More Cuteness

This morning I finished this Cutie.When I start making one of these crocheted creatures, I never know how they'll turn out. For this one, I made long, spindly legs, thinking it would look funny standing tall on skinny legs. But when I started to sew the pieces together, Cutie wanted to recline, instead.

Here's Sly Little Bro.

And shy Octopal.

I rewarded myself with a walk in the woods over accross the creek, exploring some new forest paths. The stroll was glorious, and I came home with some gourmet tidbits!

Process

Spinning wool into yarn

Crocheting appendages

Felting them up!

Arrangements New Friends!

Wonderful Walnut and Natural Dyeing

I feel so lucky to be living near this venerable, old-growth Black Walnut tree.

This is a view from my dye kitchen.

She's really in her glory in the fall. Standing underneath her brilliant yellow canopy, on a lemony carpet; a breeze puffs by and hundreds of small, shimmery leaves snow down golden... Just watch out that a nut doesn't fall on your head! This year the nuts are bountiful. They give up the most gorgeous brown, tan, and beige colors. The leaves (while still green) also make a lovely brownish dye. However, I still have two five-gallon buckets of this soaking-nut ooze from past years. I'm trying to use it up, but a little goes a long way. I'll not be collecting nuts for dyeing this year. The squirrels get them all! The brown is walnut dyed over logwood and indigo. The beige is the walnut exhaust bath . These are madder berries. I've read that madder "does not reliably produce seeds", so I decided I ought to harvest these seed-containing berries while I had the chance. Each berry contains one largish seed. I'm still waiting for the madder tops to die down so I can dig the roots and use them.

These are dark red dahlia flowers, dried, that my friend saved for me over the summer. The dyebath was a deep, red, merlot color, but the wool came out a bit different than that. The dark bronze color on the left is from the dahlias. The sheen of the Romney fleece makes it look almost metallic in real life. The brilliant yellow on the right is from a fresh Dyer's Polypore Rick found in the forest near our house. I simmered the mushroom, strained it, then merely soaked the fleece in the dyebath without heat to get this color!

Black Sheep Gathering & A Wedding

I went to the Black Sheep Gathering fiber fest in Eugene last weekend. I brought my bike with me, so I was able to park the car at a friend's house, and bike around everywhere...that was great fun! A country dweller like me doesn't get much of a chance for bicycling, these days. I so enjoyed myself, seeing all the gorgeous fibers, and especially having geeky fiber chats with just about everyone I came across. Most of my friends aren't into fiber to the extent I am, so I don't get to really "geek-out" about it too often. First off, I headed straight to my favorite bargain booth, Fantasy Fibers. They had two large bins, one of "Mystery Batts", and the other of "Natural-Colored Rovings". At $1.35 per oz., the Mystery Batts are a real deal. I was told that this year, they have lots of alpaca in them, and they are very soft.When Li'l B. saw me taking photos, she promptly wrapped herself in a batt and took a snooze. Check it out; this: Opens up to this:And this one:looks like this inside:It's kinda like eating a box of chocolates.It's my first time spinning from a batt, and I love it! All I want to do is spin and spin and spin...I'll try my hand at making some art yarns with these, experimenting with new techniques. I also came home with a lovely, bi-colored CVM (California Variegated Mutant) fleece; I'll show you later when I wash it. Between the fleece, the mystery batts, and some other oddiments, I ended up having to make two trips with the bike to haul it all! Definitely a year's supply of fiber (at least!) And, since I know you've all been dying to hear about my trip to New Mexico, I'll share a few wedding photos. Here we are, cheering on the bride. We were all friends together in Corvallis, about 23 years ago! It was great reconnecting with everyone, and we all got to stay together at a sweet little guest house in downtown Santa Fe. This is the wedding arch..it's framing a "tree" of clematis, on which guests hung colorful paper dragonflies inscribed with personal well-wishings to the couple. Aren't the wedding cakes lovely! Each was a different flavor, all very delicious...I liked the raspberry creme the best.I've been rather out of commission this week, with back issues...total drag, except that I have been able to knit! Next time I'll show you what I made, and share some more desserty photos. It's good to be back!

Machine Washing the Fleece

The last time I visited Eugene, I scored a couple of fleeces at an estate sale. There was a huge pile of them in the barn. The nice old guy in charge of selling barn stuff said I could have my pick

at $15.00 each. I was pretty excited. There were no clues as to when they were sheared or what type of sheep they were from. Some of them had won prizes at a county fair. I chose the two cleanest-looking ones. I was trying to be realistic as to whether or not I'd actually get around to processing the wool; I figured two fleeces would be do-able. (I'm still a newbie when it comes to raw fleece). So this week has become fleece-washing week. Luckily they've been skirted already. When I dumped the first one out, it had rather more vegetable matter than I'd first thought. I think that in the world of VM, it's not so much, but to someone used to working with pristine, store-bought rovings, any vegetable matter seems like a lot! It took me awhile to sort out the wool into piles of cleaner and less clean. (The idea being that I'd wash them separately) I'd done some research, and figured that washing the wool in the washing machine was the way to go. I used Dawn dish soap, hot water, and a series of 15 minute soaks, spinning out the water in between each. No agitation!I was amazed at how white the wool became! You can see the difference here, between the yellowish unwashed wool, and the whiter, washed stuff.I spread it out to dry on a sheet on the deck. I had to keep going out and fluffing & turning it, just to feel it's soft squooshiness! Now I have bags and bags of clean wool ready to play with. Just in time for dyeing season...I'll be able to try out as many dye plants as I'm able too! And I can try some wet felting, too. It seems like an infinite amount of wool, but I have a feeling that I'll go through it pretty quickly. I wasn't sure how great it would be for spinning, as the staple length is only a couple of inches. But a quickie trial at the wheel proved it to be quite nice to spin; I think that if I spend more time prepping it, it will spin up pretty well.For now, this thick-n-lumpy single is perfect for my current project. Crocheting these creatures, which will be felted and stuffed. The lumpier the better! All in all, I'm pretty happy about this new wool. I'm still not so crazy about the little bits of organic material in it. What do folks do about that? I can't imagine picking it all out! I look forward to obtaining more raw wool, now that I know how easy it is to wash it.