Hello, my friends! Today I wanted to just take the time to go down a rabbit hole for a minute. I feel at this moment like I am in a liminal space with my career. I finished my bachelors in agriculture a few years ago, started out my journey with farmers markets, and tested out and explored my passion with my content-creation and writing skills. But a few weeks ago I have noticed that things are really changing. I’m feeling grown-out of my original iteration of my business. I’ve tested things and retested them and seen the results. I’ve had time to observe what others do, how they do it, and even been able to ask many of these people their advice. I’m feeling, right now, that change is coming, and although I am hesitant and anxious about it, it’s also a good anxiousness, an anticipation of adventure in newness.
I’m trying to take time to listen to my heart and map out what I imagine and dream of for my life, and how to get there. Planning and planning and thinking and doing. And enjoying along the way. Last Friday I had the opportunity to go to a KY First Farms workshop put on by the UKY extension service of Bullitt Co. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but they sent ahead an exciting agenda with seminars like agroforestry and beekeeping on it, as well as the more down and dirty legal sides and planning sides of setting up a business. I arrived at the extension to a bright group of people who were genuinely thrilled to be there and share what has been successful to them. There were a lot more participants than I thought there would be because the program was a free offering, but there were a lot of participants, a wide panel of speakers (who were all very inviting and gladly talked with us and answered extra questions), a great selection of mostly directly-useful information handouts, and not to mention biscuits and sausage gravy and Panera lunches. I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of these “getting started” events and programs, but I really do think there’s a lot of value in constantly starting over, constantly racking through the basics to make absolute sure that my foundation is right. Right based on how I wasn’t to to be, what my heart is feeling currently, how the climate and weather and topography dictate the land and farmstead be organized and cared for. I feel like keeping going over the basics is giving me the courage to “start before I can start”… before I actually start building a farm to build a homestead practice and business. I can’t have sheep now, but what CAN I do now with actually working with KY sheep and wool? My question now is: how can I streamline? How can I simplify? How can I narrow down what I’m doing and focus on my zone of genius? I felt like I had a plan on narrowing my work down, really focusing my efforts, but then I sit down and really dream about what I really really want to do. Not just what I want to do with my career, but what I want to make sure I do in life. I really want to have a successful market garden, I really do. But I also really want to wash wool, spin yarn, dye it, sell it. But you know, I hear my momma saying to me, “you can do it all. Just not all at once.” And as Billy Joel says, Vienna waits for you. So I’m going to practice imagining the long haul and trying to streamline for success before expanding. I have time. Thank you all for supporting me through your viewership and patronage! I am going to close commissions for the year next week as I am starting to be slammed with holiday and end of year surprises and gifts. So get your spot before I close! Blessings, blessings!
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The Southern Roots Alpaca Project: Phase 1 Results
Hi All! I wanted to go ahead and announce my newest project, the Southern Roots Alpaca Project, a partnership between me and my cousin Angel Rockwood. She runs a farm/animal rescue, her Ark, in Lower Alabama, where my Bobbie’s mother, Other Mama, and her daddy lived and raised their family, and our roots have spread from there. Bobbie moved to Atlanta, then with Granddaddy Longlegs to Jax Beach. Momma bopped all around Florida and Georgia but eventually our little family moved to my Dad’s family home place in Louisville, KY. We’re from all over the south, we are southerners. When Angel heard that I am a fiber artist and I can work with raw fiber, she was thrilled to have someone who could use the alpaca fiber she’d been saving. She mailed me a great big box stuffed, stuffed, stuffed with the most lovely, luscious, cream-colored fiber. Oh my gosh! I spun some up right away, it was meant for spinning! And it made absolutely gorgeous yarn. As the first phase in the project, I did two yarns. The first was a blend of the alpaca combed with some angora from the bunny project I did a few years ago. I spun the blend on my drop spindle, and entered it in the Kentucky State Fair. It won an Honorable Mention ribbon! The second yarn I spun was also spindle spun, and when I entered both in the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair contest later in the year, the alpaca won an honorable mention and the alpaca and angora blend won a third place ribbon. I mailed these first yarns back to Angel so she could enjoy them and our little victories, and show the Alpaca’s hard work in her agrotourism education. In the next phase of this project, I will be washing, blending, spinning, and knitting more yarns into some sweet little accessories to test out what breed blends we like for which purposes, and how they look dyed. Please stay tuned and enjoy the stories and pictures, and I’ll post here when I do a YouTube video hilighting this process. Blessings! Romney
This was by far my most fun spin of my wool of the week series so far. It also made me the happiest with the results, and when I was considering which colour would look good to dye it, I couldn’t see any other way than to keep it naturally undyed. All of the other wools I have worked with in this project have been white, but this Romney breed wool was a beautiful, mild grey/warm silver. It had a long staple (length of the individual fibres, and was relatively coarser to me (having just worked with merino. The micron count of my meting was far lower (finer) than the Romney—which is actually a fine longwool). The Romney breed is one of those resilient breeds well adapted in their evolvution in their original homeland, well-drained salt marshes in England. I had to look up how much they weigh (it just wasn’t listed in the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook easily locatable) and it seems depending on ram or ewe that they range between 150-225 lbs, making them a medium to small sheep breed build. I was curious as the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook does list their average fleece weights between 8-12 lbs. I thought, well, gee, that’s kind of small relative to what I have been working with, those breeds’ average fleece weights. So perhaps this WOULD be a really good consideration of a breed for my area of the country (mud country) and my processing limit as a very small wool processor, starting out. I do have to say, if the breed specs haven’t fought my eye as s farmer yet, the fiber has caught my eye as a spinner, and seeing the finished yarn made me pull it to my face, smell it, squish it, and admire it with inspiring dreams bubbling up in my brain. Ooooo could I pair it with Gotland breed wool for a grey sleek sweater outfit??? Amongst other dreams. I really loved working with this fiber. The lanolin natural grease was low and easy to cut down in the wash, the fibers didn’t hold a lot of dirt or VM. The crimp was lovely and the locks weren’t hard or felted. It combed well and puffed up and held together beautiful in my combed top sweet rolls. I love the look of a worsted-spun yarn. It spun effortlessly and strongly, and ended up looking like a classic worsted spin. I can’t wait to knit with it! Current joys
For this month, I have decided to write down my little joys, moments of magic, and gratitude and blessings. One of those that I’ve been meaning to talk about here is my Inkle woven bands. The type of loom is called an Inkle loom, and it weaves pretty long straps, depending on how big the loom is. I took a class at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair on this type of weaving, which included a mini loom and a lesson on how to get it started and what to use the bands for. Writing that, it feels relatively reasonable to say, “well, why would you make them if you don’t know what they were for?” Okay, so #1– I do know a few ways to use them, #2– people alllll the time make things just because they like them. That’s my main consideration now when I make things. I’ve completed 180 projects so far this year. If I created all of those with no purpose, that would not really be a useful use of my time. While some of my projects are multiple completed parts of the same ultimate project, it’s a lot of projects. Some I give away, and that’s another thing to consider; if you give people presents, what are they going to do with said present? Some times, it’s definitely reasonable and wonderful to make things for which their purpose will be beauty and pleasure. But I think, after much meditation and personal experience, too much STUFF of beauty and pleasure is just, when it comes down to it, too much STUFF… So the reason I create this much is for many reasons. I sell it, I gift it, I donate it, and I use it as my daily wardrobe and personal household use. And I was thrilled to be able to put these Inkle bands to use, as they can replace a lot of commercially store-bought items such as backpack straps, purse straps, shoelaces, hat bands, suspenders, sandal straps, Christmas ribbons, hair ribbons. A really wide one can make a pouch. And I’m REALLY excited to make camera straps and dog and cat collars with them. So, they are one of the most useful things I can create. Already I have had five commissions for hat bands, guitar straps, and bag straps. I’ve even been able to squeeze in some present bands and a hair ribbon for myself into my schedule (I have MANY irons in my personal fire 😂). Which, come to think of it, I really should get back to my other work. I have some wool to process! Anyhow, orders for commissions are open and I’ll start listing finished available products in January. Blessings! Targhee
This week, the wool breed I am highlighting is Targhee. All of the sheep breeds I have covered in my Wool of the Week series so far have been older breeds—consider last week’s merino from the 1200’s, consider even the Gulf Coast Native, which evolved circa the 1500’s-1600’s. The Targhee breed did of course come from older sheep breeds—Rambouillet, Lincoln, Corriedale, but it was actually cross-bred and developed in 1926 in Idaho by the USDA (Robson and Ekarius, 307). The breed is dual purpose (raised for meat and wool) and I thought it was really cool to be working with what I would consider a very American wool. I thought the raw wool had a beautiful crimp to it, not like super super crimpy, but enough that it was unquestionable. The wool was (as it sits) my favorite I have spun in this series. It slipped from my fingers near-effortlessly, catching on itself just enough. I was happy with the evenness of twist, even if I didn’t have the most consistent diameter. I dyed it with the merino from last week in a purple dyebath. And the same as the merino, there were areas that didn’t have total absorption of the dye—or rather, it absorbed all there was and I should’ve added more dye… but the fiber I dyed with it was even and vivid, and stayed that way spun-up. I spun the bit of dyed wool on my great wheel, which I needed to park and draft in order to keep the drive band on—even though I carded the wool into rolags. Again, could possibly be my rolag technique but I don’t really know… I do have to say that I’m very happy with it and would definitely look into buying more raw Targhee wool—which is more than I can say for the merino… I would rather purchase that because the commercially available options for that breed are popular and material-relatively inexpensive. The Targhee wasn’t a hassle to get clean, prep was easy, it dized well and made the perfect little sweet rolls for spinning. The finished yarn looked clean and elegant, and made me feel much better about my skill set than last week’s spin. It’s all a learning process though! Thank you for reading this week and I hope you enjoy s but if a transition to weekly updates with this series on my website! I am still on my social media break, and it is treating me well. Hope all my readers are well, blessings! NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month
Every November, the writing community at large puts on a big, virtual as well as in-person event (all over the world.) The goal is to write a novel, at least 50,000 words, during the 30 days of November. People do it for fun, people do it seriously, people do it to prompt their creativity, and others still do it for professional work. The overall point being, write. Write whatever, for any reason. Just take part in the ancient, sacred action of story telling. When I was younger I always thought of myself as a writer—nothing ever came of it, but that identity has remained a part of me always. And every November I start to feel the creative urge with this global creative surge towards creating. Will it happen this year??? Visions of haikus dancing through my head… Well, I can say I’ve printed out and am filling out the Heart Breathings Plot Your Novel and Preptober 2023 workbooks. I’m still in the plotting and planning and prestige phase. But I’m setting up a routine. I have my writing buddy, I have my reward stickers 😂 I can do this hard thing. And so can you! Radically create!! Create with all your life force, for that is your true purpose,m. Create art, create care, create solutions, create peace, create safety, create love. Merino
I always start out my research of a sheep or fiber animal breed in my Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, in the index. I like to see what all information will be available about the breed, and how spread out in the book the information will be. I was bracing myself for a flood of information for this weeks breed, as it is one of the most popular wools in the commercial wool clothing sphere. The wool of the week sheep breed this week is Merino. In the index, I was surprised to see that merino is related to Rambouillet wool (from a flock of Spanish merino sheep that Louis XVI brought to his French estate, Rambouillet.) I have spun this breed before! Well, I have also spun a lot of merino before, but something about it seems less special to me, probably in my thinking that it’s just the most popular. A less popular wool would be more special to me. The Rambouillet I spun was, while being an irresistible color gradient, unsatisfactorily neppy. Neppes are little balls of short fiber that don’t turn into yarn, but stick to the finished yarn—which can be a design choice. It just won’t be a smooth yarn… which was what I had been hoping for. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook notes that this can happen with larger tine or larger tooth carding (Robson and Ekarius, 148-149). But back to the Merino index The merino breed came in the 1100’s and 1200’s from crosses of the best Royal Spanish sheep and these rams from the African Beni-Merines Berber tribe (Robson and Ekarius, 135). Merino is known for being one of the finer wools of the world in the overall fiber thickness and micron count. The lower the micron count, the smaller and fiber the individual fibers. This matters to the everyday consumer based on what they like texture-wise against their skin. Merino has a lot of times, the phrase “next-to-skin softness” associated with it. Popular brands like Wool & use this for everyday wear; a lot of companies use it for underwear and under layers. Outdoors outfitters use it for base layers, socks, as well as thick outerwear. This sentence is for the person who knows nothing about wool (about all wools): wool is a natural fiber that wicks sweat, insulates, protects from small water droplets as an outer layer, and is warm when wet: choose to wear wool. Merino is the most popular commercially available wool, so I feel like this is an appropriate time to announce that. And not only those great qualities, but wool lasts, and when it, maybe in a generation wears out, it can be composted a lot of the time. Jumping to My Experience Processing Merino: I started out my process after inspection of the wool by setting it in a less hot wash, in hopes to not felt. Mistakes were made! The fleece and fiber sourcebook says that you should actually wash this wool in very hot water, not let it cool (and to avoid felting by not agitating the wool any.) Knowing this helps me understand possibly more of what went wrong with this practical breed study. Sadly, by using less hot water to wash my wool, I did not dissolve or melt as much of the lanolin that I could have, and the grease remained in the wool, along with it, making the crushed Vegetable Material (VM) stick to the wool when spinning. Sadness was had. Not like tragic sadness, but just a lost opportunity. My wool didnt comb well, didn’t diz well, didn’t spin as well even though I thought it was beautiful, and I thought my end product looked visibly dirty. I think my spinning is getting better so I’m just going to hold onto that knowledge for future washes. I dyed it in a purple dye-bath with some Targhee fiber and yarn, as well as a mini skein of a single ply of the merino. It didn’t take up the dye very well but I’m not sure why, the Targhee didn’t either (I’m thinking it wasn’t enough dye powder) and they ended up different tones. The Merino was lighter. If you are a fiber artist, and know what happened here, please explain in the comments. Much appreciated. I hope you enjoyed my Merino breed study in this edition of Wool of the Week. Please explore my other blogs in the series and on other topics related to homesteading and fiber arts. On the morning of October 31st 2023, we in Louisville, KY experienced our first hard frost of the season. How fitting ☺️ so, to fit in even more, I thought I’d make some sweaters!
Sweaters are one thing in knitting that has been rather more than just daunting. When I started knitting, I set Intentions--clear intentions to not even worry about sweaters. I just wasn’t going to ever do one, I decided. So that immediately eliminated my worry about all things sweater from the get go. Jumping to today, I’ve been knitting on knitting needles for five years solid. Things have definitely changed. Personally, I have never been one to buy clothes regularly. I have clothes, they fit okay, whatever. This has been really emotionally taxing on my journey as a woman in a changing body in an unhealthy world. With lifestyle, life (in general), and diet changes, came size changes. I went from 11 years of staring at my anorexic body in a mirror for multiple hours a day, exercising 40+ hours a week and a restrictive militant vegan diet, to a period of being lost and being in limbo for 5 years. My size changed, my diet…. Hmmm… yeah…., my values changed. It took me multiple years to realize after 70 lbs, 80 lbs— my clothes didn’t fit. Most distressing was that my child large Dale of Norway Christmas sweater I scored at goodwill no longer fit. Tragedy! (With everybody else’s problems in this world.) But to me this was a tragedy. This was a loss of self. This year has been a year of great leaps for me. I don’t fit into my Dale of Norway, nor am I close to it. But it’s okay because the community I never realized I would find from knitting and fiber arts has pushed me to believe I can make a sweater. I will have a more special Christmas sweater, and it will be made for me, by me, with every stitch a meditation of how far I’ve come, with every stitch a protest to the meaningless fast fashion industry, with every stitch a proclamation of my values (and high among them, self love.) This sweater is the journey I never knew I would take. It is long awaited now. I am prepared. I an more than prepared. I took a class, made two baby mock ups, made a baby version, started another baby version, got started hastily on my own, got real and…yes, frogged. Now I’ve found all the right supplies. I’m ready. I’ll update you!! Happy November, friends!
I wanted to take a minute to let my social media followers know I will be taking a re-centering break from Facebook and Instagram for the month of November. I will take this time to focus on my blog and YouTube as I shift the vibe of my small business towards more of my passionate values—being wool-focused, and marketing more of my fiber arts educational opportunities (free online information and paid in-person classes.) I hope this will allow me to focus my zone of speciality, and do what I do better. Don’t worry, there will still be chicken hats! My most beloved products will remain, and the rest will be focused towards wool. This was a jam-packed month. I started off my month with a big flamenco dance event, flamenco has been one of my passions for 15 years now, but I’m heading into a time-crunch season where my focus needs to be elsewhere, so this was just a really beautiful time for me to savor before my break. The next week I had an action-packed time getting ready for the fall festival I was vending at, and seemingly right after that, my mom and I were off on our way to the SAFF fiber festival. There, I attended four classes, shopped, networked, and picked up my Great Wheel spinning wheel a friend had been holding for me for a few months. It all fit into the car and we made it back home, and had a much more calm week back at home. I did a lot of crafting this month, with getting ready for the fall festival (I also did quite a lot of baking 😊). Then I had a wild hare to wash as much raw wool and process it as I could before the festival, just to get a handle on it before I picked up my big wheel. I filmed a lot of content for my wool of the week project. Each week I walk through processing a different breed of sheep’s wool from raw wool to a finished yarn. At the end of the series, I will knit a sweater with all of the handspun, hand dyed yarn. I worked on several personal projects in October including my fall “Close to You” shawlette, and my “vanilla” Earthies socks. Additionally, I got in on some Preptober action for NaNoWriMo (National novel writing month). Along those lines, I not only planned for my November novel, but I also did some planning for my next feature project on my blog and YouTube, The Southern Roots Alpaca Project with my cousin, Angel Rockwood and her farm, Rockwood Farm, LLC. This is a collaboration of farming and fiber arts across southern states. The first phase of this project was when Angel sent me raw alpaca fiber. After initial testing and familiarization of the fibers, I created the finished products, educational examples of drop spindle hand spun yarns, which all won a ribbon at each festival they went to. The second phase will consist of blend studies and knitwear tests with spinning wheel spun yarn. So we hope you will join us for that. In preparation for the holiday season, things always seem to intensify. But that can be hard on us. For this month I want to have special focuses on presence, gratitude, care, listening and communication, and radical joy. If you can feel joy today, you must. Feel it for others, deeply and truly. Blessings. Please enjoy my video of our yearly trip to the fiber festival! It is the highlight of fall for my family—I have been going since 2018 and have shared my love for the festival with family and friends from around the country, as well as made new friends. Every year I learn so much, and get so inspired. I hope to share that with you, so thank you for watching! |
Quilt Update!
IronweedDisco Chicken of Love
sTate fair ready!seed starting 2019ky state fair quiltWHOTH Embroideryseashell casTleswhoth blanketedible goodnessAuthorA sustainability major at U of L, beginning farmer, crafter, and writer. Archives
April 2024
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