The Independent Stitch

Saturwoolday

It's shaping up to be a fine day. One of the things I love about wool is its variety, and what's going into the tub today represents quite a range:

There's Castlemilk Moorit, a very rare breed closely related to Shetlands. The provider of this sample apologized for its second cuts (snippets caused by shearing with two passes) and scurf (I'll skip describing scurf at the moment . . . ), but it's a lovely color, with excellent staple length, and will be just fine when washed and processed:

There's Polwarth from the Falkland Islands . . . not all of the sheep from the Falklands are Polwarths, but a quantity worth noting are . . . fine, with really cool crimp (those wavy contours in, in this case, both individual fibers and locks):

And we finally, finally (thanks to the generosity of friends on a couple of continents) have some Herdwick, giving us an opportunity to consider things like kemp (coarse, dye-resistant fibers) and Mrs. Heelis:

And while the wools are soaking in the tub, with their 20-minute demands for attention and changes of cleansing and rinsing solutions, I have THIS to enjoy:

It's Clara Parkes' new The Knitter's Book of Wool. Just arrived. I've glanced. I love Clara's take on the world, and am so glad she wrote this book.

It's shown on some Suffolk fleece I have here . . . I pulled out a lock at the lower right corner of the book, because it's so nice and long for a Suffolk. In the background is a rug I wove many years ago from Pendleton mill ends. I have a lot of rugs made with those mill ends, picked up at a weaving place in Poulsbo, Washington, long, long ago. They are still trucking. Our older dog "digs" in this one every night, making herself a nest to sleep in.

Snowing out. A good day for enjoying a variety of wools in a variety of ways.

If I get the washing done in time, I might even get to spin or knit some.

Ready to move forward: Priscilla's Cowichan sweaters book, revised edition

This past weekend, I drove out to western Colorado to attend the Artposium, about which I intend to post more as soon as I can.

While there, I stayed and visited with Priscilla GIbson-Roberts. And this is what I brought back with me to my home office:

It's a treasure box. It contains the photos and reference drawings for her book on Cowichan sweaters, originally published in 1989 as Salish Indian Sweaters. The revised edition will include the material in the original edition, additional traditional designs that Priscilla has collected in the past twenty years, and a chapter on Priscilla's own designing process for sweaters that draw on her own family and cultural imagery in the way that the Cowichan sweaters draw on the visual heritage of the Northwest natives who originated this style of sweater.

Here's a peek of what's inside that box:

And here's another:

One of my next tasks is to figure out the best way to convert the negatives to digital positives. It'll be easy once I determine the right resources to use to do the job. I have some places to start asking questions.

The charts for the book were ready a year ago. It will be great to move the project to the next phase!

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.

Santa Cruz wool: how to show a rare breed's magic with a less-than-ideal sample?

I've written before about Santa Cruz wool, in conjunction with a post about making the best of a less-than-ideal wool sample. Now that it's time to do my write-up on Santa Cruz wool, I have been distracted by my desire to show at least some of the capacity of this breed's wool, which is not evident in the sample I've already spun.

Santa Cruz is one of the rarest sheep breeds. It's on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's priority list with critical status. There's a long story behind this—one that I won't go into right now, because my goal is to highlight the superb qualities of the fiber. No one knows exactly when or how sheep got onto Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, somewhere between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were well established by the mid-nineteenth century. By other people's best guesses, the breed was created through some combination of Merino, Rambouillet, and possibly Churro. The sheep don't look like Merinos or Rambouillets, although their wool is clearly fine enough to have been influenced by those breeds.

Remembering the magic, and struggling with the available fiber

What is most stunning about the fiber is its combination of fineness and bounce.

When I coordinated the Save the Sheep Project for Spin-Off Magazine in the late 1990s, one of the entries was a shawl that Nancy Van Tassel made from Santa Cruz wool shorn from one of the few rescued sheep. I've seen and handled a lot of handspun yarn over about thirty-five years of intense involvement with spinning. That shawl and the yarn it was made from have stood out vividly in my memory for the combination of softness and resilience. I have never felt anything like it.

When I spun my sample last year, I got what looked like the best possible option out of the wool sample we were able to obtain—and with Santa Cruz, we are fortunate to be able to get a sample at all. With a breed this rare, the primary focus of husbandry is simply keeping enough animals alive to keep the breed going and, ideally, with enough genetic diversity for a healthy population. Wool quality is not at the top of anyone's agenda. If the genes are there, a future year's wool quality can be tended to and the crop will have some value. At this dire survival level, there's no well-defined market for the wool anyway.

Here's the sample I spun then . . . there was no way it could be regular, because of the fiber quality:

I was disappointed but felt like I needed to settle for what I had and move on. It didn't have the "life" that I remember so well from Nancy Van Tassel's contribution to the Save the Sheep efforts, but she had control over her fiber source and some experience in spinning the breed. Last year, that skein was the best I thought I could do, perhaps because I wasn't yet desperate enough.

I've been having trouble getting the breed written up, and I finally realized why. I want, somehow, to be able to at least hint at the magic that I know, thanks to Nancy, Santa Cruz wool is capable of. My existing sample didn't do that. I had no idea what I could pull off that might. But I determined to go at it one more time.

Throwing out all the rules

This is where all standard guidelines for wool prep and spinning have to go out the window, and vision and stubbornness take over, seasoned with a pragmatic awareness that perfection is simply out of reach.

Background: I had an OFDA computerized analysis done on a small tuft of this fiber. I'm having scans run for most of the very rare wools because we don't have much data on their characteristics. A data sample of one or two or five entries isn't much at all, but it's better than nothing.

Fineness: The average micron count of the piece I pulled (clean) was 23.2. That's fine. A full 97.3% of the fibers were under 30 microns, the industrial line of demarcation for fibers to be used in next-to-the-skin applications. The finest fibers in the sample were 14 microns; there were just a few fibers at the sample's maximum of 32, 33, and 34 microns.

Fiber length: 35 mm, or 1.4 inches. That's the kicker.

Because of the short fibers, and the fact that it was difficult to separate out anything resembling a staple, I used fine hand carders to prepare the wool for my first sample. This was the obvious, reasonable, normal choice for a short, jumbled fiber. The many neps and second cuts were just something I had to live with. I did end up choosing a drafting technique that would minimize the effects of these elements on the finished yarn.

This weekend, bullheadedly determined to see if I could do a better job of showing what the Santa Cruz wool is capable of, I decided to try combing. COMBING. Fiber less than 1.5 inches long. Right.

Okay, here goes.

From yuck to yum, believe it or not

Raw Santa Cruz wool, as I received it, with gratitude that I had any at all:

These look and feel like what would be skirtings for a "normal" fleece, but as I've mentioned this wool is probably just a shepherd's afterthought of survival care for the living animals. Based on my experience in washing, at least part of this came from the rear of the animal—not prime fleece territory. I had the sample above available to photograph in its original state because when the wool first arrived I only washed the portion I needed. It wasn't inspiring enough to wash the whole batch. That ended up being okay. I used Dawn dishwashing liquid, which was what I had at the time. I've since shifted to Unicorn Power Scour and took on the rest of the raw wool with that resource on my side. I knew the Power Scour wouldn't overclean (thus making the wool harsh or brittle), so I used more than I usually would and I ran the fiber through three, rather than two, cleansing baths, with one pre-soak and two rinses, using a mix of half hot-tap water and half boiling water from pots on the stove and not letting the water cool off for more than 20 minutes on each cycle.

Here's what the clean version looked like:

Not beautiful, but compared to what I started with it was greatly improved. I wasn't concerned about the flecks of dirt, because although they tend to stick around in carding and cause problems, they normally drop out in combing.

Most combs couldn't handle such a short, fine fiber. Fortunately, I have a pair of two-row Louet mini-combs that I thought might do the trick. Even so, because the fibers were so jumbled I needed to load the wool onto the combs not-quite-randomly, searching out bits of the fiber mass that seemed to have long-enough fibers and simply snagging them onto the teeth of the mini-combs as best I could. While I combed through two complete passes, I didn't look for perfection. That goal would have left me with zero fiber.

I pulled off the little sausages of prepared fiber with my fingers—there wasn't really enough there to draw off a sliver with a diz. The clump of fiber on the left in the photo above was the "waste" (which I'll use to stuff something with), and the three little bits of fiber just to its right are representative of what's in the clump—really short and useless. While the good-to-waste fiber ratio is low, I was starting with truly unpromising raw material and the end result. . . .

got me what I wanted.

How to show the magic?

I still don't know how to show, in photographs, what the difference is.

After I washed my new little skein, I handed it to my daughter and said, "Just play with it."

She immediately started stretching it. "Spandex????"

"Just wool. Magical wool."

Let's try to get a hint here, with the relaxed skeinlet:

And, against the same piece of flooring, the skeinlet extended, but not overextended:

With a normal wool, I'd expect to be able to stretch a similar skeinlet to half to three-quarters of the width of that second, righthand section of flooring. Not all the way across it.

One more counterintuitive comment: You'd normally think that a carded preparation, woolen spun, would be more elastic than a combed, worsted-spun yarn. (In this case, the first sample was spun with a hybrid draw, because there were too many irregularities to tolerate a long draw, but carding generally encourages more elasticity than combing.) In this case, the combed, worsted-spun yarn is the one with the maximum elasticity.

A few thoughts

If there were a premium-rate market for the wool for the most endangered breeds of sheep, like the Santa Cruz, the people who are keeping the animals alive would have more reasons to care for the fleece in ways that handspinners and other fiber artists could value. This type of support would need to be easy for the shepherds to set up and maintain; it would require additional attention to the wool during the year, and would need to repay that effort and then some. Because I'm preparing a post for later in this week about the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business model as it applies to fibers, I'm impelled to wonder what would be involved for growers of the rarest breeds to set up subscription-based CSA-type groups to give them extra income to help fund their genetic conservation work. The groups would need to be small, because the yields would be relatively small—too small for the more "normal" breed-specific marketing efforts that are helping some other breeds remain financially viable.

There have got to be some ways that fiber folk can give an extra boost to the prospects of a breed like the Santa Cruz.

I'd hate to think the magic might vanish entirely.

Clockwise from left:

• First sample skein, prepared on fine hand carders and spun with a hybrid draw. Nothing special.
• Second sample skein, prepared on Louet two-row mini-combs and spun with a worsted draw. Captured some of the magic!
• White, clean Santa Cruz fiber.
• Black, raw Santa Cruz fiber—the breed has color genetics, and I have a sample but not enough to wash or work with.

Handheld distaff question, with a quick overview of distaffs

A friend wrote this note to me yesterday:

I had a very cool interaction with a spinner in Crete who spun with a distaff and spindle. I realized as I tried out her distaff (to be tucked under one arm) that I'd really enjoy spinning that way.

Any recommendations on where to get a distaff? I'd like a long wooden one which I can dress primarily with wool. I'm not looking to spend a bunch, in fact, I'm wondering if I can cook one up myself perhaps.

Here's an expanded version of my response, because perhaps others might also be interested.

First, a distaff is a tool that holds fiber in an orderly and handy fashion during spinning, whether the spinner is using a wheel or a handspindle.

Distaffs are wonderful! (The plural is also, rarely, distaves.) They also tend not to be things one can pick up casually, but you're never far from something you can use as a distaff. . . .

Types of distaffs

There are also many kinds of distaffs!

• The ones that are easiest to find at shops are those meant to fit a specific make and model of wheel.
• What my friend asked about is a handheld distaff, which can be used with either wheel or spindle.
• Seated distaffs are constructed for use by a seated spinner—they're attached to a board that the spinner sits on (on a bench, most likely) to keep them stable. They're usually for spindle-spinners, although there's no reason you couldn't use one with a wheel.
• Freestanding distaffs can be used with any spinning tool (wheel or spindle), although they're not meant to be used while moving around (they look like the coatracks in some people's front halls).
• In addition, there are several types of wrist distaffs. One is a piece of fabric, like a cuff without the sweater to go with it, that's a nifty addition to any spinning basket; you just tuck your fiber into it, as many of us do when we're actually wearing a sweater or sweatshirt (there's one source of cheap/free distaff—your clothing). Another is more like a cord that goes around the wrist with a dangling section that you wrap the fiber around.

Back issues of Spin-Off magazine contain articles that show several kinds of distaffs, including ideas for constructing both kinds of wrist distaffs that I've described—it's very easy, can be done with scrap yarn, and you'll wonder what you did without one. (I've done a survey of the Spin-Off indexes through 2008 and listed the results at the bottom of this post.)

Buying a distaff, other than one that's meant to fit a specific wheel

My first thought as a source for obtaining a ready-to-go distaff is Alden Amos and Stephenie Gaustad at Studio Gaustad. They make many styles of handheld and freestanding distaffs, as well as wrist distaffs.

If you buy a distaff from Studio Gaustad, you will get a tool you will use forever—also, if you don't see what you want (they do make a fancy Greek version!), you could describe exactly what you want and they'd work with you to make it happen. All of their work is custom, so you might have a wait . . . or not, if they happen to have recently made what you're looking for! Say hi for me if you get in touch.

As I look through the major suppliers I can think of off the top of my head, I'm finding wheel-specific distaffs only (i.e., made to fit a particular model). Susan McFarland at Susan's Fiber Shop probably has several types of distaffs—that sort of thing tends to follow her around—although I can't find them on her web page.

It looks like some people are offering some types of handmade wrist distaffs on Etsy.

Cheap or free distaffs

I promised earlier that a workable distaff can be easily obtained, for free or close-to-free. You've got one already: tucking the fiber into a sweater or shirt cuff.

A dedicated wrist distaff, of any type, can be made from scrap yarn in probably less than an hour.

You could make a long, handheld-type distaff (for tucking under your arm) with a dowel, using crisscrossed ribbons loosely wrapped around the fiber at one end of the dowel to hold things in place and tucking the other end under your arm. The strict roundness of a machined dowel, though, makes it less pleasant to hold onto and not quite as easy to use as . . . .

a V-shaped stick pruned off a tree or bush, either because the plant needs shaping or because it's a weed that can spare a small branch. Look for a relatively straight section 18 to 24 inches (45 to 60cm) long, forked into a nice V at the upper end—about 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20cm) of V is plenty. You can peel the bark and smooth your stick with sandpaper, if you like. Smoothness is good at the top, to keep from snagging the fibers, and at the bottom, for the comfort of your arm. The V at the top gives you many options for how to arrange the fiber and the moderate irregularity of the branch means it will be easier to keep it where you want it when you tuck it under your arm.

Spin-Off articles on distaffs

When I edited Spin-Off magazine (1987-2000), we published quite a few excellent articles on distaffs, and there were a couple before and have been a few since, as well. You may have to look in a guild collection or a library to find some of these articles. Here's what I come up with from a review of the indexes, and I hope I haven't made any typos. For a good baseline, dig up the ones marked with asterisks.

From the early days:

• "Dressing a Distaff with Flax," Annual 1978, page 20
• "A Suitcase Distaff," by Harry and Olive Linder, Fall 1986, page 33

Articles I edited, so I am most familiar with them—just listing these brings back good memories of working with the wonderful spinners who shared their discoveries through the magazine's pages. These are all treasures:

• * "The Art of the Handspindle and the Sitting Distaff: On Sofia Dorfi," by Sigrid Piroch, Spring 1992, pages 57-59
• * "Simple Portable Distaff," by Larry Cross, Summer 1992, page 58
• "Spinning Silk from a Japanese Distaff," by Constance Bufkin Rizner, Summer 1994, pages 88-89
• * "Wrist Distaffs," by Patricia Emerick, SPring 1995, pages 70-72
• "Peruvian Spinning Tools and Techniques," by Carol Rasmussen Noble, Spring 1997, pages 44-47
• * "Simple Distaffs," by Rita Buchanan, Winter 1999, pages 54-61
• "Estonian Wooden Distaffs," by Susan Strawn, Summer 2000, pages 81-83

More recent entries:

• "The Distaff," by Martha Monson, Summer 2003, pages 30-31
• "Alexandra Ivanovna's Distaff," by Sharon Hudgins, Winter 2004, pages 78-80
• "Ply-Splitting for Wrist Distaffs," by Linda Hendrickson, Summer 2005, pages 50-57

Discover a distaff, any distaff!

Play around. Find something close to you. Then go farther afield. You can hardly have too many distaffs. Most of them are easy to store, too. . .

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.

__

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. . . .

__

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. . . .

 

Visiting Soays (rare sheep!)

I'm still on the road—getting ready to leave a motel in Elko, Nevada—so there will be photos here but not much text.

A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of visiting some folks who have Soay sheep. Soays are as close as we have to the original domesticated sheep. They were located only on one island well offshore of western Scotland, and may have been there for thousands of years. A small population on a rock out being battered by the Atlantic Ocean is vulnerable, so now there are satellite flocks elsewhere.

Priscilla and Steve Weaver at Saltmarsh Ranch have a large satellite flock and are working on maximizing genetic diversity within the breed. Steve is a geneticist. They have both British and American Soay flocks. They are in love with their Soays. It's very easy to see many reasons why.

Soays in the morning:

Soays are tiny sheep, which doesn't exactly show in these photos.

 

Their friend and guardian, Isaac, who is significantly larger than they are:

He keeps coyotes away. There are four guardian dogs with the Soays at Saltmarsh Ranch. I fell in love with Isaac.

Also Molly (Mollie?), the herding associate, who injured a leg recently and has to be on forced rest for a bit.

Although, as you can see, she is always on the alert for a bit of work she might do:

Maybe she could help????? With ANYTHING?????

These Soays are clearing underbrush: eating star thistle and blackberry vines in preference to the grass. They'll eat the grass if all the good weeds are gone.

These are young Soays:

We went out to look over and snap photos of the rams, several of whom are going to other farms fairly soon (with genetically diverse ewes). They are identified as to lineage by the tape on their horns (all Soay rams and many Soay ewes have horns).

 

I have more photos, but I don't have more time at the moment. There's a great article on Soays in the January/February 2008 issue of Hobby Farms magazine.

Yes, Soay wool is fine and spinnable. There isn't much per sheep each year and it tends to be on the short side, and it roos (sheds) instead of being shorn, which makes gathering it a challenge. The quality of the wool, however, is part of what makes Soays the link between wild sheep (which you can see in their coloring and some of their behavior) and early domestication.

And now I-80 calls me again.

More good Sock Summit links

As I mentioned, I didn't get many firsthand photos of Sock Summit due to the other things I was paying attention to, but I do have the ability to evaluate other folks' presentations of what happened there. Here are some more good options.

News media

The Oregonian, Oregon Living, “Have Needles, Will Knit: Portland's First Sock Summit Is a Hit,” by Nancy Haught, Sunday August 9, 2009 (this was the front page of the living section in the Sunday paper).

The Oregonian, K2Tog: A Knitting Blog, by Peggy McMullen and Mims Copeland, “Lessons from Sock Summit,” posted by Mary Mooney, August 10, 2009.

Notes on upcoming podcasts

Twisted Stitches, “Portland Sock Summit Day 5” - These folks interviewed Barbara Walker for a podcast, and also got great photos of the Luminary Panel.

Michael Wade is starting a new podcast/news show called “Fiber Beat” and interviewed Priscilla Gibson-Roberts for it, although I don’t have any other information on that yet.

Participants

LynnH at Colorjoy! got some great photos of a couple of instructors' feet . . . everyone's feet were interesting during Sock Summit. . . .

Two Sock Knitters, some about Portland and some about post-Sock Summit recovery (Sock Summit was friendly to all humans who were well behaved, including infants; there was a "rock and rest" room for parents' and tiny ones' respite, when necessary).

Vendors

Wool Candy, a great overview from a vendor, with lots of photos (although not as many as she wanted to take).

Periwinkle Sheep, a vendor's perspective (from the end of an aisle: she had a good vantage point).

Traveller's Yarn, "Sock Summit Report," another vendor's perspective (vendors seemed to do well; I was worried about a few who had booths with very limited offerings, or things not well enough aligned to the attendees' interests).

UK Knit Camp

I'll also mention that Jo Watson crossed the Atlantic to offer Sock Summit folks information on the UK Knit Camp, inspired by Meg Swansen's Knit Camps and happening in Scotland in August 2010. A number of the Sock Summit instructors will be there. It promises to be a fine occasion.

Future adventures?

All indications are that Tina and Stephanie, who organized Sock Summit, will be doing more events in the future, but (1) they need to recover from Sock Summit and (2) I'm thinking they won't repeat themselves but will keep us guessing and enthralled with their next audacious endeavor.

Maybe the convention center(s) and other suppliers will take them seriously from the start next time. They—ST-1 and ST-2 (Sock Team 1, which was Tina and Stephanie, and Sock Team 2, which included the amazing Rachel, Debbie, Debra, and JoAnn)—and a handful of exceptionally competent volunteers ran the best event (of any type) I've ever attended. Mind-blowingly well done. It takes a while to rest up after such a feat. . . . But maybe, just maybe, there will be less uphill battle convincing suppliers that yes, they know what they're doing. . . .

Fleeces: variations and consistencies within and between breeds, using the Leicesters as an example

This post will consist of ideas and musings, not pronouncements.

Having been fascinated by breed-specific wools for years, especially the rare breeds that will vanish if we do not have adequate financial support for the shepherds who want to care for flocks of them, I have jumped off the deep end (again) in another study of fibers.

This is the Big Project that I've been talking about. It will result in a book. Carol Ekarius and I are working on it together; I'm responsible for the fiber aspects. Done right, it would take another several decades. We have deadlines (although they have flexed as our vision has expanded, they still exist). The results will not be perfect. However, I tell myself that I've already put several decades of preparatory work into The Project, and whatever I accomplish now will help someone else in the future take this work to its next step (maybe I'll even have the opportunity to take it farther, after The Project has been completed). Similarly, I am, of course, depending on the labors and observations of those who have written down their thoughts and ideas about wool before me.

I'm going to use the Leicesters as an example for this scattered group of thoughts-without-conclusions. In these thoughts, I'm only looking at the wool from these breeds, not all the other aspects of how and why they came to exist as separate entities, what sizes the sheep are, what ecological and cultural niches they fill, and so on.

A quick overview of "the Leicesters"

"The Leicesters" is not an official group of sheep breeds. People who know very little about sheep think all sheep are the same, except most are white and a few are black. People who have dug a little deeper and know about breeds get confused by the Leicesters because of the similarities of their names—Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester. These breeds are, indeed, genetically related. Their wools can be radically different . . . or, in some cases, a bit similar. More different than similar, though, at least when seen from where I'm sitting.

Leicester Longwools came first, a breed refined during the 18th century from early Lincolns and Leicesters (geographic variants of the same ancient breed). They have a lot of other names, including English Leicesters.

Border Leicesters have also been around since the 18th century, but their breeding was based in part on the then-recently-developed Leicester Longwools.

Bluefaced Leicesters are the relative newcomers, having been developed early in the 20th century by selecting Border Leicesters that had "blue" faces (black skin under white wool) and . . . most importantly for fiber folk . . . fine fleeces.

Differences between breeds, looking at "the Leicesters" all at once

Here are some samples from the three breeds (clean locks, shearings from different sheep for each):

It's easy enough to see the relationship between the Leicester Longwool and the coarser (left) lock from the Border Leicester, as well as between the finer (right) Border Leicester and the Bluefaced Leicester.

Variations within a breed: Bluefaced Leicester

The photo also hints that it may be easier to predict what type of fiber you'll get when you have a Bluefaced Leicester fleece, as compared to a Leicester Longwool or a Border Leicester.

Although a sampling of two means nothing, there is a useful bit of information behind the consistency that we think we perceive in these Bluefaced Leicester locks: the breed standards for Bluefaced Leicester are narrowly defined, and the wool tends to be in the range of 24 to 28 microns (equivalent to Bradford counts and USDA grades of 56s to 60s), and the staple lengths are between 8 and 15cm (3 and 6 inches).

Those are, for wools, quite narrow ranges. (And just look at that crimp: all of the Leicesters have delightful crimp, although of different character.)

Differences between breeds: Leicester Longwool and Border Leicester

Here's where matters get complicated and it gets harder to make generalizations.

These are older breeds with less stringent breed society constraints. There's much more variability in the wool right from the start, and that variation is also pushed in specific directions by breeders' preferences, both in their individual goals for their flocks and in different parts of the world. In addition, white and natural-colored sheep don't have the same wool profiles.

Overall, Border Leicesters can be slightly finer than Leicester Longwools, although their micron count and Bradford/USDA ranges very nearly overlap (the finest Border Leicester is not, on paper, quite as fine as the coarsest Bluefaced Leicester, although it's very close). Border Leicesters can also be as strong (or coarse) as Leicester Longwools. (Except for . . . oops, that's a digression for another time.)

Let's say Border Leicesters run from 29.25 to 40 microns (40s to 50s) in the British Isles and North America, and between 32 and 40 microns (36s to 46s) in New Zealand and Australia.

And let's say Leicester Longwools run from 32 to 38 microns (40s to 46s) in the British Isles*, North America, and Australia, and between 37 and 40 microns (36s to 40s) in New Zealand.

* (except for British natural-colored Leicester Longwools, which, according to the British Coloured Sheep Breeders Association, range from 37 to 46 microns [40s+])

Oh, and staple length. Both of these breeds can be shorn twice a year, so depending on whether you are looking at a half-yearly shearing or a full year's growth, you may see between 12.5 and 25cm (5 and 10 inches) for the Border Leicester and between 12.5 and 35cm (5 and 14 inches) for the Leicester Longwool.

There are a lot of possibilities in these two breeds. Yet we can still draw some conclusions. I won't do that now, because that's the work of The Project, and I have to read, spin, and mull a lot for each breed in order to come up with something resembling conclusions. I'll probably be right in my conclusions part of the time, and wrong part of the time. I hope there won't be much of the latter, but I also hope that whatever "wrongness" ends up in The Project spurs someone else to dig even deeper.

Wool in the hand

Numbers can be helpful, but spinning the fibers tells so much more. It has seemed to me, over time, that fibers with exactly the same numerical identifiers—micron count, staple length, and so on—can feel significantly different, likely because of differences in the patterns of the scales on the surface of the fiber, possibly the way the cells that make up the insides of the fiber are arranged, and other things we don't usually get to look at in detail.

Nor do we need to, if we take each fleece in front of us on its own terms, having trusted (and trained) our fingers to feel the individuality of THIS fleece by comparing it to other fleeces we've spun before. (The same goes for working with commercially spun breed-specific yarns, although some of the most subtle individualities are smoothed over in large-batch processing.)

Leicester Longwool

Glorious, lustrous, heavy in the hand, Leicester Longwool makes me think of rugs, and durable bags, and how beautiful and clear the colors will be when it is dyed . . . because of that luster. It could also be used to make interesting large-scale laces. It could make a lovely, nicely draping blanket, and for someone who is into making home furnishings it would also make great pillow or upholstery fabric—very hard-wearing! There's something about that crimp, too, that wants to be part of a fleece rug or heavily textured tapestry . . . especially in that shorter fleece on the right.

If I decided not to use the locks as locks or simply flick them open and then spin, I would comb both of these fleeces, to keep the fibers parallel and thus conserve as much of the shine as possible all the way through to the finished yarn. I'd use my Viking combs (I love my Viking combs). The fleece on the left would be challenging to comb, because of its length—not something for a beginner. It would require very long strokes to keep it from tangling. The fleece on the right would be better for someone who is either new to combing or impatient.

Border Leicester

With Border Leicester, I'd have to do more evaluation before planning a project or the preparation technique. At the finer end of the breed's wool range (something like the fleece on the right), I might be inspired to make a hard-wearing everyday sweater or mittens or socks. At the coarser end, I'd be looking again (like the Leicester Longwool) at sturdy rugs or bags, wall hangings, and the like. A coarser fleece with long staples (like the one on the left) could be used to make a fleece rug or blanket. There is plenty of luster to these fibers and they will show off dyed colors very nicely.

That longer fleece on the left would require some experience to comb. It might be fun to simply flick the locks open at both ends and spin. See the different length samples in the fleece on the right? It would be best to sort that fleece and prepare the different sections in different ways. The shorter bits might be carded and the longer ones combed.

The fleece on the right could become a nice sweater. The one on the left would, perhaps, rather be spun fine and woven into a coat.

Bluefaced Leicester

As we've noted, the Bluefaced Leicesters are more predictable, although husbandry, health, and weather all can produce fleeces that don't fit the regular profile.

  

The wool from Bluefaced Leicesters is soft enough to be used for next-to-skin wear. It will make lovely sweaters, scarves, mittens, gloves, blankets—it's easy to see why this wool is so popular (and it's easy to forget that there are jobs the other Leicesters can do much better). The staples are often long enough to comb, and some fleeces might be amenable to carding as well. Again, the luster means dyed colors will be clear and bright.

Conclusions, which I said I wasn't going to provide

The Leicesters share some genetics, and propensities toward luster, well-defined crimp, and enough staple length to suggest spinning from the lock, flicking, or combing as the first ideas about preparation for spinning.

Yet depending on which breed you select and which individual's fleece (from which year) you have, you could end up deciding to make anything from an heirloom-durable rug to a lacy camisole.

The Big Project: hints can be revealed (pertains to fiber, surprise, surprise)

Last weekend I drove south and into the mountains to spend a couple of days working on The Project.

(I've finally got the energy to see if I can cover the information the computer powers-that-be evaporated on me just as I'd finished writing a post on Monday. This time I am working in an offline composing program called Ecto. I don't know much about Ecto, so we'll see if this goes better than Monday did!)

I stayed in a cabin courtesy of Carol Ekarius and her husband, Ken Woodard. Ken went off to spend the time playing music with friends, leaving me and Carol to work on The Project. Yep, The Project requires two of us, and we both are the sort of people who are challenged, rather than daunted, by large, complicated tasks. Still, we haven't felt comfortable talking about what we're thinking (and working on) previously. Even though we've been working on it for a lot more than a year already. It's big. We do, now, suspect we will be able to pull it off in the foreseeable future.

Here's Carol at the cabin with Red, one of our weekend companions.

Chickens are not allowed inside, although Red forgets that from time to time in her quest for yummies.

Carol is passionate about livestock and small-scale farming. Her books include Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs: 163 Breeds from Common to Rare (Storey), which just won the Colorado Book Award in the general nonfiction category; How to Build Animal Housing (Storey), which won a Colorado Authors' League award; Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep (Storey), written with ground-breaking handspinner Paula Simmons; Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds (Storey); Pocketful of Poultry (Storey); Small-Scale Livestock Farming: A Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit (Storey); and Hobby Farm: Living Your Rural Dream for Pleasure and Profit (Bowtie).

I'm passionate about fibers and rare breeds, as those who know about my work at Interweave Press and Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot and as a freelancer and as the publisher of Nomad Press are aware.

We've both been involved for years with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

I'm doing fibers.

(That's Tuf, one of Carol's dogs.)

Carol's doing critters.

We're both working day and night.

Theresa and Red are doing eggs. They helped out a lot over the weekend.

Even though there is a MASS of work left to do on The Project, we made great progress and feel hopeful that we'll be able to change it from a bunch of separately written pieces into a coherent whole—while continuing to generate still more separately written pieces.

One of the things I like best about working with Carol is that when we get together and compare notes and I show her my research and the charts I'm drawing and the details that I'm endeavoring to condense into useful summaries that take into account geographic and biological variations and all sorts of other random differences . . . she doesn't say that I don't have to do all that and she doesn't tell me It would be faster if I just pulled somebody else's information and got on with it.

No, what she does instead is tell me about the weird and obscure and interesting books she's gotten through interlibrary loan and ask me for a reminder about a weird, obscure, and truly fascinating book that I got through interlibrary loan (because she's going to request the book, too, now that I've returned it). . . . She also doesn't imply that it was silly of me to pay $25 to borrow a book for a couple of weeks from the National Agricultural Library because it was the only copy of that book in the United States and it's not in print elsewhere any more. No, she gets on the computer and finds sources for more fibers and orders them and has them sent to my house.

It's great to be collaborating with Carol on this project. We're both nuts in some of the same ways. We won't ever do as much research as either of us would like to (we would like to finish), but we'll get enough done to have fun and to produce something we think fiber- and critter-appreciating folk will find useful and informative in a way that's unlike anything else that's come before it.

Of course, we also both work full-time at other jobs while we're doing this. Carol is the executive director of the Coalition for the Upper South Platte (we met when she was in this role and I was working on a heritage preservation project in Park County, Colorado). I juggle this project around freelance writing and editing and Nomad Press.

We might get tired from time to time, but neither of us is likely to get bored.

Time to get back to work. I don't think this is as good a post as the one I lost, but at least it is written and about to be published.

More about this project will be revealed as it moves (reasonably swiftly, we hope) toward completion.