I keep forgetting to post about this. I guess because I think I’m going to add more detail to it or something… clearly I’m not.

So this was my latest yarn commission.

310 yds of superwash merino, handspun to be deliberately not-quite-perfect in an array of blues.

It was interesting. This is the first time I’ve ever purposefully spun in periodic slubs/thick-thin sections.

The fiber itself was also interesting as I used mill end SW Merino for it. So I have this three pound bag of mill ends, which are really mill ends, totally tossed and turned and shredded. The answer, as it so often is with fiber, was sampling.

I spun up some straight out of the bag and it was way TOO slubby and uneven looking. I just couldn’t control where things were happening because of the odd nature of the fiber. So… I learned to comb fiber, which was a fascinating endeavor, especially with already combed but no longer aligned fiber. Thanks to several YouTube videos and explanations, I figured it out and was off and combing.

Combing produced a yarn with periodic neps that spun into small delicate slubs (the consequence of combing pre-combed stirred up fiber instead of locks), just what I was looking for. You can’t see it much in the finished yarn, which was my goal. I wanted it to look not-perfect, not like art yarn.

It’s a two-ply, as it’s for the making of a balaclava, in worsted weight. I dyed it in a yarn version of my colorway “Sapphire Surprise.” Happily, the commissioner was quite pleased with the yarn upon receipt.

Superwash Merino is one of my least favorite fibers to spin, but this project went fairly fast (minus the combing which was a learning thing). And any project during which I actually learn things is good! And working on Strider (the Schacht-Reeves 30″) is always a pleasure

Sapphire Surprise
310 yards
100% SW Merino
Worsted Weight
2-Ply

Thats’ all for now!

~The Gnome

Ack, I thought I had already posted this. Durr. Apparently not.

So, I make stuff!

A few weeks ago, now, Mom had to have her gallbladder out. Not a huge deal, but long and sore. As an early Xmas gift to make her happy, and to make her feel better about the house for for turkey day while G’ma is visiting, I made her this.

A pair of slip covers in duck cloth, for the couch. One of the upper cushions and one for the lower cushions. She’s wanted one for *years* but they’re expensive. So I made one (and another one ready to make for her b-day). Super simple, 4.5yds of fabric.

I also recently finished a hat. Knit. Super simple. From my own handspun yarn. Merino. In an almost black maroon merino with blue flecks.

I need to make more things with my own yarn. I like it. It’s fun.

In other news… Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers. Happy Thursday to my non-U.S. readers! We got up early and got things going. And now, the cranberry sauce (fresh, not jellied) is made, the green jello (with pineapple and cream cheese) is set, the turkey’s in the oven, the gravy’s stewing, and the stuffing’s in! Just rolls/biscuits, and mashed potatoes left (and slicing up homemade pickles, putting out olives, etc).

~The Gnome

We shall now bend time a little, and report on Rhinebeck before I get around to the full report on my backpacking trip. I figure that’s fair since you all probably care more about Rhinebeck than backpacking. Rest assured backpacking report will also come soon.

So, Rhinebeck! Also known as the NY Sheep and Wool Festival. Like every year, I brought my camera intent on taking lots and lots of photos. Like every year, I didn’t get nearly the photos I intended. UNlike last year, I at least got a few.

So I spent the time between getting back from the aforementioned backpacking trip and Rhinebeck frantically dyeing as fast as my two pots and multi-color colorways would allow. It was… hectic. My dyed fiber and buckets I was filling with inventory filled the living room and dining room. As a result, I seemed like a poultry perambulating while lacking a cephalic nerve control center that hadn’t realized it was deceased.

But I actually got my inventory done and everything packed BEFORE needing to leave. Well ok, not quite. I was pretty damned close but ended up pulling out about 45 minutes later than intended. But with NO wet materials, and (almost) all the things I intended to bring! I failed to bring my sample yarns for people to play with but… can’t have everything.

So I drove through the lovely fall countryside (a much shorter drive from my parents’ than from Worcester!) and arrived at the Duchess County Fairgrounds to help Jennifer (owner of the booth) and Tsocktsarina set up the booth. Like always I swore I was going to take a photo before people arrived… and like always I totally didn’t.

Then I met Terri and Beth… who I also seem to have forgotten to photograph, wow I did worse than I thought. Terri kindly offered a bed in her camper, and fed me! MMm with excellent food too. This made everything much easier. Unfortunately, I was slow getting out in the morning (because I was dumb. I had lots of time, then I had my morning tea and suddenly I was late). So… no pre-crowd booth shot! As things were starting, I did get this…

Um… yeah. And that’s the best I could manage. Really. Besides being blurry, the place was MOBBED. Absolutely mobbed. I was sold out of some of my less populous fibers within the first hour.

We had a slightly different organization thanks to Jennifer’s brilliant mind, which made the booth much more navigable and open. I don’t know what we would have done without the shift, because WOH. I spent fulltime explaining fibers, pointing people to yarns and kits, explaining prices, restocking yarns and fibers, and trying not to be trampled. It was awesome.

Here’s a back view (from behind, while I was restocking)

Patrick manned the payment table for most of the festival.

That’s… pretty much all the photos I got the first day… wait not quite!

Tsocks made socks! From my fiber! A lovely purple cheviot braid in “Balloonflower” became these fabulous socks…

Mmm socks. Pretty! I love seeing my fiber/yarn as finished yarn/objects. This is only the second Gnomespun I’ve seen as a project in person! Also, as always Rhinebeck is a time to see people!

By the end of the first day… this was what all that was left of my inventory.

I tried a new method for put-up, to make it less… snakey and awkward and intimidating for display. Worked great. I’ll probably modify it a bit, but the basic concept? Perfect. I managed to find a way to let people touch and feel the fiber while still keeping it in a disk! Also found a folded method that worked pretty well. My yarn sold remarkably well too. Especially the darker muted colors and browns. ::thinks::

The second day, there was a chance for breathing, though things were still pretty busy. Before everyone arrived (I actually got there on time, though… without my hat, DOH)…

After the hecticness of the first day, I wandered off to actually see the fair. Unfortunately, I’m… well… um… chatty. And I’m moderately well known so I kept getting caught up and distracted, so my wandering the fair took like… 4 hours and involved things like conversations with breeders, other vendors, and demonstrating support spindling and bottom whorls. But… it was worth it, and fun.

I saw sheep!

Here’s the breed of the year at Rhinebeck, the Oxford, which has a nice fleece but almost impossible to get hold of because it grows slowly so if you shear at the normal times you get about an inch to inch and a half tops staple length. Doh.

Cheviot, a good chewy sock fiber (though I still prefer a high quality Dorset). They are adorable little dog-sized sheep.

And of course, pygora goats. Which are adorable, but don’t feel like goats to me ’cause they’re SO SMALL. My goats were big. Even the ones that were supposed to be little (Toggenburgs).

And I ran into a lot of people, most of whom I forgot to get photos of, booo! But I also ran into the fabulously awesome Arak42, Jellycrys, and Arak’s Mom. We talked for like an hour, and they were appropriately appreciative of the geekiness of my scarf (more about that in a moment). And then we took photos appropriate to our ridiculousness.

Then it was time to go back to the booth for more explaining and photos of cool people.

Like Yrallee, who brought some wensleydale I dyed that she’d spun up into an amazingly soft squishy yarn that was becoming a shawl.

TheGeorg

Westfaire

Jennifer, Westfaire, DivineBird, Sandi Wiseheart, and Georg

And before I left, I actually managed to remember to get a photo taken of me with this stuff…

Ok, so you’re probably familiar with the kilt by now. The socks I’m wearing there are also handknit by a good friend, as is the scarf and socks I’m holding.

We’ll start with the scarf. You’ll notice it’s long (it’s also awesomely warm and cozy). That’s because it’s oxygen… that is, an oxygen emission spectrum. If you burn oxygen and refract the light you get through a prism, that’s what you see. It’s how scientists tell what stars are made of. It’s utterly geeky and utterly me. I love it.

The socks I’m holding are very very special. You might recall that ages ago I went to an estate sale and got a ton of fleeces. Well I gave one of those fleeces to Tsocks, then for my birthday she gave me beautiful batts from that fiber (Romney) blended with some silk and mohair. Well I spun it up into my first handspun sock yarn (plus some extra she made me in grey ’cause my yarn was a little thicker than I intended). I then mailed the resulting yarn across the sea to my friend in the UK who is way too generous for her own good. She knit me these fabulous socks and sent them back. So now I have socks that were prepped by one friend, handspun by me, and handknit by another friend. And they feel great. What could be better?

So… it was a very successful and enjoyable Rhinebeck for Gnomespun. I’ve got a bunch of Exmoor Mule dyed up and other stuff on the way shortly.

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome

So I finished the first scarf, but since I warped a couple scarves worth at the same time, it’s still on the loom. Once I get them all done and get them off the loom then I’ll finish them and show photos.

So, finishing the first scarf, I started on my second. This one will be designed a little differently, though clearly with the same threading pattern.

If you’ll remember, this is the first scarf while it was still in progress.

My second scarf, instead of using millspun Zephyr as the first scarf, I’m using 50/50 polwarth/silk I got at NH Sheep and wool two years ago, and spun myself (first ever laceweight, if I’d plied it). It was a pleasure to spin and it’s cool to finally be using it!

So I started… and… yeah…

It’s not… impossibly bad, but it’s not right. I spun finer than is ideal for this. Doh. This would be fine if I hadn’t spun the entire 5oz onto one bobbin, which makes it a little difficult to two-ply it.

So after asking Ravelry and getting a confirmation of what I already new… I unwove that. It just wasn’t right. Instead I doubleshot it, going back and forth twice for each shed.

Muuuuch better. This is the header. It took a while to weave though because of the two shots for every shed. So I wrapped a bobbin with two threads at once, and kept working on the scarf…

And we’re off! Huzzah! We’re making progress! Have one or two more after this (I used to know but can’t remember the size of my warp). The next one after this it looks like I will need to also ply or double-strand.

That’s all for now! Back to the dyepots. Finn done, dorset done, romney almost done.

~The Gnome

Ok… so, the suffolk adventure continues.

We have a couple different pieces of new information.

A supplier (not the same as the one I bought from) has informed me that yes, there are grey suffolks, but they are rare and so grey roving/top tends to be limited. This is a supplier I trust fairly implicitly. I may buy some of their “grey suffolk” to compare to mine. Even in the photos it looks nothing like what I have, but a lot more like I’d expect a downs wool to look.

Another supplier (thank you, Helen) says that Suffolk’s are born black and age to white or grey. As best as I can determine this is a conflation of the question, as they are born black (like their legs and head) but as soon as the wool comes in they are white or grey.

Also, Deb Ronson apparently dealt with a similar fiber and came to a similar conclusion about it’s origin.

Being largely raised for meat, we know that suffolk will likely vary quite a bit from fleece to fleece, and possibly even more between white and grey fleeces. However, you usually expect even within variance there to be some standards. Downs wools will be springy, tend to be shorter stapled, have a spiral crimp, etc. Most of the meat breeds tend to be shorter on kemp (though this can be thrown off by the fact they may collect the britch wool along with the rest).

The U.S. breed standard specifies that they must be white and “free of dark fibers, and shading into dark hair or wool.” But that’s U.S. and the suffolk is a worldwide breed. Other associations seem to have similar standards, but I can’t read many of them.

Additionally, there is a “White Suffolk” which is the same, but with white face and feet (the normal suffolk has black face and feet).

So um… information says… stuff!

I still don’t think what I have is suffolk, at least not in the strict sense of the breed. I’m going to try to acquire some other suffolk from trusted sources to compare with it. We shall see!

I’ll keep you updated. For now i’m having a bit of trouble getting fiber dry, as the air here is at 100% humidity (when you walk around, rain drops randomly coalesce on you).

That’s all for now. I’ll let you know when I have more info!

~The Gnome