Two new articles

A picture is worth a thousand words.  (Good thing I write a lot, then?!)

This opinion piece ran on the CBC-Manitoba site this past weekend.  I'd written something much longer that talked about how "the system" doesn't work in several ways--but an editor pared it way down.  Through careful editing, it became sharper-more relevant.

I was doubtful about some of the editing. Then I got an email from someone who founded a non-profit organization to strengthen legislation against domestic violence.  She felt the article was just right.  There you go then, good editing wins.

The system is broken- but it's not fair to ask victims to fix it

About a week ago, another piece came out in Vancouver, for the Jewish Independent:

Lifelong Jewish Relationships

---oh wait!  I do have a picture.  Last week, I launched Woolly. 
This is my first ever published kid's sweater design...after 15 or so years of writing knitting patterns.  If you're a knitter (or even if you aren't!), please go check it out on Ravelry or on Loveknitting.com.  I'd be grateful for a "favorite" or two... what's not to like about sheep with horns?

 

Woolly is live!

Woolly is now live!  This is a knitting design for a kid's sweater, available on Ravelry and Loveknitting.  This sweater was designed in large part by this kid, pictured, who wanted these colors (He chose them himself in Alberta at the woolen mill!) and explained he needed sheep... with horns, please, Mommy!

Here are some snapshots and the full description, below.  It's fall, time for knitting up some sheepy goodness!

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Woolly is also available on Loveknitting.com.

 Here’s a child’s raglan sweater featuring sheep with horns included. (Shetland or Scottish Blackface? You pick!) Knit in 4 colors from the bottom up in the round, this design uses stranded knitting, written instructions and color charts, but never with more than two colors at a time. The sweater is completely reversible. If the kid spills on the front, as kids do…turn it around. It requires virtually no sewing at the end, just weaving in ends and joining up the underarm stitches. Woolly uses an Aran weight yarn that knits at 15 sts = 4'/10 cm after blocking on a size US 8 needle. This pattern requires the knitter to increase, decrease, knit with two colors at a time and follow a color chart.

Getting their goat...

Here's my newest piece on the CBC:
Getting their goat: Manitoba Hydro could save money, energy with grazing animals

Other good news:
--My friends in Houston, mentioned in the last post, are ok.  Their home didn't flood and they are helping others whose homes have flooded.  I expect everyone in that area of the US will have some hair-raising stories to tell the rest of us.  (Perhaps more people will catch on to climate change now?  That it is a real thing?!)

--We picked some apples locally..but there weren't a lot this year because we had some bad caterpillar problems in the spring that ate many apple trees' blossoms and leaves. Thank you, Aurora Pizzeria, for letting us raid the unpicked apple trees in your patio garden!)

Yesterday, we drove out to Plum Ridge Farm, which is near Teulon, Manitoba.  (about 20 minutes from Gimli)  We came home with a lot of apples, plums, and cucumbers.  To give you an idea of how much?  Well, I've canned 14 pints of pickles (dills and bread & butter) today, about 9 lbs of cukes, but there is still maybe more than 5 lbs left.  We gave away two large bags of apples this morning, some crab apples last night and we still have so many that there is no room in the fridge for it all!  We've made some apple chips and applesauce already.  Chutney, frozen apple slices, and jams will happen too, I hope.

--Putting up food means there is more "fast food" off the shelf when it's cold this winter.  It's easy to make apple crumble, applesauce or pie when the apples are washed, cut up, and ready to go from the freezer.

--It's been hard to do any canning at all with two little boys home, but they will be starting Grade 1 at a new school on Wednesday.  Whew!  Very exciting stuff, but also, I know some guys are sort of nervous, too.  (I get that--I never slept before the first day of school either!)

--In an odd twist, I am not teaching at the Manitoba Fibre Festival this year.  I'd been scheduled to do one workshop, but not enough students signed up.  (too many spinning classes scheduled at once, perhaps?)  Anyhow, it ends up being a relief, because the Professor (aka, the twins' dad) is going to be away that week, so now I can just hang out with my guys.  I love teaching, don't get me wrong, but sometimes things just work out to make things easier, and I cannot complain about that!  Hopefully there will be other times to teach in the future...down the road.

Our air has been a bit smoky from fires burning in Northern Manitoba, and today, we've dodged a few thunderstorms, but we're all remarkably busy and cheerful, considering.  I will miss the warmth of summer but I'm also ready for little boys to be in school again. :)

It's also a little brisk...is it time to make and wear knits again soon?

 Pictured:
The Spire Smock (in Saffron)
Gigadistal (in Variegated blue/periwinkle)
Ploughed Acre Socks 

Wovember and a quick trip to Crete

I have been unable to keep up with Wovember this year the way I have in years past....so today I cruised over to the website to try to catch up to all things wool in November.  (It's a site that celebrates wool and its uses; it's an intense November experience every year with a post or two every day!)  Anyway, imagine my surprise when I discovered that my blog was a part of this post on Crete.

How funny to see my name and my writing quoted...I feel honored!

Anyhow, it is getting colder every day in Manitoba, and today was a damp, dark and nippy dog walk at 7.  So, as a little respite, here are a couple of photos from those old posts about Crete...

Click here and go back to read more about my journey in Crete...

(And, as I explained to friends later, the only bad part of the trip(s) we've made there is how FAR it is from North America!)

News you can use

 The Manitoba Fibre Festival is coming up!  It will be October 2nd and 3rd at the Red River Ex in Winnipeg.  This year is exciting; there is a new location, lots more space, shearing demos, sheep, loads more vendors and more.




I'm teaching a workshop: A Spinner's Breed Tasting.  Imagine a wine tasting flight (an oz or two of several wines) but for spinners.  (Now, we won't be eating fleece!  Just spinning it!) I hear there are still spots open so if you're local, please sign up soon.  I'm getting all the different samples and hand out ready.  It will be fun!  I can't wait!

I've also been getting ready for winter as only a knitter can.  I've been designing a new sweater 'on the needles' (as I knit) this summer.  As one of my twins says, "it's a sweater for mommy" and likely to suit others as well, so I hope to write up the pattern soon.  The best parts?  It's light and lofty, really fast on size 11 needles, and all in stockinette.  It's over-sized and knit all in one piece.  I could knit on it while I played soccer with my kids in the park.  (cross body knitting bag, big blunt needles, and endless stockinette in the round...ideal for many hours of summer play.)  Here are some sneak preview shots as the sweater blocked.  It's knit out of Alafoss Lopi, an Icelandic yarn that is perfect in all weights for winter here.  Light, lofty and warm.... it's still warm here during the day, but winter is coming.  I can feel it.

There's always more to say but I am short on time, so will leave you with photos instead. :)

A new article and a holiday week...

I just had a new article come out on the CBC.

It's about Winnipeg's urban density and pollution.  The image they matched with the article, above, is what the light pollution in Winnipeg looks like from above at night.  Wow, that's bright.  If city regulations were tightened up a bit, it might make living in close quarters an easier (quieter?!) experience.

...and we're having a long stretch of time off.  Preschool is over, camp will begin in a week or so, and I am mostly busy with twins.  Plus, two of us are still sick...and one of those is me! (Coughing is not improved by hazy smoke from Saskatchewan and NWT forest fires,either...)

We did go to the Canadian Classic sheep show on Friday, and yesterday we got to visit a friend's farm and enjoy the company of some Shetland sheep, a horse or two, a llama and some chickens.  The professor got me a gorgeous Romney/Texel fleece as an anniversary gift this year..17 years of marriage...  I think he's figured out that every year is the fiber anniversary. :)

Alas, my hands have been too full holding on to four year olds to snap sheep photos, too.  Hope you are having a good Canada Day/July 4th/first week in July!

wool consultant?

 


I thought you might be interested in some of my latest adventures.  A little while ago, I heard that someone was giving away "free wool" but the story was more complex than that.  The short version?  A local stable was going through a transition and had an empty arena and a lot of empty loose boxes indoors this winter.  The province animal welfare folks seized a flock of sheep, plus 2 guard llamas.  I have no idea of the details, but this farm ended up with 40 sheep.  The flock was not in good health; there were dead animals in the field.

 The flock was cared for by the provincial vets and animal control folks and stayed indoors in the arena, warm and dry, during our very cold winter.  (-20 to -40 can be too cold for sheep to be outside without any sort of shelter, too!)  Before the sheep were sent on to their new home, a shearer came in and helped out.  Some (or all?) of those 40 fleeces ended up in a loose box in the stable in March.  Although I think the shearer did do brief skirting, there was no sorting or careful containment as this shearing was entirely for health reasons. 

Sheep who have been stressed often have breaks in their fleece, and some of these sheep had serious health concerns.  The stable had very caring horse people there, but they knew nothing about sheep or wool.

By the time I got out there with a friend to really help go through the fleeces, it was maybe 2 months later.  To our surprise, it was, in some part, a wool flock.  There were a mixture of breeds, Jacob and Jacobs' crosses, Icelandic, and some fine wool white sheep. 

When I was a kid, just learning to spin, a huge pile of free raw wool seemed like a good dream.  Unfortunately, adults know those pesky details can get in the way.

 What happened?  My friend and I managed to salvage 4 fleeces that looked ok.  One dark brown/reddish Icelandic fleece, a Jacob, and a couple of fine wool (one was maybe a Finn cross) fleeces.  We were making good progress on a very windy, cold day on the prairie.  We were indoors, but it was cold and wet and we had only a couple hours before I had to head back to town for preschool pick up.

I stepped into that great mound of wool to retrieve half a fleece and (if you are squeamish, please sit down now) mice TEEMED out of it.  I screamed, of course, it was surprising.  Not really surprising, in retrospect, as I would choose that place to nest if I were a mouse, but...when I described it to my boys, they said, "TWO mice?" and I said no.  They said "TEN mice?" and well, I said, "Ok, ten."  It was more than ten.

 

Worse, after that moment, the next 4 or 5 fleeces were checked were damaged beyond repair.  There was water penetration in the stable from a large snow bank and the fleeces were very wet.  We're not sure how many fleeces were from sick sheep, or if the water or the pest infestation was the problem.  Short version?  The rest had to go to the landfill.  Sad, but true, especially because getting rid of those mice was important, too.

What happened to the fleece?

 

I ended up parking 4 fleeces on my front porch.  I washed them all--not to get them spotlessly clean, but clean enough so someone would be willing to bring them into their house.  The Icelandic and Jacob fleeces have gone a new home for $15 a piece, to benefit the Manitoba Fibre Festival.  I have two white (ish) fine wool fleeces left....good for felting or maybe for spinning.  They will require a thorough second cleaning and do still have vegetable matter in them....  Drop me a note with contact information if you are interested.

I know that many spinners these days focus almost exclusively on cleaned wool roving and even hand-dyed roving.  Some people never process a raw fleece from scratch.  Meeting sheep and being at shearing day, starting from scratch?  This has been one of my great joys as a spinner.  I have more than one garment from a friend's sheep--and I was there to catch it when it was shorn, I washed it, I teased, carded or combed it, I spun it, I knit it...I like this process.

I also like being there to try to save something from nothing.  These rescue sheep have gone on to a better home.  I hope now a small fraction of their hard work, their wool, can be made worthwhile.

Manitoba Fibre Festival & A Spinning Class

I may have mentioned before that I've been working with a friend to help organize a fibre festival here in Manitoba.  Well, actually, my friend, Margaret Brook, has done the lion's share (or is that ram's share?) of the work.  I have worked behind the scenes, making suggestions, talking up people at the farmer's market, printing flyers, and trying to support my friend as she does the heavy lifting.  I am so excited and pleased that Winnipeggers will now have a chance to make connections right in town with local fibre producers and to learn, buy, and gather to discuss all things fibre!

Of course, if you live in North Dakota, or South Dakota, or in Ontario or Saskatchewan, this might also be the festival for you...we'd love to have you!

I am also teaching an informal spinning class at the festival.  I believe there are still spaces left!  Here is the description:

 "Ask a spinner!" 

Instructor: Joanne Seiff
Spinning is a solitary activity; lots of questions can pop up on your own. Many of us experiment or research by ourselves, but sometimes it is good to talk out solutions with your peers. Join Joanne Seiff, longtime spinner, fibre arts writer and educator, as she facilitates a question and answer learning session covering anything to do with spinning. Bring your own wheel or spindle, some fibre, and a willingness to ask questions and share the answers you’ve found on your own. 

1:00 - 3:00 pm    2 hours
Registration fee: $20
No materials cost

To register for my workshop (or any of the others!), visit the festival workshop page here and click on the Paypal "Buy Now" button for the appropriate class.

I am really looking forward to seeing you at the festival!

Next year?

I don't want to leave any readers hanging--so a short update is in order. I am fine, I'm still pregnant at 35 weeks, and I'm trying to wait patiently with my feet up. I don't go out much these days and I'm doing a lot of reading and resting. Harry and Sally are the best dogs ever. One or both of them are almost always by my side.. possibly the best companions ever in the circumstances!

I'm a bit sad to be missing festivals this year but my mom went to Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival and gave me a brief report. Wonderful weather, a good time, my friends say hello...but it's not quite the same as going myself! (Honestly though, I couldn't stand up for more than about 10 minutes at a time, so there's no way I'd manage it, never mind all the traveling!) That said, it is hard to smell the sheep barns over the phone. :)

Locally, the professor went to a plant sale and got herbs, flowers and other delights for the summer. He planted them, and the rain is now hopefully going to make them grow big. When I'm up for walking around the yard later on, I'll get to enjoy his efforts. Our forsythia is blooming and everything is beginning to look green around here. I am finding the prospect of spring exciting!

That's the news from here. I kept hoping I'd feel up to snapping photos for the blog, but in any case, haven't seen any sheep at all in downtown Winnipeg! Perhaps you'll just have to refer to past years...look for the beginning of May and you're likely to see sheep in those posts. In any case, I am now much more empathetic when it comes to those ewes who always bear twins, triplets, or quads.

(Oy. I think I know how you feel!)

perfectly...ordinary

Lately I've been thinking how perfectly, well, ordinary things can be fascinating if you find the right person to share it with.

The first part of this is a spinning tidbit. I am doing a Navajo-ply or a chain ply for the combed yarn I spun up recently. This turns one strand of yarn into a 3 strand plied yarn. The phone rang at one point and I just put the open "loop" on a hook on the edge of my spinning wheel's flyer and answered the phone. The yarn has been sitting like this ever since. (Click on the photo to embiggen!)

I have read and heard countless times that it is difficult or impossible to stop in the middle of plying handspun yarn. Obviously, not all frequently repeated statements are true. I've been stopping in the middle for years! When I come back to the yarn, there is never any big red stain of shame on the bit where I stopped. I can't even find the "pause" when I return to the skein of yarn later.

I find this reassuring because it seems as though modern life is always finding ways to make things--well--more complicated. Passwords and cell phones and speed cameras, etc.--technology sometimes makes things harder than they might be otherwise.

So, what I figured out on my own is that for hundreds or likely thousands of years, people have paused while plying their handspun yarns and everything turned out ok.


Also, while I've been in the middle of a knitting slump, I knit anyway. You see, I still need lots of warm clothes here--so here is a pair of perfectly ordinary wool/cotton blend socks. The predominate colors are brown and green, although that is hard to tell in this photo. The only interesting part? I made this pair of socks with only one skein of Patons Stretch Socks. I used practically every last bit of the yarn! (Again, a perfectly ordinary detail that our ancestors knew well...using every last bit of a valuable resource.)

What got me thinking of this were two different comments this week. First, I used spindle spinning as a demonstration in a writing class I taught this week. I passed around wool roving to show everyone. Then, despite all my explanations, one of the students asked "Is this artificial wool?" I had to explain that it was the honest to goodness real thing. In fact, I knew the farm the ram was born on, the farm he now lives on, and his name. In fact, I even helped go sheep shopping for that ram!

Yup, sometimes it's the real thing. Honest. Perfectly ordinary (well, prize winning, gorgeous) Romney wool.

The second example was another exchange. Someone was recommending mints as a way of freshening the breath. I suggested that if you wanted to avoid sugar or sweets in general, that chewing on fresh mint or parsley would also make your breath smell better. The response was... "Really? That works?"

Yup. Our ancestors chewed on mint (not a mint candy) to smell better. As my dad says, "who'd have thunk it?" Sometimes, when something is perfectly ordinary and logical? That's just the way it is. Maybe it's only in a perhaps overly complicated age that we're looking for it to be artificial instead.

Shetlands on a Sunday

The professor, our student friend, who is staying the summer with us and I were all invited out to a farm on Sunday. We were in time to see the lambs! Two friends share the farm responsibilities and own the flock of Shetlands together. One of them lives on the farm and is a needle felter and an artist. The other friend does the sewing for the needlefelted designs. It looks like a wonderful collaboration between friends.

The animals on this farm can feel the love! The Shetlands were remarkably cuddly and patient with the humans in their field. In this photo, at the very left, you can see a ewe whose fleece is rooing. (coming off on its own) Traditionally, long ago, Shetland sheep shed their fleece. Now, most shepherds prefer to shear "on the break" as the fleece is beginning to roo. Not all Shetlands even begin to shed their fleece anymore; this is bred out of some of them over the generations and they wait to be shorn. Shearing carefully is very important for good handspun yarn that doesn't pill. (small bits of fleece will break off and become pills) but for felting, it might not be as crucial.

Then we went to a second pasture to visit the "guys." Two Shetland rams, a pygora buck and doe, and 2 llamas lived in that second pasture. The pygora buck was very friendly, but billy goats can have big horns. We were cautious....


and so was the pygora doe, who hung back with the llamas away from the scary visitors.

Pygoras can have some diversity in their fiber, and we spent some time admiring this buck. He had a coat with both guard hairs and a fine undercoat. He was shedding, and you could just pull bits of his wintercoat off as he walked by! He was friendly and patient enough (mind the horns!) to allow this.

We had a nice time outside in the sunshine. It gave us an opportunity to show our student houseguest what the countryside looks like. (It's flat. Really flat.) It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet some more fiber artists/shepherds in Manitoba.

I'm having some trouble with getting this post and all these pictures online, so I'll end here. Hope you enjoyed our little outing to a local farm!

sniffle ends

You may have been wondering what I've been up to. (I have been, too...mostly, I think I'm staring into space.) After I wrote that last post, the professor and I came down with a doozy of a cold. We're both snuffling through, but the last few days have felt like being underwater. It's no wonder, really, we were exposed to so many people on our trip. Also, we couldn't afford to feel sick on our travels, so our immune systems patiently waited until we came home.

I promised some photos of what I bought on our journey. All and all, it doesn't look that interesting from the photos. To me, though, it's great stuff. I ordered 15 lbs of Brown Sheep Mill Ends that were delivered to my parents' house. This is the tail ends of wool rovings used to make yarns, and while it's not useful for the yarn company's big industrial spinning machines, it is great for weaving, spinning and felting by hand. It's all washed and ready to go, and so far, I'm overjoyed with the purchase. Here's what the bag looks like, and here is the rug I'm working on, complete with interspersed dreadlocks of wool. I'll likely dye some of this soon so all my rugs won't be white, brown or black.

However, in order to make some darker colored rugs, I found these fabulous mill ends from
Old Mill Yarn at Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. It's hard to shoot photos of this, but here is over 2lbs of mercerized brown cotton "floss" at 2,200 yards per lb for warp...for $6 a lb! I also bought two bags (each bag weighs a pound) of very thick 100% wool rug yarn in brown and black for weaving. They cost $10 a bag. I couldn't believe my luck!

I also spent some quality time visiting with sheep while at the festival. Here's a very warm Lincoln Longwool that smiled for the camera... and this brings me to my wool acquisition. Right before leaving for my trip, a friend in Winnipeg let me know that her cousin kept sheep. I got in touch with him, and as if by magic, he happened to be shearing just a week or two ago.

Although the farm is 70 kilometers from town, I was again surprised to discover his lovely daughter, who showed up on my doorstep to "deliver" 3 fleeces. It's my first local Canadian wool and likely Rideau Arcott, or some fine wool cross with that breed. The wool itself is gorgeous, but sadly parts of the fleeces are like pelts--joined together with burrs which are in the outer parts of the fleece. I spent a couple hours cutting off burrs yesterday and washed up some of it as a sample. When I'm done posting this, I'll go downstairs to see whether I can comb out the rest of the vegetable matter that remains. The wool itself is nice--the burrs are not!

My knitting is sort of stalled, aside from a plain old sock project. I have been working on and off on a dress sweater. I bought this rich purple Filatura di Crosa Zara Merino yarn years ago, on a vacation in Vancouver, British Columbia. I used the odd ball for a hat a few years ago. Then, I started this project last fall, with what looked like plenty of yarn. (Uh Oh...)

When the yarn started to run short, I got nervous. Then I discovered an odd ball of yarn carefully lodged under my bed. (good thing I cleaned there!) No idea how it got there, although maybe my dogs thought it was interesting and hid it? Anyway, I kept knitting. On my trip, I neared the end of the second sleeve. I'd done everything but the shoulder cap and the neckband when I saw that the yarn left was just not enough.

I put out a plea to some friends. Amazingly, one ball of this very color yarn happened to be in a friend's stash---in Tokyo. She and her children walked it to the post office, and it's winging its way to Winnipeg. This will be one well traveled sweater, long before I even wear it.

Finally, you may remember my Fingerprinting post back in February. Well, along with the cold we got this week, we also got back our information from the FBI. The professor's said "no criminal record" and he can go right ahead to continue his application for permanent residency in Canada. Mine said "your finger prints weren't high enough quality for us to tell." (gee thanks) So, it was back to the police department this week for me to get my second set of Winnipeg fingerprints done. That's because our applications have to be sent at the same time, and now my lousy fingerprints are holding things up!

This is the second time recently when my hands were noticed in a negative way. The jeweler recently noted that I am wearing out the prongs that hold onto the stone in my engagement ring rather quickly, so it keeps having to be repointed. It also turns out that people who work with their hands often don't fingerprint well. I was gently chastised by the clerk that I should be taking better care of my digits. Lots of moisturizing lotion! Less handwashing!

I took the hint. When I spent two hours yesterday sorting wool and burrs, I took off my rings first. I expect this is why sheep (or shearers?) don't wear wedding rings. :)

at the mill

Part Two of the Sheeples Trip:
After seeing the sheep...
When we went inside, the mill seemed so warm and comfortable!
Heidi, the farm dog, agreed. She apparently has a wool stuffed bed under a table, because if a bed is not provided for her, she makes one out of the wool in the mill! This mutt's sweet nature was just a delight. She greeted us at the car and accompanied us affectionately almost wherever we went. She's not allowed inside the farmhouse, but instead stays in a little mudroom in the sunshine, where she was happy to doze as well. In her spare time, she herds sheep, scares away coyotes, and patrols the farm.

The mill itself was about 1500 square feet, and it was full of fleeces, equipment, and projects. The reason we were there was to look at and discuss the processing equipment, so my friend C. set to work asking questions and I looked around.

The yarn lined up neatly was mostly commercial yarns--purchased in order to use occasionally in weaving, on the knitting machine, and in practice. There was really very little to buy (good for me, since I'm on a fiber diet...) since the Sheeples folks had just finished a busy show season and were doing custom orders. They'd sold practically all of their own wool yarns! I got to admire other batches of alpaca and fine wool as it was processed though, and that was a treat! Touching things is free!

Joe and Kim had two looms in the work area. One was warped and if the yarn spinning is going smoothly, Joe can sit down and weave while the machines are going. The other, smaller looom was not warped--there doesn't seem to be time to keep all this equipment going full steam at once.

Some of the most interesting equipment included a rewired washing machine, exclusively used for washing fleece. Also, there was a homemade "humidifier." This involved a large canning pot on a stove. It sounds funny, but when it is so cold, there is very low humidity. Static cling isn't just a nuisance when fibers are that dry....so unless the mill is humidified, the machines don't work well and the fibers don't get processed into pindrafted roving or yarn.

One thing I realized is how incredibly necessary it is to be a self starter who is mechanically inclined with an operation like this. The mill was way, way off the beaten track. If one of the machines broke or wasn't adjusted quite right--well, it was up to Joe to fix that. I was very impressed by how carefully he'd thought out each stage of the processing.

It also made me wish my father was along--he would have appreciated exactly how fine tuned all this machinery was! I have to settle for describing it on my blog instead. Sorry you weren't there, Dad, but gosh it is a lot warmer where you live!

In other news, we're slowly adjusting to a new level of cold here. Our dogs are getting used to the cold temperatures and seem to prefer a mid-day (warmer) walk..as do I. I was also thrilled by a weather report that indicated it might be getting up to 20F (-10C) next week. It sounds like a heat wave!

For those who celebrate Hanukah, have a good holiday! We look forward to lighting the first candle tonight.

with the sheep again

Thanks for all your kind words about the Library Journal article! We were thrilled around here. My mom had a good visit and went home with: 7 skeins of Icelandic handspun (blurry photo was all I could snap), Winter 2010 Olympics clothing for my nephews, 3 wool dress hats (The Bay--Hudson Bay Outfitters- has world's largest selection of winter hats, apparently!) and other goodies. I also think she managed to have some rest, which is important as she is often caring for other family members at home.

It's amazing how fast the temperature drops here. We're now down to temperatures of -20C or -4F and that's sometimes the high! This morning, for the first time, the dogs really didn't want to take an early morning stroll...they ran out into the yard and ran right back in! I didn't blame them as the temperature, without wind chill, was -24C or -11F. With wind chill readings, it was -34C or -29F. We walked just a few blocks at lunch time instead.

Yesterday, I went with a friend to Sheeples, a sheep farm and woolen processing mill in the Interlake Region. This is 90 minutes north of Winnipeg. We had a nice drive in the bright sunshine and the first thing we did was visit the sheep. These were super friendly Merino cross sheep with lovely thick wool growing. The flock was bred with other breeds for color, too. These are most of the outdoor photos I got--turns out my digital camera does not appreciate super cold temperatures. I will post the indoor mill photos in the next post.

There's always access to the barns with these sheep runs. Also, there is a guard llama and a farm dog and that's good...it scares off the coyotes, which are very close by. If you look closely at this photo, you'll see brush at the back of the scene. In the Interlake region, there are some trees growing naturally every so often and it's called "the bush." In the summertime, they frequently get moose up there, and they also see a lot of deer, elk, and timber wolves.

The wool these sheep grow is super fine and very nicely processed. The Sheeples approach is to spin a semi-worsted yarn or offer a pin drafted roving to handspinners. It's very close to a worsted yarn or a combed top.

The flock itself has an interesting origin. Back in 2002, I visited a sheep farm in Wellandport, Ontario...not that far from the Niagara border. I mentioned this farm briefly in Knit Green. Their focus was handspun yarn and they had all sorts of knitted products in an on-farm gift shop...a great sustainable model! The farmer's first name was Hillie and when she sold her farm, she sold the flock to Joe and Kim, the Sheeples' farmers. Weird that I may have met either these exact sheep or their parents before, in another province... this is not six degrees of separation. More like no degrees of separation?

When we stood around meeting the sheep (here's my friend C. petting a very sociable lamb), I was bundled up in two hats, two sets of mittens, and a down parka. My feet, in their winter boots (good down to -25) were a bit cold, but otherwise, I was ok. C. (born in Saskatchewan) said it was a good test of my winter gear. What she didn't say is that it was a good test for me, too. I tried to enjoy the bright sunshine and not notice the cold.

This worked until I noticed the farmer's beard was freezing up around his mouth! Luckily, the indoor mill area was toasty warm. More about that in my next post. In the meanwhile, I am enjoying winter time here so far...especially since it grows such nice wool!

For those who know my professor-he is famously comfortable at low temperatures- he's been wearing his wool hat and down parka outdoors, and claims his leather gloves may not be warm enough. I saw him put on wool socks this morning and a long sleeve shirt. He's even possibly revising his opinion about soup--he ate a large helping of homemade potato soup last night for dinner. (I did tell him that if he felt it wasn't cold enough yet, he was welcome to go sit on the curb until he was properly ready to enjoy hot soup, but he didn't take me up on it!)

A new theory: when it's below 0F (-18C), he might even like soup...

spinning along

I'm stretching out this vacation (in my mind) for as long as I can this time!) That's because my daily life, while good, is full of things like laundry and house repairs and moving details. So, vacation is good. Let's keep talking about Crete!

It wouldn't be vacation without finding fiber arts things everywhere we went. Let's start with, say, spinning wheels. There aren't a lot of spinning wheels on Crete; it's not a strong part of their spinning tradition. Spindles are shown in museum exhibits, but not wheels. However, when we were in Chania, at the very end of our trip, we were shopping for knives. Cretan knives are well known for being nice tools, and for someone who cooks lots (me) a handmade paring knife or two is a great souvenir. That said, last time we focused on a bone handle--this time, we were happy to take plastic. Plastic is easier to clean, it's all recycled from something else, and the bone was a lot more expensive. We were paying for the knives when we saw this wheel behind the counter. The flyer and bobbin were on the floor next to the wheel and the cost? 250 Euros. It was a wheel I didn't need, but an antique spinning wheel, in any event!

Ok, now back to the goats... we left our car park in Myrtos (next to the goats) and took several driving trips. We went to Sitia, a city in Eastern Crete, one day. This is a pretty large, bustling place with a lot going on. Our first focus was olive oil--Sitia has some of the best in Crete-- and a good meal at the Balcony, a great restaurant. What we discovered was that the olive oil was available at the grocery store in Myrtos, so we didn't need to drive so far! The restaurant was nice, and...we found a yarn shop. We'd found others, but unfortunately, most are only open in the mornings, so I'd missed going into one. Crete mainly focuses on embroidery and lace crochet now, but I got some nice worsted weight cotton (like Tahki Cotton Classic) at a yarn shop in Sitia. I had the help of a kind Greek American woman who was also a tourist. She was from New York City, spoke very functional Greek and helped me get just the colors (navy and sage green) I wanted!

The trip was made entirely worthwhile by a super trip to a folklore museum in Sitia. I will post on that soon--it deserves its own post, it's an amazing museum.

When we left Myrtos, we chose to stop in a town called Kritsas. It was described as the "biggest village in Crete" and as having some nice arts and crafts. It was actually more of a town than a village, fairly touristy, but very picturesque. (click on all these photos to embiggen, it's worth it!)

As we walked through the town, we heard a sheep's baa and the professor caught a photo of this...looks like this farmer was either transporting these sheep to another farm or to market. They are hogtied, which means their legs are tied together, to prevent them from jumping out of the bed of the truck. The sheep didn't appreciate this (lots of baaas!) but it didn't hurt, from what I saw. It seemed like a logical way to transport sheep in this very hilly terrain. ..otherwise, they'd just leap right out of the truck bed! Also, one could note here that sheep on Crete are a special and primitive breed. Very tough, wily and clever, they provide milk, meat and wool--a true triple purpose breed.

There are lots of textile shops in Crete with embroidered table and bed linens--sadly, most of these aren't hand done anymore, and probably not made in Crete. However, as I walked up through the town, peering into the shops, I saw what could only be a distaff, loaded with wool, and a spindle. I rushed into that shop!

Most women on Crete don't spin or weave anymore. In fact, spinning and weaving were common on the island up until at least the '70's, but today, there's not much need for it anymore, with the improved availability of commercially made goods. However, this lady showed me with very little English, that she spun and wove for her own pleasure. When I showed her I too spun, she was tickled! She got out her handwoven blankets and sacks to show me. They were gorgeous! All single ply yarns, spun with the coarse wool of Crete.

When I tried her distaff and bottom wool spindle, I saw what well-made and beautiful tools they were. Well balanced, and handmade! She explained that they were hers, she had none for sale. She also showed me her handmade wool combs (a lot like Viking combs) that she used to process the wool herself. She did a beautiful job of that, too.

Before we left, she showed us another traditional skill. The cords used on handwoven sacks are braided/woven on a distaff like stick. The stick is tucked under one arm, and the little prongs or branches at the end are used to separate strands of yarn. The braiding is done with both hands free--this could obviously be done while walking or tending children.

I was sad that we didn't have enough language in common to talk further...but thrilled to see someone spinning for fun in Crete. What a universal language we spinners/knitters/fiber arts people have!

...more about the folklore museum next time...I'm off to make a traditional Southern cole slaw for the Biology picnic! (in Manitoba, it might seem exotic!)