Occasionally this past year, I’ve had a couple fibre club members subscribe but not realize that it was actually spinning fibre. And since they didn’t actually know how to spin, I was perfectly happy to dye up some sock yarn skeins as substitutes for the fibre.

I’m enjoying the creative freedom in being able to dye new colourways and play with some luxurious new blends. I’m even tempted to offer a “Yarn Club” type subscription if enough people are interested.

Want to join us for our second year of Fibre Club? We’re taking new subscriptions now on the online shop and you can always follow along with our Ravelry group. The Fibre Club members have all been so positive and active about spinning up their fibre and posting photos. Reminds me that I need to finish spinning the Wensleydale in my own set of November fibres.

We blended up colours that we disliked, colours that were garish, colours that definitely looked ugly together… and got some really very beautiful blends out of them. The beauty of the drum carded batts were that we broke up all those colours and desaturated them, making surprisingly harmonious combinations of colours and textures. We used a wide range of fibres including Corriedale, Merino, alpaca tussah silk, bamboo rayon, tencel/lyocell, camel, and firestar.

The magic or secret behind making these beautiful batts was really simply patience and building the layers of fibre slowly. Working too quickly or trying to put too much fibre on the drum carder simply resulted in clumpy, bumpy and streaky batts. We worked slowly (in fact, we were late for lunch), and put the blend through about three times. Another thing Abby confirmed was that (depending on the fibre), you can’t card something too much. She related it to brushing your hair… it’s not really possible to brush your hair too much and damage it. Same with fibre, generally.

Most of the drum carders in the session were Strauch Finests or Petites and a few Pat Green Deb’s Deluxes. I brought my own Pat Green Fancicard after a bit of encouragement and in the end, I was so glad I did. I got to learn all the blending on my own equipment without having to change from carder to carder. Some of the students got to use Judith’s personal monster motorized drum carders… crazy huge and super fast carders. It would have been so cool to have a go at one of those.

My afternoon class was with Janel Laidman and was on “Spinning for Socks”. I had been so looking forward to this session because… well, I came to SOAR to spin, and soon realized that all my sessions were about colour or dyeing and didn’t require a spinning wheel. So I was looking forward to finally doing some spinning. And spin we did. For three hours. Straight. Power spinning. Spinning for sock yarn requires high twist in the singles as well as high twist in the plying to help prevent abrasion damage.

Our first sock yarn sample was a three-ply sock yarn made with a ply of mixed BFL, dyed BFL and dyed superwash BFL. Spinning tight singles and then three-plying quite tightly as well. The second sock yarn was a cabled yarn of a ply of superwash merino, merino/tencel, Ashland Bay merino/tussah 70/30 blend, and dyed BFL. These singles needed to be spun super fine in order to make up a fingering weight after basically four-plying it all together.

Although Janel suggested that we use a tight twist for the singles to make harder-wearing socks, she did mention that we could spin softer singles and then ply tighter as that is how most “pearl”-looking commercial sock yarns are constructed.

Both classes today were pretty exhausting (in fact, I face-planted into my hotel bed shortly after Janel’s class for a 20-minute power nap before dinner), but the wealth of knowledge in these women is such an amazing resource for us. I am quite grateful that they are so generous and willing to share their knowledge, some of which is used to do the things that pay for their mortgages. These are just hard-working, truly passionate people who seem to love what they do. I just want to be in the room to soak up even a drop of their wisdom. I think that makes coming to SOAR worth it.

We partnered up and dyed BFL and Superwash Merino top with Amy’s oven method and also a cold-pour technique. In the oven method, we wet out the fibre, arranged it in the oven pans and then poured dye in whichever pattern we wanted. Then citric acid solution was poured over the entire pan and the pans were baked at 280 to 300 degrees, held at that temperature for ten minutes and then allowed to cool down. With the cold-pour sample, we put the superwash merino in a pot of cold water and poured dye over top. There’s more water in this method, but since we used superwash, the dye struck pretty quickly so we got splotchy fibre. Unexpected results… but it’s going to be fun to spin up.

It was happy times as I finally got to meet Jacey Boggs of Insubordiknit in class this morning. In fact, we partnered up for the dyeing and it was so cool to chat with her. There’s so much to learn from everyone.

Jacey is an absolute sweetheart and she is, at the same time, so confident and also very humble about her achievements. She’s the talent behind the new Sit n’ Spin DVD and teaches the technical skills required to be proficient at making art yarn. She podcasts and she blogs and she’s generally just a productive whirlwind of creativity. Yep, she’s awesome and she’s coming to teach at Madrona Fiber Arts in February 2010 if anyone in Vancouver is interested in really learning the skills to spin art yarn.

My afternoon session was all about drum carding with Deb Menz, a long-time hero of mine. Her book, Color in Spinning, turned me on to nearly everything I do today — dyeing, working with colour, creating colourways, and spinning handpainted yarns. So, of course, seeing Deb do simple things like strip a batt or pull combed fibre off a hackle was … like a celebrity moment for me.

I got her to explain to me her “major key” and “minor key” concepts from the book and I finally got it. Major Key colourways include the entire range of values but in different proportions so the yarn looks a bit more salt-n-peppery. Minor Key colourways include a small set of close values so the yarn looks closer to semi-solid with very little internal contrast. Good to hear it from the source, because that chapter in the book totally confused me.

Our class was about experimenting with the three different properties of colour: hue, value, and saturation. So we started with a single colour of fibre and split it into six portions. With each portion we blended in a smaller portion of another colour to create a variation… so a single colour was shifted warmer and cooler, darker and lighter, duller and brighter. Some of us used drum carders and others used the large hand combs or hackles. I went through all the trouble of packing my electric Fancicard, so I chose to use that for the entire class. Here are my batts:

Feeling very, very blessed, I was lucky enough to finish the day with a couple hours at the spa (a very special and lovely gift) and also a bit of a trip through the spinners’ market. After a test drive on the Schacht-Reeves 30″ saxony wheel and a few lustful glances at the Lendrum Saxony, I treated myself to some 80/20 Polwarth and Bombyx silk blend in a silver colour and some sock yarns from Blue Moon and Abstract Fiber as well as a Sheep 2 Sock kit from Blue Moon. It’s kind of nice to feel like a stash-hungry, wheel-coveting spinner again… at least for a moment.

I’ve always held that the Pacific Northwest is uncommonly beautiful and I felt absolutely in awe to drive through from British Columbia through Washington to Central Oregon. It’s autumn and the leaves are fully golden and rust coloured. Driving through some narrower passages of highway, the pine trees are exquisitely tall and the deciduous trees sprinkled amongst them shed their leaves in a magical pixie dust kind of way. I had zero time to do any research about getting to Sunriver, so I let the GPS determine my route. So, of course, I had no idea that I’d be driving through the snow resort town of Mt. Hood. It was brilliant to go from pitch black and pouring rain at 4 am to glorious snow and sun by about 10:30 am. Got me all excited about starting snowboard season.

And then almost directly after the Mt. Hood National Forest… I hit a super dry, desert-like stretch. It’s sort of at the end of this stretch that Sunriver is at. The resort is in the middle of Deschutes National Forest and I believe there are a number of golf courses in the area. But the rooms are lovely… complete with outdoor deck and adirondack chairs and a gas fireplace indoors… perfect for evening spinning.

So far, I’ve had about 20 minutes to spend at the spinners’ market. Not enough to decide on anything yet. Maybe some lovely natural dyed spinning fibre? Maybe a square-shaped spindle? I did spin on Lendrum Saxony again today for the second time in my life and it’s pure joy. I spoke to Gord Lendrum about getting one and there just seems like there’s none available anywhere. Ah well. The dream wheel will stay a dream.

Dinner tonight was followed by a brief, casual fashion show of the handspun creations of our attendees. Beautiful things like “my first ever handspun knit into my first ever lace shawl” or “wedding ring shawls” or “angora handspun that doesn’t shed”. Two of the pieces that I swoooooned over were the following:

Okay, from what I remember, this is 100% silk handspun and navajo-plied. The yarn is 80 wpi PLIED. And then it’s knit into a triangular ostrich plume shawl. I got to touch this one and I can’t even imagine how fine the singles must have been. Exquisite spinning and such fine lace knitting.

And this sweater had a lovely history. The yarn was spun over many years from a fleece that was purchased 16 years ago. And then the maker designed and knit and unknit the sweater a few times, never seeming to reach completion. Then finally after the support of her friends, she managed to complete it on the plane ride to SOAR today. Makes me feel a bit better about those two fleeces I’ve been storing.

Well, I’m tuckered out and my eyes are going to pop out of my head soon. I’m taking Spunky’s dye class tomorrow morning, Deb Menz’s carding class tomorrow afternoon. Time for sleep.

The yarn is not perfect. At 2644 yards per pound, it squeaks into the laceweight category. Some parts are slubby. Some parts are under-spun and some parts are overly fine and over-spun. But it started out as something so beautiful, ideal, and full of potential. And in the end, it’s still beautiful, but in it’s own imperfect, awkward way.

And now, it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been at the studio now for six months already (it’ll be six months next Friday). I’ve been madly creating lesson plans, teaching, dyeing, starting the fibre club, creating new sets of repeatable colourways, and just getting settled in. I think now might be a nice time to catch a breath and sit for a bit.

I’d love to have you come join us at the studio for a Knit + Spin afternoon in celebration of our Half-Anniversary! It’s going to be Saturday, May 23 from 1 pm to 4 pm at the studio.

We’ll have our hand dyed yarns and fibres at 20% off for that one day in the studio, so even if you don’t have time to come knit or spin, drop by and shop for a bit! I’d love to see you there!

Now, time to start organizing the resort lodging and 8.5 hour drive from Vancouver to Oregon! Anyone else going? Did you get everything you wanted and more? Anyone ever been? Suggestions to someone going for the first time?

the fibre // merino
Merino. For me, this fibre was so tempting, so enticing, I had to learn to spin it very early on. Usually, new spinners are steered away from merino and to stronger, longer stapled fibres, but spinning a skein of sproingy, super squishy merino will have you hooked. Spin this fibre with a worsted drafting method and you’ll get a beautiful and classic yarn.

the colourway // renewal
Spring is a time to renew and be made new. These colours make me think of potential, flexibility and growth. There are longer stretches of rose and lavender and shorter intervals of gold and rust and tulip leaf green. Spinning this all together and 2-plying back on itself might be a recipe for skeins of muddy looking yarn. Maybe take this opportunity to try spinning a fine, firm singles and then Navajo plying into a 3-ply in order to maintain the clarity of the colours.

I truly like to believe that we can renew ourselves. That we can be made fresh and new. That no one is keeping score of your past mistakes. That you can always try and do better. For myself personally, I’ve dedicated the month of May to trying to improve how I think about things. To really try to believe that no one is watching or waiting for me to fail. That I am doing my best and that hopefully a smigen of good will come of it.

To follow up with the previous post about meaningful work, part of me felt very ungrateful for having written it. I think that despite the great expense involved with creating and setting up this studio and business and how stressed I might get about making this all happen, I am very blessed to be in this position. I realize that in our current economic situation people around me are losing their jobs and that the cost of living and healthcare for everyone is very high. It does seem to be quite a luxury to be able to even make an attempt at your dreams.

I took the variegated Panda fibre demo (50g) and split it lengthwise into many, many narrow strips to basically create very short intervals of colour in the singles yarn and plied it with another 50g of semi-solid Panda fibre that had been dyed red. One solid, one variegated, to sort of even out and break up the colours… overall dominating the yarn with red. The resulting 2-ply yarn, most likely a dk or light worsted weight, will make a nice little baby sweater… or hat… or, I don’t know. Right now, I’m happy just to look at it on the shelf.

And I’m so excited to present this series of semi-solid colourways for the SweetGeorgia sock yarns as a dye-to-order series. Available in the Superwash Sock or the slightly thicker, Superwash Sport, we’ll be dyeing as many skeins of these colours as you like. Over time, I’m looking to expand the series and also add back our more variegated colourways. I know that knitters want what they want when they want it, so I’m hoping to provide this option to many of you.

From left to right: China Doll, Raspberry, Pistachio, Saffron, Tourmaline, Orchid, Boysenberry. As for the colours, I think I was subliminally inspired by the Visit Mexico campaign that has been omnipresent in Vancouver buses. I’ve never been to Mexico, but my love for fish tacos seems to make me think I might like it.

Then I look up and realize that there is a half-dressed loom staring at me. I’m also thinking about what to weave next and how to get the current projects off the looms so that we can begin the Weaving Workshop sessions in a weeks time (yikes!). And finally, I’m going to be speaking for the Coquitlam Spinners & Weavers Guild on Thursday, May 14th about what I have been doing here in the studio with natural dyes, naturally dyed yarns, and weaving. So over the next three months, I’m going to be taking all new photographs of the studio space and the daily work I am doing at the dye pot and loom. It’s exciting to have something to work towards.

Waaay further down the road, I’m hoping to attend Interweave’s SOAR fall retreat for the first time. It’s being held at Sunriver Resort in Oregon from October 25 to November 1st. Oregon is pretty close to Vancouver and I’m thinking about driving down… maybe a stop for a bit of surf along the way. Anybody else planning on going to SOAR this year?