The world spins madly on

On Christmas day, my family gave me the most generous Christmas gift ever and I've been spinning like the world is going to end tomorrow ever since, I can't say enough good things about this wheel. Over the 10 days surrounding Christmas & New Years, we travelled from Charlotte, to Orlando, to Atlanta and back, and the Sidekick went everywhere with us, and was ready to spin in easily anywhere we took it. I can't get over how fast I'm moving through my fiber compared to the drop spindle, and I can't wait to put up new inventory in the shop for you so soon. 

In the meantime, though, I've been having a lot of fun with these beautiful, psychedelic braids I received as gifts this Christmas. My first finished project off the wheel (seen above) is this beautiful BFL from Three Waters Farm, about 135 yards of aran weight, in the Cafe Diem colorway. I love spinning BFL! It's so bouncy and elastic, and is a great spinning fiber for practicing drafting (if you're new, and need the practice!). I have another braid of this as well, and I'm debating whether to double my yardage for a more substantial project or do the second braid as a Navajo ply and preserve the beautiful color repeats. 

The second crazy colors I've been working through are in Hedgehog Fibre's 50/50 Merino & Silk top in colorway E. I'm hoping it'll come out to be a fingering weight 2 ply. It's incredibly soft and shiny, and the most silk I've worked with spinning. It's a bit slippery, but I like it. 

Overall, Melo is adjusting to his new position, and leaving plenty of cat hair behind in protest. ;)

If you're wondering, the new wheel is the Schacht Sidekick. After all of my research, watching hours of YouTube videos and finally trying a few wheels in person, I chose it because it had a lot of the features that I was excited about (lots of ratios, extra large bobbins compared to other models, Scotch tension), while still being a compact spinning wheel, made from high quality wood materials (not MDF) and made domestically in Boulder, CO. It's a sturdy little wheel that sits well on the floor, which I know is a complaint for other models of compact wheels, and I've heard, though I have not tried it, spins a lot like Schacht's high-end model, the Matchless. I just love it. If you have any other questions about how to choose a spinning wheel, please send me a message or comment below, or check out the blog post I put together with articles to help potential spinning wheel shoppers a few months ago, here. 

My vision for 2016 is to really take my fiber practice from sheep to skein, and to that end I've been ordering and perusing high quality American-grown fleeces to prepare into handspun yarns. If you know of any farms that I should check out, I'd love to hear about them!

Here's to resisting all of the leftover Christmas candy, and to keeping all of our resolutions!

the year in yarn

All of these images can be found on my Instagram!

It seems like the MOST cliche thing you could possibly say in a year end wrap up post, but I can't believe 2015 is over. It went by SO fast, and yet at the same time I can't believe that I made some of these things this year, not last year. One of the most special things about all of the things that I've created this year, they fit so seamlessly into my life, so comfortably into my wardrobe, it feels like I've had them forever.

More than ever, I've fallen in love with fiber arts this year. I knit my first sweater, started spinning my own yarn, started my handmade business, and really engaged in my local and virtual fiber friends. I finally found a knitting group that I love! I travelled to Asheville (twice!), returned to Rhinebeck, and knit so many beautiful pieces. I checked off all of the things on my Knit Years Resolutions for this year, which feels so good!

I get a little teary with gratefulness writing all of this out. I can definitely be hard on myself, choosing to see all the ways that I need to improve and grow, and don't spend too much time celebrating all the wonderful things that happen. And these were just the fiber-related things! This year the hubs and I also moved to a house, celebrated our first year of marriage, took trips all over the Southeast & Mexico, started the last year of medical school, passed the final part of medical board exams, and adopted our two sweet kitties who we can't imagine life without. 

This week is still a vacation week for me (hallelujah), and I'm really focusing and challenging myself with some big goals for 2016. So check back for that before the week is through. My family were so incredibly generous with me this Christmas, and I can't wait to get back to our house and set up all of the improvements to my studio/guest room! 

I hope everyone who reads this little blog of mine has had a wonderful holiday, full of love and family and hope. I'm blessed that you choose to spend some of your time here. 

two new yarns

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Florida playing too many board games, drinking too much tea, sitting on the porch too long and eating too many turkey green bean sandwiches. And While there, I was able to finish two yarns that will be in the shop very soon, I hope! 

The first is a 2-ply yarn spun from a pencil roving I purchased at Rhinebeck, a great heathery brown that would be wonderful for an outerwear, something warm and hearty for the cold months ahead. The pencil roving was the first I've spun with, and was very fast to draft, though perhaps not my favorite fiber I have spun. The large skein I got from this 4oz was so worth it!

This grey yarn was exactly what I wanted to be spinning over a break from my regular routine. Thick and thin and altogether an artful, freeform experience. It's a wonderful blend of several wools, including a beautiful merino. 

I love these handspun yarns and the process of creating them, I hope to list quite a few new skeins headed into this new year. 

Lots of blessings from Chapel Hill this season!

off the needles: sweet magnolia handspun

"Sweet Magnolia" by Susan Gehringer, narrow long cowl

Started: September 2015

Finished: October 23, 2015

Fiber: Aztec handspun

Notes: When I finished spinning this braid of BFL/Silk I just wanted to keep working with it, so I went and searched my Ravelry favorites for a short pattern that would fit with the yardage I got this time around. The Sweet Magnolia cowl had been in my list since it debuted last year, and the narrow, but longer version fit the bill. The stripes in the colorway came out beautifully with the length of the cowl, but I kind of feel that the beautiful pattern got a bit obscured by all the color changes. It was fun doing the picot hem and all in all, I think it will make a lovely gift this Christmas. Just make sure to read the pattern carefully! The different version starting points tripped me up a bit at first but wasn't ultimately hard to read. 

I feel like it has been forever since I've completed a knitting project, with lots of shop prep and spinning (both wonderful), so it felt so good to finish this. Only a few projects left before I take on the winter beast that is Timberline!

natural dyeing: black tea

I think I may be falling hard for natural dyes. When I go to the grocery store, the farmer's market, I think about my menu for the week, and think about the natural dye properties of everything I'll consume that week. My freezer right now is half food, half dye materials (avocado, pomegranate and mushrooms, if you want to know). And on Friday as Brandon and I were in search of a piece of clothing for his Halloween costume, I found myself perusing the tops, looking for cotton or linen or wool that would be suitable to dye. 

I was successful, and brought home a 100% cotton tunic for my next project. Saturday I woke up and mordanted the tunic, an organic cotton dishtowel, and a small linen project bag for a few hours, and then brewed up a vat of black tea. In they went! I've noticed that though the process of taking the dye takes at least an hour, I can tell pretty quickly whether or not the color is going to really take in the materials I've put in the dyepot. Still, the anticipation is so fun as I come back every few minutes to poke the items around and watch the progress. 

After an hour, I took the materials out, let them drip out a bit, and then washed them in my washing machine on cold with a tablespoon of dish soap. And then out on the clothesline!
 

It's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but the organic cotton dishtowel took the color the best, followed by the project bag and then the tunic, which dried into a soft tan color. And although the tunic and towel were both labeled "100%" cotton, the threads used clearly weren't, and stayed pure white, which was something I didn't even consider. Lesson learned!

Though time-intensive, I loved this day because it embodied what slow fashion means to me in our life right now. Reducing waste by buying second-hand, seeing beauty in an old, stained garment at a store and naturally, organically turning it into something beautiful and functional. I know that my "tea-shirt" is something that I will value and love and wear to threads. And then mend, and keep on wearing. :)

Slow Fashion October is officially over for this year, but I know I'll carry the principles I've been reminded of and the stories and perspectives of everyone who participated with me into this coming year, and for that I'm grateful. If you need something to read during your lunch hour, I encourage you to go check out Karen's round-ups of some of the best of Slow Fashion October on her blog. They're so inspiring! 

handspun: alpaca cloud

Pure white is my favorite thing to spin. It's so calming, so beautiful, so simple. Ever since I started dyeing in my little kitchen, I have started to see such beautiful potential in white fiber. Would you like to be beautiful brown? Cochineal red? Pale pink? Mossy green? Indigo blue? All of these and more? It's possible. It's lovely, spinning potential.

This is about 190 yards of DK weight single ply alpaca spun from Echoview Fiber Mill Alpaca Cloud. The second time I've spun this in 2 months, which should tell you how wonderful it is. I don't have much experience knitting with pure alpaca, people say that it lacks the elasticity that wool is known for, but I could do a serious 180 on that opinion after spinning it for hours. 

Sorry about the unexpected blogging hiatus the past few weeks. I had lots of plans for posts for Slow Fashion October, and I hope to be able to post one tomorrow just in time for the month to end. It's been great seeing how so many people care about this topic and have jumped into the discussion with so much heart. 

Rhinebeck 2015

Rhinebeck 2015 was Rhinebeck round two and it was everything I remembered and more. We arrived to our hotel late on Friday night and got to the festival early Saturday morning just in time to see a line 100 people long! The madness continued all day long, a dizzying frenzy of people everywhere, lines everywhere, yarn everywhere EVERYWHERE and wind so strong I was happy I had my hat this year for sure. The five in our party ran to tents we wanted to make sure we got to, and then mosied all over the whole place. We made it to every barn, which compared to last year was an amazing accomplishment. We saw sheep, goats, alpaca, and angora rabbits. We met farmers and dyers and authors and donut purveyors. We sipped on cider and ate falafel. It was one of the most perfect days I have had in forever. 

A highlight of this wonderful day was getting to go to a talk put on by Kristine Vejar of A Verb for Keeping Warm about natural dyeing and her new natural dye book, The Modern Natural Dyer. She had beautiful samples and answered a ton of questions from the crowd about mushrooms, iron, ph, foraging, and knitting. You could so hear the passion in her voice when she spoke about the process. I bought the book and devoured it on the plane ride home - it is gorgeous and now I am totally inspired. 

If you have any doubts about whether Rhinebeck Sheep & Wool is worth it, be assured that it is. This year I came back as a knitter and spinner, and it totally changed my perspective on the whole festival, and I actually only bought one type of yarn, my favorite, O-Wash Fingering. On the other hand, I spent about 30 minutes ogling and feeling all of the raw fleece for sale, I even found an NC Rambouillet that was being judged! It was gorgeous, and I wanted to box them all up and take them home. I had a feeling my sweet Mr. would have a few things to say about that, though. :) In the end I probably brough home half a sheeps' worth of roving. I can't wait to dig in. 

And to top it all off, it snowed. In October! At the festival and while we were driving home on Sunday. Beautiful, fluffy snow. Everything was perfect. And Christmas-like, which is the best type of day. There is talk of Maryland Sheep & Wool in our future in the spring, but in my heart my first love will always be Rhinebeck. 

Hudson Valley, I'll see you next year!

natural dyes: goldenrod & harvesting color

The past few months I have really been loving our local library. Not only is it beautiful, with whole walls full of windows and perfectly positioned armchairs and self-check out, it is full of the most amazing knitting/weaving/crochet/craft books you could think of. It has been a source of much inspiration, especially following my somewhat failed dyeing experiment.

One of my favorite books that I have read is Harvesting Color by Rebecca Burgess. I love it because it not only has simple-to-execute recipes and gorgeous pictures, but it gives great references and maps of where to go to harvest the materials included in the book. A lot of them were based out of California and the west, where the author lives, but quite a few were spread over the east coast up to Vermont and down through Florida. Success! 

In late September around here driving through country roads I kept seeing fields and fields of goldenrod. They showed up for about two weeks, and last weekend when we got buckets of rain across the state thanks to Joaquin, they just as quickly made their exit. Luckily, in that window I had some free time to go and cut a large pile of these lovely fronds from the farm, and that evening, we dyed! 

The night before I dyed, I soaked these two sad non-mushroom skeins in water and mordanted in alum. I boiled the goldenrod for about an hour in my dye pot, extracted all of the plant material, re-wet the yarn in warm water and let the yarn sit in the dye pot for another hour at around 180 degrees. It was raining that night, so when I took it out of the pot I just let it sit on my porch for an hour to rinse. :) 

I could tell within 10 minutes of the yarn sitting in the dye that it was going to take, which was so exciting. And in addition to the most vibrant yellow it has lovely undertones of green as well. 

I have a few powdered natural dyes that I've purchased, but the thought of going out into the neighborhood that I live and work in, collecting these natural materials and extracting their beauty for yarn was such a cool feeling. I see many more experiments in my future.