I like Podcasts!

 

For about a year now I've been listening to podcasts, most specifically knitting or spinning podcasts that have really added a deeper dimension to my crafting life.  I enjoy hearing the reviews on products and books, as well as tips and thoughts that others share on crafts so instrumental in my life.  The podcasts fill a desire I have for information and conversation (even though it's just me listening).  Although I belong to a knitting group that meets fairly regularly, most of the members are new to the crafts and I tend to the be the one everyone asks for advice.  Don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy the group but I feel an additional need for peers that are more equal in ability and interest or nerdy obsession!  My guild, Ventura County Handweavers and Spinners Guild (VCHSG) http://www.venturaweavespin.com/, is a fantastic resource for information and comraderie -many of my fellow guild mates are extremely knowledgeable- but I only see them once a month.  And my local LYS Anacapa Fine Yarns http://www.anacapafineyarns.com/ in Ventura is also fantastic but it's kind of far from my home so I don't get there as often as I'd like.  You get my drift...I want more fiber craft input.

So far my favorite podcasts are The Knitmore Girls Podcast and SpinDoctor.  I'm wondering if any of my readers also enjoy podcasts I haven't found yet...there are so many and I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

The projects pictured were inspired by books I learned about on the Knitmore Girl's Podcast. The fingerless gloves are done a handspun single made of wool and silk, the pattern is in the book A Knitter's Book of YarnThe Knitter's Book of Yarn: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Using, and Enjoying Yarn: Clara Parkes: 9780307352163: Amazon.com: Books.  

The dark blue is also handspun merino wool and is a sweater I'm making for my husband out of Knits Men Want Knits Men Want: The 10 Rules Every Woman Should Know Before Knitting for a Man~ Plus the Only 10 Patterns She'll Ever Need: Bruce Weinstein, Jared Flood: 9781584798408: Amazon.com: Books. 

February 1

Time to rededicate myself to blogging every Wednesday again. I have been so over scheduled for the last 3 months that I have not had much time to do some of the fun things I want to do. Or maybe the fun things I do have really taken over my life? Not sure.

In the dance teacher part of my life I've started class sessions again and I'm preparing my student troupe Tandava to dance in Bohemian Roadhouse in a few weeks. We are all really excited, it's a Mardi Gras themed show and we'll have Sherri Wheatley & Sooz teaching workshops as well as being featured in our show. My class is wearing these wrap around skirts that are short in front & long in back, black & green bras, masks, feathers, fish net stockings and they are going to look fabulous. I'm not sure why but this round not many of my students are sew-ers so I have to do a lot of the skirts myself. Oh what I go through to make everyone pretty.

Tandava after our Circus piece at TFF '10

The exciting weaving news is that Jason Collingwood is coming to California and Ventura Guild is hosting him for part of his tour. I'm excited and have to warp the loom I've borrowed from the guild to be ready for the class. I can't wait to try my hand at rug weaving!

As a spinner, I've been doing much of what I always do...spinning yards and yards of yarn and I got Jacey Bogg's new book Spin Art. I am involved with her Insubordiknit group on Ravelry and we are working on all the techniques in the book. Even though I've done most of them before it's really good to make a study of each one to solidify my understanding of each yarn.

The first yarn in the book included a racing stripe. I did it a few times and wasn't happy at first. I spun a thin single out of a Mohair blend -that was very hard to draft- with S twist. Then I attached that single to a leader & spun a thick merino single and allowed the mohair to spin around it simultaneously. After a few miserable attempts I realized that in order to make the thicker yarn AND control the thin racing stripe at the same time I really had to get a larger whorl for my wheel. This made a world of difference...now I may actually do the yarn again. Since I have also spun some other thick singles just for the fun of it.

Multi Mohair Racing stripes with White merino/Teal merino/Black merino

My dance troupe She'enedra performed in a show called Bands and Bellies in Hollywood on January 22. It was fabulous fun! Princess Farhana was there as well as Monica Fernandez and many other beautiful performers.

Heidi, me, Tonantzin, Karma (yes those are their real names)

I also had a lot of fun with my friend Carolena, she came over to hang out and spin with me and stayed the night at the beginning of the month and then came out AGAIN last week and we had an indigo dye day with the craft grou. It was a very windy day and we had to work in the garage. If you've ever dyed with indigo you know how smelly it is. I'm waiting for some people to contribute pictures of the day so I can post them.

me & Carolena

I'm making these spindles for my Etsy shop and will be posting them soon.

That's the report on January! I'll be more consistent from now on so I don't have to put a whole month of news in one post!

County Fair 2011

Every year my guild the Ventura County Handweavers & Spinners Guild gets very involved in the county fair...

The general public is very interested in what we do and lots of people stop to watch & ask questions. Riley came along with her spinning wheel this year and enjoyed telling people all about the process of spinning.

On the first Friday of the fair we get together and make a shawl from start to finish. Maybe it's a little bit of cheating because the weaver had already warped her loom with handspun, and the fiber was all dyed up for us.

So 12 carders, spinners, & pliers prepared the yarn for one weaver.

But still it's a pretty amazing feat to get all the carding, spinning & weaving done in one work day. Here is the finished shawl it was auctioned off at the Cattlemen's dinner for $320 the money goes to charity.

We took a little break so Riley could ride a pony. She is almost too big for this : (

Wool Delivery!

Although there are many many lovely pre-dyed & prepared fleeces available nowadays I have always preferred spinning from raw fleeces. Not completely in the grease (raw-no washing) mind you but hand washed & carded (by hand or drum carder) or combed by me. I love it because I'm practical. I like to make things with my fiber and in order to make really useful things like sweaters & blankets you need a LOT of wool! So this is the most practical way for me to get the yarns I want. I also enjoy the way a less processed fiber feels in my hands when I spin it. Not slippery like much of that fancy combed top you see everywhere but something with texture in it.
So I sent out 10 lbs of raw wool to Aunt Janet's fiber mill in Northern California on the recommendation of my friend Susie.

Last year at the Ventura County Fair I bought a corriedale fleece from a shepherd at a sale price because it was already a year old. I was so frustrated trying to clean and prepare this fleece and it made the lumpiest ugliest yarn there ever was. So I decided to try to save it by sending it out and see if a professional could improve it. It was either that or become doll stuffing.

Professional processing definitely did the trick. I even used the drop spindle and made a little sample 3 ply to see how it looks. Me thinks this will make some very nice socks. Maybe I'll dye it and sell the extra.
Above you see some stunning Romney that I bought from Skylines farms. They have organically fed happy sheep that produce the most lustrous fiber you can imagine. I love her fleeces even when I clean them myself, I like them better cleaned by someone else. This will go into that blanket that I'm dyeing with Indigo.

And here you see some other random fiber that was in my fiber collection waiting for attention...

Livin' & learnin' people who are famous and little ole' me!

I have to say that I LOVE my life! I don't mean to brag or anything I just kind of can't believe the exposure I've had to talent & fun recently and I MUST share! Unfortunately I was so excited much of the time I didn't take pictures so you will just have to try to believe this is true!

First- Workshop in Spinning Textured (formerly known as Art Yarns) Yarns with Jacey Boggs.

I had the honor of hosting Jacey at my home during this workshop. She is an awesome inspiring woman and she brought along her film crew of 2 Chris & Julie who were equally as awesome. The first day they were here I wanted to show them some of the area. We drove home along the coast because the ocean is worth the detour. We had a spectacular lunch at Real Food Daily in Santa Monica and then we went hiking up here near my house. This is one thing I am most sorry to have no picture of...we saw a rattle snake! Jacey took pictures and I hope to see them on her blog eventually, maybe. I have never seen a rattle snake on the trail before, it even rattled at us. When we were coming back around the trail loop to the end I was thinking to myself, well I've never seen a rattler before surely I won't see one again for a long time- I was hoping to see a deer instead- when low and behold there was a 2nd rattler. Crazy huh?

Then the workshop was great, I learned a lot of tricks that I had missed from the dvd. There is nothing like learning something in person. And let me tell you if you have a chance to take this class you must do it! Jacey is an excellent, patient and thoughtful teacher. Even if you think you know everything you will learn something new or at least have a ball.

I snagged a few workshop pictures from Ercil...I hope she forgives me. And I even am putting in a picture where I look terrible just to show you I was there!

The following weekend I went to Cairo Caravan on the Queen Mary and danced with my troupes She'enedra & Tandava also wicked fun! I will post a video of the dance this week. It is my choreography inspired by the book the Red Tent.

I was home for one day after Cairo Caravan and I jumped into my car and drove up to my friend Carolena Nerrichio's house (if you are a belly dancer you know who she is). And then we went on a pilgrimage to take a cotton spinning class with Stephanie Gastaud at her home in the mountains. Stephanie is also an amazing and patient teacher, I love the way she listens to people and then just says the right thing so you understand. Just unbelieveable! We of course got to meet her husband Alden Amos as well, they are so super cute! And Carolena kept calling their home & property fairy land, and it was. We were in total spinning heaven. Wheels & books & plants...lovely, I want to move there and be their neighbor. I hope they like me ; )

Once again I learned lots of great tips and improvements on my cotton spinning. Don't squish your cotton! wow all this time I've been compacting the stuff!

Back on my whirlwind to San Francisco, stayed the night at Carolena's...6-7 hours drive home ugh!

I did remember my camera...

Then I thought it was all over and I would just sit quietly and read and reflect and practice my spinning but I had one more little thing happen. My guild received the gift of several amazing alpaca fleeces and I got one for myself and one I am spinning up that will be made into a gift for the lady who donated these fleeces to us-she is very ill and we hope that the shawl will bring her some comfort. Anyway this is the cleanest fleece I have ever seen! Just flick and spin amazing!

I am grateful.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while!

But here are some pictures of what I've been doing instead of posting blogs....

Spinning my little fingers to the bone! This is some wool I bought while at SOAR I'm going to make a little bolero with it.

This is some delicious camel/merino blend I also bought at SOAR...I think it came out rather well! But I have no idea what to make it into...any suggestions?


And more wool I bought at SOAR that I Navajo plied (3 strands of singles).



And I ordered Jacey Bogg's dvd on spinning art yarns and am now busily learning new techniques. This is my first attempt at making corespun yarn.





And here is my first attempt at making coils...

In order to show off the yarn-I didn't want to knit it or weave it (even if I wanted to it wouldn't fit through the heddles & dents on my loom)-I laid out the yarn on stabilizer and then sewed it on my sewing machine then put it into super hot water to dissolve the stabilizer and voila! A scarf! This scarf is so soft and I just love it so much that I keep wearing it everywhere and believe me I'm running out of clothes that match the orange!

I was made to GATHER!

The guild I belong to "Ventura County Handweavers and Spinners Guild" has an annual harvest sale -this is anachronistic because it happened before I went to SOAR, so it's actually in the wrong spot in this blog- and I did a bit of what I am genetically designed to do gathering. Oh! The fibers!

This is a camel/silk roving purchased from Redfish dyeworks



Which became this yarn, I think the pictures do not do it justice...



I am planning to knit it into a lacy cowl, it's 4oz and 370 yards.

This is some purple yarn that I purchased, I aspire to spin something like it eventually. But my intentions for this is to make a jacket w/ this yarn at the cuffs, collar and front. I found an Eggplant (dyed) colored Polworth fleece at Soar that will make up the body of the jacket.




And I also purchased this Alpaca/wool Indigo dyed roving that I spun up into yarn. It is not spun as fine as the camel silk but it's pretty nice. I just don't know what it will become yet.



I purchased a few other necessities a beautiful handmade niddy noddy and some unnecessities but did not take their pictures! And can you believe that Robert asked me when I got home if these purchases were part of my SOAR budget? Of course they were NOT I didn't buy them at SOAR! : )