Whales! And School! And Dyeing

I spent a couple of weeks in Belgium and Holland, and bought some Danish yarn in Amsterdam and Stephen and Penelope's: a sweaters quantity of a lovely heathered silk and a shoulder shawl's quantity of wool and nettle sock yarn. They have a lovely selection of stuff-I-can't-get-in-my-LYS and some actual wool from local sheep!!! Beautiful store, friendly people inside, and a hip neighborhood.  I could go on about the cycle node system in these two countries... Absolutely brilliant... but... Fiber...

I finished two of the eight napkins on the loom; the tie ups change between some of the napkins. In the case of napkin #3, it's just the treadling. So I'm ready to start but haven't yet; the room is a bit messy and it's putting me off. So I'll save that for next time.

I've been spinning the wool I dyed and carded... It's coming out a bit rustic, which is okay; my plan is to weave with it and then felt it a bit. I've spun up the fun colored bits on the new Louet and now have a pile of light brown wool to go. Tuesday I drifted to the coast with my wheel, and found a bench at Pescadero Beach, where I sat and spun for a few hours; the weather was perfect, a little overcast but warm and the local or visiting whale population entertained me by blowing and breaching right off shore. It was MAGICAL.  A mom came by with two small children; I showed them how it worked. The little boy wanted to know how the wool got purple, since sheep aren't that color!

Last night I got over my bad self and threaded up some cards; this morning, wove a band. There isn't enough contrast for it to be interesting, but it's better than other things I've woven. I started leaving a loop every pick, then pulling the loop in tight to the selvedge after rotating the cards... G had mentioned some people do it that way. My selvedges look much nicer. It turns out my issue with cardweaving is that I hate doing samples, and until I get some level of expertise, it's all samples. I think this yard long band will mark the transition to doing things "for-reals". I'm going to use it to decorate one of my little holding bags... See how nice it looks with a wood background?

8 cards of 5/2 cotton thrums from my Spring Weaving class project

Finally, I spent 3 days in Fort Bragg with some friends learning how to dye using fiber reactive dyes from a woman who can come close to duplicating color. Wow. As an output, I have formulas,  color wheels and other samples, which I've glued and arranged nicely in a binder. I need to go through the rest of the dyes I have in the closet to produce sample gradiations; would also like to do some other color wheels.

I did find some fun fiber stuff in Europe, and I'll post it here as I have time. Next week school starts and I'm trying to get some things done around the house in preparation for that... can't wait!!!