Fiber friendly week
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Weaving

Fiber activities in the last 8 days include Montana Fibercrafters meeting where we started working on a punch needle rug (or in my case a 11" mat).  I have a sunflower design, enlarged it and have it ready to transfer to the back of the monks cloth.  I've already washed and zigzagged the monk's cloth to prevent fraying.

I dyed some sumac , cutch, and cherry tree bark on various yarns and a scarf.  I also dyed a graduated yarn fin blue greens from chemical dyes to  use in my next version of Almost Lace.  It is a very pretty alpaca lace weight blend from Big Sky Quality Wool in Broadus.  I have batteries in my camera now so I can take pictures of things to post.

Then I spent 2 full days cleaning up my office and studio from the combination of studio remodel and a huge accumulation of stuff put here and there.  I can see the top of that table where I dropped off all the little things for the last 2 years.  I still have some more to put away so I bought some more see through boxes today, but this is a lot better than I've seen in that area in about 1 year at least.  It took me an amazing amount of time to deal with all those little dibs and dabs so I know why I hate that part.

I have read quite a few articles about studios and really want to try keeping my new wonderful area a little more organized.  Just "having" to clean up the one corner for the dye area had made it so much more fun to work down there.

Today Sarah Pilgrim came from Wilsall, MT, to teach the Billings Weavers Guild about designing stripes in weaving, but it also applies to knitting, dyeing self striping yarn etc.  Sarah and I are going to try a collaboration of sorts, she wants me to custom dye some yarn for an afghan she is weaving.  I'm am very excited about that because she makes beautiful things. 

And I even knit a little this week.  So a busy week (because I had to do a lot of non-fiber stuff too), but lots accomplished.  Linda

Knitting during Tax Practitioner Institute
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Knitting
I finished my newest scarf today.  It is called faux lace and I knit it in a pink multicolored yarn I dyed as a class sample this fall.  I had started it right after it I dyed it, but then lost some interest.  I liked the pattern I knitted alright, but somehow it didn't speak to me.  Last night, I needed some  yarn to take to a 16 hour continuing legal education class. I am required to do continuing education every year to keep my license. These classes don't keep me on the edge of my seat, so I take some easy knitting along.  I finished up the scarf and then knit a swatch with the rest of the yarn and saw how I liked it in some different stitches.  I think if I had knit the swatch first, I might have knit it in a different pattern.  But that would be playing by the rules.  I knit that scarf in a dk weight wool yarn.  Tomorrow I'm taking along a fingering weight baby alpaca, silk, cotton yarn I bought at a silent Auction at Olds College this summer and going to use the same pattern.  It is a very subtle camel color and soft yarn.  I'll be interested how different the yarn will look.  Linda

Overdying
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Chemical Dyeing

Faux Lace Shawlette

Faroese  style

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This shawl is the same pattern as the triangle shawl and starts at the neck just like the triangle shawl.  This one is the Faroese shape which many people feel fits the shoulders and stay on better. This shawl is knit from the top down as developed by Myrna Stahman in her book Stahman's Shawls & Scarves.  Traditional Faroese-shaped shawls start with the bottom and hundreds of cast on stitches.  Casting on lots of stitches is a bummer, so I much prefer Myrna's method.   

This is a handspun alpaca/silk blend.  Interestingly this is overdyed natural color alpaca.  The monitor makes it look a brighter red than it is.  It is closer to a burgundy.   I had spun quite a bit of this yarn and previously knit this seaman scarf.  I didn't want to knit it in brown so overdyed it with a fuschia.  Because the yarn is comprised on two colors brown alpaca and white silk, it took the color differently which add additional interest.  When I show people the two items, everyone is amazed they are the same yarn. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coincidently these items were knit a long time from each other, but this scarf is also in Myrna Stahman's book and is based on Old Shale.

I am busy dyeing right now, listening to election coverage.  I'm starting another version of the faux lace shawl to test the pattern and am dyeing the yarn right now.  More later.  Linda

Faux Lace Shawlette
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Natural Dyeing

Faux Lace Shawlette

Triangle Version

Fingering weight dyed with indigo and osage orange

 

 

 

 

 

I finished knitting this shawlette this summer and have worn it a lot, but yesterday I blocked it better and dh photographed.  This shawlette and shawl pattern is not really lace, but looks like it and is easy and mindless--my favorite kind of knitting.  I dyed it first with osage orange and then overdyed it with indigo.

Sorting fleece in 70 degree weather
Mood:  happy
Topic: Spinning

On October 30, we had drop dead gorgeous weather.  Diana G and I were out on my driveway sorting through fleece before our guild meeting on Saturday.  It was warm, we had a table, lots of fleece--mostly white, but some gray and a very dark one.  It was great fun.  The fleeces had been stuffed in bags for many years, so it wasn't that easy to put them back out in a way that we could identify all the different parts.  We did our best, sorted them heavily and had a great time trying to guess the different breeds etc.  What a great way to spend a few hours.  Dog had a great time too, stealing a tag or two.  Linda

Selling natural dyed fleece
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Natural Dyeing

I taught a beginning spinning class last week and one of my students came all the way from Boulder, MT to take it which was quite an ego boost.  In my chemical dyeing class last week too a woman drove from Stanford, MT to take it.  But anyway, one of my students was quite interested in natural dyeing.  She came to my house and bought some fleece I had natural dyed.  It wasn't carded, but in the class I had shown them the dog brush method of combing.  I really hadn't thought people would buy natural dyed fleece that wasn't processed.  I just don't have the patience to card or comb fleece for sale.  But selling natural dyed fleece for them to process that is a different story.  I love fleece and I love dyeing.  So I guess I sell natural dyed fleece now.  Linda with a crab apple natural dye pot going right now.

I love to wash fleece
Mood:  happy
Topic: Spinning

Today I picked up a whole pickup full of fleece from a former spinner who wanted to donate them to our Prairie Handspinners Guild.  The fleeces are about 10 years old, but the three I sorted through are very nice.  I skirted one pretty heavily and brought it downstairs to start washing.  It is not a very fine fleece--perhaps a Columbia and not super greasy.  I used my normal method.  I filled up my nice new studio sink with hot as water as I can out of tap.  Then I poured a hot teapot full of boiling water to heat it more.  I used dawn hand dishwashing liquid until the water felt slippery.  I added about a pound of fleece and let it sit for about half an hour.  Then I pulled the fleece aside and let the water run out.  Then I refilled again and let it rinse.  Then I refilled a third time.

I love the smell of wet fleece.  Okay I may be wierd but I AM A SPINNER.  Linda

Okay I admit I'm a class junky
Topic: Weaving
I love to learn more about the fiber arts and some related arts.  This Saturday I'm taking an all levels drawing class at the Yellowstone Art Museum http://yellowstone.artmuseum.org/ from Julie Atkins-Pederson.  I just tried drawing for the first time a couple of  years ago when I took a design class from a famous quilter Katie Pasquini Masopust.  I wanted to learn to draw for my punch needle designs.  It is not as impossible as I perceived and my family now recognizes my drawings for what they are.  It is nice to make a cat look like a cat.  Of course like any art form if I did it every day, I'd get a lot better.  But I still work away at drawing fitting it in here and there.  It takes a lot of concentration, but it is fun.  I JUST HAVE WAY TOO MANY INTERESTS.  I'm only planning to take 2 classes in November but I'll tell you about that later.    Linda

October classes at Wild Purls
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Chemical Dyeing
Linda has  two relevant classes coming up at Wild Purls, our Billings yarn store.  On Monday October 20 and 27 6-8 I’ll teach beginning spinning for newbies.

Beginning Spinning Learn the ancient art of spinning and learn to create beautiful and unique yarns. Spin with a drop spindle for the first class and borrow one of Linda’s spinning wheels for the second class.   On Saturday October 25 Dye Your Own Space-Dyed Yarns using acid dyesLearn to dye various types of multi-color yarns using acid dyes in a store room behind the store. Dye 2 skeins of yarn or more if time permits. Using over 60 colors of pre-mixed dyes, we’ll dye traditional space-dyed yarns by painting yarn. As an option, we can rewind the skeins and make a 3-color self-striping yarn. Learn some easy color formulas using the color wheel to make attractive yarns: split complimentary, triad, and analogous and how to use pleasing proportions.  Note this a half-day class starting at 10:30 and running until about 2:30-3 depending how long you want to stay and how much you want to dye. Either bring your lunch or run out for a quick bite, when your yarn is “cooking”.  Diana G is teaching Tunisian Crocheted Slippers on Monday, Nov. 10 & 17.  I have always wanted to take this and my slippers are terribly worn so I called up Wild Purls and signed up today.  You can call Wild Purls at 245-2224 to register for any of their classes. Linda  

Osage Orange
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Natural Dyeing

This yarn was dyed with left over osage orange from my class in Helena this summer.  I "had to" dye in my new studio because I needed to move the leftover dyes to put down the flooring.  The yarns on the right are dyed with 100% osange orange and is wool yarn (not superwash). 

The yarns on the left are osage orange mordanted with tin overdyed with dilute cochineal.  The really bright orange one that is superwash wool and was in the dye slightly longer.  The one on the left is silk/wool.  It is amazing to me the difference between the yarns all from the same dyepot.

 

 

 

 I had purchased some osage orange sawdust from Hillcreek Fiber Studio in Missouri, let it sit overnight in a bucket of water and then strained out the sawdust and then dyed with it.  Osage orange Maclura pomifera (hedge, hedge apple, bodark)is a very common throny tree.

Osage orange trees are a common sight on the Great Plains today although they were not a widespread member of the prairie community originally. Found primarily in a limited area centered on the Red River valley in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas, they were planted as living fences - or hedges - along the boundaries of farms, and have spread widely from these restricted, linear beginnings.  The trees are easily recognized by their glossy, lance-shaped leaves (see illustration), and their short, stout thorns.

 The name of the tree comes from the Osage tribe, which lived near the home range of the tree, and the aroma of the fruit after it is ripe. The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts. 

The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, tree nails, fence posts, electrical insulators, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood When dried, the wood also makes excellent fire wood. Meriwether Lewis wrote to Thomas Jefferson from St. Louis on 26 March 1804, a few weeks before embarking on the expedition. "I send you herewith inclosed, some slips of the Osages Plums, and Apples.  So enjoy this colorful and historic dye plant.  Linda