Fiber Day Weekend 2025

I always look forward Fiber Day at Northcroft farm, which happens twice a year about 15 miles from my house. The Ellison’s invite fiber lovers to their sheep farm for a day of crafting and socializing with old and new friends. Sometimes I end up going by myself. This time my sister and two friends came for the weekend to hang out and attend the event with me. My sister Betsy does not do any fiber craft these days, but she has been plein air painting. It is a great setting for that, and she likes to be with the people. Mary Lou and Deb are big knitters.

It is good to plan activities for Fiber Day that I do not get around to at home, or that I do not have the supplies or equipment for. I enjoy spinning, and my spinning wheel is conveniently sitting in the living room ready for me. I have not been using it regularly at home, so I like to bring my wheel to Fiber Day where I have a chunk of time without interruptions.

I bought my Lendrum spinning wheel around 20 years ago. The man in Canada who has been making them for over 40 years retired. This summer I realized I should order some replacement parts while they are still available. While I was checking online, I noticed that in addition to drive bands, there were replacement connector pieces for where the “footman” connects to the “treadles”. I ordered those too, plus the recommended special kind of screwdriver needed to replace the connector pieces.

What do you know, a few weeks later one of those connector parts broke in half.

Before ordering the new parts, I had not noticed how yellow and crackly the original pieces were.

I was able to get the old pieces off and the new ones on using the special screwdriver, so the wheel should be good to go for another 20 years, which is probably longer than I will physically be able to spin.

I have been working on spinning up a hand dyed Malabrigo 100% merino wool combed top that I bought at the Yarnery in St. Paul. At the time I did not need anything else to spin, but I have heard it said that buying craft supplies is a different hobby than doing the craft. I worked on it for awhile, but it had gone on the back burner while I worked on other spinning projects.

Commercial combed top comes very densely packed, and requires some time and effort to get it loosened up enough to spin. A year ago at Fiber Day I had the brilliant idea (not) to run some of it through the drum carder to made it easier to spin.

This turned out to be a learning experience in color theory. All the pretty colors blended together and turned into grayish tan. Oops, not what I had intended.

In the photo below is half of the original braid spun up on one bobbin, and a bit of the blended braid on the other bobbin. Fortunately, most of the second half of the original braid is left. It will probably be ages before I finish spinning it, and then plying the two singles together into a two ply yarn.

Dyeing is a good activity to do at Fiber Day, since it is something that I am not inclined to do at home. I had purchased five balls of white Brown Sheep Company 100% wool worsted weight yarn at a thrift store for $3.00 each. I wound them all into skeins in preparation for dyeing at fall Fiber Day.

A few weeks ago I watched an online School of Sweet Georgia class on dyeing a batch of yarn all the same color. Felicia at the School of Sweet Georgia has a background in chemistry, and was a Pharmacist before she started her business. Her class emphasized accurate measuring of fiber and dye, and record keeping of exactly what you did. That appeals to me, and that is what I would do if I was planning on getting supplies and setting up a space for dyeing at home.

I tried to dye yarn at home once years ago, before there was good instruction online. I purchased an electric burner that I could plug in outside on my back patio, and found a big stock pot. I guess the burner was not powerful enough, as it could not keep the water hot enough. I did not have a good experience, and in general decided I would rather do dyeing projects where someone else has the right equipment and knows what they are doing, like when I did the self striping sock yarn class at Rocking Horse Farm.

At Fiber Day, the first step was to soak my white yarn in some clean water.

I had not decided what color to use until the last minute. There was a color card so you could see what the colors were supposed to be. I picked a color called Hibiscus, that was a pretty lavender.

A helper person who was monitoring the dye pots told me how much dye to put in a large pot of water ready to go on the open fire, based on my 16 ounces total of yarn.

The yarn simmered in the pot for about a half hour, and then the helper person removed it for me and hung the skeins on a drying rack.

It was a lot darker than I expected or wanted, but being that I did not have any real plan for the yarn it was OK. The photo below shows some wool that another person dyed using the same color that is more like what I was going for.

Later in the afternoon I told Joanie Ellison how much dye I had used, in order to figure out how much money to pay for supplies. She was surprised, and said the correct amount was one forth of what I had used. Oh No! No wonder it came out dark.

Back at home I rinsed the skeins of yarn out with fresh water about 10 times, but never got the water to run clear. I finally give up after there was only a bit of dye coming out.

Using the Ellison’s picker and big electric drum carder to prepare fiber for spinning is another good Fiber Day activity. I have more carded batts and rolags than I can spin any time soon, so that was not on my to-do list this time. I was able to give Mary Lou some guidance on using both pieces of equipment, including not catching and ripping her shirt while using the picker (speaking from experience).

Mary Lou picked and carded some wool she had received after helping at shearing day. She hopes to learn how to spin it. I sent my smaller non electric drum carder home with her to the Twin Cities so she can card the rest of the wool at her leisure.

A group of string musicians had a jam session on the deck.

Betsy worked on two different plein air oil paintings behind the house.

Following is a photo of the painting that was more complete, and that I really like.

There were supplies and instructions on hand for “painting” a crinkly silk scarf. Mary Lou made one that was in progress in the selfie photo below of Betsy, me, Mary Lou, and Joanie Ellison.

Mary Lou’s scarf started out with multiple shades of blue. After taking the scarf home while still wet, she forgot about it and all the colors blended together. I still think it is very pretty.

The weather was unusually warm for late September in Minnesota. Betsy and Mary Lou went swimming at the cabin beach! Deb and I declined that opportunity, as we were sure the water was quite cold. It is barely warm enough for me in July.

We had dinner outside on our lakeside deck.

Everyone seemed to have a nice relaxing weekend. I am not sure what I am going to do with the purple yarn, but it is the right thickness for my new flatbed knitting machine that I have not written about yet. Stay tuned.