Spinning tales...

Like so many others before me, I've finally given in to that very modern urge: to blog. Bear with me, I'm still learning the ropes! I've decided to embark on a semester-long voyage through the annals of fiber, starting with a raw fleece and ending with a knitted sweater. My fleece is a gorgeous, snowy white Coopworth-Romney-Corridale, from a flock of sheep that live and breathe ocean air on Nash Island, off the coast of Maine. I bought the fleece this summer at the Common Ground Fair, in Unity, Maine, with some money hard-earned working as a garden intern for my college. It was a great way to spend it ––this fleece is going places. My spinning wheel, for those who want the details, is an Ashford Traditional, bought second-hand two years ago from an inn-keeper near school, who sold it to me for some cash and a few hours of mucking out her sheep barn. It's a lovely little wheel, but I may succumb to using a friend's bigger and badder production wheel, just to keep this project rolling ––errr, spinning. I'll keep you posted. 

So far, I've washed a few ounces of the fleece. A test run to see what our very hard well water does to the fiber (a teaspoon of Borax seems to soften the water just enough), and to check for spinnability. So far so good. There's still quite a bit of lanolin left in the fiber, so a longer soak might be better for next time. Other than that, it spins up beautifully. I'm aiming to spin several pounds of yarn (2-3 lbs. probably) into singles (meaning only one strand, not plied like most yarns that you can buy), and dye some of it with dye plants saved from my college's dye garden. My friend crafty friend Hannah is bugging me to get dyeing soon, so you might see the results of a dye-day in an upcoming post. In the meantime, I'm working on a pair of German herringbone socks (from Kiel!). 


There's something about winter that makes me want to hunker down and knit. Maybe it's the natural rhythm of agriculture taking hold. I've got crafters of bygone days on my mind, too. Of course winter is a busy time, especially if you're milking cows, but there's also an opportunity to eek out moments to knit and spin and dye for the coming year (moments that are hard to come by once the sap starts flowing and the cows start calving and the hay starts calling out to be hayed and the carrots need weeding and, and, and). The fire is going anyway, so why not boil up a pot of water and scour some fleeces? And you can toast your toes while you're at it... 


Happy crafting! 


PS- I just discovered the Victoria and Albert Museum's excellent collection of all things knitted: museum collections, patterns, stories, links. Check it out here. 


PPS- Since we're talking about the Brits already, there's such a rich tradition of knitting to be explored in those parts. Here's just a little example: a knitting stick, made to hold double-point needles, carved for a woman as a token of affection. One of my favourite bloggers, Kate Davies, writes about these here.