Fiber Crazy at Camp Vejar

We've had a very exciting week over here at Camp Vejar. We built a mini-sweatshop. About two weeks ago, our friends Maia and Brooke offered us the opportunity to sell our fiber and yarn in their booth, Sincere Sheep, at California Wool and Fiber. This festival takes place in Boonville which is about 2 1/2 hours north of here. As to be expected, I was delighted and accepted their offer without much thought. Well, I have this part of my personality which goes into overdrive. Some may call it ambitious. I guess therapists may call it compulsive. Anyway, before I know it, I am in the midst of mordanting about 20 lbs of wool. The kitchen is completely trashed with dyes and pots and wet wool. The bathtub too. Adrienne is really an angel. It was kind of like camping but in our house.

The highlight of the week, after 8 days of straight dyeing, came when Adrienne took the bread out of the fridge to make toast, and said "Gee honey, there's even cochineal on the bag of bread". I, in the midst of dyeing, glance briefly over my shoulder, and say "um yeah". Thinking that it is like a drip or something and that she is overreacting. She puts the bread back in the fridge. A few minutes later I go open the fridge to look for some OJ. And, find "the accident".

I had made a titration of cochineal (beetlejuice), poured it into a Ball jar, and placed at the back of the fridge. For some strange reason, the fridge froze the cochineal, turned it into a cochineal icecube, which cracked the glass, and cochineal was _all_ over the fridge. Including in the veggie drawers, under the veggie drawers, etc. There really was cochineal all over the bread.

Point being, we accomplished alot. Here, is a glimpse of the work table.


I have to say I am really proud of our work. Michelle - thank you for helping me out!

70 Alpaca/ 30 Silk. Yarn perfect for shawl lovers. I did not want to part with this yarn.


Superwash Merino Sock Yarn in colorways Kyoto, the Revolution, and Trixie.


Bluefaced Leicester Sock Yarn -- sorry about the poor quality photo.


Wish these kids luck in the world, may they be beautiful socks, scarves, shawls, etc.

Out in the garden, we have more exciting things happening. Dye plants are growing like weeds! I love them. They are so beautiful.


Dyer's Coreopsis

Cosmos

Shungiku Edible Chrysanthemum

Adrienne is taking 2 horticulture classes. One of them is about building a greenhouse. And, she is going to grow another dye garden at school. Hopefully, in the next couple weeks, we will have some yarn and fiber dyed from our garden to share with you.

Come one! Come all! Handspun Yarn & Hand Dyed Roving!

Hello -- I am happy to announce my offering of beautiful hand spun yarn and hand dyed roving at our new online store: A Verb for Keeping Warm.com. Right now, we have a great selection of fibers in stock: merino, merino/silk, corriedale, and bluefaced leicester.

In the upcoming months, we will be working hard on expanding our company to include our first line of naturally dyed 100% merino yarn, naturally dyed roving, and dyestuffs like madder, indigo, fustic, and cochineal. We will also be expanding our list of fibers to include cashmere and alpaca.

Email me your contact information and I will send you upcoming store specials and updates. Thanks for stopping by!

Black Sheep Gathering: Washed fleece and spun locks.

We have been very busy around here. Washing (which may have to join the list of verbs to keep warm), flicking, spinning, and washing again. I can not wait to knit these into swatches.

From left to right: targhee, shetland, shetland (I have left the guard hairs in both shetland), coopsworth/romney, and ramboulliet. Out of all of the samples, I love them all, but I especially love the Ramboulliet. It feels like velvet. Sometimes the color looks dark grey and sometimes chocolate brown. I defintely see a sweater in the future.

All 1oz samples have been spun from the lock with a mainly worsted draw. I find spinning from the lock somewhat frustrating. Funny enough, while most people learn how to draft worsted, I learned to draft over the fold with a long draw. The over the fold draw is great because its brings alot of air into the yarn making it very lofty and soft but soemtimes it is nice to have a tighter, slicker yarn. Also, I am used to spinning from top or roving. I decided to try and perfect my worsted draw because I would really love to use these yarns to make a cable sweater and I would really like those cables to pop. Needless to say, this experiment has been a challenge, trying to maintain the proper worsted drafting method, feeding a similiar and continuous amount of fibers into the drafting triangle and so on.

My next program will be to spin each type of fiber from a carded rolag. And to spin the shetland without the guard hairs. Onto the next topic, the new additions to my stash:

Lynne Vogel has hand dyed this beautiful blend of 60% merino/40% bamboo.


This is my first top up sock. I picked up this yarn from the Blue Moon Fibers booth. As you can see, there is another skein of Blue Moon hanging out in the background.



You might say "What on earth?" But I ask for you to with hold your judgement. Yes, the colors are in athestetic nightmare. But, these were done entirely on a drop spindle. I have to add that I have hated my drop spindle for the past years and am very proud to announce that I have a new warm and friendly relationship with my drop spindle. And, the even cooler aspect of these socks, is that they were knit as I spun, thus, they are made from energized singles. The close up photo is meant to show you the singles slanting. Energized singles give you a very elastic and springy sock. The only other cool piece of information that I can add is that these socks were plant dyed. Oh, and they actually fit my feet. Something, that I have not been so successful at in the past.


Here, we have a photo of my sad little indigo shawl. I started using a pattern from the Folk Shawls book. You know, I really don't think I like this book. Every shawl I try, I just don't like. What's a girl to do? Well, she goes out and buys A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker. And, she makes up her own pattern. Swatching starts soon. I am feeling a watery, an ocean theme perhaps.

I'd like to introduce you to my spinning wheel.

This is my Schacht double treadle spinning wheel (double drive) and my little dachshund Cleo. I loooove them both. I started spinning about a year and a half ago and it has changed my life. It takes the creative process way beyond finding a pattern and knitting it. By spinning, you now have control over the type of fiber you knit with and a greater range of color.



Here is a sampling of handspun yarns I have made. Most of it is merino. The blue is an indigo dyed blend of tussah/ merino.


And then there are hand carders and the wonderful art of hand-blending fibers and colors.
The brown ball is natural color polworth hand carded from the fleece for a scarf. And the colorful knit sample represents work from a color carding class.


Last summer, I learned to spin cotton. The carmel color on the left of the sample is grown naturally in this color. It was fabulous to work with. This is when I acquired my high speed bobbin and learned how to treadle really fast. A must to spin cotton.


Along with trying to explore new knitting techniques, I have also dedicated time to explore color. These are some of the samples I have made... what do you think?

Natural Dyes: Our First Attempt Is Successful!

Well, we are happy to report that our yarn came out beautifully. The array of color we obtained is amazing. I really did not expect to get this many colors from three dyes.

Starting from the left, we have 2 skeins dyed with madder. The orange color was obtained by mixing a 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar with the madder. The next two skeins were dyed with onion skins. We think that the use of red onion skins created more of a chartreuse color. The dark blue grey skeins were made with the logwood grey and the last purple skein was made by mixing madder and logwood grey. We put a paste mixture of 1/2 tsp of logwood grey in the bottom of the jar, put the wool in, and placed a paste mixture of 1/2 tsp of madder on top of the wool.


Next, I am going to create a dye notebook, start recording and analyzing our results. And of course, plan our next dyeing adventure.