First, the baby goats. I happened across the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm CSA a week or so ago and purchased my share yesterday. This is a wonderful opportunity to get fiber to support my growing fiber addiction while supporting local farming. This is pretty exciting for me as I live in a definite "non-farming" neighborhood and quite honestly I am not the type to raised goats and sheep on my own. Don't get me wrong, there is a romantic side of me that can dream of watching the baby goats frolic in a field while their mothers graze but the realist also knows that someone needs to feed and care for those cute lil buggers round the clock and I know that won't be me. I have enough on my hands with the young one and our canine four legged children. So this was one heck of an opportunity. I get the benefits of the sheep and goats (fiber!) and supporting a local farm without having the 24/7 responsibility. Check out the MV blog to see the wonderful pictures of the babies! Or if you are interested in supporting the farm, visit the etsy store for the CSA or other fiber goodies.
One thing I am finding interesting about the world of fiber and spinning is that it is not a huge corporate thing. The businesses I am finding myself working with are small and local for the most part. There are exceptions, such as the major spinning wheel makers, but most of what I am buying is from independents. On the one hand, I kind of hope spinning stays on the fringes of popularity so that we can continue to operate working with small businesses.
I am also finding that spinning fiber into yarn allows for the creativity of making do with what is at hand. I found a store in Vermont (the Copper Moose) that sells roving at reasonable prices and bought a few pounds of Corriedale to play with on my wheel. Now that I have successfully come up with spinning my wool into something that resembles yarn I have decided to add color to my life. Since I am still working on getting the right equipment and dyes for full out dying, I am making do with kitchen dying for now. Kool-Aid is the best method for kitchen dying as it is safe to use with my cookware and young one can even help with the process. The only drawback is you are limited in color choices. Just google Kool-Aid dye and you can get endless pages discussing the merits, how-to's and colors. For now it is a fun experiment.
So that is where the Sherbet comes in to the picture. I found myself with some free time the other morning (yeah, I know - that was a shock in and of itself but I had to say home with young one while husband went to the dentist) and young one was happily entertaining himself playing pbs games on the computer (the kid is starting to scare me - four years old and can navigate my mac better than I can) so I decided to check my kool aid stash and try my hand at dying roving for the first time. I only had a few flavors my choices were limited. I decided to do three equal hanks (each about 3/4 oz) in three colors. Watermelon Cherry, Grape Illusion and Orange. I also only had one pack of each so the saturation level would be limited. I have learned that I prefer to add more Kool-Aid so I get really bright color but this was an experimental kind of day. Well, I ended up with pink (Watermelon Cherry), red (Grape Illusion) and orange (well, you can probably guess which flavor on this one). But they weren't real bold but not too pastel either. In the middle of the saturation range. At any rate, when I dried the roving and twisted them together I ended up with what looked like a big bowl of sherbet - you know the kind we used to get off the ice cream truck as kids. The pinkish/orangish oh so yummy summer time treat that was even better when floated in a bowl of punch at a birthday party. Well, it is gorgeous. I will post pics as soon as I take some. :)
I spun up half of the sherbet fluff yesterday and I must say I am very proud of how far I have come with my spinning. While I have the camera out I will have to take a picture of my first attempts and my latest yarn. Big difference. Its amazing what practice and patience will do. My sherbet is a nice, fine single ply probably somewhere in the fingering to sportweight category. I need to measure it out of curiosity. I will spin up the second half today and then ply the two together. I am hoping to get enough to make a lacy scarf. This is the first time I have been so excited about creating something that I will want to wear! Hopefully the second half will spin up as nicely. That is on my agenda for today so maybe by tomorrow I will be posting a picture of the finished yarn (but I will take pictures of the fluff first because it does look pretty cool on its own). At the very least I am very pleased that I have finally mastered the fine art of drafting my fiber while spinning and controlling my speed so that I am no longer getting an overspun mess of lumps and bumps.
On a side note, we were supposed to be 45 and rainy all weekend long - ideal for sitting inside and spinning. Somehow we ended up with 70 and sunny yesterday instead. What a gift! I took my wheel outside instead. I love my Babe! I can take it anywhere and not worry. I got to sit in the sunshine and spin while young one created a big mud puddle in the back yard to run his card through. Hey, gotta love the imagination of a four year old. Well, spring is here and summer is soon to come. Yeah!
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