Great Lakes Fiber Show We attended this show last year and had a great time it was our first fiber show ever. We came back this year knowing a whole lot more of what we were looking at and what we (me) wanted to buy. As we started to walk around a woman from our guild flagged us down to chat, when we got into the first building and saw 3 other people we knew and blabbed some more. The second booth was the beginning of our down fall. A local potter was selling mugs with rams and ewes on them. Yep we got one of each and went a little further down the row meeting more people we knew. How strange that last year we knew only 2 people and this year it's like we belong here. The show once again was great. There were 3 large buildings of every thing from wool roving to felting machines. There were food trucks set up and 3 barns of sheep that were being judged and later they were selling some. My daughter AJ from the podcast AJknits and her family met us there. Joe and B walked around looking at sheep and petting alpaca's while AJ and us watched them judge short hair fleeces. AJ has always wanted to buy a fleece, not me I did dye day and the guild last year and yuck! Give me a clean bag of roving any day. The judge seemed to know her stuff. She told every one what she was looking at, what she expected to see, or what it should look like and how the could correct the problem. We had another friend helping the judge, we gave her a little wave and a smile when she had a chance to look up. We ate lunch with yet another member of the guild and later made a new friend when we took a snack break. Did I mention it was stinking hot. Now for the damage report. The 2 hand thrown mugs. A carbon fiber drop spindle with purple skeleton heads. Hand dyed screaming green Blue face Liecester roving. purple (crocus) roving. Forget me not wool and silk roving which is white with purple and blue specks. This one called to me. I passed it by twice and broke down on the third pass. a blue wool roving that I got from Liz . A bubble gum pink wool roving. All in all I'm happy with what I bought. Now if I can just keep Daisy out of the bags. What! I like wool, it smells good. Bah Humbug!

I still have been spinning the multi-colored wool that I got from Dave. I have spun about 800yds that are in skeins and another 200 yds that are ready to be plyed.

I also finished the Waves Cowl by ulipatchouli designs. I bought 2 skeins of this yarn in contrasting color Schulana Macaibo #12 and #2 at Kamp Kip and they came with a free pattern that the woman there swore I would be able to knit. I'm not much of a knitter but after several trips to you tube I figured it out. Got to say I'm liking it. :-)

In this pitcure you can see the wave pattern.

On my needles is the prayer/meditation shawl that I am knitting from the multicolored hand spun mentioned above. I'm about half way done. Next blog, Goodies bought at the Great Lakes Fiber Show in Wooster Ohio.

OH MY, IT'S BEEN A WHILE

Even though I haven't posted in a while I have been spinning and knitting.

And there is a bunch more I haven't taken pictures of.

Right now I'm spinning a multicolored wool for Dave at the guild. So far I'm loving it. I plied one yesterday and should have another one done tomorrow. On my needles is a scarf from the Wave pattern. No where near done on that. :-)

Still the Tour De Fleece

Yep, still spinning away. I did another 4 Oz's of Icelandic wool. This wool is a black and grey blend. I think it came out very pretty. I got 2 skeins of this also.


I needed something to do while enjoying the air conditioning in my craft?guest room so I knitted a dish cloth.



I also decided to wash the dirty wool I got from the guild meeting when we learned to dye. Now it has to be carded.

Wool soaking in a bucket.

At the guild meeting we learned to card weave. Bob realy got into to it and bought 2 looms to work on at home. Pictures forth coming.

Tour De Fleece

Spinning like crazy for the Tour De fleece while watching the Tour De France on TV.
Below is the Icelandic wool I bought at the Fiber festival in Wooster. I got 2 skeins from the 4 Oz's.

I'm dying here!

Well the shawl is all done and the loose ends tucked in and I am loving it. It is way too hot to wear it now, but I can't wait for the cooler weather.



Right now I have not started another knitting project. I still have a sock on the loom that is in hibernation.

The Tour De France will be starting soon and for all us Ravelery followers the Tour De Fleece will start. I will be spinning as I watch the Tour. I plan to spin every thing that I bought in Wooster at the Wool Festival.

I also have been spinning the wool I got from Liz. I managed to get 2 skeins done, and I got to use my Niddy Noddy for the first time. I usually just wind every thing into balls, but since I wanted to dye this wool I put it into skeins.




This Saturday was our Guild meeting and we were going to learn how to dye wool. Bob, Nate and I drove down for the meeting. Our leader Dave pulled out a whole fleece and put it on a table for us to look at. It was smelly and dirty. Yes it had poop in it. He showed us how to look at the fibers and judge their strength. This was a bad fleece and the hair pulled apart with a snap. You could hear the fibers breaking or crackling like rice crispy's. We tossed that one aside.
The next fleece was even smellier than the first if that was possible. It was a beautiful honey brown and white. It had good fiber strength and this was the one we were going to use. We all pulled off some fleece and put it in a potato bag to keep our batches separate, choose a color of dye, put large pots of water on the stove or other heating sources, and the fun began. We are doing a method that was called dying in the grease. The fleece was unwashed. To the boiling water we added liquid laundry soap. Next we added the dye, and then the wool. We could get several in each pot. The dye we used belong to the Guild as well as the fleece. I think is was called one step and the name says it all. You don't have to set the color in.

Bob and I choose Ripe Tomato for our first batch. It sat in the near boiling water for 20 minutes. Then we tried a skein in a tap water hot pot called Blue. Our next skein went into a pot of cornflower blue. We were having so much fun that we took some more dirty wool and put it into a pot of Blue berry. When the Red was ready (it was gorgeous) you were to take it out side and give it a whirl to extract the extra water. YIKES! I got red splatter all over me. Then we laid it out on a flat surface to dry.



The Blue skein came out and it was fantastic looking. Dave was excited that it was done in tap water hot. We hung that one up to dry.


The Cornflower Blue was also excellent. That went next to the other skein to dry.
The Blue berry wasn't ready so we added more dye to the pot and went in for lunch.
After lunch we went out to get the last bunch out of the dye. It was just so so. Because it was the last dregs of the fleece it was very dirty. The Dirty areas didn't take the dye as well as some of the other areas. Every one says not to worry that when it is carded it will blend together.

After lunch it was pretty much a free for all. Dave was experimenting using a electric skillet and using many colors producing striped roving's. People were mixing colors together to get different colors. There was some amazing color ways going on.




Another friend brought in 2 of her fleeces and they showed use how to skirt the fleece, which is saving the good stuff and getting rid of the bad. One was so dirty they determined it was not worth the effort so it got tossed.I can't believe how much I learned and can't wait to try it at home.

That said I have been spinning more Liz wool and have completed another skein.