Homemade Butter and some Handspun Yarn

For as long as I can remember I have loved to make things from scratch. It is no wonder that I have been drawn to fiber. There is nothing more natural, than taking raw fiber and transforming it into rovings or batts, hand dyeing them, hand spinning them, and then hand knitting them into something new.

Yesterday I did some dyeing. I purchased this 100% Icelandic fiber in natural white from Fence Row Farm. I liked the Cactus Flower colorway I dyed and spun up from the Alpaca Tencel blend, but this time I wanted to see how the colors would look in a dyed roving. I used the same colors, but the blend during steaming created some variation in the colorway and I absolutely love it even more now. I plan to keep dyeing it in roving form to recreate this yarn over and over. I also am in love with navajo plying to keep the colors solid and striping. I have plans to knit some fingerless mitts with this yarn and maybe a matching hat if I have enough fiber.

 2 oz Fiber / 96 yds / 3 ply

This afternoon I made some homemade butter. I absolutely love this butter. It was quick easy, and cheaper than buying butter ready made. I am already dreaming about the herbed butters I am going to make. I just might have to force myself to learn to make bread now.

Ingredients and needed tools:

1 16oz carton of Whipping Cream

1 Quart size canning jar with lid

Sea Salt to taste

A little elbow grease. 

Pour the whipping cream into the quart size jar and make sure the lid is good and tight. Proceed with shaking the jar vigourously until it becomes a thick cream.

Continue to shake the jar and you will notice the cream becoming a lump and liquid will reappear in the jar. This is the liquid separating from the butter. Continue to shake until the lump is the consistency of room temperature butter. It will be creamy but not like whipped topping. It will have more substance to it, and mine became yellow. Depending on the cream you use, some butter may stay white.

Drain out the liquid, add a pinch of sea salt to taste, stir it up, and then put it into your butter molds, or a small dish. Store in the refrigerator. Just like other butters it can become rancid and sour if you leave it out exposed to heat and the elements for too long. I leave small amounts of butter out in a butter dish if I know I will use it up in just a couple days.

This is a great project to do with children. Then they can use their butters on pancakes, toast, or to bake cookies.

Calliope Shawlette

Alpaca/Tencel Hand Dyed Handspun 110 yd skein / 112 yd skein  16 WPI Fingering Weight

When I was dyeing and then spinning this yarn I had no idea what it would become. I am not from the school of thought that relies on the yarn to tell me what it wants to be or how it wants to be spun or even what it wants to be knit into at the end.  I am the designer from start to finish, and the fiber is my medium. I pick the fiber, I choose the colors to dye it, I think about how I want to spin it and what I hope the final result will be. I think no matter how many years I may spin, or how much I plan, there is still a small element of mystery involved in the creation of yarn. Two spinners can take the same roving dyed in the same colorway and create 2 very different yarns, even if they spin the singles in the same manner, the method of plying can greatly alter the finished results. When I chose the colors for this yarn I wasn't sure exactly how they would look together in the end. I had an idea, a vision, but until they were finished I couldn't be certain if I would like the final yarn or not. But I loved it. Within the first few minutes of spinning the single I saw how the colors looked side by side on the bobbin and decided to navajo ply this yarn to maintain the integrity of each individual color.

    

Calliope Pre-Blocking

All the while in the back of my mind, the idea for a simple knit shawlette was churning. This yarn was the right weight, had a soft, fluid hand, and just the right yardage for what I had planned. I wanted something that even a beginning knitter could create, with simple stitches and a soft feminine look. I would hope that the SSK, and S2K1PSSO stitch combinations in a few rows of the lace pattern would not scare off any new knitters. As I tell my own Mother who is a new knitter herself, the more you knit the more you learn. You will never become a lace knitter, or a shawl knitter, if you never put your needles to the yarn and knit some lace.

 The very first triangle lace knit shawl pattern I had ever tried was 198 Yards of Heaven. I found it one day on Ravelry and thought it was the perfect first lace pattern for me. It called for worsted yarn and I had that in abundance. The problem I ran into was that the pattern was designed for those who already had some knowledge of triangle shawl lace knitting and so when I reached the part in the pattern where I had to start the lace repeats I became utterly lost. But I didn't give up. I had been knitting enough that I could recognize knit and purl stitches and some increases and decreases in each row. I called a friend of mine for help, and almost wept over the phone as I ripped back a single row time after time trying to figure out how this repeat was supposed to happen. Finally, it clicked. It was like a big light bulb had lit up my brain and I realized that the first and last stitches in the repeat corresponded with 2 stitches that fell throughout the row, and suddenly I was knitting again. And I have knit that pattern several times since then and it remains one of my favorite patterns. Like many other knitter's that came before me, when confusion set in, I could've have given up in frustration and told myself from that point on that I just couldn't knit lace. But I persevered and ultimately fell in love with lace knitting and hand knit shawls.

And now I have designed my own shawlette, with yarn dyed and spun by my own hands. It is a simple pattern, but you wouldn't know it by the look of the finished shawl. Elegant, feminine, almost lyrical. *sigh*. Can you tell I am a hopeless romantic, totally in love with knitting?

I have named this shawlette Calliope. The name just came to me when I was uploading the photos from my camera. "Yes, you are Calliope" I said as I looked longingly at the blocking shawl, pinned in a delicate flourish to my living room carpet. I can hardly wait to drape it over my shoulders and pin it in place with a pretty little bauble.

I looked up "Calliope" on the web to be sure I spelled it correctly. The dictionary defines it as both a steam organ and as the mythical muse of heroic poetry. How fitting it seems. Knitting is poetry in itself. A story written by the designer and put into motion by the knitter. She places herself in the story, pouring her time, energy, and emotion into every stitch until it is finished. And then what does she do, but share it with someone else. Some people never realize just how much of yourself you give away with each hand knit gift.  That is why we knitters discern carefully between those of our acquaintance who are knitworthy and those who are not.

Calliope's pattern will be finished and available on Ravelry soon as well as in My Etsy Shoppe. I hope you enjoy knitting it as much I have.

Debi :) aka Michiganspinning on Ravelry

Spinning Pretty!

I have resembled a juggler over these past few weeks rather than a spinner, with all the tasks and responsibilities keeping me from my wheel. But as luck would have it, I ended up with a couple days free and caught up on my spinning projects.

First off the wheel was 345yds of a lovely lace weight mohair that I am going to use to knit the Ice Queen beaded cowl/wimple for my Grandmother. I am pairing it with some Czech glass faceted AB beads for some pretty snow and ice sparkle.

Next off the wheel was 122 yards of Heartbreak, a hand dyed Shetland Wool. I still have to measure the WPI for an exact weight. I navajo plied the single and I am pretty sure it is what would be considered a heavy worsted or light bulky yarn.

Then I picked up some fiber I had dyed to spin some striping yarn. I didn't take a picture of the fiber before I spun it up, but I really like the final results so I am planning to recreate this yarn in various colors and fibers.

The following yarns are a blend of 95% Huacaya Alpaca and 5% Tencel. I used 4 ounces of fiber for each yarn and split it into six 1/2 ounce batts and dyed them in a light and dark shade of 3 colors. Then I dyed 1 ounce in a dark color.  Once that was done, I laid out my color sequence and started spinning long stretches of solid color that would later be navajo plied to maintain the individual colors for a striping yarn.

The first yarn was created using shades of pink, yellow, cornflower blue, and brown. I was barely able to get the whole plied skein on the bobbin. It was a tight fit, and I had to wind the last few yards on by hand as I went along.  It is 160 yds of probably a worsted weight. I have to measure the final WPI. I call this one Painted Daisies.

The second yarn was created with shades of green, aqua blue, brick red, and purplish brown. I call it Cactus Flower, because the colors remind me of the southwest and Cactus. Since I had such trouble getting the first skein on the bobbin during plying I split this fiber into 2 ounce batches and spun 2 separate skeins. They're pretty evenly matched at 110 yds and 112 yds each.  I took the photos of this yarn prior to setting the twist so they aren't as relaxed as they will be when they are finished setting.

This last yarn I actually spun up a week or so ago and just hadn't had time to photograph it. I purchased a raw Romney Fleece at a Fiber Festival in Ann Arbor last September. It was a lovely natural silver grey with a hint of brown here and there. This fiber is very low grease, and has been minimally process completely by hand. I hand picked the locks from the fleece and soaked them in a hot bath using my own homemade lavender soap. They weren't very dirty at all so they only needed about 2 full soaks before I laid them out to dry. Once dry, I weighed out 4 ounces and flick carded the individual locks. Then I spun the locks one at a time on my wheel. I filled 2 bobbins, 2 ounces each, and then plied the yarn on my plying spindle. It was too much to ply on the wheel. The finished yarn still has a very small amount of lanolin in it. I love it. It is 348 yds - 2ply. I still need to check the WPI on this one as well for the finished weight.  Later I might try over-dyeing some of this fiber before or after spinning. For now this one will remain in the natural color.

That about does it for show and tell today. I am a little worn out from all the spinning. Navajo plying takes a lot of arm action. You get into a groove after a while, but my fingers, hands, and arm muscles need a little TLC before I spin again.

I am hoping to take my yarns and fiber to the local Farmer's Market to sell this week, but I may put it on my Etsy instead. We'll see.

Happy Spinning!

Coming up in the next blog post - Knitting update, current WIPs - Juneberry Shawl, Swan Shawl, Pine and Ivy Shawl, Ice Queen (CO today), DreamTwister Socks, Simple Socks, Ruffled Scarf, Secret Sweater Knitting.  Whew! That's a lot! No wonder I am so busy :)

Handspun Yarns!

New handspun yarns have been added to the Shoppe!

 Little bits of spinning perfect for small projects or embellishments. 

 Gnomes Paradise

 Heaven

 La La Lemon

Purple Majesty

I am hoping to spin up more yarns for the Shoppe this week, so stay tuned for additional updates. 

Happy Knitting or Crochet :)

Debi

Hand Embroidery in Redwork and Bluework!

Recently I was inspired to do some sketching. This first sample was designed after my morning bible reading in John chapter 6 where Jesus feeds a multitude of five thousand with five barley loaves and two small fishes.

I still have some stitching left on the seeds on top of the loaves of bread and then I need to finish the text. Once that is all done, I will have to figure out what I am going to make with the finished piece.

This one was designed as a Mother's Day gift for my mom. I haven't decided what to make with the finished piece yet. I am thinking maybe a tall skinny pillow with some blue and white fabric to match.

I started out with 2 threads on this one and pulled it out and started again with just 1 thread. I like the look a lot better.  I am working hard to finish this over the weekend so I can pop the finished project in the mail to my mother on Monday.

I might take some time over the weekend to scan the original artwork, clean it up a bit and lay it out in PDF format and list both designs for sale on My Etsy.  I will be sure to post a link when I list them for sale. I have a few more designs in mind and plan to sketch them up over this next week. I'll keep you posted on that as well.