The Imaginarium Forge is the ETSY Shop BLOG of The Dancing Goats:

New Videos on YouTube: Learning to Draft & Use of the Nostepinne

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

 Our Folk Ways Retreat will feature intensive hands on Northern Folk School style instruction with a varied palette of instructors.

TheDancingGoats At the Waterloo Sheep Festival

At the All Missouri Spin In

Free instructional videos on our YouTube channel are designed as an example of our classes and to help with the beginning 'First Principles’ of various craft practices…Often the only barrier to becoming a Maker: Learning the Basics…That's 1st Principles

The Drop Spindle Dance

 Become a Maker, with The Dancing Goats traditional Folk Ways Tools & Instruction.

Russian Spindles with Fiber

 The first two lessons are posted on YouTube…The first of many…

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

 Learning to Draft: Drafting Fiber is a core First Principle in Spinning of all types…

Use of the Nostepinne: A cool and ancient tool, the Nostepinne makes Center pull balls of yarn…Any old smooth stick with parallel sides will do, but I like for a tool to have style & be useful at the same time…

http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

Long John Silver's Nostepinne for Craft Yarns

 

TheDancingGoats.com at the Chautauqua Festival at Chillicothe MO…September 8 & 9, 2012

This year there was a Sheep to Shawl Demonstration in the Tradional Artisans Compound...From shorn fiber to finished Shawl in 2 days of effort by dedicated fiber artisans.

 

Loom and Swawl:

 

The Weaver works his ancient magic…

 

The spun fleece is placed on a bobbin in a shuttle on the loom and the weaver works an amazing pattern into the cloth…

 

A lovely Shawl...

 

From the Imaginarium Forge:
There was a time, when every piece of fabric was hand spun…That time will come again…
Every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that kept out the night, hand spun all.
The spindle in all its forms is one of the oldest tools. It will probably be with us at the end of all things.
When, every sail on every ship…Every garment…The tents that keep out the night, will be once again, hand spun all.

 

The Dancing Goats at the Chautauqua Festival at Chillicothe MO…September 8 & 9, 2012

This year there was a Sheep to Shawl Demonstration...From shorn fiber to finished Shawl in 2 days of effort by dedicated fiber artisans.

Finished Shawl in the next post!

 

A washed wool fleece is put through the various processes to prepare for the final step…Weaving…

Baa Baa Brownish Sheep!

 

A Picker does the initial loosening of the fleece and helps get rid of much of the vegetable matter…

The Working End of the Picker

 

The fiber is then ready for a pass or three through the hand drum carder…

A Carder Aligns the Fibers for Spinning

 

A pass through a DIZ is the final step prior to spinning…Usual hole sizes are 1/8, 1/4 & 3/8ths inches or 2, 3 & 5MM & is up to the taste of the Spinner for roving size.

A DIZ has a small hole to pass fiber through

The spinners use a wheel to turn the processed fiber into yarn, which is then placed on a shuttle for the weaving.

One of many types of spinning wheel

 

See the Loom & finished Shawl in the next Imaginarium BLOG post!

 

 

 

Http://TheDancingGoats.com

The Imaginarium Forge is the The Dancing Goats ETSY Shop BLOG!

The Dancing Goats at the Chautauqua Festival at Chillicothe MO…September 8 & 9, 2012

Festival Time

Part of the traditional craft village, we demonstrated traditional fiber tools while the rest of the fiber folks worked at the Sheep to Shawl demonstration. Weavers, Potters, Broom Maker, Decoy Carvers, Dulcimer maker, Basket Makers and a Story Teller…Makers all!

Chautauqua, Chillicothe MO

 

Become a Maker with tools and instructions through The Dancing Goats, Folk Ways Retreat

Show Time!

The Spiral Dance of the Chimney Swift:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

At the World Sheep Festival Campground

Bethel MO:

Two Videos on You Tube of the Swift's Evening Sky Dance

Http://TheDancingGoats.com

 Natural History phenomenon fascinated all of the great naturalists and close observation of nature changed them. Leopold, Krutch, Muir, Darwin, Thoreau…Riveted by the natural world and Gaia’s vanishing wonders.

 So are we & our travels to the regional festivals always present opportunities for observing the natural world…

A Quiet Moment after Festival's Close

 

 Chimney Swifts, along with all of their avian kind are ancient creatures and their counter clockwise spiral stretches into ‘The Dark and Backward Abysm of Time’, to quote the bard.

 I’m sure they do not care, but they are my favorite little bird & always make sure not to disturb their nests in any dwelling…CO detectors are a good idea if you cohabit with them…

 The colony at the campground at the Bethel World Sheep Festival is the largest I have ever seen and rivals the spectacle at Carlsbad…As best figure, they always start to gather around the time of the boundary between Civil and Nautical Twilight…That’s around the time the first stars begin to shine in dark sky locations. Several thousand of them live in one old school chimney.

 The show lasts for about 15 minutes and they swirl round and round in a big social visit before diving into their vertical stack of a home…My own little colony of Swifts seem to get more vocal as the time draws near to migrate…

 I have looked into the eyes of a couple of them I have saved in the past & there is a brightly burning intelligence and spirit bound up in a very small and delicate package…

 Where did they live before we came along?

What are they saying to each other?
Do they look forward to their winter sojourn?
Where do they go in the winter?
What is up with the Counter Clockwise Spiral?

 The unanswered and unanswerable questions in natural history are always more fascinating than the things we have answered…

Http://TheDancingGoats.com at The World Sheep Festival
Bethel MO September 1 & 2 2012

Symbiosis:

 

How long have we been partners and lived in Symbiosis with the creatures we call farm animals?
Much further back than anyone currently believes is my guess.

The mysteries surrounding the varied forms of plant and animal domestication that human kind performed in deep prehistory, keep getting pushed back by new discoveries…

 

Shep working the flock

 



The different varieties of the Shepherd Dog is one example. To see them work is a wonder to behold & is also one of the reasons we like the  regional Sheep and Wool festivals…There is usually a competition to see which dogs perform the ancient rituals and commands the best…

Time to Go Where Shep & Shepherd desire

 



Perform they do…The dogs in line waiting their turn are always more riveted by the competition than anyone else there & watch the moves of their fellows with thoughtful contemplation…If that sounds far fetched…Go watch them some time…

 

Bunnies: Another Favorite...

 

A little orange bunny: The hit of the show...

 

Bunnies, especially the angoras, who lived in the tents of the middle east, seem to almost like their confinement…Their coat and wool is exceptionally soft.

 

Confinement is Safety!

 

 

 

The Dancing Goats at The Bethel Missouri World Sheep Festival: Visit Http://thedancinggoats.com

 

Spinning Tools come in a Cornucopia of Forms

 

Preparations at one time were targeted at Festival Season which starts for us on Labor Day Weekend. The Internet makes Festival Season lots of fun…I pick only the best shows to go back to & have strict criteria set for our return to any venue…For everything else, look for us on ETSY & EBAY...

 

 

The Distaff & The Bowl: Necessary Accessories

 

My target for inventory is around 500 items to fit in a 10 by 10 space…My customers like variety and Spinning & Weaving tools have been made in an amazing array of forms throughout endless millennia …We combine the old with the new in our line of spinning, weaving and knitting tools and see traditional tools forms as a place to start…No rules…Just Guidelines! Much like Captain Barbosa’s Pirate Code…

Striking a Match to the Smoldering Fire in the Mind...

 

 

Learning to make things…To become a maker…That is what we help people do at shows…Demonstrating and teaching the ancient traditional craft practices based on the Northern Folk school tradition is what the TheDancingGoats Folk Ways Retreat is all about…



The Dancing Goats at the Bethel Missouri World Sheep Festival:

 

The Start to a Muddy Weekend...

After the summer's drought, the rains of Isaac are welcome in the Midwest, even at the expense of festival time…The odd summer has been disturbing and fatal for many creatures and plants & whoever has made it this far has been given a reprieve. My newest time lapse covers about ten minutes at sunset on August 31st 2012 as one of the northern bands of Isaac’s remains rotated in overhead: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDancingGoats

The little community of Bethel Missouri, annually hosts our favorite festival…We are veteran craft show vendors and of the scores of shows we have participated in, The World Sheep Festival is one of the best. As a maker of Spinning & Weaving tools, we look for shows that are fiber related and are not too big and not too small…A Goldilocks conundrum if you will. The World Sheep Festival is JUST RIGHT…

The Table is Set...

A 10 by 10 space is all we require at festival and we will demonstrate traditional craft tools & deploy about 500 items…I call the first step of configuring the booth, ‘ Setting the Table’…

Find the Poet’s name at the end of the video and use it on our ETSY Site: http://www.etsy.com/people/TheDancingGoats

For a 10% discount on any item…