move right along, nothing to see...
...dealing with a bit of melancholy. Nothing major, just a lot of that moving-through-molasses-in-February slowness.
So nothing to report tonight. Even casting on for a new project isn't sparking anything. (it's a length-wise shawl out of some chunky mohair.)
I'm counting on a lot of sun on the retinas this weekend to break through the ennui.
Spanish Moss
This is a shot of the Spanish Moss that we collected for dye. It gives a warm tan color, very nice.
This is a shot of the mountain road we were on. See the mist floating by?
I stayed on the road and got a shot of the more intrepid hikers in our group.
Labels: dyeplants, Oaxaca, spanish moss
Flora study
This bit of red caught my eye. Isn't it gorgeous? I like the colorway, too.
The flower spikes on the agave were spectacular! One of our crew wanted to do agaves in her tapestries, so we all got lots of pictures. Yeah, sort of a lemming thing going on.
Here's a really good closeup of an agave flower.
As for fiber progress today- I went to the Pomona Yarn Lovers lunch get-together today. This is at Pomona College, and seems to be composed of staff only so far. I've got to find some students to infect, err, recruit. I knit about two inches on the Shards socks.
Tonight, I spun a bit on the Prudence fleece. This is going to require a bit of attention to detail if I'm going to match the grist.
Labels: agave, Oaxaca
Oaxaca mountain landscape
This was way up in the mountains, in the clouds. We were all enchanted with the agaves, and took lots of pictures.
Here's the requisite tourist shot in front of the agave. It was cold! You could look up and see the wisps of clouds drift by. It was so neat! and quite novel for this farm girl who moved to Los Angeles.
And here's Stephenie's tourist shot! These agaves weren't that far from the road, but the area was mostly meadow.
On the fiber front, I spun up the rest of the silk/wool for the Hanami shawl. Heaven help me, I'm thinking about combining intarsia and lace. I also started carding for another skein of the Prudence fleece, but I'm too sleepy from sinus meds to try spinning this late.
Gathering flowers
This is Eric being goofy... We ran out of time to dye with these. Any botany experts with an idea on nomenclature? I don't remember for sure, but I think Demetrio called these marigolds.
This is where we stopped for lunch, in the village of Cuajimoloyas. It's way up in the mountains, and the weather was quite cold and as wet as you can get without being rainy. This is right on the highway through the mountains, so this is where the bus stops for meals.
I was quite toasty in my handspun handknits- Demetrio came to hug me to get warm! That's the Rusty Shawl, from when Rusty the red-headed angora goat got a haircut, and the Rocket Gansey that I'm wearing.
This is the kitchen -- you just walk in, tell the cook what you want, and she cooks it up and brings it out! It was quite good, and we had a great lunch. Here's a hint, though -- if you're ever unsure about what you want to eat, order quesadillas y un botilla de agua. That's tortillas with melted cheese, and a bottle of water.
Fiber progress- not much. A few rows on the Shards socks, and started to card the last mini-batt for the Hanami shawl. I've got a bit of sinus headache starting, gotta stomp on it so I don't get sick. Stay tuned, the posts will be entertaining for sure!
Madrone tree
We collected the bark of the Madrone tree for dye. It gives a nice mahogany brown. I love the dark chocolate brown of the tree itself- they said it grows in California too, but I don't recall seeing it in So Calif. You
know I'm going to be looking for it now!
A close-up of the bark, and a nice color study by itself.
The total yardage on the Prudence skeins was 864 yards. I would have sworn I'd get more yardage! I know that I can get 200 yards out of a two-ply, for two ounces. That's 400 yards of singles, right? I can grok that the 3-ply would be a lot heavier for the same yardage, but I thought I'd get more yardage per skein.
Like it or not, I'll have to spin at least three more bobbins of Prudence fleece. And that's kind of a spoiler. 'nuf whining about that.
I'd already gone on to spinning for another project, too! I got 450 yards spun on the
Hanami shawl, and have another 50-yard skein halfway done. I'm doing mini-skeins so I can do a nice color grade. The end that's meant to look like shibori? It makes me think of mountains, so I thought I'd break it into peaks, using the same stitch pattern. And the cherry blossoms? they look like snowflakes.
Stop me before I start designing a cherry tree and thinking about how to do intarsia and lace at the same time...
