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........

Two Plans Gone Awry

A couple of years ago, now, I went to Boerne TX, in order to attend Kid-N-Ewe and Llamas too. It is a fiber festival. I had a great time there, knitting, spinning and shopping. One of the items I bought was this teal fiber, that I spun into the yarn used in this shrug. A couple of years before this, I went to Louisiana to the Cajun Lagniappe fiber festival. Met another group of great spinners and knitters there, too. I purchased the purple fiber, and spun the yarn in this shrug.



As I finished each spinning project, I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

THE PLAN: Then I saw a pattern in Knitter's Magazine for a shrug with sleeves. Not sure that I would have enough yarn for the shrug, I then thought that I could make the shrug using both yarns. Hence the back(below). In the magazine the back is a solid color, but I thought it would be fun to insert mitered squares and a slipped stitch pattern into it.

THE PLAN AWRY: However, the shrug in the pattern had sleeves, a great addition, but I didn't want sleeves. So, I left them off. Now, I am thinking that I need to put them on. The holes for the arms are too big without them. arrrrggg. I really had thought of that part before.



It does look acceptable on, I think. I do have more of the purple. So, I could add some little sleeves. Right now, the shrug sits downstairs in the studio, while I mull it over.

Next project. About 9 months or so ago, I purchased an 18 oz, batt of Romney fiber from my friend, Liz. She gets the Romney wool from a friend who owns the sheep and doesn't want the fiber. (gasp!) So, we willingly help her out.

THE PLAN: Anyway, on Saturday, Feb 12, I went to Farmersville, TX, to a FancyFibers dye day. I thought this was the perfect time to dye this batt. Mary has large tables, so that I could spread it out flat.

I striped the batt with several colors. Green, purple, turquoise and camel were large 6 inch strips. Then for little strips I added gold and fuchsia. Here is the finished batt, top view.

THE PLAN AWRY: If you noticed the camel, which should be next to the turquoise, disappeared, for the most part. AND the fuchsia totally blended in with the turquoise and purple.

Then this is the back of the batt. Totally different than the front. However, I did find a bit of the camel. :)

I did try to have a plan, because the plan was to spin singles and have self striping yarn, like Noro. But, the plan is now swept under the rug, again.

I will still spin this, because I absolutely love the colors and how it looks. But, I am not sure how self-striping it will be. :) I was thinking that I might put the batt back through my drum carder and have a more heathery look. Decisions, decisions.

AND I need two new plans........

Take a Look

We have two daughters. Our oldest one, Rebekah, is a very talented artist, in that she designs, sews and sells clothing. I have mentioned her before.

Our younger daughter, Anna, is a wonderful artist as well. She doesn't have a blog or etsy shop, so I cannot link you to her work. Anna paints, gorgeous paintings and we have several of her pieces hanging in our home. When she was in high school, she drew the little sheep and bunny logo for my business.

Anna has, once again, out done herself. :) She decided to make a charm for me for my birthday.
She took some of her painters' canvas and painted a 1 inch square painting of sheep. What a task and my 50+ year old eyes popped out of my head when I saw it! I have made the charm into a necklace and I love wearing it.

While ice bound in the house, I have been finishing up projects this week. This wonderful yarn was spun from a batt that I received as a Christmas present, at the Texas Twisters Christmas party. What fun and oh, so soft!

This yarn was spun from some soft natural white wool and, extremely soft Texas Mohair locks/curls. I added some silvery sparkle to this yarn too. I listed it to etsy this morning, and it is sold already. I love this yarn.

Some Of My Projects

Housebound, yet again. :) Production continues, so I figured I should start showing some of my projects.

Since it is soooo cold out, I figured the dolls needed some shawls. Here is Felicity in a new pink shawl and matching headband. I sort of improvised this pattern from my Terrific Shoulder Shawl. I actually made two of them, because there are two dolls that need them.



This next photo is of some handspun. It is a 2 ply 100% alpaca yarn. I have 223 yards of this ever so soft yarn. The fiber for this yarn came from my CSA(Community Supported Agriculture) Share of Jacob's Reward Farm. Cindy, the owner of the farm, has asked me to design another pattern for her shareholders. This will be the second pattern, that I have designed, for her shareholders. Now, a new pattern is in the works. I thought that I would use some of my handspun, from the share I received, for knitting up one of the design samples.

SNOW!!! Yes, on top of the ice, which still has not melted, we are receiving snow. It is still snowing at my house, as I type this. The snow is supposed to stop by noon. We'll see. I still love the way snow insulates the noise, makes everything sooo quiet outside and brightens up the inside. Oh, and snow in TX. Notice the Post Oak tree, still has leaves on it. But, it does make a nice contrast to the white and gray, as does the green cedar next to it.

A Wolf is Sheeps' Clothing?

Ice. This is Tuesday morning, February 1.



This ice is actually about 2 inches deep. The sheep's clothing it snow. There is a dusting of snow on the top. So, if you weren't thinking you would think you were stepping on snow, when in fact it was ice. If you aren't prepared for ice, you would fall.

The interesting thing is, that today, February 3, it looks almost the same. The temperatures in north Texas have stayed below freezing. In the teens and twenties. The roads are still icey and we haven't had a lot of sun, either.

I know that alot, or most, people are having worse weather than us. However, this stops our community. I have enjoyed my time at home and been productive with office work.

Today I hope to knit and spin some.