moonfrog

I finally have something to show for the Tour de Fleece.  It feels like a lot considering all my days start with painting and packing my parents for their imminent move. On Wednesday the big truck comes to move them closer so I can help them out more. Whew! 

Anyway, this is from two four-ounce braids of Fleece Artist Blue-faced Leicester. It is my first 3-ply, a worsted weight. I had to send it back through a second time to ply it a little tighter. I’m pretty happy with it now.

I’ve done a few other yarns recently, too, using up things that I have in my stash. Tonight I will probably do some more plying. Tomorrow I’ll start on one of my larger amounts of fleece.

I can definitely spin a finer yarn now, but still am working on keeping it even. Plying is still in the practice stages, too.  I’m happy that my handspun is usable at this point!

Some of my handspun even went to the natural dye workshop last weekend.  The two big purple skeins are some of my first handspun Corriedale.   Check out these colors!  Now, I was expecting to have more muted colors from natual dyes, but these colors are stunning. Compare them to some of my recent acid-dyed yarns in the bottom of the picture and they are just as saturated.

The purple is from logwood, the orange is from madder, the yellow is from marigold, the magenta in the back is from cochineal. The red in front is from a first dip in mungeet (Turkey red) and a second dip in cochineal.  I was really surprised to get such a nice red from natural dyes!

Behind the marigold yellow is a lovely olive green that was first a soft yellow from fresh fennel, then a dip in some iron. We got to watch as the iron oxidized and turned the yarn green. It was super entertainment.

The workshop was  sponsored by The Northcoast Knittery at the home of one of the owners. The setting was awesome. Linda Hartshorn, my weaving intructor, taught the class and made it interesting, informative and lots of fun.

You can see pictures of the dye workshop with Linda and the magic green yarn on Ravelry at this post. Thanks, Laura and Linda! It was a blast.

Tomorrow is another fun event: a guild gathering at Aunt Janet’s Fiber Mill for spinning and such.  I’ll be taking my wheel for some more spinning.  I’m between knitting projects right now, with nothing easy-going on the needles. I just finished the hat that was my travel knitting. Really need to start something . . . .  Off to get ready to go early in the morning!

June is always a busy month for me, with lots of travel and time away from home.  After Redwood Run and Black Sheep Gathering, we headed off to the Kate Wolf Music Festival, a lovely combination of work and fun. We camped out and listened to music, and drove people around in carts.  This was my first year driving as well as dispatching and I actually enjoyed it.

While working under the canopy at our headquarters, we had special visitors Mark Ross and Joe Craven, who just happened to be passing by toward one of the stages.   They stopped and entertained us with folksy humor, singing and fiddle playing. Our own little concert!

We also heard the Blind Boys of Alabama, Emmy Lou Harris, Richard Thompson, and one of my favorites, Shawn Colvin. The music was great, the weather was lovely — and my feet are so dirty they won’t come clean anymore. Just call me dusty toes.

I’m glad to be back home again, playing catch-up with all the work here. This weekend we had a house guest named Bella. She’s our grand-dog, I guess. She weighs about 2 lbs. and is a bundle of energy. She’s not just a chihuahua, she’s a minature and about 3 months old. She was loads of entertainment, just like having a baby. The funniest thing about Bella is that she’s a yarn thief. Yep, the fibers are not safe when she’s around.  See the red yarn behind her?  And that’s orange wool that I was spinning n her mouth. I have a cat that really doesn’t care too much about yarn, but this little ratdog loves it. Even though the husband and I love really big dogs, it was funny playing with this toy version for a few days.

On the crafting front, there are fewer hours, but still some things going.  I joined Le Tour de Fleece again this year, as well as the Ravelry version. I’m working on some Blue Faced Leiceister that I hope to make into a 3-ply.  I’ll share my progress on that later.

My main crafting (besides my UFOs) is the Traveling Scarf Group. Each participant starts a scarf and sends it on to nine others who add a bit to it. A round robin of sorts. It’s a good way to meet other knitters and stretch myself. Today, I did some dyeing for one of my two TSG groups. Actually, I started last night, using an old crockpot. I wanted to try that method. Lets just say that the crockpot will be reserved for dyeing single colors.

So today I cleared a path in the garage to my dye table and set to work handpainting some yarn. Much more to my liking. I feel like I have more control of where the dye ends up. Well, mostly. Heh.

I did three very different color combinations to accommodate different color preferences. I wonder how they will look knit? I’ll be doing more dyeing soon and even taking a natural dyes workshop this weekend.

So it looks like I’m in the dyeing and spinning cycle. I’m sure it won’t be long before knitting and weaving are back on stage. Until next time . . . .