There and back again, a fiber tale

It's that time of year again, when vendors, knitters and other fiber enthusiasts descend upon the Santa Clara convention center for the annual Stitches West convention, where there is easily an acre of booths all selling yarn and fiber related stuff.  This is the best opportunity to see indie dyers and craftpeople in person, touch yarns you've only see in glossy pages on through the gentle blue glow of the computer screen.

Last year at this convention I struggling with epic pneumonia, and had no idea how radically my life was about to change.  It was nice to relax and get high on yarn fumes with a few thousand like minded fiber enthusiasts.  It's one of those rare times when my knitting worlds converge into one place, including Auburn Knit Night, MeadowFarm, and Fiber Trash Girls, as well as friends from the blogosphere and Ravelry.

There were pajama parties, great food, and lots of squealing over color, fiber and accessories.  Here's my acquisitions for this year.

Miss Babs' Yowza.  540 yds of luscious hand-dyed yarns.  This is going to become a Harmonia's Rings sweater.

This was the first time I've seen Western Sky Knits, but fell in love with this glitter sock yarn in the Rustic Rainbow colorway.  I've made socks before in the same yarn base, and they're yummy.

Of course I had to acquire more Abstract fiber.  This is Polworth in Lauren Hurst colorway.

And I took my very first stitches class this year, a fair isle for socks how to with Janel Laidman, author of such sock wonders a Sole Enchantments.

Another Coco Knits pattern that just could not be resisted.  I'll have to see what I have in stash to make this...

And, I won this awesome organizer from Chicken Boots in the daily prize drawings.  I had just been admiring Rowen's organizer when other friends informed me that they'd hear my name announced as a winner, and I was thrilled with my prize!

Friends, food, fiber, so much to absorb...  My senses are still reeling with everything seen, touched, tasted, heard and felt.  I'm really going to sleep well tonight!

Unpacking, The Saga

I’m sitting in my new place,  500 sq ft of laminate floors, double-paned windows, European-style fixtures and soft lighting.  I love it.  My first night I unpacked most of my kitchen, much of which has been packed away for nearly eight years.  I happily washed and dried for hours, reacquainting myself with my paternal grandmother’s crystal and glassware, my maternal grandmother’s cast iron pots and pans, my own dishes and hand crafted pottery mixing bowls.  It’s by no means organized, but its clean and unpacked.

Not so with my beloved books.  The shelving is all up, but every time I look at the pile of boxes, I hesitate.  What’s holding me back?  Finally tonight, a week later, I jumped in while dinner was cooking.  Pulled a box off the shelf, opened it, and put it on the shelf.  It’s a box of games, including the fabulous card game Munchkin and Lord of the Rings trivial pursuit.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Ok, on to the next box.  Oh, my knitting books.  I’ve had access to those all this past year.  Right, up you go in a place of honor.  Next box.  Some paperbacks.  Excellent, I haven’t read those in over a year, they’ve been all packed up during the divorce and in storage.

And then it hit me.  For some odd reason that I cannot explain to myself, and yet try to share here, maybe I’m not quite ready for these books to come out of their boxes. 

I’ve never been without books, and can barely remember a time that I couldn’t read.  I’ve kept childhood favorites like Hans Christian Anderson, Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and Anne of Green Gables.  I read and reread old friends like Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Charles de Lint.  New friends too; Kim Stanley Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver and Frances Mayes.  Then there’s the host of reference books; knitting, natural histories, geology, herbals, gardening.  Anyone who’s helped me move knows that I love my books and don’t like to be parted from them.

So upon opening the next box, it hits me, these are intimate relationships I’m reviving.  The oldest of the books have been with me a very long time, and they have anima from being handled so long.  Like the very best of friends, they don’t resent our separation.  They understand and are glad to be welcomed back into my life and on the shelf, but my memories around these books are complex.  The books aren’t different, but I am, and handling them now reminds me that I’m not the same person I was when I packed them away.  No wonder I’ve barely been able to look at these boxes.

Each box, each book, more than any of my other possessions, forces a reminder of who I am, complete with all of the changes.  I’m still not always sure how I feel about all of these changes, hence the hesitation putting books on shelves. How can I reconnect with my books when I’m still figuring out my own story.  This could take awhile…  In the meantime, it’s time to put away dinner and maybe open another box.  

A new way to sample

I first leaned to dye samples last year with Sara Lamb and the Fiber Trash Girls.  Then Jan showed up this summer with a dye sample box, rather than a binder.  Using embroidery floss organizers, she samples small amounts of dye, keeping very accurate records of the combinations used, then wraps the small amount of yarn around an embroidery floss bobbin for easy viewing. Her idea was featured in Interweave's Fall Color ezine, Spin Knit. 

I loved this idea, and set out to increase the amount of sample colors I had.  I began by sampling my primary Lanaset colors: turquoise, mustard, yellow, scarlet, fuchsia, and navy and black.  I sampled each at DOS 2%, 1%, .5% and .25% to have a range of tints.  Four jam jars fit nicely into the crock pot for steaming.

I then picked my favorite two-color blends and sampled at 2%, 1%, 1% with a drop of black added, and .5%.  Here's a different selection of greens drying.

Here are a selection of my colors, all wrapped up and ready for their box.

 

This project is by no means even close to being finished, and it'll take me a very long time on my current schedule to fill my sample box.

More fuzzy babies!

At five days old, Dharma's babies were happily scampering about, so we decided they could be let out of the birthing stall.  I usually do this at around three days, but because Sprawl couldn't walk, we held off a bit.

Turns out it was really good timing.  We heard sounds coming from the pasture that afternoon, and upon investigation we found Maharani had quietly given birth around 2pm to twins.  We each grabbed a baby, dried them off, cleaned out the birthing stall and installed the new momma and babies.  She had a boy and a girl, and just like Dharma's babies, they are both fuzzy.

When all the excitement was over, we found Sprawl, Spunk and Spot piled up outside napping after their first afternoon in the pasture.

I especially love Spot's ears.  She looks like a little bunny.

We continue to give supplemental bottles to Spot and Sprawl. 

Kid Update

I think I'll keep posting updates about the babies, especially Sprawl, here, so check back periodically for new information at the top of the post.

We've been feeding Sprawl every 3-4 hours today.  Here he is at the 5:30 feeding when I got home.

Here he's snuggling with the most awesome housemate ever, who's helping take care of him while I'm at work.

Therapy time.  At each feeding we let him try to walk on the pebble walkway or dirt, both of which he manages better than the hay covered concrete of the birthing stall. Oops! 

He's walking/standing better today.  We believe he'll be walking within a couple of days.  He's very vigorous, and has already learned to come running towards ankles.

Sprawl has two sibs.  This is the girl, Spot.  She's got daddy's long ears, with a big, dark-colored spot on the back.  (You can tell we're being very thoughtful with the names here.)

We still need a name for the other boy, seen nursing in this photo.  We'd like to keep the alliterative theme going.

Dharma's fuzzy babies

Back in January I took Dharma over to my goat-partner-in-crime's for a little goat-on-goat action.  I'd missed getting Dharma bred in 2010, and didn't want to miss another breeding season.  So when I failed to catch her again in heat, I made arrangements for her to go on an extended stay with the buck of our choice. 

She obviously came into heat after just three days of exposure to the buck.  We left them together for three weeks, which should have caught two heat cycles.  Goats have 150 day gestation periods, so I calculated out the first day to watch for labor signs as June 17, with a likely day of June 22.  The days came and went...  No babies... 

I had to conclude that she, as well as Maharani, were in fact not successfully bred this winter. Since they were both obviously pregnant, beginning to resemble extra-wide loads, I had to further conclude that they had gotten themselves knocked up by the Angora buck after we moved to new pastures at the end of February.  We share a barn and pasture with a big beautiful Angora buck, a couple of Angora does and their babies, and several sheep.  Well, my girls decided that they liked this big, fuzzy buck, and perhaps they'd like some fuzzy babies of their own.

So based on moving day, I recalculated the earliest possible day they could possibly deliver as July 22.  Sure enough, Dharma at least didn't take long to make friends with the new hunk in her life as she delivered triplets, two boys and a girl, this morning around 3am.  My housemates heard the commotion; I slept through it all.

And they are fuzzy.  One of the boys has long ears, not a La Mancha trait at all. We have fuzzy babies with some dairy conformation characteristics.

One of the boys, the darkest of the three, was having trouble standing, which meant he couldn't effectively nurse. Luckily I had frozen extra colostrum and milk from Dharam's first lactation two years ago.  We thawed the jars and my housemate began feeding the boy on three hour increments while I went off to work.  After the last feeding this evening, the little boy looks like he might start standing on his own soon, and we can stop the bottle feeding. Dharma is a trooper and is taking care of all three babies.

Processing the Fleece, Part I

Last year I acquired a Romney fleece from Lindsey, and there it sat in a garbage bag in my shed for the remainder of the year.  I knew I could pay to have it sent off to one of the mills to be professionally processed, but I wanted to get hands on with at least one fleece, and this was going to be the one.  I just needed the proverbial rainy day to get started.

So finding out last week that I was going to have some extra time on my hands, I decided it was time to fish out the fleece and get started.  I missed taking a before photo, but lets say that it was a yellowish bunch of wool that filled a large trash bag and weighed many pounds.

The first step is to scour, or clean, the wool, which essentially involves soaking the wool in large tubs with a bit of Dawn.  I used two 15-gallon tubs and split the fleece in two.  The first water bath is hot, to open the scales on the wool.  The water was instantly muddy brown with lanolin and dirt.  These were left to soak and cool for several hours.  The process was repeated three times, each time the water being cooler.  (Note that there are both hot and cold water taps outside the house.  Somebody was thinking ahead!)

You have to be very careful to not felt the fleece during the cleaning stages.  Hot water + soap + agitation = felt, so there is no rubbing or squeezing of the fleece.  In between water baths it was gently lifted out as a mass and placed in a giant colander for straining.

Finally satisfied that the fleece was reasonably clean, it was placed in the bottom of the washing machine for some quick spin action.  Again, no agitation.  We went straight to the spin cycle in an old-fashioned upright for some centripetal action.  Look how fluffy after just a minute!

Finally the fleece, being reasonably clean, is left to dry outside on a rack.  I occasionally shift the masses around to expose all of the fiber to dry evenly.  I suspect it will be dry by this evening, and I'll be able to weigh what I have left after most of the dirt and lanolin were removed.

On a Happier Note - Spindle Camp

And to make up for the very wordy and imageless previous post, here's a short overview of last weekend's Spindle Camp.

Spindle Camp has become an annual event at a small resort/campground at Lake Francis in Dobbins.  There are a mixture of traditional campsites, RV hookups and cabins for rent. Spindle Camp itself took up an entire site where we could hang out in the shade of our pop-ups to spin, smooze and catch up. See all the happy spinning wheels waiting for their people to wake up?

 

There was food.  Mardi made a gluten-free strawberry-rhubarb cobbler.

And there were roasted peeps.  Yep, roasting peeps on an open fire.  

 

They're really incredible.  The extra sugar coating caramelizes beautifully, leaving a thin crispy shell with the gooey inside.  

This started as a funny experiment, but they are my new favorite camping food. I couldn't wait to try all the colors. 

Special thanks go out to Jan Evers for organizing the event once again, and Susan Prince for photodocumenting  everything and getting donations from some of our favorite fiber suppliers.  Everyone got a bit of swag.

Here's mine.  It's Lisa Souza merino in a color way that I love.

Other attendees have written in more detail about their camp experiences, which you can check out on the following blogs:
A View From Sierra County
In Stitches
Woven Thoughts

Irreconcilable Differences

Turns out there are exactly three reasons one can apply for divorce in the State of California: (1) irreconcilable differences, (2) incurable sanity or (3) nullity of marriage for legal reasons (ie incestuous marriage, one member was not of a legal age to marry or fraud).

Irreconcilable differences.  We hear it a lot, but what does it really mean?  Websters defines it as representing findings or points of view that are so different from each other that they cannot be made compatible. 

I think about this a lot.  I think about the reasons for my marriage of nearly ten years to end.  I chase them around in my head. The bottom line is that when you cannot agree on an idea, fact or statement, and in fact debate the meanings of certain words in a semantic fashion to beat those differences into alignment, there comes a point when you realize this is what is meant by irreconcilable differences.  

It means we're not going to agree. Ever.  Not gonna happen.  And when it's an irreconcilable difference regarding a foundation of a relationship, at least you hope you can agree about the outcome, because there's really only one outcome if you can't agree at that point, and that's to agree to disagree. Which in this case means divorce. 

Though this was initially my decision, and even though it's been over a month, I still feel stunned as I move through the process of dividing up our property and filling out what seems like endless amounts of paperwork.  (It was so easy to get married?!)

I naively thought I'd be able to blithely file the papers, put away my wedding ring, update my Facebook relationship status and move on.  Instead I'm emotionally up and down. My future as a single woman is overwhelming.  I know logically that time needs to work it's magic, but I won't deny that there' s a small part of me that would like to wake up from this nightmare.

So if you ask me how I'm doing and I don't respond right away, well, some days just suck.  The generosity and support of friends, family and fiber are slowly working their magic.  Time will do it's thing.  Life will go on.  

And some day we'll have some warmer weather and we'll get to play in the dirt and plant out all of those seedlings we started in the greenhouse!  (Sspt, yes, spring is on it's way.  I saw blackberry bushes in bloom in Auburn today.  It's coming.)

Shearing Day

Last Sunday Carl the Shearer came to shear Sue's goats and sheep.  There are Romeldale and various Romeldale crosses.  The white one is a Corriedale, and the greys are fleece mutts.  Carl trimmed toes and sheared using his mobile electric shearer.  

The process of trimming a sheap or goat has been called the two-minute waltz.  Before mechanical shears, it would take six men approximately2-3 minutes to collectively shear a fleece.  With mechanical shears and using a consistent pattern to turn the body of the sheep, a good shearer can shear an entire animal in under two minutes by himself.  Mechanical shearing and the techniques that were developed by the Bowen brothers in New Zealand mean faster shearing with a more uniform cut edge and fewer cuts to the sheep, all which yield a higher value to the fleece.

Here's a short video of the shearing of Queenie the Angora goat, which gives you an idea of the process of shearing.

Here's some pics of the various wools after shearing.  These will need to be skirted (removing the poopy bits) and then sent to a mill to be professional cleaned of vegetable matter and processed into fluffy roving.