Pictures from this week, and 3 lessons

When one finds oneself without a car and places to go, one walks. 

When ones hose gets a hole in it, one might water 2 beds. 

When one weaves ones web below the flowering plum tree, one catches petals, not flies. 

More Twisted Willow Fiber...

I've been selling handspun yarn at the Mendocino Yarn Shop and I'm going to be teach my first drop spindle class there! I'm still reluctant to post more things to etsy, my camera phone simply doesn't capture the colors well enough. I'm calling my yarn Twisted Willow Fiberworks, and I've changed my blog address accordingly. I'm really nervous about teaching a class, but it'll be fun. Here are some pictures of some yarn.

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.

Best Dog Ever

So, because of all the talk of these August meteorite showers, I got the romantic idea into my head that I would wake Bean in the middle of the night to watch shooting stars in this mother-daughter bonding moment. I shook her gently, "my love! Let's go watch shooting stars!" She stretched out and curled her toes into her dog's fur and mumbled, "mommy, I'm sick." And her dog licked her toes and they went back to sleep. I went out to the hot tub and saw four clear and bright shooting stars. 

Some Stuff. (with pictures)

This is 8 ounces of Navajo Churro singles waiting to be dyed different colors then ply'd with the other 16oz I still have to spin. Yay. 

This gorgeous thing came home with me recently. Yay. This is a Cowichan (Indian Head) Spinner on an old Singer sewing machine base. It spins suuuuper chunky yarn and since the bobbin is the most jumbo thing I've ever seen, I think this will make a phenomenal plying wheel. 

I use it as a table for my loom... and coffe and knitting and......

Farmer's market and Eat Mendocino (if you're into food sustainability you should totally google Eat Mendocino) LOVE!!! 

We've done tons of exploring this summer. Many car trips and many many walks. No matter the weather, these guys are pretty much almost game for whatever their crazy momma dreams up. 

Like hitting the Sand Dunes on the coldest, most overcast day in July. They had a blast and I knit. It was a win win. 

Awesome. 'Nuff said. 

A homesteaders old canning room. Creeeepyyyy

My latest knitting project, my beloved Cowichan, and Great Mustaches. 

To be continued. 

 

Working

Hi everyone. I have no idea if anyone still comes here but I swear I'm coming back. And soon. I've been building my stock of meditation yarns and experiments and practice weaves, playing with these beautiful children, and finding a way to fit our little family into the household routine. Huz's album dropped on iTunes, I'll be posting a link to the album this week (every sale goes to yarn, or... you know, life expenses). The video for the first single is dropping this weekend and we're all super stoked. The kids and I have traveled to and from my grandmothers house in Sonora 3 times and LA twice. 

It's amazing how all this time has passed, but really ya no time at all. 

Stay tuned. Leave comments. Get ready for yarn spam.