Some of you astute and crafty webatarians may be familiar with the CraftSanity podcast, blog, and magazine that springs forth from the never-resting mind of Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood. This week she has been blogging about a variety of cute Valentine’s crafts and also announced that she is hosting a CraftSanity Crafternoon this Saturday, February 11 at the Grand Rapids Press Hub (downtown GR) from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. It sounds like a lot of fun with good conversation. I can’t make it but people who love to talk about craft topics will have a good time, for sure.

You can find Jennifer’s magazine available at her etsy store. Notice that she’s having a bulk issue sale on the first five issues of Craft Sanity magazine. Craft lovers everywhere should take advantage of this sale. The magazine is chock-full of terrific articles and projects for interested crafters in all media.

To continue the information about Polypay, here is my polypay wool scarf I knit over the past month or so.

Filbert Scarf in Michigan Polypay Hand Dyed and Hand Spun

I love it! The pattern is the Filbert Scarf from Stephen West. I loved that it was a super fast pattern to knit, and anything with a built-in I-Cord is automatically appealing to me. I also confess a deep and abiding love for garter stitch. The inspiration to knit Filbert in handspun came from seeing the one that Brian (epsguy on ravelry.com) spun and knit. I love a bulky handspun yarn and his photos showed so much texture that it was instant love. The beginning fiber looked like this (this is not the actual fiber I spun – it’s a sister/brother/cousin braid – dyed at the same time):

Polypay Roving in Winter Lake and Gray color combo

I don’t have a picture of the singles or the spun yarn… but it was fun to spin. I spun it using a long draw, and I think it was on my Louet S-15. I also chain-plyed the yarn, since I am too lazy to divide the yarn in half and wait til I fill two bobbins. I like chain plying because it can keep the colors together. That’s what happened in the yarn and the scarf – there’s a neat striping effect going on in the scarf. But the oversized cable can carry off a lot of color if it were knit in an even more contrasting handspun.  The finished scarf looks like this:

Filbert Scarf in Polypay handspun yarn Winter Lake and Gray Color

Here’s the reverse view:

Another View of the Filbert Scarf - Michigan Polypay Hand Dyed Hand Spun

If you’d like some polypay to dye yourself, contact Mike and Lona Bronkema of Shadyside Farm. They have an etsy shop. There is some of their polypay available at the Spinning Loft in Howell in the webstore, too. That’s some polypay that I have dyed in Coffee, Shock Rose, and Spiced.

Michigan fibers are terrific and can be used to make garments and accessories that run the style gamut from homespun to elegant. Hopefully I have achieved a degree of elegance in the Filbert Scarf with the handspun. I think so.

Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday’s Web. Tomorrow is Thursday’s Threads, where I will be introducing the three spinning wheels in my life and some of the projects I am working on.

The focus was on fibers, specifically rovings and batts, made from wool from some of Michigan’s finest wool farms. Emily uses LOADS of Michigan wool that she hand-proceeses and hand-dyes, and then hand-cranks into the most amazing and gorgeous batts ever.

Bricolage Studio batts, photo courtesy of Emily Wolscheid

My contribution to the event was to provide hand-dyed rovings from Michigan wool, focusing on variety of breeds.

Together we had about three tables worth of great fiber for Beth’s customers!

One of the things I focused on was a new color for the event, one that I had wanted to do for SOAR but ran out of time on, so this was the perfect place to launch it. The color is called “Spiced” and it’s a combination of Paprika, turmeric, oregano (which is called Moss in real life, but for the sake of this post we’ll stick with “oregano”) and nutmeg. It was available in Polypay, Cheviot, Shetland, Targhee X, and an overdyed tan Shetland.

Polpypay "Spiced"

I am in love with polypay. It’s lofty and springy and a breeze to spin. It’s an American Sheep breed that was started in 1968. The polypay I get is from Mike and Lona Bronkema’s Shadyside Farm in Holland, MI. I have had loads of their high-quality polypay to dye and have turned a batch into a luscious yarn. The polypay pictured at the side is from their flock. (I promise to blog more about Mike and Lona and their terrific farm operation again soon.)

Beth’s online shop lists three braids of this fiber and color together – better check it out soon because it will go FAST!

Not only was Beth kind enough to host this event and call on her customers to come, enjoy, socialize, and have fun, she donated a portion of the proceeds to Forgotten Harvest, a charity fighting hunger in Michigan. Another portion of the sales will go to Kids Food Basket in Grand Rapids to help them feed kids healthy food.

To get Shadyside Farm’s polypay from their etsy store, click here. To get Bricolage Batts from her etsy store, click here. To get Yarn Hollow and Bricolage from the Spinning Loft, click here. To get to Yarn Hollow’s etsy page, click here.

Welcome to the Yarn Hollow website. I hope you find these hints and tips interesting and helpful. These are processes and ways of working that are based on my personal experience. Have at it – forge ahead with verve! Feel free to contact me with any insights into the tips – how they worked for you, what you like to do that’s different. I’ll post your hints, too, if you’ll let me! And as always, feel free to break the rules.

Tip Du Jour – Measuring

when I am dyeing on something that needs to be EXACTLY right, or even when I just feel like it, I like to measure my dye powder and dye stock solution thusly:

1) Calculate amount needed according the the desired depth of shade (DOS.)

2) Prepare dye powder and dye stock solution

3) Gather vessels for mixing and measuring.

If the required amount is, for example, a combination of 1.75 grams of magenta and 2.5 grams of royal blue, I start by measuring the dry dye powder first. I’ll use a small vessel or boat (the bottoms of yogurt containers work great), and measure 1 gram of magenta powder into it. Then I’ll transfer this to a larger vessel and rinse the small boat. I’ll then measure 2 grams of the 2.5 needed of royal blue, and add it to the same vessel as the 1 gram of magenta.

The next step is measuring the .75 gr or magenta and the .5 gram of royal blue. This is where I reach for Dye Stock Solutions that are measured at 1%. This means that 1 gram of dye is suspended in 100 ml of water; each ml of water contains .01 of 1 gram of dye. If I need .75 grams of dye, I will then pour 75 ml of a 1% Dye Stock Solution. Then I’ll pour that into the vessel containing the previously-measured dye powders and repeat the process for the .5 gram needed of royal blue

The point of this is two-fold: 1) if you are concerned about measurements, measure each element discreetly and then pour it into a container that will hold all the ingredients together. This way, if you over-pour or over-measure, you can step-back and start over without ruining a whole mess of dye. 2) Liquid 1% DSS are very handy to have for measuring fractions of grams.

here are some pictures to illustrate measuring Dye Stock Solution:

Make sure to Zero your scale before weighing anything on it. Press the TARE button.

Add your dye powder to the boat on the scale to measure the required amount. Pour this into a prepared, empty vessel.

Measure the water for mixing in a separate vessel and then mix with the dye powder in a third vessel. This prevents over-measuring one of the ingredients.

Yarn Hollow Bulky and Super Bulky Yarn

Yarn Hollow DK & Sport Weight Yarn