Sunday, May 27, 2012

Another Addiction

I have been having lots of fibery fun lately. First I finished carding up the fiber I dyed with Easter egg dyes.
I also got around to taking a picture of the plyed yarn I made from the roving I bought at the spring fair.
My guild is also making some friendship hats in which we all spin up some yarn, cut into 30 yard skeins. Then we all take about 8 of these mini skeins from each other and make a hat using some of each yarn. Originally I spun this yarn:
to use but Jacob begged me to make him a hat out of it so I ended up using something else. My hat did not turn out like planned but in the end I think it will work. This is a shot of it before blocking. 
I hope it will look a bit better after I finish blocking it.
Finally, the new addiction is weaving mini squares. While looking for something else on YouTube I came across a video of  a woman with a little square loom that she was weaving WHILE warping so when you are done with one, you are done with the other. I followed the link to these little looms and figured I could make one for WAY cheeper than they were being sold for. Rather than spending 25 bucks plus shipping I spent 3 bucks at the craft store and invested 30 minutes of time and voila! A little lap loom!
Less than 24 hours later I have a tidy little stack of woven squares that will make a neat little blanket when they are all sewn together.
Now that I have finished knitting the hat and it is blocking I can go back to whipping out more squares - seriously these things only take minutes to make and they are tons of fun. I didn't even get bored doing plain white ones. While I am still working on the hexipuffs, I think I will be using my samples on these little squares as they are more suited to different grists of yarn and stick to sock yarn for the hexipuffs.
I think I will make a larger square loom to do bigger squares out of that I can then felt. These things are a great size for sample weaving and I may even make a few more in this size with different setts just for the purpose of sampling before weaving.


Monday, May 21, 2012

Sheep, Sunshine and Celebration


So I guess I am behind on my blogging but it's spring and there is much to do. First was the Spring Fair. I live for this event as it is when I get to buy my fleece for the year. This year I bought a Jacob fleece. I have wanted one since I saw the Yarn Harlot post a picture of a shawl she made using one. I was enchanted by the many variations of color in one fleece. The day I got it home I was able to get it all sorted out and washed. I am proud of myself for getting the 'hard work' done on day one. 
In addition to my fleece I also visited some vendors and bought a bag of blue roving with the intent of making a hat for Jacob, but I am not sure if that is what this is destined to be as it is spinning up differently than expected.
I also bought a ball of top in some beautiful soft colors that is now a skein of yarn but I don't have a picture of that yet so here are the singles on the wheel.
Oh, and a shawl pin:
On another day I took the kids to the fair to play. There were bouncy houses, 



Rides, 

And of course lots of critters. This is Abby petting Juniper, a kid goat.
The big hit of the day however was this miniature house. It was being raffled off and had some beautiful hand made furnishings that so inspired my son that we stood looking at this thing for 20 solid minutes.

In fact on the next sunny day we went out and collected sticks for him to build his very own mini furniture (which of course means I will be learning how to build it for him).

As to the celebrations there have been a couple. First was Brian's birthday. Then our very good friends decided to get married so down to the courthouse we went and witnessed for them. Andrew and Anna we love you lots!  
Last but not least my family made my 32nd birthday a wonderful day!