Knitting Dragonflies

One day I was reading blogs, and saw Paul The Quilter was making The Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West (rav link, free pattern) , and decided that would be the perfect gift for a girlfriend! Off to my stash to see what yarn I had to start it! I came across my handspun, I haven’t spun in around 2 years and was lost in looking at my spun stash. I have around 17 oz. of a strange pumpkin-ish colored yarn that I spun, I even ran it back through the wheel and added a multicolored thread to make the color pop a little, because I thought it looked a bit flat. I don’t look good in that color and it would be perfect for her! Yay! My husband and I thought it would be perfect for her due to the fact that she makes persimmon bread, and especially yummy cookies this time of year. We had just been to visit her and my husbands best friend to go to a music festival. I took some photos of a backdrop on one of the venues. Seem like this color was everywhere! I got so excited I finished up some fiber t...

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...