Love it and Leave it

I went to two fibre festivals and a private destash sale.  I looked at books.  I admired some glossy white Border Leceister yarn, some natural black Jacob roving, some naturally dyed mohair yarn, an antler whorl spindle, and a maple spindle.  I saw some weaving yarn I'd heard about; this was a chance to get a literal feel for it.  While they are excellent products, I was not moved to buy.

I'm sure somewhere festival organizers are clutching their hair saying "no, no, wrong idea."  At some point I will buy.  Right now I am not using up much of my stashed fibre or yarn.  I have sufficient amounts on hand, and I am reluctant to add to the pile.

I should have checked the auction tent for a secondhand warping board but I forgot.  I am leery of that place.  It's cramped.  The last time I went in, I bumped a production wheel on a table.  Most distressing.

Could Be That All Down Breed Wool Resists Felting

Remember I ran a handspun, handknit Shropshire wool swatch through the washer and dryer and it came out fine?  Well, I hear it could be possible that all wool from breeds of sheep in the down category is resistant to felting.

One of the Maryland Sheep and Wool fleece sale attendants says so.

The Tsarina of Tsocks says so too in her The Tsarina Tsays blog post, Little Acorns.

This could have possibilities.  There are those relatives I would vote most likely to toss handknits in the wash thereby inadvertently, irreparably felting untreated wool into something resembling a tortured potholder.  I bought some BFL superwash wool top at MDSW to make gifts for such folk.  It's only kind.  To impose incompatible rules or expectations on anyone when giving a gift, that is uncalled for.  However, at the same time I have to consider my own druthers and I'm not excited about the idea of spinning wool plastered with resin.

Nice to know I can widen my search for superwash alternatives from just Shropshire to any down breed.

The down side (oh, sorry, terrible pun) is that down breed wool fleece and roving are rarely sold on this continent to handspinners.  Too, down breed wool is uncomfortable to spin.  Probably there's more than a bit of correlation there.  The up side is I have new motivation to spin up that Dorset cross wool I bought on a whim this spring.

Photos of Sheep

Some sheep I saw at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival.

Jacob sheep eating a leash.

Could be Karakul.  Notice the very fat tail.

Lincoln, I think, enjoying a meal.

Border Leicesters reveling in the attention.

Romney, I think, wearing a coat to protect its wool.

Karakul

Blue Face Leicester lamb with a very sweet disposition.

Nothing Quite Like Being There

I enjoyed my time at the 2011 Maryland Sheep and Wool festival.  Got there on the first day, before the official start time.  There were lots of cars already in the field and a steady stream of cars arriving.  I approached from the west as the official website recommended and found that to be a good tack to take.

The weather was good and so was attendance I thought.  Though, from a crowd-avoidance standpoint, attendance was something.  One barn of vendor booths had so many people in its centre aisle around mid-morning that I went in five feet and walked out again, giving the idea up as hopeless.  Fortunately the aisle cleared out in that barn later in the afternoon.

Ran across half a dozen friends I ordinarily see at guild meetings.  Was great to see them under such, well, festive circumstances where there's so much to talk about.  Was amazing too, considering there were thousands and thousands of people milling around.

I enjoyed chats with random strangers while standing in lines, testing products, taking a brief rest in the skein and garment building, and sitting on the grass with the informal learn-to-spindle gathering.  I like watching people learn to use spindles.

I talked with vendors, sometimes just for a moment and in some cases for extended periods, which was very generous of them.  In particular, the owners of Indigo Hound passed along interesting practical and technical information about flax hackles, scutching knives, warp-weighted looms, sword-style weft beaters for warp-weighted looms, the use of oil dressing on fresh raw fleece as well as on washed locks, and wool combs' tine and handle shapes.  (By the way, as of this writing, Indigo Hound does not have a website, so if you found this blog post because you are looking for a link to them, sorry.)

Some of the barns had sheep and goats in them.  I didn't take many photos, but most of what I took were pictures of sheep.

I had a good time shopping.  I made some impulse buys.  I made some buys I expected to make.  I didn't buy some things I half expected to.  There were some products I went to the festival particularly to see because I thought I might possibly buy them.  I can now say I'm glad I've seen them.  I didn't bring them home, though.

Are You Going to Maryland Sheep and Wool?

Hope to be at Maryland Sheep and Wool festival this weekend.  Say hello if you see me!

I will be wearing a Rav button on my shirt and probably an intent expression on my face while I shop.

Fair warning, though, until I finish seeing all the booths I'm interested in, if you run into me it's only going to be a quick "hello, how are you, and what good stuff have you found."

Spanish Peacock nalbinding needles

These are bone needles made by Mike King of the Spanish Peacock.

I like the texture even better than wood, and way better than plastic. And I don't mean that in a "oh, evil plastic, think of the poor birds dying of malnutrition on Midway Island with their stomachs full of little plastic fragments they scooped up on the waves instead of food" sort of way.

No, the surface of these needles is really that good, independent of other considerations. I pulled out the small needle (and a sewing needle too) to show someone next to me at Maryland Sheep and Wool as we waited for Judith MacKenzie MacCuin's talk, and people around us were like, ooh, let us see!

Golding Fiber Tools

I had seen Golding RingSpindles™ before, even tried one, but this was quite a sight.

Indigo Hound Wool Combs

Sorry, forgot to post this when I talked earlier about Indigo Hound's wool combs. Here you can see Indigo Hound English combs at their Maryland Sheep and Wool vendor booth. There are also Comblings, Viking combs, and double row Viking combs on the table but they're a little hard to see.

Here's a bucket of more Indigo Hound Viking combs:

Unabashedly Cute Fibre Animal Pic

because photos like this just confirm that spinning is a good thing to be into

How'd you like to felt a Yurt?

Now that's a felting project.

The Spanish Peacock

Meet Mike and TJ King, of the Spanish Peacock in Middletown, MD.

Mike makes tools such as drop spindles, supported spindles, Turkish spindles, bone sewing needles, wooden knitting needles, nalbinding needles, nostepinnes, and lace bobbins. He also does large pieces like looms.

The Kings had a booth Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. I got my shopping done (mostly nalbinding pattern books) before the crowds started.



The pace was more relaxed when I caught up with the Spanish Peacock merchant tent at the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) event Sapphire Joust X. Mike suggested the event when I said I wanted to learn historical textile skills.




I was able to get a good photo of the spindles and things for sale



before settling down to hear about period costumes, fibre arts, and the SCA. It was very cool to listen to armour clank by, and to find people who like knowing and recreating history, and to hear what they're into.

I had never seen so many people wearing clothing that was not mass-manufactured, not even in Lancaster county.

You can just see someone spinning on a drop spindle in the group photo above, on the right. To see a lot of fibre arts demonstrations and learn about weaving, sewing, and nalbinding, TJ suggested I check out local SCA demo days and a couple up-coming SCA events that will have artists' rows.

I got to show a couple passers-by how a drop spindle works. Love the moment when they see the twist go up the fibre and they get it. Especially appreciate them stopping to watch when they're not people into fibre at all, particularly. One was just on a scavenger hunt, trying to find someone working with wool.

SpinOlution Bee Travel Wheel

A SpinOlution Bee Travel Wheel I glimpsed briefly at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

Great Wheel

Tried it. Loved it. Want one. Could find room.

From top, a great wheel up for auction at Maryland Sheep and Wool, a great wheel at Plimoth Plantation, and a great wheel at the Frontier Culture museum which is the wheel I got to try. This is the first time I managed to successfully do long draw drafting. Felt effortless. One long swoop, just like I’d seen a man do on his charkha at our guild.

My second pass ran into some snags. This rolag’s fibres had more grease and were not as well aligned as the first rolag’s. I produced slubs, then a consistent patch, and then a broken strand. (This pass, of course, I got on video. Not the first pass, which Sara the museum interpreter said was the best first try she’d ever seen of any museum visitor. She said it, not me. I’m just repeating her words rather immodestly.)

The obvious fix would be to spend more time carding the rolag. Additionally, the wool should be spun on a warmer day so that the grease won’t seize up and retard the drafting action. I wouldn’t have known this if Karen, another interpreter at the museum, hadn’t pointed it out later when I described my problem to her.

Karen also recommended a shorter staple fleece for long draw. Sara had been using a basket of washed Cotswold locks in order to show the sort of wool an English family of the period would have been raising for export. A lock was ten inches long on the fleece we looked at outside near the scouring pots.

After the strand broke, I sat and carded rolags for a bit. Wasn’t sure if I completely remembered the proper way a friend from our guild had taught me, but I persisted. Sara was able to use one rolag for a school tour that came through, which pleased the kids. They said they hadn’t gotten to see the great wheel in action on their visit the year before.

One boy was much more interested than the others in the mechanics of spinning and, with Sara’s permission, I gave him a rolag to try twisting the fibres by hand as he went out the door. Hope the rolag didn’t get too felted in his pocket, where his teacher made him put it for later.

I’ve been very impressed with the level of intense interest in a few of boys I’ve seen, at the Fall Fiber Festival, Meadow Farm’s Sheep to Shawl, and at the Frontier Culture museum. They approach a spinner’s wheel with total confidence and declare they want to try it. I’m waiting for a spinner to let them…

Spinning in public is fun.

Additional note: I flipped through the copy of Foxfire 2 I got from the public library and found diagrams of a great wheel. Nice.

Wool Combs Lesson from Indigo Hound

John and Carol Huff, of Indigo Hound in Delta, PA gave me a lesson in using wool combs at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

I found the Viking combs, pictured, a very good weight and size for me. They came with a useful instructional brochure and a catalogue full of wit and information with a lot more inventory that I had expected having before only seen one or two Indigo Hound products on other shops' websites.

Hope you can see the change in the wool before and after going through the combs.

ETA: when I first wrote this blog post, I did not actually write down what the lesson was.  I find that this post gets a lot of hits.  If you came looking to learn how to use wool combs, below I will recommend places to learn and give a few pointers from me.  If you came looking for an Indigo Hound website, at this time there is no such site.  They sell at festivals and by mail.

I recommend you watch a good YouTube video on the subject, like the one by Forsyth (user name woolcombs), Paradise Fibers, or Blue Mountain Handcrafts (bluemtnhandcrafts), or that you read the Indigo Hound booklet and Peter Teal's book Hand Woolcombing and Spinning.  These will be much better than my few rough pointers, which I'll give now.

Note that the combs are held at 90 degrees to each other.  The moving comb passes across the stationary comb held on John's knee.

To begin, you put wool on a comb.  Take a lock of wool and drape the bottom of the lock over the comb's tines, and repeat until the locks fill the tines halfway up the comb.

You comb the tips at first.  With each pass you comb deeper into the wool and transfer more and more of the combed wool to the moving comb.   A little bit of waste wool will remain, with short fibres and snarled bits.  Throw that away, then switch position of the combs and repeat the process.  Once the wool is well combed, you slowly tug the wool off the comb so it forms a long piece.

Charkha Lesson from Jonathan Bosworth

Jonathan Bosworth, of Journey Wheel in Acton, MA, gave me a lesson on using one of his charkha wheels at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

“The idea of spinning, in general,” he says, “is taking a bunch of fibres which have been combed parallel by hand or by machine. What a spinner does is decide how big a yarn they want to make and then control the amount of twist that goes in.”

In the first photo you can see him demonstrate the correct angle to draw out the cotton in a long draw.

I was interested to note that you pinch the end of the strand, after drawing it out, and you hold it there “for a good two turns of the wheel,” he says, to let twist build up before winding on.

I was also surprised how little of a wheel revolution it takes to wind on.

I tried my hand with it using cotton top. The charkha suits short, fine staples such as cotton and some animal fibres, including qiviut. Bosworth regrets he is not rich enough to demonstrate his charkhas with qiviut fibre.

Bosworth’s Attaché Case and Book-Size charkhas are small and light for portability. He says one available style of charkha spindles has been rejected by airport security officials and another style has been accepted. The difference is in the tips. Forewarned is forearmed. Or unarmed, rather.


His charkhas attract a good amount of attention from people who have never spun before and are curious to know how it works or what advantage a charkha has over the highly popularized Saxony style.

The charkha's advantages would be portability, suitability to fine short fibres, an unusual attractive design, and historical significance. The charkha design came out of a contest occasioned by Gandhi's struggle for India's independence. He aimed to get everyone in India spinning for themselves a little each day, increase home production of cotton textiles, and boycott British textile manufacture to alter the economy.

The charkha is useful for showing non-spinners how twist enters spun fibre to form yarn, as the mechanics of its spindle are easier to see and understand than that of a Saxony's spindle shaft and orifice arrangement.

Bosworth asked if the name of my blog, The Sojourning Spinner, meant I intended to travel around to various countries and spin.* He said one of his customers reported traveling with her Journey Wheel charkha to the white cliffs of Dover, England and spinning at the top of the cliffs, “quite an experience for her.”


*It doesn’t, it means I am a stranger in a strange land right now, here. You’ll be amused to know that I hit the festival’s Justamere Tree Farm maple syrup booth to show allegiance to my roots.
One interesting thing about Justamere Farm's maple syrup: Marian Welch says not only is their syrup certified organic but vegan and dairy-free too (although they don't advertise it). During evaporation, to cut foaming, they use an additive that is not based on cream.

HitchHiker: the Science Fiction Fan’s Spinning Wheel

If you don’t get my literary allusion in the blog title, Don’t Panic. You can Google it.

This is the HitchHiker™. See the cutout in the handle?

And this is its maker, David Paul of The Merlin Tree in Albany, VT, at his booth at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

Paul developed the HitchHiker™ and the RoadBug ™ spinning wheels four years ago because his wife and the other spinners in her guild wanted spinning wheels they could carry on airplanes.

When the wheels were under development, a guild member posted a photo of the prototype on her blog. The results, Paul says, were numerous advance orders and deposits—and ironically a longer wait for the guild members’ original orders. Now there are 660 of his spinning wheels worldwide.

After filling me in on why he is understandably blog-shy, Paul described the two wheels’ attributes. Each feature seemed to be tied to making the wheels work from a spinner's perspective or a construction perspective or both. The bobbins are compatible with standard Ashford bobbins for convenience. The flyers, which use Scotch tension, are large to give extra room for plying. He expects experienced spinners will need to get used to the wheels’ pull and the treadles’ heel and toe action. These wheels are designed to be carry-on compatible and each weighs about nine pounds. They can be pulled out of a carry bag and used without unfolding or set-up.

Beware of the Wool Blob

"O beware of the (wool) blob: it leaps and creeps and glides and slides across the floor, right through the door..."

Someone at Maryland Sheep and Wool kindly posed with her sheepskin for me.

Casey and the Rav Buttons

I got to get a Ravelry button from Casey at Maryland Sheep and Wool and tell him a bit about how I use the site he codes.

I burbled about how thrilled I had been when a group moderator welcomed me online and then a couple weeks recognized me at a handspinners' retreat in real life, and I recommended to him the stall of a Sheep and Wool vendor who I'd first learned about through a Rav group.

He said Jessica was out back, but I didn't want to interrupt the group photo she was in:


Thanks, Casey and Jessica, and I hope you got some good shopping in.

Maryland Sheep and Wool

Maryland
Sheep
and
Wool


this weekend