Pages

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Lambtown--a brief review

Early Saturday morning, Kathleen, Sara and I headed to Dixon for Lambtown. Fortunately, the weather was on our side this year in that it wasn't unbearably hot. Once there we headed straight for the fiber vendors hall. I promptly scurried over to Carolina Homespun's booth because Morgaine was holding these for me.

Wool combs of doom! A pair of wool combs! Not that I have ever used combs and will probably injure myself using them, I had to have them for my cormo fleece, which I'm almost finished washing.

Lambtown 2008 When I returned to A Verb for Keeping Warm and Tactile's spaces, Sara was busy cobbling together a fresh out of the box Louet Julia. We then visited most of the vendors before the need for coffee and food got the better of me. I staked out a place on the grass in the shade and soon a bunch of friends were sitting, eating, laughing, spinning and knitting. All in all, an excellent day.

Natural dyed sock yarn Natural dyed handspun BFL I also did a little dying and plying on Sunday. On the top is Henry's Attic Kona handpainted with cochineal and madder using what I learned from Scout. On the bottom is BFL that I dyed with black walnut and spin into a two ply fingering weight. I haven't decided what I want to knit with the Kona. I'm thinking of using the handspun for a pair of Breakfast at Cafe du Monde Gloves.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Of Hydrangeas and Cake

Handpainted sock yarn This was influenced by this.

My Neighborhood

I handpainted the yarn using one of the methods I learned from Scout's dyeing workshop last month. The hydrangea is in my neighbor's front yard and has flowers ranging from pale greenish white to deep periwinkle. The base yarn is 75% merino superwash 25% nylon and I bought it from Woodland Woolworks at Black Sheep Gathering.

Raspberrry Buttermilk Cake I got the baking bug this weekend. It was a good thing I was going to Kristine's studio and could share this with others. Otherwise, I might have eaten the whole thing myself. This is a raspberry buttermilk cake. I used this recipe from 101 Cookbooks, changing it to suit the ingredients I had on hand. I really like this recipe and will make it again--it's easy and transportable and can be altered to reflect what fruits are in season.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Dye workshop with Scout

This past weekend I attended a dye workshop with Scout at Knit One One. It was a lot of fun.

Studio at Knit One One The space at Knit One One is great. Light and airy; perfect for seeing what you are doing.

Tying off warped yarn Winding yarn onto a warping board to make self-striping yarn.

This will be self-stripping yarn This is what a skein off the warping board looks like when it is dyed.

Colorful skeins Dyed skeins hung out to dry.

Dye Workshop with Scout The skein I dyed after winding on the warping board.

Dye Workshop with Scout The blue face leceister roving I handpainted.

Scout is a wonderful teacher and freely shared her experiences so that we could learn from the mistakes she has made. The one thing that no teacher can teach is color sense and Scout has great color sense. It's just one of those things that you have. It really helps if you are willing to experiment with color and accept that there will be mistakes.

So thank you Scout for a wonderful weekend!

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

BSG purchases

My creation
Black Sheep purchases top row left to right: a sampler of shetland roving from The Bellwether; a Redheart/Ebony spindle from Spindlewood Co.; BFL/pygora blend from Toots LeBlanc; roving in Eggplanted, Socks That Rock in Mochaberry (I just love that name) and Turquoise from Blue Moon Fiber Arts; bottom row left to right: 2nd place targhee fleece; close up of the targhee; a vintage pattern from Sirdar called "Teenage in Sirdar"; the silk bag, nettle yarn and Habu kit were purchased at Web-sters in Ashland.