A very happy winter solstice, and a walk with Juno to the top of the mountain on this very clear bright morning, with wintery sentiment from the red toyon berries. All the new growth is overtaking the dead trees from the wildfire (now six years since), the old trees still standing appear silver and artfully dignified in their rightful place, here, there, everywhere, in the crisp winter light.
((click 1st image to go to slide show))
The batts were simply lifted off of the carder and split into strips, wrapped into nests, and then photographed. They spun up perfectly, and I think I have arrived at my method of methods for a fast and uniquely interesting way to make yarn. In this color mix I chose solid tones that were already dominant in the hand-dyed braid, which end up creating a very subtle contrast of tweedy colors, if any at all, more like enhancing the hand-dyed braid. From the camera’s eye, the presence of color changes from the dyed braid are practically unnoticeable. I spun up as close to worsted/aran weight as I could, short draw and single ply, calming the twist energy with a scalding finish bath, thwack, and hang dry. This spinning method absolutely is the easiest I’ve ever done, and I was hanging the spun skeins dry before I could even blink. For the quick and easy way I prepared the wool, see tech notes in Tweed Chronicles: Speed Tweed #2 , and stay tuned, there will be more of the speed tweed experiments in the territory ahead!
Almost mid Decembrrr, the days marching through the last stretch of Autumn, and the last page of the calendar. The trees rapidly losing their foliage now, the maples already bare, with only a few remaining black oak leaves hanging on, the ones always the last to fall. I haven’t been out photographing my favorite season this year, but it is ever as beautiful as I long for it to be, ever as calming, and nurturing, and as these last leaves break free in the breeze, they land as a surprising finale. And then it is time for nature’s sleepy yawn as soon it will bed down for winter, and with knitting to be done!
At last, I have cast on! Three hours before an obligatory early December Christmas party, knowing that without my knitting I will languish surrounded by people I don’t know, so a quick knitting project would give me much company, and save me from being a grumpy wall flower. But what to knit? I don’t want to cast on for yet another pair of socks that would very likely be forgotten as one-sock forever in a drawer, and I have been in the mood to knit with the set of birch straight needles I got over a year ago, so it is now decided, I have begun the actual knitting phase of my Summer Fields project that I’ve already put so much work into. I have not knit for over six months now, so my hands are purring.
In a recent post I began my Speed Tweed experiments, combining an earthy mossy sage toned dyed braid along with undyed wool rovings, attempting to simplify the steps in creating a varied tweedy yarn (which is spun by the way, more on that project is forthcoming). I’m loving the drum carder and speed tweed so much I am racing on to Speed Tweed #2, blending hand pulled tufts off the end of three roving in equal amounts, placed into the carder, and I really love this color combination so much! Its gotten to the point where I just walk down to the tiny (wool) house, make coffee, and get to blending on the new drum carder, for no other reason than I’m in a wool carding mood. I’ll show off these blended batts in another separate photo wool nests and the spun yarn in another post.
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Techy stuff for Speed Tweed #2: