Phew

Phew, the fair is over - had a great time visiting with my spinner peeps and the public. Thank goodness we were in an air conditioned building as it was 100, 106, 111 and 105.....yes it was really 111. The walk to and from my car wasn't too terrible although the car itself was incredibly hot to get into come late afternoon.

This is what I was spinning at the fair - I only spun this bobbin and got a bit into the second bobbin. I'm spinning fairly thin and these bobbins will hold around 8oz. This is from the rolags I made recently on my blending board.  So, what do I do today after taking down our fair display but come home and pull out the wheel and get back to spinning. I'm pretty worn out from this week and just sitting at home doing not much of anything is awfully inviting.........with the air conditioner running and the ceiling fan going overhead.

Now it's time to get back to weaving. I've also got to get to work on painting warps, they're all wound ready to go. Mid week it might be ok to work outside in the mornings, mid 90's are forecast for the high, but later in the week we get back to triple digits. I can't wait for cool rainy fall weather.

More rolags

I spent more time playing with my blending board. Here are more little piles of rolags ready for spinning - there are 4 identical coiled up rolags in each pile. Now I really must get back to doing the things I'm supposed/need to be doing........

Blending board fun

This afternoon instead of doing things I should be doing I decided to play with my blending board. I'm going to stop beating myself up for not focusing on my business all the time, it's the time to do more playing with less guilt involved.

I pulled out a bit of roving bits & bobs and separated them into color family piles

I put together an autumn color scheme including some bamboo, glitz and silk sari bits

Then I put together the blues, greens and purples along with bamboo and glitz

I decided to play with the blues, greens and purples randomly putting them on the board and then pulling off the rolags for future spinning

And this is as far as I got - there are 9 piles of rolags - 4 rolags in each pile/color order. This is approximately 1/2 pound. I still have a huge pile of roving on the floor waiting to be finished up which will probably make around 1 pound total of this colorway. Can't wait to start spinning it.

Pulling the rolags off did 'smart' my right thumb to my wrist. Recently I had to lay off knitting for a few weeks to let it recover but this has made it flare up again.  I've got to be more wary of repetitive tasks.

This and that...........

I finally got the fringe twisted on these 3 scarves recently woven - they have a hand-dyed silk warp and tencel wefts. The center one is listed in my etsy shop for sale - the other two will eventually make it in the shop, if anyone has an interest in one of them please contact me......takes me a while to get the photography work done to get them listed in the shop.

This felting landscape kit is available in my other etsy shop.  I grabbed a kit before I went to my spinning group yesterday, grabbed my blending board and started making rolags using all eight colorways. I've got 5 other colorways of felting landscape kits available for sale, bet they would be fun to make rolags out of on the blending board too.

 Here are a few of the rolags........I've got a total of one pound ready to spin, can't wait to see what the resulting handspun yarn looks like.

 It started out as a nice walk on the inlet beach looking for seashells and seaglass until that danged log showed up........

 .......Yikies - it moved - better back up fast.......

 .....whoa, that thing is alive......

 

.....better watch it carefully and definitely not turn my back on it........such are the perils in the life of a beach dog......

More blending board fun

This afternoon I spent a little more time with the blending board. I added some Ashland Bay Peacock color roving to the mix I was working on the other day and am happy with it now.  Before I made more than one board's worth of rolags I spun a quick and dirty sample.  It's really colorful but I like it. So now I've got lots of rolags to make and start spinning.......very fun activity and it's something I can sneak in here and there in-between other projects.

A test........

I decided to test out the blending board today, just one fill of it to see what else needs to be added to these colors. Our spinning group has a challenge this year for our fair display - we're all use the Ashland Bay merino colors of Berry, Hyacinth and Kiwi in a project - we can blend (with other colors/fibers too) spin, felt, knit, weave, whatever as long as the 3 colors are in the finished project. I put some of those 3 colors on the blending board along with a little white tencel and some Tangerine merino see how they look together.

Here are my very first rolags ever - they all came off that one loading of the board. And you might be able to spot some 'hairy' stuff in there - the brush I just bought to use with the board was losing it's bristles.......obviously it's not going to work for this or probably any other project, certainly not painting like it was intended for.

I spun a 'quick and dirty' sample on the spindle - please excuse my handspun as I did it super fast and didn't care about how even it was - I just wanted to see how the colors worked together. I think it needs a bit more orange but also feel like it needs something else......I'm just not sure what......will have to ponder on this for a while before I start production on rolags. I'm thinking of making a summer shawl, either knit or woven, for my project.

New toy

I got a new toy on Tuesday - a blending board to play with blending wool/other fibers to make rolags for spinning. Four in my spinning group already had them (2 bought, 2 homemade), friend Pat placed an order with Howard Brush Co for four of us which saved on shipping and we got a little discount too, since then another in the group has ordered one. I'd been thinking about one for a year or so but hadn't committed until I saw rolags coming off one. If you're a spinner and not familiar with a blending board you should check out you tube for demo's of them in action - very fun. I can't wait to start playing with mine, ah, but where to find more hours in my day.......hmm, maybe while we're watching the Super Bowl.........