It's a Good Day to Dye

On Tuesday, I imposed upon my friend, Carol S., to help me dye some of my handspun yarns.  I had four skeins:  three that I’d spun from Lizzy’s fleece (from 2011), and one that I’d spun from a Cormo wool – alpaca blended roving.

Lizzy is a sheep who lives in Duluth, and she’s a mixed breed:  Romney, Corriedale, Suffolk, and Ile de France.  Her wool is not very soft, but it is incredibly elastic.  Perfect for socks.  The Cormo-alpaca roving I got from my friend Joanne Dufour.  She raises alpacas.  And she’d blended some of her alpaca with a particularly special Cormo wool.  See my blog entry about it, June 23, 2010.  This yarn is yummy soft.

Before I went over to Carol’s, I wound the Cormo-alpaca skein into a 4-yard loop.  I wound the Lizzy skeins into 1 ½ yard loops.

Now, Carol is a marvelous dyer.  And she has an impressive dye studio.  And, well, I’m a color dunce.  So, I really really needed her guidance in dyeing.  I had some color ideas, but I did not have any of the technical know-how.  Thank goodness for Carol!  

Here are pictures of the process (not necessarily in order):

That last picture is of Carol.

In exchange for her help in dyeing my yarns, Carol requested that I make a particular garlic-cheese spread that she especially likes.  Ingredients:  butter, olive oil, crushed garlic, grated mozzarella, grated parmesan, chopped fresh basil, maybe some oregano, salt, pepper, and sriracha sauce.  Spread it on slices of good bread and put in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.  Yum!

Barely Enough

When I go on the road, I like to take some travel knitting with me.  You know, something portable, not too difficult to knit, with little need for refering to charts or directions.  Before I headed to Columbus for Knitters Connection, I started a hat that I thought would be perfect travel knitting.

I spun the yarn myself.  And I didn’t make much.  There were two yarns.  One was a two-ply yarn of some lovely carded roving from Handspun by Stefania.  It was a blend of CVM and silk, and Stefania had dyed the fibers with indigo and osage.  A lovely, gentle light blue.  The second yarn was a combination of one ply of that same CVM/silk roving and the other ply texturally spun from a small amount of dyed Teeswater locks that I purchased from Wild Hare Fiber Studio.

Here’s a picture of the yarn with the locks:

I failed to record the amount of yarn I made.  Or, if I did, I lost the tags…

Even combining the two yarns, I wasn’t sure I had enough for a hat.  But I started one anyway.  I knitted the brim with an old stitch pattern called “Cayce” I’d found in a unidentifiable vintage knitting magazine.  I’ve used this stitch before for my Tattoo sweater (see blog entry January 23, 2011). 

I had more of the CVM/silk yarn than of the lock yarn, so for the brim I used only the CVM/silk yarn.  Then for the rest of the hat, I used both yarns, intermittently working stripes of the lock yarn.  I knitted the rounds of the CVM silk, and I purled the rounds of the lock yarn.  Then I applied three very cool buttons.

Here’s the hat.

Only after strong blocking did it comfortably fit my itty bitty head.  And here’s all the yarn I had left over.

By the way, I was so obsessed with the worry of not having enough yarn that I knitted up the hat very rapidly just to see.  I finished it before I left for Columbus, leaving me with no travel knitting for that trip.

Saturation

In my first workshop last weekend at Knitters Connection, one of the students was oo-ing and coo-ing about some yarn that she’d purchased.  She showed the class the yarn.  It was fabulously rich in color.  I knew that I’d need to make a bee-line to that booth when I hit the Vendors Hall.

It was the first booth I saw:  Fiber Optic Yarns.  

Kimber Baldwin is the dye artist behind Fiber Optic Yarns.  She is a PhD trained chemist who left academia to spend more time with her family.  Her husband helped her set up a dye studio, and she was on her way!

She is located in Cincinnati, and so far has sold mostly either locally or by etsy.  She told me her stuff sells out FAST!  This fall, she’ll be featured in Spin-Off magazine as one of a group of up-and-coming indie dyers.  Recognition of her work is well deserved.  Her colors are strong and satisfying:  saturated!

Resistance was futile.  So I bought.

Here’s a picture of a combed top (85% Bluefaced Leicester, 15% silk) that she dyed in a colorway she calls, “Garnet”.  She describes this as a “faux Batik”.

Here’s a picture of a combed top (100% Bluefaced Leicester) in colorway “Orchid”.  Mmmmm…

And another BFL combed top.  Kimber has started to dye up some of her fiber in what she calls “Once in a Lifetime” colorways.  These colorways are essentially limited editions, never to be repeated.

Kimber is best known for her “layered gradient” dyeing.  I got two gradient colorways:  “Blackberry-Raspberry” and “Bitter Lime-Rose” (both are 80% Merino, 20% silk).  Aren’t they something!

My plan is to make two skeins in which I ply one layered gradient colorway with the other.  I can hardly wait to get to this project!

By the way, Kimber and her fibers will be at Spin-Off Autumn Retreat  this fall.  And I’m planning to use some of her fiber for the classes I’ll be teaching.

Connecting With Knitters

 I spent last weekend at Knitters Connection  in Columbus, Ohio.  This is a knitting event that is organized by Jan Emerick of Knitters Mercantile, also in Columbus.  Jan and her crew were all delightful to work with, and they did a wonderful job of organizing.

There were three days of workshops, and 16 instructors.  I was the lone spinning instructor among the bunch.  (I felt so special!)  I got to teach “Beginning Spinning at the Wheel” on Friday, “Mechanics of Your Wheel” on Saturday, and “Creating the Yarn You Want” on Sunday.  There were several workshop participants who took two of the three classes, and one person even took all three!  I had so much fun.  All the students were fantastically engaged and enthusiastic.  It couldn’t have been a better teaching/learning experience!

I am happy to report that there was enough time for me to become acquainted – or re-acquainted – with many of the other instructors.  What struck me most about all the instructors is the diversity of their backgrounds.  I met folks who in pre-knitting-instructor-life were psycologists, interior designers, information technology specialists, art historians, orchestra musicians, and more!  Such wide ranging expertise makes for very interesting conversations!  And I got to chat about the trials and tribulations of pattern writing as well as the ins and outs of publishing in the knitting world.

I really don’t want to “drop names”, but I must mention that I shared a hotel room with Debra Lee.   She had worked in the IT world for many years before retiring and turning to fiber arts full time.  She is an active member of her local fiber guild, and we had a good long chat about a Design study group that she belongs to.  For me the take-home message was that cross-disciplinary art study can be quite inspirational.

There was also a Vendors Hall at Knitters Connection.  In the next blog entry, I will introduce you to one of the fiber artists from whom I purchased a goodly amount of fiber.  Stay tuned.

Two Weeks is a Very Long Time...

My right wrist is, um, uncomfortable.  I’ve had modest discomfort in it for a month or so, but in the past week it has really been talking to me.  Now, I must listen.

That means, first and foremost, I must rest my right wrist.  Today is Day 4 without knitting or spinning.  I have accepted that I really need to rest the wrist for 2 weeks.  That may seem like an impossible amount of non-spinning, non-knitting time, but if I don’t rest the wrist now, it is likely that I’ll only make it worse and I’ll need to take an even longer break – when I can less afford it – and perhaps need medical attention.  I’d like to avoid that.

So, for now no knitting.  No spinning.  No gardening.  As little typing and computer work as possible.  I need to avoid using my right wrist as much as possible.  I’m right-handed.  I’ve got to use my left hand when I can … to open doors, push the vacuum cleaner, hold the dog leash, move clothes from the washer to the dryer, pour milk, push the microwave buttons, and so on. It requires quite a conscious effort to resist automatic right-handed everyday movements.  There are a few things I can’t do with my left hand:  I can’t use scissors.  And I think it’d be dangerous for me to use a knife with my left hand.

I also ice my wrist twice a day (for 20-30 minutes at a time).  And I try to keep the wrist and fingers in a neutral position.  And I rest them on a pillow (elevated) when I can.  It would probably help if I took a modest amount of NSAIDs (aspirin or ibuprofen), but that stuff is really hard on my stomach!

How do I know this is the right thing to do?  Well, I trained for 20 years as a dancer.  And I’ve got 10 years of graduate education in the movement sciences.  And I have 9 years experience teaching in graduate-level physical therapy education programs.

If you are experiencing discomfort that you think might be related to overuse, I suggest you check out this National Institutes of Health website:  “NINDS Repetitive Motion Disorders Information Page”.

I do know that my symptoms indicate I do NOT have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.  If you need information on that challenge, again I suggest an NIH website, “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Fact Sheet.”

In fact, I suggest that if you are seeking any on-line medical information, you should make nih.gov your first website stop.  They have a terrific search engine.

Time to Rest the Right Wrist now…

Stumble on Brick Road

Ack!  There’s an error in one of my patterns!  The “Brick Road Afghan” has an error in the suggested knitting gauge.  On page 2, it says:

Gauge:  7 sts per inch in st st on size 10 needles.  In the brick 
slip stitch pattern,  I got 27 sts and 50 rows for a 7” by 7” square.

Whereas it should say:

Gauge:  3 ½  sts per inch in st st on size 10 needles.  In the brick 
slip stitch pattern, I got 27 sts and 50 rows for a 7” by 7” square.

Don’t you just hate that?!  I typically measure gauge over a 2-inch distance and I write that down.  But it’s so very easy to write it down as gauge per 1-inch distance.  My very bad.

Here’s a picture of the afghan:

I sell the pattern for $6.  If you are interested in a copy, you can contact me at:  atyler@centurytel.net

And if you’ve found other errors in my patterns, please please please let me know!

Ducky Taught Her to Waterski

I spent last weekend at the Spring Fiber Fling in Pickford, Michigan.  This fiber retreat is sponsored by the Country Spinners & Bridge Shuttlers, a guild in Sault Ste Marie.  The weather was shockingly warm….er….hot.  I have a few bug bits.

Despite the temps and bugs, I had a most delightful time.  I taught two workshops:  “Plying for Texture” and “I Heart Duplicate Stitch”.  This was the first time I taught the duplicate stitch class.  I am happy to report that it went swimmingly well.

You might think that duplicate stitch is so simple it wouldn’t fill a 3-hour workshop.  You’d be wrong!  We explored the technique of making tidy looking stitches as well as applications and ideas for incorporating duplicate stitch into knitting projects.  Here are a few pictures I took during the workshop:

Another highlight:  at dinner on Saturday night, I won a door prize.  This crazy quilt pillow was created by Pam Artman, Pam Artman, who taught a workshop at the retreat on crazy quilting.  A very sweet pillow, don't you think?

And.  I bought a fleece (that’s five total for the year … so far).  A wonderful corriedale fleece.  Selden Collins is the shepherd.  She actually lives in Pickford.  Every year I’ve attended The Fling, I’ve wanted to get one of her fleeces.  This year I did.  It’s a fleece from a ewe named “Fran”.  This fleece is actually from the 2011 shearing, but I’m confident it will clean up nicely.  I plan to wash and card or comb this fleece myself.

You’re probably wondering where Ducky comes in to this story.  I think it was at dinner on Saturday (yummy scalloped potatoes, baked chicken, and green beans).  I was chatting with Loreen K and several others.  I believe it was Sid D who piped up and said, “Ducky taught Loreen how to waterski!”

Loreen explained that she’d grown up in the UP and when she was a young girl, the cast from the old TV show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., vacationed at her family’s resort (I think I have that part of the story straight.).  You may remember that Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were the stars of that show.  Anyway, it was David McCallum who taught Loreen how to waterski.  You may also know that David McCallum is currently a cast member of the TV show, N.C.I.S.  He plays Dr. Mallard, aka “Ducky”.

I then had to contribute another Man from U.N.C.L.E. story:  Robert Vaughn’s cousin, Tom Vaughn was a priest at the Episcopal church I attended as a kid in Midland, Michigan.  He was also a very fine jazz pianist.  I recall his playing on the baby grand in our livingroom when I was ever so young.  I always thought Tom Vaughn looked just like Robert Vaughn.

More connections:  when I told the “Vaughn story” at the table, Sid said, “You’re from Midland?  I did my student teaching there, at Northeast Junior High School.”  Wouldn’t you know, that’s where I went to school!  But we were there at different times.

A very memorable dinner table conversation!