A Knitter's Weekend
Field Trip: How Alice CVM Silk Is Made
Dear Kay,
Class, please settle down. We have a lot to see today, and if you eat your sack lunch now, you’ll just be hungry when it’s lunchtime so LEAVE YOUR SACK LUNCH ON THE BUS.
As we all discussed during Circle Time, today we are going to visit Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney, Vermont. This is a mill that spins yarn. It is a worker-owned cooperative, which means they all get along with each other and never bicker. QUIT BICKERING, ELLEN AND KYLA.
Now.
Yarn is the greatest thing in the whole world, right? Today we are going to see the very special yarn that Alice O’Reilly figured out with the nice people at Green Mountain Spinnery.
Alice has a company called Backyard Fiberworks. Alice is very good at yarn. She thinks about yarn all the time. She is what we call obsessed.
This is what will turn into the special yarn we call Alice CVM Silk.
No, it is not dryer lint, Mr. Smarty. It is rare and special fiber in its raw form. On the left, that’s the fiber of a rare and special sheep, called California Variegated Mutant. No, Kia, it is not made out of aliens. The middle fiber is silk. The fiber on the right is light-colored CVM. When you spin all this fiber into one long string, it becomes yarn.
See this? It’s raw silk.
Isn’t it pretty?
No, Consuela, that’s not Andy’s real hair.
It takes a lot of work to turn fiber into yarn, and a lot of different machines, most of which will take a finger off—JULIA GET YOUR HAND OUT OF THERE.
[Julia sticks her pencil into the carding machine and shuts down production for the day.]
[The next day.]
Thank you for having us back, Green Mountain Spinnery people. You are nothing if not forgiving.
Carding is (let me find my index card on this) “a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibers to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing.”
Our friends at Green Mountain Spinnery remind us in their tour guide: “The main body of the Davis and Furber carder dates from 1916. The picked fiber is added to the feeder, then a series of rotating drums blends the fibers, producing a soft lofty batt that is then separated into 4 rolls, each with 24 pencil roving ends. Although the roving looks like yarn, it has no twist.”
This is roving.
What happens next?
According to the Spinnery folks, “The full rolls are then carried to the 1951 Whiten Model E spinning frame where the 96 ends are threaded by hand. The thickness of the yarn is regulated several ways. The card can be adjusted to make a thicker or thinner roving, but the most control comes on the spinning frame where the number of strands of roving spun together and the drafting tension are determined.”
This is the spinning frame. It is spinning so fast that it can take off a—JULIA GET YOUR HAND OUT OF THERE.
[Julia sticks another pencil into the spinning frame and shuts down production for another day.]
[The next day.]
Thank you, Green Mountain Spinnerfolk, for letting us come back yet again.
No, Franklin, Julia isn’t with us today.
NOW.
The newly spun yarn is in big rolls.
This is a plying machine. It twists strands of yarn together. Alice CVM Silk has two plies of yarn, which makes it really bouncy and awesome for handknitting.
This sample shows what the finished yarn will look like. Alice and the Green Mountaineers spent a lot of time thinking about the mix of fibers and the thickness of the plies.
But there are more steps before it’s really done. It has to be steamed so that its complexion will be moist and dewy. Or something. I can’t find that index card.
Then it has to be wound into skeins, which are smaller bundles of yarn that can be sold individually to avid handknitters who understand the joy of working with the most beautiful yarn in the world, made from start to finish by people who care deeply about what they’re—
KATRINA! DO NOT STICK YOUR—
[Katrina chucks her sack lunch into the spinning skeining machine and shuts down production.]
[The next day.]
Class, I have decided that maybe we don’t need to go back to Green Mountain Spinnery.
But don’t think that sabotaging their mill is going to keep me from getting to the end of this yarnmaking process.
After the yarn is carded, spun, plied, steamed, and skeined, it still needs more work. The yarn is washed, twisted, and labeled by hand. Never has there been a yarn with more tender care put on it than this yarn from Alice O’Reilly and the forgiving people at Green Mountain Spinnery.
Here are the three shades that were made for Alice CVM Silk: Medium, Light, and Dark.
Can you tell which is which? I know, neither can I. They all look like pretty sheep colors to me.
No, Irene, you don’t use sage in knitting. That’s just to be pretty. Do I have to explain everything?
Love,
Ann
I am howling with laughter at “sack lunch” and will finish reading the assignment later. May I have a bathroom pass?
Beautiful area to visit also. Go before the Vermont Wool Show too. The people at GMS are always willing to give you a tour.
So glad someone else loves the VT Sheep and Wool Festival! It’s a delightful family-friendly weekend fair, AND it hosts the CGA North American Cashmere Goat Show! This year it will be Sept 29 & 30, 2018 at the Tunbridge Fairgrounds, Tunbridge, VT.
Maple sugar cotton candy made before your wondering eyes, just sayin’…
Wait – What?!?!?! A CASHMERE SHOW!?!?! Can that be our next field trip?
For certain as soon as the class left GMS, a staff meeting was called with orders from the top to not allow MDK class to visit till time eternity. Super interesting since I just had a tour of the Jacquard weaving process with the Oriole Mill in my backyard. They started the loom in s-l-o-w motion then while our fingers were inside our pockets, they turned that big, intricate machine to normal speed and viola. Is it snack time yet?
Can I come on the class trip next time, I swear I will behave better than Julia. I swear! Can I bring two sack lunches so I don’t get hungry?
OK, but keep your pencils to yourself.
Well, I’m at the front of the class with more questions! We heard where the lovely CVM a few days ago, New we understand the process to make it into yarn. What about that silk. Where does it come from?
Gold star for the question of the day! It’s raw silk, or tussah silk. I’ll find out more and share it here!
Back to typing and proofreading class for me!
This must be one of the special yarns I heard about at Green Mountain Spinnery when I visited there last summer (remember Summer?) as part of my ongoing How To Best Use All This Raw Cashmere quest. I was given a lovely tour, kept my hands and pencils out of all machinery (I grew up in Yankee Mill Town culture), and plagued the life out of my poor tour guide with all my questions about the machinery and the processing. It was swell!
What an entertaining post-takes me back to field trips of yore. Very beautiful yarn, and I feel like I learned a lot today. I should pass the test easily.
I believe this might be the Best All-Time Modern Daily Posts. But I can’t find my index card to confirm. 😀
Thanks for this creative tour. I’d like to join next tour! Promise to keep my hands in my pockets.
Don’t know which was funnier, the MDK post or the comments!
I find the original posts are so creative (and often other things as well, e.g., inspiring, moving, hilarious) and then there are the comments – so clever! Who are these people? The bar is set pretty high!
I ordered a skein to make myself a warm cozy winter hat. I can’t wait to see this yarn in person!!
I just ordered it yesterday. It’s a little on the expensive side, but I decided it was worth it. Using only quality yarn is a goal for 2018.
Was this yarn expensive? Have you started your hat yet? I have been watching this yarn for awhile and have been debating whether to get some. Thanks Linda
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I want so very much to buy a sweater’s worth of this beautiful yarn! But as I sit at work in my windowless office, where it maintains a steady temperature of 80 degrees F regardless of the temperature outside the building, I fear I would never have the chance to wear the garment!
I totally get it!
Here in the South, we just crank the AC and wear our lopi sweaters no matter what.
Perhaps there will be the occasional weekend where they let you out to run a few errands and treat yourself to a peppermint pattie…
Ann I met you at VKL and you kindly showed me some CVM and advised me on yardage. I have made up my mind to make a Barn Sweater (Carrie Bostwick Hoge) with it. I think this will be a forever sweater in a forever yarn. Thanks!
What a classic, great pattern Barn Sweater is–I hadn’t seen it before. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!
Here’s the pattern, everybody: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/barn-sweater
Great to see you in New York–what a fantastic gathering of knitters.
My skeins arrived yesterday! They are so, well, knitterly (!) and are going to be knit appreciatively, with intention, not gunning for an FO, ASAP. (They are going to become Michele Wang’s Topiary wrap.)
Oh, Evelyn, what a beautiful wrap that is.
Check it out, y’all:
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/topiary
And yes, this is a yarn so sheepy that you may need to put out some hay for it!
Haute hay. With a side trough of sparkling beverage.
I’ll prefer to pay the cost of this yarn by chalking it up to several lost hours of production.
A fascinating tour of a wonderful mill, thank you! Do tell, though, are you acquainted with Joyce Grenfell’s “Nursery School” sketches? If not, do check her out on Youtube.