Maia Spins

Budding Out

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a safe and sane holiday season.

I have my first FO of the year.  The Leaves Shawl (Ravelry link) is done and blocked.  I am so freaking in love with it!

On cardoon, the only green thing in my garden.  This picture shows the color correctly.  It is a warm olive green.

 

  


Pattern:  Unnamed rectangular lace table cloth converted to a shawl. 
Author: Herbert Neibling
Publication: Gestrickte Spitzendecken, being translated and reprinted by Lacis.  
Started: December 10th
Finished : January 3rd (actually finished the knitting on December 15th and procrastinated on doing the crochet cast off and blocking).
Yarn: Tactile Tussah Lace (available soon) in Lichen.  I used half of a skein, about 50 grams (550-600 yards).  This was a test skein and may be the nicest lace yarn I have ever knit with.  Love, love, love it!

Lacis is working very hard to correct the errors in this publication and there are a lot of them!  It is full of gorgeous Neiblings and well worth waiting a little longer for knittable patterns.  Hopefully, it will be out this summer.

My next shawl will be made with this lace yarn, Tactile Merino-Silk lace in Citron.  I am itching to start it as soon as I cast off Tangerine Tango (Ravelry link).  It is 97% done and deserves to be finished before I start a new obsession shawl.

Lastly, a picture of my silly boy Sam (taken with a phone camera - excuse the graininess).  On our trip to the lake at Thanksgiving, he decided to climb up on my bag for a nap.  The bag contains my laptop so it can't be too comfortable.  He spent over an hour like this.  Silly, silly, silly.  And undeniably cute.

Catching Up

Last month Brooke & I went to a conference at Earthues, our dye supplier.

We spent a week in Seattle, mostly at Earthues dyeing.  In the end, we had 6 samples of each dyestuff they offer.  An invaluable resource!  It was an inspiration to work with Michele and Kathy.  I was so moved by their stories of working with the dyestuff growers.  They have a strong commitment to using their business to support communities and traditional cultures.  It has deepened my desire to use natural dyes; to be a part of sustaining communities and cultures.

The picture to the left shows a few of the skeins we dyed.  I am in love with that lime green! 

Brooke did a nice post about this conference.  Read it here.

The other highlight of the week was staying downtown near the Pike Place market and eating crumpets every morning at the Crumpet Shop.  Yummy!  Anybody have a crumpet recipe?  I need crumpets.

I love Seattle.  I lived there for 15 years.  I meet my husband there.  Ballard, Fremont, downtown, all great places.  July is a wonderful month for weather in Seattle too.  I think it was warmer and nicer than at home.  Although, truth be told, I hear there was a heat wave in the Bay Area while we were away.  We lucked out!

We posted a huge update to Tactile last night.  The theme is wool-cellulose blends in fiber and yarn.  We also added Learn To Spin kits.  Yay!  Read more here.

C and C

We had a great time at Color!  The location was wonderful, classes were full, and folks came to spin and socialize.  We couldn't have asked for more.  Well, I wish I had taken pictures.  Thankfully others did.  Karrie created a Color Flickr group.  It was a particularly nice event because so many of the people who came were folks we know.

The only picture I took is from our after party.

From the left: Abby, Ted, Sara, Adrienne, Kristine, Karrie, and Kathleen.  A great group of folks!  I am lucky to know them all.

CNCH was fun too although it was very different.  The attendees are mostly weavers who may also spin and knit.  I liked seeing the beautiful handwoven garments they were wearing. 

Here is a picture of the Tactile/Verb booth (a couple more are on my Flickr).

I made a few purchases (how can I resist?).  In keeping with my current trend, I only seem to be attracted to naturally colored or naturally dyed fibers.

Our booth was next to California Cashmere.  Could we have had a more dangerous placement?  I got an ounce of their brown cashmere to spin (not pictured).  It is the softest, most delicious fiber!  I love that it is grown and processed here in northern California.  I plan to spin a very fine 2-ply yarn to knit another hat for Roger.

One of my favorite vendors was Shaggy Bear Farms from Oregon.  They have a variety of rare breed wools and mohair.  The owner had so many cute stories about her animals, I found myself finding excuses to return to her booth. 

Some soft mohair (white) and soft pin-drafted Icelandic wool.

Luscious pygora roving in shades of grey.  These two colors come from twin goats named Nancy Drew (love that name!) and Punky Brewster.  Pygoras are a breed of goats created by cross-breeding pygmy goats which have a soft downy fiber with angora (mohair) goats.  The resulting fiber is softer than mohair.  I got enough to make a large shawl.

Two skeins of Polwarth-silk (80/20) from Rovings.  Holy Moly this stuff is dreamy!  With 1600+ yards I have plenty for a shawl (yup, I am in full-tilt lace mode with 5 projects in the works).

I found one other vendor with naturally dyed fiber and this bundle of merino-silk (50/50) jumped out at me.  No website that I can find.

Our other booth neighbor was Spindlewood.  Oh my, do they make stunning spindles!  So beautifully crafted and finished.  I kept wandering over there to try them.  You know where this is going right?

Isn't it gorgeous?  Dark Brazilwood for the whorl and shaft.  It spins like a dream, smooth and long-spinning.  I love, love, love it!  My first fancy spindle has kindled a love of spindling.

Doesn't it look beautiful with the red merino-silk?  I have 2 ounces.  Think that will be enough for a little lacy scarf?

Last Minute

You know how you can get busy and neglect to do things?  Important things.  Yes, that is me raising my hand.  I don't mean blogging (as much as I love you all).  I am neglecting to tell you about Tactile events.

Color: A Fiber Festival
Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California
Saturday April 26, 2008
10am - 6pm

Tactile will be there with A Verb for Keeping Warm, Pigeonroof Studios, and Girl on the Rocks.  We will have drop spindle classes, fiber tastings, and lots of space to hang out and spin or knit with a view.  The weather is promising to be nice.  Bring your wheel or spindle, or knitting, bring a friend, we look forward to seeing you there.

We will also be vendors at the Conference of California Handweavers (CNCH) in Sacramento and Maker Faire in San Mateo next weekend.  Both events are Saturday and Sunday May 3 & 4, 2008.  We have teamed up with our good friend Kristine of A Verb for Keeping Warm again. 

Regular blogging will resume soon with tales of Louisiana and a blog contest.  I may have some knitting content too.

Current Projects

Life is returning to normal.  I have come down from the adrenaline rush that was Madrona & Stitches.  It took four or five days for me to get it out of my system and start sleeping more than five or six hours a night.  The pendulum swung to nine or ten hours of sleep.  I think I am back to my regular seven hours a night and beginning to feel like myself. 

At Madrona, I had a small challenge with Michele of Toots LeBlanc.  She dared me to start on my shawl from her yarn before she started on socks from my yarn.  I lost.  I don't know why I thought I would have time to travel 800 miles, dye, fluff, and package more product, AND start a new project of my own design.  I always think I can do more than is realistic.  Is that a blessing or a curse?  Both probably.  Michele showed me a stranded sock with a beaded picot edge no less.

Here is the start of my shawl from their Jacob/Alpaca/Mohair fingering weight yarn.  My design is a simple stole in a geometric pattern. 
I LOVE this yarn!  It has the firmness of the Jacob wool, the softness of the alpaca, and a slight fuzz and luster from the mohair.  It is quite delicious and very unlike any other yarn I have knit with.  All of the fiber comes from farms in Oregon and they have it processed and spun in Oregon.  It definitely has a handspun quality to it (a big plus for me).

There is spinning too.  Not in a state to show you just yet.  Here is the fiber I'm using:
Sincere Sheep* roving.  Half of it was naturally dyed in various shades of red and pink and half was left the natural light gray of the fleece.  The big coil has slumped over exposing the core of the coil.  It looks really cool this way.

It has been a while since i have posted a picture of my Sam.
I love the specks of white fur on his jowls and paws.

* Sincere Sheep is our "think local" line of products.  The most environmentally conscious wool (in my humble opinion) comes from local sheep raised on grass (as much as possible) whose fleeces are naturally dyed (with Fair Trade organic dyes) and locally processed.

ETA:

Dee has started a KAL (involves swapping too!) using my Big Bag pattern.  How fun is that?!?  There is a KAL blog here.  Sign-ups end on March 7th.  There is a Ravelry group full of friendly folks for this KAL/Swap too.

Goin' To Madrona!

We are doing the last minute dyeing before we leave for Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.  We leave at the crack of dawn on Tuesday.  It is a 800 mile drive and we are doing it in one day.  I am really looking forward to Madrona.  Stop by and visit us if you are coming. 

Tactile Fiber Arts will be selling wonderful naturally dyed yarns and spinning fibers.  We have expanded our selection and there is some great stuff in there like yak and suri alpaca fibers and merino-silk and alpaca yarns.  We have also added organic merino and cotton yarns.  So much goodness.

Speaking of natural dyes (and we are because I haven't used synthetic dyes in at least a year), I have been meaning to point out a post on our Tactile store blog.  There are a lot of misconceptions about natural dyes and we are trying to set the record straight.  Stop in and read this post if you are interested in learning more about natural dyes.  Please feel free to ask questions there for us to answer in future posts.

To keep my sanity during this last push, I am still working on the BFL spinning.  I am Navajo plying now.  I want to finish the skein before we leave so I can knit the socks during the trip.

There is also a lot of progress on the North Roe shawl.  I am into the second chart and probably about 65-70% done with the knitting.

Here is a close-up of the  chart 2 pattern.  The bottom part (from the knitter's perspective) is lacier.  There is one more chart that gets  really lacy.  I am looking forward to that one.
With the shawl getting close to being down I am starting to wonder what I will wear it with.  I can't think of anything that will work with those colors.  It would look great if I overdyed it forest green.  I wonder if Ronni would be offended if I dyed it?  It is such a generous gift and a wonderfully soft merino yarn. 

I am really feeling the lace and scanning the horizon for the next piece to make.  On a whim I decided to join the Mystic Light Mystery Shawl KAL.  Sign-ups are open until March 25th.  I may need something else before the end of March.  Maybe the #3 Flower Shawl by Hitomi Shida or the Cleopatra Wrap in Sensual Knits by Miriam L. Felton (Ravelry links).

Think happy travels for us on Tuesday! 

My New Best Friend

Yes, I have gone mac.  And to a laptop.  Shocking really as I've always complained about using laptops.  But, until now I've never used a laptop on top of my lap.  I love to curl up in a chair or on a sofa; sitting with both feet on the floor is not my style.  Life is perfect now.  I can curl up on the loveseat and work away.  When I want to refer to a spreadsheet while I work in the other room, I just pick it up and take it with me.  Dang!  I love this computer!

It is a revolution in more than one way.  Now I finally have a computer with sound!  The desktop pc either doesn't have a soundcard or it stopped working a looooong time ago.  So, dear readers I have fallen head first into Project Runway Canada (links to episode 1, if you go to the main site you will learn who the winner of the first season is.  If you are not in Canada you will need to watch it on You Tube).  Blame Julia.  She dared us to watch the first episode. I am on the fifth tenth episode now and loving it.  I confess to loving the US version too.  But, it does not have Iman.  Iman is awesome!  So smart, funny, and unbelievably stylish and beautiful.

Now that I am used to having sound, I think I need a podcast or two to listen too.  I have never paid much attention to them because I didn't have a way to listen.  So, tell me, what knitting and spinning podcasts do you recommend?

The Grey On Grey Scarf is coming along.  I started out by making a simple checker board pattern.  Snore.  Then I tried my Bias Scarf pattern adapted to a checker board pattern.  It still wasn't quite right.  Now it has the triangle point that is the beginning of the Bias Scarves, but I didn't turn the corner.

It is zipping along.  I was going to finish the boring one as well, but I didn't have enough yarn spun up.  A trip back to the wheel got me more yarn, only it is a slightly heavier weight.  Bye bye boring scarf.  The new yarn may become a matching hat.

The new fiber on my wheel is this bit of yumminess.

Blueface Leicester wool in Tactile's Heliotrope colorway.  (Oddly, it is looking washed out in this blog post, but not when I look at the picture itself.)  I am spinning it for sock yarn.  More on that soon.

A Bit of Spinning Content

It is true, I do spin.  It has not escaped my notice that I named this blog Maia Spins and I mostly blog about knitting.  But, I digress.

I was rummaging around in the fiber stash and noticed a lot of bits of grey fiber.  I don't normally care for the color grey, but these are dyed with logwood and they are beautiful.  All natural dye colors are beautiful.  I think it is because they are many compounds that together make the color we perceive.  There is more depth and complexity.

This is what I started with:
Starting on the left and sweeping around the outside:  Merino-Tencel (50/50), Tussah Silk, Carbonized Bamboo, Merino (dark), Merino (light).  In the every center is Mohair locks with two shades of Tussah Silk Noil at the bottom.  Not shown is some deliciously soft Alpaca in a pale grey. 

The Carbonized Bamboo is the only fiber that is not dyed.  When the bamboo is heated the cellulose in the bamboo carbonizes to this grey color.  It has an interesting history too.  It was an early filament used in the incandescent light bulb.  I quite like spinning with it; very smooth and easy to draft.

I spun up bits of each fiber and then plied them together as a 3-ply yarn.  I cycled through the light and dark colors going up and then down the shades.  It is hard to see in this picture of the skeins.

Next time I will show you how the yarn looks knit into a scarf (what?  spinning and knitting that isn't sock knitting? are you reading the right blog?).

You may have noticed that I am a big fan of dogs.  I got my first dog, Sophie just eleven years ago.  Now I can't imagine my life without one.  I am so thankful for the good times.  Like the frolic of a 16-year old dog named Harriet.

Unfortunately, their lives are too short.  This is Lulu.  The sweet and wonderful canine companion to our friends and neighbors B, K, and D.  She passed on Friday and she will be sorely missed. 

She was ever vigilant watching out her window and protecting the neighborhood.  Sammie can't go past her house without wanting to stop for a visit.  She was so good with her people and especially her best doggy friend in the world, Molly.  Lulu and Molly met at the local dog park and were instantly best friends.  They got along so well that their people had to become friends as well. 

My heart goes out to our friends and to Molly.  I know how hard it is to lose a dog.  The become so much a part of warp and weft of our lives.  Goodnight sweet girl.

 

Another Year Older

Saturday was my birthday and a wonderful day it was!  I had breakfast with my wonderful husband Roger , and Kay, the best daughter I could hope to have.  After breakfast we wandered through a restaurant supply store (foodie fun!) and then drove around Alameda Island.  I spent a quiet afternoon spinning and then we went out for a fabulous dinner.  The perfect birthday in my book.

Want to see my birthday loot?

A real mandoline!  This one is all stainless steel and built for handing down to the grandchildren.  It has already made a scrumptious Potato Gratin.

I also got Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.  It has been on my must read list for a while.  She is one of my favorite authors and this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

The skein in the picture is made from a gray batt that was kicking around.  A pretty color, but just a bit blah.  I spun it thick and thin(ish) and then plied it with a thin single of indigo dyed tussah silk.  Quite sexy now if I do say so myself.

The Little Big Announcement
The best birthday present is a whopper.  It is the reason I have been such a bad blogger recently.  It is the biggest thing to happen in my life in a long time.  It is the best job in the whole wide world!  (Have I built it up enough yet?)

I am thrilled to announce that I have started a business with Brooke.  We are naturally dyeing yarns and spinning fibers.  We actually started Tactile a year ago (it has been so hard keeping quiet for a year!).  So far, we have been selling at fiber festivals and at our local get-togethers (join our Google group for more info.).

So why is now the time for confessing my 80 hour a week obsession?  Is it because our on-line store is up and running (we are working on it)?  No (hence the little big announcement and not the big big announcement).  It is because we have a big, big month in February and we want you all to be a part of it.  We will be vendors at Madrona Fiber Arts in Tacoma, Washington from February 14-17, 2008 and then we head directly to vend at Stitches West the next weekend!  We have a crazy amount and variety of luscious spinning fiber an yarns.  It is so exciting I can barely sit still!!!

As if that wasn't enough, we are also teaching the Beginning Spinning on the Drop Spindle at Knit One One on February 3rd & 10th.  It should be a great class.  Sile at Knit One One is a wonderful host.

To sign up for our email newsletter and get a glimpse of what Tactile is up to, stop by our store blog (it is still under construction so be kind).  We have big plans, come on over and check them out.  We will be posting little bits of temptation.

Did I mention how great it is to be up to your elbows in fiber?  I want to thank my husband and daughter for putting up with yarn and fiber in every corner of the house.  They are so supportive and wonderful.  I also want to thank all the fabulous local folks who have sparked ideas and contributed to our growth and success thus far.  We couldn't have done it without you all.  Most of all, I want to thank Brooke.  In the last year we have gone from acquaintances to business partners.  It is like getting married on the first date.  I couldn't have picked a better person with whom to build a business.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

Whew!

I have been insanely busy helping Brooke dye yarn and fiber for the California Wool & Fiber Festival  this weekend in beautiful Booneville.  It is part of the Mendocino County Fair.

I will be helping out in the Sincere Sheep booth.  Please come visit us, we will have oodles of naturally dyed fiber and yarn.  It will be very similar to the fiber and yarn offered at Lambtown.

This is what indigo dyeing 20 pounds of fiber will do:
I call them my Undead Feet.  Thankfully it is non-toxic and won't stain (for too long).

My apologies for not responding to comments lately.  I haven't had a free moment.  I love hearing from all of you and feel terrible when I can't be a responsible blogger.  I will try to catch up when I return.

The second part of the mystery socks will be posted tomorrow before we head up to Booneville.  Hope to see you there!