When I first envisioned the fall colors sweater, I thought it would be something lacy. Probably a cardigan, with vertical lace panels separated by some spacers. Something like this, perhaps:

But then the issue of grist meant that I ended up with 30% less yarn than I’d expected from that fiber. Fortunately, I am working on the Falkland lace sweater at the same time, with the same yardage. So I have a pretty good idea of how far 928 yards will stretch.

The answer is that it will stretch enough, but only if I want a lightweight sweater with very open lace. I happen to love the way the Falkland sweater is coming out, but it’s probably not a weight that I’ll use for more than a few months a year, and definitely not in the fall. Also, I think that a lace that open really needs a semi-solid yarn to keep the color from fighting with the lace pattern. This yarn might work in a more solid lace, but I think it would be too much variegation for a really open pattern.

So that sent me back to the drawing board. Somewhere in our emails back and forth, Jan suggested that maybe a Chanel-inspired jacket would be the thing. This had me enchanted for quite a while, trying to figure out how I might stretch the yarn to make it work. It would have to be a short jacket because of the yarn restrictions, but I could use a different color as trim to help stretch it out a bit.

Unfortunately, I’d want this to be a really solid, stable fabric, probably with an almost woven texture. And that spells heavy yardage requirements. I thought about using two colors at once and dyeing something to match, but I still don’t think that will stretch the yardage enough.

I also thought about actually weaving it. You get a lot more fabric for the yardage with weaving than you do with knitting, so I could make this go farther on the loom. I’d also be using a different yarn for the warp, so I’d automatically get twice as far. I did some calculations, and really looked carefully at what it would take to cut these pieces from the widest fabric I can make on my loom, and I think it would still be cutting it a little too close. If I wanted a really cropped jacket or short sleeves I could probably make it work, but I think I’m unlikely to have occasion to wear either of those styles very often.

So. Definitely keeping this jacket idea in the active list, but probably not in this yarn. I think it would look great knit up, though.

Then I thought about working a more fitted jacket and having the sleeves in a contrasting color. The extra fitting takes out a significant portion of the yardage, and the contrasting sleeves cut out a lot more. If the body were worked in two colors, I might have enough to make it on this design. Based on the gauge of the Falkland sweater, I still don’t think I could get the full vest out of the fall colors yarn in stockinette. But colorwork might just do it here.

Next, I started thinking raglans. These are nice and simple, because you just start at the top and knit until you run out of yarn. They’re also very safe projects for me, because I’ve done enough of them to know that it will turn into something I’m likely to wear. (Though, incidentally, I have yet to actually knit myself a raglan.) I was thinking of something like this, minus the gorilla shoulders:

Olive green semisolid at the neck would put a spacer between the orange and my skin tone (one of the reasons that I don’t wear orange much is that I have a good bit of yellow in my skin and sometimes yellow/orange can make me look jaundiced). Then I’d do a dark brown for the main body, tying in both the greens and browns of fall. This could work, and it was actually my #1 choice until I sat down and started drawing these out. Seeing it on the page, though, it’s not quite as appealing as some of the other options. It’s still high on the list, but I’m not sure it’s right for this yarn.

I could also do some kind of colorwork or striping to spread the orange highlight yarn out over the entire sweater.

If done well, I think this could be absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, artistic arrangement of stripes is not my greatest strength. I am usually a little too mathematical and geometrical to come up with the kinds of dynamic striping that I’d want here. The sketch makes it look rather unappealing, doesn’t it?

I could do a raglan design with the fall colors yarn as an accent band, but I want it to stand front and center in the design, and I’d like to use up the yarn that I have. (Yes, I know. I am picky, picky, picky in the design phase. That’s why I usually end up with things that I like in the end.)

My current favorite leans back toward the more tailored jacket look, and is loosely based on a commercial sweater that I wear all the time.

This would be a zip-front cardigan that’s fitted but still has a good bit of ease. It’s a more casual cut, so I’m more likely to wear it often. The seam between the side panels and the front fabric would give it a nice silhouette look, especially if there’s a strong contrast between bright body and dark panel colors. The sleeves could be a contrast color, and the underarms would be a solid or semi-solid to match the sleeves. That would take out a good 8″ of fabric from the body alone, helping the yarn to stretch further. The rest of the body could then be colorwork or a two-color textured pattern to stretch the yardage again (which should make up for the extra density of the fabric). I’d probably do an olivey-green for the sleeves and underarm panels, and a deep, dark brown for the other body yarn.

This could be done with any number of colorwork or texture designs. The dark brown should help the orange to “pop”, like the dark branches highlighting the fall foliage. Adding in the green and brown also pulls this closer into my usual color palette and might make it more likely that I’ll wear it often.

I’m a little torn about that last part. Practically speaking, I do think that I’m more likely to wear greens and browns than just orange. I was kind of in love with the pure orange-reds, though. The strong, bold colors are the whole point of this project, after all. I don’t want to dilute them down. I also don’t want this to be something that has to be worn as an earth-tone; I like the idea of making it a real focus piece. I think that I should be able to come up with a colorwork design that uses the darker colors to highlight the oranges, though. If I’m good, I should be able to use the design to narrow the focus even further, from the garment level right down to the individual yarns.

I don’t know if I’m that good, but I think I want to try.

The other slightly scary thing about this design is the construction. I haven’t done much designing for seamed sweaters, so this one will be a bit of a stretch. Add to that the fact that there will be 5 body panels, and that’s a lot of planning. I’m thinking of doing it with steeks, which will let me do the colorwork in the round and then seam at the end, but that means no trying on and checking of design along the way. It will also be a very oddly shaped garment until the steeks are cut.

I think that’s manageable, though. Those lines aren’t really very complicated, and I really like the semi-tailored look that the side panels give to the design. It’s not a closely fitted garment, so there should be some room to adjust at the end, if necessary. It would also give me a reason to steek a full sweater, which very much appeals to the seamstressy side of me. The colorwork and contrasting sleeves will guarantee that I have enough of the focus yarn, and I can dye and spin up as much as I need of the other colors.

So, I think this is it. Still dithering, poking around and exploring other ideas. I’d still need to sit down and figure out how much more yarn I need to spin, and to decide on the perfect colors to match. Solid? Semi-solid? Something else?

So many decisions still to make, but I think we’re getting closer.

The annual Fine Art of Fiber festival was this past weekend at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. The festival is put on by the Illinois Quilters, the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild, and the Weavers Guild of the North Shore.

We were expecting something fairly small, maybe a few rooms of pieces on display. We were completely unprepared for the size of this show. There were at least 3 display rooms with every surface covered in quilts, a display of handmade aprons, and two large rooms full of weaving and other crafts for sale.

I expected that we’d spend an hour or two and then go for a stroll around the gardens afterward. We spent the entire day.

This was one of my favorite pieces in the show. I love how the quilter used different values and saturations of color to really make the squares pop. It’s also interesting how the different colors interact; I wouldn’t usually think to mix pink and orange, but they complement one another beautifully here, and I think that contrast is part of what gives the quilt depth. Their placement also keeps your eye moving around the quilt, giving it a really dynamic feel.

Quilting, like weaving, is all about color composition. It’s something I’m not very good at (yet), but I appreciate it in others’ work. We kept circling back around past this one throughout the day, and every time I passed I liked it more.

Here’s another one where the color pattern was carefully chosen to highlight the woven look of the quilt. This must have been an awful pain to construct, since those pieces  can’t be sewn as squares and have to be pieced as “L” shapes (corner seams don’t tend to like to lie flat).

This one I liked for the sheer boldness of its design, and it’s jagged feel. It’s saw edges and z’s and broken glass all at once.  I’ve read somewhere that there are certain commonalities in how sounds are represented across languages and cultures; that a curvy shape has a soft sound, and a sharp shape represents hard, crisp sounds. To me, this quilt is the visual equivalent of that. It practically crackles, doesn’t it?

This was almost the exact opposite. Subtle, calm, understated. A forest of trees that is almost there, and almost not. I think the background fabric on this one was handpainted, too. Loved the color blending, and the way the three-dimensional leaves brought out the background.

This piece was another jaw-dropper in terms of color composition.

And just look at the details in the quilting!

Another thing that this show really brought home is the importance of beautiful quilting to finish a piece. I don’t have much to show there, because it’s hard to take pictures that actually show quilting, but when well done, it really elevates a quilt from nice to spectacular.

Here’s an example of a very plain background that became a lot more interesting with quilting. All those flowers are quilted in. Without those details, the butterfly would be on a plain red background.

As with anything, I suppose, the genius is in the details, and in pulling them all together to make a coherent whole. It was fun to spend a day studying so many masterpieces.

There was a woman demonstrating bobbin lace, which I’ve been tempted to try for quite some time. She managed to make it sound quite simple despite its apparent complexity, too. Turns out that’s all just one “stitch” too. Just like knitting…you take one simple thing and make complicated patterns. She had a sample for people to practice on. I declined, out of fear of gaining another hobby on the spot. Fortunately, I know I will never run out of things to explore in the craft world.

We also sat in on a lecture by the owner of Kasuri dyeworks about Japanese textiles. I didn’t take photos, but it was an amazing hour, packed full of information about the techniques of Japanese master dyers and weavers. There is so much history in those pieces of fabric. It literally takes a lifetime to master these crafts (she said that one of the weavers she works with is considered “up and coming” after 30+ years of apprenticeship). We found ourselves shaking our heads and saying “only the Japanese” so often during the lecture. There is so much careful attention to detail, so much miniaturized and painstaking work, and such emphasis on perfection of their craft. The fabrics were truly beautiful, and the culture behind them was just as interesting. I’d highly recommend that anyone sit in on one of these lectures if you get the chance; even if you don’t weave or dye, it was an amazing way to spend an hour.

We didn’t take photos of the woven pieces on display, unfortunately. They didn’t have any for show only, and people can be funny about you taking pictures of things that are for sale, so we opted to just look. I’ve decided that I really must play with huck lace, and have reinforced the idea that I want to weave very fine (50-100 ends per inch seems like a good goal for now, just as soon as I can get enough heddles to thread the loom with that many ends!). I also discovered that I like very lightweight chenille much, much more than the slightly heavier-weight kind that I’ve usually seen.

We saw some examples of garments with beautiful finishing details, which is of particular interest to me because that’s where my weaving is headed (eventually, anyway). Again, the details really make the piece. I only barely managed to avoid taking a finely finished jacket home with me as a new addition to my wardrobe. Next year, maybe.

In all, it was a long but fun day. So many inspiring things to see, a million more directions to explore. It did poke my dormant quilting itch, and has gotten my brain turning on some new ideas for weaving projects. Definitely an event to attend again next year. (And who knows…maybe to enter, too?)

Tonight, I have two things to tell you about.

First, there is a sweater that has two (!) sleeves.

It actually would have had two sleeves sometime last week, except that I ran out of yarn again and had to spin more. Next time, I am going back to overspinning.

Also, the sweater isn’t really done yet. I wanted to check the fit before weaving in ends, and then there was some resistance when it came time to give it back (it is cold in the house now, so I really can’t blame him).  We’ll do a proper modeled shot sometime when it’s been finished and blocked, and when there is light so you can actually see it.

The other exciting thing came in the form of two boxes left on my front porch today:

Don’t listen to the cat. It is not a new kitty pedestal.

Instead, it is another 12 pounds of fiber for the shop, since my last big dye day left me fresh out of Finn and low on Polwarth.  I find that to be infinitely more interesting than a new cat elevation system, but Mischief has yet to be convinced. She will probably be won over in no time once the boxes are open and she can pop in and out of them, though.

This time, I added Falkland to the must-order list, so we have Finn, Polwarth, BFL, and Falkland to play with. I desperately need to do some sampling, but I can’t wait to dive in!

In my (metaphorical) knitting basket, there lie two sweaters, waiting for sleeves.

One is thick and warm, the other light and airy. They are both eagerly awaiting the pieces that complete them. Between them, I count one finished sleeve and two begun.

Tonight, when I ask the question: “What shall I knit?” there can only be one answer. The real question is “blue, or brown?”

Ellen and I have been emailing about how we’ve both been in a bit of withdrawal since Rhinebeck. It’s a little harder than I expected to come back to real life after a fantastic weekend of friends and fiber. I’m thinking that perhaps it is time for a little reminiscence, yes?

(And a little revealing of purchases, too…can’t have a proper festival post without that.)

As usual, I had terrible camnesia for most of the trip, so this post will be link-heavy and picture light.

Fortunately, Ellen had the presence of mind to ask someone to take a picture of our group, while waiting in line for the fair grounds to open on Saturday:

From left to right, that’s Karen, Cricket, Ellen and me (bet you couldn’t tell on that last one).

We all stayed together in a beautiful little cabin about 20 minutes from the fairground, which really was the perfect way to enjoy the festival. Ellen arranged that too. (You may be sensing a pattern here…)

Despite a heavy rainstorm on Friday night, we had a weekend of beautiful weather that was just right to highlight the fall foliage. Driving back and forth along all those winding country highways, it was all I could do not to pull over every 10 minutes to take a picture of the colors as the car rounded a bend into yet another beautiful landscape.

We all arrived late Friday night, had a great nights’ sleep after our travels, and then sprinted off for the fairgrounds first thing in the morning. First off, we investigated the fleece sale, where I was sorely tempted by an 8 pound Cormo. I managed to resist that one, but fell head over heels for this gray Corriedale cross from Lisa Lafferty at Eidelweiss Farm, which Ellen and I agreed to send off for processing and then split between us.

This is the first time I’ve sent a fleece off for processing. It does add a whole new dimension to buying raw fleeces (as well as cutting out many, many steps in between the buying and the spinning). Could be dangerous.

Then, we stood in line to meet the Yarn Harlot and get our books signed. Actually, we stood in three lines. One, to get to a copy of the book, then one to purchase the book, and a third to get it signed.  Fortunately, there were other books and authors to look at and chat with along the way, and Ellen kept us entertained with her adorable little Jenkins Kuchulu spindle.

I picked up a copy of Sheepish along the way, which I’ve heard is a very good read.

Then, we began our wanderings around the fairgrounds. And there was much wandering to be done. I’ve just had a look at the fair map, and there were ten (ten!) barns chock full of fiber. You could go for days and not take it all in. Fortunately, we had Karen to read the map and make sure we knew where we were (and where we were going) at any given time. This is a big help when the rest of the crew is caught up in *shiny!*

Instead of doing my usual walk once around before buying, we just went straight for it and hit up the booths we thought were interesting. We found rare breed wools at Spirit Trails Fiber. I was bitten by the Targhee bug at Jefferson this year,  and so ended up with 8 oz of that, even though I got in line expecting to buy 4 oz. Oops. I also bought 5 oz of Debouillet, since Rambouillet has been on my to-try list for a while now, and Debouillet sounded kind of close, and was very soft.

There was a whole booth full of incredible shetland sweaters from Yarns International. I didn’t buy any, but they’ve gone into my mental file of yarns I must try someday. Their colorwork was also stunning, but it was early in the festival and I hadn’t worked up the courage yet to start asking if I could take photos of sample pieces.

We stopped by the Fiber Optic booth to meet the dyer, Kimber, who I hear is very scientific. Unfortunately, she was also swamped, so I will have to find another time to stand around and talk shop. Her fiber is lovely, though. I ended up with a bag of Black Coffee pencil roving, and a gradient-dyed braid of Merino Tencel in Espresso Gold (must have needed a caffeine kick after the early start to our day).

We also stopped by the Golding booth and had a look at their spindles. At one point, both Ellen and I turned around, saying “you’ve got to see this one” and then dissolved into laughter when we realized that we were holding two copies of the same spindle. Great minds think alike. (And you should see it spin!!!)

After lunch, we wandered the upper fairgrounds, passing by the Briar Rose and Sanguine Gryphon booths. Then, we watched a few sheep lose their coats:

And took a tour of the show barns, including the breeds barn where Ellen picked out all the sheep she wants for her future farm (and for Jan’s…she’s such a thoughtful sister).

We also got to talk to Otto Strauch about his drum carders, which was very interesting. Both Ellen and I are in the researching phase of considering a drum carder purchase, so it was interesting to hear about all the technical details that make the Strauch carders unique.

At the end of the day, we realized that we had not sat down from the time we arrived at the fairgrounds until we got in the car to head off to dinner. You know it’s been a good day when you’ve forgotten to stop and sit.

We had dinner at a local brewery, where Cricket and Ellen dueled their way through the beer sampler, and Cricket kept us all in stitches. (Actually, she did that all weekend.)

We got back to the cabin late, but we had just enough time for a show-and-tell before bed, and a few more laughs. Ellen did some sample washing of fleeces in the kitchen sink, and we all oohed and aahed over the locks of freshly cleaned wool.

I headed back to the fairgrounds alone on Sunday morning, since I had a morning class and a few hours before my afternoon flight. The class was called Great Garments from Handwoven Cloth by Daryl Lancaster, and it was very, very good. I’ve done a good bit of garment sewing myself, but I learned so much about simple sewing techniques that just hadn’t come up in my self-taught career. Daryl is great at getting into the “why” of garment construction instead of just the rules. She also had tons of useful tips for stabilizing handwoven cloth, adding structure to garments, and finishing edges so that they stay put and don’t ravel. The class was only an hour and a half long, but it was jam-packed.

And then there were the samples. Here’s one of my favorites:

After class, I was in a weaving mood, so I visited the Just Our Yarn booth to peruse their samples. I just love looking at them all.

Look at the detail in this one:

I just love how those colors work together, but wouldn’t have thought to put salmon and blue in the same piece. The owners are also wonderful to talk to about weaving; they know how each sample was made, and can talk at length about the structures and colors and yarn weights used to get a particular effect. I always learn so much from a visit to their booth. I have some of their yarn for a project already, and so forbore to buy more, but I did pick up a couple of books that are kind of the equivalent of weaving stitch dictionaries. There are years of exploration in these pages.

I also found a few things on the fairgrounds that we’d overlooked on Saturday. There were some very artistic carved pumpkins:

And a whole barn full of antique museum-displays. They had everything from the print shop to the formal parlor. I spent quite a while watching the clock maker repair the mechanism for a pendulum clock:

Here’s the print shop:

I got to use the mini moveable-type printing press, but didn’t take a picture of that one.

Then, I headed back into the yarn barns. I found this beautiful colorwork sweater by Decadent Fibers. It’s sold as a kit, but I really just wanted to sit and study those intricate colorwork designs. Might have to buy the pattern someday, just because.

And these fantastic felted/leatherwork bags by Spiralworks. I just love the combination of felt and stylish leather bags.

None of them made their way home with me, but it’s something to keep in mind when I need something special one of these days.

A couple of tiny braids of pure silk from Cloverleaf farms did manage to sneak into my bag:

I bought the first one because I thought it might make the perfect trim to go with the fall colors sweater:

The red is looking a little pink next to the wool yarn, so I’m not sure if it will actually end up in the sweater. We may have to see what it looks like when spun up first. The second braid I bought just because. I’m not sure what they will become, but they are beautiful.

I also stopped off at the Briar Rose booth to show Chris my sweater and gush a bit about her yarn. I’ve just realized that I never actually showed a modeled photo on the blog, so here it is:

And here’s a closeup of the neck detail (that’s my favorite part).

I had completely forgotten to take pictures; probably because I’ve been so busy figuring out how to wear it as often as possible. My sweater queue is completely full up right now, or I’d have bought yarn for another three right then and there. Honestly, I could buy every yarn in her booth.

And then, in my last few minutes of wandering, I ran into Anne, as I’ve already told you. I really had given up hope of finding her at that point, so it was just the perfect way to end the festival.

So that was Rhinebeck 2011. Two days packed full of fiber, fun, and friends. I’m not sure I could handle this much fiber activity on a regular basis, but I am looking forward to next year!

You may remember the waving lace shawl at I knit a couple of years ago. (Has it already been a couple of years?? Amazing.)

While we were taking photos for the blog post, I arranged it like this:

Partly because I wanted to remember that I thought that this lace pattern would make a great lacy sweater.

Fast forward two years, and you’ll find me with a bowl of yummy Falkland handspun just waiting for a project.

That became this:

Which happens to be another in a long series of completely unphotographable colors that have emerged from my dye studio. That photo gets the intensity right, but leans a little too far toward the blue for the real yarn.

In any case. I swatched, I cast on. I knit a full repeat. I decided that I was going to run out of yarn at that rate, pulled back, went up two needle sizes and swatched again, reduced my stitch count by 30%, and cast on again on the plane to Rhinebeck.

(Some people make sweaters to wear to Rhinebeck. Apparently I cast on. There’s nothing like planning ahead.)

This second photo is a little closer to the real color, and shows the lace pattern beginning to emerge.

And if you look very closely, you can see some beautiful little stitch markers that Jan made for me and sent by way of Ellen. (Thanks, Jan!)

She has perfect timing, too, since I had just lost my stitch markers and was in need of more. Knowing me, I’d probably have gone for plain plastic rings, so I’m especially excited to have some fancy jewelry for my needles. Those colors match the lace prefectly, too. Aren’t they pretty?

I’m just finishing up the waist shaping now, and beginning the repeat that will increase for the bust and underarm split. Knock on wood, but it looks like I might actually have enough yarn to make it at this gauge. Fingers crossed!

I finished plying the Fall colors yarn last night. Here it is as singles:

And here is some of the final yarn with the unspun fiber:

It’s funny; I loved it as single plies on the bobbin, hated the 2-ply yarn as I spun, and then fell in love again when I saw the skeins all laid out. I’m not sure what it was about the bobbins of plied yarn, but I very seriously considered stopping, switching to Navajo plying, and calling it a bust.

Now, I’m glad that I didn’t.

I love the way the colors mix in the skeins. Each strand looks like a different colorway, but somehow they all go together.

See those blues and greens in there? There’s even some gray. I’m not really sure where they came from, but I’m glad they stopped in for a visit. This section of the skein seems to contain an entire rainbow:

The color mixing reminds me of the yarn for my sunset sweater, which knit up beautifully in the end. I’m excited to see what happens with this…I think it will make for a similarly interesting knit.

The only thing missing is yardage. You may remember that I spun 8 oz of Falkland a while back, and ended up with 950 yards. That’s a pretty good yield for 8 oz, but it’s a little shy of what I’d like to knit a sweater, even a lacy one.

When I dyed the fall colors fiber, I went up to 12 oz of Finn. I figured that should give me 1100-1200 yards, which is much more within my comfort range for a sweater. You can see that the two fibers spun up to very much the same weight.

Before I go into the dye studio or sit down to plan a colorway, I usually set some broad goals about what I want to accomplish. Sometimes, I’m trying to pull out colors from a particular photo. Sometimes, there’s a color combination that I think is interesting and want to play with. And sometimes, I want to dye for a specific person.

The last one can be tricky, because it’s hard to know exactly what a persons’ signature colors are, unless you know them very well. But every once in a while I run across a color that just absolutely belongs to someone I know.

I don’t think that everybody does this, but for some reason my brain stores colors for all the people I meet. It’s just one of those details that is part of knowing someone for me – like recognizing their face, their style, their favorite foods or the  smell of their go-to perfume. I stash away details like what color lights up their eyes, or highlights their skin tone, or matches their favorite piece of jewelry.

Sometime last year, I was sampling away in the dye studio, and that gold emerged. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was a color for Anne Hanson. (You can see why here, here, and here.)

If there is one person responsible for getting me thoroughly hooked on knitting, it is probably Anne. I stumbled across her blog sometime in 2006 or 2007, and immediately fell in love with her designs. I had been knitting for a while, but was getting bored with stockinette and the knit-purl stitches. Her blog opened up a whole new world of lace, and watching her designs develop caught my interest so deeply that I began to create my own. I haven’t been bored with my knitting since.

Now, I don’t know Anne. Not personally, anyway. I’ve lurked on her blog for years, been constantly inspired by her work, and have learned a lot about designing and about writing from following her blog. When I began selling my own products, I looked to her to figure out how to talk about things for sale without making a sales pitch, while still generating real content for the blog. I met both Jocelyn and Amanda through her blog, and Ellen and Jan through Jocelyn. Through some funny twist of fate, more than half of the people that read this blog ended up over here because of Anne. But I don’t know her.

So I set aside the color, as something to ponder for another time.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to Ellen about meeting up at Rhinebeck. It occurred to me that Anne would also be there. The color popped back into my head, and refused to leave. Something said that it was time. There is nothing I love more than cooking up a surprise gift, so I set off in search of the perfect fiber.

After a little while with my sample cards, I came up with this combination:

I just love the way the gray and olive green bring out the richness in the gold. This was my colorway.

It took a couple of tries, but this is what I came up with:

The fiber stowed away in my luggage when I flew to Rhinebeck on Friday. We looked for Anne on Saturday, but didn’t find her. (If I had been caught up on my blog reading, I would have known that there was a Knitspot picnic at noon, but I was behind and didn’t know.)

On Sunday, I was wandering around the market when I saw a familiar face. Kim was standing in front of one of the show barns, and Anne was with her.  Kim took the obligatory fan girl picture, and I tried not to gush too much. Fiber changed hands, and I think she liked it.

I love when things come full circle like this. Anne inspired me to knit, taught me a lot about writing and design, and introduced me to Jocelyn, who introduced me to Ellen, who brought me to Rhinebeck, where I met Anne. Little ripples going out, and coming back again.

I hope she enjoys her fiber.

There has been lots of crafting going on around here lately, despite the time crunch from the commute (or perhaps because of it – being busy has a way of focusing my energy and getting a lot more done in less time).

The fall colors are starting to appear on the trees all around us. Just this week, the edges of the highway have gone from green to reds and yellows. The tree in front of our house is an explosion of gold and orange. I’m delighted to say that some of those colors are also showing up on my spinning wheel:

That’s the “reds” colorway for the fall colors sweater.  I think it’s going to work. Very excited.

Branden’s sweater has been growing by leaps and bounds, since rounds and rounds of endless stockinette is the perfect way to come off of a 2 hour traffic jam. I bound off the body last night, and have started the first sleeve. I love knitting Branden raglan sweaters; the construction means that the sleeves are already knit to the armpit by the time I split off onto holder needles, so finishing up the rest is much faster than knitting the whole thing in one go.

With that getting so close to done, I’m starting to scramble around for another project for the queue. I think I’m going to dye up that Falkland that I spun a few months ago.  I’ve been dithering about whether or not to order more fiber and spin some more, just to be sure I’ll have enough. But I do have 950 yards, and I know which lace I want to knit and what color, and I think I might have enough. (Plus, I’m itching to knit it, it’s half designed already, and I am not feeling patient. True confessions.)

I just finished setting the dye on some samples, and I’m pretty sure I have the colors I’m looking for when they’ve cooled enough to check. Fingers crossed that it comes out like I expect, and I’ll be dyeing the yarn tonight or tomorrow, and swatching soon thereafter.

I’ve also been slowly chipping away at teasing open the locks on the Gulf Coast fleece. This isn’t my favorite part of fleece processing, truth be told, so I have to do it in spurts here and there. But on Tuesday I finally washed everything one more time to (hopefully) get out the last of the lanolin, and I now have quite a pile of fluff in the basement.

That little bit in the box is all that I have left to tease open and rewash, and I’m hoping to do that today, since it means that I can go sit outside and enjoy this glorious weather we’ve been having. Once the washing is finished, I’ll move onto the combing/carding, which should be more fun, since it will get me that much closer to actually spinning the stuff!

I dropped Branden off at the airport this morning; he’s on his way to Austria for a week for work. That leaves me the whole weekend and most evenings to putter around on fiber things, so I’m hoping to finish up a few more loose ends. Or I may just sit and spin the rest of that fall fiber, as it is begging me to do. Doesn’t sound like a bad plan, really.

For now, I’m off to wash those samples and see what new colors await!

Fall is my absolutely favorite season. I love the weather. I love the colors.

Red and orange have been slowly making their way into my color palette lately, and I’ve been thinking of knitting a fall colors sweater. It’s been percolating in the background for quite a while now, but I’ve never quite gotten around to it. A few weeks ago, I finally decided that I want something a little on the light side, and lacy.

Last weekend, I indulged in some dyeing time for myself, and came up with 12 oz oz of Finn in vibrant fall tones.

I wanted to calm the colors to meet the earth tones (to make it wearable for me), and I wanted to end up with fairly subtle shading in the final yarn, so that I can knit lace. I also wanted to keep all the variety and purity of color that goes with the season.

That’s a bit of a tall order.

I ended up dyeing two separate colorways, one for each ply. I’ve been thinking of experimenting with spinning mixed-ply yarns, and this seemed like a good opportunity. I dyed one colorway with the browns and olive greens, leaning all the way down to gold.

And one with the bold reds and oranges, to keep them from mixing with the brown and muddying.

The color segments are relatively large, so there should be fairly long stretches of a single color that then gradually fade into the next with spinning. I’m hoping that the brown ply will ground the reds when they’re plied together, and that having two separately varying plies (with relatively similar color values within each one) will limit the amount of variegation I get in the final yarn.

I’m not sure that any of that will come out as I’m hoping it will, but so far I really like the looks of the two colorways wound together.