DUDLEYSPINNER ROVING!

DUDLEYSPINNER ROVING

This is the roving, and basket full of handspun yarns I took to the Handweaver's Guild of Boulder annual sale in Longmont, Colorado.
The sale is a huge and wonderful event that was inspiring. I sold quite a bit of roving, and nearly all the handspun yarns.

The view from our motel window. Today it was 100 degrees here in Kansas. This photo looks cool and refreshing. The mountains are about 30 miles from Longmont, which is north and west of Denver, Colorado. This was in December 2004.

I have been experimenting with knitting socks on a knitting machine. I found a couple of patterns. Basically you knit the sock flat, using the gauge according to the yarn you are using.
One pattern uses 65 needles, for a mans sock. I would knit a sample and adjust to my yarn. Cast on sixty stitiches using a 3 knit, purl one rib. Knit the cuff, then you put 15 stitches on each side on waste yarn, or a thin knitting needle.

Cast on the 15 stiches on each side and continue with the foot, with 60 stitches.

So you have a slit on each side of the sock. Those are where you add in an afterthought heel. Continue until you shape the toe by decreasing on each side until you have 16 stitches left. The sock is finished by sewing up the center bottom seam, using a kitchner stitch. Then you knit the afterthought heel and are done.
Thanks for reading

Meet Abby, Abby Normal

This is Abby, she models quite often for me. Today she is sporting the Foxy Brown hat, with pinned on felted rose. A mobius strip scarf that is made from itty bitty pieces of handspun.

I saw something on a blog the other day that made me stop in my tracks. Someone had taken a knitted garment they had made to the local yarn store to be finished.

Now you have to understand, the nearest yarn store to me is about an hour away. The owner is manic depressive, somedays she will talk your leg off, others she can't get rid of you fast enough. She is a nut job, no doubt about it.

My friend Beth had wanted to learn to knit socks. Beth went into the store to purchase yarn and needles, and possibly a pattern. The nutsy lady copied off a chart that looked like Greek to me. Beth showed it to me, I threw her a sock and said cast on 60 stitches. The obvious point to giving Beth the complicated chart was to make it as difficult as possible for her to learn to knit socks. Not the wisest marketing strategy, but if you are psycho, it is all for your entertainment. To be better at something that someone else is all important. Sales be dammed.

I can not understand taking an item to anyone else to finish. I got a great book a number of years ago that helps you to avoid finishing, no weaving in ends because you knit them in as you go. Kaffe Fasset's Glorious Knits. His directions for knitting in the ends is very useful.

When I have an end, I work the yarns together for one stitch, then wrap it around the yarn and knit the next stitch, it stays on the wrong side. Keep wrapping it until it is too short to wrap. Then take a felting needle and felt that end down. It is difficult for anyone to find my ends. Now if you should have to frog the item.... well good luck.

Kim's Socks

These were knit with Lion Brand Magic Stripes

Some silk hankies I dyed

Phantom lounging on a triloom woven shawl

World Sheep and Fiber Arts Festival, Sept 3-5, Bethel, MO

"25th Annual World Sheep & Fiber Arts Festivall!"
It takes place Labor Day weekend, September 3-5 at Bethel, Missouri. Come and see me! I will be there with my dudleyspinner rovings I have a few fiber tools, a drum carder and drop spindles and other toys for sale.

There is a great schedule of events planned. A sheep to shawl competition, sheep dog demonstrations. Lead line competition. Fleece competition, fiber arts competition. There will be fleece and sheep for sale, angora rabbits, and other fibery animals there. This is where the Midwesterners get their fiber fix.


Yarn = 30 wpi , dudleyspinner handspun

Needles= size 00 for center, then size 2 for pattern knitting



It's that hat again. I counted the stitches to start another pattern. There are 347 stitches in one round. You are thinking, why would anyone make a hat with such small yarn and needles?
BECAUSE I CAN! I like making a hat that only weights a couple of ounces, is not bulky but has drape and style. The next pattern is called Wheel of Fortune. There are 21 repeats ( lucky 21 in the wheel of fortune) of the pattern from Traditional Knitting Patterns of Turkey, Fancy Feet by Anna Zilboorg. A sock book. It has amazing color knitting patterns. Persian rug type designs.

Somehow I get a little kick out of using inspiration from a country that is our nemesis. Persia-Turkey is such an ancient culture. By contrast the USA is barley a toddler in the culture faze.

We have already become such a monoculture. You can be in any city in the US and the same restaurants will be on the strip. There will be an Olive Garden, and a Black Eye Pea, a Mickey D's. The culture has no unique flavor. When will we decide that the old buildings and mom & pop businesses have more value than a new Wal-Mart Hypermart. Those places make me hyper, I hate going in there. I feel like a rat in a maze.

Yesterday was the summer solstice. The longest day of the year. It stayed light until 9:57 pm!
Happy summer solstice everyone!
Thanks for reading.

Thelma and Louise Are Here!

This is the pattern I opted for Kathy's hat.

Thelma and Louise are here! This is last years fleece that has been washed once.

Thelma

Every spring I am gifted with two fleeces, Thelma and Louise are two virgin ewes. They belong to my brother in law Lloyd. He keeps them as pets in town, along with two horses. The two bags are about 20# of wool!

This wool is really virgin wool, not from some loose, wild floozie ewes. These girls are no brazen hussies.
Thelma and Louise live without a ram, and have never been bred. Their wool grows really long (4"-5") with no stress weakness from lambing. I don't know what flavor of sheep they are. Could be suffolk, or some cross with some montedale. They are both grey, and its nice wool, strong and a little greasy, but not too greasy. I like fleece to have some lanolin in it, it makes it more dirt and water repellent.

This year I intend to send it off to a mill. I have fleeces from several years stacked up. It is all washed, but not picked and carded. Some is dyed, grey fleece takes color so well, it makes it rich and has great depth.

Got wool? Need some? I will send you a sample.

While I was knitting on Kim's socks I was just getting done with the gussets. I was thinking of the old shale knitting pattern . I had a reinvent the wheel moment. Details to be reveled later.


It involves shaping and knitting socks for diabetics, and others with circulation issues.









These were taken yesterday at stitch and bitch. Sherry has some nice flowers
DUDLEY HITS THE ROAD

I am going to be a vendor at the *****DRUMROLL*******FANFARE
"25th Annual World Sheep & Fiber Arts Festival!"
It takes place Labor Day weekend, September 3-5 at Bethel, Missouri. Come and see me!

There is a great schedule of events planned. A sheep to shawl competition, sheep dog demonstrations. Lead line competition. Fleece compitition, fiber arts competion,

Happy Father's Day to any Dads reading.

Photography

This is one of Amelia's photographs. She has taken several photography classes and is quite good. This is a self portrait she set up. Quite a sense of humor. Do you get it?
It is called Foot In Mouth.

Tonight is a stitch and bitch at my friend Sherry's. We used to get together every two weeks, but have taken a break for a while. It will be good to get together again. The boys watch nascar or something, and we stitch, and eat, and laugh.

Kathy's Hat

This is a hat I have been comissioned to make as a Christmas Gift. It is knit with dudleyspinner handspun that is finer than sock yarn, on size 00 needles. There is really subtle green and red in with the black. It is to have removable dreadlocks attached when it is done. Kathy likes black, and wears it most of the time. She is an art professor.

I gave Kathy this pair of handspun, handknit socks. She put them on the wall as art!

I NEED HELP!

I have the hat to the point where the size is large enough for the top and can start doing something interesting. What should I do next? I would love to add colors, but she likes black. What about some texture stitches? Any ideas are welcome.

Handspun Socks" Wilde Greenies"

This pair of socks was knitted with handspun from dudleyspinner roving. I spun this 100% wool singles at approximatly 17 wpi. The color changes are in the yarn, making them fun to knit.

The knitting was done using the singles, with size 0 and 00 needles. They are old steel needles I picked up at a thrift store, so I don't actually have matching sets. I just use whichever I pick up. It doesn't seem to matter.

The singles is slightly overspun so the socks feel like isotoners, they hug your foot. I was working on these at an anniversary party on Saturday. Creigh, a teenage boy, said he liked them, and I could give him that pair for his birthday! However this pair is mine, all mine. They fit perfectly, and because they are knit so tightly, I am hoping they will last a while.
Thanks for reading!

Triangle Shawl from Handspun Yarns

Shawl woven on a triangular loom. I used my handspun yarns that I had dyed in the wool. The shawl has mohair, wool, alpaca, hemp, silk. I should have taken it along to the restaurant, it is always cold sitting there waiting for dinner.

I got in some sock knitting time on the trip to Newton and back, and while waiting for our food to be served. Mike decided we should celebrate all being together for the summer. The girls are both here, for possibly our last summer together. They are both in college and will soon be going off to wherever the muse takes them.

Amelia had a deer hit her car on the way to church yesterday. No, she didn't hit it, the deer ran into the side of her car. It put a couple of dents in the side and got up and ran off.

On the way home from Newton we stopped at the cemetery to pick up the plant that was still there from Memorial Day. About half way home:

" That is a big freakin spider" said Meghan, who was holding the geranium in the back seat.

"Where?" said Amelia who was driving, swerving to look.

"Stop the car!" said Dudley, who was sitting in the front seat looking over her shoulder. Seeing a spider that appeared as large and scary as Shelob.

Dudley has seen Amelia freak out at having a little green inchworm land on her while driving and did not want a repeat of that performance.

The car was stopped, the large tarantula looking spider ejected from the car. Stopping on the highway near us is not recommended, but this highway is not highly traveled. Around here a traffic jam is when two cars are stuck behind a combine, waiting to pass.

I have been working on a vest that I am making to sell at the HGB sale. (if you click the link, the third photo is of my roving) The armhole ribbing has been giving me a hard time. I have done both of them with knitted ribbing and ended up taking them off and trying again. This time I am trying a crocheted edge. I hope this works.


The view from my front porch.
Have a rainbow day!

I Have A Dream

Yurt

I have this dream of building a yurt. It is more of a fantasy, because dreams can come true. Fantasies are something you recognize will never happen.

It all started with a National Geographic article about wool. The photos of making felt in Mongolia were fascinating. The people took a log, and a hide, the wool was fluffed and put onto the hide. Then the hide was rolled around the log, and wet. The log would be dragged around by horses until it was a large piece of felt. The idea of using wool to make a living space appeals to me. I have wool that is truly suited to such an endeavor, and little else.

I also loved the photo of a Turkish Shepard in his felted cloak.

The article showed all types of wool, and the animals they come from. Angora, from rabbits, camel, llama, alpaca, sheep, yak, mohair (angora goat) , from the respective animals.

I have been in a yurt or ger since then, and the space is very peaceful. I think it has something to do with a round space . My Dad always said "then the devil can't corner ya."

http://www.yurtinfo.org/yurtstory.php
http://www.peak.org/~spark/felttents,yurts,gers.html#Guild