Another event over for the year

This weekend's event was the Harvest Festival at Salomon Farm. The deal the spinning guild has with parks 'n rec is we help them promote the park in exchange for meeting at the learning center for free. Fortunately, I was not the organizer and just provided support: brought balloons from the previous weekend (it's our 50th anniversary) and the banner and helped set up and tear down.

The guild had two tables, one for demonstrating carding and spindling (geared toward kids) and spinning and one for sale items. Two of our members have been very busy knitting and crocheting little stuffed animals, which were a big hit. Their success is timely, as the program for this week's meeting is "earning money from fiber".

Knitting: Another pair of socks is complete; separate post to follow. A guild member who sells handmade, homemade, and homegrown products at farmers markets showed us some headbands she knits, so I had to start one when I got home, from sock yarn.

Spinning: Romney, Romney, Romney; the singles are fine and that takes a long time.

My SO and I have been regular visitors at Kinhouse Art, a small gallery here in town. The two artists who use part of the gallery for their studio mostly work in textiles, which gives me ideas of what to do with all that tie-dyed muslin I have, which has me circling back to fabric printing. As if I don't have enough to work on.

Red, White, and Navy Scarf

The last time I warped the SampleIt for a demonstration scarf, then finished the scarf at home, I had no plan. This time I had a plan. Like most plans, this one did not turn out quite right. When I used the dining room table for the warp surface, I forgot that I had removed the table leaf. Consequently, the scarf turned out shorter than expected.

Pattern: None
Weave structure: Plain weave
Loom: Ashford SampleIt
Warp: Patons North America Classic Wool Worsted in 230 'Bright Red', Valley Yarns Northhampton Worsted in 02 'Natural', and some worsted wool in navy
Weft: Same as warp
EPI/PPI: 7.5/7.5 (more or less)
Ends: 50
Finished size: 40" (plus fringe) x 5.25"
Finishing: The selvages turned out halfway decent, so no additional finishing required

Warp:

• 4 red
• 2 navy
• 4 red
• 4 white
• 2 navy
• 4 white
• repeat above sequence
• 4 red
• 2 navy
• 4 red

Weft:

• 4 picks red 
• Hemstitch 2 across up 3 
• ** 2 picks navy
• 4 picks red 
• 4 picks white 
• 2 picks navy
• 4 picks white 
• 4 picks red 
• Repeat from ** until out of warp, ending with red/navy/red
• Hemstitch 2 across down 3
• Trim fringe to 2"

I recall the scarf my dad used, and it must have been about this length. He didn't wrap his scarf around his neck like most of us do these days, but crossed it and laid it flat against his chest. It kept the cold from slipping down his neck without adding bulk. Alternatively, one could do something similar and add a decorative pin to hold it in place. Or the scarf could be for a child. Not a waste of yarn at all.

I'm glad THAT is over!

I would not describe myself as bi-polar, but I tend to run hot, then icy about the guilds I belong to. When I'm hot, I volunteer for stuff. When I'm icy, I swear I am never doing anything guild-related ever again.

That's how I felt over today's public demonstrations at a local farmers market, for Spinning and Weaving Week and the spinning guild's 50th anniversary, which I was responsible for organizing. Despite my trepidations, everything went well, the guild members who participated enjoyed themselves, and we may have even picked up a few new prospects.

However. There are so many festivals this time of year around these parts that I think we can scrap Spinning and Weaving Week in the future. For example, there is a harvest festival next weekend that the spinning guild is kind of obligated to attend. We can do only so much.

Dyeing: I'm finished messing around with the Indian hemp dye experiment; separate post to follow.
Knitting: My SO's socks are at the cuff.
Spinning: More Romney.
Weaving: The tote bag project on the Ashford 24" rigid heddle is tied on the front beam. For today's event, I quickly warped up the SampleIt yesterday for a scarf and nearly finished it today.

While spinning or knitting, I sometimes listen to an audio book. I'm about 75% through Mark Twain by Ron Chernow, via the libaray app Libby. The problem is it is a L-O-N-G doorstop of a book, and I can check it out only three weeks at a time, and - how dare they! - other readers have holds on it which prevents me from renewing it. I think when my turn rolls around again, I should be able to finish it.

Softest Cotton Bathmat

It's not unusual for me to knit with cotton in the summer heat. No one wants dishcloths anymore, so I wound up knitting this bathmat. It wasn't a difficult knit, but I'm glad I didn't have to undo any of it because the "eyelash" bits obscured everything else.

Pattern: Softest Cotton Washcloth + Bath Mat, by Purl Soho
Yarn: Purl Soho Witch Hazel in 'Classic Denim'
Needle: US8 (started with DPNs, switched to 16" circs, then 24" circs, finished with 60" circs)
Modifications: None except to use a suspended bind off, which was a bit too loose and left the edges a bit ruffle-y.

I'm not sure why I picked blue, since it was destined for a bathroom that's mostly green. I purchased an extra ball, but did not use as much as the pattern said, so now I have 2 extra balls, enough to knit some washcloths as well, which will also be the wrong color for that bathroom.

The bathmat *is* very soft. My only concern is there is no non-slip backing on it. Not sure how I would remedy that. Suggestions?

Knit me something?

At a recent spin-in, I chatted with a woman who used to knit professionally; she charged by the stitch. I calculated how many stitches I knit in one of my typical pairs of socks, figured $.01 per stitch, added a bit for the cost of the yarn, and arrived at $300. For a pair of my handknit socks. WOW! If I paid that much for a pair of socks, I would expect them to last forever, but they don't.

Dyeing: Started soaking yarn in the Indian hemp dye bath.
Knitting: Slaving away on socks.

Spinning: The eternal Romney.
Weaving: Threaded the heddle on my 24" Ashford, wound the warp around the back beam, now ready to tie onto the front, for a tote bag.

Blogger has a feature that tells me how many views my blog receives. In the past, the numbers have run to about 40 or so per posting. Lately, those numbers have jumped, in one case over 1000. I have to assume the additional views are from AI bots. To those of you who are real people, thank you for reading (or at least visiting) my blog. For the rest of the so-called viewers, welcome?

Xmas socks for my daughter-in-law

If someone appreciates handknit socks, I am happy to oblige. My son and his (now) wife are just like that. As xmas approaches, though, I get a little frantic about getting theirs knitted in time. One pair down.

Pattern: Short-Row Toe and Heel Basic Socks, by Wendy D. Johnson
Yarn: Some sock yarn I purchased at an estate sale; if I have the ball band, I don't know where it is, but I'm guessing this yarn is merino and nylon. The cuffs, toes, and heels are in some sock yarn I purchased at Simply Socks, but yarn information is long gone.
Needles: US1
Modifications: None to speak of; used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.

Initially, I was a skeptical that I could match the stripes, so started off not doing that. But once I saw the pattern repeat, I ripped back and started sock #2 over again.

Matchy match!

Dyeing iron-mordanted yarn in rudbeckia dye bath

One thing I have to say about iron mordanting: DON'T. It takes much less work to do a cool alum mordant and an iron afterbath than to do the iron mordant up front. Also, one has more control of the outcome.

I didn't keep very good notes about this whole dye experiment, nor very many photos. At least the photos I did take have a date-time stamp, so there is a timeline of sorts.

First, I gathered flower heads from Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivanttii 'Goldsturm' growing in the area of my yard I refer to as The Meadow. These I left to soak in water for several days.

Next, I heated the flowerhead bath for an hour or so, to extract the dye and let it cool overnight.

Meanwhile, I mordanted four small skeins of handspun wool singles in an iron bath. Those I rinsed thoroughly, as iron can be hard on fiber.

Over the next several days, I added a skein to the dye bath, heated the dye bath for an our or so, then let it cool before removing the yarn. I processed one skein at a time, hoping to gain variations in the depth of color. It didn't work like I expected - all I got was dark gray with little variation. I finished by dyeing a skein of rhubarb leaf mordanted Cascade 220.

The handspun singles all look about the same, even the ones that were put into an "exhausted" dye bath. The skein of Cascade 220 that was not iron-mordanted but mordanted with rhubarb leaf came out dull, which I suspect is an aspect of the rhubarb leaf mordant. At least it looks different from the others.

So what did I do wrong? For one thing, I neglected to weigh the plant material, to get an idea of just how much yarn could be dyed with it. Mordanting the yarn with iron I believe corrupted the dye bath, so I ended up with dark gray yarn instead of the dark green I was aiming for. I was not careful, nor did I take my time and plan things out before hand. Hopefully, lessons learned!