July 2007

(Warning: picture-heavy post.) I made it to Dixon, CA today for the 21st annual Lambtown Festival. I have to say I was expecting something much larger than what it was. It is my understanding that it is a different venue this year than in previous years. Usually it’s held at the fairgrounds; today it was held in a small park. I thought it would be about half the size of a Stitches West but it was far smaller. There were only about 40 booths, I’d estimate, and half of them were not fiber-related at all (jewelry, knock-off handbags, clothing, windchimes). Of the fiber-related half, a lot of the fiber was fleeces, which I’m not interested in at this point. That left just a little for me to look at, which was fine for today since the temperature was in the mid-90’s and the last thing I wanted was a long day. Had it been larger I would have had to cut it short, so it worked out OK.  

There was a small indoor area that had knitted, woven, and spun samples that participants had submitted for judging. I read the comments on the spinning with great interest and, like the other spinners who were at the table with me, mentally compared my work with what was there. 

There were 10 sheep and 1 alpaca to meet and greet. This one is a suri alpaca. He was moving around a lot and hard to photograph:

He was friendly and his owner had taught him some tricks. He was only up for performing the kissing trick, pecking his owner quickly on the face. She said the suri alpaca’s fleece grows in thick locks resembling dreadlocks.  

There was a pen with three Jacob sheep, two female (2 horns) and one male (4 horns):

I really like the two-color Jacob coloring, and bought a bag of roving:

I spoke to the owner, asking her if her sheep would be sheared today during the demonstration. She replied that they don’t get shorn until January. They live nearby and are used to the warm weather, and go outside willingly even in the heat, but have the opportunity to go inside the barn whenever they want a break. She made sure their pen had some shade today.

I watched one of the shearing demonstrations. The gentleman shearing certainly did a fast job, shearing 3 sheep in about 15 minutes. The fellows would pick out a sheep from the pen, then try to gently get that one outside the pen while leaving the others inside, occasionally a tricky job. Getting the sheared one back in afterward proved just as tricky. Here are the five lucky ones who ended the day cool. The tall, white sheep in the front is Pepsi:

Here’s sheep #1 getting ready for shearing:

And being divested of its fleece:

Result: about 3 pounds of fleece:

I didn’t take any pictures of sheep #2. He was small and didn’t have much fleece, so it was over really fast. He also seemed unhappy about the process and I didn’t want to document his being in such an undignified position in front of an audience.

That position they’re in, kind of lying on their backs and propped up against the shearer’s legs, is what helps keep them calm. Only sheep #2 struggled a little; the others lay there quietly. I bet it felt great to lose that wool coat in the hot weather. The shearer shears about 1500 sheep a year, mostly on weekends and in evenings (in addition to his day job), and is very proficient from what I can tell. The cuts are long and clean and the fleece comes off in one big piece.

For sheep #3, one of the guys got talkative, answering questions and offering up some details. Here we have Pepsi the 220-pound Lincoln sheep, who is 11 years old, never sired any young ‘uns, and will get to live out his life (the guy said sheep live from 15-30 years, depending on the breed), getting ready to be shorn of about 5 pounds of fleece: 

Shearing him was more difficult than the others because of his age. His skin is more wrinkly so the shearer had to take more care. Pepsi seemed to almost enjoy it, leaning back with his eyes shut for the first minute or two of shearing:

There were two more sheep hanging out near the booths, but without any associated humans so I don’t know the breed:

With the change in venue this year, they were unable to hold the sheepdog trials. I am sorry; I would really have gotten a kick out of watching that.  

A Sheep To Shawl competition took place today but with only one group participating. I chatted a bit with the spinners and the plyer. And before I left, I picked out some Icelandic roving to take home:

I had a productive week. I spun up half of some Spinderella fiber, worked on my purple cotton sweater, and whipped out a bag and hat.

The bag is one I intended to felt, but Mr. Mmmyarn voiced the opinion that it is a great size the way it is. Since I planned for felting I knitted it more loosely than I would have had I wanted to leave it as is. Here’s what it looks like:

Pattern: own. I knitted it on the fly and did not take notes.
Yarn: Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Bulky; 85% wool, 15% mohair; color M-28, Chianti & Trendsetter Yarns Aquarius; 78% nylon, 22% cotton; color 827
Needles: size 10 1/2
Size: 9.25″ at widest point, 8″ tall when lain flat 

The handles are long for leaving it as is as I figured in extra length for shrinkage. I won’t be near a washing machine for a while so I have time to make up my mind. In the meantime, I’ll make a swatch with just the Lamb’s Pride and one with the mix and test-felt them in the sink. It’s a good idea to test it, anyway, considering I have no idea how much the Aquarius will hinder the felting process. Luckily, I grafted the handles, so they’ll be easy to clip and shorten to a proper length if I decide against felting.

The other project this week was a quick hat. I started with my usual 3×3 spiral rib but decided to toss in a second color, creating oblong diamond shapes throughout. I am ridiculously pleased with this as I worked the colors by holding one color in each hand as I learned in the Skra-Trojer class this past February, plus I combined knitting and purling, and — here’s the kicker — the hat stretches to fit over my head! A triumph! Well, it is a little tight for me, but that’s because I have a big head and this is a smaller hat. The fabric itself is wonderfully flexible. I have finally been successful at holding my yarn loosely enough to turn out a stranded project that has give. Perhaps it is time to start swatching one of those two fair isle sweaters I have set aside for me. Here’s the hat:

Pattern: own; cast on 83, 3×3 spiral rib worked in two colors
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun worsted, 100% wool, in color N93 Latte and N91 Aran
Needles: size 5
Size: Adult small to medium

Tomorrow I’m off to Dixon, California, for Lambtown. I’ve never been. All I know to expect is that it will be too hot for me: 96 degrees is the prediction. Yick. I’ll be the person melting in the shade.

For the first time, I attempted to spin fatter yarn on purpose. Up until now, I have been working on getting my spinning finer and more even. Usually I go for about a fingering weight yarn, but I wanted the colors in this one to streak a bit more rather than blend completely so I worked on making the singles fatter. This was nearly instant gratification; it’s amazing how much faster it is to spin up yarn at 8 wpi than, say, 15. Here is the result:

Fiber: 100% merino wool
Colorway: Rose Quartz
Supplier: Carolina Homespun
Quantity: 8 ounces
Finished yarn: 2-ply; one skein of 117 yards and one of 128 yards; 8 wpi = bulky

This week’s bus knitting is a small purse to be felted. I do not know whether this design is going to work after felting because that colorful strand is going to poke out of the felt (it’s a cotton and nylon blend), and I won’t know until I get to a good washing machine, but here’s what I have so far:

The latest little booties are done:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Fleece Artist Nova Socks, 100% merino wool, color: Sea Storm
Needles: size 2
Size: 6-9 months

This yarn is thicker than my usual sock yarn so the booties ended up larger than usual even though I used the same size needles and essentially the same pattern.

I fell off the wagon a little more last week and bought two bundles of merino, two bundles of Jacob, a bundle of Spinderella’s Creations Thrums mixed fiber, and a needle felting tool that’s been interesting to experiment with. Knit From Your Stash did permit spinning fiber… but I also picked up one sale skein of Brown Sheep Nature Spun in a beautiful teal. Yay!

The Fleece Artist socks are done:

Pattern: own, cuff-down
Yarn: Fleece Artist Nova Socks, 100% merino wool, color: Sea Storm
Needles: size 2
Size: woman’s 9.5

These are the ones that started out as toe-up and I restarted as cuff-down because I was having a hard time with sizing them properly. Well, not that it was hard, but rather I was tired of ripping out and re-knitting bits in order to get the measurements right. I really like how the bright blue and bright green ended up on opposing sides of the foot parts of the socks without my even planning for it (symmetry!).

A few nights ago I wanted to spin again but first had to free up some bobbins, so I plied together three singles of scraps. The spinning books I have read said to always ply two plies together, then add a third. I thought this was total baloney and decided to just ply them all together at once. This worked out great:  

Fiber: 1 single that’s 100% merino wool, 1 that’s a blend of merino and mohair, and 1 that’s a blend of merino and silk
Colorway: red, brown, and blue
Finished yarn: 3-ply, about worsted weight, about 25 yards

The felted bag is finally finished. I knitted it back in March and then it sat around, waiting for us to visit my parents. They have a great washer: it can be set for a small amount of water and it has a button for extra agitation. Two rounds through the wash cycle at their house yesterday and this:

became this:

Pattern: own
Yarn: 3 1/3 skeins Noro Kureyon, 100% wool, color 180
Needles: size 10 1/2
Size: after felting: base is 3″ x 9″, top is 10 1/2″ wide when folded at the edges, and 8 1/2″ tall from base to top

I saw a similar style felted bag at a booth at Stitches West this February, then found a nicely-priced mess of Kureyon a few minutes later and decided I needed a striped felted bag. I put in purled “seam” stitches at the fold lines which made the bag fold nicely pre-felting but which do not assist with the folding now, or indeed show up at all.  The base is garter stitch and the sides stockinette. I worked a few inches in garter stitch at the top because I thought it would make the top stronger, but that, too, disappeared in the process. You’ll see a row of eyelet holes in the pre-felting photo. I had mental plans of making this a drawstring top, using all those eyelets, but in practice it made much more sense just to use the four on either side and let the bag be more open. Luckily the eyelets pretty much closed in the felting process. I had to really hunt for the eight holes I needed, then stretch them to make the strap go through. I did not measure the bag before I threw it in the washer but I’d guess it shrank down to about 2/3 its original size.