Wildflower 2011

Last weekend, I had the privilege of travelling to east Texas for my favorite spinning retreat. East Texas is always so pretty, with its tall trees. The campground where we meet, for the retreat, is on a very pretty lake. There are tables and chairs outside, so we can just enjoy the view, when we want to.

This year we learned more about colors and using colors.

On Saturday morning, we played with watercolor paints. We mixed colors and lightened colors and watched what happened as we did so. By using the paints, instead of dyes, the exercise helped to build my confidence in blending the dye colors, that we used, on Sunday morning.

Here is the mohair roving that I dyed. I made the green and purple colors on the roving, by blending the turquoise with yellow(green) and then the red with the blue(purple).




We also played with the Fibonacci color sequencing. Colors and row/stripe numbers were aligned with letters of the alphabet and we were to spell our names. My name, starting with a "J" had 55 wraps of pink. You will notice that on the tongue depressor below. The rest of my first name ends with the orange, so I also did my last name. Funny, one letter of my first name, is still more than the rest of the letters in my first and last name.

However, the point is that the stripes do work with each other. Did you notice that my favorite colors, jewel tones, are not in this. Other peoples names had GREAT jewel tone colors. I had a good laugh over this and decided to continue using the name theme for the weaving project that we started. It is good to branch out to other colors once in a while, isn't it. Step out of my comfort zone. LOL! The project is a little change purse. Someday, it will be finished.

A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

One day my friend, Laurie, arrived at our spinning group and had some cute Sit-sters dolls. They were sooooo cute! I went home and made some too. The pattern for them is in this book:



Last week, I went over to visit Laurie and we allowed the dolls to meet. I have put faces, and clothing on mine. Here they are all posed for the picture. It was like posing real people, they all wanted to be in the back. :) But, some are sitting on ginger, some on the bananas, and one of mine took off to the carnations, she's a wild thing. One of the fun parts about these dolls, is that there are pipe cleaners, or as currently labeled, chenille stems, inside them. So, you can pose them! You also use the double knitting technique, of using two straight needles to knit a tube. They were fun to make.



So we go back to spinning. Cindy brought in this art yarn that she had spun. Cindy will be teaching a workshop, actually two classes, at the DFW Fiberfest this year. I believe she will be teaching the method of spinning this great yarn to her students.



I have been having fun spinnning art yarn too. I just finished this purple yarn. The darker purple is soft wool and the curly purple is really soft mohair locks. I added a bit of sparkle to the mixture and I did ply it to make it a balanced yarn, for knitting. It is for sale in my etsy shop, here.

Then the sad news. Yesterday, I went out to the car, to do some errands and it wouldn't start. We were thinking battery. But, alas, no. When The UPS Store guy came home and looked under the hood, he was in for a shock, as was I. A little animal had crawled into the engine and chewed up some wires. :\ After The UPS Store guy took the part off, and ran(drove) to the mechanic's he came home and said, "It was a rat. Apparently, this happens down here." Can you imagine?

So, this morning the trusty tow truck showed up and off went Knit Girl(the car), to the car doctor.

After the driver had her up on the road, he then flipped everything around and towed her backwards down to the car doctor.

I received word that she did arrive safely, but now am waiting for word that the operation was successful and is complete. Meaning: I can be out and about again. :)

Corespinning

Several of my spinning friends, just took a workshop about spinning art yarns. Their yarn was very intriguing. I have spun art yarns and love the different techniques myself. Here is a video from youtube for you to see. This video is done by JazzTurtleCreations.



Here is a second video, by JazzTurtleCreations.

New Stuff

1. Well, here is one of my newest household items. This is like the song from the movie/play Oklahoma, "Slowly, slowly, he sank into the sea." You see slowly, slowly, we remodel the house. :) We did purchase a fixer upper, I think I said that before. In the beginning of February, the light bulbs burned out in the tacky looking(in my opinion) lamp over the kitchen sink. So, when we went to Lowe's to get more bulbs, we left with a new lamp!!!! We arrived home from Lowe's, the UPS Store guy installed it, and we turned it on. LIGHT! and problem. The cute Folk Art looking navy blue shades were different dye lots. gag. I couldn't live with it, really. So, back we went. They didn't have anymore shades. We tried another Lowe's and their shades were chipped. So, we went with the other blue shades, which really are very pretty(in my opinion).


2. Let me introduce you to Ruthie Grace. Ruthie came to live in our home, most importantly my studio, a couple of months ago. She came to live with Doris, Cathy, Crayon, and Joy and the Traveller(who doesn't have a name yet). I figure since I have Cathy, after my SIL, and Doris, after my mom's neighbor, that it is time for Ruthie, after my mom. :) God has had grace and mercy for me again, hence the Grace portion of her name.

Ruthie Grace is a Schacht Matchless spinning wheel. She was made in Colorado, USA. The wood work on her is gorgeous and I am very excited to have her.

Well, as I see it, since I have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters, I need 4 more wheels so they can all have family names. :) Watch for it. LOL! Oh, and I have nieces and other sisters-in-law too........