Spinning Archives - Dancing Waters Farm aka Mostly Mohair

Rainbow Fiber Co-op

Posted on 2021-11-15 by Andrea

This fantastic group in their own words:

“is a Diné-led agricultural co-operative established to improve the financial sustainability and equitable market outcomes for the largest flocks of Dibé dits’ozí (Navajo-Churro sheep) remaining on the Navajo Nation. Our mission is to close the gap between rural Diné shepherds and an e-commerce driven marketplace for their wool. We are thrilled to announce that we have officially launched our online yarn shop!

Thanks to many generous donors we executed our first wool buy on the Navajo Nation in July 2021. We purchased approximately 3,200 pounds of Navajo-Churro wool from our shepherds. We paid a stipend for shearing help and a fair price for their wool by the pound. After skirting and sorting by color we transported the wool to Mora Valley Spinning Mill, a nonprofit community-based wool mill located in Mora, New Mexico, to produce an assortment of Navajo-style weaving yarns. In November of 2021 we began offering Diné-grown Navajo-Churro weaving yarns for sale online direct-to-customer. Sales dollars generated will be used to help fund the wool buy project again in 2022.

Most of the Navajo-Churro wool products available for sale online are from non-Diné shepherds. Diné shepherds are often told their wool is worthless or paid pennies per pound at mass wool buy events. Despite these challenges many shepherds create a market for themselves through hand spinning, weaving, and teaching weaving classes. This is difficult to do at scale and an unreliable source of income. In 2020 the pandemic brought marketing activities like farm visits, classes, art shows, and fiber events to a standstill. Several medium- to large-scale wool buys were completely canceled. These impacts have continued into 2021. We saw an opportunity to step up and do something to support these important flocks.”

Fibershed.org is helping them raise money to get their idea off the ground and their first run of yarn is now available on their website!

For more info: https://rainbowfibercoop.org/

Antique Amish Yarn Swift

Posted on 2020-01-08 by Andrea

I recently bought an antique Amish swift from my artist and fellow fiber friend Linda Czech. Sadly she is backing out of fiber pursuits because her cats are fixated on destroying anything fiber she creates.

I took it “for a spin” to skein a bobbin of 2 ply Jacob wool handspun I’d done for the Woolverton Inn. The swift works perfectly to wind directly from my spinning wheel without my having to lean over or stretch up and it also counts the yardage as it goes. Not to mention that it just looks really great sitting in the living room!

Chair Seats – Cats Who’ve Owned Me Series – 4

Posted on 2016-10-15 by Andrea

This chair seat is called “Cleaning Up” and features Sandy taking a bath. The design is based on my photos of him. I’m still experimenting with different colors and textures of yarn to find the best for picturing a cat. This time I used white and tan yarn and hooked the stripes explicitly.

I used my homespun and millspun hand dyed yarns, all of which are wool/ mohair blends (details). The backing is 100% cotton Monk’s Cloth. I used 13×13 epi cloth.

The wildflower patches are millspun yarns that were hand painted after the yarn was spun. The background fields were done with yarns that were kettle dyed before spinning.

Back of Chair Seat

Sandy

Front of Chair Seat
Before Finishing

Learnings

Good contrast in the colors chosen and work with scissors after hooking to arrange the lines as hooked makes the details much clearer. Sandy’s face shows clearly on the back of the chair seat but still needs some work on the front side. Since the colors are so close in value, it is hard to see his face details unless the lighting is bright.

I liked the look here of generic blobs of color versus trying to hook detailed flowers or grasses.

Yarns Used

Info on the yarns used is given below. The picture links to the full description and creation details for the yarn where available.


Wildflower Patches in Background:		Coreopsis – hand dyed (after spinning) 2 ply millspun – 50/50 mohair/wool. This yarn is shades of yellow with sections of yellow and white designed to stripe.
		Mardi Gras – hand dyed (after spinning) 2 ply millspun – 50/50 mohair/wool.
		Wildflower Meadows- hand dyed (after spinning) 2 ply millspun – 50/50 mohair/wool.
		Iris – hand dyed (after spinning) 2 ply millspun – 50/50 mohair/wool. The same yarn was also used for the edging.

Gravel Path:		Natural Dark Grey and Light Grey DK 2Ply Millspun 68% Mohair 32% Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester Wool.

		I used natural DWF white mohair/ wool yarn for the rocks along the gravel path (same yarn as for Sandy’s body). Sport White Millspun 2 Ply 59% Mohair 31% Shetland Wool.
Background Fields:		Pearl Green kettle hand dyed (before carding) millspun.
		Forest Dreams hand dyed (before carding) millspun. Designed to look like a forest at a distance for use in weaving and rug hooking.
		Aquatics hand dyed (before carding) millspun. Designed to look like pond water for use in weaving and rug hooking.
		Green with Envy hand dyed (before carding) millspun.
Sandy:		I used natural DWF white mohair/ wool yarn for most of Sandy’s body. Sport White Millspun 2 Ply 59% Mohair 31% Shetland Wool.
		Tan DWF mohair/ wool millspun was used for Sandy’s stripes. 3Ply Millspun 50% Adult Mohair 50% Shetland Wool 2.5 Oz Skeins
Edging:		Iris – Hand Dyed (After Spinning) Millspun. The same yarn was also used for wildflower patches in the background.
Lettering:		A small amount of hand spun, turkey baster hand dyed roving (white with small amounts of orange and blue) was used. A ball of roving was soaked in water for an hour, then injected with colors using a turkey baster, heated to boiling for 30 minutes to set the colors, then washed before hand spinning.

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