Jobo Designs

You mean you want ME to come out… Sit around and spin and talk about Yarn for a few hours?  Sign Me Up!!?!

The City of Summerside, partnered with the Wyatt Heritage Properties, is presenting a summer festival showcasing many Island artists and artisans with the goal of increasing “community awareness and celebration of the role the arts play in a healthy, vibrant community, while offering up some wonderful entertainment.”

From July 16 – August 12, 2010 there are various different venues throughout the Summerside waterfront that will be alive with music and creativity.  The festival boasts 72 artisans and musicians – with many different talents and passions. 

If you want to come out and see Wool turned to Yarn… spinning wheel, spindles, fleece, various fiber types, yarns… you are officially invited to come out and see my demo:

 

July 30 and August 2 – 11:00am to 1:00pm at the Historic Armory Building in Summerside

August 12 – 4:00pm to 7:00pm in the garden of Wyatt Heritage Properties, 205 Prince Street

 

Hope to see you there :)

more information is available over on the Wyatt Heritage Properties website:  here 

or telephone (902) 432-1296

While browsing on Etsy some time ago... I came across a listing for a hand spinner's fleece from Barking Rock Farm.  I have tried preparing raw fleece for spinning before, with varying degrees of success.  Some of the "experiments" were less than fantastic results, but considering the dirt/vegetable contamination of some of my free fleeces, I really wasn't sure if it was the fleeces' fault, or the wanna-be-spinners' lack of skill.

I decided that since this fleece was reasonably priced, and specifically targeting hand spinners with the guarantee that the fleece was very well picked, was super clean, had no vegetable matter, and was ready to wash and spin - oh heck!  why not.  Order that sucker up!

Well lookie at what arrived this week!  this Fleece-Cube weighs around 4 pounds... and is so clean it hardly has a sheepy smell to it!  One of the first fleeces I got, I had to pick tons of manure and small trees out of it... but this stuff is Pristine!  The wool is from a Jacob Sheep, which is actually a black and white animal, so you get both colors growing side by side.  I should be able to get some plain white and black areas, and hopefully some blended grays also where the locks are half and half. 

I think my neighbors must think I am insane (as if this is the only nutso thing I've ever done while living there lol...) because as soon as I dumped the box out on the front walkway, I couldn't help it - I unrolled the whole thing and started digging through it.  To me, this looked like a beautiful pile of wooly wonderfulness... to any other unknowing person, it might have looked like I had a ginormous pile of black and white ??? on the lawn?  What is that stuff... and why is she cooing and humming to herself?  and why does she keep on tearing little bits off and putting them in a basket? 

To give you an idea of the length and fineness of the locks... here are a black and a white one:

The locks vary from 3ish to 5ish inches... though I have not gotten out my ruler to confirm the exact measurement.

Even in the grease, the locks are so soft and clean that I can spread them out between my fingers and draft.  I would say that there is really only sheep sweat and a little lanolin on there, not really any serious "dirt" to speak of.  At this point, I knew I couldn't just pack up the rest of the fleece and wait until later to process it.  I went up to the studio, grabbed a white plastic basket, and started tearing off black locks and set out to give them a rinse...

The black section (which I was instantly drawn to) seems to be around half of the fleece... and has various shades of Brown and Black which I think will card together to make a soft heathered dark brown.   The locks are strong and cleaner than anything else I have ever seen.  After soaking the basket in some lukewarm water for about a half an hour, much of the so-called dirt had dissolved.  I did one Dawn Dishsoap bath and then rinsed a few times with hot water, and really this fleece didn't need much more washing than that. 

I laid out the locks on a mesh sweater dryer and with the great drying conditions we have had the last few days, the wool is already dry.  I carded up a small basket full and it is Heavenly.  Soft.  Lofty.  Light.  Beautiful.  As far as technique, I just flicked open the tips of each lock and then gave small batches of opened locks a light carding in one direction on my Ashford Hand Cards and dizzed the fiber off.  I wish I had combs for the job, but for now all I have is carders, or drum carding.  I think this fiber would be lovely combed into top.  Stay tuned this week for an article about dizzing off some fiber from hand cards.  It isn't perfect, but I more or less get something that resembles top, just not very long lengths at a time!

I didn't have time to wash any white, but I hope to do that asap.... more to come!

The Knitting and Spinning Continues... but so does the Cleaning and Real Estate Saga...

I have continued to work on my long color gradient spinning experiment, but unfortunately, it has been slow going with all of the house showings and chores necessary to keep a home in show condition (while working 45 hours a week, and driving 10 hours a week too!)  Basically I am progressing one handful of fiber at a time.  I hope this weekend to finish the last of it up and prepare the finished yarn and choose a pattern.

Also, in efforts to remain sane in the face of uncertainty, and in remembrance of a friend who suddenly passed away, I have started another straightforward lace shawl.  I just felt like I needed something new to work on that would draw me in and hold my attention.  This person was a very kind soul, and though I did not know him as well as I would have liked to, he was kind of like a role model to me and my husband.  I'm not sure what I will do with the shawl when I'm done, but maybe I will give it to his wife.  I can only imagine the horrible loss she is feeling, and I'm not sure if she is the type that would like a hand knit item, but maybe it might keep her warm and remind her that people really care.  Sappy?  probably.

Here is a little preview for you...  I decided on testing out the Shetland Triangle on some manufactured yarn before trying it out of handspun singles (which I don't think will frog very smoothly)  and I had some skeins of Knit Picks Shadow Heather in colorway Vineyard.  As well as being very soft and light, this yarn has a beautiful blend of Wines and Plums and even a shimmer of gold undertones.  The color is hard to describe, and also hard to capture on camera, but I think you'll get the basic idea.

I am really enjoying the repetitiveness of the pattern, and the simplicity of the design.  Honestly, I love the fact that you basically repeat the same 10 stitches over and over, and somehow when you block it, the waffle weave appearance of the lace smoothes out and pulls itself into romantic curves of fir cones.  Lace knitting never ceases to amaze me really.

I also have a few dark and shiny glass beads lying around leftover from another project... and I think they will match very well with this plummy yarn.  A little shine paired with soft luxurious Merino?  no problem. 

Surprisingly, one day while shopping at the local dollar store I found some really tiny crochet hooks!  (for a dollar?  seriously!  I bought all 6 teensy sizes!)  The one in the photo is a 0.75mm hook and it fits through the beads perfectly!  This will be my first time beading a shawl with a hook so I am a little excited to see how much easier this technique will be than using a piece of thread and a needle to thread the bead onto the stitch each time (basically did the same as a hook, but not very efficiently)

Now the only difficult decision is to decide where in the design I want to actually place the beads.  I think I want the majority of the shawl to be beadless, and maybe just introduce the sparkle a few pattern repeats from the edge, and then put lots on the edging.  I guess that means I need to decide how many pattern repeats I will do in total and start sketching it out.  If anyone has any placement suggestions, feel free to pipe up !  ;)

I will likely have this shawl completed in another day or two, since it is chugging along so quickly.  Expect photos soon.