Harveyville Project: Yarn School!

Jaime and I have been dreaming of attending Yarn School for a few years now, and last week our dream came true! Yarn School is a retreat for handspinners in rural Harveyville, Kansas.

The 'School' in Yarn School? Well, the retreat takes place in a retired school building in Harveyville, run by Nikol Lohr. We slept in the classrooms and spun in the gymnasium. The "Dye Lab" took place in the old science lab that was left mostly untouched and worked perfect! Nikol cooked us amazing meals all weekend so all our time could be focused on fiber and spinning.

On the grounds of the school lives a motley herd of sheep (Shetland, Merino, Romney), a happy flock of chickens, two kitties and a dog named Georgie.

We arrived to the biggest circle of spinning wheels of all time, and found our spot amongst the wheels. We would hang out here much of the weekend and spin yarn to our hearts content.

Adrian of Hello Yarn shared some of her hand-dyeing tips and demonstrated several ways of dyeing wool roving.

We each had 4, 8 oz balls of roving to dye up and we experimented with dyeing them in crockpots and in the microwave...

Roving smells good and is exciting

Dye scientists Jaime and Amber cook up some roving

Everyone's fiber was then hung to dry and it was quite the sight! It was so fun to see what everyone dyed and to find your own fiber in this giant roving wall.

Jaime searches out her rovings...

Adrian also taught us various spinning techniques. Here she is demonstrating the long draw method using carded rolags. This method of spinning is how a woolen spun yarn is made. Long draw is a fast spinning method, but time must be taken to properly hand-card your fiber first.

We both got to try out spinning on Ashford's "Country Spinner." This wheel is huge and features the largest bobbin I've ever seen - it is made to spin art yarns and it worked great for this purpose.

Jaime plys art yarn on the Country Spinner

We made tons of yarn and dyed so much roving throughout the weekend. Here is Jaime's favorite handspun creation - a 2-ply worsted from the "Narwhal" roving that Adrian dyed.

Here is Jaime's sunshiny bulky art yarn made on the Country Spinner.

Jaime and I brought the leftover Indigo dye vats from last weekend's Makerie retreat and we used them to dye more yarn and roving. It was awesome to share these with our new Yarn School friends and many people left with beautiful Indigo fiber.

Amber is ombre dyeing her roving.

Megan's beautiful Indigo dyed yarn

Indigo superheros with Indigo roving necklaces

We couldn't resist dyeing some yardage of fabric with the Indigo dyes as well. We had a blast at Yarn School, thanks so much Nikol and Adrian for superfuntimes!

Dyeing with Jacquard Jars of Magic

Okay. So sometimes, we are a little behind. For instance, last week all the staff here at Fancy Tiger Crafts took our yarn dyeing class taught by the wonderful Megan of Sleep Season Goods and we found out about the wonderful world of Jacquard dyes!

You may have known about these little jars of powdered magic for a while, but they blew our minds! We promptly ordered almost all the colors for the store so you, too, can create beautiful yarns, rovings, locks and even fabrics. That's right, these little babies can dye all sorts of fibers from silk to cotton to wool and alpaca. A little goes a long way too, so one little jar will have you dyeing loads of things.

Click here for a pdf of instructions for using the Jacquard acid dyes.

Here is some of the magic we made with Megan the other night...

We can't wait to see what you dye!

Knitting Iceland Part 5: Natural Dyeing and Spinning in Hyanneyri

Leaving the wild north of Iceland and Blönduós behind us we headed south towards Reykjavik and the Agricultural College in Hvanneyri. On the way we stopped for a magical lunch on a moss covered lava field.

The lava rocks were covered in layer upon layer of moss making it super thick and squishy. Upon closer inspection of the mossy field we discovered that it was actually an elf city! There were elf homes everywhere and carefully cultivated mushrooms and blueberries growing in the moss. We helped ourselves to some tasty blueberries and tried to go into the elf homes but we were just too big. Somehow April and Ysolda both managed to find their way into one and we now suspect they are really elves.

photo of Ysolda the elf courtesy of Debi Stolier

At Hvanneryri, we sat down to a class on dyeing wool using the native plants of Iceland. Our instructor was botanist Guðrún Bjarnadóttir who dyes yarn under the name Hespa. Guðrún showed us all types of plants she uses including mosses, lichens, lupine, birch, meadowsweet and rhubarb. She has all sorts of techniques to bring out the most vibrant colors including one method of soaking the wool in a dye bath of cow urine for up to 2 months! Mmm... Guðrún's yarns were amazing and she had a few different dye baths going for us to experiment with.

top photo of Guðrún courtesy of Debi Stolier

We were also able to get our hands on some Icelandic fleece at Hvanneryri at a spinning workshop. First we learned how to separate the thel from the tog which involves pulling the longer tog hairs while holding onto the shorter thel hairs by hand or using handcarders. Then we carded the raw fleece by hand and spun it. Amber and I each spun up all of the natural colors of fleece and plied them together to make super-cute barber-pole yarns of Icelandic wool! Our hands were super soft after spinning the raw fibers up with all of their lanolin-y goodness.


After our workshops, we were able to shop at the amazing store of the Agricultural College where they sell all sorts of naturally dyed Lopi yarn, handspun yarn and sheep horn and reindeer antler buttons. Amber and I spent tens of thousands of krona for the biggest yarn purchase ever! We have so much Lopi stashed we'll be knitting up nothing but Icelandic sweaters for months to come. Stop by and visit us at craft night to see our progress...


Check back tomorrow and we will introduce you to all of the amazing and inspiring crafters we met on our journey through Iceland!

Better Know A Crafter: Nadine Vuyanich

Nadine is one of the most prolific knitters we've ever met! When she comes into the shop she's always wearing the newest sweater she's completed. What makes it even more impressive is that she makes each one up as she goes, experimenting with different stitches and ideas in each one. Nadine recently came in to show us the result of her new interest, hand-dyeing her own yarn, wearing this beautifully speckled lavender and blue sweater.

Nadine Vuyanich

What makes you want to be crafty?

An artist by trade, I've always crafted and recycled all types of item from old jeans into purses to strips of old socks woven into grocery bags. I knit, crochet, paint canvas, needlepoint--just about every type of craft. I've recently gotten into making my own knitting needles and hand dyeing wool.

Tell us about the sweater you are wearing.
I hand-dyed Cascade Eco-Wool and used #11 needles for a looser stitch. I create all my patterns but the basic pattern is alternating K4, P1 and K3, P3 all over.


How did you learn your crafts?
My grandmother taught me to crochet at age seven and knitting came later in life. All my other crafting I've either learned in college or from people I've met across the country.

What is your favorite animal?
Cats

Thanks Nadine! We can't wait to see what you make next!

Holiday Gift Guide part 3 - Gifts For Folks Who Knit

Today, some holiday gift ideas for the knitter on your list.

Always a great gift for any knitter is super special yarn. Some of our favorites right now are: (clockwise in the photo from top left)

• Zealana Possum Yarn--New Zealand possum naturally hand dyed in Colorado!
• Twinkle Soft Chunky--100% merino super duper bulky lusciousness
• Malabrigo--super soft kettle dyed yarn
• Pinon Woods Handspun--beaded "single origin" alpaca yarn from Norwood, Colorado, each skein of which includes a picture of the little alpaca it came from (Elana is shown here)
• Ohsuzanna's Handspun Mohair--so soft and fluffy with cute curls of mohair locks spun in

We've got lots of great kits for the all in one, easy-peasy kind of gift giving. For the knitter who wants to dabble in dyeing--the hand dyeing kit includes three skeins of yarn, dyes, woolwash, and instructions for dyeing and knitting your own one-of-a-kind scarf. The sock knitting kit is a great gift to for those ready to take on socks. It includes sock yarn--enough for one pair of socks--a set of needles and six different style of sock instructions for to choose from.

Some fun knitting accessories which make great little gifts or stocking stuffers--how about locally made fancy stitch markers with cute sheep on them, a pom-pom maker for fun embellishment of handknits or a festive peppermint twist measuring tape.