On the wheel.......

I decided to start spinning something new when over on the coast and hopefully not leave it sitting on the bobbins for years. Someone gave me this fiber and it's lovely to spin. it's 40% angora, 30% wool, 15% silk and 15% alpaca. The color is actually a bit prettier than this photo of the bumps.  I can't remember if I have 8oz - it's at the beach cottage so I can't check. 

This is what it's looking like on my Lendrum wheel although this picture doesn't represent the actual color - it's beautiful. I think it will make a lovely scarf or cowl. 

I'm in the process of warping up my table loom for a workshop in around a month......more to come on that. 

 

 When under stress I have trouble doing much of anything creative - the embroidery machine fits the bill, not too much thinking required and I've accomplished something.

New towels for sale in my etsy shop.......yes, I'm actually thinking ahead to the holidays.......for once.  I am loving all these towels but those pumpkins are so danged cute - I'll definitely be stitching up some for me too.

I hope all stay safe in Texas and surrounding states with the approaching hurricane, torrential rains and storm surge.......sure wish some of that rain could be spread out along the west coast.

Finally.....the alpaca and silk handspun

I spun this black baby alpaca and dyed silk yarn a while back. I started 2 different knitted shawlettes and took them out because they just didn't look right, then I started a crocheted scarf and didn't like that. Today I decided it needed to be woven, finally I got it right - it's going to look beautiful woven. It was close on having enough yardage - I only put aside a tiny bit in case of any broken threads which did not happen. I just wove it in plain weave to show off the handspun.....although my first choice would have been some sort of twill but I didn't have enough yardage since a twill needs to be sett closer, which would mean more warp ends. For the weft I'm using some commercial merino/tencel yarn I had gotten from Webs a while back - it's perfect. I can't wait to cut this off the loom and get it washed......it's not finished until it's washed. I'm thinking this will be for me as I've been wanting a black shawl to wear with many colors. It's a shame I couldn't capture the sheen of the silk in the photo..........

Here are what the batts I spun it from looked like.  And here's what the handspun looked like (3rd photo down) - I plied it with black thread.  This is pretty good for me - less than 2 years from batt to handspun to finished project........usually it sits in some form or another on the shelf for a while before being finished.

Now I'm looking at 2 different novelty handspuns that have been sitting on the shelf marinating for a few years thinking I'll weave some scarves out of them. I do need some new items made from handspun for our county fair display this summer.

Another shawl......

I started to weave the second shawl on the alpaca shawl warp this time using the same black alpaca for weft as I used for warp. I would have finished it up but the phone kept ringing........but it was fun to catch up with friends so that's ok.

No 'pretty' pyrocumulus cloud today, everywhere in the region is smoky - can't see a thing, the smoke is hanging down low, it's just plain ugly out there. The fire blew up yesterday afternoon within a couple hours from 200 to 6000 acres - not sure of the status now. I'm feeling very bad for the fire fighters working out there in 108 degree temps.

This and that......

After the debacle on Monday of my discharge paste being too old to work I tried again with the new container - success. I buy my discharge paste from Dharma Trading Co.

Here I'm about to silkscreen the gingko design using the discharge paste.....

....the discharge paste is still wet here so it can be seen.....

....after it's totally dry I hit it with a steam iron until I see the amount of dye pulled out that suits me....

....and here's the chenille scarf washed and dried. It takes a bit to get the sliminess of the discharge paste off the scarf but it's not too bad. I wish it were easier to photograph chenille, especially black, it's so yummy. (just noticed I took pix of two different scarves - one of the scarves had large gingkos, the other a medium size)

I wove the first alpaca shawl that I put on the Macomber last week. Black alpaca warp, charcoal grey alpaca weft. I'm thinking the second shawl might be black weft.

And here is one of the popsicles I made yesterday - the perfect afternoon pick me up on a hot day. The white grape juice makes them a little tart but I like it. These get a thumbs up for yummy and also a thumbs up for being healthy.

 

Alpaca

I got an alpaca warp on the loom this morning for a couple huck lace shawls. I don't weave with animal fibers that much but I have customers looking for warm winter shawls so I browsed my small stash of wool and found this lovely black alpaca from Henry's Attic. I'll use a dark charcoal grey for weft on one shawl and am assuming I have enough of the black left for another shawl..........I'll know for sure once I get the grey one woven. This is going to make lovely alpaca shawls - the yarn is incredibly soft.

More dyeing.......

I spent more time at the dye table and steamers today.  Unfortunately my photo isn't showing true color, much prettier in person. One of these days I should take a picture of the roving on the drying racks after it's dried, it's much prettier all fluffy and big. The 4 rovings on the right two racks are merino/bamboo - the 2 on the left tall rack are alpaca/merino/silk - 11 pounds today.  I've got 10 pounds of merino/tussah roving on the schedule for Thursday......need a day off from dyeing tomorrow, it's hard on the feet and back working on the concrete and asphalt.

A bit of this and that ........

A bit of this and that getting done around here this week. Yesterday and today I played with the embroidery machine, as if I didn't have more pressing things to do but this was more fun. I have to stick around while the machine is running to change thread colors and to fix broken threads once in a while so I worked on hemming numerous pairs of exercise pants and twisting fringes on handwoven scarves. I'm hoping (think positive) to sell these fingertip towels at Fiber Mania, in my etsy shop or wherever. All are stitched on nice crisp commercially woven towels of 55% linen and 45% cotton. I stitched multiples of a number of them......need to order more towels, this is fun. Tomorrow it's back to mundane things - weighing out bags of wool roving from a shipment that arrived yesterday and running up and down the stairs doing massive amounts of laundry.

These sheep are as cute as the dickens (hmm, what does that mean? are dickens cute? what are dickens?) They're the same thread colors but on different colored towels, oatmeal and natural........

......oatmeal hemstitched towels with deep red stitching.....

......oatmeal with black stitching - I love these simple sheep........need to make some for myself.....

.....cute sheep and butterfly - and isn't the weaving one fun.......

......alpacas on natural and oatmeal towels.......

.......lovely traditional spinning wheel with distaff - the natural towels have a little dot woven in the towel in-between the hemstitching.......

Scarves in the works........

Ok, so here's the first scarf on the warp using my handspun and commercial alpaca. I'm finding it very boring weaving, just a simple broken twill. Maybe it's really not boring weaving but just my mood for the day. I'm thinking that swing on the porch and my knitting are looking better and better all the time........there's always tomorrow........

Scarves to be..........

It's the end of August and what have I accomplished this month.......not too much. I have this bad habit of asking myself that question at the end of the month, end of the quarter, halfway through the year and then at the end of the year.....am thinking maybe I'm too hard on myself to produce.

I should be dyeing roving, weather has actually cooled and overcast, not good roving drying weather, not to mention I'm just not in the mood to schlep and set up for dyeing this week. So today I'll wind a warp for 2 scarves using the handspun mystery fiber above (it must have merino and silk in it) and some black commercial alpaca. I don't often weave scarves in wool but have been looking at my handspun stash and decided some of the small bits should be utilized. This handspun was spindle spun.

We spent the weekend on the coast, absolutely beautiful sunny weather, upper 60's. It was cooler here in the valley too which held the fire at bay. Temps are coming back up again though so they'll start doing more back burning on the north side of the fire this week. It's still listed as high for growth potential - just turns my stomach since it's due west of us, not close enough for immediate danger but close enough to possibly be a danger if it blows up with the heat returning. The incident command center and firefighter's tent city (900+) moved up here just 3 1/2 miles from the house since the north side is where all the activity is now.....roads are brimming full of firefighters and equipment. 7:20 this morning 2 small copters went buzzing over quickly, not sure what that was about, not the bucket toting copters.