Busy bee

I have actually been very busy finishing projects and have gotten 3 done! Yay! Ok, well, almost done.

This is the wall hanging. I still have to hem the bottom and top. I got a dowel and nifty little knobby things to go on the ends to hang it from. I will post finished hanging.

This is the merino that I got last year in PA, all spun and plyed. Did I mention that I Love Spinning!

These are going to be pillows. They are little screen print butterflies on a soft denim material. I still need to heat set them. I think I will go back to block printing. Screen printing is ok, but I like the look of block printing better.

I've ordered some 3/2 perle cotton from the Mannings and am waiting for that to come. I'm going to weave a table runner in a bird's eye pattern...totally stepping out of my rug weaving comfort zone. Really looking forward to this project.

Took a little trip

The mighty St. Johns River. Ok, it's not that "mighty", but it is pretty. Jerry and I decided to take a little trip up north to look around and get away for a bit.

We stayed at a marine resort along the river. Sounds fancier than it really was. It had a very old Florida feel and was really nice. This is the view from our room. The name of the resort is Hontoon Landing. It reminded me of the little places we'd stay when I was a kid travelling around Florida with my folks.

We rented a pontoon boat for the day. They are surprisingly easy to captain...a four year old child could do it ... so I tried to find a four year old child, because I sure didn't know what I was doing...

On to studio stuff, I've started plying my first skein. I learned so far that I have a tendency to underspin so I'll have to watch that. I do love spinning! I spin just about every morning and it really relaxes me before I have to go off to the mad house.

Work on the crochet rag rug is coming along nicely. I like the way the colors are behaving.

This little guy here is going to be a Mother Bear pal for a child in Africa. He's been sitting on the needles for a while because I lost the pattern. A week ago I sent for a new knitting pattern and a crochet pattern for my daughter so she could make one. Of course the day after I got the new patterns, I found the old one. Sigh.

Fibonacci fun

I'm trying out the ol' Fibonacci using color. I've seperated the hanging into 3 areas of 3 numbers in the series; 5", 3", and 13" to give a total of 21" L with 12 " W. The two colors that won't vary are teal and brown. The first 5" will be woven in dark grey. Then 3" in light grey, the the last 13 in natural (white). Should be interesting.

This is the dark to light grey. The white at the bottom will be hemmed up and not visible in the finished piece.

And then light grey to white. I am liking these colors a lot. Just hope I have enough white to take it up to 21". I ordered another white 3 ply rug yarn, but I don't think it's going to match. Well, I'm going to go as far as I can and hope it makes it.

The rug for my mom is done. Finished at 22" x 35 ". I tried to puff up the yarn a little with some hot water finishing, and it worked a bit. But as I was washing it, I noticed a pretty strong smell. I looked at the dog thinking, maybe he got into last nights chili... but it turned out to be the yarn. Very sheepy smell. More like very sheepy pen smell. Weird. Baaaa!

So I decided to play with color. Using what's left of the warp that's still on the loom, I decided to do a wall hanging. Using a different yarn this time. I got it from the Mannings a while back and haven't used it yet. It's a 3 ply wool and sort of coarse. I think it's called Milltop or something like that. I'll have to call them and ask.

I measured out 120 yds. per color so I'll see how far I get with that. Originally this was going to be black, grey and white. Then I thought grey, brown and white (to sort of play with some neutral colors and give my retinas a break). Then I accidentally layed some blue/green yarn next to some brown and grey I'd layed out and loved the combination. So into the dye pot it all went. (And yes, I did wonder if the grey would dull the other colors but I'm going for it anyway.)

This yarn dyed up really nicely and very easy. Came out very even.

And this is how the colors are working together so far. Another krokbragd design. I kind of like it.

Uh oh...looks like someone went to the groomer's. Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!!

Creepy...very creepy

I am on Weavolution. It is a weaving forum like any other social online site except that people exchange weaving ideas, projects etc. That's "weaving", or so I thought. Apparently there is someone on the site who is confused as to what the purpose of the forum is and thinks it's a dating site. I got a rather strange email from a woman (yes, I said woman...not that there's anything wrong with that, lol!) who believes she and I can "make it together" ... her words. You can't get into her profile, you have to be authorized, which is strange for that site because everyone is there to share ideas and such. I saw that they were having problems with the spam settings so I sent them an email to let them know. Weird.


I was off for a week, so I had the chance to finish my mom's rug. I threw orange in the top and bottom and now I'm not sure I'm happy with those color decisions, but it is what it is. I was in Amish country when I was getting the idea for this design, so thus the purples and oranges, etc. I learned from this rug that the Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep yarn, though lovely and easy to dye, is too lofty for a rug. It just didn't beat down tight enough, and I gave it a major beat down. I'll post a pic when it's hemmed and wet finished. Still plenty of warp on the loom so I'm thinking of a krokbragd table runner. I have a nice 3 ply wool yarn that I got from the Mannings. That should work well.



Spinning is coming along better. I'm now using the short draw method because I feel like I have a tendency to overspin. Short draw seems to work better for me. Plus I was thinking short draw would work better on the churro fleece I ordered from the Woolery. And of course spinning just wouldn't be the same without cats laying about.

Say good bye Mr. Squirrel!

Bragging rights

My daughter made this wrap for me. She used Paton's silk/soy yarn that Santa brought her for Christmas. She sewed little glass beads along the edges. And she's only been crocheting for 3 weeks! Not bad, huh? I do believe there's another fiber person in the family :)

This is a cartoon for a simple sort of tapestry I am attempting. Simple because I like simple...because I am simple, ha! But I haven't done a tapestry on a rigid heddle loom before so this is an experiment and I'm more interested in the process than the result.

These are the colors I'm going to use. Have to spin the brown yet and will need to dye some more yarn for the border. I'm thinking grey.

I only sleyed it about 9 " in the reed. Using left over black 8/4 carpet warp.

The fun ends tomorrow...

... and I go back to work. What a drag. Oh well, I haven't won lotto yet, so what ya gonna do?


But on the plus side, I've been dyeing wool all morning. What fun! I love dyeing. Love to see the way the colors come out. Love the way the wool sucks up all the dye. Love the process of measuring and stirring. It's like being a mad scientist bwa ha ha ha!!!!

I use a tutorial I found on the web from Wind Rose Fiber Studio. These colors are Jacquard Acid dye, Chestnut and Burnt Orange. They kind of look like pig's intestines hanging there... not like I festoon my backyard with pig innerds or anything.


The spinning is coming along better. This is still the second bobbin. I still need to learn about little things like too much twist or how to advance the yarn while spinning on the bobbin ... stuff like that. I didn't have to worry about that with the drop spindle.


Pulled the old sewing machine out yesterday to hem pants. Why do all pants seem to be made for women whose legs start at their necks? Anyway, I'm starting on the COE (I must be mad) and one of the instructions for the final judging is not to use any machine sewing in your work. Everything has to be hand sewn. Well, there's no danger of that with me because I hate sewing machines! And they hate me. It took so long to hem 3 pairs of pants, it's dumb. The thread kept breaking or the stitches seized up or this or that....aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh! How is it that I can dress an 8 harness loom, but just seeing a sewing machine makes me want to curl up in a fetal position under my loom bench?! I feel like such a shlemiel.