Fall Spinning

As hot as the summers are here in southern New Mexico it is hard not to get excited about the cooler days. The sunlight seems to have a clear crisp quality and the temptation to take the spinning wheel outside is great.
The colors of the season are finding their way into the dyepots and batts.....

There are new skeins appearing over in the etsy shop here

.My faithful spinning dog keeps me company while I work - it helps that the a/c hits the place where she lays as close to the spinning wheel as possible......

Wherever you live I hope you are able to enjoy these cooler days and do what you love.

Almost Autumn

The Autumnal Equinox is just around the corner and it got me to thinking about my favorite colors this time of year. Oranges and greens with just a bit of frost - like flowers in the garden, pumpkins and cooler mornings. So I made up a couple of batts  and did some corespinning on the Ashford.

One reason I love to make batts is that you can combine opposite colors on the color wheel and create some wonderful optical blending. This is some of my hand dyed merino corriedale mixed with sari silk waste, crystal mylar and some lovely champagne colored Border Leicester locks. On the wheel it looked like this:

The finished skein came in at 10.2 ounces and 160 yards.

Available over in the etsy store. I'll be posting new fall yarns in the next week.

Why Handmade Matters

While selling and buying on Etsy this year I’ve noticed that a lot of the shops send Thank You notes with Handmade Matters written on it. This got me to thinking about why handmade should matter so much in our world of mass produced items.  There is the easy answer that things made individually by hand carry the intention and energy of the maker in them. They are often made with greater care than things made by machine in a foreign land. We like the idea that something is made by someone we know or have met or at least read about online. 

I think there is another good reason why handmade matters and that is that making things by hand empowers individuals, both the buyer and the seller. It also empowers those who just watch. Every Saturday I spin yarn at the local Farmer’s Market. I sit in my booth surrounded by hand spun and mill spun yarn and cloth and talk to people (as many adults as children) about how I make yarn and why.  Before I began to take my wheel to the market I had trouble convincing people that I made the yarn. They were skeptical and I understand why – it is not something you see done on every corner. Those days when every household had a loom and spinning wheel are so far in the past that now we just read about them (or watch Youtube about them). People sometimes ask me why I would make something that is easier to just buy at the big box store.  One reason I started spinning at the market was so I would not feel like my time there was wasted, I usually go home with at least one new skein. Another reason is that I think it is important for people to see how a thing is made. Once you see the process you are more likely to try it for yourself.  I also think handmade things are inherently more interesting than mass produced.

This is the important part about Handmade Matters – If you can do it yourself it Empowers you to do things in your world. If you have skills you are not at the mercy of other people. You don’t have to buy what they think you should, you can make what you actually need and want. Making things builds self-worth. Knowledge shared is power at a grass roots level. Never underestimate the power of a grass roots movement; the Indians took back India from the most powerful country in the world – Great Britain through the grass roots movement of spinning yarn. It was cotton and Gandhi got everyone making their own. He empowered the people by reminding them that they had the skills to make do in life. 

Handwork

Handwork tends to be done in my house at the ends of the day. In the early morning gray before the sun is up and the computer is on I tend to pick up what I'm working on and stitch and think. This morning as I sat with the bunny, cat and dog I thought about all the other stitchers out there in the world quietly having a first cup of coffee or tea and enjoying the quiet before the rest of the household wakes up. We follow the stream of  spirit that tells us where that next stitch should go and what should be added to this project or that. We form a community of (mostly) women who still stitch and make things by hand honoring the materials we work with and the process that brings the final piece to completion. In some subliminal way we are all stitching the world whole again after the tears that life inflicts. Handwork does that. It is the attention to detail and small effort that makes something special that carries a small amount of the energy of the maker within it. It is why old textiles are so compelling and why new ones make you want to know more. I am taking classes right now with Jude Hill of Spiritcloth (see the link in the blog list to the side) and so have been thinking more about the importance of work we do by hand. In this world where perception is stood on it's head (corporations are real entities) we need a slow work movement. Let's call it Authentic Work. It would be like the Slow Food movement but with the work your soul says you need to do. In that early morning stillness when you can't get that idea for your true passion out of your head - that is the clue to your Authentic Work. In this time of business deflation where jobs are scarce and underemployment is the norm, Authentic Work is more important than ever. You are blessed indeed if you can find a way to make the calling of your soul into your vocation and earn some small amount of money with that to help offset these hard times.

This beautiful yellow came out of the dyepots yesterday. The fabric is kona and is part of the new offering of quilt fabric. I'm thinking some of it needs to be part of all this indigo I've been dyeing with lately, maybe in the form of a sun or star.

Whatever hand work you do in this world I hope today you find a way to celebrate it - to know in your heart that it is an important and good thing in this world. You are not alone. You are part of a community of stitchers out here in the world who are making a map of spirit with our needles and thread, leaving a trail for others.

Something Secret-Something Free

We've been working on a new project......it's been a secret until now. We will soon launch a line of hand dyed quilting fabric! The fat quarters will be available at the Farmer's Market and from the studio by appointment. The something free is that to help introduce our new fabric line we will be giving away samples with a purchase of any of our products.

Eco Printing

Last week before we headed off to the Southwest Spinners Retreat, my cohort in crime - Betty and I did some dyeing with leaves from our yards, iron pipe and coffee grounds. We used silk and cotton muslin to make our bundles a la India Fint in her wonderful books, Ecocolor and Second Skin. See India's blog link in the blogs listed on the right. Everything she does is an inspiration. This time Betty and I mordanted our cloth with soy milk instead of alum and cream of tarter. Glenna Dean in the Turkey Red Journal also recommends this mordant to keep indigo from crocking (that is another story). So far soy milk is my mordant of choice although it does not keep well after the first day's use. I found that overnight it spoiled and tended  to separate in the bucket. However, since nothing toxic was added to it I put it in with the rest of the compost and recycled it. We steamed our bundles for about an hour and then left them for a couple of days. When we met up for the retreat in the mtns, we unrolled them and had a good look.

 The eucalyptus gave the nice orange color on silk and the black is from the iron pipe.

 Fig leaves and indigo fresh from the yard gave much lighter impressions and the idigo was only blue when there was no iron near it.

The wonderful Betty who is like a guardian angel to me. She and her husband Gary helped me load and unload, set up for class and kept an eye on my table when I needed to get away. They even followed me home to make sure my truck made it up the last hill. Thank you Betty and Gary. 

The retreat was a great experience. Lots of wonderful spinners and people who wanted to learn to spin. It was such a treat to get out of the heat and see green trees. It even rained on Friday up in the Sacramento mtns. We were at the Methodist Assembly Camp in Sacramento NM. 

Ice Dyeing

One day last week those nice people over at Dharma Trading where I buy my dyes send me an email with a link in it to Ice Dyeing. It seemed like such a fun idea that I decided to give it a try. You need an item to dye that uses Fiber Reactive Dyes, like cotton or rayon and some soda ash as well as some powdered dye. All are available from Dharma on their website. I did this in my sink in the dye kitchen because it could sit overnight without being disturbed. You can also use a tub or bucket - something to hold the ice as it melts.

New sink in the dye kitchen where this process takes place. Soak the item in soda ash and warm water for half an hour before you begin.

Spread the item to be dyed out in the bottom of the sink . What you can't see in this picture is the rack (a cookie rack - for cooling cookies) underneath. That keeps the fabric just above the melted dyes.

Put ice on top of the cloth - completely cover it in ice. 

 Sprinkle dry dye powder directly on the ice. I started with terra cotta and then bronze and then imperial purple. These are all Dharma Brand Fiber Reactive Dyes.

 It looks like this when the ice starts to melt.

 This is after the ice has melted. It is hard not to want to mess with it and pick it up to see what its doing underneath. Wait 24 hours and then wash it. Mine is a peasant blouse in rayon that looks like this after being washed in synthrapol and hung to dry. It makes the boho-hippie chick in my heart happy....