(NOTE: Spoiler alert ... below is a photo of the February Knitting Club yarn, Sunna, on its way now ... so don't scroll to the bottom if you don't want to see it).

Busy times around here these days.

In between club dyeing, and wholesale dyeing, I started spinning the batts from my new drumcarder (see below), and am loving the fluffy fiberiness. But then I got sidetracked by Clara's Woolalong and the subsequent Woolympics project ~ spinning February's wool, Cormo, during the Olympics. So, now I'm going to finish this bobbin of batts, and change over to the decadent Cormo/Silk Handspinner's Sliver I purchased from Barbara at last year's Knitter's Review Retreat. I bought a pound (because my motto is Why buy a little, when you can buy alot?), and am hoping to spin it to use for a lightweight, short-sleeved sort of top that I can wear alone, or with a long sleeved teeshirt underneath. We shall see how it goes ... best laid plans and all.

Before I post the spoiler photo (because I want to make sure it's far enough down on the page that it isn't visible without scrolling), here are some photos of a few of the things I accomplished for Christmas last year:


Jackson and Caragh in their Kathryn Alexander hats. Love these hats.


Bruce's hat and fingerless mitts set. Knitted with Sunna in a non-repeating brown/blue colorway, held double, with handspun tan alpaca and green cashmere/silk. The hat design is my own (I love doing hats and just making it up as I go along, and have done so many of these, all different, that I've lost count). Bruce is an accomplished photographer, so fingerless mitts are just the ticket (especially with the winter we're having in Virginia).


Moebius and mitts for Bruce's wife, Susan. These are knitted in my yarn, Minerva (50/50 merino/bombyx silk), Antique Tapestry.

And last but not least, this is the Sunna yarn on its way to Knitting Club Members now:

It's a vibrant blend of blues and greens, with a hint of purple ... sort of a royal blue/purple, deep, vibrant green and softer, sort of slate blue. These colors are completely new, never been mixed (by me) before. It looks great on the shimmery Sunna yarn.

I don't have a name for this colorway yet, so maybe that will be the first club contest, to win some extra yarn in this colorway ~ name the colorway ... stay tuned to the STF Ravelry Group for more details. Once everyone has received their yarn I'll post the contest details to win more (I think I have 6-8 extra skeins here).

Ok, so some of you know that after SOAR this past Fall and taking a class with Deb Menz, I purchased a Patrick Green Drumcarder (I had been wanting one, and thinking about it on and off for about 5 years) (I bought the Happy Hybrid, btw ... basically the Deb's Delux but with two speeds). I really wanted the electric, but decided to be sensible and buy a manual until I see how much I really use it.

I had a chance to play with it in late December, and carded up some wonderful batts ... and actually got photos of the process ... I had hoped to have a sample spun before writing a post about this but, alas, I haven't had time. This is to be my Olympics spinning project, and with 18 batts at 1 to 1-1/2 ounces each, it should be plenty for a nice sweater.

So, I started first with a couple of dyed blends I had around the house. One I purchased, one I dyed quite a while ago. They were compatible colors, and I had decided that I didn't really want to spin either one of them as a variegated yarn, so they were perfect for this first experiment. The fiber on the left is bluefaced leicester top; the one on the right is polwarth.

I divided each of them into their respective colors, and divided each color into 16 equal parts (yes, I did actually cut them with scissors ... just to see what would happen ... the result was a little nepping here and there, but nothing horribly obnoxious). Then I made 16 bundles with one of each color. I think there were 16 colors, too.

First pass on the drumcarder looked like this:


I wanted it more blended, so another pass through the carder ...

Better, but I wanted it even more homogenous, so a third pass through the drumcarder ...

Three passes resulted in exactly what I was looking for: perfect, fluffy batts of a basically homogenous color, but with hints here and there of the original colors ...

A Basketfull of Beautious Batts:

And, for better perspective, here is the basket in front of my Lendrum Saxony. Just waiting for me to come and play (the color of the batts is shown better in the above photo than this one) ...

I love my Patrick Green drumcarder! This is such a well-made piece of equipment. I'm definitely looking forward to more color experiments along the lines of what I learned in Deb's class ~ I bought some really pretty white merino top from Zeilinger's last year that they had processed from some American Merino fleece they purchased (they showed it to me, knowing full well that I'm hopeless and can't resist much, and of course I bought 2 pounds). I'm planning to card this white with some other colors of merino top I have, into batts with varying depths of shade for a cool colorwork project.

Having a drum carder really opens up a whole new world of color possibility.

Stay tuned for yarn photos, later.

Shall we liken Christmas to the web in a loom? There are many weavers, who work into the pattern the experience of their lives. When one generation goes, another comes to take up the weft where it has been dropped. The pattern changes as the mind changes, yet never begins quite anew. At first, we are not sure that we discern the pattern, but at last we see that, unknown to the weavers themselves, something has taken shape before our eyes, and that they have made something very beautiful, something which compels our understanding.

-- Earl W. Count, 4,000 Years of Christmas

******

Since arriving home from the wonderful KR Retreat (check out Clara's excellent retreat photo album for a taste of all the fun), I've been busy getting ready for the Holidays.

This year, I am knitting several smallish presents for our kids ~ each will get a pair of merino/angora socks, and also a Kathryn Alexander hat (her hat kits are so much darn fun to knit!). No photos of anything, yet, but one pair of socks is finished, the second is half finished, and one hat is on the last section of the crown. So, I'm feeling good about these stocking stuffers, and will post photos after Christmas.

I'd also like to get 3 or 4 pair of fingerless gloves knitted for friends, as well as another pair of cashmere mittens. These may end up being New Year's presents, though, depending on how it goes.

I'm busy working on 4 wholesale orders, going out to Carolina Homespun, The Loopy Ewe, Knitty Couture in St. Louis, MO and Village Yarn & Tea in Washington State.

I've also finalized the 2010 Knitting and Spinning Club offerings, which I think are going to be really great. The spinning club will include 2 fibers I don't usually do: 50/50 cashmere/silk (Morgaine at Carolina Homespun is the only shop who sells this) and mixed brown/white bluefaced leicester top, because I like how it takes dyes (it's not superwash, though ... so there will be a choice between this and the superwash variety).

The knitting club will also feature two yarns I don't usually sell: a beautiful 4 ply DK weight 100% cashmere, and 100% superwash bluefaced leicester fingering weight yarn. Both are really lovely and take dye beautifully.

So, if anyone is interested in receiving the announcement with the pre-release subscription link (to subscribe to the clubs before the link goes "live" to the internet), sign up for my announcement over to the right. The club announcements are scheduled to go out January 1, 2010. Pricing is about the same as last year.

I have a whole slew of fleeces on their way to me now, too. Lots from Great Britain ~ Ouessant, Masham, Castlemilk Moorit, Boreray, Shropshire, Portland. And from the US are bluefaced leicester, Teeswater, variegated Wensleydale X, black rambouillet, rambouillet lamb, CVM/Romeldale, Shetland and Icelandic. And a very large order of Polwarth from the Falkland Islands, in the hopes that I will have enough to actually post it on the website (the luxury blend of Polwarth with cashmere, alpaca, yak and baby camel sold out by 2 pm on Sunday at Rhinebeck this past October; I do have some of the dyed Polwarth available and will be posting it soon).

If there's a fiber you'd like to try or are interested in, leave it in the comments and I'll add it to my List of Fibers to Find.

Other than this, I am working to get my website moved over to a new shopping cart, which is proving to not be as easy and smooth as I had hoped (of course). And somewhere in here, hopefully sooner than later, I'll be dyeing up a new batch of "Sunna" to post to the site.

And, what I'm most excited about, my new Pat Green drumcarder is on its way to me now! I purchased the Happy Hybrid, which is sort of like the electrified model without the electricity. Two speeds, that is. I went back and forth between electric and manual, and decided to go with the manual first to see how much I actually use it. If I find I really like to drumcard as much as I enjoyed it at SOAR, I may decide to do some small batches of rare breed batts to sell and will most likely purchase the electric model. This has always been something I've considered, because it would allow me to do smaller batches of different blends and colors than I can do when sending the fibers out to a mill for processing. So, we shall see how it goes.

Hoping everyone's Holidays are safe, happy and all around splendid!

It's been a whirlwind month ... first Rhinebeck, which was awesome (as always). Good friends, good times. I'm always so sad when Rhinebeck is over, and I have to wait another whole year for it to happen again. Now I'm gearing up to head to the Knitter's Review Retreat next week. But, before I do, I've managed to snap some photos of some of my recent projects!

I was home for three days after Rhinebeck, and then left for SOAR, which was held in Sunriver, OR. It was a wonderful, if exhausting, week. I took a three-day workshop from Sarah Swett called "Spinning for Next to the Skin," which was just amazing (do go check out her website, her weaving and knitting are absolutely incredible). Sarah brought 4 lovely fleeces ~ a black rambouillet, white debouillet, gray polwarth and brown/tan rambouillet. We worked with all of them, doing different preparations (combing, handcarding, drumcarding, flicking). I loved the drumcarder, and have ordered one of my own ~ a Pat Green Happy Hybrid. It should be here in a couple of weeks, and all I really want to do is recard and blend my whole stash, spin really skinny yarn and knit sweaters on size 2 needles that I can wear like teeshirts and lightweight clothing.

I also took 4 retreat classes: the gentle art of plying, with Judith MacKenzie McCuin, Color Blending with Deb Menz, and Teach Spinning and American Longdraw with Maggie Casey. All are already favorite teachers for me, and I loved every class and learned alot as well, that I'm looking forward to incorporating into my own spinning. Being in class with these four women was amazing and so overwhelmingly inspiring; they are all such fantastic and accomplished artists.

Here is yarn from the color blending retreat session with Deb Menz. I had a base of tan colored combed top, which I drumcarded with 6 other colors ~ more and less saturated, complimentary and opposite, and lighter and darker. Then I spun singles from all of them and navaho-plied them into this skein. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, though I'm thinking of a felted bag to hang on my spinning wheel ...



While I was at SOAR, I spun two good-sized skeins of 100% cashmere top. Not sure of the yardage, but it's sort of heavy sportweight. I'm knitting a pair of the Lace-Up Mittens designed by Sara Lamb in the new Homespun Handknit book. I love this pattern; it's so easily adjustable to different yarn weights.

100% cashmere handspun yarn:



And mitten number 1:



The samples from my other classes are still lost in the void of unpacking. Sarah kindly let us all have some of the different fleeces from the class, and I came home with 4 lovely little fluffy batts. I'm planning to spin them fine, and knit a pair of 4-color mittens. More on that later.

This past September, I spun up some superwash merino top that I had leftover from the 2009 club. I had dyed it in pastel shades, which is not something I do alot, but I like to be different with the club fibers and give subscribers different colors, different saturations, and different methods of preparation. So, the leftovers became a three-ply worsted weight yarn that I knitted into a cute vest for my soon-to-arrive new niece:



Lastly, back in October I knitted yet another pair of Maine Morning Mitts from Clara's first book, The Knitter's Book of Yarn, for my friend Anjee. These are from handspun 50/50 cashmere / bombyx silk top, also left over from the 2009 SFT Handspinning Club (it's nice having leftovers :-D ):




Oh, and by the way. My apologies for the terrible photo quality. I took these with my iPhone, because I am ::in between:: cameras at the moment.

Rhinebeck is right around the corner! I've been working madly to get ready, and am really excited about this year. I have loads of yarns and fibers done in lots of different colors, and some exciting new stuff to share with everyone ....

First off, some Rhinebeck special events:

Saturday, October 17, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm: Clara Parkes will be at the Spirit Trail Fiberworks booth signing copies of her new book, The Knitter's Book of Wool (which will also be available for sale in the booth). This is a really fantastic book!

Saturday, October 17, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm: Amy King will be at the Spirit Trail Fiberworks booth signing copies of her new book, Spin Control (which will also be for sale in the booth). This is another wonderful book!

For yarns and fibers:

I am excited to introduce a completely new yarn at Rhinebeck: come by, meet and fondle "Sunna," a blend of 75% superwash merino, 15% cashmere and 10% bombyx silk. I had this yarn created and spun especially for me, so it's not available anywhere else. It's a three-ply fingering weight yarn, and is just irrestistable. Sunna, by the way, is the Scandinavian Goddess of the Sun and Spinning, and her symbol is a fiery wheel.

I also have 15 new rovings ready! This is the most new stuff I've ever had ready for one show. All dyed in different colors, they include Gulf Coast, Santa Cruz, Teeswater/CVM X, Romeldale, Rambouillet, Gotland X and others. I also have some lovely white Teeswater and variegated Wensleydale locks ~ too pretty to do anything but wash.

Lastly, I have a new bumpersticker to share (I love bumper stickers. I know alot of people don't, but I get a kick out of them):

The drop spindles were drawn by my father, who is a fabulous artist. The one on the left is my Mongold drop spindle, which is the first spinning item I ever purchased and has beautiful etchings on the top. The spindle on the right is a Peruvian bottom whorl that my friend Shelia purchased for me on her trip to Peru.

If you're going to Rhinebeck, don't forget to check out Wild Fibers Magazine's International Tent for alot of really cool activities and presentations and, if you have a bit of extra time, please be sure to stop at the Tent and knit a few rows on The World's Longest Scarf.

Personally, in between getting ready for Rhinebeck, I've been on a sock knitting binge. Since September, I've finished 4 pairs and have another half way done (this is a huge number of socks for me, as I'm not usually an avid sock knitter). But, I had all this sock yarn laying around staring at me, and I finally succumbed. I posted a photo in the last post, and here's another:

This is some old Spirit Trail yarn; I think it's Alexandra. It's a bit more brown in real life, with mahogany and tan stripes. I especially like how the heels stripe. I have no idea when I dyed it, but it was years ago. It's one of those colors I especially liked and actually took a skein of for myself to use, and then it got buried in my stash. It was before I was doing repeating colorways, but I may try to recreate it one of these days.

I'm also trying to spin up little samples of all the new rovings, but not doing so well getting them done. Too many came in at the same time, just over the last couple of weeks. So, we'll see how many I get done.

If you come to Rhinebeck, be sure to stop by my booth (A4) and say hi!