Blog
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.
