Patagonia

This is a small sampling of what a friend bought. Can't wait to see what she makes.
Caroline was really good and came down to help on both Saturday and Sunday. She finally got the chance to go on a wheel and was even demonstrating. I cropped the watcher, since I did not get her permission to post. Caroline is going to catch up with me quickly!
James AKA Dart posed with the Headless Wonder after buying the freeform hat. Now I will have to make another - since I do want to sell the pattern.
These two balls have a story, that only Livia, Caroline and I know! Gorgeous combination of colors. Livia is planning to crochet my green crochet shawl pattern and add a twist. Hopefully, she will send me a picture.
Suzy visited my shop today and had a blast. She started out with the wrap and then lots of gorgeous yarn. I think I am going to be coiling yarn in my sleep to restock. I also need to make a new wrap. Can't decide, if I will use something in the shop, or start new. I will know by tomorrow.

My shop was up in time for her visit. I need a new shop photo for my website. Marc put up more lighting in the and the yarns look great.

Still Patagonia

I almost wrote last night that I was not going to do the Patagonia show again, because yesterday was deadly dull. Had to change my mind today. Sales were really good and I met lots of interesting new people. It did not seem worth the effort yesterday, since I mostly saw people I had seen before. I like to get new people hooked on spinning or knitting. My friends are starting to call me an enabler. I really think I am giving them inspiration and something to look forward to. I don't feel very guilty about it either.

Yesterday I taught a 10 year old girl to drop spindle. She came back today with two friends. I let her teach them. It was neat to see that she had remembered what I taught. I did not push her mom into buying her a drop spindle. I would not be surprised, if the girl goes into something artistic some day soon. She was spinning within moments of holding the drop spindle.

Tomorrow is another day, and more spinning fun to be had!

Patagonia Fall Arts Festival

My booth set up. The extra panels that I bought for the Colorado shows have given my booth more stability. When the wind blows, which it did mightily today, nothing flapped up or down.
I did not realize how lacy some of my designs looked until I saw this photo!
Chris helped me set up the booth today and kept me company. He calls my Mannequin "The Lady." I have decided that she is going to be called the "Headless Wonder." She is always wearing the best of what I have at the time. I love the jumble of color in this photo, so threw it in for good measure.

On my wheel and loom, some trivia

This is what I am currently spinning. It is 1st kid mohair with a little bit of angelina thrown in.
This is a blend that I made from commercial merino. I have spun it thick and thin and then coiled it. I will list it on etsy, after the show in Patagonia, if I still have it.
A pile of recently spun yarn on top of a blue scarf that I just finished knitting. The yarn is in a previous post.
In the front is the yarn that I am using to weave. A little too wild to knit with, so I decided to see what would happen in the loom. I am weaving small ipod/cellphone bags that I hope to have done by the 4th Avenue Street Fair - I have two months! Of course, I put on a 12 yard warp and have 8 more to go.

The trivia:

At the bottom of my inventory, I keep track of the number of yards and the number of pounds that I spin each year. This is my total as of today: 10,017 yards spun since January 1, 2008 and 101.5 pounds spun since January 1, 2008. Amazing!

Patagonia

I will be taking down my shop on Thursday afternoon for the show in Patagonia this weekend. It runs from 11-5 on Friday and 10-5 on Saturday and Sunday. I am in booth number 25 - almost at the end of the main road coming into town.

I also received my booth number for the 4th Avenue street fair. It is 227, even further to the end of the west side. It will make for a longer walk, depending on where someone enters the avenue, but a convenient place for me in terms of loading and unloading. It is still opposite the large restaurant at the end of 4th.

Lonely

All of the animals have been sorted into pens according to mating requirements. The whole area is now raked and lonely looking.
This is No Size's Father. He is not cute, but he has lovely hair and knows what to do around a doe in heat. He has been very busy since he arrived last Thursday. I expect a lot of kids during the first week of March. The young colored bucks are making lots of noise, but I don't think they are getting the job done. I am going to put No Size's father out with all of the yearling and older does after the wool festival. I figured that having them all in pens will make it easier for the shearer.
A couple of the animals escaped from pens and a few seemed to be getting picked on, so I have left them to roam. This is Agave. She still needs her mother, so I left her out after she escaped and then got her mother back out. Absynthe got penned behind a feeder, so I let her out also. She is very vocal when she is in heat, so I will know when to put her back. I am not breeding any of the young does this year.
Agave and Joshua hang out at dinnertime.

Felting with Mohair

I thought I would share this in my blog, since it came up in a CAGBA yahoo discussion.

The picture above is of a landscape that I needefelted while hanging out at a show. I wet felted it when I got home. The abstract flowers were needlefelted on after the wet felting. Wet felting has a tendency to flatten everything and dull the look. To get a cool textured look, needlefelt on top of the base. The yellow flowers on the left are wool. I think the sheen of the mohair makes a huge difference in the look of the finished piece. This landscape was also needlefelted and then wet felted. The coiled tree, angora goats, and the bushes were added afterwards. In order to have the tree really look like a mesquite tree and remember the placement, I laid the trunk out with mohair, and the tree had a shade of green wool laid out. The coils of the tree were needlefelted on afterwards. I had intended to put more mohair over the tree trunk, but left it alone, since the initial needlefelting held up and the mohair did not flatten out with the wet felting.
The above is a piece that I use to show beginning needlefelters how to get texture. I use both wool and mohair so they can see the difference.

This is my favorite landscape to date. Mohair coiled is gorgeous and draws the eye. I have a light that shines on it and no one misses it! The mohair in the sky was applied before wet felting and a little wool was drawn over the locks to ensure that it remained in place. The whole background was two of my batts laid out as a third layer. All of the design was needlefelted on months later. It is based on a picture that I took last fall while visiting Taos.

This landscape was needlefelted at a show in Colorado to pass the time. I did not wet felt it. It is fairly thick and has varying depths.

The piece above is one that I wove. The warp was a second clip of mohair. The weft was a Rambouillet shade of wool that was dyed red. The weft shrunk by 30 percent. The mohair just fuzzed. It was felted in the washing machine and got very thick and heavy. It also filled my washer with a lot of hair, since I did not put it in a laundry bag!
The above is a purse that I knitted and then felted (not really) in the washing machine. It is 100% yearling mohair. It did not shrink or loose hair in the wash, but it fuzzed up and the loose areas filled in with fiber. By the way, it is a very heavy bag. A larger one would make a great tote bag. Very sturdy!
This is a wet felted purse. The orange is mohair that was blended into a batt with Shetland wool. The areas with the mohair did not ripple in felting as much as the wool did.
This bag was wet felted with strips of kid mohair laid on top and small bits of wool covering them to hold them in place. I don't recommend using this technique with older mohair, because it takes more wool to lock them down which spoils the effect.

Kid mohair will felt beautifully in the washing machine, as I have learned to my regret, if you forget to stop the machine before the agitation begins. I have a top loader and lots of fiber that has to be washed. I have learned to fill the washer with soap and hot water, turn the dial to spin, and then turn the machine off before putting my laundry bags in. Losing one gorgeous fleece forced me to come up with a way to ensure that it never happened again!