The true cost of participating in a sheep-to-shawl competition

In a conversation recently, the question was asked about how much it costs to participate in a sheep-to-shawl competition. I thought it was an interesting puzzle as I’d never really written anything down.

A team is usually 5 people—weaver, 3 spinners, and a shearer/carder. Our team does not own sheep nor is anyone a shearer, so we have to find a shepherd and pay their vet fees to certify that the animal is disease-free. Shearers run in the neighborhood of $150 for the 10-15 minutes it takes to denude a sheep PLUS the time they spend driving to/from the event, the hour before the event and a few hours afterwards so that, if their team wins, they are present for the photos and the auction of the shawl.

The entry fee for the competition $10-30. Most of the above fees/costs are covered by our guild. The auction proceeds also go to the guild to offset the vet/entry/shearer fees, and the auction price can range from $600-$3,000 depending on the event venue and design of the shawl. So our guild can reasonably expect to receive at least $300. From that, they pay each team member $35 to help defray our travel/hotel costs, leaving the guild with at least $125 in profit. However, this does not take into account the costs incurred by the individual team members. This year’s breakdown for the team in which I was a member was roughly:

Days Inn, 4 rooms for 2 nights, $125 each (some family came

                to assist with hauling equipment)                                                 $   500

Gas for 4 vehicles to/from the event, $50 each                                                 200

Costumes, 5 members (we purchased the shearer’s

                costume for her), $37 each                                                               185

Practice fleeces (we went through 3 in 6 months), ~$60 each                          240

Food at the event, 4 people for 3 meals, about $40/person                              160

Display (required by the venues)--historic photos, graphics, yarn                    120

Total spent by the team to participate                                                           $1,405

That comes to an average of $351 per person (weaver & 3 spinners)! So our guild receives a profit of at least $125 and each team member spends roughly $350 out-of-pocket to participate in the competition. Wow! I never realized until I wrote it all out just now. And most of those costs are not negotiable. You must have lodging/food/gasoline and a display. A team could possibly cut down on the cost of practice fleeces if they know someone with appropriate fleece that they'd contribute free of charge, but that would only save the team $240.

I often wonder if people realize that, in addition to the work involved in designing a shawl around an appropriate theme and making the 2 shawls (a sample shawl is always required by the venue), there is SO MUCH MORE that team members do to make it a successful trip.

Exciting delivery......

My new loom is here!!

Backstory--Back in the Dark Ages of Time, I was a production weaver. I worked in designers' studios and did commission work out of my home when the boys were small. It wasn't unusual for me to crank out 20-24 yds of fabric in a workday. I had a 64", 10 harness, 12 treadle Glimakra loom with a fly shuttle beater. I loved those hours spent in the studio. Life changed and I sold the loom to a lovely lady in Ohio, who has since passed it on to a weaver in Kentucky. Back in 2005 I bought a 48" Gallinger 8H loom and worked on restoring it. During the process I discovered that it was just too big for me to use comfortably (I'm 5'1") and so I sold it to a lovely new home nearby where she'll be well and caringly used. All I had left for weaving was a rigid heddle loom, which is wonderful for what it does with it's two heddles, etc. But I really wanted that feeling of doing marvelous twills and rocking with the beater (Bob Seger's Greatest Hits is a great CD for setting your weaving rhythm).

While visiting family two weeks ago I made my annual pilgrimage to WEBS, only this time I wanted to talk looms. Barbara and Art were SO helpful (and it was a pleasure to chat with someone who knew all that weird weaving terminology like 'tromp as writ'). My one concern was something a good friend in Holland brought up--climbing under a loom to do the tie-up when you're moving into the arthritis years can be a big consideration. And Barbara solved the issue by mentioning that the Toika loom could be adapted at a later time to a computer loom, eliminating the tie-up issue completely! Yay!

I suggested the driver back down the street so he'd be closer to the garage and not have to face the challenge of backing out of my long driveway.

Yikes, that's some big crate!



It just fit on the lift gate. Be careful it doesn't roll off onto the ground.

And here it lives in my garage for the week.

This weekend I'll have help opening that Norwegian birch crate (saving the wood for future woodworking projects). I'm hoping to have it together by Sunday evening, although I have no idea what I'll put on the loom first. I must go find my copy of Davidson's book and pore over it with a cup of coffee--all those lovely twills to be re-explored after a 25-year absence.

A visit to a local historic house, and there's spinning/weaving, too!

Yesterday my guild went on a field trip in lieu of our usual meeting. We do this once or twice a year when the weather is nice and we don't want to be cooped up inside--we want to see fiber stuff instead!! We met at the Vicary Mansion which is a few miles down the Ohio River, just over the hill from Cranberry and Harmony, PA.

Although they are still working on the renovation (and what historic site isn't always working on renovation?), it was a treat to explore. They have one room dedicated to spinning and weaving and also collect and research old textiles. They are the proud owners of a rare Newcomb loom and currently have a nice rug warp on it. Here's two pix I managed to take, excuse anything that's not completely clear because the room is crowded with warped looms, working spinning wheels and fascinated guild members yesterday. The Newcomb is a semi-automatic loom, meaning that many of the operations usually performed by the weaver are handled easily by this loom. That automation increases the weaver's production rate because she/he has no need to stop and advance the warp, etc.
 

Back of the loom

Front of the loom--that's one heavy beater bar!

 We wandered through the house and up to the attic which was wonderfully spacious. The Mansion personnel store their costumes here, which are used when there's an event and volunteers need to borrow period clothing. Back in the corner I noticed 3 spinning wheels, and really like the little flax wheel all set up and ready to go.

 One of the functions of the site is to preserve local textile history. They had two woven coverlets out, both of which had been assessed by Rabbit Goody when she was here in October 2012 for a lecture sponsored by our guild. The first was standard red/blue coverlet of which I could only get a full photo. I don't remember if we asked the fiber content of the plain weave component (the white threads) but the red and blue are definitely wool.

The more interesting (to me) coverlet was the orange handspun hand dyed one. The plain weave (white threads) are cotton and the orange is wool. The weaving experts at the mansion are working on replicating this one, and Dorothy has all the wool spun up and dyed with madder. Her yarn is on the little bobbins in the back left-hand corner of the full photo, and they are currently weaving up samples to make sure they have the weaving draft written properly and that they've centered the design on the panels. Very few household looms in those days were wide enough to produce a one-piece coverlet so many of them were woven in wide strips (36-40 inches depending on the individual loom) and sewn together to cover the bed.

Notice the variation in color due to exposure to light?

Closeup. This is a section about 2" square.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. If you're looking for something fun to see and want a little local history too, take a ride down the Ohio River and stop at the Vicary Mansion.

Pink! Lots of it and in different tones

A friend of mine asked if I'd be interested in doing up some special batts for her. You see, her brother is marrying a lady who just loves pink, she wants to spin and knit a special shawl for the bride and she doesn't have the equipment or raw materials to blend what she wants. Of course I'll do it for her. Purple is my favorite color of all time, but pink ranks right up there with purple.

I decided that Merino wool, silk and cashmere would make the perfect warm-yet-airy luxury blend. The first blend was a bit, ummm.....Pepto Bismol?

Pepto Bismol on the left, adjusted color on the right

So I added some darker colors to tone it down and shipped the batts off to my friend. There were two batts left over (I always start with more fiber than I need when I'm working on special orders) and I just had to play with them. I have a ball of dyed mohair that I've been wanting to use in a woven scarf and this seemed the perfect opportunity to see what I could do. I blended warm tones with one batt and cool tones with the other. I will spin each separately and use them with the mohair for warp. I don't yet know what I'll use for weft, but if the yarns sit there long enough they usually tell me what they want to be paired with.

Cool color on left, mohair in middle, warm color on right

And just to make life more interesting while I'm working on a magazine submission, I started a Wingspan with a ball of Zauberball I had sitting around (see? told you that yarn speaks to me when it wants to be made up into something!). It was great car knitting when we took a drive north for a bike trip last weekend. We'll see how soon it gets finished, since I'm only working on it when I'm bored with the magazine piece or when I'm riding in the car.

And that's what I did with MY week, how about you? What's on the wheel, what's on the needles? Or are you trying to get your gardening finished between storms and heat waves, like the rest of us?

Guild exhibit at Shaler Library during the month of May; Reminder to register for classes at Waynesburg Festival

The Butler Spinners and Weavers Guild is hosting a display of textiles at the Shaler Library on Mt. Royal Blvd. My friend and I are hanging the show and did a mock-up of the display this past week. Folks, there are some lovely pieces in the show. Our guild is full of talented people. I'm entering 3 pieces but have only photographed one, the handspun handknit linen market bag. It's a small bag but I'm sure I can fill it up at the yarn store (like I need more yarn?).

With apologies to my guildmates, here's a few shots of other pieces.....

This is going to be a great show!



And I wanted to remind folks that this is the first year classes are being offered at the Waynesburg Sheep and Fiber Festival in mid-May. There are some great knitting, spinning, crochet classes being offered for first-time crafters and this is a great opportunity to learn a new skill! Yep, I'm the spinning teacher and I'm looking forward to meeting some wonderful new spinners that weekend.

Weaving in the near future?

I suppose you could call me a ‘lapsed’ weaver. Once upon a time I did a lot of weaving. In fact, I did it for a living, hiring myself out to local and not-so-local designers to weave yardage for their creations, and weaving items for sale and a few creations of my own to enter in shows. Along came a hefty dose of Real Life, and I had to get a job with medical and educational benefits for the boys. I sold the loom and all the accessories and left the weaving world for 20+ years.

One of my spinning students bought a loom years ago and asked me to teach her to set it up and weave. And I was bitten by the weaving bug again, found an old loom, bought it and brought it home back in 2005. This loom was built under Osma Todd Gallinger’s brand and somehow ended up stored in a hen house! It was rescued sometime later, used to weave rugs and passed on to a studio in eastern Pennsylvania. They sold it to help finance their troubled youth program and it came to live with me, all in pieces, with lots of notes, diagrams and photos to help in it’s re-assembly.

I finally found the time last week to clean it up (yep, found hen house straw in the oddest places!) with Murphy’s oil soap, give it a good coating of orange oil, and put it together. After Sunday’s marathon re-assembly, it really is surprising that hubby is still speaking to me!

So, here she is–42" weaving width, 8 harnesses, 14 treadles.




I still need to give the castle, warp drum and harnesses a good cleaning/oiling, figure out how the brake chain goes on, and buy Texsolv heddles and reeds. But I’m hoping to be weaving with my handspun yarn by some time this summer. I'm looking forward to re-acquainting myself with those complex twills! Yay!

"Prime time to reassess looms"

OK, did anyone else take that as some sort of possible sale on weaving looms? If you're a true fiberholic, it sure did!! It's the headline on a story in the local paper, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, talking about the ongoing argument about reassessing our homes. However, when I went looking for the article online so I could link to it here--the first 2 Goggle ads were for weaving looms! Go figure......

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…..