It had been my plan to get this post out on July 5th while the images of fireworks still were in my head. But, as often is the case, I got distracted. Just was well…it has given me more time to get my head around my thoughts about what, exactly, it is that we theoretically celebrate every July.
I forget exactly when I first read Frederick Douglass’ famous speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” Maybe high school, or more likely college. It shocked me then — how had I missed something so fundamental and foundational? How had I missed the fact that the celebration of the birth of the USA is a celebration for a very small minority in this country.
The iconic line from the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” applied only to white men who also were land owners — so not even all men or even all white men. If you look at the preponderance of who continues to make the rules for our society (i.e., the President and Congress), not that much has changed. In 1776, our founding fathers were a group of elite white men trying to avoid paying taxes. And, yes, there’s more to it than that, but I’m feeling a little cynical.
Some things have changed. Women can vote now, as well as hold political office, run their own businesses, and have credit in their own names (although that last one has been hard-won within my lifetime). But, social justice and equality remain elusive.
Looking in the rear-view mirror, it appears that this country was founded on hypocrisy, but this morning as I was doing my garden meditation (weeding), I began to think it was at least, in part, ignorance. I’m not trying to forgive our past, but as a species, we are slowly evolving. Unfortunately, we are unable to evolve quickly enough to right all the wrongs of society and the impacts of industry. I do hope that the current raising of voices for social justice, and against voter suppression and authoritarian brutality, will result in more than just words. It will be difficult — but we must persist.
As I mentioned before, this summer is all about trying to improve my spinning. About 2 or 3 years ago Bruce and I went to a fiber festival where I was encouraged to buy 2 pounds of beautiful, silky-white Falklands merino roving (Bruce is the great enabler). TWO POUNDS! It has been waiting for me to improve my technique, and this week I decided to take the plunge. The idea of penguins and sheep peacefully sharing the same space was somehow inspiring.
Most of the wool coming from the Falklands is a mix of Corriedale and Romney, and more recently Polwarth. Because production mixes the various fleece from both individual and mixed-breed sheep, it usually is labeled simply as “Falklands Wool.”
While the environment is harsh for both people and animals, there are few bacteria and other organisms there that damage wool and cause discoloration. As a result, the wool produced by Falklands sheep is very soft and white.
Merino sheep are a more recent addition (around 2006), introduced from Australia to improve lamb survival rates. Merino have been primarily mixed into the existing breeds, but there also are merino flocks — and that is where my fleece originated.
Here is my first spool — a little on the lumpy and uneven side, but it was an absolute dream to spin. With long, almost straight fibers, this fleece almost drafts itself. In fact, that was my problem. It kept getting away from me because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. It will be interesting to compare this with the next spool and so on, to see if I actually reach my improvement goal.
The current plan is to take half of the singles with me when I go to an indigo dyeing workshop later in August. I’m thinking of plying the white with the indigo to produce a kind of tweed for at least part of the skeins. I have an idea for a sweater, but currently have no idea what yardage I’ll end up with.
After taking the merino off the wheel, I decided to see what I could do with the Jämtland fleece I got from Yarns & Barns in Sweden. They have 4 colors of fleece, ranging from a dark brownish black, to white. It turned out to be much more difficult to draft than the merino. It is equally soft, but the staples are quite a bit shorter, and I really had to work to bend it to my will.
This particular fleece is the darker of two grays, and as I spin, the individual dark hairs become well defined as the fibers twist together. The resulting yarn is much darker than you might guess from looking at the batt. I’m hoping to finish this one today and move on to the lighter gray. While I have an idea of what I want to do with the merino, the end-use for the Jämtland has not yet been revealed.
The other thing going on is a re-design of my Capstone project for the Expert Knitter program. The plan is to create a sweater in Tahki Donegal Tweed. The ground color is a greenish gray — I think of it as almost charcoal — with slubs of light blue and orange. There is a matching blue, as well as green, yellow and orange that all coordinate with the gray, so I’ve swatched some ideas. So far, the sweater is a v-neck cardi with seed stitch cuffs and hems, and a seed stitch button band. There won’t be buttons, however, and I’m thinking about a narrow shawl collar.
After experimenting with several two-color cables, I decided I was once again getting carried away, so have dumped all of the colors except blue, and opted for a more subtle eyelet/traveling stitch pattern called tracks of the turtle. This will be flanked by a simple cable with two strands of blue and two strands of the ground color (like the cable in the image above in yellow and gray). I’m swatching that option right now, so we’ll see if that works or ifI have to figure out something else.
It has been a long while since I’ve worked with a worsted-weight yarn, and it feels enormous compared to all of the knitting I did for my book swatches (they were mainly lace or sport-weight). Like returning to the spinning wheel, it takes a bit of practice to get my hands into a good rhythm. Just like weeding the garden reminds certain muscles to wake up and get on with it, both knitting and spinning require frequent exercise to maintain the muscle memory.
So with that I say: KNIT ON! SPIN ON! And for goodness sake, take care of the weeds.
Thanks for the great read Sara!
I do love the orange in your capstone project! Hope it goes back into your design.