Smoky Mountain Fibers

Happy Fibery New Year

2012-01-10T16:00:00.000-05:00

The new year has gotten of to a roaring start, in my fiber world, work world and personal world as well. This upcoming weekend is the Winter Fiber Retreat hosted by Friends & Fiberworks, a yarn shop here in Asheville. I'll be teaching a few classes along with some of the big names in fiber, including Kathleen Taylor and Chad Alice Hagen. All my classes have people signed up, plus last year there were quite a few on-site registrations so it looks like I'll be teaching dyeing and knitting.

In preparation for the event, 2 cool things have been underway. To help promote the Fiber Retreat, I appeared on the local midday news's Craft Corner. Click here watch the video, preceded by one of the most annoying commercials ever! Now granted, I had all of about 3 minutes on camera, but it was LIVE and I got to sit in the studio while they filmed the broadcast. It was a fairly slow news day, so I got to simply enjoy the technical crew and on-air talent as they did their thing. I knit almost the whole sleeve of the Eloise sweater while I was watching, giving me something to do while keeping calm until the last 5 minutes of the program. It was lots of fun, the crew was super nice and I had so much fun! I dyed a roving similar to the one shown here, but a bit more blended since I immediately put the crock pot in my car, drove 25 miles and let the dyeing finish in the sunny car.

In addition to my close up, I now have my dyed fiber, yarns, hats and patterns in its own section at FFW. In exchange for getting 100% of my sales, I'll work a few hours a week at the shop. During the spring and summer this should not be difficult, though during the fall it could be a crunch. I did my first shift last Saturday and will go in after work this evening to fill in the rest of the display.

After a lovely break from work that included a trip to Portland, Oregon, I'm back in gear. With only 2 sections of the same class to teach, I'm going to think I'm on sabbatical. But I love my job and am feeling very refreshed and happy to work with students and teachers again.

Some changes on a personal note:: The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater came true. My partner of 6 years and I have broken up. We both realized that although we like and respect each other very much, we are better suited to being friends that lovers. It's all very pleasant and civilized -after all Asheville is basically a small town and we are likely to see each other around town.

Note that this is a Happy New Year post without resolutions - knitting or otherwise. How about being happy, healthy and creative? Is that enough? I hope so.

Putting the Term to Bed

2011-12-16T13:17:00.000-05:00


My Christmas Card

Warning: Limited fiber content! Scroll down to skip the day job related blather.

When one works in education, the year is measured in semesters. Yes, there are months and weeks, but there are mid terms and summer sessions and other ways to mark the passing of time: Registration, Drop/Add, Last Day to Withdraw. This term has been quite a challenge as I took on a Freshman seminar. Many schools have this course: A wide-ranging introduction to college and (in our case) the liberal arts, discussion of the summer reading assignment, etc. plus whatever content the instructor chooses. Most professors use their area of expertise: sociology, world religions, American history. Others focus on study skills and time management. The goal is the same: to ensure that first year students make the transition from high school to college and know what support services are available to them. They get out of their dorm rooms and become part of the college community: taking classes, actually studying, going to different events on campus.

This year I was recruited late to teach this course - about a week before school started. The students who registered for Section 21 were late registrants as well, for a number of reasons. About 1/2 dozen lived far from campus and didn't attend any of the early registration events held during the summer. Other students were recruited late to play on different sports teams; still others decided in August to go to college. All in all, a very diverse group: African-American & white, 3 times for men than women, about half from North Carolina, plus students from Florida, Pennsylvania, British Columbia, Oregon and a few more states. Most students play a sport: I had students athletes who swim, play soccer, football and baseball, run track.

When I was deciding whether to take on this course, my colleagues gave me this advice: It's a huge amount of work, but it is the most rewarding thing that you can do. Well, they were right on both counts. It was a colossal amount of work. I had to pull together a new course with very little prep time. I made my content analyzing primary sources - - it is my actual job. I was absolutely terrified of the advising component - I could ruin their lives! It is the busiest time of year for my 'real' job - in-school workshops for teachers as well as high season for Smoky Mountain Fibers.

Turns out, I loved the kids. They were charming, energetic, bright, passionate about that they like. Except for a few exceptions, they also had terrible study and time management skills, hated to read, were addicted to their phones. In other words, they were 18 year olds, most away from home for the first time. Again, with exceptions - they were excellent at factual recall, not so good with synthesizing what they learned. Most of them got through high school without ever cracking a book. They also found out the hard way that that wasn't going to cut it any more. But the semester is over and the grades are in. There were a few D's and a few F's and one young man whose wake up call came too late - so it's academic probation for him.

Will I teach it next year? I doubt they'll ask me - I feel I made a mess of it. On the other hand, I'll be at least a year smarter and would certainly benefit from this year's experience. My colleagues insist that I'll be asked to do it again. Warm body and all. We shall see...

Requisite Fiber Content: I am one hat and 4 days away from 50 Hats in 50 Days. Actually since I have 2 hats and a pair of fingerless gloves on the needles, I'm about there. I'll finish at least #50 this evening - a dark brown tweedy hand spun in my Trailside pattern. I am looking forward to 2 weeks off to knit a few gifts, then stuff for me. I'll also take a little trip, get some exercise, read some good books (or trash!), card wool for spinning, put the studio back together, and get a bit ahead on my Etsy shop that I have been letting run itself (see Freshman class above). The list is making itself!

My relationship of the last 6 years ended amicably of late, so I am regaining some space in my house. Although I'm a tiny bit lonely and the gourmet meals are no longer coming out of the kitchen, I'm enjoying cleaning out closets and dressers drawers. My waistline will benefit from lighter and earlier dinners as well. My independent spirit is happy to be single again!

Getting Close

2011-12-09T14:27:00.000-05:00

Almost to the end of 50 Hats in 50 Days. Last evening I completed hat #44, an olive green Windy City.
It's Friday afternoon and the weekend dyeing will be the many shades we call green: bright, pale, grassy, mossy, turquoise, loden, chartreuse, and a few multi-tonals.
The semester is coming to an end. Though there are still some finals to give and grade and a few portfolios to review and a student video to tinker with and grant work to complete, I am putting this one to bed.
It's nearly Christmas and that means I'll travel to Portland, OR to see my sister and her family whom I totally love. I don't see them often enough so we hardly stop talking except to eat! The kids will be bigger and the voices deeper. Scary!
I changed my Facebook page from 'In a relationship' to 'Single,' but then hid it.

Still Knitting

2011-12-01T15:59:00.000-05:00

This is the time of year when I knit a lot of hats. Although I try to knit throughout the year, it seems that it catches up with me about now. Shops want hats, matching hat & scarf sets and this year, fingerless mitts. I set a goal of 50 hats in 50 days but I slid a bit behind this week. I shifted to a couple pair of fingerless mitts (aka texting mitts) that took longer to make than hats, but they are selling nicely at one of my customer-galleries, so I promised a few more pair.

My studio is a total disaster. This is the view from the wide end of the ironing board. Lots of yarns, grouped by color. Some a re little bits and pieces; others are full (or nearly full) skeins. As I get yarns matched up, they go into bags and the bags go into a tub. Then I can grab a bag without thinking too much and knit a hat. By the time I get to the bottom of the tub, I have forgotten what I put in and there are always a few nice surprises.

But this is the view from the other end of the ironing board. It's a nice stack of hats in red, orange, pink, purple, and a wee touch of green. There are even some naturals in there. I made my hat tracking system even easier this year by using Google docs instead of Excel. I can get to my spreadsheet from any computer and although it isn't totally fabulous, there is nothing that I wanted to do that I wasn't able to accomplish.

In the first 30 days of the challenge, I knit 36 hats and 2 pair of texting mitts. Though not a world record by any means, (and I just admitted to slacking off), still this is acceptable progress. I'll be calling a contra dance tonight, so I'll take a bit of knitting. I have a preference for hats, mostly because circular knitting is easy and mindless. I have one on the needles at about the 1/2 way point, but as it has a slightly fussy stitch pattern, I think I may need to cast on something simpler. I'm talking about you, Windy City!

And a Rainbow Too!

2011-11-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

Rainbow - a fine view from the office

It was a lovely and quiet Thanksgiving at the world headquarters of Smoky Mountain Fibers. I went to a potluck dinner with friends - good food, fine company and decent conversation. Best thing about a potluck at someone else's house is that you do not have any leftovers that you don't want. I took home the remainder of my broccoli vinaigrette and a dollop of cranberry compote and that pretty much hit the spot. I got a bit of exercise every day and contributed to the great pile of hats that is growing and then shrinking as they find their way to stores. In the first 27 days of November, I have knit 35 hats, with another on the needles. Sally at the Locally Grown Gallery also sold 2 pair of fingerless mitts and is clamoring more, so I shall shift my focus from hats to mitts. But since I made the rules, I get to break them. So a pair of mitts counts as one hat in the 50 Hats in 50 Days Hat-A-Thon. At least so far. Seems reasonable.

The best part of the Thanksgiving break was just that - a break. As much as I love my work, a break is nice to, particularly when it is spent in creative work and goofing off a bit. I've recently gotten interested in Monarch of the Glen, a BBC series that ended in 2005 but is still available on Netflix. With lovely scenery, charming characters, occasional country dances, sheep and hunky guys in kilts, it's an easy watch while knitting or spinning.

The rainbow that you see here was our reward for coming back to work. Just a few week before the semester ends, so it's all over but the grading. Grant work is all planning for next term and taking care of the financial reporting. Looking forward to the next break!

A Saturday Hike

2011-11-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

http://gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/rainbow.shtml

Western North Carolina is a leaf lookers paradise. I have a 20 minute commute - both ways every weekday - to look at the leaves, the flowers, the clouds, the snow - whatever. I love my drive - it gives me a chance to admire the beauty that I see around me every day. But I really like to get out of the car to see my environment with out a windshield between us.

On Saturday my sweetie and I took a little walk through Gorges State Park and onto Forest Service land to bag a lovely waterfall. Rainbow Falls is a 150 foot waterfall on the Horsepasture River in Jackson County, NC. It's about a 3 mile roundtrip hike and although rated strenuous, we rather disagreed. The trial to the base of the falls is not too well defined, so footing was a bit tricky. Both the bottom and the top of the Falls are quite lovely. The water was cold, but the sun was warm and only a bit breezy.

Always the negotiator, we took my car, but my sweetie drove so I could knit. Hats of course. 1.7 hats, bringing the November total to 8. A fine hike!

Hat Season Returns

2011-11-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

Last year at about this time, I realized that hat season was back and with it the need to have lots of hats available to my gallery customers. At that time I challenged myself to knit 30 hats in 30 days. I did - plus kept knitting untill I knit about 50 hats between early November and Christmas. I'm hoping to do the same this year.

I spent a bit of time last weekend making up hat kits. Matching yarns to patterns of my own design, I can now grab a bag and knit a hat. I got a headstart, having knit about 6 hats already this week. So this weekend, I'll start a spreadsheet to log my production. I brought a kit to work today - a pink & teal 'Show Off' hat.

If you are short on things to do, keep an eye on this site to track Hat-a-Thon 2011. I'l be posting my progress toward my new lofty goal - 50 Hats in 50 Days!

October Was So Busy I Forgot to Blog

2011-11-01T16:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been a long time since last I blogged. I haven't given up, life has just gotten in the way. So a few random bits...

SAFF has come and gone in the loveliest way. With a zillion changes that all kicked in a few weeks before our regional fiber festival, the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair has been put to bed for another year. While everything wasn't perfect, it was really quite lovely. The animals were there in full fleece - lots of sheep and llamas, a few angora goats, the charming alpacas. The people were there too, most friendly, a few crazies, but pretty much everybody smiling and glowing to be with like-minded people and lots of yarn and fiber. Thanks to everyone who came by my booth - I got to know a few people who I only 'knew' online before.

I've been spinning and knitting regularly. Yarn and hats have becoming and I have the trashed studio to prove it. This morning I needed to find something to wear that did not require ironing as the ironging board is covered with yarn. I had a booth at the Madison County (NC) Heritage Festival on a very chilly Saturday.

High on last weekend's agenda was to kit up yarn for hats - a very messy process that apparently involves pulling every skein of yarn out of the tub or drawer or basket that it resides in and grouping it with any possible related color, texture or weight, looking at it in several different light sources and then putting 2 or 3 or 4 yarns in a bag to be knit up at a later date. Then I can just grab a bag and knit at hat. I take a few to work for lunch hour knitting, so I can not work about thinking too much.

I really can only blame the blog silence on my day job. Love my day job - I am very lucky to have a job that I like, but both halves of my work-self have been running on overdrive lately. My grant work has been very busy as I have been working with a school district who has been selected to be a pilot school implementing the new Social Studies standards (for non-educators, I know this sounds like gibberish) in addition to the regular stuff I do. My undergrad classes have also been kicking my bum. As everyone who does grant-based work knows, your job is only as secure as your current funding. Although it hasn't happened yet, I took on an additional class as a bit of job security in case this grant funding is reduced. I love the classes and my students, but it's a struggle to keep all the balls in the air. The main balls that have dropped are this blog and the garden. I did plant some salad greens, but I've let nature take care of the rest.

But as midterm is behind us and most of my workshops are completed, so I can put a bit more energy into the fiber-y part of my life. Back to dyeing, back to the Etsy shop, back to the blog. And I'm happy to be back!

Sampson's Fleece

2011-09-19T13:22:00.000-04:00

This weekend I attended my favorite part of the Mountain State Fair, the regional fair for Western North Carolina. Saturday was a busy day, but since the fleece show is the first order of the day, it fit quite nicely. We got there while judging is still going on and I met up with Tami. Tami runs the sheep show for SAFF and raises mostly Border Leicester sheep. She had only entered a couple of fleeces, in the show but took a first & second in natural colored Border Leicester. I took home Sampson's fleece, the blue ribbon winner. It is soft and sweet in a lovely grey with brown tips. It isn't very big - maybe 2 pounds and I already washed about half of it. This will be my demo fleece at the Madison County Heritage Festival where I take my drum carder and let kids run the drum carder.

So what will I do with this not-very-big fleece? Well, I'm not sure. My guess is that it will become yarn that will become hats that will go out in the universe. In the mean time this will be my demo fleece at the Madison County Heritage Festival where I take my drum carder and let kids do a bit of carding. It's a little Tom Sawyer-ish, but everybody enjoys it, including me.

In any case, I will happily wash, pick, card and spin this lovely fleece. Thanks, Sampson and Tami!

Sheep to Shawl

2011-09-16T14:42:00.000-04:00

As the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) gets closer, we are still looking for some teams to compete in the Sheep to Shawl competition on Saturday, October 22, 2011. A friendly competition, but there is a bit of money involved - - $100 to the winning team. Just gather 6 like minded individuals to card and spin a bit of yarn and weave a beautiful shawl. All in a day in front of a healthy number of fans in the delightfully rustic sales arena of the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center.

All it takes is one weaver and a pre-warped loom, 4 spinners with their trusty wheels & carders (including one drum carder if you like), and an educational liaison. That's a fancy word for announcer. That lucky person gets to tell the crowd what is going on as the fleece is sorted, picked, fluffed, carded, spun, plied? and woven. It should be plenty of fun, but we need you to join us!

Does your guild, school, yarn shop or even Ravelry group have a team of 6 individuals ready to step up to the challenge of transforming a fleece - carding, spinning and weaving it - into a beautiful shawl in just a few hours?

If so, please contact me!! I am the demonstration coordinator at this year's SAFF. That means I have been working with vendors to do fiber demonstrations at their booths as well as setting up craft schools to have a presence at the Drop in & Spin or Knit or Crochet (I call it Drop In & Whatever), Drop in and Weave with one of the regional guilds and of course, Sheep to Shawl.

Please mark your calendar to join us at SAFF. In center stage at the Sheep to Shawl or around the edges, cheering on your favorite team!

Coming Out of Hibernation

2011-08-31T09:43:00.000-04:00

Only the blog has been hibernating. I've been (in local parlance) covered up. A few highlights...

Kitchen remodeling is mostly complete. Cabinet knobs and a few minor issues remain (non-functional electrical outlets, but I am moving into my new kitchen and the rest of the house, but it's nearly done and I love it.

The first picture is the view as you walk into the house. The dining room wall is now green to better frame the mostly white kitchen and its orange accents. Note the shiny wood floor. There was oak flooring under those incredibly grungy tiles. The best surprise of the project!

You'll also see new cabinets and appliances including the dishwasher (which I LOVE), a stove that heats up fast (the old extra slow stove has been moved to the (still non-functional) dye studio) and a counter-depth refrigerator with an icemaker. I may not be in the 21st century, but I'm out of the 1950's!

Under-counter lighting, interesting tile work and a decent range hood make this a lovely kitchen. It's not perfect, but on my budget, it's just fine. I now have a lazy Susan-equipped cabinet that gives me access to what was a wasted black hole, electrical outlets where I need them and a lovely space to work in. There's more to it, but these are the best pictures.

Not having a kitchen for a month was annoying, but living on raw fruits & vegetables, yogurt, tomato sandwiches and roasted chicken from the grocery store left me 5 pounds lighter. The garden was lovely and most of the produce was eaten raw, dehydrated or given away. I spent a couple of quality hours last evening watering, weeding, picking beans and generally putting it back into shape for the cooler weather. I need to shell about 3/4 of the 2 bags of Kentucky Wonder beans as they got WAY ahead of me.

On the fiber front, I finished and blocked 2 sweaters, made good progress on another, knit a few hats for the upcoming season and have spun a LOT! I have gone to my spinning group most Wednesday evenings and have spun a good bit at home in the evening. Not spending time cooking opens up time for spinning - a decent trade!

Because the kitchen stuff (and living & dining room stuff) had to go somewhere, the dye studio has been down. After this weekend it will be back in force. I have felting and spinning and knitting ideas and the right fiber colors are so important. I need red!

The day job is also keeping me way too busy, but that's seldom blog fodder. I think I'll keep it that way.

Random Monday

2011-08-01T16:32:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a bunch of interesting stuff lately, but not exactly knitting-spinning-dyeing blog appropriate unless you have rather low standards. Here are some random highlights...

I am hosting a meeting at work and tomorrow I have a bunch of my colleagues coming from around the country. It's hot as blue blazes, but it's hot everywhere, and I can't do much about the weather. August is hot.
The garden continues it's summer growth & I have to water it with city water, so the cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes & zucchini may be only a little cheaper than the organic ones at the neighborhood Whole Foods.
My 1940's era kitchen is being remodeled (Yeah!) so I can't cook. The zukes are being dehydrated into zucchini chips. The green beans are being given away if they are too big to eat raw
I will soon have a decent kitchen. It is the last room that I have fixed up in my little 1920's house. The electrician is there today. Imagine: code!
I have been trying to finish a sweater I started 2 years ago. I picked up the button bands 2 weeks ago when I was staying in a hotel with the air conditioning set to minus 0. I haven't quite gotten around to sewing them down
Socks are smaller knitting projects to hold onto when it is hot out - and in.
I have been spinning - a lovely wool silk blend that I plan to turn into a sweater.
It might get finished in 2 years.
Maybe 3, because I am spinning the yarn.

So obviously there is gardening, home improvement and professional work going on. Oh and fiber. Note to self: Take some pictures. Perhaps this is blog fodder after all.

When the Day's List Starts with '1. Make a List...'

2011-07-18T09:29:00.000-04:00

...you know the week is going to be busy!

Last week, I facilitated a Professional Development 'Institute' (the code word for week-long workshop) and this week I am co-facilitating another Professional Development Institute at a university a few hours from here. So I have exactly one day in the office to prep. By prep I mean figure out what I have to do, say and take to make myself come off as a knowledgeable professional grownup, instead of a babbling half-wit. Of course I also have to figure out what knitting I need to bring, as well as SAFF work that stubbornly refuses to do itself.

Between these weeks, I attended the Friends & Fiberworks Summer Fiber Retreat as a teacher, student and general hanger-on. It was so much fun - Thanks to Lisa and Friends for pulling off another rousing success!

I taught 3 sections of Crock-Pot Dyeing to a total of ten students. Small classes (like the 2 students here) mean lots of individual attention, but still enough variation in the dyepots that everybody can vicariously experience lots of color-ways.

A wonderful weekend, but the rest of the list calls!

ADD Travel Knitting

2011-07-07T15:25:00.000-04:00

I took a little dutiful non-vacation last week. You know the kind - hanging out with the older generation - talking, cooking, movin' kind of slow. Add excessive time riding in the car. Sounds like lots of knitting time to me.

And although it's the heat of the summer, those hats don't knit themselves. So I spent some time in the stash, selecting yarns for my in-car and around-the-house knitting, figuring that I would knit at least a dozen hats. I wound lots of balls of handspun and pulled yarns that I don't always grab because they are fairly small gauge. But when you are stuck in the car and have limited choices, you will use the small yarns and needles.

Then I did something kind of naughty. I grabbed some sock yarn. Pretty blue & green self striping sock yarn. Sock yarn is so very small and light and I might could reach my hat goal . Besides, I like to knit socks - even when I am so finished with the sock of the month plan. Six is enough. Really!

Then some other yarn snuck into my tub. Did I tell you about the killer fiber yard sale a few weeks back where I ended up with a newish Lendrum spinning wheel and a shopping bag full of yarn? One of the yarns was 6 skeins of Peace Fleece worsted in an earthy greenish tweed called Grass Roots. A sweater was already started and I was pretty sure that the pattern was Melissa Bare's Garter Yoke Cardi [rav link], but because my gauge didn't match the original gauge, I abandoned that idea. Only 2 days into the trip I cast on for the Knitting Pure and Simple top down cardi #9725. I've had this pattern for years, even have the yarn to knit it, but somehow it never knitted itself. I knit most of the yoke, then put it aside because, I'M SUPPOSED TO BE KNITTING HATS, DARN IT! Besides I seem to be a bit off gauge so need to make the yoke section longer and needed to refer to EZ or Barbara Walker (which I had in a suitcase pocket but didn't find until I got home).

There is so big reveal here - kind of a lame results show. I ended up with...

Seven hats
About 40% of one sock -- most of the cuff.
About 80% of the raglan section of a top down cardi - probably about 22.7% of the sweater. Sounds much more scientific that not quite 25%, eh?

Not bad for a 6 day stretch! And now I have several yarns nicely staged for some quick hat knitting. Unless I sneak back to the sweater...or the sock!

June Socks - Done

2011-06-22T17:07:00.000-04:00

Should I mention that I started the June socks in August. 2010? They were stalled on the needles for a long time, but were recently taken out of the hibernation chamber and finished. I dislike the yarn as much as ever. It is Knit Picks long discontinued 'Dancing' in the colorway 'Jig' - a wool/cotton/lycra blend. It splits, the pooling looks terrible, but I really do like the way they feel on my feet. I am wearing their fraternal twins today. I bought a healthy amount of the yarn when it first came out. I have knit 3 pair and still have enough to knit another pair, but no time soon.

The blog has been rather quiet and I mostly have the day job to blame. I have been preparing for 3 summer teacher workshops, and am finishing up workshop #1. It is going well, but it does take a lot of energy. But because tonight is spinning night, I'll pump some of it right back in.

I've also been having a fine time in the garden. It has seldom looked better and we've had good rain lately. The vegies, fruit and flowers all look good. I'm still eating peas and blueberries, the summer squash are beginning to come in, the green beans are very tiny but I really need to pick and cook and eat kale. Yum!

There has been other knitting, spinning and dyeing, but more about that later.

Spinning Yarns

2011-06-08T13:38:00.000-04:00

I've been on a spinning binge lately. It seems to happen after a carding binge - and this time I have some nice batts to spin. It's sort of like putting food in the freezer. eventually you have to take it out and eat it. The difference is that carded batts don't get freezer burn (though the white that you see here bit have sort of a basement-y smell before I washed it. With plied skeins still on the bobbins and recent knitting aside, here it a bit of yarn that I made recently.

On the left is a big honkin' skein of a wool-mohair blend from Bitsy Knits. It's one of her custom carded rovings in a lovely blue-green color. I don't have the label with me so I can't tell you the official name. I got it in a gift exchange and finally got around to spinning it. I didn't measure it, but it's big! Just past that is a merino-alpaca blend that I carded myself a long while back and kind of forgot about. When I was tidying up I found the box and though it was a bit musty smelling, it spun up fine and after a wee bath, it smells good too.

On the far right is one of 3 skeins of a Corriedale-like fiber from Cherry Tree hill via Discontinued Brand Name Yarns. The colorway is 'Irish Mist' but I am a bit tired of it, so I overdyed the last 6 ounces of the pound in blue, so the resulting roving is a lovely peacock blue-green. Easy to spin, btw in case you have wondered about that roving. I spin rather thick and it came out nicely squishy.

The deep blue is another overdye. I spun it a while back - a natural grey carded with a medium blue wool and some angelina, but I didn't love it. It was too grey with not enough blue to really pop, so into the dyepot it went. I love it now - deep and heathery. I rolled it into a ball this morning and brought it with me to knit at the SAFF board meeting tonight. It is destined to become a Trailside hat. I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I heard about a big destash yard sale over the weekend. The flyer said there were 2 spinning wheels, 6 sowing [sic] machines and lots of yarn and fabric. There was, indeed! I was the first person there when she opened at 8 and bought a Lendrum double treadle (and a bunch of yarn!). It's quite beautiful and it spins nicely, but by the size of the skeins above, you can see that I like fat yarn and BIG skeins. So my trusty Louet S10 isn't going anywhere. So far I've only spun 2 bobbins on the Lendrum & plied them on the Louet. A nice combination, I think, particularly for smaller quantities.

Definitely Summer

2011-05-31T15:56:00.000-04:00

There are a number of indicators that it's summer. Well, it's hot out. Today it may well hit 90 degrees F. 91 will break the record, but I'm ok if we fall short.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer in the US. Thanks to the vets who keep us safe. I really appreciate the men and women who died for what they believed in.

We cooked burgers on the grill. I love burgers cooked outside with mayo and mustard and a slice of tomato, even if the tomatoes aren't very good yet. We had a big salad, potato salad, sugar snap peas from the garden and peach shortcake. It was wonderful!

My dyeing has slowed down a bit. I dyed a good bit of roving for a fiber fair where my colleagues were vendors brought a lot of it back, so I'm caught up. I am dyeing some colors I need - and washing and dyeing mohair locks.

I want to hang out in the basement - a clear sign of summer. It's cool and dark and I can card fiber for later spinning. I've also been doing a bit of de-cluttering again. I'm hitting kitchenware, clothing and quilting fabric this time.

Knitting? That too, is in summer slow-down mode. A hat or 2 a week, I'll likely finish the June socks fairly soon, since they were recently pulled from the marination chamber. I actually like to spin in the summer, so I'll have hand spun yarn come fall. I finished 2 skeins last week and the recent carding will help in that department.

The garden is planted and weeded and mulched. Not much to do except cut the grass every week or so, keep ahead of the weeds and pick the vegies and fruits as they ripen. The peas and onions are pumping out, we are eating kale, the beans are climbing. The poppies are beautiful, but I don't take any credit for that. They simply grow and spread their seeds around.

One of the surest signs of summer is the mood on campus - pretty relaxed. My day job is a 12-month staff gig at a small liberal arts college. Although I am busy getting ready for my summer workshops for teachers, the overall place is a ghost town. The faculty are gone, except when they are here to teach a class.

Summer time, and the livin' is easy!

April Socks - Teal and Sparkly

2011-05-24T12:54:00.000-04:00

Back in April I knit a pair of my all time favorite pattern, the blueberry waffle socks in Berroco Sox Metallic in the lovely teal colorway highlighted with lime green and purple, charmingly known as Acai. probably. the label was lost when I took it in trade from the local yarn shop for whom I do a bit of work. Although I knit them quickly, sock #2 sat around waiting patiently for its toe to be kitchenered until I needed those particular needles.

Today is their first wearing. Although they will be more comfortable once they are washed, I like them very much. I wanted to dress sort of like a grownup, even though summer is a ghost town on many college campuses. However there is a wee reception this afternoon and sparkly socks will be all the rage. Actually footwear will primarily be sneakers and sandals, including the ubiquitous Birkenstocks, the Asheville shoe of choice.

The purple socks of the last post are completed, but still unphotographed and unworn. Watch this space!

Traveling

2011-05-19T13:09:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a short business trip to DC. The meetings and camaraderie were great. The actual getting there and back less so. I ask, how do non-knitters cope with air travel? OK, I see people with their Kindles and other book readers, and people diddling with their cell phones and I really get why people have smart phones and iPads. I had a laptop with me and did actual work in the airport and in the hotel room. But I must say I spent about the same amount of time in airports and airplanes as I did in meetings. Here is what I have to show for it. 90% of a pair of socks. The yarn is Fortissima Socka Mexiko Color (0051). They were lots of fun to knit. My seatmate on the final flight to Asheville, suggested that I stay in the airport long enough to finish them, though I decided to go ahead and finish them later. Maybe tonight, surely by week's end. This may be a personal best in terms on sock completion. Nothing fancy here, obviously. Just a basic sock recipe that I like to use for self striping yarn. As it happens, this is my 5th pair of socks in 2011. Even if I am not really in a self-imposed sock club, these seem to be my May socks.

My fiber is traveling without me to the Carolina Fiber Fest in Raleigh, NC with Judy and Marie, owners of Asheville HomeCrafts. They are vendors at the event and decided to make their booth's focus Needle Felting. So they'll have lots of notions and supplies, including plenty of hand dyed fiber from the studio of Smoky Mountain Fibers. I spent a few weeks dyeing and prepping the fiber for sale and now it is on it's way They are also taking hand spun yarns and my patterns.

Friends and Fiberworks will also be at the Fiber Fest, taking lots of great yarns and patterns, including the 2 new patterns that I developed for their store, including this new red version of the Trailside hat. So if you are in the neighborhood of the Carolina Fiber Fest, drop by either booth to visit my work in person.

Meanwhile, I'll be finishing this fine pair of purple socks!

Asheville Yarn Crawl! and more...

2011-05-13T13:57:00.000-04:00

I am lucky enough to live in a community that values art and craft. So it's no great surprise that this weekend is all about - and this time it's not just me! There are 2 big fiber events going on this weekend.

First is the yarn crawl? The what? Well, the independent yarn shops throughout Western North Carolina and even into upstate South Carolina want to make sure that the fiber enthusiasts and artists are well acquainted with all the shops as well as the companies that supply and distribute the yarns and accessories we carry.

So much like a studio tour, there is a self guided itinerary for the exploration of eleven participating stores, fiber farms, and galleries. Starting in downtown Asheville, there are 3 shops in walking distance of my home! How cool is that? The organizers contacted the yarn companies and they are contributing full sized samples of yarns, needles, and other great products that are included in raffle baskets that will be available at every store along the crawl. There is one raffle basket in each store, I should make it to at least 4 shops, possibly more!

Saturday is also the Southern Highland Craft Guild's annual celebration of textile arts at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway. They'll have spinning, dyeing, weaving and quilting demonstrations, vendors and hands-on children's activities. There will even be wearable art fashion show.

I've set myself a budget for the yarn crawl & intend to stick to it, but I do need a few things. Note to self: bring yarn to match for Windy City hats!

Getting Ready

2011-05-09T13:08:00.000-04:00

Although I will not be at the Carolina Fiber Fest, my fiber will be festing away with the best of them. One of the shops that I work with, Asheville HomeCrafts is a vendor at the Raleigh event and they are focusing on needle felting supplies. So they have asked me to make up lots of grab bags, bonbons (little one-ounce rolls of hand dyed fiber) and larger quantities of hand dyed fiber for spinners and feltmakers.

So for the past 2 weeks or so I have been keeping the dye pots cooking away as I dye across the spectrum. I make up the grab bags as multi-packs in color families of reds, greens, blues, skin tones, naturals and mixed colors. This means I have to have at least 8 shades of red - red, pink, orange, purple, a bit of yellow, etc. to make up a red multi-pack. That's a lot of dyeing as each shade is a separate pot. I also like to use some of my painted fiber to make the multi-packs extra special. I'll make about 5 dozen grab bags for the show + a few extras because they sell well in the local yarn shops and in my Etsy shop.

The bonbons are the cutest. Each is a one-ounce roll of roving, coiled up and tied with yarn. I attach a business card so people know where it came from. So far I have made about 60 of these and I hope to make close to 100.

This is a big order for me, but as school is out, the timing couldn't be better. So this past weekend, I dyed, weighed, packaged, and labeled fiber. I dyed just about every color I could think of, but I may be short of blue. Although the event isn't until May 20-22, I will be out of town before Judy and Marie leave. That gives me an artificial deadline of May 15th or so, but since that conflicts with the Asheville Yarn Crawl, my deadline moved up to Thursday. I chatted with one of the shop owners on Saturday, concerned that I was sending too much. Impossible! was the answer. They need the fiber for the show, and besides, it sells well in their shop, so no worries!

As it happens, I am dyeing for Smoky Mountain Fibers at the same time, so I will have lots of fresh stock!

Herbs and Spices

2011-05-03T13:33:00.000-04:00

I love greens! Mossy green, deep forest green, the color of leaves and frogs. Greens on the blue side and greens on the yellow side. So although the May Phat Fiber theme is Spice Market, I have to tell you that I went a bit herbal myself. I dyed both Merino and Falklands roving in 2 shades of green - one kind of olive; another more on the bronze side - both beautiful. The colors should be just right for leaves of you are a felt maker. I will likely spin some yarn from this colorway. It definitely belongs in the permanent line for my Etsy shop.

Perhaps green is my favorite color at the moment because my garden is looking so pretty right now. The peas are in blossom, so I'll be munching on Sugar Snaps by the end of the week. The Red Russian kale is coming up nicely and we can eat all the green onions and parsely we want. It's time to start to plant warmer weather crops, with the most tender after mid-May. No garden pictures yet, though I definitely should. With everything weeded and mulched, it doesn't look too much better than it does right now.

I did a fun little weekend project. As my faithful readers know, I knit a lot of hats that are sold in a number of local shops, so I need to start knitting about now so I'll have enough. So over the weekend I pulled out lots and lots of yarn to make 'kits.' Match yarns and patterns to knit later, put them in bags and then in totes. One tote is already in my office for lunch hour knitting. I just cast on a (green!) hat, then decided to write this little post instead. But my knitting is ready and waiting for me. I have a final to give today. Perhaps I'll knit while my students write!

Still on a Binge

2011-04-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

A sock knitting binge. But I think it has nearly run its course. At the end of April I am completing my 4th pair of socks in as many months. I've had this yarn for a few years. It's Cushy ColorSport DK Washable Merino by LynnH. I've been a fan of her blog, her patterns and her yarn for many years and it's time to get these finished. I have knit 2 other pair of socks from this yarn - one for me and more for a friend. I love the yarn - quite thick and cushy, it washes well and really lives up to its name. I don't remember the color name, but its a variegated light pink and purple. The heels and toes are a semi-solid lilac.

I knit these in the 'gull lace' pattern and plan to write up the pattern, but in a finer gauge yarn. I like the pattern as it is eay to memorize and adds a bit of style to the socks without much of a brain drain. After making a false start on this yarn during last spring's self-imposed sock club, I took these on a trip earlier this month and then blasted away.

Also begun in April are a pair of waffle socks in Berroco Sox Metallic. I finished sock #1 on the afore-mentioned trip, then knit the Gull lace socks and have began sock #2 on Sunday evening. I knit a good bit of the cuff in a session of a Netflix guilty pleasure, Weeds. This is my second pair in this yarn. These are wonderfully blue-green-teal; though the earlier pink ones were lovely too.

Although I have a pair marinating on the needles in Knit Picks now-discontinued Dancing, [rav link] I believe I am taking a break from sock-knitting after this. Unless they travel to Washington with me next month(...hmmm...) it's time to get back to hats and my Mossy Cardi. I even have a another cardigan done but for the finishing and the UFO's might just call my name. As the semester's finish-itis is certainly upon me, let's see if it won't carry over to my knitting life.

Green Fiber

2011-04-20T16:34:00.000-04:00

As I was listening to NPR this morning, I heard an Earth Day related story about the Textile Museum's current show. Since I seldom hear about handmade paper, spinning and wool felt on mainstream media, my ears perked up and I even remembered to look up the art that was being discussed. Take a look and see what you like. I'm partial to this 'basket.' The artist Jackie Abrams uses recycled silk blouses, coiling them and securing the coils with waxed linen thread. This is a time honored technique, whether the colied material is reeds, pine needles or fabric. I love it.

I also really like this piece, entitled 'The Grass is Always Greener.' Real wool felt and fencing. While you are at it, watch the video below as Faith Hagenhofer speaks about her art, making felt, raising sheep and the creative process. there are a number of other pieces in the video

This on line show is very engaging and I found it difficult to pick just a few pieces. I will be in Washington before the show closes, so I hope to go see the pieces, particularly Nancy Cohen's Estuary: Moods and Modes.

Stitches South; Dancing Everywhere

2011-04-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

Stitches South is coming up soon in Atlanta. Seems like almost everyone I know will be there. Even though I won't be there, my knitting will be. Friends & Fiberworks, one of the local fiber shops that I work with will be a vendor for the first time. Now this shop has an excellent presence at SAFF, so a number of their followers are sure to find there way to the booth. I developed 2 patterns that will debut at Stitches along with a number of other exclusive patterns by Asheville designers.

One pattern is a reworking of my Trailside pattern - in 2 versions and a smaller gauge. Some people (mostly men) really like a ribbed brim that folds up. Rather traditional, it keeps your ears extra warm. But there is a 'hat head' factor, that some of us wish to avoid. So I also wrote an alternate brim that people can push back and make the hat a bit puffy. Both should be good for both men and women and work well in solids, heathers and tweeds. Both are one-skein patterns designed for Berroco Vintage Bulky, but will work just fine for any other yarns in that weight, like Lamb's Pride Bulky.

The other pattern is a garter stitch pattern meant to show off a wilder yarn. I wrote this for Berroco's Borealis - a multicolored yarn that creates subtle stripes. Now I will admit to my blog readers that it seems ridiculous to claim that this is a pattern, but at SAFF last year, people kept asking for it. I told them how to make it, but over and over I heard, 'No, I'll never remember that. I need the pattern.' So I finally wrote it down. in two sizes. and tested it. and printed it. Now it is going to Stitches. I'm sorry I will not be there for the acclaim or catcalls, and I imagine there will be both. That is, if the Southerners aren't too polite for the catcalls.

I hope to make both these patterns available on Ravelry. However since the yarn shops want to sell them, I can't make them free downloads. They will be low priced however and I'll let my readers know when to expect them.

Instead of hanging out with knitters at Stitches, I will be calling dances all around the area. If it's Friday it must be an English dance in Greenville, SC. Saturday takes me to Greensboro, NC for a contra dance with Ted Erhart and Dean Herington founding members of Footloose and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops! On Sunday I am back in Asheville for our regular English Country Dance. I also called contra dances last Saturday and Monday. If I had just that kind of ego, I'd declare myself on tour. Instead, I'll just consider it being busy with dance calling.

Socks and Socks - It Continues

2011-04-04T14:52:00.000-04:00

I kitchenered the toe of Easter Egg sock #2 last evening and immediately tossed them into the suitcase to come along to Nashville, TN. It's a short trip - not fiber related. Day job related, but that's okay. It was a tough decision whether to fly or drive. It's that funny distance, where flying and driving take about the same amount of time. But flying was less expensive and you can't knit while you drive. you can read and listen to music & the radio, but really it was the knitting that was the decision maker.

It's funny that I called these Easter Egg socks, when I could have called them natural, organic socks. Oh? in those funky pastels? Compare the colors here with my friend Laura's organic orangey-beige and pale green eggs from her own chickens. I particlularly like how she arranged them in the carton in the checkerboard fashion. Spring, when the young chicken's fancy turns to making more chickens!

Even before these were completely finished, on Friday evening I cast on for another pair of socks. This time they are a multicolored blue-green with a silver glitter thread that runs through it. Berroco Sox Metallic in the Acai (1361) colorway, probably. It had lost its label so I took it in barter at my local yarn shop. I'm knitting the Blueberry Waffle Socks for maybe the 10th time. Even on size 1 & 2, I'm blasting through it. I am knitting the gusset on sock #1. I am writing this post in the Charlotte airport as I wait for my next flight. I could be knitting you know, but in the interest of possible delays, I thought I'd check my email and dash off a few words. But not to be underyarned on this trip, I took this yarn and yarn for another pair of something a bit fancier. Alter all, you never know what might happen and you need more yarn.

Spring Knitting: Socks

2011-03-29T15:30:00.000-04:00

It seems that all I want to do is knit socks, but that frequently happens this time of year. The hat business goes on hiatus for a while. No one is buying hats this time of year, so it's time for me to let my creative muscles relax - new designs will find them. Although I am currently knitting a sweater, I won't wear it until October or so, so no need to get too far ahead. My early gardening is done, the beds without baby plants have manure on them, so the frequent rains will spread the manure juice into the earth.

After finishing the 'Blue Jeans' socks on March 20th, I immediately cast on the springy 'Easter Egg' socks that you see here. In just a little over a week, I am well into sock #2, and have just started the gusset. Granted, these are very straight forward - the kind of socks that self patterning yarns are best for, IMHO.

I have a brief trip next week. I think I'll take another pair of socks, as they are nearly perfect travel knitting - compact, they take a good bit of time. Best of all, I'll have another pair of socks at the end of the trip!

Dawdling

2011-03-27T15:17:00.000-04:00

Things to do instead of working on my taxes.
1. Make a cup of tea.
2. Laundry. Hang up shirts from dryer & start another load, thus ensuring more dawdling later on.
3. Check the garden. The peas planted last weekend are just coming up. The kale is also now visible to the naked eye. Everything is very wet as it has been a rainy weekend. Grass is very long.
3. Turn off the dyepot. Admire the lovely dyed fiber and put more on to soak. More dawdling to come.
4. Post some roving to Etsy. The 20 % off sale has done well, but I still have lots of fiber and I'm dyeing more.
5. Surf over to Facebook. Look at pictures from last night's contra dance. Note that those people are having fun, but I am dutifully doing my taxes.
6. Check work email to see if anyone has registered for my summer institute. Three. This is good since I just sent the first announcement on Friday.
7. Put on music.
8. Post to blog.
9. Try very hard to come up with another item to make this a 10 item list. After all, aren't 10 items better than nine?
10. Now back to the taxes. Bye!

Old School

2011-03-23T17:14:00.000-04:00

I was knitting away on my Easter Egg socks during a web meeting today and I finished the heel flap, quietly rooted around to find the recipe for turning the heel, then I picked up the stitches around the gusset. Obviously the meeting ran long. Note to all: I was actively engaged, my computer screen was actually displayed to the universe (ok, the other participants) and there was nothing embarrassing displayed. Not sure how that happened.

The only hassle was that I did not have my circs available, only double pointed needles. The good part is that they don't match. I was rooting around in my dpn collection as I started the socks the other evening and grabbed the first 4 of the right size. Two are bamboo, one is an ancient plastic, one is aluminum.

But here is the yarn and half a sock, sitting on my laptop in all their mismatched dpn glory. The truth is out!

So Much Fiber - Time for a Sale!

2011-03-22T11:19:00.000-04:00

As you know, I love to dye In the crock pot, on the stove, sock yarn in the microwave. But every now and then I take a look at what I have on hand and I'm blown away! I went down to take some pictures and see what I need to dye The short answer: I need to take a lot of GOOD pictures & I don't need to dye anything!

I need to move it out or spin it, and as it is getting into gardening season, I am spinning less these beautiful spring days. I call the roving on the left Copper Penny. It's a lovely merino combed top, that really wants to be spun or felted. It has many friends and they all need new homes.

So, my faithful blog readers - Does 20% off get your attention? All fibers, patterns and tools in my Etsy shop, Smoky Mountain Fibers are 20% off through the end of March. I'll keep posting new stuff daily so check back. Just use the code, SPRINGSALE. It's an Etsy coupon, so the 20% will be deducted from your invoice automatically. No revised invoice required! I'll also refund shipping overages for purchases where Etsy's shipping calculations go beyond actual cost of shipping.

If you can't find anything that you like, drop me a line at amwalter [at] mail [dot] com (edited appropriately, of course) and ask. I have some beautiful fiber that my point 'n' shoot camera can't quite capture & I may have more that I haven't posted yet.

Knitting and Dancing

2011-03-17T08:05:00.000-04:00

I've been knitting, but not blogging lately. Between the day job and dance calling gigs, I've been on the go. I'm writing this in a Bruegger's bagel place in Durham, NC. The wireless in my hotel last night was so poor that I was forced to watch cable TV and knit on my demin blue socks. I've been blasting through these at nearly record time. In fact I knit from midway down the cuff & most of the heel flap last evening, after I took the picture on the right.

I really like this yarn - Paton's Kroy Socks in a demin blue colorway that fades lighter & deeper as one ply changes at a time. The socks don't truly match - and that's okay.

I've also been knitting on my green cardigan. It's a yoke sweater based loosely on this pattern, but I doubts I'll start with the lace motif. It's very pretty, but I think the character of the yarn might be better suited to a moss stitch section, then maybe a garter rib, then a seed stitch with a couple of garter ridges in between. I can hide the decrease rounds in the garter rows. Seems like it might be a good idea to knit a swatch of this pattern combination - what a concept!

The dance schedule has been quite busy. I attended the English Country Dance SpringFest in Durham last weekend - I had a wonderful time dancing to Helene Cornelious & the Sun Assembly's house band, Collard Greene (great name!). I called the TCD contra dance on Friday night, I'll be calling the Asheville Advanced Dance this coming Friday night - that's tomorrow- and I'll be calling the ECD on Sunday afternoon. I'm usually not this busy, but all of a sudden I have a bunch of calling gigs. Also, there are dance events all over the place. I'd love to go to the Nashville Playford Ball, but its kind of a haul - about 5 hours of driving each way, though the band and leader are probably worth it.

In the mean time, I've been dyeing and shipping orders from the shop, but mostly the day job has kept me quite busy. In a few minutes I'll be on my way to a meeting at UNC-Chapel Hill to work with a collaborator. We are developing a Summer Institute for teachers using the Library of Congress and the Paideia method. Ah, spring break!

Phat Fiber's Sweet Shop: Caramelo

2011-03-05T18:02:00.000-05:00

I have been sitting out the Phat Fiber Sampler box for the last few months. The day job and dance calling responsibilities have precluded adding anything to my workload, even something as pleasant as being involved in marketing opportunities for my Etsy shop.

I did dye some samples for the February box, whose theme was gems and minerals. As a rockhound, I could get around that. I had lots of ideas, just not enough time to make them happen. March's theme is 'Sweet Shop.' Of late I have been interested in working in brown-copper-olive families. So it was a short hop to 'Caramelo,' a caramel-colored merino roving that looks and feels just yummy.

So over that last week or so, I played with dyes & I just finished making up and packing my samples. They are all a bit over 1/4 ounce and will be shipped to the queen of the fiber sampler on Monday. Now the Phat Fiber blog and Facebook page are worth following as the contributors frequently donate full-size rovings, batts or skeins of yarn and they are given away to people who comment on the blog. I've donated rovings a few times and it does seem to generate a good bit of shop and blog traffic. I've also won a couple of times - that's kind of nice. There is a supporting Ravelry group that is quite active.

Now I do this to get my samples of my work into the hands of future buyers; but a fringe benefit is that contributors get a sampler box of their own so that I get to see what other fiber artists are doing. I am so inspired by the work that I see people doing. Join in the fur and you can be inspired too!

Also on the list this weekend: Knitting on Mossy Cardi II, finishing the tiny sweater for my tiny nephew and getting it sent off, working on the books for Smoky Mountain Fibers, dyeing & photographing fiber, making bean soup (it's gray and chilly out there) and plenty more.

Fiber Nights - Back-to-Back

2011-03-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evenings are for spinning - at least most Wednesdays. I find that setting this time aside, spinning with other reasonably serious spinners puts me with like minded people. Our only connection is fiber. I like them very much - many of us serve on the SAFF board of directors. Kim took this picture last night. She had just resolved an thorny issue with the IRS and had declared it Best Day EVER! Our expressions say the same thing!

But tonight's fiber group is completely different. We are a group of women who have dinner together once a month to eat, sometimes have wine and talk about life. Sometimes work, frequently relationships, occassionally fiber. One woman is an amazing quilter who crochets. Another is a very talented production weaver who dyes multi-colored warps & teaches lots of workshops. The third likes about everything fiber and bead related. She quilts and sews and crochets, maybe knits a little. I think of myself as a spinner who dyes and knits. We all have busy lives, work hard and came together through the music and dance scene.

We have lost a couple of members because of work commitments (if you are a special ed teacher who starts at 7:30 am, it's hard to carve out a week night - even if it's only once a month) and family responsibilities. Anther person just didn't mesh with the group and stopped coming.

Sadly for us & happily for her, one of our group is moving away. She has been one of our leaders so it is very difficult to lose her. We will be down to 3 and I'm not sure that that is enough to keep the momentum going. But we are slow to invite new people. We have invented a good bit of ourselves in this group and talk about our lives and families - the good and the bad. One woman has gone through a particularly difficult divorce and this has been a safe outlet for her. We can't just bring in anyone.

So I guess that our group will have to figure it out. With a few months before our amazing quilter (with the cutest dogs and the cleanest house!) leaves us, we will simply continue to share meals and lives and fiber!

Early Spring

2011-02-28T07:26:00.000-05:00

Spring has come early to the mountains this year. Although the nights are chilly, the days have been warm and sunny. A few of my bulb-like friends have come up early, like these tiny iris. Yesterday the first daffodil bloomed. I put in a row of peas and planted some onion sets & the fall planted greens (collards and turnips) are up and happy - tasty too! But as lovely as it is, I am resisting the temptation to get too carried away this early. I'm afraid that I'll clean up all the old leaves and other litter only to get some serious cold. We have had some of our worst snows in March. Still, I spent a few hours in the garden this weekend.

But I'm spinning and dyeing and knitting, as evidenced by this tiny still life. The rust colored yarn is the merino silk roving that I have been spinning for a future sweater. The creamy yarn on the bobbin is part of the everlasting Falklands wool that I spin for both my own knitting and for the local shops. The dark brown is a sweet lamb's fleece that I purchased at last year's fleece show and am hand processing. It is also destined to be a sweater, though no time soon. The small skein of purple yarn is a sample for the local fiber shop. I have nearly finished the tiny baby cardi. Just a few bits left to do. The I'd better send it off before he grows out of it.

This week the design work continues and the day job will keep me hopping, but in a good way. My students have an assignment due and so do I!

Conference Knitting, as Opposed to a Knitting Conference

2011-02-25T10:12:00.000-05:00

I am currently at a social studies education conference (this one). My session yesterday went well, I've attended a number of other sessions and I am currently sitting one out. I'd leave and go home, but I want to attend the next one. History education is currently focusing on the US Civil War. The session I'll be attending is focusing on analyzing the session arguments in North Carolina.

This photo is from the state archives - this young woman is a weaver at Black Mountain College in the 1940s.

As fascinating as that is, what's really interesting is what people are knitting. One woman in my session was knitting lovely creamy wool socks. Another woman was making a baby hat - very tiny! I'm knitting the Mossy Cardi - again or still -whatever you want to call it. It's all the way up to 5 inches long so it's almost as long as it was when I frogged it last time.

In the evenings I've been working on a couple of new hat patterns. No details yet, but there is a bit of a time crunch. My friend Lisa (of Friends and Fiberworks) will e a vendor at Stitches South in Mid-April and wants some easy one skien patterns that are yarn-specific. She wants to sell the patterns for yarns that she has a good bit of. So my task is to develop patterns for these yarns that are reasonably easy to knit and don't exist yet. Two have come out nicely. The third is really giving me trouble. The pattern that she visualized does really work with the pattern. I kind of knew that, but I sometimes try to give people what they want. I think I'll leave it where it is and ask her to take a look at it before I go any farther.

Although I am certainly ready to go home, I kind of like the out-of-time feeling of being at a conference. Staying in a hotel, eating in restaurants, seeing people that you seldom see in 'real life.' But the 3 hour trip home should be pleasant. I am listening to 'The Knitting Circle' by Ann Hood. Highly emotional and a wee bit melodramatic, it's a good travel 'listen.'

My biggest decision for the drive home, where shall I eat lunch?

mmmmm....Mohair

2011-02-22T07:32:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite goat herds called me up the other day. Seems that it's nearly time to shear and she still has plenty of mohair so it was time to find new homes for the good fleece - nice enough to be processed by hand. I bought 3 lovely fleeces. Here's how it starts - a little stinky and dirty.

Then I soak it - at least twice - before I wash it.

After a trip through the dyepot, it looks like this. This is my fire colorway. I dyed it together in my big turkey roaster.

Pretty, eh?

Distracted

2011-02-16T16:03:00.000-05:00

Seems I can hardly get started on things these days. I'd have a hard time finishing if I had anything to finish.

About 2 weeks ago, I frogged the Mossy Cardi & immediately cast on for a new cardigan. And cast on I did - to knit up a sweater that would have been nearly 50 inches around. That's 78 cm - making it seem even bigger! Even on my fattest days, I don't think I am that big. Because I did not measure until I had knit about 4 inches, I happily frogged that sweater and cast on again. I have now knit about 1 1/2 rows.

About a week or so my niece gave birth to a baby boy. I cast on for a tiny sweater. Now in good faith, I will say that she did not tell anyone the gender ahead of time and I'm not a mint green kind of person, nor is my niece. So a tiny pale blue sweater is now about two thirds along. Here is what it looks like today. The nicest thing about baby things is they knit up quickly. I'm knitting this pattern [rav link], but I'm already making mods as it is written with gobs of sewing up later. I kitchenered the shoulder seams. Now I am knitting the sleeves from the top down. notice the stitches on holders rather than cast off. I think it will be quite cute and very tiny!

After a few sessions of leading the fiber unit in Art Education, I've almost completed my fingerless mitts, just a bit of sewing up to do. It would take about 10 minutes. I'm meeting tonight with a yarn shop owner to discuss my making a couple of patterns for her store. Note that I am adding to my list with actually finishing anything.

I'm on several deadlines at the day job, but they seem more doable. I make a list, break things down into smaller tasks as need be. Later I cross them off as I finish them. I have crossed off lots of things today. Somehow my at-home lists are a bit less pressing that my weekday lists. I think I know why - it has something to do with my distractability. There are just so many interesting things to do!

New Idea for the New Year

2011-02-12T19:05:00.001-05:00

After a month-long hiatus, I am having fun at the dye pots again. Part of the break is weather related. My basement is quite cold and pulling fiber out of the cold water is hard on my hands. Also, I had gotten ahead of myself and I had lots of dyed fiber. But between my spinning, carding and sales (thanks, customers!) I needed to dye some of my favorite colorways.

I'm doing a project that seems to want some variations on a theme. I had this idea. Suppose I dye some of my multi-color rovings and dye additional rovings in a semi-solid version of the component colors. So last evening I dyed my Neptune colorway. Then this morning I dyed 2 other rovings - one in the watery blue aqua color and another in the green color. That way the spinner can decide whether she (or he) wants the yarn to be on the blue side, on the green side or just randomly Neptune-ish. This picture is the yarn drying in the sun this afternoon.

As a side note, after a false start the Mossy Cardi is coming back. Note to self: Check gauge better and earlier!

Frogged!

2011-02-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

The Mossy Cardi is no more. It's sad end came on Saturday morning. There was no fixing the problem, so I frogged the sweater and washed the yarn. Before (sorry the picture is so dark) ...

Note that although the sleeves were not yet knit, I was nearly to the shoulders. But alas, the Mossy Cardi is no more. Instead of becoming this, it became this...

Since washed and hung to dry. I don't even feel the least bit bad about it. I enjoy the process of knitting, so even if the sweater no longer exists, I had the pleasure of the knitting. But since I like the yarn and I like knitting, now I have a chance to knit something completely different....I think this...

You may now call me the Queen of Confidence. I've already started spinning the yarns for the yoke!

Sad End of a Project and Art Ed Knitting

2011-02-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

Before the tragedy befell my Mossy Cardi

The blog has been a bit quiet for a number of reason - mostly day job related. But I hit something of a rough patch in my knitting too. I pulled out the Mossy Cardi to take up my knitting where I left off in early fall. I was knitting along, dividing for armholes, decreasing for neckline shaping and I picked up my sweater to admire it and found a great big honking mistake. Actually a hole - perhaps even a moth hole. Of course it is in a truly obnoxious place - center lower back - as though I am sprouting a tail and need a place for it to come through. I have not seen any other evidence of same, but I am up against a decision.

1. Duplicate stitch over said hole, unravel excess yarn & carry on. Hope mend doesn't show.

2. Unravel sweater to hole & reknit, watching carefully for 'evidence.'

3. Unravel entire sweater, watching carefully for 'evidence,' wash all yarn and decide which sweater I want to knit.

4. Glare at the offending sweater and wish it would get better by itself. This has so far been my ploy. Sadly, it is not working.

On a more positive note, I will be joining my colleague Barbara in her Art Ed class as we teach a dozen or so future elementary teachers (and a couple of future art teachers) to knit. We are using a super simple hand warmers pattern, First Fingerless Mitts [Rav link]. All you really do is knit a rectangle and sew it up, leaving a thumbhole. But for a begininng knitting project, it's about right. I prefer to knit a wee thumb, but this time it's not really about me.

Last evening, Barbara and I went to a chain crafts shop to purchase yarn. We got a nice mix of colors in a collection of tweeds & soloids. I bought myself some Lion Brand Amazing as my class samples. 'Amazing' is Lion Brand's wool-acrylic color change yarn. I don't have the ball band with me, so I can't tell you the color name and number, but it is a lovely orange-copper-red-gold combination that I like very much. I've knit about 2 inches of garter stitch and it looks lovely. I like the fact that they won't be 'matchy-matchy' though I'm not sure our students will appreciate it nearly as much. After my short lecture on the history of knitting and looking at a few samples, casting on begins tomorrow.

Getting Organized

2011-01-24T10:25:00.001-05:00

I think of myself as an organized person. I like to make lists and cross things off. I keep both a private, online calendar and a public paper one. I like to be sure of deadlines. The undergrad course that I teach is well laid out at the beginning of the semester - at least the view that my students have;>)

But my creative work - the fiber that I dye for my Etsy shop, for my retail customers and my own work -can get a bit out of whack. This weekend I spent a good bit of time butting my dye studio back together.

I unpacked the boxes from my workshops last weekend. But because they were all sitting on an already cluttered table where the dyes and color cards live, that table had to be cleared of those boxes, the random papers and tools that was accumulated, I thought I might as well clear the whole thing off and wipe it down. Result: One clean surface.

I have been accumulating dyed fiber: some leftover from the last time I was a vendor (different put up than the Etsy shop); examples for my classes, fiber that I dyed in my classes, roving I have set aside to overdye, stuff that I haven't listed on Etsy yet, fiber that I have set aside for myself, etc. You get the picture: Large plastic tubs and copier paper boxes full of fiber that looks pretty random to the naked eye. Now it is organized: Fiber it now weighed and packaged for Etsy, drum carded fiber is properly stored away for future blending or spinning. Dyed fiber is sorted by color and ready for its future destination - whatever that may be.

Detritus has been tossed. Stuff (clothing, extraneous household objects, yarns that need to go to a new home, etc.) has been put into boxes for donation. Some is already in my car. Feeling pretty good here.

A friend who works in glass asked to see my studio the other evening. I was all set to show off my newly organized studio. Yet somehow it just didn't look that snazzy. Of course I'm not finished. Since I didn't have enough newspaper to put down fresh, The old spotty stuff was still down on the main dyeing table. I have not yet swept the fluffy bits that letter the floor/ Empty boxes were piled on my nice clean table. My sweetie's stuff was all gathered in a large area in front of his worktable.

So I'll cross off a few things on the list and add more, including taking pictures. My life: A work in progress.

Winter Fiber Retreat Recap

2011-01-18T16:35:00.000-05:00

I had great fun participating in the winter Fiber Retreat held last weekend here in Asheville & hosted by Friends and Fiberworks, a local yarn shop and fiber community center. Lisa and a corps of dedicated fiber enthusiasts have taken a lease on a large store in a mall that has been 'asleep' for the past few years. I'm not sure why, but this shopping mall has never done well. It has a good location, the space is attractive, but it's sort of ...well...quiet.

But last weekend it was the site of the Winter Fiber Retreat, a gathering of knitters, spinners, felt makers, dyers, animal enthusiasts of all stripes. There were great vendors, amazing classes, and cool people all around. From Chad Alice Hagen to Jazz Turtle Esther Rogers, Kimberly Nicdao Reynolds from Knittters Magazine, we had wonderful instructors. Wild Hare Fibers, Earth Guild, Creatively Dyed, Hooked on Felt - those were just a few of the very tempting vendors.

My classes went very well. Crockpot dyeing (all 3 sessions) was a hit and all my talented students made beautiful multicolored roving. The 2 knitting classes were a pleasure. Although small, each student got started knitting a lovely hat and has the confidence to knit on. I really enjoyed teaching and am preparing a proposal for SAFF as well as the Summer Retreat.

I didn't take a lot of pictures. I just forgot. But if you go to Friends& Fiberwork Facebook page, you'll see plenty more, including the vendors, the fashion show, the Saturday night band (Buncombe Turnpike) and lots of fun and sillyness.

There were a few hiccups. The weather the preceding week was awful - cold and about a foot of snow and that hurt attendance. The fleece to shawl event didn't happen. A late start and a warping error meant that already busy and stressed people just couldn't pull it off. Oh well, lesson learned. The live animals in the mall were quite a shock for the mall management, particularly when the llamas ...um...fell in love. I missed it, but I heard it drew quite a crowd.

But it was a lot of fun and the whole event had a very positive vibe. So much so that a Summer Retreat is already in the planning stages. And I can't wait!

Winter Fiber Retreat

2011-01-14T07:43:00.000-05:00

It's a big weekend in Asheville - It's the Winter Fiber Retreat sponsored by Friends and FiberWorks, a yarn and fiber shop here in Asheville. Many of the SAFF vendors, instructors and board members are involved. I'm teaching Crockpot dyeing and a knitting class.

I'm nearly set up, but still have to finish up this morning and do a bit of knitting to get my samples in a couple of different stages. Gotta go. More later.

Hot Colors on a Cold Day

2011-01-10T14:22:00.000-05:00

It's cold and snowy across the south and Western North Carolina is no exception. Only 25 degrees Fahrenheit, we've had about 6 inches of snow and it's still coming down. One of the joys of the South is that a single flake of snow can cancel everything, but this kind of snow would give my northern relatives pause. This is the view from my front door. I'm seriously considering going out a bit later and clear a path, play in the snow, take a bit of a walk perhaps clean off my car. But it's cold!

Since it's too snowy to go to work, I've been working from home today: getting ahead on my class that should start on Thursday (tomorrow's classes have already been canceled), I've played around on the new Library of Congress web page (http://www.loc.gov/index.html), even read a couple of journals.

I've been coping with the cold weather over the last few days by dyeing warm colors. These are the reds and golds that are some of my stock colors in the Etsy shop. On the left is 'Fire.' On the right is 'Mars.' Mars came out just lovely in the Blue Faced Leicester base top. The last time I dyed it it was a bit dark and murky and I could not photograph it well enough to out it online. This time it is just cheery and bright.

You might notice that the roving is drying in front of the solar hot water heater. We will not be making our own hot water today as the solar panels are covered with an insulating blanket of snow.

So here are my choices. Option One: Stay warm and cozy. Drink tea or hot cocoa.
Option Two: Go outside and play. Come back in and have a cup of tea.

I'm going for Door #2!

Rare Purls: Knitting History

2011-01-06T11:22:00.000-05:00

If you have an interest in how knitting has been part of culture for a long time, take a look at this article in the Toledo (OH) Blade. Writer Ellen Foley has been collecting images of knitting and other needlework and in now sharing her collection in the rare book room of the Toledo Public Library where it is now in display in the rare book room.

You can read more about it here.

Nothing that exciting going on at Smoky Mountain Fibers, though I did start spinning a lovely alpaca merino blend that I purchased at SAFF. I purchased it from a local alpaca farmer here in Madison County, NC. I have quite a bit of fiber ready to spin, but with no apparent purpose, other than it was lovely and I want to encourage local small business. It is a very soft fiber, but you'd never know to look at it. The color is a heathery golden brown - looks rustic, feels sweet! One of those fibers that you have to pet to really understand. My spinning pals at last night's spinning group - [hey - How come I was the only one spinning? Everyone else was knitting. What's up with that?] - were quite appreciative of its texture, color and ease of spinning.

I'm not sure what it will end up being, but as I have 8 ounces, I'll end up with enough yarn to do something with. I'll try to take some photos that will do justice to the subtle color.

Wag More. Bark Less. Card Fiber.

2011-01-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I talked about about the making of New Years Resolutions and the reflective process that is entailed. What did I intend, did I accomplish it, now what? So when I looked back to the beginning of 2010, I realized that I didn't really publicly state my resolutions. I made some, but they weren't that exciting.

For example, I started using PayPal for shipping orders for my Etsy shop. It's worked out very well. Instead of taking the time during the day to carry an armload of packages (or even one!), I printed postage and left the packages on the porch for my local USPS carrier to pick up. No loss of packages in my urban neighborhood, one less errand during my already busy work day & I even saved a little money. I do kind of miss my tiny Post Office near the college, but I still use them for international orders. A fine & successful 2011 start up, but not really earth shattering.

I also resolved to be a more active board member for SAFF, and that was good and this year I intend to be even more active. Of course, that is what I signed on for. The current composition of the board makes that a pleasure - even though it is a good bit of work. I had work-related resolutions too, but you don't really want to know about that now, do you. Love my job, want to do it well, but that is rarely of interest on this blog.

So this year: be happy & be healthy (much like Crazy Aunt Purl in 2010), but also be nicer, as in Wag More; Bark Less. Think about what you say and how you say it. Ummm... before you say it. A few years ago I gave myself a stern talking to about much the same topic, and I really put a stop to some of the negative thoughts and words. Becoming more mindful of my feelings is not a bad thing to do. Getting exercise almost everyday is a start, so I brought turtlenecks and a fleece for lunch time walks.

Another resolution is to really use my MP3 player for more that the FM radio (which is the reason that I picked that particular one), but really. So yesterday I downloaded and the subscribed to a bunch of podcasts. They are mostly NPR (Fresh Air, Planet Money, Car Talk, etc.) but also the Onion and Slate.com. Should tie in nicely to the exercise resolution, eh?

Back to fiber...I really love my drum carder, but I never offered drum carded batts before, so today I added the batt set that you see here to my shop. If they don't sell, that's okay. Happy to spin it myself. But you never know until you try!

That said, the New Year has now officially begun for me. I even started my diet - Back to the South Beach!

Hello 2011

2011-01-04T16:58:00.000-05:00

So many blogs have been starting the new year with resolutions, which includes revisiting last year's resolutions. That can be a little dicey, particularly if your weren't all that successful. I still might, but since I can only remember one resolution, I'll have to go with that one. I'm almost afraid to look at my Big Plans for 2010.

My main resolution was to become a better spinner. To be more mindful and to challenge myself to spin finer, more even yarns. For a long time, I settled into my default bulky yarn - perfect for the quick & cozy hats that I do so love to make. I think that I was afraid that I might loose my ability to spin the 'calm' that I needed to settle my monkey mind. For me, spinning had become a way of not thinking, just mellowing out. I blame grad school - I needed the mellow.

But as those days are behind me. Now I want to think about my spinning and make better yarn. Well, although I am not going for the Certificate of Total Fabulousness, I think that my yarn is definitely better. More...shall we say...refined. It is finer, smoother, more even. But I still can whack out the fluffy stuff when I want to. Success? I guess so. Brilliant? Hardly, but that's okay.

My 2011 resolutions seem to be personal, rather than fiber-related. Kind of in the Wag More, Bark Less department. Possibly not fit for public display. We'll try again tomorrow. No promises...

Enough With the Hats Already

2010-12-17T14:37:00.000-05:00

My 30 Hats in 30 Days challenge continued well into December, even picking up the pace to 21 hats in 16 days. I will deliver another dozen hats today to my best customer. After that I'll be taking a wee break to do a bit of my own knitting.

I ended as I began, with hats for guys, particularly my ubiquitous 'Boyfriend Hat' and several variations of the new 'Skater Boy' series in solids, color blocks and even with a brim, shown here in blue, but badly edited just to be visible. The room was too dark!. Some are close fitting, some over-size, but they are all destined for heads around town and points distant. One of the glories of living in a place that people like to visit, is that the market doesn't get saturated.

I also worked on the design of a new felt hat. For years I have knit a deeply rolled brim that looks good and fits right and even sells quite well, but is a total snooze to knit. So I started on a cloche style. I think I finally got the pattern right (after 6 prototypes), so we will have to see what the market says. No pictures yet.

With the semester over, grades in and no begging students in my office ( I guess I got the grades right this time!), I'm happy to take a few weeks off. I'll be spinning and knitting (for me!), dancing, traveling, cooking, and visiting with friends and family. I plan to read some good books, watch some good movies and generally take some time off. I MIGHT bring home a stack of journals, but no guarantees that I'll actually read them. I certainly don't read them here!

I'll put the Etsy shop to bed for a few days too. I'd like to develop some new colorways or create some carded batts, but for the mean time, it will go a bit dark. Let's let the creative juices take a break too!

Snow Days

2010-12-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

Today,

Photo from the Asheville Citizen-Times by John Fletcher

Tuesday, is my first day out after the Saturday evening snow and very cold temperatures that decended upon western North Carolina. Now I grew up in NE Ohio, where this kind of weather was no big deal. I lived for several years in Erie, PA and in my last year there, this became normal. Of course, that is when I decided to move.
But we Southerners are not used to it staying cold and we are not used to driving on snow and ice. Snow driving is a skill, much like archery. I have chosen to skip it. But the dedicated teacher that I am, it seems that sometimes I have to show up. So this morning I got out in the single digit temperatures, warmed up my little truckie and headed about 20 miles north to the little college where I had an 8 am final scheduled. Once I made it out of my neighborhood, the only mishap was trying to use my windshield washer when a big trucked sprayed me as he passed. On the driver's side, the nozzle was frozen. This was a big improvement over the passenger's side where the wiper was too frozen to actually connect with the washer fluid that promptly froze on the windshield.

The upside of snow days is that when you are trapped in the house you can get a good bit of knitting, spinning and dyeing done. Now dyeing can be chilly work, as my dye studio is in the basement of my home. Putting my hands into the water where the fiber has been soaking is not fun. I have found that pulling the fiber out of the dye water is easier on the hands if you do it about 2 hours after the dyeing is complete, rather than waiting overnight for the fiber to fully cooled down.

On Sunday I spent some quality time with Little Otto, my drum carder. I have a goodly collection of dyed fiber, some of which is overdyed, seiously uneven, or - face it - ugly. But a pass or 2 through the carder changes everything. I made up a set of batts in a very pretty reddish brown, but mostly I just carded fiber and put it aside for more creative work later.

But for being snowed in, almost nothing beats watching movies and knitting. I have been working on a new design for a felted cloche, so I knit up a couple of new prototypes and felted them in the washer, knit at least 3 or 4 hats for guys and started thinking about knitting fingerless gloves for a Christmas gift. A cup of tea, a pot of soup, a good movie and an extremely large quantity of yarn. Ah, the perfect snow day!

6 Things to do While Waiting....

2010-12-10T15:46:00.000-05:00

...for my students to submit their work.

In real life, I am a teacher; both instructional technology to undergraduate education majors and professional development workshops for teaching with primary sources to K12 teachers. This time of the year I am finishing up the primary source reporting and grading student projects. Mostly though, I am waiting for my undergrads to send me portfolios, take their online final and finish up outstanding work. Since I can't just pull out my knitting, while I wait...

1. Pack up work to take home. The weather people have predicted a lousy Sunday and Monday, so I can expect to work from home on Monday. I'll be taking journals and books to read, hard copies of assignments & rubrics (because sometimes paper is OK), and the right flash drive, fully loaded, of course.

2. Search for a particular Excel spreadsheet. Go a little bit crazy because it appears to be hiding. Remember the name of the file. That's the one!

3. Because you are paranoid, email same docs to self as you just saved to a flash drive.

4. Add names to the database. It's boring, but now it's done.

5. Make a cup of tea. This is a particularly good ~~time waster~~ use of my time as it takes me out of my office and I can see if there is any mail and chat with colleagues. I also like tea. One of the adjuncts brought cookies.

6. Tidy up my office. After all, it's the end of the term and there is a lot of paper and stacks of journals. Add a few more journals to the going home stack.

Funny, I never have to make work when I am home.

Peacock Yarn

2010-12-07T08:49:00.000-05:00

Sometimes my dyeing comes out just beautiful. Lovely colors, just like I planned. Other times, not so much. The dyes split, dye doesn't migrate to the inner folds of the roving, I am a bit heavy handed, you get the picture. But sometimes mistakes end up being quite a nice surprise.

This roving - and the yarn is one of those. Although I didn't take a 'before' photograph, you can trust me that roving was pale and washed out, with an obnoxious split. [A dye split is when the different colors of dyes that are blended, separate into their component parts. For example, instead of purple you get purple and red and blue.] Face it - it was ugly.

So I over-dyed it. The original colors were blues and greens, so into a turquoise dye bath it went. Now I love it. I spun the yarn during last Wednesday's spinning night. It was great fun to spin and I am looking forward to knitting it up.

The sad part - I can never dye this again! That is a tiny problem with one-offs. You just can't do another just like that one!

Another snowy day in Asheville. It's pretty but quite cold - the low 20's F. And as a fearful snow driver, I have great trepidation getting behind the wheel on snowy days. Sounds like day to work from home!

Success: 30 Hats in 30 Days!

2010-12-01T09:52:00.002-05:00

I set a challenge for myself to knit 30 hats in the month of November. With my hats in 3 shops, I need to keep my production up for the winter hat shopping season and this was a way to stay on or even ahead of schedule. I did it! It was close at the end, but I managed to knit a-hat-a-day. On November 29th, with all 30 hats completed and logged into my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet, I cast on for a felt hat in a style that I've never made before.

I also made an effort to knit from the stash as much as possible and tore through several hundred yards, so I knit down the stash too. However since part of knitting down the stash required me to purchase more yarns to go with the stash yarns, I didn't get too far out front of that. But all in all, a fine effort.

Only one tiny problem - a good problem to have. Almost as fast as I have been making hats, I have been delivering them to stores and they are selling! Of course that is the point - I can't sell them if I don't have them! Nor do they sell piling up in a nice stack in the studio. And as I backed off the spinning, I have very little hand spun yarn to knit my always popular guy hats - so I am still a wee bit behind.

Thanksgiving weekend was busy here at the world headquarters of Smoky Mountain Fibers. In addition to manic hat knitting, I did a bit of dyeing and carding and spinning. I also visited a couple of my favorite local yarn shops (one on Black Friday - Hey, 30% off and I bought some lovely silk-merino spinning fiber for a sweater for me!), spun at the Locally Grown Gallery and shipped a healthy number of orders for the Etsy shop (Thank you very much!).

I also painted my bedroom, including 2 coats on the dreaded popcorn ceiling. I'll spare you pictures. Although I am very happy with the results, photos of dingy off white with drywall mud over the cracks and photos of fresh off white aren't really that exciting to anyone other than me.

Tonight is spinning night at Friends & Fiberworks. I'll be spinning some over-dyed blue-green that looks like a really iridescent peacock. A colorway that will never be duplicated, I can assure you. Hope the yarn is half as pretty as the roving!

A Singleton's Holiday Weekend

2010-11-23T16:38:00.000-05:00

I admit that I am a single woman of a certain age. I like myself very much. Yes, I wish I was taller and smarter, but in the great scheme of things, I am just fine. This Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the USA. Now Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday. The focus is on gratitude, food and family. No excessive gift giving, though you can shop if you desire. Even the football really is optional.

But as my sweetie is out of town and my family lives far away, I treat this holiday as a deeply personal one. I long ago realized that spending Thanksgiving alone is okay. I have frequently accepted invitations to people's homes when I should not have. I love my friends and their children, but I don't want to be tied into other family's traditions and time tables. I want my day to myself.

So this year I decided early on that I would turn down invitations and be thankful on my own. I will cook and eat a special meal - I even bought the smallest turkey breast I could find. I will take a walk in the woods, enjoying being out in nature. But I'll do it on my own terms.

My do list (in no particular order...

Play with fiber - wash, dye, card, spin, knit.
Paint the bedroom - taking advantage of this glorious opportunity of a long weekend.
Read good books
Watch a decent movie or two
Get some exercise every day
Call a contra dance at the Old Farmer's Ball
Clean and organize a wee bit around the house.

There's plenty more, but not for public consumption.

I know this is not everybody's idea of how to spend Thanksgiving. There is no travel, no picking the perfect wine, no family drama, no major overeating, no getting up at 3 am to shop on Friday morning. But somehow I'll manage to survive - and in a newly painted bedroom Besides, I still have a few hats to knit in the 30 Hats in 30 Days self-imposed challenge. Still on target!

Something to Look Forward to in January: Winter Fiber Retreat in Asheville

2010-11-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Registration is now open for classes at the Winter Fiber Retreat in Asheville, NC.

Hosted by local yarn shop Friends and Fiberworks, this weekend of activities will take place on January 14-16, 2011. A large variety of classes in knitting, spinning, weaving, felting, dyeing and lots more. Great teachers - many of them teach at SAFF. We spin each Wednesday evening at F&FW and the ideas were flowing freely the other evening. Still being hatched: a sheep-to-shawl contests - my job is to make the rules! Yikes!

Lisa has negotiated special hotel packages for people looking for a mid-winter get-away. Vendor space is still available too. Here is the link: http://friendsandfiberworks.com/winter-retreat

I’m teaching a couple of knitting and dyeing classes and there are plenty more that I’d love to take! I just don't know how they will fit in, though I hope I can.

Heathered Roving

2010-11-16T16:43:00.000-05:00

I find that I love to dye and I love natural colors. When they come together I get heather tones. In my booth at SAFF, my heather colors sold first. I also have good response to the oatmeal and sheep's grey roving. This weekend I had fun dyeing oatmeal roving in the both warm and cool colors.

A few years ago I developed a line of colors that I call Andromeda Shades - colors based on the planets, and other heavenly bodies. Two colorways are heatheres. Mercury is blue and purple on a oatmeal base. Uranus is orange and bronze, also on an oatmeal base. Here they are drying on the line.

Heathered Pumpkin is just that: multidimensional orange on an off-white base. People seem to like it for needle felted pumpkins. It has a much more earthy feel - not even close to that international neon color that hunters wear in the field.

Oh, and hats? Still on track. Yesterday I knit #17.

Hats Challenge

2010-11-12T14:59:00.000-05:00

The 30 Hats in 30 Days challenge continues unabated. I'm having great fun in the design process - matching different yarns to make hats that look great and are fun to knit. I'm discovering yarns in my stash and in a few different yarn shops in my local yarn shops. I'm also spinning yarns that should work nicely in my hats. In an earlier post, I showed off some yarns I was spinning. Here are those yarns all knitted up.

This is the pretty, sparkly blue yarn in an all-garter stitch hat with a brim that you can turn up or not - your choice. I added a darker blue stripe just because I had the yarn around and thought it would be pretty. I'm wondering if both of these hats are a bit short. I may adjust them longer - and I have the yarn. Of course that means I have to pull out the crown and knit a few rows before I start the decreases, but I think I'll like them better.

The second hat is from the yarn I didn't like very much. It was brown with a bit of yellow-y tan that I wished I hadn't carded in. Guess what? It's not bad at all knitted up. Go figure! Both hats are from the same recipe: all garter stitch. Just start knitting, decrease when it makes sense and don't stop until you are nearly out of yarn.

I'll continue knitting hats this weekend. I'm still a bit ahead on my challenge, even though one day did not see a completed hat. I spun instead. I have a plan to go to the WNC Farmers Market this weekend and spin in front of my friend Sally's gallery shop, Locally Grown. It gets me out of the house on quiet weekends and is good for both our businesses!

Also on the weekend's agenda - dying, delivering. working in the yard and attending a event to honor a local teacher. Since I nominated her, I think I should go!

Fresh New Yarns

2010-11-08T19:03:00.000-05:00

I've been carding some blends for spinning lately - partly becuase I enjoy it, and partly because I have a good bit of fiber that needs some prep before it's ready to spin. Here's a very pretty blue - I added some black fibers and some angelina - that's fine shiny nylon that adds a subtle bit of sparkles to the yarn. I'm worried about overdoing it, so sometimes it's very subtle.

It came out nice - just as I thought it would. 3.5 ounces (100 grams) and 109 yards - so about a bulky weight. It's a lovely shade of blue - perfect for someone with blue eyes.

The next yarn was a pleasant surprise. Now it was a less-than-fabulous dark brown roving to start with, but it had a number of grey fibers that I didn't like. So I overdyed some in burgundy and some in olive and they looked good. The brown dye on brown roving came out ...well...brown. I thought it needed some jazzing up, so I blended it with some samples from various PhatFiber Sampler boxes.

There were a couple of very pretty red-orange samples and some peachy-gold that looked like they would work. It turned out that the peach blended nicely, but the gold looked a bit jarring. I took the batts to spinning night last week and was not happy - maybe even a bit embarrassed by my rather sorry looking yarn as it grew on the bobbin, but my fellow spinners we quite encouraging. I thought that maybe their Southern politeness was clouding their judgment, but I was there to spin, so I soldiered on. I plied it a day or two later, happy to get it off by bobbins so I could move on to something that I liked better. It turned out to be just fine - the lighted bits add a depth that sursprised me. 4.1 ounces (116 grams) and 85 yards - so a bit a bulkier.

Both yarns are destined to become hats. Still ahead of schedule.

Really - It's not about me this time...

2010-11-05T10:52:00.000-04:00

This Etsy treasury celebrates Appalachia and the items in it are wonderful representations of the mountains here in Western North Carolina and the whole mountain region. The killer, handmade banjo is a great reminder of the old time music that I love - and love to dance to. The apple butter shows one of the foodways that live on. The pottery, quilts and baskets represent the handmade life that existed long before the craft mafia took over this here town. Not that I am complaining, being a card carrying member of that gaggle of renegades. Thanks fiftyleven, for making me and my sheep's grey roving part of your thoughtful treasury.

The 30 hats in 30 days quest continues. I'm a little tiny bit ahead. Could be I'll take time for carding and spinning this weekend. Of course, that's what got me into this hat deficit. But if I'm going to use the yarn for hats, it's okay. Right?

2 Days 2 Hats

2010-11-03T07:23:00.000-04:00

The Challenge is on: 30 Hats in 30 Days. As today is November 3rd, I have the first 2 hats to show you. Both are the same pattern. but are different in fiber and size.

November One is my Windy City pattern in purple worsted with a band of Plymouth Expressions. I like this multicolored soft, textured yarn. Although I am usually not a fan of unnatural fibers, this yarn is 55% wool and 45% acrylic and is quite soft. The colors are very nice - expect to see a good bit of it in the coming month.

November Two is Windy City again, but sized larger and in different yarns. This time it's made of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and Ironstone Sunset, a glittery mohair blend. The color is a deep red and super pretty. Because most of my hats are for sale, I try to make some larger and some a bit smaller. After all, people have different size heads.

The hat for November 3rd? Already on the needles. Don't worry, this month will not be a parade of similar hats. I'm keeping a spreadsheet (what a geek!) for myself, so I'll only show off the ones I particularly like. I admit, I do make a lot of Windy City Hats. They are quite flattering on a number of women. Plus, two of the shops that carry my hats also sell the patterns. A few nice variations on display help sell hats as well as patterns. If you like this pattern and want to make your own, visit my Etsy shop. It's a great way to use up 30 yards of a pretty yarn already in the stash.

By the way, this hat is looking for a new name. I originally called in 'Windy City' because a friend who wore hers in Chicago says it really stays on. But there is another Windy City hat on Ravelry so I need to change the name. Any ideas?

New - Vember

2010-11-01T06:22:00.000-04:00

Just coming off of 2 very busy,crazy months, I am happy to usher October out the door. November is looking good. Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday comes later this month, with it's mini-break. It's the last full month of the semester, so for the academic side of my life it's a nice period of getting things tidied up.

One other thing that happened in November is the winter knitting season keeps pace roughly ahead of the Christmas shopping season. The shops that sell my work will sell a good many hats in the next 7 weeks. Although I have several in the 'hat bank,' I'd like to have a few more on hand. How about 30 hats in 30 days?

Can I do it? Should I do it? I looked back at the last 2 previous years and found I sold about 50 hats in November and December. With an increased presence in the 3 shops where I sell my work but also with a depressed economy, I should be able to match or beat that number. And to sell the hats, I have to knit the hats. Lately I have been spinning a lot -mostly because I find peace and joy in spinning. I simply love to make yarn and so have been spinning daily - or almost. I also need the yarn! My marketing mix requires me to sell a hats in a combination of hand spun and commercial yarns. And that means I need to make the yarn so I can knit it up.

Last week I traded both patterns and blogging services for yarn - the kind I can't make but love to make into hats that should sell quite nicely. So I currently have a table of interesting yarns in the studio. I'll keep track of my progress here. In all fairness, I have a couple of hats in progress, but finishing counts, so that unfinished hat that I just found the yarn to finish knitting the last couple inches - it's in! Time to get knitting.

SAFF Report

2010-10-26T06:07:00.000-04:00

The Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (aka SAFF) took place last weekend. Ever throw a party for about 6,000 of your closest friends? I have to say that I had a great time - in a number of ways. The event was very well attended with only a few bumps in the road. The weather was perfect; the animals were cute; the shows went off without a hitch. Even with a smaller board of directors, our synergy worked very well.

I shared a vendor booth with 2 other people. I sold dyed and natural roving and washed fiber, my own hat patterns, sock yarn and felting needles. I sold lots of other things too, but that was my bread and butter. I also got good feedback on the dyed fiber and patterns. I did okay - and my expectations were not terribly high. I have never been a vendor at this large an event before. My prices were in line with other vendors of my ilk. I am not trying to compete with the fellow down the way who imports large quantities of fiber and close-out yarns. I cannot compete with full service fiber shops - that's okay! I had a small investment and for the most part I had a mix of product that people wanted at reasonable price points. I'm happy to report that even though I came home with some beautiful local alpaca-cormo roving, some killer mohair locks (both from my booth-mate) and a part for my spinning wheel, I did not go crazy with the other vendors. While there I spun the yarn I really need to make - plain vanilla and well as a pretty dyed BFL! I took home a lot of dyed roving, all of which will be used to stock my Etsy shop and the local yarn shops.

Next year I will do a couple of things differently. I need to write a couple of new patterns. I think that my hats are so simple, but people kept asking for patterns for 'Skater Boy' and the 'Yet-to be-Named' hat that I have been knitting of late. I also need to arrange my booth in a better way so that people can really see and touch the dyed fiber. I used a very sweet pumpkin of my own design (is it possible?) to demonstrate needle felting and sell felting needles. People wanted to buy the pumpkin and kits. Next year - make kits. Also I need to dye more heather roving. That sold first! Who knew? I was so focused on merino, that I really missed a good opportunity for needle felters and rug braiders.

SAFF has been a big deal - both in the planning and the booth prep during a very busy time at work. As a board member, I have had a good bit of stress, though I just love the event. I have some new things to share n the blog soon - People have made some very nice things from my fiber. I'm happy to get back to real life

I'm tired, but it all looks good!

2010-10-22T06:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was set up day at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF). No pictures yet, but my shared booth looks good. My dyed fiber looks as good as anyone's (IMHO!). I'm also sharing the front desk with the same person and our booth is adjacent to the front desk. Once we got the booth set up, we put up the souveniers - lots of t shirts, a few dozen tote bags and coffee mugs.Because of my responsibilities, I didn't get all the way around the event, but everything is looking good.

The overnight task was to get all the ribbon sorted out for the various and sundry animal, fleece and skien & garment competitions and to finish tagging yarn and small items for my booth.

Now, time to get dressed and reload the car. See you there!

My Trip to Washington

2010-10-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

Twice a year, I go to Washington to meet with members of the consortium with whom I work. I usually go up a day early - why not? It's not like I can fly in on an early Monday morning plane and get in on time. This time I visited a couple of cool museums - and not just the National Gallery of Art. I did go the NGA - my favorite exhibition was a group of small German drawings. Some were sketches for larger works, but many were just sweet and lovely works that stand on their own merit. Portraits, landscapes, nature drawings - some simple others with a considerable narrative like this 1765 Canaletto. Really nice.

Before I went, I heard about the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - now on display in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. It was wild and fanciful - exciting to look at and explore. One young woman was pointing out pieces that she had made. Really nice! Read more about how this project brings together science, math, craft and community at crochetcoralreef.org. No pictures, as I want to respect their copyright statement. It's on tour - maybe it will be coming to your town.

My last visit was to Julia Child's Kitchen at the Museum of American History. It was delightful - and now I know what color to paint my kitchen - a mellow blue-green. It won't make me able to cook quite as well, but it was quite a lovely space and will fit nicely in the era of my home.

One of the best parts of travel is the time for knitting - in this case about 6 hats. Getting ready for SAFF - Set up is TOMORROW! Yikes!

Translating Yarn to Hats

2010-10-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I blogged about some green yarn that I had dyed and spun. Although I liked it in the yarn, I'm not sure I'm crazy about it knitted up. I like the seed stitch section, but not the stockinette area. I think that the seeming randomness of the yarn did not translate well into areas that were essentially knit flat.

Now the orange hat (actually Smoky Mountain Fibers 'Fire' colorway) looks good in what I call the 'Skater Boy' style. Totally in garter stitch, the purl bumps that dominate the surface are quite happy to show off their random colors. The stripy-ness of this kind of spinning can live in harmony with a textured surface.

I like both styles. Depending on the yarn, they can look good on men or women. They also look good in multi-colored bulky yarns - heavy worsted or chunky.

Both theses hats are destined to one of my local gallery shops. That way people can try them on and see what they are taking home. Because online shopping can be fraught with disappointment, I like people to see these in person.

Just one week until SAFF setup! Tonight is the board meeting and I am looking forward to the festival.

Dyeing Red

2010-10-10T21:00:00.000-04:00

The color for today is red - dyeing all shades of red - fiery red to mellow read to oranges and gold.

Later, it was purple - pinky red and blue to make lavender. Some with firestar; others with silk. Some more pink; others heavier on blue. All pretty! Getting ready for SAFF. Dye pots every day.

A n Etsy Treasury: Rovings to Yearn For

2010-10-08T10:12:00.000-04:00

My natural creamy roving made it into an Etsy Treasury yesterday, Rovings I Yearn For. And all were quite... yearnable? yearny? yearnarific? OK really pretty - and I wanted to spin every one of them. I did spin the creamy white last evening. It's my go-to white yarn that I make to sell in the local yarn shop and gallery and is a prime ingredient in my handspun handknit hats. And I am out of that very yarn! I delivered 5 fresh skeins to Asheville Home Crafts a week or so back and have barely been back to the wheel.

The music and dance world has kept me quite busy lately. After teaching an English Country Dance workshop at Feet Retreat in late September and attending the SE Dance Leadership Conference the following weekend, I knit a few hats, but did not get much spun. Now, I love dancing to traditional music - almost as much as playing with fiber (or is it the other way around?). So it's a tricky balance to keep all the balls in the air, particularly during my busy season at work, which is right now too. This weekend is a return to fiber. I'll be spinning and dyeing and knitting, oh my!

Kind of Green

2010-10-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

Actually very green - ranging from chartreuse to moss to a nice hunter green. This is the yarn that I spun a couple of weeks ago at Moon Dance, a contradance weekend that I attended. I hand dyed this Blue-Faced Leicester (BFL) roving and then spun it up into a slightly bulky yarn. The fiber is very puffy and springy and I thought it might make a nice hat.

No complicated patterning intended - just a couple rows of garter stitch, then a couple inches of moss stitch, a couple more garter rows, then plain stockinette on the top. Just the kind of simple knitting that should make the yarn stand out. That is the plan in any case. Sorry about the photo. Just a quick lunch hour snapshot, proving that there is some fiber work being done around here!

Another travel weekend - more work deadlines - not nearly enough down time. Oh well. I am happy to have good health and an energy level that means I thrive on having lots to do. Gotta go! Lots to do!

Do You Love Maps?

2010-09-29T09:30:00.000-04:00

I do - and it appear my students do too. Or at least they fake it well! I've recently taught 2 undergraduate classes and 2 in-service teacher workshops based on historical maps. I'm doing another one today to a self selected group of middle school teachers as one of the selections in a teacher workday. Because maps work nicely across the curriculum, they are nicely flexible for teaching social studies, language arts, science, math, and plenty more. I've got a couple of special ed teachers in my group today. One teacher told me about an interesting learning disabled child who could become totally engaged with maps.

In the fiber world, I statrted processing a mohair fleece I purchased a month or so back and I'm very pleased with it. I bought a faded red fleece (2nd clip kid) that is dyeing beautifully. The colors are deeper and more muted. There are a number of black fibers in the fleece that are giving it a heathered look - quite lovely.

I spent last weekend at a contra dance weekend where I called a beginning English Country Dance workshop that went very well. I also knit six hats for my local yarn shop and galleries. I was hanging out with friends from the community where I lived several years ago - before I started spinning. They were a bit surprised and fascinated how I had left my corporate life behind to become an academic (who, me?!) and fiber artist. To be honest, I was quilting back then, but seldom in public - one of the reasons I switched to knitting.

I'll be knitting in public this weekend too, at another dance-related event - this time I'll be a serious student of English Country Dance. Perhaps I should knit something fancier? Not likely, though I may just take the Mossy Cardi. I finally looked closely at the pattern and where I am on the sweater. Not too mind bending!

Autonumerology

2010-09-24T11:46:00.000-04:00

Maybe I'm weird. OK, I am a little weird. It makes me happy when the numbers on my odometer line up. My 1996 Toyota pickup, Truckito has quite a few miles on her. 233,866 as of this morning. I like the rhythm and the repetition. So I made a wish this morning - that I have a great weekend.

Am I the only person who makes wishes on the odometer readings? Don't you love seeing the little numbers line up? Do you know that the moon is roughly 238,900 miles from the earth? Perhaps I should throw a little party for Truckito when she makes it that far.

I know it's not world peace or the end of hunger, but it's only an odometer wish. I am going to a contradance weekend near Winston-Salem where I used to live. I'll be teaching a beginning English Country dance workshop, so asking for a great weekend means...

That the workshop goes well
No traffic problems on the way.
No knee blowouts or other dance related injuries
No relationship breakdowns or other undue emotional distress
I get in a nice hike

The weekend is in a beautiful setting, a 4-H camp in the foothills not far from Hanging Rock State Park. The music should be wonderful with the Great Bear Trio and the Skytones. Since I used to live there, I'll see lots of old friends. I'm bringing knitting, but probably not my spinning wheel as there is more community space at this camp than at the last one. I'll be knitting hats, but I may bring the green cardi, even though it requires thinking. Wish me luck!

Spinning Calm

2010-09-22T12:29:00.000-04:00

It seems that when I am super busy, spinning is what I want to do the most. It forces me to slow down. When I am spinning my default yarn, I can totally zone out and spin without thinking. The prepared natural creamy fiber just flows through my hands and onto the wheel, creating the yarn that I love to knit with and my local yarn shops want to sell.

When I spin something trickier - hand blended merino-angora lately - I have to think - to concentrate - to be present. Again, it slows me down to just make the yarn I want to make right now.

I'm quite busy right now with the several deadlines at the day job. SAFF is nearly here and I have work to do for that. I also am responsible for a dance event that needs my attention. Did anyone notice that it is fiber season? Smoky Mountain Fibers doesn't run itself, though I wouldn't mind if it did.

I love all the things that I do. I don't want to drop a single one. I know how to say no and not take on more responsibility. So I spin. I went back to graduate school a few years ago. The last summer I took 3 classes so I could finish. I worked on school starting in the early morning; went to my regular job; stayed late to do school work. When I came home about 20 minutes of spinning brought me back to myself.

This evening I'll be joining old friends and new to spin at the local yarn shop Friends and Fiberworks. I brought hand dyed merino roving in saturated shades of purple, blue and dark teal. I like that it happens on Wednesday too. A nice break in a busy work week.

So tonight I'll spin yarn; but mostly I'll spin calm.

A Bit of the Fair

2010-09-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

Yes, there were sheep. Yes, there were giant pumpkins. But for me, the main event was going with my friends Sally and Jeff and Sally's grandson Nate. Nate just turned 2 and everything was wonderful - baby chicks and ducks, the big veggies, the petting zoo, a baby tiger - all the cute stuff tiny people love. Who knew he'd be captivated by the dioramas - those shoeboxes depicting farm scenes make by grade school kids around western NC. But for all of us, it was the Carousel. Let this be the official documentation of Nate's first ride on the merry-go-round. Too sweet!

Official fiber content: I did not enter hand spun yarn or knitted goodies, but I wish I had. There were very few entries, and although some were very nice (and would have kicked my behind) I could have been a contender!

Not as Quiet as it Seems

2010-09-17T09:38:00.000-04:00

The blog, Facebook and Etsy shop have been quiet this week, but I'm not asleep. I've been knitting and spinning, and doing the behind the scenes work that keeps Smoky Mountain Fibers the fun business that it is. It's not the kind of work that makes good blog posts. I can't imagine that people want to here that I have been making up grab bags or tagging hats for the retail accounts. But it all takes time and a wee bit of effort, particularly during a time that I'm on deadline for the day job.

The picture here are some of the hats that are in inventory and are going out to my newest account, Garrou Pottery in Black Mountain, NC. In addition to selling their own beautiful pottery, their gallery has work by a number of local artists, including functional wood items, jewelry, and now my hand spun and hand knit hats. These hats were knit while I was on my trip to Colorado. I am also taking hats and fiber to my other shops this weekend.

My weekend plans include knitting a few hats (it's time to knit a hat a day!), going to the NC Mountain State Fair for the wool breeds sheep show and fleece show and leading an English Country Dance on Sunday.

Take Time for Color

2010-09-09T06:57:00.000-04:00

The day job is keeping me busy, but I am finding time to dye a good bit; spin a little and knit a wee bit. Fall has really kicked in with an increased workload. My day job is developing and implementing professional development for teachers and all of a sudden my calendar is filling up. The Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) is coming up,so that is keeping me busy too, I'm not complaining,but it just seems that everything is happening at once.

But one must take time to play, so for me that's spinning and knitting, contra dance and English Country dance and hiking. These pictures are the Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) roving that I have been dyeing lately. I've been dyeing lots of merino for the bast year or so, so it's fun to work with a new fiber. It's not as fine as merino, but very springy and the roving has a lovey luster. So far I've only spun up a sample, but I really like it's 'squishyness.' I'm planning on spinning a bronze green hank of roving this weekend.

I'll be attending Moon Dance, a contradance weekend in upstate South Carolina. The music will be great, the company fine, but I am no longer the dance-aholic that I once was. Last year my knee was in a brace (the 'too much fun' alarm had gone off earlier!) so I brought my wheel and spun to the music. This year I hope to dance more, but need the fallback of my spinning and knitting to keep me busy and not feeling too out of it!

By the way, I love my clothesline! It was part of this year's home improvement plan. The drying roving looks beautiful and dries fast, the towels are a wee bit scratchy, but the sheets smell great!

ATreasury of Blues - and a Sale!

2010-09-03T13:44:00.000-04:00

As Labor Day is upon us, I am winding down my workweek with a lunch at my desk that looks like I am cleaning out the refrigerator. Oh, I am. The last of the baby carrots, a wee dollop of cottage cheese, a piece of leftover chicken and a clementine that may not as juicy as it once was. But I always feel rather noble when I finish up bits and pieces and not let things go bad.

As my regular readers know, I love ending up in Etsy Treasuries - this time, it's all about the color blue, including my Paintbox for Feltmakers, The Blues. In yesterday's post I mentioned that my dyed fiber stock was nearly gone, so the dyeing frenzy came at about the right time. I'll be making up these multi-packs over the weekend, so I'll soon know what else I need to dye.

In honor of Labor Day, I'm having a sale in my Etsy shop. Take 20% off everything (excluding shipping) just by mentioning 'Labor Day' in your notes to the seller. I'll refund your discount (as well as any shipping overage) to your PayPal account.

Hope to get in a hike, but my plan is to spend the weekend pretty devoted to Smoky Mountain Fibers. Dyeing, spinning, knitting, visiting my customers - getting the fall fiber season off to a good start!

At the Dyepot

2010-09-02T06:42:00.000-04:00

I've been at the dyepot a good bit lately. My dyed fiber that fills the grab bags in my Etsy store and in the local yarn shop, Asheville Home Crafts and the Locally Grown gallery has some been depleted. So for the past week or so, I've been dyeing around the spectrum. Here is a partial result:

These are semi-solid colors, perfect for felt makers and spinners. Blues and greens and purples and reds - in a number of shades and hues. Last evening I made up the blue and green grab bags as well as a few of the totally mixed colors, The reds had to wait,as most of the red roving was still wet. Seems that I need more greens (as is often the case) so I am dyeing again this morning, including another semi-solid and a bronze-green. If I can keep up the pace over the weekend, I hope to get back to my more artistic shades soon.

Tonight is my fiber night - dinner with my women friends where we have dinner, talk about our lives and knit or crochet or sew a bit. Since I have mostly been spinning and dyeing this week, I think I'll take my knitting and mix it up a bit.

Can It Be?

2010-08-30T16:58:00.000-04:00

Is it true? Am I actually working out? I just did 2 loops around campus with my colleague, and I'm still sweating.

After the trip to Colorado where I walked and hiked each day and last weekend's walkabout, this weekend my sweetie and I went on a bit of a hike in Craggy Gardens, north east of Asheville. Even without the large elevation changes and western views, the Blue Ridge mountains are equally lovely. With friends from out of town, we drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway to a lovely area. Instead of hiking to the balds with the CCC-built picnic shelter and views both of Asheville and other peaks, we hiked the rocky, shady side of the mountain. But still ample time to enjoy the subtle beauty of rocks and flowers in addition to the amazing views.

This has also been a time for dyeing. I'm not sure how it happened but when filling a big roving order for the LYS, I realized that I am very low on dyed roving. Very low. So in the past few days, I dyed about 8 green shades; 6 blue shades and hit the reds hard starting this morning. I think I need to dye morning and evening all week to be ready for the fall season. Thankfully we will not be traveling on Labor Day weekend, but will be happily home to dye and spin and garden and workout!

I did a good bit of yard work too. That's exercise, right? I don't feel any thinner. Perhaps it's too soon to tell.

Big Puffy Yarns!

2010-08-25T15:36:00.000-04:00

My New Year's resolution for 2009 was to spin more intentionally. My default yarn was kind of big and puffy - perfect for the hats that I make for the Asheville HomeCrafts shop. The patterns that I wrote a few years back were geared to beginning knitters who wanted semi-instant gratification. This was yarn that I could spin eithout thinking and the hats knit up quickly.

But back in ought-nine, I felt that my spinning needed to get better - that is to say, thinner. So I have concentrated on spinning merino wools, wool-silk blends and other fine wools into fine yarns. I can do that now without much difficulty. I have trained myself to spin skinnier yarn, Now granted, I am not spinning 3 ply sock yarn. Nothing wrong with that. I have friends who spin 3-ply sock yarn - lovely yarn for lovely socks. But I find I don't like to spin superwash yarn and I don't like to hand wash socks. I am happy to buy sock yarn,, thank you very much! Besides, I like the stripey sock yarns.

But I have a need to some yarn for my hats - the big puffy yarns that I do not make very often anymore. Tonight is spinning night at Friends and Fiberworks and I will intentionally spin big puffy yarns. Not rank amateur out-of-control blobby yarn - just nice puffy yarn the way I used to. Creamy white, fluffy yarn of Falklands wool. Pretty yarn. My yarn!

School's In!

2010-08-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

I seldom mention my day job on this blog, but I can't help commenting on the students back for the fall. I am happy to see our good students - fun people, hard workers - dedicated to what they love. The class of student teachers are a fine group, ready to make their way in the classroom. The student athletes look refreshed (except the football players who have been here a couple of weeks already) and ready to see their pals. I have promised my students that I'd make it to at least one football game this year. Last year it seemed that all the home games conflicted with dance or fiber. I'll try harder this year.

The Anything Fiber Yard Sale was lots of fun on Saturday. I sold lots of yarn (at bargain prices), a few books and a little bit of fiber and fabric. Nobody got rich, but it was a good relocation of stash! I bought a few dyes and a mohair fleece and I traded a couple of books. I also made contacts with local spinners and weavers, never a bad thing. It poured rain most of the day and even though it was inside, that probably kept people away. I will probably do it again next year and will be smarter about what I bring.

I did get a wee bit of dyeing done. This is African Sun, the full size version of my August Phat Fiber Sampler box contribution. Since I will be a vendor at SAFF, I need to get yarn and fiber dyed up and ready to sell. And as October looks slammed a month before it starts, I'll be dyeing almost daily until then. Watch for the woman with the purple fingers - - Oh, that's all of us!

Western Jaunt

2010-08-20T15:47:00.000-04:00

I did not fall off the earth, though I was in something of an internet brown out. I just returned from a business trip to Denver with an additional hiking extension. Of course I knit through it all (except the business meeting!) coming back with 7 hats and a sock and a quarter. Disregarding my theory that socks are the supreme travel knitting, I took a good bit of hand spun and commercial yarns and knit a number of hats for warm heads all over western North Carolina while I was riding in the car through the Rockies as well as in the airports & airplanes.

While in Denver we visited friends and walked over to the Denver Botanic Gardens. They are having a year-long Henry Moore exhibit with big honking bronze sculptures all over the park. Late summer in Denver is beautiful and the Moores were nicely set among the plants and ponds and lawns. The deal is that you can see the work around the year, in every season. If I lived there, I would.

The trip was partly work for me, but my sweetie went with me. I had not been to the Rockies in a long time. We walked and walked and walked in the Rocky Mountain National Park. We saw big mountains and pretty lakes, darling chipmunks and cool birds. The mountains were really big and it was windy above the tree line. But the coolest thing was a little evening stroll - really, just a leg stretcher - I didn't want to get caught out after dark. As we crossed the Big Thompson River near the Cub Lake trailhead, we came upon a head of about 50 elk. Just hanging out, browsing, traveling fairly slowly. Rather unafraid of the humans - they were about 10 tards from us. The big guy had about a 5' antler spread - amazing. This is not our picture, it's from the NPS, but this would be the picture that we took.

Back in Denver, we visited the Denver Art Museum, another fine museum - well funded and nicely curated. My favorite piece was this delightful group of foxes. There are almost as many foxes invading the restaurant as there were elk. Lots of other fine art too - an amazing pre-Columbian collection, as well as western works (cowboys, Indians, buffalo, etc) that you would expect.

Everything about the trip was good. It makes me want to start hiking again here - the Blue Ridge Mountains are smaller and less dramatic, but no less beautiful. Being in nature is good for my soul, even if it means walking through the urban forest to the Asheville Botanical Gardens just about a mile from my home.

Another Treasury!

2010-08-11T13:32:00.001-04:00

My Saturn Roving was featured in another Etsy Treasury. All about the yellows and golds of fall, this red-gold roving fits nicely with the other handmade and vintage items in this treasury. I've been on a gold binge lately. Take yesterday's African Sun Phat fiber roving - I dyed a couple more batches yesterday and this morning to ensure that I'll have full size rovings in my shop when the Phat Fiber box gets into the hands of the purchasers.

I've also been playing with my 'Rose Gold' colorway. One batch was very pretty, it's 'twin' - not so much. It went into the drum carder with more pink and some sparkly firestar to become a much prettier yarn that anyone would have thought based on the roving. This it one of the reasons I like to dye and to spin - the transformative process sometimes tales my breath away!

I picked up a new hat customer yesterday in Black Mountain, NC. Time to get knitting!

August Phat Fiber Contribution

2010-08-10T13:22:00.000-04:00

After sitting out a month or two, I am contributing to the August Phat Fiber Sampler Box. Along with lots and lots of fiber artists, farmers, & designers, I am part of a collaborative effort to provide buyers with sample sizes of indie dyed sock-yarn, hand spun yarns, amazing carded bats and hand-dyed roving for spinners and felt makers along with lovely patterns.

This month's theme is Africa. My immediate thoughts were of the hot African sun and the jungle - so that is what I dyed. Here is the roving in the dye pots:

Here is the roving in the made-up samples:. The African Sun is Merino wool - soft and sweet and wet-felts super fast.

The Jungle colorway is Falklands wool - a little bit coarser but easier to spin and great for needle felting.

I love them! This week and next, I'll be dyeing full size rovings in the same colorways for sale in my Etsy shop. I've been playing with the packaging. I think I like the banding idea, but the labels are too small. I'll do better next time!

Etsy Treasury: Lake Marie

2010-08-09T12:48:00.001-04:00

My watery Blue-Green dyework was recently part of an Etsy Treasury, Lake Marie. Based on the John Prine song of the same name, all the items in this collection reflect the story that Prine tells in the song. This roving, Neptune is one of a series of my 'Andromeda Shades.' How can I approach the heavenly bodies through the dyeing of fiber, then the spinning of yarn. The yarn that I spin from this roving gets 'tamed down' a bit and is less vibrant. The colors are still there, but a bit more subtle. I occasionally run this roving through the drum carder to make it even more blended

What else is cooking at the world headquarters of Smoky Mountain Fibers?

SAFF board meeting
Planning and packing for the Anything Fiber Yard Sale. Mark your calender for Saturday, August 21st; Black Mountain, NC. I have a table.
Next week's trip to Colorado! What to knit?
Meeting with a new gallery who wants to carry my hats - so I'm getting some samples together.
Knit some hats! I thought I was ahead on inventory. Turns out, not so much!

Little Bunny FooFoo

2010-08-04T07:11:00.001-04:00

A few years ago I had an English Angora rabbit. A red-eyed white, he was a rescue bunny who never quite got over his trauma. He wasn't happy outside his cage, although eventually he did become relaxed and content while I groomed him, talking and singing as I brushed, plucked and clipped him. He was around for about 3 years before he died of a kind of bunny stroke. He was an excellent helper in the garden as he produced copious amounts of fertilizer.

He grew lovely fiber too. I even won an award for a hat that I spun and knitted from his lovely fuzzy wool. However, I have not been tempted to get a new bunny. His cage and accessories went quickly to another friend who had bunny fever and continues to raise and breed them for fiber.

Another friend got a gray German Angora bunny at last year's SAFF. Really, I tried to talk her out of it. They are not cats with long ears and cool fiber. But Mrs. Simpson became part of her life and she likes her a lot. Now my friend is an excellent knitter but a new spinner. We have had a number of conversations about spinning, though I have never seen her spin. But the conversations that we have had regarding angora spinning made me realize that spinning angora was beyond her skill level.

Angora is hard! I seldom spin it alone but usually blend it with a soft wool. I always sandwiched it between layers of merino and sent it through the drum carder several times.

So that is what I have been doing with this lovely gray angora. About 5 passes through the drum carder with white merino wool gave me this very pretty batt. I did not pull out all the short pieces, so it is likely to be a wee bit bumpy. But it did spin very nicely to a heavy worsted weight 2 ply yarn. I carded another batch with some darker gray wool roving and it it coming out very nicely as well.

This time I am much fussier about the angora that I am carding. The brown yarn in the photo is a purchased roving of chestnut angora and pale brown rambouillet wool. Reasonably nice spinning and already carded for my convenience!

I passed both yarns on to Mrs. Simpson's bunny-mama and she was quite happy! So much so that she asked if I would spin her angora forever in exchange for all the foo-fur I want. I suggested she learn to card her own. Not to be ungenerous, but wouldn't she rather take control of the whole process? Of course!

Spinning and Dyeing and Knitting - Oh My!

2010-08-03T07:15:00.007-04:00

Last week was very busy at the day job, facilitating a week-long workshop for teachers - hence the blog silence. But I took my tired self home each evening and spun a little everyday and knit while I watched movies. I have been knitting up stash yarn isnce spring and have been getting a bit tired of it. I have made a decent dent in the stash, but frankly, it was getting a bit dull. It was time to be a bit more creative, so I pulled out some handspun yarns and knitted a few hats for the upcoming fall hat inventory.

I also have been dyeing my 'stock colors,' semi-solids for grab bags,and some new colors as well. The color you see here is 'Antique Roses,' a pale peachy-pinky-gold that is just lovely.

Last Saturday was cool and rainy, a perfect day to spend at the drum carder. So I have been spinning as well, both some angora for a friend and pretty colors for the Locally Grown Gallery as well as for my own work. So quiet, yes. Busy, Oh, yes!

Happy Etsy - Versary!

2010-07-26T16:43:00.001-04:00

This week marks my 4th year using the handmade marketplace, www.etsy.com. Back in 2006, Etsy was a still a fairly new site, but I guessed that if it took off, it would be a great place to sell, yarns and fiber and hats. At first it was slow. I watched my views night and day, posting hats, hand-dyed and handspun yarns, hand dyed sock yarns, and roving. With in a few weeks I was getting sales, though not always what I expected.

Roving took off and looking back at my colorways, I can see why. My colorways were subtle and lovely - I was trying a lot of variations and was on a creative streak. I remember someone buying my whole shop (about 10 hanks of roving!) at once and how excited I was. This photo is Rose Gold. Although the photo is a bit blurry, I like this colorway and may just bring it back. At this time I was still in grad school, my soft-money job was always in danger of disappearing, so it looked like Smoky Mountain Fibers was going to be my real job.

Etsy has gotten bigger and better. My dyework is more predictable if a bit less experimental. In addition to dyed fiber, I am selling undyed fiber, patterns, dyed mohair locks (when I can get them), knitting and felting needles and have used Etsy as a way to destash when the fiber and yarn get a bit out of hand. I have not been successful selling hats (maybe you should try on a hat!) and I no longer sell much hand dyed sock yarn. There is a lot of sock yarn out there and I find it hard to photograph.

Etsy has become a more crowded market place for handmade goods and supplies for artisans. I don't have to maintain my own website - Etsy bring more customers to me than I could have imagined. But I have built up an excellent customer base and they come back I am very grateful for the feedback that I get from my customers.

Now, how do we celebrate milestones in Etsy? With a sale of course! In this case, 20% off everything in my shop. Go to www.smokymountainfibers.etsy.com. Leave a note in the 'note to seller' area with the code, Happy Anniversary. I'll refund 20% of the sale price (excluding shipping and handling) via PayPal. Offer expires on July 31, 2010.

By the way, my job has not ceased to exist but has expanded. I am happy that I went back to school to pursue my professional goals. I'm also very happy that I continue to pursue my creative side as well. Thanks, Etsy!

Spinning Night

2010-07-22T12:57:00.000-04:00

For the last few months I have been getting together with spinning friends to well...spin! We have been meeting in each others homes, but this month we met at a new yarn shop in Asheville, Friends and Fiberworks. I spun a hand-dyed, drum carded blend of wool and mohair in a darkly shaded blue green - with a bit of firestar in the mix. I did something I seldom do - I weighed the lot (6.4 oz.) and divided the batts into 'lighter' and 'darker.' Then I adjusted the batts to make the separate shades weigh the same. My plan is to have a somewhat more even yarn at the end with fewer light and dark sections once I start knitting the yarn. I believe it is destined to be a hat.

Here is the yarn on the bobbin of my trusty, circa mid-1980s Louet S-10. It spun quite nicely and should ply up to about a heavy worsted weight. I like this yarn very much. I'll try to remember to photograph it when I'm done.

Spinning night was as lovely as usual, but with a few new (and familiar faces). It was fun to do it at a yarn shop as well. I am a firm believer in spinning in public. Each time I do it, I have people tell me that they have never seen it before. Others tell me about a spinning wheel that has been in the family for generations. One comment all spinners hear is, 'That's dying art!' My response: 'Not while I'm around!'

The orange socks are moving along nicely. I'll have to check my Ravlelry projects and I'm sure it's no record, but I don't think I've knitted socks this quickly - ever!. I'm now just a few rows shy of starting the toe on sock #2. In fact, I think I'll start knitting right now. Bye!

GoodBye Grover!

2010-07-21T12:45:00.000-04:00

We have had a bit of a pest in the garden. Someone was eating the leaves of the green beans. Not the beans; not the vines. The same someone was also eating the lettuce to the ground. Since it was bolting, no complaints there. But when the varmint started snacking on my tomatoes, it was war!

Turns out it was a groundhog and the leaves of green beans are one of their absolute favorite foods. I saw him a few times, usually in the early mornings and after standing up in his cute little woodchuck way, he always dashed under the back deck.

We took a low key approach, placing pinwheels in the garden, since they can be frightened of shiny moving objects, then didn't see him for a while. But he reappeared, so my sweetie and a neighbor set up a have-a-heart trap to help him find a new home.

Sometime yesterday, he finally decided that a lovely snack of apples was just what he wanted and in he went. so today he will be taken on a little trip to the country. Although I don't like him, I didn't want him to starve. As I was pushing bok choi leaves through the cage, the little dickens snarled at me, ready to bite the hand that was feeding him.

Goodbye, Gover! Time to go to your new home!

Requisite fiber content: In between feeding and photographing Grover, I dyed roving and packed bags of mixed fiber for the LYS and made up one-ounce bundles, affectionately known as bon-bons. I also knitted a good bit on the orange socks, and am starting the gusset of sock #2. I am loving these socks! Fast + pretty = Fun!

Rockin', Sockin' Grab Bags!

2010-07-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

Things were lively in downtown Asheville this weekend, but then they often are. This weekend was the Craft Fair of the Southern Highlands. Although I did not attend the Guild Fair (as it is commonly known around here), my dyed fiber got a good bit of attention. In walking distance of the Civic Center, our local yarn shop Asheville HomeCraft s always does a good business that weekend. People get in the creative spirit - and apparently everybody wants to make felt. My multicolor grab bags sold like hotcakes!

I took an inventory Friday evening and re-stocked on Saturday morning but by Sunday at closing they were GONE! Funny, I started making these grab bags to use up leftovers and sell fiber that refused to be photographed. Now I have to dye specifically for the grab bags. In the Etsy shop, I have Leaves of Green, Red Menace, the Blues and the multicultural skin tones packs. In the LYS I add a crazy mixed up bag.

Although I was already dyeing for a specific project, that was put on hold to dye around the spectrum for at least a handful of grab bags to get to the store in the next day or so. Let's see... what colors do I need to do next?!

Progress on the Sock Front

2010-07-16T09:16:00.000-04:00

I just can hardly say enough for mindless knitting. The sock you see here was begun on Tuesday evening. I cast on and knit the one inch of 1X1 ribbing. Then on Wednesday evening I attended a 2 hour meeting. Last evening, I watched 'Crazy Heart' with Jeff Bridges as a washed up country singer and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the plucky reporter who falls for him. Good music, sort of predictable, but a fine movie for knitting socks. And look at the progress in about 5 hours of knitting! Sweet!

Plus, I'm now in my favorite sock knitting section, the Gusset. Why the gusset? As we say ion Minnesota, I see it this here way. The leg and any patterning that may have been required is in the past. The heel flap and heel turn, done. now, just that last fun, interesting part until its time for a bit of round and round knitting that is the foot. Then it's time for the toe - easy and fun. I even like to kitchener my toes. It is such a satisfying end of a project. I even usually kitchener both toes at the same time. Granted, that is mostly so I can keep the toes even. But also because I just like the finality of it.

I plan to go to the Asheville HomeCraft's Sit 'n' Knit tonight. Chat with folks and knit mindlessly and I should knock off the foot. Nice, eh?

My 4 year Etsy anniversary is coming up. Watch this space for special offers just for my blog readers!

Plain Vanilla in Orange

2010-07-14T15:31:00.000-04:00

As the Mossy Cardi is again at a place where I have to think, I started a pair of socks to knit this evening at the SAFF (Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair) board meeting. No brain strain here, just a simple pair of socks in self striping Sock Colori almost sport weight yarn. I bought several balls of this when a local yarn shop went out of business a few years ago. As I am still 'knitting down the stash' (though I have seriously fallen off the wagon of late), this yarn volunteered for duty.

When I knit the psuedo-Fair Isle yarns, I find that I don't like any patterning - not even ribs. A bit of a cuff, then straight-on stockinette, flap heel and more stockinette to the toe. With randomly dyed and semi-solid yarns, it's a different story. But for these yarns, I work on the KISS principle. I guess I'll put them on Ravelry, but mostly to keep records of sock #1, when I knit sock #2.

SAFF is shaping up nicely. Even with a smaller and less-experienced board, we are a dedicated group. We are willing to try new things, while keeping the things that worked in the past. I have simple but satisfying knitting to keep my hands busy, but not require much pesky thinking. The creativity flows, but we keep the meeting knitting easy!

Mossy Green Moss Stitch

2010-07-12T13:54:00.000-04:00

The mossy cardi continues to grow this week end, thanks to time in the passenger seat and a bit of porch sitting. I finally made it to the arm holes - in fact the decreases are nearly finished and I can do a bit of mindless knitting until it's time for the collar shaping. I am quite happy with it. I love the color and the fabric, as well as the process. I'm not having any trouble melding the 2 patterns, nor do I expect any trouble doing my own mods later.

I spent the weekend with a friend in North Georgia, with a side trip to Atlanta for a bit of retail therapy. As I have mentioned in this blog, I have been spending some time and energy on my home. Some delayed maintenance, some improvement and just a decision to make it a better place to live. To that end, we went to Ikea where I continued that endeavor. A classic bentwood 'Poang' chair & footstool, functional bed sidetables and a storage unit will go a long way to making my home a nicer place to be. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I love Ikea. The clean, modern design appeals to me and I love the tiny, model apartments set up in the store, though I always try to find a home for the spinning wheel, fiber stash and enough space for books. Though I guess that's what all those storage units are for. Then the fun comes when you get to assemble your goodies. I am totally charmed by the elegant way everything fits together as well as the pictographic instructions.

In the natural world: It's raining! A steady rain most of today, I came home to a naturally watered garden, lots of green beans but also evidence that some furry creature has been snacking in the garden. Luckily bunny foo-foo (or whoever) likes the green bean leaves, but not the vines or beans themselves. A few tiny okra pods have shown up and the butternut squash are turning buff. The tomatoes are still green.

Another Inch

2010-07-08T15:25:00.000-04:00

Exciting blog fodder: Last night I knit about another inch or so on my Mossy Cardi. I intend to do a bit more knitting over the weekend. So exciting! But in fact I hope to get to the 'divide for the armholes' part of the pattern. Keep in mind that even though this sweater will eventually look somewhat like the Drops 103-1 jacket, it is constructed by knitting the body in one piece to the sleeve area, then dividing into a back and 2 fronts. Make appropriate shaping until it's shoulder time. It is a bit more complicated, what with trying to make both sides even and all. Not too mention a bit of variation on stitch count between the 2 patterns. But as I will be a house guest over the weekend and will be a passenger on the drive home, I foresee plenty of knitting time.

I'll be calling a contra dance this weekend in Cornelia, Georgia with one of my favorite bands, Steamshovel. It's just 2 guys, but they are an amazing band. Roger Gold of the Elftones is playing (mostly) guitar with David White on fiddle and banjo. Should be lots of fun for those who want a bit of high energy dancing in North GA. After that I have a little flurry of calling gigs around these hills. So join me to dance and knit, though not necessarily at the same time!

Renate Hiller - "On Handwork"

2010-07-07T13:50:00.000-04:00

This video is making the rounds of knitting blogs of late. Sweet and simple and making lots of sense, I'm posting it here as well. I like what Ms. Hiller has to say about making things. Why do we make yarn by hand? Why do we knit socks, when we can buy them at almost any local store? Why am I knitting a sweater in July? I can easily buy one for 1/2 the price.

Speaking of sweaters, here is a bit of progress on my Mossy Cardi, now up to nearly 9 inches (23 cm). That's a good bit of knitting and it's going faster than I expected. Love the yarn, love the color, love the semi-mindless knitting. Usually I'm seeking purl-avoidance, but I don't even mind the purl rows. I switched from my usual Addi-Turbo needles to bamboo. The sharper points of the turbos were snagging the plies. The blunt-tipped bamboos, don't do that.

I think my progress comes from being slightly sidelined by a summer cold. Instead of party-ing with friends I was quite happy to stay home and finish watching the the HBO miniseries John Adams on Netflicks. Gotta say - loved it! Now I knew about as much about John Adams as the next non-history major - almost nothing! Now I know that historical biopics can be a wee bit revisionist - after all it's TV. But still a nice look at American history and probably worth watching.

The Mossy Cardi - Cast on!

2010-07-02T14:43:00.000-04:00

Well, I cast on the Cirrus/Drops 103-1 variant this week. The hardest part was figuring what part of each design that I wanted. Basically it's construction style of the Cirrus with the detailing of the Drops. I'll make every effort to document my variations as well as my progress on my Ravelry page. The yarn, Louet Riverstone chunky is a lovely mossy green. It's only 7 centimeters long so far (which somehow sounds longer than 2 3/4 inches), but I have not spent much time on it yet.

I am not one of those notable knitting bloggers who decides to cast on a sweater and completes it within a week or two. What with a commitment to spinning again, the garden to tend and a quite full time day job that has been very interesting (dare I say fun) lately, knitting is something that has lately been in tiny bits and pieces. A Windy City hat took me 2 weeks! Of course the actual knitting was about 2 hours! My only goal at this point is to wear the sweater sometime this winter!

The US Independence Day holiday weekend is here and with it a fun party up in the country just a short hike to the French Broad River. We will likely dip our toes into the drink!

Independence Day Sale!

2010-07-01T14:04:00.000-04:00

In honor of the 4th of July, I decided to celebrate by having a sale in my Etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/smokymountainfibers. All Natural roving is 20% off. It doesn't matter if you want sweet & creamy merino, rustic browns, or easy to spin Falklands. Any Amount - it's all 20% off. This sale does not include shipping, and I will refund the discount to your Paypal account. Just enter the code 'Independence' in your message to seller. Pretty easy, eh?

I've been spinning Falklands roving lately. It's creamy white and spins up soft and fluffy. It takes dye well too but for now I just want the peace that pretty white yarn gives me. I have 2 bobbins spun up so I think it's time for a bit of plying. Look at me - I'm plying!

I'll likely spend the holiday in the garden, in the studio and playing with friends. Might get to downtown Asheville for the fireworks - in the new Pack Square park - Yeah!!

So...What About a New Sweater?

2010-06-28T12:38:00.000-04:00

May be a cardigan? A nice, mossy green cardigan? Okay, I have the yarn and maybe the pattern, if it works. I like to knit sweaters in big pieces, rather than small pieces that have to be sewn together. I don't like fussy fitting sweaters - I like big, boxy sweaters that I can layer under - turtlenecks, shirts, lighter weight sweaters. Those 2 requirements work pretty well together.

So what if I take this (Drops 103-1 Jacket) with long sleeves of course. OK, may be it's last year's ubiquitous jacket, but not around here!

and construct it like this? This is Cirrus - constructed in one piece to the underarms. But mostly stockinette with wider moss stitch panels and the front and cuffs.

Both have sleeves that are set in and collars knitted separately and sewn on. But I have many hours of knitting until I come to that decision.

So far, just a swatch that I have washed to check gauge before and after.

Oh, and the yarn? Louet Riverstone Chunky in Island Moss. I like it!

Testing, testing...

2010-06-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

Testing. Blogger has been tempting me with new design templates every time I log in lately, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I think I like the new version, but it does seem awfully green!. I may tweak it a bit in the coming weeks, so don't be alarmed.

A colleague was in town this week, so I gave her my best tour of Asheville. It looks a lot like this, except that it was full of people. Kids were romping in the fountains and pools. The grownups were on blankets under the trees. No special occasion - just a hot day in the city.

The workshop that I am teaching is going well. Good prep and a terrific group of participants - a fine combination. We will cut them loose tomorrow after presentations and lunch. I'll do it again with another group in July.

Back to spinning every day. Since my house is being reassembled (slowly and somewhat thoughtfully) I have carved out a place to spin. I am much happier if I take some time to slow down and make a bit of yarn. I'm also back to dyeing yarn. I was in the Asheville HomeCrafts the other day and they are happily selling my sock yarns, particularly greens. So I have recently dyed an olive color and a teal. I have a purple soaking now for it's second dye bath. Looking forward to spending a bit of time at the dyepot tonight, both dyeing and planning for future dyeing.

I have knit hardly a stitch this week. Though I am reading sweater patterns so a swatch cannot be very far away.

Not as Quiet as it Might Seem

2010-06-22T16:49:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I don't blog because there is nothing happening. Other times it is because the chaos is not blogworthy. Then there are times that the busy-ness might be interesting, but I'm just so busy to take the time to blog. You decide.

Day Job: I am currently facilitating a Summer Institute for classroom teachers. We are looking at using Primary Sources as we study the movements of people: Immigration, Westward Expansion, Lewis & Clark, etc. Lots more - you can fill in the blanks. I've been prepping for this for the last couple of weeks & now I'm in the middle of it. We'll repeat the Institute in July for another group.

Fiber: Although the Etsy shop is slowed down (and I have not been posting new items because of everything else going on), I've been dyeing sock yarn for the local yarn shops. I'm also spinning some very pretty yarn, either for myself or the shops. And if I'm spinning again, that means,...

Home: It's getting put back together. Walls & ceilings are repaired and newly painted. Furniture is now in the correct rooms. Soon there will be art on the walls and books in the book cases. This is a very, very, very good thing.

Garden: Cranking out peas (still), beans, cukes, chard (very soon), summer squash (galore) and lots more. Weeds a-plenty!

Knitting: Swatching for a new sweater. It will be a moss green cardigan. That's all I know so far.

Dance: Just completed the Summer Soiree, a contra dance weekend here in Asheville. My sweetie was on the committee. I led an English Country Dance workshop. I was rather nervous, but got very good feedback from the serious EC dancers as well as folks trying it for the very first time. George Marshall was the main caller for the weekend and he danced every dance, so I think I did okay. If not, he would have been gone pretty quick!

On the evening's menu, summer squash fritters (see above)! Yum!!!

Sunrise, Sunset

2010-06-17T11:22:00.000-04:00

I got a lovely Etsy message yesterday afternoon from SplitRockRanch who included me in a lovely treasury full of mostly fibery goodies, with a bit of photography, beadwork and soap thrown in for good measure. It's all in the colors of the sunset - red, pink, orange, purple black - really remarkable work by all the artists. I am thrilled to be in such fine company! My roving that is shown here is my PhatFiber contribution, Fire. I love this colorway to make and to spin. Like much hand dyed fiber, as close as your recipes and processes can be, the work is always a surprise. With this color combination, it it a pleasant surprise as well.

Here is the link to the treasury - see what trips your fancy. But don't wait too long. Treasuries are rather fleeting. Thanks, SplitRock. Love your batts!

I finally spun a batt or 4 myself last evening. With my house under renovation, I kind of lost my spinning space to - well, everything. Boxes of books, an extra sofa in the studio, furniture mashed together and covered in old sheets, plus tools and plaster dust over everything. But last evening I went to my Wednesday spinning group and spun the second half of a teal batt I carded a long while back. It felt great! The house is getting put back together too. And that is a very nice thing.

Before There Was Google Maps...

2010-06-16T11:40:00.000-04:00

I'm busy at the day job...and I am loving it! I am preparing to lead a workshop series for teachers about using primary sources in the classroom. For the section on maps, it's always fun for people to look at their own town. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900, there was quite a business in creating maps to encourage business owners to locate in your town - great railroads, navigable waters, actual roads. Plenty of churches and schools and stores. Hey - - things don't change. Pick us, Google!

Go to the Library of Congress's Panographic Maps Collection. See if you can find your town; then your neighborhood or street. I live on a bend in the road, so I can find my house with ease, even though the Asheville maps do not have a north-south orientation. It's all about the river!

When I was helping clean out my parents' house, there was a mailing tube in a closet. I opened it up and there was a poster size map of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, circa 1869. Sweet! Enough of this - Back to work!