I may actually be over-fibered.....

Last weekend I was one of the spinners on a sheep-to-shawl team at the Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber Festival in Waynesburg, PA (for photos of the 3 shawls, see Wild Rose Farm's blog, here--that's me in the sunglasses!). And then I carded lots of batts this week, photographed them and should get them in the shop this coming week. And spun some yarn. And knitted some hats. And knitted on my brown tweed sweater, ripped it out, knitted it again, and must rip out again because I'm math-challenged and figured the raglan decreases incorrectly. And today I headed to Stramba Alpaca Farm because.....I'd never been to an alpaca shearing and wanted to see what's up with that (she says innocently). Been a while since I assisted at sheep shearing and wanted to see the difference. Folks, it's more work than sheep! Sheep seem to be more accepting of having their hair removed. They have their hooves trimmed and usually get a protective shot of meds. Assistants grab the sheep for the shearer, whisk away the fleece (which sticks together as that's just the nature of sheep fleece), take it to a skirting table and pull away the undesirable bits. Alpacas don't like the whole idea of laying still and having shears run over them and some of them yell about it--loudly and unendingly. The assistants grab the fiber in 3 (and sometimes more depending on the farm) different batches--the blanket, the neck fiber and the trash. Their fiber drifts everywhere, and must be swept away before the next animal comes in. Sometimes there are other things that need to be swept away. It's tiring work and requires lots of helpers. By the time we were down to the last 4-5 alpacas, when I was asked to hold the animals head I had to refuse because I was just too tired to do the job well and didn't want to accidentally hurt the animal. I think I clogged the shower drain with the junk adhering to me. My feet hurt and I've had ice on them for several hours tonight. I don't want to card, spin or knit tonight cause I've seen (and picked off the barn floor) enough fiber for today. My hat is off to shearers and their assistants, because they will get up tomorrow and do it all over again. You guys rock!

Six Hands: End of the story

So, Dottie has finished and listed both the scarf and cowl on her Etsy page. They are both lovely and ON SALE! Go take a look at the Garden of Colors scarf http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=18681691 and the Garden of Colors cowl http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19310653 Truly lovely work! This was a collaborative project between Whirligig Yarns who dyed the alpaca roving in such colors that I couldn't pull myself away from her site for 3 days, myself who spun the alpaca roving and plied it with Merino wool, and Dottie at CCDZS who pulled it all together with her crochet hook and imagination.

Six hands make a project

I’m a member of the Fiber Arts Street Team on Etsy.com—we call ourselves Etsy FAST for short, and it’s also the tag we use for the Etsy search engine so we can find each others’ work. We encourage, advise, and support each other in our creative paths and the team includes artists in most fiber mediums. Spinning, knitting, crochet, weaving, felting and embroidery are techniques that pop to mind although I’m sure I’ve left out a bunch of others (blame it on low caffeine levels today). We have monthly ‘challenges’ where we choose a topic meant to inspire us to create something that defines or describes that topic. We’ve done the Olympics, heroes, harvest, candy and others. Decembers challenge is teamwork, meaning we’ll do a piece using materials from another team member. Since I’m primarily a spinner I wanted to take it a step beyond simply spinning fiber from another member and suggested that some members could form a trio (or more) and work on a project. And I thought it would be fun to watch my trio progress toward the final goal, so I’m putting up pix of the fiber I’m working with. I stumbled onto this combed top at Whirlygig Yarns while wandering around the team sites and I managed to resist it for about….oh, 2 days maybe? It arrived home on Thursday and I couldn’t wait to get my hands into it. It’s 3.7 oz. of huacaya alpaca dyed in a soft rainbow of colors.

















I’ve just started spinning it, and it’s just lovely to work with. The colors when spun up are clear and change frequently and the color changes are subtle which is just perfect for the end use. I’ll be combining this with some of my own fiber and will hopefully get about 600-700 yards of sportweight yarn. I’ll be posting photos of the yarn being spun and the final plied and washed yarn. And at some point we should be seeing the finished product. I already know where the yarn is going and she’s a wonderful artist, but you’ll have to wait to see what she does with my yarn!

And on another topic completely, Pitt tromped all over Louisville yesterday, Penn State was beaten by Iowa (snort, chuckle), and the Steelers are set to beat the Colts today at 4:15 EST. Life is good…..