The Independent Stitch

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2013, a random report

I love the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I love other festivals, too, but Maryland was my first wool festival (many years ago, when it was substantial but significantly smaller than it is now), and always gives me a feeling that I'm going home to a place and a community (of humans and animals) that exists fleetingly but regularly. I've almost always worked when I was at the festival, either in the Interweave Press booth, or researching and gathering materials for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, or, last year and this year, teaching.

For two reasons, this will be a brief and random report on Maryland 2013. First, I'm home just long enough to prepare to teach at a new-to-me festival, the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. (There are still a few spaces left in the two-day workshop, 3Ls and 3Cs—it's about a variety of related sheep with diverse wools both from the UK (Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester) and from New Zealand and Australia (Coopworth, Corriedale, and Cormo), and about how breeds are developed and determined, all with fiber in hand.) Second, I have very few photos from the five days because I was teaching. (I do have a few, thanks to some participants in the groups. But when I teach, I teach.) I had Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon "off," so that's pretty much when I was able to take pictures. And meet up with people I had appointments with. And buy fleeces for future workshops.

One thing I always like to do at festivals is visit the animals and see what kinds of photos I can capture. This Corriedale and an Oxford were amazingly friendly every time I stopped by (which was as often as I could).

While zooming through the Main Building (which I still think of as Building V), I spotted these Hog Island sheep (a rare breed), available in knitting-kit form:

I was especially taken with the variegated yarn for the horns. The kits are produced by Yarn by Mills. They aren't on the website yet, so if you're intrigued  you'll need to e-mail Margy Mills at yarnbymills AT yahoo.com to ask about them.

Then, of course, I had to visit George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate's Hog Island sheep, located as usual in the breed display section of the barns.

Here's another photo:

One of the ewes was being placed with a new young owner through a program that puts rare-breed sheep in the care of young shepherds, and the young woman who would be taking the ewe home showed her (with help from Lisa from Mount Vernon) in the Parade of Breeds on Sunday afternoon:

Hog Island sheep have quite the story to tell. I'll be including the breed as one of four locally sourced wools in a four-day retreat on Maryland's Eastern Shore in late October of this year.

I also bought two Jacob fleeces with different characteristics for the same retreat.

And got some photos of Jacobs. They tend to be very photogenic, as well as nice sheep!

This wee one seemed to have been hand-carried throughout the festival, as far as I could tell. I kept seeing it, always with an accompanying human.

I got in a quick visit to Clara Parkes' gathering for people involved with the Great White Bale project (I'm an armchair traveler):

It's all about the fiber.

That's the first yarn spun from the Great White Bale.

It's Merino.

I also got to see my friend Moe, who's a Shetland ram. He dressed up for the Parade of Breeds on Sunday.

I also got to sneak away for part of the shearing demo. Kevin Ford blade-sheared. . . .

And then Kristen Rosser, who is working with Emily Chamelin, showed how the job gets done with electric shears (she commented while Kevin sheared, and he commented while she did).

Emily and I managed to meet up on the fly and talk sheep, which was one of the highlights of the festival for me although I don't have photos—just a great link.

On Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I led barn walkabouts, which are a whole lot of fun even though they involve a bunch of on-the-fly changes of approach and plans (depending on what's happening in the barns). We alternate walking through the barns and looking at specific breeds of sheep, while either I or the shepherds talk about them. . . . (Thanks to Joanne Jaeger for the next photo.)

(That's Melissa Weaver Dunning, with whom I had the great good fortune of spending a fair amount of time during this festival. She teaches at John C. Campbell Folk School, among other places.)

. . . and finding a quiet place to discuss questions that have come up or give an overview of what we'll be seeing next. (Thanks to Melissa Weaver Dunning for this next photo.)

We did the walkabouts for the first time last year, and there were a few scheduling tweaks that made them work better this year (like: not trying to do one during the Suffolk lamb auction in the same building!) and a few logistical shifts that made them a little more challenging (lots more breeds on display—like more than 40!—which meant one of the aisles was very narrow, but we managed).

When I worked the festival at the Interweave Press booth in years past, representing Spin-Off magazine, I used to go to the breed barns to take a break—there and to the sheepdog demos. I didn't have a free moment this year during any of the dog events, alas, so I missed them entirely. 

But I did find a few fleeces to bring home for teaching workshops this year.

And more.

ALL of this wool will be distributed to other people, mostly in workshops. Well, I'll get to make some swatches as part of the ongoing research. Yesterday I washed up the first two bathtubs-full.

Wow, do I love the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

And next week I'll be at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival, which I'm looking forward to experiencing for the first time. I hear there are still a few workshop spaces available. All of my workshops sold out at Maryland, and it would be fun if the one in Kentucky did, too! I'm bringing plenty of wool (including some of what's drying downstairs right now), so as long as there's an opening even walk-ins will work.

My, this is lovely wool. I can't wait to share it.

Okay. I need to go wash more of it.

Types (and groupings) of wools

On Apr 9, 2013, at 12:48 AM, A. N. Mouse wrote:

Subject: Types of wools from Craftsy, and Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

Hi Deb,

I just watched your Craftsy class last night, thanks so much for doing that, it was excellent for a new spinner! I just have a question regarding a comparison between that and your Sourcebook.

In the Craftsy class, you talked about four general classes of wool and some of the major representative breeds in each class. Do you use the same general division in the Sourcebook, so that I would be able to tell which class various breeds fell into? Or, alternatively, I assume there's enough parallel information that I can bridge from the type description at Craftsy, to any classification you might use in the Sourcebook?

I find I want to spin All The Things, but at the same time I want to have some rationality about what I'm doing while I'm doing it!

Many thanks and best regards
A. N.

__

Dear A. N.:*

Thanks so much for your note, and I'm delighted that you enjoyed the Craftsy class!

You ask a very interesting question, and it doesn't have a simple answer. However, it does have a workable one.

The Craftsy class was very simplified, and its primary audience is both knitters and spinners, with a slight bias toward knitters (also crocheters, weavers, and so on). The wool-type groupings I used in the Craftsy presentation are aimed at people whose primary contact with the fiber is in touching the yarn (usually by squishing the skein!) and who want to then knit, crochet, or weave something that doesn't disappoint them (too soft or too harsh to function well in what they decide to make).

The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook has not been "distilled" to the same extent, and its groupings are different—they reflect a more comprehensive view of the sheep and their wools, and were developed in large part because I wanted to be able to consider related groups of wools together—and, most importantly, to help myself (and other people) more readily differentiate between sets of breed names and types that get confused. Fleece & Fiber covers a lot more territory, in a lot more depth, and its information is more nuanced.

The key to connecting the types of concepts in the Craftsy class and the information in Fleece & Fiber is on pages 34 and 35 of the book, where you will find "A Starter Guide to Breed-Specific Wools" (it was co-author Carol Ekarius' brilliant idea to include this in the book, and I made up the categories and put the breeds in them).

The categories there are a bit different than the ones from the online class, because when I was developing the Craftsy course I came up with the (more memorable?) catchwords to be used in a video format to describe a smaller number of types of wools, and those groupings don't relate directly to the four lists of breeds in the book. Yet the Fleece & Fiber lists on those pages should give you the rationality in approaching the wools that you're looking for.

The study of wool, like wool itself, is not static. One of the things I like so well about learning more all the time about wool is that there are so many ways to organize and understand it. I hope the systems and terms I'm coming up with continue to help others. They're rough maps, based on my travels, to help guide others' explorations.

I'll have more ideas about how to think of wool groupings to throw into consideration in the future, as my understanding evolves. Don't take any of them as the last word: they're all sketches from a particular perspective, and they can all exist simultaneously. Use what is helpful. Skip over what is not, and instead find a different angle from which to examine what you want to get a grasp on. That's what I do. It's endlessly amusing.

With all best wishes, and happy spinning!
Deb

Deborah Robson
http://independentstitch.typepad.com

* A slightly revised and expanded response. With pictures. I like pictures. And links. Links can be useful.

_____

Congratulations to Joanne Seiff on winning the copy of Ann Kingstone's Born and Bred! I made up slips of paper and folded them and put them on the living room table and my daughter walked by randomly and snatched one out. It had Joanne's message on it. Both my daughter and I said later that we really wanted to pick EVERYBODY. But we couldn't, so thanks to everyone for throwing your names into the circle of chance. It's a wonderful book.

One Explore 4 opening (March 11-14 event)

There is one opening for the Explore 4 retreat in Friday Harbor, Washington in about ten days. Arrive Sunday, March 10, retreat March 11-14, depart Friday, March 15. I haven't advertised this at all because I don't want to disappoint people; there was a small waiting list and we've found space for everyone on it—in part by re-evaluating the space and determining that we could fit in a couple more people and their wheels. It's still small. If you're interested, get in touch with me as soon as possible at deb at drobson dot info.

Information is available here until some time later in the year when I remember to take the link down.

This is a view of the lodge where we meet, from the lake side.

Here's the fireplace in the great room where we meet:

We have four days, and we explore one fiber per day. This year's fibers are:

• Suffolk

• Shetland

• yak

• Jacob

Yesterday, my friend Kris came down the mountain and helped me pack up a bunch of fibers, starting from this pile, which is maybe as much as one-third of the fiber that's being prepared for the retreat, maybe a little less:

Another friend, Jennifer, has been washing wool for me in Washington. I bought it there just under two weeks ago and she offered to not only help me out by washing it but save me from having to haul it to Colorado and back again. She has posted a lot of captioned photos about her process.

Meanwhile, Debbie and Maxine from Island Fibers have gotten another several fleeces together for us. I like to source fibers locally when I can, and they're fantastic people (who will be coming to set up their moveable shop at Lakedale during the retreat). One of the breeds I wanted to feature—Suffolk—wasn't one that they'd located as a wool source on the islands before. They found us great fleeces and convinced the shepherd that the breed's wool wasn't just a nuisance! (Suffolk is fun.)

I've also gotten shipments from across the country (oh, make that the world), including this rooed (naturally shed) moorit (brown) fine-fleece Shetland that's in my bathtub right now. Jennifer and I have different washing techniques, which is part of what Explore 4 is about: finding the ways for each of us to enjoy spinning as a comfortable, ongoing, endless adventure.

If you'd like to enjoy an information- and experience-filled but relaxed time in a beautiful setting the week after next, let me know.

Happy almost-spring. The snow here is melting: so good to have water running down the streets! So good to have water!

I love yaks (and their fiber)

Yesterday I had the great good fortune of visiting Carl and Eileen Koop (and their yaks) at Bijou Basin Ranch. It was a 263.5-mile round trip and worth every bit of the journey. Here's part of why:

The yaks charmed me completely.

Backing up just a bit, here's a sign along the last bit of paved road (state highway, in this case) on my trip to the ranch.

And here's what that sign said:

West Bijou Creek. It's important in the story of this year on the Colorado plains to note that I didn't see any water in the creek. We've had a drought that's been affecting all sorts of livestock, including the fiber-producing types, like sheep and goats and yaks. I'll touch lightly on this again later.

Here's a view of the type of landscape in that part of the world.

And here's the type of wide county road I turned onto from the highway.

A number of miles later, I took the second right onto this narrower type of county road.

Over the years, there's obviously been enough water along that line running perpendicular to the road (likely a currently dry creek) to support the growth of those trees. It's good that they're well-enough established to withstand some dry times.

A few more miles, a driveway, and a turn into the yard brought me to this view.

Closer up, even before I said hello to Carl and Eileen, here they were:

I was at this point just under nine miles from pavement and twenty-nine miles from the nearest grocery store (which was a Safeway, but a rather limited one; I wanted, but couldn't get, unsweetened black tea, either cold or hot; they do normally stock it). The roads, however, were clear and well maintained. As long as there wasn't a storm of any sort making it impossible to see where the edges were (which there wasn't yesterday, but there was last Saturday, when I'd planned to make this trip), it was a smooth and easy drive.

There are nine yaks currently in residence. There were quite a few more, but a number needed to be sold to other ranchers because of the drought. The Koops see themselves as stewards of the land as well as of the animals, and even though they use a lot of supplemental feed they need to watch the condition of the pastures, which have diminished in capacity with the recent lack of water.

These yaks are the spirit behind Bijou Basin Ranch yarns. They provide the motivation for the Koops' business, and token amounts of fiber. The Koops want to do more to get yak fiber into our yarns than they could manage by growing it all themselves. So they work with other people who have yak herds, both in North America and in Asia, to make that happen in pretty magical ways.

I'll talk more about yarn (and spinning fiber) at the end of this post, but let's get back to the yaks I met.

This is Napoleon, the Big Guy.

He's especially fond of treats, and thinks he should have them all. (That's his YUM tongue-move.) The Koops make sure that their animals are well socialized, and put a lot of effort into establishing trust between animals and humans (and, consequently, vice versa).

These are Tibetan yaks. There are two types in this group, Imperials and what are called either gray-noses or Blacks. Napoleon is an Imperial yak. He's solidly black, including his nose.

So are this year's two babies (that's Napoleon's comparatively massive flank in the foreground).

The babies start out fuzzy, and as they mature their coats develop the mix of hair and down that will keep them warm. The down is also what makes luxurious yarns. (The hair is also a useful spinning fiber, but Tibetans know more about what to do with it, or with a mix of the two fibers, than North Americans do. We don't make many yurts here.)

Here's a baby face.

The yaks tolerate, and sometimes harass, the barn cat. Even the little guys chase the cat now and then. The cat goes with the flow.

Here's a this-year baby snuggled next to one of last year's calves.

Last year's complement consists of Knit and Purl, and aren't they fine-looking beings?

They're a little hard to tell apart. One is slightly larger than the other; I think it's Knit who is a little bigger than Purl. One of them was slightly lame when first born, possibly because of a lack of room to stretch out before they were born, but is fine now.

My photos of Ruby, Onyx, and Jade all ended up fairly backlit. But let's see what I can do for them and Doc. They're all grey-noses (Blacks).

Here's one of the ladies: I need a bit more help to tell the three of them apart, although they have distinctive appearances and personalities. I was just trying to learn all nine at once while engaged in fascinating conversation and taking pictures! (The first photo at the top of this post is another of the ladies, the one with a crooked right horn. The one with the crooked horn is not Ruby. Ruby is one of the two adult females with regularly angled horns. She is the least interested in being patted or given an ear-stratch, but I think she warmed up with time, and treats.)

And Doc is in front here, with Knit and Purl.

I tried to get a good photo of each of them, but I may need to go back and try again. That would be fun!

Recently I completed a pair of fingerless mitts using the laceweight, natural brown yak yarn that I got for the KDTV segment on yak fiber that I did last year (it's on YouTube). I made swatches for the show, and am now slowly (between other samples, research, and deadlines) using the leftover yarn to make teaching samples.

The pattern is Miriam Felton's Gable Mitts, from her book, Twist and Knit. I was a little concerned about how well the pattern would show up in such a dark yarn, but I'm pleased. I put the thumb gusset on the side of the hand (one of the pattern's options), and would probably use the palm-placement alternative next time, although I'm perfectly content with these.  (I modified the thumb finish and cast-off slightly; the modification wasn't necessary, but I felt like it.)

The yarns. Ah, the yarns. That natural laceweight is, for me, the iconic yak-down yarn, but it's far from all there is to the inspiring and alluring array of Bijou Spun possibilities. When we went inside for more talk and a cup of tea, I almost disappeared into the yarns on the table. So much so that I forgot to take pictures. But let me tell you about some of what I saw there—and there are good photos at the link at the beginning of this paragraph.

There are both natural colors (brown and creamy-white) and dyed shades by Lorna's Laces. Weights range from ultrafine (a yak/silk 50/50 that Eileen is experimenting with but isn't satisfied with yet: it was absolutely delicious, and all I can do is trust that she has something even more exquisite in her mind) to light worsted (the yak/Cormo blend). There are also pure yak, natural and in dyed colors and in several weights; yak/bamboo; yak/Merino; yak with a tiny touch of nylon; and even more.

While any of these would make me happy at any time, my favorites are the yak/Cormo blend, the new yak/silk (a test run), and the sportweight pure yak (some in dyed colors). The yak/silk blend (Shangri-La) is a very slender yarn with enough twist to make it durable. It combines the shine and drape of silk with the warmth and body of yak. Note to the knitter who doesn't mind fine needles and has been looking for something extraordinary: check it out. In the right light, that gray is really silver. The other colors, not as intense as Eileen requested, are knock-me-down beautiful anyway.

Bijou Basin also has, for spinners, "clouds" of down, which are a far cry from the fiber I encountered in the course of a freelance spinning-and-knitting job I did about thirty years ago. An Ivy League professor brought back mixed hair and down from "the Himalaya" (his term: I was never sure exactly where). He wanted it made into yarn and then into a sweater. I tried to talk him into shifting his goal to a welcoming rug for his office, but he would not be convinced, even by my most compelling arguments about the potential disadvantages of a hairy garment. (I was, and still am, convinced that the people who sold him the fiber could not imagine that anyone in North America could or would be spinning the stuff, and so sold him what they didn't want. Yes, they do often use the fibers mixed. But the condition of these several pounds of fiber was beyond the line of simply alternative preferences.) I did make him a sweater, as he firmly requested (he was paying the bill! and I needed groceries), although I purchased color-matched Lopi yarn for the ribbings (cuffs, neck finish, and lower edge), in order to give the sweater a chance of being wearable. I still wonder if he ever put it on for more than a few minutes. I never met the man, and I doubt that I will ever know what became of the sweater.

We fiber folk—yarnies and spinners alike—have come a long way from those days, in large part because of Bijou Basin Ranch. Their down ranges from 15 to 18 microns; in fineness, that's excellent cashmere territory.

What a wonderful day. Thanks to Eileen and Carl! And to their irresistible yaks.

___

Why did I happen to take a trip to Bijou Basin Ranch at this time? I'm gathering materials for the second Explore 4 Retreat, to be held in Friday Harbor, Washington, March 10–15, 2013. Each day will focus on a different fiber. One of last year's participants requested that 2013 include yak, so yaks we shall have! If the retreat were closer to Bijou Basin Ranch, we'd be taking a field trip. As it is, I picked up information—and fiber!—to share with the group. (The event is full, with a short waiting list.)

Napoleon says I need to end with another photo of him.

He's very handsome. Also basically humble, if just a touch at-the-front-of-the-line-please.

The 30th Spin-Off Autumn Retreat

Last week I took a quick trip to Granlibakken, in Tahoe City, California, to participate in a few days of the 30th Spin-Off Autumn Retreat, best known as SOAR. This post will consist mostly of a series of not-too-great but definitely on-the-scene photos, with captions.

SOAR began because Linda Ligon, who founded Interweave Press, thought that spinners needed their own gathering, not just to be the stepchildren at weavers' conferences.

At the time, Anne Bliss was the editor of Spin-Off magazine, which was transitioning from an annual publication supplemented by quarterly newsletters to the quarterly magazine it still is. (Spin-Off editors over its thirty-five years—the publication is five years older than SOAR—have been: Anne Bliss, Lee Raven, me, and Amy Clarke Moore.) I don't have photos of Anne or Lee handy.

Linda asked Dale Pettigrew to put the first event together, and Dale went on to become the SOAR coordinator as the gathering grew and moved around the country.

I came in at the fifth SOAR, which was bigger than the previous ones (because it was the fifth) and had the first real marketplace and added pre-retreat workshops as well. That was 1987. It worked so well that the market and additional offerings continued.

A lot of the event's spirit and practices were shaped by Dale. In 2008, she was in a bike accident. No one's exactly sure what happened, because there were no witnesses (she was found by a passerby on the ground next to her bike, on a bike trail), but she spent a month in a coma, including several weeks on a ventilator. She has had to slowly re-learn how to talk and walk. Initially, she thought she would never spin or weave or knit again.

But the brain and the spirit are both amazing, resilient things.

When the idea arose to get Dale to this big-anniversary SOAR, she had been spinning again for a while and had begun to weave once more, using a rigid heddle loom. Interweave and several individuals pitched in to get Dale to Granlibakken, with me as her traveling buddy. One of the biggest challenges turned out to be transporting a spinning wheel for her. She has two wheels, one of which is a Rick Reeves that needed to stay home. The one we needed to get to and from California was the first Louet S-90, which had been introduced at SOAR in Silver Bay, New York, in 1997 and signed by a bunch of folks there.

First we had to find a container large enough. We tried suitcases, and ended up finding U-Haul flat wardrobe boxes. Then we had to make that box fit within the allowable luggage dimensions for Southwest Airlines and reinforce it so it would be sturdy enough to fully protect the wheel. We ended up using two of the wardrobe boxes, one inside the other, cut down so that there was room enough to pad the wheel on the inside and yet had outside measurements within the airline's requirements. We ended up with an inch to spare on each critical constraint, and the wheel traveled in both directions unscathed.

It was snowy at Granlibakken (Dale and snow seem to go together), so we needed to rent a 4WD vehicle in Reno rather than the compact we'd reserved.

But there was so much warmth at SOAR! Here Dale and Jodie, a much-loved long-time SOAR participants, look through, and identify people in, one of the many SOAR albums. (I snapped the photos of Linda and Dale at the start of this post from one of these albums. They are from a very early year, but not the first.) Pat Wagner Thompson was the SOAR photographer for many years. We missed her!

The SOAR community extends over years and also across the globe. Richard Ashford is often there, and his wife Elizabeth got to come this year, too. Here they are with Jodie. (The handspun garments everywhere are enduring "friends" as well.)

I didn't get photos of so many people: Gord Lendrum and his wife, Linda; Selma Miriam; Charlene and Charlene; Stephenie; Jeannine; Kris. . . . the list goes on. We invoked the presence of many others by remembering them, and we also quietly welcomed new community members who were present for the first time.

A few long-timers attended in unusual forms. Here's Dale (center) with instructor Maggie Casey and wheel-maven Cindy Lair, whom sometimes is able to be at SOAR three-dimensionally. (In the background that's Maggie Reinholtz, who started out as a member of the events staff a while ago but I hear got to participate in a workshop as well this time!)

SOAR is more a community than a conference, and a lot of the reason that's the case is Dale Pettigrew. She set and maintained a tone that still imbues the event.

On Thursday night, I gave a talk on rare-breed wools. . . . 

. . . after which we got Dale up there to talk. This is Amy Clarke Moore, Spin-Off editor; Dale, wearing a gorgeous sweater made and given to her by frequent SOAR participant Paula Shull, who unfortunately wasn't there; and me.

The gallery and the market were wonderful. I have about forty snapshots from the gallery, one of which I want to share here. This is Lundie Robb's "shepherdess and friend," made from rare wools and absolutely exquisite. Talk about capturing the joy of the craft, its history, present, and future:

What joy there is at SOAR throughout the gallery and the market and the dining room and in the workshops and walking through the halls!

It all started with a seed of an idea, grown for thirty years into a sturdy connection around the globe and, now, across generations.

Thanks to those who began this group adventure: Linda and Anne and Lee and, most of all, Dale.

And to everyone else who has participated, or thought about participating, or will be joining the community in the future. It might be snowing outside, but it's plenty warm when we gather together to spin and learn.

_____

Long before I came on the scene, Dale found a poem by Pamela Kelly that has served as a touchstone for SOAR since its beginning:

AS I SPIN . . . 

As I spin,
I watch the fibers
Twist
Assuming a stronger character.
I reflect on the twists
I have endured today. . . .

As I spin,
I think of other
people—
a parade of a thousand
years.
Meditating
hour after hour
at the spinning.

I, like Gandhi,
fold up my wheel
and carry it with me
to the meeting place.

           —Pamela Kelly

_____

Footnotes:

Thanks to Kris Paige for wielding my camera at critical moments.

Interweave, the company that sponsors SOAR, has been sold twice in fairly recent years. Seven years ago it was sold to Aspire Media. About three months ago, Aspire (including Interweave) was acquired by F&W Media. It's not clear what effect this may have on future SOARs. There have been some layoffs, predominantly in departments other than editorial. The events staff will be changing. The spirit of SOAR will continue, although it may need special care and nurturing to weather the newest transitions.

Waltz for the Wolves

Last Saturday night was the Waltz for the Wolves, the annual major fundraiser for W.O.L.F. Sanctuary, a rescue and education organization working with wolves and wolf-dogs, which recently has been hit by the High Park Fire, although all the wolves were—over a number of days and by a number of means—relocated to appropriate alternative locations outside the fire area. (I hesitated over adding the word "local" on that description of the fundraiser, but left it off because people attend from quite far away.)

Here's the room where the Waltz was held; I'd guess there were between 300 and 400 people there. 

The slide show primarily documented the relocation process. The wolves normally live in large, customized habitats, a number of which now contain specially constructed fire dens—recent additions that likely made a big difference in the survival of the less socialized wolves who had to be evacuated later, rather than sooner. 

The balloons were part of a raffle for special, donated prizes, one of which will appear later in this post.

Here's this year's program for the event, with the special bookmark featuring Whisper:

Some of the wolves and wolf-dogs serve as ambassadors, because they are able to handle, more comfortably than the others, (1) travel by van, (2) being around people, especially ones they don't know, and (3) unexpected events. These animals are key to the sanctuary's educational programs. I have always seen them taken out together (that is, at least two wolves in each adventure), and their needs always come first. The two ambassadors at the Waltz were Pax and Sasha, who are habitat-mates.

At this year's Waltz, the main room was quite noisy, so Pax and Sasha came inside and looked around (meaning cruised the WHOLE perimeter of the space, quickly), went outside and got quiet again, then got curious and asked to go back inside for another speedy tour, part of which was captured above. They were on site for about an hour, then taken back to their temporary residence while the humans continued to do their thing. If you have access to Facebook, there are much better photos of Pax and Sasha on the W.O.L.F. page there.

Tunyan and Sigmund are also, as two pictures from 2010 show, quite social, but they aren't ambassadors. Among other reasons, Siggi doesn't like the car-transport part of the equation and Tunyan is a sneak-thief with a special interest in cameras.

Here's Sigmund with Kris Paige, who introduced me to the sanctuary and has spun and knitted items of wolf fur for the Waltz for the Wolves auctions for the past several years. Like many of the others, Sigmund is a wolf-dog, with too much wolf in him to be a good household pet. Tunyan is coming up behind Siggi to see whether she can steal my camera.

She didn't get it that time. (Tunyan is Lakota for "brat.")

These are some of the wolves whose fur I spun for The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, thanks to Kris's introduction.

One of the reasons that I am fascinated by and interested in the W.O.L.F. Sanctuary is its strong, clear advocacy and its blend of empirical and intuitive guidance. When faced with thorny questions, they consult various people beyond their immediate boundaries, including bioethicist Bernie Rollin, and they pay a great deal of attention to the wolves themselves: what their behavior indicates about what they need. Also because we know Michelle Proulx, who began as a basic-level volunteer (when she was working at the same bookstore that my daughter did) and is now the educational program director for the sanctuary, in addition to being a brilliant animal caretaker.

Michelle is a reason that one of the program items at the Waltz is belly-dancing, because that's another thing that she does. So we enjoyed the proficiency and variety of the Rocky Mountain Belly Dance Company.

This year, Michelle didn't dance with the troupe because, with the fire, she had too many other things she was responsible for. This year her fellow dancers told her enough.

The Stone People Drummers played for the dancers and also by themselves.

The belly-dancers even, later in the evening, got a lot of people up dancing with them because of this kind of energy. 

The live auction included some of the items made by Kris, who had been working on them both before and during the time when she was evacuated from her home. The GREAT auctioneer for the live auction was Debbie Stafford (for an interesting time, read her bio!), who I gathered is the sister of the sanctuary's clinical director, Priscilla Dressen. She did an amazing job.

Back to those gold balloons. They had ticket numbers on them, and could be purchased for a reasonable sum for a chance to win one of the raffle items. By means of her gold balloon, Kris won a custom skateboard with an image of Shaman, a wolf who has been important to her, as well as to a number of other people involved with W. O.L.F.  Kris looks whomped here because she and her husband Earl lost their house and barn to the fire just a week earlier, and she'd recently seen photos of what was left, although she hadn't been to the site yet—pictures of that are forthcoming. We had to egg her on to go to the Waltz, which is a lot to take in for humans as well as wolves—but a number of us, all over the country, thought it was really important for Kris to be there, even though we knew it would be hard. It was hard. It was also worth it: Shaman said so.

Shaman, who has now (as the sanctuary phrases it) returned to spirit, is a perfect guide for the Paiges' rebuilding effort. Two people came over with offers to buy this item from Kris, but we all agreed that it was the perfect thing for her to have as a cornerstone for bringing into existence what will be the Paiges' new home. Shaman was, for a long-time, one of W.O.L.F.'s primary ambassadors, and he's still doing good work.

Here's one of the items Kris donated to the fundraiser—fingerless mitts from Sigmund's fur:

And another, a hat from the signature wolf for this year's Waltz, Whisper:

In all, Kris made two hats, two pairs of fingerless mitts, and a six-foot-or-so scarf, all from either Whisper's or Siggi's fur this year.

Kris is doing much better now. It's one step at a time, and Saturday night was a big and important leap. Thanks to everyone who has sent messages and/or help through the website I mentioned in a previous post. Kris keeps saying things like, "There's someone here who says they came from your blog!" and "Scotland?!" The support, both emotional and practical, is priceless.

Here's another photo of Kris from our visit to the sanctuary in 2010. In this one she's with Rajan, who is a sometimes ambassador (in a pinch, though I hear he'd rather stay home). I think he'd just been nibbling on Kris's hair.

Photos by Judy Fort Brenneman (at the Waltz, because I forgot my camera) and by me and Kris Paige (at the sanctuary).

The wolves have all returned home to their sanctuary habitats now, with much relief all around. W.O.L.F.'s major advance fire planning has paid off—combined with a bit of luck that the fire, when it reached the sanctuary site, was not burning more fiercely than it was. Several small buildings were lost, but the main buildings and most of the habitat—and the fire dens! which worked!—came through.

Shipping wool internationally

Carol Ekarius, co-author with me of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, was our primary coordinator of obtaining samples that I then analyzed, washed, recorded, and spun. Therefore she's the one who needed to figure out the logistics and legalities of moving wool, in the quantities we needed, across various types of boundaries.

She wrote up her findings. I've added some links and the 2012 update of countries' Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) status; the need to prevent the spread of FMD is the reason for caution in transferring animal products between countries.

In short: It's easy to ship wool. You can make it VERY easy by knowing what the regulations are and putting a couple of extra sheets of paper inside your package. For the most part, the papers aren't necessary and the wool goes through without a hitch (as it should). But we're all about preventing problems, whenever possible. (Moving meat products across borders is a whole different issue.)

________________________

Getting Your Raw Wool Fix from Far Away:
Or, importing raw fleeces to where you call home from foreign ports of call. . . .

by Carol Ekarius, co-author of The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

I have seen a few questions popping up in places where people are talking about The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook that go something like, “Now I am finding out about all these breeds, I’d like to be able to [buy/sell] fleeces to or from [fill in the name of a locale]. Can I order them from overseas and have them shipped in, or are there issues with importing raw wool?”

I actually looked into this somewhat as we were working on the book thanks to a conversation I had with Tim Booth, our wonderful friend at the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB). Tim went above and beyond the call of duty to (with the help of some other BWMB staff) get us many fleece samples and photos for some tougher-to-find British breeds. He said that BWMB was a bit cautious about sending fleeces to the United States because they sometimes got held up at customs, and occasionally rejected. Rejects got shipped back, which cost a bunch of money on what is still a low-value commodity overall.

Was I familiar with the regulations? he asked me.

“Not offhand, but I’ll find out,” I responded.

Importing to the United States

I called the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (it’s called APHIS for short). I was quickly connected with a veterinarian who said it is fine to import wool from many countries, as long as it isn’t covered in blood or manure. He explained that there are countries where Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is active, and those countries have a few more considerations that have to be taken into account, but those that are FMD-free—including the United Kingdom—should not be a problem.

I told him Tim’s story of shipments that were turned around by U.S. Customs, and he said sometimes the customs agents, who actually do the inspections, may not understand the rules regarding wool. He told me to check out the Animal Product Manual chapter on Hides and Related Byproducts and he suggested that I send Tim the link with a note to check tables 3.7.14 through 3.7.17 (these charts are available at our Fleece & Fiber website), and he also suggested that the best way to ensure that customs agents know what to do is to include a written statement (see the sample) that this was raw wool from a healthy animal from an FMD-free country (notarized if you are concerned about validating fully), and include the table that shows the customs agent that he or she should release the fleece from customs with no problem so long as it is free from blood.

Lo and behold, these tables are a great resource. They help quickly clarify the process for fibers coming into the United States from FMD-free or FMD-troubled countries. Blood and excess manure are to be diligently avoided, but if you are buying fleece for handspinning, you sure as heck want it to be well skirted, and there should never be any appreciable blood stains on a fleece from a well-sheared critter.

So, if someone in an FMD-free country (list at the bottom of this post) wants to sell wool to someone in the United States, copy the first chart (3.7.14) and include it in the package, along with your statement that this is raw wool from [type of animal] (usually sheep, but could be goat, musk ox, yak, alpaca, or other ungulate not protected as a threatened and endangered species), grown in an FMD-free country. If you are in an FMD-troubled country, include the appropriate chart, and no matter which chart you are using, use a yellow highlighter to emphasize the correct decision mode.

Here's a link to the APHIS publication listing foreign countries and their disease status (including FMD) as of January 2012. It's the resource from which we developed the list included in this post. If you are reading that original APHIS document, note that some requirements (marked FMD/SR) apply to meat-based products only.

Exporting from the United States

This gets a bit more complicated for me, because each country has its own rules, but for European Union (EU) countries, I can define the current status. On February 25, 2011, the EU Commission adopted Regulation No. 142/2011, which allows that “fully treated” hair or wool can be imported into the EU countries from the U.S. and no documentation or APHIS approval is required. The U.S.-based exporter should have the European importer confirm in advance with the Border Inspection Post (BIP), through which the product will enter the EU, that the hair/wool is considered fully treated. In general hair/wool is considered by the EU to be fully treated if the wool/hair has undergone factory washing or been obtained as a by-product of the tanning of hides/skins. Hair or wool that is not “fully treated” doesn’t require shipment certification either, but it must be shipped from a U.S. facility that has been inspected and approved by APHIS Veterinary Services to ship untreated hair/wool to the EU. You can find a list of these facilities at https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sanco/traces/output/listsPerActivity_en.htm#

The other suggestion from the U.S. veterinarian is to contact the relevant country's agricultural service (in Britain, this is DEFRA, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and ask if they need an import permit. He also suggested that you can check with United States embassy in your country and ask for the trade or import/export department, which may be able to help.

—Carol Ekarius

 

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.

_____________

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.

________________

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.
_________________________

 

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.

______

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.

Choosing the breeds for Explore 4

For the survey classes on wools that I teach (on both general breed-specific wools and rare-breed wools), I aim to have a variety of types of sheep represented in the fibers I collect to share with people. The final line-up always involves an interesting balancing act, limited by what's available when the fiber-gathering takes place:

• representing different parts of the available fiber world (geographically speaking)
• long / short
• crimpy / wavy / straight
• supple / sturdy
• matte / shiny
• single-coated / diverse fiber mix
• butter-soft / warmly lofty, and, for fun,
• in different colors

Choosing and acquiring the four breeds for the Explore 4 workshop that I'll be teaching in March, where we will focus on a single breed each day, has required the same careful assessment of which will complement each other in ways both obvious and subtle. In this case, I need to cover the broad set of bases with a handful of choices.

It's been a fun challenge, and as of yesterday I've lined up the crew! I've got my breeds, and I've also got the specific fleeces, selected for qualities like individual character and color.

Now—because this is the way I work, with the fiber we'll have in our hands preceding everything else—I can start to prepare detailed background information on the breeds. For the survey courses I teach, I already have the materials roughed out and I refine and adjust them when I know which specific breeds will be included. Yet Explore 4 provides a welcome excuse to present even richer stories about these breeds' history and characteristics.

For Explore 4, we'll be getting to know:

• Black Welsh Mountain (black, of course),
• Leicester Longwool (shiny white and long),
• Navajo Churro (this one will be gray), and
• Romney (I'm getting a brown one: brown Romneys aren't common, and the breed produces gorgeous shades).

The first three are rare breeds, and the fourth is a classic.

That's a Black Welsh Mountain sheep; I took the photo at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival a few years ago during the Parade of Breeds. (Last year, my camera wasn't working right and I missed a lot of good pictures, although I have some. I'll be there again this year and will see if I can do better. Same camera, hopefully working more reliably.)

I've already been washing the Leicester Longwool, which I bought at a freeway stop in Oregon last August. (I just needed a few yards of yarn, but I couldn't resist the raw wool.) Isn't it beautiful when it's released from its covering of grease, suint, and garden-variety dirt? The top and bottom in the next photo are the same fleece. All I did was wash it! Yet the luster and potential are clearly evident in the just-shorn state. (Um, the bottom is the clean portion {grin}.)

Speaking of washing, I've been asked to write some background information on how wool gets cleaned for a couple of upcoming online posts on other websites. (I'll try to remember, when these go live, to mention them, either here or on Twitter, where I'm @effortlesszone.)

I do love the transformation that happens in the tub. It's magic. And it's the start of a whole bunch of other magic.

* * * * *

Detail-y stuff, for those who want to know:

I'll be conducting survey workshops—expeditiously covering as many breeds as we can fit into the scheduled hours—at the Madrona Winter Retreat (in Tacoma, Washington) in February, and later in the year at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (schedule not posted as of when I'm writing), Olds College Fibre Week (Canada; registrations open March 1), Convergence 2012 (California; registration open now), and the Weavers Guild of Minnesota (registration open now). I'll also be teaching at The Spinning Loft (Michigan) in the fall, although we haven't decided what topic(s) we'll feature.

In addition, Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook co-author Carol Ekarius and I may be doing a couple of informational programs (not hands-on workshops) together at one 2012 event. We have a good time working together, so we've agreed to see if we can get it onto our schedules. I'll provide details when they're firmed up.

Registration numbers for all my classes and workshops are limited, yet openings do occur—one workshop that sold out on its opening day ended up having a space freed up a couple of months later. It's worth checking back. For all of these workshops, only basic spinning skills and equipment (listed in the descriptions) are necessary. It's all about starting where we are and moving to the next level.

Speaking of moving skills to the next level, I THINK I've figured out how to make the basic information for Explore 4 available here: click to download a PDF about Explore-4_2012. We've got a fantastic group coming together and there are still some spaces available for folks to join in.

* * * * *

All of the photos of wool in this post, from raw to knitted swatch, are Leicester Longwool. I do need to get a good picture of the Leicester Longwool sheep at Maryland! The photo with the skeins shows a couple of handspuns. I knitted the swatch from commercially prepared yarn.