Batty

I’ve been using my new drum carder. A LOT.

Problem

Numenius just got back from a conference last night, an open source GIS extravaganza in Denver where he also managed to take in a Giants game against the Rockies, where Pablo Sandoval hit for the cycle. (Non-baseball fans, that means he hit a single, a double, a triple and a home run all in the same game. It’s difficult. It’s unusual. It’s only the 25th time a Giant — in San Francisco or New York — has done it, ever, in over 100 years of Giants baseball.)

I took the opportunity of his absence to face the music. With a couple of supportive friends sitting on the floor with me, I got out my yarn stash. All of it. From under the bed and in the closet and in the bins under the computer table.

I have less of it now, including things I bought with no clear project in mind. Given that my goal is eventually to spin all the yarn I knit, now seems like a good time to stop buying yarn, wouldn’t you say? I hereby commit to buying no more yarn until at least the spring equinox. There. It’s not like I’ll run out by then…

Our Local Fibershed

I went over to Robin’s this morning to talk about her Jacob sheep display for the upcoming State Fair. While I was there I noticed the beautiful Fibershed map on the wall. This features a map of wool, cotton and other fiber producers within about 100 miles of San Francisco and notes whether they are dyers, weavers, and so on.

I conducted my first natural dye experiment on Thursday, and was enthusing to Robin about it. She pointed me to Rebecca Burgess’ new book, Harvesting Color, a treasure in itself but one that strongly encourages use of local plants for dyes (and, even better, INVASIVE ones: French broom, here I come). I’d still like to plant a dye garden, though, that would include indigo and madder and coreopsis and marigolds and sunflowers. Don’t need any coyote brush though, we already have that!!

Foxfiber is a grower of organic cotton up in the Capay Valley, definitely on my list of places to visit in any Fibershed tour.

It’s the Tour de Fleece. I’m spinning my first fleece, one of Robin’s Jacobs, a ewe named Summer (how appropriate). It’s 101 degrees outside. Spinning is cooler than knitting, people…