Yurt work

 18.09.2020  It has been far too long since my last post and I will not go into detail, but suffice it to say it has been a roller coaster ride through the summer.  

I returned from the Tapestry Felted Traditional Mongolian Yurt Workshop in Bemidji, Minnesota on September 12.  Linda asked me months ago to do artwork depicting the steps to making felt for a Mongolian yurt.  The tapestry felting workshop (to make the felts for the yurt) was made possible with the Sustainable Sheep and Fiber Community of Northern Minnesota (SSFC) through a grant from Region 2 Arts Council.

When I arrived for week 2, Linda had me needle felt my initials on the last panel.

The first of two roof panels.  The last layer is mohair, which will peek through a layer of black and a
starry night sky.

Measuring the edge thickness.

Rolling and getting rid of excess water.

After each rolling in the field, the felt is checked, measured, rolled up and the rolling
process repeats until the proper level of felting is achieved.  

Taking the roll back to the truck for another go around the field.

I enjoyed riding in the back of the truck on a sunny day through the field of wildflowers.

I spent a couple of days spinning up some wool/alpaca batts to be made into rope.

Plying singles...

Rope-making.  Hold on tightly, Linda!

The handspun wool/alpaca turned into lovely rope.

13.10.2020 The yurt was set up for the first time at the Farm to Fiber Festival in Bemidji, Minnesota on October 3.  Jim and I camped at Itasca State Park and the weather was beautiful for the weekend.  We went into town on Friday to help to a set up in the parking lot across from the Bemidji Woolen Mills.  It took a bit of time, but once the wood frame was fitted together in the correct size the rest of the set up went smoothly.

It is bigger on the inside.

I love the finished yurt and was proud to be part of the project.  It is bigger on the inside!

Linda makes some last minute adjustments to the felt walls.

We added a starry sky to show on the inside.  

A state map with initials of those that donated wool and worked on the yurt.  Note the stars felted
onto the night sky.

A room with a view.

Wrapping things up

I started this post a few months ago...

There is a new wool vendor at Anoka Fiber Works--Snake River Acres with Lincoln Longwool.  From Snake River Acres website (a bit of information about the wool):

Wool

Lincolns produce a heavy fleece that is long, coarse and ideal for spinning. The staple length in Lincolns is among the longest of all breeds ranging from 8-15 inches in a year. They are capable of producing a fleece that is 10-20 pounds with a yield of 55-70%. The fiber diameter of Lincoln wool is typically between 34-41 microns.

Wool from a Lincoln can vary in color, ranging from pure white, grey/silver, or black. Usually a naturally colored Lincoln will be darker on the shoulders and lighten up in color on the back.

Mary and I are working through a couple of lovely silver gray fleeces.  We washed the fleeces and then after trying to com the clean wool, Mary sent hers to Deb, of Ewespun Fiber Mill at Old Man Wool Farm, where it was prepared into a cloud.

My plan is to spindle spin a bit and then wheel spin the bulk of the fleece.  I started combing some of the clean fleece and found the fiber beautifully smooth to spin, but the nests fell apart making spindle spinning difficult.  Taking the same route Mary took in having Deb card the fleece into a cloud was a wise decision.  Using one of the Louët S10 wheels, I spun and plied a skein, but didn't care for the finished yarn.  it was a bit thicker than I'd intended.  I knew that using the small Louët wheel would be a better choice to create the yarn I wanted.  I can spin thinner singles, which made the yarn I want to use for small tapestry work.  The Lincoln wool is strong and can be used for warp and/or weft.  Although the wool is smooth and fluffy, there is a bit of grease left, making my fingers nice and smooth.  After a long spinning session, my hands feel a bit sticky.  The small skeins will be perfect for small tapestry weaving.  I may end up spinning the rest with Wendolene (S10DT) just to finish the  rest because the skeins will have more yardage.

16.12.2019  Wrapping up a few projects for December.  The second thumb for the sample mitten is finally finished after two years.  Using wool yarn from the stash, I worked on ornaments and have some in my space at the shop.  Using bits and bobs of handspun yarn and handmade felt, I wove a small tapestry on the hand-held loom and it was one of two pieces in the Rum River Handweavers show in November.  Mary loaned me the Harrisville Lap Loom and I experimented with simple tapestry techniques.  It was so much fun and was immediately hooked, which led to my purchasing
a Schacht tapestry loom with the A-frame stand and the work in front of me as in painting.  It arrived at the shop the day of the handwaving meeting in November and I enjoyed putting it together.

Blomst is one of may favorite patterns.  The two-color stranded knitting is very warm and comfortable with the yarn floats  on the back side next to the skin.  I used Rowan Pure Wool Superwash DK.  

Ornament in progress

The tweedy bits and the texture of the handspun are perfect for painting this small piece

Schacht 25" tapestry loom

I have been spinning the Lincoln and making progress.  Hortense, the Louët Victoria, and I are working hard and making our way through the fleece.  There  is plenty left, though!  Pictured below is a grayscale of Lincoln/Finn.

The small grayscale is pure LLW on the far right, and varying amounts of Finn roving carded with the Lincoln.  I was pleased with the results.

05.01.2020  Since December,  I have been going through my dyed Jacob stash and hand carding rolags for spindle spinning.  Most of the colors have varying amounts of LLW added.  The not-so-evenly-spun yarn had more Jacob added.  I can see I will have to work a bit harder to spin the lighter colors, as the Jacob is much fluffier than the Lincoln Longwool.  These will be part of my palette for a sample tapestry weaving.  

January 7 is St. Distaff's Day.  The Christmas holiday is over and it is time to get back to work.  I will look through my stash, pick a spindle, and find my distaff.  Tomorrow will be a spinning day!

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.  

Progress!

Progress on the Gansey style pullover is going well.  I have been adding notes in a notebook and also on my Ravelry project page.  It has been an enjoyable project so far and now I have to type up the handwritten notes so I can use what I learned, knitting without a written pattern, to knit another sweater.  My early sketches included various texture stitches, neck gussets, the split hem, etc.  The split hem was the first element to go, and then the various texture stitches changed to a simple and easy-to-adapt stitch pattern that fit well with my stitch counts.  The Ridged Rib is a multiple of 2 + 1 stitches and a 4-row repeat.  The second sleeve is in progress and the sweater will be finished this week.

By trying on the sweater while the sleeve was in progress,  I could easily customize the length and  the decreases.  

There is a new vendor at Anoka Fiber Works, Wether'sfield Wool Farm.  I purchased some of the Shetland wool.  Two 4-ounce bags of Emily's white washed wool, and one 3.1-ounce ball of Treble's moorit roving.  I had some black Shetland roving I bought when we visited the Faribault Woolen Mill's 150th celebration a few years ago.  I combed the white wool and it is just beautiful to spindle spin with my Moosie spindle.  Mary held a second bag for me when Jim and I were camping last week.  I will have to see how much yardage I can spin and figure out a nice project for the yarn.

Emily's beautiful washed wool

Combing was the perfect prep for the wool.  I used my Valkyrie (fine) wool combs.

Moorit is a mid-brown color between fawn and dark brown.

It was a good thing I waited to finish spinning the last of the black.  There will be plenty to add to the future project.

Beautiful natural colors.

It started with a conversation...

It started with a conversation about a year ago while sitting at the table with friends Mary and Kathryn at Anoka Fiber Works.  We have the best conversations around the table while enjoying our tea.

The conversation involved knitting a sweater without a written pattern.  Not a new concept, but we thought about the process of creating a sweater, slowing down, and being mindful about our knitting.  Knitting in the Old Way by Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts (Interweave Press, 1985) was the perfect book for inspiration.   I used the garter stitch split hem from The Basic Blouse and The Basic Gansey for the rest of the sweater.   It was easy to look through my books and sketching ideas on my Boogie Board.  Choosing the yarn was another matter.  Keeping in mind the function of the sweater, Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool was the perfect choice for my camping/hiking/working sweater.  The price point of the yarn was great and using a couple of JoAnn, Etc coupons, the purchase was even more attractive.  Fisherman's Wool is 100% wool, it comes in eight-ounce/465-yard skeins, it is worsted weight, and hand-washable.  The skeins of Oatmeal Heather felt softer than the skeins of Brown Heather and the light-color skeins were the same dye lot.

Sweater design elements from one book and a stitch pattern from another book.  I searched through many stitch dictionaries before settling on a simple Ridged Rib.  The pattern is a multiple of 2 + 1 stitches and a four-row repeat.

I found some inspiration from some of the books in my personal library.  The book second from the bottom is the first knitting book I purchased after returning to Germany.  The Encyclopedia of Knitting, by Pam Dawson, Orbis Publishing Limited, London 1984, was (and is) one of my favorite reference books for knitting techniques.

My Gansey sweater in progress.  Two purl stitches at each side, the underarm gusset and the Ridged Rib stitching at the chest.  There will be Ridged Rib stitching on the sleeves at the upper arm above the elbow.

The underarm gusset stitches are on a holder.  The front and back are knit separately.  

The Lett Lopi Flock, my name for it, (Ápril) pullover is finished.  It was started before the Gansey sweater and the mindless knitting until the yoke was a good take-along project.  There were a few bumps when I started the sheep bodies' section.  I made some chart corrections (purl and color, not stitch count) and now I must wait for cooler weather to wear it, sigh...

Markers placed  every twelve stitches to keep the sheep in order.

I ended up frogging to the top of the brown zigzag and re-working that section of the yoke.

The blocked Flock, ready to wear.  

WIPUFOS

Yesterday I tackled the room to see how much spinning fiber is there and to organize yarn not in the cubbyholes...oh, and the WIPs and UFOs.  It took time and I got my 10,000 steps in easily without a walk outside.  While I like the room, it is small and fiber takes up room.  My drawing table faces the window, which is good, and my computer is next to it, but I find the bulky fiber stuff distracting at times.  The art supplies are stored in the closet, organized and out of sight while the fiber-related things are visible and bulky.  Hummm...it's a process and I'm working through the fiber and projects downsizing along the way.

Finishing the almostsixyear project was huge for me.  I started it August 3, 2011 and finished it July 31, 2017.  The yarn is Spud and Chloe Fine, a wool/silk blend with beautiful color and drape.

The photograph below shows the steeks with the red yarn marking exactly where to cut after securing the stitches on either side with machine sewing.  After securing and cutting the steeks, I was picking up the stitches for the band and yarn moved.  That is something one doesn't want to see when cutting the knitting.  Back to the sewing machine I went to re-zigzag and then the vest went in a bag in the corner of the room to be in time out.  I like to think the steeks were healing.  Three years and many projects later, I revisited the vest and finished the band around the fronts and neck and partially hand stitched the facing to the inside.  The only knitting left to do was for the simple armhole bands.  At that point other projects and activities took over, life happened, and just opening the bag and peeking in was enough to make me shudder.

Fast forward to summer 2017.  Determined to finish those pesky projects (the vest included) majorknitter's Ravelry group Finish or Frog It Friday members to finish projects during the month of July.  I managed two sweaters and this vest (just qualifying under the wire).  It was just the motivation that was needed to light a fire under my rear and get those needles busy.

2011

 Ta-da!  It turned out beautiful and I will be happy to wear it on the first day it's cool enough.  I named it Tangled because one of the hanks of yarn was just awful to wind.  It is Kasuri Chanchanko, from Folk Vests by Cheryl Oberle.  Kasuri is the Japanese form of ikat weaving, using resist dyeing before weaving the fabric.  The process gives a softened or blurred effect to the designs on the fabric. This is the fifth vest I made from the book making Folk Vests one of my favorite sources for vest patterns.

I popped a bit of color inside the facing.

The other sweaters I finished are Knitting Pure and Simple V-Neck Neck-Down Cardigan #994 in Debbie Bliss Cotton Denim DK and Tulgey Wood (so named because of the yarn color--Frabjous Fibers March Hare), which is really Acorn Trail minus the cables.  To find just the right buttons for these sweaters, I took a dive into the button stash and organized the buttons in the process.   I don't remember where I purchased the buttons for the blue sweater, but the three for the brown sweater are from Treadle Yard Goods in St. Paul, Minnesota.  

Rather than making buttonholes, I made button loops on the bind-off row.

The perfect cotton cardigan for cool days.  I had Mary snap a photo by my studio space at Anoka Fiber Works.

The wait is on for sweater weather!

Adventures in Scotland, the wool and whiskey tour continued

The Artist's Cottage B and B in Farr was charming!  Designed by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1901, the house was built in the early 1990s from the original drawings that featured only the outside.  It seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but is located close to Inverness.  We enjoyed a delicious supper at the Snow Goose.  

Bathroom window

Bedroom window

There were some sheep in the field behind the house.  

Also near Inverness is the Tomatin Distillery.  Their clever ads show the Softer Side of the Highlands.   The Heilan' Coo is pretty darned cute.

Whiskey barrel furniture.  

Inside one of the antique vats.  I like the design of the drain holes.

One of the stills.

Tomatin has an in-house cooper.

Whiskey aging gracefully.

The day got even better as we made our way to Skye.  Sheep were everywhere and the weather was just gorgeous, although windy!  The Talisker Distillery was the first stop.  I enjoyed the smoky flavor of Talisker Storm.  

I'd contacted Roger of Skye Weaver prior to our trip and was very excited when we arrived.  He was so gracious to show us around and I even got to try out the pedal-powered loom.

The wool fabric covers the weaver's handle bar.  

This fabric is for scarves.

The warping mill was a re-purposed tractor rake, reclaimed wood, bicycle gears, other bits and pieces including a dishwasher hinge.

Roger showed us the creel that holds up to 112 cones of yarn.

Inspiration for projects can come from anywhere and this photo was the inspiration for the scarf I purchased.

The scarf is wonderfully soft and warm.  I ended up wearing it for the rest of the trip.

As we were leaving, I spotted some henty leggits (or henty lags) and Jim had to stop the car so I could gather them.