Thanksgiving “Fairy Dust”

Don’t you love it when you have a perfectly ordinary day planned and something catches your eye, sending you off in an entirely unexpected direction?

Yes, it’s fiber. A lovely bit of “fairy dust”; less than an ounce, although it looks like more, being so light and airy, but OH! So magical. I had to stop everything and spin it right up. 💗

This lovely mini-batt was created by blending 50% dyed angora bunny, silk, fine pygora and just enough super-fine merino to hold together for spinning.

It’s only lightly blended … probably only once through the drum-carder.

Isn’t it gorgeous?! Not quite an ounce, but see the size compared to my spinning wheel?

It clearly (to me, anyway) called out to be spun thick and thin, with some intentional slubs – lots of texture.

Wow, as soon as I started spinning, I realized I’d almost forgotten how to intentionally create a slubby, textured yarn, but this really needed to be just that.

I loved the way it turned out, but at barely half a bobbin full, I realized some creativity was called for if I was going to have enough yarn to be actually useful. My solution was to spin up a 2nd 1-ounce bobbin of pure white, lustrous yearling pygora. Yes, fiber from my sweet “Yarn”. Oh my, her first shearing was wonderful. I’m so glad I still had some set aside. 💗

“Y-Not Yarn“ & barn cat, “Snicker-Doodle”, circa 2009.

I plied the half-bobbin of thick & thin lavender “fairy dust” with the half-bobbin of slightly finer, more consistently-spun white pygora. I was thrilled to see the finished yarn carried all the texture and softness of the angora blend, without losing the soft, magically colors.

The finished yarn is comprised of 60% Pygora, 30% Angora (bunny) and 10% silk and merino wool.

As I’d hoped it would, the yarn fulled out more and developed a pretty halo with a hot water soak to set the twist.

It spent last night on the drying rack by the wood stove. This morning, I was greeted with a lovely 1.5 oz skein of beautiful, soft and lofty “fairy dust”.

There’s not a whole lot of it – just about 100 yards of finished yarn, so I’m think it’ll be a fun touch of magic as cuffs on a pair of gloves, or an unexpected trim on a hat or scarf.

What a nice way to start out my Thanksgiving Day. Sending loving Thanksgiving wishes to each of you – I hope you have some unexpected joy in your day!

Slow Slide Into Evening

Exhausted after running errands today in single-digit temps, with a brisk November breeze dropping the wind-chill well below zero, I was more than ready to snuggle into my favorite chair with a soft quilt and a dachshund by 4:00 pm.

Ronni was ready to snuggle too, having accompanied me on my frigid outings. I don’t usually allow either of the dogs to come along on super cold days like today. But the number one reason for venturing out at all today had been to take Miss hot-to-trot, sassy-pants Rhonda on her weekly date with the RATS!

Her favorite Barn Hunt rat-wranglers, Laurie and Valerie, had hidden five live rats (safely ensconced in tubes) for Ronni to hunt for among the stacks of straw bales today. What a treat!

Ronni launched her sleek, naked self from the start box with a joyous yip, racing up, over, around and through the tunnels in search of her prey, finding and pouncing eagerly on each one in turn.

And she’s off!

Oh! A good time was had! I’m pretty sure she found and alerted on all five rats in about three minutes, but who’s counting? It’s all about the hunt, after all!

A short while later, bundled back up in her double-felted, polar-fleece coat and buried in a blankie on the heated passenger seat of the car, Ronni was more than happy to nap while Mom did such mundane tasks as picking up mail and shopping for kitty litter.

Finally home, I poured a mug of steaming hot Chai tea and settled myself, prepared to relax and enjoy a long, mellow Alaskan sunset.

This time of year, the sun is pretty much below the horizon by 4 pm, so any brilliant displays of neon orange and glowing purple have already faded away. What remains, and happily spends a leisurely time transitioning from sunset into twilight, are soft, bruised lavenders and pale pinks, glowing softly against shadowy white mountains in the distance.

There was just enough light yet for nuthatches and chickadees to be swooping in for a few late snack from the bird feeder before tucking themselves in for the night.

Because of the below zero temps this past week, I’ve kept the suet bars well stocked too, and my effort has been obviously appreciated.

I watched, enamored by the dusk antics of a trio of chickadees, until the last of my winged friends darted away for the night … and watched on as the sky slowly darkened and the twinkling lights on my little deck scenario began to glimmer. It’s 5:00 pm.

In another half an hour or so, the lights silhouetting my little trees will be all I can see in the otherwise dark Alaskan night. Time to turn some lights on indoors and maybe do some spinning. Nite nite. 🦉

Creating Sunshine!

With a foot of fresh snow and temperatures hovering around the zero degree mark here in Alaska this week, I felt the need to create inner warmth.

I don’t mean turning the thermostat up or starting a crackling fire in the wood stove. Those are givens. We do what we can when it’s this cold outside.

No, I mean pulling a vision of warmth and sunshine from within. Close your eyes; feel the sun on your face, the caress of a summer breeze across your cheeks. Open your inner eye to a soft blue sky with maybe a few fluffy white clouds. Smell the grass underfoot.

Now … how to translate sunshine, blue skies and summer warmth from the vision in my mind into a tangible form?

For me, the thought of glowing sunshine starts out with a pale yellow palette. PALE yellow. My substantial fiber stash offered up no fibers in a soft, buttery, pale yellow. Darn.

The stash did spill forth a large package of bright, taxi-cab yellow 🚕 wool roving.

OK, not ideal by itself (and has me wondering why I bought it in the first place), but I can work with it. I started out by blending 2 oz of bright yellow (80% merino wool/20% silk), with 2 oz of my creamy white Cormo wool.

At 50/50 , the yellow was still much to dominant. I want the yarn to say “sunshine”, not “bouquet of plastic sunflowers”. So, adding two more ounces of white cormo, I passed the batts (four of them now, each about 1.5 oz) back through the drum-carder a couple more times, blending the fibers well.

Foundation colors
Adding more white
Adding yet more white
Sunshine!

Once I had achieved the desired saturated but mellow sunshine tint I was hoping for, I basked in my accomplishment overnight, toasty and warm, while I mulled over where to take it from there.

All right, I’ll admit, I also had the electric blanket on. Ronni insisted.

In the back of my mind was a long, bouncy scarf that would go well with blue jeans and brighten up a dark, midnight blue coat. I think it might be nice to have a little sunshine on a cold, winter day.

With this in mind, I dove back into my stash and pulled out several different shades and tones of blue in a variety of fibers. A light, sky blue seemed appropriate, but when laid next to the yellow, I could see the overall palette was fading into pale pastels. Not quite right.

In the end, to achieve (I hope) the look I envisioned in my mind, I went with two blues; one a deeper, almost ocean blue fine merino wool that should hold up visually against the yellows and streaks of white cormo, and the other a pale, shimmery aqua made from dyed white pygora.

After carefully weighing and separating the yellow, two blues and white (with yellow being the primary color), so each batt would have equal amounts of each color, I set about doing one final blend. I ended up with eight multi-color batts, each weighing about .9 oz.

I’m going with gut instinct on this. Summer sunshine and blue skies … and, because honestly, you really can’t blend blues and yellows on a drum-carder without a little color overlap, I’m betting the end result will also have a kiss of green grass here and there along the edges. All good!

The spun yarn should show some nice definition of colors, but half the fun of creating your own yarn is not knowing for sure what the final result will be until it’s spun and plied. Stay tuned! ☀️

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho!

🎵🎶 A spinning we will go! 🎶🎵

My feet treadling softly, the spinning wheel whorls round and round as the final bobbin fills with the last of the lovely chestnut-brown alpaca needed before I can start plying it into a usable 2-ply yarn.

Not that I’m out of alpaca, by any means … I just don’t need to spin any more for this particular project. This is what I still have left.

Commercially carded Alpaca fiber laid out on my queen-size bed … ready for spinning.

I keep getting sidetracked by other fiber projects, but I need to finish this alpaca yarn before moving on. Once plied and washed, I can set the yarn aside until it tells me what it wants to become.

I’ve now also sorted, washed and drum-carded enough batts of my creamy white, fine Cormo sheep fleece to start contemplating my next step there.

Do I dye it? If so, shall it be solid colors or a few multi-colored rovings? I have seven large batts finished so far, and a lot more washed and raw fleece still to process.

I guess I’ll just have to continue carding until inspiration strikes.

Raw fleece
Drum-carding
Finished batt
Roving – ready to spin (or dye)

And then, there is my newly drum-carded, “northern lights” themed Suffolk/Rambouillet cross rolags.

Yes! Someone bred their 4-H meat sheep project ewe lamb with a neighbor’s gorgeous fiber-fleece ram. The resulting offspring surprisingly seems to have turned out quite nicely. 😉 I wish I had more of this fleece.

I’ve created eight mini-batts (.6 to .8 Oz. each) of this pretty blend, and it’s crying out to be spun.

Oh, I almost forgot … I have yet to complete my current drop-spindle project, too. Hmm. No, that can wait. It makes such a handy doctor’s office waiting-room project.

By the way, speaking of projects; what do YOU think this is becoming?

100% Merino wool.