Tempus fugit 🕰

Wow, 2023 speeds ahead.  Using the wayback machine, I need to catch things up since last September. We went to Ireland the last week of October. We visited friends along the way and made it up to County Donegal.  It was a treat to see Studio Donegal, where the tweed continues to be woven by hand.  

The mill shop at Kerry Wollen Mill, Co Kerry, Ireland.

It is where I bought the Kerry Gold color way of KWM

Aran Wool 3ply.

A lovely green tweed warp. The sound of the 
shuttles going back and forth was nice to hear.

Looking down at the at the warping room and all

the cones of yarn. A look just to the left, and on to the...

Cutting and sewing room. Pattern pieces hanging

at the ready.

  A closeup of some lovely wool tweed pieces

for garments.

Piece by beautiful piece. 

I produced quite a bit of knitting the past year, and expanded the sweater choices for the Pick A Sweater class at beWoolen.

Blomst

Forêts Paisibles, Ris, Anthology,
and Dreaming of Provence 

Cassis, Goldwyn Folly (with a dash of Anthology), 
and Inovec

Of course there are WIPs. One is fingering weight, which I love (but what was I thinking?!) and the other two are Aran weight.  

Simple Sweater TCK

Classic Cardigan, TCK

Lara by Di Gilpin is a fun and quick knitting project.
Donegal tweed for the body and some leftover KWM
in Kerry Gold from the Cassis for the neckband.

Fiber Friday

Since we added Gus to the family my home work has been spotty.  Because he likes all things fiber,  I have to be mindful of where I leave my knitting and such.  When he arrived (I didn't have much time to puppy-proof the house) and after the mitten incident, I tossed the tempting things into my room or the extra bedroom.  I was in the process of reorganizing and the extra stuff I tossed in the room only exacerbated the already messy workroom.  Now I am back at it, cleaning and sorting yarn for knitting and yarns that can be used for weaving.  The art materials have always been well-organized.  I can easily find what I need and the paint boxes are set up for oil painting and acrylic painting on grab-and-go plein air painting days.  Fiber, on the other hand just seems to explode because it is bulky and fluffy in its unspun state.  Once it is spun into yarn it is easier to store.   With this being spring shearing, and Shepherd's Harvest Festival (Mother's Day weekend) the temptation to acquire more fleece is ever-present.  It is humorous, or not, that I was a project-to-project knitter with only leftover yarn in my stash until I learned  how to spin over twenty years ago.

Last weekend was productive starting with Saturday spin in at Anoka Fiber Works.
On Sunday, I found a small bag of colorful wool batts from Ewespun Fiber Mill
and began to spin them for a future project.  The green wool has silk noil nubbles, which I just love.
 It was nice to spin at home with Gus napping in the same room.  

We had our first plein air session last Thursday at the Round Barn in Andover.  It was not rainy, but chilly and windy in the morning.  I was painting with acrylic this time and I much prefer oils for outdoor painting because of the long drying time.  I managed to get a sketch of the barn and will have to work on it at home because my hands were cold and fingers were getting stiff. 

After the painting session, we had a tour of the Farmstead, a senior living facility next door,  to get inspiration for murals we will soon be painting.  

Morning

Early afternoon

The Round Barn's owner has a pet goat, Delilah.
 She is a cute little goat and wears a diaper when she is in the shop.
They have to watch her closely because (being a goat) she love to eat
anything and everything.  

Friday/sheepday

We had a last blast of winter weather this week, which has a way of throwing the best laid plans out of whack.  Wednesday, we cancelled classes at the shop.  Thursday, school districts around Minnesota had a snow day and the shop was closed.  The snowstorm included snow, sleet, peppered with lightning and thunder.   Friday, the weather was a little warmer and snowy.  Mary and I were able to adventure out as planned to help while the shearer was at her son and daughter-in-law's farm.  They have a small flock of Icelandic sheep.  Molly was the first to lamb, so we got to cuddle the twins.  They are sporting black and white spots, which will be beautiful fleeces as the lambs mature.  The shearer would shear a sheep and our job was to bag the fleece and then sweep the mat for the next sheep.  An autumn shearing is typically better than a spring shearing, so it will be fun to see the lambs in a few months.  The other ewes were about ready to pop.  B and A will be busy with lambing soon.

Last to be sheared, Marshmallow, was the largest in the flock.  

After the shearing was finished we had some last cuddles with the twin lambs before heading home.  

Speaking of fleeces, Mary has a cardigan (for her son) in progress with last year's fleeces from the flock.  After Mary washed the fleeces, Deb Peterson of Ewespun Fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm, processed them into clouds.  With her handspinning, Mary mimicked the characteristics of bulky Lopi yarn.  She attached some sample Lopi yarn to an index card and then proceeded to spin samples.  It took a bit of time and in the end she managed to spin light and lofty singles, which she plied together.  The result was just beautiful and she duplicated the same yardage and weight of a skein of Alafoss Lopi (100 g/3.5 oz approximately 100 m/109 yds.  The main color is a rich brown and the stranded colorwork is black and white.

Mary has progressed quite a bit since this photo was taken.  She is now ready to knit the sleeves.   Instead of a zipper, she will add front bands and buttons.

Catching up

September...Looking out the window I can see the latest painting project, which is the shed.  It took three days and (thankfully) the weather was relatively cool.  Jim and I finished before the heat wave hit.  It is beginning to rain and today is a good day to catch up on some projects.  The state fair begins this week and even though there is still a month of summer remaining, I see small changes like some of the sumac leaves turning orange and red.  Cooler sweater weather is on the way.

On Saturday, August 18, I volunteered to do a spinning demo beside the Three Rivers Fibershed.  Mary received an email inquiring about a volunteer spinner during The Great Makers Exchange at the American Swedish Institute.  The timing was perfect because I wanted to visit the ASI to see Gudrun Sjödén--A Colorful Universe and being a volunteer, my admission to the museum was free.  I did not take many photos during the demo time, as the stream of visitors was steady and the time seemed to fly by.

Twelve days pass...and I am back.  We took the little Escape Pod out to Banning State Park in Pine County.  It is a small park and three years ago we kayaked the rapids on the Kettle River.  Because it rained the first two days (5+ inches) the river was up and really rushing along.  It was a joy to get out and hike after the rain.

Late afternoon after the rain.  

Coffee time.  

The hiking was particularly good on the trail and along the Kettle River.

The spin-in after the campout Deb (Ewespun fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm) had some beautiful Leicster Longwool dyed the most beautiful moss green.  It was just the pop of color I was seeking for a project using the handspun Jacob wool from Chi Chi.  Her fleece was one I purchased at Shepherd's Harvest a few years ago.  I combed the wool and it spun up just beautifully.  

Pulling the wool through the diz that Mary's husband, Rob, made.  The Leicester Longwool spun and plied beautifully.  It will be a lovely pop of color against the grayscale of the Jacob wool.

Inspiration

The end of September campout was at the Camp-Inn Campout at Castle Rock County Park in Juneau County, WI.  While the majority of campers were teardrops, there were 28 home-builds, and various other tiny campers.  It was fun to visit with other folks from all over the United States.  

We spent Friday out and about the area.  We visited the Cranberry Fest in Warrens.  It is a small town, but is transformed with hundreds of visitors.  We took a short marsh tour to see how the cranberries are grown and harvested.  The guide is one of the local farmers.  At the end, we bought some craisins and cranberry honey.  The cinnamon craisins are delicious in the chocolate chip cookies I baked the other evening.

I finished my handspun beanie on the bus ride to the marsh.  The colors look just like the colors of a campfire.

The marshes before harvest.  

Wisconsin harvests about 60 percent of the country's crop of cranberries.  They are delicious and  I use them all year round.  Here is a link to some recipes.

Jim and I took a day to visit the Burr Oak Winery.  We tasted some whites and reds and settled on a bottle of white and a bottle of dessert wine.  The flowers in the courtyard were just beautiful.  Those mums were gigantic!

One place I was delighted to visit was Mielke's Fiber Arts.  I contacted Amy the day before and she opened the shop for a visit.  I found a left-handed Nalbinding book along with a larger needle, a couple of fun reads about spinning, spindles, and weaving, a Dealgan (Scottish spindle), and some naturally colored cotton spinning fiber.  I have some roving left from Texas, so the colors will coordinate nicely.  It was so nice to be able to wander around the shop and see all the wonderful tools for working with fiber 

A visit to Wisconsin isn't complete without cheese. We did not visit a cheese house, but we did buy a snack for the road.  The store carried a variety of cheesehead hats.  

FOs

There are two finished objects for the end of July, the Gansey sweater and the handspun Polkagris.  Starting with the kerchief, I pulled some photos from a previous post (May 2013) to show how the yarns were created.  They sat in the stash for five years waiting for the perfect project.  Shortly before Grey Wolf in June, an email arrived from KDD with a pattern for newsletter subscribers.  It did not take long to choose yarns from my stash for the project.

Colorful wool roving and wool batts with some cotton yarn are pulled together.

The fibers are added to the bowl on the scale for weighing.  Joanne and I made 3-ounce batts.
Fibers used in both batts:  wool, silk, mohair locks, silk noils, sari silk, and cotton.

The fibers can be blended a little or a lot using the drum carder.  It is ready to spin!

The singles are plied with thread or yarn.  This was plied with a thin textured yarn.
This skein weighed 3.7-ounces after plying.  The white skein weighed 3.8-ounces.  Each skein was 200+ yards.
I should have enough left from both skeins for a small project.

The Polkagris kerchief by Kate Davies was the perfect project for the special skeins of yarn.
The shape of the kerchief fits nicely over the shoulders

The Gansey sweater was a rewarding project to knit.  It is a simple, wool sweater with traditional shape and style with extra ease added for comfort.  It will be a good piece for layering when it gets cold.  I have it on right now, as we are experiencing a cold front before the heat and humidity return.  

Before the knitting, I did my homework by looking through my personal library and studying photos of the design elements of traditional garments.  Body  measurements and measurements from other garments along with choosing yarn and swatching are so important.  One of my biggest take-aways from the experience was that less is more.  I planned for fancier textures at the top, but the simple, 2 +1 stitch repeat over four rows fit so beautifully into the design.  

Mary is just about finished with her sweater and soon we (Kathryn, Mary, and I) will have to take photos of our finished projects together.  

Garter stitch at the neck, cuffs and hem. Ridged ribbing worked well for the stitch counts for the body and sleeves.  

A bit of shaping on either side of the front neck and three-needle bind off at the shoulders.  The bind off was worked on the right side of the work and the purl ridge flows into the texture stitches nicely.

The two-stitch faux seam runs on either side from the hem, around the underarm gusset, and the to the  cuff.

Happy birthday America!

Today is July 4, America's birthday.  Happy birthday to our country.  I love the vintage postcard image from Vintage Holiday Crafts of the bears celebrating.

It's been a busy summer so far.  June was Grey Wolf month.  We were blessed with beautiful cool weather during Week 2.  Nine patrols of eight participants came in on a Sunday and graduated on Saturday.  The rain showed up of catapult effectiveness day and despite the dreary weather, everyone had a good time.  

The staff and participants heading back to camp from a day of activities.  

Comfy shoes--check, scout uniform--check, water bottle--check!

A beautiful view from the porch at Swanson Lodge of the sunset.

Grey's strapped in and ready to head home.

The fifth stage of team development is laundry.

I have been combing the fleece I got from Andrea of Black Cat Farmstead. Ben the sheep's fleece is a nice natural black color.  The bobbin is almost full since the photo was taken of the spinning progress.  When I arrived home from camp, I was able to finish the Einstein Hat test knit of Deb's  pattern.  

Weaving continues on the studio loom at AFW and I warped the Cricket with some yarn I was given by a friend.  The weft was a nice surprise that was left on my bench when I returned to the studio.  Fun colors in the fabric that will be turned into accessories.  

Spinning from combed wool is a breeze!

The Einstein Hat test knit.

The crazy sock yarn is a great colorway for the warp and the reddish coral is perfect for the weft.  Both yarns are woo/silk blends.  

Seeing Mexican Hats during my morning walk was a nice surprise, as they are the same flowers I've seen in New Mexico on the hiking trail.  They are common in New Mexico, and a bit rare in Minnesota according to a range map of national distribution.  Philmont is calling me back to HOmE (Heaven On Earth).  

Mexican Hats