Wool Fleece Study Complete

Today marks a very exciting day, the day I finished spinning this fleece sample study. Finished, I have 36 skeins of hand spun yarn all from different breeds. It feels quite accomplishing.
I acquired these samples almost a year ago, if not over a year ago, from a friend of mine who was destashing. All the samples were unwashed pieces of fleece in little sandwich sized baggies.
 Before I could begin to process these I had to was them. I took the sample out of the bag and opened the locks up while a bucket was getting filled with very hot water with a spoon full of Orvus soap. That is a live stock soap, recommended to me by another spinning friend. Once the lock was opened up a bit and some of the debris or vegetable matter (vm as the cool kids call it), I placed the wool in the water. With a smooth stick I gently push the wool under and swish it around a bit. The agitation you use should be very minimal otherwise the wool will felt and be terribly difficult, if not impossible to spin. The water needs to be hot in order for the grease, or lanolin, can be heated and melted off in the water. Make sure if you're doing a lot of this to not dump the water down the drain as the lanolin can clog your pipes. I did a large portion of it over the summer outside. The baths in water and soap may need to be more than once to get the wool all clean. Once the wool is clean, pat it in a towel and roll it up and squeeze. This helps to get a lot of the water out. Leave the wool spread out and air dry. Do not wring or make any friction when the wool is wet, it can still felt.
I did not wash all of them at once. It was over the course of a year that this all happened.
Then I went to my handy fleece study book and read about all the breeds I had samples of. I borrowed a set of viking combs and a set of English combs for the longwools, and I had carders for the downy breeds. I found the English combs cumbersome and the viking combs didn't do as nice a job as I hoped, so I settled on a pair of double rowed viking combs that I like very much. The combing process is long. I only did one sample as instructed by Peter Teal in Hand Woolcombing and Spinning, however this one sample is really quite nice.
The next tip I have, take time to clean the wool from any nups or vm or second cuts as this just makes the yarn bumpy and uneven. The more time you take in the prep the faster the spinning can go and the better the end result.
Going into this, I had an interest for the longwools. These are wools that tend to look a lot like hair. Often times the locks are used in antique and reproduction dolls. Due to the industrialization of the garment industry the longwools fell out of interest because the wool is not suitable for the carding or combing machines in the industry, so thus, many of the breeds are endangered. At the first long wool samples I was not too pleased with them, but recently I have enjoyed them very much. These are some of them: From L to R Coopworth, Teesewater, Karakul, Wenslydale, Lincoln, Border Leicester.

Then to down breeds I enjoyed carding. Highly crimped, they made wonderful bouncy yarns.

Each one came out beautifully. I couldn't have been happier getting to know the breeds better. I also learned a lot about spinning in the process. Now I just need to decide what to spin next...

Thirfting: Hobby or Obsession

You never know what you're going to come across in a thrift store.
Since moving to Wyoming we have been doing a lot of thrift store shopping. In my previous life I did a lot of costume designing and often it was on a tight budget, so I went to the thrift stores and consignment shops around Buffalo.
Tip One: Go to the suburbs, even though it's a drive, the prices at the stores are significantly less than those in the city. There may also be fewer stores in the burbs, that means that everything gets donated to that location and it may include designer pieces.
Our shopping usually isn't for anything specific but we generally find something. Lately, I feel as though I've moved from a Craft to crafting so I'm always looking for things that spark my creativity. Recently it was some vintage fabrics. In Fort Collins I found a four inch thick collection of the most adorable embroidery transfers that are going to be appearing on some up coming items for sale.
Tip Two: Speaking of sales, make sure you know what days your thrift stores have sales. These days you may not find the greatest of things but they will be on sale. When you walk in make sure to check to see if there is a daily or weekly color tag sale, generally that means the item is 50% off.
Being a fiber and knitting person I always look at the yarn; yarn that's not only in skeins but in sweaters. In a coming post I'll show you how to take a sweater apart for the yarn. The other day I was looking for sweaters to felt to make bags.
Tip Three: If you are going to felt a sweater for a project, the first thing you want to look for is a tag with fiber content. Ideally, you want one that says 100% wool, Shetland wool, virgin wool, alpaca, angora, or any mixture of the list. Cotton does not felt, linen does not felt, silk does not felt (although this list may make wonderful yarn to work with when taken apart), and no synthetic fiber felts, like rayon, polyester, acrylic, Dacron, Orlon, the list goes on. So look for Wool!
In the sweaters that I was looking at I found this great wool hand knit hoodie. I looked at it and thought to myself that this looked familiar, and then I realized it was a Central Park Hoodie! If you are a knitter, you may be familiar with this pattern. In Buffalo, the knitting shop that I went to had a class to make it with the pattern designer. If you're interested in the pattern check it out here.

Now this one had some issues, like pilling and a broken zipper, all of which I could take care of. I took out the broken zipper and put in a new one, and have been picking off the pills every time I wear it. The wool in the hoodie I believe is Icelandic because of the plethora of guard hairs all over. I love it. It's warm, possibly even more so because I know it was hand knit. It's a little big on me and a little small on Joe, but we both thing it's wonderful.
This is the exact reason why you go to a thrift store, well, why I go to a thrift store, you may find something that you didn't know you needed but when you have it, it sure makes you great full for someone else's "junk". So go thrifting. Find something good. Make a contribution to that charity. Make a smaller footprint in the world. And go dig for treasure.
But don't forget to bring your re-usable bag!

Closure...Of Sorts

If you are like me, you think a lot about things ending. Thoughts go into ideas of "what ifs", you think longingly of old times, or you think how proud you are to have finished something. All of this may be coming from watching too many episodes of Sex and the City, or from finishing too many projects, or moving to a completely new place, or from finishing a very long, intense book.
Today I just finished a 40+ hour audio book called A Little Life  by Hanya Yanagihara. I've spent the a little less than a year listening to it on and off again, but all the while intrigued by the characters and emotional journeys that the author takes you down. So today, while I was checking out at the grocery store, I listened to the final words of the book and thus closed the final chapter. In a way I'm beginning to feel that I can look onto the next chapter, not of the book, but of my own journey.
I first heard about this book from a friend of mine in the knitting group that I was a part of back in Buffalo. The only thing she said is that it was dark, and every line was like poetry. Both of these points intrigued me, so I bought the audio book from iTunes and began listening to it, and boy was it dark, and wonderfully poetic. Honestly it was one of the best books I have ever read. I have a feeling that it is not everyone's cup of tea but it was a nice big one for me.
I am thankful and happy with myself for being able to create all the things that I can. The joy of taking two dimensional fabric and making it into a three dimensional garment is one that always continues to excite me. In moving to Wyoming, I had to leave a lot of things behind, and most of that was fabric. I have a large fabric collection back in my parent's back room. This goes back to my previous post about seeing or jumping. I have to be honest, I am scared to jump. My friend Mamma from a previous post told me that I'm not afraid of failure, but I am afraid of success. It's so true. If I make something I'm not afraid that it won't turn out, I'm afraid that it will be so perfect that I won't be able to make another like it. And so the old habits of sitting and wondering and not acting take over and I get paralyzed with fear of doing, anything really. In doing this, I have so many projects unfinished, and to my eyes the unfinished ones outweigh all of the finished pieces. Right now I know have have five unfinished pieces; but instead of working on them I worry about them and the worry overtakes the doing.
So where do we go with something that we don't seam to have to internal power to finished? I admit I have turned to inspirational quotes on Pinterest, or to TV, or drinking, or food, but none of those things finish anything I've started. For me, it takes encouragement, which I am lovingly getting from my partner. At times I feel like he is helping me more than I help him, but I know that's not true; we both are helping each other. I know it is not easy for him moving into this next chapter of his journey, and he knows it is not easy for me. But with each other we are making it happen a little easier than if we were alone.
Maybe it's not the closure we need help with, but the starting of a new chapter. In books we have the familiarity of characters and places, but in life we have the real things with people and environments. So let's start this journey together and open a new book on something we've been longing for.

To Look or To Jump

My high school art teacher told us we needed to work from what was in front of us, so we used photos to paint from. I remember him also saying to me that I couldn't be an artist and that I didn't have it in me to live the struggle that is being an artist.
Then in college, my design professor told me that my costumes had to be taken from research. This was when I was working on a show called The Stepmother and the lead character was a fashion designer in the 1920's. She was my mentor on it and we didn't see eye to eye on what exactly the character should be wearing.
Today I was watching a program on PBS called "Crafts in America" or something like that. The episode I watched was about people who used textiles as their medium of choice. The artists in the program varied as to whether they had a definite inspiration to the work or if their work was inspired by something.
Lately I have been thinking about birds, all sorts of birds, birds from the Great Lakes, birds from here. The birds from home, I haven't seen around here, but they are inspiring me to knit. Okay, I'm not knitting them yet, as I have more projects going right now than I want to think about, but the Blue Jay is singing it's song to me and telling me to cast on in his likeness. The pigeons across the street are cooing me into starting yet another project. So, do I need to look at the Blue Jay more to tell me what kind of stitch I should do after I cast on? Or to the Bald Eagle how far I should Increase his wing span?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Sometimes you got to feel things. In art, you never know what's going to speak to you. Something as subtle as a line, or a color, or a ray of light, can completely change you next movement or the finished product. I feel like, with all the directions in the world, that people are afraid to do things beyond the directions. But here's the fact, someone had to make them up the first time it was done. So, open some brain passages, try something new. I still wouldn't put metal in the microwave, but in your art, listen to anything, just not the instructions, and see where it takes you. If you don't get anywhere good, at least you can say, "I'm not doing that again"...Until you forget and do it again.

Standing Up For the Knits and Purls

This morning I was watching a news report, they were of course talking about our President Elect Donald Trump. He was denying people to ask questions at a press release because he didn't agree with their affiliated news.
This made me think of the Hamilton show, where Vice President Elect Pence was there. They spoke of their concerns for the future, and asked to be listened to as much as any other citizen. A friend of mine asked me what I felt about that. I didn't know what to say at the time. He said that when he goes to a show, he doesn't want to see that kind of thing and that if they were upset they should go to Facebook. In retrospect, I disagree with him. The actors of the show were in a position to speak and be heard. Is that too much to ask for from a worried people? Yoda once said: "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate...to suffering". People fear the future and we have already seen the anger, and I know there is hate on this subject, so is the next thing suffering?
Something else I have been thinking about is why haven't people congregated together to protest this? I was not alive for Vietnam, but, to my understanding, there was this same fear for our safety and rights, anger towards our government officials, and hate for what was happening around them. Suffering came in with the troops returning home from a war that some did not agree with, but were forced into because of the draft.
We are in a country that is capable of standing up in situations like this and to tell our government representatives and officials that this is not acceptable. So, why, if so many people are upset is not a larger population taking to the streets? Instead, people are going to Facebook with their grievances, but is anyone listening? I see another friend of mine posting these petitions on Facebook, and I wonder 'Are they legitimate? Are people that can do something about it seeing this?'
A few months back, I don't remember the precise setting, but I do believe it had something to do with the Pride festivals in Buffalo and Rochester. My partner, Joe, has been helping in coordinating the Rochester Pride for many years and I took a moment to thank him for that work. He said it felt like it was his duty to help that effort. He said that it is people like us who are making differences in the world, helping to de-stigmatize the world. I told him, I didn't feel like I was a gay adversary. Although I do recall going back to my high school and an old teacher thanking me for being who I was in those times because it helped younger students see that it was alright to be "out" in high school. I give nearly all my gratitude to my parents, and my family, for letting me be just whoever I wanted to be growing up. But, I've digressed, I told Joe I really feel like I am an advocate of the clothe, not religion, of clothes.
I recall a few summers ago, going down to the artistic area in Buffalo and meeting a group of friends of mine at an art gallery during the Buffalo Infringement Festival and we spent the evening spinning with our wheels, our charka, and our drop spindles. People couldn't believe that we did this. At that time I thought nothing of it, this is fun. But now, I think this is part of our heritage as human beings. We are moving into a world that takes away from our creativity and asks us for answers and not whys. So when I go out with my knitting or a drop spindle and I start doing either in public, it is to show people that this is how things get done, not by sitting at home and wishing things would happen. Things get done by doing something physical, tactile, verbal. Now, I'm not saying to go out and protest. Remember Gandhi and why he spun. He spun to take his need to buy British clothe away. But now think, do you want, better yet, can you afford the time to spin, weave, and sew clothes for your whole family? Think of how many people would willingly work in a sweat shop to make all the clothes to supply Target, if we cut trade of with China.
In another topic, I read an article about how genetics found in a heritage breed of sheep helped research in a human illness. Go find those heirloom farms and support them locally, or at least support them in this country. I know it may cost more, but it helps. Help the sheep. Help the nations. Help the world. I know that's a big statement, but I bet we all can do a little, if we stand up for the knits and purls... and what we believe in.

A Resolution... Of Sorts

I just took a minute to watch Meryl Streep's Golden Globe Speech. It was quiet impressive. Her words about making art, and the community of artists that she lives in were very inspiring to me. Viola Davis also gave a wonderful introduction. It made me think about inspiration, and where we find it, how we take it in, and how we use it.
Viola Davis said the Meryl just looks at you, takes you all in, and holds what she sees until she needs it for what ever character she is portraying. Such patience Meryl must have, to take every nuance in to create a person form words. She pulls everything into her characters, gestures, accents, looks, always reinventing herself. I believe, it is her patience that sets her above the rest.
Now, let us jump back a few years...
I was in my early twenties when depression first started to hit me hard. I was out of college, living at home and not doing super well. My mother insisted that I go and talk to someone, and after a slight breakdown, I did. I went to a local psychiatric center to talk to a counselor. I took a friend of mine with me, we'll call him Mamma. We sat in the waiting room, Mamma knew I was freaking out. He didn't have much to say to me at the time, just helping me fill out the forms (I hate filling out forms). Before I'm finished with them the nurse comes and takes me back to the room where this counselor is. It starts off rough. He was upset that I hadn't handed in the papers earlier, and that he couldn't go over them and etc... It was not a good session. In the middle of it, he told me that I was a child of my generation, and I was looking for instant gratification. My rebuttal was 'if I'm a child of my generation and I'm looking for instant gratification, why is my hobby lace making? I don't even have a smartphone!' Well this shut him up. After that he told me that I had no reason to stay in Buffalo, and then asked me when I was next available. I lied and said that I didn't have my calendar so I would have to call in to make another appointment. I never called. Mamma saw me coming out and he got up and we left. I said nothing until we were outside. He asked how it went, and I told him everything. "He said what?" Mamma said repeatedly, when I was telling what happened. To this day, we still laugh at looking back at that day.
 Fast forward to a little bit ago...
I was sitting in the apartment in Laramie, spinning cotton. For those spinners reading this, they know cotton is not the most cooperative of things to spin. I've been spinning for a good year now, and it wasn't until a few days ago that I got the hang of it. Now, you're asking, what changed? I needed to be patient. Any hand craft takes a lot of patience. It takes practice, and study to really understand what you're doing to create the work that is coming from inside you. Spinning is not acting, but when you're spinning you're connecting something that wasn't there without you. When you tune in to listen to what's in your hands, you hear the fiber saying things to you, but you need the patience to listen to it. Just like music, you need the patience to hear the notes, not just the ability to make them.
Spinning is a kinesthetic activity, you have to do the spinning to understand it. You have to sit at a wheel and start treadling, draft your fiber, and feel what it's doing. Every time you sit down with different fiber it's going to be different, but with patience you can acclimate yourself to the fiber, and work with it to create the beauty that it want's to be. Arts can't be forced. They have to happen.
So, this resolution, isn't really a resolution. I need to keep this idea in mind all life long. With patience comes success, but only if you listen for it. I need to be patient in my day, to take in my emotions, take in my surroundings, take in the inspiration that I see and capture it till I can use it with my art.
Patience is a virtue, and could't we all be a little more of that?

Wherefore and Why Are we Knitting?

Today Joe and I walked the town, stopping in a number of different shops. On our little journey we stumbled into book stores and thrift shops, antique shops and hodge-podge boutiques. Every one of them having something interesting to comment on, mainly us saying "That's my style" or "I would love to have that in my home".
We came across one store that had antiques, collectibles, and hand made items from local people. Joe asked me if I had seen a sign at the front counter. I had not. We walk back to the counter and there is a sign saying that the shop would love to have hand made items for the store. I spoke with a lovely woman about it, and then Joe and I left.
For the people that know me, it takes me awhile to process things and come up with ideas, usually involving a long internal conversation and brainstorming to come up with ideas. I began thinking: "What can I make that I can make a profit on?" That then went to me thinking of the yarn I have, projects that I have done, patterns that I've seen, etc..
Now here is the point to this: Why does the 21st century person knit? Because we like doing it? We find it fulfilling? There is a hint of escapism to it? It's relaxing? I think these are all important concepts to our knitting. But, if you put the "making something to generate a profit" into knitting, does it still fulfill the above concepts?
We grow up in this country to think we can be whatever we want to be, mainly  growing up to be a strong business tycoon, or high government official. But what about the smaller jobs, like being a tailor, or a painter? You might not want to be the next high-end designer, or pain the next Sistine Chapel, but you do want to make beautiful clothes for people, or paint the beauty of the world through your eyes. Is success only granted to those who make something from what they do?
The success I feel after casting off a piece is insurmountable, but the fulfillment I get from the item after blocking it is not containable. How do you put a price on that? You think, 'Ok, x amount of money would bring me similar enjoyment', but do the people who can actually afford said item really appreciate it for the amount you have for it.
Today clothes are not like pieces of art, there is an infinite number of garments of clothing for sale and the people who do wear art, i.e. Haute Couture, are in a fraction of that one percentile. That handful of people appreciate the hand work, the craft, that goes into that article.
So at the present, my art will be hidden, like the sunflowers and self portraits of Vincent Van Gogh, possibly not forever, but for the present I'm going to cherish them until I can send them out into the world for others to enjoy.

How's the cowl coming? Are you ready for the next step?

Maybe I'll give it away tomorrow...

To Gauge or Not To Gauge, Do Gauge and The Handkerchief Cowl

Prior to Leaving Buffalo I made a cowl for a very dear friend of mine. It was an original design made out of hand spun yarn. I was very proud of the thing. The yarn was beautiful, the shaping was smart, and the end product was something quite clever. Before I gave it to her I wrote down the pattern.

A Note to all those making their own patterns from things that came out of their head and made from hand spun yarn: Keep a small sample of the yarn!

Another Note: Mark down your gauge! You don't want to be one of those people that asks if your friend (who fortunately is a knitter and spinner and knows what you're talking about) could get the gauge from the gift you gave them. I have not done that, someone I know did though...

So I wrote my pattern down and took my little sample of yarn and measured the WPI (wraps per inch). The yarn was 12 WPI. That means it is a DK weight yarn.

This is the handspun yarn I made for the original cowl and my WPI tool from Nancy's Knit Knacks

I went to my yarn stash and found something similar in weight. The selected yarn was something my mother picked up for me when she visited Ireland. The denim blue tweed will make an appearance in the coming future, but if you'd like to see the yarns spun by Donegal Yarns you can visit their website and buy some of their beautiful tweed yarn! So with this supple Aran Tweed yarn I made the cowl from the pattern I had wrote.

Here comes another Note: Write down your needle size!

The cowl that I made, following my instructions, was done on size 5.0 mm needles. The finished piece would have fit a baby. Now my friend will say that she is short, and yes she does have a beautiful child like complexion, but she is by no means a child, let alone a baby. She is a wonderful spunky lady, whom I hold very close to my heart for having the privilege of working close with them for quite a few years. I've digressed...

So I pulled about half the cowl out and got the stitches back on the needle. Now knitters, have faith! Pull your needle out and take out work as much as you want, it will only make you a better knitter. When I reinsert my needle I don't care how the stitches are facing, I've knitted enough stitches to know how untwisted knit stitches look on my needle and how I need to insert my needle to correct the misplacement.

I needed to do some re figuring with my pattern if I wanted it to come out with this yarn, on these needles, and in this gauge. This time around my gauge is 11 stitches to 3 inches. My hypothesis for the original is that it was on a gauge of 2.5 stitches to the inch.

Here is what some of you have been waiting for:

The Handkerchief Cowl Instructions:

Choose your yarn and make a swatch. You'll need about 160m/176yds of yarn for this project. For this time around try and get something relatively close to the 11 stitches to 3 inches gauge. This is going to be a bit of a mystery knit-a-long so to speak for those of you willing to partake. However, for those of you less comfortable, a real pattern will be coming very shortly.

Once you have your yarn and needles set for the gauge begin by casting on 2 stitches, then knit those two stitches. Now, slip the first stitch purlwise, M1 (make one by hanging a backwards loop on your need to increase a stitch) and knit the last stitch; there are now three stitches. Generally, I slip the first stitch purlwise of every row, so I'm encouraging you to do so on this project; doing so gives you a very nice edge. Next row Sl 1, M1, K1, M1, K1, turn and knit those 5 stitches. Continue making this garter stitch edging until there are 9 stitches. After you have done your M1 row, turn and K4, P1, K4.
Now we have created a little triangle of 9 stitches, 4 garter stitches on either side of one stockinette stitch.
Next row: K4, yo, K1, yo, K4. turn K4, P3, K4. This is the basic principle of the cowl body: K4, yo, Knit to last four stitches, yo K4. Turn, K4, Purl to last four stitches, K4. Now continue this until there are 67 stitches between the garter stitch borders.
The next step to come!

Topics to look forward to:

What do you think about when knitting, or doing some other fiber craft?
Reading your Knitting
Why do you knit?

Wyoming Life: the Beginning

Hello from Wyoming!
After a few days of acclimation to the elevation here in Laramie, Wyoming, I am beginning to settle.
I come from Buffalo, New York; I've traveled a little and dreamed of seeing a lot. Thanks to my wonderful partner, Joe, I'm seeing (and living) in the West. Joe is working here and invited me to join him, which I have.
The drive out here, in our little car, was long (a good 22 hours to be exact). I remember the first part not being too exciting, but after I woke from my first, or second nap, we were on the other side of Ohio. That part of the drive didn't seem too much different from Buffalo. Then night fell.
We continued driving, past the Ohio border and into, what it seemed to me, to be the great wilderness and the frightening unknown.
I remember driving over the Mississippi River. It was at night so the view wasn't much, but the feeling that I have never been this far west in my life left me feeling new. I can't say as though it was a southern style baptism in the Mississippi, but it was something. We didn't stop, we kept going.
Night continued to grow, and so did the sky. At some point we switched driving and it was my turn. Just for the record, we switched off driving and napping (or attempting to nap) every 4 to 5 hours. It was in Iowa that I remember looking out the car window and realizing the sky was enormous, omnipresent, and dark, but filled with more stars than I had ever seen in my whole life. That was just the first of many scenes that my iPhone just couldn't capture with justice.
Finally we switched again. We both had to go to the bathroom and get caffeine and the car need gas, so we stopped at this little gas station off the side of the road somewhere in Nebraska. I had never felt air like that before; it was cold and crisp, yet fresh and revitalizing. Once we got and did what we needed back in the car we went and on we continued.
Daylight was coming up behind us and the world was turning into something I had never seen before, desert and plains. Cows kept appearing and empty corn fields were their feeding grounds. After a near disaster with a deer and some other cars we began to really climb elevation. The earth began to get grass covered hills, and then rock formations began to come up out of them, and from there I thought the mountains began.
It wasn't until we got close to the Wyoming border that the rock formations I has seen were little more than that and that the earth was hiding the mountains behind the clouds in the far distant. And then, ascending from the horizon came the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I had never seen snow capped mountains before. Joe kept snickering at me every time I said "wow" at each truly new wonder I saw.
I was a little nervous when we stopped for gas at a station in Cheyenne. For those of you who know me, let's just say I don't blend in, so I was worried being, basically, dropped into the West. Prior to moving out here I had to reassure my mother, through apprehension of my own, that all would be fine. She, of course, needed to bring up Matthew Shepard. I told her everything would be fine, that things have changed over the past 18 years, however I had a production of The Laramie Project in my mind from college. Success comes from strength, and I knew that if I was strong in my moment of fear that I would be successful.
And now, on the fifth of January I am, nearly, completely settled in Laramie, Wyoming.
Now I'm sure you're wondering where's the fiber talk?
I got a Schacht Sidekick recently. In moving, I knew that space was a concern and the two Ashford wheels that I had were not compact, so goodbye Ashford, which I loved, and hello Schacht, which I'm getting used to. With the Sidekick I got the super fast whorl for lace spinning and for cotton. Yesterday I spent a while spinning cotton samples that I purchased from a friend who was de-stashing. The first that I spun was ginned cotton. Ginned cotton, or cotton lint, is raw cotton from the gin. It has the seed removed and maybe a little vegetable matter removed. I took it to a pair of carders that I have, not the 200 point carders that are advised in the Cotton issue of Ply, but relatively dense ones. This gave me a more rustic thread, with lumps, bumps, and everything in between. In the same picture I also have organic green cotton sliver that I spun as well.

Left to right: Ginned Sea Island Cotton, Organic Green Cotton Sliver. Samples from Cotton Clouds.

Last night, as I'm laying in bed, I think of the snow outside. The snow here in Laramie is nothing like the snow in Buffalo. It's like sand here, or powdered sugar. It's so cold here, and dry, it doesn't melt, it just blows around. Spinning this cotton, and the recent snowfall made me think of knitting, be prepared for some snow inspired knits soon!

Coming up, a very rough draft for a cowl. Feel free to knit it, if you can figure out the directions, and show me what you make! Happy knitting, crocheting, weaving, spinning, Happy hand crafts everyone!

B