Abundant Earth Fiber - A New Spin for Me

Part of my 2017 spinning fun is to spin fibers and dyers that are new to me or that I haven't spun for a long time. My first spin for this year is from Abundant Earth Fiber. I was introduced to them at Madrona this year. I picked up two 50gm rovings in the Deep Water and Forage colorways. The fiber is a blend of medium-fine breeds such as East Fresian, Dorset and Lacaune all raised in Washington state near Abundant Earth Fiber.

The colors are tweedy blends, the two colorways I chose have similar highlights and Deep Water uses Forage and secondary color and Forage uses Deep Water as a secondary color. The color are gorgeous and rich and I couldn't just spin them by themselves.

Since I had a very limited amount of fiber I did some tiny samples. The fiber was easy to spin, open and fluffy with just little amounts of VM. I spun it with a woolen draft.  I did two quick samples of a 2-ply yarn. One marled, one ply of each color and one with the two drafted together and then plied. The marl is on the left and the drafted together is on the right. The drafted together mixes the colors up more.

Of course I couldn't pick from those two, so I ended up doing something different. I divided the remaining fiber equally and made a 2-ply. One ply is the two colors drafted together and one ply is one color at a time following each other. Then I plied them together. I love it! It's kind of marled and kind of gradient and very subtle. The end of the yarn with Forage as the plain color is on the left and the end of the yarn with Deep Water as the plain color is on the right.

The airy prep made this an effortless spin and the fantastic colors made me wish I had bought more. Yes, I was restrained for once. I have about 108 yards of 12 WPI yarn. I think a cowl is in order!

Madrona 2017

The fabled fiber retreat that is Madrona has come and gone. I was lucky again this year to teach there. I premiered three new classes to excited and excellent students. The newbies were willing to try anything and the more seasoned spinners were willing to try things a new way.

In Yarnitecture 2 we spun to a particular project. In Twist and Ply 2 we spun spiral, crepe, cable and boucle yarns, with boucle being the hands-down class favorite. On Sunday we spun low twist singles from lace-weight to bulky.

Outside of the classroom I listened to Susan Strawn and Lucy Neatby talk, I watched asecret teacher talent show for charity, I saw old friends, made new friends, signed books and might have shopped just a little.

Time stops at Madrona and every bit of you get filled up. You can walk into any room, the restaurant, the elevator, the lobby, the pavilion and there will be many people to share your obsession, whatever it happens to be that day.

Want to buy a new wheel or a loom? You will have a huge group of people cheering you on and volunteering to call your partner to explain why it had to happen.

No one eats alone, no one sits alone, no one shops alone at Madrona. It's like a giant ever-morphing fiber guild.

Thanks to my new friend John D for the photo of Franklin, me John D (and John Mullarkey growing out of John's head) at our book signing. Yes, Franklin, John Mularkey and me at the same table, it might have been a little loud.

An extra thanks to Lisa Kobeck who quietly makes sure everything happens smoothly and makes sure all of the teachers have everything they need, even if it's allergy pills at 6 am!

Lazy Spinner's Guide to WPI and Twist

I might have mentioned before that I am a Lazy Spinner. Give me quick and easy, as the crow flies, the fewer tools the better, all ish, that's me. And I love the yarn I make with my lazy ways, which is the most important part.

Here is how this Lazy Spinner checks WPI and even twist most of the time. I make a quick control card. I use big manila shipping tags and wrap a length of fresh yarn around it. I also record any number of spinning tidbits on it, anything that I want to remember.

Then while I'm spinning I periodically stop and hold my yarn again the control card. In the photos you can see that the yarn fresh from the orifice is a pretty close match. I can even see that the twist is close. I call that newly spun yarn good!

For the curious, I'm spinning a low twist singles, and the fiber blend has both mohair and silk, so the twist can pretty low.

#yarnlovechallenge

I have never done a monthly challenge before. I always convince myself that I'm too busy or not creative enough to make it interesting.

But something touched me about Mary Heather and Christina's #yarnlovechallenge on Instagram, it is exactly what I need right now. A focus on yarn and on the people who love yarn; it brings so many of us together.

It made me happy to see all of the smiling yarn-loving faces on the first day that I decided to do it. I'm @jillianmoreno on Instagram if you want to peek at my stuff, but make sure you look at #yarnlovechallenge to feel all the love.

Here's a little extra love from Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach, a perfect Friday song.

I Am the Child of Immigrants

Neither of my parents were born in this country, neither of them spoke English as their first language. They came here for all of the opportunities. My father was a doctor, he served in the US Air Force. He was Puerto Rican, an American citizen, but still treated like an immigrant. My mother was German, she worked a secretary. She held a green card until she became a US citizen when she was 60. They both loved this country and were proud to have an American daughter.

I am proud to be an American, I love this country and I am proud to be a child of immigrants.

What's Next?

That's my girl and her friends at our local Women's March. They can't wait to vote in the next election.

I don't know about you, but I am feeling overwhelmed by the barge of negativity and hate since the election and since the Women's March on Washington. I am feeling scared and angry by everything that is coming out of our new administration. Have you seen who is up for consideration for Supreme Court nominees? 

There are so many things that I want to fight for and against, but I know I can get the most done if I choose one or two and put my energy, time and money behind them. It doesn't mean that these are the only things I care about or will fight for, but where I will place my focus to start. I can't just be outraged scrolling through Twitter, I have to start doing something. It's does mean I am starting by choosing to fight for LGBTQ rights over working against guns and choosing women's reproductive rights over the environment.

This weekend I'll be getting together with friends to talk about what we each want and can do. We've donated money and next we'll be contacting our representatives to Congress and the Senate. Each one of us has our own focus, but we feel stronger working together.

What are you doing next?

What Books Do You Take When You Travel?

I'm getting ready to fly to Philadelphia to teach at Loop this weekend and as I agonized over what books and how many to take to read I wondered how other people choose their travel books.

I love to read on planes. I can’t work very well, beyond making notes or lists. There is too much going one around me. When I read I can just fall into a book and zone out. It seems the right kind of treat for the annoying thing that plane travel has become.

I have several books loaded on the Kindle app on my iPad, but I always add a new one – this time it’s Slow Horses by Mick Herron pulled from this list on NPR by Nancy Pearl. I like reading on my iPad when I knit on the plane and I can read in the dark if I’m sharing a hotel room. I mostly read mystery, fiction and anything that has to do with textiles.

I take at least one book I’m reading for review and an audio book or two.  Audio books are great for when I have insomnia (which is often), if I’m knitting something tricky or have a jabberer next to me on the plane.

I bring one (sometimes two) books I can read and leave behind or give away. My husband is an independent book rep for 40 or so publishers; he sells to independent bookshops (yay!).  In our garage of abundance, at any given time, we have at least three library carts full of Advanced Reader Copies of books. ARCs are quickly printed black and white, with no page design, versions of books. They are used to get booksellers to read and get excited about forthcoming publications. Booksellers sometimes preorder six months before a book is officially published, before the designed book is even at the printer.

I have had great book conversations with other readers in airports and just out and about when I travel and it’s so wonderful to say, “I just finished this, would you like it?”

Now let’s not talk about the books I buy when I travel.

The People Who Made My Book Beautiful

I get so many comments on how beautiful my book, Yarnitecture: A Knitter's Guide to Spinning: Building Exactly the Yarn You Want is that I want to introduce you to the people who made the beautiful happen.

Someone you might know with out knowing is photographer John Polak, Storey Publishing’s veteran fiber photographer. He is the master behind the gorgeous photography in The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Design and the Spinner’s Book of Fleece. He knows exactly how to show the texture and vibrancy of fiber and can show the difference between top and roving and a worsted and woolen spin. He is also hilarious.

My book designer is Carolyn Eckhert.

Photography by John Polak, from Yarnitecture, © by Jillian Moreno, used with permission from Storey Publishing.”

Carolyn has a long career designing books with Storey Publishing, but this is her first fiber book. While she’s not a fiber person, she is obsessed with texture, which gave her a unique approach and vision for my book.  She loved working with all of the braids, colors and yarns in the book and ran with the idea of Yarnitecture as it relates to building; you can see it in the page designs. She wanted to show the hand and face of the maker – I had no idea I was going to be spinning in the book, until she told me to sit and spin, no makeup person, no special wardrobe just me looking like me. She also let my swatches be uneven and let me leave my ends out, I love her for that.

She is amazingly and uniquely creative. Carolyn wrote a book called, Your Idea Starts Here.  It's a great book to work through existing and develop new ideas.

Here are John and Carolyn working their magic during my photo shoot.

Thank you for making my book beautiful!