a publisher or designer. I love books, my house is filled with books on shelves, library carts, and in pecarious towers.

I especially like books on anything to do with textiles and fiber arts. On occasion there is a book that really thrills me. One of those books hit my desk this week.

I haven't even finished reading it and I want to make sure that it is on your book radar (it is totally a thing!). Journeys in Natural Dyeing:Techniques for Creatng Color at Home by Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez with Sarah Ollikkala Jones is a great book.

It is beautiful, it is interesting, and it is useful.

A very short description: Kristine and Adrienne traveled to Iceland, Mexico, Japan, and Indonesia and visited with natural dyers who dye with local materials

They came home and wrote in great and easy to follow (and replicate) detail about how to make dyes out of materials local to Oakland, CA where they live; hundreds of different shades.

I will write more when I finish reading the book, but so far it has helped to transport me out of the blahs I keep sinking into.

Reading about textile arts from around the world written by masters of the craft gives me hope for the future of our crafts.

I have recently discovered you can order books from Blackwell's in Oxford (yes, the Oxford of Lyra, Morse, Lewis and Brideshead Revisited) with free shipping to the US. I may have ordered a signed copy of James Rebanks new book, English Pastoral.

Winding and Weighing

When working on a spinning project and I have a choice of spinning a lot of singles onto a big bobbins and dividing later onto smaller bobbins or spinning onto (and keeping track of ) smaller bobbins, big bobbins always win.

I'm working on my next Knittyspin post, which involves three different 4-ply yarns, so I thought I'd show you my quick (and lazy) way of dividing singles from a big bobbin.

I spun four ounces of Into the Whirled Falkland with my Magpie. The Magpie's ginormous bobbin holds 20+ ounces of yarn, so my four ounces looks wee.

I get out my bobbin winder, a lazy kate (this is the Akerworks Butterfly Kate, storage bobbins, and a scale.

I’ve spun four ounces of singles that need to be divided onto 12 bobbins (three 4-ply yarns), that’s about 9 grams per bobbin.

I get out my scale and weigh an empty bobbin, 9.11 grams.

I start winding my first bobbin and stop and weigh it periodically until I have a bobbin that weighs about 18 grams (9 grams for the bobbin and 9 grams for the yarn).

I tend to stop a lot when I'm winding my first bobbin, after that I have a visual that shows me about how full the bobbin should be with nine grams of singles, and I only stop once or twice on the next bobbins.

You can also weigh the empty bobbin and then zero out the scale, so you'll be weighing only the yarn, when you weigh your wound bobbin.

I had a little left over and put it on an extra bobbin. I don’t sweat if my bobbins aren’t exactly the same, close is good enough for me.

KNITSONIK Bullet Journaling Course: It Soothed My Quarenbrain

I am a planner, and I love lists (and pens). I have had multiple ways of planning for work (and life) since I started working. I’ve been through the Franklin Planner (my first), Palm Pilot (and Trello, and Handsping), and many , many different paper planners, and productivity systems (including the granddaddy GTD). I thought bullet journaling would be fantastic for me when it came on the scene. I need to do a lot of my planning by hand and I love checking things off of a list.

If I’m writing by hand I’m thinking, it doesn’t happen in the same way when I plan on a computer.

The part of bullet journaling (and most planner systems) that ultimately made me jump ship, was the lifestyle-ness of it, the striving for perfection and taking all of the time to make pages pretty. Many planner and productivity systems also insist there is only one way to make them effective, which has never worked for me.

I admittedly will use planning as procrastination, just one more list or the perpetual hunt for the perfect system of thinking that works for my messy and creative way of thinking and working.

I took Felicity Ford’s Bullet Journaling course in July, and adored it. It is exactly what I need right now.

Felix’s course allows your to take or leave the bits that work for you, speaks directly to people that have creative jobs (or do any job creatively), reminds you to make time for yourself, and allows you to be as messy as you want. I am very messy. During quarantine this approach really soothed my nearly-frantic hunt for something to help me organize the work that was so hard to get done right now.

Just showing up for a (optional) weekly class helped slow my overly active and limping quarenbrain. Felix showing her not-at-all tidy, but still organized own journal helped immensely.

Then there is the playing, stamps, stickers, washi tape, pens, pencils all add fun and creativity to planning and keeping track of things without needing to artisanally curate pages.

From a work and productivity fan-girl point of view what I like about Felix’s approach is how modular it is. I can add or subtract projects, or styles of organizing on the fly.

I can try out a new productivity idea I read about this week, right now and keep using it or just abandon it without it affecting my regular planning and list-making. It’s allowed me to go from two planners, a notebook, and lots of loose paper and notecards to a single weekly planner, and a notebook. And that weekly planner may disappear by the end of the year.

Now if it would just do the work for me……

Felix has a new section of her Bullet Journaling Course starting in September.

More Magpie: Foot Pedal and Flat Pack

I've spent the past couple of weeks spinning four ounces of a fine single on my Magpie to be plied into several 4-ply yarns for my next Knittyspin column (coming in October).

It was great to have the power box set to the speed I wanted and for it it to stay there. I moved my wheel around a bit and spun on some other wheels and when I sat down at the Magpie I set the speed, checked my control card and was off.

Another thing that made my spinning comfortable is the foot pedal switch. The wheel comes with an extra long cord for the power box, and a nifty long piece that fits on top of the existing switch and turns the box into a foot pedal.

I finally took my Magpie apart. I was worried that it would be hard, or that I would break something. I can't believe how easy and fast it was. Take the flyer off, take off the motor - which is pressure fitted, and loosen 4 screws with the hex key provided. It took about 5 minutes. Now I have many more bag options to travel or store my wheel.

Next I'm going to set her up in Irish tension (bobbin-led), and see how she spins.

I've had a request to add a search function to my blog, thanks Laura, it's a great idea! Until I figure out how to put it in my header, I will have a search box at the bottonm of each post, and it will search my blog.

Agatha Christie's Criminal Games: Subtitles and Mid-Century Modern for Fiber Mojo

This week I noticed something interesting as I started back to spinning and knitting. If I have something I want to focus on, and am working on something I can look away from, I can fall into a fiber groove.

For me my focus came with theFrench show Agatha Christie's Criminal Games (season 2) I found it at my library, but I'm sure it's streaming somewhere. Season 1 takes placce in the 1930s and isn't as capitivating.

The stories are familiar, all Agatha Christie that I've seen and read before, but the production design, and costumes are out of this world. Season 2 takes place in the mid-fifties to early sixies and I can't stop looking. The show is a delicious and relaxing escape.

The colors, the sets - down to the tiny details, and costumes have made me pause the show more than once to drink in everything in the frame. All of the mid-century modern glory (and the focus of having to read subtitles) have reignited my desire to make things.