Knitting Dragonflies

I've gotten some wonderful gifts in the mail recently!! Thank you times a thousand!! From my Doppelgänger, Vicki at Dragonfly Soars I received a package full of LOVELY fiber!! I can’t wait to get spinning with these! The braid is BFL from Girlontherocks.com , I love the turquoise (i just painted my living room a lighter shade of this color) and the golden yellow mixed in. The green batt is a super soft batt of blended wool and soy silk from Ogle Design.etsy.com , a perfect spring batt to spin, this green color with a little blue added really puts me in the mood to get out in the garden. From Paula The Quilter , I received five skeins of excellent wool to dye! I’m not sure what colors these want to be yet, but I’m ready to get my pots out! The sun is out today and I haven’t done any Solar dyeing since last fall. Hummmm… I got a huge package of glitz and angelina to add to my spinning from Jane on ravelry!  Thank you Jane!! Great for you to add a lot of sparkle or ju

During the grey rainy days of winter here. I have found one of the best activities that chases the blues away is spinning. With not much energy to think about a big project, spinning is a mindless, and rewarding activity. Here is my girlfriend spinning, this is her first try on a wheel. She is a master at the spindle. So it was no surprise that in one day she spun about 4 oz of a mixed batt up. Spinning with her hat made of spindle spun. Before After This came out beautiful!! I’m working on spinning some persimmon roving from Paradise Fibers. I actually got a lace shawl out of the corner of my closet and started on it again. Get your knitting needles out and get going. Technorati Tags: spinning , spin , spinning wheel

St Elisabeth of Hungary , spinning for the poor, on a castle type wheel with a distaff. I am fairly new to spinning. I had a variety of spindles and enjoyed playing with them. I was torn whether I wanted (or needed) a wheel or not. Spindling is relaxing and fun. Now when everyone has so many demands on them and less time, I was worried that a wheel would just make me want to “go faster”. Similar to the difference between a sailboat and a speed boat. But that didn’t turn out to be true. When I am especially stressed or have a constant stream of thought, I often have trouble concentrating on my knitting. I can be blindly knitting along and not paying much attention to the pattern. Resulting in frustrating frogging, and cursing due to mistakes. These two also curl up and sleep when I spin. This is when I especially enjoying spinning at my wheel. I have heard it compared to meditation, and I agree with this. The spinning of the wheel and its’ rhythm. The sounds of the

As you know I have been raising silkworms, or trying to. It started with the idea of raising them for their cocoons, and eggs and then dyeing them to spin. Along the way I became charmed by these little hairy babies. Lifting their heads up,every time I opened the container to feed or check on them. Little piggy fellows, peaceful and sweet. My tale is one of many mishaps. I was so excited when my 1000 little eggs hatched, right on schedule. I had my mulberry leaf supply and fed them, hungry little squiggles. I checked and fed them , removed old leaves and then……one evening a cold snap came, I didn’t have the heat light set up. In the morning I had 1000 dead silkworms. Damn.. Discouraged but determined I set out with 500 more eggs. I had a thermometer in the shoe box, and a heat lamp. The eggs hatched out in 3 days. But by this time the mulberry leaves are browning, so I bought the mulberry mush. I carefully cut and place little clumps around for the little cuties to eat. They qui

I read about Navajo plying recently and found a couple of videos on You tube. This on is good , and here is another from the Yarn Wench It was easy to start out and I got the hang of it. I had a small amount of roving left of a color way and decided to try it. Here are my results I love the look of it and will do more. It has a slightly braided/twisted look. Give it a try, it is fun. Here is some more spinning I have going Some orange that I am going to ply with a little teal blend added in. This is going to be blended into a yoke for a sweater. It was all orange with a solid teal for the rest of the body. But I decided that looked too harsh. I like the added color it looks a little softer. I also spun some reddish/pink singles that I am thinking of Navajo plying May your knitting needles (or spinning wheel) fly as fast as Dragonflies…. Technorati Tags: Spinning , navajo plying , knitting , knit , how to navajo ply

My girlfriend that I met on Ravelry and I went to the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival , last weekend. The drive was pretty, the company good, weather cold, and the fiber great! I went with the plan that I was only buying one skein of sock yarn. Really, just one skein. Dena wanted to look at spinning wheels, or maybe I wanted her to look at spinning wheels. We walked, talked, looked, fondled a lot of fiber and yarn. She tried a few wheels, and didn’t buy that much. I was doing fine until I bought: Screaming Wild Monkey! A special house blend of 70% super wash merino/15% Banana/!5% Seacell (impregnated with silver) 4 oz. The photo doesn’t show the colors, they are vibrant. From the River’s Edge Weaving Studio at  weavingstudio.com Then I ran across: 50g each of Tussah Sea Sliver, 60% Seacell, 40% Tussah Silk from Fleece Artist at fleeceartist.com While my girlfriend looked at wheels I found these: Sweet bunnies, then I purchased…. A big ball of German angora bunny and

Once upon a time there was a woman, a knitter of course, that dreamed of learning to spin.  She knitting and bought spinning books and magazines and read all of the articles. OOOO, Ahhhhh…. Then she met a fellow knitter, who was spinning on a spindle. Knitted Gems , who is a great knitter who is also a knitting designer . Her blog posts and photos about her beginning spinning gave me courage to try it. So in fits and starts I started. Then I met another blogger, Spin, Knit and Life , who sells luscious batts and spun fibers at her Etsy shop . She encouraged me and give me little tips, well maybe big tips. She walked me through buying a wheel, my first, now I’m thinking about another, and through her I became interested in dyeing. The first thing I dyed (with Kool Aid) was some of the first fiber that was spun from my wheel.   Some lovely soft hand spun , that I’m now incorporating into a sweater. By now I’m seriously into the dyeing addiction. The latest I made is a sweet pink

This is the 2nd year I have participated in the Tour De Fleece, this year I have my first wheel, so it was especially exciting! For a warm up I started with some pink roving and finished it up, details here . Then on to the main spinning my purple Tennessee roving . Lovely, and lonely, it sat for about a year before I started on it. I was able to spin it very fine (for me) and ply it. I’m so excited. This is the first skein. Now I come to the question of how to figure out how much yardage I have spun?   Can anyone point me in the right direction to figure this out? Here are my finished skeins, I hope to have enough  to make a shawl. This is my Baktus scarf , made with my first TDF handspun, I didn’t expect to be able to wear it in July! It was 69 degrees this morning.   This gives you an idea of the total size. I think it will be very flexible to wear, as a scarf, I don’t think it is too long or bulky to tuck into your coat, yet warm.  As a wrap it is great for m

I had planned on spinning my purple roving first, but decided to start on some pink roving that I got from Grinny Possum Fiber Arts . 8 oz of very pretty pink roving Just getting started on sat July 4th Watching some old movies and spinning, it’s raining outside so good time to get some spinning done. Done with the pink roving, so pretty What to make with it???? Ideas? Now on to the purple and NCIS…. I’m getting better at my spinning, I’m able to get it thinner, do we all dream of spinning lace weight yarn? Technorati Tags: Tour de Fleece 2009 , roving , spinning , spin , pink spinning , Grinny Possum Fiber Arts , Smoky mountain spinnery Mountain Spinnery

Here is 8 oz of roving that I bought about a year ago at the Smoky Mountain Spinnery I bought it with the idea to spin some yarn for a shawl, I only had a spindle at the time, now I have a Lendrum wheel . I fell in love with this colorway and I bought it while we were sweaty and recovering from a long hike in the mountains. Here was my inspiration… If you spin check out the blog , ravelry groups and flicker groups. Even if you don’t spin there are some inspiring photos. May you spindles fly as fast as dragonflies Technorati Tags: Tour de fleece 2009 , spinning , fiber , yarn , spindles , smoky mountain spinnery