3 Fiber Arts Tools That Changed My Art in 2019

I've been a fiber artist for more than 50 years. Yep, that long. My grandma Augustine taught me to crochet when I was eight, and I've been obsessed since then. In that time I've developed a style that is me, designs I like, and a few that I've published. I've taught classes in places ranging from The Wool Festival at Taos to the Ozark Folk Center State Park. And I have learned so much and moved so far ahead in my craft in 2019. Always keep learning!

Part of it was driven by changes in my body. Treadling a spinning wheel or standing at a loom can wear out your joints. I have a master weaver friend who quit weaving because, as she said, her body could no longer take being part of the machine. But, fiber arts is me, so I started looking at different tools, and that learning has opened up so many doors.

My Spinolution Firefly with the 32 oz
bobbin. Lockspun hand dyed alpaca fleece.

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Spinolution Firefly - The Spinolution Firefly is an electric spinning wheel. I raise our sheep and goats for their wonderful fiber, that I spin into yarn and weave beautiful things. That's my passion. I've been spinning and treadling a spinning wheel daily for more than 20 years. My ankles and hips have joint issues, in part because of spinning. I tried electric spinning wheels off and on since 2006, and didn't like them. I love to spin from the locks, spin raw fleece, spin dyed blends, and spin lots of yarn. The Ashford Country Spinner was one of my very favorite wheels. and I couldn't comfortably treadle it any longer.

At the 2018 Arkansas Craft Guild Christmas Showcase, my dear friend and fiber cohort loaned me her Spinolution Firefly. I spun on it the whole show, and broke it! After desperate panicked calls to their tech support, we learned it was a blown fuse, and learned how to replace it. After that experience, I was sold on their tech support. And Leigh is such a dear friend, that even after that experience, she let me take her Firefly home with me to spin more.

There is a huge learning curve to an electric wheel, it's not something you can just pick up and do, even after 20 years of spinning. But I spun 3 of our homegrown fleeces, one alpaca (first, because that's easiest), one Jacob sheep (also easy), and one kid mohair (still a challenge today, but my favorite fiber) before I returned her wheel to her. Then, with my parents' help, I ordered my own. They are pricey, but for me, it has been worth it. I can spin so much more yarn, so much faster. And I have learned so much already, in just one year with this wheel. My Firefly is a good teacher.

I love spinning yarn. I love dyeing our fleeces into bright colors and blending those to make soft, luscious yarns. I've developed a unique style of yarn that I love making from our fleeces with the Spinolution Firefly. I've sold some of that yarn, but I wanted to make it accessible to people who don't do fiber arts. Of course, people can wear skeins, but that's not a real option for most people. I'm still in the process of designing yarn jewelry, look for that, maybe, in 2020. I tried crocheting scarves, and that seemed to hide the beauty of this yarn, as well as take forever. I tried big needle knitting, and just didn't like doing it. (I don't knit) I tried weaving a scarf on my 24-inch rigid heddle loom, and did a nice one, but the sizing was awkward. But that look I got from the weaving led me to looking at the "silly little starter looms." I love the Ashford products for their durability and versatility. As a weaving teacher, I try to get my students to think about where they want to go with their weaving, and then steer them to the right loom.

Kanger wishes I would spend more
time dog petting than weaving. Low
water immersion dyed/chain plied alpaca
warp, lock spun Nigel's mohair weft.

So, in taking my own advice, I knew I wanted to weave scarves. My tools need to stand up to farm life, demonstrating, teaching, traveling, and lots of use. One consideration is that I travel a good bit, and I take my fiber arts with me. A friend offered to loan me an older style small loom that she had so I could try the size, but that loom was no longer made. So, I jumped right in and bought a ten-inch Ashford SampleIt Loom. 

Sampleit Loom - My yarns are my palette and my passion. I want to share their beauty and comfort with everyone. I want to wrap people in a hug and make them smile every time they look down and see the flash of color draped down their chest. I want people to share my happiness in my fibers. The Sampleit loom lets me do that quickly. In two hours I can go from a naked loom to a scarf ready to hem and fringe. I can go from dyed and dried fiber to a finished scarf in less than 6 hours. That's lightning speed in fiber arts! I wove a scarf a day for a month and I am in love with that little loom!

I hate a naked loom, so, like most weavers, I have the next 2 or 3 projects planned while I'm finishing the one I'm working on. This solid little loom is a work horse, and I continued to weave four scarves a week on it from my handspun and dyed yarns from our critters here on Havencroft Farm.

Speaking of Dyed & Dried...

Spin Dryer - Fiber arts is a craft of lots of tools and tweaks. Many of them you create yourself, many of them exist and you just have to find them. Again, enter my dear friend and amazing fiber artist, Leigh. She is a creative explorer, maker and user of fiber arts tools. Check out her Twining Vine Designs web site here. She's a great teacher and an incredibly talented felter and jeweler. She is also very generous sharing her exploration of fiber arts equipment. When she upgrades equipment, she sometimes offers the prior one to the local fiber artists. So when she had a little spin dryer that need a new home, I thought I'd give it a try.

Scarves and dyed fiber drying in my dye room, aka the back porch.

I wash all my fiber for dyeing and blending. I dye most of my fiber and wash and rinse out all my dyed yarns and fiber. I wet finish all my spun yarns and woven goods. I spend a lot of time hand washing wool, mohair, and alpaca. And it takes forever to dry in the humidity of the Ozarks.

The spin dryer has been amazing. It pulls more water out than you could get out any other way, and in 12 hours I have dry yarn, fibers or scarves. I now can't imagine finishing my fiber arts without one. Thanks again Leigh!

2019 has been an amazing year of learning and growing. Following Focus & Finish has pushed me to find tools and systems to allow me to expand and improve my fiber arts. Now I'm looking forward to building on this base by #PushingBoundaries2020.

Life happens

The last several weeks have been spent weaving, spinning, dyeing, broom and fringe tying. I've been getting up between three and four and weaving for a couple hours before I head into work. Then I weave or spin in the evenings. I wove some awesome shawls and rugs in the last few weeks. 

I do take the occasional "sheep break"!

Shawn and Lena have dyed some beautiful color of broom corn. 

Spinning incredible fine kid mohair. 

This year I managed to weave up every rug fleece that our sheep grew into wonderful Fleecyful wool rugs. 

This shawl is even more beautiful in person. I really wouldn't mind keeping this one. 

I tied so many fringes last week that my fingers are still stiff. 

Shawn and Lena had more beautiful brooms than ever. And Shawn built a stunning show booth that should last for decades, showcase both our products wonderfully and win a good many best booth in show awards. 

We both hit our goals for the amount of product we needed to take to Christmas Showcase, the Little Rock show that provides half our winter income. Everything loaded as planned. Booth, stock and suitcases took less than five hours, a record!

We left on time, running ahead of the predicted winter storm. Two hours into our drive, as we were turning onto highway 67 to Little Rock we got a call that the show was cancelled. Stunned is still the best word to describe how I feel. 

The van is still packed, though we brought the food and suitcases in. Several of us tried to put together shows for next weekend. Leigh Abernathy of Twinning Vine Designs managed to pull together a show for Saturday, December 14 in Heber Springs. I'll post the address on Facebook. 

I'll spend the rest of my time off from work posting the new rugs, shawls and yarns in the etsy store and trying some new promotions. And now that we have this new booth, we will be looking for some more good indoor shows. 

Just goes to show you, no matter how prepared you are, life happens. 

Red mohair

The swirls in the dyepot as the colors blend

Lucious reds in mohair, drying on the porch

I rarely take custom orders or commissions any longer. I stress over them too much. I also tend to work on what I'm enjoying a the moment. Sometimes, I really want to weave rugs on the big loom, other times, I love the fiddly-fuss of weaving shawls and frequently I just want to sit at my wheels and spin (yarn).

But, I tell people, I will take suggestions and inspirations. Then, when they check back with me at Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour, or Christmas Showcase or look in the Common Threads etsy store or visit our Shearing Days Open House, maybe, just maybe, they'll find just what they've been looking for.

During our Shearing Days open house on March 31, someone mentioned that she'd been looking for a quality yarn for a Christmas project. She needed a red and white candy striped yarn. Well, that stuck in my mind. I'm spinning a super soft white lamb's wool fleece (Poncho's) on my Louie Wheel at work and I just sheared a very shiny, if not quite the softest white mohair from Tillie. Hmm, dye that red, spin the yarns, ply the two textures... gotta try it.

So, I cranked up the dyepot yesterday and did several versions of red, ranging from bright red-red to purpley-pink. Give it a few days to dry and I'll be spinning the red at home. In the meantime, I've just finished Lefty's lamb's wool fleece into 4 skeins of nice two ply Jacob wool yarn and I've started spinning Fritillary's divine cloudy mohair. It must be a Spring for spinning.

Gobi yarn

Every once in a while there is a fleece that I just cannot wait to play with. As soon as we are done shearing it, that fleece goes right next to my spinning wheel and I hurry to get any other yarns off the bobbins.

Funny little Gobi. She's really not as thin as she looks in
this picture, she was just tucked up from being sheared.

This year Gobi's fleece was that special. Gobi is Boo's little ewe lamb, born last July. She's twin to Rambo, who sold to a new home on Saturday. She's a funny looking little thing, halfway between a lamb and a yearling. Because she was born at such a strange time, she didn't have any "classmates" to play with, so she never really learned all the sheepie games.

Gobi yarn on the bobbin

But I've always loved her coloring, I have a special fondness for the darker fleeces. My friend Mickie Ramirez, whose Broken O Ranch is in Fort Collins, Colorado, always knew she could call me when she had an especially dark lamb that needed a new flock. Two of our foundation sires, Caruso and Hotpants came from her flock. Mickie makes the most fantastic hats from her jacob fleeces.

Back to Gobi, so far, I've spun two 100 yard skeins of yarn from her fleece and they've washed up as soft and wonderous as I thought they would. I have at least enough fleece to spin another two. So, this little (about 35 lbs.), funny, off-season lamb grew almost enough wool in half a year to make a shawl. I'll only need to add one skein of some one else's wool to that shawl... perhaps her brother's? Or maybe a mohair highlight yarn. What color(s) would look good with this black and white yarn?

Passing it on

Today was the dyeing day segment of my three-day sheep to shawl class. We start with spinning and shearing and fiber types and more spinning.

Having great fun with COLORS!

Then on the second day we teach spinning and dyeing (with acid dyes, koolaid and natural dyes) and spinning and carding and more spinning and fiber blending and finish up with spinning.

Tomorrow we'll start with spinning, then weaving on the triangle loom and we'll finish up with some spinning. It's my hope that every student in the class has a great time and is at the very least comfortable with the drop spindle when they finish class.

Several of my students weren't able to make this class due to health issues, but the ones who are here are having a great time. Lena is team teaching with me and that's helping me to keep up with class and a bit of work at the same time.

Teaching classes is one way I enjoy passing on my love of fiber arts and fiber animals. This winter, I had another opportunity to share that passion with a young person. Kolt is the son of our assistant superintendent at the Ozark Folk Center. He really seems to enjoy helping us do chores - everything from hauling hay to worming, trimming feet and shearing. With his parents approval and understanding of the work it was going to mean for them, I gave Kolt his choice of two wether goats or sheep for Christmas. He decided his preference is for the sheep. He gets to pick the two he wants during this lambing season.

Kolt finally has a lamb!

You know how the fates seem to have a perverse sense of humor sometimes? Well, here we are, half-way through lambing and every baby born has been a girl. Until Franny's twins. Finally Kolt has his first lamb! And Demi, Cowslip and Basil are due this week, so he might finally get a pick of some lambs. I'll let you know what he names his choices.

The Louie, a modern mystery

There is very little that you can't google up any more. Research tasks that used to take weeks are now fulfilled at the click of a mouse. So it is surprising when you find something that you cannot find information about.

This summer we were lucky enough to purchase several lots of unique spinning wheels, looms and other fiber arts equipment. There were many beautiful antique pieces. Most of them I could research on the web and include all the information with the item. But one of the most beautiful, has also been one of the most elusive.

This spinning wheel is stamped on the bottom with the maker's name, Louie Golob, the date, 1986, the number, #62 and the maker's address.

I googled Louie Golob and found a nice article about his history and how he started making wheels. I sent a note to the address and got back a copy of the article that is on the web.

I am still trying to find more information on this wheel. I am getting quite fond of it. The wheel is a joy to spin on, I am currently spinning lace weight corridale/angora blended on it into a wonderful, fine, soft yarn. But I do want to know more about it, and it's maker. I am posting queries to several of the online groups I belong to.... do you have a Louie - or know anything about them?