Sampson's Fleece

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!

Wag More. Bark Less. Card Fiber.

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! 

Fresh New Yarns

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.

Little Bunny FooFoo

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!

Random Tuesday

It's been a while since I posted.  The semester has been a long time ending, but we've put it to bed.  Good night!

The garden is mostly in - and looking great.  Peas are happy and climbing their fence.  The radishes are yummy and everything else is small but sturdy.  We are having a touch of 'Blackberry Winter right now - a cold and rainy spell that hits when the blackberries are in bloom.  A good day for chili.

I made chili for dinner.

Sockapalooza continues.  I finished the Happy Waffle Socks (all but the toes) and begun and nearly finished a pair of Slippin' Stiping' Socks [Rav Link] in a colorway I can only call Carrots and Broccoli - an orange variegated yarn striped with a forest green.  If you like the colors of 1970's appliances, you'll love these socks.  And since I'm knitting from stash yarns, I hae reversed the colorway a bit so that one sock has green toes & heel and the other orange.  It's a bit off-putting, so I think I need to keep them.  In my shoes, no one really expects things to be too normal.

A couple of days in Washington, DC last month found me visiting the National Gallery of Art.  Great shows - I was particularly charmed by the paintings of Hendrick Avercamp.  The exhibition features paintings done in the 'Little Ice Age' of the late 18th and early 19th centuries when the rivers in Holland regularly froze - and life went on.  This delightful group of paintings forced me to spend a bit of time in the galleries that show the Netherland's school.  Quite a change from the contemporary work that usually draws me in. 

I've been dyeing and carding, but not spinning too much.  When I get around to it, I'll have plenty to spin. The local yarn shops have been selling my yarn, so I think it's time to spin again.  Enough with the socks already!  Get to spinning!

Getting Reading for the Show

This Saturday I will be a demonstrator & vendor at the sweet little Mars Hill Heritage Festival on the campus of Mars Hill College where I work.  I'll be carding & spinning a lovely natural brown/grey fleece and selling hats, yarn and fiber.  Now nobody ever gets rich at this little show, but we do put on a good event.  There will be live traditional music, handmade pottery (and kids can throw a pot), 4-H booths, milking goats, an apple butter kettle, a keeper of bees and a number of eceolygy/sustainablility/history displays of the campus quad.  The usual vendors will be down on Main Street.

Between now and then I need to...

• Tag yarn and hats
• Felt some knitted hats
  
• Ply and wash yarns 
  
• Weigh and tag fiber
• Make a bunch of signs
• Assemble my display stuff
• Assemble the portable 'office'
• Pack the truck
• Snag stuff I need from Locally Grown
  

Because we have an English dance event that same evening, I also need to...

• Clean the house (because you never know where the party will be!)
  
• Tidy the guest room
• Bake cookies
• Assemble table linens & serving utensils
• Pick and arrange flowers
• Better clean the bathroom too

Since I don't do many craft shows (about 3 per year!), I have to reinvent the wheel every time.  But since a good bit of the stock of SmokyMountainFibers will come to the event, it's a good way for local Ravelers and Etsians who wish to can see my work.  I put a note on Ravelry inviting spinners to bring wheels and spindles and 'set a spell' as we say up in these mountains.  Should be chilly (good for hat sales) and I hope it's sunny!

Labor Day - When the Work is Fun!

When Labor Day consists of doing the creative and self-sustaining work that you love, it's more than labor.  It is the good work that makes us know that we are alive and contributing to the universe.

I didn't go to the college today, but I did respond to my student's concerns and questions.  I find that working on Labor Day goes against all that I was taught by my union-card carrying parents.  So I take a vacation day. 

I stopped by both my retail accounts today to say hello and check on my goodies - even chatted with a new needle felter.

I did a bit of drum carding - made some batts that I can't wait to spin.  Dyed roving too.

I spent some quality time in the garden, pulling weeds and tired tomatoes, planted collard greens for fall, harvested lots of green beans, tomatoes, eggplants and the entire potato crop - 7 volunteer spuds!  

After a small get together with friends, I'm off to host the Monday night contra dance.  No dancing on my bum knee, but I'll knit a Trailside hat and chat with friends.