The trip from fiber to batt (part three)

Using a lot of color is a sight for sore eyes in the midst of another Maine winter. We love Maine, but it's all so white and gray. Maybe that's one reason we like color so much.

Well, back to the creation of the batts. The next step is laying out the colors on the conveyor belt that feeds the fiber into the drum carder:

On the other side, we've got fiber in motion:

Half a pound of fiber, ready to be taken off the drum:

This is an awful lot of fun for a fiber fanatic! Here's some different colors coming out of the carder:

These long 1/2 pound batts are hard to photograph, but, here's most of one:

More photos to come - there's now batts that sparkle, pastel batts, and batts with colors layered on top each other. Yes, more fun! We'll also show you the many different ways to use the batts for hand spinning. Carded fibers are a breeze to spin, and spinning from these babies is a little too much fun for this spinner!  Hmm. . .how many times has the word "fun" been used in this post?

The trip from fleece to batt (part two)

No, the fleece isn't going into an old drawer. This is the wool picker (well, part of it). The white thing is a conveyor belt. There was a whole lot of fiber on top of it. I was so involved in pulling the fibers apart ("teasing") that I forgot to take anything but this one photo. At back of that green door are truly nasty sharp pointy things that can rip one's arm apart. One must be careful.

Here's the inside of the picker box, with a silhouette of those nasty spikes:

A close-up of the pink fiber:

Some purple . . .

 . . .green. . .

 . . .red. . .

. . .and that wasn't all. 

There was also yellow, orange, all sorts of blues, and mixed blues, violet, and purple. This was just too much fun!

So, what's next? Just wait. . .

Tuesday's dyeing

Started the day with a mysterious looking vat of brown alpaca and Shetland wool. The steam seemed perfect on a chilly morning.

Here's the second dye pot. Looks about the same, doesn't it?

After 45 minutes of simmering, neither of them had any pink hues left. A pot of dye surely is a mystery. Here are the results, sitting on the drying racks:

The next vat was mossy green. Then, a red, and a real violet-pink. Now, that one didn't look vibrant at all in the dye pot!  Sure looks vibrant here:

Last, a burnt orange and a yellow:

So, what's next for all this fiber?

Stay tuned, because it'll be a lot of fun to watch. They're going to be blended with each other, carded into stripes, mixed with silk, bamboo, and a little bit of glitter, to make big half pound batts for hand spinners. If you want to knit with it, and you're not a spinner, it might be time to learn to spin.  . .

How to do the twist

A few people have asked for more explanation of how to do "The Twist" in our pattern for fingerless mitts.

Here's the written instructions:

Knit 2 stitches together. Leave on left hand needle. Insert right hand needle into first stitch on left hand needle and knit 1 stitch. Pull all stitches off onto the right hand needle. That's it!

We hope these photos help the visual learners out there:

Knit two stitches together.
Leave on left hand needle.

Insert right hand needle into first stitch on left hand needle.

Knit one stitch. Then. . .

. ..pull all stitches off
and on to the right hand needle.

It really is simple. Just follow along, and you'll see. This faux cable stitch is great to use anywhere there's a K2P1 or K2P2 ribbing. It's decorative and doesn't stretch much. Have fun!

New year, new blog

Hey folks! Welcome to our virtual world. It's been over a year since the last blog entry and there's just so much new goings on that it'll be hard to catch up. We'll try.

Here's where you come in. We'd love to post photographs of your projects using our yarn and fiber. Please email us if you have any photos you'd like us to post.

Please feel free to leave comments. If there's anything you'd like to see on the blog, let us know. We're open to suggestions. Meanwhile, Happy New Year from all of us on the farm (and yes, that includes the animals).

The yarn above is our newest six-color, called "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" To order, click here.

Yeah, we actually paint it.

We handpaint a lot of yarn.  It occurred to me recently that many people don't know what we mean when we say that the yarn is handpainted (with brushes and everything).  I also think that there is a lot of so-called "handpainted" yarn out there that really isn't (it just kind of looks like it is).  So, just so everyone can see that when we say painted we mean it.  The best part of handpainting yarn is that it is so much fun.  It seems like no matter what colors you throw together, the end result is great.

The rainbow array of yarn (picture at the top) wasn't at the farm for very long.  The yarn is in its new home (and available to purchase)  at Heavenly Socks Yarns in Belfast www.heavenlysocksyarns.com.  Everyone around here just calls the place "Helen's".  So now Good Karma Yarn is available at two Belfast locations, Murfreesboro, TN, Valley Forge, PA, and of course online. 

The seasonality of color- or some such thing

In the midst of this cold, dark January how can we not crave color?  For the past couple of days we've been dyeing some of our fiber with new colors that recently came in the mail.  The color is in such sharp contrast to the world outside our window and I've been thinking about how I think about color, season to season.

In the fall, I find myself craving the natural tones- brown, taupe, beige, gray.  I associate those colors with a warm and cozy home along with roasted vegetables and crusty bread.  Those colors stay with me throughout most of the fall until the solstice and Christmas when everything wants to be red, white and green.

When January really sinks in and everything seems to be white, brown and gray, we all crave bright color- think Key West, Aruba, Mexico- all things warm, no, make it HOT!  It seems like our customers want it too.  We had a line of January-weary customers waiting while we carded our new assortment of colors into roving.  Needlefelters were imagining landscapes of summer flowers.  Spinners were thinking of next year's winter knitting project (we handspinners are great for planning WAY ahead).  

My new knitting project is from a free Ravelry cardigan pattern.  I'm trying to decide on which of our yarns to use.  This summer we dyed some "homespun" type yarn with goldenrod and the effect practically screamed "late summer field" .  I think I need some of that in the midst of January.