When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
from The Fantastiks, lyrics by Tom
Jones
It happens every year. September rolls around, the air cools a bit,
the light is golden, everything seems to be in sharper definition, and I find
myself surprised and delighted that I love September so much.
The Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival
was last weekend. I couldn’t find time to blog before that weekend, because it
takes so much time to prepare for workshops (preparing and gathering handouts,
fibers, yarns, equipment, tools, sundry supplies). And the days immediately
following the Festival were filled with catch-up chores (laundry, cleaning, answering
emails, grocery shopping, and cooking). I now finally have time to write!
I do love teaching workshops at fiber festivals. I get energized and
inspired by the students and their questions and ideas. I end up coming home
with an impossible-to-accomplish list of things I want to work on IMMEDIATELY.
For example, I taught a 2-day workshop, “Spinning Wools of North
America”. I’ve taught this workshop a couple of times, but this was the first
time I included some Debouillet wool that I’d gotten from a rancher in New
Mexico. I received a pound of raw wool just days before leaving for the
festival. I washed up 8 ounces of it and took it to share with the students. It
turned out to be fantastic wool. Very soft, lovely crimp, with a respectable
staple length. (This is a hard-to-come-by wool. I noticed an ad on a Facebook
group and pounced! Joe Ward is the rancher. He lives in Roswell, NM. Other than
Facebook, he has no on-line presence.) So now I want to IMMEDIATELY wash the
rest of the wool, card it, spin it, and knit up sample swatches.
Also, in that workshop, I show students some knitted swatches from 12
different wool breeds. I made 2 swatches from each breed; I washed 1 swatch and
fulled/felted the other to demonstrate that some wools felt and shrink a lot
and others do not. Now, I only had one example from each breed, essentially
twelve single-case studies (n=1), not a perfectly convincing experiment. But I
now have some Navajo Churro wool from three different sources, some lamb and
some adult, and several natural colors. I want to IMMEDIATELY do another
felting experiment with all the samples of Churro that I have to see if they
all behave as the first one that I did. By the way, in my original experiment,
the Churro shrunk and felted more than any of the other breeds tested.
On Friday I taught “Spinning & Knitting Energized Singles”. This
is one of the first workshops that I created – over 10 years ago. I have loads
of samples and finished items to show students. But every time I teach this workshop,
I want to IMMEDIATELY make more energized projects. I really want to make a
sweater with the body of the sweater knitted with balanced yarns and the cuffs
and collar worked with energized yarns.
On Sunday morning I taught my “Circles & Polygons” class – a knitting
workshop in which we knit a medallion that I’ve created inspired by the state
stone of Michigan, the Petoskey stone. I am currently in the middle of making a
Petoskey stone poncho using this medallion strategy. But I still want to IMMEDIATELY
start working on another project, perhaps a pillow (that’ll look like a rock!).
On Sunday afternoon I taught “Variations on Long Draw” to a full
house. I teach this workshop a lot. Earlier this year I bought a fleece from
Marie Glaesemann in Duluth. The sheep’s name is “Baby”. Baby is a mixed breed
sheep: Romney x Corriedale x Lincoln x Ile de France. The fleece contains
several shades of gray. It is lovely. I had this fleeced washed, so I could
have students use it for learning how to hand card rolags. It turned out to be
an absolutely perfect fleece for hand carding. So now I want to IMMEDIATELY
card up enough of it to spin a lovely woolen yarn for a snuggly soft and warm
vest. For me.
After I finished teaching on Sunday I strolled over to visit with
Henry and Roy Clemes. I’d
had a breakfast chat with Henry that morning about blending boards. So I had to have a look. You guessed it; I came home with a blending board
and I also promised Henry that I would teach a workshop on using blending
boards at next year’s Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival … and he will supply
boards for the students to use! I just love collaboration! So now I want to
IMMEDIATELY spend hours and days playing with my new blending board.
All these IMMEDIATE urges will have to wait just a bit, because on Monday,
on my way to Manitowoc to catch the ferry I stopped by Carol Wagner’s place (Hidden Valley Farm & Woolen Mill)
in Valders. She had offered to give me a bunch of bell peppers from her over
producing garden. When I stopped at her place, she not only gave me a bunch of
peppers, but also a large quantity of broccoli, some cherry tomatoes, a most
beautiful eggplant, and a couple of frozen lamb chops. Holy Cow!
Well, you have to make hay while the sun shines. And you have to cook
vegetables before they go bad. First off: broccoli-cheddar cheese soup. That
took care of the broccoli. Next: Baba Ganouj (I used the recipe in the
Moosewood Cookbook). That took care of the eggplant. Then two days of making and canning tomato-vegetable
juice. That took care of most of the peppers. Today I have a stock pot on the
stove, making chicken stock, using another pepper. Tomorrow I’ll make chicken
burrito filling, using the last pepper. I am currently eating some delicious
foods. I hope you are jealous.
