About Robin

Owner of Meridian Jacobs, farm and fiber shop. I raise Jacob sheep, teach fiber arts classes, weave handwovens for sale, and manage the store.

Close to Home…Post #15 Left-overs

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Robin

My husband says that we are hoarders. When you’re a farmer you know that you’ll need that scrap of plywood, leftover fencing, rusty but still useable pipe, or roofing panel with only a few holes sometime, somewhere. So you keep it. What about the weaving studio? If there is warp left on the loom after finishing a project I weave it off and these pieces pile up. The Artery show gave me the incentive to finally use them.

These are several photos of Before and After felting. The process of “fulling” deserves it’s own post. Fulling transforms weaving fresh off the loom into cohesive cloth by using a controlled amount of agitation in hot soapy water. Felting happens when you take this process further. I used the washing machine and sometimes the dryer to maximize the effect of shrinking wool fabric into something much denser. (Another method is needlefelting, described in this post.) The four fabrics in this photo are the same as in the photo above it but after felting.This is another pair of before and after photos. The piece on the left is a blanket after fulling and the one on the right is the left-over piece of fabric after felting.Why felt this fabric and not use it as is or with only fulling? Felting creates a very dense stable fabric, good for a variety of projects where you don’t need (or want) the fabric to drape. Also, the fibers are so entangled that you can cut this fabric without worrying about it coming apart or fraying. I planned to use some of this fabric for pillows, but worried about staying true to the theme of locally produced fiber. I did use commercially available synthetic pillow forms (at least USA-made) for some of the pillows but for about half of them I made my own pillow forms using Suffolk wool from the Phillips Farm. I tracked down American Made Brand cotton fabric at two local quilt stores and used that for the covers and for the fabric backs of the pillows. P-4 and P-5 Fabric left over from blankets that I wove years ago.Fabric left over from the Barinaga blankets.Fabric I wove using Mom’s yarn several years ago.These pillows use fabric spun and woven by my Mom.

Friends gave me another idea to use some of this felted fabric. In fact one friend helped sew some of the pillows and another dipped into her fabric stash and did the sewing in these organizers. There are about 20 organizers and they are all different. It may be hard to tell in these photos but there are fabric pockets of different sizes in each. These two use handspun, woven fabric that Mom had basted into a jacket but never finished. After felting that fabric made 3 or 4 organizers.

The three photos above all use fabric leftover from Jacob blanket warps.

I still have left over fabric so there will be more of these to come.

Fall in the Forest

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Robin

A couple of days ago we took advantage of the beautiful weather (although I would rather see snow and rain right now) to visit Matt and Kaleena in their backyard, the El Dorado National Forest. We walked down to the American River at the spot that M & K call Rope to the River.

Look at what we found at the bottom.

I looked up ladybugs later and read that they hibernate this time of year and cluster together for warmth, finding any cracks that they can, even in houses. I think that I’d rather see them in the forest than in the house.

The day was warm, but In the shaded areas at the river where the sun is too low to hit now there was still frost. Brilliant colors.Looking across the American River. Highway 50 is just up the hill.

We drove to another favorite place of M & K’s to see a waterfall. Unfortunately Mill Creek is almost dry right now but we stopped along the way for the view. This is Big Hill, where Matt’s helicopter is based. (Well, he doesn’t own it, the USFS does, but he’ll be working there again in January.)View of Pyramid Peak. It should be glistening with snow right now. Let’s hope that the storm coming in this weekend dumps a lot.

Close to Home…Post #13 Felt

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Robin

In my fiber pursuits I consider myself first a weaver. That’s the predominant technique for the pieces in the show, Close to Home, at the Artery which, by the way is up through December 1. (If you’re just tuning in to this blog you can read here about the concept behind the show.) There are over 140 pieces in the show and most are woven. However, one end wall is devoted to felt.Felt, according to the dictionary, is a nonwoven fabric of wool, fur, or hair, matted together by heat, moisture, and great pressure. “Nonwoven fabric” is the key here. Most of the felt in the show is “matted together” by needle felting instead of the heat and moisture part.

Just in case you are picturing me with a felting needle and a pile of wool I want you to know that there is a shortcut–thanks to a friend of mine who has a felting “loom”. That’s what they call it.You feed a carded batt of wool in one side (over a light table)……and out the other. The action of hundreds of barbed needles turns the wool into felt.I fed each thin batt of wool in once and then layered them together to become a thicker piece.The final piece went through the needle loom about a dozen times. For several of my pieces I “wove” strips of roving and applied those to the felt part way through the process. I ended up with lots of placemats, trivets (the thick ones could double as stadium seats), and coasters.

After cutting out the placemats and other items I had felt strips left over. I wove those into wall hangings.

There was one piece of felt that my friends convinced me to leave alone and not cut up. I hung it on the wall at the Artery and it sold as a wall hanging.I did use the soap and hot water method in addition to needle felting to create these balls. They are sold as dryer balls (3 in the dryer help reduce drying time and soften clothes), or juggling balls, or cat toys, or therapeutic aids (at least that’s why one friend bought some).

By the way, the wool for all of the felt items comes from either the Suffolk sheep on the Phillips Farm (see Blog Post #9) or the coarser britch wool of my own Jacob sheep.

Close to Home…Post #12 Wearables

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Robin

The previous posts were all about the farms where I got the wool to use in my show, Close to Home…Yarn with a Story. Most of them featured blankets. I love weaving blankets. It doesn’t really matter what size they are, you can weave each in a different color and/or pattern, and who couldn’t use a warm blanket?

But I wove some wearables as well. Above are shawls woven of the same style of yarn from Imperial Yarn Company as the Stars and Stripes blankets. The brown yarn was dyed with black walnut.This is what the black walnuts look like after having soaked in a bucket for a couple of weeks and then been boiled for an hour. These are pots of eucalyptus leaves and twigs on the stove……and yarn in the dye made after boiling those pots. Notice that there are two different weights of yarn in this post. That finer yarn, also from Imperial Yarn Company, is used in the shawls below.The weft in this shawl uses the fine yarn dyed in eucalyptus. One batch turned out rust and another was gold.You can see the two different sides of each shawl in this photo. 883-2 (1) Here is a close-up.Another shawl that uses natural dyed yarn (black walnut) is this one in huck lace woven using yarn from the Timm Ranch.Here is another in un-dyed yarn.By the way, here is what that shawl looks like while on the loom. I always have to convince new weavers to have faith that even if you see spaces when you’re weaving they will close up if you’re working with wool.

There are also several scarves in the show, some of which have been shown in earlier posts.These scarves use yarn from Fiber Confections, Anderson Ranch, and Meridian Jacobs.

Close to Home…Post #11 – Herding-4-Ewe

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Robin

Sometimes I wind a warp using a lot of different yarns and then realize that I don’t have enough of any one yarn for weft. This usually happens when I’m making a mixed warp to use up odds and ends of yarn that I have around. That happened with a couple of the pieces for Close to Home and I found some yarn left over from other projects that worked just fine. These blankets are not in the show but they use yarn that I had made from Herding-4-Ewe’s wool. I happen to still have some on the shelves. Story: Herding-4-Ewe is just around the corner from my farm. Debbie Pollard keeps a flock of mixed breed sheep to use in training dogs (and, just as important, dog owners) the art of herding. My Border Collie, Rusty, and I took lessons from Debbie for a few years.

Now most of the sheep Debbie uses are hair sheep, but at the time I was there she had many more woolly sheep and I acquired some of the fleeces. I skirted and washed the wool and had it spun at Yolo Wool Mill in Woodland. I have woven many blankets from this yarn (including one for Debbie in which I incorporated yarn I spun from the hair of her favorite dog) but have some of it left.

Here are a couple of the projects in which I needed to find some other yarn.This blanket uses my Mom’s yarn in the warp and Herding-Ewe’s yarn, dyed with black walnut, in the weft.This is a CVM shawl using the same yarn as above for weft.

I don’t have any photos taken while herding at Debbie’s but here is one of Rusty working at home:

Close to Home…Post #10 – Sincere Sheep

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Robin

One of the first yarns I used when weaving for Close to Home was Targhee wool sold by Sincere Sheep.

Story: Brooke Sinnes of Napa began Sincere Sheep in 2003 and focused on natural dyeing yarn sourced from local wool. Since that time she has included other lines of yarn sourced farther from home.
Sincere Sheep’s Bannock yarn is a 3-ply worsted weight yarn that features 100% Targhee wool from Montana and the Dakotas that is milled in North Carolina and spun in Maine.
The Targhee sheep is named after the Targhee National Forest near where the breed was developed beginning in the 1920’s. The goal of the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho was to develop sheep with uniformly heavy fleshing and high quality fine wool that was adapted to rugged conditions of the Western range. Developed by crossing Rambouillet, Corriedale, and Lincoln sheep at the Experiment Station, the Targhee breed was expanded by selection of “Targhee type” ewes from large bands of range ewes crossed with Targhee rams. The flock book was closed in 1966.
Targhee sheep produce 10-12 pound fleeces with very soft, bright white fiber that measures 21-25 microns. Sincere Sheep’s Bannock yarn was named for a Targhee Native American Chief.This is one of only two yarns in this show that are not grown in Solano or Marin Counties but I included it because of the variety of colors, naturally dyed, and the quality of the yarn, and it is grown in the Pacific Northwest, which is Closer to Home than many places where wool is grown. I love the color variation in this yarn… …and the variety of designs that you can get on one warp. Sincere Sheep blankets That means that each of the blankets above was woven on the same warp threading in white yarn, but the patterns change by varying the treading and, of course, the color of the weft. Another series of blankets. And another. Sincere Sheep Targhee At the end of the warp I just wove in white instead of making it plaid and then I felted the fabric. That made great fabric for pillows.I also wove a series of blankets on a rusty red warp with a white weft

Targhee yarn is very soft and perfect for scarves as well. After the Artery show whatever items are left will be for sale on my website.

Close to Home…Interrupted by Orange Kitty

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Robin

I think I’ve written 9 blog posts about my show, Close to Home. There are more to go but I have to interrupt the series briefly.

About five days ago the dogs were barking at something in the yard. Well, Maggie is always barking at the squirrels outside the yard but this time it was an orange cat who had it’s back up and was hissing. I got the dogs in the house but the cat was gone when I went back outside.

Monday I was teaching a weaving class and Maggie wouldn’t stop with the barking. I brought her in the shop with us but she started to bark when I let her out again. Rusty was no where to be seen which is unusual. I found him in the garden area staring (as only a Border Collie does) under the house. It was evident that the dogs had been digging there and that someone (my guess is Maggie) had been chewing at the wood beam that holds up the house. I blocked off the area so that at least our house would remain intact. Tuesday before the weaving class started up for the day the dogs were at it again but this time in the cellar access. I went down there (with all the cobwebs and other creepy things) and found the orange cat. I donned leather gloves and caught it. The class was going to start so I put it in a crate in the barn for the day. When I went out later I discovered that it was a “he” and he was a young very grateful-to-be-petted kitty. I didn’t want to leave him in the small crate in the barn all night so I thought I’d put him in a larger crate in my shop. That didn’t last long. After I got back from a Board meeting at the Artery I brought the crate in the house and the kitty spent most of the evening in my lap while I sat at the computer. Note Ozzie who blends into the darkness on the windowsill.I

This morning I put up a fence and let the kitty on the back porch where there is a litter-box. (Did you know that WordPress corrects cat box to read hatbox?) Everyone watched.

Ozzie could come and go but remained skeptical. I spent longer than I should have, not watching kitten videos, but taking kitten videos. Later I put the kitten back in the crate while I was outside. Tonight I let him out on the back porch again with the fence to keep him contained.I guess that was a short-lived solution to keeping him in a safe area.

Close to Home…Post #9 – Phillips Farm

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Robin

The Phillips Farm is about a mile down the road from my place and I used their wool in the show at The Artery. Story: The Phillips family lives down the road from my farm and they raise a small flock of Suffolk sheep for lamb and meat production. For the last few years I have acquired their fleeces and used the wool in woven blankets and for felt projects.

Suffolk sheep are an English breed developed in the early 1800’s and brought to the U.S. in 1888. Suffolks are large black-faced sheep that are often used as a terminal sire for range flocks. They produce a lofty, medium grade fleece measuring 25.5 to 33 microns.

I sort the fleeces and have the softer wool spun into yarn for use in blankets and shawls. The coarser wool is carded into batts at Yolo Wool Mill in Woodland that are used for felt projects and pillows. The natural springiness and loft of Suffolk wool makes it the perfect pillow stuffing. I sent these fleece samples for testing and the result came back 29.4 microns. In the past I have used this wool for blankets but with access to a friend’s felt loom (machine for needle felting) I decided to use most of it for felt this year. The felt I made is a combination of the Suffolk wool and Jacob britch wool. I made three series of placemats (10 to 12 in each). I also made larger (door) mats and smaller (mug rug) mats.Cutting up all that felt leaves odds and ends of felt. What is better to do than to turn them into weaving projects? So I made these woven felled wall hangings… …and dryer balls. I delivered the prototypes of these to the Artery last year and found a customer who wanted to juggle with them. Here’s a short video of that.

…and dryer balls.

Close to Home…Post #8 – Fiber Confections

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Robin

I raise black and white sheep and my friend, Colleen, raises brown sheep so between us we have all the natural colors. I used some of her wool in my show at the Artery. If you’re just starting to read these posts go back to this one to read about the concept of this show.

I don’t have the sheep photo I used in the show because I borrowed the print from Colleen……but this one shows the distinctive color pattern on the face.

The story: Colleen Simon got her first sheep about 15 years ago. Since then her spinning and sheep raising hobby has evolved into a fiber business. She keeps about 20 ewes of varying shades of tan and brown and markets their wool as roving and yarn at the Davis Farmers Market. Colleen is an expert felter and creates felted hats and embellishments from her fiber. She sells her creations at the Farmers Market as well as at local festivals and Grand Hand in Napa. Lambs are sold to Superior Farms in Dixon.

Colleen’s flock is a blend of fine-wooled Romeldale, CVM, and colored Merino sheep. The Romeldale is a rare breed that was developed in California in the early 1900’s. Breeding long-wool Romney and fine-wool Rambouillet sheep resulted in a breed with heavy fleeces of very soft wool. The CVM or California Variegated Mutant is a not-so-appealing name of the colored variant of the Romeldale that has a multi-colored brown fleece and “badger-face” markings. The wool is very soft and measures 20.6 to 25 microns.

Colleen lives about a mile from me and we have shared sheep and fiber adventures for years. We make a good team because my flock grows black and white wool and hers grows brown wool so between us we have all the natural colors.Some of the beautiful shades of wool used in the shawls below.

Detail of the shawl on the left.

Detail of the show on the right. I also wove two plaid shawls that are in the show but I don’t have photos of those. The photos below are of soft CVM scarves.

Colleen took this photo of sheep in her field.

Close to Home…Post #7 – Jacob Wool

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Robin

I’ve been writing about sources of wool from Solano and Marin Counties and from Oregon, but of course I used my own wool too for the Artery show. How to choose a representative photo of my sheep? I used more than one. I can do that because it’s my show. Fanny LolaRams.

Here is the story I wrote for the show:

I developed Meridian Jacobs after my family moved to Meridian Road, north of Vacaville, in 1999 and I purchased Jacob sheep. The Jacob sheep is a rare breed that is hardy and well-adapted to low-input, sustainable farming practices. My flock of 65+ sheep grazes irrigated pasture much of the year and is supplemented with locally grown alfalfa during the winter.

The sheep provide me with unique wool and tasty lamb and are the core upon which I have built a multi-faceted business, selling fiber (from my sheep and other yarns featured in this show), teaching classes, and creating the Farm Club. Lambs for meat are sold to individuals and to Superior Farms in Dixon.

The Jacob sheep is striking in appearance with it’s spotted fleece and multiple horns. The sheep are shorn in the fall and yarn is spun at two California mills. My flock’s wool measures from 27 to 31 microns. By sorting fleeces by color and grade I produce a variety of natural shades and can use the softer fleeces for blankets and garments and coarser wool for felt items.

Meridian Jacobs evolved as I turned my passion for wool into a business.

I had a limited amount of yarn from this year because I sold so many fleeces at shearing day. Some went to Farm Club members and I used most of the rest. It is beautiful yarn. These are all throw-sized blankets.The cool thing about Jacob wool is that you get all of these natural colors without dyeing. For this blanket I used odds and ends of the yarns that were left in warp and weft. It was going to be a poncho along with the other blanket on this warp. I have a poncho that I wore in high school:Yes, I still have it because I always planned to use it for a pattern. (When I put it on it makes me look 17, right? Glasses are gone. With camera angle, you don’t see as many wrinkles. You can pretend that I bleached my hair back then.)Anyway, the fabric in the first “poncho” photo was larger than the poncho that I wanted and it looked and felt so nice as a blanket that I didn’t cut a hole in it. (Good thing–it has sold to someone and it will be shipped to Australia.) This fabric was about the right size so I did turn it into a poncho. It can be purchased at the Artery (or from me after the show). 887-4 This is a scarf from more of the left-over yarn.