Well, so much for the terrific homecoming…lol Oh well… I wanted a new one anyway.. I just hope that our pc guy can save all the favorites and photos. Hopefully this will only take a couple of days, but if not it will shouldn’t be more than a week or so.
Anyway, I finished spinning the Cotswold last night. Today will be a dye day and then I will see what form it takes as I try to do some weaving with it….
Hope all has a great day…
We are home at last from two weeks of vacation. Tired and happy. We got to see that wonderful new grandbaby, Hannah, and what a little beauty she is… 
Of course there is no way I could be a bit prejudiced…lol … but I truly believe she is the most lovely little girl since my own little lovely daughter.. who is still lovely after 4 grown sons!
On our way through Arizona we stayed at Best Western Motels (NAYY) and guess what!?? You can earn points that make the prices cheaper for later stays… and the last room we stayed in was a suite.. for the price of just a regular room.. that was great! And again… NAYY. I just thought I would pass that bit of info on for anyone else who is planning a vacation… Check your favorite motels and hotels out… they may offer the same savings…
I found a website online for a fiber, yarn and spinning wheel studio in Tucson, AZ. We stopped and I was soooo tickled to get to meet another spinner.
Meet Donna…of Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson, Arizona. She has been a spinner since the ’70s when the only thing around that talked about spinning was the magazine Spin Off. For someone like me who spins because I love it, I found it amazing that she was a professional spinner who could spin a pound of wool in an hour! She took the time to show me the joys of spinning on several different kinds of spinning wheels.
One was a Majacraft…
This was a great little wheel that would be wonderful for someone in a small apartment or house. It doesn’t take up much space and boy! does it spin. It has double treadles.. and that was new to me since my Kromski Prelude is a single treadle. I really enjoyed the flyer on this little wheel. It does not have hooks for your yarn. Instead, it has a small curly-cue of wire that you hook your yarn through and when you want to move down your bobbin, you just press the two sides together and move it. This gives you infinite moves to fill the bobbin instead of the designated moves of the hooks. Makes for smoother bobbin fill and more yards per bobbin…hmm
This is the Ashford Elizabeth.
What a beauty! Since I am accustomed to a single treadle, I really liked the large treadle on this wheel. I suppose you could use both feet on it if you like. I did find that it was a little stiffer to treadle than my Prelude, but in all fairness, Donna told me that I may have to fiddle with the tension a bit. I could sure get used to seeing this lovely in my den..lol Love the look of this wheel!
And now… my favorite of all… the Kromski Sonata…
This wheel also has the double treadles. Donna had to remind me a bit to slow down my treadling. But once I got the hang of it, boy was it smooth. The treadles were smooth and easy … no stiffness, hanging up or bobbing … great! I have not wanted a castle style wheel until now. I am thinking this will be my next wheel!
There was such a selection of fibers!
I had a really hard time deciding which ones I wanted…lol I finally decided on this beautiful merino/silk. I’m sure you notice in the pic that I couldn’t wait to try spinning it…soooo… I had my son that lives in Mesa, AZ dig around and find the spindle I made and sent to him..then I stole it..lol (With a promise to send him another one!) This stuff spins like a dream! I think I have enough to spin up some almost gossamer weight that I will knit into a shawl. I can hardly wait… (And yes… I am having a hard time keeping myself from knitting… I think I may have to just live with the discomfort in my wrist and arm…sigh)
Did I tell you that Donna is a weaver too?
With a Rigid Heddle Loom… ;o) She had a jacket on her loom when we were there…what a beauty. Watching her was a definite inspiration. So… I bought a new boat shuttle. She said it makes weaving much easier. I have not had time to try it yet, but you can bet I will in the next few days.. ;o)
The time to leave came wayyy too soon…
I must apologize since I seem to have lost the card they gave me that has both their names on it… I showed it to so many people that I’m sure I have left it somewhere…sigh Oh well… maybe they will stop in when they are in Tucson! ;o)
This was such a lovely place… warm, friendly and welcoming. I was invited back for the Spin-In they have every Thursday and I had planned to stop on the way back home….but I think my sweet DH was really ready to start home and make some time, so on we came. But you can bet that next time we are in Tuscon I will plan for it to be on a Thursday…lol
We made a trip to Durant yesterday and replenished the wool supply. I love
to go to Ozark Carding Mills, LLC … the only problem is that I can spend us into bankruptcy in just a few minutes…lol
The cotton in the upper left of the picture is just a small sample she gave to see if I liked to spin it. She said it is much easier to spin in this form than the cotton balls that I have tried before. As luck would have it, she still had some of the chocolate (she calls it moorit) merino lamb.. yayyy This time I also bought some merino white. There are no plans for any of this right now, but I thought I might try to blend some of the silk with the merino white… 8 oz white merino with 2 oz. silk. I think that would make a terrific scarf in whatever color it decided it wanted to be. Maybe even a small shawl.
Before I took the above picture I had already pulled the Cotswold out of the bag. This is the first time I have done Cotswold and find it relatively easy to spin. This has rug planning written all over it. This is definitely NOT for use against the skin. I suppose it could be used for an over-the-clothes sweater, but the wrist and neck might be a bit scratchy. Anyway.. we’ll see what it turns out to be.
I’m afraid the Linh’s Ivy Scarf will have to be put on hold indefinitely. My right hand and arm have developed something quite painful… I think it is a combination of the constant computer use and the small knitting needles… We are no longer doing the LRRP Ranger Association newsletter so that should help some. I have decided to put all the small needle knitting aside until I see for sure what is happening. Sure hate this… I was really looking forward to seeing this finished… hand spun wool plyed with polyester machine embroidery thread (very shiny)… (This pattern was found via Ravelry… one of my favorite places on the web… ;o)
Using the size 10 knitting needles to do these two cotton wash cloths didn’t seem to hurt my hand as much as the smaller needles did, but can’t honestly say it was painless… sigh.. Oh well.. will just have to leave the knitting alone for a while.
This flax was removed from my spinning wheel so I could begin the Cotswold. There isn’t much of it, but I find that spinning flax is just not my thing right now. This is very stiff and I am thinking that is because it needs to be woven and then finished with a hot water wash. I think I will make a bookmark on my small loom and see how it turns out. I don’t know if tea or coffee will dye it, but I’m sure going to try it….
It’s a lovely day outside today… sunny and green… what a lovely Sunday… Hope everyone has a good day…
I finished the blue cotton weaving I did as place mats and decided that I like it better as a runner. I didn’t wash it in the washing machine, but I did handwash it in very hot water and soap, wringing it out before hanging it on the line. It did shrink a little… which is good… it needed a little fulling to tighten the weave a bit. It did not shrink excessively and it did not fade. The colors did not run. I had read in one of the forums that Lily’s Sugar and Cream yarns were very bad about both..shrinking and having the colors fade and run… Not so in this case…
I am still working on this scarf… just not very quickly…lol I’m not quite sure where I want to go with it and with naalbinding you can’t just pull out the stitches and start again from a certain point. Naalbinding backwards to remove the stitches is not my favorite thing..lol Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing if this turns into a real scarf or a skinny minny because I am too afraid to mess it up… ;o)
The EZ Pi Shawl is what I work on while watching television at night. It is growing ever so slowly now that the each row is 624 stitches. I finally used the last of the first ball of mixed wool singles. These last 2 balls did not dye quite as dark as the first one so I will have to re-dye the entire thing when I am finished. In the mean time, I am excited to see it growing and wondering how far this ball will go.
This card weaving was started yesterday. The story behind this is… I am forever leaving my purse somewhere..usually miles away before I miss it. Not good…
After looking into wrist wallets I have decided to make my own. That’s where this comes in.. as the wrist band to hold it on if I decide to make one that will fit like a wrist watch and have the wallet dangle. I am not very good at card weaving yet, but I guess it’s like most things…with a little practice I will figure out how to remember which direction I am turning the cards..lol And the edges… well we won’t discuss that at this stage.. But I do like how it is turning out even with the
imperfections. I find card weaving to be completely fascinating. And the strength of this band is amazing. I am using a red and a variegated green crochet cotton #10 thread for this and I truly believe this could be used as reins for horses or even saddle straps. I don’t think there is anything that could break this band. Amazing. And from cards cut from cereal boxes and a bit of string… wow…
I really love naalbinding, but I get tired of the solid (but very warm) pieces of fabric that it makes. I’ve seen a lot of things…doilies, tablecloths, etc… that have shown up on the net that are lacy and wonderful…and quite possibly naalbound. So I decided to try it using the Oslo stitch, my antler 
needle, and the last of the mixed wool homespun. It seems to be going to work. I’m using the basic crochet formula… chain a long chain…turn back…single into the stitch…then chain 3…then single into the next stitch… in this case instead of crochet singles I am doing Oslo stitches… When I finish the length of the chain, I will turn back and attach in the center of the three chain lengths .. I have no real idea what I am doing… but will let you know if it works out to be the scarf I am hoping it will be…
Yesterday I went to my work room to whip up a quick clothespin apron like
my grandmother used to wear when she was hanging out clothes. Well… that’s all well and good, but this project all of a sudden turned into a larger reversible apron to wear while cooking… how does that happen? Anyway, it did and everything went along really well until I started to sew the top to the bottom and realized that I had not left a seam allowance to do that..!! It was put on the shelf until today since I was just not in the mood for a seam ripper at that moment…. If you are in an apron making mood, try looking at all the 50+ free patterns that TipNut.com has listed here.
So I came back inside and decided to double ply the last …sob!… of the Chocolate Merino Lamb pencil roving that I had finished spinning the night before. It was on the Niddy Noddy so I rolled it on my thumb into a center pull ball and began to try to ply it… but something seemed to be really out of kilter with my spinning wheel. When I couldn’t find the problem, I got out my Ashford beginner’s spindle and started to ply it with that. Then sweet DH came along and… wondering what I was doing…checked out the spinning wheel. It seems that when I put the bobbin on I did not check it and had left a rubber band on the whorl end of it. (I use a rubber band on the top whorl ends between two bobbins to put a little tension on them when I am plying using two bobbins. ) Anyway, at long last it is finished, washed with shampoo and condidtioned with conditioner… Can’t decide whether to be happy or upset that it’s finally all spun up…lol
Now I’m back again to that flax… deep sigh. I think I have figured it out, though. It would really be nice to have a spinning whiz around to ask questions…but alas…not. Anyway, I have read that as it is finished and washed it becomes less stiff…and I certainly hope so because this stuff is like soft wire! This is all I had time to do last night before bedtime, but will try to fill this bobbin today. Can’t wait to see how it works up. Since this is a vegetable fiber and not protein, I don’t know for sure how I will dye it. Kool Aid won’t work with vegetable fibers…
There is a possibility that one of our daughters and her husband will be here for a visit this weekend..Yayy… so if I don’t get back to say it… Have a great weekend…
We left on Thursday for a mix of vacation and dental work to Bull Shoals, AR. What a trip. DH began to catch a cold on the way…by Day 2 I had it…DH is now running a fever. By Day 3 I had been totally kicked by that old Arkansas mule…my nose ran like a faucet and even seeing old and wonderful friends was a chore. DH on the other hand was feeling better. Monday morning was the dental appointment and then immediately the trip home. Boy…was I ever glad to see the old recliner…but…
It’s finally done… I thought it would never get there..lol 
I worked on the quilted border all the way to Arkansas, all the time we were there and finished it the morning we were to leave to come home. The edging border I finished today. Whew! All in all, I am very happy with it. Now it will be wrapped and will be taken to Arizona in May…
On the trip down, I also worked on this…put the last stitches on it as we pulled into the drive of the resort…
This is the wool fabric that was woven on my Kromski Harp using the wool that was spun on my homemade and Bosworth spindles and my Kromski Prelude spinning wheel. The warp is mixed wool… the weft is Icelandic wool. Triple fold closed it is 4 1/2″ x 5 1/2″.
When open it measures 5 1/2″x 13″. The lining and the pincushion are made from 
some quilting fabric that I had in my stash. The thimble holder was crocheted from #10 cotton crochet thread. The blanket stitch around the edging is more of the Icelandic yarn that was spun last year.
I have to say…why did I not do this sooner? I have found it so handy to use even when I am in my personal space where I work all the time.
In one of my spindling groups today, a url was brought up that I found so very helpful I thought I would share with everyone. This information came together in the form of a swap done in 1995 by several spinners who worked with the individual wools and sent info and samples to everyone else in the swap. What a labor of love! I don’t know who they all were or I would acknowledge them. Here is the url…
http://web.archive.org/web/20080108071647/http://www.sdcwg.org/notebooks/sbs.html#meist
Have a look…
The spindle spinning class I taught yesterday at the Red River Historical Museum was great! Lots of enthusiasm and fun.
There were 11 signed up for the class, but one could not come. Ten seemed to be the perfect size for my first teaching experience. Everyone went home happy with 2 new spindles, a couple of hanks of wool and an instruction booklet that will.. hopefully…fill in the blanks that everyone forgets after taking a class.
Hannah’s quilt is ready for the quilting to begin. I have to decide what I want to quilt it with. I have been considering red thread and quilting hearts in the larger squares with X’s and O’s in the small and rectangular areas. We’ll see…
Next Saturday will be my first Spindle Spinning Class. It starts at 9:30am at the Red River Museum here in Sherman, TX. Ask me if I’m nervous! lol I will still be working on tweaking the booklet on the night before the class! Maybe it will go good… we’ll see…
I think I have finally figured out the Brioche Stitch. I did this teapot cozy as a rectangle and then sewed the edges together. It is a very stretchy stitch and I still have trouble with the ends.. I had to use a 3 stitch garter stitch edging, so looks like I still need to watch a few more videos..lol But I love the way it looks and knits up.
This is the video I watched more than any other in my efforts to learn this stitch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEiKRKSJ4pk
