Yarn about art? Art that is yarn?

I was talking with my friend Ann today, a fabulous spinner. We both share the utter enthusiasm for the variety of fibers, breeds of sheep, styles of spinning available to us as spinners. We get so excited talking about prepping new fibers and the discoveries that lurk around the corner! We see each other as our primary supports in our quest for spinning as fine art.

I seek to make the skein that is so beautiful, or so odd, or so laden with meaning that it can only be perceived as sculpture!

Ann seeks the skein that so expresses its "selfness," the twist, the color, the crimp that expresses the uniqueness that that fiber can become...often in garments. She spins yarns that cannot be found in the natural habitat of the yarn store.

Are we nuts, or something? Are we tilting at windmills? I don't know the answer to that question. But I do know that she and I will talk again soon about an idea that is beginning to form for us:

What if we formed a group of like minded spinners, who were interested in stretching the envelope of what yarn can be?

We are thinking of forming spinning group, but not just another spinning group where we eat and drink and spin. ( Even though we do like to drink and spin especially well!) We don't know what this group would look like, but we know that we want to create a more prominent place at the fiber table for spinners. We want spinners to be noticed as spinners of art, not imitators of store bought yarn.

What could we do? spin together, study together, encourage one another to stretch our skills and ideas, create exhibitions together...other stuff?

You tell me. Are you interested? Do you have ideas? Share them.

Shepherd's Harvest ...until next year!

I borrowed this photo from the Shepherd's Harvest Facebook Group to let you know how much fun we all had and how grateful I am for your business. I probably could have taken photos with my ailing iPhone...but I had no time, nor presence of mind, as the day started with a bang on Saturday.

The organizers did a grand job!

I do the festival because I love fiber. I love everything about spinning and dying different wools, bast fibers, sparklies. (Maybe I don't like pricing and labeling so much.) I do all of this for my pleasure, sure, but also to help spread the word about the rewarding and peace-giving nature of fiber work.

I joke about being an

enabler, about Batts being a gateway drug to further fiber addiction, about the potential for world peace through spinning.

But seriously, while I more than half believe we would ALL be better off with fiber under our fingernails, I also seriously want to pay it forward.

5% of the gross sales from Shepherd's Harvest and recent ETSY orders has been given as a KIVA loan to the Sayhua Group in Urubamba, Peru, to help Maria Acurio Paredes buy materials to make jewelry.

And lest I forget, my work at Shepherd's Harvest would not be possible without the help of my dear friends who work for peanuts and popcorn:

Carla Mantel & Gwen Schagrin who have helped me at every Shepherd's Harvest for the last ...is it 6 years? The three of us came as spectators and students one Mother's Day and returned as vendors the following year.

Thank you to Pauline Mitchell who came for the first time this year, And Dale Kennedy who has helped both at the festival and at home in the studio and the gallery through out the years.

Hooray for great friends!

Ashland Bay fibers have arrived!

The beautiful colors have arrived! 2 ounce balls of Red, Blue, Purple, Autumn, and, my favorite, Sea Mist!
I will have these ready for you at the Women's festival this weekend, $6 for 2 ounces.
Back at the studio, waiting for the dye pot, mine or yours, is Polwarth, creamy, merino soft, a shockingly low $2 per ounce, 2 ounce minimum.
OMG! 75/25 BFL Tussah! I just want to dive into it! $3/ ounce, 2 ounce minimum
DOUBLE OMG! 70/30 fawn alpaca and tussah silk. I can hardly stand it! It is too beautiful! $3.50 per ounce, 2 ounce minimum.

For now, only the colors will be at the festivals. But, come to the Wool Market on December 18 or contact the Susan Hensel Gallery anytime to purchase the full range of fibers.

18th annual Women's Art Festival

All things Fibery and Good! Come see what is new at Sue's Luxury Fiber this holiday season!

Saturday, December 11

10am-5pm

Midtown YWCA

2121 E. Lake S.

Minneapolis

There are new greeting cards, new scarves, new colors and designs of yarn, wondrous batts, lots of mohair, and shiny, shiny bamboo roving. AND...maybe more? I am awaiting my first shipment of Ashland Bay Trading Company fiber. Will it come in time?

South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market

Returns in time for Holiday Shopping

Come Saturday, November 27 & December 18, 10-4, to Susan Hensel Gallery, for wooly, silky, alpaca goodness!

•spinning

•weaving

•felting

•re-using!

Demos and shopping!

Fresh food!

You will find art dolls, handspun and hand dyed yarn, tote bags, tapestry, weaving, spinning materials. It is an ever changing roster of artists!

Almost all the artists will be demonstrating! Some teach, so talk to them. All invite you to sink your hands into the marvelous world of fine fiber.

WHERE? Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55407

Round Robin Red...red studies

I have begun spinning some of the reds. The 3 dyes spun and plied in various iterations so far are Wash Fast Watermelon, Wash Fast Paprika, and Sabraset Deep Red. They were plied 2 ply of each combo and 3 ply of the lot. I also used, part of the time, my new Ashford sliding hook flier and a stretchy drive band. Felt like a whole new wheel...in a good way. Mechanically smooth.

The combat yarn project continues...this time with additions of silk and alpaca and natural cutch dyed wool. the fiber was blended on a hackle, making a wonderful, smooth prep. The radical single was plied with a fine commercial mohair I picked up in NYC this spring. It adds a wonderful halo.

Stay tuned. The gallery show for these yarns will be in December.

Angora testing

I dyed a small bag of free angora jet black and am now blending it with various fibers. The grey is alpaca at 67% and angora at 33%. Great halo.
The halo is less pronounced here. This was a random carding of angora and wool. Still fuzzy, but not quite what I was looking for.

The Zen of Alpaca Prep

My lovely creamy white alpaca fleece was riddled with VM! The day I washed it, the drain backed up so I was not able to get it as clean as normal. And, maybe you can see it..my alpaca rolled in hay, twigs, seeds...proving once again that we spinners deal with agricultural product!
So, I made peace with my 5-pitch English combs. I reminded myself that I do not have to comb the whole fleece at once, at all or in one day. So, each time I run a load of laundry, I comb a little more. I also tell myself that I have given myself the delightful opportunity to touch the fiber more. ( Actually, I learned this attitude from Rita Buccanhan.) I have gotten into the ZEN of it, It is now, finally, fun.
Little nests of lovely, silky, creamy, dreamy alpaca are nesting together in a basket.
Isn't it lovely?

Suddenly Autumn

There has been a sudden temperature change here in Minneapolis, so I am gratefully wearing my wool tights and thin merino hoodie bought in Christchurch, NZ!

The outback colors are deep, deep rust red, dusty green, some greys and blue, blue sky. I hope to combine these into a scrubby, expressive yarn. The locks are handsful of Romney, Border Leceister and Icelandic and maybe one mystery fleece. All various shades of beige and brown, overdyed in similar colors to the roving.

Madlyn, the joyfuling rolling alpaca, has soft, beautiful, hayfilled fiber.

Where has Sue been hiding?

I'll give you three guess...Australia? New Zealand? Fiji?

Yes, all three. I traveled from August 3-August 29. You can follow my trip on the Susan Hensel Art Blog. Slowly but surely I am posting the notes and the photos.

I saw lots of austere, beautiful red sand and mountains in the outback/Red Center of Australia. Fed wallabies, watched birds, looked at and bought Aboriginal art, visited a cattle station, swam the Great Barrier Reef, drank at pubs, motored Sydney Harbour at night, toured the Sydney Opera House before it opened to the public, met a woman who had woven the restoration upholstery and drapery for the restored Governor's House in Sydney Domain. Traveled to New Zealand through breathtaking mountain ranges, sailed on fjords, saw seals & penguins, petted a Koala, stayed in a home in Christchurch, attended evensong at the Christchurch Cathedral, visited Anne Field & Marilyn Rea-Menzies studios in Christchurch (I hope their work is OK. Their buildings were damaged in the earthquake.), saw lots of sheep, sailed in Aukland Harbour, met a Maori king. Walked the beach in Fiji, got sick from the heat, drank kava and ate a luxurious lunch in an impoverished village home, toasted astounding sunsets from my balcony.

So I show you cotton! I did come home with a tiny bit of fiber from New Zealand: and alpaca/polworth mix that is lovely.It has the lovely silkiness of the alpaca, but the addition of the polworth gives it a delightful bounce. I will photograph it soon.

I was on a great tour, and did not find materials easy to come by. The "new" big thing over there was merino mink. They are heavily marketing the combo of merino and possum. The possum forms a halo much like angora. It is lovely. I did not find and yarn until I was nearing departure and worried about paying duty! I did come home with fingerless gloves and a knit cap. They were invaluable keeping me warm in the fjord.

Before the main drain back up today, I washed up some white alpaca (Dang, she was a rolled in the hay! I'll have to comb more of it than I like!) and dyed various wools in Australian colors. Imagine that! The drain is fixed, now. Plumbers work on holidays and drains ONLY back up on weekends and holidays.

In May, I purchased this Tahkli, a tiny supported spindle. Finally, today was the day to play with it. I've been home for a week and the jet lag is just about gone and a few creative thoughts finally began flitting across my brain. Yeah! I tried it in a little bowl. Didn't like that. I then read that some people spin it on a piece of leather. I liked that! So while I half-watched the Anthony Bourdain marathon, I spun thick and thin cotton...trying for evenness, but achieving it only intermittently. I am pleased, though. Lots of progress was made toward mastery.

SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS WILD WOOL MARKET!

The South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market

almost ready to go

The first market is Saturday, May 29, 10am-4pm. Light refreshments will be served.

Come join us for the fun!

The list of exhibitors so far:

Sue Hensel: batts, roving, yarn, Batt Your Own Wild Batt station and/or spinning demo

Kat Corrigan: Franken Sweaters and sewing demo

Pauline Mitchell: weaving, tapestry demo

Stefanie Moss: weavings from handyed yarn

Pam Angier: miscellaneous fiber goodness from the Fiber Studio

Don't get my hackles up!

It is a Valkyrie hackle and that is Zach, my studio assistant and gallery associate. I don't think he looks appropriately terrified! It is a horribly beautiful tool!

SOON! AURA! SOON! SABBATICAL!

Well, Shepherd's Harvest was a great success! Thank you all for making it fun! In the 4 or 5 years I have been doing this festival, I don't think I have ever encountered a crabby customer, nor, even, a crying child! Natural fiber is heap-big, powerful joy juice! Soon I will have my Aura! I have been told that it will ship this week from New Zealand! I also now have a very wide hackle! I got it from Mielke's Fiber Arts. The hackles are in production again, from 2 manufacturers....finally.

In my other, but rather closely related "Other life", I own and direct the Susan Hensel Gallery. Do take a good long look at the website to see what I have been doing for the last few years! The current show, Earth & Air by Leslie Sobel is our 40th! Wowsers! Times flies!

So, now, I ask myself,"What does it mean to BE Susan Hensel Gallery for 7 years?" Well, I will investigate that over the next 6 months! I will be taking a sabbatical! Regular programming of the gallery will be suspended June 1, 2010 -Dec 31, 2010. The regular programming of gallery shows will resume at that time with a solo show my Dean Ebben: IN THE HOUSE OF THE MINERAL SPIRITS. followed up by A Reader's Art and an Installation by Libby Soffer, Sara Christensen Blair& Gregory Blair and Debora Miller. But the gallery will not be silent. I will be focusing on my relationship to fiber and textiles in my personal art. Since I moved to Minneapolis 7 years ago, a transformation has been happening. I tell people that I was "bit by a sheep." I learned to spin on a drop spindle and spinning wheel not long after I got here. No matter what I do, no matter how I resist, the fiber keeps luring me away! My son thinks he'll come out to visit someday and find an urban sheep ranch! (I just heard that someone up the street was raided by animal control for raising goats in their apartment!) So, this summer and fall I will be spinning, weaving, studying in and around the fiber arts. Stay tuned!

I will study in the University of Minnesota Split Rock program with Adrienne Stone. I will attend the full week of SOAR, Spin Off Autumn Retreat. I may take some field trips to see fiber mills and who knows what else! It will be an exciting time!

Shepherd's Harvest with a goal!

I have dream! It is to own an Aura Wheel from Majacraft. So, day one of Shepherd's Harvest has gotten me part way there in the most enjoyable fashion! What could be more fun than enabling other happy fiber people to fulfill their dreams too? I spent the day selling and teaching from the booth about Wild Batts, spindling and "Lazy Felt". And I spent it with my newly engaged friend Carla who bought her first loom today. I bought alpaca fleeces. So, I ask you, "What could be better?"

Come by tomorrow if you are in the area. With or without purchases, it is a blast!

Shepherd's Harvest is 2 days away! he newest product I am bringing is hand painted bamboo. It is SOOOO pretty! And SOOO slippery! The hard part was figuring out how to package it so it can be handled without unwinding. I finally cut up some wild paisley chiffon and tied each ball up like a gift box! Hope this works! If you are interested in the bamboo, come early...the supply is very limited.

This year I also have Angelina fiber, dyed wool and cotton nebs, sari silk and yarn confetti for sale as Wild Batt additives to take home.

Try out the Batt Your Own Wild Batt station. AT the carding station, for an additional fee, you will be able to card up to 2 ounces of purchased Sue's Luxury Fiber at a time with additives such as angelina, firestar, nebs, yarn confetti, mohair (included in the price of carding.) It is too fun!

BATTS AHOY! Are there batts in your belfry?

In addition to dying mohair and roving, the electric carder is humming as well. I am painting with wool, bamboo, silk, angelina, mohair, alpaca, sari threads, mystery fleeces....It is so much fun to see the stack grow higher!

Let the Dying Begin!!!

Work in the Susan Hensel Gallery has been overwhelming of late. We just opened the tenth anniversary show of A Reader's Art! TEN YEARS! 100 artists books from 50 artists from all over the world. Quite a feat, made more possible by the able curation of Jon Coffelt.

Slowly, between naps, I began dying mohair this week.New spring colors and the tried and true easter egg brights that mohair so loves to be.

Today I began the roving...peacock colors and muted early spring colors.

Come see the new colorways at YARNOVER, Saturday, April 17. I will be helping out Steven Be and will have fiber and yarn in his booth.

Then, Mother's Day weekend, SHEPHERD'S HARVEST!!!!!!! Save the date!!!!! May 8 &9.

Echo series on Etsy

Delta Echo: rural reflections
Caribbean Echo: remembering the Windjammer cruise
African Echo: the savannahs call
Aegean Echo: a long ago island cruise

Check out more about this new series of yarns at Sue's Luxury Yarn. When the thermometer reads below zero, an cabin fever rises, warm sand, hot savannahs, New Orleans and sea breezes certainly call.

Cold day, Warm batts

It's COLD here in Minnesota! We got pretty slammed by snow and arctic air...but the new carder is humming away, producing yummy batts. I got in the Luoet electric carder last week! Wowsers! It is magnificent.

These batts are packed and ready to go to the Women's Art Festival this weekend. (Note the incredible black alpaca batts! They are some of the nicest alpaca I have ever had!)

In addition to these batts that so excite me, I'll have lots of handspun, felt and even a few handmade books with felt covers. Also, I will have my last, new in the box, Babe Fiberstarter single treadle spinning wheel at an unbelieveable price! They now sell for $194. Come ask me how much at the show!