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 #6 – Anderson Ranch wool

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Robin

Last March I watched some of the shearing on a large sheep ranch in southern Solano County and I brought home fleeces. Here is the blog post from that day. Rio Vista shearing In September I got the yarn back from the mill and used it for pieces in my show at the Artery.

Story that is part of the show: Margaret and Ian Anderson farm land that Ian’s great grandfather settled in the late 19th century. While Ian’s great grandfather raised only sheep and grain the modern ranch is a diversified farming operation growing hay, grain, and cattle as well as sheep. The original sheep on the ranch were mostly Corriedale but today’s 3000 breeding ewes are a blend of Corriedale, Polypay, and Rambouillet breeding. The ewes are bred to Suffolk and Rambouillet rams to produce each year’s lambs. The lambs are raised in adherence to the strict animal handling and environmental sustainability protocols of Niman Ranch, where most of the lambs are marketed. Local sources of Anderson Ranch Lambs are Nature’s Bounty near Vacaville and Chuck’s Custom Slaughter in Dixon.

As in many U.S. sheep operations the Anderson Ranch wool is handled as a by-product and is usually baled and sold in bulk. Last spring I watched some of the shearing and brought home about a dozen fleeces. I sorted and pre-washed the wool and shipped 90 pounds to Zeilinger Wool Company in Michigan, one of the few mills in the U.S. that can adequately process fine wools in small quantities. The wool was spun into 54 pounds of 2-ply-sport weight yarn. The fiber averages 20.4 microns. Feel how soft it is for yourself!

This yarn, like the yarn from the Timm Ranch and processed at Zeilinger’s, changes dramatically from it’s coned form to skeined yarn or finished piece. I will do another blog post about that because it’s so cool to see the changes. This would make a great knitting yarn as well (although I’d skein and wash it first) and it is on my website for sale now. This blanket and the one above it are woven with the same weave structure, but they look different because one has dyed weft. The browns are dyed with black walnut. This blanket has weft dyed with osage orange that grows across the road.I also wove some scarves. This is beautiful yarn, very soft and would make great knitted scarves or caps. I look forward to weaving more projects with it. Maybe I’ll even be enticed to get out the knitting needles.

Close to Home…Post #5 – Mom’s Yarn

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Robin

I’ve been writing posts about my show at The Artery in Davis. Here is a link to the first post that explains the concept.I used this photo in the show but had a hard time deciding between it and the one below both taken probably in the 1970’s at our place in Cotati, CA where I grew up. Here is the story:

Everyone I know who is a weaver has a yarn stash and I am no exception. My stash includes what I like to think of as “archival” yarns that were spun by my mom years ago. Over the years the odd ball of my own handspun yarn has ended up in the stash that I have accumulated.

Most of the yarn mom spun was from sheep that were the descendants of my brother’s 4-H project (I raised dairy cows and didn’t do anything with sheep back then) and many years later from my flock of sheep. Mom took up the hobby of spinning in the 1970’s as an adjunct to her expert knitting passion. These yarns reflect the lumpy, bumpy style of that era as that was the type of yarn she liked to use in her knitting and later in weaving.

The blankets in this show that are labeled with yarn from “My Mom” are woven by me using these yarns for warp and one of my current yarns for the weft. Pillows and organizers labeled “My Mom” use her handwoven fabric scraps left over from constructing jackets, vests, or blankets.

Two throws, above and below. All of these blankets have Mom’s yarn as the warp. The challenge with weaving something like this is that all the yarns are of different grist, amount of twist, and elasticity. That can cause waviness (or seersucker effect) in the woven piece. By using small amounts in each place instead of big bands I can minimize the effect, but it doesn’t all go away. There wasn’t enough of any one for weft so I used other yarn for the weft yarns–either my Jacob yarn or other yarn featured in the show.

Mom's yarn The next two blankets, above and below. This is the batch of yarns from which I worked. Not that Mom didn’t spin in color, but for most of the pieces of the show I was trying to stick true to the “local” aspect of source of yarn and dye. This is a pillow in the show with Mom’s yarn in the warp. This fabric was leftover from a blanket I wove for Katie when she lived in VT. See this post for a photo of that blanket.Mom also did some weaving. This is fabric that Mom wove of her handspun yarn and I think she used some for a vest for my brother or maybe my uncle.

There will be more blankets to come using more of this yarn.

Close to Home…Post #4

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Robin

Another flock represented in my current show at The Artery is The Timm Ranch north of Vacaville.Here is their story:

The Timm Ranch is north of Vacaville on the east side of the Vaca Mountains. Susan Timm’s grandfather bought the ranch in the early 1900’s and, although much of the ranch is leased to a cattle rancher, Susan runs about 85 ewes there. Lambs are born in the fall and sold to individual customers and to Chuck’s Custom Slaughter of Dixon.

Susan’s father started with Targhee sheep and then added Polypay and Rambouillet rams to the flock. Susan’s sheep are descendants of this blend of breeds and produce a fine, soft wool.

I took home about 65 pounds from last spring’s shearing (average fiber diameter of 23.5 microns). After pre-washing (soaking and draining in cold water) to reduce weight I shipped 39 pounds to Zeilinger’s Wool Mill in Michigan, one of the few mills in the U.S. that can accommodate fine wool in small quantities. They washed, carded and spun the wool into 30 pounds of 2-ply fingering yarn.

The yarn comes back from Zeilinger’s unfinished (no final washing) on cones. Washing the yarn or the finished weaving results in a seemingly magical transformation from what looks like string into soft, lofty yarn. The ewes after shearing. Fleeces that I took home. Samples for micron testing.Yarn on cone and skeined. I wove a warp with six throws. The brown yarns are dyed with black walnut and the yellow is osage orange. Both of those plants grow across the road. I also wove shawls. These are a 16-shaft huck.

Close to Home…Post #3…Barinaga Ranch Yarn

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Robin

The first post in this series explains the concept of this show. Blankets woven of East Friesian wool from Barinaga Ranch.

Story of this yarn: Valentin Barinagarrementeria travelled from the Basque Village of Markina to the U.S. in the early 1900’s to make his life as a sheep-herder and eventually managed 5000 ewes and lambs on a range sheep operation in southern Idaho. His granddaughter, Marcia Barinaga, after a career in science journalism, and with support from her biologist husband, began Barinaga Ranch, a sheep dairy, on the shore of Tomales Bay in 2009. Her Basque cousins generously shared their knowledge of sheep dairying and cheese making and her American cousin helps with lambing in the spring. The 800-acre ranch is grazed by beef cattle as well as by the dairy sheep and is part of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.

East Friesian dairy sheep originated in northern Europe and produce on the average a half gallon of milk per day during the six to eight month lactation cycle. They are milked two times per day and Marcia uses their raw milk to make Basque-style cheese that is sold all over California. Milk and lamb production (and of course cheesemaking) are the primary enterprises of Barinaga Ranch, but with the help of local Fibershed members, Marcia is developing her wool market.These are East Friesian ewes and their lambs. They graze the hills in Marin County but spend some time in the barn at lambing time and they were in for our Farm Club field trip. The wool is not as soft as some of the other wools I used in the show but it is a medium grade and just fine for blankets. They have great loft and dynamic color.Can you believe that this blanket… Barinaga Sheep Ranch …and this blanket are the same weave structure? The top one uses dark weft and the bottom one uses white. I have a little of this yarn left and look forward to more blankets.

Close to Home…Post #2

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Robin

I explained the concept behind my Artery show in the last post. Here are some more photos. I’ll start as you walk in the gallery. I have a photo and a story for each ranch whose yarn I used.Columbia sheep at the Imperial Stock Ranch in Oregon.

The story: The Imperial Stock Ranch is located on 32,000 acres in Oregon’s high desert and is owned and operated by the Carver family, who raise sheep and cattle and produce grain and hay.

In the late 1990’s the U.S. processing and manufacturing industry drastically declined (moving overseas) and the ranch, like thousands of others, was unable to sell their wool through traditional commodity channels. If the Carvers were going to continue to raise the Columbia sheep that had grazed the ranch for a century they needed to find a way to market the wool. Jeanne Carver’s response was to create and sell premium wool yarns and the Imperial Yarn Company was born.

The Carvers were thrilled to find out that their home-grown “Erin” yarn was chosen by Ralph Lauren for the 2014 Olympics Opening Ceremony sweaters. I saw this yarn at a trade show and was awed by the rich colors. I knew I had to use this for a Stars and Stripes series of blankets.

The Columbia sheep was developed by the U.S.D.A. in the early 1900’s to create a true-breeding large ewe that would yield more pounds of lamb and wool than the randomly crossbred range sheep. The Columbia is a result of crossing Lincoln rams and Rambouillet ewes and is a very large breed that produces 10-16 pound fleeces that measure 24-31 microns.

Here are some of the blankets that I wove. In another post I’ll explain the process of weaving these blankets. Also look for a later post of shawls using a fine wool yarn from the Imperial Yarn Company.The first blankets that I wove were in blue and white. All of these blankets except the mostly blue ones at the bottom are woven using “color and weave”. The weave structure is the same throughout the blanket but it is the color order of the threads (8 blue/8 white) in the warp and the weft that allow the pattern to show. Where there are solid areas of white or blue in warp and/or weft you don’t see the star pattern. For a true Stars and Stripes theme I needed to use some red. These are the same weave structures as above but with 8 white/8 red/8 blue threads in the pattern area. Artery 2014 In the first two red, white, and blue blankets I repeated the 8-thread sequence throughout. Blanket 885 In the next two I designed blocks, sort of plaid like, where the star pattern would show up. Then I decided that there should be something in this collection that was more restful for the eye. I thought about solid colors but had to throw in a bit of design.In addition to being colorful this yarn is very soft and wonderful to work with for weaving or for knitting. I sell it at my shop and on the website. Next up: Yarn from the Barinaga sheep dairy in Marin County.

Close to Home…Yarn with a Story

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Robin

For many months I have been preparing for a show at The Artery in Davis, CA. The Artery is an a cooperative gallery with about 70 member artists and I have sold my work there for over ten years. The show runs from November 7 to December 1. I hope that local people will be able to visit.Jacob blankets above and on the rocking chair (my mom’s) on the right. Gray blanket on the left chair uses “Mom’s yarn” (see a future blog post on that). The others are wool from other Solano County farms.

The best way to explain this show is to reprint my “Artist’s Statement” here. My blog is usually mostly photos because that’s the kind of blog that I like to read but I hope that you will take the time to read the following because it explains the concept behind the work in the show. I’ll throw in a few photos, but will display others in later blog posts.

Blankets woven from yarn grown by Imperial Stock Ranch in Oregon.The story about this yarn will be in a later post.

Artist’s Statement: In 2010 I became involved in the Fibershed movement by donating yarn produced from my flock of Jacob sheep to Rebecca Burgess whose goal was to wear, for a year, only clothes sourced entirely from an area within 150 miles of where she lived. That means that the fiber (and any dye) was grown, the yarn was spun, the cloth created, and the garment sewn locally! Imagine doing that—it’s not easy!

Why bother? Have you looked at your clothing labels and thought about the impacts of the way in which we clothe ourselves? The true cost of inexpensive clothing is high when you consider the social and environmental impacts on a global scale. (China produces 52% of the world’s textiles.)

Rebecca’s personal challenge led to the creation of the on-line Fibershed Marketplace in 2011, and in 2012 the Fibershed (501c3) with the mission “… to change the way we clothe ourselves by supporting the creation of local textile cultures that enhance ecological balance, and utilize regional agriculture while strengthening local economies and communities.” In other words, by embracing the Fibershed concept, we support the idea of using locally grown and locally made textiles and encouraging the development of Fibersheds all over the world.

Education is an integral part of the Fibershed movement—educating the consumer about the environmental, economic, and social benefits of embracing the Fibershed concept. Imagine the Slow Food movement applied to textiles!

Close to Home… Does that mean down the block, across town, or within the U.S.A? Each yarn used in this show has a story. Some were grown by my own sheep, some by my neighbors, and some in other parts of Solano County. One is grown by a long-established Oregon ranch and another is grown by several ranches in the Pacific Northwest and dyed with plant dyes in Napa County. A few pieces are woven of yarn handspun and dyed by my mom many years ago. It was a challenge to stay true to the Fibershed concept when I needed commercial fabrics for pillows. (One of the many Fibershed goals is to bring mills back to our area that will commercially produce fabrics not locally produced now.) I did the best I could by using fabric and pillow forms made in the U.S.A. and some pillows use my home-grown wool for the pillow itself.

I wove or felted all the wool fabric in the show and each of the fibers have a story. Some were grown close to home and other evoke memories of home. The pieces are simple because my focus is on the fiber and the yarn. Enjoy the photos, read the stories, and think about the stories that your textiles would tell.

Hiking in November

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Robin

November? It was in the high-70’s where we went hiking today. Dan chose the hike from his northern CA hiking trail book and said that we would go 6.3 miles. When we got to the trail head behind the Fire Station in Cool, south of Auburn, we found out that there was a mountain bike race in progress. So we chose another trail leaving from the same place but our 6 mile hike ended up being 10 miles. For Rusty’s version of the day (and more dog photos) see his blog. This was very pleasant weather for hiking but it is NOT what we should be seeing in November. There was green grass that germinated with the rain that came over a week ago, and is growing well with the warm weather, but it’s all going to die if we don’t get more rain. That is what happened last year and the hills remained brown and gray with no feed for livestock or wildlife. Although the situation is dismal if it stays dry, the country is still pretty and the day of hiking was invigorating. There was no water until we got to the river and the dogs were certainly glad of that. This is the North Fork of the American River. We ended up at the river at the site of the proposed Auburn Dam. I didn’t remember any details about that, but looked up the information after we got home. Construction began on this dam site in the late 1960’s. In 1975 there was an earthquake that was determined to be the result of the weight of the water behind the Oroville dam that is 50 miles north of the Auburn site and was completed in 1968. This caused a delay in the dam construction while the plans were redesigned. Ultimately, cost, potential seismic risks, and relative benefit of the dam site caused it to be abandoned although there were several attempts to resurrect it. I read one report that said that this dam would have been three times as wide as the Hoover Dam but the reservoir that would have filled the North and Middle Fork canyons would hold only 8% of the water behind Hoover Dam. I didn’t take many photos of the remnants of the dam construction site, but the massive undertaking is obvious. This photo is a detail of the one above, looking across the river. I assume that those white spots are bolts of some kind. The whole wall is covered with cyclone fence as is the wall to the right in the photo above. This is a view up river of the dam site. Toyon berries. It was a good day of hiking. The dogs are tired tonight.

Farm Day

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Robin

This was the fall Farm Day. Usually we would be getting ready for shearing but since I have postponed shearing until January we did other things. Unfortunately Dona wasn’t here because she seems to take most of the photos on Farm Day. We started by gathering up the different groups of sheep. They have been separated into breeding groups and it was time to put all the ewes back together with just one ram. That means that I’ll have just two groups now–the large group with the ram, Ringo, and the non-breeding group (March ewe lambs, State Fair lambs and their moms). There are photos of one group in Rusty’s blog. After putting the ewes together the rams also go back together. This is a ram lamb that I kept but didn’t use this year but we took photos so I can register him. Right now the yearling ram, Alex, and the two ram lambs are in a small pen so they can become buddies again–it’s really a matter of working on the hierarchy so when they go out in the larger area they don’t kill each other. There should be no question that the yearling ram will be on top, but the two lambs were duking it out. This guy knows how to use his horns to get his way. We’ll see when they go out who won the second place spot. This is the group of ewes waiting to go into a different paddock.

As they turned the corner you could clearly see all the marks from breeding (from the marker the ram wears on his chest). Unfortunately the blue mark on that ewe in the back means that she still is not bred after having been bred twice by Alex. I think were a few other ewes with blue marks tonight. I’m wondering about Alex’s fertility. Normally I’d expect all the ewes to be bred the first time around. I’ll know in the morning. View Across the Road from my pasture. They are prepping the ground to plant alfalfa.

More New Sheep

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Robin

In the last post I mentioned the new sheep that I got from Puddleduck Farm in Oregon. But there were only two in those photos. There were actually nine sheep in the trailer. I had intended to get a ram and two yearling ewes. It’s a long story but I ended up with 6 more ewes of various ages. Puddleduck Amber Puddleduck Cassandra Puddleduck Celilo Puddleduck Cherry Puddleduck Page Here is the ram, Puddleduck Ringo.Sheep know their sheep friends. They are in the pasture with Ringo and about a dozen of my ewes, but these six stick together. Isadora-Isabelle While I’m introducing sheep this is Kenleigh’s Isadora and her lamb, Isabelle, who was born at the fair and will be staying here.

The New Sheep

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Robin

New sheep have joined the flock. Ingrid and Alan from Puddleduck Farm in Oregon delivered ewes and a ram. The two yearling ewes went in with my yearling ram, Alex. The flock came to investigate. The two new girls are at the top in this photo. I’m not sure of their names. Ingrid is sending in registration papers and their names will be listed. After everyone else went about their own business Alex continued to follow them around. They weren’t too happy with Alex. “Maybe this guy is better.” “No, I guess not.” “I guess we’re stuck with this guy. At least he’s in the grass.”