Spinning

In December 2014 I asked Mama Jude, an indie plant dyer and spinner in Atlanta, how a spindle worked. She reached into a bowl on the table, took out a dowel and a little wooden wheel, jammed them together and put a cup hook on the end of it. Then she picked up some red fleece and began to spin. After a minute or two, she handed it to me; suddenly, I was making yarn on a spindle. And, I was addicted. She gave me the rest of the fleece and the spindle, and I spun it into a bulky, slightly overspun single ply yarn. I take it out and fondle it occasionally.

I ordered some fleece in a couple of different breeds and colors and made lots of overspun yarn. Then someone pointed me to learning videos, and I saw someone spin art yarn on a spinning wheel. She made it look so easy. Abby Fraquemont spins some of the most beautiful yarns I have ever seen; so does Natalie Redding. I began to wonder if I could spin on a wheel. So I signed up for a course at The Yarn Lady, our local yarn shop. Lady Marge brought her beloved Lendrum wheel and showed me briefly how to use it. Then I sat at the wheel and began over-spinning some more fleece. When I'd gotten the hang of the wheel, she gave me some soft, multi-colored fleece, and the result was wild. I asked about adding bits and pieces to it; so we did! I have worn my first wheel-spun yarn as a cowl, but the bits and pieces aren't staying put. But, I knew I could use a wheel.

In April 2015 at Stitches South in Nashville, I sat down at a Lendrum similar to Lady Marge's at Carolina Homespun and began spinning. My grin was so big my lips hurt. The wheel came home with me. It's a double treadle, Scotch tension with a bulky flyer. 

The car was loaded with fleece and wheel.

Then I visited The Barn Yarn in Clermont, Florida, and spied some washed alpaca fleece - bought some. Online again, I watched Natalie do lock spinning, and I pulled out some of my washed alpaca to lock spin. The result was interesting, sturdy and became clouds in one of my wall hangings.

I began spinning everything I had, ordered more, combined handspun and commercial yarns into wild looking pieces - none of which were longer than about 25 yards. 

While I was away at Stitches South, my honey went to the shearing at our favorite alpaca farm and brought me the fleece of Godiva, a chocolate yearling. It is wonderfully soft and makes a marvelous yarn.

Now, I was smitten with the bug of processing my own fleece. While living in North Carolina, I had visited a couple of farms and had some alpaca fleeces already, had bought some dog brushes to use as carders and some screens for washing raw fleece. So, I was ready. I had found some wool fleece that I washed and carded and used a blending board to make it into rolags (tubes of fleece for spinning). 

One day, Jan said, I know someone who has a drum carder for sale. That's much faster and easier way to card fleece than dog brushes; so I bought it from Gerri, who used to raise Angora bunnies. She gave me all the fleece she had left. My living room floor was full of boxes of drum carder and fleece - angora, cashmere, wool/silk, and other stuff.

I've managed to get the carder set up on a wooden tv tray so that I can move it outside to work on the porch, and I've repacked the boxes of fleece into only four containers. 

A couple of days ago, I pulled out some angora and sat down at the wheel. A few minutes later, I had some angora yarn - a worsted weight with some nice bumps and slubs that will make great sand for one of my Ocean Hours panels - expensive sand, but, hey, that's okay for right now.

Flashback to CGOA Concord, NC, 2013

What a glorious time I've had at fiber conferences. My first was Stitches South in Atlanta in 2009, where I had my first course with Laura Bryant, color specialist. I spent more time on the market floor than I did in classes and met Judy who owned Interlacements at that time. Later I visited her in New Mexico, met her animals (horses, dogs, cats) and watched her dye some wonderful yarn. I'm still using some of the wonderful yarns from that trip. She is gone, but others are carrying on the colorful fiber tradition with Interlacements.

My second fiber conference was CGOA 2011 in Greensboro, NC, where I had a great course with Prudence Mapstone, learning the ins and outs of freeform. And, I fell in love with it there. I had done a little bit of creating a coral reef, but Prudence showed us how to make bullions, how to join and how to tuck in the ends. We got to try on some of her great creations and watch her make things. She would walk around and answer questions by saying, "May I?" Then she'd take your scrumble and show you how to do whatever you asked. So most of us came away with little pieces of Prudence's work amongst our scrumbles.

My third fiber conference was CGOA in Concord, NC, in 2013, where I was privilege to take a class with the also very great Margaret Hubert, a prolific writer and teacher. We would gather around her chair as she sat in the middle of the room and watch her do specific stitches and joins as well as learn by looking at her work, testing our skills in what she proposed doing. I published photos of the vendors at that conference, but I never posted pictures of the workshops. So here are a few.


 Here is Margaret Hubert talking about how she created her freeform cream sweater/jacket.





















Juanita and others listen attentively

 The other half of the classroom with Joyce in the very back









Margaret taught us how to make limpet stitches












We came prepared with some pieces and made lots more during class with Margaret helping us arrange them to make a purse.

Another Twilight Panel Bites the Dust

Since the 4 original panels don't fill enough of the wall, I created Pre-Dawn to go with Sunrise, Noon, Sunset and Midnight. Wanting another panel, I began Twilight using some handspun yarn in a mix of blues with a touch of purple, a busy yarn with lots of texture and variation in thickness. I added some beautiful brown/blue ribbon and then worked in some Lamb's Pride using box stitches. At that horizon, I began the sky with a smoother look, ending at the top with a dark grey-blue. A little bit of single crochet metallic thread added interest.

However, when I photographed the panel, I hated it. The handspun is too busy, the bottom is too heavy, the sky area has no interest, the metallic addition are haphazard.

So, I frogged the piece and saved some of the sky as strips and all of the rest of the yarn. I put the handspun aside for a different project.

I began anew with lighter weight yarns and a smoother look for the water.

Since I work on this a bit every day, I kept adding another color, another texture - one section on top of another without a break. I wove in the metallic strips. And, I decided the sky area needed some fluffiness, but I couldn't find a yarn that was the right color and texture.

I  cut several yards of Lamb's Pride Bulky in that heathery Peacock color into 5 inch strips. Using my dog slicker brushes, I created a big pile of fuzz, which I spun into some really funky thick/thin/lumpy yarn. This is the fluffy wedge on the right side. Looks great. I thought the panel looked a little narrow, but I figured I could block it out a bit to be wider.

I kept ignoring the fact that it was too narrow. I measured the length, and I kept adding rows.

IT'S TOO NARROW, and it will not block out to being two inches wider. I am not going to take this one apart, but I will begin another Twilight panel soon.

2015 International Freeform Fiberarts Guild Challenge: Ocean

Ocean Hours

A six-panel wall hanging inspired by time lapse photography and by the ocean at Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina, USA. This was created for the 2015 Challenge: Ocean of the International Freeform Fiberarts Guild, and the entire show is on their website blog.

The First Four Panels

Sunrise

Noon

Sunset

Midnight

Pre-Dawn

Twilight - Taken Apart

Handspun yarn in rocks

Midnight in process

Original Noon - Taken Apart

Too small for the wall

Beginning of sunrise

Scrap from originial Noon

Stiches South April 2015

Stitches South in Nashville was marvelous even though the crochet classes were very basic. The Gaylord Opryland Hotel is an arena sized building with two atriums (atria), one of which has several multi-story buildings inside it. A small river (albeit only a foot deep) encircles an island, and a boat ride gives you a view of the plants and fish. The Cascades entrance has a Chihuly glass sculpture and some beautiful stained glass.

Here's the river and Joyce on her scooter. The hotel was so big that we could not have walked to all the places we needed to be. This was our regular morning ride down past the end of the white building and into the convention center.

This is one corner of a marvelous booth, one of about 400.

This is a silk batt for spinning. Swan Hollow had a 3-booth display of spinning fibers, felt (you can see the bolt of red on the left), and yarns. After I bought the wheel, I went down the row saying, "I'll have 4 ounces of that, 8 ounces of this, 4 of all three of those, etc." It's a good thing I was driving. Yes, I did buy some of the red/yellow top at the back of the booth; the purple, too.

Laura Bryant taught an extraordinary class on color using Josef Albers color theory. None of us will ever think of color that way again.


Jenny King, crochet artist from Australia, taught several classes: Bavarian crochet, Solomon's Knot and another class which I skipped because I was busy buying a spinning wheel.

I also took a marvelous spinning class from Merike Saarniit. At the intro luncheon she told us that even beginning spinners would leave her class with a fully balanced yarn. And, we did!!! I was too busy spinning to get any photos of the class.

In fact, I've been so busy spinning since I bought the wheel that I haven't even made any photos of it.

Stitches South at the Gaylord Opryland was marvelously fun, especially because my friend, Joyce was with me, but it was very expensive, and crochet classes were too few and very basic. I do prefer the CGOA events.

IFFA Guild Challenge 2015

Within the next week or two, the International Freeform Fiberarts Guild will post the works of art for Challenge 2015 - Oceans: The Color of Water. More than 50 artists from around the world participate each year in the Challenge. I have been a participating member for the past few years.

Until the Challenge is published (book and website), I can't reveal my offering for this year, but I can show you parts of the process. When I first learned to spin, I bought some pale blue thick and thin handspun yarn and some same color bulky yarn from MamaJude in Pine Lake, Georgia. So, I picked it up and squeezed it a bit, visualizing this as sky reflecting the color of the ocean in the early morning. It called to be knitted; so I pulled out some very large knitting needles and began making sky. Here's the beginning of the sky in a herringbone pattern.

After a bit I decided that every ocean place needed sand and rocks. I just recently began spinning in earnest; so I had that marvelously overspun alpaca in a chocolate brown. It kinked and curled and twisted - perfect for gnarly rocks.

I finished a panel, looked at it, decided that this spiral sitting in the middle of it was detracting from the flow; so I unstitched the top. The bottom was all crocheted together; so I reluctantly picked up the scissors and began snipping - hoping to save much of the piece. 

That did not happen. Because this is freeform, I had crocheted round and over and under and forwards and backwards without regard to possible changes. This great junk pile is the result.

Suddenly four panels (16" x 20") were finished. I sewed them to latch hook rug backing and then stapled that to foam core and hung them over the sofa in my living room. That wall is BIG, and they were lost on it. More panels were needed.

In two days, I created a Pre-Dawn panel that lacks a few finishing touches.

Several parts have my hand-spun yarn: the top of the sky, the white clouds, the sun rays, and the rocks. I have spun some balanced yarn, but I didn't like it very much. I can buy balanced yarn. I can't buy the irregular yarns that give interest to my wall hangings.

The white clouds are tail-spun Border Leicester, firm and scrunchy and white. At the edge, unseen in this picture, is some hand-spun cream Suri alpaca. I've spun a bit more of the yarn like the sky to use as sun rays becoming gradually darker towards the edges. The top needs to be squared, and this piece will be ready to hang.

Tomorrow I'll begin another panel - maybe a twilight ocean panel?