Festival Season

The bright crisp days are here, and that can mean only one thing: it's fall, and festival season! OK, only two things, if you want to be picky. :)

Yes, in my annual autumn frenzy of festival-going, I've been to two of my favorite festivals in the last two weekends. Of course, they all seem to be my favorites, but then, they're all wonderful in different ways.

The first, the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, in Berryville, Virginia, was moved this year for the first time to late September (to avoid a conflict with the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair). And the Fall Fiber Festival, on the Montpelier Estate near Orange, Virginia, was held as usual in early October.

Both are quite small, relative to the behemoths that are the Rhinebeck, New York, festival in the fall (or so I hear, never having been) and -- oldest and biggest of them all -- the mighty Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in the spring. The tidy small size of the Shenandoah and Montpelier festivals, in fact, is one of their great virtues, as there's room to stroll around and browse without being utterly overwhelmed by crowds and overstimulation. And there's plenty to look at, between the shopping, the fiber-bearing animals on display, and at Montpelier, the sheepdog competitions going on all day nearby.

My experience with the Shenandoah festival this time was a bit different from past years, as I got a chance this year to help out in a small way by volunteering! Of course, that meant less time just strolling around shopping and taking pictures. So the visual souvenirs here are from the Montpelier festival. Rest assured, though, there were plenty of treasures at both festivals.

By the time the Montpelier festival rolled around, the weather had cooled, blessedly, to the point that festival-goers could actually wear some of their hand-crafted productions. I love seeing the knitters showing off their hand-knit sweaters, lace shawls, berets, and just about anything else that can be fashioned out of wool.

It was a jolly day entirely. World's-most-patient-husband was a good sport and chauffeured me on the beautiful but long-ish country drive to the festival. I browsed and shopped and wandered and chatted to my heart's content while he napped and read a book he'd brought along. I even parked myself on a picnic bench for a bit to spin some newly bought fiber just for the joy of playing with my new toys.

Oh yes, indeed there was some newly bought fiber. Some of it is here, braids of wool to spin in bright citrus colors and dusky subtle colors and whatever else was appealing. Let's see, the one on the left is a merino "pigtail" from Stony Mountain Fibers in Virginia. The two in the center are a wool-and-seacell blend from Creatively Dyed in South Carolina, and the one on the right is blue-face leicester wool from River's Edge Fiber Arts, here at the festival all the way from Michigan.

And then there were heaps of wool-mohair blend roving, which is lots of fun to spin. The orangey-tan roving on the left is wool, kid mohair, and a touch of sparkle, in the Bronze colorway from Steam Valley Fiber Farm in Pennsylvania. Charmingly, the label they provided tells me exactly which goats and sheep are responsible for the fiber, by name. So, thank you, TinMan, Neptune, and the rest. :)

The two pretty rovings on the right, one in rose and the other in a soft coffee color, are from Kid Hollow Farm in Virginia, which has provided me with many, many hours of spinning pleasure before. My tall-elegant-mom, my trim-athletic-dad, and I all have accessories or sweaters I've spun and knitted from Kid Hollow fiber. The rose colorway is called Puerto Rico, and the buff is called Chestnut. This time, I think I may spin a strand in each of the two colors and ply them together.

And that little twirly thing? Wait, how did that get in there? It's a Tom Dyak drop spindle from DyakCraft (formerly Grafton Fibers). I didn't really need another spindle, but those mischievous River's Edge ladies had it right there, where I couldn't help seeing it, with its cheery bright colors.

Really, what could I do? :)

Heat Exhaustion?

Hey, I thought they said wool breathes when it's hot! That's what these little guys must have been thinking. Their mouths are hanging open a little, as they try to keep cool in the shade.

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival was a scorcher this year. Each year, I hope for cool weather, so everyone can wear something hand-knit. But, once again, in gentle early May, the festival happened to fall upon a very hot weekend.

Late as I am in checking in here after the festival, I'll just blame it on the heat. And, incidentally, I do still make things. There are even some finished objects to show you, but I'll get to that next time.

So, casting my mind now back again to early May.... I tried to take a restrained approach to the festival this year, as I really am trying not to continue accumulating supplies faster than I can use them. Beautiful they may be, but logic says to have faith that, when the time finally comes that I truly have space for more, there will still be plenty of beautiful things to find.

The fleece sale challenged my fortitude, I have to admit, especially since I'd just taken a class on how to choose a good fleece. I wandered around in there for a while examining fleeces, appreciating their color and crimp, looking at the differences among the breeds of wool. But still I managed to restrain myself.

And I consciously managed my MDSW visit a little differently than in years past. I limited my strolling time to a couple of hours, and I focused on some of the events that I normally just go right on past, in my haste to trot from one vendor to the next. Also, as I now have a very portable spinning wheel, I brought it along in hopes of joining the evening Spin-In .

I stopped to watch and enjoy the kids (human) visiting the kids (baby goats from Kid Hollow Farm).

Look at those tiny little horns sprouting. and the ringlets of soft baby mohair. They're just adorable, aren't they?


I spent a little time taking in the sheep-herding demonstration, watching the expert dogs and their human handlers, and the obedient sheep, spooked into compliance .

I wandered over to see what was going on at the auction. Everything from boxes of magazines to spinning equipment was being disposed of with swift efficiency.

Of course I visited the vendors. It just wouldn't make sense to be there for that awe-inspiring assemblage and utterly pass it by. But I kept my acquisitions to quite a modest level. A couple of quarter-pound bags of fiber and some beeswax candles. Just enough to feel I'd partaken of the feast.

The fiber, from Misty Mountain Farm, is awfully pretty, too. In the foreground is Polwarth top, in a colorway called Forest Moss. In the background is super-fine Merino in Raspberry, a color I just seem to keep coming back to.

So, I still shopped and bought a little, but I tried not to make it such a central focus of my trip. Heck, if I keep this up, maybe one day I'll make it over to see the sheep-to-shawl competition. I've always meant to, but have been too busy loading up on supplies and inspiration.

Once the sun went down and the festival closed for the day, I retrieved Miss Muffet from the car and found my way to the Dining Hall (blessedly air-conditioned) for the evening Spin-In. There were about 65 like-minded souls there, spinning and chatting happily away, with wheels and spindles. There were two wonderful women serving as ringleaders and camp-counselors. They organized door-prize drawings, puzzles, and silly competitions. We had timed spinning races for distance, blindfolded, and with plastic bags on our hands. The latter two were, remarkably, not nearly as hard as one might think. In fact, I turned out to be something of a plastic-bag-hands specialist. That was the competition I came closest to winning. And there was a very entertaining 11-year-old boy challenging everyone to see who could make a spindle spin the longest.

It was fun enjoying the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this year in a different way. I might do it again next time.... unless I can use up all the wool and yarn I have around the house by then. :)

Taking Her Out For A Spin

Well, what's a tiny little new spinning wheel for, if not to hop in the car and go for a spin? Miss Muffet and I found ourselves a spinning event to go to and that's exactly what we did.

When we got there, she settled right in next to a Majacraft Little Gem. It's also a cute little portable wheel, but we all have our own tastes, and Miss Muffet is definitely my favorite flavor. The Little Gem's owner (whose name I'm sorry I can't remember) was also a brand-new weaver, and the scarf she's wearing in the picture was one of her first efforts, woven earlier that same week. It was beautiful and drapey, and I was quite impressed.

The event was kind of a small fair, with vendors from the local region lining the walls, selling yarn and roving and fleeces and patterns and accessories and lots of tempting things. It catered for knitters as well as spinners.

The spinning circle was set up right in the center, and it was a new sight for many of the knitters wandering by to shop. It felt a bit like being on display at a living history museum. Quite a few people stopped by to watch, talking in hushed tones to each other. With a little encouragement, though, they were happy to chat and ask questions. The woman next to me, with the Little Gem, was quite a promoter for spinning. She enticed several people to sit down and give it a try. I wouldn't be surprised if a new spinner or two was born that day!

When I got up for breaks, there was also another "exhibit" for me to gaze at and ask questions about. Near the spinners was a group having a rug-braiding class. It looked like fun, too. Though I'm afraid this isn't the clearest photo, you can see how there's a clamp attached to the table, and the rug-maker is braiding together strips of roving in different colors. The rug-making is not a one-day process, though. Students were to take the braids home, felt them, and come back to the part two class, to learn how to sew them together.

Meanwhile, there was lots of shopping going on, too. You don't need a giant festival to have plenty of things to entice a spinner. I think practically everybody went home with a few more things than she brought -- some more than others. And some just couldn't contain themselves. This big newly purchased pile of fiber was trailing directly from its bag onto an enthusiastic spinner's wheel.

Of course, I also walked around and window-shopped to see what the vendors had brought. And of course I had to get myself a few goodies. :)

These are some of them. The two balls of roving are Cormo wool from Wallys and Frank Peltier at Mt. Airy Farm, in Marshall, Virginia. I just adored the colorway and bought all 14 ounces they brought. It probably won't make a whole sweater, but maybe a vest. I believe I must have been talking to Wallys. She told me that they hadn't dyed the wool in roving form before, only as yarn, because they'd been worried about whether it would felt. But she was pleased with how this had come out. And so am I. :)

The braid in the front of the photo is Superwash Bluefaced Leicester from Spirit Trail Fiberworks, Jennifer Heverley. Jennifer -- in addition to finding wool of fascinating rare breeds to offer spinners -- is a master dyer with an absolutely lovely color sense.

This braid is a one-off; not one of her regular colorways but just the result of a session playing with the dye-pots. I could just drown in these colors. But there's only 4 ounces of it, so I'll have to think about what I can make from it.

All in all, a very fun day. Miss Muffet and I went home tired and happy.

Itsy Bitsy Things

I've been in the mood to spin. I didn't have a real project going, but sometimes that urge to spin is well nigh unstoppable.

I wanted to spin so much that I began spinning the beautiful little bits of stuff that I'd felt were too nice to use up. Or maybe that I wasn't a good enough spinner for. It didn't matter.

I had some braids, from the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival of 2007, of hand-dyed fiber by Fleece Artist, of Nova Scotia. Only 50 grams of each. I think I loved them for their beauty just as they were. Those colors! But their time had come.

First was the braid in the upper right corner, merino top in soft lavender-grays and greens and pinks. On the bobbin, the colors somehow separated and strengthened.


I spun it just to spin, not worrying at all about the thickness. After plying, it came out somewhere in the range of fingering to sportweight. And the colors fascinated me again as they combined. The finished skein is stronger and greener than I'd expected, but complex and subtle. And the yarn, my first pure merino, is bouncy and lofty. What a pleasure.

That was so much fun, I had to have another. Next, I spun the braid of Bluefaced Leicester wool in the lower right corner, the one in pink and gray-blue and creamy vanilla. I spun it at a fingering-to-sport weight again. I enjoyed watching the colors draw out, emerge, and mix, and liked the result so much that I wondered how I could have waited so long to spin the fiber.

It seems like it must be tiresome listening to me rhapsodizing fuzzily about one fiber after another. So about the last braid of Bluefaced Leicester, I'll just say that I kept thinking of tangerine and raspberry sorbet as I was spinning it. It made me hungry for dessert. :)

The plied skein is a little darker and stronger, but still, it surprised me when a friend commented, "that's a good autumn color." Of course, she's partial to the brightest of the bright, so perhaps that had something to do with it!

Incidentally, the finished yarn of Bluefaced Leicester wool turned out a little differently from the merino. Still fluffy, it has a bit less bounce and more drape. And both were nice to spin.

So I have 50 grams each of yarn in three colorways, and pretty much no idea what I will do with these small quantities. (Although I must say that a friend has been admiring that merino skein so vociferously that I might just decide to make a gift of it to her.) They're not enough even for a scarf. I need some itsy bitsy projects to make with my itsy bitsy skeins. I think the longest one is about 150 yards. Though I'm a bit short on the yardage, there's a pretty cowl in the latest issue of Spin-off magazine made with about two ounces of sport-weight handspun that just might work. Perhaps I'll make a wardrobe of fine-gauge cowls!

But the question is, what on earth gave me these wild spinning urges?

A Snowy Realm

Snow on top of snow. It's been quite a winter. Beautiful to look out upon, though a little challenging to keep cleared.

And when you're snowed in, there's lots and lots of time for indoor hobbies like knitting. I took a little blizzard break and knit myself a new handspun hat!

When there's a good deep snow on the ground, it's fun to bundle up in hats and boots and go out stomping around. When the novelty of shoveling wears off, there's plenty of entertainment to be had in watching the plows, taking pictures, or just playing.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed that, for an enthusiastic knitter, I have a distinct shortage of hand-knit hats. In fact, only one: a petite little beret with a coordinating ruffled scarf. But everywhere lately, I've been seeing oversized, slouchy berets. And though big hats are sometimes not a good look for me, I thought I might not look so much like a mushroom in one that droops down. I suddenly wanted one.

I decided on a heavily cabled slouchy hat that I'd been admiring in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of knit.1 magazine. It's called the Relm tam and was designed by Jared Flood. On top of liking its tweedy good looks , I thought it would make a good handspun project for one of the smaller quantities of spinning fiber I have on hand.

I settled on the fiber from Puff the Magic Rabbit that I bought last fall at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. When I visited Puff's site just now to make sure of the link, I got a surprise. While I thought -- and said in my last post -- that the fiber was her Electra Blue colorway in merino and mohair, from the photos on her site it's pretty unmistakably For Erika, instead. So what I have here is actually natural dark gray Border Leicester with a little silky mohair in pale blue and lavender!

It's beautiful stuff, either way. I spun it into a light worsted weight two-ply, trying for a decent amount of twist. It's not quite as twisty as I was aiming for, but I didn't do too badly. This was my first time attempting to spin exactly the yarn I wanted for a particular pattern. Up until now, I had just spun the fiber however it seemed to work best and then figured out what to knit it into.

The pattern calls for 100 grams of a yarn that adds up to about 300 yards. I thought I would be safe, since I had more than 150 grams of fiber. Well, I must have spun a much denser yarn than the one called for, because I ended up with only 230 yards of handspun. I crossed my fingers, hoping for the best, and pressed on. It was a big slouchy hat, after all, and if I ran short I could always regroup and make it into a smaller, less slouchy version.

The handspun yarn worked well in the pattern. The fiber's color variation gave it a heathery look that suited the cable pattern, and the mohair in the mix gave it some drape. The cable-work doesn't show up very clearly, because of the fuzzy bloom of the yarn, but it looks thick and furrowed and handsome nonetheless.

The pattern is elegantly designed, showing the signs of a perfectionist in the careful choice and placement of decreases as the cables narrow into the center. But it is big. As the knitting progressed, I did end up making it smaller. It wasn't for lack of yarn (though I actually do think I would have run out). No, it was because the way it was shaping up, it would have made a really giant hat. Enormous. Beyond slouchy. I think it would have been lounging on my shoulders.

I ended up leaving out two repeats of the cable pattern to shorten it up considerably. And it's slouchy, warm, and big without being overwhelming. I am all set now to venture back out, find a cafe, and park myself at a table with a book and a steaming double espresso.

Snow? What snow?

More Ketchup, Please

Er, Catch-up, that is!

One of the things I've been meaning to do is show you some of the goodies I got way back at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival last October.

First up is this delicious ice-cream sundae. No, wait, that's not it at all, though I think it may be just as delicious.

It's actually three of my festival finds. The bowl is a ceramic yarn bowl, by Elisa Dasher of Honeysuckle Pottery in Keymar, Maryland. I've been curious about these yarn bowls for a while, with the notch to feed the yarn through while the ball rests in the bowl. After trying it out, I can attest the the fact that they do work. The ball of yarn stays clean and in one place, instead of rolling off the couch and all over the floor. And the bowl is a beautiful piece of handmade stoneware, enjoyable in itself. Elisa won't be at the Shenandoah Festival next year, but it appears she's planning to be at the marvelous Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in the spring.

That fluffy confection in the bowl is not ice cream but a one-ounce ball of pygora spinning fiber. It came from one of the farms participating in a Loudoun Valley Pygora, it seems, is a type of goat, a pygmy version of the angora goats who give us mohair. I believe it's a fairly rare breed, at least so far. My reading tells me that these little guys produce different types of fiber. Depending on the individual, it can be mohair-like, cashmere-like, or a combination of the two. And just look at this stuff! I'm looking forward to spinning a sample to see what it's like.

The "spoon" is actually a hand-made miniature nostepinne, carved of mulberry wood, from Terry Selser in DeRidder, Louisiana, via the Lagniappe Fiber booth. It's just a wee little thing for winding small balls of fine yarn. While this isn't a challenge that I've had very often, how could I resist it? The carving at the top kind of reminds me of an old-fashioned clothespin.

Also at the Lagniappe Fiber booth, my fiber-sampling curiosity led me to buy some Cheviot fleece from Nightsong Farms, in Dry Creek, Louisiana. This is a strong, springy type of wool. I'm not sure what I will do with it, other than get acquainted, but it may be a good wool to blend with other types to give them that springy, lofty quality. And I did love these rich colors. The one on the left is natural, and the one on the right is dyed.

One thing I do know exactly what to do with is this sweater quantity of roving from the lovely and accommodating Dalis Davidson at Dancing Leaf Farm in Barnesville, Maryland. This is the Briar Patch colorway, which I'd been looking for and hoping to find at her booth for the last couple of festival seasons. I'd once seen a sample of it spun up at a shop and loved the colors. I finally got smart and contacted her ahead of time, whereupon she dyed a batch just for me and brought it along to the Shenandoah Festival.

And last, but not least, while our friend Puff the Magic Rabbit was not at Shenandoah, some of her fiber most certainly was. Look at this gorgeous stuff. It's a merino/kid mohair blend called Electra Blue. (I wonder if Electra is one of the goats?) I came home with six ounces. This will have to be spun and knitted into something delicate and beautiful, worthy of such fiber.

And people wonder why I love these festivals. :)

More to Love

There were a few more things I haven't mentioned yet that I really enjoyed about last weekend's Fall Fiber Festival. One big one was a chance to see a blog friend in person! (Hi, Puff :) There might have been a couple more, but Robin has moved far away, and though TheQueen was there, I didn't spot her. Most likely, my eyes were on the fiber.

Ah yes, the fiber. This year I barely visited the animal tent, the skein and garment competition or the fleeces. I had eyes only for fiber. I'm trying to be good, really I am. After all, I already have far more yarn and fiber at home than there's any sensible reason for. I've sworn off buying sock yarn until knitting down a bunch of what I already have. In fact, I've mostly sworn off buying finished yarn in general until I knit down the stocks a bit. For now, I'm buying only spinning fiber. And I'm trying to limit even that to less than replacement quantities for what I spin, knit, and use up.

I didn't do too badly. I've finished two sweaters lately, so I was able to pick out a few treasures at the festival without guilt. Let me show you what I found!

First is the deep plum-colored roving (from the last post right after the doughnuts). It's a cloudy day today, so I can't quite capture its true personality, but this is luscious stuff. It's a blend of wool, mohair, and alpaca from Karen at Avalon Springs Farm, in Mt. Airy, Maryland. She's a first-time vendor at the festival, and I'm glad I caught her while she still had a nice big bin of this fiber. I bought a sweater's worth.

There's a small twist, for me, in that it has just a bit of sparkly Firestar blended in. I have never worked with that, but I could not resist these colors. I'll be interested to see how much the sparkle shows up in the finished yarn, and I'll think carefully about what sort of a sweater it will suit.

From Pat and Steve Harder's Kid Hollow Farm in Free Union, Virginia, the source of last year's fluffy brushed mohair, I bought some wool and mohair roving in two colorways. This one is called Violet Turquoise Spot. It looks quite subtle and grayish, which is lovely in itself. But I think it will darken when spun and show more of its violet and turquoise nature.

This is the other one, Northern Lights. I seem to be stuck on the violet and turquoise theme, don't I? It also has hints, though, of a strong dark pink that isn't really showing in the picture.

I picked these out and bought a half-pound of each with the assistance of the wonderful Puff, who helps out in Pat and Steve's booth. But why only half a pound? Well, as I said, I'm trying very hard to be good. It takes me about one and a half pounds of fiber for a handspun sweater. I figured finishing two sweaters got me roughly three pounds of allowance for buying more fiber. Between the plummy roving and these, I had kept it to two and a half pounds, for extra credit.

So I went ahead and bought a couple of ounces of this combed Shetland top from The Flock Bransonas, in Staunton, Virginia, in the colorway Aurora.

I actually already had some of this. I bought one little ounce a couple of years ago to sample Shetland wool. I spun some of it laceweight on a handspindle and loved it. Last year I bought another ounce. Adding another two ounces gives me about 110g, enough for some sort of a lacey scarf or shawl.

Later, out of idle curiosity, I calculated the actual weight of yarn and fiber used in my two recent sweaters. The commercial yarn used up, it turned out, weighed less than my rule-of-thumb quantity, and that last two ounces of Shetland put me over my replacement weight. Oh, well. I blew it, but it's worth it.

My last find, thankfully not subject to my self-imposed limit, was this shawl pin of wenge wood from Knitting Notions in Nashville, Tennessee. There were dozens of them, in different domestic and exotic woods, all unique, as handcrafted things are. I loved this one, which reminds me of a chess piece.

Oh, what's that it's stuck into, you ask? Just never you mind! (I'll tell you later.)

And of course, I bought those delicious apple cider doughnuts and gobbled them on the spot. And that makes more of me to love, too. :)

Just Doing My Duty, Ma'am

When the economy is down, we all have to do our bit, don't we?

While I can't buy a house or take out a loan to get funds flowing, I can help in my own little way -- a couple of skeins of yarn here and there to provide the fiber festival booths of the United States with a little economic stimulus.

Here are some of the fruits of my personal efforts in that direction. These are some of the fun things I found at the Fall Fiber Festival, a few weeks ago. The big cushy grayish greenish bundle on the left in the back is some Kid Hollow Farm brushed mohair yarn. At least it was yarn. Now it's a half-knit-up project. As you see, I couldn't even hold back long enough to take a picture before casting on and starting work on the mock turtleneck pattern they were showing as a sample sweater. In the back on the right is another batch of the same yarn in a silvery gray. Scattered around are some small spinning-related accessories. In the front are a couple of skeins of Creatively Dyed yarn.

Here, I'll give you a closer look. Is that not beautiful?





Then, only a couple of weeks later, I administered the next phase of my stimulus package at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. Oh dear, it's so exhausting staving off financial mayhem. Maybe I'd better fan myself and go get some lemonade.

But, as you can see, I don't shrink from a challenge. At the bottom of the picture, you see three skeins of gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn from Beyond Basic Knits, in lovely rich colors. Then, on the left with the luscious watermelon and canteloupe colors is some roving from Serendipitous Ewe -- Wensleydale, another new breed for me to try! Peeking out in the back are some rovings from Bitsyknits intended for spinning sock yarn, one in merino, and the other in a merino-alpaca blend. Only semi-visible are a merino-cashmere roving from the Brazen Sheep, a pretty handmade basket from the Foothills Spinners and Weavers Guild, and a bright turning-maple-leaves-colored roving from Wild Hare Fiber in Coopworth and llama. Oh my, I just don't know where to turn next.

There are a few more things as well that didn't make it into the pictures but will most likely be heard from here sooner or later. All my economic stimuli are in something of a jumble. One of the auditors must have been overexcited. And, perplexingly, in among the heap is a receipt that I have no earthly idea what it was for. Clearly I bought something, as I signed the slip, plain as day, but there aren't any legible clues as to what that might be! More evidence of economic disarray.

Well, I'll just distract myself with this picture of the one that got away. This is the fabulous new Noro sock yarn, with a sample sock that shows it off to stunning advantage. This little tableau pleases me to no end. It just glows, doesn't it? I'm afraid I can't find my show catalog just now, but I think it might have been in the Fibersmyth booth. (If not, my sincere apologies to whoever it was.)

Seriously, I do worry about the fate, in an economic downturn, of all of these very small businesses who bring us so many special treats. Small businesses and retailers often seem vulnerable when the economy tightens. If poor conditions last long, luxuries are likely to suffer. These things, on the one hand, are certainly luxurious. If we shop carefully, we can get our sweaters and socks, machine-made, much more cheaply.

But these knitting and spinning supplies aren't expensive cars or fancy resort vacations, either. With the entertainment and fulfillment that they afford the hand-crafter and the beautiful and useful objects that result, their cost is modest for the value they provide. When belts tighten, perhaps we will go out less and busy ourselves more with homely and comforting things. Perhaps these are not luxuries but necessities.

Yes, I'm half-serious about wanting to help support these farms and artisans, small entrepreneurs and craftspeople, at a time when things may be slowing down a little. But it's nice when inclination and duty coincide so well.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece

For years, world's-most-patient-husband and I have spent much of July glued to the TV watching the drama of the stupendous 1200-mile Tour de France bicycle race unfold. I've also spent much of that time clicking away on my knitting. Of course, in the last year or two, I've also developed a certain attachment to spinning. You might have noticed. :)

So I was tickled when I happened upon Star Athena's Tour de Fleece a few weeks ago. It's spinning in the theme of the Tour de France, with personal challenges and like-minded company. I like spinning; I like watching the race; perfect! I joined her Tour de Fleece group in Ravelry right away. It's great fun to see what others are tackling as their Tour de Fleece spinning goals, from spinning for speed, to lace-weight, to tricky fibers, to art yarns in the spirit of the wild creations of Pluckyfluff.

There's another Tour de Fleece on the web as well, incidentally, Le Tour de Fleece. It appears they're both now in their third year. But Star Athena's version looks like the more easygoing of the two, with no urgent race to complete a goal before the bicyclers reach Paris, but just a pledge to spin every day and lots of opportunities to make it fun. That's clearly the one for me!

I laid my plans and did just a little advance preparation. Call it training. I decided to spin the other three colors of my foolish lump-bedeviled roving bargain. That will be the demanding terrain I have to get over. Having blended and spun the first three colors into the rustic Stormwatch yarn, which turned out better than it had any right to, I decided to spin the remaining three colors individually, and make a three-ply yarn of them.

And don't those pretty colors look innocent just sitting there? They give no clue of the lumpy soul that lurks within. There will be no picking out all those lumps. We will just have to transcend them like a hill stage on the Tour. Alpe de Nepp, you might call it.

I went ahead and tried spinning a bit of each color. I spun it more thinly than the singles for the Stormwatch yarn, partly because three plies will make a thicker yarn than two, and partly just to see if I could, with this bumpy stuff. Then I tried out plying the three strands together, a first-time experience. It didn't seem to go too badly. This is the little sample skein I would up with. Really, I quite like it.

With the three finer plies wrapped together, my sample seems to be something like a heavy worsted weight. I knit it, with US size 9 needles, if I remember aright, and wound up with this nicely tweedy swatch. Something about the mixture of colors and the visual texture makes me think of a Chanel-style jacket, so that may be what it's destined to be. French-inspired, so appropriate!

The challenges for me will be several. Spinning finer plies around the lumps. Spinning intentionally and consistently to the same gauge as my sample. Spinning every day (travel permitting). Getting the twist right and three-plying a balanced yarn.

So my training was done, and I just had to wait, staying away from spinning and champing at the bit with growing impatience, for the real Tour to start. When the time finally came this morning, Rastro and I were suited up and raring to go.

And we're off!

A Season of Storms

Today we had another in a string of violent summer thunderstorms, threatening trees and flickering the lights, and crashing grandly in the sky. I love to watch a storm. As long as where I am is safe, and no one is hurt, it's a beautiful thing to see, with the darkening light and the lightning bolts. And afterwards the sky scrubbed clean and little orphans of mist trailing among the hollows.

It's come earlier than normal; usually July and August bring the peak of the summer thunderstorms. But it's been the perfect season for working on the Stormwatch roving.

About a month ago, I was facing a mountain of roving that needed to be spun. I'd enjoyed the adventure of blending it on my drum carder, the Frumious Bandersnatch, once I got over the shock of how roughly the wool had evidently been treated at the mill where it was prepared. I loved how the blue, gray, and beige blended into a more complex color scheme. I'd named it Stormwatch because of its resemblance to a moody storm-torn sky.

When all the blending was done, it made a huge pile. I think I counted seventy little balls of roving. Even tamped down, it overflowed a bulging shopping bag. It seemed overwhelming. It perched atop my already-full spinning basket, looming over me in my spinning corner and glowering downward. I suppose you can't blame a storm for glowering, but still, sitting there in its shadow, I quaked.

As I couldn't think of any other way to placate it, I got to work and started spinning. I can't say it flew through the fingers, as lumpy and grabby as it was, but Rastro and I chipped away at it, day after day.

Sometimes we sang, to make the time pass. "Sixty-eight balls of roving in the bag, sixty-eight balls of roving, you take one down and spin it around, sixty-seven balls of roving in the bag." Well, maybe that wasn't such a great idea after all.

In a way, the fiber's very roughness set me free. It was a bracing experience for an overly careful and inexperienced spinner. Instead of meticulously controlling the thickness of the filament I spun, worrying when a few too many or too few fibers crept in, stopping and backing up to remove any slub that might dare appear, I knew such precision was a lost cause.

And there were delightful surprises here and there, like the occasional stray dash of contrasting color, like this bright purple. I actually began to wonder if the original blue, at least, had been intended as a tweed preparation, with little jots of purple and brick red and teal here and there. I welcomed the variation and spun away blithely, over nep, over slub, over hill and dale, never looking back, counting it all as part of the yarn's rustic charm.

And finally, I was rewarded with a bouquet of seventeen skeins of bold character.

An armload of storms! I feel like Thor in Valhalla, ready to cast down powerful lightning bolts.

Or maybe a cardigan.