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Carding wool: Easier than I thought and kind of addictive
After Black Sheep Gathering last weekend I now own two fleeces . The time has come to learn how to process them. In preparation for this project, I picked up some washed Romney locks so that I could...
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Almost 2,000 Yards of Recent Spinning
I elected not to participate in Tour de Fleece this year. I was sure I would not have time. But you’d never know it to see the recent products of my wheel. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd’s Wool (4 oz). Chain...
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Applying What I Learned at Black Sheep: Fractal Spun Alpaca
After taking a class on spinning with color from Janel Laidman at Blacksheep Gathering I have a new fascination with space dyed fibers. In class we played with a technique she developed called fractal...
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Wraps Per Inch is a Mystery to Me
This afternoon I set out to measure the weight of some yarn I had just spun. Eyeballing it, I expected it to come out as a fingering weight yarn. So I pulled out a ruler and commenced a-wrapping. It...
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Knitting at Meetings
One aspect of working from home that I’ve come to enjoy is the opportunity to knit during conference calls. I usually have at least one such call every day, each lasting 30 to 90 minutes. During...
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Fractal Stripes Take Shape in a Simple Scarf
A few weeks ago I decided to spin up my first at-home experiment in fractal spinning. I had just taken a class from Janel Laidman at Blacksheep Gathering and I was anxious to try it. Some part of me...
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Same Fiber, Very Different Yarns
Both yarns were spun from the same fiber: Frabjous Fibers BFL roving in the Balsam colorway. Both even use the same number of plies: 3. But the similarities end there. The yarn on the left: Spun: On...
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It’s Never Too Early for Christmas Panic Knitting
I was tooling along on a cardigan project last week, knitting slowly and methodically, in no particular hurry. The temperature outside was a balmy 70 degrees F and the leaves on the trees had only...
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You’re a Bad, Bad Mitten
Dear Mitten, I want you to sit in the project bag for a while and think about what you’ve done. I started out with the right number of stitches when I cast you on. How, then, did you end up four...
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How to Keep a Knitting Group Alive
How do you keep your local knitting gatherings alive? I’m talking about informal gatherings of fiber crafters, as distinct from classes, retreats and other more formal gatherings. Stitch and Bitch....
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What to do with cursed yarn
With Halloween coming up on Thursday, I’ve got spooky things on the brain. The undead have been making cameos in my dreams for weeks. To fortify my defenses against the dark arts I’ve broken into a bag...
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Naming Yarn Colorways Based on Treasured Children’s Books
I have a fantasy in which I am hired by a yarn company to come up with names for all their colorways. Total carte blanche to name them any way I want, using any wild inspiration that tickles my fancy....
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A Boneyard Shawl for the Cats
I’d like to be able to claim that I knitted this shawl with my cats in mind. Sadly, this was not the case. I knitted this shawl from some wonderfully crunchy hand-spun yarn. Some of it was even hand...
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Yarn Colorways Inspired by The Dragonriders of Pern
Anne McCaffrey‘s Dragonriders of Pern series has lots of scope for yarny imagination. Even though I’m in my 30s I still have daydreams where I imagine myself as Menolly or Lessa. I don’t think we...
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Communal Knitting Project – A New Holiday Tradition?
Ah, Christmas: a time to gather together with family. A time to stare at your in-laws across the dining table, trying to think of something interesting or witty to say. A time to mask social...
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How Long Can a Project Sit Before it Starts to Stink?
How long can a project sit before it starts to stink? And how long does it have to sit before it stops stinking ? Honestly, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you a story–a story about a lonely little project...
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Buying Yarn is an Expensive Habit
Buying yarn is an expensive habit. Oh yes. It’s so easy to stash up, to buy more at a faster rate than I will ever knit. I used to be frustrated by my stash. It was a stash composed of lots of single...
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On Top of Mount Wooly
Jacob sheep. Evelyn Simak [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons On Top of Mount Wooly On top of Mount Wooly All covered with sheep I lost my sock...
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A Handspun Ishbel Shawl
At last count, the Ishbel shawl by Ysolda Teague boasted 12,819 projects on Ravelry. As Ravelry patterns go, it’s a lacy little juggernaut. Now there’s an amusing mental image. Sadly, when you Google...
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Spinning My Own (Much Smaller) Great White Bale
This year, I’m doing something about my fleece stash. Specifically, I’m going to do something about the washed and unwashed fleece stuffed into the corners of my craft room. Here are the rules: If a...
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