17 November 11
Shearing Day Coming Up
I’ll be helping out on Saturday at Meridian Jacobs for Shearing Day, which is an intense but lovely transformation of shaggy, probably soggy-tipped (it’s going to rain tomorrow) gray animals into piebald fairy creatures. Apart from a couple of them which are a prized lilac color; a lilac fleece may well come home with me.
Just learned about In Sheep’s Clothing, a short silent film from 1932 about gathering in Shetland sheep, rooing their fleeces (primitive breeds like Shetlands shed their fleeces and can be plucked, or rooed), spinning and knitting fair isle sweaters. It was a sunny day — wonder how long they waited for that — and despite the well-combed hair and smiling faces the crofter’s life was obviously VERY hard. (Still photos from the Shetland Museum archives can be found here.)
This all goes well with my nightly sheep study (I got a copy of Carol Ekarius and Deb Robson’s Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, which has me counting sheep at night.)
31 October 11
Batty
I’ve been using my new drum carder. A LOT.
17 September 11
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…
3 July 11
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…