Dye Workshop with Nancy Finn

Over this last weekend I got to take a dye workshop with Nancy Finn of Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks. It was quite an eye opening experience. I wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be to find the "right" colors. I don't even know what that means! I took the Second workshop first and skipped the First workshop, the one where you learn about the color wheel and make a sample book of colors. I'm really really in to this color thing, so in a few days, I'm going to start another fundraiser to take the first workshop. Even though I went into the workshop thinking I knew what I wanted, what colors I was going to try and achieve, when I actually sat down with the dye liquid, all my wants got confused and flew away. The results are, I think, amazing. I'm spinning the silk we did the first day, which I thought was going to be awful, but now I'm spinning it and I love it. Love. One of the harder parts of the whole thing was dyeing the the fiber I have left over from Helen, my first and most inspirational spinning teacher. I've been holding on to some of that stuff for years, in its natural colors. The color has inspired me to spin is, which is I think, what she would have wanted.

This is the silk dyed the first day in class. This is absolutely not what I was going for, but I love it!

Day 1 and morning of day 2. I've gotten pink down, K will be so pleased.

The purple is about half the merino/mohair blend I did over the weekend, and all that blue is the alpaca/mohair blend I got from Helen a few years ago. 

Lunch day 2, I realized I hadn't brought enough of my stash to take up a whole day. This is the whole class at lunch when I rushed home, grabbed what I had left behind and rushed back. Yay! 

This was a fun experiment... I spun both of these, on the left is a single spun grey Corriedale and on the right is a 2ply out of the (purple, above) mohair merino. I put them both in the same tray and lay them out together and painted them the same colors, and they look so different. Duh, though... they were totally different colors to start out with, plus, the way they each are spun totally reflects light differently... any way, those will be photographed again in better light and posted for sale in my etsy. someday. eventually.

One of the pink (surprise!) braids was commandeered by K who has possessed a fascination with the drum carder since it came into our house. So, I showed her how to separate the braid by color, then... we referred to the latest issue of Ply Magazine for the article Lacey (MoonRover... mmmm MoonRover...) wrote about how to card striped batts. Somewhere in the middle we snapped the band, and while waiting for it to cool, K became distracted by some dinosaur something and went off to play with Z.

Spinning the silk outside between rain drizzles and 10 second storms. 

The alpaca/mohair blend will be the primary fiber in a thank you sweater I'm making for my brother. When I took the spinning class awhile ago, he drove all the way here (3ish hours) to watch the kids for a day. Then, last weekend, while I was at the dye workshop, the family went to visit him, and he took the kids on a "playground crawl" while my parents were at costco. He deserves a sweater. The next step is find a suitable blend fiber to stretch this out enough for the whole project. 

So It's A Thing...

Starting in about a week, I will have handspun yarns, hand knits, and small woven items for sale in an Etsy shop called TwistedWillowFiberWork.

I'm really excited to be offering the things I love to make to people far away. It isn't perfect, at all, but each thing is I make is made because I love doing it. Even (especially) the projects that frustrate me and make me feel all thumbs leave me feeling a whole lot better at the end. When spinning yarn I hope someone else will knit with, I always hope whoever gets it loves working with the yarn as much as I loved working with the fiber. I hope whoever receives the final hat, or shawl, or monster, will feel all the love that went into it.

In some Yarn Harlot post years ago, she wrote that knit wear is like love armor, it wraps you in love and keeps you safe. Handspun knitwear is even stronger. Every level of love put into something shows in the end result. I don't want people to just buy my yarn because they love it, I want people to buy it, and love it, and pass it on with love, or keep it with love. 

Yarn is very much like love. Knitwear is very much like love armor.

But really I'm totally scared of bad reviews because all I have to take pics with is my iPhone.

Knitting. (you know you love it.)

The Queen Moebia... I think I took these pictures the first time it was frogged.  The pattern is a basic feather and fan repeat around the whole moebius shape, it's like knitting in a figure 8 with live stitches on both ends and the cast on row in the middle. It really is an amazing cast on, the Moebius, but for some reason, I cannot settle with this pattern. I love the yarn, Wanda gifted it to me after seeing it in her stash and knowing the colors are perfect for me (actually as I write this, I know just who will get it) and I LOVE the yarn! I really enjoy the cast on, I should since I am currently on the 6th attempt at defeating this pattern. At first I thought I might like it better if the "bottom" portion were a plain stockinette stitch, but then that was lame, so, I started over. Then I thought I'd try a purl version of the same feather and fan, but that was also lame, then there were a few more attempts at changing the pattern, and last but not least there were several craptastic attempts at simply casting on at knit night last week before I succeeded in starting the fucking thing a sixth time and am now well on my way to finishing it. Finally. But I still don't know if I like it. 

Pro Tip- Learn the technique used before trying to change the pattern. I've never seen a Moebius in real life, so I have no idea how it is Supposed to look. 

Hetty's Sunday Cuffs are not the problem, I am. Why do I try to get fancy with the patterns? Do I think I know so much that I can just go against the very logical and well thought out instructions of the professionals? What am I thinking. I love the yarn (what can I say? I love yarn), more of the same hand spun I used for the collar, with some hand spun silk to stretch the wool and add some color. I thought I would change the lace pattern around the  wrist, so I pulled back and reknit with my idea of what it should be, but I think I hate it and love the pattern as is and so I need to pull this back too. But that's ok, I have new pearl stitch markers from Wanda so it'll at least look amazing.

silk picot edge with wool cuff inside

 

close up of lace pattern... that is the pattern with a different M1, it is far better to the total improvisation I came up with.