The Independent Stitch

Keeping the wools organized, part 1

A couple of days ago, someone asked me how on earth I am keeping all of the wools for The Project organized. It's a great question, and although I gave her an overview I thought others might be interested. The answer will involve two posts.

When I began The Project of researching and writing the next phase of what I want to learn (and share) about wools from different breeds of sheep, I knew that keeping the fiber samples organized and identified throughout the long process would be crucial. There's not much point in having demonstration locks and skeins of specific fibers if you don't know which is which. While I can't do anything to guarantee that fibers are correctly labeled when they reach me, I can control what happens after they're in my hands. For that, I needed a system and I have needed to follow it. Always.

With years of experience working on books and magazines behind me, I knew where and how things could go wrong. The system I set up at the very beginning of The Project took into account my vision of what resources I wanted to have while I was doing the thinking-and-spinning part of the work and also what we'd need to have when we reached the point of taking the final photographs. I know how hard it can be to remember which piece of white fluff is which. It's even worse to have to try to figure out which photograph of a piece of white fluff is which. Especially when you took the photos months earlier.

Here's how I keep track of things.

When I receive a package of fiber, I hope it comes with identification. Usually there's at least a solid clue. If not (because the sender thinks I have only ordered one type of fiber at a time from one source, like a normal person would, and that I will, of course, remember what it was that I ordered), I track down that information as quickly as I can and tape a temporary label on the box or envelope.

Then I log its arrival in three electronic databases (kept in OpenOffice, Excel, or Numbers, depending on whether I am, or was, using Linux, Windows XP, or the Mac . . . The Project has been going on for a while) :

• the master list of fibers and their sources (including name, address, phone, e-mail, and website of the supplier)
• the list of missing fibers (the arrival gets logged here by removing its name from the list)
• the processing status list (each breed is at this point marked "received and in processing"; other phases include "missing," "spun and ready to be written up," and "spun and written up")

I send updated copies of these electronic files to my co-author, Carol Ekarius, who is doing most of the fiber acquisition while I'm labeling, washing, and spinning. This Project is not a one-person job.

I also print out two sizes of address labels, ten each, that show the name of the fiber, whether it was received raw (in the grease) or processed, its color, and the source. If I have five colors of a single breed, or even same-color samples from different sheep, each gets processed as a unique item from this stage on (the electronic databases are not as fine-tuned).

One of the large labels goes on an index card that is kept in a small plastic box, which has turned out to be the easiest way to keep track of exactly what I have received and whether it has been spun or not:

Inside that box are 5x8 index cards cut in half. I was keeping this file in a small, open cardboard box. Then I found the more protective box, in a perfect size, at the Container Store on one of my trips to the city.

Sometimes I have notes on the cards, but mostly I take notes directly into my writing files on the computer. (I'm using Scrivener since I moved to Mac. Scrivener has saved my sanity, and likely the entire Project, many times over.) The simple existence of the labeled card means I have the fiber available. The big green dots mean I've spun samples. No dots? Still to be spun. The file box works much better for these two tracking tasks than any electronic database. Plus if I have any computer problems, I still have these baseline records.

Here's the organizing set-up for a new fiber arrival:

The only difference from reality here is that I do all but the clean-lock portion of this labeling and packaging with the grease wool, and the photo shows the materials with a wool that's been washed.

1. Fiber - the point of it all
   
2. Large labels - start with 10 (breed, raw or clean when received, color, source)
   
3. Small labels - start with 10 (same info)
4. Two large bags (gallon-size) with large labels, one for the working fiber and one with SAMPLES for the materials that will travel to photography
5. Two small bags (either sandwich or, for the long wools, quart size) with large labels, one for the RAW lock samples and one for the CLEAN lock samples
6. One card with a large label: this card travels with the wool whenever it is away from its bags—for example, during the washing sequences and when it's on the drying rack (these are old business cards)
7. One hang tag and one small card, with small labels: the hang tag is labeled on both sides (so it won't need to be flipped over when we are handling hundreds of samples during photography), and the small card goes in the corner of a photo to be cropped out before final printing; if I spin more than one sample, I use some of the extra small labels to make hang tags for the extra skeins

I use clear packaging tape over the labels on the bags. Otherwise the labels don't stick to the plastic long enough to do any good.

Here's a demo of how the small cards in 7 are used. Although this is just a reference photo for my working files, it's the same idea that will be used in the final photographs. The identifying info is in the frame but can easily be cropped out.

One more small label goes on a post-it note that is used to catalog what's in the main working file boxes, which are white:

A blue background means the fiber came in processed (top or roving). A green background means it arrived raw. Bright pink with a red dot means for some reason the sample is not adequate (there's also a red dot on the corresponding card in the small file box). There's extra tape holding the stickies in place because they take a beating when the boxes are moved around.

Handwritten yellow stickies help me see from across the room what breeds are in a box and handwritten pink stickies help me keep groups of breeds organized (these are longwools in the two top boxes—there are more than two longwool boxes!—and Cheviots in the bottom one). The big black checkmarks mean the fiber is clean (either was received that way or I've washed it). While it doesn't seem to make much sense to mark the blue-background items as "washed," because they're clean by definition, I found that it was easier to skim for to-be-washed items if I put a check on everything that is clean. Yes, the blue-background (clean) items have light yellow labels and the green-background (raw) items have bright yellow labels. I use all the color-coding I can get. The blue dots on the upper box indicate items that we wrote up as sample chapters, before we really got down to business.

[part 2 just before this—I managed to post these out of order]

Keeping the wools organized, part 2

[part 1 is adjacent but following; I managed to post these out of order]

All the labeling and packaging preparation happens as soon as the fiber enters the house. Then the system starts being put to work.

When I pull wools for washing, the materials related to them go into holding containers. The wools that are next in line to be washed go into a special file box. The bags for the wools that are either being washed or are drying go into another container (here I'm using a white plastic waste basket).

The fibers come in different quantities, and I have several sizes of washing containers. I have four sets of colander-plus-bowl (two larger, two smaller), gleaned from secondhand stores and a friend's kitchen, and two rectangular washing sets, which were manufactured as cat litter boxes (in each set, one tray has a perforated bottom and the other has a solid bottom).

The business-card labels follow the wools through the washing sequence. They just sit on the floor next to the working area, because I combine wools that are not too similar in each batch. I pick by color and texture, mostly, because apparent staple length frequently changes in washing. The more dramatic the differences the better, of course. The perfect set is a white longwool, a brown double-coated, a gray medium wool, and a dark Soay. It doesn't always work that way.

I wash the wools loose, rather than in mesh or net bags, because I like to be able to see what's happening, especially if I need to give extra attention to getting dirt out of the tips of the locks. Once they're clean, I do put the wools into mesh bags so I can run them through the spin-only cycle of the washing machine and get the extra water out so they'll dry faster. Fast drying matters when you're doing, say, 25 batches in three days, as I did this past week.

I carry the cards to the basement along with the dripping mesh bags (kept under control in one of the larger washing containers). If I have two wools that I may confuse, one goes into a marked mesh bag and I set its card in a special place while the washer does its thing. One of the bags below has a red string tied to it.

As soon as the water has been spun out, I spread out each wool on a drying rack next to its card. In the photo below it's easiest to see the cards on the lower two levels, but every one of these piles of fluff has a card.

I usually flip the masses of wool over at least once while they're drying. When I clear the racks, I use a strip of package-sealing tape to pick up any stray fibers, so they won't mix into the next wools that come along (this is most crucial with the coarse black fleeces, which tend to stick to the nylon of the racks and become a nuisance when the next wool to use the space is, say, a nice white Polwarth).

Clean wools go back into the organizing bags. Then I spin samples, working on the fibers in related groups, whenever possible. Sample skeins, after being washed, get hung over doorknobs upstairs to dry. Again, I work on samples that will be easy to distinguish from each other or I bring the cards upstairs and set them by the appropriate doors. Descriptions within the Scrivener files also help me keep the skeins correctly identified, if I need a backup technique, although they are mostly intended to make it easy to write captions later.

Here's a set of finished samples: raw locks, clean locks, labeled skein, and photo identifier. All of this gets tucked into the SAMPLES bag.

I squish out as much air as possible from all the bags, which can then usually be folded over:

This bag goes into a labeled file folder in a green file box, which will travel to photography (any extra fiber and labels stay in the white working boxes).

When I have too many samples to fit into a single file folder (often), the breed gets a larger box-end jacket, like the one with the black clip on it.

And that's how on earth I keep the samples from getting mixed up.

Comfort and crimp

When life gets rocky, as it has been around here lately, balance and a sense of safe harbor for me can come from friends (two-footed, four-footed, and other), fibers (especially wool), and good books.

Tussah Redfurr has been doing her best to fill the hole in our lives that remains following the death of Ariel, our fifteen-year-old Border collie-ish.

It's amazing how many household habits revolved around our newly missing member.

I've greatly appreciated the comments and notes that have come in from friends, especially while our family has also been caring for a few human members with acute ailments. Those folks are on the mend now, and we are all, I hope, taking care of ourselves in the ways that work best for us.

For me, that often means wrapping myself in wool, both physically and mentally. For the former, I have sweaters, shawls, hats, and more (a nice woolly afghan I knitted more than a year ago is still at the publisher's for photography: I look forward to having it back! and I will be showing it here on a blog tour early in 2010).

For mental comfort and joy, I'm working on The Project. I also have a couple of nearly complete book reviews and some knitting updates that I hope to get posted in the near future.

Which brings me to the woolly photo of the day, about the importance of crimp. Put simply, crimp is waviness in a fiber. If there's lots of it, the fiber coils a bit like a spring. Crimp forms as part of the growth process of the fiber. Fibers can have more, less, or no crimp.

Here are two small sample skeins for The Project. They were wound on the same sample niddy-noddy, so if crimp were not a factor they would have identical circumference measurements.

The longer skein on the left is Optim^TM Fine, which is wool that has been processed in ways that reduce the individual fibers' micron counts (make them finer and softer), increase their length, and remove their crimp. Optim^TM still has many of wool's qualities (breathability, moisture-handling, and so on) but in many other ways it has become more silk-like (elasticity disappears and draping qualities increase). While the process can be applied to other wools, it's pretty much focused on use with 19-micron Merinos, turning them into 15.5- to 16-micron Optim fibers. (The micron counts refer to average fiber diameters: under Optim processing, the fibers get skinnier and longer.)

The shorter skein on the right is Polwarth, which by breeding is about 75% Merino and 25% Lincoln (details in The Project's book). I'd compare the Optim to Merino, but Polwarth was what was on the drying rack when I realized the value of a photo comparison. Same basic idea. The Polwarth skein can be stretched to extend as far as the Optim skein does, but when the Polwarth is relaxed it bounces back, while the Optim skein stays put.

For some applications, Optim (less crimp) is a better choice. Crimp-free fibers are more elegant. For drape that doesn't cling (at least in a low-static environment), crimp-free fibers will work better.

For other purposes, Polwarth or another crimpy fiber will excel. Crimpy fibers are cosier than crimp-free ones. For a fabric where elasticity and body-hugging qualities are important, crimp wins. For example, it makes socks that will pull over the heel easily yet won't fall down (at least if they're sized correctly!). Crimp also increases warmth: all those trapped air spaces increase the fabric's insulating qualities.

The person selecting the yarn for an envisioned purpose is the one who decides what matters.

Does all this mean crimp = comfort? It might.

Over the past few days, I've been enjoying the power of crimp, spinning samples of Merino (including its Optim variant), Polwarth, Rambouillet, and Île de France. This afternoon, I plan to begin on Corriedale and Bond. Later this week, I've got Cormo, Romeldale, CVM, and Targhee. All fine wools, each with an individual array of qualities.

We have some brushings from Ariel, saved over the last year or so. A lot got tossed (Ariel grew, and shed, fiber generously), but we have a nice small box full. My daughter asked last week whether I thought we could make some wrist warmers from the collected fiber. This seems like a perfect way to remember a pup who collected the nickname Snow-nose because she adored playing in the snow.

Ariel's fur is a lot like angora. It's fine, exceptionally soft, and has almost no crimp. It's warm. A little Ari-fur will have a big effect on a yarn (as the dog herself had a big effect in our lives), but it could use an infusion of crimp to give it enough elasticity to make good wrist warmers or fingerless gloves.

While I'm working up my samples, I'll be looking for the right match. A good fiber match takes into account fineness, color, and fiber length, in addition to the behavioral qualities (like crimp) that are desired in the finished yarn. Any of the fibers I'm spinning now would be a good match in fineness. The overall effect of Ari's fur spun by itself is a light gray. The colored Merinos and Rambouillets I'm using have shorter staple lengths than Ari's fiber. I have some exquisite colored Bonds here, but they're longer. I'm guessing one of the CVMs or the colored Romeldales will pair with the fur best. As a plus, they're rare wools. That bit of wool will also give the yarn some of the bounce that Ariel herself contributed to our lives.

Comfort and crimp.

Karakul lamb: wool too pretty to spin?

Working along on The Project, I've spent some time (again) recently with Karakul, the breed from which I learned so much many years ago. Some time in the 1970s, I ordered three Karakul fleeces at once: one white, one gray, and one black. If I recall correctly, they were my first whole fleeces. In washing and spinning them, I discovered how much the wool within a breed may vary not only in color but in length and texture and amount of grease and ease of processing.

Those fleeces became a rug that I wove and bartered for some training. I still remember the rug vividly, as well as the pleasant lessons those fleeces taught me.

In addition, some of the most memorably wonderful pieces I had the honor of presenting in Spin-Off during the years when I edited the magazine were Ellen Champion's Karakul rugs (Winter 1989 issue).

So I always approach Karakul with an anticipation of delight . . . and the expectation that I will learn something. Probably a lot. And that it will surprise me.

That's happened this week, as I've explored four different-colored lamb fleeces from Durakai Sheep and Fibre Arts, grown by sheep bred and raised by Marie and Ron Schmidt. I find myself facing an odd question, however: whether this wool is really too pretty just as wool to be spun. That question is almost inconceivable for me. I adore the transformation from fiber to yarn.

Yet when I see this:

I can't help but think of how the texture and the colors will be blended and muted by spinning. They're quite perfect just as they are.

Here's a sample from another lamb, along with the tiny skein I spun—which is, indeed, lovely. But is it lovelier than the fiber?

Both samples display the enchanting lamb-tips on the fibers, although they're a bit more obvious in the second photo: subsequent shearings won't have those characteristic, sweet, delicate curls.

While I have dutifully spun my samples for The Project, and I do like the results as yarns, I have made the skeins no larger than necessary because I'm so tempted to see what I can do to highlight the locks in their original forms, perhaps by spinning some adult Karakul into an even yarn and then weaving something where I'd lay narrow sections of the lamb locks into some of the sheds in a way that would display both the colors and the textures while holding them securely in place and protecting them from degradation. It would require thought and a bit of technical experimentation to get the effect I envision. And what might it become? A small rug? Sturdy tote for knitting? Book bag? Pillow for the couch? Jacket?

One thing about The Project: I keep getting ideas for ways I'd like to take each snippet of work I'm doing into new, deeper directions. Right now, I have to keep moving: on to the next sample, then to the next breed.

But I'd certainly like to come back to these charmers and explore the possibilities of highlighting their just-off-the-lamb form, which is exquisite.

Roller dog

In the midst of all the other activities around here, we have been arranging for our older dog, Ariel, to have more independent mobility.

She was abandoned as a tiny puppy, so we know her age but not her ancestry. Her behavior and appearance have, throughout her life, suggested a strong Border collie component with spaniel-influenced ears and coat. She looks enough like a Border collie to be considered one by the American Kennel Club (with what's called an ILP listing) and allowed to compete in obedience trials, which she did until the onset of arthritis about nine years ago. She earned her CD, the Companion Dog title that is the first full level of obedience competition. She couldn't continue further with obedience or with agility because of the arthritis.

Anyway, she is still a dog who needs activity, even though she has become increasingly lame, despite all we have been able to do for her. At 15, she is one hundred percent engaged in life and with us. She chases her Buster Cube around the house. She may not hear as well as she used to (she doesn't always wake up immediately when we come home), but she can tell when someone might be about to drop a crumb on the floor, and will gnaw through anything (even multiple layers of cardboard) to get at a potential food source.

She does NOT like to be left home when anyone else is going for a walk or a ride in the car.

Her knees, however, can't keep up with her.

For a couple of years, we've been using a harness, which gives her a handle we can use to help her with steps, getting in and out of the car, and, more often lately, to keep her from some of the falling-over on the twice-daily walks she refuses to quit going on. The falling-over does not, amazingly, distress or frustrate her. She just waits until she can get herself up again, or until we give her a boost. We've also needed to use boots to protect her back feet because she can't lift them high enough to clear the pavement, although we take the boots off her when she gets to the grass at the park.

(When Ariel was young, only half of her muzzle was white. Her expressive eyebrows also were not highlighted, as they are now.)

Needing to come up with a new answer, we started learning about devices to help handicapped dogs. There are quite an amazing number of options, and fortunately we have several local resource people to help us figure out what to try for Ariel—Deanna Rogers, Jill Reynolds, and Connie Fredman.

So, after much research, soul-searching, and measuring, we located a refurbished set of wheels of the correct size for Ariel. They arrived from Montana a couple of weeks ago, and we have been sending photos back and forth to the manufacturer while we fine-tune the fitting. On Saturday, we actually used them for the first time.

Ari could sniff around on her own without one of us hovering to rescue her from the too-frequent cave-in of the back legs.

The wheels are set up in rehab mode, so she has to use all four limbs to move but she doesn't fall over. Our house is too small for her to have the wheels inside, but she can enjoy far more comfortable walks twice a day and we think she will be better able to maintain the strength in her legs because she's not wasting so much energy trying to stabilize the joints (or working to get back up).

On Sunday, Jill and her pup Skid, who is training to be a Search and Rescue dog, came by to see how the wheels worked. Ari showed us she was starting to get the hang of them.

(Daughter; Tussah—who is only about 12, as far as we know; Ari; Jill; and Skid, just over 1 year and doing fantastically with his S&R exercises and tests.)

By the end of the walk, Ari had figured out what wheels are good for.

Thanks to Doggon' Wheels for thoughtful design (these are 4WD wheels: rocks and hills no problem), great customer service, and making refurbished wheels available to dogs who just need a little lift.

__

And, while we're on the topic of "may all beings be happy," here's a wonderful business in Africa called Shonaquip. . . .

Where most of the work gets done

I've written about the wonderful places to which I've traveled within the past year to work on the major project that is nearing its deadline (I'm not saying "completion": it will be pulled out of my hands, far from complete, because otherwise it will not be ready for a few decades).

I spent most of a week in a rented cabin shared with other writer friends.

Another set of friends helped me obtain the delight of a full week's residency.

And I retreated for a too-short weekend with co-author Carol Ekarius.

(That's me with Tuf, one of Carol's dogs. Carol took the picture.)

Yet I haven't shown where most of the work is getting done. That's partly because I'm embarrassed. It's organized, but it also looks like, as we used to say, "ten pounds in a five-pound bag."

I've worked in this office for many years—I think it's at least fourteen or fifteen:

For the final four or five years that I edited Spin-Off magazine, most of that work was accomplished in this space. Now this is where I do all the work on the books published by Nomad Press and for my freelance editorial clients. It's compact, but I have a window (the high, basement kind, just out of sight), and the tools I need are close at hand (an understatement). I do go off to a coffeeshop or the library several times a week, taking a single set of tasks with me. It's refreshing.

The photo above was taken during the time when the computers were breaking down, and just before Jessica Derksen, who has been an enormous help in my continuing efforts to accomplish the impossible, showed me how to fit yet another major job (The Project) into my office. It was April 2008. I'd signed the contract for this work four months earlier. Already 14 boxes of fiber were in the dining room (because there was no room for them in the office), and it was obvious that many more boxes would be part of this undertaking before it was done.

There was a storeroom adjacent to the office, separated from it by a wall. When we bought the house, this space was called a bedroom. We learned later that technically it shouldn't have been listed as a bedroom because there's no closet (there was also no closet in the formerly so-called bedroom that is now the office, although we have since built one).

The only access to this room was through the laundry area. This space has a nicer window than the office does. And a heat vent. The office doesn't have a heat vent.

Jessica got the idea of taking down the wall between the two rooms. The primary reason for this was so we could use the small hallway/entry between the laundry area and the storeroom to stash boxes of fiber. It was only about 10 square feet, but that can look like a lot if you are tripping over boxes. If we took down the wall, we could fill that entry space with boxes because we could walk into the storeroom through my office. The change was kindly, quickly, and neatly implemented by Jessica's husband, Jonathan.

I did lose a floor-to-ceiling wall of bookcases, shown here when I'd almost completely dismantled them:

I still haven't found permanent, orderly homes for everything that was displaced. However, these lines on the wall are the start of a big change.

And the wall came down:

Here's the view of the office from the former storeroom:

And the former storeroom as seen from the office:

Most of the work on The Project now takes place in that former storeroom, which, a year and a half later, looks like this:

You can't see all the active boxes in that picture. There are now 54 (if you don't count the ones that contain the extra bits that are not directly part of the book), so in addition to what's here there are more in the laundry room, in that entry/hallway this exercise freed up (which you can see a bit of between the bookcases in the photo above and, from the other side of the opening, below), and in the downstairs bathroom (as seen from the laundry area in the photo below):

I can't get a photo angle that shows the boxes on top of the dryer.

We're not done yet. There will be more boxes, and I'll need to figure out what to do with them. There's still space for about 3 on top of that pile in the bathroom.

It's been nice to pack 12 boxes (the number that will fit) into the car, along with the tools and the computer, and to go elsewhere. It's easier to focus when everything is neatly organized and I'm not having to juggle all the other responsibilities of these spaces and of the house, although I can only withdraw from the other dimensions of my life for a few days at a time.

Yet day in and day out, week, month, and year in and year out, most of the work gets done right here. The trips away have been real boosts to my progress: I'm amazed at what can get done with the support of those protected times and places. Yet plodding along in the middle of everything is also part of the whole package, and without it the job as a whole would be unreachable. 

I'm constantly grateful for Jessica's idea to tear down a wall, for my willingness to say yes, and for Jonathan's help in getting the restructuring job done so I could move forward.

Artposium travel 2: toward and in Delta County

The first evening's event of the Artposium took place in Hotchkiss, at the Creamery Arts Center, which is worth going out of the way to see. Jack Roberts spent his weekend at home producing some of his wonderful black-and-white photographic prints that are going on display at the Creamery this week. It's precision work: he's able to do two or three prints a day, and his goal by the time the exhibit goes up is ten.

Because I was headed for Hotchkiss, the western portion of the West Elk Loop Scenic Byway was the most direct route to my destination. I went back the same way, although in both directions I didn't have time to wander and explore. When I was westbound, I needed to be at the reception before it ended, and when I was eastbound I wanted to be home before I was too tired to be driving. Because I left about 4 p.m. and it's about a seven-hour drive, figuring in brief stretch-the-legs breaks, that didn't leave any time for side trips. . . . I'll have to go back again.

My mother did a bunch of her growing up in Glenwood Springs, and when I was young my grandparents still lived there. I have vivid and treasured memories of the area, although I haven't spent much time there (or driven the roads I took this weekend) since I was quite small. So I wanted to look around, even if just in passing.

Delta County

At the west end of my travels, Delta County offers dramatic views full of contrasts. I took this photo as I was traveling back down to Cedaredge from Red Mesa Grange, where we spent the morning cooking with Howard Dubrovsky.

The area is geologically fascinating. It also demonstrates the effects of water on a landscape. This is a closer view of the area shown above.

I found it impossible to take photographs that adequately capture the scope or the layering of the mesas, although that didn't keep me from trying.

Artposium in Delta County: Dinner Stories--cooking with Howard Dubrovsky

Saturday afternoon at the Artposium, we had three fine presentations:

Writer Katherine Leiner, of Colorado and New York, has conducted 130 interviews of people between the ages of 19 and 38 who are going back to the land in search of good food for her upcoming book called Young and Hungry.

Chef Howard Dubrovsky from Toronto demonstrated that contemporary molecular gastronomy is within reach not just of diners with very deep pockets but can be played with in the kitchens of regular folks as well. . . . He's opening a restaurant in Toronto, and it looks like it would be fun to visit. . . . (Howard's a vegetarian and a beer connoisseur.)

Multimedia artist Cathi Schwalbe-Bouzide, also known as the Corn Lady, comes from Chicago and I felt like I'd known her a long time, even though we'd just met. She grows corn in the city and keeps people surrounded by concrete aware of their agricultural heritage and the necessity of growing things. She's obviously having a great time with her art.

_________

Sunday morning, the farm-and-vegetable group of Artposium participants gathered at a grange way out on a mesa to cook lunch for fifty people under Howard's tutelage. Howard is not only a gifted culinary artist, he's a wonderful teacher.

Here's what he had to work with:

• sixteen people, ranging in skill level from those who had been told to stay out of the kitchen all their lives to someone who had run a catering business (most of us were in the middle)
• a grange kitchen with broken plastic colanders, not enough knives or other tools, and no really big pots
• a fridge where "keep cold" was implemented as "lightly freeze"
• just over three hours

So first we put all the food out and got oriented to how this would work: Howard said he was taking the day off and we would be doing the cooking. We did do the cooking, but he didn't exactly take the day off. We also got oriented to the health processes: which sinks we would wash our hands in, which were for washing food, which were for dishes, and how all the procedures needed to take place in each of those locations.

He divided us into three teams—five, five, and six people—and put each team in charge of two of the dishes that would be served. Everyone in the symposium would be arriving for lunch, for a total of about fifty people. The other participants were elsewhere for the morning, either learning how to make wine or making pear strudel.

My team was responsible for the carrot soup and the spaetzle.

On the main counter to the left of the sheet of paper was the working area for the savory tart (its team is shown in the photo above with Howard). To the right of the paper was prep area for the most complex of the salads. The soup-and-spaetzle team set up at the round table in the background, although we hadn't moved our stuff when I took this photo—our two quart bottles of malt liquor are still at the far end of the counter.

Here's what the kitchen looked like for most of the morning:

That's thirteen of the seventeen people all working in the same space simultaneously. I was taking a photo. The other two participants and Howard were over at the prep areas. The only person whose face you can see in this photo is Cathi Bouzide, the Corn Lady, who did get to prep the corn for the salad. Writer/presenter Katherine Leiner is in the red Dinner Stories apron. At front right is one of my team members, Ila Pound.

Come to think of it, the two missing participants are the rest of my team! They were a father-and-son pair. I must have ducked out to take a photo as a quick break from peeling and chopping carrots or mixing spaetzle dough. It took a really long time to mix enough spaetzle dough for fifty people.

So everyone's accounted for at the moment of that photo. And that's pretty much what the kitchen looked like for a solid three hours.

Finally it was time to lay out the feast.

Howard presented our dishes to the entire gathered group, from least complex (toward the kitchen) to most complex (foreground). Hmm: the spaetzle and the soup (black pot) are both at this end. The adjacent bowl is the ceviche, which was the only non-vegetarian dish. I think which dishes were placed where could be debated. That tart looked pretty complex (it's hiding in the middle).

Wait a minute! That was supposed to be six dishes, two per team, and at the finale we laid out nine dishes, going with the flow of what was available and how it fit together.

1. lentils with Moroccan spices
2. savory tart
3. heirloom tomatoes and olives
4. celery slaw
5. ceviche
6. carrot soup
7. spaetzle
8. salad with greens and colorful vegetables
9. medium-cooked eggs (really served as sort of a condiment: they were cooked fully, but the middles were the consistency of jelly)

Howard brought plans for each dish, but no recipes. We cooked by following our noses and tastebuds from the starting point to the finish line, with Howard's help along the way as we used unfamiliar ingredients—and familiar ones in unfamiliar ways.

Here's the centerpiece salad: greens, plus a lot of vegetables, many of which were lightly blanched to take off the raw edge (the yellow and red beets were gorgeous; this was also where Cathi's corn went):

Here's the celery slaw:

And the salad of heirloom tomatoes and good black olives:

I missed getting a photo of the Moroccan spiced lentils, but here's the savory tart with caramelized onions and other things—it was hard to tell what exactly was in it, but it was exquisite. It was topped with a pear compote:

That's the edge of our spaetzle at the right. Here's a better photo:

We cooked spaetzle in a little pot of boiling water all morning, batch after batch after batch. We were a lot better at cooking spaetzle at noon than we were at 10 a.m. It's purple because the liquid it was made with was purple carrot juice (the plan was to use beet juice, but that couldn't be found and purple carrot juice could). It was dressed with a reduction of butter and more purple carrot juice and dressed with herbs.

Here's our soup:

The soup is in two pots because we didn't have a single pot that was big enough. We started it by infusing olive oil with orange zest and star anise. While that was going on, we peeled carrots and cut them into chunks. We strained the flavoring agents out of the oil, added the carrots, and cooked them until they started to brown and caramelize. Then we added honey and malt liquor, along with some of the braising water from the vegetables for the main salad, and cooked until the carrots were soft. Next, we used a handheld blender to make the soup smooth . . . and poured the soup back and forth between the pots to blend the two batches.

I also missed getting a photo of the ceviche, other than the one above with the whole meal together, but here's my lunch (except for the ceviche, which didn't fit on a vegetarian plate; the eggs, which I helped prepare but didn't eat because I don't like eggs; and the pear strudel, which came later):

Everything there was truly delicious—while we were cooking, I wasn't so sure I was going to like the soup because of the malt liquor, but in the end it was subtle, complex, light, and tasty.

It's hard to say, though, which was better: eating the meal, or cooking it. Howard kept coming around and suggesting next steps and telling us we were doing a great job. So we did!

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm: Community Supported Agriculture for fiber folk

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm made it to the top ten in the Shine A Light award process, which I mentioned in my last post, although it was not among the three finalists. Because I can't imagine any more appropriate business to win this award, I'm guessing that in the final judges' review larger outfits with more traditionally defined communities got the edge.

In every regard that I can come up with, Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm is a clear winner. So I see its nomination as an opportunity for people within the textile world to vote for it in other ways that involve more than just a click of a mouse on a website, in ways that support the farm itself and also help spread the ideas that are coming out of MVFF.

Here's the gist: Susan Gibbs originated the idea of using the Community Supported Agriculture concept for a fiber-related enterprise—an idea that is absolutely brilliant, deserves to have the brightest of lights beamed on it, warrants huge direct support, and demonstrates a model that could, as I noted earlier this week, boost the chances for survival of rare breeds of sheep while introducing people who use fiber to materials they haven't had the opportunity to encounter. And more.

• Here's the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm nomination on the Shine A Light website.
• Here's the farm's own website.

Part of Susan's mix of animals are Cotswolds, which are one of the rare breeds. She also has Angora goats (which grow mohair), and Cormo and Babydoll Southdown sheep. Overall, a lovely spectrum of fiber qualities, combined with the critter personalities she likes to spend her time with. . . .

Those who are not involved with fiber production tend to think only of the final product. Those who are involved with it—and that includes the shareholders in MVFF who have, thanks to Susan, access to information about daily farm life and individual animals—know that the goats and sheep (and roosters: poke around the farm site) have both breed-based approaches to life—just as, say, chihuahas and Golden retrievers differ—and unique personalities. Small farmers in particular will select types of animals that are compatible with the life of a unique farm family, in addition to being able to contribute the desired crops, such as fiber.

Here's some of what's cool about what Susan is doing at MVFF:

• creating community around the farm, where participants share the risks and the benefits inherent in any agricultural pursuit
• developing a different, more viable, economic model
• setting up a "lambcam" and other resources so folks can stay in touch with what's happening at the farm
• helping other potential shepherds get started, by supplying animals and support
• consulting to folks who'd like to change their ways of doing business to be more rewarding in all regards, including economically
• providing a focal point for "Yarn Storming," where fiber people with excess stash share their abundance with people who are having trouble obtaining materials

There's more, even though that's already a lot. But stepping back to the central definition and the reason for this post. . . .

What's Community Supported Agriculture?

Community Supported Agriculture has evolved over the past 20 to 30 years as a type of business partnership that provides non-food-producing people with safe, local sources and gives farmers more stable markets. Farms that operate on this model are called CSAs. Members, or shareholders, pay in advance to participate for the year. This money provides the farm with operating cash when it's most needed: during planting and growing. At harvest time, the farm's production is divided between the members.

In our city, we have had CSAs for vegetables and fruits (and, as a bonus, flowers) for quite a few years. Our family participated in the first CSA in the state of Colorado. There are now at least half a dozen food-oriented CSAs of varying sizes operating nearby. They range from tiny to relatively huge. The biggest ones operate partly as CSAs and partly as suppliers to local restaurants and grocery stores, and the word "huge" still applies only in relation to other small businesses.

In this year of multiple hailstorms, one of the larger CSAs, a farm that escaped the worst of the battering, shared produce with the members of a smaller CSA that had its crops wiped out repeatedly by the weather. In addition to the connections among the people in each CSA, the CSA groups also choose to be part of a larger, mutually supportive community.

CSA and Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm

Applying the CSA idea to fiber took a bright idea, a leap of faith, and a bunch of creative work. It also sets up so many connections: between growers and fiber users, between people and animals, between humans and landscapes.

There are more wonderful things to say and share about MVFF than I have time or space to cover. Browse around the website for fun and a lot of great ideas.

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm offer shares for knitters/crocheters and for spinners. The flock includes Angora goats . . .

and the three breeds of sheep I mentioned:

• Cormos, which grow very fine, soft, long-stapled wool (ballpark 17-23 microns and 4 inches/10cm long).
• Babydoll Southdowns, which grow a wool that's on the fine side for the Down breeds (ballpark 23-31 microns and 3 inches/7.5cm). These are the variety of Southdown that is closest to the old-style breed, before industrial factors influenced development of the larger, commercial Southdowns.
• Cotswolds, one of the classic (and rare) longwool breeds (ballpark 33-42 microns and 8-10 inches/15-20cm).

Here's a quote from the website: "[A] Yarn CSA share makes a great gift for all the knitters and crocheters in your life. If you’re a spinner you can purchase a 'spinner’s share' in the form of raw fleece or roving. Our farm practices humane animal husbandry, we are 'predator friendly' and none of our animals are ever sold for meat."

Here's one of the secrets of being "predator friendly":

If you're not up for a share just now, don't want to wait for next year, or the shares have all been sold alerady (each CSA has a limited size . . . there's plenty of room for more CSAs!), the shop has yarns, needle-felted sheep, wool-filled pet beds, and other treats.

It's all about relationships

When I first mentioned the idea of CSAs as a way to provide more financial stability and incentive for people who are raising endangered breeds of sheep, one friend suggested that I could do this, setting up a system where I'd coordinate the purchase of shares by fiber folk, would channel money to the growers, and would send out shares of wool at shearing time.

This is a perfectly valid small business idea, and a fine one at that, but it wouldn't be what I'm talking about. I'm not the grower. I would be just another business standing in the middle between the producers and the shareholders. I couldn't offer the direct relationships which are key to the success of CSAs. (I've also got a few other commitments taking up my days . . . and nights!)

CSAs are about people helping people, not just providing a product (however fair trade, local, or sustainable). They're about our understanding with some immediacy (even when carried out through the internet) our interactions with the natural world, including specific places and living beings. They're about sharing the risks involved in producing farm products, and also about sharing the pleasures and the bounty. They're about connections between unique, identified, people and animals.

Even a large CSA will be small by today's business standards. One of the exciting things about them is spreading the idea. Our local veggie-and-fruit CSAs have helped each other get started and grow, and also, as we've seen this year, have helped each other smooth over some weather-inflicted rough spots.

While a CSA has to operate successfully as an economic entity, Susan Gibbs at MVFF has given animals to others who want to start growing fiber. She also provides consulting services to farmers who want help with creative ideas that will set up new relationships between people and make life more rewarding and enjoyable for everyone involved. She does, and should, charge for providing that help—her experience can shorten other folks' path to forming more nurturing communities and more solid financial arrangements.

So let's take this opportunity to shine a BRIGHT, BRIGHT light on Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm! It's a winner in all the ways that matter.

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Images copyright © Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. Used by permission.

A foray into California to see long-time friends

I'm still on the road back from Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon. It's quite the trip.

Since I needed to be in southern Oregon, I looked at the map and traced out the possibilities of getting into northern California to see spinner/weaver/dyer/multifiberist Stephenie Gaustad and master wheelmaker (among other things) Alden Amos. I haven't seen them in way too many years. I tried to get a visit in last year, but the mileage and timing didn't work at all. This time . . . well, what's a few hundred miles and another day?

These posts will continue to be long on photos and short on words. I've been doing a lot of looking. The constant variations in the landscape fascinate me.

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In transit

Welcome to California. STOP: "Are you transporting any fresh fruit?"

 

Lovely rest stop:

 

(I should have taken a comparison one in Nevada two days later, but I didn't stick around long enough there.)

Mount Shasta:

I've also been looking at a lot of this:

 

The driving has been amazingly pleasant, except for within a certain radius of Sacramento. Drivers became precipitous and rude. Wound way too tight. I was there about 3 in the afternoon but they acted like they had been dealing with both rush hour and construction zones indefinitely. I revamped my route on the spot and took a longer road that got me out of there faster.

It also took me past this:

 

I didn't know until I saw Alden that this is Rancho Seco, a nuclear plant that has been decommissioned. I found the sight of the cooling towers above the vineyards disturbing. Apparently, the area is now a park. (I also saw a pair of cooling towers while driving in southwest Washington, but I can't figure out what site they were. Washington's nuclear sites have been elsewhere in the state, and although I could have seen something that large in Oregon the Trojan site's single cooling tower was demolished in 2006.)

About then, I was wondering where the heck Stephenie and Alden lived, and why they lived there, and whether adding this piece to my trip was such a good idea. . . .

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Hurray!

Fortunately, the Dragonfly Farms (Stephenie and Alden) part of the state of California is delightful.

 

I got a tour of the studios and workshops, where both Stephenie and Alden craft the tools to do fine textile work (and do a lot of fine textile work, and bookbinding as well). I got to watch Alden shape the accelerating wheel for a banjo charkha (lathe work, done freehand).

Supper was exquisite—a multi-bean soup with fresh garlic, a mix of zucchini and hominy, and pineapple-lime juice—and since the topic had come up we watched the 1935 Max Reinhardt version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (with James Cagney as Bottom, Mickey Rooney as Puck, and Olivia de Havilland as Hermia).

Then we stayed up later than any of us usually do, talking and spinning (I got to spin on Stephenie's bull-pup, and on two lovely little tahkli spindles, both of local fabrication). I was so tired I was drafting with the hand I don't usually use to draft and figured that I was just exhausted and haven't spun cotton in a while. . . . I figured out later, in the middle of sleeping, that I'd been drafting with my less agile hand. . . . Considering that, I'd done pretty well!

In the morning, we looked at textiles that required magnification to be fully appreciated. I hope to have more posts on that later, although I need to figure out how to get pictures of really tiny stuff.

Anything I say about Stephenie and Alden is inadequate, except that I'm so glad I got to see them. Even after too many years, we picked up just where we'd been, or better. . . .