no more plastic shopping bags

I was recently surprised to learn that those ubiquitous accessories of consumer culture, polyethylene plastic shopping bags, have been banned in multiple countries (unfortunately not the US or Canada). They’ve been banned for good reason, as not only are they cluttering up both cities and countryside, choking animals and contaminating soil as they photodegrade into small toxic bits, but they’re also largely implicated in the formation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. I see no reason for plastic shopping bags to continue to exist, as the reusable alternatives are both inexpensive and convenient. Now, as for my part in all this:

This is my version of the Saturday Market Bag. It’s knit from organic cotton and stretches to hold a rather large amount of stuff, yet it squashes down to a small and portable size. I modified the original pattern by using a toe-up sock cast-on so as to knit it in the round (I hate seaming, and a seamless bag is a stronger construction anyway), and grafted the handles to the edge of the bag using Kitchener stitch. This is a great summer project and I’ve already started making a couple more using up some cotton yarn in my stash.

pondering the 100-mile yarn diet

Even though the phrase ‘carbon footprint’ has only recently entered my official vocabulary, for a long time I’ve made the effort to shop locally whenever possible, especially when it comes to food. It makes a lot of sense to me: things are fresher (and often therefore healthier), there’s a better chance that small-scale farms are profiting as opposed to large corporations, and less fuel is consumed getting items from the producer to me.

I’ve met a number of people lately who’ve been applying the same concept to their yarn/fibre buying habits: only buy locally produced yarn, from within a 100-mile (or 160 km) radius of where you live, and I’ve been toying with doing the same thing. Since I spin and now make the lion’s share of my knitting yarn from raw fleece, I’d have an easier time of this than someone who relied on a mill for their yarn–there are far more sheep farms than woollen mills out there. I’m not sure I’m ready to take on this challenge, but I’d be interested to hear from people who have:

What are your criteria for the 100-mile yarn diet? Does the yarn you buy have to be milled within 100 miles of you, or is yarn that’s milled elsewhere but dyed locally (I’m thinking of my own love for Rubber Grapefruit here) be acceptable? What about grown locally but spun elsewhere? I’m curious to find out what others have done with this.

I love teaching!

Seriously, I do. I’ve taught two classes at Ariadne Knits so far, with another scheduled for early May and more in the works. The response from my students has been overwhelmingly positive and I’ve loved being able to share the craft with others. I’ve noticed that people generally start out the class a little nervous, unsure of what they’re doing and how to get from fluffy unspun wool to yarn. However, there’s this moment where everything clicks and people smile and relax and suddenly they can’t stop spinning. I scheduled a break during the second class and announced, “Okay, now we’ll break for 15 minutes and there will be no official instruction. Feel free to get coffee or snacks, or keep spinning if you want.” Just about everyone kept spinning which, when I think about it, is exactly what I did when I was taking spinning classes too.

Not only does it feel great to teach others and have them fall in love with the craft, but I’ve met a lot of wonderful people through these classes as well. I’ve been making a lot of new friends and connections, and it’s exciting to be involved in the fibre arts scene as it starts to really take off in this area (Ontario/Quebec), and in spinning itself (which I see as about to become ‘the new knitting’).

I’ll be doing one more beginning spinning class at Ariadne in June and adding in a Spin 102 class as well, and meanwhile I’m starting up some beginning spinning classes at Workshop Boutique here in Ottawa. It’s keeping me busy but I love it.

Photo from my first class at Ariadne Knits.

sharing the knowledge

For a while I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of opportunities to learn to spin in this region, which surprised me given this area’s long history of fibre arts activities. There are a couple of guild-affiliated classes around, but they tend to be expensive and offered more for guild members rather than the general public. So, a couple of months ago I started posting on message boards on Ravelry about looking for a place to host a spinning workshop. The owners of Ariadne Knits graciously offered me the time and space at their shop, and as of now I’m scheduled to be teaching there (scroll down to get to my class) at least once a month. I’ll be teaching afternoon workshops on beginning spinning on a drop spindle (with the possibility of other topics in the future) and as of now, my March and April classes are fully booked. It’s exciting to be be able to share my spinning knowledge with people in a fun, affordable way, and at such a great venue. It’s funny that I couldn’t find anywhere in Ottawa to do the workshops but easily found a place in Montreal. Not that I mind going to Montreal at least once a month! I’ll post pictures after the first class.

babies everywhere! (and Ariadne Knits)

I have so many friends who are having kids right now (and oddly, all of them have had girls so far), so it’s bootie/baby sock mania for me. I found this pattern for lacy baby socks and quickly knit up this pair:

The pattern calls for size 0 needles and the smallest I have are 2’s, so the socks would fit a toddler better than a baby. I also added an extra row to the heel flap in order to avoid the ridge of reverse stockinette on the heel of the original pattern. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill’s Supersock (hand-dyed, machine washable, and soft–perfect for baby gifts) in the Dusk colourway and was purchased at Ariadne Knits in Montreal. Ariadne’s been an online shop for a while but only recently opened the doors of their brick-and-mortar shop. I have to say, I was really impressed with the shop. It has a very inviting layout that’s both airy (with the huge windows and uncluttered shelves) and cosy (with the woodstove and places to sit). The owners have done a great job stocking popular yarns that can’t be found elsewhere in Montreal (Cherry Tree Hill, Lorna’s Laces, and O-Wool, to name a few) as well as offering creative patterns exclusive to the shop, classes with well-known fibre artists and designers, and fun extras like embroidery kits. Although I went in just looking for a skein of yarn, I ended up spending a couple hours chatting, knitting, and drinking coffee with the owners. It’s definitely going to be a stop on my itinerary every time in Montreal.

I need to blog more pictures, including the other booties I’ve been working on, as well as my new spinning wheel(!). Unfortunately these past several weeks’ worth of grey, dim weather have meant the lighting in my apartment has been terrible for photos. There was actually about 15 minutes of sunshine this morning but I missed my opportunity with the camera. Maybe this is a good impetus for me to build a lightbox.

bon voyage, wee tiny socks

The wee tiny socks, ready for their new role as mail art:

My first attempt at using watercolours since kindergarten. Oh, and that’s a ship diagram between the socks (with navigational lights).

Adventures in felting

I don’t have a lot of experience with felting (or, to be more correct in this case, fulling). In fact, I can only think of one felted object I made before I decided to jump in and make both a felted sheep and a felted bag. Not the easiest task when you only have access to a coin-operated washing machine (so no control over the cycles, like agitation), so it took a little determination to go ahead and do it. I also forgot to take “before” pictures of the unfelted items. Anyway, I used Noro Kureyon and Lamb’s Pride for the sheep, which turned out pretty well:

That’s a bit more stitch definition than I’d like to see, though, so I think it’ll get another run through the washing machine. I do like the face and the curling-forward ears:

The bag was a bit more work. The pattern is for a messenger bag, whereas I wanted a smallish purse I could use as an alternative to my more sedate black leather purse. I went for a half-size bag, which involved some calculations when it came to the slip-stitch mosaic flap. Rather than sizing down yarn and needles to preserve the entirety of the mosaic pattern, I just decreased the number of all the stitches by half. In the end I think this was the best course of action, since a smaller version of the pattern might have become blurred and unrecognisable during the felting process. One trip through the washer yielded this (yes, I’ll be spending a lot of time picking lint off this thing):

The problem with slip-stitch patterns, as great as they are because you only work one colour at a time, is that they tend to pull in. This becomes especially apparent when felting, as you can see in the image above. I’ve straightened out the edges while they dry but really I’m not too concerned with it–I kind of like the wavy edge. The bigger nuisance is how the strap came out:

The strap felted very well where it attaches to the body of the bag, and almost not at all further out. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll cut the felted sections out and reattach the wider, unfelted portion, or cut the whole thing off and put it through the washer again sans bag. I’ll probably do the latter, and just throw the strap in the washer again with the sheep. Hopefully the results will be a bit more uniform this time.

wee tiny socks

Just a brief update of some wee tiny socks I knit for a mail art swap.

I used this pattern and my smallest needles (US size 2) and the finest yarns I had: some fingering-weight unknown green stuff (the bag says “100% fibre inconnu” though the burn test points to mostly wool with some synthetic content) that was $2.49 for a huge bag at the Giant Tiger, and some laceweight Misti Alpaca. The Misti had to be triple-stranded to match the weight of the bargain green yarn, but in the end they matched pretty closely in size. I made one of each colour, resulting in Christmas colours or, as a sailing enthusiast friend of mine suggested, “port and starboard.” For the swap they’ll be attached to a postcard somehow, probably with a port/starboard theme as the background. I’ll post a picture of the finished product when it’s done.

official Blog Action Day post

For Blog Action Day, I thought I’d write a bit about why I’m moving further away from commercially-prepped roving and spinning fibre. When I started spinning my own yarn, I’d never worked with raw fleece straight off the sheep’s (or alpaca’s, or goat’s, etc.) back. As I was just trying to get the hang of coaxing a mass of unruly fibres form something that vaguely resembled yarn, the thought of washing, combing, and carding a fleece beforehand was too much.

As I’ve become a more accomplished spinner, however, I’ve also become more aware of the processes involved in turning that raw greasy fleece into roving. A few workshops with spinners like the incomparable Claire Walker taught me how handspinners traditionally process fleeces, but I’ve also learned (mostly from my own digging online and in textile publications) about how the roving you’ll find in a yarn shop (as well as all that yarn) gets made. It’s generally not a very environmentally conscious endeavour: sheep are raised in large, overcrowded lots and prophylactically treated with antibiotics and other medications (these sheep are more susceptible to diseases and parasites because of the unhealthy conditions they live in); the wool is often bought from farmers for a few pennies per pound (particularly when the sheep are primarily being raised for meat rather than wool); and the wool is treated with caustic chemicals so as to dissolve vegetable matter, eliminate lanolin, and change the natural colour.

A bit more about carbonising, which is the process whereby plant particles lodged in the wool fibres are removed: the wool is “washed” in baths of sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, which modifies the chemical bonds in the plant material. When the wool is placed into an oven and heated, the altered plant matter turns to ash which flies into the air when the wool is carded later on. The problem is that those acids are both dangerous to work with and a hazard to the environment (if they are not disposed of properly), while the airborne ash poses a potential threat to wool workers. Furthermore, carbonising process can weaken wool and make it less soft and resilient. More dangerous substances in the process come in the form of bleaches and dyes, many of which are known carcinogens.

Not a very green, or appealing picture, at least to me. And so I’ve been doing more and more of my own wool processing at home, with the following benefits in mind:

No caustic chemicals - I remove lanolin using soap and very hot water. Vegetable matter I pick out while combing or even as I’m spinning, though I’m careful only to buy fleeces that are relatively free of plant material. No carbonising agents or dyes also means the wool stays as soft and elastic as possible.

I know where my wool comes from - By choosing to buy only from small-scale, sustainably-run farms, I know the sheep that produced the wool had a good quality of life, and the environment impact is much less than if the wool had been produced in large, crowded lots.

I’m paying a fair price - Everyone likes a deal, but I like knowing that the farmers who raised the wool are getting paid decently for their work.

The beauty of natural colours - One of the things I love about wool is the array of colours that are seen right on the sheep. Bright vivid colours are nice for some things, but I’m more drawn to the creams, fawns, and charcoals produced by nature.

I can do what I want, right from the start - Most commercial roving is densely packed and requires a lot of thinning and pre-drafting in order to spin a smooth, even yarn. Pre-drafting is one of my least favourite parts of spinning, and I’d rather avoid it by doing my own carding and combing to produce rolags or top that are ready to spin.

Even though it’s a lot more work, I’ve come to really enjoy preparing raw fleeces for spinning, and it’s made me become more aware about the origins of the materials I work with. Coming up will be a series of posts on just how I process wool, from raw fleece to yarn. Keep an eye out for that!

vintage Red Cross knitting

Yesterday I ventured out into the chilly autumn rain (and forgot my umbrella) to go to a fabric flea market in the Glebe. I don’t have much need for fabric (I’m a lapsed quilter, and never learned to sew on a machine, though I’d like to change both of those at some point) but I heard there’d be some knitting-related items there and so decided to check it out. There was a lot of old and scratchy acrylic yarn in horrible 70s colours, as well as several dinged and dented pairs of aluminum needles. I was about to give up and leave when I spotted a seller with lots of old crafts magazines, and there I found this:

It’s an instructional booklet published by the Canadian Red Cross in 1940, for knitters who wanted to make items for soldiers. It was an original copy for only $2, so I quickly snapped it up. I love historical items like this; for a while now I’ve been toying with the idea with writing a historical piece or two for a magazine like Spin-Off or Interweave Knits. I also scored several other knitting patterns from the 40’s and 50’s, mostly sock patterns featuring photographs of men with Brillcreamed hair playing golf and generally looking wholesome. I love the Red Cross booklet, though–it’s got patterns for items needed in all branches of the service, as well as hospitals:

Note the “amputation covers”. When I first saw that I thought, thank god we’ve come a long way since WWII. And then I remembered all the soldiers coming back from Iraq missing limbs, some of them even returning for further tours in the Middle East once they’ve become accustomed to their prostheses! Further research reveals that amputation covers, or “stump socks”, are still used in fitting artificial limbs. Interesting.

There are no pictures in the booklet, so it’ll be a surprise if I decide to knit anything from it. I’m thinking a pair of mittens, though probably not the Rifle Mitts with the separate trigger finger! Whoever picked up this little booklet back in 1940 evidently decided on socks, judging by the pencil mark:

Given how hugely popular sock knitting is right now, I imagine she (or he) would be in good company these days. I wonder if she’s still knitting?