Knitting Dragonflies

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