Another weaving class

I taught the Weave a V-Shawl class in Stockton this month. Judy Allen of Gilmore Looms organized it and we used the space at the shop to hold the class. Five students took the class and here’s what they created. These shawls are right off the loom so fringes and wet finishing will be done later. Aren’t they incredible? And all so different.

In the photo above you can get a feel for the warp. It’s the photo below that shows what happens when the shawl is woven–you get fun plaids on the back. The second, third and fifth shawl are out of my Jacob wool. The first is a cotton mix that Judy wove for her mother (modeling the shawl).  The 4th shawl is out of beautiful handspun and the shawl on the far right is a variegated alpaca yarn–so soft.

One of the most fun things for me was that I took an old Gilmore loom I have to the class on the 2nd day and Bob spent a lot of time fixing things for me. This loom was made in 1962 and I acquired it a few years ago. Bob fixed the space where the reed goes in the beater so that I don’t have to jam it in. He cut slots so that the top bar that holds the reed in place will slip out without having to undo the bolts. He showed me how to fix the reeds that have the tape coming off of them. And most exciting–he turned the beam into a sectional beam for me. Photo to come later.

Thanks to Bob for the loom work and to Judy for organizing the class…and of course the students.

Changing Clothes

I thought you might be interested in this project and website by Lea Redmond. Lea contacted me several months ago to buy some black and white Jacob yarn. She planned to weaving clothing labels. Huh? About a month ago she contacted me and said her project was finished and she was having a show at The Cheese Factory http://www.artatthecheesefactory.org/ near Petaluma, CA. Lea used my wool for a giant size clothing label as part of her Changing Clothes project in which she “investigates politics and ecology of clothes”. Go to this website-   http://www.leafcutterdesigns.com/projects/changingclothes.html and explore more of what she is doing in this project. There are some interesting ways that all of us can participate.

A Successful Weaving Class

I spent the last two days in Placerville, about an hour from my place, teaching a beginning weaving class. The Hangtown Fiber Guild meets at a great facility. They use a classroom at a local church with plenty of space–tables, running water, etc.  There were 7 students and a few helpers and everyone finished their scarves in the allotted time. It is always fun to see the variety of scarves and this class was no exception. Here are some photos of the scarves on the looms.

Jacob wool in broken twill

handspun warp & weft (includes beads!)

Jacob wool warp (rainbow dyed) with a wool weft

Jacob wool in broken twill

Space-dyed yarn in warp and weft

Cotton warp with rainbow dyed Jacob wool weft

Cotton warp and weft

These are the finished scarves before washing or finishing fringes. Great job!

Poppies & goats

When I was sorting wool the other day it such a beautiful day I was distracted by just about everything. How could you not be distracted by this?

And this…

These are the Toggenburg kids and this is how we feed them–a bucket with 9 nipples. It’s sure faster than individual bottles. We’re feeding them 3 times/day right now.

Moving On

Lambing season is over (except for one sheep that I bought and is due much later). For people who like numbers the stats are on my website in the Farm Talk column–things like how many ewe lambs and number of twin births, etc. It’s actually interesting to me to see the tallies. Here is one of the last ewes to lamb. This is a yearling, Eliza, with a pretty ewe lamb.

The weather was gorgeous this weekend and I got serious about sorting wool. Here is a sample from a particularly nice fleece.  This is a yearling out of Meridian Diamond and bide a wee Yuri–the crimp in this fleece looks like Yuri’s did. Maybe you have to be a spinner to appreciate this.

I have a lot of wool to sort and I find myself getting distracted. I sat in the barn and took photos. This is Stephanie below.

And Amaryllis.

This banty hen sets on a nest of eggs all summer even though there has been no rooster since I’ve lived here.

Once she settles on a nesting place I transfer her to this rubber feeder so that I can move it if necessary to get to a bale of hay. I started marking the eggs so that I could take the freshest, but then I lost track. Now I just let her have all she wants.

I got distracted by poppies too, but that will be another post.

Mother-of-the-groom dress

My son is getting married May 2. I can’t wear my jeans and t-shirt. I hate to shop, but I do own a dress that I like and I think won’t make me feel too dumpy. But it is white…was white. For months my Wednesday afternoon weaving group (WeeklyWeavingWorkshop) has been helping with the planning of this project. Last night I finally dyed the dress. The dye job turned out well, but it wasn’t the color that was in the little box in the catalog. It was supposed to be sort of tan with a gold tone. This is more to the peachy side.

I had planned to weave a v-shawl to go with this dress and had some of the yarns picked out. This color shift (you can’t really tell the true color in this photo–at least not on my computer) necessitated a change of plan.  The WWW group had planned a field trip to a huge yarn shop in Sacramento, so I took the sash of the dress and some cones of yarn from my stash. Here is the combination of my yarns and the ones I bought:

You can’t tell but the balls in the upper left have green and a silver sparkle in them. We picked the other colors based on those. (By the way, the brides’ attendants will be wearing celudon green.)

I guess I’d better start weaving. This will be my first weaving project since I broke my arm in January. I am just assuming that I can work my way through this.  Hopefully I’ll be posting a photo in a week or so.

FOTF

FOTF = Fiber Off The Floor. I taught two spinning classes yesterday at our Fiber Fun Retreat. The first was Blending Fiber & Color on the Drum Carder. The second was Spinning in Color. The drum carding was such fun, but I didn’t get to do it because they were using the drum carders, not me. As I was cleaning up I found the little bits of fiber under the chairs and that had been discarded from the drum carders.  

Hmmm. I carded the fiber.

I spun it and plied it with a dark gray singles.

I wish that I’d had mosre students so that I’d have more waste fiber! I’m going to post a photo of this on Ravelry. I now have a Meridian Jacobs group there. Anyone can join! http://www.ravelry.com

Loose ends

I’m trying to finish up all kinds of things that have been put off or just didn’t get started. Part of this is in anticipation of Meet the Sheep, our Open House that is this weekend. So there is clean up to do, class prep, etc. Also, I think I can start getting back to weaving soon and I’d better get caught up on some other stuff too. So here’s some of what I did yesterday:

1. I spent a lot of time on Jacob Sheep registrations. I am behind there because of my one-handed typing. I just started typing 2-handed again–I consider it therapy because the left hand doesn’t really bend the way I need it to.

2. Dealt with the ram that was butchered last week. Good thing it isn’t summer or I couldn’t have waited this long.

3. Lolita finally lambed. Two weeks ago I treated her for hypocalcemia and other metabolic problems. She recovered and I’ve been waiting for these lambs–2 girls and a boy.

By the way this ewe lambed at State Fair last year (August). That’s 6 lambs in a year. No wonder she had some problems. She seems fine now. I’m keeping plenty of food in front of her.

4. Taking photos of new lambs and here is who is in the way.

5. Speaking of goats we are feeding 9 kids. It seems never ending although its better now that they’re on 3 x’s/day instead of 4. I do a lot of the kid feeding but Chris has been milking. He’ll be gone this weekend though and I told him that he has to get the milking machine cleaned up.

6. I picked up butchered lambs and had no room left in the freezers. I had to take a turkey out to make room for the lamb, so I cooked a turkey last night. Can’t cook a turkey without the stuffing and mashed potatoes! At least we’ll have leftovers for quite awhile.