Month: June 2006

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Wild fiber

Buffalo

Just rolled in from spending the past week hanging around “wild fiber” in Yellowstone.
The highlight of the week was getting the opportunity to stay at the
Lamar Buffalo Ranch and take a class called “The Carnivore Conservation Challenge”  from the Yellowstone Association
Institute.

Early in the week I came across decent quantities of buffalo fiber left on the ground near a picnic point in Hayden Valley but I resisted the urge to take any.  Later in the week I had a chance to ask a ranger whether it was OK to take buffalo fiber. She confirmed that it isn’t allowed. I could look but not take it out of the park.

The gift shop at the ranch had some lovely stocking caps for sale from a local company called Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool Company. Hang tags on the caps mentioned that the company uses locally raised predator friendly wool. I’ve known for some time that ranchers weren’t keen on loosing livestock to wolves and bears but wasn’t aware that there was a program to recognize products that use predator friendly methods to raise their livestock. One of the teachers mentioned that it’s hard to get ranchers interested in having their product labeled “predator friendly” since calves are usually sold to large feed lots with many other cattle. This makes it hard to distinguish between ones raised on predator friendly ranches or non-friendly ranches.

This whole topic is very new to me and has got me thinking more about the wool I use. I’d like to do a little more research on the topic.

Firebirds_swatch2Like every vacation, I usually have grand ideas about getting lots of knitting done while traveling in the car or plane. As usual, I was only able to manage a small fraction of what I had planned. This time I only managed to knit a swatch of the Firebirds cardigan.

Instead of knitting the swatch in-the-round, I decided to knit it flat as described in the pattern, which I gather is the more traditional “Fair Isle” way. Using a circular needle I started each row with new strands of yarn and cut them at the end of each row. In this way each row is knitted in stockinette (no purl rows) and is suppose to mimic knitting in the round without having work twice as many stitches.

Notice the long yarn ends? I think it’s unusual to leave them so long, but cutting the ends made me nervous about loose edges so I kept them long.

The swatch turned out to be very tight ,~ 9 sts X 9 rows per inch. I’m was aiming for about 7 sts per inch.  After measuring this swatch I started to regret not knitting it in my usual manner (in-the-round). I suspect that managing all those ends made my tension tighter than it really is. This week I’ll work another swatch but this time do it “in-the-round”. Hopefully I won’t use up too much yarn trying to get a “good” swatch.

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Myrna’s variations

Myrnas_samples2 So how many variations of Feather and Fan (a.k.a. Old Shale/Shell) are there? After taking Myrna Stahman’s class called “Variations on a Theme”, I learned that there are more than any one can probably count. Perhaps, the number of possibilities is what’s taking her so long to finish her next book.

This was a full day class devoted to discussing the basics of understanding the mechanics of stitches on the needle, reading lace charts, viewing samples of the variations and trying our hand at design our own variation. Overall it was a very informative class. Her samples were very inspiring and innovative. In the photo there’s the most amazing circular shawl (just beyond the brown scarf) made out of Mountain Colors yarn. It was made using a special technique that she developed which allows one to to knit Feather and Fan as a flat circular item. We were all dying to learn this special secret but alas she said that she’s saving it for her book.

While most of the other knitters in the class took on her challenge of attempting to design a new Feather and Fan stitch pattern, I just stuck to one of the basic variations. As you can see by this photo, I didn’t get very far. To tell you the truth, I’m anxiously awaiting her next book. Unfortunately the room was very hot and muggy due to some very strange weather at the time so it was too difficult for me to concentrate on designing anything.

To dress lace shawls Myrna uses dressing wires. Dressing wires that she helped develop are now available through HandWorks NorthWest. Since one of the vendors was offering them at the show with a small discount, I went ahead and purchase them. The kit comes with plenty of wires, blocking pins, instructions and a plastic tube for storage. I haven’t used them yet but I’m sure they’ll come in handy when I work on my next lace project.

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Yep, still working on these darn socks

First_sockAfter a couple of months struggling with these Fair Isle socks, there’s light at the end of the tunnel (and it’s not a freight train). All that’s left is to cast off the ribbing of the first sock, complete about 20% of the other sock and then block both.

I won’t mention how many times I redid these toe-up socks to get them to fit properly. While at the NwRSA conference I was showing some classmates the other pair and mentioned I was going to rip the yarn down to the toe and heard gasps. I just sighed and mentioned that they didn’t fit. Besides, one reason I love knitting is because I control the project and if I want to redo it, I can.

This time I added four more stitches at the toe and then four more before starting the leg. The first three bands after the heel do not have increases while the two upper purple bands have 4 increases just before and after the design within the band (two in the back of the leg and one at each side).

I’m hoping to wrap these up this week and move on to my next project, Jade Starmore’s Firebird Cardigan.

Actually this week I got a bit of a head start by winding a skein of each color and clipping a sample for a home-made color card. After doing this, I transformed the black and white chart into a color version using a cross-stitch program called Pattern Maker. Now I’m all set to start the swatch.

Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to write up my class notes. I was too busy knitting. Maybe I’ll get around to it this week.

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NwRSA Conference 2006

Gym

This weekend NwRSA’s annual conference was held at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.

Unlike last year, this time I commuted each day. Since it was quite a drive I just attended a couple of full day classes and didn’t have a chance to stay for most of the evening events. On Friday I attended Variations on a Theme, Part II  with Myrna Stahman (the Faroese Shawl guru) and on Saturday I took Spinning for Socks with Carol Rhoades (Spin-Off Magazine’s Technical Editor).

I’m still getting my notes and samples in order and plan to post about each class.

One highlight of the weekend for me was Sarah Swett’s keynote address and slide show on Saturday night. She’s an exceptional tapestry weaver from Idaho who’s had several articles in past issues of Spin-Off and was one of the featured knitters in Knitting In America (that’s her in the upper right hand corner on the cover of the book). She also has a new book out called Kids Weaving that explains how to create an inexpensive loom from PCV pipes.

While wearing a her beautiful long vest, Sarah showed slides as she talked about her work, her life and how unexpected surprises influence her creativity. She describes herself as a story teller that uses tapestries to convey stories of her and her friend’s lives. Here’s one with her friend sitting in a “dryer” dreaming about living some place where a dryer isn’t needed. Recently, her attention has shifted to painting with egg tempera, doing a bit of needlepoint and learning to play the cello.