More hats for sale!

I've had a great time making hats and this winter is proving to be a cold one.  We had a white Christmas this year, about 8 inches of snow fell on Christmas day.

Hats are $60 and you can pick your colors.  They are Fair Isle style which means I use two or three yarns to create a really warm double-layered hat.

Hats! Hats! Hats for sale!

 

It's getting cold!! I think that means it's time to get a winter hat! I am knitting hats galore this winter -- in all colors.  If you are interested in purchasing one (and picking your own colors) just let me know!!

What do marigolds make?

Last week I assisted my mom in a natural dying and spinning class.  We had twelve ambitious students who seemed to really enjoy learning to dye...color that is.

There are numerous books with natural dye recipes.  "The first time I pulled the wool out of the dye pot I was hooked.  I finally got the colors that I was seeing in nature," my mom told the class.  It is spectacular to be able to take plants, roots, fruits, flowers, and even bugs, put them into a pot, and make color.  Being with color is so much better than being without!   

As a kid I remember going through my mom's studio and seeing the dyed tufts of raw wool.  "We feed them blueberries to get blue wool, and grapes to get purple,"  my mom joked.  In it's raw form, wool does look like it came from a colored sheep.  But the truth is, there area a lot of variables that can change the final color.  With each pot the ratio of dye stuff to wool makes the wool lighter or darker.  Then there's the water itself and the type of mordant which tints the color, or leans it into different hues.

Needless to say, the final reveal can be quite exciting.  Our class continued to stir their dye pots while they learned to spin, and also practiced patience while they (the pots not the students) brewed.  When the time finally came to take the wool out, the colors were vibrant!  Bright! Sparkling! Luscious!  The most breathtaking to me was the marigold -- which makes yellow.

My mom and I decided we had to do a pot of our own.  We used alum mordant and three pounds of marigolds to one pound of wool.

My mom and I getting the marigolds ready

And Voila!

Who knew those little marigolds had a secret power?  Check back to see what I make with this electric yellow!

And the Garden Kept Growing...

My time at Penland has come and gone, but what I learned there and the ideas that were spawned are still with me.

One of the most challenging things about taking workshops and then going home is keeping that high level of creativity alive in my home studio.  It's unusual to work surrounded by eight or nine other people, who chatter and react to each other's work.  The spontaneous moments that happen around a project can lead me in one way or another, and the amount of information passed about in conversation is invaluable.

So here's a look at some of the things I made while I was there - immersed.

We learned how to knit without needles.  Above, is a sample of heavy gauge wire, wrapped around a dowel and then looped by hand in the knit structure.  Below I used medium gauge plastic coated wire for the first time to make a "something-er-other."  Don't ask what it is because I don't know.

Then I used small gauge wire to make a knitted bracelet with beads.  The possibilities are endless - no more "normal" knitting!

Looks like fun but -- what are they doing?!

On the 3rd of July we celebrated July 4th at Penland by having a parade.  The classes were invited to participate and my group, the Sculptural Knitters, came up with the idea to knit as we marched - why not?  But we can already knit and walk at the same time (we're great multi-taskers) so we needed to up the stakes.  We decided to knit caution tape with people as the row holders.  Can you picture it?  We casted-on around Jenna, Karen, Sharon, and Ronda.  Carolyn crossed in front of the marching row while the ladies lifted the loop around their waists up over their heads.  Then Carolyn ran back across with a new line of caution tape and the ladies lifted loops again.  Our name was "A Cautionary Tale" and we had a long one by the time the parade was over.

Adrienne wore a ball of yarn on her head,  Leslie carried Miss Penland 2010, Lexi and I played drums from recycled ketchup cans and we sang and had a chant!  We went above and beyond -- and laughed a lot in the meantime.

A Garden Grows at Penland

I am taking 3D sculptural knitting at Penland taught by Adrienne Sloane.  We've been knitting with rope, plastic, caution tape,  ribbon, fabric - let's see, what else?  Honeysuckle, wire, telephone cords... yeah pretty much anything linear that we can get our hands on.  We've been here one week and have one to go.

While working on making holes on purpose, big and little bumps, swirly thing-a-ma-bobs, and protrusions, we also started a flower garden on campus.

Color wheel

 

Oh the possibilities... This wool was dyed (from left to right) with cochineal, madder root, onion skins, copper and ammonia, and indigo.  Some portions were double dyed to get dark red, dark green-blue, and dark purple.  

Oh - my - gosh - I bought a spinning wheel!

I guess you could say I've been head-over-heels for fiber "stuff" for a while now. I have a mother who, whether she meant to or not, influenced me greatly - and still does. When I was nine she gave me a spinning wheel, I suppose because I kept asking her so many questions and she thought it would keep me occupied. After a few months of spinning, I realized no other children were doing it, and I abandoned the wheel to collect dust. One morning my mother came to me and asked, "Em. I have a student who wants a wheel. Can I sell her yours?" Well I thought about it and I admit I was a little angered that my mother would so flippantly sell my wheel. How dare she? Well - the way my mother tells the story, I responded by saying, "As long as you get something good for it." As so, the wheel was sold.

Since then, I've started spinning again and have assisted my mom at the John C. Campbell Folk School in her "Sheep to Shawl" classes. There, we spent afternoons spinning away, both doors to the studio open, talking with the students about family and fortune (as fiber artists of course.) Then something awful happened. After the class was over, at home, I asked my mom to use her wheel. She has more than one, thank goodness, so it wasn't too much of a problem until...we both wanted to use the same wheel. Oh no! What now?

Well -- then the elves got to work and for Christmas my mom and dad gifted me a donation towards my first wheel. Now, let me clarify, I'm talking about last last year, as in 2008. You see, I think I started dragging my heels! Do I really want something so big? It's like buying a piece of furniture. What if I want to travel? Or go to grad school? Do I really want to own up to being a spinner? But -- after asking my mom to use her wheel many more times, I saw that I had no choice but to commit to the relationship. I am now a packaged deal: It's me and my spinning wheel.

I bought a Kromski Minstrel, double treadle with three bobbins. It is a castle style wheel made of European alder and birch. And my mom threw in a niddy-noddy for winding yarn from the bobbin into skeins. Yippee!!

Emolyn Teaches Knitting

My dear sister Annie Fain is traveling in France and sending me news about the fabulous food she's been eating, Bal folk dancing, and the kind people she has been meeting. I am lured into her world there as I dearly love to travel. While I rely on her stories to add some foreign spice to my day, I look for adventure here at home.

The most recent adventure in my life has been a dive into a deep-end of sorts: what ensued was me teaching my first knitting workshop. My class was full and took place at the John C. Campbell Folk School. All beginners, my students introduced themselves and buckled up for the journey.

We began discussing the relationship between needle size and yarn size then casted-on and soon they were knitting for the first time! What fun! The weekend progressed from there into a glorious fiber experience: in the mornings we warmed up our hands and fixed mistakes made in the wee-hours of the night, while practicing knitting and talking at the same time. We moved from knitting to purling, and ribbing. After lunch Saturday I took my class to Brasstown's local yarn store, the Yarn Circle, to dabble in the "what-if's" of knitting projects. After hours of knitting, I reminded them to look up and far away! something every enthusiastic knitter need not forget - so we visited the sheep at the barn, the pregnant ewes, our two Great Pyrenees, the shy kitty, and the rams living strategically far from the unbred ewes. Sunday morning we added increasing, decreasing, and casting-off to the list as well as reading gauges which led to a fun sweater-making discussion.

At the end of every class at the Folk School the students come together to display their work in an event called Show-and-Tell. Here we get to see what others experienced during their class. We all lucked out this weekend because there was a very generous chocolate making class going on. I sampled espresso flavored truffles, a rich layer cake, fudge of some sort and more until I learned that the key was not to look the students from the chocolate class in the eye for fear of being lured to their table again.

Yes ~ chocolate is a reason to digress and so I have. But let me take you back around to the knitting table where we had our lovely samples on display.

My student Brigitta Remole standing in front of our table

To my students: Thank you for being a great class. I am happy to know that there are now eight more knitters in the world!

Knitting Wonderland

As I'm sure you know, we've seen more snow than usual this winter. On the news I've been hearing, "Oh this blasted snow!" while others have been saying "We've had a hard winter." I have to admit that all the while I have been saying "This is best time of year for knitters!"

Today my dear mother and I were leaving the house for an afternoon jaunt. We layered up and I met her at the door. "Wait a sec mom," I said "Look at all the handmade knitwear we're wearing!" I puller her outside into the sunshine (though it snowed all evening this morning beheld the bluest of skies) and I gave my dad the camera. We had to get a picture of our knitwear in use. And worn all at once - might I add.

My mom and I were wearing ten knitted items. My mother had on one of her hand spun, dyed, and knitted vests under a sweater made by the same mastered skill. She also wore socks and a hat which she made and a pair of mittens one of her students so sweetly gave her. I was wearing my own socks and sweater with a scarf and hat made by my mom and mittens made by my aunt Suz. We were well suited for the walk. Actually, once we got going I realized I was a little too warm and had to take a layer off. The least I can say is we were two very happy knitters! Now we just need knitted long-johns.

Picking a Project for the Fiber

There are many types of fiber in this world and hopefully we'll be able to work with them all at some point in this lifetime. As I go along my fiber road, I stop to touch the cotton, angora, wool, silk, bamboo, hemp and think about what I could make - a cotton wash cloth for the face, an angora shawl to wear with a cocktail dress, or a pair of chunky wool slippers to slide around with on the wood floor on a snowy day.

It is true that some yarn (however warm it may turn out to be) is just too prickly to wear on the skin or up around the neck. When I came across the Lopi Icelandic wool, I knew it would make me feel as warm as a wood stove if I knitted into a sweater. Icelandic wool is good for keeping you toasty and for that I love it. It is crisp and holds it's shape, but in the south the prickle-factor goes up. Here we look for fiber to wear against the skin. This particular day I didn't want to turn down the sweater route, instead I asked myself, "What could I make with this fiber - for this fiber?"

And that is why I made my first Teddy Bear -- there was no child or expectant mother in mind. It was solely for the fiber. This was actually the first time I have ever followed a pattern and I admit I had NO CLUE what I was doing. How was this odd octopus shaped spot of knitting ever going to become a bear? I continued to mumble this as I faithfully followed the pattern, until I turned it up-side-down, and inside out. Only then... yes! He just needs to be stuffed and I have a bear!

My bear is a little long-legged and his eyes pop out on his face, but he cheers me up every time I look at him in my parent's store. He really is the perfect sample for the yarn. Customers can poke him and squeeze his belly and some have even said that they want to make one too.