Beth Smith's Blog, page 13

Gift Suggestions for Your Favorite Spinner

…or just for yourself.

I don’t know about you but I’m always looking at things on the internet and I have a little list of things I would love to have. That’s not a hint at all. I just thought I’d share my list in case you need some gift ideas since, you know, Christmas is coming. I can;t really say the holidays are coming because, in my opinion, the holiday season begins on November 1!

So here goes.

Katrinkles Spunky Sheep WPI gauge – only $10! Or check out all the other cute Katrinkles on that site.

Anything from King’s Pottery – $20 to $40. There are mugs and tea sets and ornaments and shawl pins!

Ok this isn’t really foe spinner’s specifically but Custom Dyed Yardage! Only $16 per yard

Valkyrie 2 Row Mini Combs. $95 Check out the Cherry and Walnut ones too. These are my go to combs.

Sheep jewelry! I have a couple of pieces from this site myself. They come in beautiful packaging and I love that you can choose the breed! They also have other animals but…

My favorite Niddy Noddy of all time. Feels a little pricey but I promise it’s worth it!

I also have this Diz and I love it. It doesn’t leave my house.

And finally, I have 2 videos with Interweave that are two of my most popular classes to teach in person. Spin Thin and Spinning to Get Even.

I have plenty more ideas so if you are looking for something in particular let me know and I’ll help you find it!

 

Pick of the Week

I’ve decided to do a post on Fridays called Pick of the Week. How it will work is each Friday I will go into the post archive and find a post to highlight and talk about.

Today’s choice is called “This Could Be Dangerous” from September 2006.

There are a ton of things going on in this very short post about trying to spin a bit of Border Leicester I had bought in 2005 during my first trip to Rhinebeck. I remember that trip. I bought a bunch of handfuls of different kinds of wool that I hadn’t had access to. I bought the Spinning Loft in October of 2006 so I didn’t own the 30 fleeces that came with that store yet but even at this point I was wool curious.

Here’s what I learned at this point:

The 24 inch wheel felt much faster than the 22 inch diameter of my Ashford Traditional even though I had the lace flyer/whorl on the Traditional.

I loved combing and a still do. All of the options available for different yarns from fiber that you comb is awesome and I think combing makes a very versatile prep.

I was not so good at choosing fleeces yet. But everybody starts somewhere and those mistakes are just as important as the successes to make one better at anything.

I talked about how this Schacht Reeves 24 inch wheel was high maintenance and picky and yes, I think there are more slight adjustments but again, with practice I became a pro and we became very good friends. At this point I had only had that wheel for a couple of months.

Also, I was much less wordy in the year 2006. lol

Feedly

There has to be a better way.

A long time ago I used to use Google Reader to keep up with all of my favorite blogs. Then Google did away with Google Reader and I couldn’t find another way to keep up with the blogs I love and so I gave up. Well, not really. If somebody would post their blog post on Facebook or Instagram I would go there. But it is a very unsatisfying way to read blogs. I needed something better.

A little over a week ago I asked Kat what she uses and she said Feedly. So I googled around to see if I could find something different because I don’t really like to just do things because somebody said so. So, after that waste of time I went back to Feedly and made myself an account.

Here’s what I love about it. You can organize your blogs by topic. You can mark posts to come back to. You can mark them all read and they go away. The app on my phone is awesome and easy to use.

There’s really nothing I don’t like about it. You can have different feeds and boards (which I don’t really understand) but you can follow up to 100 blogs for free! 100 is a lot. I think if you read blogs Feedly might be a great option for you.

Do you have a reader that you use to keep track of your blogs?

 

Wool Judging

So I got home from North Carolina a week ago. It has taken me this long to begin to feel normal. I’m always a little extra tired and want to be a little extra quiet when I get home from a teaching. This week was a little different because I had decided to take part in #NaBloPoMo and I’m pretty proud of my progress with that!

Anyway, this was my second time being the wool judge at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF). It takes place in Fletcher, NC right outside of Asheville. Let me just say this….I love being the wool judge. I’ve been judging fleeces privately to buy for myself, to buy for other people, at farms when the shepherds ask my opinion, for more than a dozen years. Of course, at first, when I stand up in front of an audience it feels a little different…especially when they strap one of those Madonna headsets on me. But then I begin to talk about the fleece that has been rolled out in front of me and it just goes back to me shopping for fleeces with my friends or a class.

When I’m judging I keep the class in mind and of course the fleece has to fit into the class it was entered in but then after that the fleece has to stand on its own. I talk about lock length, the overall fleece appearance, what it might be good for, what problems I see and if those problems can be overcome with a little patience or if they might need a bit more work. I talk about the most beautiful things about the fleece and why someone might want to take it home with them.

Last year there were plenty of nice fleeces but this year there were lots of spectacular fleeces. Clean and beautiful examples of their breed. Surprising crossbred fleeces that I wanted to play with. Super spectacular wool that showed how much work was put into the sheep to get that level of lovely.

Let me talk for one second about the fleece I gave the Judges Choice ribbons to….well, let me tell you what happens first.

The fleeces this year were entered into several categories such as fine, medium, primitive, and longwool. In addition there were some breed classes for the breeds that had lots of entries. I believe they consisted of Shetland, Icelandic, Jacob….I can’t remember…I think there were 2 more breed classes. So, the judge judges each category and class and gives a first, second and third if it is appropriate. Then after each class/category is judged all of the first place fleeces are brought forward and a best of show and a judges choice fleece is chosen. This year I was allowed to choose two fleeces for judges choice.

Now I’m just going to say this, there were so many spectacular fleeces this year that this was a hard decision. But, there were a few fleeces that stood out to me. One was a Gotland x Teeswater. It was lustrous and long and silky. The weight was right for the breeds it came from so I knew it hadn’t been skirted down to the best of the best locks. I stuck my face in that fleece in front of the 50 people who were watching me judge.

The second fleece was a white Icelandic. I can’t even tell you how fabulous this fleece was. It was soft all over and fluffy and bouncy and soooooooo white! There were actually lots of really great Icelandic fleeces and maybe my love for all white wool affected my judgement in some way but really you had to see this in person. This one I also gave judges choice because of the third fleece.

The third fleece that really stood out was also a cross. Last year I disqualified the fleece from this sheep because it had been entered into the longwools category and it was a double coated fleece. I remember the whole thing very clearly. The shepherd was unhappy because her shearer had told her which class to put it in. Last year the fleece was a totally dark brown/black color.

This year, this fleece was unrolled in front of me and I was amazed at its size and beauty. At the time, I had no idea this was the same fleece. I was just in awe of how gorgeous it was. How the outer coat was so long and gorgeous. The undercoat was fine and soft but not too short. the colors in the fleece were amazing and the color pattern was outstanding. I wish I had a photo of this fleece all spread out in its glory. Then I asked my assistant what breed it was and I almost fell over. It was a cross of Cotswold and Icelandic. My first though both last year and this ear was why would anyone do that!? And last year I was not impressed. But this sheep did his work well. I hope that the person who took this fleece home does it justice and I don;t often say this but I would be tempted to felt the cut end and keep the fleece intact because it was so beautiful.

Judging this year was long. We started at 1PM and were finally finished at 7:45PM. I’m not sure how many fleeces there were in total but it was a lot. And I was tired and stiff at the end but I loved every minute.

If you are looking for a wool judge for your festival or event keep me in mind!

Favorite Books About Wool

Yesterday I posted about my two most very favorite books about wool/sheep. Today I’m going to give you the rest of the list.

About a year ago in my breeds study classes I started giving a little bibliography to the students. Before that I would carry all the book along to classes so that my students could look at them. Books are super heavy. It was a little much so I switched to giving everyone a sheet of paper with all of the books on it. It’s way less fun but I have an easier time keeping my luggage under the maximum checked bag weight now.

I would like to apologize in advance for the quality of these photos. It’s been super dark and cloudy around here lately and I live in a very shady house. I need to find a way to have better photo lighting. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Anyway, many of these books are hard to find or out of print but I’ll post them here along with any information I have about them in case you want to add a copy to your own library.

The first book I got that was specifically about sheep breeds and their wool was In Sheeps Clothing by Nola and Jane    Fournier. It was published by Interweave press in 1995. I currently have 3 copies of this book. There are tons of wool grease stains between the pages where I placed a lock while I was working on that breed. The pages are dog eared and one of the copies has pages that fall out. These books have been well used and well loved. I probably should get another copy to keep just in case the others get used up.

One thing I want to say about this book is that many of us who have it use it only for the breeds information in the front of the book. But the end chapters are also awesome. There is so much great spinning information packed into just a few pages. Don’t neglect to read what the Fourniers say about processing and spinning.

The other book in the photo is Colored Sheep and Wool; Exploring their beauty and function.  This book is edited by Kent Erskine. This is  a compilation of the Proceedings of the World Congress on Coloured Sheep in 1989. Published by Black Sheep Press in Ashland Oregon. In all honesty, there is so much information in this book I haven’t read everything in it. There are articles for everyone including one about Reducing Predator Losses to the Preservation of a Historic Woolen Mill. There are also things about genetics and spinning and dyeing. Really, something for everyone.

The next two books are not from the US.

Wools of Europe is a show book created  from an Exhibition with 100 sheep breeds of Europe to show their diversity. The first conference took place in Rambouillet in May 2010. The show then traveled around Europe to different countries. The book is in many different languages depending on where the breed being discussed is from but each article is also translated into English so never fear! I’m not sure if this book is still available but I can give you a website address for Consorzio Biella the Wool Company – www.biellathewoolcompany.it and the website for Atelier – Lanes d’Eurpoe – http://pagesperso-orange.fr/atelier.l...

The other book, Schafrassen in den Alpen was published in September 2005. It includes sheep from 7 countries in the Alps region of Europe. They currently have 60 sheep breeds and 33 goat breeds though an undetermined number of breeds are now extinct from the region. Their goal is to save the sheep and goats which lie there today and promote shepherding in the region. This book is in both German and English. I found you a link. You have to scroll down to sheep and goats.

The next three are actually two. First is British Sheep & Wool from the British Wool Marketing Board. The tall green one was published in 1990 and the smaller one is from 2010. I love these books because the photos are just gorgeous. In addition there is a lot of great information about the fleece of each British breed. I also love this book because it categorizes each breed. There are 7 main groups. I need to make a trip to England and take a wool grading class because I want to understand these groups on a deeper level. I checked Amazon but they don’t have any copies but you can go right to the source and get one.

The blue Covered book is from the Livestock Conservancy. It’s the Breeders and Products Directory. If you are looking for wool from rare breeds of sheep this can come in handy. Also the advertisements are good and useful. Keep in mind that this is not sheep only. It covers all livestock in the US. To get a copy you need to join the Livestock conservancy at www.livestockconservancy.org. And your membership money will go to help a very worthy cause.

Next is Handspun Treasures from Rare Wools Published by Interweave Press in 2000 and Edited by Deb Robson. The book is a collection of handspun projects that were exhibited in the Save the Sheep Project. The book includes spinning and processing information along with information about each sheep breed and the project that was spun from its wool. There is a ton of inspiration inside.

You can see that Deb Robson has been on a mission to save endangered sheep for a very long time and I don’t see it letting up soon.

 

Finally, I have a book that is focused on just one breed. The Icelandic Fleece; A Fibre for all Reasons by Elizabeth Abbott. Published by Elizabeth and Ron Abbott in 2001. If you are at all interested in Icelandic fleece this book is worth the investment. From sheep farming, traditional ear marking, importing the sheep to Canada, to scouring and spinning, this book has it all. It is clear and easy to follow. It even includes several really nice projects so that you can use your newly spun yarn.

This is certainly not my full collection of books but these are the ones I find myself turning to again and again.

If you have a book about sheep/wool that I haven’t included, let me know in the comments. I’m always in favor of improving my library.

Deb Robson and I

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Deb Robson about 10 years ago. It mostly came about because I was contacted while she was writing the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook to see if I could provide a few of the samples for the book. At the time I owned the Spinning Loft and was known for having a pretty wide selection of raw fleece.

At the time I wasn’t sure what kind of book she was working on and I had an idea for a spinning book. So, naturally, when I was in Colorado for work I contacted her to see if we could meet for lunch. I loved her immediately. But this post isn’t about that.

What I found out during that lunch was that the book I had in mind was not the same as the book she was working on. As a matter of fact, the book I wanted to write could possibly be the perfect companion book to hers.

The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook is a masterpiece. So much great information in there that I own 3 copies. I keep one upstairs, one downstairs and one on the shelf so I don’t ruin them all. I also own the electronic version just in case. I find myself going to look things up frequently. If you don’t own a copy and you have any interest in wool then you should definitely get it. And I will be honest, the physical book is much easier to use than the electronic version. I find that is true with most reference books. Deb wrote it along with Carol Ekarius. The way I understand it is that Deb focused on the wool and Carol focused on the other animal fibers.

The book is broken down into sheep families. The families have to do with the sheep’s origins (location and background) There are beautiful pictures of the sheep and great close up photos of the wool as well as yarn and fabric samples for an idea of what things you can make.  There is also information about what you can expect from a fleece as far as weight, lock length, fiber diameter and characteristics.

The index of the book is very thorough and useable. I know this from a lot of experience.

The Spinner’s Book of Fleece is not meant to be an encyclopedia of fleece but as I said earlier it is a great companion to The Sourcebook. Instead of showing a billion different wools my purpose was to teach people how to look at a fleece and based on the wool/lock structure make some good decisions about how to scour, process and spin it. And when you make those decisions all of the information you need to scour, process and spin the wool is included.

The Spinner’s Book is set up a bit differently. I break things down into 4 categories and a category I call Other. The categories are based on lock structure. Categorizing in this way makes it easy to look at any fleece, even if the background isn’t clear, such as with some crossbred fleeces, and make some quick decisions on what the fleece would be good for and whether it will work well for your project.

The Other category is really filled with breeds that can be pretty variable. Depending on the fleece it may fit in the Fine Wools category, the Multi Coat category, or the Down type category. Those breeds you have to take on a case by case basis.

So, with the information you find about the wool in Deb’s book combined with the information in my book you can make awesome decisions about the best fleece for your project and end up with the best outcome. This is not a decision of either/or. In my opinion, you need both.

You can buy them either directly from us on our websites, at your local book or yarn store or Amazon.com.

Road Blocks – part 2

Yesterday I talked about a road block I had encountered once in my spinning and how it was a pretty simple thing to overcome once I rearranged my thinking. Today I’m going to tell you about one I had with weaving that held me back for years and years because I didn’t ask the right questions I think.

I was never one to love making a gauge swatch with m knitting. I never loved making a muslin for dressmaking. I was never a real sampler. I wanted to dive right in and get going. That often led to disasters. Usually expensive disasters because I love expensive fabric and yarn. Sometimes my tendency to dive in still gets me in trouble but I’m much smarter now and I have fewer issues than I used to. Anyway, I was interested in weaving. I was fine with threading the loom and winding the warps. I was good with throwing the shuttle and finishing the fabric. It should have been a great thing for me to do. But everything I read, talked about making a sample to be sure the sett was correct. (Sett is how closely the threads are arranged in the warp and affects how the fabric behaves.)

Now, not only was I wanting to weave, I wanted to do it with handspun yarns so there is no chart to tell you where to begin. And I knew from experience that the formula of setting at half the number of wraps per inch didn’t necessarily work for the fabric I wanted to make so that meant sampling was a must.

Here’s where I started to break down in my head. So, say I want a fabric that is 20 inches wide in the reed. Say I sett that at 10 ends per inch and I weave about 10 inches for my sample. What if that sett isn’t correct? How do I fix it? I asked that question to lots of people and they all said well, you just resley the reed. Sounds simple, right? Not to me and my head. that sounded like a tragic thing. I want the cloth to be 20 inches wide. Now I need to resley the reed at a closer sett which means I’m going to lose width! My 20 inches resleyed at 12 ends per inch now becomes about 16.5 inches wide! That was my thinking. And that made me a little nervous and how many times can you ask the same people the same question before they disown you?

Years went by. I’m not kidding. YEARS! I finally asked Sara Lamb the same question, again. For about the one millionth time. At the time she was in the midst of sample making for her Spin to Weave book and here’s what my wise friend said. You buy me a plane ticket and I will come and spend 4 days with you and I will spin and you will weave at least 4 things. My heart pounded a little and I said ok.

She came. The first day I wound a 2 yard warp and put it on the loom and wove it off before the end of the day. The second day I wound a 3 yard warp and and put it on the loom and wove it off before the end of the day. The third day was 5 yards and I still wear that cotton as a shawl. The fourth day we spent much of the day beaming 6ish yards of silk. I still have that silk yardage that was meant for a kimono jacket….

Here’s what happened. I got comfortable with the loom. I felt ok about the warping/dressing process and learned to do it more quickly. I worked some things out in my brain. There was no sampling that happened that week but I feel like I became a weaver who can work out problems.

I also learned…well it was reinforced…the value of in person instruction. Classes are valuable. There are things you learn in person that never come through in a video. Sara sat across the room from me and she could see if my wrist needed to bend slightly differently, she could see some things I was doing that may have been slowing me down, she could see if I was sitting at the loom in a way that might make my body hurt later. Things that were easily changed that the person on YouTube isn’t going to notice about you:-) In person classes might feel expensive but it’s learning for life.

Now, if I’m going to make some samples I begin with the close sett because You can always go a bit wider or cast off some of the edge threads but you can’t go to a tighter sett without losing width.

Have you been thinking about what’s holding you back?

 

 

Road Blocks – part 1

I’ve been thinking about things that so

me people may have a hard time with in spinning and weaving. There have been several of them for me along the way. Sometimes it’s terminology, sometimes it an be fear of failure and sometimes it’s just a mental block.

I’ve had 2 major blocks in my spinning and weaving life. Lots of little ones but two big ones I want to talk about today.

One of the big road blocks I had came after I had been spinning for 7 or 8 years. I’ve never been a person who does things in a small way and so I was spinning for a sweater. Three ply which I love. At the time a sweater felt like a big project…little did I know what would be happening with spinning for yardage. LOL.

Anyway, I was on the phone with Abby Franquemont. Just talking about nonsense and I said to her in my most serious and sincere way – “so, I want to increase my spinning speed. I know you are a really fast spinner. How can I get faster?” Know what she said? This is an exact, word for word quote. “Just spin faster!” I of course laughed and probably caller her a jerk or something.

But, here’s what I did when I hung up the phone. I treadled like lightening and paid attention to my hands to make sure they were going to keep up. And I was spinning faster. All of a sudden. Something I wasn’t sure I could do just a few minutes before.

Since then I’ve improved the way I do production spinning but that was the beginning of it. Abby cleared my block for me. So, do you need a friend to push you a little? I’m happy to help.

And that leads me to my next story. But that’s a story for tomorrow. In the meantime, think about what kinds of spinning road blocks you might have. I’m happy to talk about them and help you get past them. Leave me a comment.

 

November Goals

All the things are swirling around in my head. I sat and looked at the blank pages in my November planner and felt a little stuck because even though I have a ton of things to accomplish in the next six months I felt a little stuck about how exactly to proceed and then how exactly to write it down in little manageable bites.

I’m not finished yet but I’m making progress.Like I said, I didn’t have my November plan book until yesterday so I’m much more behind in my planning than I usually am.

Regardless….or Irregardless (which is actually a word that I just read about last week) I’m going to let you in on the plans for the month. Keep in mind I almost always overplan and lots of things get moved to the next month. This month, the work will probably get done because of deadlines that need to be met and some of the personal goals such as nails and facials will fall by the wayside if they must.

Goal 1. By the end of the month I will be announcing the first Spin Along/Weave along. We’ve got big plans for doing these on a regular basis but the first one will be the hardest for me as I set up a pattern for myself to follow on future ones. If you want to specifically know about the Spin/Weave alongs please sign up for this specific newsletter here that will focus on those things.

Goal 1a. By the end of the month I need to make all the samples for the Spin/Weave along                            including sett samples and samples to show the color ways and samples to know                              how much yarn to put in each kit.

Goal 2. By the end of the month I will be announcing the first Spin along/ Weave along on my new newsletter. The last newsletter I sent was in 2014 so I need to relearn how to do it. The newsletter will have some nice tips and tricks and even more detail of exciting upcoming things so sign up! That one is at the bottom of this page on the right.

Goal 3. By then end of the month I will be unveiling a new website that my darling friend Kat is building for me. I’m super excited about the new website and the things she will be adding. There will be a shopping cart where you can order my books and some other things – did you know I’m a Schacht Dealer?

Goal 4. By the end of the month I need to finish writing my article for an upcoming issue of Ply Magazine. It’s all outlined in my head but….there’s plenty of work left to do on it.

Goal 5. Blog every day for NaBloPoMo. I’ve never even attempted this before. I’m on Day 3 and so far so good. I even sat last night and came up with 16 post ideas so that’s good news.

Goal 6. I’ve come up with some new classes and new classes mean new samples. I’ll be teaching one of the new classes in Sarasota Florida in January so that means the samples for that class need to be done before the end of December which means I need to get started on it now because it involves blending colors and then making a knit and woven sample from the new colors. I want to at least have the blending done by the end of the month.

Goal 7. I wrote the descriptions for 2 of the new classes but I have 3 others that need lovely attractive descriptions. This is sort of hard for me because my first draft always sounds like a calculus professor wrote it. Then I need to make it lighter so it doesn’t sound scary.

Goal 8. Re-clean my studio so it’s a space I can work in. It’s not too bad so if I spend about 4 hours in there I should make good progress and maybe have a desk surface again. Can I just say right here that I started calling that room my studio about 3 years ago and it’s still not comfortable. It doesn’t come out of my mouth easily. Other people who are artists have studios. I am just a girl who spins and weaves and talks about spinning and recently weaving until it makes the people around me sick of hearing about spinning and weaving. But, it is a work room and I am getting pretty good at what I do so….studio.

Goal 9. Read. I set a Goodreads goal for this year of 60 books. I often make that goal but as of today I have only finished 26 books. Not even half. And with only 8 weeks left I’m not hopeful but I would love to get closer to my original goal.

Goal 10. Return the dining room to its original purpose. Clean off the table and make a lovely holiday centerpiece. Deep clean all the corners and dust the spinning wheels that live in there.

Goal 11. Finish building the Lego Castle. So close!

Then there are goals 12 through 20 which include maintaining my healthy diet, taking all of the vitamins my doctor has recommended EVERY DAY, maintaining my spiritual health and improving in fulfilling my church responsibilities. Ryan is turning 14 this month and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he wants to do for his birthday and he’s not forthcoming.

So yes, it’s a lot. And the way to do it is with planning and then moving forward with the plans. I can do it! Remind me I said that in a week:-)

 

King Size Office

I got home from Asheville, NC and teaching at SAFF last night around 8PM. I unpacked the suitcase with my clothes, hugged all the family that currently live in my house and I was asleep by probably 9:30PM.

Normally I take a few days off and relax for a while to recover after a trip but I don’t really have that luxury at the moment mostly because of all the new things I’m working on that I told you about a couple of weeks ago. The most pressing thing is going to be a spin/weave along. It’s all in my brain but I need to get it all mapped out on paper and make the samples. There will be kits and some nice little tips about how I go about my undertakings. Don’t be nervous. We are starting out super easy and we’ll work up to some bigger projects. Keep your eyes open for the details.

So the plan is to have the samples ready in the next week or 10 days.

I didn’t have my November plan book with me and the yarn I want to use for the samples isn’t here yet so the plan for today is to work in what I like to call my King Size Office (it’s my bed) so I can pretend I’m taking an easy day. I didn’t even make the bed but everything I need is here….except I should probably go to the kitchen and get myself a nice cup of something warm.

I may even catch up on the 3 episodes of Scandal that are sitting there on the DVR if I can get these plans made.

So, did you sign up for my newsletter yet? It’s right at the bottom of this page on the right hand side. You won’t be sorry.