I finished my spun mohair fiber page. This mohair is from Rutabaga the Angora goat and is from her first shearing.
I did a knitting swatch in stockinette stitch with a garter stitch border, crochet round, a minute weaver, and a nålbound swatch.
“What?” you say, “you have never been to a fiber festival? How is that possible?” Well, you might not say it, but the woman in the elevator did. I must say that she said it after cheering that it was my first visit. Yes, I have been working with yarn for around 40 years, but I only took up spinning just before the pandemic, and during the pandemic all the festivals were shut down. I have been searching out fibers to spin locally and online. Walking into a convention center with a huge room full of fiber was mind blowing.
Probably 90% of the fibers at the festival were already spun and dyed, ready for the eager knitters that lined the aisles. But there were pockets of un-spun fiber in various preparations. I found bamboo, hemp, nettle, and yak (!) spinning fibers, all of which I have not yet attempted to spin. There were a few raw fleeces as well: mohair and Rambouillet. I caved on some white mohair (it was the first time the seller was offering raw fleece and it looked like she did a nice job skirting and labeling). Rambouillet is now on my wish list; I couldn’t quite face a whole fleece right now, but the processed yarn and blankets were divine.
I did find myself some wool combs, which appeared to be the last pair in the room. I also found an intriguing Turkish spindle 3D printed from flexible filament (more on those another day). The booths did cater mostly to the knitter, but there was representation for weavers, crocheters, felters, spinners, and there were even some nålbinding needles! After about an hour and a half, my brain shut down. It appears that I will have to work up my festival stamina!
So there are times I forget my project bag, or suddenly have an unexpected wait and didn’t think to grab my project bag. The horror. I have found that having a small ball of yarn and a crochet hook stashed in my purse has come to the rescue on several occasions. I currently have some green fingering weight merino that I am using to learn a new shawl pattern. It is just a wee bit of wool so doesn’t take up much room, and a mismatched crochet hook so I don’t break up a set. Phew, yarn.
I bought some beautifully dyed yarn from a hand dyer. In the dying process, the yarn is left in skein form, which is basically a large circle secured in several places with twists of yarn. To store the skein it is twisted and one end tucked into the other. The skein form is beautiful, and shows off the dye, but is not friendly for direct use. It must first be wound into a ball or cake to be nice for crochet or knitting. You can have one person hold the skein open on their hands, and hand wind a ball, if you have someone with extra patience. Or a swift does the job of holding the skein open, and there are many types. I have an umbrella swift (named thus because it opens like an umbrella). I also have a ball winder (sometimes called a new wool winder), that has a rotating handle and makes center-pull yarn cakes. The sound of the Swift and ball winder turning makes a nice swoosh and clickty clack I find soothing.
I hand-carved a crochet hook out of cherry wood from my Dad’s woods. I turned it on my lathe, carved in the ergonomic thumb indent, and the hook. After sanding it down to 400 grit, I painted two cherries on it (because cherry wood). When the paint was dry I started coating it with tung oil. The hook has actually been done since December, but I finally made myself make the Etsy listing. Honestly, making the hook was easier than putting together the listing with the pictures, video, and descriptions! (Yes, I even did a video, Missy makes a cameo.) I really need to do more of this so it isn’t so daunting. Oh, the hook? It is very nice, a smooth finish without being slick, and fits nicely in my hand. It is a size M, so for use with chunky yarn, and the short neck works well with single crochet stitches. The Etsy listing is here.
Critters and Craft 