Craft Fair

One of the towns closest to me is hosting a craft fair.  They want the focus to be on the craft and demonstrating how to do it, instead of filling space with pampered chef stalls.  There is nothing wrong with Pampered Chef, but many craft fairs get overrun by vendors selling items they had no hand in making which makes people not want to attend. 
This craft fair will have polymer clay jewelry and demonstrations on how to make it, stained glass with some demos, hardinger lace, rose malling, many other artisans, and it will also have me.  I am trying to work out space.  I have not been able to pin down what size space I will have, but, for sure I will bring my 2 spinning wheels.  I will have the Reeves wheel for me to demo and the Joy for others to try out.  My mother is learning how to use the drop spindle, so she will be there showing people how to spin with that.  We will have 13 drop spindles for sale and for demonstrating.  I also plan on having a basket of Suffolk wool and a pair of hand cards for children to sit and card, but that will depend on the space I have. 
The other things I want to have, but I am not sure there will be space is my drum carder.  My 2 youngest children know how to work it and would prepare special batts for people who want to try their hand at combining colors and fibers.  I also want to bring my English Combs that I would bring our at the top of the hour to demonstrate how to comb fiber.  They are too scary of a tool to leave out. 
We will also have fiber, yarn, pelts, and noils for sale along with the spindles.

This is quite a project.  I have never done this before, but I think it is a great opportunity to get people interested in spinning and wool.  I have a ton of prep to do to get ready.  I don't think I have enough fiber or knit items for display.  I am looking forward to it and apprehensive because this is not only new to me, but, also to the people who are putting this on.

Socks? Never Say Never

I never thought I would ever knit a pair of socks.  I mean, what a waste?  I can buy them cheap and they get holes in them and worn out really fast.  Right?  Well, with the closing of my favorite yarn shop, I bought some pretty sock yarn (Alpaca Sox by Classic Elite).  Then I searched for a free sock pattern on Ravelry and found the Artichoke socks by Megan Humphrey.  I went back and forth between the socks and Rosebud's Zauberball dress

 and finally finished them in 2 weeks. 

These are the softest, warmest socks I have ever worn.  My toes are always cold, even in the summer, but yesterday, wearing these socks, my feet and toes felt as warm as they do burried in warm sand at the beach.  Now, I am not the most consistant person in the world, probably the least, so the thought of handwashing these socks does not really bother me now, but a few weeks from now??? I don't know.  Anyways, I loved them so much that I went back and bought the rest of the Alpaca Sox yarn and purchased a book by Cookie A. .  She is famous for her sock designs, in the knitting world, and I have already begun the first pattern in the book.   

Indiski times 2

I am working on a traditional Russian shawl.  These shawls are supposed to be so fine that you can pull them through a woman's ring.  They are also knit on both sides, so they are reversible.  I decided to do two at a time because working with the cashmere in cobweb weight yarn was very difficult.  The pattern is not readily seen while you are knitting unless you pin it out as I have here.  Mistakes can happen easily, so I wanted to make sure I was familiar with the pattern.  I decided to use some hand spun merino, from my flock, in a light fingering weight.  So far, I love working on the merino and I may turn it into a large blanket for my bed.  The cashmere has not been enjoyable at all, but I look at it as an exercise in patience.  I hope no one ever asks me to knit them a veil, or if they do, they give me 10 years to complete it.  This is brutal.  I know I want to have this as an accomplishment of mine and that is why I am working on it.  Age will not make this any easier.  Still, it is beautiful.

I have looked at this book and they have some good patterns for this type of lacework.  The pattern I am knitting from comes from Piecework.  This magazine is nice to look at, but I rarely find things I want to do.  I picked mine up at the library and the pattern says you can photocopy the charts, so I did.  The library is one of my favorite resources for patterns and ideas, second to Ravelry.

Knitting

Wisteria is reworking nicely and it looks plenty roomy. I am using hand spun from my sheep.
After making one of these for a niece, Amanda said she wanted one. I am doing hers on larger needles so I will get a larger shawl. I may also do another few repeats in the pattern so it is large enough.
This yarn is a hand spun that I made from Ashland Bay 100% merino top in cranberry.
I had a load of Moda Dea Tweedle Dee Acrylic and wool yarn. I do not really like using acrylic, it hurts my hands, but I wanted to use this up. I decided to turn it all into scarves. I learned how to block acrylic in the process which was very cool. I have a few more to go. I am making one fat and one skinny version of each color. I like the way the scarves turned out and I may sell them on etsy, not sure. I would probably list them for $18-$25.


This one is my favorite.
A niece is having a birthday soon, so I decide to make her a sleeveless, mini dress version in Blue Sky Alpaca's organic cotton. This is very soft stuff and has a lovely sheen, but I think cotton is a lot more tender of a yarn than wool.
I may have to knit up a little purse to match, I'm not sure yet, though. I got a pale pink in the same yarn in case I wanted to make an accessory.

Another purse

I finished working on the 2 owl sweaters and I had enough of the Cascade Eco Wool to make this purse. Since I prefered the look of crochet to knitting in these felted purses, that is what I did here. This will be up on etsy sometime this week.

Dyeing

For Christmas my mother got me 2 dye kits:

I am excited to get going on this new project soon.

Little Owls

After I completed my Owls sweater I had a little more than one skein left of the Cascade Eco Wool (color shown is 9451) and my middle child wanted a sweater just like mine. So, here it is.
I finished this at about 11:30 PM, folded it, and put it by her bed. She found it in the morning and promptly put it on. I made it long so she could wear it for a couple of years. The sleaves are extra long as well, we just folded the cuffs over for this year.

For approximately $45 I purchased 3 skeins. I was able to make the XL (42" bust) version of this sweater and the XS version. I still have enough left over for either a felted clutch or as my favorite second cousin says, an ear brassier.

On and Off the Needles

Owls, I am working on a sleeve and have the body complete to the point of cabling. The yarn is Cascade Eco Wool, very economical.
Wisteria, completed, knit from Mary, Na-Na, and Cindy Lou roving processed by Zwool and spun by me. This is sooooooooooooo soft. The softest wool I have ever touched.

Another purse for felting. This one will have lots of pockets and compartments. The yarn is hand spun by me from Ashland Bay merino roving in Daffodil bought at Paradise Fibers.

My Orenberg lace shawl. I decided to switch to my one ply hand spun. I pinned it out so the pattern was more visible, but when I block it, I will not stretch it as much. I really like this pattern, but at the rate I am going it will be done by the time my last child moves out and gets married. He is 8.

Lots of projects, but I have found that I need to have a variety of things to work on. The purse is pretty much just knit in the dark in the passenger seat. It is amazing what one can get done in short drives and waiting rooms. People who tell me, "oh, I could never find time to do that, I am far too busy." are so wrong, they have no idea how much time they waste just waiting and doing nothing. The Owls sweater is really for me, but it may fit my daughter better, I will have to see. It is a very simple pattern that can be knit while having a conversation. I think this will come with me to Christmas parties. The lace, however, take a lot of concentration and focus (for me, at least).

Finished purse

This purse was knit and then folded over in the opposite direction of the knit. I do like the results that crochet gives much better, but this is really cute too.

Felted Purses

After knitting my scarf, I had 3/4 of a skein left of my hand spun. I decided to play around with it and I started crocheting a rectangle. I thought, "this might make a cute purse and I know a little girl whose birthday is coming up..." So, I made the purse and it sat, and sat, and sat. Months later, this week to be exact, I decided to felt it. My little man threw it in the wash twice and this cute little thing popped out.
I added a glass bead so it could button closed and then I had another thought, "Oh my, her birthday is long gone and she has a sister, I can't give it to her now and not give her sister something." I told my husband my dilemma and he said, "you better get knitting you have 1 week."
So, today I found a skein I made from 2 half skeins and I began to knit. 11PM and I am done. It looks very sad, but I know this ugly duckling will have a new life from the washing machine.

For those wondering how I did this...

Take a skein of wool (or a little less). Fine wool felts the best (I used merino). [Wool is not: mohair, angora, alpaca, cotton, acrylic etc. Wool is a product of sheep.]

Knit or crochet a rectangle.

With the same yarn, sew up the sides leaving a visually pleasing amount of knit fabric to flop over and be the flap of the purse.

To make the strap you can crochet a chain or braid it.

Make sure you make everything large enough to allow for at least 30% shrinkage.

Toss the purse in the wash a few times until it looks pleasing and is stiff enough to be a purse (it took my crochetted version 2 washings).
Do not worry about the type of stitch you use. A plain garter or single crochet works the best. The felting has a tendancy to make any design disappear. Some will stay, but for the most part, you ill not see little fancy stitches.

After it is felts, I cut off the unwanted strings, sewed a bead on, and cut a hole for the bead to pop through (don't cut this hole too big or it will not hold the purse closed).

Diamond lace scarf

This scarf took me FOREVER!!! First I spun lace weight singles and then I knit right from the bobbin. I love it, though. It is for sale in my etsy shop.

Etsy

I just added items to my new Etsy shop. Some of them are on the side bar.

I was procrastinating about it, but a lady from town asked me to bring some of my hand spun to her home last weekend because she was participating in the town wide craft / boutique fair. Well, I had to get everything labeled and in a hurry. Procrastination, over. I will add new items in a few days, but I am testing the waters right now.

Etsy has pretty fair listing policies. You pay $0.20 for each item listed and when it sells you pay a percentage of the sale to them. If it does not sell, you owe them nothing. Let me know what you think.

Brown Eggs vs White Eggs

From the top left corner going clockwise: brown egg dyed blue, white egg dyed blue, brown egg dyed blue and then red

Left: white egg dyed yellow, brown egg dyed yellow

I prefer the brown eggs. The red dyed eggs were red instead of pink when using a brown egg.

Some knitting

This will be a wide scarf. It is made from handspun 100% alpaca.


This is a cardigan for the lovely Amanda. I am using a bamboo and acrylic yarn so it can be washed in the machine.

Pot Holder

Here are 2 pictures of the pot holder I finished yesterday. You can slide your hand inside it and use it like a mit (it might be too thin for that, though).

The Coats

To make the coats for sheep, I first take a nice sturdy cotton material like canvas or denim. I measure my sheep (not each time, but the first time). I take their back (neck to rump)measurement and I measure how big around they are from one side to the other. I add a little bit (about 2") to that measurment so their fleece has room to grow. I take a neck measurment and add quite a bit to it so I can get the coat over their head. I transfer all of my measurments to the canvas and commence cutting the rectangle, don't forget to make it longer so you can sew X and X together to make a hole for the neck. You can take the neck cut-out, trim it down, and use it for the tail flap. I use binding on all of the edges so they do not unravel and I sew (tack) triangles into all of the inside corners and tripple sew the neck area (any place where there may be a lot of stress).

I know this sounds complicated, but it really is not. It is just a rectangle with an oval cut out of one end and moved to the other end.

After I am done with that, I sew thick elastic to the two rear corners about 3" from each side. I make sure I set them into the rectangle at least 2 inches and sew them down good. They will be pulled on quite a bit. Do not make the elastic too long or it will slip, don't make it too short or it will pull on the sheep all of the time. Slip your arm in the hole up to your bicept and it should fit slightly loose.

Ram coats are a little different if they have horns. I add at least 1 foot to the lenghth of the neck flaps and then I sew D rings on and a nylon strap so I can put the coat on the ram and then close the neck area. It is like a wrap in front.

You can also purchase coats from Powell Sheep Company (760) 789-1758. They will be nicer than this design, but they both work well. It would be a good idea to get one (torn and used is fine) and use it for a pattern like I did. I bought a terribly used one at a wool show for $4.

Good luck!

For those who wonder why I and many others coat their sheep, it is to keep the wool clean. Studies have shown that not only is the wool cleaner, it also gets slightly longer. The coats do not make the sheep hot, unless you are wrapping them in something that does not breathe. If they get wet, they keep the wool drier and they dry faster than the wool would dry. Coated fleeces cost more money because of the extra labor involved (they need to be changed every so often), but they are much easier to process. There have been reports that coated sheep do not suffer as many attacks from predators as uncoated sheep, perhaps the sound of the material or the look of it diverts the predators to more "normal" looking prey.

The 4-Ply Cable Yarn

The blue yarn pictured is very soft, 100% merino from Ashland Bay in Baltic.

This is the yarn I am using for one of the sweaters I am making. To create it, you first spin 2 full bobbins of singles in one direction (S). You then ply them in the opposite direction (Z). Then you ply your 2 bobbins of 2 ply in the original direction (S). There it is, S or Z makes no difference, as long as you alter the direction of spin as I stated. It is pretty simple.

My singles are very fine here. I can spin 5-10' of one-ply this fine in 1 minute. Each bobbin has a little more than 4 oz on it and about 1700 yards. At a rate of 100-200 yards an hour 4 ounces of that one ply takes me 9-17 hours. The plying takes hardly any time, though. Thankfully!

This is the prime reason hand spun yarns are so expensive. They are great to work with if done correctly, but the cost of labor is high. I would charge $10 an hour plus the cost of the fiber (about $3-$4 an ounce). A lot of handspun is bulky weight for this reason as well. Bulky takes less time to spin. I have a difficult time spinning fiber in different diameters than it "wants" to be spun, however. Each type of fiber has different characteristics that call your hands to spin in a different way. The handspun from Kodiak (picutered in the banner) is about 1/3 as fine as this yarn. If I try and spin contrary to what the fiber wants my yarn gets uneaven.

I got misty eyed

My new Strauch Drum Carder came last week. I actually got a little choked up.

I had to try it out right away.
Oh my goodness, this was like cotton with one pass through! I love my sheep! I love love love my sheep!

Knitting update

Locks from 2 of my merinos. The brown is a 16.7 micron. I have not tested the white, but it is finer than the brown. The white will be spun and died orange for a sweater I am looking forward to doing soon.

I am finally ready to begin the v-neck part of this sweater. It is looking really nice. I think it would make a great tank dress for one of the girls, but I am putting 3/4 sleeves on it and it is made for me. Sorry girls.

This is the yarn I am going to use for my next sweater project. I am going to ply this 2-ply with another 2-ply so it is the right diameter yarn. It is 100% merino Baltic roving from Ashland Bay and I spun it very fine and plied it once only to find out that it needs another 1/3 in thickness to be able to make my next project.

Making soap

I am in the process of making soap. The first step is rendering the lard. I cut up 28 pounds of lard (I have 16 more to go) and put it in pots to liquify. I cooked it util most of the water was gone and then I strained it and put the lard in buckets with ice water to rapidly cool it and clarify it further. After it solidified, I melted it again and cooked it until the thermometer read 225 degrees F. Here are a few photos of the process.