Beesybee fiber's Blog

Phat fiber Samples for December “Aurora Borealis and Beyond”

beesybeefiber — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:31:26 +0000

The theme for the December Phat Fiber Samples is “Aurora Borealis and Beyond”. Once again I failed to take more pictures of my final samples. But here is a little pic of one of my batts before I converted them into cute wee samples.

As always, I have a blast put it them together. I love choosing the colors and texture. Even tough I have a vague idea of what I want to achieve, the fiber itself has the last word.

It metamorphoses into what it wants to be. I remember my teacher Polly Stirling mentioning something like that when she was explaining how the wool felts. Sometimes I imagine wool fibers like worms, trying to find each other to form colonies and cling into themselves. Funny uh?

When I was working on my Phat Samples, I took a break and I sat on an old wicker chair when I felt something moving next to my leg. When I looked down, I saw this little fella looking at me:

This cute little frog. I finished my lunch and this dude never moved one inch.

I don’t know what kind of frog it is, and I would love to know more about it. If somebody reading this blog knows, a note in the comments section will be appreciated. Thanks!

Secret Santa

beesybeefiber — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:21:29 +0000

What a good way to connect with people. Last month I decided to participate on the Secret Santa swap with my fellow Phatties. It was a lot of fun to choose the gifts that I got to send to my secret person. We all had to fill out a questionnaire to get some hints about our secret person. This is what I got form my Secret Santa.

This is from Silver Sun Alpacas. Ricky sent me an ounce of a yummy blend of black alpaca and carbonized bamboo and 300 hundred yarns of the most beautiful alpaca yarn. I love the natural colors of the fibers and the tag that says “made with love”.

The package was so beautiful wrapped, but with the excitement and the anticipation to see what was inside, I forgot to get a picture of it. Thank you Ricky!!! I love my gifts! I will have a great fun spinning this fiber. I really can’t wait!

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

~Hamilton Wright Mabie

Long tail spinning

beesybeefiber — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:08:20 +0000

A little update on my Teeswater wool. I got to spin about 2 1/2 oz of this wonderful fiber. The wool was really clean, so it was a matter of getting rid of the lanolin. It didn’t take too much effort to get it ready to spin. Plus the excitement of trying the long tail technique with this wonderful fiber for the first time made me much more speedier on the process. Luckily, I got plenty of sun to get the fiber dry in a couple of days and a good salad spinner to get rid of excess of water.

I washed the curls by wrapping them in some tulle in two batches. I didn’t want the fiber to felt, and this is a good way of keeping the locks in one place with minimal handling.

The clean wool has a beautiful pearlescent white.

Trying to spin long tail for fist time was a lot of fun.

Besides the wonderful luster that this wool has, it is really soft.

The best way to do this technique is first, brush the end of the curl. Make sure you don’t brush the tips. It should be brushed at the end where the wool has been cut from the sheep.

And it should look something like this after brushing it:

This is the end that should be used to spin on to the core yarn.

To secure the lock, I try the ends to overlap a little bit because I don’t want my yarn to come apart. It takes a while to spin a couple of yards, but the results are stunning.

The bobbin of my Mach 1 already full with only a couple yards. It will make a great scarf.

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”

Black Fiber Sale

beesybeefiber — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:27:13 +0000

I’m offering 20% off on my entire Etsy shop plus free shipping starting today until Friday 12am. The discount will be refunded via Paypal.

There is also a little story the my friend Mesa sent to me this morning:

A little something to put things in perspective. ..

After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park , forest rangers
began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage..

One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched
statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat
sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick.
When he gently struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under
their dead mother’s wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of
impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the
tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing
that the toxic smoke would rise.

She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her
babies. Then the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her
small body, the mother had remained steadfast ..because she had
been willing to die, so those under the cover of her wings would live.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Teeswater wool

beesybeefiber — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:26:25 +0000

Yesterday, the postmaster mistress said to me: “Wait, you have a package!”. I almost forgot about it, the only package that I was waiting for was coming from the UK but, apparently there was a delay due to some sort of postal workers strike. She handled to me the package and indeed, it was my teeswater wool!

I have seen this wool on pictures only, so I didn’t know what to expect. As I opened the plastic bag, I could see the bits and pieces of the wool showing from the holes. When I had all the wool in front of me, I was gleaming with happiness. I didn’t know how long the curls where.

The length of the wool varies from 8 to 12 inches.

I did a little bit of research online about this breed, and I found that this is one of the rarest sheep in the UK. Its origins are from Teesdale in County Durham and to this day they are only 300 pedigree breeding ewes. Many years ago, the farmers used to wash the sheep prior to the sharing, by letting them swim in streams for a few minutes, thus letting the wool float so the water would penetrate the fiber and getting rid of unwanted debris and the excess of the lanolin. Now days, it is illegal to use the natural streams to wash the wool this way, but they still have the practice of washing the wool by letting them swim in man made pools. The wool retains its curl after being washed.

It has a beautiful buttery color, but I’m sure it will go away after washing it. I’m planning to spin the long tail technique. I will post more about my progress.

I tried to find a pic to post here from Wikipedia, but I didn’t find anything. Here is an image of the sheep that came in the package.

They are so cute!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me !

Art Sale at Mimi’s

beesybeefiber — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:32:45 +0000

No much time to post about the art sale that Mimi Luebbermann had at her farm last Sunday! But I have some pics to share. I had a booth there. It was nice to see friends that came from Bolinas to visit and say hi. I met some great fiber people too. We shared, laughed, eat and had a great time.

Mi booth:

Mi friend Mimi

And of course I couldn’t resist getting some of Mimi’s soft roving.

Which as soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to start spinning it.

Shop update

beesybeefiber — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:44:29 +0000

I haven’t updated my shop in a while! Maybe that’s why my sales are so low right now. I was wondering if this is happening to other fiber shops on Etsy. I’ve been playing with my new carder. I got a Louet Classic and I’m very excited about all the fibers I can card with it. I have a Strauch Finest, but I feel really funny about carding stuff like pieces of yarn and sari silk with it.

This is the first batt that I carded with the Louet, and is called Pecan Pie, I used the same fibers for my Phat Fiber Samples for the month of November. I used lots of alpaca, local mohair, angelina, firestar and costwold locks.

This is Mumbai Mirror, which I carded with merino, sari silk, lots of glitzy stuff and mohair locks. I also add some roving to my shop today. I’m so infatuated with my carder that I almost forgot to do some dyeing last week.

Mirror Mask, Superwash Merino. This is one of my favorites color combinations. I love the intensity of the blues and reds. I think if works very well.

Wildflowers. Superwash merino. I forgot to mention that the rovings are dyed with the Greener Shades

100 Bright Stars. Superfine Merino. Lovely soft colors.

Thanks for looking. I now I going back to my new carder!

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Autumn comes with the knitting bug

beesybeefiber — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:43:37 +0000

And I always thought that summer was my favorite season! Maybe because I was in denial about living on the coast where is supposed be hot and sunny all the time. Mark Twain said once “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” I remember a tourist from Texas coming to town and looking desperately for a store were she could buy a cheap sweatshirt because she was freezing. When I sat foot on this part of the world about 15 years ago, all I got was my “summery garments” consisting of linen pants, tops and many dresses. I don’t need to say how many dresses I have today! I always read that California winters were very mild compare to other parts of the world. My fist two winters were spent in bed due to bad cases of pneumonia. Eventually I learned to dress properly and that was when I discovered wool! Growing up in Yucatan, I always thought that wool is a fiber that people wear in places like the arctic. LOL! I have to say that now, Autumn is so beautiful, the colors here are not as intense as in other parts of the country, but I enjoy the bright colors of the environment, the food, the cool breeze… There is a beautiful calm in the air difficult to describe with words, and at the same time very festive. I have to admit that this is my favorite season! All what I want to do is knit, and for my birthday I got a hank of yarn from Imaginit, a yarn store located in San Francisco. It looks like a peruvian tweed from Henry’s Attic. The idea of knitting a sleevles top came later on, because I had no idea what to make with 400 yards. I knew I didn’t want a scarf, so I let the yarn sit for a while.

One morning I woke up with an image in my mind of what I wanted to knit. So I cast on 92 st. after knitting a swatch, starting from the neck down.

We’ll see how it will evolve. Right now my idea is to make a yoke, and then work the body on garter stitch.

It should go fast (she says). I started on double pointed needles, but I began missing my circular needles after knitting a few rows. Eventually i did switch to circular, because having to deal with 8 points was driving me nuts. I will post later on the progress of my project. I wish wordpress can allow me to add on my blog one of those widgets where I can keep track of my knitting projects.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
~Lord Byron

First batch

beesybeefiber — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:26:26 +0000

It’s the end of the day. It feels good to get home, have a glass of wine and get dinner ready. And then… go to the computer. I’ve been playing a lot with the new Greener Shades dyes that I ordered last week.

So far I’ve been working only with the primary colors. It is a little bit intimidating at first. Having only 5 color available to start with and go from there… I had to hold my breath the first time I mixed them. Is it going to be right? 5 teaspoons of this, 2 1/2 of that… Oh well… Here goes nothing! Luckily, I have some books that helps me to understand better what I’m doing. I still need to learn to mix with the secondary colors.

I’m very happy with how fast the dye exhausts. It does it at a lower temperature than other dyes (at least the dyes that I was using before). You can notice in the picture that the fiber grabs onto the dye instantly. There is little blending there. I’m also using citric acid to set the dye instead white vinegar. I think I need to lower the amount used, because I like when the colors blend in between. When I rinsed the fiber after steaming it, there was not bleeding at all. The water came out clear. This speeds the amount of time that I have to wait for the dye to set and lessen the use of energy. Next year I would like to try with solar dyeing (not much sun lately).

And here it is my very first batch. I called it Atlantia because the deep colors. Today, I worked more with some pastels hues. I’m liking the blues a lot, even that my favorite colors are reds and chocolate browns. Is good to write the formulas, to be able to repeat them later on. So far I’m very satisfied with the results I’m getting. And I can’t wait to try mixing with the secondary colors.

Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.

~Mary Lou Cook

More fiber. Superwash Merino. And going Greener

beesybeefiber — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:18:38 +0000

Here is a little shop update:

Reflection. Superwash Merino

Dry Grass. Superwash Merino

Reminiscence. Superwash Merino

And here is a little peek of something that I’ve been working on for a while:

I just got some new dyes from Greener Shades and I’m like a kid with a new toy! I’ve been having a great time playing with them and mixing a bunch of new colors. It feels great that I can use these colors with confidence and that they won’t be harmful to the environment. I will be gradually switching my dyes to these colors as I learn more about color mixing. I ordered a few books to learn a little bit more about it. Here is one of them.

Complex color by Susan Rex. Also, the Twisted Sister sock workbook by Lynne Vogel has a chapter on color mixing.

The array of colors that I will get by mixing will be greater and unlimited… And the fun… Priceless…

Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.

~Rumi