Letters From Camp-Saying Our Goodbyes

Camp was over too soon.

Saturday night brought us Joyce Williams. So on Sunday she brought her own personal trunk show to wow us.

Look at the way those buttons are attached to each other.

Latvian braid flanking a color pattern.

Can you see how the stitches were picked up with the pattern continuing on.

Armenian knitting not intarsia.

Fair Isle sweater using corrugated ribbing.

If our minds were not already full on Saturday, they certainly were now.

Meg tirelessly explains sweater planning and construction in order to make the sweaters actually fit.

Too soon it was time to go and I said my goodbyes to Amy and Meg.

I’m so happy and thrilled to have been there. Annette, was right…I needed to go to camp.

Oh, I did not forget geocaching on the way home!

I mean, where else could you find out where the middle of Wisconsin is! This is the marker for the center of the state in Pittsville.

One last image I’ll leave you with. Elizabeth left many things behind, but this one struck me.

Yes the Babcock, WI Post Office. Many a package was sent to many a knitter through there.

Thanks again to Meg, Amy, Joyce, and the crew at Schoolhouse Press. Knitting camp exceeded my expectations, by many factors and in many ways.

Letters From Camp-A Visit to the Schoolhouse

Today went by way too fast. We asked many questions, some quite difficult.

In the morning Meg taught us many things about arm shaping. Suddenly at one point she stopped and saw what Amy Detjen was knitting.

Wow…yeah now thats a gansey!

After lunch we headed out to the warehouse of Schoolhouse Press.

So what is the first thing the geologist finds….rocks of course. Baraboo quartzite to be specific. Oh and tulips and blooming snowdrops between the boulders.

But the knitter and spinner in me woke up quickly and headed inside to behold the joys of wool. Here are the bundles of Icelandic wool.

And shuffling through stuff in the sweater room. It smelled of strong cedar and I felt the joy of each article that passed through my hands. From gloves to sweaters to beloved shawls and I even saw the Pi are Squared shawl. I also found out what was wrong with my Three Cornered Hat.

See the yarn, that’s Sheepsdown. Ooof…no wonder I had problems changing the yarn and the gauge for it. Hmmm….time to learn to spin a bulky yarn or ply lots of strands together.

Here is that wonderful Russian Stove that they use to heat the offices.

Joyce Williams has joined us. She and Amy are helping another camper with picking colors for a LOVELY Alice Starmore design.

After leaving there with my purchases (yes there were many) I decided to find a couple geocaches.

The worlds largest round barn. And I would have never known it was there except for geocaching. This fairgrounds holds the annual Central Wisconsin Fair. The grounds boasts of not only the round barn but also this building.

Here in the midwest we are proud of our local and county fairs no matter how big or small.

After that I headed back to finish what I had been feverishly working on all day.

Yes! The Shetland/Shetland Blend PI Shawl is done!!! (Cue Hallelujah Chorus.)  Despite it not being blocked yet I wore it to dinner.

So now I can focus my attention on my camp project, the mini yoke sweater. It should fit my alpaca teddy bear.

Tomorrow I have class in the morning then head home. It will be a day of goodbyes.

Letters From Camp-My First Knitting Class

Yes, I’ve been knitting for over 20 years and this is truly my first knitting class. Today I learned two more cast-ons including the dreaded long tail cast-on that has haunted me for these 20 odd years and a for of it for a good sock cast on.

First of all, I simply love this set up. There is a camera trained on Meg’s hands, there is a monitor for her to view what is showing as well as a TV for us to see what exactly she is doing. Pure joy for this visual learner. I can learn a lot from books, but sometimes you just need to see what she is doing!

This is a small camp. Amy (in purple of course) is here playing Meg’s right hand woman and den mother. You can see some of the other campers there. I’ll try and get better pictures of all of us tomorrow.

Late in the day this is what my workspace looks like. Bottled caffine at ready, lots of DPNs on standby and in active duty. A bunch of show and tell. Oh what’s that you ask…could it be….

Yes she who does not block did block my Ice Queen made from Abby Batts! Denny would be proud of me

Oh and I found my sad little nametag.

Yeah I know…and if I had read my welcome letter a little earlier than 2 nights before the workshop I would have been able to make something that looked a bit better and could be read easier.

Tonight after dinner I decided that my Shetland/Shetland Blend Pi Shawl needed serious attention. I am sooo close to getting it done…oh no there’s that blocking thing again!

Tomorrow, more instruction and then its off to Schoolhouse Press…to show and view sweaters and shawls! I’m sooooo very excited!

Letters From Camp-First Night

I just arrived tonight for an EPS workshop with Meg Swanson. No pictures yet, but the Shetland/Shetland shawl was worked on as well as a French Market Bag and some spinning.

On the way here I managed to pass through towns who’s names I had only heard. Babcock, Pittsville among others. Some may recognize their significance, if you don’t no worries, I will explain later. Right now I have to get ready for tomorrow.

The Yarn Harlot Discovers Madison

Last night I had the pleasure of finally hearing in person and meeting Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot.

Her Friday night appearance in Chicagoland was cancelled due to the fact she could not get to O’Hare.  Believe me, the weather was BAD.  1″ hail does not do good things to airplanes.   So I had a fear that the Chicagoland people would make a pilgramage to Madison.  I knew with the long drive I had I would need to get to Borders early to get an arm band.

Bless the staff at Borders!  We were expected and they were prepared.  They did have more chairs to put out, but it was standing room only by the time it started.  I got my armband at about 3:00 and promptly went geocaching.  I was able to find a couple before finding dinner (Mmmmm….Noodles & Company…..Yum!) and headed back to Borders about 1.5 hours before the event.

Here is what it looked like over an hour before the event.

 

 This is the side I sat on.  It filled quickly once people found the chairs over there

Notice the Ravelry bag.  I need one of those!  How did I miss them?

Anyhow I tried to settle down and work on one of my projects.  The Shetland-Shetland Blend PI shawl refused to behave.  It kept sliding off my lap and me working on a French Market Bag with commercial wool just didn’t feel right.  I mean, I’m a handspinner…duh..  So I whipped out a Bosworth spindle and some leftover fiber from the Abby seminar I went to last month.  After a while I realized that -I- had people watching me.  That totally took me off guard.  I mean, I was only about 20 minutes (if that) from Susan’s Fiber Shop.  I didn’t expect so few people to be spinners in this group.  What does that say about my view of the world of knitters….hmmm….

Stephanie arrives and once she gets set up she promptly takes pictures of all of us. 

She discussed how relieved our group was much smaller than the one she had spoken to the night before at the WEBS event.  No fear of her fainting from fright with us!

This is my first time hearing her in person.  Her humor had a serious message behind it which took me off guard.  Also her discussion about her adventure “walking to town” when she was Northern Ontario was absolutely on the mark.  I mean, people warning her about killer deer and not questioning her sanity when she states she was walking 14 km to town? 

See the tired baby.  See Steph sign book.  What you don’t see is the tired baby not smile for Steph when she tried to take a picture of the baby.

I did have her sign a couple books for me before I had to fly back to Illinois.  I was able to give her the fiber I brought for her (yeah!)  I hope that is some of the stuff she mailed home either that or she has a HUGE suitcase.  She recognized me and my blog (gulp!). 

It was a tiring but well worth it trip.  The drive back on US 12 had me looking for killer deer the entire way :)  And I managed to get home before midnight.

Sorry I have not posted the results of the last fiber group, but the paco-vicuna has gone on walkabout and I have yet to locate it.  Plus I’m scurrying around getting ready to to to my Meg Swanson workshop this weekend!  This will be my first knitting seminar ever.  Wish me luck!

Wool Fumes (With Apologies to the Yarn Harlot)

That’s the only way I can explain it…must have been wool fumes….

Tuesday we discovered what happens when the sump pump goes out in the basement.  I walked down to find 1/2 inch of standing water.  We switch into emergency mode, salvage things on the floor that were the most valuable such as my dogs scent articles (made of leather and metal), some old video tapes, and wool stored down there.

Three unwashed fleeces got wet, others washed and unwashed, were just fine.  So today I started washing these fleeces.  All three were just wet and two should wash up just fine.

But the third…I mean…what the heck was I thinking when I bought it.  Yes it was a rare breed and yes I was at a fiber festival.  But after 20 years of buying fleeces I KNOW better.  The longwool fleece was caked in mud and sheep poo so bad that parts of the fleece even after a 30 minute soak in 120 degree water with Dawn was still caked.  The mud areas did wash up to expose a fleece full of burrs and hay.  I carefully looked through the fleece, nope the whole thing was like this.  Forget it…my time was too important.  It went in the dumpster along with another rare breed fleece I bought off of EBay that was full of keds (aka sheep ticks).

So, how does someone like me end up with a fleece like that?  Part of it was the rarity of the breed, I was just happy to find it.  The other part was temporary insanity caused by wool fumes.   I might have been tempted to ship it off to a processor, but with it wet I wasn’t going spend time drying the durn thing just to have a processor ship it back to me.

Okay what are my suggestions for finding a good fleece?

Have a friend help you

If you have never bought a raw fleece before and you are at a fiber festival, hook up with someone who has experience buying fleeces.  Seek out recommendations from others if you are mail ordering or bidding on EBay.  Also talk to them about what they expect from fleeces.  They may have very different ideas about what is “clean enough” than you do.

Avoid lots of vegetable matter

Even longwool fleeces can have problems with vegetable matter (vm).  It does not have to be perfectly clean.  Right now I have a fine wool fleece I’m sending off to a specific processor because it full of vm and I know that they do a good job removing it and there is nothing else wrong with the fleece.  I also find that I’m allergic to cedar needles and I avoid any fleece that has cedar needles in it.

Just say no to bugs

If the fleece arrives and it has bugs in it, such as sheep keds or live wool moths.  Quarantine the fleece away from your stash and contact the seller immediately.  Ahem, if I had really looked at that EBay fleece when I got it in the mail I would have found the keds and contacted the seller immediately.  Instead I looked at it and didn’t see anything and put it aside.  Keds can’t live off the the host so should already be dead, but wool moths and carpet beetles can and will munch on your fiber stash.    Keds are a management problem and cause problems beyond ruining the wool and skin of the animal.  Scurf (dandruff) can be a sign of sheep and goat lice and is a royal pain in the rear to get out.  I find it more common in mohair fleeces than others.

What about mud?

Mud most of the time comes out.  Sometimes it can stain though so you will have to consider that on a fleece by fleece basis.  Wash a lock if you can before buying.  Sometimes that moorit looking fleece is actually cream under all that mud!

Skirt liberally

Don’t be afraid of asking for a better skirted fleece.  You don’t need to buy their barnyard.  But be realistic.  If you are getting the fleece for $4 a pound you can afford to skirt that yourself.  If you are paying $20 pound then I would expect a much cleaner fleece to begin with.

Check strength of the fiber

Do a snap test with the fiber to find out if it has a weak place.  If it does pass on it or if you got it through the mail contact the seller.  That should have been disclosed when the fleece was sold.

Don’t be afraid to admit you can’t process it yourself

After buying a fleece and starting to process it you just may realize that you hate processing or that you don’t have time to process the entire 8 pound cormo fleece.  There are many very capable and experienced processors out there happy to turn your fleece into roving or batts.

I hope that this short tutorial will help you this shearing season.  It’s spring in the swamps of NE Illinois, and I need to get back to cleaning my basement and washing those fleeces.

We Came, We Learned, We Shopped

After dealing with insanity all week at work I was more than ready to take Friday off so I could go take my first spinning workshops in over a decade. Its not like I haven’t taken any workshops since then, just none spinning related.

Of course the first challenge was packing….where is this book…should I take this one? Where is that batt? Okay now to get the GPSr ready for the trip and the rest of the stuff I need for geocaching. Oh yeah, I better pack a bag separately for the sleepover! Okay, where is that pair of socks? Which spindles should I bring? And we have to get the dogs ready to go to the kennel. I fell asleep before finishing on Thursday night and never did find that batt (sigh).

Thanks to the late start Friday morning as I scrambled to find those last few things, we only found one geocache (aka cache) on the way there.

But when we arrived I was nervous and excited to meet Abby, and of course Beth and Faina (of lace fame). Little did I know at the time Sharon of Heere Be Dragone fame was also present. But a moment later my eyes espied…

…the wall of fleece. Other than at a fiber festival I have never seen so many different breed fleeces in one place. But I dragged my eyes back to Abby as she was starting her workshop.

I quickly became engrossed in her stories of life in Chinchero as she began her presentation. Weaving and spinning intertwined in the stories and then into the techniques.

True Andean spinning and plying was discussed. How her dad Ed learned the technique that is commonly called “Andean plying” and its publication in Spin-Off. Stupid spindle tricks explained.

We all received spindles and roving to play with. Some took to it with no problem, others added weight until spinning on it was easier. That was the first time in many years I had spun on a bottom whorl spindle without a hook. I did have problems at first, but just out of pure stubbornness that I was going to get the thing to work without adding weight and yes I was eventually successful. Jerry enjoyed the time and and chance to take photos for me. Especially after the workshop of Beth’s shop.

This is just a bit of teaser of what you will find in her shop.

So after the workshop we all milled around a bit. Wine and rootbeer was broken out and Jerry saw his chance to escape before things got too much for him. I shared part of my book collection with Abby, the good, the bad, the unusual. And some of the socks I brought as examples for her to use. I also exposed my problems with knitting gauge for all eyes to see.

Sleep was inevitable and about 2:00 we all started settling down to sleep.

The next morning came way too early for use night owls. Beth went and got coffee and cinnamon rolls for all of us and the sane daytrippers started appearing. I managed to foist off some of my junk on Jerry before he went geocaching, but I still had a substantial amount of junk.

I thought I had warned Beth I didn’t travel light…um…that was an oversight on my part. But I used that junk Beth, well not the Alpaca wheel and its supplies…

Jillian and Carla shows up sparking a whole different atmosphere from the day before.

Beth wears a tiara and Shannah holds down the fort during the workshop.

Late in the day it was becoming obvious that we were being exposed to a lot of material.

And were starting to get an inkling about how much we had trashed Beth’s shop.

Too soon it was over. I knew Jerry would be coming to get me eventually so I got a chance to try our Abby’s Victoria wheel.

And turned around and forgot about Beth wanting to try my Lendrum. Eventually my attention was drawn back to the wall of fleece.

Yes I went shopping, some serious research for us here at Sheepwreck. Some of these fleeces you will see here in the future, I promise! Beth has some pictures of me in the supposed aftermath of my shopping spree, but what she doesn’t tell you is that there were some I only got a pound of that are not put back in the cubes yet.

Jerry ended up meeting us at dinner. He was excited from his day he spent geocaching with the DarrylW4 and Firefly03 of Cache-A-Maniacs as well as muddy and tired. The group eventually ended up back at Beth’s and I was just about to leave when Denny calls and we all continue talking. Eventually Beth, who is in dire need of sleep, kicks us all out and I say goodbye both her and Abby.

The next morning I switch gears and we meet an equally bleary eyed Darryl and Firefly to share stories and trade geocoins (ooh shiny!). Eventually we headed back toward Chicagoland caching at rest areas on the way back and keeping an eye to the weather. Jerry realized that at one of the caches that he had hit 700, luckily it wasn’t a micro.

If you get a chance to take a workshop with Abby by all means go! What you learn from her is something I really can’t explain, but having a chance to talk, ask questions and just watch her made a huge difference. Being able to handle and feel yarn, see the twist, feel the draft of the fibers is nothing like reading about it in a book.

Vicuña, Guanaco, and Paco-Vicuña

Photo by Gato andino.

Vicuña, the very word evokes images of exotic luxury. Fleet footed, endangered, poached for their cinnamon colored fiber the vicuña has been a symbol of the spirit of the Andes. Perseverance in the face of adversity. Since the vicuña is no longer endangered in all parts of its current range, roundups called chacus are held to shear the vicuñas. This serves as a source of income for local community development as well as to discourage poaching of these animals. This diminutive animal only stands about 3 foot at the shoulder and is dual coated with a coarser outer coat and superfine undercoat.

Now that vicuña is now considered threatened in some locations rather than endangered the Convention On International Trade In Endangered Species Of Wild Fauna And Flora (CITES ) allows the sale of vicuña fiber and items made with vicuña from specific localities. Each item sold should include a CITES certificate stating origin. The fiber is very fine 6-10 microns. In comparison qiviut is 11-13 microns and angora rabbit is 13 microns.

All of the above micron counts come from the British Wool Board.

Photo by static-photo.

Guanaco is to the llama what vicuña is to the alpaca. Unlike its cousin, the guanaco is an threatened rather than an endangered species, and even locally abundant in Tierra Del Fuego. But because its numbers are not as low, guanacos are not protected like the vicuña is.

Photo by crookrw.

Yeah, they can be a pest to ranchers. Fences are no barrier to them and the ranchers view them as carrying disease and compete with the sheep and cattle for precious resources.

Like the vicuña, guanacos are double coated. The dehaired undercoat ranges from 14-18 microns and has a length of 1.5″ to 2″. There are some domestic herds of guanacos and much of the fiber available to handspinners are from them. Obviously these farms have very tall fences. The guanaco is smaller than its domesticated brother, the llama, standing at about 4 feet tall a the shoulder. It also does not have the special history of use in Peru that the vicuña has. In fact, Andezoo, who makes stuffed toys of all four South American camelids, portrays Ayak Guanaco as grumpy, tough as nails character.

Photo by mimsical.

Paco-vicuñas are alpacas with vicuña-like traits. Some breeders in the United States have taken vicuñas and bred them to alpaca or vicuña-like alpacas. Farms are breeding for the coat traits of the vicuña while (hopefully) keeping the advantageous traits of the alpaca. Since the alpaca is believed to be a domesticated vicuña subspecies, there should not be any changes as was seen in tame silver foxes that ruined the coats for use by furriers. It is possible to concentrate the vicuña characteristics by careful line breeding.

A handful of farms in the United states are breeding these animals. Some farms admit that some of these animals are crossbreeds, others are more evasive about the origin of their animals. Fiber for handspinning is available through many of these.

In November of 2007 there was a statement issued by all the Andean countries with populations of vicuñas condemning the creation of of paco-vicuñas and that paco-vicuñas should be treated like vicuñas, not domesticated alpacas (Hoffman, Eric “The Comeback Camelid.” Wild Fibers.vol 5, issue 1, pgs 46-56). Because of this it will be interesting to see what happens to the development of herds in the USA. I did notice that Northwest Alpacas no longer has a link to their “Vicuña Collection”. I did still find a dead link to it from this page.

Next we will look at samples of each…which gives me an excuse to go to The Fold.

Oh My Aching Legs….

This past weekend I went geocaching with a bunch of other woman from the Geocachers of Northeastern Illinois (GONIL).  Nine of us started out at one of the forest preserves (aka county park) south of Chicago and spent the next 9.5 hours looking for geocaches in the woods.

We laughed, we cried, many enjoyed being free from their spouses, dogs, and children.  We slid, we fell, we crawled (well, at least I did)  and most discovered areas they had never been to before.  Most of us were wet, muddy and very very tired by the end.

This is actually prime time for geocaching in Illinois…before the ticks and mosquitoes hatch!  The lack of insects more than make up for the lack of green.  

 Well, two weeks ago you this was a hopping place.  Don’t know what that is…let’s look at it from a different angle. 

 

Oh boy…imagine your child sledding down this hill.  See the people on the stairs?  Offhand I don’t know what the elevation difference is, but it is higher than my earthcache on Harts Hill.   But two weeks ago we still had a significant amount of snow. 

Winter is losing its grip.  Meteorologically spring has arrived, calendar-wise we still have a few days before the vernal equinox aka first day of spring.  And I am looking forward to it as I am sick and tired of the snow.

Finnish Landrace-Versatility is the Name of the Game

Hey, I found the other mitten!

Other than the fact I keep snagging them with my keys, they have stood up the test of time. These are knitted from a Finn/Lincoln in a modified Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern.

Now to the fiber.

Here is a lock of the purebred Finnish Landrace. See the well defined crimp. It was listed by the seller as an uncoated fleece, but not as a lambs fleece so I don’t know if the tip is just from being exposed or not.

This is the combed fiber. I used two row Viking style combs to comb this.

And here is the fiber spun up.

This is the carded fiber. I should have picked this more to get rid of more of the vegetable matter (vm). Not that you can see it, but I sure can.

Here is the spun yarn.

In addition, I managed to find some commercially processed Finn. The fiber in this prep has very little crimp compared to the hand processed fiber.

It was very easy to over spin the fiber when spun directly from the roving.

Overall, I preferred the hand processed fiber, but the commercial roving was no slouch. There is not a huge difference in the yarn between the combed and carded finn. Either way you are going to be pleased. I would not recommend this for baby clothes, nor would I recommend this for rugs. If you have sensitive skin you may not want a pair of finn socks, but a color patterned or cabled sweater would benefit from finns properties.

I’m very pleased overall. I’ve shied awy from finn in the past but I don’t think I will in the future.

It’s spring shearing season and I’m trying hard not to go nuts buying fleeces. Its very hard believe me. But I’ve managed to acquire a couple fleeces of one of my favorite breeds plus I’m working on more of the primitive and down breeds so there is plenty of wool to review in the future.

I just need more time in the day!