Yarnspinners Tales's Podcast

My favorite time of the spinning year, the Tour de Fleece event. As promised, here is the review of what I spun this year.

This is part one of the two part podcast.

A few links. To see photos of all of the lovely fibers and yarns I talked about, go to my group in Ravelry, yarnspinners spin in and look at the TdF2018 thread in the discussions. You must be signed into Ravelry for the link to work.

Links to the fiber artists whose fiber I spun and talked about are:

A Star is Shorn the Etsy store. I spun a superwash merino

Fellview Fibres the source of the wool/silk rolags I spun for the first challenge day.

When I find that a podcast has no specific topic, but many different stories, I call them a spin-in. I also likened this to writing you a letter, dear listener! But mostly it feels like when we gather together with our spinning wheels and spin and talk. One never really knows what the conversations will be.

I catch you up on my recent projects, spinning and otherwise, tell you about a few things I read online, rant a bit about books and bookcases, and end with the promise of lots of spinning to come as I participate in this years TdF on Ravelry.

I took time to update the episode list last month, so if you want to find a specific topic in a podcast, check out that list. It will show the date the podcast was released. Use that date to find the podcast in the archives on this website.

Ahhh, tis the season of freshly shorn fleeces. But what if your cupboard is already full?

If you have an answer, come to the Ravelry group and search for Yanrspinnerstales spin in. Join us there for the conversation.

A nice solution to at least organizing your fleece project is The Spinners Journal, a daily spinning book I created to sell. Your purchase supports the archiving of my past podcasts. Thank-You!

Ravellenics, for those that haven't heard the term, is an event hosted on Ravelry during the Olympics. There are events you can enter projects, and win digital medals. The rules state you start at the opening ceremony and finish by the closing ceremony.

I have done this many years now, every two years. Most years I do a spinning project, but the last two times I have done knitting projects with hand spun yarn.

This podcast talks about three of this years projects for Ravellenics, two completed and one still in progress.

It's true, I have been podcasting for 10 years now!

In the first part of today's podcast, I review the book The Weaving,Spinning and Dyeing book by Rachel Brown.

In the second part I give a little bit of the download statistics for the podcast, some listener's comments about spinning in their lives over the last 10 years, and my favorite and least favorite parts of spinning.

I was able to include music with this podcast, thanks for the website Free Music Archive. They have an archive on non traditional birthday music and I pulled the following songs from that:

Another year older by Jazzy-J

Singing Happy Birthday to you by BackyardMusic

It must be somebody's birthday by The Pendulum Swings

I mention a breed sampler shawl made by one listener, the pattern is The Dimpsey Shawl on Ravelry (you will have to be signed into Ravelry for the link to work)

Finally go you my blog and see the medal from Feedspot, for being named number nine in the top spinning podcasts!

Looking for the Spinners Journal? It's here at lulu.com. Thanks for supporting this podcast, with your purchase, and listening.

This podcast is the third on lichen dyeing and concludes the project for me. I talk about the ammonia extraction method and dyeing wool with the extract. I also tried a contact dyeing method on some silk and talk about that. The fiber is lovely and I am looking forward to spinning with it next year. The photo shows the corriedale roving dyed with the ammonia extraction method.

Need a special holiday gift, for a friend or yourself? The Spinners Daily spinning journal found on Lulu is a special present and helps support my archiving of all the podcast episodes. Thank you for your support!

Look for my group on Ravelry by searching for yarnspinnerstales spin in group. All are welcome, come and join the conversations.

Happy Spinning!

I had a wonderful week, focused on spinning as much yardage as I could. I talk about all those yards in this podcast, plus a few thoughts on spinning on the electric Roberta and also what to do about fiber with high vegetable matter in it.

Looking for a way to keep track of your spinning projects? I have created the Spinners' Journal to help you with that. It was done at Lulu.com, and is a reasonable 12.50 plus shipping. Your purchases help me pay the cost of keeping yarnspinnerstales podcasts archived. Thank-you!

If you have any questions or comments about this or any of the podcasts, join us at the group on Ravelry, Yarnspinnerstales Spin In.

Happy Spinning!

This podcast has a review of my experience using Akerworks drop spindle tool called the Sprindle Crane. They were a prize sponsor in the Tour de Fleece 2017 on Ravelry, and I had the very good fortune to win this prize!

Akerworks website for further information.

I promised a few links, here's the easiest to find on Youtube.

There is a difference between how the spinner in this video uses the spindle crane, and what I experienced. I did not get the twist to go past the plastic threader when I worked with it. I also used a hanging spindle instead of a supported spindle, although I do want to try the support spindle with it next.

You have to be signed into Ravelry before clicking this link, but once you are it will take you to the thread in my group for discussion of the spindle crane.

This podcast talks about the boiling water method of lichen dyeing. I used the dye pot twice and dye fiber and fabric.

I have started the fun project of a lichen dye pot and in today's podcast I talk a little about the history of lichen dyeing, and how and where I collected my lichens.

There's also a TdF2017 update at the end of the podcast.

I had four books in my spinning library to use as references for this information.

The main sources were from the same author, Karen Casselman. The books are: Craft of the Dyer Colour from Plants and Lichens and Lichen Dyes The New Source Book both published by Dover Press.

Two other books that mention dyeing with lichens are:

Your Yarn Dyeing by Elsie G Davenport

Natural Dyes for Spinners & Weavers by Hetty Wickens