A Stitch In Time

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Kristi asked me in a comment on my previous post, why I love Romeldale so much.  When I get on the subject of CVM/Romeldale, I can wax lyrical for quite a while, but I also thought this would be a good opportunity for me to talk about what I enjoy in a fiber and why.

First off, CVM is a breed unto itself, but it is really a variation of the Romeldale.  All CVM’s are 100% Romeldale, but what makes them CVMs is that each lock of wool grows out in stripes, making each lock variegated.  The CVM fleece that LadyV and I have is a chocolate brown.  The base of the lock, (where the sheep was sheared) is Black up to about a quarter of the length of the lock.  Then there is the beautiful Choclate brownm color which is a rich Cocoa color, and the last quarter to eigth of an inch is a lighter brown which I would have attributed to sun damage if this sheep had not been covered and the ends are as soft as the part next to the sheep’s skin.  It’s an amazing thing to see…  Each and every lock of wool from this fleece is consistent in this patterning/variegation.  That is what makes it a CVM, rather than a regular Romeldale. 

Ok, now that I have that out of the way, I should talk about what I like so much about CVM.  First off, it is a dream to spin.  It’s crimpy enough to want to stick to itself, but soft enough that it doesn’t produce a harsh feeling yarn.  In fact, it has 2 qualities that are equally important to me.  Body and softness.  The best way to describe the way I look at these two factors is to tell you why they are important to me.  Softness is obvious, but I like a softness that isn’t slick feeling.  Merino is slick feeling to me, and slippery to spin, which is not my favorite texture.  Romeldale is soft but has structure.  It has body to it.  It has texture instead of being smooth and slick.  It has depth in its feel and look.  I think it is the perfect wool actually.  Perfectly soft and great for keeping its shape and texture.  I made the fair isle hat using the CVM sample I had as it’s base color.  It’s such a rich beautiful color!  So I hope that helps explain what I like about CVM/Romeldale.

Boy was my weekend Fun!  Friday afternoon I got home to find that the 2 Shetland Fleeces from Linda.  One was the color Mioget and the other is black.  Both are truly stunning.  LadyV got hers as well!  She got 3 Musket colored fleeces, so I can’t wait to see them all together!  And, as if that were not enough, called and I met her about 20 minutes from my house to pick up a Cotswold, Wensleydale, Romney, Lincoln cross fleece from a ewe named Topsy.  Syd had also brought another fleece with her which is 100% Cotswold, from a ewe names Zoe.  Since I am the paragon of restraint when it comes to fleeces, (NOT) I bought both and spent oh, probably an hour having a lovely chat with Syd about her sheep, life, the universe, and everything…  I came home flushed with excitement about the fleeces.

On Saturday morning I had a wonderful invitation to go up to see Vicki for a fun day of spinning.  We had such a wonderful time!  She let me fondle and play with a couple of her fleeces, and she generously gave a Shetland fleece to LadyV and I!  It’s a silver color and is just begging to be dyed!  Vicki has described the day wonderfully on her blog, but she did not add how amazed I was to see her spin up at least 2 sample skeins as well as 2 ounces of CVM!  Vicki can spin like lightning and the yarn is so lovely!  I did get a fair bit done myself though, and that is good.  I spun up a sample of a brown Cormo fleece from a ewe named Carla, I played with and spun some Teeswater, I spun up all of the brown Wilton dyed Ramboulliet and started the Copper before it was time to go.  What a fantastic relaxing day!  Vicki was a wonderful hostess and her house is a wonderfully comfy place to sit, spin and relax.  I am grateful for the opportunity to spend a day doing something I love with new found friends.  Upon getting home on Saturday I washed some fleece, and spun some more Copper Ramboulliet. 

Sunday I hit the ground running.  I washed a batch of the Targhee/Cormo cross, the entire Black Shetland fleece, and 2 batches of the CVM fleece from Myrtle.  I knew full well that I simply adore Romeldale.  Utterly adore it.  I want more!  I also started sewing some muslin bags to keep my washed fleece in!  I have a few done, and I’ll be making bigger ones to hold the CVM fleece, Kai, and McKinnely who has yet to arrive.  We then went to our friends W&P’s house and had a fun and relaxing evening involving a mini ride in the woods with the 2 pups running alongside until they got tired, and a truly fantastic meal.  Steak, Silver Queen corn on the cob, macaroni salad, and potato salad.  And for dessert, fresh rhubarb pie!  Yum!  It reminded me of my sweater!  I was sewing again like a mad woman when we got home, and got 2 more bags done.  I will take pictures when I have a chance. 

So, I told you all yesterday that Kai arrived on Wednesday.  Who or what is Kai you might ask?

Kai is a Cormo Ram fleece from Sue Reuser.  Kai is also a BIG boy.  His fleece after skirting is 11.75 lbs.  Yeah…  That’s big.  However from the photo above, you can imagine my surprise when his box was so tiny!  In fact, it was only 18” long, 13” wide and only 12” tall!

SO, I opened the box, and this is what I saw.

Upon seeing this, I immediately called LadyV and told her about this arrival.  I told her I didn’t want to open this up without her being with me so I brought the Kai brick over and we went down to the basement where we shed Kai’s plastic.

We unrolled him onto the floor and stood back in awe.  This is what we saw:

To put this in proper perspective for all of you, here are closeups of the measurements on Kai’s fleece.
That’s 116” long in case the tape measure is too small to read.  I’m not sure how well these photos will translate to the blog.  That’s 82” wide… 
Mind Boggling.  Here’s a picture to put it all in perspective.  I’m 5’2” tall (that’s 62” for those of you playing along at home) and here’s a picture of me lounging o n Kai like he is a lovely bear skin rug.  No fleeces were harmed by my crushing weight.  Honest… 
Yes, that manic look in my eyes is total anticipation of playing with this fleece!
Heaven is having a fleece big enough that you really CAN roll around in it!  (Yes, I do dream about doing just that…  No, I am not ill, mentally or otherwise…  Ok, maybe a little…) 

It’s true.  It’s coming and there’s nothing that will stop it.  Autumn is coming to the East Coast.  I’ve already been finding leaves on my lawn in lovely shades of gold and orange and a number of the trees are turning red.  And it’s only August.  The days are shortening, schools are starting classes, I even saw some Canadian Geese on their migration south to warmer climes.  Spring and Autumn are my favorite times of the year.  Spring for the beginnings of new life in the plants and animals that inhabit my area of the world, Autumn for the colors, smells, the feel of the crisp clean air, the pumpkins just waiting to be made into pie and the settling in for a nice cup of tea in the evenings with my hubby and my pup.  The world could not be a better place than it is in the Autumn.  Trees are preparing for their winter slumber, spinning and knitting are even more comforting at this time of year for me.  In the Autumn I also reflect on the year that is coming to a close as I write the annual letter that Kirk & I have been sending since 1998.  I didn’t send one last year though due to the fact my grandma had been diagnosed with lung cancer at the time I usually write and send the letter.  This Autumn, as in one past, I will be taking my vacation in October.  I am looking forward to it as we will be going to Arizona to spend some time with my wonderful In-laws.  I am really looking forward to it, so now every leaf that changes and falls will bring me closer to a fun and activity filled vacation!

I’ve been a fleece washing maniac these days.  I currently have 4 full fleeces to wash and a tiny part of a fifth…  Oh, the fun…  I really do love the processing part of fleeces.  It makes me really get close to the fleece and gett o know it quite well. 

And yesterday, Kai, the Cormo ram fleece arrived!  Pictures tonight!

Ok, actually a tale of more than 2 fleeces.  In the past week or so I have washed a few fleeces.  I will try to give an accurate account:

Chester - Cheviot/Shetland 50/50% Choclate Brown
Poly Pay - 100% White
British Suffolk - 100% White-ish
Kent Romney - 100% White
Cha Chi - Clun Forest/Merino/Shetland 50/25/25% - White (This one LadyV washed, but I’ll get into that in a minute)
Huacaya Alpaca - 100% Rose-grey

This is only a few of what I currently have in my basement.  Still waiting to be washed is the white Border Leicster/Lincoln 50/50%, the white Wensleydale (Carla), CVM/Romeldale 100% (Sidney), I am nearly finished washing Ivan Cheviot/Border Leister 50/50% with one more section of his roving left. I also have some Huaycaya Black Alpaca to be washed as well. 

I haven’t neglected my spinning though!  In my Ramboulliet dyeing adventure, I have finished spinning the Black and Violet colors.

The 2 spun from the batts are on the left.  On the black dyed roving/batt, I like the carded batt more than the roving spun.  On the violet, I like both equally, but again the batt is a little ahead for its vibrancy.

I also dyed some of the wensleydale fleece with the black Wilton’s dyes.  It was very interesting.  I’m still trying to decide if I like it or not… 

Looking at the pictures of the Ramboulliet roving and the Wensleydale locks is amazing to see the difference in how they take up dye…  Above are 2 mini sample skeins.

I also got my Wooly Board in and blocked the Rhubarb Lace sweater.  I owe you all a blocked photo shoot… 

So, back to Cha Chi…  LadyV washed Cha Chi and spun some of her up.  It didn’t go very well.  LadyV didn’t like it at ALL!  It seems the merino is Cha Chi wars with the rest of her if you just throw it in the wash like a normal fleece.  However, if you tease her locks before washing and use a different detergent, she’s much more manageable to deal with.  I spun a sample of each that LadyV had washed up. 

The top and whiter skein is the one LadyV teased and carded and washed in Era detergent.  The bottom is the original washed skein which was not teased and washed in Kookaburra wool scour.  I spun this from the clumps.  (There aren’t really many locks to be found in this version!) I like the bottom one because it really exhibits her Clun Forest heritage.  Truly more so than the top skein.  I also have to say that technically, the top skein is one of the best I have ever spun since I wasn’t really paying attention and as chatting away with LadyV the whole time!  I really love them both, but the bottom one rules out for me.  I like the feel of the skein and it’s lack of definition and almost puffy appearance.  It’s deceptve thogh because this one is quite a strong yarn and rather compressed.  It really blooms upon plying.  So, it turns out I liked the unmanageable pain in the tail version that’s hard to pull apart and work with!  Go figure!  So LadyV gets to prepare the other half the way that will be best for her spinning needs and I get my half of Cha Chi already pre-washed!    I feel badly that LadyV has to do all that extra washing, but the end result yarn will be gorgeous!  Besides, LadyV was going to throw her half in the trash, and that would have been horrible!  So, all’s Swell that ends Swell….   

Last night was surreal.  I spent the evening washing fleece and cleaning my kitchen.  I did a little spinning, and went to bed.  Nothing surreal about that.  No, what was surreal was the middle of the night.  The phone rang at sometime after midnight.  It was a collect call from a pay phone.  But, not just any pay phone.  This was a pay phone in the local “correctional institute.“  Yes, we got a collect call from the local prison.  Kirk & I were both sound asleep, so the first time I think we actually were charged $0.85 for the call.  When Kirk realized what it was, he hung up.  Needless to say, we’re pretty sure we don’t know anyone in the county jail.  If one of our friends was in trouble, we would have known about it before they ended up in this prison.  (You only go there if you have been sentenced, it’s not a “holding cell” type of place.)

Ok, so we’re both a little surprised and start to go back to sleep.  The same person called back.  FOUR more times.  We hung up all 5 times.  If they had called again, we were going to unplug the line!  It was very annoying to say the least, and I had trouble going back to sleep afterwards.  Late night calls always make me very apprehensive, since the only calls I have ever received late in the night have been because of tragedy.  When we lived in Germany, we received calls in the middle of the night when my dad’s father died, my mom’s mom had a massive stroke, and when my great uncle died.  Because of the time difference, it was always the middle of the night when the Red Cross called us.  The only other time was when I was in college, and the guy I was dating was killed in a car accident he had been on his way over to my house and was hit by a drunk driver.  So, it’s a given that if I get a call in the middleof the night it rattles me pretty heavily.  Not much sleep was had by me last night, but I am glad that no one I care about was hurt.

So anyway, that was my surreal night!  I hope yours was better than mine!

LadyV tagged me for the Idiosyncracy meme which has been winding its way through blogland. 

This is tough for me since I am quite admittedly odd.

1.  I have to make sure that all of the sheets and blankets on the bed are smoothe when I get in, and if I wake up in the middle of the night and they are rumpled, I will straighten them again. 
2.  I don’t like chocolate with the exception of Hershey’s milk chocolate.  Adding to that, I would much rather have wonderful food than a decadent dessert.  In fact, given a choice I prefer fruit to a traditional dessert any day.  Pumpkin Pie being the one exception to that rule.
3.  On a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwhich I ONLY like Black Raspberry jelly.  I will not eat PB&J with any other kind.
4.  I am completely incapable of just talking on the phone at home.  I have to be doing something while I talk on the phone, whether it’s laundry, putting dishes away, sweeping, knitting, it doesn’t matter.  If I am not doing anything other than talking on the phone I feel horribly unproductive. 
5.  I get depressed by white walls in my house.  I have an almost pathalogical need for bright colors in my living space.  Thankfully my husband is not frightened by this obsession with color that I have. 

Ok, so there they are.  They are not that bad I hope!  And yes, I know I am weird.  I prefer weird to normal any day.  Normal is boring. 

I’m not going to officially tag anyone, but if you would like to share your idiosyncracies I would love to read about them! 

It was a fiber and canine filled weekend.  J&B went away this weekend and we got to have lots of playtime with Samba and Max.  They both love it when this happens since they get whole days together to make mischief and/or terrorize the other indigenous population members…  (That’s the cats…)

Thank you all for your very kind comments about my dyeing adventures…  It’s been very fun so far! 

I finally started washing those 2 fleeces I got from Diana Jarnutowski a couple months ago.  Saturday I washed 2 sink fulls of fleece, and Sunday I did one.  I was working on Chester this weekend.  He’s the 50/50 Cheviot/Shetland cross.  Washing the fleeces was a lot of fun!  I loved setting them outside on my lawn furniture to dry and feeling them transform from wet lump o’ wool into fluffy fleece ready to be spun or carded.  Before the whole first batch was clean, I took a handfull of locks, (I think it was 3 actually) and spun some.  Then I went out and got another handful so I could ply them together.  Oh, it was gorgeous!!!!  And so much fun!  So when that batch was dry, I took some off and carded it into a batt and sun both halves of the batt and plied it this morning.  This is the result:

This washed fleece became:

Then:

Which was then spun into:

From Left to Right we have, the Carded and spun Chester, the spun from the locks Chester, and a small piece of flick carded spindle spun Chetser!

Lest you think that was all I was doing, fear not!

I finally got passable pictures of the other ramboulliet colors!

Red! Bottom is carded, top is spun from dyed roving…

Royal Blue, bottom is carded, top is spun straight from roving…

I also worked on the purple/blue/pinkish overdyed batt and made a sample skein:

I decided I would put all of the carded skeins together in one photo, and the same for all of the spun straight from roving or locks.

Both photos from left to right contain Leaf Green, Red, Royal Blue, Golden Yellow, Rose and a Chester sample

Now for the spun straight:

I think showing them this way gives the true contrasts between the 2 sets.  It’s quite interestig and I’ll get back to work on this stuff soon, I promise.

That’s about all I’ve been doing, aside from maybe acquiring a couple of fleeces…  But we’ll wait until they arrive to talk about those… 

Hope your weekend was lovely!

I’ve spun 5 of the 11 colors so far.  I have reasonable pictures of 3 of them.  I all of these photos, the bottom skein is the one that was carded into a batt.  The top skein was spun directly from the dyed roving.

Rose

Golden Yellow

Leaf Green

I’m enjoying these experiments, but I am taking a break from them to spin the batt that I dyed and overdyed. 

This weekend will find me washing fleece hopefully and doing some spinning!

All designs go through stages.  I spent some more time on this one last night.  I wasn’t happy with the clumping of each pattern together, so I modified it again.  I like this better, but I am still unsure about it. 

The more I think about the medallion design, the more I think I am going to use natural colors of wool for it.  Greys, browns and creams I think would be very pretty for that design.  I think the obnoxiously bright dyed yarns might work better with the butterflies and dragonflies.  As for swatches, it won’t be for a while since I have the greek key sweater to spin yarn for still and the rest of the colors of dyed yarn and whatever I want the background to be, so it will be a while…

I think this version will be a better fit for the idea.  I may wait until my cotton spinning class to decide on background fabric.  I think this motif might make a pretty summer shell with its bright colors.

I was admonished yesterday for not sharing my plans for the dyed Ramboulliet rovings.  Truth is I hadn’t designed them yet.  They were in an embryonic state in my mind.  I spent a good portion of last night working on wrenching them from my brain onto paper.  Creativity does not come easily for me, but I have found that since I have been spinning my own yarn, my designing impulses have really increased.  I came up with 2 possibilities for the Ramboulliet rovings.  One has a Butterfly & Dragonfly motif, and the other is a medallion motif.  You can ignore the bizarre colors on both of these photos, as I am usingthem to get a sense of what the shapes look like against a white background, not so much the actual color.

I am using a more stylized version of a dragonfly, and I like it, but I am not sure that anyone will know what it is.  I need honest opinions people…  Lay it on me. 

Here is the medallion motif.  It is a 3 color motif and pretty pedestrian as far as boldness goes.  I like it though.  It suits my love of symmetry without being boring.

It amazes me how much time it takes for me to create these images.  I find it much harder to design knitting items than cross stitch for example.  Because you can have true diagonals in Cross stitch, I find it easier to create shapes in.  Knitting is more of a challenge for me.  I’m also still trying to decide if I want to incorporate lace into the butterfly design.  I was considering a simple diamond, or the shetland lace pattern that resembles a rose, but I still have plenty of time to make those decisions.

At any rate, no spinning was done last night, only designing and thinking…  Which take a lot of time in and of themselves…

Sneezing is something I have been doing a lot of lately.  My allergies have been kicking me around and taking names.  I talked about my fiber pursuits this weekend, but that was only a tiny portion of what was going on.  Friday night we had dinner with J&B which was fun, we had missed seeing them.  Saturday I got a hair cut and hilights done, and Sunday I went to Ikea with S.  We went to the College Park store which is fairly new since I had never been.  It was a fun day and I bought some art for the living room which will be hung tonight.  I also bought 3 lamps.  2 of these I will be returning, but the third will stay.  Since painting the Living room red, we have noticed a desperate need for more lighting in the living room.  We thought the Ikea lamps were not bright enough for the whole living room so last night we opted for the lamps we had been admiring at Home Depot for months now.  They are touch lamps, something which generally sets me in a tizzy but I am getting used to them.  They are also 3 way and look great in our living room!  We have one on each end of the couch.  They provide much more downward lighting to the room, which it needed badly.  And the Ikea lamp is now residing between the rocker and file cabinet/end table.  I’m quite happy with the result of our lamp shopping trips.  Sometime this week I will pop up to White Marsh’s Ikea to take back the other 2 lamps. 

I got a total of 10 minutes of spinning time last night as a result of all the shopping, because in between going to Home Expo, and Home Depot, we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants!  Sushi King in Columbia, MD is our favorite Sushi restaurant and we hadn’t been there in months due to the strict diet thing…  But since the sushi we like isn’t exactly fattening, we decided to get a treat.  Oh, it was blissful.  We savored every bite.  So I didn’t mind not spinning for an evening since dinner was SOOOoooo worth the time! 

As an update though, I did finish spinning the Royal Blue batt and roving and I have started the Golden Yellow.  So far I have 4 of the 11 colors done.  Then when I am finished spinning them all, I will blend and play…  I’m enjoying this process a lot and I am learning interesting things about the drum carder and its effect on dyed rovings.  Very interesting stuff…  I’ll take some photos tonight if it isn’t storming.  Last night we had thunderstorms most of the day and evening so light for picture taling was abysimal at best. 

Oh, and in reponse to LadyV, I have a plan for the spun samples, but I have to do some designing first.  I definitely have a plan for them though…  It will show them really well I think…  So it will be a while before the samples come to life in knitted form.

I carded a section of each of the 11 dyed roving colors and laid them out on the guest bed.

The above picture is all of the batts…

The above picture from upper left to bottom left clockwise:  Copper, Red, Royal Blue and Golden Yellow

This photo is harder to give you the olors in order.  at the Very Top is the Rose on the right side, next row you caln see a piece of the red on the far left, then teal, Brown, and Violet.  The bottom row is a tiny slice of Royal Blue, Leaf Green, Moss Green and a tiny corner of Black

Ok, starting from the bottom left and going clockwise, we have Moss Green, Teal, Brown, Violet and Black. 

Ok, some notes on this stuf.  All of the rovings that you see in batt form were sent through the drum carder on ly once, with the exception of 2.  The Copper and the Brown received 2 cardings.  I have to say that so far in the spinning of the batts vs roving straight from the dye process,  there are many differences.  The carded roving I am spinning at a slower ratio (7:1), but a lot more slubs are present in the batts only carded once as opposed to the ones I dyed the first night which went through the carder about 4 times total.  The roving is easier to spin, but I spin it at a higher raito (10:1).  So far I have fully spun and plied the green batt from the first night of dying, the Rose, Leaf Green and Red batts as well as a section directly from the skein.  There was little difference between the two for the Roase, on the Red the batt version was lighter in color than the spun from roving, and the Leaf green has shown the most difference so far.  The skein from the batt is an intense deep green, but the spun from roving is a beautiful version with varying shades to it.  I will photograph those tomorrow, since I should finish the Royal Blue up tonight and maybe the Golden Yellow will get started.

The Initial green dyed batt was spun up in its entirety and I also spun up the pink merino/angora blend that Morgaine from Carolina Homespun included when he sent the Louet.  I plied it to the green ramboulliet and it looks really cute.  Very Knit happens colors.    Next I took the undyed Ramboulliet still in its original cream color and plied it to the green.  Then I took what was left of the green and plied it to itself.  All of these were spun on the Louet.  It was great fun!  I also plied for the first time from a center pull ball.  It’s not my favorite method, but it works just fine… 

That’s what I’ve accomplished this weekend!  Much fun was had.  Here’s hoping your weekend was full of things you enjoy…

I have done no knitting since I finished the Rhubarb Lace.  I have drum carded 3 of the dyed rovings and have been enjoying that process.  I have separated all 11 rovings into 3 pieces.  The largest piece will be carded by itself on the drum carder, then eventually spun.  The second will be spun directly from it’s dyed state, and the third is open for blending on the drum carder with other colors and fibers.  It should be interesting! 

First though I want to finish spinning all of the first 2 batts I dyed, so that is what I was doing last night.  It was so wonderful to just sit and spin on my wheel and enjoy.  I was using the Louet which I started the Green batt on.  It is looking more like the Tastee Freeze Pop that Rebekah mentioned, but it still looks a little like Kermit had a bad day. I love it!   I have some BFL left from the BFL/Blue combo yarn.  I think I will ply those 2 together and see how it looks and feels.  Not sure what I am going to do with the purple/blue/green batt.  A lot of the fun in this for me is the unknown aspect.  SO I am learning with each step.  Quite exhilerating. 

Thank you all so much for your kind comments!  I’ve been enjoying the process a lot, although I have become a bit weary at the smell of vinegar!   

Thank you all for such wonderful compliments on my sweater.  I braved the 90 degree heat to take those photos for you, but fortunately, the lace holes allowed a little breezeto reach my skin so I didn’t reach the boiling point before the pictures were done.  That and my hubby is a masterful photographer.  He was quick! 

Tonight I ran 11 dye pots.  I dyed the rest of the Ramboulliet and it is now drying in a closet after having a period of time out on our patio furniture’s umbrella.  I have 11 colors of Wilton cake dye and decided to do a sample of each single color without blending them. 

The colors I have are:
Red
Royal Blue
Golden Yellow
Leaf Green
Moss Green
Teal
Copper
Brown
Black
Rose
Violet

Here’s a few photos of the fiber drying.

Some close ups:

I will take more in depth photos of the experimental process since each of these dyed rovings will have portions spun from the dyed roving, carded then spun, and carded to blend with other colors.  I’m looking forward to playing with my drum carder some more!