Tour de Fleece?

Many of my "fibery friends" that spin their own yarn like to participate in the annual "Tour de Fleece", an event that mirrors the Tour de France. Each spinner is to set a goal, something challenging, and to focus on that goal throughout the time of the tour. Well, I'm not that focused and my time has been a bit scattered recently since we're taking a "staycation" this year and I'm working around the entire family's schedules. So, my goal was simply to do more spinning.

I've discovered that I really enjoy "spinning outside the box", (ie. art yarns), so that's what I've been doing. I've discovered Wensleydale fleece, love it! The funnest thing is spinning it completely raw, I love the way it forms little loops and has such gorgeous, lustrous texture.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble downloading photos of my favorite yarn from my camera and the best pictures are on there. With the oppressing heat continuing, it's looking like I'll be spending more time in my comfy studio spinning!

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Learning from Mistakes

It's never fun to have to throw out a messed-up felting project (at least with knitting, you can unravel the yarn!), but I suppose I can say that it's how one improves. Last week one day I had a block of time to make the first of Mirian's slippers. I chose her favorite colors and decided to make them slightly thicker and to use only wool, no alpaca. The alpaca in mine feels incredibly soft, however it is not holding in the rest of the felt very well. Although I love alpaca, it's not well-suited for felting that will take a lot of hard wear.

I traced a pattern for the resist and made it larger to account for shrinkage.... but not enough shrinkage! I guess that using more merino (which shrinks a lot) and not using alpaca (which barely shrinks) made it shrink significantly more. After trying to make this fit Mirian's foot (it felt like I was trying to get Cinderella's stepsister's foot into the glass slipper!), I gave up and started over.

The new slippers made from a larger resist turned out great! I had hoped to photograph them with the leather already sewn on, but I've not been able to whittle out even that little bit of time this week.

I did do a bit of dyeing, carding and spinning this past week, just wish I could have done more!

A friend told me that alpaca couldn't be spun into coils, one had to use merino, so of course I had to try- I love the result.

I'm off to the Southern Select Alpaca Show in Tennessee this weekend, then I'm chaperoning my son's choir trip to Orlando for 5 days! I'm beginning to forsee a time when our daughter will be back in school next year and I'll have larger blocks of time for fiber work again, trying hard not to wish the time away!

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Fiber Friday

There's been lots of felting goodness and dyeing happening in my studio during the early mornings this week, thanks to the rejuvenation I got from last weekend's retreat! I posted recently with photos of a lattice scarf I made for myself. As excited as I was then, I've changed my method a bit (to make the openings smaller), and have had good success in doing some with pure alpaca (hand-dyed, from our herd). I like these a lot better than the first.

Here's one with a flower pin that I'm including for the buyer, my friend Charlotte.

I'm going to try to do a bit more "direct selling" (I'd love to cut out the middle man wherever possible to keep prices reasonable), so if you're interested in any of these let me know and I'll be glad to send more pictures/details. The scarves are $65-$80 and the pink/orange shawl is $105 and I'll include the pin if you respond within the week!

Oh, and here's a skein of yarn I spun on the retreat- I just love doing those coils! You can tell from the color palette that I'm craving some spring color.

You may notice that I've updated my blog roll to better reflect what I've been reading these days. Lots of new felting blogs are listed! I'm excited that Nicola Brown (Clasheen) from Ireland is coming to Kentucky in late May and will be giving a class at my friend Jan's home. I'm very excited that she's coming to the area, and hope she'll have time to come to the farm! Check out her site if you're interested in the class.

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Friends, Fun, Food, Fiber

I had a great time collaborating with some of my creative NE Ohio friends for a fiber arts retreat at our friend Cheryl's gorgeous place, nestled between nature-filled wetlands in a rural area east of Cleveland. I've had the pleasure of watching the progress on her beautiful home for several years, and Cheryl was anxious to break in the newly-completed studio. Wow, it would be a dream come true for any artist- tons of space with sitting areas, a central table for gathering, a deep sink and tiled space for working with wet stuff, and even a huge and luxurious sleeping area with room for several friends to sleep over (which we did!)

There were five of us, and everyone contributed some bit of knowledge and taught it to the others. It was soooo neat to learn how to card colorful art batts and then spin them into art yarns of several types (here are some of mine- I can't wait to do more!).

Robbie and Donna are alpaca-owning friends who have focused on making incredible and original products in the Alpaca Fiber Studio in Chagrin Falls, and it was easy to see why so many people enjoy taking their classes, as they're very patient and encouraging teachers!

I hadn't met Barb before, but soon discovered that she's a real sweetheart and also a great knitter and crocheter. She finished this beautiful shawl and modeled it for us at the end of our retreat.

Donna and Robbie had just put on a fashion show at a local country club, so they showed us some of their unique nuno felt fashions they had made for it (some of the items were modeled over pajamas, so there was lots of hamming it up and laughter!).

Having lived in Kentucky for more than half of my life now, snow is a big deal for us but not for the tough Northeasters! Here's what my car looked like on the second morning, and at one point it looked like a blizzard outside but my spunky friends never even commented on the weather except for an occasional blase remark, "hmmm, it looks a bit bad out there." The rare flash of sunshine elicited a lot more attention!

As is usually the case with my woman friends, there was a lot of laughing, excellent food, and good wine to be shared. We all compared our sources, techniques and ideas, it was so much fun! The only time it was quiet was when everyone was concentrating on learning something new, such as when I taught the others how to make a felted birdhouse.

They all turned out beautifully! Robbie's heart-shaped "love nest" was especially cute, and I hope to make some of these in time for valentine's day as well.

Thank you so much to Cheryl and my other friends for including this "southern friend" in the retreat and I hope this will be at least an annual event! Alpaca breeding originally introduced us, but the fiber of friendship still holds us together, and for that I am very grateful.

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A Colorful Month

My right-hand salesperson at the Festival

Phew, it's been a run of one thing to the next lately, and I'm really relieved that I'm skipping out on the AOBA Alpaca Nationals this coming weekend! Most recently, the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival kept me on my toes. It turned out to be a great event, especially for the first year, and was really well-attended. I met lots of fun people, and had great interest in felting classes. Check out my new class schedule here.The animals drew a lot of interest- these three little girls were soooo cute with Jasper!

I had great sales at the Fiber Festival (THANKS to everyone!), but I had plenty of dyed rovings left. Darn, now I'm gonna have to use them myself! Here's a skein of yarn I spun up from some hand-dyed baby alpaca.And some felting projects... I'm getting new things ready for this Saturday's Art in the Park at Big Spring Park in Versailles. Hope to see you there! Pin It Now!

Journey to Ohio Valley Natural Fibers

 

Since beginning my fiber foray about 15 years ago, I have made the long trip to this fiber mill, Ohio Valley Natural Fibers, in Sardinia, Ohio dozens of times.  It's where I take much of our alpaca fiber to be carded into a more usable form (roving) so that it can be hand spun on a wheel into yarn, used for making felt, or prepared in a way so that it can be sold to other hand spinners.

The owners, Kent and Ginny Ferguson, are very focused, fun and unique people that run a great operation, using equipment from old textile mills, some of which dates back to the early-mid 1900's.  Their carders are LARGE, taking up a small warehouse space, and they welcome visitors to look around and see the big machines in action.  On a typical visit, they start with weighing and going over the order with me.  I had spent the prior afternoon sorting through the fleeces overflowing in the barn loft, "skirting" them to remove unwanted "vegetable matter" (VM) and coarser fibers, and deciding which ones I wanted to combine or blend with other exotic fibers.

Each lot of fiber that will be blended first goes onto a "picker" which helps to open the fleece's locks, fluffs it, and throws it into it's own little "room", mixing it with the added fibers as it goes.  Then it is taken to one of the giant carding machines.

The machines require constant attention and maintenance as the fine fibers float around.  Here, Kent is checking the machine and lightly spraying the fleece to help it go through the series of dozens of spiked rollers more easily.  Ohio Valley works hard to produce a clean product, and doesn't use acids or other chemicals to dissolve the vegetable matter as the large commercial mills do, resulting in a more green product which we can offer to our customers.  The process requires a lot of manual labor to keep all of that fiber cleaned up, which is why they're slated to be featured on the Discovery Channel show, "Dirty Jobs" this season!

As the fleece goes through the final roller from which the fiber comes off in rope-like roving, a person is there ready to carefully lay it into a box.  I love this part, as I can see how the fleece turned out, which is usually beautiful!  I'm always anxious to get home and start spinning on the most special fleeces.  I do believe that having this much hands-on with our fleece has helped me be a better alpaca breeder.  I'll soon post pictures of some of the projects I've already completed using my favorite fibers.

Thank you to Kent and Ginny for their many years of quality, friendly service to Seldom Scene Farm!

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Maine Mitts for Me!

Last weekend before heading off to my spinning retreat, I went through some of my fiber stash and discovered some lovely Bluefaced Leicester hand-dyed roving and some yarn I had already spun from it. I purchased the fiber at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival the only year I had the good fortune of attending, perhaps in 2005? The yarn was sold by Firesong, and I remember all of their colors being stunning.

I enjoy working with alpaca most of all, but it is nice to work with other fibers from time to time. BFL wool is relatively soft, hard-wearing, and has really pretty luster. The yarn that I had already spun was fairly bulky and uneven, but I felt that it would be good for that pattern I love, Maine Morning Mitts! I spun a skein last weekend that will perhaps become a hat or scarf, my spinning was so much better the second time around.

These mitts will be nice to wear tomorrow morning when we finish up on the alpaca's routine herd health (worming injections and trimming toenails)! It's nice to have warm wrists and hands but to have my fingers free for fine motor tasks.

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Spinning and Spiral Cowl

This past weekend's spinning retreat was a welcome break from lots of cold outdoor activities on the farm! Our local spinning guild has had an annual overnight get-together for as long as it's existed (over 25 years?), and I've now started to feel like one of the old-timers, having attended perhaps the past 15 years. We rented a lovely house on a lake, and I fully enjoyed the usual sharing of patterns, techniques, ideas, opinions, and wonderful home-cooked food. Our group is very diverse, but all are generous in their teaching and I have learned so much from these friends. It's fun to see the variety of projects and to learn about the different fibers that everyone enjoys. (The green fiber above is mohair that Sheri dyed and below is wool from Sylvia's sheep that she dyed for a coat).My goal was to spin my own alpaca yarn and knit a Spiral Cowl (the free pattern can be found here), and I completed all but the final touches over the weekend.
I wanted to make it for my new grey and red reversible alpaca coat, and it does look great with it (though that picture didn't turn out well). It was a very fun and fairly simply knit, and I have already cast on to do another in Noro silk garden yarn. The button (shown above) which gathers it closer for warmth is made from bone, and I'd been saving it for a special project since buying it in Alaska nearly 5 years ago. This was the first time I'd done a picot edging, and I loved it! Pin It Now!

Wearing Alpaca!

Our farm helper gave notice last week and left two days earlier than planned, ironically leaving me to feed and do other chores on the two coldest days of the past eight years! But, no worries- I wear alpaca! Normally I get very cold feet, but my Extreme Alpaca Socks kept my toes toastie. I have heavier hats, but this one which is rather thin and lightweight kept my head as warm as can be. (Let me know if you're interested in purchasing warm alpaca clothing- I have some great specials going now!)I really shouldn't worry about the animals so much in this weather (-3 F this morning), as they are wearing alpaca, too, of course. In fact, they seemed quite happy with the frigid weather, especially when the sun came out. I take extra time to be sure that everyone is doing okay and we feed lots of extra hay. Digesting their hay is like burning a furnace and they will stay warmer as a result.A ready supply of water is critical, so I check each field's water source carefully. I did find three with frozen tanks and the water pump at our top barn wasn't working either. Flipping the breaker took care of two problems, and after calling our electrician (a very competent angel who came immediately), we identified a heating element problem in one automatic waterer. Those alpacas fortunately have another water source, and the problem will be fixed this morning.

I'm off this weekend for our annual spinning retreat, in which I get to take time to enjoy the company of friends as well as the sensation of alpaca fiber sliding through my fingers to the rhythm of the spinning wheel. Hopefully, I'll actually complete another warm garment. I feel very grateful to have such a nice group of women to enjoy this tradition with, as well as a wonderful family that understands my need for a break and the company of other people. Stay warm, everyone! Pin It Now!