Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival 2012

Amazing weekend!  Took some vacation time and had a wonderful time at this fiber fair.  Probably the best and largest one that is close to me.  It runs from Friday to Sunday and just finished up its eleventh annual event.

As I think back on it, this festival started as a sheep show and has grown into the amazing event that it is now.  It has a full livestock show, fleece show and auction, vendors in two large barns, a sheepdog trial that runs all three days and classes from nationally known instructors.

This year I entered the Open Handspun Skein Competition in two categories.  Experienced adult spinner class - fine yarn lot, and Drop spindle class - medium lot.  The entry for the first one was a yarn that I just finished, I called it Deep Blue Sea and my plans for it are a very large shawl called Shipwreck so I still have a lot of spinning to do!  The shawl requires 1600 yards of fine yarn.  The skein I entered will be used for part of the beaded netting that the pattern calls for out near the edge.  I may alternate the sequined rows with the regular yarn, I'll sample it and see.  Here's what the yarn looks like:


Deep Blue Sea

Deep Blue Sea - swatch

It is a three ply yarn, one ply is a varigated wool from Louet called Northern Lights in the Violets colorway.  It shades from purple to lime green through several shades of blue.  One ply is a lambswool, angora and nylon blend in purple.  The third ply is sewing thread strung with 3mm amethyst iris sequins.  As I plied the yarn, I pushed in a sequin about every 3-4 inches so they would appear about once every knitted inch.  The Shipwreck pattern calls for beads at random intervals, so I thought this would work for me since they sequins are already in the yarn.  Beads strung on yarn have a number of concerns for me.  Sliding the beads along the spun yarn abrades the yarn unless the beads are very large.  If the beads are smaller there is the problem of a thick spot in the yarn that the beads might not fit over, and that is always possible on handspun.  I also made a small swatch, the competition required it to be quite small, so the motif from the shawl pattern was much too large.  I chose a small eyelet pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury.

Blue Neon 3 ply and extra black chain ply

Blue Neon - swatch

The other yarn I entered was also a three ply.  Spun on a drop spindle, this yarn was one ply of a handpainted BFL (Blue-Faced Leicester) roving from Frene Creek Farm my favorite local shepherd.  The other two plies were made from a 50/50 blend of "Dusty" a fine wool covered Corriedale fleece from a shepherd in Colorado (no longer has a web presence) and some black alpaca roving. This photo shows the extra black yarn chain plied on top of the Blue Neon skeins.  I called this one Blue Neon because of the way it worked up - the skein showed brilliant color against the black background which was the look I was after with this combination of fiber.  The swatch shows a nice, shadowy stripe of the varigation of the handpaint.  I did like the swatch at this weight the best.  This one was done on size 4 needles and had the suppleness I'd want for a sweater or vest.  I had also done a swatch for socks on size 2 needles.  It is also pleasing to me, but I think this will probably become outerwear.  Might use some as an accent on socks, but since there is no nylon in this blend, it might not wear well enough for socks.

The skein competition was interesting to watch.  The instructions were that no talking or questions would be allowed, and the judge worked in silence.  Disappointing to me, after listening to the wool judge on the prior day.  He chattered away as he judged the fleeces.  Talked about what he looked for and what he was finding as he worked his way through the many fleeces in that show.  Just a difference in the way the two judges worked.  Perhaps there is a tradition there as well... I don't know, but I did enjoy the way the talkative judge worked.  I think I learned more from that method.

The results were available after the judging and I was allowed to keep my score sheets, which I appreciated.  Sadly, there were no comments on the papers, just the numerical scores.  The nice thing was that I was permitted to speak with the judge when she was finished.  The standard calls for perfection, and appears to compare the handspun skeins to millspun yarns.  I fared pretty well, my Deep Blue Sea got 96/100 points and the Blue Neon got 100/100 points.  Both were awarded second place ribbons.  Deep Blue Sea was topped by a bamboo/silk 2 ply that was perfectly even.  Not as pretty, in my opinion, but it was perfect.  Blue Neon was beat by a beautiful heavier weight two ply, that again, was perfectly even.  That skein also won Best In Show.  I'm content, my scores were very good, and I still love my yarn.  Actually, the judge did too, as I learned in our conversation after the judging was done.  She told me that she knew how difficult it is to ply with sewing thread and that she just LOVES sequins.  So..... I think she liked my yarn - quite a lot.

Will I do another competition?  I don't know.  I learned a lot, but I also know that my yarn scores very high in such a competition.  That part was quite satisfying.  The payout isn't really enough to make me want to do very much of this.  Each of those skeins represent many hours of work, and though the booth was attended, I was uncomfortable leaving my hard work out there for the whole weekend.


Tour de Fleece recap...

It seems that I go through phases in my fiber art life. Right now I'm in a spinning phase and having a wonderful time!  Just finished Tour de Fleece, which I have never done before.  I had not heard of it until recently, but it is a self-directed spinning challenge that runs at the same time as the Tour de France bicycle race.  Having no interest in sports, I did the challenge for the personal satisfaction.

I participated in three teams, the first one was Knit Picks and I chose to spin a three ply yarn to complete the singles I had spun of "Blue Fleck" colorway from AlohaBlu that I received in a spinning swap a while back. 

Spin swap from AlohaBlu, the Blue Fleck custom dyed roving is in the middle

When I get those precious braids of handpainted roving I like to plan a yarn around them to show their beauty. This particular roving was about two ounces, and I like to have more yarn than that in the event I want more than an accent of the handpaint.  So I made up more batts to match. In this case, I wanted a subtle blend of blues and teals so I combined these fibers into batts: some gray Corriedale from a sheep named "Sierra", some wool top in a colorway "Bluebell" and some hand dyed Firestar in blue and teal.  All of this came from my stash (how cool is that!) so it made me feel extra good about the yarn I was making!  Here's the picture of the finished "Blue Fleck" singles and the stash of the other fibers.

Blue Fleck singles, Bluebell top, Firestar in blue and teal

Sierra Corridale

The finished batts looked like this:

I made four of these at 33 grams each so that I would have two bobbins with well over two ounces each for plying.  I prefer not to have to try and match batts after the fact, because it seems to be like dye lots, where even if I use the same materials and in the same ratios it never looks identical.

Then I started the spinning.  It seemed to take forever since I wanted the final yarn to be pretty fine.  I finished a bit early, which was a relief and did the plying and got this yarn:

It ended up being 600 yards, 160 grams or 5.6 ounces!  No wonder it felt like I had been spinning forever!  I ended up with quite a bit of the blended singles left, so I did an experiment with embellished yarn using sequins strung on sewing thread.  I chain plied it with the two strands held together, very fiddly and time consuming, but I really like the resulting yarn:

It is 36 grams or 1.3 ounces and 92 yards.  At this point, I'm planning to use this yarn set for some kind of outerwear with the sequined yarn for trim.  It isn't soft enough for next to the skin, but it is gorgeous and will wear well.  Haven't decided on knitting or weaving yet, or even what form of garment.  So into the stash it goes for the time being.

Time marches on...

I've been busy with a number of things, since I haven't posted much lately, I'll just put them all out here now.

Here is some yarn I've been working on:

It is another three ply with one variegated ply along with two tweed plies.  The variegated ply is from Frene Creek Farm and is a lovely handpainted Corriedale in purples all the way to lavender in some spots.  The tweed plies are 75% natural gray Rambouillet Finn crossbred with 25% bright purple merino blended in to get the purple tone.  I tried a sample of this using just the gray and it didn't read as purple as I wanted it, so I referred back to my color study to figure out how much I wanted to tint my colored wool for it to "read" visually as purple but not overpower the variegated ply.  I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

Here's a close-up shot of the same skein:

I'm extra glad that I put in the effort to do the color study.  The visual usefulness of such a project has already proven the worth of doing it.  I did do a small sample skein using the gray, and it didn't "read" as purple at all!  I saw it as gray and black, and I knew that wouldn't work for what I have in mind for this yarn.  Here are the vital statistics of this skein:

258 yards of 3 ply.  One ply Frene Creek Farm Handpainted Corriedale roving, two plies of natural gray Rambouillet Finn crossbred blended with 25% bright purple merino and carded four times to blend the colors.  I think this will work up at about fingering weight, it is finer than my typical yarn since the R/F is pretty soft.

Next up: the reworking of the red-violet sweater.

About two sizes smaller and doesn't it look nice?  Granted, it isn't assembled or blocked yet, so the stitches will even out and be smoother after blocking.  I used the ravelled yarn to reknit, so it looks "bumpier" than the first knitting did.  I'm working on the raglan sleeves now, and I'm doing those flat, rather than in the round like I did the body of the sweater.  I'm pondering what kind of buttons I'd like on this.  Picking up for the button band and collar are the last things to do on the sweater, so I do still have some time.  Surprisingly enough, even though this is an odd and somewhat bright color to most people, I'm finding that it goes with a lot of my wardrobe.  So I'm thinking the buttons can't be too bold.  I've heard of an outfit called "Moving Mud" that makes custom glass buttons, but I don't know what they cost.  That might be the next good investigation to make on the button issue.  I've also got 3 very good knitting shops close by, so I think I'll check out their offerings first.  Here is a picture of the front of the sweater:

I've learned a lot making this sweater - especially since I've gone down the path twice. I definitely preferred doing the body of the sweater in the round.  All the bands match up and the armhole is better supported during the knitting - much easier to remember which side is which since it is all together and very visible.  That being said, I had to re-write the pattern so that I would do the shaping at the right times.  With the raglan going on, some rounds had six different shapings happening at once.  That is a lot to keep track of.  I did the work on a 47" cable needle, which allowed me to try the sweater on as I went.  Very helpful to check fit that way.  Much harder to check that when the body of the sweater is in pieces.

Next work in progress is the kilt hose, they are taking forever to do.  Measured gauge over stockinette and it is coming up at 10 stitches to the inch.  No wonder it seems slow!  It is!

Here they are, pinned out flat so you can see both the front and back at the same time.  I decided that the bobbins just weren't working for me, so I am removing them as the yarn length gets under a yard or so.  I've read that many knitters just leave the long tails hanging and pick them up as they need them.  I'm finding that I like that process too.  These socks are pretty loud, but that is what the customer likes.  At the top edge where the two solid bands of ribbing are now, there will be a cabled band running around the sock right under the knee.  Flashes will be tucked under there to show the tartan and to keep the socks up - rather like garters, but around the calf of the leg up near the knee.

Until next time, I'm working on costuming for a Steampunk event...

Finished yarn... love this one!

This is the finished yarn that I've been working on for a while.  The blue variegated ply came from Frene Creek Farm and is one of her lovely handpainted BFL (Blue Faced Leicester) rovings.  Since it is only four ounces, I wanted more possibilities, so I spun two extra plies to show off the variegation better and also to have a solid color yarn to go with the boldness of the pattern yarn.

For the solid plies, I wanted softness and blackness. That made alpaca my first choice.  A black that gobbles up light would showcase the brilliance of the blues.  So I started spinning.... and discovered that pure alpaca top doesn't agree with my spinning style all that well. I dug into my stash for the finest, blackest wool I had on hand.  It is a Corriedale fleece from my favorite Colorado shepherd, from her sheep Dusty.  Nearly as fine as Targhee, so delightfully soft.  I washed up some of the fleece and blended it at the drum carder at a 50% alpaca and 50% Dusty Corriedale wool.  It spun like a dream, and is nearly indistinguishable from the pure black alpaca.

The first shot was color corrected but not corrected for anything else.  This shot shows more what the yarn really "looks" like.  Cameras can be unkind at macro focal lengths... The dark yarn is a Navajo plied skein of my leftover black.  I can always spin more if I need to, but I wanted to have plenty for finishing up the variegated ply work.

The vital statistics on the finished yarn:

Variegated: 4 skeins of 3 ply yarn, total weight 291 grams (10.3 ounces) and 736 yards.  This yarn is about 1143 yards per pound... I think that lands it somewhere between DK and worsted weight.
Solid: 1 skein Navajo plied yarn, total weight 52 grams (1.8 ounces) and 176 yards.  This yarn is about 1564 yards per pound... a little finer, looks like about sport weight to me.  Haven't washed or swatched these yarns yet, but I'll bet they'll get even softer!

Spinning more yummy stuff... sampling the plies now.  I'll shoot pictures for next time.


Finished skeins of Alpaca blend...

Finally got a couple skeins done of the Alpaca/Dusty/Blue Faced Leicester.  Thought you might like a peek:

Back in January I finished the BFL handpainted roving and I remember not liking the magpie nature of the other handpainted singles that I Navajo plied.  So I sampled it with some pure black alpaca (back on 5/25/2011 in Next Up... Alpaca!)

I finished maybe a quarter of a bobbin of the pure alpaca and decided I was tired of all the drifting apart, it was forcing me to spin singles heavier than I really wanted for this yarn.

Having just washed Dusty's fleece, a lightbulb lit in my brain (don't worry, there wasn't too much smoke) and I decided to blend the two fibers and see what the result would be - sure couldn't be any worse to spin!

 

Here's a reminder shot of the original skein where the two black plies are pure alpaca:

Those two up above are the blended plies - the smaller one has one ply of the pure alpaca and one ply of the 50/50 blend.  Visually, they are identical.  You might be able to enlarge the pictures enough to tell the difference, but I really doubt that I'd let someone close enough to me to do that kind of visual inspection of any finished garment of this yarn!

These new singles are a lot more fun to spin, I can draft in my usual way and spin it up as fine as I want.  No slipping, no drifting apart and lovely fine singles so that the three ply finished yarn will be more like fingering or DK weight when it is finished.  Best yet, this is some of the softest yarn I've ever spun.  The fine wool and the alpaca seem to be made for each other!

Meet Dusty...

Dusty - Corriedale

Ahhh, nothing like the joy of a freshly washed fleece!  This is from Dusty, a covered Corridale fleece from my favorite shepherd in Colorado.  I have a number of fleeces from this flock. I was pleased by the color and couldn't wait to start spinning, so I grabbed my hand cards and made a couple rolags.  Dusty's fleece is very fine and has a nice sprinkling of silver fibers mixed in that sparkle in the very fine singles I'm spinning. No idea what I'll do with this yet, just sampling a bit for now.  Plenty of wool for several projects here - the raw fleece was 6.75 pounds.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get a little skein of the yarn done.

Frene Creek Farm roving in process

Also in the works... this pretty handpainted roving from Frene Creek Farm.  Originally, I thought I'd blend it with a couple plies of purple merino, but as it is spinning up, I think I'll do a pale gray instead.  I've got some very soft Rambouillet/Finn that will be just the ticket.  I'm about halfway through the 4 ounces of roving.  This is such pretty wool that I am always disappointed when I have to stop spinning for a while.

Next up.... Alpaca!

Frene Creek Farm Blue Face Leicester

Finally done with green and gray for a while, so I wanted some color.  I've had this bobbin of singles done for a while and have been pondering what to ply with it for a stunning yarn.  I'm so pleased with the way the LNL and Dorset turned out that I'm thinking to go in a similar direction with this... only bolder.  Thinking a neon looking barberpole stripe.  So I dug up some black alpaca from my stash and spun up some singles.  It is difficult to get a good picture of a light-eating black fiber, but this is what I got.

It is a pure, rich black. Little to no shine so I thought it would set off the electric blues and violets in the singles nicely. 

Alpaca is not the easiest fiber to spin - it is rather like dog hair.  Not much crimp - compared to wool - and it is somewhat slippery.  It barely holds together in the ball of prepared top.  It drifts apart and misbehaves if drafted too fine.  Seems easiest to handle if spun directly from the prepared mass of fiber rather than pre-drafting like I usually do with wool.



Black alpaca and BFL



But here's the best part - I'm thrilled with this sample skein, only a few yards, but I love the color play and the softness of this yarn!  This shot gives a more accurate color on the alpaca as well.  Deep, rich black and the brilliant blue - pleasing to me, and I'll have enough of it by plying this way to make something fun - like a vest, a shawl or maybe a sweater if I plan it right.  I've got plenty more of the alpaca should I need more yarn to match.

Spinnable Stash

So here is the great stuff I found at the wool market!  There were several vendors there, all with wonderful things available for sale.  Since I have waaaaaaay too much fleece on hand, I tried to restrain myself.  Did pretty well - but a couple things followed me home anyway.



Corriedale cross dyed rovings

 These pretty pink/red/burgundy rovings from Frene Creek Farm.  My closest shepherd, she's just outside of town which is very handy!  I need to learn how to do this kind of painted roving, but for now, it is nice to be able to pick it up from Frene Creek.  Besides, she has an amazing collection of fleeces.  Some from her own livestock and some from other shepherds and fiber farms.

She's also got the most amazing lotion bars, I've nearly used mine up.  Guess I'll be making a trip out there again soon to replenish my supply.


Superwash BFL and Alpaca and Silk Top

The other batch of goodies I couldn't resist came from a farm that was new to me.  Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm in Harvard, Illinois.  A nice superwash BFL handpainted roving in blues/purples/teal with a touch of white left intact. The colorway is called Lincoln Park. Very nice!  Also an exquisite Alpaca and silk top in a colorway called Eeyore's Brooding, in heathered purples/blues/grays.

I suspect the lotion bar will come in very handy when I start spinning the silk.  Haven't spun silk in years, but I remember it being a little hard to handle since it wants to stick to any rough spot on my hands.

Now I need to pick a Stashdown goal for March... what shall I choose?  I'll let you know next time...