Bird in Hand Yarn

Merry Christmas and Some Upcoming Workshops

2008-12-25T14:18:00.001-08:00

Wishing everyone warm and safe holidays this season and a happy new year!

I will be teaching three workshops this January at The Point. Classes are $65 and materials are included.

Sunday January 7: Spindle Spinning (click on link to register)
Sunday January 21: Spindle Spinning (click on link to register)

A fiber prep workshop on how to use a drum carder, blend colors and different fiber types is in the works- check back at The Point's website for more details.

My holiday season has been one of much peace and joy. I hope yours is filled with the same.

A fiber yuletide tradition

2008-12-20T17:15:00.000-08:00

Most of our American Christmas traditions are warm and cozy: Christmas trees, cookies, presents, a jolly Santa, animatronic reindeer with red light bulbs for noses...we no longer celebrate the older venerable tradition of the evil fertility demon Krampus, who for years accompanied Santa on his toy-delivering journeys. If you were naughty that year, you would get beaten by Krampus, and even taken back to his lair in the Black Forest. Awesome.

It turns out there is another pre-Christian Christmas monster just for fiber artists. The legend of Jólakötturinn, or the Yule Cat, comes from Iceland and relates to the autumn wool harvest. A legend designed to incentivize the timely carding, spinning and knitting of newly-shorn wool, the community would sacrifice lazy knitters who didn't finish their projects in time for Christmas to the Yule Cat.

His whiskers, sharp as bristles,
His back arched up high.
And the claws of his hairy paws
Were a terrible sight.

Happy Holidays!

On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven

2008-07-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease!
Reject me not into the world again.
With you alone is excellence and peace,
Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain.
Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd,
With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale,
The spiteful and the stingy and the rude
Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale.
This moment is the best the world can give:
The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem.
Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live,
Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them,
A city spell-bound under the aging sun.
Music my rampart, and my only one.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Last night the New York Philharmonic played Beethoven's 4th Symphony, among other works, in Prospect Park- fireflies were everywhere, the grass was lush after several weeks of rain, families eating picnics on blankets, there were fireworks afterwards. I could have sworn the trees were bending forward to listen.

The Yarn Harlot has a beautiful post on why spinning is so wonderful.

I'm still teaching spinning lessons at The Point- spindle and wheel. Sign up online!

Long Island Railroad has some great beach getaway packages this summer. I went to Robert Moses beach a few weeks back and can't wait to return, just to listen to the surf.

I was highly amused when a giant wave soaked the blanket and book of the sunbaked couple next to us. He was cursing that his copy of Be a Million Dollar Consultant got wet. Don't mess with nature!

I am now reading a lot more inspiring blogs in Google Reader. Check out my feed. Warning: some items are mildly risque and offensive to the more delicate among us.

I finished knitting the Rowan Sarah Dallas pattern from Knit Crochet #42. It turned out beautifully. I need to shorten the main section by about a foot to eliminate a gap in the back. I made it 3/4 sleeves. Pictures soon! I'm getting a new computer since I am unable to connect my current camera to the vintage machine I'm currently using.

I saw the first walnut fall from a tree in Prospect Park. Walnut dyeing!!

Spring, teaching, knitting, spinning, dyeing

2008-04-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

Has it been a month already?

It's been a busy spring here at BIH Yarn- the dyeworks has started up again, new yarns are being produced, there are new spinners running loose in New York City, and the pope is here. Snowdrops have yielded to daffodils have yielded to forsythia is fast being overtaken by honest to god LEAVES! The birds are back with their morning chatter, the windows are staying open all day and I'm walking around town without any socks on. I brushed over 10 brushfulls of winter undercoat out of my cat Papi. Yep, spring is here. No, I'm not going to spin the cat hair.

Two new colorways from the dyepot. These skeins are about 400 yards of merino/nylon sock yarn, ready to be made into whatever lovely project you can imagine. These are for sale at my Etsy store.

The violet colorway:

The green colorway:

Last week I went to the dog park with a friend and his Pomeranian dog Samson. If these shots of dogs running zooming around the Nethermead in Prospect Park during off leash hours don't make you smile, then I really can't help you.

Samson action shot:

Camera stalking the first robin of spring in a Magnolia tree:

More Nethermead dogs:

Spring is in the air!

2008-03-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the actual first day of spring finds us covered in snow, sleet or otherwise non-spring weather. This year spring really feels like spring: crocuses and daffodils are blooming, buds are swelling on the trees, the sun is shining later and later into the day. More signs of spring around my apartment:

plants are putting out new leaves in response to the sunlight
geranium is blooming again
the equivalent of a nuclear bomb of cat hair due to spring shedding covers every surface
garden planning in full swing

Kitchen news:

In honor of St. Patrick's day, I made up a Shepherd's Pie recipe. I'll be making this again very soon! Here it is:

Ingredients
1 rutabaga
2 turnips
8 medium potatoes
6 carrots
4 onions
5 cloves garlic (peeled and roughly chopped)
1 tsp. flour
1 tsp. butter
2 c. whole milk (or cream)
1 lb. sausage (lamb or pork)
1 tbsp. Herbs de Provence
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. celery seed
salt and pepper to taste
assorted cheese ends: I added the remains of blocks of mozzarella, cheddar and asiago (about 1/2 c. total)

Peel and cut the rutabaga, carrots, turnips, potatoes and onions into 1" cubes. Boil the potatoes until soft in a separate pot. Boil the rutabaga, carrots and turnips until soft.

Place raw chopped onions in the bottom of a 8"x12" casserole pan (you may need a second casserole for overflow). Mix in the boiled rutabaga, carrots and turnips with the onions. Chop the sausages into 1" chunks and add casserole. Add Herbs de Provence, rosemary and salt and pepper.

Make the cream sauce: melt the butter in the bottom of a frying pan, and then add the flour. Cook the flour /butter mixture on medium for a minute or two. Heat the milk or cream to nearly boiling. Gradually add the milk to the mixture, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens, then add more until all milk is added.

Pour the cream sauce over the vegetables in the casserole pan(s). Grate about half of the cheese onto the vegetables and cream sauce.

Mash the potatoes: using a mixer or potato masher, mash the potatoes with some butter and milk until smooth.

Layer the mashed potatoes over the sausages and vegetables until fully covered. Grate the remaining cheese on top of the potatoes. Cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Remove cover and continue baking for an additional 15 minutes.

8 - 10 servings

Cheap and Green

2008-03-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

This year I am all about finding ways to combine frugal living with green living. The two often overlap, as simplicity in many cases involves finding inexpensive and easy ways to accomplish tasks without a lot of fuss or baggage, including the use of green products. My organizing efforts have been successful so far, cutting down the time it takes for me to clean my apartment and to find things I am looking for. Other cheap and green changes I'm making:

no more plastic food storage containers. Now I use mason jars for everything.
no more plastic bags. I'm sewing up three small, medium and large canvas bags this week for shopping.
All One! I'm using Dr. Bronner's classic peppermint soap for everything now- shampoo, laundry detergent, mixed with vinegar and baking soda for an all-purpose cleaner, and tonight I'm going to see if it works as dish soap. I'm using it because it contains no SLS or parabens like most industrial soaps and detergents. My parents used Dr. Bronner's as well, and I recall reading the crazy label and uses for the soap in the bathtub when I was little, including a frightening tip to use it as a douche. Gross.
PearBudget. I'm keeping a budget down to the penny and it's not nearly as scary as I thought. In fact, it's kind of fun in an OCD kind of way. It makes frugality a fun challenge.
Paper bags for garbage can liners. This means I have to go to the Trader Joe's wine store every week to get a new trash bag.

I'm trying to do this without being too cranky or turning into an annoying hippy. I think so far I'm succeeding.

Cycling Tour, 1953

2008-03-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

I have had three bikes stolen in Brooklyn already, and I'm currently shopping for a fourth. This summer I plan to lock it up at night behind the gates of my community garden under a cover. I am already itching to ride around Prospect Park now that the weather is getting nicer and the snowdrops are out.

To fuel my dreams of biking, I've been reading about the European biking tours of Roy Jenkin and his daughter Nina Jenkin's tour 50 years later. (via Cabinet magazine)

In 1953 Roy Jenkin, a 21 year-old student from Exeter, cycled around France, Switzerland and Germany with his schoolfriend Gordon Newbery. They covered 2,286 miles, slept in potting sheds, hay barns, and even a railway marshalling yard, and the whole trip cost them £24 15s. His diary and this website, describes the long-gone Europe of horse carts, cobbles and old fashioned hospitality, a continent which was still recovering from six years of war.

This summer - fifty years on - Roy's daughter Nina retraced her father's route. Life on the road was very different for her than it was for Roy - she had a modern bicycle with plenty of gears, and she visited web cafes and e-mailed despatches home instead of posting letters - but she still had to average 55 miles a day, feed herself, and find a place to stay. Roy died of cancer when Nina was eight, and so this trip was also more than a mere cycling holiday - it was a chance to learn more about her father, of whom her memories are limited. Nina, together with her friend Simon, covered 2,432 miles in the end, and had many adventures along the way - read the rest of the site to find out what happened!

Also: take the Minimalist Quiz. I got 92% correct but was fooled by the Walmart bookshelves.

New yarn!

2008-03-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

I've spun up over four ounces of a blend I started in a fiber workshop: 50% shetland wool, 25% cream alpaca and 25% white kid mohair handcarded together and spun into a woolen bulky 2-ply yarn. The yarn is light and fluffy and soft and I am really looking forward to finding the perfect project for it.

The raw (washed) locks:

Locks on the hand cards:

Carded rolags:

Yarn:

Making Brooklyn Bloom Weekend

2008-03-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

I'll be here this weekend. I have been teaching gardening at the Children's Garden at BBG for two seasons now, and am very excited about seeing new and returning faces this spring season. I also spent a few Saturdays volunteering at the Value Added farm in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Both gardens, and my own community garden plot, are my favorite places to be when the weather gets warm.

Making Brooklyn Bloom Symposium

Edible NYC: Green it, grow it, eat it. This year's keynote session, From Seed to Table: Building a Healthy Food System, features talks by Kimberly Vargas, a youth farmer with Added Value in Red Hook; Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap, a book that Joan Gussow calls an engaging, candid, and sometimes funny look at how ordinary people have struggled for decades to create a fair food system in the absence of public sector compassion; and Karen Washington, a community gardener and South Bronx Food Coop organizer who is a well-known expert on grassroots local food efforts.

Workshop leaders from BBG, Just Food, Brooklyn community gardens, East New York Farms, Slow Food, the Philly Orchard Project and many other local and national organizations will teach hands-on lessons.

Come network in the Palm House and visit 28 local and regional exhibitors who support greening in New York City and the local food movement. Lunch is available at the Terrace Café in the Steinhardt Conservatory.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Palm House
1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn
10a; $free before noon or with event flyer
718 623 7200
bbg.org/vis2/2008/mbb/

Dust Bowl Diary

2008-03-05T11:01:00.001-08:00

One of the perks of being a librarian is getting first crack at the bins of materials donated to the library. It's always a crap shoot when I rummage through the bins of books and magazines and Jane Fonda workout videos from people's basements: sometimes (often, in fact) I get a rash on my hands from a strange wood pulp mold, sometimes I find books of beautiful bird pictures, and sometimes I find a treasure like Dust Bowl Diary.

Dust Bowl Diary by Ann Marie Low contains exerpts and commentary by Ann about her life as a homesteader in North Dakota during the dustbowl and Depression years of 1927 - 1937. The writing is descriptive, clear and lyrical, reflecting the highly poetic and moral character of Ann herself during the last of her teenage years and into early adulthood. I am looking foward to reading about how she and her family handle the devastation and heartbreak of the 1930's dustbowl: I'm sure there will be plenty to be awed and inspired by in her prose. I am fascinated by the detailed descriptions of early 20th century homestead technology: butter churns, grain threshers, horse-drawn carts, hand-woven draperies.

December 29, 1928

As always on the day before Christmas I rode Pronto to Grandma's with presents for her and the boys and got theirs for us. Grover was getting hay in the meadow, so I rode over there and we talked and laughed for an hour. Grover is so much fun. Like Bud, he always has funny jokes and witty remarks.
Today was warm for this time of year, so I rode many miles in my beloved hills. Tonight I rode again. Under a full moon the south hills gleam white. Far away a coyote is howling in a silver world.

Yikes!

2008-03-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've updated! I'm settling into some new New Year's habits and adding new ones to my roster, including regularly updating this blog.

It's February and the weather has been kind to us this year. Outside of a few storms and cold snaps, we've had more than our fair share of sunny days and 40 degree temperatures here in Brooklyn. I've been holing up at home a lot cooking delicious food, spinning and dreaming up new projects to make this year.

Last weekend I made two major changes, for the good. First, I decided once and for all make sure I know where all my food comes from. While I have been shopping at the Grand Army Plaza farmer's market for several years now, I've now decided to buy all my meat as well as vegetables from local farmers. I'm especially excited about my bacon and sausage from Flying Pigs Farm and my soup hen from the egg ladies!

The second big project from last weekend was doing a complete storage reorg in my apartment. The time had finally come when after a series of near-misses a shelf of record albums fell on my head while I was moving my computer monitor to watch a movie. I live in a teeny tiny lovely apartment that is perfect for me. However, keeping it clean and tidy requires that I creatively use every square inch of floor and storage space to it's maximum possibility, and I had been piling and cramming objects into nooks and crannies for too long. So I went to Target and spent $150 on modular wire cubes, storage furniture and closet shelves and revamped all my closets, under-the-bed and under-the-sink storage. It's amazing what a couple sets of over the door hooks can do for organization.

On the cooking front: last weekend I made two homemade pizzas with a recipe from The Greens Cookbook, my favorite cookbook ever. I try to make the Pizza Nicoise at least once a year. Tomorrow is turkey soup and an apple pie.

Fiber front: I've been teaching more spinning workshops and private lessons at The Point in Manhattan. All of my students so far have been wonderful- we have so much fun spending an afternoon carding, drafting, spinning, learning about fiber and making yarn. The Spinning II: Fiber Prep workshop was a blast and I'm looking forward to introducing more knitters to spinning.

My personal projects have focused on hand carding a new blend of cream alpaca, white kid mohair and a grey-violet Shetland fleece into a soft wonderful blend that is spinning up beautifully.

Spinning lessons

2007-10-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

I've been carding and spinning and swatching and taking pictures and teaching people about fiber! Ramping up for fall fiber activities has been great fun- reorganizing my stash, creating new fiber blends and dreaming up projects for fall and winter. I have big plans to make several (more like 10) of the patterns in the latest Rowan Knit/Crochet #42, starting with the Helsinki out of the walnut-dyed Wensleydale roving.

I'm also teaching spinning lessons at The Point in the West Village. It's been wonderful so far...I'm so happy to have this opportunity to teach my favorite craft and hobby to others! So far all of my students have been natural spinners: they have all made real yarn that holds together and was done on a spinning wheel. If you are interested in lessons, contact me via this blog or set up an appointment at The Point. Lessons are $65 for one hour, and I will make sure you can spin on a wheel before you leave.

I also have two upcoming spindle spinning workshops at The Point; I'm confirming dates today and will post when they're official.

Here's pictures from last night's spinning lesson:

Michaela and I make sure twist doesn't go into the fibers outside the drafting zone.

Michaela proudly shows off her first handspun yarn!

Gratuitous picture of my cat:

Dyeing With Walnuts

2007-10-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

The first round of walnut dyeing turned out better than I expected. The colors are beautiful, the process is very easy. Wear gloves!

Here's how to do it:

Harvest the walnuts by picking them up from the ground or from a black walnut tree.

Cut the skins from the walnuts with a paring knife. Use everything but the hard nut inside.

Weigh the skins. For a deep brown, the ratio of walnuts to wool should be 1:1, though experimentation is fun as well.

Put the walnut skins in a mesh bag, preferably cotton (I wish I had done this). Add the walnut skins to the dyepot full of cold water. I made up two dyepots: one with 1kg of walnuts and another with 750 g of walnuts.

Bring the mixture to a boil.

Once the pot is boiling, remove the walnuts and turn off the heat. Add the wool. Let the wool sit in the dyebath overnight, or until the wool turns the desired shade.

These are the two pounds of rewound roving from each dyepot: the lighter one is from the pot with less walnuts.

And here is the spun 2-ply yarn:

The Wensleydale makes a dense worsted yarn and in the future I'm going to either spin it finer or card it with a fluffier fiber like llama for more softness and loft.

Walnut dyeing

2007-10-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I dyed two pounds of wool in black walnut skins. I made two pots: one containing one pound of wool and 750g of walnuts; one with one pound of wool at 1000g of walnuts. Both are still cooling on the stove but will come out to dry at lunch today.

The wool is Wensleydale roving I bought at a fiber fair several years ago. The colors should range from a greenish beige to a deep rich brown with green undertones.

Pictures of the fiber and the process when the wool is out of the kettle!

train ride

2007-10-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

It's early evening in October and the train is clacking between Kalamzoo and Ann Arbor. I'm hypnotized by the verdant Midwestern landscape of unpruned trees and brush, ramshackle houses, dirt roads, rain. I alternate between this nostalgic world of pastoral dreams and the smell of leaves turning and slowing time and the phone conversation next to me between a girl and her parole-breaking boyfriend.

I went to the hospital yesterday to see my dad receive his third chemotherapy treatment. He's excited because this time he can stay home during the remainder of the treatment. Seeing the IVs and needles brought me regular waves of nausea.

Soon these corn furrows will be filled with snow and quiet, an unharassed landscape under a cloaked gray sky.

Autumn in Michigan

2007-10-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

I'm visiting my parents in Michigan right now and enjoying every moment of fall in the midwest. The maple and oak trees are just starting to turn, and apple picking farms are gearing up for the season.

Last night in celebration of the season, we had a feast of chilis rellenos. Heidi, Rodney and Maeve came over for dinner, and Maeve was especially enthusiastic about the Sopa de Tortilla.

The recipe is from Diana Kennedy's brilliant The Cuisines of Mexico:

Soap de Tortilla (Tortilla Soup)

Have ready:
12 small stale tortillas, cuto into strips
6 cups Caldo do Pollo (chicken broth)
3 chiles pasilla, fried and crumbled

A large frying pan
Melted lard (1/4 inch deep)
The tortilla strips
Paper toweling
A blender
2 medium tomatoes, broiled
1/3 medium onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled
A saucepan
The chicken broth
Salt to taste
The fried tortilla strips
2 large sprigs epazote
The fried, crumbled pasillas
The grated cheese

Heat the lard and fry the tortilla strips until they rae lightly browned but not too crisp. Drain them on paper toweling. Pour off all but 1 tbs. of the lard.

Blend the tomatoes, onion and garlic to a smooth sauce, then cook it in the lard for about 5 minutes, until the sauce is well-seasoned and has reduced somewhat.

Add the sauce to the broth in the pan and bring to a boil. Adjust seasoning.

Add the tortilla strips to the broth and cook them for about 3 minutes.

Just before serving, add the epazote. Cook for one minute more.

Serve each portion garnished with pieces of crumbled chili and grated cheese.

Note: the chilis should be fried in lard until they are crips; let the cool off a little before attempting to crumble them.

New camera case

2007-09-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

I'm knitting a new case for my camera on sock yarn with size 0 needles.