Santa Cruz Cap and Waistcoat - Part 1 of 2

Project Dates:  3/2020 - 7/2020

Even as a child, I was fascinated by the look of a waistcoat otherwise and more blandly known as a vest.  It’s that third piece of a three-piece suit that adds a little flair of the dramatic.  It’s an accessory that can add color, a little warmth, or just an extra pocket or two! I was seeking inspiration for my second project in support of the Livestock Conservancy’s Shave ‘Em 2 Save ‘Em program.  A waistcoat immediately came to mind!  The idea was born during the winter of 2019-20 and I started construction on my birthday in March 2020!

The first step was to select the breed and find a purveyor of that fine fiber.  After searching the Livestock Conservancy online, I found Santa Cruz and Blue Oak Canyon Ranch.  They sent me a lovely note of thanks in support of their breed.  I was in heaven with a bag full of fluffy fiber ready to revel in the “make!”  The “make” is that joy of being in the moment of executing an activity for the pure joy and satisfaction of it!
My first step, being a project manager, was to write up my intended project which I did in detail.  The color scheme came easy and targeted primarily a dark hunter green with strong accents of Bordeaux red, and a little yellow to add a bit of sparkle and brightness.
The project included a mix of techniques and processes.  The art projects I’ve undertaken incorporate a bucket-list of wanna-try techniques.  This project was going to incorporate Shibori dyeing, spinning a warp, making a tweed yarn, weaving on the rigid heddle loom, and sewing with my hand spun and hand-woven cloth.

I was moving along with all the speed of an excited monkey anxious to play with my new project!  The temporary workspace in the back hallway was prepared for the initial step of preparing and dyeing the Santa Cruz fiber.  I was aiming for a mottled look and three-ply thread in the warp fiber, so I split the two hundred feet of roving into fifteen sections lengthwise, enjoying the feel of every last inch. Then, in superman pose with my hands close together, I slowly slid my hands apart, putting the very gentlest of pressure on the fiber, feeling for that sweet spot when the space between my hands was longer than the staple length, and the fibers started to slide apart.

I had a plan for dyeing the fiber, I did, but, the best laid plans…   I started out fine, meaning all was moving according to the master dye plan!  There were to be nine roving bundles each with one or two colors which I would then spin.  I could have dyed and then blended the roving, but that wasn’t what I wanted to try on this project. So, I dyed all the green as planned.  Then my brain, well, left!  I couldn’t figure out how to implement my plan, despite the picture in front of me!  I was going to dye one roving Bordeaux, two half Bordeaux, and the other half of one of the green roving bundles in Bordeaux.  But the household had just experienced, well, let’s just call it an emotional interruption.  So, instead I grabbed way too many roving bundles and dyed them wholly in Bordeaux. This left me short for a one bundle in yellow.  So, I improvised and worked with serendipity and ended up with a lovely red-orange surprise!

 

On to spinning!  I was originally going to use up some thrums on the yellow skein to create a tweedy effect for one of the three-plies for each of the targeted skeins.  However, after the serendipitous change of course with the yellow dyed roving above, we put that plan aside.  That would have been one too many fiber techniques thrust into one project, anyway.  I tend to sidle with complexity rather simplicity, a fault, I know.  So, after ending up with fifteen dyed roving bundles, I started to spin.  The colors and roving bundles were split up.  I spun a worsted spinning z-twist ply at 33 WPI.

I tried first a short forward draw, but had much better output and experience with a backwards long draw.  It was also much more fun to spin that way. The single-ply result was amazing.  The texture was completely different from what I’ve tried before.  Squeezing the yarn on the bobbin felt like a sponge.  The plies had a velvety texture that I found visually appealing.
Because of the limitations with the number of bobbins, I spun three bobbins from the roving bundles, and then s-twist plied them together.  Rinse and repeat two more times to end up with the three skeins of yarn.  I did change the color makeup of the last third of the roving bundles, for each of the single ply’s and then plied the last skein.

The next post is on to weaving will finish up this project!

Alex LeClaire

July 2, 2020