It's been a whirlwind month ... first Rhinebeck, which was awesome (as always). Good friends, good times. I'm always so sad when Rhinebeck is over, and I have to wait another whole year for it to happen again. Now I'm gearing up to head to the Knitter's Review Retreat next week. But, before I do, I've managed to snap some photos of some of my recent projects!

I was home for three days after Rhinebeck, and then left for SOAR, which was held in Sunriver, OR. It was a wonderful, if exhausting, week. I took a three-day workshop from Sarah Swett called "Spinning for Next to the Skin," which was just amazing (do go check out her website, her weaving and knitting are absolutely incredible). Sarah brought 4 lovely fleeces ~ a black rambouillet, white debouillet, gray polwarth and brown/tan rambouillet. We worked with all of them, doing different preparations (combing, handcarding, drumcarding, flicking). I loved the drumcarder, and have ordered one of my own ~ a Pat Green Happy Hybrid. It should be here in a couple of weeks, and all I really want to do is recard and blend my whole stash, spin really skinny yarn and knit sweaters on size 2 needles that I can wear like teeshirts and lightweight clothing.

I also took 4 retreat classes: the gentle art of plying, with Judith MacKenzie McCuin, Color Blending with Deb Menz, and Teach Spinning and American Longdraw with Maggie Casey. All are already favorite teachers for me, and I loved every class and learned alot as well, that I'm looking forward to incorporating into my own spinning. Being in class with these four women was amazing and so overwhelmingly inspiring; they are all such fantastic and accomplished artists.

Here is yarn from the color blending retreat session with Deb Menz. I had a base of tan colored combed top, which I drumcarded with 6 other colors ~ more and less saturated, complimentary and opposite, and lighter and darker. Then I spun singles from all of them and navaho-plied them into this skein. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, though I'm thinking of a felted bag to hang on my spinning wheel ...



While I was at SOAR, I spun two good-sized skeins of 100% cashmere top. Not sure of the yardage, but it's sort of heavy sportweight. I'm knitting a pair of the Lace-Up Mittens designed by Sara Lamb in the new Homespun Handknit book. I love this pattern; it's so easily adjustable to different yarn weights.

100% cashmere handspun yarn:



And mitten number 1:



The samples from my other classes are still lost in the void of unpacking. Sarah kindly let us all have some of the different fleeces from the class, and I came home with 4 lovely little fluffy batts. I'm planning to spin them fine, and knit a pair of 4-color mittens. More on that later.

This past September, I spun up some superwash merino top that I had leftover from the 2009 club. I had dyed it in pastel shades, which is not something I do alot, but I like to be different with the club fibers and give subscribers different colors, different saturations, and different methods of preparation. So, the leftovers became a three-ply worsted weight yarn that I knitted into a cute vest for my soon-to-arrive new niece:



Lastly, back in October I knitted yet another pair of Maine Morning Mitts from Clara's first book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn, for my friend Anjee. These are from handspun 50/50 cashmere / bombyx silk top, also left over from the 2009 SFT Handspinning Club (it's nice having leftovers :-D ):




Oh, and by the way. My apologies for the terrible photo quality. I took these with my iPhone, because I am ::in between:: cameras at the moment.

Rhinebeck is right around the corner! I've been working madly to get ready, and am really excited about this year. I have loads of yarns and fibers done in lots of different colors, and some exciting new stuff to share with everyone ....

First off, some Rhinebeck special events:

Saturday, October 17, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm: Clara Parkes will be at the Spirit Trail Fiberworks booth signing copies of her new book, The Knitter's Book of Wool (which will also be available for sale in the booth). This is a really fantastic book!

Saturday, October 17, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm: Amy King will be at the Spirit Trail Fiberworks booth signing copies of her new book, Spin Control (which will also be for sale in the booth). This is another wonderful book!

For yarns and fibers:

I am excited to introduce a completely new yarn at Rhinebeck: come by, meet and fondle "Sunna," a blend of 75% superwash merino, 15% cashmere and 10% bombyx silk. I had this yarn created and spun especially for me, so it's not available anywhere else. It's a three-ply fingering weight yarn, and is just irrestistable. Sunna, by the way, is the Scandinavian Goddess of the Sun and Spinning, and her symbol is a fiery wheel.

I also have 15 new rovings ready! This is the most new stuff I've ever had ready for one show. All dyed in different colors, they include Gulf Coast, Santa Cruz, Teeswater/CVM X, Romeldale, Rambouillet, Gotland X and others. I also have some lovely white Teeswater and variegated Wensleydale locks ~ too pretty to do anything but wash.

Lastly, I have a new bumpersticker to share (I love bumper stickers. I know alot of people don't, but I get a kick out of them):

The drop spindles were drawn by my father, who is a fabulous artist. The one on the left is my Mongold drop spindle, which is the first spinning item I ever purchased and has beautiful etchings on the top. The spindle on the right is a Peruvian bottom whorl that my friend Shelia purchased for me on her trip to Peru.

If you're going to Rhinebeck, don't forget to check out Wild Fibers Magazine's International Tent for alot of really cool activities and presentations and, if you have a bit of extra time, please be sure to stop at the Tent and knit a few rows on The World's Longest Scarf.

Personally, in between getting ready for Rhinebeck, I've been on a sock knitting binge. Since September, I've finished 4 pairs and have another half way done (this is a huge number of socks for me, as I'm not usually an avid sock knitter). But, I had all this sock yarn laying around staring at me, and I finally succumbed. I posted a photo in the last post, and here's another:

This is some old Spirit Trail yarn; I think it's Alexandra. It's a bit more brown in real life, with mahogany and tan stripes. I especially like how the heels stripe. I have no idea when I dyed it, but it was years ago. It's one of those colors I especially liked and actually took a skein of for myself to use, and then it got buried in my stash. It was before I was doing repeating colorways, but I may try to recreate it one of these days.

I'm also trying to spin up little samples of all the new rovings, but not doing so well getting them done. Too many came in at the same time, just over the last couple of weeks. So, we'll see how many I get done.

If you come to Rhinebeck, be sure to stop by my booth (A4) and say hi!

Good grief. I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted! I HAVE been busy ... dyeing for Sock Summit, going to Sock Summit, going to the beach, sending the kids off to school. And lately, knitting quite a bit, spinning quite a bit, and washing and dyeing fleeces even more.

One pair of socks, finished:



I knitted these with Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Frija," which is a fingering weight superwash merino/cashmere/nylon blend. This yarn is SO wonderful. I had used the sport weight version before (Paivatar), but I really like this weight, too. These socks are so soft and squooshy, but also have alot of spring and memory to them. I put them on for the photograph, and really don't want to take them off.

The colorway is called "River's Edge" because the blend of deep, watery blue with browns and grays reminded me of the edge of a river, where the water meets the gray of rocks and browns of tree trunks and soil. After playing around a bit, I cast on enough stitches so the colors would swirl around the foot. The leg has 4 more stitches, and that coupled with the 2x1 rib pattern really changes how the colors work together. (I don't have any of this colorway in stock, but I do believe Morgaine at Carolina Homespun does, if anyone is interested).

Another pair of socks is about 3/4 finished ... and a sweater which has been on the needles for almost two years now has also seen some progress.

I've been spinning on a large project for the last couple of months, whenever I could find time. The spinning is finally completed:



This is about 2,200 yards of two-ply yarn, about DK weight. One ply is 50% merino/50% bombyx silk, the other ply is 100% bombyx silk. I have to admit that I really didn't enjoy spinning these fibers. The fibers themselves are lovely, but ... white. Really, it was incredibly boring. Yard after yard after yard of it. I could not get into any good meditative place while spinning this, unfortunately. The whiteness of it. Really, just plain labor. So, it took me longer than expected to finish the spinning, because it was something I had to force myself to do rather than look forward to expectantly.

Anyway. The plan for this is to knit it into a rectangular shawl, and then space-dye it (I am afraid that the knitting of it may end up being much like the spinning of it, and though I hope not I am not wholly optimistic). So, stay tuned. I plan to start on the knitting of it very soon. I'm not going to even say when I'd like to have it done is, but I'd like to have it finished sooner than later.

Two other recent, small spinning projects are:


130 yards of worsted weight 50% cashmere / 50% bombyx silk in greens. This was leftover from the recent Spirit Trail Handspinning Club. There is no "real" yellow in this yarn like the photo is showing (I SO need a new camera!), but a blend of spring greens and deeper greens. It's destined to be a pair of mittens for a friend.


140 yards of sort of bulky superwash merino, also left over from the recent Spirit Trail Handspinning Club. Pastel colors, which I don't dye often but turned out to be appropriate as there is a new baby expected in our extended family. I have another braid to spin, and it's then destined to become something for the new little girl arriving in a few months.

Other than my own personal fiberly pursuits, I've been washing and dyeing a boatload of fleece these last couple of weeks, trying to get it all done in time for Rhinebeck (not to mention that I now have a boatload of yarn both here and on its way to me for Rhinebeck and the KR Retreat). There is several batches of CVM, Rambouillet, Gulf Coast, Santa Cruz, as well as Gotland X, Romeldale, Teeswater/CVM X, Polwarth blended with luxury exotics, more dyed Polwarth ... lots of fibers, lots of colors.

Six batches of dyed fleece are on their way to the mill now, with 4 other batches sent last week, and 4 more to go. I also washed a Wensleydale fleece, and a Teeswater fleece, that I'm going to sell in the locks because they are so pretty. Here's the Teeswater:



Isn't that just the most amazing mix of colors?!

Finished!



(click for bigger)

So happy. Can't wait to install it over the front door. I do love playing with color, and stained glass is just another permutation of that, I think. So ... on to the next window. Not exactly sure what it will be yet, but I do have some ideas.

Other than finishing this window, I am also in the final throes of finishing dyeing for Sock Summit, for Morgaine's booth. I'll also be attending Sock Summit, to help Morgaine out in the booth and generally hang out and watch. I'm looking forward to walking around the market a bit, seeing people I know and meeting new people, too. So many dyers! It should be way cool.

And, I get to stay with Shelia, meet her yaks and sheepies, too! So fun!

That's all for now, til I get back from Sock Summit and life resumes at a more relaxing pace (oh, wait, I have to start getting ready for NYS&W when I get home!).

Project Update ... Hawk Stained Glass Window ~


(click the photo to see it bigger)

Last night I finished all the copper foiling. I love copper foil. Next week, soddering commences. By the way, the window is 34" wide and 17-1/2" tall. Which is not really big, but seems alot bigger when you're cutting, grinding and fitting a little over 100 pieces of glass (needless to say, right now my stained-glass-shredded fingers are not the right appendages to be spininng bombyx silk with, but lacking other appropriate appendages, I shall persevere).

This window is a melding of present and past (did I mention this already? If so, forgive my frazzled redundancy). In highshool, I took alot of art classes. For one of my classes, the final project was a drawing incorporating three different images. I drew a rather large picture, in pencil and colored pencil, of an American Indian warrior, with a buffalo's face behind and sort of coming through his own, and this hawk flying down above his head (it was called Dream Spirits) (if I can get a good photo of this drawing, I'll post it someday).

Anyway. When I was close to finishing my last stained glass window, I started thinking about what was next. I wanted to do a window for the semi-circular window over our front door, and I wanted to do a bird. One evening, I remembered this drawing I had done way back when I was 16 years old. So I went down to my parents barn, where it's stored with alot of my other drawings in my father's architectural flat file.

The bird from my 16-year-old drawing became the template for this window. Perfect melding of past and present, and I also really like how the drawing became reincarnated in another art medium.

On the fiber arts front, I am still spinning the white 100% bombyx silk for my project. The 100% silk is taking way longer to get through than the 50/50 silk/merino, and I'm not sure why this is since I've spun quite a bit of both in the past, but there it is. Not loving the bombyx silk too much right now and looking forward to finishing it, getting it plied, and starting to knit.

And, even more looking forward to spinning something with color, and I have alot of options. One that is particularly calling to me is an autumnal blend I purchased at MDSW that I'm considering plying together with some really lovely Jacob in a light tweedy brown ...

Other than that, I am partaking in "Fran's 10 Minute Rule" on Knitter's Review and knitting on a sweater I started, oh, quite a while ago. It's taking a long time. Partly because I keep burying it in the bottom of my knitting basket, and partly because it's on size 3 needles and takes about 10 minutes to knit a row (I'm working in the round with a steek up the front, in not-a-small-size) and about 8 rows equal an inch. So, I tend to work more than 10 minutes on it at a time. I'm almost up to the armpits now.

This is the only photo I have of it so far (it's knitted in a yarn dyed-by-me, unfortunately discontinued by my supplier ~ a wonderful, lightweight bluefaced leicester that I dyed in oranges, salmons, creams, and a sort of pinky-orange but not really pink like the photo):



It's a sweater I'm designing as I go (and trying to remember to write down). It has (obviously) a rather wide ribbed edge along the bottom, which will be mirrored in the sleeves. At this point, I am thinking to add an i-cord edging around the front and neck, with a zipper (it will definitely have a zipper, but the rest is yet to be determined). Not sure what the neck treatment will be. Not a V-neck for sure ... we'll see as I get to that point.