Spinning Class at Woodland Woolworks

Our next introductory spinning class will be held February 6th and 20th!  For the full write-up, please see our website.  You can take one, or both sessions, depending on where you are on the spinning journey.

Hope to see you there!

Knitting Along

A couple of weeks ago I was enchanted by a pattern from Classic Elite, sent out in their email newsletter, for the Fresco Basket Whip Cowl (free pattern here).  I printed it out, thinking it would be fun to do "sometime"...  I must have queued it in Ravelry too...  Then the very next day, I received an invitation on Ravelry to join a Knit Along (KAL) for the very same pattern!  Queue the Twilight Zone music! (do do do do, do do do doo).  Oh yeah, I queued it - she's not reading my mind, right?  (do they know about the felted double knit trivet-y thingeys I'm thinking of trying? - no pattern, just want to try out double knitting... is there a Knit Along for that too??)

Anyway, I joined and found a lovely shade of blue and am enjoying making this!  It's a quick knit (I'm NOT a quick knitter, alas), it only takes 2 skeins of Fresco from Classic Elite.  I ADORE this yarn!  It has 60% wool, 30% baby alpaca and 10% angora so it's wonderfully soft.  In the skein it's not overly remarkable, but once you start knitting it, it softens up and the angora halo introduces itself and is as charming as it can be.  ("Hi, I'm Angora, and I will be caressing your neck, and keeping you warm").

The Ravelry KAL is ongoing, so feel free to join in!  I put Fresco on sale to make it even easier.  I put a couple of Dale of Norway yarns on sale too - check it out!

Miniatures

One of our lovely customers recently gifted us with a beautiful spinning wheel and loom - miniatures!  The detail is amazing on these, and you can even actually weave on the loom.  Paper clip added for perspective...

 

Would you just look at that little reed!  I think it's threaded with sewing thread. 

Thank you so much, Mary!!

Moving the furniture

We recently rearranged a good portion of the main showroom at Woodland Woolworks. 

I don't know how I got the camera set into panomara view, but I did...  this is the in-progress group of shots that got smushed together...

And here is a shot at the final version:

It's a lot more open, and easy to see things when you first come in the room.  We hope you like it!

Thought for the Day

Why do golfers wear two pair of socks?

In case they get a hole-in-one....


Courtesy of my dad!

Natural Dye Workshop with Cheryl Kolander

I got a flier that there's going to be a natural dye workshop for THREE DAYS! in Portland in November. If you're interested in natural dyes, you should look into this! Cheryl Kolander is the author of "A Silkworker's Notebook", "Hemp! for Textile Artists" and "Brilliant Colours with Natural Dyes". The workshop is November 20-22 and will include indigo and surface design as well as immersion dyeing. Check out all the information at www.aurorasilk.com or email her at dyer @ aurorasilk.com .

Looks like a great opportunity!

(no affiliation, just spreading the word)

Rabbit rabbit!

A million years ago, I knew someone who would always say "rabbit rabbit!" on the first day of the month. According to her, doing this would get her good luck for the rest of the month if she said it to you before you said it to her. Anybody know where this bit of lore comes from? Anybody else every heard it? Ever said it to everyone you meet on the 1st day of the month?

Funny things we do.... Can I just wish good luck to everyone, every day?

And would saying "knit knit" mean we get happy knitting all month?

Getting Ready for OFFF

Like lots of folks, we're getting ready to go to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival (OFFF) this week.... deciding what to take, should we do something different, or mostly the same, should we change our layout of our booth of stay mostly the same.... Every year, at every fiber fest we think of all these great improvements and things to do, and sometimes we even write them down. Then, just before the next fest we try to think up what all those great improvements were. It's a tradition. If we wrote them down, we can't find them later anyway. So we get to do it again! THIS time we're really going to write it down and act on those fabulous ideas!

This time we get to see Karen! Karen who worked here for several years and made everybody just a little bit happier all the time with her happy chipper positive attitude. Karen and her hubby moved away (DARN this economy and what it's done to the school budgets and everything else), but she promised to come help out at the fests anyway, so we get to see her this weekend!

Please come see us, and make us write down all the great ideas! We'll be on the porch, as usual.

New Colors

New yarns for fall are starting to roll in, and they're getting all the glory via the email announcements. We're also getting new colors of existing yarns, which is just as fun. The temptations just never stop around here.

Here are some new colors of Crystal Palace Panda Soy:

I don't know what I did to the lighting for that poor picture, sorry about that! The colors are 2223 Aqua Lullaby, 2225 Bluebell, 2226 Happy Baby, 2222 Lilac Lullaby, and 2224 Pink Cameo.


We've also added 6 more colors of Fibra Natura's Yummy sock yarn (where "yummy" is both a proper name AND an adjective!)Above are Yummy 92 Tequila Sunrise, 94 Grilled Chilies, and 61 Grapesicle. I love how colors are named, don't you?

And these three are Yummy 91 Raspberry Mocha, 87 Mint Julep, and 93 Madorie Margarita. There's a nice variety here, from the manly Raspberry Mocha and Grilled Chilies, to the wilder Tequila Sunrise. Too much fun!!

Lizard Ridge in Poems

We have a new yarn called Poems that's a lovely worsted weight self-striping yarn with wonderful colors. I sent out an email announcement and sale notice and a wonderful customer shared pictures of her project using Poems - a Lizard Ridge afghan! (free pattern found on Knitty.com) I've been wanting to make one of these myself, and this may be the push I need to cast on.... And Poems is on sale through Labor Day, so it's a great time to snap some up!

Here is Lisa B's Lizard Ridge. She tells us that she used 18 skeins of Poems for this afghan, and did the edging in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted. It looks wonderful!! Thanks so much for sharing!!

I just love how the ridges and valleys are in different colors. I think a project like this goes quickly because you just keep knitting to see what the next color combo looks like, and you can't stop. And then you get to curl up in it, or wrap a loved one in it when its done. Perfect! I can also see doing pillows in this technique, or felting some up for a purse/bag. Wouldn't that be cool?

Happy September!

Dyeing is such fun!

We had a great time dyeing last night, and hope to do this again while the weather is decent for hanging out in the warehouse, maybe on a Saturday.

We did a 2-step process on Karen's first batch. She wants to knit a shawl with these 3 skeins. We put some dye in the dye pot and heated it up, tossed in the skeins for a semi-solid look. Then we laid them out on plastic and put "dots" of a darker version of the same color (more intense amount of dye, plus a dab of dark blue) on the yarn. These were rolled up in their plastic robes and steamed to set the 2nd dye job.


Here are some rolls of painted yarns in the steamer:


We had some very lovely helpers, who dyed their skeins in coordinating colors for the outfits they were wearing:

And here are some pics of some skeins that have been steamed and rinsed. Yum, color!


Hope you can join us for the next dye party!


Diane

We're Dyeing on Monday

Come join us! We're going to throw some dye around on yarn, and who knows, maybe even roving or fleece.

Our own Karen is leaving us, moving to points east, and we thought she couldn't possibly leave without dyeing first, so that's what we'll do. We'll dye on Monday evening from 5 till whenever. Be here, or be, uh, un-dyed.

Diane

A Nebraska Fiber Fest

I just saw this on Ravelry, and thought I'd pass it along for all the mid-westerners who aren't as lucky as we to have such events as Black Sheep Gathering and Oregon Flock & Fiber every year (not to mention SOCK SUMMIT and SOAR this year!)

1st Annual Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair!

Saturday, October 17, 2009
10am-4pm
@The Farm and Ranch Museum
2930 M Street
Gering, NE 69341

Brown Sheep Co. and Barn Anew Bed and Breakfast will be co-hosting the event.

Vendors and demonstrators will be coming from all over Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and South Dakota to offer a variety of fiber art related products, projects, and techniques to share with participants.

Join us for this interactive fiber arts event! There will be activities like educational demonstrations, hands-on projects for children and adults, the sale of local/regional artists work and fiber art supplies, information and instructional resources, and a chance to pet and interact with some of the animals that provide the fiber we love to work with!

Our goals are to:
•Foster connection and education between the generations
•Explore the history and contemporary importance of fiber and textiles
•Inspire others to discover their talents for creating with fiber
•Share new techniques as well as offer an opportunity to relax and work on your projects with us. (Bring your latest fiber project to share)

Exhibits and on-going demonstrations for all ages!

~Knitting
~Spinning
~Crocheting
~Weaving
~Needlepoint
~Wet Felting
~Needle Felting

And much more!

We will also have door prizes, a silent auction and great food catered by The Feed Barn in Mitchell, NE.

This is the first fair of its kind to be held in Nebraska and we are so excited for you to be a part of it! If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to post on this thread or pm me and I will get back to you as quickly as possible.

If you are interested in being a vendor, the deadline for applications is August 15th, 2009. Due to limited space this will be a juried show and applicants will be notified by August 19th, 2009.

So gather your friends and family and plan to come and spend the day with us! With a good turnout we are hoping to make this an annual event here in the Panhandle! Hope to see you there!

Donna
Store Manager
Brown Sheep Co.
100662 CR 16
Mitchell, NE 69357

Sock Summit Report

What an amazing and wonderful weekend! The amount of work that goes into something that runs this smoothly has got to boggle the mind. People everywhere were in happy overload. Happy to see old friends, happy to make new friends, happy to see incredible yarns, incredible knits, happy to learn more things than we all thought possible, happy to see so many of our own personal knit idols, all in one place!

I took a fabulous class called "Cast On Cornucopia" with JC Briar, who does an excellent job of pushing an amazing amount of information into an all-too-short 3 hours. We got to practice a slew of different techniques, and learn where they might best be employed. JC has a great method for showing a whole room how to do stitches - she has an enormous length of knitted I-cord in 2 colors to use as her "yarn", and huge needles, so everyone can see it - and performs the stitches up over her head, standing with her back to the room, so that we get to see it as we would see it, not trying to translate it backwards. Excellent! I highly recommend taking classes from her, she's outstanding.

Karen and Wanda got to participate in the attempt to set a world record - most knitters knitting at one time. Here's Wanda:And here's a crowd shot (somebody said there were 935 people??)

And Karen got to meet Stephanie, AKA the Yarn Harlot, which made her day!


It was a really great event, we all had more fun than can be recounted, and will have many wonderful memories! Here's hoping we all get to do it again soon!

Diane

See you at the Summit!

We moved into our booth (317) yesterday, and the whole town has this Happy Place vibe going, this is going to be great! Karen and I had dinner at the Burgerville ("where you go when you know!"), and saw lots of people wearing their Sock Summit badges. Sometimes you'd see somebody take their badge off, and then look around and see everybody else wearing it, and they'd put it back on. We all want to be part of the cool gang! Everybody is walking around with these goofy grins on their faces, everybody is an instant friend, admiring each other's knits. Disneyland for knitters.

I can't thank the organizers enough for all the incredible work they've put into this, everything is working well without a hitch from what I've seen.

This is going to be great!!

Fiber Bucket List

I ran across a link for a person at Storey Publishing that is working on a new book - a knitter’s “life list” of projects to complete, techniques and yarns to try, places to visit, and more. She needs as much input as possible from passionate knitters. If you are interested in helping her out, click here to give her your input. Your name will be entered in a contest to win three Storey Books of your choice.

This, coupled with the Navajo weaving class we had last week got me thinking a bit about "bucket lists" (have you seen the movie? - the list of things you want to accomplish before you "kick the bucket") for fiber. One of the ladies in the class said that learning to weave a Navajo style rug was on her life list. Do you have bucket lists? Fiber related bucket lists? Things you want to add to your repertoire of skills? Knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving? I've always wanted to make a fair isle sweater. One of those amazing catches-your-breathe-with-their-beauty ones. Course, I'm intimidated by the thought of it, so it stays in the background of "someday". When I first started making sweaters I really liked the Lopi style sweaters and thought that "someday" when I really got good, I would try one of those. I finally did it, and you know what? It was EASY. When I taught a friend to knit, I had her make one of those as her first sweater because they're so easy. I don't know if a fair isle will fall into that head-smacking, why-didn't-I-try-this-sooner category or not, but probably it will. I should pick a pattern and go for it.

What's on your fiber bucket list? What are you putting off for "someday"?

Weaving Progress

I'm enjoying watching the weaving progress upstairs in the Navajo weaving class this week. You can really hear them thwacking away from the show room downstairs. Someone asked if we were under construction. Not exactly, although sort of! But that's not a hammer you're hearing... Who knew soft stuff could make so much noise? Here are some pics of the progress made through last night. I love seeing the different color combos chosen!








The recommended weft for the class is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, a nice single ply blend of wool and mohair that comes in a zillion colors. It seems to beat in nicely too! Some of my photos are from the front, and some from the back, so some have the butterflies of different colors showing, while others do not.

No more naked plastic chairs

I just ran across a place where you can get patterns to knit covers for your plastic chairs. The Knitted Chairs started out as a final-year project for her degree in product design at Middlesex University in London, and includes free patterns. Be sure to check out the gallery. You'll want to use really big yarn - maybe ply together a few strands of dead-in-the-stash yarns on your spinning wheel, and dress up your plastic chairs! (and clear your stash of guilt...)

I wanna see pictures if you do one!

Navajo Weaving Workshop this week

We're very excited to be hosting a Navajo Weaving workshop all week with Sarah Natani. This morning everybody lugged their looms upstairs, ready to learn.

Warps are wound, and the looms are warped and it looks like everyone is ready to start weaving! I can't wait to see everyone's progress this week. Just wish I could take the class too! It's a wonderful opportunity for everyone in the class.

The Lendrums are here!

Our UPS driver just unloaded 1/2 his truck here, bringing us much Lendrum and Leclerc joy. We're operating on a skeleton crew today, so I don't know how much we'll turn around for the afternoon UPS driver, but we'll try! And if not today, then Monday...

Enjoy your 4th of July weekend! We're closed tomorrow, but we'll be back on Monday.

Slight delay on Wool Rag

We're trying out a new format - size, shape - on the Wool Rag and had it all done and ready to take to the printer... and that's when they tell us that oh, by the way, the postal service has changed the rates on the type of stuff we send out... Long story short, we're changing the size AGAIN, and switching to a different paper. It sure would have been nice to know it before we were ready to take it to the printer... Tim is going to be more than ready to see the end of this project! I think he must be really good at Tetris - getting all the funky shapes to meld together and fit on the page.

He'll have a pdf of it up on the website next week, and here's hoping there are no new bombs from the printer and it can get mailed as soon as possible!

Random Fiber Shots

Because we all need more fiber...


This is a Romney/Perendale blend that came in with an interesting shading, I really like it.

Have a happy weekend!

Sock Summit

We're getting pretty excited about Sock Summit in August! Tuesday was class registration day, and I just want to commend the whole Sock Summit team for a really amazing job! I'm really hoping that they'll want to do this again, but know that I have only the faintest glimmer of an idea of the amount of work that has gone into this. THANK YOU x100000 for all this work!!

We've got a booth there, and would love suggestions on what you'd like US to bring! Know that there will be a ton (or 20) of hand painted yarns there, so we won't be bringing any of that! Also keep in mind that if anybody would like to place an order ahead of time we're happy to bring it there so all you have to do is grab and go. We do this for Black Sheep Gathering too! We've already got the box for that started....

I'm excited! It's going to be a fabulous weekend!

Artfelt class

We had an intro to Artfelt class here recently with Joanne Ellis, and I thought I'd share some pics of what the students took home with them. Not all of these are finished, but you'll see where they're going with them, I think. These squares can be used as pillow fronts, or little purses, or a bunch of other things. There was a lot of creativity in the room!!

Off to the Printer

Hurray, hurray! The spring knit catalog is off to the printer, and with luck will be out on its own in the big big world within a matter of weeks... Depending on the speed of the mail service, some could have it as soon as next week, if the stars align and all that... Tim did a great job, as always. Check out the cool infinity cover he did... Now we're working on the next Wool Rag.

It's less than 2 months till Black Sheep Gathering, which is hard to believe. It's coolish and rainy today, so hard to think that June is just around the corner.

Maryland Sheep & Wool festival was this past weekend. I used to live about 5 minutes from there, and it's because of that that I learned to spin and weave. Well, maybe I was destined to learn, but Md S&W played a big part, that's for sure. I found the lady who taught me there! I bought my first spinning wheel there! It was a used Peacock, which was made in New Zealand, and evidently no longer made. Cutest darn wheel, I should get a picture of it. I'd determined that I would buy a wheel, but I had zero confidence in spinning in front of anyone (let alone the masses and hordes at the festival!), and looked around at wheels everywhere, but of course wouldn't try any of them... then I spied this little used wheel, MUCH cheaper than all the fancy new wheels. I didn't really want to spend a lot of money, not knowing just how likely I was to continue this little hobby, so I told the person selling it that if they could prove that it did indeed spin yarn, I'd buy it. They did, and I did, and so the story began. Funny the paths we take... had I not lived near the Md S&W festival, where would I be today?

May your paths be interesting and happy!

Some Assembly Required

I've been making slow progress on my Monday Night Knit Night project... This sock first made its debut on the cover of our spring knit catalog. Last year... Now it's a completed sock! ONE completed sock. I started the 2nd one last night. I took time out in the past year to try my hand at some stranded Selbuvotter mittens, which also aren't finished. Gads, somebody's going to take away my License to Knit if I don't get something finished pretty soon!
Sock yarn used: Alpaca Sox from Classic Elite
Pattern: Hellen's Favorite Socks from Fiber Trends

I love this yarn, it's lovely soft, and with alpaca in it, it's going to be nice and warm & toasty. I only knit on it at Monday night knit night, so a max of 1-2 hours per week, and I don't make it every week, plus the mitten hiatus in there explains why the progress is so slow. At least, that's my excuse anyway!

Hope your knitting is speeding along!

Diane

Lendrum Saxony wheels

We recently got a shipment of Lendrum Saxony wheels in, and they are so beautiful! I wish we could have put them all together and had a photograph of the whole herd, but no such luck. We did get to finish one walnut wheel, and it turned out gorgeous. My photos don't do it justice. We use a couple of coats of tung oil to finish wheels. It allows the gorgeous wood to be the star, as it should be.

The boxes for shipping that Mr. Lendrum designed are a pretty amazing feat of engineering in their own right. There was obviously a great deal of thought put into these, as well as the boxes that the regular folding Lendrum wheels come in. To be able to fit so much wheel into such a small amount of space takes a lot of skill! We photograph the packing when we need to finish a wheel for a customer and put it BACK into the box, because it's like a big puzzle. All these pieces couldn't possibly fit in here! And yet...

The wheel itself is in the next layer below this... A marvel of engineering! This is a maple wheel in the box.

Happy new Saxony owners!

Festivals & Shows

Wow, this is turning out to be quite a year for festival and show possibilities! We always have a booth at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, and the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in Canby and have entirely too much fun at both. This year we're also going to have a booth at the brand new Sock Summit at the Portland Convention Center. AND I've put in for a booth at SOAR (Spin Off Autumn Retreat) at Sunriver. Twice as many shows as usual! I won't know about SOAR till April, so cross your fingers.

I'm pretty excited about these. Seems far away right now, but I have to remind myself that Items on Calendar Are Closer Than They Appear.

Pendleton Woolen Mill Celebrates 100 Years

There's a great article in the Oregonian about the Pendleton Woolen Mill, which is celebrating its 100th year anniversary this year. Check it out! There are so few mills left in the US, it's nice to have this one in Oregon (and Washington). There's also an interesting Wikipedia entry about the mill, with a surprise connection to the Beach Boys! Who knew?

A little bit of Oregon history...

Knitting as Art

I really enjoyed reading Franklin's blog post about a knitting/art installation at a museum in Chicago. Check it out. Wishing I could get to Chicago to take part too, and get into a discussion with other folks taking part! There are so many hobbies nowadays involving things that used to be requirements for life - knitting, spinning, weaving... gardening, cooking even. It's so easy to get meals that don't require any real knowledge of food and cooking. On the other end of the spectrum people that make cooking an event are getting rare. Is cooking turning into a hobby, like handweaving?

Random thoughts on a Thursday...

Finished socks!

Okay, imagine if you will that the picture shows a finished pair of socks, artfully posed. Because they ARE finished. Right now they're posing in my bathroom waiting to be washed, having been worn... did I get a picture of them on the feet, proof that they were done? Uh uh. Nope...

They are superwash merino/tencel yarn that I dyed using Procion dyes. I THINK I steamed the bundle of painted yarn after I dyed it, but to be honest I've forgotten. I think I did though because when I tested out all sorts of methods of dyeing the merino/bamboo yarn I found that while all the methods work just fine, the fiber reactive worked better with some heat than as a cold dye. And these colors are nothing if not vivid! Too bad my one and only photo doesn't show that as vividly, but there you have it. Oh wait, I thought I talked about this sock before (besides on Ravelry, that is) - I did way back when. The colors show up better there maybe. Anyway, the yarn worked great, took the dye beautifully, and felt good on my feeties.

And I'm making progress on the other sock shown in that same post! I've turned the heel and am moving along on the gusset decreases. Soon I'll be to that Peter-Pan moment in sock knitting - "Straight on 'til Toe!" Probably my favorite part. Well, besides casting on, which is really the most fun, all that anticipation...

Karen and I were talking at knit night last week that we have a different sort of Second Sock Syndrome. Once we start on the 2nd sock, there's no stopping. We want to have that Pair of Socks! No other project gets worked on. While it's in the 1st sock stage we cast on other socks, we cast on other hats/wash clothes, etc. We work on this and that, and mosey along at something maybe slightly above a snail's pace... but once that 2nd sock is underway it's Katie bar the door! I have 3 different socks on the needles as 1st socks.... plus that green sweater that never makes any progress... But 2 of the socks are at or near the Straight on 'til Toe portion, so there may be more finished socks coming in the near-ish future. One of them only gets worked on at Monday Night Knitting.

I need more hours in the day. Don't you?

Smooshy!

The Dream in Color Smooshy is here! This is a wonderful sock yarn in colors that are vibrant and just draw you in. The name is very apt too - squeezably soft, not to mention fun to say... Smooooshy, smoooshy, smoooshy!

The only trouble comes in deciding which one to do first...

The other hat

I got a picture finally of the 3rd Fake Isle hat. I'm going to have to figure out what to make for mine! Then again, I have some socks & a sweater to finish too...

The color on this one works great for Ed because it goes well with the moss from the trees he's trimming and cutting up. We've got dozens of trees that fell or lost large limbs, so lots of chainsaw time... One paddock's fencing was demolished in FOUR places... Luckily Daedalus was too wigged out from the noise to think about going and visiting the girls! "I'm not going out there, are you nuts? it's a war zone!"

Catching up

Is there such a thing as catching up? Not really, is there? We use the term all the time, but what does it really mean? "catch up on the laundry" - I'm still wearing clothes, and they're gonna need cleaning... "catch up on reading" - too many wonderful things to read in a dozen lifetimes... "catch up on weeding" - yeah right, maybe slow down some of the weeds for a short while, but the weeds will win.

But still, it's nice to think we could actually catch up, isn't it? I mean, what's the alternative? Chaos, pandemonium and fields of thistles...

So, in the spirit of catching up, I present some hats! Because winter had a few dirty tricks up its sleeves for us recently, I spent more time at home than at work for 2 weeks, and had more time for knitting. It was more fun than dwelling on the field of destruction that exists everywhere there are/were trees in my area and all the damage to fences that we'll be cleaning up for months to come (catching up, ha ha ha!). We were very lucky though - barns & house were unscathed.

I became addicted to the Fake Isle hat! I've made 3, and can't help but eyeball all the rest of the self-striping yarns in the showroom...

This red one is made with Plymouth Boku for the multi-color, and Nashua Creative Focus Worsted for the solid. I made this for a friend who looks terrific in red.

This one is also Plymouth Boku, and Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted for the black solid. I made this one for my friend's sweetie, so they can be twins. Course, I don't know if he likes bright colors or not so it may never ever be worn. And I had a really hard time giving it away because those are MY colors! I adore purples and greens! I hope he does too, because he would look good in it. The 3rd hat was for MY sweetie, and I have no pictures! It's greens & browns, and he wears it all the time. I need to get pictures.

AND I got my loom warped and started weaving! I haven't woven in years, which is tragic, and needed to be rectified. I really need to weave more - dare I say it? I have project after project in mind to catch up on! I crack myself up.

This is a kit I bought at Madrona last year from the good people at Just Our Yarns. It's handdyed tencel and it's perfectly lovely.