Upcoming Fiber Classes!

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

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!

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!

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

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!

Take the Quiz here!

My Blog-o-versary!

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!