Osborn Fiber Studio

It’s October 5 and I haven’t posted a roundup yet! The more I make videos and post on Instagram, the less I feel driven to post here. But this is the one corner of the internet that’s really mine, so I shall keep on keeping on here at my own pace.

Tea

September was really about finishing the Labrador Tea harvest, and Pedro’s visit in the middle of the month. Our whole family enjoyed his visit very much, and I think it was successful for him. We got both unseasonably nice weather, and typical colder weather. We got time at the cabin and time in town.

Our house also became tea tasting central. I learned more about the O5 process of visiting far-flung locations like ours, to harvest teas that are traditionally enjoyed by just normal people. It was pretty special, and our family’s enjoyment of all kinds of tea is at an all-time high. Pedro taught Dooner to make traditional matcha, and she and I have been enjoying it as a morning ritual sometimes.

What’s more, we got to send him away with a solid 10 kilos of Labrador Tea, which I got to pay fair wages to harvest. I hope folks in Vancouver and Kyoto and around the world really enjoy our delicious, special little plant.

Spinning

I’ve been spinning a lot this month. A lot of it is for self-imposed deadlines, and at those moments, more and more I find myself reaching for my electric wheel, the EEW6. It’s just so efficient; it’s on a cart I can roll around, and I can slouch in whatever position I want while spinning.

I got through four more combo spin samples this month. Then I had a major gear switch a couple weeks ago and started spinning some Halloween-themed art yarns. All will be revealed for that project in October.

There has been some spinning that’s just for fun, though. Six months ago, when I first started seriously support spindling, I put in an order with Allen Berry. He’s just a wood carver on Instagram who does custom spindles and other tools. I asked him for some Arctic flora and fauna on a support spindle and a spinning spoon. Here’s the spindle.

As a last-minute impulse buy, I asked for a pinecone spindle he’d already made to add to the order. I’m really glad I did; this thing spins so nicely. The heavily carved spindle has a little bit of wobble; many of my spindles do and work fine. But it makes sense, since the heavy carving means the whorl isn’t perfectly balanced. But this pinecone! I could spin on it all day. They both have plenty of weight, which feels good. I love using the spoon as well, but I forgot to take a photograph of that for you. Another day.

Knitting

A lot of my knitting is for “work”! I put scare quotes around “work” because I would be knitting these hexies whether I was producing content for the Wool Circle or not. This project has taken on a life of its own.

The base pattern is “Skep” by Kate Davies, but I am adapting this pattern every which way. I’m knitting it inside out and outside in, flat and in the round, often changing gauges halfway through. I’m in a groove with these guys. I have maybe 20 hexies left ’till I’m done the hexies belonging to the original dye experiments, and then I’ll switch back to knitting hexies from my spun samples. When I’m done with the dye experiment hexies, I’ll start posting them here. Expect it to be very organized.

Quietly in the background, I’m working away on the secret accessories for my secret project. Secretcessories, I will call them. Three down, seven to go; waiting on yarn for a few of them.

Did I already share this picture of my Attune shawl?

The SPAKAL officially ended halfway through September, but I hadn’t made much progress. I’m not much further now, and the whole thing is jammed on a 24″ needle because my longer interchangeable needle was causing my stitches to catch at the join. I work on it when I’m in between hexies and secretcessories, so not very often, but I’m halfway through the second ball. When I’m done that second ball, I’ll switch to garter, which will be even more mindless and speedy. I’m looking forward to that. The brioche is fine, but the fisherman’s rib section I find a bit annoying.

And one more in between thing I got through: I knit the heels and toes on five pairs of socks for the girls. This was better than darning, but still felt like a chore.

My mom had, at my request, machine knitted a bunch of sock tubes for my daughters, who plow through commercial socks like they’re made of tissue paper. Hopefully these will last longer. They complain about wearing them, but the yarn is extra soft.

And this isn’t exactly knitting, but a retrospective on knitting: I can report the first hole in my sock experiments from last year.

Unsurprisingly, it’s in the qiviut socks. Will set these aside for fixing with my ample leftovers, and report later on how the fabric did.

Podcasting

September saw me creating new videos again for the first time since late spring! I had so many queued up in the hopper for vacation that it’s taken a bit of doing for me to get into a new routine. But last month I talked about combo drafting using a blending board support, and this month I’ll be talking about more general uses of the blending board.

Combo Drafting on a Blending Board I
Combo Drafting on a Blending Board II

Rachel and I have changed things around somewhat so that my podcasts are available at the 10$/month support level. We wanted my work to be accessible to more people. There’s also an option for a one-week free trial, if you’d like to watch a few older episodes and see if it’s right for you.

The radio show is happening as well! In September, Rachel shared the interview we did with my mom. It was a really sweet time – my mom’s such a charismatic person!

Since this post is late, I’ll link you to October’s show as well – we had Crystal on to talk about all things corespun. We’re going to close out the year with a corespinalong, so stay tuned for that.

If it’s all too much for right now, no worries! I’m reminded of a tune from my favorite highschool band, Switchfoot: “If we’re adding to the noise, turn off this song.” Content creation is, by definition, adding to the noise, and of the making and consuming of content there is no end. I do it for the joy of it, to put the things I’m enjoying creating out into the world. And as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, take what you like and leave the rest! I’m just happy you’re here. Thanks for reading this far; say hello in the comments if you like! Have a beautiful October; for those of you in the Northern hemisphere, take care of yourself as the weather shifts into the cold and dark.