A Way-Too-Short Weekend at

Apple Leef Farm

This post is a wee tad on the picture-heavy side, so I apologize to those of you with dial-up service. Go make a cup of coffee while it downloads, and come back when you're ready. You can click on all the pictures to make them larger.

All done? Good.

Something tells me that y'all would like to see these featherweight, hand-dyed, felted, wool stoles live and in person, but a picture will have to do:

Something else tells me that you'd like to know more about the person who makes them, and more about the shop they live in.

Welcome to the shop at Apple Leef Farm. The farm features fiber-bearing animals, flock guardians ... and a wonderfully welcoming fiber arts shop. Not only does Leef offer fiber arts classes, but she also has two delightful, cozy and spacious bed and breakfast cabins, and if you'd like to camp out in the nearby woods, you can do that too.

The shop offers yarn, weaving and spinning supplies, and both classes and weekend retreats for knitting, weaving, felting and spinning.

Here's the great wheel at the entrance to the shop, Leef's workhorse wheel to the left, and her plying wheel on the right, with a sampling of spinning fibers and finished yarns in the background:

Leef offers a wide variety of spinning fibers: colonial and mutilcolor fleeces and roving from several breeds of sheep and goats ... alpaca ... natural-color organic cottons, recycled cotton from blue jeans, and pima cotton ... combed tops, pima sliver, cotton lints, and seed cottons ... carded silk cocoons, raw silk cocoons, silk hankies, bombyx and tussah silks ... soy silk ... bamboo ... flax ... A-1 bombyx silk bricks ... kid mohair locks and tops ... corriedale-cross rovings in natural colors ... moorit ... wensleydale ... and a variety of blends of most of the above fibers, may favorite of which is a yummy merino, cashmere and angora blend.

Leef offers a variety of ready-to-weave cotton yarns for weavers, organic cones and dyed cones, as well as hand-dyed warps.

She also has felting wools, blanks for shibori dyeing, and a wide variety of dyes, as well as finished, ready-to-use silk blanks for scarves and kimonos.


In case you're wondering? I haven't mis-spelled "leaf." Leef is the name of Leef Bloomenstiel, my dear friend who runs Apple Leef Farm, along with her husband, Les.


Before I tell you more about the farm, I shall tell you about my friend Leef.


There is a certain quality to friendships forged in times of trouble that cuts through all the ordinary facades and meaningless chatter which usually cloud our initial perceptions of another human being when they first appear in our lives.

During less trying periods, we might have coffee and host cookouts and take walks with a new acquaintance countless times, without ever really getting to know them in a real and meaningful way. You may go on for years, chatting about politics and gardening and the weather, without ever opening up to one another or seeing the roots of that other person's soul.


Leef and I met at a herpetological society meeting over twenty years ago, and we quickly realized we had much more in common than our interest in reptiles and wildlife, and the fact that we both like to knit.

Before too long, we realized the we were both dealing with nearly identical life-straining situations, and as we formed a two-woman support group, we found that our creative energies ran in the same direction as well.

We humans gain acquaintances when we realize that we share a few common interests with people whose company we find agreeable -- we may share the same views about politics, work for the same company, enjoy a few pints at the same tavern, live in the same neighborhood, or share the same hobby. And many acquaintances who are baseball fans, Trekkies or joggers soon develop fast friendships. The common interest served merely as an introduction -- an icebreaker handed to us by the Fates: "You're a knitter, too? And a computer enthusiast? A reptile geek, birdwatcher, and hiker as well? Wow, we have a lot in common!"

Common interests are handy, and a person's interests tell you a lot about them. But the best friendships are forged between people whose values and passions are deeply symbiotic -- people who bounce energy off each other in such a way as to bring out the best in each other.


Now about the knitting part. When Leef and I first met, we learned that we both enjoyed knitting, and soon we were getting together regularly to knit, have coffee, and work through our life problems.

We became friends in the green-screen days of computering and in the infancy of the Internet, search engines and AOL. At the time, it was difficult to meet other knitters, so it was delightful to have another knitter with whom to share resources, tips and techniques. Finding the original Knit List was a coup for both of us.

She was a farm girl stranded in the city, so she made sure that her kids grew up hiking, camping, riding horses and visitng their grandparents in a delightful Louisiana hill-country town, not too far away.


Neither of us is the sort of person to have a casual interest in too many subjects. We both are the sort who dive in head-first and earn ourselves a seat-of-the-pants PhD when any interest grabs firm hold of us. Before we knew it, our common interest in knitting led to spinning and dyeing, and Leef took off from there into weaving. I weave a little, now and again. Small things, when the mood strikes me.

But Leef is a certified, bona fide Weaver.


Over the years we went through life changes, Hurricane Andrew, job changes and her mother's death ... and I experienced her kids growing up.


This friendship began twenty years ago. Life has taken us in different directions in recent years, and Leef and her family moved to Texas, partly for job opportunities for her husband, and partly so she could have a small farm, but distance doesn't change the qualitative nature of a solid friendship.


Unfortunately, we hadn't seen each other live and in person in far too long, so I hadn't seen the new farm, or the new store (they recently moved from their mini-farm closer to Dallas).

So the store kind of bowled me over when I walked in. Years ago, we spent so much time talking about having a studio, a yarn shop ... a place to teach knitting, spinning and dyeing. We would spend hours dreaming up what we'd sell and what the shop would be like -- some cozy seating in a corner, the teaching studio over here, natural light from over there, and of course we'd have to have a coffee bar.

And now here it is. I sorely wish we were doing it together, but I am so happy for her that she has it for herself.

Below is the part of the store that serves as a weaving studio and class workshop. Note the floor loom on the left, a triangular loom partly filled with a handpainted warp, bags of fleece, and yet another spinning wheel:





You need to know that when Leef teaches a new weaver or spinner, she doesn't just set you down and show you the basics. If you go to one of her weekend retreats, you will come away from it really knowing how spin or weave. Leef is the sort of person who teaches her students not only what they need to do, but why they need to do it. She wants you to walk away from her studio with a complete understanding of the process.


On the opposite wall from the loom and teaching area, she displays some of her yarns and felting supplies, as well as a selection of felted stoles and gossamer hand-dyed silk scarves.

The dyeing workstation is out-of range to the left in the picture, and includes a stove, sink and work table.


I remember Leef's early dyeing experiments -- hiking the local woods and creek banks searching for flowers, bark and roots to find ingredients for natural dye recipes. Then it was out to the backyard with a propane burner and an old canning pot, standing over dyebaths until she arrived at the perfect shade of green, brown or yellow. I remember picking sack upon sack of railroad daisies.

After Leef moved to Texas, my work schedule became enormous, but when I had any time at all to myself, I took to the same locations in search of wild indigo plants -- the invasive descendants of indigo crops grown in the plantation days of south Louisiana. Indigo requires a lot of plants and a special touch with the dyepot -- and although I enjoy working with natural dyes, I have never gotten past a wan blue with my own efforts.

Leef had started getting serious about felting -- hats, slippers, you name it -- shortly before her family moved to Texas.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Now I know you are curious about those stoles. Leef produces these amazing, drapey garments in Nuno felting, a technique in which she felts and dyes wool onto a silk gauze. The end result is a rich, drapey, exotic-looking fabric which makes me think of something that perhaps an alien ambassador or priestess might wear as ceremonial garb when meeting with Captain Picard, or attending a meeting of the Federation. Each one is an individual work of art.


To the lower left, below the stoles, you will see a display of dyed silk scarves, befitting Stevie Nicks at the height of her gauziness ... and I do mean that in a good way! These scarves are as light as a feather and display equally well either ironed flat or dried in a scrunched-up technique -- not unlike making a broomstick skirt.

There are also some yarns for sale -- some handspun, and a selection of comercial sock yarn. She also carries a sleection of bamboo knitting needles, and every conceivable accessory or tool you might need for spinning, weaving or felting, from dyes and niddy-noddys to spinning wheels, looms and drop spindles.





There's more yarn in the picture below, and dyeing supplies in the background. Do you also see the hand-dyed gauzy silk jacket, graced with a felted lace stole? Leef offers both materials and classes to make all of these things:






Leef's farm is in Van Alstyne, Texas, just a tad off the beaten track -- a scenic drive through the rolling hills north of Dallas. But if you are a fiber enthusiast anywhere in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, Oklahoma City or the general Texoma region, and you're up for a day trip, you'll be glad you went to the trouble to find her.

Leef is happy to arrange weekend retreats for any guild or other group of fiber enthusiasts who'd like to spend a weekend on her farm. In addition to the two bed-and-breakfast cabins, there is ample campground space on her property. You can contact her directly to discuss classes, arrangements and prices, depending on the classes you want to take and the size of your group.


For directions to the shop, hours, and class information, contact Leef at:

http://www.appleleeffarm.com/

I'll leave you with a photo of some of the farm animals: here's a little cluster of sheep, presided over by Doc, a 30-year-old horse whose hobbies include coyote-stomping, and Murphy, a llama who not only provides fiber but also serves as a flock guardian. You can see Murphy just above the second sheep from the left:






Next time, I'll tell you more about the farm animals, the land, and Leef's plans to expand the services she and her husband offer.

At the moment, you can contact Leef through her website and see what's new at the shop. If you have a group of friends who are interested in a weekend retreat so you can learn to spin or weave, you can arrange that as well.

The Fate of

the Free World

Is At Stake

Just in case any of y'all are nervous about getting on an airplane anytime soon, I want you to know that before my little jaunt began last weekend, I made a ruthless assessment of those items known to present the greatest threat to public safety, namely:

Toilet articles greater than three ounces in size.

And not only did I assess these items based on the Official Bond-McGyver Danger Chart of Scariness, but I also secured them into acceptably small portions and encased them in the only terrorist-proof substance known to the FBI, the TSA and MIT that can protect us from chemical weapons, explosives, and mayhem of all kinds:


The quart-sized zip-lock clear plastic bag.








I bet you feel safer already.



And while toothpaste, mouthwash and shampoo in quantities greater than three ounces must be secured in checked luggage, the TSA finds it quite acceptable for plastic-encased, breast-shaped amounts of liquid greater than three ounces to be enclosed in gel-filled bras worn upon one's person.



This actually means that if you forget to put your highly hazardous saline eye drops in a quart-sized zip-lock bag, you may find yourself in serious trouble, but you could waltz right through the security checkpoint wearing a 42DD bra filled with plastic explosives, and the TSA people wouldn't ...





...well, I am sure they'd bat an eye. But you'd get on the plane just fine. And so could a couple of Fem-Bots.



And, while I cannot bring a cup of decent coffee or a bottle of water through security, either in my hands or in my carry-on bag, I am permitted a wide variety of items in my checked luggage, including, but not limited to, crowbars, yogurt, cattle prods, ice picks, peanut butter, cricket bats, Jell-O and throwing stars.



Go figure.



Fortunately, the items that can be packed into my checked luggage include these fibery things:














Fear not, the cropped-out cat snatching at the silk fiber (Seven) was not included in my checked luggage.




Clockwise from left: emerald-green coned silk; dyed silk waste fiber ready to be carded, Ashford mini-noddy, and two skeins of hand-dyed alpaca.



I probably could have brought the yarns through security just fine, but explaining the niddy-noddy and the silk fiber might have been a stretch, so it all went into checked luggage.




I will leave this as a teaser for today because I have a rather long and picture-heavy post coming up about my weekend at Apple Leef Farm.

You and me, Cassidy


This is Cassidy. She is a venerable, upright Thumbelina wheel. I bought her second-hand from Hazel Davis, the master spinner and weaver who helped me learn how to spin about 15 years ago. Hazel had purchased it new, in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

I had my first brush with spinning way back when I was in college. To earn extra money, I knitted chainmail for stage props, and historical items for friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism. Although I wasn't a full-blown SCA member, I found myself out on the skirts and the fins of a lot of SCA events, and at one of these events I saw a woman spinning yarn with a little wooden spindle. I asked her if she would teach me, and thanks to her kindness and patience during the short time we had for a spinning lesson before the jousting began, I learned a few things:


1. I learned that it was called a "drop spindle."

2. I learned why.

For some unknown reason -- although beer may have been a contributing factor -- the kindling simply didn't ignite that day in the late '70s, and I went back to my dorm thinking, "that was interesting, and maybe I'll ask her again one day when she has more time."

I continued to knit, largely with Red Heart Superwash from Woolworth, which I could afford with my part-time waitress budget, and an occasional splurge at Schoolhouse Press through the mail when I had birthday or Christmas money.

Fast forward to the early '90s. I was married, working, and an official grown-up. Still knitting furiously, but spinning only crossed my mind when I bought a hank of lovely handspun at a crafts fair, and I would sigh deeply, wishing I knew how to do that.

One day, my dear friend Leef Bloomenstiel decided to buy a drop spindle and teach herself to spin. I learned to spin from her, and this time I learned that you could drop the spindle without breaking the yarn, and that the spindle would hang suspended in midair and continue to twirl, and it would make more yarn, and you would drop it again on purpose, and that was the real reason is was called a drop spindle.

And this time, the same thing happened to my fingers that happened the first time knitting needles were placed in my hands as a child.

I needed some guidance to manage the twirl-and-drop-the-spindle part. But my fingers figured out how to draft right away. Something in my genes (likely the Irish genes) told my fingers exactly what was the right amount of fuzz to deploy, how hard to pinch, when to let go, and when to pinch again. Just like when I learned to knit, I could almost hear my fingers saying, "Wait a minute! We remember how to do this!"

My first spinning efforts turned out reasonably un-lumpy, but grievously overspun. It took me about four ounces of wool to teach my right hand that the twirling-the-spindle part was not an Olympic event.

Once I figured that out, I could make decent and consistent singles.

Some time later, I bought a Navajo spindle while travelling on vacation, and learned to Navajo ply.

This was all fun, but it was slow. I had produced only enough yarn for a pair of mittens and a few hats. I started to yearn seriously for a wheel. On Saturday mornings, Leef and I would spin, knit, drink coffee and experiment with dyeing while her kids went about their kidly business.

Except that the excited shrieks of "LOOK IT'S TURNING BLUE!!!" weren't coming from the kids.

Then one evening, Leef phoned me and said, "Come over and see what I got in the mail!"

It was a spinning wheel.

I had a turn or seven at Leef's wheel, and this time I could make yarn fast. The same problem resurfaced: drafting, no problem. Treadling? Yes, it was a wheel, but if I carried on like I was in the Tour de France, I got singles that looked like stubby, kinky, eyelash yarn. With way too much mascara.

It wasn't long before I found my own wheel. By chance I saw an ad in the "miscellaneous" section of the newspaper classifieds: SPINNING WHEEL FOR SALE.

Hazel Davis had been spinning and weaving since God had baby teeth, and she'd spent countless weekends as a docent at Magnolia Mound Plantation, dressed in period costume, spinning and weaving for the touristy public. But her health was starting to fail, and she was selling off most of her wheels and looms.

By the time I found Hazel's ad, she'd sold off all of her surplus things, except for the Thumbelina wheel. I sat down in front of it, and fell flat-out in love.

"I bought that wheel for teaching, only because it was small and portable," Hazel said. "But it runs away from you, it rattles, and it's quirky. It has a mind of its own. If you can spin consistent yarn on that wheel, you can spin anything."

She sighed and added, "I'm not sure it's the best choice for a beginner."

So of course I bought it on the spot.

Because I am a Capricorn who has her Saturn (and also a few other major planets) in Capricorn, I really tried to study all the different ratios, and wanted to become an expert technical spinner, but in the long run, I turned out to be a "spin-by-feel" spinner. I count treadles: one, two, three, four. Then I draft a bit more and count again. I actually don't count -- it's more of a rhythmn, and I know which rhythmn yields firm plies for sock yarn and which rhythmn yields soft plies for sweater yarn. I could show you how I do it, but I couldn't write a technical article about drive ratios and all that. Hats off to those of you who can.

I experimented with novelty yarns and textures and found it ironic that the over-spinning I had to teach myself not to do, was necessary for certain effects, and it was very hard to make myself do it on purpose, and I did not like this at all. I decided that if I wanted novelty yarn I was going to buy it, that what I really wanted to spin was good, consistent, smooth yarn in sock, sport or worsted weight, as needed.

There are two things about spinning which I find extremely compelling: natural-color yarn right off the sheep with only a bath and carding ... and wild color variations. I would never insult a good natural yarn by dyeing it a boring color.

Natural undyed wool in worsted and sock weights.

I am endlessly enchanted by Jacob's sheep and other uncommon breeds who manifest multiple colors on the same sheep. So many options ... you can grab bits from the various colors at random, you can card colors together into a gradient, you can make one ply of dark brown and one ply of cream and then ply them together .... you can then ply the randomly-spun plies together, and get yarn that looks like fudge ripple ice cream.

I also like to make ragg yarns combining one strand of a natural black, grey or brown wool with one strand of boldly dyed wool, preferably in a color gradient: one natural grey ply and one ply with shades of teal; a brown ply together with a ply of golden yellows, a grey ply with a rainbow ply. I tend to consider this combination my "signature" yarn. It's rather yin-yang, actually: a balance of that which is calm and that which is vibrant; natural sheep color and colors imposed upon the wool. I like it.

Clockwise from top: Two-ply fudge-ripple randomness in natural Jacob's sheep ... natural grey wool with variegated green and turquiose ... natural grey wool with variegated navy, green and blue ... natural brown with Kool-aid red ... natural alpaca in tan and brown.

I am also easily amused. Other people need skydiving vacations in Bali, frequent relationship changes, fast cars, and surfing excursions at Tierra Del Fuego to keep their lives interesting.

I just need something that changes colors on me.

I neglected Cassidy for many, many months after Hurricane Katrina. Working in the animal rescue efforts meant running full tilt every waking moment, collapsing from exhaustion after midnight, and getting up again before dawn. From the day of landfall through Christmas of 2005, it was all I could do, most days, to get in a few rows of knitting right before bedtime. Many nights I fell asleep with needles in my hand, having knit one or two rounds on a sock.

Spinning at the wheel, on the other hand requires a chunk of time to actually sit and relax, and for a long time after Katrina I was utterly incapable of relaxation in any form. For the first few months, with the immediate business of sheltering rescued animals, it was almost impossible to knit at all. And once the immediate business was under control, I spent many more months commuting between Baton Rouge and New Orleans for shelter recovery efforts, so I was either working, sleeping, doing household chores or driving. Again, if I found myself with twenty minutes to knit before bed, I was ecstatic.

At about the same time as the animal sheltering situation came to an even keel, we were able to begin repairs on my mother's house in New Orleans, and, as anyone who's ever renovated a house knows, that is a full-time job in itself.

There was also a problem beyond the actual lack of time in which to relax: as the enormity of the jobs became somewhat more manageable, and my schedule began to approach something resembling normal, I realized that I had completely forgotten how to function in a non-frantic environment.

So, when things settled down a little bit in the spring of this year (2007) I had to learn to relax all over again.

What I actually had to do was give myself permission to relax again.

So I removed the old pillowcase I had draped over Cassidy, and cleaned her, and lovingly rubbed all of her wood surfaces down with lemon oil, and waxed and greased her various moving components, and started spending time with her again.

Lately, I have been spinning color-variegated roving. If it looks like Jackson Pollock threw up all over it, so much the better. I want color. I need color. There were only three colors after Katrina: dirty-concrete grey, dried-floodwater brown, and gunky, dark, dried-mildew green.

Oh, yes ... there was also FEMA-tarp blue.

So now I want color. Lots of it, and lots of variety.

I am also enjoying some samples of natural fleece, fresh from healthy, spoiled-rotten sheep belonging to friends. Nothing quite like the smell of a clean, fresh fleece from a healthy animal.

That's another post-Katrina yearning, wanting things to smell good.

So I have discovered that it's fun to lubricate my wheel with essential oils. I like a gentle fragrance to fill the room when I spin. I dab it onto the leather components and use it to lubricate moving parts. It soothes me.

Now I suspect that some engineer-type spinner from MIT is going to chime in and helpfully suggest that I should be using sewing machine oil or silicone spray or mineral oil, and it will have something to do with higher or lower viscosity being good or bad for the metal parts, or the wood parts, or something like that.

I don't care. This creaky old wheel and I have been friends for well over fifteen years now, and we both just like things to smell good.

I may be revealing myself as a helplessly hopeful hippie (just in case you haven't figured that out by now), but I like the scent of patchouli oil best for spinning. Sometimes I use sandalwood, clove or lavender oil, and occasionally bergamot or cardamon. Now and then, it's rosewood, ylang-ylang or lemongrass.

It depends on the mood I am in, and who the yarn is for, and the purpose for which the yarn is being spun. I'm more than a little bit of a granola-head in that department. But if I am spinning for my own pleasure, I oil the wheel with patchouli, and, yes, of course it makes our house smell like a head shop ... and I don't care. My wheel is named after a Grateful Dead song, for Pete's sake. It would almost be wrong not to oil it with patchouli:

"Flight of the sea birds,
scattered like lost words,
wheel to the storm and fly."

If I am spinning for somone else, I most often use lavender because it helps to disguise the wooly scent from marauding moths. I'm also aware that a whiff of fragrance always manages to get into the wool, and that the scent of lavender rarely causes allergic reaction and is pleasing to almost everyone.

Scent is a good medium to help me meditate, and to travel without leaving my spinning chair. Some scents remind me of places I've been to, and others help me travel farther back in time. A little patchouli, jasmine or sandalwood in the air, and all of a sudden I can remember how it felt to be that slim, black-haired girl in a batik skirt and huarache sandals, threading her way through life with a bicycle and a backpack. A girl whose biggest worries were finishing papers on time, earning enough money for tuition, rent, groceries and cat food ... and wondering if the "Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater" was really true.

"Close the gap of the dark years in between
you and me, Cassidy."

Hmmmmm ... I've got a few ounces of periwinkle wool roving, and a few ounces of wool from a real black sheep, patiently waiting for me over there in a basket.

I think I'm gonna go spin now.

--Mambocat