weaving again...........finally

Finally I'm back to the loom, spent much time dyeing, spinning, knitting and demonstrating. Yesterday I got a 12 yard warp on the loom for some huck lace towels. I put a natural warp on and these first towels will be crossed with a natural weft. I think for some of the others I'll pick some light colors to use for the weft. Still spinning and knitting, just doing that in the evenings. More dyeing in the near future - this time painted warps in bamboo, tencel, rayon & silk.

spinning at the fair

This is the merino I spun at the fair this week. It was roving I dyed in the primary colors which then blended where they met to form secondary colors. I was curious how it would spin up. I took half the roving and drafted it out to spin long repeats of colors. Then I split the remaining roving into thinner strips so the repeats would be shorter. I then plied them together. I'm anxious to see how this knits up into socks.

We had the best wool judge ever for the fleeces this year. She's from Washington and is a sheep grower, a shearer, a spinner and knitter in addition to judging. She actually took time with each fleece talking about it's pros and cons - we hope she comes back next year.

This week is catch up week here at home but first a day trip to the coast today to get away from the heat and smoke (from CA fires). The Festival of the Arts is going on in Brookings on the harbor boardwalk so we'll take Bailey over to browse the booths, then go play on the beach.

Drop spindle class

I'll be teaching another drop spindle class on Monday, September 22nd, from 1-4pm at Llamas & Llambs Boutique in Jacksonville. If you're local and interested in attending contact the shop at 541-899-9141. No materials necessary - inexpensive CD drop spindles included in the cost of the class ($35 per person), enough wool for the class and more practice at home and a handout. If you own a niddy noddy bring it, but it's not necessary, I'll have some there for people to use.

County Fair

Our county fair opens on Tuesday. Some of us from a local spinning group went to the fairgrounds Saturday morning with woven goods, dyed roving and handspun skeins to set up our exhibit. In front of the exhibit are all the wool fleeces brought in for judging that will happen Wednesday morning. During the fair we'll all sit in a circle in front of the display demonstrating spinning - fun week filled with spinning with friends, talking to the public and eating fair food!!! So needless to say there will be no weaving done here this week..........but lots of spinning.

Sock Block

Here's a picture of socks I'm knitting from a sock block. This one is Henry's Attic yarn knitted two ends at a time on a knitting machine, then I hand dyed it, now I'm unraveling and knitting into sox. I've put a few of these hand dyed sock blocks up in my etsy shop for sale - those are dyed on Knit Picks sock blocks which are superwash merino.

Braided rovings

Last wool dyeing day

Well it's the last wool dyeing day.............for a while. It's all outside drying. The big area of light teal is 2 pounds worth of what I'm calling iceberg - has 3 shades of light teal and a bit of silver gray. Next dyeing will be warp painting in a couple weeks depending on if the really hot weather returns - will work on that when the weather permits. Lots of braiding of rovings ahead of me not to mention weighing, pricing and labeling. Been having great fun with this the past week.

Yet more dyeing

Yet more dyeing today - 9 1/2 pounds of it, think I'll finish up with another 5 pounds tomorrow before a guild board meeting I need to attend in the afternoon, then I'm done with wool dyeing for a bit. Have painted warps I want to do but will get to those in a couple weeks, time to get back to weaving.

More dyeing

Ok, it's probably getting boring for everyone watching my blog to see day after day of dyeing efforts but that's what I'm doing at the moment - weather is not too hot so it's nice to be outside all day. Shorter day dyeing today - 5 pounds and several skeins of sock yarn and then I threw in some mohair that's been around for a while and I never knew what to do with it - we'll see if I'm inspired now that it's got color.