Carolina Fiber Fest Day 1

Today was the first of two days of a fantastic local fiber festival where my guild, Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild, likes to make a bit of a showing. We set up a bunch of spinning wheels, spindles, yarn, some finished projects... and then we lured unsuspecting people into the wide, wonderful world of fluff. We're a bit disorganized which is a struggle for me - I'd rather everything were planned out, but it's good for me to not have things Exactly How I Want Them. There was much shuffling and moving of tables and wheels but eventually we were all arranged where we wanted to be, happily going about the business of spinning fiber.

Patricia and Danielle, two of my favourite people so far, really did amazing work. They had boundless energy, patience, and enthusiasm for teaching people how to spindle. I'm not an enthusiastic teacher, possibly because I'm such a terrible student. I like to take something new to a dark, private corner where I can fuss and bang my head against it in private. You know, someplace no one will see me cry or threaten to burn everything down. I don't like people to watch me struggle and so I have a tendency to politely turn away when other people are struggling. This is not what teachers are supposed to do! So I was happy, sitting on the sidelines and making encouraging noises while I spun and spun on a big project I'm working on (more about that another day).

Here's Danielle, working her teaching magic.

Danielle was so kind and generous - it turns out she has a huge soft spot for broke students so a few people when home with their first spindle and a pile of wool to play with. Hopefully we'll see them at some guild meetings! :D

Around 5 things started winding down so I went for a nice wander and peered at all the beautiful, beautiful things I absolutely could not buy because house. Patricia came with me and was very helpful - when a few shopkeepers sensed an easy mark she intercepted. "She can't. She's buying a house." I'm very grateful though I really, really wanted the Nantucket knitting bag. Omigosh, you guys. This bag... it's a study canvas bag with a million pockets that you can unzip flat or zip into a backpack. It's cleverly designed so that if you want a skein of yarn that you left at the bottom of your bag... you can unzip the side to get it. Without messing up the contents of the rest of the bag! Good lord, I want this bag!

Gimme, gimme, gimme!

I wandered around and took pictures of some awesome things I was really taken with... and since I couldn't buy any of them, I will now tell you all about them. Brace yourselves.

First, look at these amazing buttons. There was a whole table of hand-carved buttons. I'm planning on knitting Jaime a Dragon's Wing Cowl for his larp costume and I've been sort of idly watching for the perfect buttons to show up for it. I was thinking some very simple carved wood or stone buttons... but these horn toggles really distracted me. I'm covering the price tag in this picture in case I buy them - I don't want Jaime fussing about how much they cost. :P

I was briefly tempted by this kit and I took a picture so I'd remember the pattern. It's Amy Gunderson's Stinger and I think it'd look fabulous on me as a sort of summer weight tunic-y thing. Something to obscure the amount of chocolate I've eaten, you know? Fortunately they didn't have any colour kits I liked but the sample piece they'd knitted up was very eye-catching. Now take a deep breath and brace yourselves...

Because look at these tiny, tiny needles! Size #0000! Look how adorable they are! So tiny! The shop was selling itty bitty mini skeins and had all sorts of tiny, tiny things they'd knitted. The tiniest socks I've ever seen. I'm only capable of making high pitched squeaky noises when I'm around them and I have no idea why.

And finally...

I want this sock yarn so much it hurt to put it down without buying it. I hope you're all really impressed with the herculean self-restraint I showed today... because I'm going back tomorrow.

Rough Fiber Day

I got my hands on 3 lbs of raw Suffolk x Corriedale wool for very cheap and I was so excited about it. I didn't look too closely, just fingered a couple locks and found it delightful. It was full of bounce and energy but much softer than I expected. I bought it and set it aside to wait until I had time to love it properly. I was headed up to see Jaime over the weekend so I washed it all Thursday and laid it out to dry while I was out of town. Visiting Jaime makes for a long Monday - I leave his place at around 6:30 am to get to work on time and then there's a long day (to make up for all the goofing around we do on Fridays, see? :P). I got through the day in good spirits by reminding myself what a delightful pile of fluff was waiting for me at home.

So you can imagine my sadness when I got home and started picking the wool... and discovered it was full of nepps and short cuts. Little bits and tangles that spoiled what should have been a lovely carding and spinning experience.

Here you can see some of the snarls and lumps

A hand carded rolag, full of "texture".

I tried to live in denial - I drum carded, I hand carded, I combed... If I worked really, really hard and picked out all the nepps I could spin a lovely single... but finally I had to stop and face facts. Some people would really love this sort of "texture" for their spinning, people who like to make artsy yarns. But I'm not one of those people (yet) and the sheer amount of time it would take to make this into something I want to spin, well. You have to put a value on your own time, right? And I've decided my time is worth more than what I spent on this fleece. Now I just have to force myself to get rid of it.

So after all that brouhaha I was in a bit of a mood. I should have had a glass of wine and gone to bed early, and I totally tried to. But after an hour of grumpy tossing and turning I finally got up, returned to the craft room, and really tackled my drum carder.

I picked three colours, based on how they suited my mood and wound up with these delightful puni style rolags:

I made them with merino wool, a little bit of bamboo, and a tiny, tiny bit of firestar in the purple for sparkle. They are so soft and the texture changes subtly as you run through the colours making them a tactile joy to spin.

It perked me right back up.

Jackie's Got My Back

I'm supposed to close on my house sometime in the next two weeks (paperwork processing has me on tenterhooks) and I'm still not *totally* sure what the closing costs will be. I'm a fairly high strung soul to begin with so... this is not ideal for my personal happiness. I'm spending a lot of time looking at my bank account, counting on my fingers, and checking my documents. And trying very, very hard not to spend more than $15 between now and then.

Which is a darn shame because this weekend I'll be at the Carolina FiberFest. Now granted, I'll be spending most of Friday doing some spinning demos and on Saturday I'm doing a Sheep to Shawl demonstration... But I feel like there's still going to be time for me to wander through the festival, staring lustfully at all the beautiful fleeces and roving and yarns...

...Which I absolutely can not buy. D:

This is a disaster! What have I done to myself?! Why? Why?!

Faced with this sort of disaster, I immediately texted my stepmother. "Oh... Oh no, Jackie," I said. "I just realized I'm going to be at a fiber festival all of Friday and half of Saturday... with no money."

"What fiber festival?" Jackie asked, getting the important stuff out of the way right away. And then, "There's always a fiber festival at my house."

I'm pretty sure that's permission to rifle her stash and run off with the yarn and roving I like best. ;)

In other, slightly less hysterical news, I finished my socks this weekend.

These are not identical...

Jaime and I are on slightly shifted work-sleep schedules so he goes to bed before I do, like a sensible grown up. I was over at his place this weekend and got the toes finished up after he went to bed. This turned out to be key because an unexpected cold front rolled in. In March! It was 80 degrees all of last week and now I'm huddled up in my warm wool socks and hoodie. Ridiculous.

I take my spinning wheel to his place and it says something about my priorities that I packed an 8 ounce spinning project and two knitting projects... and then just threw half my laundry hamper into a duffel bag at the last minute. Which is how I wound up with one pair of shorts, one pair of pajama pants, one t-shirt, 16 panties, and 5 socks. Priorities.

I also left Jaime alone too long with my sock yarn...

I think he got bored. First he pretended to be performing surgery with the needles and yarn, then he fussed at me to remind him how to use chopsticks... then he started assembling Frankenbunny. When he demanded I pass him some stitch markers so that he could make a face, I decided it was time to put down my spinning and pay attention to him.

Supported Spindling with the Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild

Thursday night was the guild meeting and our program was on support spindes. It was awesome - Jame brought in a whole range of spindles. Some from the Himelayas, Africa, Russian, one from France. She talked about these places and the type of fiber they spin and what materials they make their spindles from. It was very interesting! Afterward she passed out some bead style spindles she made by hand and tried to teach us how to use them. Some folks were better at it than others... I, myself, have no skill a spinning cotton. :P

Still she let me keep the lovely bead spindle - it glows in the dark! - and one of the other ladies there sold me a very inexpensive tahkli so I can practice. Because, really, I needed more spinning things in my life. I'll upload pictures later, right now I'm at Jaime's and didn't bring them. They're so small and delicate, I'll have to fret over them until I get used to them.

I also gave a brief speechish thing at the guild meeting about the website but there were only a few people there (on Saint Patrick's day... I wonder what they were all up to, hmm?) so we postponed any votes until later. It's always tricky talking to people about technical stuff, I used to have the same problem when I try to talk about cementitious materials. I start out talking in a way I *think* is pretty basic, then I realize I'm using a lot of jargon no one has any good reason to understand. Then when I adjust, I wind up talking way further down than I need to. I really need to work on that. Web hosts, DNS, code packages... most people have no good reason to know what I'm talking about when I yammer on and on about this stuff. In any case, we'll be voting on stuff like that soon and then I can roll up my sleeves and get to work!

Meanwhile, I'm working on some blending batts and rolags so soon I'll have an update for the Etsy shop and some cool pictures to show.

Update time: Here are the pictures of the support spindles I was talking about.

Bead whorl spindle, handmade by Jame.

Indian Tahkli Spindle, ideal for cotton.

Sheepies, Sheepies, Sheepies! (Jacob Sheep)

Spring is in full force here in the North Carolina / Tennessee / Virginia area and do you know what that means? It's time to shear all the poor wee sheepies so they'll be all comfy for the summer.

And, you know. Buy all their fleeces.

My sheep to shawl group (non-competitive) is using a Jacob fleece and I am just enamored by it. Jacob sheep are so cool, you guys. They're small, spotted sheep and can have between 2 and 6 horns. They're sheep that look like goats... but act like sheep. I like that as I've always found goats to be suspicious. They're very smart and often have a bad sense of humour. Also Goat's Cheese is unfairly delicious and expensive. I totally hold that against them and will continue to do so until I can afford to eat goat's cheese every day... But I digress.

The Jacob fleece we're working with is so nice. So, so nice. This is the first time I've ever worked with Jacob and I was under the impression that it's a little coarse but it turns out there's a lot of variation. We may even be working with a lamb fleece - it was donated so we're not sure. But I basically want to spread out this fleece and roll around in it. My cats also feel this way, which is why the fleece is hidden and I can't pet it at will.

So imagine my delight when a shepherd located within driving distance announced that they'll be shearing their Jacob sheeps April 18th. I immediately began hatching an evil plan and emailed her asking, "Are there good hiking trails near you?"

You see, boys and girls, Jaime is a lovely fellow. If I said, "This weekend I want to go stomp around a sheep farm, pet all the sheepies, and buy all their fleeces. You drive, okay?", he would probably go along with it. But I would feel just the tiniest bit bad, forcing him to spend all day drowning in my bizarre hobbies. Not very bad, just a wee little bit.

But Jaime is a hiker. A thru hiker, no less, which seems to involve spending a lot of money on gear so you can pretend to be in the bike-less apocalypse and walk hundreds of miles in the wilderness. So the weekend after April 18th, weather allowing, Jaime and I will go hiking and camping in the Peaks of Otter. I will show my travelling sock some beautiful sights while getting some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise...

... And then, on the way home... ALL THE FLEECES! MUAHAHAHA!

How To Clean Raw Fiber - Washing and Drying the Fiber

Now first off, I am definitely not an expert. I feel like I should say that before I tell anyone what they should do. But I thought it might be a nice change of pace if, instead of rattling on about my latest fiber fluff, I told you how I make my fiber all clean and fluffy. Sound good? Let's start!

First I take my dirty fluff - in this case alpaca. I spread it out and pick out the especially gross, dirty bits or terrible snarls and then throw it away. Then I put it in mesh laundry bags. Any fiber that can felt, especially wool, should go in mesh bags. If you've ever put a hand wash only item in the washing machine, you'll know why. These animal protein fibers have scales on the surface of the fiber and hot water causes the scales to open up. Agitation causes the scales to lock up together so that you wind up with a tightly matted mess that will never be the soft, fluffy fiber you want it to be.

Now if you're working with wool, depending on the breed, it's going to have something called lanolin on it. Lanolin is a natural grease that the sheep excrete through their pores that helps protect and water proof their wool coats. Cool, huh? You can spin "in the grease" with the lanolin still in but typically we want to remove most of the grease. Hot water and soap, especially a liquid soap that's good for degreasing (lots of people swear by Dawn. Is there anything Dawn can't do?), will help pull the dirt and grease off your fiber. So stuff some fiber into the mesh laundry bags. Not too full, it should have room to move around. If I'm dealing with wool, I wash it outside in large plastic bins outside because the lanolin can really gunk up a plumbing system. Especially septics - hoo boy! Alpaca has no grease so I just toss it in my bathtub and make some soup.

Alpaca soup. Not delicious.

First I fill the tub with really hot water and soap, too hot to touch. Bring gloves if you're fussy about keeping the skin on your hands. Then I put my mesh bags in so my alpaca can enjoy a bubble bath. I push the bags up and down a bit int he water to get the water and soap int the fluffy. You will immediately see more foul brown water than you expected - these animals are filthy! There's a pretty strong smell - not unpleasant - of animal fleece, dirt, manure. When it's wool there's a nice, spicy smell from the lanolin too. I don't mind this, but I spent my summers mucking out horse stalls so don't take my word for it. Also, wash your hands because... ew.

It's probably going to take a few sluices to get clean. When the water is still warm but not so hot that you can't touch it anymore, empty the tub and refill it. Repeat until the amount of filth coming out of your bags is no longer shocking. Depending on how dirty things are looking you might only want to soap on your first sluice - play it by ear. 

Once you're done rinsing the soap and dirt out of your fluff, pull it out. I like the mesh bags because I can hang them up in the tub and let the excess water stream out for awhile. You can also give it a gentle squeeze or roll it up in towels and walk all over it. The more water you get out in this stage, the quicker it'll dry and the sooner you can play with it. Now a quick warning here - when you pull it out it's probably going to look way worse than it did going in. It's going to look all tangled up and horrible. I know of a few people who gave up at this point, assumed they'd felted it, and threw away their fleeces. Tragedy! Give yourself a chance. :)

I spread my wet fluff out in the sunshine - if there is sunshine. My dad, who loves my mother, made her a mesh screen that allows air flow while protecting the fiber from wild cats when she's drying it inside. Note how she puts an absorbent mat underneath the fiber to help it dry faster.

You can see she teases her fiber a bit during the washing process - either before she puts it in the bath or when it's drying, I'm not sure. But this teasing probably helps her fiber dry faster than mine and teasing is definitely the next step. Which I'll tell you all about next time!

Knotty Sunday

It's been a busy weekend, here in the Knotty House. I may or may not have gone a bit crazy about dyeing and blending. I don't know, everything went a little fuzzy and went I surfaced, I had dye-splattered fingers and the smell of vinegar was in the air. I must remember to check my credit cards  and make sure I didn't order huge quantities of merino, angelica, and other such delights.

I put together a rainbow spinning and felting kit for my Etsy store. Take a look!

Not as yummy as skittles. Do not taste this rainbow.

It's half an ounce each of hand dyed Romney in red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The blue came out variegated as all my blue dyes do and I rain it through the carder to blend. It should produce a lovely, heathered effect. One of the down sides of making nothing I would not use myself is every time I try to list something on Etsy, my fingers itch with the desire to run off with the goods, cackling and petting them. I, uh. I'm working on this.

That romney / alpaca fluffy cloud I blended? Holy cow. Such a dream to spin. It's coming out just gorgeous and so easy to stretch as fine as you want. Here's a picture of a single I'm spinning, twisted back on itself so you can see how pretty it'd look as a 2-ply.

So often in spinning, dyeing, and blending I find myself looking at what I just made and thinking, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever done". And then a week later I make something else that's the new most beautiful. I'm not sure sure how to deal with these feelings of self-satisfaction. I may have to beat myself up over how messy my house is, just to keep balance.