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Dear Jan,

I’m sure you know that the Minnesota State Fair is the answer to the question above.

The crop art was outstanding this year.  Not only are the sentiments expressed in the senior division winner*, “November”, fully resonant with my views,…

…but the detail, all executed in seeds, resonates with my love of precision work.

And the art of brewing resonates, too!  New this year in the Ag Building, flights of local craft beers.  Wilson drank the sweet ones, I drank the hoppy ones, and we both enjoyed it very much.

Part of the art of sculpting a bust of one of our galaxy of Princesses Kay of the Milky Way (the title is shared by about a dozen young dairy farmers), is keeping your model from having a literally frozen smile.  It doesn’t live up to my butter sculpture expectations, nor yours, I’m sure.  The annual butter cow at the Ohio State Fair is higher on my list, topped only by the one time appearance of the butter computer programmer.

I hope I have feigned enough interest in non-woolen aspects of the fair to be polite.  Let’s get on to why we are really here.

First, a banner year for firsts for me! I received 3 first place ribbons, one each for my Greek Swan and  Kai It, You’ll Like It socks…

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and one for my fingering weight yarn spun out of bison down.

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My apologies for the photos through glass.  I couldn’t help myself showing the full skein of yarn as it is my first ever spinning ribbon.  The yarn is a 2-ply spun from 50 g of bison down in a semi-woolen method.  It is yummy soft - I suspect that once the judge touched it s/he was under its spell and any spinning defects were not noticed.

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I did win 5 other ribbons - my handspun sweater, two more pairs of socks (big for me - previously my socks weren’t even good enough to judge!), my beaded wristers, and the Gima sweater all placed.  I believe I cover every place from 1st to 5th this year. 

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Returning to the wooly pursuits, Wilson was a good sport and let me linger in the sheep barn where we saw Columbias and Lincoln Longwools and some other curly, oh, wait, that was in the pigeon barn.  We learned that they now are breeding pigeons to look like miniature sheep.  I believe that is what the breed standard says -  “feather structure similar to the lock structure of a Romney lamb”.

Perhaps that isn’t 100% accurate, but I am 100% sure that this would be a stunning colorway.  Look at that teal around her neck, combined with the black and grey curls.

And in the next cage, another great combination of color.

And yet another colorway with eyes - this tan bunny whose ears glow so sweetly rosy behind the elegant two tone fur.  Erica, I hope you are taking notes.

After visiting the bunnies, we headed on home to plan for next year’s entries.

I’ll share another animal inspired yarn in a natural colorway in my next post. Until then, Happy Labor Day!

Love,

Ellen

*Laura Melnick’s comment on the upcoming state constitution amendments.  Two amendments - one against gay marriage and one that would change all sorts of voting procedures, all making it harder for legitimate voters to vote and none of which have any evidence that they are needed to decrease fraud.  Fraud which is nearly non-existent in MN.  So, thanks, Laura, for the humorous support for No votes on both!

Dear Jan,

I may have fallen into a very fast flowing river.

Yarn: 5-ply handspun Columba wool, woolen spun

Dye: Gaywool in color Aster

Method: Kettle-dyed

I believe I will soon be drowning in another fiber passion.

(Come on it, the water’s fine!)

Love,

Ellen

Hi, Jan,

Technically, I started the week with the admiration of this first finish - Lisa’s Swirl Spiral Scarf, during our Monday knit night. Yes, it is as luscious as it looks.

She knit it out of Jade Sapphire cashmere, after all.  I’ll be dropping it off at the state fair this weekend for her as she is traveling, along with my Greek Swan which I finished well in time to medal for the Ravellenic Games.

This hat, knit from a kit of merino/angora yarn hand-dyed by Solveig Gustafson to reproduce the original colors used in  Bohus Stickning haute couture knitwear, is in the original Bohus design Large Swan by Karin Ivarsson.

Solveig has had kits available for The Swan for sometime now, but the Large Swan, a more complex design though still relatively simple by Bohus standards, has only recently been recreated.

Another finish, just taken care of this morning, is all of the plying from those many storage bobbins of Columbia fleece singles.  Here is what I learned from all of this spinning:

• Resting singles on storage bobbins is so helpful.  They are so much easier to handle after letting the twist set up for a while.
• At 5 plies, the yarn is beautifully round and even (grist average over 14 skeins is 977 yds/lb with a standard deviation of 56 yds/lb).
• I could have put more twist in the singles and would have been able to get an even tighter twist in the yarn, but it is sproingy as is.
• Fiber prep is very important.  Second cuts and sections with significant vegetable matter must be culled mercilessly before washing and a second culling before carding.  It just isn’t worth saving a bit of fiber to have to fight with nepps and bits in the spinning.  Virtually every time I had an issue drafting, I could chalk it up to this sort of irregularity in the fiber.
• When one hits a nepp in spinning, especially long draw woolen, just leave it.  I tore a bunch of them out, despite having heard Judith MacKenzie say to leave them, thinking it would make the yarn better.  It didn’t - it left a ratty bit in the singles.  I belive much of this will disappear when I wash and full the yarn, but next time I’m leaving them alone.

Total yardage is 2,452 yds, plenty for a cabled sweater and the hat to go with it! The yarn isn’t finished completely.  There is still the washing and setting of the twist, and I believe I am going to kettle dye the whole bunch, too.

I have another finish that makes me kind of sad - the finish of my row crops garden by this guy.  Yes, we have our very own grizzlyhog* (probably a whole den of them as I’ve seen two at once cavorting in the back yard).   Got any spare wolves you could send my way?

Love,

Ellen

* A groundhog** of unusual size.

** AKA woodchuck.

*** AKA whistle pig.

Dear Jan,

My Greek Swan, a Bohus reproduction of the Large Swan design, is coming along swimmingly, as befits a project inspired by waterfowl.

Also fitting, given the sculptural beauty of a swan gliding across the water, is the way the many purl stitches in this design carve a 3-dimensional shape into the fabric.   Each feather motif pops forward because it is outlined by purl stitches.

More purls surround the motifs that recall swan’s feet.  That the yarn used in the feet is  slightly heavier weight 100% wool yarn, rather than the angora/wool blend of the rest of the hat, further enhances the effect.

My goal is to finish this up before the last swimming event is over, so I’ll sign off now and get on with it.  I hope you are making equally good progress on your Ravellenic projects!

Love,

Ellen