Trip to Fort Ransom

I've heard about the Sheyenne Valley Arts and Crafts Festival for years. This was finally the year the calendar was open, and I was able to travel to the festival and enjoy exploring it with friends.  

Every year the festival is held on the last weekend in September in charming Fort Ransom, North Dakota.

The tiny town is charming and scenic, located in  the Sheyenne River valley

While in Fort Ransom, one is constantly reminded of its Scandinavian roots, from the Viking at the top of the hill overlooking town

to the one atop the local grill.

There are Norwegian names

and expressions.

Today, looking back on my photos of the festival, I realize I was totally  taken with the quaint environment.  While inside the festival, I was so absorbed shopping the 200+ vendors, there was no thought of taking pictures!  The juried festival didn't disappoint, and I took home a few little treasures.


After walking the show, it was relaxing to hop on a shuttle with a friendly guide, 

and enjoy the beautiful scenic setting. Red patches of sumac on the hillside are an overture to the upcoming fall spectacle.

Plying Handspun

I loved this holiday weekend! The weather was beautiful: sunny daytime 70's and cool evening 50's. September is my favorite month in South Dakota. We stayed in Aberdeen, and I enjoyed being a domestic goddess: cooking, baking, and spending lots of time at the spinning wheel.

I'm taking two spinning classes at the upcoming North Country Fiber Fair in Watertown, SD, and had eight bobbins of handspun needing to be plied and emptied before class.

To maximize handspun yardage, and keep the full effects of striping, I usually ply my handspun with a mill spun yarn. It's fun to try different color combinations. Here are a few before and after pics from this weekend's projects:

Natural-colored Corriedale from Hoffman's Corriedale's of Rockham, South Dakota, plied with Sandnes Soft Mohair-

My hand-dyed Falkland top, plied with Crystal Palace Kid Merino-

More hand-dyed Falkland top, plied with Madil Kid Seta-

And yet more Falkland top, both skeins from the same dye lot, plied with two different yarns-

After plying all the yarn, I washed it and set the twist. Ten skeins of finished handpun yarn this weekend: what a great feeling of accomplishment!

My Fiber Sandwich Projects

One of my favorite parts of the annual Roc Day gathering in nearby Groton, South Dakota, is participating in the fiber sandwich. Everyone who wants to participate in the sandwich brings several ounces of spinning fiber (wool, alpaca, mohair, etc.). The fibers are spread out and layered into one giant sandwich. Then the sandwich is divided into sections, and everyone who participated gets a chunk of fiber to spin.

As you'll see from the project photos below, each year's sandwich has its own look, depending on the fiber that was contributed.

This summer I spun up the fibers from the 2010 and 2011 sandwiches. The resulting yarn was heavy-worsted in blocks of color.

I crocheted the 2010 sandwich yarn, using my shawlette pattern, adding a ruffle along the lower edge:

With the 2011 sandwich yarn, I crocheted a scarf in 2 rows single crochet, 1 row treble crochet:

I'm looking forward to attending the 2011 North Country Fiber Fair in mid-September, and participating in the fiber sandwich there. Will also take a couple of spinning classes to brush up and learn some new skills.

Silk Garden Sock Yarn Granny Squares

I haven't crocheted granny squares since the 70's. Seeing their renewed popularity, I thought it was time to try these classic shapes again. How fun, and how addicting! Once begun, it was hard to stop.

I thoroughly enjoyed putting colors together in even the basic granny square, and decided to make a runner for our table. For this project I wanted a lightweight, washable yarn with interesting colors. I chose three colorways of Noro Silk Garden Sock Yarn:

To create a palette, I wound the Silk Garden Sock into small balls by color.

Putting the colors together was magical work, with wonderfully rich color combinations resulting in happy-looking squares:

To make the colors "pop" even more, I framed each square in the traditional black. Carefully working in all the yarn ends was time-consuming, but I'm thrilled with the finished product.

And I have enough finished squares left to make another runner, or perhaps a shawl.

While making and joining the grannies, I felt one with those before me: choosing color combinations for each square, deciding on a project shape and border design. I also have an appreciation for the skill involved in joining grannies well, so lines and corners are square and even.

While working on the table runner, I took a couple quick detours and made some grannies from solid worsted yarns. They fell short of the color depth and interest in the squares made from Noro yarn. Granny squares are another way to enjoy the color genius of Noro.

Wild Carder: First Attempt

After an inspirational spinning class at North County Fiber Fair a couple of years ago, I bought an Ashford Wild Carder. I'm embarrassed to say that this week was the first time I've used it. Not being very mechanically adept, I think I was afraid to try it. What prompted the first attempt? Well, seeing the beautiful art batts on Etsy was a motivation. Here are some samples, with Etsy shop names listed below:


Watching several drum carding videos on YouTube also helped build confidence.

To prepare for carding, I needed color inspiration. It's so easy to use the same tried and true color combinations over and over. I decided to look at thrift shop neckties and select one for the color scheme.


The tie took on a life of it's own in this project. First, wanting silk thrums in the scheme colors, I tried putting the tie in a heavy duty paper shredder. Not a good idea. The tie wrapped around the cutting teeth, and my husband ended up taking the shredder apart to repair it.

Then I tried manually cutting the tie into strips to feed into the carder. Maybe I'm not wild enough for the Wild Carder- the results didn't appeal to me, and the silk strips ended up in the trash.

It was a good color challenge to try to dye batches of wool to match the tie. Some were more successful than others. It's freeing to know that yarn thrums, mohair curls, and other bits of fiber can be added to tweak color.


The virgin voyage of the drum carder was too exciting an event not to share! My friend Rose came over with some of her fiber stash. We ordered pizza and started the carding venture. In short, it was so much fun!! The Wild Carder worked wonderfully, and the evening sped by as we played.


And the result? I'm very happy. The Wild Carder's long teeth produced light, lofty batts, ready to spin. The goal of matching the tie's colors was reached pretty well.


This week I'll be shopping for another tie!

Tanya McGuire Trunk Show

What a treat to have Tanya McGuire here in Aberdeen last weekend! She displayed her beautiful lampwork beads and handmade jewelry at our local bead shop, Gold n Gems.

Here are some samples from Tanya's Etsy store. How can you not feel happy, looking at these lively colors and fun shapes?


Tanya exhibits in Aberdeen at our annual Arts in the Park and Winterfest. She also plans to do another trunk show in the fall.

I've begun my own stash of Tanya's beads:


It's going to be fun to play with the colors. Here's my first (rough) attempt at earrings:



Wouldn't it be fun to knit or crochet something with one of Tanya's buttons as the closure?


It was great to able to shop local and support such a skilled South Dakota artist!

Betty's Crocheted Handwarmers Pattern

This handwarmer pattern has been in the works for months. As my last blog post was in April, 2010, you can see that life has been busy and the blog has been neglected. The pattern is at last posted to my Etsy shop.

I truly enjoyed making these handwarmers, creating a nice elastic cuff with foundation double crochet and front/back post double crochet ribbing. The foundation row technique was great to learn, and a nice break from working that first row of stitches in to a chain.


The pictured handwarmers are made with Mirosol Chirapa hand dyes. The solid bands are from Misti Alpaca worsted. There are so many options for embellishment. I just went to the button box.


The pattern also works up quite nicely in blocks of color:

Please let me know what color combinations and embellishments you come up with!