over the river and through the fog

On Saturday I woke up early, earlier even than I do on school days when we have to be out the door at 7, and drove through a foggy, misty morning down the length of Vermont and into New York for my first visit to Rhinebeck.

Normally I dislike driving, hate it actually. But driving all by myself through forests and over mountains and past farmhouses with a good book to listen to (we almost never listen to books when we drive as a family as they almost always put Will to sleep - even the exciting ones- and little ears in the backseat limit what exactly you can listen to anyway), well, it was kind of pleasant.

The wool festival was, of course, wonderful, as wool festivals are. I spent most of the day plunging my fingers into different bags of fiber or petting pretty yarns. I visited the sheep (of course!) and threatened Will (via text) to bring this lady home. Look at that face! I went back and forth and back and forth between three different Alpaca fiber stalls, feeling and touching and debating before buying two pounds of lovely charcoal fiber to spin for a sweater. My first attempt at spinning an adult sweaters worth of yarn. I also picked up a sweaters worth of yarn in my favorite greeny green and a half pound of some romney wool fiber that should be named Maleficent, because it looks just like she did in Sleeping Beauty. Black and green and purple and a little yellow. I usually buy my wool in 4 ounce bags for spinning so having the chance to buy it by the pound was delicious.

I also got a chance to see some of my New York Knitting gals, which was a treat, although one couldn't make it because of a family emergency and was very much missed, by my stash as much as by me because she would have convinced me to buy way more, the way good friends do :)

And then, after roast lamb sandwiches and cider donuts and with a (new!) basket full of (new!) fibery treasures and two huge caramel apples for the kids and some super warm socks for my sweet husband who didn't bat an eye when I said I would be driving 10 hours to look at yarn and wool and sheep, I drove home. Back through the colorful trees, back over the mountain, even back through the fog that returned for the last hour of my trip (slightly more stressful in the dark at the end of a long day, I must say)

Now it's time to get spinning. And knitting. And spinning! And KNITTING! Mummmm, a winter's worth of fun ahead.

sweater beginnings or christmas knitting, the summer edition

I know it seems early to be thinking about winter sweaters, especially when half the country is broiling away, but sweaters, as I've learned (remember Will's Christmas/Valentines/Spring Break Sweater?) take time to knit. So if I want to knit three before December, it's time to get started. In fact, I think I started Briton's in May last year. So really, I'm behind. Whoops.

courtesy of Ravelry

This time around I'm starting with Evie's sweater. Since last year I made the colossal mistake of believing that anything pink would be fine by her and we ended up with a sweater that she wont wear, I enlisted her help in selecting a pattern. After some perusing through Ravelry she chose this sweater, which, unfortunately, only comes as a kit. In Danish. But the idea is pretty straight forward and armed with my trusty copy of Knitting Without Tears (which just happens to include directions for a round yoke sweater) I think I'll be OK.

The plan is to use two of my handspun yarns, the colorful one I chose for the purpose, knowing it would be about as Evelyn as it could get with all that pink plus all those other colors. The white is a soft mohair that I just finished spinning last night which seemed like a good foil for the brightness of the pink. I'm hoping it will be a good combination. And that there is enough of the white. Although on the plus side, I can always spin more. One of the benefits of spinning.

So it's official. I've started my Christmas/Solstice knitting. Christmas in July, right? Briton's sweater, which he has very sweetly requested be EXACTLY like the last one (although since the last one still fits he has agreed that it can be green and green instead of another blue and blue, for variety) and Will, well, he might get a hat. Or socks. Or another Spring Break sweater. We shall see.

Anyone else crazy enough to be knitting Christmas sweaters in July?

learning curve

So far with my spinning, I've only worked with prepared roving, which isn't I think, the actual real name for it but it seems to be what people call it. Long ropes of fiber all combed into the same general direction. It makes it easy for a newb like me to make relativly smooth yarn from the get go.

But in my quest to learn to be a good spinner, hopefully one day a really good spinner, I've been experimenting with combing out fibers and spinning from little bundles called rolags. Which sounds like an odd name until you see them, and then you realize, yep, that's what they are. They couldn't really be called anything else.

I've been very lucky to receive some washed and dyed fiber from my dear friend Carol in New York and a huge kilogram bag of undyed wool that my parents brought back from a recent trip to Slovenia (sigh, I'm so jealous. Castles built into caves! Churches perched on little islands!) So I'm swimming in fiber that needs a little prep before spinning. Now I just need to get good at that prep. Because someday, someday I'm hoping that I'll be carding from my own little flock (but don't tell Will I said that, because I've only just convinced him that we need chickens AND bees and am almost there with the idea of meat birds in addition to the egg layers. Springing sheep or goats on him my push him overboard!)

Curiously, learning to prep has been harder for me than learning to spin, but I'm keeping at it. One little rolag at a time, one bunch of fiber. Because I'm just getting started and didn't want to invest big money in good hand carders, I'm using a pair of large dog brushes with a similar style of bristle. Really the only difference is the size it seems, which means that my rolags are wee little things where proper ones are much bigger. But it's working for now.

Carding wool is really very relaxing. Brush. Brush. Brush. Transfer. Brush. Brush. Brush. Transfer and roll. More than once I've found my self at the end of an evening with a small heap of little rolags scattered on the couch beside me (and no knitting or spinning done) But to be honest, I'm really not sure if I'm doing it right. So far I haven't found any other spinners around, at some point I'll take a trip down to Green Mountain Spinnery and pepper them with questions, but for now I'm plodding along on my own (although accompanied always by youtube and its endless tutorials.

Eventually, I'll get it. Like spinning, one day it will click and I'll know how to tell if the wool is combed enough, how to make it smooth and evenly rolled, how to move through larger amounts in a sitting. Because even an evening's worth of rolags doesn't go far once my wheel gets whirling.

It's a learning curve, and I have to say I'm enjoying the slowness of it. I'm happy to sit and comb and card and roll and eventually spin. Who needs meditation or yoga when you can relax to the spinning wheel going round and round?

Anyone out there with carding advice?

spinning and knitting and spinning

Oh how I love my spinning wheel. I knew I would. Somehow, for some reason, I knew that this particular wheel and I would be perfect for each other. I can spend hours spinning. I do spend hours spinning. I keep looking up at the clock in the evenings and realizing that it's past midnight. Once or twice it might even have been past one in the morning. I can't help myself. Of course that basket of beautiful braids of wool sitting next to me, begging to be spun up into yarn, doesn't help.

At some point I'd like to learn to dye fiber in bright, varied colors like these. It's an art, as I've realized after a few somewhat bland attempts at it. I'm hoping to find myself at Yarn School in the fall. Partly because I can't get enough of Hello Yarn fiber, her waiting list is closed it's so long, and so the prospect of a big old bag of it as part of the weekend sends my head spinning. But also because learning to dye fiber well sounds like an excellent way to fuel my addiction. Plus, it's not too far from my parent's house. A win win.

Knitting is still happening as well. In the car, on the deck, at the creek. It's become my on the go hobby so that the evenings can be taken up with spinning. When I started this shawl I had no idea we'd be moving somewhere where I could actually use it right away. I imagined that either a) I'd pack it away for the fall once I'd finished it or b) all this moving would mean it wouldn't get finished until it was fall. But in the end it came together quickly and is perfect for the cool evenings here. The pattern was easy to remember which meant I could just knit away with out checking or even much counting. Probably one of my favorite knits to date. I'm about to embark on a similar shawl by the same designer in fact.

 Also on the needles now is a winter hat for Briton made from the last batch of spindle spun yarn I made. I actually only spun up half of this on the spindle and the other half is in progress on the wheel. In theory the rest will go into mittens for him to match. or maybe it will end up as a strip on his winter sweater. I have high hopes of spinning enough yarn this summer to knit both kids their solstice sweaters this year. We shall see.

handspun handknit

Finished, blocked and on my shoulders at this moment, my very first handspun handknit is done. It's a peculiar feeling, this making first the yarn and then the knitted up item thing. It feels (as silly as it sounds) almost miraculous. It was a braid of wool and now it's a shawl.
The wool and silk combination is light and airy and feels worn in already, nice and soft and cuddly. To be totally honest, I don't love the pattern. The lace wasn't interesting enough to be fun but was not simple enough to be mindless and easy. I should have followed the chart instead of the written directions, which is how I have to do cables (so I should have known better). Lesson learned.
I'm spinning up some boy yarn right now, full of browns and blues and greens. Hopefully it will yield enough to make a pair of trollish socks for the smaller boy feet in my life (I'm not sure I could spin enough to knit socks for Will's ginormous feet!) And in a few weeks I'm heading to the Maryland Wool Festival for the day where I fully intend to load up on fiber, try out as many wheels as I can get my hands on, and generally have a good old time amongst people who don't find the fact that I can't leave the house without some form of knitting or spinning in my bag odd at all.