Nesting

Trust me, it’s not what you think. I’m not pregnant and I’m not busy feathering my “nest”. I’ve been busy making little fiber nests out of combed merino fleece that I scored on my visit mid-February to Lynn’s Fantasy Farm in Pearisburg during sheep shearing day. I came home with Dinah and Alice’s beautiful fleeces and upon the owner’s strong suggestion, sought out some combs vs. hand cards. I borrowed a friend’s Louet/Edward Scissorhands like combs and combed the freshly scoured fleece before rolling them into nests.



Gorgeous Fleece


Washed and dyed locks


Lots of loverly little nests


Spun and plied yarn


Close up of colors


Finished Yarn


While I’m all about the process, the hand combing merino thing is a lot of work. And there’s a great deal of lost fiber. However, it’s equally difficult to find a fiber mill that a.) takes in small amounts of fleece to comb into top and b.) hard to find a mill that even combs fiber into top. Long story short, I’m going to have to buy some more fleece so that I can hit Zeilinger’s (http://www.zwool.com) minimum and hope that it will be ready in time for me to pick it up at Maryland Sheep and Wool in May. It will be worth it. It’s a dream to spin top and this merino is fabulous stuff.

Thing Two and I had a blast at Lynn’s farm though it was mighty cold that day.


The shearer hard at work


Her two dogs were the sweetest creatures I’ve ever encountered and her flock was well cared for and very loved.

We got right to work, skirting fleece. I was stunned that Thing Two jumped right in because there was lots of icky stuff to pick out on the skirting table. He simply donned some rubber gloves and went to work. What a trooper! I hope that we can make it again next year.


Thing Two at the skirting table

Color Therapy

Awwww, ya'll are so good to me. Thanks for taking the time to comment. It's heart warming to know that someone is reading me out there. I don't have a whole lot of contact with people on a daily basis so I treasure any and all interactions, including comments. If your email is in your Blogger profile, then I'm able to and try to respond directly to you. (((Big Hugs))) right back at ya.

I've been sucked into dyeing again by a certain someone - ahem Catie - who showed me some kettle dyed yarn. I became totally obsessed with doing it and am now totally hooked. Here are some braided ropes of my experiments on Shetland, Finn and Cashmere-Finn...







I realized as I played with dyeing this roving that I LOVE COLOR and really need it ever present daily. I can't begin to tell you how happy these little braids have made me and have sucked me out of my funk. One is destined to be a birthday present and I just may pet the others until they tell me what they want to be.

So I can spend more time playing with color and less time processing fiber, I've sent off most of the fleece I accumulated last year to be processed at Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. Wish me luck. I hope that they do a good job.

So what makes you happy these days? What's your therapy for the winter doldrums?

Purple Nurple yarn

Remember this "Purple Nurple" yak/merino roving that I dyed a week or so ago?



Well it's all spun up, navajo plyed and made into yarn, a gift for my friend CM's birthday.










This yak/merino is yummy stuff to spin. Must.buy.more.soon. I hope she likes it. If not, I'll gladly take it back - LOL!

Unfortunately, the temps have dropped so I have no excuse (other than being down with a flu-like cold over the last few days) not to cast on for the rest of Walk in the Woods.

Tell me, what are YOU knitting now-a-days?

Thrummed cardigan, anyone?

Wrong side of the back of the "Walk in the Woods" Jacket

I'm so very tempted to leave all of these unwoven ends hanging free and call it a thrummed cardigan. Is there such a thing? I believe it would be quite cozy on really cold nights. However, considering the heat wave we're having right now, its not the easiest thing to knit on. I'm not casting on for the front until it cools down a bit. It has felt like a heating pad in my lap over the last few days. But I was determined to finish the back before I took a break from her so I willing roasted.



Back of Walk in the Woods Jacket

I swear I can't see the vibrancy of the detail until I take a picture of it. Its like one of the pictures that you stare at until another picture appears. It just looks like a bunch of colors in person.

While I wait for the weather to cool down (those are NOT words you will hear from me very often) so that I can cast on for the front of "Walk", I'm spinning up some custom dyed yak/merino roving that I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year from The Fold.



Its gorgeous stuff and purple is my color right now. Alas, this is destined to be a birthday prezzie for a dear friend. I can't wait to see it knit up. Its so rare that I get to see my handspun actually put to use - LOL!

Happy spinning and knitting everyone :)

A Walk in the Woods

Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I love the crispness of the air and the transformation of the verdant Blue Ridge mountains into a veritable color palette. I can't think of a better time to cast on for the Walk in the Woods Jacket from the Interweave book "Inspired to Knit" than now. I haven't found a book in ages that excites me as much as this one does. There are several patterns that I can't wait to cast on for but this one beat the others hands down.

I dove into the stash and was surprised that I had 75% of the colors in either Manos or Malabrigo yarns. The other 25%, I decided to spin up and dye using the Rupperts Corriedale I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. Twas a labor of love washing, carding, spinning and dyeing that yarn but it was worth it. I love the results.



Washed and carded batts



All spun up into yarn



Cooking up maroon yarn goodness



Happy dyed skeins



Finally, casting on



What I felt like once it was all over...

I've learned so much just knitting the sleeve as a swatch. A year or two ago and I would have impaled myself on my needles before I would have taken on such a large scale intarsia project. There are SO many ends to weave in. But I'm madly in love with all of these colors. And I will love this sweater forever so I plod ahead and am 1/3 the way up the back. I screwed up one flower on the sleeve (its an Amish mistake, right Robin?) and knit it in the wrong color. I might frog it, I might say the heck with it and leave it. I'll decide another time. The inconsistent thickness of yarn makes me a little crazy from time to time but it seems to all work out in the end. And while it is NOT a portable project, it has been an easy project to pick up and put down thanks to my magnet board. And its knitting up quickly. I'm hoping to have it finished by my birthday later this month as a prezzie to myself (and perhaps to wear to Stitches East which continues to be an on-again/off-again prospect). We'll see if I'm all smiles after another week or so of knitting on it.

On an unrelated note, I've started a Ravelry group and Heifer team for Heifer International supporters called Team Ravelry (you can also visit the team's progress through Team Heifer HERE). If you love Heifer and its outreach, please consider joining or supporting our efforts. We're planning to do some fundraisers, knit-a-longs, team projects, etc. in the future. I'm going to be posting more patterns soon and Heifer will again be a beneficiary. Lots of fun is planned for the coming months. Hope you'll come along for the ride.

Scenes from the last few weeks

A few shots of what I've been up to over the last few weeks. Time sure has flown by quickly. It has been cold, really hot and now kinda chilly. I've been to the beach twice, the pool many times and got sunburned, yet again. King Thing and Thing 1 refurbished our deck and built a pergola at the beach house. We celebrated the end of the school year for the Things and are so ready to officially kick off the summer in a big way. I've been knitting a bit, spinning a ton, solar dyeing on the deck and am learning quite a bit about dyeing with natural flowers, etc. I planted a garden for the first time in ten years and have been nursing a cold for nearly two weeks. Phew! I'm tired just thinking about the past month.

Clickie if you want to see the pictures even bigger...



Thing 2's year end art project



The beach house pergola project with King Thing and his best bud



Finished my first skein of yarn from my 2008 Maryland Sheep and Wool fleece purchase



Solar Dyed BFL bumps



Gradiant dyed BFL singles



Solar dyeing BFL roving in Copper Penny blue solution



The beginnings of my Morning Surf Wrap at the beach for Father's Day



Our piggie chillaxin on the beach with us



Thing 1 catching a croaker in the sunset at the beach

Fiberlicious Foto Friday

(Warning: Photos of fiber p0rn ahead)
Okay, sing-a-long with me to the tune of "Fergalicious". It's Fiberlicious. Don't know the song? Um, guess I've been watching too much MTV Jams.

Thanks for all of the kind words about piggie and the Zune cozy. I couldn't help but laugh out loud regarding potential names for piggie. And I thought that I had a twisted sense of humor. I'll announce his new name next week in addition to fun surprise.

In case you're just tuning in, one of my goals for 07 was to dye with the intention of spinning vs. playing with colors with nothing in particular in mind. First, gotta make sure you have the right tools.

Free weekend with nothing on my agenda?

Check!

Dyepot? (make sure that it is EXCLUSIVELY used for dyeing fiber. Don't want to poison the kiddies)

Check!



Presoaked fiber?
*** I soak mine in a warm bath with a touch of Dawn and vinegar for around an hour.

Check!



Dye tools?

*** Color wheel (lost my favorite one for a few weeks and had to use one printed from the internets), gloves, foam brushes, The Dyers Companion, fibers to test colors, various cups and measuring tools, Prochem acid dyes (these were already mixed so I didn't need a mask), vinegar, distilled water and LOTS of newspaper and plastic to protect my very WHITE kitchen island.

Check!



Alright peeps. Let the dyeing begin. I did a dye study of some of the few Noro yarns in my stash. Unlike most knitters, I can't stand the itchiness of Noro but I LOVE the colors. The fibers are obviously spun into the color bands that you find in the skein vs. dyeing them once spun so I thought that I might strive to dye some different color gradations and then spin them into Noro like yarn. I wanted bright saturated color so I mixed fairly strong batches of dye.

As far as the fiber, I used the domestic wool (breed unknown but probably Shetland or Jacob) that I bought in Asheville at Earth Guild. Each mini batt that I dyed is approximately 1 ounce of fiber. I also dyed 2 ounces of merino/silk that I bought at Rocktown Yarns (a new knitting shop find for me in Harrisonburg, VA back in January). I began by practicing with a 20 yd sample skein of the domestic wool that I spun and plied on the Asheville trip. I aimed for grades of color from pink to dark blue and pour small amounts of dye on each section of the wool and ended up with a rainbow. It was all wrapped in plastic wrap and steamed for 30 - 60 minutes (I honestly lost track).



I love how this fiber takes the dye. Not only does it have a slight sheen to it but it dyes very evenly. I only wish I knew what it was.

Once I figured out how much dye to use to get the deep color saturation that I wanted, I started dyeing the wool batts. First out of the dyepot was this batch.



I was shooting for Hokie colors (VA Tech Orange and Maroon) for the top batt and am fairly pleased though the colors aren't quite as true in person. The bottom was supposed to be teal and green and I ended up more with turquoise and green. Can't complain because the colors are incredible and exceeded my expectations. The dyes were poured onto these batts and they were steamed for over an hour (seemed to take longer for the dyes to set). There were some other batts that I forgot to take pictures of but they ended up looking like this once spun.



Fiber on the left is the rainbow yarn above. The yarn on the bottom is dk weight singles that I knit into a Trinity log cabin triangle just to see what would happen if you used a variagated yarn.

Next up, some very dark chocolate brown roving that I called "Woodland". I was very curious as to what colors a dark roving would produce with heavy concentrations of color. I used dark orange, royal blue and black on this batt (which weighed 2 oz) and ended up with this very interesting color combo shown as braided roving, spun singles and plied yarn.



Doesn't look much like orange, blue and black does it? I spun this up and plied it so that Catie could see how it looked at our March spin/knit in. Very interesting how that yarn dyed up. The jury's out on this one.

Next out of the dye pot was a small ball of forest green roving that I called "Morning Dew". I rolled the roving into a tight, layered ball, soaked it in dye, double wrapped it and steamed it for at least an hour and a half. The resulting varigated color was incredible. Alas, I forgot to take a picture of it before I carded it with the angelina. Doh!



After it was plied, all I could do is gaze at it in the sunlight. It truly reminds me of morning dew glistening on grass as the sunrises in the morning. I may need to add angelina to all yarn from here to eternity. I love sparkles in such a bad way.

Next out of the pot, my favorite and what I called "Blue Ridge Dusk". Its the 2 oz. of merino/silk dyed with violet, forest green and turquoise. I'm such a sucker for purple and green together. I'm going to have to play with these colors more in the future. This merino/silk spins like a dream, like cotton candy, like heaven. I can't wait to dye more.



Believe it or not, there's more but I'll wait until I've spun some of it up before I flash you with it. I've ordered some additional dye colors from KnitPicks and as soon as they arrive, there will be much more dyeing in my future. If the dog and the kids aren't careful, I'll dye them too if they sit still too long.

I'm cooking up some good stuff for ya'll in the near future. Stay tuned...