Cabin Fever Colors

 

 The third blizzard of the season is howling and swirling outside my window, covering the panes with lace and enveloping me in a cocoon of white. I'm cozy inside by the fire, deep in the dye pots, conjuring memories of clear blue skies, undulating green seaweed, and beach gleanings of deep purple mussel shells, pale green urchins, and turquoise sea glass.  And from the dye pots have come the NEW 2011 Starcroft COLORS!
Some rejuvenated old favorites and some exciting new additions.  Here's a peek... 

Osier - deep cranberry red, Lobster Bake - dark orange/red, Acorn - intense autumn gold, Larch - soft pale yellow, Urchin - pale green, Seaweed - deep yellow/green, Sea Glass - light turquoise, Clear Skies - bright blue, Raven - deep navy black/blue, Cove - soft fog gray, Whelk - deep red/purple, Mussel Shell - dark purple/navy, and Pine Cone - deep brown.

I just couldn't decide which color to knit with first, so of course I decided to use them all.  This is a fair isle vest in progress....

Autumn Inspirations

It's that time of year.

Wonderful little color moments everywhere.

Divine inspirations.

A simple walk in the woods on a crisp day inspires a new project.

Felting Demo @ CGF

We're excited to be giving a Felting Demo at the Common Ground Fair this year! It will be Sunday morning at the Wednesday Spinners Tent, next to the Fleece Tent. We'll show how we lay out our rug designs and felt them by foot, with musical assistance by Wiffletree.

Our rugs start with hand-dyed "pre-felts". We process the shorter staple (fiber length) Nash Island wool into batts (a big fluffy sheet) and then felt them up a bit in our felting machine before dyeing them. Rugs can be made straight from a batt, but pre-felting speeds up the process and simplifies the dyeing as well.

Next we lay the pre-felts out on a bamboo mat and soak it with hot, soapy water. Any design shapes are added at this time. The mat is rolled up and tied, and then rolled under foot to felt the fibers together. It usually takes three to four sessions of 5 minutes each to felt a rug. More hot, soapy water is applied between each session to keep the fibers open and slippery.

Roving or loose fibers can be applied to the rug to create designs as well as shapes cut from other pre-felts.

Once the rug is felted, it is rinsed with alternating hot and cold water to firm up the felt and rinse out any remaining soap. The rug is then spun out in the washing machine and laid out to dry.

Once dry, we embellish our rugs with hand-stitching, using strands of hand-dyed yarns and a sharp tapestry needle. The stitches add definition to shapes and quilt-like textures to the background.

After felting, the rug is cut into shape - we like ovals and rounded-corner rectangles best. A stitched edge similar to a blanket stitch is added to finish the rug.

See you at the Fair this weekend!