Blog

July 5

I totally missed the month of July.   I was in the garden.  My passion for gardening is at least as strong as my passion for spinning, knitting and designing so at this time of they year I take a break from the fiber.   The clematis is Betty Anne Corning.   It's a favorite.   As the weather begins to heat up it's less fun to work in the garden and I begin to return to the fiber. I'm just up from knitting in the garden in a small shaded stone patio down the steps and and to the left.  I'm working on a new sample of hedgie's socks in our new hand dyed comercially spun yarn.  The journey from handspun yarn to comercial yarn in our samples and in the yarns we sell has been interesting and educational.  I am a hand spinner.  I love the process from raw fleece to finished garment.  I love my handspun and that has had an effect on the comercial yarns I find acceptable.  To start with as a team (Sarah and I) have agreed that we want wool that is raised in the US and spun in the US.  It goes beyond that in that I prefer yarns that are two ply and not overly processed while still being soft.  This means the wool is probably from a finer breed of sheep like cormo, merino or rambouilett.  It's not right, wrong or the best it's just what I like and imagine in my designs.  At this point we've sampled a lot of yarns and settled on three that will allow us to support our current designs with yarn source and dyed by us.   As I mentioned several posts ago the yarn so important in achieving the finished garment that you want.

May 27

The garden is captivating this year.  Above is a photo of clematis montana odorata putting on quite a show.  It's fragrant and smells like vanilla to add to it's appeal.   Right now I'm spending all my time in the garden.  We've finished our shows until September.   I'll get back to designing in a few weeks time when the June garden peak has passed, but right now it's hard to get me out of the garden!

April 30

I've almost missed April altogether.  It's that time of year when my interests turn to gardening.  So when the sun has been out and the weather is warm I've been outside mulching and poking and planning.  I've also been doing fibery things on all those rainy days.  I finished another sweater from handspun.  A lovely grey merino/romney cross and a stunning black romney yearling fleece. And last week we vended at Gore Place and had a great but very cool and windy day.  We're looking forward to vending at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival this weekend.   We are very excited to be vending there for the first time!

March 24

March has been a quieter month.  We had our last show at the Wayland Winter Farmer's Market Fiber Days and I did a program for my spinnng guild on blending for a gradient.  Mostly I've been knitting for myself.   I made the brown sweater in the photo above.  The brown is a from a fleece from Black Brook Farm that I've had forever of unknown breeding and the white is from a Border Leicester fleece that I acquired several years ago from a horse aquaintance.  I've had the idea of a yoked brown sweater in my head for a long time.   I'm not totally sure I'm in love the the yoke pattern but the sweater fits wonderfully and will be a great addition to my wardrobe.

February 6

I made it through January.  We had three shows in three weeks.  It was a lot of work but fun at the same time.  We met lots of wonderful people and sold lots of patterns and yarn.  My job for february is to work on a magazine article and prepare for a workshop I'm doing for my spinning guild.  It will be a good change from January.   At the same time I'm continuing my reknitting journey.  The cross country skier mittens are some of the first mittens I designed.  The original pair has actually felted and shrunk from so much use cross country skiing.  They're a nice warm pair of mittens with long cuffs to keep the snow out of your jacket.  I'm knitting them in green and white instead of the original red and white and liking the way they're coming out.

January 15

 I've been reknitting some of my patterns in commercial yarns so that we will be able offer yarn to go with our patterns.  After sampling lots of yarns we've settled on a yarn from Cestari that's 100% merino that's sources in the US.  It's the closest thing to my handspun in weight and character that I've found.  The photo above is of Annie's mitten's being knit in the new yarn.  The plan is to have yarn to go with some of our most popular patterns at our next show this weekend.  If you're near Pawtucket RI this weekend we'll be at Slater Mill Knitting Weekend.  Hope to see you there!

December 12

It’s all about the Yarn

After reading Kate Davies post about needle size being immaterial this week I thought I’d take another crack at my post on yarn.  As a hand spinner and someone who still struggles with gauge I would agree that needle size is immaterial.  Needle size is just one of three elements that effect the fabric and resulting garment when you knit something.  The second is the yarn.  The third is the pattern/design whether it be a pattern that someone else has written or design you have in your head.  Of the three of these the yarn is the most important.  You can’t make selvoubotter mittens with chunky yarn that actually fit a human hand no matter what size needle you use.  And it’s not just about the size of the yarn.  If the fabric you are desiring for you project is drapey it’s going to be hard to achieve that with a bouncy elastic merino or targhee yarn.  And finally the quality and type of yarn will effect the look and feel of the finished garment in imperceptible ways.  Think about how different a fair isle garment looks when it’s knitted in Jamison and Smith as opposed to some other kind of yarn.  Stay tuned for my next post on why “It’s all about the yarn”

December 3

I totally missed November it's been so busy.  For anyone that's making and selling the last quarter of the year is always so busy because you're selling and if you're like me you're also still making because you didn't make enough earlier in the year.  I made this wet felted pillow earlier this fall and it sold.   I hope to do some wet felting this week.

October 28

We've been so busy this month prepping for Rhinebeck

We had a great Rhinebeck and sold our of yarn and patterns

so we've been dyeing, skeining and printing like crazy to get

ready for Fiber Festival next weekend.  Cindy finished her

sweater for Rhinebeck.

September 21

We'll be at the Sheep and Shawl in Deerfield, MA

tomorrow to help them celebrate their 5th birthday!

Cindy's just released the red and white hat and mitten patterns.

You can find them here and

September 17

The blue and white mitten pattern has been released. It's a

bundle of six small blue and white patterns you can find more

information about them  here.   The mittens in the photo are

knitted from our polkagris yarn.  You can find more about the

yarn here

September 10

Flax has been harvested!

I pulled all the flax from the flax patch yesterday.  I'm kind

of winging this whole flax thing.  My flax patch was kind of

weedy.  There were a wide variety of heights of flax but I

do thing I'll have enough to process and hopefully get enough

to spin.   The flax is drying on my dining room table right now.

And then it will be on to retting, the tricky part.

August 20

Another Article for Spin Off comes out this fall.  This was

a fun one to think about and write.  Sheep's wool is a such

a facinating fiber.  It's crazy how much we still don't under-

stand about why wool behaves the way it does.

August 5

 It's a diffucult time of year to to keep things blooming in the

garden.  Lots of things have gone by until next year.  The garden

phlox in the background  are going strong and there's still a bit

of bee balm left and a daylily or two but you can kind of see

autumn coming.  Albert is a great gardening companion.

July 22

The buckthorn berries are ripe.  So I've started experimenting

with dyeing.  We did some dyeing with woad earlier this spring

and I thought I'd try treating the buckthorn berries like indigo.

Unfortunately all I got was green.  I got some lovely greens

though.

July 12

Our new summer shawl pattern using our blue gradient

yarn.  The shawl uses three gradient hanks.  The pattern

will be available soon.

June 12

The flax is up!  My little 5 foot by 5 foot plot of flax has

sprouted.  Yes there are some weeds and I didn't do a

very good job of broadcast seeding but there are flax

plants growing! 

May 17

Sarah has knitted the Bobabs Shawl in our hand dyed gradient

purple yarn. The shawl takes two gradient yarn hanks It's a

nice lacy shawl for Spring.  It's pictured in our garden under the

shade phlox that are blooming now.

April 18

If you're in the area of metrowest Boston and want to participate in our community

flax to linen project stop in to the Carlisle Artisans in Carlisle, MA and pick up your

free seed available for planting now.  Participants will grow and harvest and dry their

flax.  In late summer we'll come back together at the Carlisle Historical Societies

Heald House.   During several of their open houser we'll process the dried flax.  This

will include retting, braking ,scutching, spinning and weaving.  All are welcome.

March 30

I've been working on a sweater in exchange for the fleeces I got from the 2018 shearing

at Clark Farm a local organic farm in Carlisle.  The sweater is made of handspun horned

dorset yarn from Clark Farm.  I dyed the yarn with natural dyed from my yard.  The grey

blue is buckthorn berry skins.  The yellow is buckthorn leaves and the pinky purple is

pokeweed berries in a cold acetic acid dye bath that should prevent them from fading.

The pattern is a highly modified version of Jen Steingass's Telja.  It doesn't get anymore

local than this.  Everything from the fleece from the sheep to the dyes and the labor

to create the garment came from Carlisle.

February 26

We had a great time this past saturday at the Wayland Winter

farmers market at Russells in Wayland.  We'd done a bit of

dyeing to fill out the empty spots in our inventory.  And I've

spent a some time updating our website so the purple and

blue gradient patterns and yarn are on the website.  I've

still got the Pleiades and pink gradient patterns and yarn to

add and hope to get to it this week.

February 17

I've been felting a bit lately.  This is my second go a combining

my felting with furniture.  This is the first of a pair of chairs that

will eventually be for sale in the shop. 

January 20

We had a lovely day vending at Slater Mill today.  Great vendors and a lovely

venue.  We'll be there tomorrow too.  Stop by and say Hi!

December 26

Christmas brought snow so we dug out the cross country skis

and went out for a short ski in park next to our house.   There

 was ice still left from the ice storm a few days before so it

 was snowy and sparkly all at once.   Hope everyone has had

and is having a wonderful holiday.

November 23

Happy Thanksgiving!

 We've recovered from our two big fiber shows and have been

making stuff.  The top photo is of wet felted pillow fronts drying that

 I made yesterday.  They're headed for the shop www.carlisleartisans.com 

after I make them into pillows but if you're interested you can send me

 an email and they can be yours.   The white horse and cardinal pillow

are $80 each and the small dala horse pillow is $50.   The second photo

is of my first attempt at needle felting.  A group of us at the Carlisle

 Artisans volunteered to decorate a tree at at the Concord Museum's Family

Tree Exhibit.  The book is "Spring for Sophie" about a little girl looking for signs

 of spring.  One of the signs is birds and bird song so I volunteered to needle felt

some birds for the tree.  Along with the cardinals, chickadees, and bluebirds

 I made some woodpeckers, blue jays and a gold finch.   You'll have to visit the

 museum if you want see them though as a I was so rushed to finish I forgot to

take a photo.  The exhibit runs through January 2 and you can find more about it here

November 6

Where did October go?  We had a great time at Rhinebeck and the New England

Fiber Festival.  This is a photo from the New England Fiber Festival before

 we opened.  Felted pillows in the middle fiber on the right and red and white

yarn for to make the fingerless glove patterns that we just came out with.   Red and

 white and blue and white.  They were very popular at Rhinebeck and FFNE.

September 21

Production Knitting.  After playing all summer with buckthorn and

natural dyeing I'm back to work making finished goods for sale a the

 fiber festivals and shops we're a part of.   The mittens are handspun

shetland fleeces.  The dark grey and white are the natural colors of

the fleece and the blue is acid dyed.  The body of the mittens are knit

 on our "hacked" brother 910.  The thumbs are knit on "sticks".

August 27

The colors of buckthorn.   I've been dyeing with buckthorn.  It's and incredible

 range of colors from just one plant.

July 12

I've been in the garden. When the weather turns warm I turn to my other passion gardening.

             from peonies,    

     to delphiniums and roses,

       and Albert posing in the garden

April 23

Enter a drawing for a custom designed knitted sampler.  The sampler in

the photos is composed of quaker motifs but yours could be

 inspired be motifs and messages that are important to you.  

You can enter the drawing by visiting the Carlisle Artisans at

 13A Lowell St., Carlisle and filling out an entry.  The drawing will

 take place on May 15.

March 9

My article made the cover of the Spring issue of Spin-Off Magazine!

February 21

Below is a photo of a Clark Farm Hat and cowl that I made in

exchange for fleeces from the 2017 sheep shearing at Clark Farm. 

The wool is from the 2016 shearing.  The colors from from the

 buckthorn dyeing I did this past summer and the designs are mine.

February 15, 2017

I've been punch needling hearts from leftover bits of

handspun.  I'm not sure what I'll do with them.

February 2, 2017

I've been making socks on the circular sock machine.  The light

 grey is single ply hand spun romney and the red heels

and toes is two ply tunis that I dyed for some sampling for a

weaving of a jacket.  Socks are a great way to use up small bits and pieces.

January 27, 2017

Looking forward to vending at the Wayland Winter Farmers

Market Fiber Days at Russell's Greenhouse.  We'll be there with some new

gradient patterns and yarn and all of the other things we usually have.

January 19, 2017

Sheep Shearing at Clark Farm.   I came home with 6 lovely fleeces from the

sheep shearing at Clark Farm in exchange for a new hat and scarf.  I was

 able to give Olek the sampler I made for the birth of his daughter made

from wool from his sheep and dyed with buckthorn berries.

January 17, 2017

Wet felted Cardinal and Pussy Willow Pillow from the shop.  I was sitting

 the shop this past sunday and took this photo of one of my wet felted

pillows.  The cardinal is a nice pop of color on a cold January Day.

January 13, 2017

Albert and the antique spinning wheel.  Albert turned one just after

Christmas.  He's full of personality and quite a ham.   I purchased the antique

spinning wheel years ago after I just started spinning.  It sat until just

 recently as and ornament and not functional with the leathers on the treadle

 broken off.  Krysten repaired her  and got her running about a month ago.  She's

quite fun to spin on and I was very surprised!  Krysten thinks she may have come

 from germany originally.  I purchased her on Cape Cod.

January 11, 2017

With the new year I've decided to give blogging a try.   Sarah's been instagraming

everyday  since the beginning of the so maybe this will become and extension of that. 

Today she posted a photo of some of the self striping hand spun that we have

available for sale and headband that Sarah knit on the 910 from the self striping

handspun and some white handspun.   We've been playing around with patterns

and different yarns.  It's amazing how different the same pattern can look when it's

knitted in different kinds of yarn.