Osborn Fiber Studio

Hi, Blog. It’s been a minute since I’ve posted an update about our lives, and it’s been a challenge to find a few minutes to sit down and do so! But it’s time, so I’ll give ‘er a go.

Two Weeks in Edmonton

Jared and I had work to do in Edmonton, and our work made it possible for us to bring our kids along as well. We took advantage of this opportunity and tagged a week of vacation onto the beginning of the trip.

Window shopping at IKEA to get ready for summer sealift.

What did we do for a week in Edmonton? I’m sure there’s loads to do in this provincial capital, but we spent almost all of it at the mall!

The West Edmonton Mall is the largest mall in Canada, formerly the largest in North America. We needed a bunch of straight up kid-friendly fun, so we bought week passes and used them. Probably the most time was spent at Galaxy Land, WEM’s indoor theme park. MiniMighty’s favourite ride was the swings (above), while Stringbean’s was the Ninja Training course – extremely cool.

There was one ride, at least, on which I could knit: the Monopoly-themed train.

I love a theme park. This one was interesting, because you could see the layers of history in it. There were a few holdovers from the original fantasy theming, and more from the later outer-space theming. (My absolute favourite? “Quirks in the Works,” a dark ride where your vehicle spins around and you shoot lasers at max-creepy 80’s-looking animatronics.) Only a year or two ago, everything was overlaid with Hasbro theming, which I thought was pretty cleverly executed.

We also went to World Waterpark, for indoor fun in the sun (above), black light mini-golf (below), and bowling (the very first time for our kids).

We visited the underground aquarium (the above starfish was my favourite), and saw the Sea Lion show (below).

After a long winter, this was just what the doctor ordered. For all of us, not just the kids, although knowing that the activities were kid-geared made it all more relaxing for us, too. We also got to visit spinning friend Kelly, and do a little IKEA based shopping for our next sealift – I’m rather excited about buying a standing desk.

Then it was time to collar up and get to work. Jared and I both attended Diocesan Synod, which is a fancy way of saying a big meeting with pastors and non-pastor representatives from all over our diocese. That diocese covers all of NWT, Nunavut, and Nunavik (northern Quebec), so getting us all together is a bit of a thing.

One of the big decisions that had to be made at this gathering was electing new leadership. Being such a large area, we have four bishops: a Diocesan (Boss) Bishop, and three Suffragan (Assistant) Bishops. Jared was elected to be one of the Suffragan bishops. Because our diocese is so spread out, we always our consecrations right after the election, so the Bishop-making happened then too.

Three new bishops front and centre. Front row L to R: retired suffragan bishop Lucy Netser, Suffragan Bishop Ann Martha Keenainak, Diocesan Bishop Alexander Pryor, Suffragan Bishop Jared Osborn. Our other current Suffragan Bishop, Annie Ittoshat, is hidden behind Bishop Alexander from this angle. The back row is all the other bishops from our province who came for the consecration; unfortunately I don’t remember all of their names. On the left is Chris Harper, the National Indigenous Archbishop; in the middle with the blue cope is our provincial Archbishop, Greg Kerr-Wilson. It was a blessing and a bit of a shock to meet all these bishops and their spouses. Our ordinary life doesn’t involve so much purple and red and fancy hats.

It was very important to have our whole family there for this occasion. This is a big transition for us, and all being there together, we got to feel the weight of it. Much to our relief, we don’t have to move for this change, and life can mostly go back to normal for the rest of us. Most of Jared’s new responsibilities don’t affect us too much, though he does have to travel more.

Guess I better start spinning some purple.

Spinning

As you might expect, I did plenty of crafting while we traveled. I prepped enough rolags to spin one skein of my Qiviut Blending Project: this time a 75/12.5/12.5 blend of Targhee (a fine wool), Muga silk, and qiviut.

These spun up very easily, and when I got home, I plied them into a beautifully light and airy yarn.

Immediately after I got back, I had a go at spinning the next QBP blend: a 50/25/25 blend of the same fibres. However, I was a bit slapdash, spinning that blend on my wheel at 15:1, very quickly. The resulting yarn is a good bit thicker and denser than the first skein. You can see them both here: 50/25/25 wheel spun on the left, 75/12.5/12.5 on the right. They aren’t quite as shiny as this poor phone-photo suggests, but in person the left skein nis a LOT shinier. I know it’s not just from having more silk, but from being denser due to being wheel spun. I have one more blend of these fibers, a 33/33/33 blend. I’ll save it to spin on my spindles on vacation; I want to be able to compare it more directly to the first skein in terms of shine and lightness.

I’ve moved onto the next QBP blend, a 75/12.5/12.5 blend of Icelandic Thel wool, grey Pedencal silk, and qiviut. I’m still spinning it 15:1 on my wheel, but a bit slower and finer. Just that one tweak and I’m liking this yarn a lot better.

I’m getting really excited about the Qiviut blending project. I’m 19 skeins in, which by my count is about the halfway point. But since I can finish one skein pretty easily in about five days on my wheel, or about two weeks on my spindles while traveling, it feels really achievable. I want to finish this project – at least the spinning of it – in 2026.

The reason I’m free to do all this QBP spinning is because the Wool n’ Spinning Breed Blend and Colour study yarns are finally finished. I’ll give them their own post soon; they deserve it. If you can’t wait, I talk all about them on the latest Wool Circle.

Knitting

When you have to sit through a week of meetings and lots of theme park queues, what could be better than sock knitting? This was the perfect opportunity to crank through a few pairs of my second cohort of Socks for Science.

During week 1, I did most of this pair, made of gimp yarn. This spiral-like yarn made a fairly flat fabric, though I spun and plied it the opposite way from my usual, so it had a tendency to untwist and split. A good lesson for the future.

During most of the synod meetings, I was working on these Opposing Ply socks. Notably not biasing, you guys. I’m so pleased at how the colours behaved lined up in plying. This is the Arctic Berries colourway, a special one to me from Crafty JAKs.

And I worked up more than half of the Hawser socks, in the Graffiti colourway. I’ll be casting these off today.

Yes, these are again ugly phone pictures, but that’s what you get while traveling. They’ll get a nice photo shoot when they’re all done. I have two more pairs to finish from this cohort, then four pairs from the Breed Blend and Colour study skeins. Then I probably won’t knit socks again for… literal years.

Fiber Prep

Since we’ve been home from Edmonton, fiber prep has really taken a front seat. I dyed a bunch of wool earlier this spring, and you can watch the whole process in my (free to watch) Livestream takeover episode from April. The fleece I was most excited about was the Wensleydale. I dyed the fleece with primaries in quite specific proportions (inspired by these experiments), portioned each colour into hackles-full, and I’ve been going to town.

The longest part of the process is popping the locks open on my lock pop, and layering them onto the hackle. Think it looks like a clown wig? Me too! Unsurprisingly, a quick google tells me that the original clown wigs were made of wool.

One pass on the hackle, and blend looks like the above. I diz it off, plank it, then diz it off again (below).

This creates a beautiful bump of heathered wool that should be an absolutely dreamy spinning experience. I’ve been careful to keep everything aligned so I’ll be spinning butt-to-tip. I can do about one bump a day – takes me a little over an hour – and as of this writing, I’m exactly 2/3 done. I’m hoping to make time to spin it immediately when I’m done hackling!

One more thing – it’s qiviut harvesting season. Muskoxen that are harvested during this time of year have a maximum amount of qiviut and are starting to shed it. I was generously given a hide for free this year from a local hunter, so I’ve been trying to make a little time every day to comb qiviut off it with a dog comb. It’s labour-intensive, but intensely satisfying too. Afterwards the hide will still be good as a cushion in the sled or as a carpet at the cabin, if I can get the underside of it a little cleaner.

Spring on the Land

Most people associate the arctic with being cold, but what you should really associate it with is change. When they change, the seasons change fast, and this year they’ve changed exceptionally fast.

We got back just in time for the trout fishing derby. We are not much for fishing, but we wanted to get out and do a little jigging, which we managed for a couple hours that Saturday. For this outing we had no problems being out on the ice – though it was a bit slushy on top already from sunnier days – and really had to bundle up.

Back in town it was starting to thaw bigtime. The snow had melted enough to reveal all this grass, but then it snapped cold again one morning, building up hoarfrost that I am used to seeing more in fall.

But within a few days, the thaw really accelerated. The following weekend was the cod derby. We didn’t go fishing again, but I took the dogs for a long walk on one of my favourite trails, finally cleared of snow so people can reach their cabins. It was sunny and +13. I was sweating in my T-shirt, and we could see beyond the land many groups of people out fishing on the ice.

Every day there’s less snow. And as soon as the snow leaves, the tundra plants come alive. Below are pussywillows on the ground willow trees.

The last few days it’s been raining. Raining, windy, and unpleasant, but above freezing all the same. The sun is supposed to come out tomorrow, and we’ll be walking again. It’s enjoyable to have warmer weather sooner, but always sobering to see as it gets earlier every year.

May was a big one. How is your spring going?