My New Buddy

On Sunday we went up to Placerville to visit the studio of dyer and spinner extraordinaire, Lisa Souza. We took two knitters with us — one a friend from Davis, another a knitter from Baltimore we sort of adopted since she was working in Sacramento for a month. Numenius went for a bike ride while Laura, Cami and I got lost in some serious yarn for a while.

I had asked Lisa to dye me some fiber in her “Electra” colorway. The fiber is 50% merino, 25% silk, 25% bamboo, and it drapes in the most gorgeous way. Because 75% of the fibers are animal protein but silk and merino take dye at different rates, and because bamboo won’t take acid dye at all, the effect is shimmery and magical.

As I was paying for this, I noticed a dark blue-green bump of fiber in her dyeing studio. It’s Wensleydale. I shuddered and put it down — too scary. I’ve heard dozens of stories of people—good spinners—turning this super-long stapled wool into piano wire. Lisa looked at me and laughed. “It’s because they don’t listen to me,” she said. “You have to spin really low-twist and let it go, let it go, let it go.”

Let it blossom, let it snow. I have a new best friend. Two days later, I’ve finished spinning the undyed fiber she gave me to practice with and am halfway through the blue-green.

The photo of the Wensleydale sheep, above, is taken by the super-talented Birdwoman of the Birdwoman Knits blog, and I’m grateful to have such a splendid creature gracing the walls of Feathers of Hope. That’s a 10-11” staple, folks.