A wintery day of play.........

Yes, I said wintery day of play......what happened to spring??? I remember having 3 or 4 days of it and then we went back to winter - today torrential rains, wind, big hail and tonight the snow level will fall to 2500 ft and freeze warnings in the valley. Guess I'll need to pull all those planters on the deck up against the house or lose all.

So, here's the finished scarf of my handspun merino/tencel warp crossed with a commercial bamboo weft. I had been undecided on the sett and ended up changing it from 15 epi to 18 epi. It turned out beautiful but in hindsight I wish I had left it at 15 epi. The feel of this is 'like butter'. I added some beading in-between the twisted fringes, it doesn't show much which is planned, I didn't want a lot of added color to pop out, I just wanted sparkle. I'm happy with this.

So here was the beginning of my play day.....surface design. I never shop at Penney's but the other night some cute women's t's with cap sleeves caught my eye in the sale ad (sale is still on for a few days). How could I resist? Only $5.99, regular $14.00, just calling out to be embellished. I did keep a couple plain but had to play with the rest. Although not pictured many have a little embellishment on the sleeve or on the back shoulder. I could have gone crazy with the stenciling and silk screening but in reality I don't like that much design, much prefer simple and understated. First was the chartruese t that I bought to wear under this great rayon piece. I used stencils and Shiva Paintstiks - love the way it turned out.

Next was the brown t where I used a ginko stencil sheet and gold, copper and yellow gold paintstiks. The second picture is of the back shoulder.

Then a cute little flower in white paintstik on purple

The lotus blossom is one of the silkscreens I made last year - I used chartruese Lumiere paint. This also has a cute little chinese knot on each sleeve and the back shoulder

And finally on the black t a neat little abstract design in white paintstik with dragonflies in lavendar, green and blue

paintstiks. The second picture is the back shoulder. Since I'm not an experienced photographer I'm not sure why the wavy lines turn up on the body of the t-shirts in these photos. Sometimes it happens when photographing handwovens on the loom too.

Ok, big decision - do I head back to Penney's for more little t's...

Today's weaving

This morning I woke up and decided to put some of my handspun merino/tencel on the loom to weave a scarf in an undulating twill. The handspun is beautiful, it has a sheen I will never be able to catch with the camera. I used black Bambu 7 (bamboo) for the weft. I went back and forth on what to sett the warp at, first thinking 12 epi because of the wool, but then knew that would be too open so I opted for 15 epi. I started weaving some waste yarn to check it out and found it was too loose so out of the reed it came and resleyed to 18 epi. I never have this indecision on sett but then I don't weave as often with wool, my fiber of choice is usually tencel, bamboo, rayon, silk and cotton. It came off the loom a bit ago and wow did the merino/tencel puff up once there was no tension on it - hope my decision to sett at 18epi was a good one. It's now soaking, will hang to dry. Not sure about the fringe until I see it dry but first thought is to twist it and add black sparkley glass beads as embellishment in-between.

Ply me to the moon update

Thought I'd just mention that if anyone is interested in checking out the blog, Ply me to the moon, I put up for my spinning group I just updated it today after taking pix of the latest spinning done. It's just for fun. One member has written a song which we eventually hope to get up on the blog, just need to figure out how to get the video up.

Knitting stitch markers..........

This was my fun activity for part of today - making more knitting stitch markers for sale, 3 different sizes, all kinds of glass beads. New are the alphabet markers. Most are packaged on cards in clear bags ready for sale now (will keep some on hand if someone contacts me about buying them). Trying to get a pile of stuff ready for the shop, Llamas & Llambs, for delivery on Thursday - have the stitch markers, a few handwoven towels, handwoven scarves and inklewoven bookmarks. Boy, I better buckle down and get to weaving, am out of runners, towels and getting low on scarves.

My Friday afternoon............

This is what I sewed this afternoon - box bags that are the perfect size for sock knitting, but they have all sorts of uses. I really wanted to wind a warp and start weaving but needed to work on these for gifts, still have more to make, not sure if I'll keep going right now or wait a month or so to make more.

Cinnamon the sheep.........

Ok, so here's what I worked on while the power was out........plus catching up reading several magazines while laying on the porch swing...........

This is my project for my guild challenge. We each got a scent, mine was cinnamon, that were were supposed to use as inspiration for a fiber related project - it could be handspun, woven, knit, felted, whatever. My first thought was woven coasters using the long cinnamon sticks but they would never go over the front beam of the loom without breaking the sticks and I wasn't about to cut off and re-tie on for each coaster. So, plan b was to use cinnamon sticks for a needlefelted sheep's legs. I could have cheated and used one of two warp painted scarves I already had done that happened to be called cinnamon but I didn't.........

So, before the power went out I quickly sewed up a wool felt sheep body and hot glued the cinnamon stick legs in. Now, this isn't my own idea of the felt body - my friend Karen makes sheep like this using rusted nails for legs and locks (washed sheep's fleece before carding) for the sheep's coat. I knew she wouldn't mind if I made the core of my sheep the same way since I'm not going to be selling any of these (this is my one and only!). Check out her etsy shop, Liongate, to see her adorable sheep for sale, not to mention santas, mice, felted gift tags, fiber, etc. etc.

The first picture is of my sewn and stuffed sheep body as I was just starting to needlefelt his coat on. I don't have locks but I do have hundreds of pounds of Ashland Bay Fiber to choose from, I used the Ecru Colonial Wool. So time consuming to give a slight twist to the roving and needlfelt it on. It took hours!!! (which is why this is my one and only). But I kept with it and my Cinnamon Sheep is adorable - check out the second picture! I still need to sew on a couple of bead eyes but I've played with him enough today.....and 3 of my fingers are smarting from running the felting needle through him. I did learn a valuable lesson - don't be too generous with the hot glue gun glueing in those legs because felting needles don't like them, broke a number of them.

Finished scarves.......

Here is the picture of the latest scarves to come off the loom - rayon, tencel and a novelty ribbon. I had originally planned to twist the fringes but seeing how pretty the ribbon is I'm not sure........will think on it.

I'm still planning my day - power company notified us last week that today the power will be shut off at 10am until at least 3pm - they've been replacing poles and wire for weeks, not sure what the activity is for today requiring no power. That means not enough light for winding a warp, threading heddles and starting to weave, no power for the sewing machine but most important no power for the well pump and for internet - yikes! I have filled the tubs with water to flush toilets and have filled numerous water bottles and pitchers. So, the question is what to do....other than going out shopping (not my favorite activity). So, I'm quickly sewing up a sheep body before power goes out that I can stuff and needlefelt it today as my other guild yearly challenge (will post pictures and explanation later.....if it turns out). Since it's already a beautiful day looks like I'll spend much of it out on the deck enjoying the flowers planted yesterday - will spin, knit, read. I can hook up little speakers to my mp3 player or CD player - all run on batteries. Should be a very nice day.

Flowers.........

Ok, so haven't had any weaving to share for a bit although I did finish up the scarf warp that I posted about last week. Scarves are in soaking now, will post pictures once dry. Took some time away from our valley - we left Friday for Bandon by the Sea over on the coast. Great weekend, beautiful weather. Played catch up and wove a bit on Monday, weaving guild meeting yesterday.....end of the year potluck luncheon and recycling challenge, and then today got more weaving time in and planted my deck flowers. I've got a total of 3 hanging baskets, 4 deck rail planters, 4 potted plants.....one empty, ran out of flowers, and then the 3 pots of lettuces that were planted a while ago. Still need to get some basil to plant in with the lettuce so when that starts bolting and basil will take over. In a month or so they should be starting to look really full and loaded with blooms. It's looking like maybe (hope, hope) spring has returned and my flowers are safe from frost - not so sure I can say the same about the peach and italian plum trees........am hoping we have fruit this year. Think I'll go lay out on the deck swing and enjoy the blooms of my labor..............

It's been a while but I haven't been idle.......

It's been a little while since I last posted but I've been busy. Last weekend I took a doubleweave workshop with Jannie Taylor (AVL teacher). It was great - a lot of information pouring into my head in a short period of time. Enjoyed it very much, learned much. Have a ton of warp left on my loom - my pattern was overshot doubleweave......will have to think on what I can do with that narrow warp in those colors - ice blue and fuschia - yikes!

This is the latest warp on the loom - tencel and rayon slub the main part of the warp with a supplemental warp of a space dyed ribbon. I like the way it's coming out. The first picture I used the mauve tencel as the weft. The second picture I'm using the gold rayon slub as weft. Am not thinking the rayon slub as weft is my favorite but once washed I may really like it. Not sure what the third scarf will be - am thinking a dusty lavendar or purple.....will play with colors when I get there. Since these aren't woven tightly I was a bit worried about weft shifting as it went over the front beam so I was prepared to put something over the beam to remedy it......ended up not being a problem at all.

It's been a good day.......

Today was a good day in spite of it feeling like winter once again - morning walk with Bailey found torrential rains and hail, snow dusting the hills just above us. After my shoulders recovered from morning yoga practice, phew instructors are working us harder lately, I put minestrone in the crockpot, got laundry started (never ending, isn't it?) and finally got to putting a painted warp on the loom.

This is one of the last two painted warps that's been sitting around waiting for me to weave. Just about time to start thinking about winding many new warps in different fibers to dye for future projects. My favorite fibers for painted warps are bamboo, tencel, rayon and silk. The fiber here is Bambu 7 (bamboo). The weave structure is basically a twill, a two tie unit based on a draft in the book '60 Scarves, 60 Years' published by the Baltimore Weaver's Guild recently. I took liberties with the draft - after putting it into my weaving computer program, WeaveIt Pro, I started manipulating it to make it my own. This is what I came up with. There's enough warp for 2 scarves, this first one I'm crossing with a bamboo weft in purple. At the beginning of the warp I also tried an inch using a silver grey bamboo - haven't decided yet if I'll use that for the second warp or not. Using a light color like that may wash out the scarf....will think on it.

So, when Bailey wasn't laying in the studio snoozing while I was weaving he was laying on 'his' bed in the guest room. He loves the big picture window where he can survey part of his property and keep watch on those turkeys, deer and the hated squirrels.

Upcycled bag............

My recyled guild challenge is finished - I think it turned out just fine and I ended up liking the lining fabric I bought although I was questioning my choice yesterday. It's a huge tote bag - perfect for it's intended job of toting things out to the RV for weekend trips.......longer trips I use a bigger duffel. I can see things I would have done differently colorwise now that I know the clear plastic bags add a lot of  'white' to the weaving. Before I did the sewing I had visions of making lots of these bags, although a more normal size tote, since I seem to have a large growing supply of the bags from my fiber orders...........but the sewing wasn't all that much fun so will have to think more on that idea.

The other guild challenge is due in June - that one we have to create something inspired by a scent we received - I have cinnamon. I do have my idea for that - just need to execute and hope it works - pictures to come when I get around to it. First it's back to weaving - scarf inventory is getting a bit low.

Recycled weaving revisted..........

So I finished weaving the fabric for my recycled weaving fabric a bit ago - it's 3/2 perle cotton warp crossed with a plastic bag strip weft - the plastic bags are what my Ashland Bay orders come in - each color in a bag by itself. So, I searched and searched for a fabric lining and decided on the cotton fabric on the right. Well, that searching was done with just pieces of the chartreuse & black perle cotton, I didn't take into account how much lighter the woven fabric looks with the plastic bags....guess I should have just schelped the woven fabric with me to the store. If I have something more suitable in my fabric stash I'll use it, otherwise I go with this. The hold up for starting to sew was weaving the matching inkle band for straps. I want the straps to go all the way down the sides of the bag to the bottom so it's stronger. I'd pretty much been ignoring the warped up inkle loom until this afternoon when I wove like crazy to get the almost 5 yards of band woven. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to the sewing machine.

Twisting fringe the fast way......

I thought I'd share how I twist fringe the fast way. Since I do a lot of it I need for it to be quick and efficient. I was so thrilled a number of years ago when there was a new hair craze (I think for little girls) of twisting hair. Many stores/drugstores had the Conair Hair Twister.....and a few months later when the fad died out they were on clearance. All of us local weavers hit the stores buying them up.And you know, of course, I bought a second one just in case the first broke and I couldn't find anymore.  It's battery operated, batteries last a long time in it. Now, of course, they've disappeared but I did hear from someone that they found another brand on Amazon - search under hair twister or hair braider for it.  I do have one of the manual fringe twisters made by a weaver, it's really nice but not as fast and requires extra work on my part, not to mention need 2 hands.

I start out by laying the item on my rotary cutting board - it's great because of the marked off inch gridlines that make it easy to measure where to tie the knot so they're all the same length. I do put weight on the fabric end to keep it from moving....usually whatever is handy, like cones of yarn. I insert the 2 sections to be twisted into the ends of the fringe twister. I push the button forward and it twists the fringe.

Then I push the the button in the opposite direction and the entire head of the unit twists in the other direction to twist them together (see below). It is so fast! What a lifesaver. Usually my knots aren't tied that short but this is a throw and I didn't think having a long fringe was the best for it.

AFter all the twisting is finished I pull out my rotary cutter and trim the ends to a perfect length. Usually I use a longer ruler but I was too lazy to walk in the other room to get the longer one sitting next to the sewing machine. Below is a picture of the finished fringe along with the fringe twister (hair twister). I twisted lots of fringe yesterday working on two chenille throws.

Currently on the wheel............

This is my current spinning, since I usually only spin in my spinning group and when demo'ing it will take a while to get this spun. This is some of my hand-dyed merino roving. It's a dream to spin. Unfortunately for anyone interested in this colorway this is all there is. I do have others for sale in my etsy shop.

Hoping today to get the fringe twisted on the chenille throws.

A beautiful spring day.......finally......

I tried to get pictures of the hummingbirds as they landed on the feeder today, pictures are just so-so but I thought I'd share them anyhow. The picture of the one sitting on the oak tree branch is not very clear at all, it was very far away but it caught the beautiful color of his throat - Sam took that picture. For the pix at the feeder I was sitting just 4 feet away, both Bailey and I can be very still and quiet as to not bother the birds - they dive bomb us if we're too noisy.

So, today I got a bit done that I'd be waiting for the weather to warm up to do. I washed the two chenille throws and let them dry over towels hanging over the deck railing (no pix). I washed and blocked the crocheted shawl made from my garden party handspun. I also washed the handwoven recycled bag fabric (no pix) - still need to work on the inkle band though so not ready to sew it together yet. And I did do a tiny bit of weaving - a few more samples on the warp from the summer and winter workshop. The red/black/white is two color dukagang. And the asian symbol for happiness was done in dukagang pickup. Am hoping to find some time tomorrow to play with more sampling on that warp.

I'm back.........

I'm back, been absent this week attending a Summer & Winter weaving workshop taught by Linda Davis of Sisters, OR. I learned a tremendous amount about designing and some of the many different treadlings available to use with this weave structure. My samples are still on the table loom as I want to try out some other treadling variations. Hopefully I can get to that early next week since I need to get that warp off the loom and the next one on for a doubleweave workshop with Jannie Taylor (instructor for AVL) in 2 weeks. Maybe next year my two guilds will communicate better and not have workshops this close together.

So today I need to get the inkle loom warped up to weave the handles for my recycled bag project - will do the actual weaving in the evening. Then it's back to the chenille throw warp, need to finish weaving it off, wash the throws and twist the fringes so they get to the customer who ordered them.

I've still got a sale going in my etsy shop on hand-dyed roving - these are the last of these colorways. They're in the Sale Section of my shop and are marked at 25% off. These are pix of some of what's available. There is also lots of other roving in the shop that I have larger quantities of.

Sample spinning............

The only spinning I've done lately is more samples of Ashland Bay Fibers. Most of these are merino, a couple colonial, merino/bamboo and merino/tussah. This spinning is very fun, spin a bit of a color, andean ply it and then move on to the next color. This is the last of the samples to be spun for a while so I'll have to pick out something from the stash for my next spinning.

Handwoven throws on the loom

Here's a pic of the chenille throws in progress on the loom. Would love to knock them out this week but am busy away from the loom every day except Friday until the following Friday - I would say I'd have weaving withdrawals except one day is a weaving guild meeting and 3 days are a weaving workshop.

Sale in my Etsy shop

It's spring cleaning time in my etsy shop. Just thought I'd mention in case anyone was interested - I'm having a sale in one of my etsy shops on hand-dyed roving. Each day this week I'm adding new roving to the Sale Section of the shop - these are colorways where there's only one braid (approx 7-8oz) left. I'm making room for new colorways to come soon.......and old colorways that have been very popular and sold out. So, if you're interested check it out - eweniquely ewe. Here are a few examples of what's on sale.  And as always my other etsy shop carries Ashland Bay Trading Co roving - it's eweniquely ewe fibers.

On another note I don't seem to have gotten much weaving done. I did get the recycled bag fabric off the loom - it's awaiting washing, sewing, lining and weaving inkle loom bands for the handles. Monday I did get a warp wound for a special order for 2 chenille throws - hope to get started weaving today, will post a picture when there's something to see.

This Saturday is my guild presentation on woven devore - still trying to figure out how to present it without sounding too negative about the process. And next week is a 3 day workshop on Summer & Winter - table loom is warped and ready to go.

Recycled weaving and current socks on the needles

Lynette asked if the tracking in the towels from my post Sunday remained after ironing. Yes, it has, not to the extent it was fresh out of the dryer but it's still there - I love the effect.

I put this warp on the loom today - it's 3/2 perle cotton sett at 8epi for a big tote bag. What's different is that the weft is recycled plastic bags that I've cut into 3/4" strips in a way that makes a continuous weft out of each bag. You can see at the beginning some red weft, that's just my spacer weft, the black will be turned to the inside of the bag, perhaps a bit showing at the top of the bag. What looks like white weft is actually the clear plastic bags. I'm a dealer for Ashland Bay Trading Co roving, when I receive an order each color is packaged in these bags. Of course I've been reusing the bags for different purposes but when the guild challenge came up to do something recycled I immediately thought of them. So, a huge tote is in the making. I'll line the bag when finished. I haven't decided yet if I'll inkle weave the straps or buy commercially made webbing........leaning toward weaving my own but I'll see how time goes. Each bag weaves around 4" - I have a lot of bags so I can see this project won't even touch my supply........outdoor placemats for summer use would be another great project.

Since I finished up the other socks I had to get a new pair on the needles, can never be without socks in progress to work on here and there. This is one of my favorite patterns - slouch socks. I love the ripples. These colors are great go with blue jeans socks.

Celtic towels

The celtic knot fingertip towels are finally hemmed and ready to go, 14 in all, 2 of each color. Eight of these are going to a fingertip towel exchange comprising of members of six guilds in Southern Oregon, the others will be gifts or for sale.

Spent a couple days up north visiting a friend at the end of the week so no fiber stuff happened for a few days. Yesterday finished up the paperwork to go with the towel exchange, got the towels pinned and worked on hemming them last night and this morning. Usually I machine hem towels for sale but hand hemming looks so much nicer and since most of these are going to other weavers I wanted to hand hem them. Yesterday I also got my table loom warped for an upcoming summer & winter workshop, actually only had to wind the warp on the back beam, will be threading heddles & reed after the workshop starts and we design our own threading.

Started working on planning a project for one of the guild challenges that's due in May - recycled weaving - will post pictures once there's something to show. Other guild challenge isn't due until June so have a bit of time to still think about that one.

Zauberball socks finally finished

The Zauberball socks are finally finished. I haven't been knitting on socks much lately, just here and there on the go, waiting somewhere, etc. Last night I finished these - love the color changes in the Zauberball sock yarn. I got another pair started using some Opal sock yarn - they're slouch socks, very cool colors, will post a picture once I get a bit more done so the color changes show up.

I used to always fret on having stripes match in socks but lately I've really been enjoying knitting fraternal twin socks. Although depending on how the new socks on the needles look I may start the second sock at the same place in the color repeat so these do match.

Signs of Spring.............

The first signs of spring on our 5 acres are the daffodils. I planted 100 of them a few years back, there are less than 10 left - so what's up with that??? I always thought daffodils multiply....that's what I had planned on when I planted the bulbs. Wildflowers are starting to emerge too - shooting stars are starting to come up, a few have opened up. I love to watch the parade of wildflowers on the property as spring progresses.

So, no fiber pix to put up - just haven't had time for anything but a little sock knitting in the evenings. We did get our taxes done yesterday, took all day even with me being prepared with all the data for home & business. Had the desktop with Turbo Tax running, laptop on the IRS website for clarifications. Could IRS make this any more complicated?! Too many questions and too little good info off the IRS site - pages and pages of explanations that make something sound so much more complicated than I'm sure it is - a one page explanation with, perhaps, a chart would suffice for many topics.

Am making headway on the woven devore presentation - finished the handout today, will drop at the printer tomorrow. Still have more work to do on the program but am hoping to get that done sometime this week. Will be very glad to have that behind me.

Looking ahead weaving wise I've got to get my table loom warped up for a workshop called the Many Blocks of Summer & Winter taught by Linda Davis. I think it will be very fun. The loom is to have the warp wound on but not threaded - we start out with lecture and then design our own draft to be threaded and woven on during class. Also I've got a special order for 2 chenille throws that needs to be woven - chenille in citrone color arrived last week......along with black chenille, Bambu 7 and Bambu 12 in black - many cones of all three since I use black alot for wefts. And then there are two guild challenges to get done, one due in May, the other in June........have my ideas, the question will be do I have the time. Need to get those 14 towels pinned up and hemmed too..............

Fingertip towels finally (yes, finally) off the loom....

The fingertip towels for a multi-guild exchange are finally off the loom, washed and dried today. I certainly made a career out of those 14 towels......now I can move on. Above is a quick pic of each side of the towel border fresh out of the dryer, no ironing yet. On the right side of the picture was what was to be the front of the towel but I like the backside (left) too. Hmm, will have to make a decision before I pin up the hems....have a couple days before I get to that so time to think........

Happy St. Patrick's Day

May you always have walls for the winds,

a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,

laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,

and all your heart might desire.

An Irish Blessing for you on St. Patrick's Day

New Ashland Bay fibers in stock

Here are pix of some of the new roving going up in one of my etsy shops this week. Top row merino in berry and cafe au lait, second row merino/tussah silk in ecru ready to dye, eggplant merino, third row glacier and celery in merino. I've also got back in stock a merino/bamboo blend in ecru ready to for dye and firestar in ecru to be added to other fibers for some sparkle, this takes acid dyes readily. As soon as it gets warmer out I'll be dyeing alot of firestar in a rainbow of colors.

While weighing, bagging and labeling these yesterday I had the cafe au lait, glacier and celery next to each other - wow, they would look great in a project together. Have many more pounds to weigh, bag and label, these are colors I had sold out of or am running low on - will fit that job in here and there this week.

On the schedule today is weaving but if it really gets up to 70 degrees out today after the fog burns off and sun comes out I may have to work a bit out in the yard cutting back lavendar and herbs that I should have done in the fall. Small amount of flower/herb beds are overwhelming right now - tons of grass coming up in them.....weeds are easy to pull, grass is another matter.

So bright I can do surgery!

So ignore the mess, look at the track lighting - this is just one little corner of my studio and it's organized mess in my weaving world. Sam put up new track lighting for me over the two looms - it's so bright I could do surgery in the studio - it's great! Lighting at the looms was a challenge - I had clamp-on lights on each loom but it still wasn't enough. That's a shelving unit of 5/2 & 3/2 perle cotton - the 10/2 & 20/2 are on another shelving unit.......and then out of sight are all the shelves of 8/2 UKI unmercerized cotton, other unmercerized cottons, tencels, bamboos, silks, rayons, rayon chenille, wools, novelties, linen, cottolin, handspun, etc. etc. etc.  Knitting yarns, beads, fabrics, sewing machines, papers, stamps, stencils, etc. are in a separate room across the hall. And then there's the walk-in closet with dyes, spinning fibers and overflow...........all roving for sale is in around 20 huge bins in the 3rd bay of the garage, dye equipment in a storage room in the garage........hmm, looks like I've taken over quite a bit of the house since there are also 3 spinning wheels upstairs along with knitting needles, etc. and current knitting/spinning projects. I think I need a separate big studio but it's not even on the radar at this point, I'm fine where I am..........

Celtic Knot Fingertip Towels

The fingertip towels for the multi-guild towel exchange are finally on the loom - 8 of them are due to be turned in by April 30th. Of course, I put on enough warp for extras. I love this celtic knot border but the remainder of the towel which is just plain weave in natural 8/2 cotton is so boring, I have a feeling these will be slow to weave because I'll get up off the loom bench way too often getting sidetracked. The celtic knot border is a variation on Robyn Spady's draft in an article on Weavezine called "Kiss me I'm Irish".

In one of my sidetracking excursions today I twisted the fringe on the latest chenille scarf. I also made a stencil out of freezer paper, ironed it onto one of the soon to be devore scarves and painted on the Fiber-Etch solution. It's still drying, as soon as it's completely dry I'll burn out the bamboo in those areas of the soysilk/bamboo scarf. Design chosen for this scarf is dragonflies. Now back to the loom to weave on those towels...........

Afternoon at Liongate Farm

Yesterday afternoon was Sewing Sunday.....one person handquilting so that counts as sewing, the rest knitting or spinning, many times needlefelting. This month it was out at Karen's place, Liongate Farm, in Wimer, OR - about 40 minutes from my place. Karen raises navajo churro sheep and tibetan mastiff's for sale. There were no new lambs to see yesterday, although the ewes are ready to pop, but there were ten 8 week old tibetan mastiff puppies - what cuties. Karen also does professional embroidery and creates the most wonderful needlefelted sheep and other handmade goods. Here's a link to the farm.......and here's one to her etsy shop. Below are some of the sheep - aren't those horns great!

Here are a couple of the puppies. I really should have had my camera out there with me when I was in the pen with them, but ran back out later to take a few pictures and didn't want to open the fencing by myself. I could just see 10 puppies pushing their way out and running loose all over the property. We are big dog people but these are the biggest puppies I've ever seen! The mom, dad and extended family are really big!

Bluster Bay Shuttles

Sharon asked what my shuttle was in the pic from yesterday. It's a Bluster Bay shuttle. I have many many shuttles, all different makers, all wonderful but my all time favorites are the Bluster Bay ones. They feel comfortable in my hands, they are so smooth and soft and I just love touching them. Above are my BB shuttles - 4 different woods, all the same design plus a recently acquired end feed shuttle. They also have many other styles. For my weaving comfort I want light so I stand at their booth picking up shuttles to find the best weight for me - the same style shuttle will differ greatly depending on the type of wood. In looking at their site to find the address to add a link to this post I see they'll be at the NWRSA conference in June - oh, big trouble since I'll be there too!