Category: My Summer Fields Project

My summer fields: carding.

Published on by Jen4 Comments

I’ve been busy since the resident carder came earlier this week, down in the tiny (wool) house, raking through the fleece that, after washing it twice, and putting through the box picker twice, I gave up on it as it still had way too many weedy bits, still smelled bad, and was still greasy. The last thing I need is a moth attracting sweater in my wardrobe, so, after cleaning the greasy grime that was fast accumulating on my brand new Ashford carder, I started over blending color with commercial white corriedale/merino top roving I had on hand, and added still more marigold, honey, and dark caramel hues.

However, I made the mistake of pulling off the rolags from the last carding without test-spinning ~~ I am so out of practice ~~ no recipe, just improvising, honing my instincts, and from this point forward it is going to be what it wants to be. I am planning on this first sweater in my wardrobe, to wrap me in the warm memories of golden summer fields all winter long. As I changed course in the middle of carding, I have no idea how much all these rolags weigh, but I’m guessing well over 600g . . . and now for the spinning!

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The resident drum carder . . .

Published on by Jen6 Comments

. . . has arrived!

I am busy down at the tiny (wool) house, figuring out methods, weighing carefully, taking notes and taking a leap of faith in color, learning how to use the hand-cranked carder (feeding with left hand, cranking with right) and calculating percentages of mixes.

Back down in the charcoal forest, away from the internet, I am hunkering down . . . with a return to Tweed Chronicles, engaging my creativity with a bit of hard work, and making the effort for the yarn.

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High summer.

Published on by Jen5 Comments

This morning I went for a walk with Juno, in the hot . . . dry . . . toasted-in-the-sun wild grass of high summer. I so very much want to capture it and knit it into a sweater! These are moments of this afternoon, as my ideas begin stirring, testing all gold tones together, trying to grasp the emotion I feel about the summer landscape that is elemental to my life on the mountain, and translate it into yarn.

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