The Independent Stitch

KDTV: Washing wool

I still need to write the third post about the numbers in The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, but I'm prepping to teach at Madrona and it's all-consuming.

Yet here's a loooooong post that was published on the Knitting Daily TV site today. I'm taking the unusual step of presenting it here as well, because it involved a lot of work and because I want to alert my blog readers that if they go to the KDTV site and leave a comment by noon Central Time on Monday, February 13, they might win some Unicorn Fibre Wash, Unicorn Fibre Rinse, and Unicorn Power Scour.

I've just watched the KDTV video segment on cleaning wool, and considering that host Eunny Jang and I work entirely unscripted and that I wasn't able to get the specific background information I wanted from some sources in time for the taping, I think we did a pretty darn good job. (You may notice my slight discomfort in the situation because of the number of vocal pauses―um―in this segment. I need to learn to relax and trust that I do know enough about fibers to fill a five-minute spot on the spur of the moment, even when I didn't get the info I wanted!)

Anyway, this post contains useful information about cleaning wool. My study of the topic has come up with even more cool stuff that I'll need to write up another time.

I really like the Unicorn products. I'm not paid to say that—not paid here, not paid when I appear in the KDTV episodes that they sponsor, and not paid for the ad they've been running—although Unicorn has helped out with my research by sending me Power Scour to use once they figured out that I think it's great and am happy to say so.

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Washing wool

I love washing wool, whether it's fleece I'm going to spin, a newly finished garment whose beauty will be revealed after its first bath-and-blocking, or a loyal garment that has earned refreshment.

Freshly shorn wool may be the most fun to wash, because of its dramatic transformation. The grease that coats the fibers when the sheep is using the fleece to keep herself warm through the winter is still soft, resilient, and relatively easy to remove. I think of the animal, freshly released from this seasonally necessary burden to enjoy the spring air (and to begin growing next winter's blanket), and I think of the fabrics I will make from her hand-me-downs to keep other beings cosy in the future.

Even long-stored fleece can be rewarding to put through the washing process, which releases it from a stiff accompaniment of old grease and dust. Although it's best to wash wool soon after shearing, in part because moths especially savor the "extras" that are removed when the fiber is cleaned, as long as you can keep pests away you can safely store wool for many years.

Here's Emma's fleece when she was done with it, on its first trip into the warm water that begins my washing process:

• START OF CYCLE, when the wool has ONLY been soaked in warm water. The dark brown in the center tray is water soluble dirt and suint, formerly in the wool that's in the tray on the right. The wool in the tray on the left is still soaking.

It's easy to imagine that Emma would want to start over with fresh growth!

Emma is a Leicester Longwool sheep, a breed known for its long, shiny, strong fiber. The beauty of the wool becomes apparent after about two hours of soaking in a series of baths, beginning and ending with plain-water versions, and with two or three in the middle that are infused with a washing agent.

 

 

• END OF CYCLE after use of washing aid. Again, the tray of wool on the right has been pulled out of the center tray, and the one on the left awaits draining. You'll notice some color variation still in the wool. It's all clean, however. This cycle consisted of (1) two plain-water rinses, (2) two soaks with washing aid, and (3) two plain-water rinses. Each bath was 20 minutes long, for a total of two hours of washing, although my active involvement only occurred at each transition point, removing the upper draining tray, changing the solution, and re-immersing the fiber. All water temperatures were standard-issue from the household system, which is not set to be exceptionally hot—about 135°F.

I've described the details of my washing process elsewhere. Today I want to talk briefly about the transition from dirty to clean, mostly for fleece but also for garments.

 

These are both Emma's wool, from the same shearing: as shorn (dirty) on the left and after its trip through my bathtub (clean) on the right.

Washing or scouring?

Washing is what I just talked about. The process of cleaning raw wool is also sometimes called scouring, a term used in industry to include the removal of all contaminants from wool―scouring is "washing plus."

What might the contaminants in wool be? I say might because not every fleece will have all of these, and each fleece will have contaminants in differing types and proportions.

The big three, present to some extent in every fleece, are:

• wool wax or wool grease
• suint
• dirt

Wool wax or grease is not water-soluble. It provides a protective coating, and, in general, the finer the wool the more grease it contains. It's the hardest of the three main contaminants to remove. That's the point for the sheep! It shouldn't be easy to remove!

Suint (think "sweat") is water-soluble―even in cold water. When we're washing wool, it's the easiest contaminant to get rid of.

Dirt is soil, and can be dust or mud. It can be sandy, or full of clay, or may correspond to any of the gardener's or farmer's other options, and it can be easy or hard to remove, although most of it isn't too bad. (Clay, of course, is most difficult, as it seems to be for growing plants where I live.)

Vegetable matter (or VM) is another contaminant that comes in many varieties. For hand processing, VM isn't, for the most part, removed during the washing sequence and its evaluation and management is a topic for another day. In industrial processing, treatment to remove VM occurs during the scouring sequence and involves a delicate sequence of chemical and mechanical maneuvers to get the plant material out without damaging the wool―a different topic for another day (although I talk about it some in the KDTV segment).

Some other contaminants―like dung tags, urine stains, marker dye, and insects―should have been removed before the fleece ever reached the washing or scouring stage.

What to use as a washing aid?

For the intermediate steps of cleaning wool, whether raw or spun or made into fabric, we have many choices in washing aids. I've used a number of them over the years. At this point, I have several criteria for the agent that I use. Oddly, they all start with E!

I want it to be effective, efficient to use, economical, and as environmentally benign as possible.

That means that I look for a washing assistant that

• is concentrated so I don't need to use large quantities
• creates minimal suds (which are hard to rinse out, wasting both time and water)
• does not subject the wool to significant and potentially damaging pH shifts
• works at moderate heat levels even for fine wools (in order to reduce the potential of fiber damage, and so I don't have to be boiling water or otherwise wasting energy)
• cleans by bonding with the waxy or greasy particles, drawing them off the fiber and into the water so they can be rinsed away, instead of being knocked off through agitation (which can result in unintended felt, as well as more work for me)
• does not involve enzymes (which continue to be chemically active even after they've been discarded) and
• contains no ingredients classified as toxic.

I now use washing agents that are specially formulated for use with wool.

Dishwashing detergents and shampoos create annoying amounts of suds. I'd rather avoid the perfumes and colorants that many cosmetic products contain—and they suds a lot, too. Laundry detergents often contain brighteners, enzymes, and other ingredients I consider extraneous at best and damaging at worst. Some components of laundry detergents are actually designed to break down proteins (to get out stains like blood or egg), and animal-source natural fibers are also proteins. It is interesting to check these products' Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) or, for some items, the information in the Household Products Database maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ("Inside the Home" and "Personal Care" categories).

I wash all my natural animal fibers at between 50 and 60°C (120 and 140°F), preferably on the lower end. Wool wax, the stickiest contaminant to remove, melts at 35–40°C (95–104°F) and damage to protein fibers can occur at higher temperatures. The length of time that fiber is exposed to high temperatures, and the pH of the environment, matter a great deal. Dyeing fibers involves balancing these factors in exchange for a rainbow.

Undyed handspun Leicester Longwool samples.

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A practical footnote and a random fact

Footnote
Here's a quick note about washing fine wools in their raw form: When wool wax is dissolved, its chemical composition changes. If the temperature of the bath cools, the grease can be redeposited on the fiber as a scum that can be substantially more difficult to remove than it was in its original form.

Random fact
Lanolin is produced from a portion of the wool grease recovered from scouring liquid.

Two excellent resources

Simpson, W. S., and G. H. Crawshaw. Wool: Science and Technology. Boca Raton, FL, and Cambridge, England: CRC Press Woodhead, 2002.

von Bergen, Werner. Wool Handbook: A Text and Reference Book for the Entire Wool Industry. 3d enl. ed. New York: Interscience Publishers, 1963.
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Swatch knitted from yarn grown by Emma's Leicester Longwool flock mates, commercially spun.

For more on Leicester Longwool sheep, see "On the Edge: How a Handful of People Have Preserved Some Rare, Valuable Sheep and Their Wools," PieceWork, November/December 2011. Or, of course, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. And Leicester Longwool will be one of the breeds I'm including in the Explore 4 retreat in Friday Harbor, Washington, in March! Yes, that's why I have been washing Emma's wool. We'll be working with it. (Curious? Download Explore-4_2012 PDF)

KDTV - I've never embedded a video before

I have one more post on The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook's numbers to write, but I'm up past my ears in prepping to teach at Madrona. I have three of the five handouts prepared. I can do the slide shows while I'm traveling, because they don't need to be printed. I do have templates for the workshops I teach, but I never know what breeds will be included in the workshop materials until the last minute. So . . . the work has to happen shortly before the event.

Meanwhile, KDTV has been releasing on the web the episodes from the new series, which is 800. I recorded three segments last September, of which I've now seen two.

One is on yarns that pill. I spent a chunk of the summer knitting and "distressing" swatches. Assuming I can figure out how to embed the video, here's how that piece came out.

 

Another segment which I enjoyed doing is the one on yak. There's a lot to know about yak. When I researched for the book, I found a lot of great information. Some of the neatest facts ended up in this short KDTV spot.

 

And now I have another handout to get to work on. I'm even skipping the monthly ukulele group meeting this morning because I'm feeling far enough behind to need every minute.

(There was an unexpected addition to the Madrona schedule this week, relating to the charity-knitting event that is coordinated by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I can't believe I agreed to do what I agreed to do. However, it's for a good cause. It did take a full day to put together—with some work yet to come, which my daughter has offered to help with. I hope she wasn't kidding. Anyway, that set me behind on the prep for the workshops.)

Hoping the videos embed successfully. The first time I tried, I discovered that if I previewed the post, nothing showed up where they were supposed to be. While bashing around trying to figure out what to do differently, I came up with two other solutions. They both seem to work. I used different methods for each of the videos. We'll see what happens.

For series 800 I did one other segment, which I was least satisfied with when we were in the studio and I haven't seen yet. (Okay, I'll come right out and say it: I was so dissatisfied with it that I flew home thinking, "I will never again do another TV segment. On anything. Ever.") I'm writing a blog post for KDTV on the same topic (it will be up next week), so I'll feel like I've provided some useful information, which I didn't feel like I'd done in the studio situation. The producer was happy with what went on for that segment. I was not. I can figure out how to embed that video, but I'm not ready to!

In all of these, I think I look strange in studio makeup. When you meet me in person, I am highly unlikely to look like this. I made the mistake of showing the wonderful friend who cuts my hair a photo from the studio. He said, "Wow, you should do that every day!"

NO WAY. I'd rather write, spin, read, or take the dogs for an extra walk.

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That took longer than it should have. First you have to figure out how to embed the stuff. Then you have to figure out how to make it display correctly within the blog. I didn't succeed the first time. Or the second. Final assessment: marginally okay. Giving up for now, though.

Playing with yarn

I'm acquiring and preparing fibers and yarns for upcoming workshops. The amount of up-front work, and its complex nature, is one reason I only accept a small number of teaching opportunities each year. (Over the course of 2012, I'll be teaching in Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, California, Alberta, and Michigan.)

First up is the Madrona Winter Retreat, from February 16 to 19 in Tacoma, Washington. At Madrona, some of my classes have filled, but others have a few openings; there are sessions for both spinners and knitters, as well as for people who are interested in publishing their fiber work. I'll also be doing an informal clinic, and giving a talk on Saturday night at the banquet.

Here's what I've been up to in getting ready for just two of my seven Madrona offerings. These are yarn-based classes (rather than fiber-based ones). One is Understanding Breed-Specific Yarns and the other is Introduction to Rare-Breed Wools.

My first challenge is to determine which breeds will be covered—in other words, what I can find appropriate yarns for. I want to make sure that each class has a variety of types of wools, and, in this case, that the breeds covered in the two classes are all different, in case anyone wants to take both. (There will be no repeated breeds.) Although I ask people to bring a variety of sizes of needles for swatching, I try to find yarns for sampling that are within a fairly narrow range of weights. This can be challenging, because these artisan yarns often only come in one or two weights. I aim for sport or DK, and I settle, when necessary, for worsted or aran.

With one exception, all of the yarns are undyed, because I want to keep the emphasis on the fiber qualities. We are so easily seduced by lovely colors! They can obscure our perceptions of what the fiber itself is like. (The one dyed fiber wasn't available undyed at the moment when I ordered, and I decided I wanted to include it anyway. As it turns out, the dye effect—which happens to be lovely—will offer a chance to include an extra instructional point. It will earn its keep.)

I order the yarns and they start arriving.

I wind skeins into balls.

I go back and forth with one producer about what's been happening with her production runs, which are not meeting her standards, and she sends samples and we converse at some length before making decisions about which option I'll obtain for the classes. Because of the issues involved, I need to redesign part of the class plan and figure a different way to demonstrate the point I wanted to make. Her yarns will be there. My point will get made. Those two goals just won't happen in conjunction with each other.

Another source never replies to my inquiry, although that's unusual. I do have to find another supplier for that breed's yarn, because I'm determined to include it.

More yarns arrive.

I wind more skeins into balls.

When it's time to visit family for the holidays, I take yarn with me and during in-between moments I begin to prepare the sample kits for class participants. When I'm ready to fly home, I have a duffel that doesn't have anything but yarn in it, and all of that yarn is workshop-ready.

Unzipping it causes a minor explosion (the packs below those on the surface are still compressed).

There's more yarn waiting for me at home.

I count the samples. I count the breeds. I compare the lists of what I have to the lists of what I meant to have.

The participants in Understanding Breed-Specific Yarns (workshop is full) will be treated to:

• Black Welsh Mountain
• Border Leicester
• Cormo
• Corriedale
• Gotland
• Herdwick
• Icelandic
• Romney
• Suffolk

Those in the Introduction to Rare-Breed Wools (which has a space or two! - edited to add: full again; one of my  followers on Twitter, where I'm @effortlesszone, snagged what was apparently one spot released by someone with a change of plans—it had sold out on the first day) will discover:

• Cotswold
• Karakul
• Leicester Longwool
• Manx Loaghtan
• Navajo-Churro
• North Ronaldsay
• Shropshire
• Tunis
• Wensleydale

The only problem with this type of work is that for every breed whose samples I prepare, I not only want to keep the yarn for myself but to order more and make a whole project. However, I remind myself what a delight it is to introduce other fiber folk to all the possibilities that breed-specific yarns open up for them. Still, with each option that runs through my fingers I find myself imagining all the things I could make with it. . . .

Those are just a few of the bags of prepared yarn. I have just over 400 samples wound and ready to go, and last night I printed out the corresponding information cards that I'll give to the people in the workshop to help them keep track of what they're experiencing.

That's just for two classes, and short ones at that. Next I need to be sure that the fibers for the Madrona spinning workshop are ready; get moving on washing two fleeces (and making final selections for two more) for Explore 4 (there's another note about this event below); and begin the selection and acquisition processes for Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which will follow before long (I've been completing paperwork for Maryland this week: lots of details).

Oh, and now that I know which breeds will be in the Madrona line-ups, I can start putting together the background material: the slides and the handouts.

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Internet radio interview

Meanwhile, yesterday I was interviewed on an internet radio show about the article that I wrote for the November/December issue of PieceWork magazine, called "On the Edge: How a Handful of People Have Preserved Some Rare, Valuable Sheep and Their Wools." The show, broadcast live, is Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski. Mark is an energetic, opinionated, outspoken host and I only hoped I could keep up with him! The show is two hours long and I was the second guest, beginning about 45 minutes into the program. It was fun, and the results are available now as a podcast.

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Early

Veering toward a completely different topic, Tuesday morning shortly after I got up I noticed that the light outside had a very warm quality to it. I looked out the window and noticed we were having an especially beautiful sunrise, so I grabbed my camera and ran out front in my pajamas to see if I could catch it to share.

This was 7:20 a.m.:

And by 8:30 a.m., just over an hour later, the same view had acquired its more normal winter coloration:

I'm glad I didn't miss the show!

Come to think of it, that's sort of how I feel about breed-specific and generic wool yarns. The generic ones are lovely, reliable, and nice to work with. I wouldn't be without them.

But the breed-specific ones are something else.

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Explore 4

A month after Madrona comes the Explore 4 Retreat in Friday Harbor, Washington (March 10-16). It's a fiber-based event, for spinners at all levels beyond the basic skills of spinning and plying.

Most of the workshops I offer are surveys, in which we cover a lot of ground really fast. They're fun and energizing.

Explore 4 will will be quite different, providing an unusual opportunity to relax and go into more depth with fleeces from four carefully selected breeds. I'll share more of the process of preparing for that event as we go along here. Registrations have been arriving in clusters as people hear about it through various channels (all word-of-mouth, in this case), but there are still some spaces available.

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And now it's time to make another checklist.

Kristi's Nourishing (Nibbles and) Knits

During my years as an editor at Interweave Press, I didn't have time to participate in any fiber groups—other than those that naturally arose as part of work, which were more task-oriented than social. I still don't have a lot of time. So I'm especially happy to have found, a number of years ago, a particular knitting group. We meet one night a week. We have no scheduled activities. We show up, we knit, we talk, we occasionally vent, we often laugh, we go home. Oh, yes, we also eat. Because we start showing up at 6 and hang out until at least 8, maybe 9 or later, we do have food around, although it's not planned.

This is the group that supported me through the research, spinning, and writing of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, although most often—unless deadlines were just too imminent—I'd take my R&R knitting, like the Ink sweater. When I showed up with my spinning wheel, these good folks would know that I was seriously scrambling. I'm grateful for the ongoing and unqualified friendship of each individual and of the cluster that includes us all.

(Four folks are missing from that picture: Kristi Schueler, who took the photos of the group at our gathering last week; Dee, whose dining room we refer to as "the clubhouse"; Irene, who participates more often in the summer; and Ashley, who now occasionally commutes from her new job in California. Present are Kathryn, Amanda—who can be recognized as one of the models in Nourishing Knits—Sarah, me, and Rebekah. Rebekah's wearing her first completed knitting project, a blue wool pullover with a cable motif on the front.)

This group has also informally supported another recent project during its development: Kristi's Nourishing Knits: 24 Projects to Gift and Entertain. This electronic book contains a dozen knitting projects and a dozen (well, a generous dozen) recipes. The yarn-related and kitchen-based components are paired, with stories about each. Kristi is a gifted knit designer, recipe deviser, and photographer (she took the author photo of me that's on the back of Fleece and Fiber). We watched the development of the patterns and we taste-tested the recipes, sometimes in multiple iterations (from yum to WOW).

In the next photo there's Dee, pouring the spice tea that makes our world go 'round. (Recognize the sweater I'm wearing? Sarah's working on a Swirl, and has actually figured out how many stitches are in each section, as well as a total, and gives us reports on her status. She's an engineer. Dee's working on a Swirl of her own, and being an accountant has prepared a spreadsheet and revised some calculations: her work-in-progress is on the table in front of her. I think Kathryn is knitting socks. Rebekah is making another sweater. I have no idea what I'm knitting. I may have ripped it out. No, I think it might be a Christmas present that will be ready by spring.)

In addition to providing perspective, useful and not, on Kristi's knitting designs, we have joyfully contributed reliable feedback on her kitchen adventures. In the reddish glass by Kathryn and on the plate in front of Sarah are a few remaining saffron pastries that Kristi brought last week. They were absolutely scrumptious: not too sweet, delicately flavored, satisfying.

Nourishing Knits contains lots of options of the knitterly and cooking varieties. I subscribed to the early version of the book, so I've been getting updates as things progressed. Now it's finished, and I have the whole thing! You can, too. It's currently available only through Ravelry, the online knitting community (free memberships), but Kristi is working on a landing page on her website as well so non-Ravelry folks can get it.

One of the patterns in the book is "Guided by Love," a sock design constructed on one of Cat Bordhi's architectures so that pawprints go spiraling from the toe area up to the cuff, with "guided by love" added in braille beadwork around the top of the sock. (Note: Designing pawprints in lace is no small accomplishment. I've done it, independently. Getting the components to line up correctly takes a lot of trial and error. Kristi's standards for how things will work are really high.) Early sales of this pattern earned $1400 in donations for The Seeing EyeTM. The accompanying recipe is for Bow Wow Biscotti, dog treats that were tested by Kristi's dogs. . . .

very sweet Emma, who will, if she knows you pretty well and you don't look at her directly, let you pat her:

and spicy Brandon, a more recent addition to the household:

as well as our dogs, Ceilidh (with some of the yarn for Dee's Swirl). . . .

and Tussah, who, like the others, doesn't get fed people food but is hoping for a pup-biscotti:

. . . plus Amanda's and Sarah's dogs, and maybe some others as well. Everybody's been involved in Kristi's book, at least at the tasting level. All of the dogs shown here are rescues. Being rescued to test Kristi's dog treats is a pretty good deal for a dog.

Looking over the finished product of Kristi's book brings back lovely memories for me. The patterns and food ideas in it have been carefully selected to create similar fine memories for you.

Because it can be hard to know where to start, I'll pick out four of my favorite patterns and recipes.

Although I like and would knit all the patterns, the specific designs that I personally would be happy to cast on for immediately, and be working on by tonight, include:

• "Buttercream," elbow-height hand and arm warmers with twisted-stitch patterning and shaped thumbs
• "Challah," warm warm comfort socks
• "Masala," unique slippers, and
• "Ciabatta," a sweater to steal from the guys

I'd revisit all the recipes. Yet the ones I want to make this week are:

• Savory Pesto Cheesecake, even though I don't like cheesecake! (it pleases cheesecake lovers and non-lovers alike)
• Smoky Sweet Pumpkin Seeds, which I should warn everyone are addictive
• Chai Concentrate, created in the spirit of a local restaurant's exquisite brew
• Pumpkin Fig Muffins, not too sweet, great texture, nice gingery punch, and
• Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili—this stuff is awesome, worth the price of the whole collection

Oops, it turns out I can't limit myself to just four.

Hmmmm. . . . They must have tested the Antipasti Bread Pudding while I was doing something out of town. I'll have to experiment with that one on my own.

Another plus of this book is that Kristi talks about her design processes, for both yarns and foods, and offers suggestions for modifying and principles for diverging from the written instructions. She's aware of allergy issues; likes whole, unadulterated foods; and is vegetarian-friendly.

Both patterns and recipes would be appropriate for the run-up to the holidays (even, for some of them, at this late date), but are also prime candidates for cheering up January, February, and mud-slushy-stormy March. And on beyond that. Check out Nourishing Knits. You'll be glad you did.

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Photos by Kristi Schueler, © 2011 and used by permission. / I purchased my subscription copy of Nourishing Knits.

Blue sweater, Ink sweater

This is the story of a sweater that began in the middle of the 1970s, when I bought a few skeins of blue superwash yarn (superwash was relatively new then) and knitted a simple sweater with lace patterning and raglan shaping that I've been wearing fall/winter/spring ever since. That sweater has definitely earned its keep in my wardrobe, and is still a favorite. However, it has been showing its age. (Again.)

The next part of the story began at Sock Summit 2009. I was teaching and helping another teacher and had very little time to spend in the alluring marketplace. Yet as I walked past the market booths, moving at warp speed for somewhere I needed to be, a table at the end of a row caught my attention and I veered off-course to take a quick closer look. It was covered with beautiful colorways of hand-dyed yarn. I picked up the one that drew me most strongly, and was caught short by the label.

It said "Color: Ink for Deborah." Not only was it gorgeous, it had my name on it. Further study was obviously in order, despite wherever I needed to be.

The booth contained Karin Maag-Tanchak's Periwinkle Sheep offerings. The table that had stopped me short was filled with a set of special colorways she had dyed for Sock Summit, one for each of the participants in the Luminary Panel that would be taking place on Sunday. This was my color.

I'd never had a color before. Especially one that was called "Ink," bringing together all the knitting and publishing and writing that I have done, and continue to do, in a subtly variegated way that mingled a lot of my favorite shades. Sometimes I feel very scattered between all these activities, in addition to the need to earn a living. The yarn said to me, "It's all one, and it's definitely you."

I didn't know Karin. The whole thing seemed a touch magical. After having finished the whatever-it-was that I was scheduled to do when I went skimming along the edges of the market, I went back and bought a skein from the person who was assisting Karin, who was then on a break. Later I went back for a quick visit to tell Karin how much I liked the yarn, and she gave me a skein. (Apparently each Luminary was in line for a free skein, but the assistant hadn't known that, and also didn't have any reason to suspect that I had any special interest in the yarn I was buying, other than being a random person who thought it was pretty.)

I took the snapshot of one of my two skeins, opened out, shortly after Sock Summit, when I was at a family gathering that took place not far from Portland. The question I had begun to face, of course, was what to make with the yarn. At that point, I had two skeins. The more I looked at it, the more I liked the colorplay (as well as the colorway). I knew I would need to make something other than socks, even though I now had enough yarn for two pairs of regular socks or a nice pair of knee socks. Merino socks and I do not have long-term relationships. I tend to walk around either barefoot or wearing socks without shoes, and my feet behave like they belong to someone who walks around barefoot a lot. I need sturdy sock yarns.

When I got home, I contacted Karin to see if she had any "Ink" left. She had a few skeins. I bought four more, for a total of six. That would be enough for a sweater. Then lots and lots of other work intervened (mostly intense attention to The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook), although I kept looking at and thinking about the "inky" yarn. I wanted to make something I would wear frequently.

The following winter, I noticed that the previously mentioned favorite garment, knitted when I lived in Port Townsend, Washington, needed mending again. It had already had its cuffs re-knitted twice because of wear. I'd patched some other spots, too. Now new locations were showing holes, and this rude type of disintegration was the sort that is harder to fix than just re-knitting cuffs, or re-securing the neck facing, or tightening and re-fastening a broken strand.

Calculating from when I lived in Port Townsend, the sweater was at least 32 years old and probably more like 35. It might actually be time to think about constructing its successor. Perhaps the Ink yarn would be appropriate. The original yarn was a worsted weight of unknown breed, in a heathery, grayed blue. The new yarn was a superwash sock or fingering weight of Merino, in a subtly variegated brighter blue with bits of purple here and there.

I could not in any way duplicate the first sweater, but there was potential here for continuing in the same spirit.

So I began to consider why I liked, and used, this sweater so much.

The original:

Although I was tempted to think in terms of more complex and sophisticated structures, I enjoy the simplicity of this garment. It's plain 1/1 ribbing, and a basic raglan shape. The neckline is not shaped, so neither side is the front or back. It goes on correctly any way I grab it.

Yet within that simplicity resides a nice set of details. The body and sleeves are worked in the round, with an even number of repeats of the pattern in each of those sections. (This means the increases, for both body and sleeves, all occur in the final row of the ribbing. Both sleeves and body are worked straight from ribbing to underarm.) Although this part isn't entirely clear from the photo, the patterns match up along the raglan decreases, and because I worked partial repeats of the Horseshoe lace pattern, the design goes right up to the edge of the decreases. (It doesn't look that way in the photo, and I'm not sure what happened with the image, but the actual sweater does have partial repeats at the points where things look blurry along the raglan lines.) I found the original pattern in a 1970s issue of something like Woman's Day or Family Circle. I don't recall having modified the instructions, but I might have. I suspect the attention to partial repeats was my contribution; that sort of pickiness is hard to write into a published pattern that needs to convey enough information for multiple sizes.

I thought about using a Horseshoe lace pattern again, but it didn't seem like the right choice for this yarn, for reasons I can't completely explain. I felt a slight sense of anticipatory boredom when I considered it, even though I thought I could knit another type of Horseshoe-lace project (say, a blanket) in an instant, if that pattern felt like the right match for the yarn. I've learned to pay attention to even a hint of boredom in the design process and to quickly discard the idea that evoked it.

Yet lace felt like the right direction to be going to maintain the qualities I'd enjoyed in the original sweater.

I find leaf-lace patterns especially appealing, so I cruised my books for options and swatched several. The one I settled on was pattern 22 in Nihon Vogue's Knitting Patterns Book 300. I was partly charmed by the alternation between the smooth and textured edges of the leaves. While I was swatching, I thought about "fixing" them to match, and then decided that I liked the hint of two different types of leaves, with both rough and smooth edges, in one design. It reminds me pleasantly of working through tree identification books ("Are the leaves alternating or opposite? Are their edges smooth or sawtoothed or lobed?").

I measured the old sweater, then compared its dimensions to the raglan sweater proportions in Knitting in the Old Way. This sweater's sleeves are narrower than the percentages presented in Knitting in the Old Way. On other occasions, the additional ease in the proportions from Knitting in the Old Way would be what I'd want. But since I'd decided to replicate the old sweater, I decided to stick with its measurements. I calculated pattern repeats, thought ahead to the sleeve joins when I picked my cast-on number, and began.

I started with the sleeves. It's always handy to check out a pattern with a sleeve, because it acts like an extra-large swatch. Plus if I do the sleeves first, then when I reach the underarm on the body I'm immediately ready to join all the sweater parts and work the yoke area. I always feel like I've gotten a jump start when I've finished the sleeves. I completed them, and then began the body. Here's what the body of the sweater looked like last February:

I was on a ferry between Friday Harbor, Washington, and Seattle when I took that snapshot. I can tell because the photo carries the right date, because some of the Washington State ferries have bench seats in that color, and because some ferries also have linoleum flooring in the pattern that shows in the corner of the snapshot. So I was working on sweater 2 not far from where I'd made sweater 1. I like that part of the world a lot.

Much deadline-knitting and writing and teaching and traveling and other responsibilities slowed my progress, but it was always a treat to come back to the sweater, wherever and whenever I found myself with a few moments to work on it. When I reached the joining point—when I put both sleeves and the body together in one big loop and began to knit the yoke—I had to decide what to do about the raglan decrease areas. I decided to work the pattern as close as possible to the decrease points, and not to have a column of plain knit stitches run up those lines, in the way that had pleased me so much on the earlier sweater. This was an on-the-fly decision, made while looking at the fabric in front of me and deciding what I thought would work best for it. I was prepared to rip back to the joining area if I didn't like how it was looking after a few inches. I evaluated and pressed on.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I reached the neckline. After wavering for a bit—Should I shape the neckline after all? It seemed like a dereliction of my design duties to leave it completely unshaped—I stuck to my original plan, knitted twice as much ribbing at the top as I wanted in the neckband, folded the extra to the inside, and tacked it in place, making my stitches loose enough that they would expand along with the ribbing when I pulled the sweater over my head but not so loose that the stitching would snag on anything. I washed the sweater and laid it out on towels to dry and find its destined shape.

When I put it on. . . .

it worked just fine.

How do sweaters 1 and 2 differ? The original sweater was made of worsted weight yarn at 20 stitches to 4 inches (10 cm), or 5 stitches to the inch (2.5 cm). The Ink sweater is fingering weight yarn, at 30 stitches to 4 inches (10 cm), or 7.5 stitches to 1 inch (2.5 cm). Sweater 2 doesn't have sweater 1's neatly angled raglan lines, but I did get pattern connections along the decrease area that please me equally well: the raglan joins meander back and forth with the leaf patterning and are almost invisible. There's more depth to the patterning in #2, and the yarn is livelier, so the result is more sculptural. Sweater 2 is slightly warmer than sweater 1 was, even though it's made of significantly lighter-weight yarn.

Similarities include the ease of wearing, the extra-long sleeves (I like my sleeves on the long side), the practical goes-either-way neckline, and the fact that I like it a lot.

It comes as no surprise to me that I'm wearing the sweater today.

Those aren't pictures from today, though. The pictures were taken a few days ago. Today we have a bunch of snow on the ground. The sweater works for both sets of conditions.

Sweater 1 can now take a well-deserved rest.

The previous photos have all been taken in sunshine. I like colors that shift slightly depending on the light in which they're seen, and the dyes on this yarn fall into that category.

There's one more photo I need to show, and this one was taken inside, without the brightening sunlight. I snapped it when I was cleaning my pen. The container holds water along with fountain-pen ink, dissolved from the nib that's soaking.

Could it be more a more perfect match?

Gove City Yarns

So I was driving along I-70 eastbound, headed for the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's annual meeting, looking for an excuse to get off the big highway and onto the two lanes, but arguing with myself that I needed to make tracks. I had some hope of getting to a place with free wifi for a phone conference that would be happening that afternoon, but this wasn't an essential phone conference and I wasn't at all sure where the free wifi might be available, although I'd researched both libraries and coffee shops that might be available at the correct times. (In case you ever need to know, the Salina, Kansas, library would apparently have let me come use their connection. The Wichita, Kansas, library wouldn't let me use it without a local library card.)

Yet my impatience with mile after mile of smooth, fast road ticked upward when I saw a billboard that advertised QUILT SHOP (with yarn), accessible from an upcoming exit. That didn't quite do the trick, because while I do like quilts and quilting, I already take on more than I can handle and I didn't need to open up yet another temptation that I'd have to say no to. Yarn was the subtext, not the focus. So I stayed on my steady course eastward. Yet not long after, another billboard offered YARN SHOP (with antiques or buttons, I forget which). The emphasis on YARN and the relatively short distance—10 miles—from the highway in a direction that would continue to take me toward Wichita, my required destination by the end of the day, created the necessary magnetic pull toward the ramp at exit 93 and highway 23, southbound toward Gove, Kansas.

It's a small town. Here's what the Gove City Yarns building looks like looking east from the west side of highway 23:

I had to watch my timing to get a vehicle into the picture. Mostly there wasn't much traffic. Here's the center of town, looking south down highway 23 from the corner right by the shop:

A truck! That's downtown metropolitan Gove City, and here's a view of 3rd Street, which runs just south of the shop and turns into county road 452 after a few blocks, as seen from where I parked my car:

No, it's not paved. It was obviously not an area of high-density population. (I learned later that the 2000 census reported 105 residents of Gove. The 2010 census counted 80 people.)

So what sort of yarn shop would I find?

WOW.

My first interesting observation involved the book section, right inside the front door, which included multiple copies of a large number of books, including the most recent publications from Interweave Press, both magazines and special issues.

That's only part of the publications section. Note the multiple copies of titles, neatly stacked (but recently perused) on both the racks and the shelves. More:

That issue of knit.wear on the table is brand-spanking new, as was the Jane Austen Knits in the previous image. Again, the shelves are packed with more-than-just-one of a lot of knitting publications. (The table was also loaded with unusual buttons. The place is a treasure-trove of exceptional buttons.)

Someone here is serious about knitting, and has a clientele that is, too.

There are a lot of rooms in that little building, and they are crammed with well-organized yarns. There's a room for wools and sock yarns, another room for acrylics and baby yarns. This is a small portion of the wool realm, of course my primary interest:

Yarns are carefully selected and not boring:

I even found a little bit of local roving (although spinning is not the shop's strength):

By this time the other customers were browsing happily elsewhere and I began talking with the shop's proprietor, Betty McDonald. I learned that she's had the shop since 2003, that it draws its clientele from a 100-mile radius (which is easy to believe for all sorts of reasons). There are no huge population centers within that 100-mile range, which looks like this and extends into eastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska:

(The highlighter marks my routes to and from Wichita. I missed a turn in Great Bend on the way back—a hazard of being both driver and navigator—thus the odd dip to the south. Interstates are for when it's already dark out and I want to get to the location with the cheapest motel that has a decent rating before I quit driving for the night.)

I also learned that Betty endeavors to have a broad and deep selection, some portions of which, like the combination skeins shown below, are unique to the shop:

G.C.Y. is, of course, Gove City Yarn.

I asked if I could take Betty's picture, and she was a little hesitant because she was in her work clothes. The reason she was in her work clothes is that she and her husband, who rehabbed this formerly falling-down building and then filled it with yarn, are currently rehabbing another building that's a short distance from the back door so they can fill it with more yarn. "Work clothes" say to me "we're getting things done around here." As they obviously are.

The context is as thoughtful as the stock, with a great mural behind the desk.

Yes, there are also antiques, and quilt racks in the front room with beautifully selected and displayed old linens—crochet work, embroidery, and other treasures. Overall, it's an environment that simultaneously values past accomplishments and nurtures future creativity.

Gove City Yarns is a good reason to visit Kansas. I'm already looking forward to my next trip in that direction. I'll also look forward to visiting again with a former stray now named Casanova, who has never harmed a skein of yarn . . .

. . . and thus now has a permanent home.

It's true that I didn't get to the phone conference. But I didn't care at all.

Mini book tour, with slush

Last May, I began the process of scheduling a mini book tour this week. It's all set up and announced. It's "local," which means "in the same state that I live in." For a Westerner, quite a bit of ground can be covered by that definition.

Last night it started snowing (again), with a prediction for 6 or 7 (more) inches (12.5 to 14 cm). By morning, that much new white stuff was on the ground, and I was scheduled to drive 200 miles across some mountain passes that I know well enough to be very cautious about when the weather is bad. I've driven them in fog, sleet, rain, and snow—experiences I prefer to avoid, if possible.

After less than an ideal night's sleep, I optimistically dug out the car and cleared the driveway and sidewalks, poked at the tree branches again to knock off as much snow as I could, and then signed onto the excellent road-conditions website sponsored and maintained by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). The CDOT map is most useful and gets updated frequently. Road conditions are color-coded, so it's really easy to see what the surfaces are like. There is, however, no topographical information, so "icy and flat" and "icy with 7% grade" look the same. This is where it's good to have experience with the roads you're considering.

I noted that parts of I-25 and I-70 were closed, although not the parts I planned to use. Highway 85 north of Greeley was black (adverse conditions = in my words "you'd be really stupid to drive this road right now"). Most of the roads I would need were bright blue (icy = "cars are going off the road and being wrapped in yellow caution tape until the weather clears and the tow trucks are less busy; expect to see on average one abandoned vehicle, many of them 4WD, every half mile").

Highway 285, a crucial part of my route, was decorated with at least a half-dozen of the red circle icons that mean "restriction." The detailed information on those locations indicated that trucks, and along some stretches smaller vehicles, were being required by law to use chains. The highway wasn't closed, but when chain laws are in effect wise people don't join the melee unless it's an emergency, they have a bit of extra time to spend, and their tires are in great shape. Maybe they even have chains (and use them) themselves. The two sections of road that can be particularly ugly to drive (although spectacularly beautiful) are Crow Hill and Kenosha Pass. Those were, of course, included in the restricted areas. So was Turkey Creek Canyon, which is sometimes a clear part of the road even when the rest is not so good.

There is an alternate route, taking I-25 farther south (bright blue/icy all the way) and then angling over toward Penrose and crossing Wilkerson Pass, instead of Kenosha. Wilkerson has less precipitous grades and doesn't have Crow Hill east of it. The roads through that area were a mix of bright blue (icy), blue (snow), and green (wet, rain, slush), and there were no restrictions in place.

Yet Kenosha is southwest-facing (it would get sun, if there was any) and the plows would be out. It's the shorter route. I know it better. So I waited a couple of hours, and the chain-law restrictions were lifted and more of the road became blue, and some of it even green. "Rain" and "slush" mean "the stuff's melting."

The familiar route won. And it was all fine.

Here are some Crow Hill photos:

There was some slush. This wasn't the worst of it. I was glad I'd bought, and installed, new front windshield wipers yesterday. (I got strong wiper blades: on a previous trip through this area, I'd had to find an auto parts store mid-journey and get sturdier ones.) I need to put a rear wiper blade into the budget for next month. The biggest difficulties occurred when the slush kicked up and instantly froze on the glass. The new wipers handled that just fine, though. (At times, I had about 10 square inches (65cm²) of back window free of ice.)

Kenosha Pass was dry and clear, with the usual view-to-almost-forever. You can't tell, though, that there are 14,000-foot (4250m) peaks out there because they're covered in clouds.

Toward the south end of South Park, the day got brighter, with some sunshine breaks coming through.

On the drive, I saw two splendid herds of pronghorn. There were about a dozen stunning ones standing in a cluster just north of the Buffalo Peaks turnoff. If there hadn't been a semi right behind me, I would have found a place to pull off (not much trustworthy shoulder today) and snapped a picture. There was a smaller group not far from Salida.

Tomorrow night, I'll be part of Dies Librorum (the day of books) at The Book Haven independent bookstore in Salida. RSVPs are required, and there will be music, a couple of authors, and good food. Oops, when I went to retrieve the link, I learned that the event is FULL! Well, that will be fun! I'll be interested in seeing who turns up. Party!

Anyway, you can see how nice the day was when I reached Salida in the late afternoon. Perfect.

On Saturday afternoon between 1 and 3, I'll be at Serendipity Yarn and GIfts in Buena Vista. Buena Vista is a few miles back toward home, and on my outbound trip today I took a side jaunt to pick up some yarn (because I didn't have enough, right?).

Liz Gipson will be at Serendipity on Saturday, too, and we'll likely be playing with fiber in the upstairs. There's a whole lot of yarn in that yellow house, and an amazing selection of gift items, too. No advance planning or RSVPs needed. If you're in the area, come visit with us. Bring your knitting or spinning or weaving (if it's portable, as Liz's often is) or your questions about fiber. We like to talk about fiber.

I have a spinning wheel with me, and a couple of deadlines to work toward while I'm doing this. However, I also plan to enjoy a little quiet time when I'm not at an event.

Like now.

____

Oh, two other things:

Today's Spinning Daily newsletter is called "Tools for Writing a (Rather Large) Fiber Book." It's about The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, as regular readers of this blog might imagine.

And some folks have decided that this month is Wovember, not November, and are dedicating the time to raising people's awareness of how wonderful wool is. Yes! Natural fibers! There are great sheep photos on the website. I keep opening the page I linked to, seeing that Herdwick, and smiling. Thanks to Valerie for letting me know about this.

A good friend of mine would like me to remind folks that llamas also produce delightful, practical, and warm natural fiber. She's right.

And we can't forget the yaks, mohair and cashmere goats, musk oxen. . . . (See The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook for the remainder of the list I just started.)

____

Stay warm. I am.

Teaching 2012

In a recent post, I mentioned that I am taking an online class on teaching. That's because I love doing it, but have been an infrequent teacher for the past several decades. I'm looking toward a number of teaching opportunities next year, and I want them to be the best possible experiences for everyone involved.

I so enjoy the people I meet by teaching workshops on topics I'm passionate about. One of my fantasies involves figuring out how to be part of a gathering that lets me introduce to each other the people who came to Scotland, those who were in California, those who found their way to New Hampshire, those who will be making pilgrimages to future workshops. . . .

It was truly a source of joy for me to hear that a group of the people in my workshops at UK Knit Camp last year immediately formed the Blacker and Beyond group on Ravelry to stay in touch with each other, and they are coordinating activities to increase awareness of (and markets for) rare-breed wools. (Ravelry has free memberships. If you're already a member, here's a direct link to Blacker and Beyond. The group is named for Sue Blacker's Blacker Yarns and Blacker Designs, because she generously donated most of the materials for our workshops.)

And now I've learned that twenty folks from the recent SOAR (Spin-Off Autumn Retreat) events have organized a year-long (or more) spin-along experience to take them more deeply into the breeds that I only had time to tantalize them with in our brief time together a few weeks ago.

I get happy chills when I find out about these things. They make what I'm doing worthwhile.

___

Here's what I normally look like when teaching:

That was at SOAR a couple of weeks ago. I have a few photos of workshop participants to help myself remember the wonderful vibe in the room, but I don't put pictures of other people out in the wide world without permission, and I'm always so involved with the wool that I forget to ask for permission. Oh, well!

Here's what I looked like for a fancy gig (KDTV taping, with professional television make-up—Note to family: I figured I'd better identify myself so you would know who it was):

____

Over the past several months, I've been negotiating agreements and arranging for supplies for next year's teaching. It takes a LOT of advance planning and help to stage the wool-centric workshops that people have been wanting and that I enjoy presenting. Because of the amount of work that happens behind the scenes, the number of presentations I can make is limited, and 2012 is already booked up. (We have several more months of logistics to complete for the workshops already on the calendar.)

I want to make an announcement about next year's teaching here, now, because later this week Spinning Daily (an e-newsletter from Interweave Press) will have a post with information on The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook and it will link to my workshop page. I want the people who read my blog to hear about things first! I've delayed putting this information up because I've been so busy . . . teaching (and getting ready to teach). Funny. Anyway.

The events will vary in the lengths of the workshops (3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, or more); the topics covered; the number of breeds included; the number of participants; and the teaching/learning environment. Also, of course, in the costs, although I almost never have any control over that piece of the equation of attending. More details on dates and links to the sponsors' websites are on the aforementioned workshop page. If you have questions about a particular event's individual characteristics, feel free to contact me.

____

Here's my 2012 teaching overview

February 2012: Madrona Fiber Arts, Tacoma, Washington—I'll be doing a banquet talk on the little project that grew (The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook), workshop sessions on both rare-breed wools and breed-specific yarns for knitters and/or spinners (in other words, some sessions will be fiber-based and some will be yarn-based), a couple of half-day classes on publishing alternatives for fiber folk, and a walk-in fiber clinic. The list of instructors was posted yesterday, and registration opens, I hear with a flurry, some time in November—get on the mailing list for an announcement of when. If you are interested in Madrona, stay on top of the calendar and get up to speed on the registration process before you begin. Keep in mind that some spaces may be available after the initial rush, and cancellations may create openings later.

March 2012: Explore 4 Retreat, Friday Harbor, Washington—A leisurely fibers-for-spinning workshop (more expansive schedule than usual, enjoying a focused selection of fibers) in a relaxed environment. Deposits now will save spaces; full registration is required by the end of January so I can get all the supplies arranged.

May 2012: Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, West Friendship, Maryland—A two-day pre-festival workshop (12 hours) on Thursday and Friday, plus two morning walkabouts in the barns on Saturday and Sunday, visiting with sheep (walkabouts will be the same schedule on both days). (Below: An American Tunis sheep in the Parade of Breeds at Maryland in 2011.)

June 2012: Olds College Fiber Week, Olds, Alberta—Although this event's activities haven't been firmed up, workshop organizer Michelle Boyd and I are both operating on the assumption that I'll be there and I'll be teaching something. We've been talking about this for a while, in bits and pieces between our teaching commitments. We thought we might have twenty minutes to visit about details when we were both teaching at SOAR in New Hampshire, but that ended up being a joke. We did get to wave hello as we both went to our classrooms (which were really close to each other). We're continuing the discussion by e-mail.

July 2012: Convergence 2012 (Handweavers Guild of America), Long Beach, California—Two two-day (12-hour) workshops on rare-breed wools. Pick one workshop or the other; HGA has asked me to facilitate the same workshop twice to accommodate the predicted number of registrations.

July 2012: Minnesota Weaving Guild, Minneapolis, Minnesota—An evening guild program plus a three-day (18-hour) workshop on rare-breed wools.

September 2012: The Spinning Loft, Howell, Michigan—Owner Beth Smith and I are still working on what I'll be teaching. I'm expecting that there will be an evening program on Friday night and a two-day workshop on Saturday and Sunday.

____

Below: Some of Sue Bundy's Karakul sheep at Maryland (Sue is part of Solitude Wool); a Karakul fleece ready to be shorn before summer arrives; and samples of Karakul yarns from The Fleece & FIber Sourcebook.

For all of my teaching events, basic spinning skills are sufficient: the ability to spin singles and make a two-ply yarn. While most people like to bring their spinning wheels to the workshops, some participants find they prefer to sample with handspindles, and that's fine with me.

Okay, I'd better post this. The day's getting away from me.

Spotlight on four rare breeds of sheep

The November/December 2011 issue of PieceWork magazine has arrived! The issue's focus is wool, and editor Jeane Hutchins and I talked early in the planning process about what I might contribute to it. The result is "On the Edge: How a Handful of People Have Preserved Some Rare, Valuable Sheep and Their Wools," which starts on page 34.

Jeane asked for rare sheep. Then we had to figure out what aspect to focus on. She also was thinking about a related project or projects in addition to an article, and because of PieceWork's readership any hands-on components had to be based on readily available yarn. In other words, we couldn't ask people to start by spinning their own. Materials available by internet were okay—a specification that made the whole endeavor possible, because most people's local stores are unlikely to stock breed-specific, much less rare-breed-specific, yarns.

One thing that has fascinated me in my study of sheep is the pivotal role often played by one or two individuals in a whole breed's survival.

So we came up with the idea of an article about a few breeds of rare sheep

• that are still with us today in large part because of the actions of identifiable individual human beings, and
• whose fiber is available as spun yarn that readers can get their hands on.

Sorting through the possibilities took me a while, and some research on the web to augment what I already knew about yarn suppliers. We ended up with four breeds that fit the criteria we aimed for. In addition,

• two of the breeds originated in the British Isles and two originated in North America (I like that balance), and
• Jeane found four people, each of whom agreed to design an original project using one of the breeds' fiber.

What fun!

And now it's here.

The breeds are Manx Loaghtan and Leicester Longwool (British Isles) and Navajo-Churro and American Tunis (North America). The projects are:

• Manx Loaghtan Boot Socks to Knit, by Ann Budd (with Blacker Yarns Pure Manx Loaghtan, DK weight)
• Leicester Longwool Pillow Cover to Tunisian Crochet, by Carol Huebscher Rhoades (with Row House Farm Leicester Longwool, in two natural colors)
• Navajo-Churro Mittens to Knit, by Alexis Manzanares, working from her grandmother's pattern (with Shepherd's Lamb Certified Organic Churro, blanket, or worsted, weight) (I can't find a web reference for Alexis, but there are a number of links to information on her family's sheep and wool)
• American Tunis Hat to Knit, by Kristi Schueler (with Solitude Wool Tunis, worsted weight)

These are all designs my fingers are itching to knit! What a wonderful way to showcase the fibers. I feel like we've gathered at a party to celebrate the survival of four superb and valuable breeds by using their wools. I'd love to see what other people make with these fibers, whether from these patterns or others.

Meanwhile, let's get some more pictures into this blog. There are super photos in the article, but the ones of the swatches are nicely decorative (i.e., a little small), and since they're my samples I can supplement by providing them at a bigger size here. I might as well add photos of sheep and of locks of wool, for the spinnerly and otherwise curious among us.

All photos not otherwise credited are mine.

Manx Loaghtan

Here's my swatch, worked in Cable and Band pattern from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (Pittsville, WI: Schoolhouse Press, 1998, p. 133). The yarn is Manx Loaghtan from Blacker Yarns, Cornwall, England. (On the Blacker Yarns site, the Manx Loaghtan yarn is listed under "Welsh" breeds because there's only one breed from the Isle of Man, which is its own sovereignty—and the yarn would likely be overlooked if it had its own category.)

Manx Loaghtan locks are all brown, although they come in a variety of shades of mid-brown—as you can see in the yarns below the locks. The lefthand yarn was spun from a darker fleece. Manx Loaghtan fleeces often have light-colored tips, from sun-bleaching, although the tips in my experience so far have not been fragile (as sun-bleached tips sometimes are).

On all of the lock photographs, the inked-in line is 4 inches/10cm long.

And here's a robust Manx Loaghtan ram with a gorgeous set of four horns:

Photo © British Wool Marketing Board. Used by permission.

Check out the Navajo-Churro horns below, too.

Leicester Longwool

This next swatch is Diamond and Rib, also from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (p. 22), worked in Leicester Longwool singles yarn from Double J Ranch, Oregon City, Oregon. (There are two Double J Ranches in Oregon. The link goes to the right one.)

The high luster, open crimp, and generous length of the locks are typical of the breed. The lock on top is unwashed, and the one on the bottom is clean. Longwools invite a variety of spinning techniques. Lower left is singles, spun for texture, and lower right is a loosely spun and plied two-ply.

And here's a Leicester Longwool sheep, fairly recently shorn: the breed's fleeces get exquisitely long in a fairly short time. They're often shorn twice a year to keep the fiber to a manageable 5- to 6-inch length (12.5 to 15cm).

Photo © British Wool Marketing Board. Used by permission.

Navajo-Churro

Another swatch in singles yarn, this time Navajo-Churro obtained from Gypsy Wools, Boulder, Colorado. Yet another pattern from Barbara Walker's Charted Knitting Designs (I love all of Barbara Walker's treasuries, but this one just might be my favorite): Waterfall (p. 151).

Here are some of the breed's gorgeous natural colors, these grown by Connie Taylor's sheep in southern Colorado:

Navajo-Churro wool combines softness and durability in a unique way. The rare breeds are delightfully distinctive. That's to their benefit, in the realm of genetic variety and delight for us, but it's a negative attribute in an industrial world that prefers its fibers anonymous.

Here's a Navajo-Churro ram: he's got a superior set of four horns, too. Not many breeds of sheep are polycerate, or capable of producing horns in multiples. The fact that we're seeing two such rams on this page is because we're in rare-breed territory. These guys are remarkable even in that realm.

Photo © Tanya Carte and Greg Shore/McKenzie Creek Ranch in California. Used by permission.

American Tunis

Changing books to Hitomi Shida's 250 Japanese Knitting Patterns (Tokyo: Nihon Vogue, 2005), this is pattern #132, worked in American Tunis yarn from Solitude Wool, Round Hill, Virginia.

Tunis locks have a lovely open quality to them (except the tips, which often need a little gentle opening). They spin up into a versatile yarn that works well for color definition and (as you can see above) good body in texture patterns. It's darn sweet.

The lambs are born cinnamon-red, and they lighten up as they mature to a creamy-white color, although they retain the warm tones on their faces and legs.

Photo © SVF Foundation. Used by permission.

In conclusion

Here are locks of the four breeds, all together:

Left to right: Navajo Churro, American Tunis, Leicester Longwool, and Manx Loaghtan.

Aren't they pretty? All the things we can make with these splendid, renewable fibers—!

Check out the new PieceWork. There are a lot of other great articles about wool in it, including Charlotte Booth's exploration of ancient Coptic socks, Lithuanian beaded wrist warmers by Donna Druchunas, a section by Evelyn Clark featuring Icelandic wool, and more. I just need more knitting (and spinning) time.

For more rare breeds (and not-so-rare), there is, of course, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.

KDTV, take 2

I'm not even going to try to make this entirely coherent. That's not how life is right now.

KDTV

Last week I flew to Cleveland again to be a guest for three segments of KDTV series 800. KDTV is Knitting Daily TV, a program that is available for broadcast on public television stations (PBS). A year ago I took this trip and appeared in two segments. I had the pleasure then of working both with Shay Pendray, an amazing woman who established a place for needle arts on public television, and with Eunny Jang, editor of Interweave Knits.

This time, I missed seeing and working with Shay; she had already completed her scheduled appearances and returned home. The trade-off was that because Eunny and I did all three segments together, we were able to get a little better acquainted and as a result could carry the positive energy from one segment to the next. In addition to the segments she did with me, Eunny was also taping introductions and finales and some technique concentrations, so she was busy changing clothes, getting the right demonstration materials ready, and talking to the cameras. Kristin Omdahl, who hosts the crochet sections, had finished her work early but wasn't scheduled to fly out yet, so we were able to visit in odd moments, and that was a treat.

Kristin's recent blog post shows the studio set-up and talks about the TV makeup, plus preparation, suitcases, and wardrobe issues. She's a pro at this and can show you the environment, while I'm just working hard not to trip over my own feet or end up stammering on camera: not much time or energy to document my surroundings or the process. Kristin's post also shows the amazing Annie Bakken, who last year and this managed to be in half a dozen places at once (or so it appeared), doing unobtrusive tasks that kept the process running smoothly, got us where we needed to be, and so on.

The segments are about 5 minutes long, and are timed to the second. The host—in this case, Eunny—keeps track of the timing. In addition to her microphone, which records the audio for the show, she has an earphone and has to listen and respond to information coming in from the production area. I just need to stay on my toes, follow her lead on the general timing, and be ready to let her wrap up when they call time. I imagine tightrope walking would be similar.

One of the segments was on using yak fiber. I talked about the basic qualities, and about using yak either on its own or blended, as well as why yak is a relatively new presence in knitting yarns. Eunny presented a neat hat pattern made with a yak-bamboo blend that features an intricate, but not so hard to work, cable running around its brim.

Back up two months, because it took me about that long to get all the swatches ready for the demonstrations of the segments that I did. For a 40-hour trip, I packed two suitcases and a large backpack. In the backpack and my carry-on suitcase were the absolute essentials: if the check-through bag had gone astray, we could have managed the segments, although not with the ideal array of supplies.

In addition to swatches, yarns, raw and washed fibers, and a bunch of sweaters to use as examples, the suitcases contained about a dozen different shirts and blouses. The garments all needed to be in specific colors, and had to be able to go on and off without messing up the makeup, which is done first and just once. I took the two shirts I wore last year, because I know they worked. I wore one of them again for the DVD I made for Interweave last fall. My daughter said I really shouldn't wear the same thing all the time, so I took along two other new tops I found on sale and a bunch of appropriate knits that I'd found at local resale shops. It's hard to tell in advance what will work best, so it's good to have alternatives.

Fortunately, one pair of black slacks, which I already owned, sufficed for the rest of what I needed.

We ran into a little glitch while filming the segment on why yarns pill. The numbering on one form was off, so Eunny wore the wrong sweater for our first take.

So we got to do it again. This was where it started getting nice that Eunny and I were working together repeatedly. The retake went smoothly. Here's the right sweater, and our smiles embody our confidence that we will hit the revised segment length. These photos are taken in advance of the taping of each segment. In addition to being useful for publicity, they are tacked up on the door to the green room, where everything gets prepared, to help everyone keep track of who wore what, and when. In general, they work really well.

By the way, the sweaters on the stands behind me are thirty and forty years old and have not pilled. In this segment, I talked about fiber content, processing damage, yarn construction, durability, and maintenance, and why and when we make trade-offs that result in pilling. (There is, by the way, an absolutely fantastic article by Erica Heftmann in an old issue of Spin-Off magazine on why yarns pill. Although I worked with other sources, if you want a one-stop overview, Erica did a fantastic job. Summer 1999, pages 70 to 77.)

The final segment involved some information on scouring and washing wools. Recognize Eunny's sweater? It belonged on this segment. I wasn't as happy with the content on this final bit. We did it twice as well, for reasons of the producer's, and I preferred the first version.

Still, Eunny and I managed to do two takes on two segments and keep them fresh-feeling each time. On one of them (and I forget which one), somebody mis-read the timing notes so Eunny was given the "wrap it up" signal at either 20 or 30 seconds too short or too long. I don't remember which. I think we needed to fill an extra 30 seconds on the second take. My job is to speak in ways that are conversational but that I can cut off at any time and sound like I meant to end there.

Then I packed up my suitcases and Kristin and I shared a cab to the airport. I heard she had a delay in getting home, including an extra overnight.

For me, this is what the day looked like, with all times indicated for Mountain Daylight Time, even though Cleveland is on Eastern Daylight.

• 3:45 a.m. Wake up
• 3:45 to 5:15 a.m. Yoga, wash and blow-dry hair, dress, breakfast, pack suitcases, check out of hotel, and be in lobby for ride to studio. I wanted to walk to the studio to see if I could stretch out my back some more, but it was raining and I needed not to show up with wet hair. I am so not a TV-ready person in everyday life!
• 5:15 to 7 a.m. Unpack show materials and begin arranging them on working trays; professional makeup (an hour).
• 7 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Tape all three segments, two of them twice.
• 10:15 to 10:45 a.m. Lunch.
• 10:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Repack all suitcases, then catch up on e-mail and a little work.
• 1:45 to 4 p.m. Cab to airport, check-in, and security. Buy a salad to take with me because the availability of future food is not at all certain. (Yes, I carry Luna Bars, apples, and other compact, security-friendly emergency fuel.)
• 4 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. Fly home, changing planes at one airport or another, very glad that I have the salad (run from first gate to second, and make it on board as one of the final four passengers).
• 8:45 to 9:50 p.m. Disembark and reclaim the one checked bag. Miss the 9 p.m. shuttle by about 8 minutes. Grab a chai as the airport concessions are closing their accordion barriers for the night. Drink chai and do some reading while awaiting the shuttle.
• 9:50 to 11:45 p.m. Shuttle ride home.
• 11:45 p.m. to 1 a.m. Dinner, shower, bed.

Next day: in bed with a cold! Likely the result of not being able to dodge secondhand smoke (to which I'm allergic) while in the shuttle areas outside airports. I need to get rid of the congestion and start packing for SOAR, in addition to doing enough work at my desk that the office won't collapse while I'm gone again.

Packing for events other than KDTV involves a lot more fiber, but much easier clothing options: t-shirts, jeans, whatever sweaters I want to wear. And no makeup at all!