Pleasant & Delightful

Norman Kennedy spinning clinic!

2011-11-22T17:45:00.003-05:00

Hand Spinning Clinic with Norman Kennedy
January 28 & 29, 2012 - Round Hill, Virginia

A rare opportunity to study with Norman Kennedy, Master Weaver & Spinner! Mr. Kennedy was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship in 2003 for his work in preserving and teaching the techniques and knowledge of traditional textile production from his native Scotland.

The focus for this class will be traditional spinning, on different types of hand spindles, on flyer wheels and on the great wheel. Tuning your wheel for optimum performance, sewing new drive bands, fiber preparation – bring your questions and concerns! Norman is particularly knowledgeable in the spinning traditions of Scotland and around the world, and will share much of the folklore and stories that he has accumulated in his travels and studies.

Participants at any level are welcome. Bring spindles, low wheel & great wheel
A small fiber sampler will be provided for use in class

The fee for the class is $150. There will be a modest supply fee.
To register, mail a $75 deposit payable to Peace Weavers
Deposits will be nonrefundable except in the event of cancellation

Peace Weavers - Melissa Weaver Dunning – weaverdun@aol.com
151 Concert Lane – Berryville, Virginia 22611 - 540 955-3616

2011-10-10T14:01:00.009-05:00

Fall is coming on us quickly now, the massive oak tree behind our house is starting to drop a few colorful clusters of leaves and the maples are just starting to flame. I love autumn, for the cooling temperatures, the changing colors and the crisp smell in the air. Fresh apples, pumpkins, chrysanthemums, our wedding anniversary, my birthday, Thanksgiving.

The chimney sweep has come & gotten our chimney ready for the heating season and we have laid in a supply of firewood - we have two woodpiles this year, one of mostly oak,

and one of hickory! There is such a sense of comfort in having the entire winter's wood supply ready & stacked.

I seem to be having a love affair with Rambouillet this fall - I have bought three different Rambouillet cross fleeces in the last two weeks. My only defense is that they were irresistible! I picked up two at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival in lovely mixed greys and a dark grey and then a third beautiful moorit brown fleece at the Fall Fiber Festival. These are all from the same farm in Luray, Virginia.

I washed a large handful of the brown and picked it - it weighed in at 50 grams when dry. I finally got to card most of it yesterday, while demonstrating at the Waterford Fair and then last night at home while watching a movie. This fleece is very springy and cards into a dense, soft rolag. I can't wait to spin some and see the yarn it's going to make! I am thinking 3 ply for a cardigan.

My Handpaint Magic Spinning class at the Fall Fiber Festival went very well - there were ten students and they spun and plyed all day, learning to use a nostepinne, make an N-ply 3 ply yarn and lots of different ways to work with painted rovings to get the yarn you want.

Next in my fall schedule will be our trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I will be teaching my 8/2 Towels class - a combination of the Structures and Color & Weave classes, while Peter strolls the beach. We celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary on Sunday and will stay an extra day or two to enjoy the beach in autumn.

Fall Fiber Classes & Festivals

2011-09-26T09:13:00.011-05:00

I love to read about everyone's adventures at various fiber classes and festivals as an armchair traveler, while at the same time knowing that I have my own rounds of interesting and fun places. My fall schedule is even busier than usual!

I started my autumn adventures by teaching a weaving class at the Campbell Folk School - 18th Century Household Textiles. My invaluable assistant Lucy Best was on hand to help with the ten students and we had a very busy week.

This class covers 6 different historic textiles: napery, coverlets, carpets, blankets, towels and lindsey woolsey. That is a lot of different warps for one short week, but the students soldiered through and wove some beautiful samples!

Then I taught two days of spinning classes at our local Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival: Traditional Wool Preparation, Point Spinning on spindle and great wheel and Handpaint Magic - spinning with handpainted rovings. I love teaching spinning classes and it was a real pleasure to work with small groups after the busy weaving class!

I also got to help Sue Bundy and the Loudoun Needleworkers gals with the jurying of the fleece sale for SVFF on Friday. I love wool from the sheep to the yarn, and it was delightful to roll out fleece after fleece, look them over and comment on each one.

And of course I fell in love with one or two... namely a Rambouillet/Finn/Corriedale and a Rambouillet/Corriedale/Border Leicester, both from Patchwork Pastures Farm in Luray Virginia. They were both large fleeces and I split them with a friend and also sold a fleece I had purchased and had processed from last year, so my total fleece inventory somehow remains stable!

I did enhance my spinning tools collection rather significantly at SVFF - I bought two beautiful spindles from The Spanish Peacock along with two nostepinnes.

Then on Sunday I heard there was a used Kromski Polonaise for sale. This turned out to be a display model from Michelle Reilly of Wool N' Quilts, an old fiber friend. Very little deliberation was required - I've been lusting after this wheel since I spun on one for several days last January. Isn't she a beauty?

And a few lovely handpainted braids from Creatively Dyed Yarns - I am such a sucker for good color. I'd like to spin the pair of Merino/Silk/Cashmere at the bottom as a fractal for a large scarf or shawl.

So - next comes a day of teaching my Handpaint Magic Spinning class at the Fall Fiber Festival Sunday 10/2, an afternoon wool waulking for the Waterford Weavers at the Waterford Fair 10/9 and then I head down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to teach a weaving class for the Outer Banks Guild. As this falls on our wedding anniversary weekend, my husband will come along and we'll stay for an extra day or two and enjoy the beach in off season.

Then I get two free weekends - whew! - before I fly to Cleveland to teach Acadian Weaving for the Medina Guild, and I will finish off the year with a local weekend knitting class - Modular Knitting - for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild.

I added my teaching schedule in a sidebar a few months ago and I will try to keep this updated. When possible, there is a link for the guild or school. Most of these classes are open to non-members or the general public as well as guild members, so feel free to contact the organization or leave a comment if you are interested in a particular class!

Juggle faster!

2011-08-04T16:46:00.004-05:00

I didn't exactly drop any balls last week, but I definitely had too many in the air at once last week. Just as soon as the Tour de Fleece was over, I had one full day at work and then a four day rug weaving class with Jason Collingwood, during which I attempted to work a few hours in my office every day. Which made for a rather stressful week - but we all got through. Bills were paid, performers were paid, and while I didn't get much actual weaving done, I was able to attend most of the lecture time for the class and I certainly learned a lot.

Above is the one photo I got in class - my 4 colors at once section. I did get to weave a little with the shaft switching technique which Jason & his father Peter Collingwood are well known for, and now I understand what all the fuss is about. This simple device can open up a whole world of design on a fairly simple loom. Pretty cool - it would work better with my Mighty Wolf loom because it has a castle above the shafts, so I may have to design a rug to weave on that loom sometime.

I did finish weaving the samples for my weaving exchange, and here is a quick view of the treadling variations possible in summer & winter weave.

This is a lovely old draft. I would like to thread this up again sometime soon for some kitchen towels. Wouldn't that be nice?

And I have been doing a little spinning - I carded up my Cormo sample at the Middleburg concert last Saturday and started spinning it on my Bosworth Moosie spindle. It's working up very nicely, spinning to an even, fine thread. It's interesting how different this fine wool is compared to the CVM that I spun a few weeks ago - the CVM has a lot of crimp and is very springy, stretching to 150% of it's length, whereas the Cormo is very fine and soft but has far less crimp.

It will be interesting to see what the final yardage will be as compared to the CVM. I'm afraid I overplyed my CVM, so I will go back and let a little of the twist out. I wanted to finish it up on the last night of the Tour de Fleece and I generally find that I don't do my best work when plying late at night. But it's only twist, and it can be undone!

I will be singing for some of our Bluemont concerts this weekend with the Flaming Shillelaghs - Jesse Winch, Joe DeZarn and Tina Eck. I'm really looking forward to the concerts and spending time with these fine musicians and good friends.

Tour de Fleece comes to an end

2011-07-25T19:10:00.003-05:00

as all good things do.

I feel like I spun very little yardage for the Tour this year, but I accomplished a great deal for the little time I had available! I washed 4.5 pounds of raw wool in 51 different breeds. I carded, spun and plied a total of 1,488 yards in 8 breeds: Brecknock Hill, California Red, CVM, Cheviot, North Country Cheviot, Clun Forest, Columbia and Coopworth. A little more than half of that was spindle spun - 810 yards.

I have Corriedale and Cotswold carded and ready to be spun, and Cormo picked and ready to card on fine hand cards.

And all the rest is washed and bagged and waiting to be prepared for spinning. I made a new set of sandwich sized zipper bags with new labels, so that I could store the finished skein and clean lock in a clean bag. I had been using the bags the raw fleece came in, but some are those are pretty greasy.

So I have the fleece samples organized like this - each washed fleece is in a half gallon zipper bag along with a small bag with the name of the breed. When I pick the fiber it goes back in the big bag, same when it is carded. Once it is spun and becomes a skein, it goes in the small labeled bag. And I'm trying to remember to save out a clean lock to store with the skein. I guess the next organizing task should be to go through and replace all the small greasy bags with these new clean ones and go ahead and pull a clean lock at the same time. Then I won't be relying on my memory!

Now that the tour is over, I need to do some house cleaning and have a movie/ironing marathon. But I would like to keep working on the Fleece Study. I think I will set a goal for myself of spinning up at least one skein a week and see how that goes. I'll keep you posted! I will also post in a little more detail about the breeds I have already spun.

I did finish weaving up my summer & winter samples - more details and photos later this week. The Linked Birdseye towels are still waiting to be rethreaded, but I also beamed & threaded a rug warp to take to the Jason Collingwood class I'm taking this week. Somehow, I'm going to go to class and spend some time at work for the next 4 days. For some reason the proximity of class to work makes me believe that this may actually work out - the class is one block from my office!

Fleece Study update

2011-07-20T15:25:00.006-05:00

I have 5 little skeins to show for all my labors so far - Brecknock Hill, California Red, Cheviot, North Country Cheviot and Columbia. I also have 4 breeds carded & ready to spin, and 39 breeds washed, dry and ready for picking & carding. These all started out as approximately 1 ounce of raw fleece - the dry weight ranges mostly from .5 to .8 ounces.

I got out my drum carder because the hand cards were irritating the arthritis in my wrist and carded up Clun Forest, Coopworth and Corriedale. I'm going to spin up the Coopworth even though I broke off all the tips when I opened it up for carding. The sheep was clearly rather stressed at some point in that year of growing the fleece.

Then I hand carded the CVM on my fine cards - it's very fine, but also very short - the staple is 2" unstretched and 3" stretched.

I was concerned that it would be difficult to spin this short fiber on a suspended spindle, but it is drafting beautifully on my Bosworth Moosie. It's a real pleasure to spin, working up to a lovely, very fine yarn. I can't wait to see the finished 2 ply. It will be perfect for lace.

I had considered trying to spin all the fleece in this study at roughly the same grist, but I decided to spin them at what I think is an optimal size for the particular fleece. This may complicate how they are used in a final project or projects, but it makes me a happy spinner at this stage!

Oh, and I ordered 4 more breeds from The Spinning loft - 4 ounces each of:
Coopworth to replace my broken tips sample
East Friesian, Ile de France & Oxford - to expand my Fiber Study to 51 breeds!
These are washed and drying slowly in the current high humidity.

I did finish threading up the summer & winter - I did a bit of sampling with treadling sequence - there are so many options for this weave structure! This first sample is one of the easiest to treadle, but I will do large samples of some other sequences. This design comes from an old manuscript - isn't it lovely?

A little spinning, a little weaving

2011-07-14T17:30:00.005-05:00

OK, I finally got to the wheel last night and spun up the North Country Cheviot - a nice, crisp & even skein of 52 yards. No photo yet, the skein is still drying.

I have two more breeds carded & ready to spin and I think I'll try to do a session with the drum carder on Saturday to get more samples carded. I've had trouble with my right wrist since the winter and I think I could get more carding done comfortably with the drum carder.

I'll choose something for spindle spinning at concerts - I'm working two great concerts this weekend, The Hot Seats Friday night in Winchester and Rumisonko Saturday night in Warrenton - check the Bluemont website for details if you are nearby.

The humid weather has broken again and it was lovely this morning, so I took advantage of the pleasant weather to work in my wee studio. I beamed the warp for summer & winter samples - these are for the Weaving Study Buddies group and the samples are due to be mailed by July 31st. It took me a long time to decide what I would weave and now I can't wait to see how the pattern works up.

Here is the warp all tidied up and ready to start threading the heddles.

I also wove a little more on the linked birdseye towels, enough to cut off & cut up as samples to send my 18th c. Linens class from MAFA, as promised. I discovered some threading errors at the class, and in the quiet of my own studio I had another look and realized that I would have to rethread 3/4 of the warp to correct the errors, so I went ahead and put the lease sticks back in, cut off and tied off the correct section and tied off the rest in inch bunches, ready for threading.

Here you can see the small piece of finished cloth and the loom ready to rethread - the small area of threaded heddles to the right and all the empty heddles waiting in place.

When I find a problem in my work, I've found that it is a good idea to give myself some time to think about possible solutions. It's always good to sleep on a problem, if you have the time and let the ideas percolate. But once I've made a decision about how to proceed, I really like to get the project to a stage where it is ready to make new progress - to rip back my knitting to before the error, or in this case, to cut off the warp and prepare it for re-threading.

Then I feel that the work is ready to begin again when I find I have time to come back. It's so easy to put obstacles between ourselves and our creative work, so when the solution to a problem is clear, it feels good to take action and leave things ready for action.

Carding Away

2011-07-13T19:42:00.002-05:00

Here is what I did last night - carded three breeds, North Country Cheviot, California Red and Columbia. It continues to fascinate me to note how different each breed is. I like all three of these, but the Columbia makes the most beautiful rolags! It's so, well, wooly, and they hold together so nicely.

Here is what I have produced so far - I know, it's pitifully small, but keep in mind, I have also washed 48 individual ounces of fleece and picked a dozen, hand carded 5 breeds and spun 2. The mystery grey was already a singles, so I just plyed that one.

I'm hoping to get some wheel time in, which may increase skein production, but I'm working long hours at the office - July is always a very busy month as we are producing 6 or 7 concerts each weekend in July and then there is the little detail of our fiscal year rolling over on July 1st. So many little details go into closing one year and getting started in the new one. But I will persevere!

And just in case you want to know just how much of a Yarn Geek I am, here is a peek at the spreadsheet I'm using to keep track!

My apologies for mostly cross posting from ravelry, but it's almost 9pm and I am still at my office. We have dial up internet service at home, so this is where I do any real internet work and play. Time to head for home!

MAFA weekend & A Little Progress

2011-07-12T17:45:00.005-05:00

First, I want to say that I had a terrific weekend at MAFA! I haven't been to a weaver's conference before, mostly because my work schedule in the summer doesn't usually allow it, but I decided to make it work somehow this year and I'm very glad I did.

My class went very well, I had a great group of weavers who were all excited to learn about linen and we got along just fine. Almost everyone in class wove a sample on each of the ten looms, they followed the Round Robin Rules with grace and good humor and they let me tell them stories and talk about history and books and so on. What fun!

I did not, however, get much spinning done - it was a very busy weekend! I did manage to finish spinning the singles of the Cheviot, and when I got home Sunday night I wound those off the spindle and started plying, also on the Bosworth Moosie spindle. Finished plying Monday night, skeined the Cheviot and put it in a bath.

This morning I double wound and then plyed a mystery light brown wool singles that was on the Moosie when I got it out for the Tour. Hopefully someday I'll find the fiber this came from and maybe identify it.

Before I left for MAFA, I washed the last of the 48 fleece samples - here are the last ten, drying on a bench in our sunroom. I am very pleased to have completed the washing and had a look at each breed. Now on to more picking and carding and spinning!

I am looking with longing at all the beautiful colorful big fat skeins that other people are posting on my ravelry TdF groups (Team Superfleece 2011 and Team Peace & Solitude 2011), while I plug away with my tiny white and sometimes brown skeins - but that being said, I'm really enjoying handling all these different breeds of fleece.

Pickin' & Grinnin'

2011-07-06T14:26:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned, I am going in about six directions this week and I just couldn't find time to spin last night until about 11:30 at which point I thought I was too tired to spin properly, so I just picked two more ounces of fleece - Clun Forest and Coopworth. I figure anything that keeps my fleece study project moving forward can count as progress.

This morning I was in my wee studio, packing for MAFA and pulling various class notebooks - there is an Open Studio night at MAFA where instructors hang out in their studios and students come by to visit and see what the class is doing but also to meet & talk to the instructor. They said this was a good opportunity to network with guilds about teaching classes, so I will bring my teaching brochures, some John C Campbell Folk School catalogs and I thought I should bring my tartan notebooks, my Acadian weaving samples, etc. to show off some of the classes I offer.

Anyway - long story short - I found a notebook for the Fleece Study! A page for me to fill in details about each fleece sample and at least one page about the breed, lots of information including the source of each fleece sample. I had completely forgotten that this came with the Fleece Study - oh, the age of mental pause! So I have another resource for my study.

This morning I weighed all the washed samples. I don't have grease weight but I felt that the raw fleece was so old that I wanted it to go straight from the baggie to the scour pot! It will be interesting to see how much weight some lose in picking - a few have hunks of second cuts, not many, but at least two. And the tips on the Coopworth were damaged - I broke off every tip as I picked. That sheep must have had a bad patch health-wise that year. But there is still enough left to spin.

I will have to figure out tomorrow how much fleece to bring with me to MAFA - I have a loom to thread up while I'm there, so I won't have much down time during the class even though the students will spend a lot of time weaving.

I wanted to bring a bonus warp for the class and I was quite pleased to settle on a 4 color modern adaptation of a goose-eye twill - Linked Goose Eye from Handwoven magazine's Winning Towels e-book.. I warped it up in 8/2 cotton/linen for kitchen towels on my new Wolf Pup. I had planned to have it ready to weave on but time ran short and then I realized that it would make a great warping demo for my students.

So, here's a question - I'm trying to decide what I should do with all this yarn I'm going to spin from the Fleece Study. I could, of course, make a ring of labeled skeins and use it as a reference and a class resource. But wouldn't it be cool to make something out of all this and have that as the reference? I could knit a scarf with the softer yarns and use purl stitches to mark a number or roman numeral for each breed... I could weave something with the coarse yarns, a kind of check so that there would be an area of the same breed interwoven, like a color gamp.

What do you think would be a good way to use these yarns?

Tour de Fleece update

2011-07-05T17:17:00.006-05:00

I had a very busy weekend without much time for spinning, but I did manage to card & spin a little each day so far. This is me sitting at a welcome table at the Bluemont concert in Warrenton on Saturday night, carding in between customers. By the way, the band that night was Furnace Mountain and they were wonderful, as always.

I started at the beginning of the alphabet (actually, I skipped Black Welsh Mountain - it feels like steel wool!) with Brecknock Hill, which as I learned from my reading in the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook is a type of Cheviot. I carded this fiber and spun the singles on a Bill Hardy spindle and then plied it on my Bosworth Moosie.

So, on the third day I have my first finished skein - a whopping 50 yards and I haven't weighed it yet, but it should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 ounce. I washed it this morning and I'll weigh it when it's dry.

As it took me three days to card & spin one ounce, I have my doubts about getting through all 48 ounces in the three weeks of the Tour, but I am delighted to have started this project and I hope to see it through no matter how long it takes.

I am still washing fleece - the last pair was Polwarth and Rambouillet. I have used up my two little sample sized packets of Power Scour and now I'm trying out Kookaburra Wool Wash.

I decided to card & spin the Cheviot and North Country Cheviot next, so as to compare the three Cheviots. I started carding the Cheviot yesterday and may get to finish this evening.

This week is going to be very challenging. With the July 4th holiday it's already a short week, and I'm leaving Thursday around 1pm to drive up to Gettysburg PA to teach at the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association conference. So I have to get everything packed for my MAFA class (I'm teaching 18th & 19th c. Linens), get work organized to be away for 4 days (we have 6 concerts this coming weekend) and card & spin!

I'll let you know how that works out.

Ca Commence!

2011-07-02T15:04:00.000-05:00

Tour de Fleece Study

2011-06-29T17:29:00.004-05:00

Long time, no blog - well, I had a tough winter and when you're depressed, the last thing you want to do is talk about yourself. I think next winter I will get some of those lights that help with seasonal affective disorder.

But now, it is summer. And with summer comes.... Tour de Fleece!

I am so excited about participating again this year that I talked some friends into joining me. We have our own team on Ravelry: Team Peace & Solitude 2011, led by Gretchen from Solitude Wool and myself from Peace Weavers. Anyone is welcome to join us - so far we have friends from two of our local Virginia guilds - the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild and the Waterford Weavers Guild and also friends of Solitude Wool. Our team invites participants to set their own goals.

My personal goal this year is to spin through the Fleece Study I bought from Jackie Bland some years ago, while reading the wonderful The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius. I was able to buy a copy and have it signed at Maryland Sheep & Wool, but I haven't had time to do more than glance through it so far. I thought it would be perfect to read about the breed I'm spinning as I work my way through this Fleece Study.

My Fleece Study has one ounce raw fleece samples from 48 different breeds. I made a spreadsheet today to help me keep track of things, and I am busily washing fleece in preparation for the start of the Tour on Saturday, July 2nd.

I was worried that I would have trouble telling the different samples apart and I've been keeping the little labeled bag that each came in with the bowl as it soaks and with the fleece as it dries. I've got two good sized bowls that I'm using to soak the fleece with Unicorn Fibre Power Scour, and so far each pair of breeds has been easy to identify.
Here you have Columbia on the left and Clun Forest on the right.

And this is Coopworth and Cormo.

The next few little bags, waiting for their turn in the bath!

I am washing the fleece in alphabetical order, but I'm thinking about spinning the breeds in related groups, like Down breeds, or possibly spinning the most coarse through to the finest wool. The latter is appealing with the softest, sexiest wool being the carrot to get me through the rough stuff. Black Welsh Mountain feels an awful lot like a Brillo pad to me!

Intentions

2011-02-10T17:11:00.006-05:00

I have been doing more blog reading so far this year, and one of the most inspiring was this one from Knitfinder. I love the idea of intentions rather than resolutions - and I have a sticky note on my monitor at work with a list:
Exercise - Walk, Yoga, Swim
Counseling, Meditation
Mindful Pursuits - Design, Class Planning
Future -A New Home, Family Budget

So far, January was a bit of a blur - I had two weeks to do a month of day job work so that I could spend two weeks with my friend and mentor, Norman Kennedy. He came to visit for a week and we scanned a new set of slides - these were all warp weight loom pictures. Then we drove down to the John C. Campbell Folk School for a week of spinning class. Norman co-taught the class with Martha Owen, the resident spinner/knitter/dyer at the Folk School. Martha is another one of my favorite people, so I had a lovely, relaxing week and fell in love with a Kromski Polonaise wheel. I hope that someday one will come and live at my house.

Norman & Martha getting the class started.

We had a waulking, which is always great fun, and someone caught me in action!

Here is our whole class.

February, so far, has been some catching up from being away, starting to take regular walks again and a weekend spinning class that I taught locally at the Round Hill Arts Center. There has also been a great flurry of preparation for an exhibit that I have been asked to be a part of. I will tell you more about the exhibit in about a month when it launches, but the first task was to write a Biography and a Philosophy.

I have a brochure for the classes I teach, and that has a short bio but I needed something longer and more detailed. And the Philosophy was more of an artist's statement. I have new respect for anyone who has ever written one of these things. I wrote a draft and then my husband helped me develop and edit the second, third, eighth drafts... it took at least a week, but I'm fairly pleased with the final product.

I apologize for the teaser, but this will all be online on or around March 18th. I promise to post more information and links then!

So - upcoming I have an Acadian Weaving class at the Round Hill Arts Center on Feb. 19 & 20. There is still room in the class, but I am mailing out the warp yarn in the next day or two, so if you are interested, do not hesitate!

There is also still room in my Modular Knitting class at the Campbell Folk School March 6 - 12th. A week of knitting all manner of interesting shapes and playing with colorful yarn!

On the knitting front, I am working on a lace design for Solitude and I have a few small projects on the needles - Handsocks, a Selbu Modern hat and a Springtime in Philadelphia hat. I'm longing to cast on for a sweater, but I'm also kind of grooving on turning back to some unfinished projects. I need to decide if I want to knit any new shapes for the modular knitting class, because that is about 3 weeks away.

I have decided Not to Buy Yarn this year. I even told my husband! I have a seriously prodigious stash and it is likely that we will be moving in the next year or so. I have collected a lot of lovely yarn and most of it is earmarked for interesting projects, so I want to try to cast on some of the patterns from my queue rather than continue to add new projects. So I will try to avoid temptation, and cast on whenever I feel like it, but at the moment I'd like to finish some of the UFOs.

Knitting the Threads of Time

2010-11-07T07:44:00.001-05:00

Knitting the Threads of Time by Nora Murphy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This lovely little book was a pleasure to read. In sharp contrast to the many knitlit books on the market today, this is a nonfiction book that follows the author through a winter season while she knits her first sweater and explores the historic and cultural context of knitting. She does not whine, she does not meet any famous knitters and her knitting is eventually successful. Can you tell that I have not enjoyed most of those knitlit books?

I think the main difference is that this is a real story, gently and genuinely told. It reminded to me to think about both the process of a creative project but also about the larger experience of creativity in my life and in the world.

This one is worth sharing.

View all my reviews

Upcoming Fiber Classes!

2010-10-05T17:43:00.011-05:00

I will be teaching a variety of classes this fall and winter.

October 10-16, 2010 Acadian Weaving at the John C Campbell Folk School, NC

November 6 & 7, 2010 Acadian Weaving at the Round Hill Arts Center, VA

November 16, 17 & 18, 2010 Tartan Weaving 101 at WEBS in Northampton, MA

February 5 & 6, 2011 Traditional Fiber Preparation, Point Spinning and Color in Spinning for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild in Purcellville VA

March 6 - 12, 2011 Modular Knitting at the John C Campbell Folk School, NC

I'm also teaching a special sweater class for the BRSWG Knitters group this year, but that class is full! We have about 25 participants and it's a lively group.

If you are interested in any of these classes, follow the link to the sponsoring organization, or contact me for more information.

I hope to see you at a class this year!

Tour de Fleece

2010-07-26T18:38:00.003-05:00

I have watched the fun of Tour de Fleece for the last year or two from the blur of my very busy job - we typically run 55-75 concerts in ten weeks in the summer.

This year I decided to join in spite of my job. I decided that I would try to spin every day of the Tour and just see how much spinning I could manage.

I spun on my two low wheels at home in the evenings, and I brought a spindle to concerts and sometimes had time to spin a little.

Here is my grand total (roughly from left to right):
Lisa Souza Merino in Beachstone: spun 324 yds, plyed 108 yds (spindle)
Shetland top in grey, spun 132, plyed 66 yards
Shetland top in fawn, spun 174, plyed 87 yards
Lisa Souza BFL in Deep Sea: spun 150, plyed 298 yards
Blue Moon Sheep to Shoe in Bruiser, spun 500, plyed 587 yards
Spirit Trail Polwarth Luxury Blend: spun 424 yards
Merino in blue: spun approx. 200 yds (bobbin)
Grand Total 3,066 yards!

I finished spinning the Polwarth just before midnight on Sunday, July 25th - and then stayed up to wind the singles off on a nostepinne, wind this together with the first bobbin of singles and then I just had to go ahead and ply them so I could see what the yarn would look like! At 1:30 I wound the 2 ply onto the niddy-noddy and found I had 212 yards - a nice worsted weight 4 oz. skein.

I was also inspired to inventory my spinning fiber stash, so I pulled it out of all the cupboards and bins and weighed, photographed and made notes. I still have a little left before it is all done - I'll let you know what the total poundage is! I found spinning projects I had started and abandoned and I am hoping to keep spinning and finish up some of these, along with some new projects.

I also found a Jackie Bland Fleece Study kit - 1 ounce each of more than 40 breeds. I'd really like to dive in and work my was through this. It would make a great Spin-A-Long - would anyone care to join me?

Spinning!

2010-01-28T14:48:00.008-05:00

OK, I remain completely jealous of those of you who go to Madrona and Convergence and SOAR and such like, but I recognize that I am very fortunate in my proximity and relationship with the Campbell Folk School. I just spent a week there, being a student (for a change) in a spinning class with Norman Kennedy & Martha Owen.

I am very pleased with my week. I came with 3 specific projects in mind and I worked on two of them and prepared the third, and played with a few other things, too.

I picked,

carded

and spun 3 ounces of fawn Shetland from a fleece I washed a while ago - Shetland from Shetland. I feel like I have finally nailed long draw spinning - the way Norman first taught me in 1980. It's amazing how you can hear the same words over and over and then one day, snap! It falls into place. I am very pleased.

I washed & picked 4 oz. a very fine black Shetland from Shetland that I plan to comb & spin for lace. I finally flick carded & spun some of the Border Leicester fleece I bought from Levin & Raja at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last year, and also got Martha to show me how to spin from the locks in the grease - I have a nearly full bobbin of that. Norman prefers a "properly prepared" wool and disdains grease spinning, and as I have been his humble student, lo these many years, I have had little or no experience with grease wool spinning.

Martha is a pro.

And Martha showed me how she makes her funky multicolored yarn (that's one of her skeins above), by a technique she learned from Priscilla Blosser-Rainey years ago. She starts with a single of natural colored wool and some carded natural dyed wool and she feeds the single and sorta spins & plies the dyed stuff with the single in one go. Very cool!

This is one of Martha's creations. Don't you love the blending?

One of the students brought several pounds of Masham roving that had been gifted to her and she passed it on to us. I did a little combing demo and spun a small skein worsted, and then dropped it in a dye bath. I also dyed a few ounces of my light grey Border Leicester in each of the dyepots - from left to right: red onion skins/alum, yellow onions skins/alum, cochineal/oxalyic acid & tin, cochineal/alum. The undyed fleece is at the bottom.

Ain't it purty? think of the hours of fun - picking, carding spinning...

We also had a mock waulking

And Norman expanded his skills to teaching border collie pups wheel spinning - a first, I'm sure!

Tartan Class!

2010-01-07T17:13:00.004-05:00

I will be teaching a tartan class for the Waterford Weavers Guild on February 20 & 21, 2010.

It will be held at the Old School in Waterford VA, 10am-5pm each day.

There are 3 spaces left in the class, but you need to respond ASAP to have time to choose a tartan pattern for your loom.

This will be a round robin class, each student will weave samples on various looms during class, and then go home to weave 1 or 2 scarves on your own loom, in your own pattern.

$120 for Waterford Weavers Guild members, $150 for non-members.

Contact Cynthia Hull to register: cchull1@me.com

Contact me with any questions by leaving a comment below!

A little stress for the holidays

2009-12-17T16:44:00.006-05:00

Well, I've been going full speed on a long cabled cardigan for my step Mom, hoping to finish it for Xmas. She was in the hospital all of last week for tests and my husband & I & one of our daughters took turns staying up in Baltimore & hanging out with her at the hospital. Above is the view from our hotel room - I got to walk around the Inner Harbor one morning, a lovely cold walk. I thought I'd get a lot of knitting done during my 2 days but I ended up ripping back 6" on both fronts and then barely recouping that loss.

The pattern was not very clear about where to place the pockets, so I put them in 6" from the cast on edge rather than 6" from the top of the ribbing...details...Must consult schematic!

So yesterday I finally finished the fronts, weighed them and went to look for the remaining yarn for the sleeves... you've guessed it, there's not enough.

Only three lonely balls, 150 grams, and the two fronts weighed about 300 g. Don't you ordinarily figure the back/both fronts/both sleeves as being roughly equal in size & weight?

So the yarn is long discontinued, I only found one ball on ravelry and haven't heard back from my begging p.m. I always, always buy extra - maybe they only had 15 balls? So I was in deep despair, but on my way to work I realized that this is clearly not my biggest problem at the moment so I should not obsess over it.

Yes, I could have finished it as a long vest, but the recipient is not really a vest wearing person. She prefers a long cardigan with pockets. So it does need sleeves.

I had a massage scheduled after work and my friend worked all the kinks out of my back & shoulders. When she was done, it occurred to me that I could unravel the back down to the ribbing and reknit it as stockinette - do you suppose that would reap enough yarn for plain sleeves? It's this sweater:(ravelry link).

This is the back - I don't really like the design that much, and it's a natural to make the back plain. Maybe a few stitches in seed stitch at the sides for transition?

I have already found something else to give my stepMom for Xmas, so I'm not in a hurry. It's just frustrating, and I'm ready to be done with this particular sweater. And I was hoping to have something really special for her - she's been undergoing a series of tests over the last several months and after last week they have decided she doesn't have hydrocephalus after all, but possibly Parkinson's. Not what she was hoping to hear, although it means she does not have to undergo surgery again. They sent her home with a new medication to try and will follow up in a month or two.

But truly the the hardest part of our lives at the moment is that her husband is dying. He's 89, he's had a good long life, but those of us who love him dearly are very sad to see him slipping away, and I worry so about my stepMom being on her own.

Maybe he will get through the holidays. It would be a wonderful thing to have our family together for one more celebration. The girls will all be home by Xmas eve, and we'll play it by ear. Or by Jack!

Meanwhile we are busy at Bluemont with First Night preparations. We organize and run these wonderful New Year's eve events in Warrenton & Leesburg. I will be singing with the Flaming Shillelaghs - an Irish band - this year. I'm really looking forward to that. I sang with them in August when they needed a singer to fill in for a few concerts and a wedding reception and it was great fun.

OK, take a deep breath, go for a walk, pat the puppy. Count my blessings.

Lizzy Bennet!

2009-12-15T16:09:00.000-05:00

Take the Quiz here!

My Blog-o-versary!

2009-12-04T17:07:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Teena in Toronto for pointing out that today is my blogoversary!

Well, then I just had to post.

Things have been really, really busy. Lots of family crises, large & small, but thankfully none of them life threatening. We've been going into DC about once a week to spend time/check up on/do things for my stepMom & her husband. This is a 3 hour round trip drive. They have been pretty much apartment bound for a year - he has congestive heart failure and is on oxygen 24/7 and she is dealing with serious mobility issues as a result of normal pressure hydrocephalus.

We've been taking her up to see the hydrocephalus specialists at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore since August and she will be hospitalized all of next week for fluid drainage and tests, more tests - but hopefully the outcome will be a decision to replace the shunt that was put in 18 months ago and hopefully the new shunt will function properly and she will be able to walk again.

That's a lot of hope, and probably Too Much Information. But it's part of how I've been spending my time this year. I do get a lot of knitting done on all the car rides and in the hours of sitting & waiting - I'm currently working on a cardigan for my stepMom which I hope to have ready for Christmas.

My Mom is getting Rather Fuzzy and it's upset me greatly. The lady who has been doing light housekeeping & shopping for her for several years is no longer available and while I've set up regular home visits through Mom's retirement community, it breaks my heart that I can't get out to visit her more often.

I've been talking about moving her to a similar community that is much closer to me, but that's a big project and may not be in her best interests. We have talked about it and will continue to explore that option. I would like very much to take her up to Michigan in the spring to visit her three sisters there.

And our Ruby has been having a rough time lately. So far, all three of her fall semesters have been very challenging, for one reason or another. She is a remarkable, brilliant, creative and talented young woman and we know she will pull through this rough patch. But damn, it's hard to watch from afar.

So my heart is being tugged one way and another. I'm struggling with depression in the face of so much stress, but I've started walking most days and I'm trying to get lots of sleep and take care of myself. I've had some great classes this fall and some nice singing opportunities. I have a wonderful supportive partner and husband and a wildly cute new puppy. I live in a beautiful part of the world. All these things feed my soul.

This lovely photo is from the campus of the John C. Campbell Folk School where I went last month to teach Shaker Rag Rugs, with the able assistance of my pal Lucy Best (who will be teaching her first solo class in February on sock machine knitting). We had a great class as evidenced by their smiling faces:

Rugs! Lotsa rugs.

I will be teaching a new 8/2 Cotton Towel class this weekend. I say will with great emphasis, because they are calling for snow tomorrow, and when it snows in Virginia, everything generally comes to a screeching halt. We are recommending that the weaving students bring sleeping bags and a toothbrush and we'll just weave all night!

I'll let you know how that works out!

Weaving & Knitting Classes

2009-10-12T20:13:00.007-05:00

OK, it took me a full month after returning from Colorado to get that last blog post up, and here's another one right on it's heels. I need to let some folks know about my updated teaching schedule, and this seemed like the best place to spread the word.

I just returned from a 2 day Acadian Weaving class at The Mannings. We had a great class, Carol & Ron are always terrific hosts, the studio is well prepared and I came home with just a little yarn and, oh, a little loom to play with. (Shh! A Schacht Flip!)

And here are the warps from the class. This is a two harness class, with the looms set up for plain weave, so all the design is in weft manipulation. Didn't they weave some pretty cloth?

Next up is a late addition to my schedule - I will be teaching Shaker Rag Rugs at the John C. Campbell Folk School November 1st - 7th. There is still room in this class, so if you're interested, don't delay! It should be a fun week, relatively low pressure for a weaving class as students will be working on individual looms & weaving one or more small rugs.

December 5 & 6, 2009 I will be doing a new class for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild here in Virginia - an 8/2 Cotton Towel class focused on weave structure. There will be 6 different weave structures and it will be a round robin class with students weaving 2-6 towels over the two days.

I've also designed two other brand new 8/2 Towel classes - one on Color & Weave and one of Swedish Weaves - these will be ready for 2010 and will be in my next teaching brochure.

So far, my 2010 teaching schedule has a Tartan sample & scarf class for the Waterford Weavers Guild February 20 & 21 - a round robin class in which students weave samples in class and then go home & weave a scarf on the remaining warp on their looms. There may be a warping class - Beam Me Up Scotty - a few weeks before the tartan class. I'll let you know!

March 7 - 13 I'll be back at the Folk School for a Traditional Island Knitting Sampler class. We will explore Shetland lace, Fair Isle colorwork, gansey and Aran cables and patterning over the course of the week. If anyone has a great idea for a name for this class, I'd love to hear it! Somehow Island makes me think pina coladas... North Island? Help...

In May we will have the Peace Weavers booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and I will be at The Mannings Spinning Seminar June 12th, doing something interesting - at past seminars I have done wool waulkings, demonstrated point spinning on hand spindles & a great wheel, & demonstrated traditional warping & beaming techniques.

The only other class on my schedule now is Acadian Weaving at the Campbell Folk School in October 2010. I am hoping to have another try at teaching a weaving class at Webs, maybe tartans in the fall. I will post an update when I have more information.

You can contact me by commenting on this blog to ask for more information, or click through on any of the links above. I hope to see you at a class or an event sometime this coming year!

Crazy Summer

2009-09-25T17:32:00.007-05:00

Our summers tend to be very busy, and 2009 was no exception. We had a wonderful staff at Bluemont but money is tight so the staff was a little smaller and there is just so much to do! We put on 67 concerts and special events in 9 communities. We started with Scott Ainslie, an old friend and one of my favorite musicians on this planet - that's Scott above, performing on the steps on Dodona Manor in Leesburg. We finished up the summer concert season with April Verch, a Canadian fiddler & step dancer who delighted us all. The other high points for me were working once again with Eric Brace & Last Train Home and the Junkyard Saints of Baltimore. A whole lot of wonderful music.

But there is always time to enjoy the music.

On the home front, we got to see a lot of our girls, especially Lily Rose, as she agreed to come work for Bluemont, one last summer. Here she is giving away the doorprizes at a Leesburg concert, with Desiree's able assistance and a few small volunteers. Hannah was in Belize until mid-July, working on the Coral-Edventures project again, doing some coral reef research and teaching at an ecology camp for local kids. Ruby had a summer internship at NYAC in Washington DC.

Healthwise, this summer was a little rocky. I developed iritis in my left eye in mid-June, and while it was mild and resolved fairly quickly, as soon as it was all better, I had iritis in my right eye! I have had iritis numerous times - it is one of the common symptoms of reactive arthritis - but never one eye after another like this. And then in August I got shingles. I was appalled when the doctor told me what the funny rash on my back and left hand was, but it proved to be a mild case and turned around with one dose of anti-viral medication. The lesions are very slow to heal, though - I can still see them on my hand 6 weeks later.

Also, Peter landed in the hospital in August with blood clots in his lung. They kept him a week while they pumped him full of coumadin and waited for it to take effect. We are still looking for the cause of the blood clots - after many tests and visits with our GP, the next appointment will be with a hemotologist. But it's lucky he went to the ER - we were told that 50% of people with pulmonary embolisms don't make it to the hospital. Reality check!

I headed off to Colorado in September to teach some classes in Colorado Springs. First I spent almost a week in the Boulder area, visiting my nephew Miles and his kids. The photo above is from my morning walk around a small pond a few blocks from Miles' house. My sister Carolyn came out with her daughter Jodie and we did a modest yarn crawl - 3 stores in 2 days - and got Jodie sucked into the knitting vortex to boot. We went to Mew Mew's Yarn Shop, Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins and The Recycled Lamb
.

Here is the family portrait - from L to R, me, Jodie, Caleb, Miles & Carolyn, with Josh in front.
I really enjoyed getting to know Miles & his kids. He's a wonderful Dad and a great guy.

Through a kind introduction from Joanne Seiff, I went up to Longmont on the Sunday to meet up with Deb Robson & Donna Druchunas. We knitted and chatted and got to know one another a bit - it was a delightful afternoon; one of the high points of my trip. Then I took a drive from Longmont over to Lyons where I explored a great quilt shop and then drove up a windy road through part of S. St. Vrain Canyon. As I drove up into the rocks & trees it felt like a cool drink of water and I realized that i had been in plane/car/suburban town for days and days. I live in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and I'm used to a regular dose of forest & mountain; it was so refreshing.

Then it was down to Colorado Springs for a week to teach a 3 day 18th Century Linens weaving class for the Pikes Peak Weavers Guild. I also had the pleasure of being the program for their monthly meeting; I sang my Cottage to the Factory program of old songs relating to sheep, spinning & weaving, and threw in an old ballad and a love song for good measure. I also taught Shetland Lace & Aran Knitting for a day at Green Valley Weavers & Knitters in Colorado Springs.

Here are the intrepid linen weavers, after 3 long days of weaving fine threads!
Next class we'll take the photo at the beginning of the workshop...

This is the view west from Weldon & David's ranch - if it were clearer, you would see Pike's Peak. It's a beautiful place out on the high desert plain east of Colorado Springs. They have 160 acres and about 100 beasts of all kinds: cattle, horses, alpacas, sheep, goats, turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens, 3 pigs and numerous cats dogs & birds. A lively and busy ranch. I took a lot of animal photos - here are the sheep. Weldon was a wonderful host and it really was great having fresh goat's milk every day - now, if I can just figure out how to make that work at home.

After a week in & around Colorado Springs, I went back to Boulder for a few days before I left. Here is my new best friend and great nephew Josh while out for a walk with his favorite creatures.

And I'll leave you with the Fenn men, heading for home.

busy, busy

2009-06-22T16:59:00.006-05:00

I have thought about blogging over the last month or so, but jeez, life has been so busy! In mid-May, we went up to Massachusetts for Hannah's graduation from Smith College. Now that our girls are just about grown, I really appreciate the times when we can all be together.

Smith has lots of traditions. On the Saturday before graduation, they have Ivy Day which involves a parade with the seniors in white dresses and the various groups of alums wearing colored sashes and matching hats and carrying funny signs about what college life was like in their day.

Here are the happy spectators

And here is a dress I particularly liked. Imagine having hips so small that you might wish to accentuate them!

And this was a great chicken bag I kinneared.

Here is our latest graduate! Hannah graduated with a degree in English and she won the Rosemary Thomas poetry award for the best group of poems.

We are all very proud.

One more family group - Monday after Lily had flown back home, we took a break from packing the van & car. It's a good thing we are good at packing - there was a lot of Stuff.

Since then, things at Bluemont have been clicking right along. We finished hiring our summer staff, and a great team they are - but I've spent a lot of time orienting and training and then answering lots of questions. In between, we moved our Miss Ruby into an apartment in DC, where she has an internship for the summer, I attended three year end guild meetings and I taught a weekend of classes for the Albemarle Weavers Guild in Charlottesville - Beam Me Up Scotty, and a pair of lectures on Tweeds, District checks & Tartans, and 18th c. Household Textiles. This was a great group - it was a lot of fun.

There were 12 for the warping class, mostly working in pairs at the warping board and then at a loom.
My friend Sarah leapt out of the way when I approached her warping with a camera, but then she returned for a smiling portrait: Warped, but Happy.

Most recent FO (finished object): Ishbel shawl made with Fleece Artist Sea Wool in the Autumn colorway.

Currently on the needles: a Baktus scarf.

Currently on the loom: bottentacke samples for the Weaving Study Buddies group - you'll have to wait until next post for the photos. These are due to be mailed by July 1st, so I'm away home to weave some more!

cool video!

2009-05-14T19:57:00.003-05:00

Thanks for sharing this, Rosemary!

And for something a little more serious - check out this film about women artists who did not choose between art and having a family:
Who does she think she is?
The trailer on the website is powerful - I hope there will be a screening in DC or Baltimore.

We are heading off to Massachusetts tomorrow morning to attend our Hannah's college graduation! We are looking forward to some family time. Road trip!

Marvelous Maryland

2009-05-08T18:59:00.008-05:00

In spite of the weather, we had a terrific weekend! In spite of the economy and rain all day Sunday, we grossed the same amazing amount that we have the previous two years!

Thanks to everyone who came by to shop, to say hello, to wish us well.

Special thanks to Carolyn, Evelyn, Becky & Annabella for helping in the booth!

I think of how Heather Ordover of Craftlit often says - Knitters are the best people! Well, she's right.

Here is the puppet display, before it was ransacked.

And this was the line to our booth at 9:05 am - the first hour was an absolute feeding frenzy! We sold out of several colors of Peace Fleece and were very busy. (Note blurry image implying action & excitement!)

I also had time to get out & around. I finally got a Ravelry badge, now firmly attached to my sock bag. Wanna see what's in my big bag? I made a few purchases...

MS&W swag - 2 bags, 2 shirts for me, 3 shirts for friends.

A wonderful sheep & spindle mug from Jenny the Potter, and a necklace, too. Amy Singer of Knitty sold them to me - how cool is that?

I spotted Heather Ordover slipping in and out of Jenny's booth, but failed to catch her standing still. I did score a CraftLit tee and some of the gorgeous Scarlet Letter yarn from The March Hare.

Some goodies from Jennifer at Spirit Trail Fiberworks, including one of Lanea's cool bags.

I think of this as The Jetson's Spindle - I didn't get the most techno looking one but I tell you, it spins like a Dervish! I think it is called a Trindle. This was from Gale's Art, and I got little merino roving sample pack there, too. Then a sock flat from Kid Hollow Farm and a skein of Schaeffer Anne from our booth neighbors, Cloverhill - I couldn't resist the colors. I love that yarn.

I stopped by to see Melinda & Tess at Tess Designer Yarn at the end of the day on Sunday and picked up a few skeins there, too: two skeins of Twinkletoes for some bright socks and one skein of Petite Silk, destined to be a lace scarf someday soon.

And yes, there were a few fleeces that followed me home. I split a fleece with my sister, Carolyn - we scored it as we were starting to take down our booth! It's a Romney/Finn cross, white, long staple, lovely crimp.

And two half fleeces from my favorite sheep farmers - Betty Levin

and Ellen Raja - both are Blue Face Leicester. I plan to spin them from the lock to preserve the wonderful color variations.

Nice staple length, huh?

I think all this should keep me busy for a while. Have a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. Tell your Mother you love her!

Color, color, more color!

2009-04-28T13:36:00.006-05:00

OK, I'm really busy, but as promised, here is the Fleece Artist shipment:

We've got lots of Merino sock, along with some Sea Wool, BFL Sock, Casbah and Cashlana fingering weight yarns. Lots of Sea Silk and some of the new Double Sea Silk - a DK weight.

There will, of course, be cashmere. At least a dozen skeins of 4 ply, which comes with a hat pattern and some of the 12 ply, too. I'm working on adapting the Calorimetry pattern for the 12 ply. We've got some new Perl Grey kits - the Lu vest, the Baby Wrapper jacket, some Betsy bucket hats and Toto totebags. And both the Garter Stitch jackets from Fleece Artist and the new Sea Angel jacket from Hand Maiden - this last one is knit from one strand of Sea Silk and one strand of Angel Hair mohair - a heavenly fabric!

I apologize for what is really Shameless Commerce - lots of pretty yarn you could buy... but I'm also sharing the excitement, yes? It really is like Christmas when I open the boxes from Fleece Artist in particular. So all this will be in our Peace Weavers booth at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival this weekend!

I really love the Suri Blue laceweight, and this dandelion colorway in particular - I may have to appropriate some for my own stash.

There is spinnign fiber - Merino and Blue Face leicester sliver and a new spinning fiber, Tussah Sea sliver. It is 65% Seacell /35% silk - seacell is a lyocell rayon (like Tencel) with some seaweed content. Rayon is a man made natural fiber - that always sounds like such a contradiction in terms! Rayon was developed as an alternative to silk, and is fiber extruded from a slurry of wood pulp, but there are many similar fibers being produced today with various base components, like bamboo or soy fiber.

It's pretty stuff - I spun up a little to give it a try. I'm mostly a wool spinner, and I will happily spin almost any fiber blended with wool, but I don't spin much silk. I had trouble getting a really fine thread with this slippery stuff - it got too thin and broke easily - but when I shifted to spinning a thicker single it behaved beautifully. I'm planning on a 2 ply - I promise to show off the finished yarn!

Another new yarn for Peace Weavers this year - Jojoland. I have loved their yarn from the first time I saw it at Stitches in Baltimore 3 years ago, and my current favorite socks are knit from Jojoland Melody. I ordered some Melody, some Melody Superwash, some Harmony laceweight wool and one color of the DK weight Rhythm.

I've been busily pricing yarn & puppets, and making lists. My sister Carolyn flies in with her friend Evelyn today and we will load the vans on Thursday evening and try to get an early start Friday morning to drive up to the Howard County Fairgrounds to set up the booth. Carolyn reminded me that last year we were among the last vendors to leave on Friday night, and I am determined to have a more reasonable schedule this year.

I'll let you know how that works out...

In Which I Eat Crow

2009-04-21T15:22:00.005-05:00

First, the last of the daffodils - along with some of those apple blossoms.

On the Faery Ring front, I heard back from Mary Scott Huff, and the missing back cables were corrected in a revised pattern she posted in February. I really thought I had downloaded this updated version, but clearly, I did not. I blame menopausal miasma, which has made my previously wonderful memory into a chutes and ladders game.

Mea culpa - it was all my own mistake! So I will complain less as I fix it...

Meanwhile...the puppets are here!

I think the best part about unpacking Folkmanis puppets is the way they all look so glad to see you!

New this year - an Australian Shepherd and a Floppy Bunny.

These usually sell like hotcakes at Maryland Sheep & Wool.

And they are so much fun to play with between customers.

Did you know that the Wooly Mammoth is a fiber animal?

See you soon!

Next post: Fleece Artist & Hand Maiden color wallow...

Faery Ring Fiasco!

2009-04-20T15:31:00.006-05:00

First, the promised apple blossoms!

I had a rough weekend. Well, OK, the weather was positively stunning, and once I got off work Saturday afternoon there were some very good parts but then I had a serious knitting setback.

I have been knitting away for the past month or two on two sweaters that I hoped to have ready to show in my Peace Weavers booth at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. I am quite confident that Kim will be completed in time.

My Faery Ring, however, is going in the wrong direction!

Here is what the back looked like on Saturday afternoon. I decided that I should add shoulder shaping and I sent the designer a message on ravelry about it on Friday. On Saturday I charted out the short rows and then went to check ravelry for a reply. I had no messages, so I had a look at the other six Faery Rings in progress, and on laureole's project notes I found a note that she discovered that there were 6 cables missing from the pattern for the back. She wrote the designer on March 26th, who confirmed the error.

What?!? I looked at the pattern photograph and then the pattern page listing the sequence of charts. Damn! (OK, that's not what I really said, but you get the idea.) There should have been 3 more cables on either side of the cable section of the back - less seed stitch, more cables. It looks much better with those extra cables.

And don't I wish I had known about this on March 26th?

Wait a minute - Why didn't I know about it on March 26th?
Why didn't the designer contact each of the ravelers knitting this project?
Why didn't she post a correction on the pattern page?
Why didn't she identify this free pattern from the beginning as
Has Not Been Test Knitted, Knitter Beware!

More bad words.
I sent a message to the designer, in which I tried to be polite but pissed.
I complained to my husband.
I complained to the Fiber Traditions list.
I felt a little better. I considered my options and the likely results.

1) Do nothing = be dissatisfied.
2) Frog the entire body to the beginning of the body cables = hang myself out of frustration, using the resulting yarn mess.
3) Frog just the back to the armhole decreases & then unravel the 16 stitches that should have been cabled = possible eventual satisfaction.

I slept on it and Sunday morning came up with:
4) Unravel the 16 stitches and re-knit them as cables = slow but steady redemption.

So that's what I did. Behold, a damn lot of frogging:

It's an ugly sight, I know. Shocking, really.

The next thing was to pick up the 16 stitches with a spare needle

And then I began working each row.

The trick is to work across the row with as normal tension as you can manage, given that you're knitting with a closed loop of yarn. And then, transfer each stitch from the left to the right needle, pulling firmly to equalize the tension across the row. I had more slack on the left side of the correction at first, but I worked at closing that gap and it got better.

Here is about half of one side done - this took two hours.

But here you can see what's left to do on this side. And then there is the other side, so the whole repair will take about 8 hours.

Damn.

On the bright side,more inventory has been arriving for MS&W. I got the Faroe Island wool in and it smells so sheepy! Primitive and beautiful. I'm trying to decide what kind of sample to knit. There are 3 weights of yarn in singles, 2 ply and 3 ply,

and there are 5 natural sheep colors.

I have two books of Faroe knitting -

a book of traditional shawls

and a book of colorwork patterns. And as I dig through my library I'm finding bits of information about Faroe knitting in other books.

But I don't really have time to play with this now. I will see what I have left after Maryland and plan some projects, like knitted felted slippers, a lace shawl and maybe a sweater.

Tomorrow - the puppets!

It's in the Mail

2009-04-17T17:48:00.006-05:00

All kinds of things have been arriving at our house lately. Inventory for the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, which is always very exciting. And the other day, I got a small packet from Latvia- with knitted chickens! A hen and a rooster. These were made by Ruuta's grandmother. You can see her with them on ravelry, here.

There are a lot of chickens around the place. My sister Annie & I have been sending them to each other for many years now. The new fowl will join the home flock for now, but may fly up to Vermont someday, if I can bear to part with them.

I'm also thinking about knitting some chickens - I got a pattern and some yarn at Webs when we were in Northampton last month.

And then Peace Fleece came out with a new kit - Chicken Egg Covers! Chickens are everywhere.

I got some cute tape measures and some Wool Pets needle felting kits that will be in my Peace Weavers booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool, and there will be lots of Peace Fleece yarn and hand dyed Fleece Artist and Hand Maiden yarns.

New for Peace Weavers this year, we will have some natural colored wool yarns from the Faroe Islands, and some of the beautiful Jojoland sock & lace weight yarns. I'll post photos of these when they arrive!

I am knitting as fast as I can, hoping to have two new sweater models to show - Perl Grey's Kim done in Fleece Artist River, an aran weight yarn of alpaca, silk & merino. I am in love with this wonderful bluey color, called Twlight. This sweater is coming along well, with only one more sleeve to finish and then maybe some added length at the hem.

I'm also working on a Faery Ring in Peace Fleece worsted in this gorgeous color, Sheplova Mushroom. The fronts are done and the back is very close to being finished, but then I've got 2 sleeves to knit and the hood! Hopefully I'll get some good knitting time in over the next two weekends.
I'm going to add some shoulder slope to the front & back shoulders with short rows, and I may fiddle with the sleeves, depending on how time flies.
Have a great weekend - we finally have some lovely warm & sunny weather here in Virginia, after weeks of chilly damp. We don't have a central heating in our house, so the transitional seasons can be chilly. If we're home in the evenings we will sometimes light a fire in the woodstove, but often we get home late and just jump into bed. It will be nice to open up the house, air it out and be warm, too!

p.s. The apple blossoms and coming!

Home again, home again!

2009-03-11T17:14:00.007-05:00

Jiggety Jig!

I am back from North Caroline twice now since my last blog post. The photo above is the gap heading east towards Franklin, NC - it's always a beautiful view, but sometimes you get extra fog for high drama.

It's been really busy, and I will never schedule two Folk School classes 5 weeks apart again, I promise. My next classes there will be a Traditional Knitting Sampler in March 2010 and then Acadian Weaving in October 2010. A much better schedule!

So, we had a week of 18th century Household Textiles at the Campbell Folk School. It was a rather stressful class for the two instructors as you can see from our collapsed state in the photo below - Norman is actually smiling, believe it or not!

We really challenged these students - there were 12 different warps and they were all good sized warps. They all worked very hard and wove some lovely samples, as you can see.

Then, in February I taught a Saturday warping class in Berryville, and then a weekend of 18th c. Household Textiles for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild.

Why the long face? I was rethreading the drall warp - I had failed to give this student a vital detail about the threading sequence. Mea culpa, so I fixed it myself.

And then the first week of March a week of Modular Knitting at the Folk School - my lovely class, and their modules of knitting:

We made triangles on Monday, mitered squares on Tuesday, log cabin squares on Wednesday, bubble wrap on Thursday and entrelac on Friday. It was a full week, and to top it off I came down with a stomach flu on Monday night. But I sat as far away from my class as possible and they sent me off for lots of naps. We persevered and flourished.

But, boy oh boy am I glad to be home. My Acadian Weaving class scheduled for Webs at the end of March had to be cancelled - no students! But I may teach that one in Charlottesville sometime in the next few months. And that gives me more time to prepare my booth and contents for the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

OK - gotta go buy a fish and go home to cook it for our supper.

We all need art!

2009-03-11T17:11:00.001-05:00

I just have to share this video with everyone I know.

Enjoy!

Art

p.s. Can someone tell me how to drop a YouTube video in as an instant player?

Heading South

2009-01-16T12:49:00.001-05:00

After a very busy two weeks, I am about to head south once again to the Campbell Folk School. I have had the pleasure of Norman Kennedy's company this week as a house guest, and tomorrow we will start our drive to the Folk School where we will be teaching a weaving class on 18th Century Household Textiles. It will be a lot of work and a lot of fun - many old friends are enrolled and I will get to meet two of Norman's friends from California who I have heard so much about. I'm looking forward to it.

I should come home with some nice new woven samples and a whole lot of photos to share with you!

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

My review

This is the current CraftLit book, and I realized once I started listening that I read this in high school, and that it was probably the first 19th c. English literature I read. I was trying to think what it would be like to read this book as contemporary literature, without already having the iconic theme of Jekyll & Hyde firmly placed. Think of all the cartoons you saw as a kid...those blackbirds?

View all my reviews.

Saying Goodbye

2009-01-16T11:43:00.009-05:00

We had to say goodbye to our dear corgi dog, Rupert this week. He was 14 years old, and had been with us for almost exactly 13 of them.

In 1996, we had already had corgis for some years and bred a few litters, and one day the local animal shelter called to say that they had a grown female corgi and asked if we might know who it belonged to. I drove over to have a look at the dog and discovered a half-grown male corgi, bouncy and cute as a button, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that he was My Dog.

I asked the shelter folks if they had had a look under this dog, because it was clearly male. I said that he was 6 to 9 months old and wouldn't bother lifting his leg to pee until he got a little older. Being so close to the ground, he didn't really see the point! I told them we wanted him if no one came to claim him as a lost dog, and then we had to wait 3 weeks before they would release him.

.I went off to teach & then take a class at the Folk School - it was a very long two weeks to be away from my young family and I worried that someone would come & take my new dog while I was gone. The family visited him and when I returned from North Carolina he came home to stay. The girls named him Rupert after the English cartoon bear that wears the yellow checked trousers - their English grandmother had given them several annuals of Rupert cartoons.

Rupert was the best dog in the whole world. He loved to ride in the car, and wanted to go with me everywhere. I brought him to work with me and he made friends with all the Bluemont staff over the years and with everyone who came in the door. We walked around the Clarke County park for exercise, we walked around Leesburg to run errands, he once climbed all the way to the top of Old Rag mountain with Peter & me. He was always by my side if I was upset or ill, wanting to offer comfort in his doggie way.

But he lost his companion Wiley about a year ago, and he was up in years for a corgi. He was in good form until about 6 months ago when he started climbing the stairs like a slalom instead of bounding straight up. He lost the spring in his back legs - I had to give him a power assist boost to get into the car. The vet said he had bone spurs and an NSAID helped, but he lost his appetite at the beginning of December and we had to tempt him with all manner of food and feed him by hand.

I knew he was getting ready to leave us, and when he refused food of any kind, we watched him carefully for several days. On Tuesday he wanted to come in the car with me but had to be lifted in, and when I got to work he didn't want to get out of the car. I realized that it hurt him to be moved, and that the time had come. I carried him into the office and worked until evening, and then I took him to our vet.

At the vet's office, I stayed with him and talked to him as we waited, and after they gave him a sedative I told him that we loved him and wanted him to have a good journey. I said this for every member of our family - Peter loves you and he says goodbye, Lily Rose, Hannah, Ruby, and then every other person I could think of who was dear to him - Tex, Nathan, Jill, Sue. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and surely one of the most important.

We love you, Rupert. We miss you. You were loved by many people. The cats are pretending that they don't care, but I know for a fact that they miss you, too.

Where everything is new again

2009-01-01T15:55:00.012-05:00

or, le plus que ca change, le plus que c'est le meme chose...

Which is to say, the more things change, the more the stay the same.

Here we are at the turn of the year, and I wanted to take the time to write a post about the year behind me and the year I'm looking forward to.

My life has been really busy for the last several months, between increased responsibilities at work and an active teaching schedule. I haven't been able to find much time for blogging, although I know that if I didn't look through my friend's activity on ravelry every day, that would probably add up to a lot of blog posts! But it's such a great treat, every day - all that new knitting to look at!

On the fiber, music & family scene, this is what 2008 held for me:

In January, I taught a weekend Beam Me Up Scotty warping class for the local Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild and then I was a student in a spinning class with Norman Kennedy & Martha Owen at the John C. Campbell Folk School

In February, I taught a District Checks & Tweeds class for Blue Ridge Guild, and was a student in a 1 day Spinning New Fibers with Patsy Zawistoski.

I returned to the Campbell Folk School in March to teach a Knit to Felt class and then in April Peter & I moved his Mum into the Health Center of her retirement community - and I did a lot of knitting on the 8 hour round trip, three weekends in a row.

This helped me prepare for the May Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

I spent a very hot but productive weekend of weaving in June at Bill Leinbach's studio in Lebanon, PA.

We were very busy with the Bluemont summer season and then in the fall I had three brand new classes to prepare for - in September I taught Tartan Weaving - Lap Robes at JCCFS

and I also organized & attended a 2 day Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting class with Elizabeth Johnston & Martha Owen here in VA.

October brought the annual Waterford Fair, in nearby Waterford VA where I have been selling & demonstrating with the Waterford Weavers Guild since 1982 and singing & playing music since 1985. It's the annual entrance into autumn for me and generally a great weekend.

I also taught a new Tartan Weaving class at The Mannings in East Berlin PA that focuses on the evolution of tartan design through a dozen traditional tartan setts.

In November I was the guest instructor at Carodan Farm's KnitXperience in Syria VA - I sang a program of old songs about weaving, spinning & sheep on Friday evening and taught an Aran knitting class and a Shetland Lace class on Saturday. There are some nice photos from the retreat here.

December brought a much anticipated event - our oldest daughter Lily Rose graduated from Virginia Commonweath University! We surprised Lily by flying her two sisters down from their college in Massachusetts for the weekend. We had a great time celebrating together. And then just last night on December 31st, I performed at First Night Leesburg.

Preparing for First Night this year was really challenging. Bluemont actually runs two events on 12/31 - First Night Leesburg & First Night Warrenton. The fundraising was very challenging this year, and we weren't sure the Leesburg event could take place until enough money had been raised. This meant that the contracting was done very late and we put in some very long days, working late on Christmas eve and then right back at it on Boxing Day. I usually have at least some time to relax at home and visit with friends & family over the holidays, but this year we could spare very little time.

We took Christmas day off and spent it with my Mom, my stepMom and her husband, and we made a nice holiday for them, but our immediate family celebration had to wait until Sunday evening when we took a few hours to light the candles on our tree, sing together and open some gifts. It was a very special time as always, but really shoehorned in between work. To top it off, Ruby & Hannah both had their wisdom teeth removed on 12/22 and were pretty much out of it for 3 days. It was crazy.

But our First Nights came together as a result of all our hard work - Peter, Lily & I and our small but dedicated staff and a host of volunteers & performers. It was a very cold night with high winds, so the crowds were light last night, but those who braved the weather got to hear some wonderful performances. And I was very pleased with my own part in the performances. I gotta tell you, it's very challenging to find time to get ready to perform in the context of so much work, but this is my favorite performance venue of the year.

I got to sing in the St. James Episcopal sanctuary again this year, two sets with Sine Nomine - an a capella trio performing early European music from the 11th - 16th century; and one set on my own - singing unaccompanied ballads & songs from Ireland, Scotland & England. Singing in this sanctuary is like playing a fine instrument as so little effort produces such a lovely and full sound. It was a delight, and I was pleased to be in better voice for my 11pm solo set that I have been in year's past. I sang some of my favorite songs, and a group of songs that I have learned most recently. I had a small but attentive audience and those lovely acoustics - it was great.

A wonderful way to close the year.

So - 2009 has these events coming up:

January

18th c. Household Textiles, co-taught with Norman Kennedy at the JCC Folk School, Brasstown NC

February

18th c. Household Textiles for the Blue Ridge Guild here in VA- there is still room for 1 or 2 more students in this class! You can find the workshop registration form here.

March

Modular Knitting at JCC Folk School

Acadian Weaving at WEBS in Northampton, MA - I'm very excited to be teaching a class at WEBS for the first time!

April will be spent preparing for the May Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival - my booth is Peace Weavers, 3rd booth on the right hand wall in the big building, since 1990!

Also in May will be our daughter Hannah's college graduation.

In June I will be teaching 2 workshops for the Albemarle Weavers Guild in Charlottesville VA.

Once the Bluemont summer season is over, I will go to Colorado in September to teach a workshop for the Pikes Peak Weavers Guild in Colorado Springs. This will be my first time teaching west of Ohio, and was set up through one of the students in the last tartan class I taught at the JC Campbell Folk School. They haven't chosen the workshop topic yet.

That's a lot to look forward to, not to mention a new President and hopefully the slow beginning of turning this nation and the economy in a better direction. I enter into this new year with hope, and the anticipation of hard work and good times in a better balance.

I wish you all good health, stable finances and a strong creative flow - and good luck working on maintaining the balance!

Anniversaries, New Beginnings

2008-10-21T11:44:00.009-05:00

I have long associated Autumn with new beginnings. Many of us do, from our years of school starting around Labor Day: new shoes, new clothes, new classmates, a new teacher. And the natural world does go through one of her wardrobe changes as well, making visible our sense of change. Today as I drove east and headed up the mountain, the first bright flaming maple trees were peeking out from behind their neighbors. We've had lots of gold and russet coming on slowly, but these were the first really bright trees I've seen here in Virginia.

I changed jobs at the end of the summer, or to be more accurate, I changed positions at my longtime job at the Bluemont Concert Series. I kind of married Bluemont 26 years ago, when I met & married my husband, Peter. I was living in Vermont in 1982 when I came south on tour with Gentle Robber, an a cappella trio. We were hired by Bluemont to sing a concert on May 1st that year, and I met Peter Dunning at his home, the Bear's Den where we were to stay over the few days we worked for Bluemont.

Peter says that he knew I was the woman he wanted to marry when he saw me in the photo we sent ahead for publicity. There is proof of this - he bet his friend Mary H. a milkshake that she couldn't tell which of the women in the photograph was his future wife. We still have the postcard she sent in reply - it says, "The one with the boots. I'll take chocolate."

The way I tell it, when we met we took one look at each other and said something like - "Where the hell have you been? I've been looking all over for you!" We recognized one another, as if we had known one another before.

Our families weren't so easily persuaded. The prospective in-laws on both sides came to each of us and asked if we were sure we knew what we were getting into. They gave us a year, didn't think either one of us would stick to the relationship any longer than that.

Well, I am here to tell you that there have sure been some rough spots, but we celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary last week. So there. By now, our families know that we are both very fortunate in our choice of mates and very determined to make our marriage work.

Here is my anniversary present - a mobius bracelet I have long admired with 2 stanzas of Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI inscribed around the surface:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments, Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds;
or bends with the remover to remove
Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark,
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

I love it. I've been wearing it every day.

Back to the job - I started as a bookkeeper, eventually moved up to being the (ahem) Business Manager, and a few years ago moved over to running Bluemont's Artist in Education Program. Our new Business Manager was pregnant when we hired her and I covered her maternity leave last summer but then returned to the AIE program in the fall. This summer she took leave to be home with her two children and I stepped back in to cover the summer, but I was determined that she would be back in the fall. But she called in August to say that she would not return.

Once I got over the idea of Going Back to my old job, I realized that this is really the best place for me to be right now. Bluemont is a very small business with a swell in activity and staff in the summer months. Although it is a non-profit organization, it really runs much like a family business. With the economy going south, it makes more sense for me to be at the financial helm again, and I can still oversee and support the AIE program from here.

I moved upstairs to a real office with a door, and in September I decided to make this space my own. So I've decorated with yarn! I set up some shelves and moved all the goods that I have listed on my eBay store, Peace Weavers into my office, where I can see them everyday and enjoy the colorful fiber array.

Isn't it pretty?

EBay has been pretty quiet all summer, but I'm trying to put some more energy into my store, ordering new items, listing new products. It's mostly hand-dyed yarns from Fleece Artist & Hand Maiden and some Folkmanis puppets, but I've got Peace Fleece yarns to list, patterns, Shetland Supreme lace weight yarn from Jamieson & smith and new items from Nancy's Knit Knacks to list shortly.

I'm teaching a tartan weaving class at The Mannings weaving school in Pennsylvania this weekend - I will report back on that adventure next week!

Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting class!

2008-07-23T13:26:00.003-05:00

Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting
with Elizabeth Johnson of Lerwick, Shetland
& Martha Owen of Campbell Folk School fame!
September 20 & 21, 2008
Studios East West - Berryville, Virginia

This is a rare opportunity to study with Elizabeth Johnson of Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. Elizabeth has made her living spinning and knitting in her native Shetland and comes occasionally to the US to share her knowledge and skill. Accompanying Elizabeth will be Martha Owen, resident spinner at the John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Martha is a skilled spinner and knitter, a delightful teacher and co-owner of The Yarn Circle in Murphy, NC.

This two day class will include demonstration and instruction in spinning and knitting: The Spinning portion of the class will include fleece selection, carding techniques and methods of spinning yarn specifically designed for the traditional lace styles of Shetland knitting.

The Knitting portion of the class will be focused on the traditional style of Shetland lace knitting. Elizabeth will also demonstrate & teach the use of a knitting belt with long knitting pins.

Participants at any level are welcome to attend. Knitters who don’t spin are welcome to observe the spinning and even try their hand on a wheel. Spinners who do not knit are also welcome to sit in on the knitting. Rudimentary instruction will be available in both spinning and knitting.

The fee for the class is $125. There will be a small supply fee and fleece from Shetland will also be available for purchase. To register, email me to get my mailing address and then send a $50 deposit to hold your place.

Melissa Weaver Dunning – weaverdun@aol.com

Housewifery Skills

2008-07-23T13:12:00.003-05:00

I was thinking the other day about the way my husband refers to me as his bride -after 25 years of marriage. It occurred to me that I do not reciprocate this by calling him my groom - which made me laugh, but then led me down a new path, thinking about how the male terms for spouse - husband, groom - have or share their source with farming and livestock terms. Animal husbandry, a groom being a man who works with horses.

We don't find bride or wife in the same sources. There isn't much wifery of any kind in the modern world outside of midwifery. We had our three daughters at home with a midwife but I very well know that this is not a typical scenario in the U.S. today.

The only language I insisted on at our wedding was that the ministers declaration be of Husband & Wife rather than Man & Wife - I always found the latter rather demeaning. The wonderful man who presided over our wedding was so nervous about being outside his home church that he said various things that were not in the book at all - afflication for affection was the one we all remember! He got lost and had to start over and it was still one of the shortest wedding ceremonies ever.

All this serves as an intro to this rather interesting quiz that I found on Jennifer's blog today:

As a 1930s wife, I am
Average

Take the test!

Oh, my. Only average...

It's a funny test - have a look!

Happy Birthday, William B.!

2008-06-13T16:24:00.002-05:00

I subscribe to The Writer's Almanac program. I don't especially like Garrison Keilor, but I do enjoy having a poem read to me every morning. When I miss the radio broadcast, it's nice to read the poem myself when I get to work and log in to my email there.

So today when I logged in at work, I discovered that it is the anniversary of William Butler Yeats' birthday. I am very fond of Yeats' poetry, and these are three of my favorites, so I wanted to share them with you. I found a volume of Yeats' poetry in my Dad's books when I went through his library after his death 10 years ago, and though I'm sorry we never discussed these poems it pleases me to think that we may have shared some of the same enjoyment in these words.

A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Never give all the heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

"A Drinking Song" by William Butler Yeats, Public Domain.
"He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by W.B. Yeats, Public Domain.
"Never give all the heart" by W.B. Yeats, Public Domain.

If you would like to read more about the life of WBY, you can visit the Writer's Almanac site for today by clicking this link. This program is also available as a podcast!

Wonderful Weaving Weekend

2008-06-10T18:53:00.010-05:00

I have been meaning to try to catch up on various travels and events...but as my mind is not as linear as it once was, so goes my blog.

I just got back from 3 days of weaving at the home & studio of William Leinbach, who is a traditional Pennsylvania-German weaver and a friend. He lives with his wife Edna in Myerstown, PA, and he opened his studio to 5 weavers from the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild and allowed us to weave samples on some of his looms.

We wove Overshot on 4 harnesses:

Overshot on 22 harnesses:

Doubleweave on 18 harnesses:

Summer & Winter on 6 harnesses: This is woven upside down, so you are looking at the "wrong side" of the fabric on the loom. Can you find my mistake?:

Singles linen plain weave on 2 harnesses:

Here is a finished linen kerchief that Bill wove in different colors -

Some weavers wove on a different 4 harness overshot and/or an M's & O's runner.

Most of Bill's looms are antique frame looms which are often called barn looms because of the massive beams that make up the loom. The 18 harness doubleweave was done on an old loom with a modern harness set added on; the 22 harness overshot was woven on a Glimakra Oxaback loom that Bill special ordered from Glimakra in Sweden some years ago.

Bill is a tall guy, a large man, and most of these warps were around 46" wide plus an extra few inches out each side to the cord that allows the weaver to add fringe by wrapping the pattern shuttle around the cord on every pass.

Which is to say, Really Wide for the average woman weaver - I'm 5'6", and I've been dealing with a torn rotator cuff and other shoulder issues for a year or more. I really wasn't sure if I would be able to work these looms comfortably with my shoulder. But I'm pleased to report that while it was certainly challenging, it didn't hurt to weave. I think I need to add this type of weaving to my weekly physical therapy schedule!

Bill has an awesome collection of spinning wheels, and contributed mightily to the wonderful book, Spinning Wheels & Accessories by David Pennington and Michael Taylor. There are old wheels all over the place!

I think he has too many wheels and should sell some to me, like this intriguing Canadian production wheel:

Or this beauty:

There are fascinating old things everywhere you look, like this collection of hats & bonnets hanging from a beam in the living room: We had a wonderful time weaving, visiting over potluck meals and going to the Black Angus antique market very early on Sunday morning. Some of we weavers bought antique coverlets there, and while I was tempted by an old spinning wheel, I didn't buy anything but really enjoyed looking. It's a wonderful market with all manner of old goods and some remarkable bargains.

Virginia, along with most of the East Coast, has been suffering a spell of very hot & humid weather. We don't have air conditioning at home, so our whole house fan has been working hard to keep us almost comfortable. Thankfully, the weather broke with a dramatic storm this afternoon, so we are looking forward to a more comfortable night of sleep.

I will take photos of my woven pieces when they are finished and share them with you in a later post.

Coming Up for Air!

2008-05-23T12:34:00.008-05:00

Well - I've been meaning to blog since Maryland Sheep & Wool was over, but it's been rather a whirlwind of work & travel chez moi.

Here are some booth photos - before the feeding frenzy began.
The Wall O' Peace Fleece - I love to see all the colors together!
Most of the Fleece Artist yarns
All the Cashmere Hand Maiden yarns

I ordered some of the new Hand Maiden Swiss Mountain Silk Cashmere, and on Sunday we put these skeins in a basket on the sales table and invited customers to touch it. It was a great entertainment to watch each individual react to the extraordinary softness of this yarn - some people oohed or cooed, one shrieked, and most pulled their friends over to have a feel.

Maryland Sheep & Wool was great once again but exhausting, and we were fortunate not to be affected directly by any of the thefts & vandalism - a very sad occurrence. The fiber community has gotten too big, apparently. Or big enough to suddenly look bright & shiny to some thoughtless thieves. Much has been written about these events, and I will add my sadness and concern to the balance.

It makes me think of one of the Frances books we read to our girls when they were little. In A Bargain for Frances, Frances and her friend Thelma are playing and Thelma tricks Frances into buying her old plastic tea set and then says No Backsies when Frances discovers the deceit. The sad lesson for Frances is that she will have to be careful with her friend from now on, but that it is better to be friends than to be careful.

We will have to be careful, to pay more attention to security and where is the cash box and where we display the fancy goods. Some of this is common sense and should be done under any circumstances. But some of this asks us to view our booth and/or sales operation from a thief's point of view and that is a place we didn't think we needed to go. Our cozy, small town has gotten too big. Let us all hope that with vigilance and attention, a new balance will be found.

I only made a few purchases - 2 hanks of roving from A Verb for Keeping Warm bought from our neighbor, Cloverhill Yarns. Isn't it a lovely orangey color? Orange is popping up all over in my fiber life these days!

Cloverhill has a new owner and we really enjoyed meeting Jolene and her booth babes and checking out all the indie hand dyes in their booth. I also stopped at The Fold and bought an Avi Wasserman spindle, a skein of Knitters w/out Borders STR and a Sheep to Shoe kit!

The weekend after MS&W, Peter & I drove up to Long Island NY for his sister Wendy's 40th wedding anniversary. Wendy is his only sibling and she & her husband Juan are Jehovah's Witnesses - which means that weddings & wedding anniversaries are the only events or holidays they celebrate - so this was a big deal. Their kids put on a surprise party and our arrival was the biggest surprise.
Here is the happy couple, serenading their party!

We both felt that it was worth every minute of the long drive up & back so see the look on her face when we walked into that party. It was wonderful. Great party, very nice folks and we got to meet some new kinfolk. Wendy & Juan have 7 children, all grown now and mostly married. Three were married in the last year and we were unable to make any of the weddings - so we got to meet new spouses and a boy friend and it was great to see and catch up with everyone.

We stayed in a dreadful motel - the last remaining room was a smoking room but we took it anyway as we were exhausted and both sick with the Horrible Cough. We had stayed there before so I knew the windows in the room opened. While we were signing in, a woman came up behind me and asked if she could get a room for an hour. Oh, my giddy god. Add to that that the room hadn't been cleaned properly - there were cigarette butts in the window frame - the sheets had holes in them, the mattress was a misery and there was tepid water for a shower in the morning. We will not be returning to this particular establishment. Sniff!

Next morning, we drove into Brooklyn and had lunch with Peter's cousin & his wife. Then we headed for a walk around Coney Island before hitting the road. We ended up walking around Brighton Beach, both on the boardwalk and around the neighborhood for a couple of hours. I took a year of Russian in high school, and I still remember the phonetics of the Cyrillic alphabet, so as we walked around I tried to read all the signs. It was like a mini-vacation in another country.

We went into a teeny tiny fabric store that was remarkably vertical - the goods were stashed and hung right up the walls. There were a few knitted items, and I bought a little shoulder shawl for $15, undyed brown yarn with little gathered scallops in the hem - see - This dark photo shows the shape best but is otherwise dreadful.
This photo is better - this is how it was displayed on the hanger.

We went into one store that was mostly books but also CDs and movies and some souvenir type goods - and I noticed some knitted items in undyed wool. It made me wonder what part of Russia they came from and what tradition.

We had an uneventful journey home except for heavy rain and wind for the last few hours - we have had so much rain here in Virginia that our pond is now quite full!

Enough for one post. More in the next one!

me me!

2008-05-15T15:21:00.002-05:00

I've been memed. For the first time! Jennifer memed me today, so here goes:

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
- Well, much of what I'm doing now, but at a different phase of life - working for the Bluemont Concert Series, which my husband founded in 1979 and we have been running together since we met in 1982. I started teaching weaving, knitting & needlework classes at the John C, Campbell Folk School in 1997, so that was a new and exciting venture for me. And I was actively raising my girls - they would have been 8, 11 & 14 then - they are all 3 in college now. Peace Weavers, my yarn business had gone from two or three shows a year & mail order to just Maryland Sheep & Wool - we made this change in 1997.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
- prepare reports for tomorrow's Executive Committee
- follow up on school & performer calls
- finish packing for my trip to Northampton, Massachusetts
- go to physical therapy
- iron some clothes while watching Monarch of the Glen

3) Snacks I enjoy:
- fresh pineapple
- roasted almonds

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
- tell my husband to retire!
- build or buy my dream teaching studio/loom museum
- take a real vacations - visit New Zealand, Scotland, China.
- create the ultimate retirement community for my elders, with a day care center, a plant nursery and an animal shelter on site.
- pay off my kids college loans

5) All the places I have lived:
Chatham, New York
Alexandria, Virginia
Harrisonburg VA,
Durango, Colorado
Plainfield, VT
Boston, MA
Plainfield, East Calais, West Wheelock VT
Bluemont, Berryville VA
I've actually lived in the same house now since 1985!

6) Peeps I want to know more about:

Jennifer (back at ya!)
Joanne
Annmarie
Sheila
Anne

Here is the obligatory quizzy thing-

64 words

Speedtest

The last order arrives...

2008-04-28T17:37:00.005-05:00

This is just a quick post. I'm getting really excited about Maryland Sheep & Wool. Look what came today!

I've been worrying about the economy and whether knitters and spinners will be buying this year and how much inventory should I order.
I've been worrying about our Moms - we have 3 and 2 are having health problems right now.
I've been worrying about the future of our non-profit.. both my husband & I work for Bluemont and in this economy, having all our financial eggs in this rather fragile basket seems, well kinda crazy. But here we are, shortening sail to ride out the storm.

But now, with all my orders received and MS&W on the immediate horizon, I am excited! I finished my my Sea Silk Swallowtail today and here it is, blocked and drying. I am completely addicted to lace knitting now. Hook line and sinker. (Can you tell it's been raining for days? I guess I'm feeling the damp...)

And here are the lovely things I unpacked this noon - the Hand Maiden box finally arrived! We've got Casbah sock yarn

4 ply cashmere in hat kits:
and 12 ply cashmere in Quick Knit hat kits:
We have Sea Silk:
And last but not least, this heavenly Swiss Mountain Cashmere Silk. This stuff makes the 100% cashmere feel like Rough Stuff. It is simple amazing.
Also appearing but not pictured - Tussah Silk laceweight.

Yum, yum ,yum.

And to add to all this fibery goodness, our booth is next door to Cloverhill, which is featuring a bevy of indie hand dyers...I'm hoping that we'll be too busy to see much of it, because it will be so tempting.

I'm just a sucker for color....

Spring Surprises!

2008-04-23T12:15:00.004-05:00

One of the good things about being away these last two weekends is that when we get home, there are surprises waiting...the next phase of spring has moved right in, without preamble.

We came home to the apple tree in full tilt boogie, as seen above. Then this morning I discovered that the wild violets have arrived.

The last of the tulips that I planted over 20 years ago have bloomed:

We had some tree work done last spring on our linden tree, and while they were here we had the tree guys cut all the old dead wood out of a large stand of lilac. I've been interested to see how the remaining lilacs would respond, and they seem very happy as you can see. Now I want to plant some light purple/lilac colored plants in between - although it would probably be heavy digging through the old roots.

We got several inches of rain over the weekend and our cow pond is finally looking like it should in the spring. We've had two very dry years and this spring fed pond dried up to a tiny puddle last summer. Since we have well water here (wonderful, tasty well water) it makes me nervous to see the pond low. So this is a happy sight!

Then, when I walked out to my car, I discovered a small community of new anthills right next to my car. I had to tread carefully not to crush the industry of the ants:

Our 100 year old Virginia farm house had peonies, lilac, forsythia and a few roses when we moved in 23 years ago, but no redbud and no dogwood, which I think of as traditional local trees. We moved our office last summer from downtown Leesburg to a residential street in the smaller town of Purcellville, and there is a small dogwood tree right out front. I've been watching the buds come on over the last few weeks. I had forgotten that the flowers come before the leaves with dogwood.

The flowers are coming on very quickly now, and today they look like this!

I made good progress on my Swallowtail shawl, completing the bud lace section and knitting most of the first lily of the valley chart. Nupps! Purl 5 together... boy do I love these Knit Picks Harmony needles and their pointy points. A little Ancient Bark progress and I have the front of my Sea Vines vest blocked and drying. But MS&W is coming up quickly!

Seeing stars

2008-04-17T18:57:00.009-05:00

Oh, I've been little busy!

My dear Mother in Law, Beryl lives in a retirement community in Virginia's Northern Neck. She is 88 and has had multiple sclerosis since she was about 30. She's an awesome survivor. She was hospitalized for what was supposed to be a weekend that turned into 18 months when her kids were 3 and 7 - can you imagine? When she finally got to go home she was largely bedridden for many years and then had a decade or more of remission in her 50's & 60's.

When I met her she was 63, living with her husband near Boston and had taken up woodworking and learned to drive a car - again. Lest you think she's a candidate for sainthood, the second time I met her, the very first thing she said to Peter & I when we had driven 10 hours from Virginia to Boston, pulled into her driveway and hadn't even gotten out of the car yet was - Have you changed your minds?

About getting married. Both our families gave our marriage a year at best. We celebrated 25 years in October. So, there! My biggest issue with her is the load of guilt she heaped on her kids. She can still push my husband's buttons with very little effort. Granted, it was probably the best tool she had for getting her kids to mind when she was stuck in the bed or a wheelchair. But I kinda think she overdid it.

Anyway, Beryl has been living in the Assisted Living area of this place for 7 or 8 years, and they made a lot of noise last fall about moving her to the "Health Center". We weighed in and persuaded the facility to make it Beryl's choice - she decided to stay in AL. Her doctor agreed and that was that for a while. But a few weeks ago the doctor said it was time for her to move and they had her into a temporary room in 30 minutes. Without calling either of her adult children, without following the plan we carefully crafted last fall for a smooth transition.

They said they talked with her and that she agreed to the move, but as soon as she was left alone she called her daughter and said she didn't know where she was and she didn't have her pocketbook. She had been being polite and making affirmative noises but she didn't really know what was going on. Honestly. They really should have paid more attention.

This led to a great kerfuffle and 3 long days of meetings with the family. Finally they agreed to let her make the decision (again!?!) and this time she decided to move. So we've been trying to make the best of a very challenging transition.

Last weekend my husband & I drove the 4 hours down in 2 vans and spent a few days going through her things, along with having a birthday celebration for Beryl. I spent one morning with her in her old apartment going through family mementos and jewelry. She kept saying that it was just like attending your own funeral. We have to go back again this coming weekend, but I think we'll bring things to her for any consultations and decisions - we don't think she should visit her old half empty room any more.

So, two lost weekends and a lot of driving. Although we will only need to take one van this weekend, so I'll get more knitting done with Peter driving!

Knitting! I am making good progress with my many projects. I have numerous items that I am hoping to have ready to show in my booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool. I have finished my Hemlock Ring Throw - Peace Fleece worsted in a lovely green called Anna's Grasshopper.

The Hemlock Ring looked like a decidedly organic growth before blocking - but then...

Blocking is so exciting. I may wet and block this again to see if I can get the feather & fan section a little flatter. But I'm very pleased. And tempted to knit it again in fingering weight for a shawl.

I am also working on a Sea Vines Vest in Fleece Artist Sea Wool in their Peacock colorway. I finished and blocked the back - note the interesting (uh huh) pooling... I decided to knit it from one ball and just see how it went - and the front looks fine. I just bound off the neck this morning and I'm knitting the straps on the front, so the end is in sight!

Greens are hard to photograph properly, but this detail photo is closer to the real thing.

When the first boxes of Fleece Artist arrived from my MS&W order I just had to weave some of the Sea Wool - the colors were so exciting. My Baby Wolf loom was tied up (more on that later) so I pulled out my 3 foot Tri Loom and started a scarf. I probably should have used a double strand - I think it's going to draw in a lot and be tiny. I could also weave one or two more triangles and join them together to make a trapezoid... but I don't think I could have that ready for the show. I guess I'll see how the first triangle blocks out.

Did I say Fleece Artist? It' so exciting to unpack the boxes. Don't you just love Color?

I've got a Swallowtail Shawl started - I'm probably about halfway through. I think it needs another 10 hours of knitting. This is in Hand Maiden Sea Silk in Ocean. I've had this skein since my first Hand Maiden order, but I didn't like the pattern it came with and I just hadn't figured out what it wanted to be...until I got into a lace shawl conversation with my friend Karen and I was bitten by the Swallowtail bug! Seeing all the lovely ones on ravelry helped, too.

I can't find the photo of the Swallowtail, but I will leave you today with this lovely table runner woven by my friend William Leinbach. He drove down from Lebanon, Pennsylvania with his wife Edna to do a program for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild. He brought a truckload (really!) of old coverlets to talk to the guild about and a modest selection of his own work for sale. I've long admired his weaving and I finally bought a piece.

Ain't it purty? You weavers would like a closer look, I'm sure.

I need you Peeps...

2008-04-07T18:11:00.002-05:00

I just have to share this, in case you haven't run across it elsewhere.

The Washington Post started an annual Peeps Diorama contest last year.
You simply have to see it to believe it.

Here is the 2nd annual Peeps Diorama contest gallery! And the accompanying article.

And for the proper historic context - the 2007 highlights.

A bounty of mallow, indeed.

Tempus Fugit, encore

2008-04-07T17:27:00.005-05:00

OK, it's April! Where did March go? All of a sudden Maryland Sheep & Wool is coming at me at an alarming speed! I think I'd better get the last of my orders done tonight.

The first two boxes from Fleece Artist arrive on Friday, and the yarn and rovings are, as always, just breathtaking. Yum, yum.

And speaking of lovely, this post opens with a photo of my favorite tree: a venerable weeping cherry tree that stands beside Route 7 at the edge of the Shenandoah River bridge. Every spring, I watch attentively for this tree to bud and then bloom. This year, we have been favored by lingering cool weather, so my tree has been at peak loveliness for over a week! Isn't it wonderful? Just say yes.

Now, I promised a report on my John C. Campbell Folk School week, and photos, too. I saw my first daffodils of the year, strewn generously through the woods along the paths (look up). I was teaching a class called Knit to Felt. I brought lots of yarn for us to play with(look down)
I had seven students, including an intrepid debutant guy knitter. This is Andrew. He had a 20 minute knitting lesson the night before class started. He did a great job on his laptop bag and started a hat.
We had lots of laughs about just how big things should be Before Felting:
and how lovely they can be After Felting:
One Fabulous Fish of Wisdom:
The lovely Laura ( crashing our class from her scrimshaw class)with her needle felted mouse
Our lovely class display in 2 shots:

and a group photo of the happy knitters - I'm in the middle of the back row in the green.Can you tell we had a wonderful week? We sure did! This class had a great group dynamic, with a nice balance of talk and laughter and teaching, lots of visits to the local Yarn Circle shop, the excellent Folk School food...

I had a bit of a debacle driving down because I had planned to stay the night in Bristol VA/TN without consulting the NASCAR schedule - silly me - and I had to drive about 90 miles more than I wanted to before I could find a motel with a room available. Amazing. And a looong drive home all in one day because I taught an intarsia class at the Yarn Circle on Saturday morning. I don't mind driving all the way home in one day if I have a nice long retail therapy break in Asheville, but it turns out that I prefer more of that driving to be in daylight hours.

Otherwise, uneventful journeys. It's been busy since I got home. We are spending lots of time with our parents these days, and Peter & I have 3 sets between us. But you gotta do it while you can - spend time with them.

I've also been running a medical gauntlet. I turned 50 back in November, and since then I have had a physical, a female annual exam, a mammogram, a colonoscopy, a shoulder x-ray, some blood tests and a bone scan and an MRI of the same shoulder. Whew! The x-ray showed an abnormality, lucencies or bright spots - which are apparently a primary marker for multiple myeloma, so we had ten days of waiting for results to the blood tests and bone scan. The results were are good - no cancer. I do think it's a good idea to examine one's mortality from time to time, but I prefer it in smaller doses.

The MRI showed 4 different tears in the right shoulder, and the bone doc said I could try some alternative therapies or go for surgery with an 80% likelihood of improvement. Them's pretty good odds, but after thinking for a few days about what it would be like to do without my right hand & arm for 4-6 weeks, I've decided to put off the surgery until at least September and return to my acupuncture & Chinese medicine friend and look into physical therapy and some carefully selected Qigong - exercises that don't involve shoulder rotation!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Next post - knitting updates and probably some yarn porn!

Personality Plus!

2008-03-24T19:51:00.003-05:00

I came across a link to this test at Jennifer's blog. Some of the questions were difficult to answer, and as I went through them, I felt that my answers were showing me to be very timid and structured - so I was surprised by the results:

You Are An ISFP

The Artist

You are a gifted artist or musician (though your talents may be dormant right now).
You enjoy spending your free time in nature, and you are good with animals and children. Simply put, you enjoy beauty in all its forms and live for the simple pleasures in life. Gentle, sensitive, and compassionate - you are good at recognizing people's unspoken needs.

In love, you are quiet and sweet yet very passionate. You love easily.
You have an underlying love for all living things, and it's easy for you to accept someone into your heart.

At work, you do best in an unconventional position. You express yourself well and can work with almost anyone. You would make a good veterinarian, pediatrician, or composer.

How you see yourself: Sympathetic, kind, and communicative

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Incompetent, insecure, and overly sensitive

What's Your Personality Type?

I think most of this is true! (pediatrician?) I definately need an unconventional job - although I guess I have one already, in a way. I dreamed early this morning that I was in a room with a group of people I didn't know and we were taking turns introducing ourselves. But when it was my turn, there were people talking and coming in & out of the room. I was frustrated and embarrassed by their lack of respect. I began several times and then stopped and got mad but didn't say anything.

Then, for some reason I started talking and kept talking in spite of the lack of attention. I started talking about my job with Bluemont and how I get to talk with artists and school staff and parents and help them arrange wonderful assembly programs for schools and what a great job it was.

I woke up and felt quite puzzled by the whole thing... I do think my job is pretty cool, but I have worked for Bluemont for 23 years and I've had a very hard time focusing on my job for the last several years. I think I really need to do something else, something more creative, and yet as a couple and a family I need to help keep Bluemont afloat for the next few years, until we get our girls through college.

So, yeah - it's a cool job, an unusual job, but I tend to be deeply ambivalent about my realtionship with my job. There are so many other things I would like to be doing with my time. Singing, weaving, knitting, spinning, dyeing, teaching, selling yarn, making things...

I am just back from a week at the Campbell Folk School, teaching a Knit to Felt class - more on this soon!

Update - Spinning Adventures

2008-03-03T18:18:00.010-05:00

In January, I had the opportunity to go the the John C. Campbell Folk School as a student for a class my friends Norman Kennedy & Martha Owen were co-teaching, called Cultural Enrichment in the Spinning Field. This was an advanced week class, and there were 14 lively students.

It was an opportunity for us as spinners to review basic skills and request demonstration and tuition of any particular skills we were interested in. I learned to spin a thick single, (here resulting in a thick 2 ply!)improved my grasp (literally!) of hand spindling and learned to spin on the long Navajo spindle.

We did some natural dyeing, watched Norman's spinning slides, participated in a wool waulking,

and visited the local yarn store, the Yarn Circle.

Here is Norman showing a sweater and scarf that he knit from yarn which he spun and dyed with vegetal dyes:

And here is our display for the student display at the end of the week:

I stayed over and went to a Robert Burns Supper in nearby Murphy, NC on the Friday night and then we had an informal tea at the Yarn Circle on Saturday for some of the local fiber folks to meet Norman.

It was a great week and went by far too quickly, as special time always seems to fly.

This past weekend, I spent a day in class with Patsy Zawistoski. The class was Understanding High Tech Fibers, and we got to spin with a variety of manmade fibers, including Tencel, rayon, bamboo blend, nylon, Ingeo, Angelina and Optim. Patsy was delightful and so full of great information. I learned a vital thumb roll, and really enjoyed trying out all these new fibers. I am generally such a traditional purist, but it's great to stretch into new territory from time to time. I particularly liked handling the Tencel and the Karaoke bamboo blend, but the Optim ultra fine wool was like spinnin' buttah!

One more fiber note - I got an order from Fleece Artist in this week, and it included their newest spinning fiber - Sea Wool roving! This fiber takes dye beautifully, and the roving is put up in a pair of roving strands that are a little thinker than standard pencil roving. I took 50 grams and divided the strands - I've spun one strand and when the other is spun I will ply them and see how the colors line up - it will clearly show how consistent my spinning is - or isn't!

This fiber will be for sale on my eBay store this week - I have two colors, Marsalaand Pansy, and I also have some undyed.
I will have more at our Peace Weavers booth at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. If anyone wants any particular Fleece Artist or Hand Maiden yarns or colors, speak now - I'm sending in my MS&W order this week!

Our Miss Wiley

2008-03-03T12:55:00.004-05:00

In our family, we have had Pembroke Welsh Corgi dogs for many years. We have had five corgis over the years. Our first corgi was a red & white we named Scallowag, who was a wonderful dog but could not be cured of wandering and so eventually we had to find him a new home located farther from a 4 lane road. We had our fluffy tricolor Tessie for many years, and she & Scally produced a litter of puppies with a little help from the vet. Years later she developed cancer and we had to have her put down - which was very sad, but we were assuaged somewhat by the puppy spirits of young Rupert who had come to our home by way of the local animal shelter.

Someone pushed Rupert under the fence at the shelter when it was closed and drove away. He popped back out again and wandered down the road to the nearest neighbor, who kept him out of harms way until the shelter was open again. They called us to see if this might be one of our pups - they said they had a full grown female red & white corgi. I went to see this dog and found a half grown male! I asked if anyone had looked under this dog yet - being so low to the ground, he wouldn't bother to lift his leg to pee until he got a little older.

I knew when I saw him that he belonged in our family, but we had to wait over a week until the official two weeks had passed, and then he came to live with us. That was about 10 years ago. Rupert is my Buddha Dog.

We had a young female tricolor we called Zora for about a year, but she developed a bad habit of running after cars. We kept her close to the house for 6 months or more after this started, but one day she was accidentally left outside during a thunderstorm and bolted towards the highway, a half mile away. She had been lucky before, but not this time.

About 5 years ago we saw an ad in the local Valley Trader for a free corgi and called the number listed. This family had a female red & white and they were looking for a home with no female dogs, because she fought with the females at their farm. We brought her home and she fought with Rupert over food, but with some patient training she learned to stick to her own food bowl and not to lunge on every treat that was offered.

She was the most expensive free dog we ever had, with two complicated surgeries and a few other doozie vet bills, but she was a sweet dog and settled into our home well. She and Rupert have been buddies at home and at our office for 5 or 6 years. They have been to the beach with our family and enjoyed occasional hikes. In October they accompanied Peter & I all the way to the top of Old Rag Mountain - a long, steep hike for two short-legged dogs!

Wiley has been slowing down over the last month or two, but she started to really drag about a month ago. The vet ran some blood tests but everything looked normal. He suggested pancreatitis or a tumor based on a small abdominal swelling. He suggested feeding her twice a day on a mild special food and adding some supplements to her diet. This seemed to help her a little, but her appetite was indifferent for the last week and then Friday she stopped eating and drinking altogether.

Saturday she couldn't walk, and that was heartbreaking. Peter & I stayed close to her all day Saturday & Sunday. She was calm and mostly quiet, getting up out of her bed occasionally to totter around. Rupert watched her closely, and barked if she got stuck under furniture, alerting us to come and help. Eventually we put her in the dog carrier so she could burrow into the corners safely, and on Sunday evening she passed away.

We will miss her. She was a good dog and a sweet presence in our lives.

Catching Up! - Holidays

2008-02-14T19:07:00.008-05:00

Well, I've been really busy - seems like since Christmas! I've had time to take some photos, but not to get a blog post up for almost two months. But today is the day I start to catch up.

I have to blog a little about Christmas, if only to show off this wonderful little sewing machine that my sister Annie sent me! Too cute by half. And red!

It was made in Russia. I will let you know how well it works!

I also got a nice arty bag that I'm using to carry papers back and forth to work, lots of books and a needlecase and some very cool stitch markers that my Mom found at Maryland Sheep & Wool last year.

This is my favorite photo of the girls from Xmas: It's a little blurry, but they look calm and happy. As opposed to the hilarious laughing in most of the rest of their photos.

It was, as always, wonderful to have so much of our family together. Every year we think it may be the last to bring all the grandmothers, particularly Peter's Mum who has the farthest to come. Indeed, Ruby drove her home this year and what should have been 4 hours from door to door somehow became 9 hours of missed turns, backtracking and rerouting. We were worried that Beryl would be overwhelmed by the journey, but looking back she views it as one big adventure!

I guess if you don't get out much, being driven around all day by your grandaughter and friends can be fairly entertaining.

OK - speaking of adventures, the next entry will be my January spinning adventure!

Contest results!

2007-12-21T15:25:00.000-05:00

OK, I've been really busy. We organize two New Year's eve events locally - First Night Leesburg and First Night Warrenton. They are wonderful events, but it's a little like running our entire 75 concert summer season in a single night. It's a lot of work. And most of this work needs to be done in the month of December, with deadlines flying at us this week before Christmas.

So it's an awkward juggle, preparing for First Night and for our family holidays at the same time.

Anyway. I did do a drawing, using a highly scientific randomizing selection process.

I wrote everyone's name on little slips of paper, folded them and tossed them around until one stood up like a little teepee. And then until a second one stood up. So here are the winning names:

The winners have a choice of spinning fiber, yarn or a lamb puppet from my vast stash and business inventory! So, Sheila and Annemarie, send me an email at weaverdun@aol.com and let me know your preference.

I cleaned out my Mom's yarn stash last month - I'm starting a major organizing project at her apartment, because we'd like to get someone in the deep clean but there really needs to be less Stuff first. A Lot Less Stuff. She said she hadn't been crocheting in so long that she might as well unload her stash, so I gathered it all up and bagged it and brought it home.

I gleaned a few choice items that wanted to stay at my house - a little Koigu, a few balls of Manos... and Miss Lily pulled a few skeins for her holiday projects, and the rest I boxed up with some yarn from my stash. I mailed two big boxes to Interim House today for the knitting group there.

We came up with a swift and a ball winder, I threw in some tote bags...they seem to breed along with the yarn at my house, so there are usually too many.
Interim House is a women's substance abuse program in Philadelphia and they have a knitting group. You can see what they've been knitting on Kathryn Duffy's blog here. We all know how therapeutic knitting can be, but these ladies are Living It.

Happy Holidays to everyone! We will have all the girls home by Saturday night and then start the Gathering of the Grandmothers (and 1 Grandfather) on Sunday. It's a bit of a dog & pony show collecting everyone and then delivering them back to their homes, but it's so great to have us all together.

All the best in your holiday travels and gatherings.

Tweeds & District Checks class

2007-12-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

I taught a new class at The Mannings in September on Tweeds and District Checks. These are traditional weaving patterns from Scotland, beginning with the most simple check known as the Shepherd Check. By changing colors and adding basic design elements, the shepherd check evolved into the variety of patterns that we see in tweeds today. The district checks are also known as estate checks and are patterns designed for the great sporting estates and used to clothe the employees there.

One of the challenges in preparing this class was finding and choosing a yarn that would come close to the original tweed yarns in grist, quality and color, as there are so few mills left in Scotland spinning the old types of yarn.

At The Mannings, we used Harrisville Shetland yarn and wove a set of samples in round robin, cut them up and took them home to do the wet finishing. The finished samples are a stout, sturdy fabric. You can see from the Aberchalder samples what a difference there is after wet finishing. The traditional tweed would have been finished by waulking, but I finished my small samples in the washing machine.

I will be teaching this class again for the Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild here in Virginia in February, and I am posting photos of the samples for the weavers to choose the patterns they will have on their looms. This class will be a round robin sampling for 2 days and then the weavers will take their looms home and weave a scarf in their pattern. We will be using Jaggerspun 2/8 yarn; it will be interesting to see how the finished pieces differ. I'm expecting a lighter and softer fabric, which will be appropriate for scarves.

Blue Ridge Weavers - keep in mind that your warps will be wider, including at least 2 repeats of the patterns, and that your colors will be slightly different.

So, without further ado, the samples:

Shepherd Check

Aberchalder - right off the loom, and after wet finishing

Altnaharra

Altries

Duneacht

Glenurquhart

Bateson - this one has an error in the middle, sorry!

Kinloch

Braulen

Balogie

Drummond

Fannich

Kinnaird

Stocking Done!

2007-12-17T17:35:00.000-05:00

Andrew's Xmas stocking is done and delivered!

I have started sewing up the Lizard Ridge - somehow the number and length of the seams has increased since I laid the squares out on the bed. How did that happen?

Fare thee well, John Neil

2007-12-17T17:11:00.000-05:00

I had sad news on Saturday - John Neil Davidson passed away last week. He was 24, a brilliant, funny, delightful human being who has been struggling with cancer for 6 years. He had almost reached his 5 year anniversary last December when it his cancer back with a vengence - we had the news in the same week that we heard our Lily Rose's first scan was clean. It was a bittersweet juxtaposition of joy and grief, renewal and fear.

My girls and I know John Neil through the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. My teacher and mentor, Norman Kennedy brought me there to take a traditional rug weaving class in 1996 and in that class I met Ruth Truett, Nanette Davidson, Lucy Best and Beth Johnson - some of my favorite weavers. Ruth was then the program director at Campbell and she encouraged me to start teaching there that year. Nanette's husband Jan is the director of the Folk School, and they had 2 children then - John Neil and Chloe, and a few years later their Sam.

I returned in June that year with my three daughters for the Little Middle Folk School week. The girls participated in the children's classes and I taught an adult Treasure Pouch class in which we made tiny vessels and bags with wool felt, waxed linen and beads. We all came back for Little Middle week year after year, until each of the girls was too old to participate and became busy with work at home. We brought other girls with us some years - one year I had 6 girls with me, but after that I always brought a second adult!

John Neil was the same age as our Lily Rose and they teased and antagonized one another as 12 year old boys and girls will, but over the years he was a good friend to every one of our girls. He developed spinal cancer during his last year in high school, and was left with chronic pain issues that kept him out of college. He maintained his wry sense of humor throughout all his trials.

I feel honored to have known him. I remain delighted in his sense of humor and his spirit. I mourn for the loss that his family and friends are feeling. But the greater part of John Neil with be with us for as long as we remember him.

Stocking Update & eBay

2007-12-14T18:38:00.000-05:00

First, some FOs in the Holiday Knitting category!

Nate's Socks - for my Vermont BIL. I'll have you know that that little eensy bit if yarn there is all the remaining yarn! I was trying to use up some leftovers...pretty good, huh?

Tiger Mitts for our Hannah who is 21 on Beethoven's birthday. The yarn is Opal Rainforest Tiger - the colors pool in such an interesting way.

The Lizard Ridge is still waiting to be sewn up - I need to hop on it, because it has a lot of seaming! I've been waiting to get Miss H's queen size bed cleared off so I could lay the whole afghan out and sew it up in sections. I've been reorganizing some of my stash in that room, so there was yarn everywhere. I promise to document the scene and report back.

Well, my first eBay auctions ended this week and all the little packages are in the mail- it was exciting and I learned a lot. For instance, don't use your wholesale price as the starting bid amount. Duh. But I didn't lose money, and even though I was wrong about the size of the flat rate envelopes, the shipping all came out fine except for one package, which only cost $1.30 more - so that was pretty good, too.

Next time I will use the Buy it Now feature and have a better pricing plan... and I will look into setting up an eBay store. I have a lot of inventory between shows, and this is a good way to get it out there for people to buy. I have changed my eBay name to peaceweavers - since my business name is Peace Weavers, that seemed like a good idea.

So - I finally got time to sit down and finish the intarsia portion of the Xmas stocking and I have turned the heel - almost done. This photo is from a few days ago, but hopefully the next post will include the FO in all it's glory!

I have 13 comments to my Blogiversary post, and the contest ends tomorrow. I'll check the blog again on Sunday and then draw two names and announce the winners on Monday.

Have a great weekend - we are hoping the storm will miss us here in the Shenandoah Valley.

Ravelry!

2007-12-07T17:24:00.000-05:00

I've actually been in Ravelry for several months now, but I keep forgetting to announce my name there - tradweaver. I keep putting things up, little by little. It's a great wander around time-waster, but it's also a fabulous resource.

I think I should just try not to peek in while I'm at work!

How to design a Christmas stocking

2007-12-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

I work in a very small office. We are currently located in a nice 1922 house, and the staff tops out at 5 or 6. Our numbers swell seasonally - we run two First Night events on New Year's Eve and a rather intense summer concert season from June through August - but at the moment we are on skeleton crew.

One of our staff members had a baby last May, and I covered her duties while she was on maternity leave. I bought some yarn in May to knit said baby a sweater...and a hat.

I just finished the sweater & hat set last week, and I'm planning to give them to my friend at the holiday office party. It's a secret - she doesn't know yet, although everyone else at the office does.

So, we were chatting before the staff meeting a few weeks ago, and my friend asked if I knew anyone who could knit a Christmas stocking for her young son. I rose to the bait, no problem. She presented me with son #1's stocking, and I counted stitches and wrote out a pattern. This stocking is knit from Red Heart, but I won't knit with that yarn - I don't like the way it feels. I have some Wool Ease in my stash that I bought last winter for the Mother Bear Project, and that will do nicely.

She wanted the new stocking to have a reindeer on it. So I googled around and found things like these:
Lots of possibilities... I was particularly taken with the Mark Darcy Reindeer sweater from the first Bridget Jones movie. Of course, what's not to like if Colin Firth is wearing it?

My friend came back in the next day with some more images from catalogs, and she chose the reindeer in this design:

I have fairly limited drawing skills, but my workmate Jill is a bona fide Artist, so I got her to draw the little feller on some knitter's graph paper

And then I pixilated him. Is that a word?

I did this by placing the line drawing on a computer screen/light table and positioning a clean sheet of knitter's graph paper over it, then I used a pencil to draw a square by square outline of the reindeer design.I had to do this twice, because the first time the design stuck out beyond the stocking shape. So I repositioned a clean sheet and drew it out again at a better angle.

This was on 8 sts to the inch, so then I plotted the design area - the shape of the stocking - on some 5 sts to the inch paper, and plotted the deer design as it would appear on the stocking. My working chart is on the left in the picture below:

And then I started knitting!

I will duplicate stitch the name, so that is just a big open area now. I got into the design area and worked down through the antlers and into the face when I realized that I was knitting the reindeer on the wrong side of the stocking - on the left instead of the right...so I frogged that section and started back in. You can see the antlers again!

I hope to get some time to finish the intarsia section this weekend, and then the rest will be fairly easy. I am knitting the top or leg portion of the stocking back and forth to facilitate intarsia knitting and then I will join the stitches into a circle at the ankle and work the rest of the stocking on dpns or a short circ.

Thanks for all the comments & contest entries. Keep 'em coming!

Happy Blog Year to Me!

2007-12-04T15:21:00.000-05:00

OK, let's have a little huzzah!

Exactly one year ago I posted my first blog post.

In considering this past year, I have to admit that the yarn diet goal was only effective for the first few months. I fell off the wagon in a serious way from Maryland Sheep & Wool right through to last week, when I ordered some Ruby Red Cascade to knit my youngest a Rogue hoody.

I did, however, start focusing a lot of energy on a different diet along about March - I went back on my anti-inflammatory diet which involves removing all gluten (wheat, rye, oats, barley) and casein (most dairy products) from my diet. Also, no chocolate, sugar, coffee, fried food... I kicked out dried fruit after a few weeks. No alcohol.

And I have been really, really good about this diet. We had a Birthdays Party the day after Thanksgiving and my big splurges were one glass of champagne and some goat & sheep milk cheese. It was pretty exciting, let me tell you!

I have eaten this way, off and on, since about 1980. But when I go off, it's really hard to go back on. I feel so much better when I eat the right foods, and I ache much, much less - it can be pretty motivating. But it's never easy.

So I'm very pleased with my food diet progress and also very pleased to report that I have lost about 25 pounds since March! I changed arthritis medications about 3 or 4 years ago and put on 35-40 pounds within a few months - do you think it was related? So I'm finally losing that weight and it's so nice to be able to get back into some favorite clothes and feel lighter.

My overalls fit again! Yeah!

I'm still working from the slow but steady wins the race perspective, and I'm still plugging away.

On the fiber front, I have all my Lizard Ridge squares knitted and I'm starting to sew them together. I have Spiral Mitts going in Opal Tiger yarn for Miss H's 21st bday mid-December, a pair of socks for my BIL nearly done and a baby sweater & hat complete for an office baby. That same office baby needs an Xmas stocking - her Mom asked me if she could hire me to knit one. I refuse to knit with Red Heart, so it's going forward with some Wool Ease I bought last winter for Mama Bear Project bears - top down and I finished the antlers on the reindeer last night.

That is all the holiday knitting I have planned, and it feels right now like it is well under way. We will see if I come up with a mad hare to knit the impossible last minute knit.

And, I posted my very first eBay auctions yesterday! This is my toe in the water entry into internet selling. Do a search in eBay for Fleece Artist and you will find my stuff - I am dunweaver on eBay. I'll probably open an eBay store soon and put in the Peace Fleece and Fleece Artist that I have in stock, so I can sell between shows. I'm planning to sell at Maryland Sheep & Wool and at Rhinebeck this coming year.

So - in honor of my blogiversary and my new sales venture, I am holding a small contest. To enter, just leave a comment. I will draw a name (or two) at random and award something fibery out of my still monumental stash. Contest ends December 15th!

Misty Mountain Tartan class

2007-11-26T17:51:00.001-05:00

I want to share some of the wonderful tartans from the weaving class I taught at Misty Mountain Farm a few weeks ago. We had 9 students for the class, and each student brought a loom with the fine tartan warp threaded up and ready to weave. This is Gordon Regimental.
This is the warp for the MacLean tartan - quite a challenge for this new weaver.
This is the Anderson tartan - one of the most complex designs, with many color changes. The weaver is doing an excellent job of it!
This is a re-colored version of the Cunningham tartan. Sometimes these recolored tartans are really beautiful. I find the trick is to pay careful attention to the values of the original colors.
This is the famous Black Watch tartan.
This is the warp for Grant Hunting.

This is Cameron - the student has been practising a color repeat over and over before starting on the pattern proper.

Have you made it this far? Aren't the colors wonderful? I listened recently to Syne Mitchell's WeaveCast episode about Scottish Weaving, and I really enjoyed her description of how she discovered the beauty and excitement of tartan weaving. The weaving itself is relatively simple, just a straight 2/2 twill. The real excitment is in the colors; the bright, dynamic warp, and the many color blends that are created as the weft colors cross over the warp threads.

I love fair isle knitting, watching the color patterns form and reform under my needles. It is much the same with tartan weaving.

And I love teaching tartan weaving, sharing this delightful traditional design form with students and watching their excitement and confidence grow. It really isn't as hard as it looks...

My Big Fat Birthday!

2007-11-20T17:14:00.000-05:00

We are having some milestone events this year - our 25th wedding anniversary in October and now in November my 50th birthday. A big number. I like to think of it as halfway - one of my grandmothers lived to be 100, although I'm not sure she knew she was 100!

Anyway - I had a nice birthday. This is what I found on the kitchen table in the morning:

I got a great card from our office staff as seen to the left. I did have to go in to the office because I had only worked about 12 hours the week before with my Very Bad Shoulder, but it was a pretty light day at work and my sweet husband took me out to dinner.

We still have lovely color here in Virginia. This is the view from our kitchen window. The window is not very clean, but we have a number of birdfeeders out this side of the house and we like to watch the birds from the kitchen table - the dirty window diffuses action from inside the house. Or so I choose to believe!

The other big news on the home front is that our woodstove is painted and ready for service, and we have lit the first fire of the year. We don't have another source of heat, so this is a big deal. We have a wonderful stove, a Vermont Castings Vigilant. See:

On the fiber front, I got an order in from Fleece Artist, stunning colors as always. I am thinking about expanding my very part time fiber business, Peace Weavers, to include an online website for sales, and I may start with an ebay store, just to get my feet wet and see how it goes. So some of this may be appearing there soon...

Shenandoah Fiber Festival

2007-10-29T16:07:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend participating in the second Shenandoah Fiber Festival in Berryville, Virginia. The first festival was held in late May 2006, and I brought an antique "barn loom", set it up and wove on it. I also had a display of antique textiles and did a little spinning on the great wheel.

This year I decided to focus on spinning and to demonstrate point spinning on various types of hand spindles and on the great wheel. When I arrived Friday afternoon to set up my display, I discovered that the festival was giving me a double space, so I went home and filled the van a second time with more fiber!

I used one table for a Touch Me fiber display, and also set up a displays of cotton, alpaca and wool spinning. I brought a variety of roving for sale, some sheepy puppets and some Peace Fleece knitting needles.

I read in the local paper a few years ago that Mr. John Friant was growing cotton in a community garden out on the triangle where the bypass meets Route 7 in Berryville, and I contacted Mr. Friant to ask if he had any plans for the cotton from these plants. He was surprised to hear that spinners would be interested and excited to have his cotton for hand spinning, and offered me the whole crop from his 4 plants.

Mr. Friant also plucked much of the cotton from the bolls and pulled seed out of much of the crop, and when I came to pick up the cotton, he told me how time consuming it was to remove the seeds. He declared that there must be a gin somewhere in Virginia where you could obtain cotton with the seeds already removed.

And while it took over a year, he did find a gin and he called me up this summer to say that he had ten pounds of ginned cotton for me! I took special care to focus on cotton spinning in my exhibit, and Mr. Friant came out to the festival to see me spin his cotton. He later went out to the garden and pulled up two of the cotton plants and brought them back to the festival to add to the display. I'm sorry I didn't get photos of these - they were 6 feet tall standing on their roots, and had flower buds, flowers, immature seed pods and mature, burst bolls of cotton all on the same plant.

I had a great time spinning cotton on the Miner's head and wool pencil roving on the bat head on the great wheel, spinning on hand spindles and meeting and talking with folks all weekend. It was also nice to see the festival grow - there were more than twice as many vendors this year.

I also came away from the festival with a small fleece - a four pound first clip from a romney/border leicester lamb from the Dell Acres Farm in Edinburg, Virginia. My plan is to spin it up into a fine yarn and knit a faroe style shawl!

Western Massachusetts

2007-10-23T16:47:00.000-05:00

was simply beautiful this past weekend.

We went up to visit two of our girls at Smith, and stayed at the historic Charlemont Inn about 45 minutes away. It made for some beautiful backroad drives to and fro.

We also discovered the Good Time Stove Company, with wonderful old woodstoves and cook stoves. It was showroom, museum and sculpture garden - a wonderful place to visit.

We heat our hundred year old home with a Vermont Castings Vigilant and our kitchen range is an old Magic Chef, so we were right at home. Our range looks a little like this one, only not so clean:

We took a lot of photos in the sculpture garden. There were several fire pits, including one in the belly of a stone and iron dragon, designed so the smoke would come out the dragon's mouth. It was awesome.
Knitting content! I downloaded the Maine Morning Mitts pattern from Knitters Review before I left town, grabbed two balls of Kureyon and whipped up two pairs over the weekend, one for Miss Ruby and one for Miss Lily. (Hannah is waiting for some Tiger mitts for her bday in December...)
When I first saw that Clara Parks was writing a book about knitting yarn, I didn't think that it would be a book I needed to own. But I was first in line to borrow it when our local library got a copy and I have to say that I was wrong. The Knitter's Book of Yarn is a beautiful book with some lovely patterns and it is the best resource book about yarn that there is. Bravo, Clara! Well done!

And a parting autumn shot:

Happy Anniversary!

2007-10-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last week by climbing Old Rag mountain. We went to Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria, Virginia and spent a night at their Upper Cabin, where we had gone for our honeymoon. We built a fire in the cabin fireplace and sat reading and knitting into the calm evening.

The next morning we had a hearty breakfast (the only kind they serve at Graves)and then set out for the Berry Hollow trailhead to climb Old Rag. From this access point, the trail begins with a fire road and runs about a mile to the first shelter. Our corgis, Rupert and Wiley are about 11 years old, and we weren't sure if they would be able to hike all the way to the top of the mountain, but they did famously. Corgis are very loyal and brave, and they followed us up the fire road, and then up the trail without any hesitation until we reached some rocky sections that were hard for short legs to climb.

So Peter gave them a little help:

We all made it to the second shelter, and then headed up for the last section of trail. The summit of Old Rag is all huge rocks, with one of the best views of the Shenandoah Park. We were all happy to make it to the top, and found a nook to toast our success and eat our lunch. The corgis got hardboiled eggs and a little PB&J.

Would you hike the trail with this man? I would, and did, and will again!
But then, I'd walk 3 miles uphill all the way for a sup of good single malt!

We took it easy on the trail going down, and I credit our dog pace with leaving me only mildly sore in my calves for the next few days. It was a truly beautiful day, and a wonderful way to celebrate.

We ended the day back at Graves for a well earned dinner of fried catfish and country ham, and then drove home.

Canadian Cruise

2007-10-04T20:37:00.000-05:00

As promised, a post about our summer adventure.

My Mom turned 80 in August (balloons, applause). I was trying to think of a special way to celebrate when I realized that I could not count the number of times she had said to me that she would like to go on a cruise someday. At 80, someday really ought to be now, so I organized my sisters and we settled on a 5 day cruise out of New York city, stopping in Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Here is the really big ship, docked at Saint John:

My Mom & I live in Virginia, but my sisters are in Philadelphia, Vermont and Kansas. I drove my Mom up to sister Sally's in Philadelphia the night before our cruise date, and while we were repacking the car for the trip to New York, sister Annie called from the Burlington airport to say that her plane had been delayed twice and finally cancelled! It was too late for her to drive to New York, and after some brain storming and hair pulling, we determined that she would have to join us at the first port of call.

So she took a bus to Montreal the next morning and flew to Saint John via Halifax. We were among the first people off the boat at Saint John, looking for Annie. It felt like the trip wasn't really right until we were all together.Here are my three sisters, in typical attitude:
We had a happy reunion on the ship and then headed into Saint John for an explore. Mom has a walker, and we were able to borrow a wheelchair at the tourist center. Saint John has an indoor walkway that goes from near the docks up to the City Market, and we made our way through this series of corridors elevators up to the old market.
There were vegetable and meat stalls, touristy gift shops, and a yarn stall! I picked up a ball of Trekking Natura and some tiny short double points for glove fingers. We had lunch and headed back down the walkways and then back to the ship.

We went up on deck to watch as the ship left the docks and there was a bagpiper in full traditional highland dress piping us out to sea. I could hear him playing for some time and I didn't see him leave his post until we were nearly out of sight. Can you see the piper in front of the pavilion?

I have been buying yarn from Fleece Artist for a year or two, and I had emailed Kathryn Thomas to ask if we could come and visit her dye studio while we were in Halifax. She generously offered to meet us and drive us out to her place in Dartmouth. It was wonderful to meet someone from Nova Scotia and get away from the touristy bits; I really enjoyed meeting Kathryn and talking with her.

And see how lovely Fleece Artist HQ is:
It's very colorful inside, as well - there is no storefront, and as all the yarns are dyed to order there is not a lot of stock on hand, but we feasted our eyes in this room!

That's Kathryn in the green shirt.

One more swoon of color?

The Fleece Artist doggie has a wide choice of comfy fleecy beds!

I had to get a picture of this unusual sign:

Kathryn drove us back into Halifax where we collected the non-knitters in our party and then she took us to lunch. There is a pier walk that goes from the dock to the Maritime Museum about a mile away, with stalls and outdoor performance spaces all along the way. There was a Buskers Festival going on and we got to see several performances and do a bit of shopping as we made our way back to the ship.

It had been very foggy when we arrived in the morning, but by midday it was just lovely. Then the fog started to creep back in - you can see it low on the water here:
We got caught in a sudden downpour about halfway back to the ship and were wetter than fish spit by the time we got to the pier, but we had a hilarious time pushing our Mom with her seated on her walker and trying to duck in and out of shelters along the way.

The fog was remarkably thick by the time we sailed; here is our last view of Halifax:

The remaining sailing time was full of fancy food (as pictured below)and a brief excursion into group karaoke - the latter alas, was not recorded for posterity.

And I would be remiss if I did not include some towel animals. Every night when we returned to our cabins, there was a different towel animal on the beds. It's sort of like origami with towels. Only different. Twisted.

We docked in New York on the final morning and went our separate ways home. Here, at last, is a photo of my Mom. She vetoed all the rest!

It's been a little busy!

2007-09-25T17:20:00.000-05:00

Honest. The summer season at Bluemont is always rather hectic, but this year I got to fill in for the business manager while she was out on maternity leave along with my other duties, and then we moved our office in early August. Crazy, mon!

And in amongst the work-type busy-ness, my sisters & I took our Mom on a 5 day cruise to Canada for her 80th birthday - I promise a separate post on this trip soon, complete with embarrassing family photos and a report on our visit to Fleece Artist!

I helped Miss Ruby get ready to go off to college, and I got myself ready to teach two new classes: District Checks & Tweeds at The Mannings and Modular Knitting at the Campbell Folk School. Both were very successful classes with great students. I'll be teaching the Checks & Tweeds class again for the Blue Ridge Guild here in Virginia in February. My next Folk School class will be Knit to Felt in March, and then Tartan Throws in September.

In the Modular Knitting class, we made Log Cabin blocks:

And we made Triangles:

We made Mitered Squares:

And we knit Lizard Ridge squares, with one bold knitter even trying her hand at Entrelac:

We had one brand new knitter in the bunch who made a brilliant start with a roomful of encouragement. Here is the entire crew on Friday afternoon...note the picture perfect Smoky Mountain day - the weather was simply perfect all week long!

So I'm back home, trying to catch up on things at work after a week away and trying to figure out what to cast on next... two socks on two circs? More hats? What is on my holiday gift knitting list - it's certainly time to start thinking about that.

I will be singing at the Waterford Homes Tour & Craft Fair October 6 & 7, and helping at the Waterford Weavers booth there as well. We are planning a trip to visit Misses R & H at college after that, and I'm rooting for a swing by the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck on the way home as a)I've never been and b)I'm thinking about selling there next year. Then I will be appearing at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival Oct. 27 & 28, and teaching a Tartan Scarves class at Misty Mountain Farm in November. A busy fall season ahead!

Why am I not Surprised?

2007-07-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

I took a quick peek at Joanne's blog and found another survey. This is about as much time as I have for diversion these days! Sorry for the minimal content!

I did finish knitting my test knit project (shhh! it's a secret!) and I cast off my modular shawl - I'm hoping to block it tomorrow and I promise to take some photos. And then tell what's new on my needles!

You Are 87% Non Conformist

You're incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate!
No one really understands you. And you're cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them!

Are You a Nonconformist?

HP Rules!

2007-07-18T12:27:00.000-05:00

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

I have been following Annie Modesitt's blog and I found this link there today. It's a long quiz, but fun - if you like this sort of thing.

We did go to see the new HP movie, although I waited until after work on Wednesday - Ruby & Tori went to the midnight show and then saw it again with me. They are planning to attend a book party on Friday night, too. I guess I'll wait and read Ruby's copy when she's done, unless I get impatient. I can't see buying more than 1 copy!

But I do want to know what happens...

Sorry for the sporadic posting! It's easier to post from my office, but I've been juggling approx. 2.5 jobs since May and so I just don't have much free time for posting there, or taking photos, either. I am planning to buy a pc laptop, which will enable me to post from home, but there hasn't been time for that, either! Our summers tend to be pretty crazy - I'm lucky if I can work a 6 day week. This is what we are busy with: Bluemont Summer Concerts!

2007-07-09T18:21:00.000-05:00

Health Issues

I have an immune system disorder called Reactive Arthritis. I was diagnosed in 1996, but apparently I've had it since 1976, and the diagnosis explained a series of seemingly unrelated health problems I had experienced over those 20 years- achilles tendonitis that appeared out of nowhere, several bouts of iritis, and other periodic arthritis symptoms. I had a particularly bad episode in '96 &'97 when I could barely climb stairs and lost the use of my right thumb for 6 months or more. My children were 7, 9 and 12. It was tough.

This condition was originally called Reiter's Syndrome, but apparently Dr. Reiter was a Nazi sympathiser and so they took his syndrome away. It is generally considered to have one major episode and then go into long term remission. I have had numerous minor episodes and 3 major episodes lasting for 18 months to 3 years.

It has really been kicking my butt for the last few years. Well, more than my butt - it moves around. This past 18 months or so, I've been dealing primarily with chronic neck and shoulder stiffness and pain, along with muscle spasms in my back and wandering hip and leg pain.

I have worked with a rheumotologist, but I prefer not to take drugs, especially type X drugs where they ask the serious questions, like if I am planning to have any more children anytime soon. I have worked with accupuncture, energy healing, massage and I have studied taijiquan for over 10 years. All of these things help, and sometimes help a lot, but I think for me that diet is the primary key.

When I am good, I am very, very good, and I don't consume wheat, oats, rye, barley, dairy, chocolate, coffee, white sugar, white flour, pork, beef, peanuts, fried food, alcohol... I think that's the whole list.

I have been very, very good since March 9th. I have lost about 15 pounds, and I hope to slowly continue to lose the 35-40 lbs I gained when I went on a drug called Arava a few years ago. But one of the problems with taking away allergens in your diet is that it tends to stir up inflammation before it helps, so I've been in as much or more pain for the first 3 months of this diet.

In the last week or two, I finally feel like I'm getting Better. I'm experiencing less pain, I can stand up straighter and walk more easily and I'm sleeping better. It's such a great corner to turn, and to feel that I'm well enough and strong enough to take on more things that will help me continue to heal. I haven't been going to taiji class for most of this last year because it hurt to participate in class, but I'm going to start back again. And I'm going to start exercising regularly soon.

OK - that's all I have to say about that today. I'd be happy to correspond with anyone who has questions about researching food allergies and alternative therapies. And next post, I'll tell you what I've been knitting!

The Graduate

2007-06-05T13:30:00.000-05:00

Our Ruby graduated on Sunday!

The school, in it's wisdom, decided to hold graduation outdoors in spite of the fact that it was raining. Not sprinkling, not intermittent rain but raining. And cold. And as far as I can tell, no one trimmed the program or the individual speeches. When they announced that the seniors would now received their diplomas, the crowd cheered like mad - at last! And as names were read, the bleachers emptied.

But we had a nice family weekend, collecting grandparents and having a family dinner out on Saturday evening and then a leisurely brunch at our house on Sunday morning. The grands elected to stay at the house rather than sit in the rain, and it was one of the best decisions made all day. Peter & I stood under the bleachers until Ruby walked, we watched her walk and cheered like mad, and then we went home to change into dry clothes and put the kettle on for tea.

Lily & Hannah were Ruby's attendants, so they got to sit through the whole thing and came home drenched. Ruby's mortarboard got so wet it came apart!

But it's over and we are done with the public school system in our county. Onward & upward to three girls in college next fall!

Sorry - no photos yet, but I'll add some when I can.