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Blog posts here are few and far between these days so I hope you’ll visit me on Instagram, where I am @donnastitches.

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Yesterday's spin gave me plenty of time to think. What came to mind was a young friend -- she must have been about six at the time. I pulled carrots from the garden for our a snack and I swear she thought I was pranking her. In her world, carrots came in packages at the grocery store -- clean, peeled, uniform in size. Nothing in her experience connected her with the soil in which her food was grown. In our highly processed world, few people eat a carrot in the yard after a quick rinse with the garden hose. I also wonder how many people ever see a bit of vegetable matter (VM) in their wool while knitting. In industrial processing, that cellulosic plant material is removed by a process called carbonization that involves immersion in a strong solution of sulphuric acid then baking then crushing then shaking out the carbonized dust. Working with #localwool raw fleece, on the other hand, you are connected to the world of the sheep that grew the fleece. One grower I know shears twice a year and only sells fleeces sheared after the animals have been on fresh pasture all summer. She doesn't sell her spring shearing because of the VM from winter feed and bedding. Because picking out VM is slow work. This particular spin came from another grower. It's the waste from combing for a worsted spin from marginal fleece I had left that was the color my customer needed. I didn't want to waste the wool I combed out. In combing, carding and spinning, much of that VM fell out. The rest I picked out. I'll pick out more when I knit with it. And think of that sheep when I wear the mittens.

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Today looks to be gray inside and out -- #handspinning Romney and Jacob wool.

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We tried out our new Snowpeeler roof rake and it is awesome! Because of the amount of snow build-up, we scraped back the edges with our old snow rake to make it easier to shift the Peeler. Probably could have scraped closer to the peak on snowshoes. But we've already reduced the load on the roof significantly -- without climbing a ladder to shovel.

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Donna Kallner

fiber artist, teacher and explorer, inspired by ancient fiber techniques and all the ways contemporary fiber artists give old ideas a new spin View all posts by Donna Kallner