Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2018 från Spin-Off

What color is it where you are? The scenery in Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico, is a study in tan, but the color I remember most vividly from my visit is red. The bold scarlet of cochineal insects gives its color to the rugs for which the village near Oaxaca is famous. A dusty white powder covers the insects when they grow on the dark green of the nopal cactus, so the intense red they produce when crushed comes as a surprise. Some of the weavers in the village use synthetic dyes, but these days everyone will tell you that their red comes from cochineal. A few years ago, some friends at a fiber retreat were playing with different natural dyes. One had brought some woad with her from England (which…

In the early days of the internet, before Ravelry, Instagram, and Facebook, fiber lovers chatted in Yahoo! Groups. They swapped ideas, shared triumphs, and commiserated over catastrophes in the online forums. In 2002, Margaret Parker, convener of the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers (OLG), remembers being skeptical about whether the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers in the United Kingdom should facilitate members who wished to meet and converse over the internet. Fast-forward sixteen years. With almost 500 members representing eighteen countries, the OLG holds its meetings over the internet and via email. Neither time nor place constrains meetings. Members enjoy logging in whenever they want. Margaret explains, “The monthly workshops are run using distance-learning techniques on the private Yahoo! Group website. Tutors post instructions, photos,…

ROVING by Grace Shalom Hopkins When faced with a braid of handpainted fiber, how do you decide how to spin it? Spinning end-to-end is one obvious way, but Grace Shalom Hopkins wants you to explore the potential hidden in that fiber. When it comes to making yarn, Hopkins reminds us that the dyer provides a palette for spinners to play with. Maybe you’ve tried spinning across the top, fractals, and gradients, but they’re just the tip of the spindle. Full-color photos provide inspiration while Hopkins lists off numerous variations to try and includes links to how-to videos. How many ways can you spin a gradient? Hopkins suggests 19! She also provides instructions for her own variations on combo spinning, such as Crazy Quilt and Mason’s Medley. Createspace: Grace Shalom Hopkins,…

Woad (Isatis tinctoria) is native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, including Turkey, where many native species probably supplied dyers in both Egypt and Mesopotamia before 600 BCE. Woad seeds have been discovered in archaeological remains in many regions of Neolithic Europe. In 55 BCE, invading Romans were greeted by Britons whose bodies were stained blue with the juice of the woad plant. Woad was historically called glastum, a Roman word derived from the Celtic word glas (a shade of blue). The Romans brought Indigofera tinctoria, known as “true indigo,” to Europe, and it was imported through the Middle Ages, but indigo was largely replaced in medieval Europe by domestic woad. Written references to indigo blue do not specify the plant source, but the dye is often referred to as…

I thought I knew a lot about indigo. It came from a plant in the pea family; its genus was Indigofera. Well, unless it was Japanese indigo (Polygonum), or woad (Isatis), or false indigo (Baptisia), of which Rita Buchanan says you would need a whole truckload to dye one little skein of yarn. In other words, indigo dye resides in a lot of different plants. I knew that. I thought I knew that indigo-bearing plants could produce many shades of blue, some leaning toward violet, some leaning toward green, but unquestionably blue, from pale to very dark. I knew that extracting color from indigo-bearing plants was a complicated process involving weeks or months of attention, fermentation, and oxygenation, all done with particular care so the dye pigment could bond to…

Have you ever noticed the miniature trees and bushes used in model train sets or for miniature landscaping? Often artificially colored red or green, those little bushes are actually lichens (pronounced lye-kins). Not all lichens are bushy. Some resemble long beards draped across tree branches; others look like circular fans on the surfaces of rocks; and still others bring to mind droplets of fluorescent red, white, green, or yellow paint spattered across boulders. Certain species of lichens provide food, and others produce valuable chemicals used for centuries in perfumes and as antibiotics and other medicines. Some of these chemicals may make a lichen pale yellow-green, while other chemicals give a lichen a particular odor. And some of these chemicals can be extracted and used as dyes. COLLECTING LICHENS Lichens are…

Here are a few of my favorite methods for spinning naturally colored alpaca; experiment to find your own. 1 Prepare the different colors independently into roving or top, then hold them side by side and draft them together. This will give you a heathered effect that looks great in a two-ply yarn. 2 Spin one singles one color and a second singles another color, then ply them together for a marled yarn. 3 Place two or three colors side by side on handcards or a drumcarder, then card them to preserve the colors. Spin the roving or rolags from one end to the other, then chain or Navajoply the singles to preserve the color repeats. 4 Flick locks of multiple colors, then spin three colors at random. Repeat with a…

I am of the opinion that crazy yarns, whether they have long color changes or are wildly textured, are at their best when paired with a plain yarn. This highlights the unique and best aspects of the yarn without it being overwhelming. This sweater is designed to do just that. I’m sure we all have those couple of skeins of art yarn from a chunky batt phase, or maybe you even have a couple of chunky batts sitting in your stash right now that you have no idea what to do with. (Even nonspinners have a couple of skeins floating around that they bought on impulse but have absolutely no idea what to do with.) This sweater is for you. I spun the singles for this yoke sweater on a…

How did you become a spinner? Do you have other fiber hobbies? I became a spinner when I was teaching in the Textiles Department at Edgecliff College in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1960s. I was able to take art classes, one of which was weaving. There were never enough looms, so we also did “off-loom” projects as part of the course. One that I chose was learning to spin. It was during this time that I learned of the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati and joined. At the guild, there were study groups: spinning, lacemaking, rug hooking, backstrap and tablet weaving, kumihimo and ply splitting, and dyeing and surface design. I tried them all. I decided in the 1990s to work on the Handweavers Guild of America’s Certificate of Excellence…

For over fifty years, Foxfire has been dedicated to sustaining the cultural heritage and traditions of southern Appalachia. An English teacher and his class at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in northern Georgia founded Foxfire in 1966. Foxfire began with a student-produced magazine that became a famous book series, and royalties from the series helped establish a museum and heritage center in the 1970s. Education remains one of the core missions of Foxfire’s programs, which include classes on traditional weaving and handspinning. The museum and heritage center house a dedicated classroom space with looms and spinning equipment. Village weaver and spinner Sharon Grist teaches the classes and performs demonstrations. She learned to weave at Rabun Gap Crafts, the craft shop connected with Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, after she moved to the area…

As a child in Shetland, I grew up knitting Fair Isle. I started knitting with commercial yarns. We were knitting to sell, and we were not using handspun yarns. This all changed when I started to spin. Within the Shetland fleece, I had all the natural colors, from white through a range of grays to a natural black, and browns from fawn to dark brown. Such an array of beautiful color! However, these handspun, naturally colored yarns seemed different from the commercially dyed yarns. It seemed I almost had to learn all over again how to put colors together within Fair Isle knitting. As I knitted samples in my handspun natural colors, I discovered that my difficulty was because there are so many shades of grays and browns in our…

an excerpt from Silk Weavers of Hill Tribe Laos The town of Xam Tai has a unique relationship with natural dyes. That is, many dyers and weavers continue to make and use them. The majority of villages and weavers in Houaphan Province (and Laos) have turned to the ease of either using pre-dyed factory-made thread, or, if the silk or cotton fibers were harvested from scratch, using a quick, sure synthetic dye that comes in a packet, made in China. After all, synthetic dyes, when used according to directions, are consistent, cheap, readily available, generally fade-resistant and colorfast, and come in a generous number of hues. Natural dyes, on the other hand, are time-consuming. Dye materials must be collected and processed, and the nuanced chemistry requires an experienced hand. If…

Help fight heart disease and learn to spin cotton with the Stitch Red Spin Red Cotton Kit from Cotton Clouds. Each kit comes with 1 ounce of hand-dyed Pima cotton sliver, a tahkli spindle, one 6mm Czech glass crystal heart bead for embellishing your project, and instructions on how to spin. Cotton Clouds will donate 10% of sales to Heart Truth. $39.95. Cotton Clouds, Inc. 5176 S. 14th Avenue, Safford, AZ 85546. (800) 322-7888; info@CottonClouds.com; www.cottonclouds.com. Indulge in the softest yak down paired with silk, dyed by Lisa Souza. Spin the White Yak/Tussah Silk Top (shown in Marionberry) into a laceweight yarn and knit it into a summer shawl for those chilly evenings. The semisolid color won’t obscure your stitchwork. $32/4 oz. Lisa Souza Dyeworks, 4550 Newtown Road, Placerville, CA…

I was standing in Maggie Casey’s shop, Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins, when she handed me a braid of handpainted fiber with a tag that read “The Hummingbird Moon.” I gave her a skeptical look. The braid was a riot of color, completely unrestrained in its palette. It included true, bright colors, blotches of black, and patches of white. At first glance, it looked like the epitome of “clown barf.” Maggie shook her head. “But look,” she said, handing me a skein of two-ply handspun. The skein had distinct flecks of color that came together in a harmonious colorway, free of the muddy look that disappoints many of us who fall in love with hand-dyed top. Self-taught dyer Michele DiPrima has developed her own methods of applying color to fiber and…

Marigolds are a very popular flower in the midwestern United States, as are sunflowers (the Kansas state flower). The Helianthus Mitts pattern pairs handspun marigold-dyed fiber with a stranded colorwork design featuring a sunflower. In addition, the project uses handspun fiber dyed with black walnut (the Missouri state nut), another local dyestuff found in the Midwest that is easy to use as a natural alternative to chemical dyes. I divided the fiber into two batches and dyed it with marigolds and walnuts before spinning (see “Easy Methods of Dyeing Fiber Naturally with Ubiquitous Midwestern Plants” on page 50). I predrafted, then spun with a short forward draw with scotch tension. From the singles, which measured 36 wpi, I spun 449 yards of marigold and 421 yards of walnut yarn. MATERIALS…

CALIFORNIA Natural Fiber Fair—Arcata September 8-9, 2018 At the Arcata Community Center. Vendor hall, fleece market, workshops, free demonstrations, fiber circle gathering space, food and fun! (707) 599-2729 www.naturalfiberfair.com Monterey County Fair—Monterey August 30 – September 3, 2018 Wool Fleece and Handcraft Show with Wool Auction at the Monterey County Fair. For further information please visit our website. (831) 372-5863 www.montereycountyfair.com Farm Days at Macedo’s Mini Acre—Turlock September 29-30, 2018 Celebrate the origin of fiber with our herd of over 70 alpaca! Alpaca yarn, fleece, rovings or batts for spinning. Alpaca gifts and clothing. We can’t wait to meet you! (209) 648-2338 www.macedosminiacre.com Vista Fiber Arts Fiesta—Vista October 6-7, 2018 A gathering of fiber artists: weavers, spinners, felters, knitters. Yarn and fiber, including raw wool, roving, exotic fibers, handspun yarn,…

Because there are so many variations of alpaca and llama patterns and colors, indigenous peoples in South America have dozens of complex ways to describe them. North American breeders recognize sixteen standard alpaca fleece colors in show rings and sorting sheds. A judge can easily discern the differences between silver gray and rose gray, true black and bay black, and three shades of fawn. There are even fancy fleeces that may contain a variety of colors, spots, and blotches, but most alpacas are solid colors, with white being the most abundant. The alpaca is thought to have been domesticated and herded by local peoples in the high Andes for at least 6,000 years. North Americans began importing alpacas from Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina in the 1980s. Some breeders recognized…

Pattern originally published in Spin+Knit 2017 Inspired by a trip to visit a local prizewinning alpaca farm, Eileen decided to celebrate the range of colors that alpacas produce. With colors ranging from white to true black, the fleece combined with the pattern of this cozy cowl makes a dramatic impact. MATERIALS Fiber 3½ oz of A Star Alpacas 100% alpaca roving in five natural colors: black (MC, 2¼ oz), dark brown (CC1, ½ oz), light brown (CC2, ¼ oz), medium brown (CC3, ¼ oz), and white (CC4, ¼ oz). Yarn 2-ply; 1,300 ypp; 13 wpi; sport weight. MC: 185 yd; CC1: 40 yd; CC2, CC3, and CC4: 20 yd each. Needles U.S. size 4 (3.5 mm): 16" circular (cir). Adjust needle size if necessary to obtain the correct gauge. While…

ARIZONA ALPACA FIBERS OF ARIZONA—BENSON www.alpacafibers.com Large assortment of Luxury Alpaca yarns in natural and hand dyed colors. Alpaca Fleeces, rovings and hand carded bats. 15900 S. Empire Rd. (520) 586-3920 FIBER CREEK—PRESCOTT www.fibercreekprescott.com Weaving, Spinning, Knitting, Crochet, Felting, and other Fiberarts. Yarns, Equipment and Supplies. The yarn shop that has it all, we are here to help and please! info@FiberCreekPrescott.com 1406 Willow Creek Rd #123 (928) 717-1774 CALIFORNIA MACEDO’S MINI ACRE—TURLOCK www.macedosminiacre.com ALPACA! Fleece, roving, batts, felt or yarn - natural or dyed colors. Hats, scarves or socks also available! Classes too. 11175 Golf Link Rd. (209) 648-2384 IDAHO KNIT-N-CROCHET—COEUR D’ ALENE www.knit-n-crochet.com Friendly service and inviting atmosphere. Come in and see, or shop online, our large selection of yarn, needles, and accessories. 600 W. Kathleen Ave. #30 (208)…