Alpacas from Eighth and Mud

At the beginning of the summer I took the opportunity to get out of the city for a day and tour a local alpaca farm. My friend and I set off for Alpacas from Eighth and Mud on a pretty, sunny week day. When we arrived we noticed alpacas prancing in fields on either side of a quaint little shop. I later learned that females were on one side and males on the other. Of course they only mix for breeding purposes! Baby alpacas, known as Crias, stayed with their moms.

We immediately went into the shop and met the farmer, a bubbly welcoming woman named Sharon. She answered all of our questions and showed us some of her hand made works. We feasted our eyes on the shelves of alpaca yarn, hand knit garments, wall hangings and I particularly admired the spinning fiber. You'll also find hand made jams and maple syrup in the gift shop.

Alpaca spinning fiber with silk noils.

Alpacas on Eighth and Mud is also a mill. They mill their own alpaca fiber and will do custom orders for local customers.

Sharon let us see the alpacas behind the scenes. The animals were really tentative around us strangers. 

Before we left we receive some "real eggs" from Sharon's chickens and directions on how to get to a local cheese maker's market.

Six Steps to Kool Aid Dyed Wool - A Tutorial

Whatcha Need

• large microwave safe bowl or container
• plastic garbage bag
• selection of Kool Aid envelopes
• plastic coat hanger
• microwave
• wool to dye
• rubber gloves
• old crappy towel
• rag

Step One

Submerge the wool in a container of cool water. Make sure wool is soaked through. Drain water, squeeze off excess water and lay out as pictured on plastic garbage bag. 

Merino wool and Kool Aid envelopes

 Step Two
Open packets of Kool Aid in your chosen colours and sprinkle on your wool. Don't mix the colours over one another too much as you can muddle the colours and end up with brown.

Experiment with different colours, its lotsa fun!

 Step 3
Put on your rubber gloves and gently rub Kool Aid into the wool so that it dissolves and disperses the colour. At this point you may want to turn the wool over to the other side and repeat steps 1-3. Sometimes I leave it as is for less intense colour.

Step 4
Heat the wool in your microwave safe bowl on high for approx 5 min or until the wool is completely heated through. Should be steamy when you pull it out of the microwave. 

Steamin' pile of Merino

 Step 5
When wool has cooled enough to safely hold in your hands, squeeze out excess water into the sink. Lay out the wool as before but now onto an old towel. Not much of the dye will leak out at this time, but use an old towel just in case! Now roll in the towel and press.

Step 6
Drape wool over the plastic coat hanger and hang  on the shower curtain rod, away from fabric, and allow the wool to air dry. Open a window if possible to improve air circulation. Once in a while squeeze excess water that settles into the ends of the wool. Ready to spin when thoroughly dry!

Share your Kool Aid dyed wool with Close Knit readers by posting links in the comments below.
xxLadeeBeexx

Sit and Spin

When I need a break from making baby sweaters and booties I try to do something a little different. I learn a new skill, try to finish a project, use up some of my yarn stash to make something for a neighbour. Really, there isn't much difference between what I do for a living and what I do as a hobby-and that's the way I want it!

I acquired a spinning wheel from a friend, an Ashford Traveller with a single treadle. I didn't know anything about using a spinning wheel, but I new I wanted to find out! I did some drop spindle work, but I wanted my spinning to go faster and more sophisticated.

My very first hand spun on a drop spindle.

My second hand spun, I liked a little better. Plus this wool I dyed myself-that was fun!

The wheel needed some cleaning and fixing up-giving me an opportunity to really become acquainted with the parts and functions of the wheel. I've seen wheels in action before, watched videos on YouTube and seen spinners in real life, so I kinda got the gist of it. Also understanding the concept of spinning with a drop spindle and plying made a good foundation for understanding how to use the wheel.

I've been practicing on my wheel and decided it was time to put some handspun up for sale in my Etsy shop, LadeeBee Supplies. One of these was the first skein of yarn to find a new home:

Recently I decided to try dying some wool with Kool Aid to see how that went. Here are the results:

Two beautiful skeins. So fun to spin and watch the colours change, especially when I plied them together.
Plying is when you take two or more single spun yarns and spin them together - in the opposite direction.

I used cherry, strawberry, blue raspberry, and lime flavoured Kool Aid to achieve this colourway.

You can see little kinks in the yarn. That's because I didn't set the twist yet. I've gotta do one more step before its ready to knit up...

Another look at the variation in colours. 

I have to say spinning is a very enjoyable, satisfying and relaxing activity. I feel really good when I finish up a skein of gorgeous yarn. I play with if for a while and examine every part of it...kinda like examining your newborn baby. 

A Journey Into Hand Spinning

I have recently had the urge to try a little bit of hand spinning with a drop spindle. I am so busy knitting and crocheting I find it difficult to put down the needles or hook to do much of anything else, including reading the new book I bought by Wally Lamb. Just before Christmas I purchased a kit at the City of Craft sale in Toronto. It came with what appeared to be Kool Aid dyed roving, a drop spindle and a few sheets of printed details. While I didn't find the sheets to be very helpful in the instructions department, it was a pretty good deal for the kit at $16. I ended up looking on YouTube to find out how to go about taking up hand spinning. My favorite instructor by far was Abby Franquemont. She is also the author of Respect the Spindle. 

I completed my first hand spun ball of yarn.

You can see it is thick and then thin...not at all my intention...but not bad for my first. I am just amazed it looks like yarn at all!

Then I decided it was time to dye the yarn myself and spin it. I looked up kits on Etsy and found one in a Chandler, Arizona shop called Wind Rose Fiber Studio. I received the most luscious merino wool and three dyes in the colours I specified. I was so excited when I received it in the mail!

There was also a free sample or Firestar (on the left)  that was generously included. 

And here is the resulting yarn, dyed and spun.

I chose three colours to dye with: alphalpha, mustard, and pacific. In essence blue, yellow and green. What I didn't think about was "what do you get when you mix yellow and blue?" So a lot of 

green resulted from the process. I am happy with the way it turned out though. Quite beautiful!

So what next? Owning my own alpaca? angora? like this blogger? Tabitha Webber, a fellow fibre enthusiast is seriously considering taking the next big leap! You may be interested in reading about her journey. While I may not be on the same page as Tabitha right now I can see something down the way in my future. I have daydreams about owning my own alpacas too, but until then I am happy to get my hands on that delicious fibre and spin to my heart's content.

Downtown Knit Collective November Bus Trip 2009

"SHOW US YOUR KNITS"

proposed slogan of our DKC bus trip

Our first stop was the Needle Emporium in Ancaster, Ontario. This is a gorgeous yarn shop in a heritage house just on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario.

The Masonic Lodge just across the street from the Needle Emporium. We could not have asked for a better day. Clear blue sky, fresh breeze, beautifully fall.

A basket of sock yarn. I had to buy just one! This is Mini Mochi by Crystal Palace Yarns, 80% merino wool and 20%nylon.

Sock yarn, cottons, anything you can imagine. It's all here.

This is a photo of the sweater kit that I purchased. The owner graciously gave us DKCers 20% off all yarn. The kit I purchased was for XL, in the same colours in the photo and pattern by Spud and Chloe. The yarn is comprised of superwash 55% wool and 45% organic cotton. It is simply delicious to the touch.

Foxy ladies in a line-up. I tried asking them not to smile, but I think it was impossible for them while clutching a bag of newly purchased spoils.

Mug Shot

Belfountain Inn. This is the quaint venue of our lunch. We had quiche and salad, bread with oil and vinegar, and pie for dessert.

Rhubarb Pie!!! with fresh cream (not enough of it!)

My new friend Annie. She and I were accused of skewing the average age of the DKC membership. Yep, I'm the baby. Feels good to be the babe sometimes.

Our next stop after lunch was Camilla Valley Farm. Lots of stuff for the weaver and knitter and what a beautiful property. Worth the drive!

Fresh skeins of Manos silk. I desperately wanted to buy some of this lime green, but thought better after leaving the Needle Emporium with my sweater kit. I managed to score some amazing linen, cotton, and wool at $1 per cone or skein in the bargain bin because they were supposedly "mill ends".

A good look at the merchandise.

The woman in the purple top is the prez of the Toronto Downtown Knit Collective. She is spunky and way cool. Her name is Carol!

Taking a break outside of the Camilla Valley Farm Weaver's Supply Shop

A view from their property.

That's the end of our trip. We head home, our bellies full, our bags full, and our wallets empty, smiles on our faces all the while. Until next year, I hope.

Toronto Zoo Fundraising Project

I have a couple of ads up currently on the TCA website. For those that do not know the TCA is the Toronto Craft Alert. The greatest invention since carbohydrates. I can't get enough of checking it out to see what is coming up next in my city in the world of art and craft.

This past summer I went on a field trip to the zoo with the clients I work with. I took a little detour into the gift shop and found a wonderful skein of camel hair yarn. Yummy, yummy, yummy. I am still saving it for something special. It looks so good as it is I may never knit it up. Anyway, while heading home from the zoo by public transit (a 2 hour plus trip) it occurred to me that the zoo could be making their own yarn. The yarn I bought was from an animal far, far away. We have our own animals! I contacted the zoo right away and proposed that the fibre be collected and processed so that people can knit it up into wonderful things to be donated back to the zoo so they can sell them for profit. Three months later I finally got a reply and was told that this is a possibility. I may be able to get my hands on that animal hair after all! So I am putting together a project team so we can tackle this together.