Quality Time

OK -- so what is new around The Verb for Keeping Warm house? I have not had enough quality time with Maia's drum carder. I know that for sure. This is what I have made so far:




Content: merino, bluefaced leicester, and silk. Gotta love some silk.

Stay tuned to see how it spins. Otherwise, around these parts we have been busy dyeing more yarn and fiber. We just created a new platform for averbforkeepingwarm.com store. Hopefully, this will make adding new products easier and faster. I literally have pounds of beautifully dyed fiber no one knows about. Hello? That's silly. We are going to work on the website this weekend. Fingers crossed, we will have it running by the end of next week. Let me tell you, if everything goes as planned, this change in website maintenance will eliminate hours of potential therapy Adrienne and I would have to attend under the current website circumstances.

Also, I don't think that I mentioned that I joined Etsy and started selling A Verb for Keeping Warm products there too. There platform is so damn easy and affordable. And, the other artists selling there make such beautiful things. So much creativity and good company! I have to say that Aija has had a large influence over this decision. I love her Etsy Fridays and the artists she features.

Otherwise, I am in the process of receiving lots of delicious new yarn and fiber: merino/ silk blends, tussah, and yak to name a few. I was so excited to receive these that I literally fell down the stairs. Hydroplaned. I was running up to our porch to see if the package had arrived. When I saw that it had not, I ran down the stairs, hydroplaned, and before I knew it landed on my a**. Ouch. But that couldn't stop me from winding skeins and dyeing more... of course with a little lifting help from Adrienne.

I hope everyone out there is having a beautiful Autumn day!

Hide your fiber!

Because I am on a rampage and may put it through my drum carder. Listen to me, calling it mine. I was at my friend, Maia's today. She is on her way to Rhinebeck and has graciously loaned me her Patrick Greene drum carder.

The Beast:


My practice batt: merino, silk, carbonized bamboo, silk noils.


Have you ever seen a drop spindle look so happy?


Navajo-plied.



Knitty bo bits.

Maia better watch out I may hold this little beast for ransom until my lil' lady coughs one up! My birthday (30th) is coming up... In the meantime, thanks Maia.

Flicking Wool

What could be better than sitting outside on a warm Californian afternoon hand carding newly washed fleece and drop spinning? Maybe sitting on an island. Other than that, not much.

Last Sunday, I went ot Fleece Day at Deep Color studio. We leared how to choose a good fleece, wash it, flick it, card it, and drop spin it. I am pleased that after a year and a half of spinning, I am able to now focus on the intricacies of the different kinds of wool and their individual charachteristics.

I learned two important things when shopping for a fleece: buy a fleece that has little vegetation stuck in it and has been sheared recently.



We washed mystery fleece from Sonoma County, Romney from Australia, and Icelandic fleece from Tongue River Farm in Montana. Pictured above from left to right. We spun these as well as brown Polwarth (my personal favorite) and Finn.

I acquired a new tool called a flick carder. It is similar to an animal brush but has a longer handle -- thankfully making it harder to put a hole in your knuckle. You use the flick carder after you have washed the fleece in order to get out any small bits of debris before you start carding.

A year ago, I took a slightly shortend version of this class. I thought to myself, "I'd have to be crazy to go through all of these steps". Well, times have changed. I am getting closer to the idea of moving out to the country and taking the time to process my own wool. Now the question becomes -- Do I have my own animals or buy from local ranchers?

We are so inspired by Fleece Day that we have asked my mom to fly out from Minnesota to take a road trip to The Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon. Stay tuned to see how we put our skills to the test.