A short spinning post today. We have a social on Mondays at our guild. When I am there, I help Jan with the Library. We are going through our archive book boxes and deciding what to keep and what to sell. A big Job. Once that is done, I spin on my spindle. I am not a production spinner. I like to slowly spin small quantities of fibre; I just enjoy spinning and chatting.
I got a sample bag of fibre from World of Wool. It was called Fairytail, 67% merino; 33% stellina. It is a lovely fibre with sparkle. I know it is almost as bad as glitter for getting everywhere, but I can’t resist sparkle. Sadly, they have discontinued this group or fibre. The Stlina is much more expensive than angelina or trilobal nylon, so I imagine it was not as popular. However, it is soft and spins wonderfully.
There were 8 colours. The yellow disappeared, but I did get a picture of it spun.
The teal red is still a single and I will probably ply it on Monday. The last one is the problem child. I did try to spin this, but it just ends up dull and muddy. There are just too many opposing colours in it. The stripes are too small to let you separate them out, so it will have to be used for something else.
I have managed to do some more work on my workshop. I have discovered a mistake in my instructions. It makes me grateful for my computer and word processing. I can easily go through the document and change it. I am old enough to remember retyping things because of a small mistake. And not being able to use white-out because it would look bad.
I have finished the first draft of the resist workshop. 6 pages, and I haven’t added any pictures yet. I printed it out, and I am working on the first sample. I will add notes to the draft and add in anything I missed. The first sample is a circle resist.
All stacked and ready to goTime to start rubbing
That is how far I got, one set of all the surfaces rubbed. I am going to have to find my studio microwave and set it up so I can reheat these when I get back to them.
The only other fibery thing I have done lately is spin on my drop spindle. I do this mostly when I go to guild socials. It’s a nice, portable way to work.
Here are some balls I made earlier,
The dark pink has some silk in it, I think it came from Louet a long time ago. The light blue and purple is from a batt I bought at a fiber show. The other three I made on my blending board. They are meino and sari silk. I like the pops of colour and slight slubbiness it gives the yarn.
Now, I am working on a sample pack from World of Wool. I got it last year. I am just getting to it now. They no longer sell this wool. It is Merino and Stelina (metallic-coated nylon). The Stelina is very sparlkely.
I did the yellow first, mostly for a change. I don’t do much yellow. It is hard to get the sparkle with the camera but there is lots of it. As usual, I found it stuck to several things when I pulled my laundry out of the dryer. It really does get everywhere.
That’s it for my fiberiness for the last little while. I hope everyone is coming out of the winter blues and into the joys of spring. I am looking forward to being able to sit in the garden, in the sun and enjoy my felting and fibers among the flowers and bird song.
Last time I told you about our demo at the Log Farm shearing day. When they seared the first sheep they brought over the fleece and laid it out under the tent so people could see it. I used some dog brushes to make small rolags from the fleece and then used my drop spindle to spin some yarn.
Being me, I didn’t take any pictures of the carding or rolags so when I went to the guild I took a bit from one of the fleeces still waiting for a new owner and made some more and both Jan and I took pictures.
You can see all the debris from carding, so much falls out. Then my sort of rolags. The dog brushes are small so it’s hard to make a real roll.
I added the wool to the yarn on my spindle, then I plyed it and wound it off to be washed.
A nice close-up so you can see how dirty it is.
At the demo, people had lots of questions about how to wash it, when to wash it and did we have to wash it. The answer to when is at any stage along the way or not at all. I don’t suppose a fisherman in the North Atlantic is too fussed about his waterproof sweater smelling sheepy.
About how to get it clean. These fleeces are dirty and full of hay bits and other dirt. Carding them takes out some, spinning it takes out some and washing it takes out more.
I wash in a dishpan with Dawn dish soap. It is a good degreaser and most of the dirt is stuck in the grease ( lanolin).
Here is the water after the first wash
and the second wash
Then I rinsed it and let it dry. Once it was dry I shook the skein over the dish pan to see how much more would come out. I was surprised by the amount that just shook out. There is hardly any debris left in the yarn and what there is would pick out easily as you were knitting or weaving.
Here is the result, with a small amount of unwashed yarn I kept for comparison.
Spinning in the grease is enjoyable on a warm day. The lanolin helps it slide. It’s not so fun on a cold day when the lanolin gets sticky and doesn’t like to slide. Washing fleeces is not one of my favourite things but a little yarn is fun.
As some of you know the farmers market I go to is at the Log Farm in Ottawa. https://thelogfarm.com/ Along with the farmers market on Saturdays, there is also a working small farm with the original log house and barns where you can visit and see some animals and enjoy a break from the city without leaving the city. Last weekend was shearing day for the sheep they have at the farm. They asked my guild to do a demonstration, and of course we said yes.
Here we are setting up under the tents. You can see in the first shot that the styrofoam head and hat had already taken the first of several tumbles with the wind. in the second shot, you can see the container of goodies I brought as a treat. A little bonus for coming out to demo on an iffy weather day.
This is Josee demoing on her table loom.
This is Paula spinning on her electric spinning wheel. She also has her incle loom set up and was demonstrating that too.
This is Maureen Spinning on her wheel, an Ashford Traveler. You can see it in Paula’s picture too. I think Maureen was chatting with someone when I took this.
And to be fair here is a picture of me teaching some girls how to make felted beads using some pencils. I know I am blurry but it was the best shot of the girl’s hands.
As I said we were there for shearing day. here are the sheep staying dry while they wait for the shearer.
Here is one getting shorn. They had their own tent so the shearer could also stay dry. All the wool was donated to the guild and Jan and some others bagged it all to give to fellow members.
Here are some pictures of the surroundings. Some barns were renovated last year. after a few years, they will weather and not look so brand new.
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We had a great time despite the ominous clouds and several downpours. I was surprised at the number of people who attended with the forecast we had but they all seemed happy and I think we gained a couple of guild members.
A good few years ago now, after I had acquired and learned how to use my spinning wheel, I was casting around for some means of storing the associated equipment in a reasonably respectable way. The wheel and associated bits lived with us in our living room and needed to be tidy.
Quite by chance I came across a shop selling off cheaply a large deep cane laundry (I think) basket. It was only going cheap because one of the handles was broken and it had no lid. The much reduced price compensated for something which was no problem as far as I was concerned.
I used to work in Maidstone (Kent) and nearby there was a lovely shop called C&H Fabrics (sadly no more) which sold both dressmaking and curtain fabrics and haberdashery. I could never bypass their remnant section – they almost always had something good and large enough to be really useful. I managed to purchase several large pieces of curtain fabric of a design which was really “with it” at the time (most rarely for me, I am usually following several years behind fashion fads). This was during the time when Macramé made it’s first appearance and I was very “into” this. So I removed the remaining cane handle and instead added two twisted cord macramé handles.
Then I set to and lined the whole of the basket using the curtain material, making sure that there were pockets around the sides of sufficient size to take threading hook, spare bobbins; flyer; carders; ball winder and my Neatsfoot oil – my wheel had a leather connection between the treadle and the footman – the bits that actually drive the wheel, and the neatsfoot oil is a good natural conditioner for leather and ok for oiling the metal parts. The rest of the associated bits – fleece, box of carded rolags, tea towel used as a lap cover, cord for tying skeins and niddy noddy would just sit in the middle.
Now I needed a lid for the basket to keep the dust out (our bungalow was very dusty because part of it was still a building site). So I cut two circles of the fabric and a circle of wadding. I attached the wadding to the wrong side of one of the circles, by machine quilting around the pattern/motifs printed on the fabric. On the other circle, which would be the underside of the lid, I added a zipped pocket. I then finished the lid by stitching the circles right sides together with another length of macraméd cord attached to one side. Then, after turning the circles the right side out, and hand stitching the turning gap, I attached the other end of the cord to the basket. The lid sat on top of the basket with everything safely inside; well except for the niddy noddy which was too tall and had to stick out of the side, so it made do with a length of cord to attach it to the basket. My brother in law had made the niddy noddy for me, having already made one for my sister. It is purposely on the large side because each circle of a skein wound on it would be 1 yard long. This made it easy to calculate the skein’s length.
Finished basket open
Finished basket, closed.
The fitted out basket sat comfortably by my chair and spinning wheel while I was working at home, but was a bit big to take with me when I went to my spinning group each week. Luckily my sister, having visited the Willows and Wetland Centre on the Somerset Levels, gave me a large basket which she had bought there. The Levels is a large flat low lying area where Withy Willows have been commercially grown for basket making for at least the last 200 years. In fact willow baskets and other items have been made there since pre-Roman times. If you are interested there is more information on the area here: Somerset Levels (As an aside, Glastonbury Abbey, also referred to in the link, used to own much of Sturminster Newton where I now live, despite Shaftesbury Abbey being much nearer to us and owning most of the rest of the surrounding land.)
But I digress. The basket which my sister gave me was intended as a picnic basket. It was short and wide and it’s carrying handles positioned so that it was carried flat.
See how the handles work to carry the basket flat?
It was just what I needed to carry tops (roving?) and spinning equipment when I was away from home. Of course it needed to be fitted out with pockets to keep everything tidy and safe. I had sufficient fabric left of the remnants used for the large basket to make them match. I lined the base of the basket adding pockets at one end for flyer and bobbin, lap cover and oil. I didn’t want to spoil the look by using the plastic box for my rolags and by then I had learned basket making courtesy of the WI. So I made a basket to fit, lined it and made a lid with more of the fabric. The lid of this little basket was quilted in the same way as the lid of the large basket, and also attached with macramé cords made from fine crochet cotton, with a wooden toggle closure.
Rolag basket in the sun
By this time I was also “into” Tunisian Crochet. I had been making ordinary crochet items for as long as I could remember but fell for this new (to me) technique. So in addition to storage for threading hook, personal bits, glasses etc., I needed storage for at least one Tunisian crochet hook – this looks like a knitting needle, but instead of a point it has a hook. I also needed somewhere safe to put large sheets of paper patterns, as I tend to use diagram type patterns and they take up a lot of room. So I set-to to line the lid of the basket with just one layer of the fabric, but with pockets, short & fat and long & thin attached. I sewed this onto the inside of the lid but left one of the shorter ends unattached so that I could tuck paperwork etc., inside.
All my equipment (almost) in the basket.
Incidentally, the sharp eyed amongst you may have noticed that odd bit of hooked wire tucked away in the longer tube/pocket and be wondering what it is. It’s a do-it-yourself lazy kate – a device for assisting with plying yarns from one, two or more separate bobbins. An old shoe box (or a basket) and this bit of wire are all you need, poke the wire through one end of the box, slot the bobbin(s) on and poke the wire through the other end of the box. It’s not the best way to do it, but if you put some tension on the yarn by passing it from the bobbin around the wire once before taking it to the wheel for plying, it works.
Oh and a quick boast – can you see the handle of the threading hook poking out of one of the lid pockets? The handle was actually a light pull which I had made while having a go at wood turning some years earlier, and the hook is only an unbent paperclip – but it works ok too.
So that was my basket set up and ready for journeys. Oh yes, the niddy noddy. That was too big again, so it had to sit on top.
Basket with niddy noddy (but the handles are down so I’ll have to remove the niddy noddy, put the handles up and replace it because the right handle won’t go over the end of the niddy noddy – then I can pick up the basket.)
Eventually the cane hinges of the lid, and the cane closure wore out so they were replaced with macramé cords.
Some time before I moved from Kent to Dorset in 1999, I wrote an article about these baskets and submitted it, with photographs, to the Journal for Weavers Spinners & Dyers as I thought it might be of interest to them. Apparently not though; I eventually received a letter returning the photos (but not the article, so I’ve had to rewrite it!) and saying “… the Editorial Committee … felt that the article was rather too indirectly concerned with weaving, spinning and dyeing ….” Oh well!
I love to spin yarn. It is my favourite craft and I generally find it very relaxing. This year my husband got me this fabulous gift – a custom plate for my car.
My birthday present this year.
Speaking of gifts… recently a friend offered me a tremendous gift of an autowind flyer from Level Wind Systems. What a generous gift! I got a flyer for my Majacraft Rose because that is my go to wheel.
Majacraft Rose with bulky flyer on left and Majacraft Rose with Overdrive flyer on right
I actually like my Majacraft Rose so much that I have 2 of them, one where I can use the regular and jumbo bobbins, and a second that has a massive Overdrive bobbin and flyer on it. The Overdrive wheel is great for plying and for spinning bulky yarns.
The autowind flyer has batteries inside the left flyer arm. When you switch the unit on, the yarn guide slowly moves up and down the right arm. This results in the yarn filling the bobbin much more evenly.
This is a photo of the same bobbin. You can see how the singles form a nice rotating layer on the bobbin.
Spinning with the level wind flyer
I have spun a few skeins now and have discovered a few things. When I put the flyer on I need to tighten the flyer onto the mandrel of my Majacraft Rose. However, when I tightened the flyer enough so that it works properly, it was also impinging on the bobbin which made spinning not very nice. I had to really crank the brake and there was quite a bit of drag. To fix this I dug out some Plumbers tape (also called thread seal tape) and wrapped it on the flyer mandrel. Then I installed the flyer. The tape helps the flyer make a nice snug connection but also leaves the bobbin free to spin. This resulted in a much nicer spinning experience.
Thread seal tapeWrapping the thread seal tape on the mandrel of my Majacraft Rose
Another thing I discovered after using the thread seal tape was that my bobbin was sitting back past where the flyer could nicely wind on the singles. This resulted in an empty area at the rear of the bobbin. The singles were collapsing into the empty area which was not very tidy and could lead to tangles later when plying off the bobbin.
The singles are winding on, but the rear of the bobbin is partially empty and the singles are collapsing into the space.
To fix this problem when I started spinning the next bobbin I added a simple felt washer behind the bobbin.
Flyer showing a felt washer added behind the bobbin
My current project is a pound of dyed fiber from Adele Forward, an Indie Dyer in Dorset, Ontario, Canada. Adele posts her dyed roving, locks and yarn on Facebook. Have a look if you are interested in buying some delicious dyed fiber.
Yummy Superwash Merino dyed by Adele ForwardThese 1 pound lots come in nice big bags.
This is my progress after spinning 3 bobbins of the same fibre. You can see bobbin #1 in the upper right (with the slightly empty section at the top/back of the bobbin), bobbin #2 in the upper left (which was spun with the felt washer) and bobbin #3 on the wheel (again spun with a felt washer in place).
Three bobbins spunI have now moved on to plying. Because I have 3 bobbins of singles plying is a multi-day job. It took me about 5 hours to fill the first jumbo bobbin with plied yarn. And here are the bobbins after plying up that first big bobbin. There is still lots of singles left to go into the second skein.
Plied yarn on jumbo bobbin with autowind flyer
Lazy kate showing 3 bobbins of singles
And here we are with the second bobbin done and all the yarn wound into skeins.
Second bobbin of plied yarnTwo skeins of purple plied yarn (First skein is on the right)
I have to say I love how quiet and helpful the autowind flyer is. It is a fabulous tool and I am very appreciative of this awesome gift.
Both Jan and Bernadette have told you about our guild sale and exhibition. Now it’s my turn. I didn’t have my own booth this year so I got to wander around and fill in and help out wherever I was needed. It was really nice to not be assigned anywhere and just enjoy the show and chat with everyone after not seeing so many in person for a couple of years.
I am not a big spender at these things. I look for new fibres and add-ons and how people are combining things. Then I go looking for the ingredients to make my own.
The one thing I do buy is spindles. I bought a new spindle from Judy Kavanaugh. https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/JudyKavanagh She makes all kinds of tools and patterns. This one is a bedouin-style spindle. It has 4 arms and is a top whorl spindle instead of a bottom whorl spindle I usually use. The wood is beautiful.
People kept asking if it was a Turkish spindle but you can’t take the arms off this one and you don’t wrap your yarn around them. this is the other way up so you can see the wool cob on it. The angle makes it look small.
I am enjoying spinning on it. and that brings up to the other things I bought. I bought 2 batts from Bernadette. I like to buy them from Bernadette because she isn’t recarding wool tops. She is using wool she processed herself and it is really nice to spin.
The Darker blue is what I am spinning on my new spindle and it’s marked as mixed fibre. It’s soft and a little shiny.
The brighter blue I am spinning on another spindle.
The wool is much spongier and I have lost the label but I am betting it’s Coopworth. It’s very nice to spin too.
This post is a bit backward because I bought the wool first and the spindle second. The new spindle is more exciting to chat about so it got top billing. It really went like this. I started to spin the bright blue batt first. Then I decided that a blue spindle that Judy had for sale really was calling my name. When I went to get it, someone had already bought it. You snooze you lose. then standing there chatting with Judy I saw her spinning on a Bedouin spindle and gave it a try and decided it was just as well the other one was sold. I picked out the lovely one at the top. So then I abandoned this lovely fibre and started spinning on my new spindle with the other batt.
All in all, I think I was very restrained in my buying. There were so many pretty things I could have bought.
Here is a picture of me spinning at the show. And yes I really did chop my hair off. It was time for a change and it will grow again.
As soon as I saw what Lyn was setting as our next Challenge I thought “but I can’t do that”. I have always stumbled when trying to understand Design because, although I can see pattern in a lot of things, I fail entirely in translating what I see into my work. I am very literal in my thinking, and when I see abstract pieces (usually “modern” embroidery pieces) based on images of say, a broken brick, or the reflection in a window, or a rusty piece of metal, or a “fractal”, I think to myself “yes, very clever, but why?” and “what would I do with it?” and “I can’t see that on my wall” (and just occasionally “I wouldn’t give that house room!”). This is why I tend to make my pictures or 3D sculptures as realistic as I can.
I was going to just not bother with this Challenge, and then I remembered that some years ago I had attended a course on Design – I had forgotten all about it and it is relevant to this Challenge.
In August 2015 the Association of Guilds of Weavers Spinners & Dyers included in it’s week long residential Summer School syllabus a course by Alison Daykin – “Design for the Terrified” and I was lucky enough to be allocated a place – most courses were usually over-subscribed. Here is the introductory list of available courses from the brochure for you to drool over!
The course was described as offering “help to ‘painting and drawing challenged’ weavers, spinners, dyers, or other textile practitioners, in understanding Design and using this in their chosen medium”. The brochure went on to say: “This course will provide simple, but effective guidelines in design, without the student feeling overwhelmed by theory. The tutor will also leave plenty of room for participants to express themselves in their chosen medium.
“By the course end students will have at least one sketchbook and understand the basics of: colour studies; textural studies; shape; line/stripes.
“Students are encouraged to make samples appropriate to their own textile skills. They may choose to bring their loom or wheel with them, or to develop further sketchbooks if they prefer.”
Frankly this description of the course frightened the life out of me and I nearly didn’t apply, not least because I would be foregoing the chance to take the offered very interesting felt making course. (It’s headline description was “… an ‘adventure with fibres and fabrics’, combining colour, texture and layering to produce felted fabrics for decorative purposes or garments” and that was what I was most interested in at the time.) However after exchanging a few emails with Alison, and reading the three blogs which she sent out about the course I decided to bite the bullet. The first blog post puts emphasis on your “Inspiration” and resulted in a further flurry of emails with Alison, since I had no idea what it meant or what my “Inspiration” should be in this context. She basically said that I should pick a subject which I found really interesting. I was undecided whether to plump for trees, which seemed a very big subject, or sea shells – almost as big but of which I had recently started a collection. In the end I went with sea shells.
Sea Shell collection with Sea Urchin “ skeletons”
The second and third blog posts and a “round robin” email from Alison encouraged us to bring along as many different types of art media as we might be able to lay our hands on, including different types and colours of paper and “mark making” equipment. In addition we were asked to only bring one image of our inspiration, but as many copies of it as possible. (As I hadn’t been able to choose just one shell my image consisted of most of my collection, which also included sea urchin “skeletons”.) We would also need to take a notice board (if we hadn’t already made a mood board – “Er …. what’s one of them?”) so that we could pin up various bits and pieces as we went through the course. We would also need the equipment and materials required to make samples in our chosen technique. As I didn’t know which shell would be my inspiration the “materials” consisted of most of my stashes of fibres, fabric & yarns! I’m sure you’ve all heard of the saying “everything but the kitchen sink” – very apt, my poor car was groaning when I set off with all this stuff plus clothes etc., and I had yet to fit in the friend I was giving a lift to, plus all her stuff and her walking aid. (She was still a bit frail after an illness.)
The Summer School was based at Moreton Morrell Agricultural College in Warwickshire, where (after we got lost twice on the way) I met Alison and the rest of the class members. There were weavers, spinners, an embroiderer and a felt maker – me. Alison showed us her own work, and took us through her process for designing woven fabrics for specific purposes, showing us her mood boards and pictures of finished fabrics “in situ”. Here is a much abbreviated view of how she followed one inspiration from an image of ancient ruins to cloth samples.
She then started us off on our own design journey. Alison suggested to me that I should pick my favourite shell from the picture of my collection and make an enlarged drawing of the shell, both in monochrome and in colour and using different media. I had a go at this, although my drawing skills are minimal. This was before she had found that we would be able to have access to the college’s print facilities, where we could get photographs printed, and colour and monochrome photocopies made on a copier, which was capable of enlarging. We all made great use of this facility – zeroing in on just part of our inspiration image and having multiple copies made on different colour papers as well as plain white – which enabled us to speed up our progress through the stages of the design processes that Alison had mapped out for us.
One of the “tricks” which Alison showed us was to take two images, cut (or tear) them into strips (leaving one side of the paper still intact, and then to weave the two images. This did produce some interesting results.
We also cut strips across an image and used this to reference yarn (in my case fibre) wraps. Using this method enabled us to achieve a colour swatch giving combinations, quantities and placement of harmonious colours.
Showing the progress from picture strip to felted swatch
Once we had all played around with these ideas for a day, we were encouraged to get on and start creating samples in our chosen techniques, keeping in mind how we might use the finished work. As I was interested in making felt for clothing and accessories, I had brought with me copies of designs from specific sewing patterns and tried to pick the patterns that would best suit. I had by this time branched out to using as inspiration two different Sea Urchin skeletons, one Cone shell (and when no-one was looking I did a bit of crochet based on the end of a Conch type shell).
Large Sea Urchin
Small Sea Urchin
Cone
As you can see, I’m still leaning towards the literal/representational side of designing.
Alison also encouraged us to take our cameras and go out around the college grounds and look for more inspirations for design. At this stage we had all got used to looking beyond the obvious and came up with some unusual images. This was the one I chose to do something with – don’t ask me why – it’s just a picture of the wood surround (and my toes) to a raised flower bed outside the portacabin which was our workshop, where we all congregated for coffee, snacks and chat.
Being full of enthusiasm for the project, I cut down the photograph to a corner and then cut out the image of part of the surround.
which I then had enlarged and with several copies started to develop the design
This is the design I finally ended up with.
There are five versions in this picture, the basic design on top with four colour changes of the small “pops” of colour. And here is the jacket pattern and a tracing of the design.
The last day of the course was mainly taken up with visiting the rooms where the other courses had been taking place for a grand Show & Tell. To this end, we had packed up all our equipment and materials and set up our notice boards and work tables as displays of what we had been doing. Here are mine
And here are some of the displays of other class members’ work. Not all of them I’m afraid, I had camera shake by then so I’ve only included the less blurred ones.
The whole Summer School experience was great, with evening entertainments, a fashion show, a display of entries for the Certificate of Achievement “exams”, a traders’ market (I spent too much money as usual) and a trip to Stratford Upon Avon for a tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Theatre with a chance to see some of their costumes “up close and personal”.
We inhabited a bubble, with little contact with the outside world. (There wasn’t even a signal for our mobile phones, short of climbing a hill and standing in the middle of the road.) A wonderful experience and I’ve enjoyed revisiting it.
I am afraid that by the time I got home again I reverted to type and have not made any fabrics, felted or woven, from any of the designs. I just did what I usually end up doing after returning from a workshop – I put everything away and forgot about it! So I still don’t have a 2nd Quarter Challenge piece to show you; though as a result of writing this post and after seeing some of the pieces which FFS members have posted, I do feel better about the possibility of designing from random observations and images.
I am looking forward to seeing what the next quarter’s Challenge will be.
I’ve been doing a little spinning. Spinning on a drop spindle is a wonderful thing to do. It fits in a basket or bag or even your purse and you can do it anywhere and anytime you have a few min.
I got 3 lovely little batts of mixed colours from Bernadette. I don’t think they were any particular breed of sheep, just sheep. I thought they were pretty. I thought I had pictures of all 3 but I don’t. I do still have one left, I took a picture of it for you.
I am quite please with how it turned out. There are about 42 yards(38.4 meters) in the skein. I guess it’s not too bad because someone wanted to buy it. I didn’t really want to sell it so I put I high price on it. Someone recommended once that when you are not sure you want to sell something, price it so that you won’t wish you hadn’t sold it.
Not long ago when I was at a new little fibre sale I bought some Blue Faced Leicester top. I wanted to try something different, I spin mostly Merino or Corriedale. I am always using BFL locks so I thought it would be fun to spin some too. I found this lovely lustrous BFL/silk mix.
Here I am pre-drafting it a bit. I had compacted a bit in my basket. it wasn’t felted and would probably have been fine but I loosened it up anyway. Thanks to Jan for this picture and the last one.
I spun up so easily. I use a sort of long draw, most of the time. Isn’t it pretty?
I made a center-pull ball. I use my deligan spindle as a nostepinne to make the ball, a dual purpose tool.
Now, onto the plying, always so much faster. It only took 15 min I would think.
and finally in a skein. It is very shiny. I am sure the silk is helping there but is well blended so you can’t pick it out. I am guessing there are about 40 yards(36.5 metres) as it is about the same site as the other skein. I have 2 more slivers of it about the same size. I am not sure what I will do with them.
It was a nice change from little pictures. But I will probably do another one next week. I am enjoying them.
Spring means many things, but it always reminds me of our Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild foray into growing our own flax, aka ‘The Flax Project’. Its hard to believe it was over two years ago, nearly three, that a group of us tackled the happy adventure of trying to produce our own flax crop, not once, but twice. It brought back memories of warm spring days planting and weeding, hot, hot summer days of staking and weeding (the one constant was weeding), days of harvesting, drying, retting, seeding, rippling, scutching and all those lovely bizarre words to describe specific processing of flax. Flax is grown and harvested in a community, but it is customarily spun in the winter when there is no other more pressing work to do. I find it very dusty and messy fiber to spin, or maybe I just don’t like doing that part without the shared company of fellow fiber lunatics.
So while I was clearing out bits and pieces of unfinished projects, I found my share of the flax and tow.
I also found loads of other flax that had been spun over the years.
Most have been left as singles and is ready for weaving.
Some I boiled as an experiment. Flax will lighten in colour if you boil it. It also softens significantly and your house will smell like hay soup.
Some came to me bleached, so I gave that a spin. It was extremely soft. My concern is for the durability of anything made with prebleached flax fiber. Woven flax is renamed linen for those of you who didn’t know, and linen fabric is incredibly strong, and long wearing.
There are two down sides to linen; one is that it wrinkles. I like the wrinkles of linen, especially jackets and trousers, but some people can’t stand that characteristic. The other is its tendency to fade. Linen will take colour but over time it will lose that colour and move towards white. Again, I like this in linen, and it takes ages for this to happen. A bright, bright blue will mute over years and acquire a vintage look that can only be seen in linen.
Covid enabled me to join a most remarkable group of flax enthusiast started by an extremely generous woman in Europe. Her name is Christiane; she was gifted a large quantity of flax from a lady called Berta. This was from Berta’s dowry. Christiane decided to share it with other interested spinners and reached out on social media. I asked for two stricks. A strick is what the finished combed flax. It is usually very fine, has little to no straw and is very tidy, ready for spinning.
Well!! You can imagine how this took off. In the middle of a pandemic. People desperate for knowledge, information, something challenging, interesting, contact with the rest of the world…this took on a life of its’ own. Much of this flax was grown, processed and stored pre WW2. It was of historical significance, to be part of that is pretty inspiring. Christiane knows what she has and rose to the occasion. She was gifted more dowry chests, documented more stories, and sent out more flax to more and more enthusiasts. She also sent out hand woven linen, patterns, she wrote articles, held workshops, taught about the history of flax production in Europe, specifically Austria, helped flax lovers from all over the world to connect with each other. The project became massive. She now has help to manage the administration of this mammoth undertaking.
Thanks to Christiane I now have suppliers of flax in Egypt and Canada and my treasures from Berta’s flax plus a community world wide I can go to if I run into problems and need answers.
Egyptian flax – over a meter long
But the question I’m sure many of you have is can flax be of any use to felters? Yes, I think so. For binding felt books, for embellishments, for stitching, linen backing on a felted image, dry felting onto a linen fabric (not sure, but the fabric is durable), there must be elements of cross compatibility.
The season for demonstrations is coming up and it looks like this year we can actually go out into the community again. I am looking forward to taking along a fully dressed distaff with some gorgeous blond flax, blowing in the breeze, a little water bowl for dipping near at hand and inspire awe in the local population, that humans can make thread out of grass. Okay, not awe, but maybe some curiosity, I’ll take curiosity.
