Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Self-Imposed Spinning Club 2012

My goal for the rest of 2011 is to finish various spindle-spinning WIPs I have going, because I've got some big plans in store for 2012. In particular, I have...a lot of spindles. I also have...a lot of stash. I took some inspiration from the Yarn Harlot's self-imposed sock club, in which she pairs twelve stashed skeins of sock yarn with twelve patterns, and gives herself a surprise pair of socks to knit every month.

I'm doing a similar thing, but with spindles and fiber. I'm pairing up twelve spindles with twelve bits of fiber in the stash, and I'll choose one to work on every month at random. I'm hoping I haven't completely sabotaged myself with overambition, because many months have two ounces of fiber or less as the spinning goal, but there are a few months with four ounce bumps assigned. It should be fun! I've taken photos of my plans, and I'll share a few here because they're just so pretty!

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The great thing is that this is much of my stash that is destined for the spindle instead of the wheel. Several of the projects fit into my grandiose spinning goals of spinning enough to weave a blanket and spinning enough laceweight for an Estonian-type shawl. The rest are just for fun and beauty and joy and all of that good stuff.


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Is anyone else thinking about goals for 2012? I have a few in addition to this spinning one. I want to knit/crochet with my handspun more. I want to continue with my on-the-go stockinette socks, plus knit some patterned socks I've been thinking about for a while. I want to crochet another afghan. I'm going to keep on with my hexapuff blanket. All sorts of good stuff coming down the pike in 2012.

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Monday, November 21, 2011

Urban Homesteading

Urban homesteading sounds like an insufferably hipsteresque pastime involving microgreens on fire escapes and furtive beekeeping, yet I found myself doing demonstrations on how to be a homesteader at the Union Square Farmer's Market a couple weekends ago. Turns out it was fun!

My angle for the homesteading was, of course, fiber artsy in nature. What other homesteading activities were there, you might ask? There was one table concerned with food preservation, canning vegetables, making jams and chutnies, and doing cooking demos with said preserved foods. My mom and I used to make jam together when I was younger, and it made me nostalgic for that. It would be fun to get into again sometime when I live someplace where the kitchen appliances aren't in the living room.

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Another table was all about urban mycology. Avant garde composer John Cage (the guy with the piece of music which is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence) founded the New York Mycological Society, which was later led by the fabulous woman I lived with my first go-around living in New York, and they are still going strong. They had beautiful mushroom soup to share, which was made of mostly store bought mushrooms but some gathered as well. Back when I lived with my mushroom-hunting roommate, she would make me food sometimes with ingredients she found in Central park--berries and mushrooms. It's a little squick-inducing because of how many dogs and people use the park as a restroom, but I always tried not to think about it. Now I walk through Central Park almost every day, and though I don't eat anything I find, I do love observing what kind of stuff lives and grows there.

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There were a lot of fiber arts going on. I brought my inkle loom, since it's little and I doubted many people had seen one before. Lots of people had lots of questions--including many of the fiber artists in attendance. Inkle weaving is a lot of fun, and while you're certainly not going to clothe your urban homesteading family in cloth from it, I suppose you could be self sufficient in the shoelace and guitar strap sectors of your life?

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The other demos involved spinning via spindle and wheel, a little bit about natural dyes, rug making, knitting, crocheting, and needle felting.

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I love the little needle felted gnomes, and I found it hilarious that they had little butts. I mean, of course they have butts, but since I don't really do sculptural kinds of things, it's somehow hilarious to me to think of the needle felter working specifically on shaping the butt. What can I say, I'm twelve sometimes.

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Friday, November 4, 2011

Rhinebeck Recap

What's great about Rhinebeck?

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The animals. Without the animals it's really just Yarn Mall. Not that Yarn Mall is a bad thing, but this sign is no joke.

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It's not just the alpacas, though, I love them all:

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The events. I actually did a lot more event going than I have in years past. I hardly shopped at all on Saturday, in fact! The Make It With Wool fashion show was not as good as the Maryland Sheep and Wool fashion show/sheep parade, but still, I love seeing people in their best of their handmade duds. I didn't take this photo of the Leapin' Llama contest, and it's from a few years ago, but it gives an amazing sense of the hilarity of this contest.

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(photo by Tchotchkes)

Learning new stuff. Two years ago I got to try spinning on a pendulum wheel. One year ago I got to try Jonathan Bosworth's reproduction of a Han Dynasty spinning wheel on which one could spin two threads simultaneously. This year I tried something a little more mundane, which is inkle weaving. The upside of its seeming mundane-ness is that when I was totally charmed by it, I could easily give it another go. Behold my new toy, made by Threads Thru Time out of some gorgeous Ambrosia Maple.

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Hanging out with friends. I was so glad fellow blogger Emily could come this year, rocking her amazing vest and laughing at the length of the Sanguine Gryphon line on Saturday morning. My dear friend Katy came this year for the first time, and although I'm not sure she met her goal of petting a sheep while eating some sheep, I'm pretty sure she did both separately. My husband also came for the first time and was completely won over by pygora goats. Convenient, since pygora goat ownership is an aspiration for me.

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The people watching! It's Yarn Prom! I should have gotten some photos of the amazing knitwear I saw this year. My favorite sweater I saw was a pullover with a colorwork yolk that was done to look like a Greek amphora. Pure genius.

Dancing girls on an ancient Greek amphora at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
(photo by Ben Sutherland)

The food. No holds barred. Fried pickles, maple cotton candy, garlicky sauteed artichokes, beans and escarole, cheese and wine tastings, caramel apples, unfried pickles, and some birthday apple crisp.

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The shopping. Indeed, there was some shopping. I didn't buy a single full skein of yarn, but I did pick up some miniskeins for the Beekeeper's Quilt. Then, there were the spindles and fiber...

This spindle (a featherweight Bosworth in swamp kauri) and fiber (alpaca/silk from Gale's Art) came home with me.
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And a silk hankie from Miss Babs
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Some other goodies, too. It really is my favorite weekend of the year, what else can I say?