fiber swap

It's been a while, but with the new baby and all.

Anyways, here's my score from the fiber swap on Ravelry

Spin Challenge # 5 CIRCLE THE WAGONS!

Spin Challenge # 5 Circle the Wagons.

Pluckyfluff issued the following spinning challenge in her blog, Holly of the fantastic fiber famed HollyEQQ...if you are not familiar with her and her amazing fibers...check her site out ASAP! Our good friend Holly has run into a whopper of a medical situation as many of you may know from her blog. So it's fiber-friends-unite! form of a spin-auction...a spauction!! Sandy from Homestead Wool and Gift Farm along with some other pals, is going to host an auction on her site of yarns and goods donated for the Holly cause. How does this effect the spin challenge you say? Well....every yarn entered in this challenge will be donated to the auction! So only enter the challenge if you are willing to donate the yarn!!
They have decided to call the auction CIRCLE THE WAGONS.....since everyone is gathering round and working together to help out a fellow pioneer. So that will be the theme of this challenge.
Challenge #5 CIRCLE THE WAGONS!
The criteria: this challenge is more open to interpretation than we usually do, so have at it. It just has to relate to the theme "Circle The Wagons". This could range from a very literal visual interpretation to a more philosophical take on the meaning of "circling wagons". Any material is fair game. this challenge will last one week. As usual, submit entries to The Yarn Museum.

My yarn - The Duke

I took the more literal approach to Circle the Wagons. All I could think of is the star of the silver screen - John Wayne. Rough, Tough and doesn’t take crap from anyone!!! My yarn is a pile of jute, cotton thread, wool, linen, and red sparkle fibers. A couple little homemade patches of guns, sherif’s badges and a covered wagon complete the look. Also, a second skein of wool, cotton thread and red sparkles over-dyed in a denim color help create a strong, cowboy themed set. This is not a cuddly yarn set!!!
Strength played a big part in this. We as friends need to be strong to support a fellow fiber artist, Holly and hopefully our strength will give her strength.

Snow Day = Dye Day

Since it's one great big sheet of ice outside, we have a no school day!!! I'm taking advantage of it by dying a whole bunch of fiber I have lying around.

I used kool-aid for all of these except the bottom right, I used a synthetic to try and get a "dark green/olive green". It turned out more blue then I like.

From the top left down

On Curly Wool

1. Strawberry

2. Mad Scientist

3. Mango

Row 2

On Dorset Wool

1. Grape

2. Cherry

Row 3

On Mohair

1. Cherry

2. Lemonade

3. Strawberry/Kiwi

Row 4

On Mohair

1. Grape

2. Tropical Punch

R0w 5

On Mohair

1. Lime

2. Synthetic Dye - Dark Green

Spin, Spin,Spin

I was working on some art yarn techniques. Here's how my coils and nubs came out. First is a natural dyed yellow wool, dyed with goldenrod from the fields next door. I spun in some turquoise dyed curly locks of wool then added electric yellow and blue angelina fibers. Then I 2-plied it with a white cotton yarny string. The coils came out pretty nice.

The second yarn is dark brown llama spun with nubs of light tan alpaca. This yarn is super soft. I'm also please with this one, the only thing is I wish I had my bulky spinner up and running. I would have loved more than 40 yards of this one.

Tea for Two!

My mom asked me to go along with her to the local Girl Scout Victorian Tea on Sunday. My mother, sister and I are all lifetime members of Girl Scouting. I enjoy working with different troops and helping out. Scouts opened a lot of doors for me and I went places that would take a lifetime to get to see.

In honor of the tea, I had a brainstorm and carded up some awesome batts of cream colored wool to spin with a large amount of taupe lace along with this awesome thread to ply with.

I'll get to spin it tomorrow. I'm really excited to see how it will turn out. I'm gonna brew up a cup and spin away.

I really had my spin on

Yesterday at the PA farm show was really neat. I was spinning with 2 other ladies from my spinning guild. There were lots of people and the kids seemed really interested in watching the wheels and touching the fibers.

Of course my bright purple wheel always draws attention.

I was spinning up some purple Tencel. It's super soft and shiny. Oooooo...shiny things.

Now it's spun I think it will look good plied with something else. I just don't know what.I have lots of ideas just gotta get to the wheel.

If anyone is interested, a woman from my knitting group will be live blogging the Sheep to Shawl competition at the Farm Show on Wednesday night. Here's the link to her blog. Log on and check it out!!!! http://accidentalknitter.blogspot.com/

New Years Resolution - Blog more

My New Years Resolution is to blog more. Which means getting more organized with pictures and all.

First let's talk about the baby. Let's see, the little one is due to arrive sometime around the 4th of July. We're past the 1st trimester now, so that's good. I'm feeling pretty good. And now we're working on the baby's room.

I just purchased the last 3 remaining yards of Alexander Henry's "Petting Zoo" fabric I could find on the net. We'll be using this as accent fabric. It's very vintage looking and matches the furniture we have. When I was little I had a tiger lamp that matches the tigers on the fabric, so I have to snatch that from my 'rents. This has all kinds of animals on it so matching it should be easy, although there are no monkeys.... maybe that's better, monkeys can be trouble.

Today, Mike is out in the garage working on a repair piece to my new spinning wheel. I picked up a bulky spinner on ebay. This wheel should travel a lot better than my Kromski. I love my fancy wheel, purple and all, but it's huge and awkward to carry. In the next couple of months the new compact wheel will be a blessing.

I joined the Southern Cumberland County Spinners Guild of PA. We will be spinning tomorrow, Sunday the 6th at the Farm Show in Harrisburg. I'm very excited to be part of a group. I like to see what others are doing.

I also just skirted a 10 pound fleece to have processed. It's a little too much for me right now to wash and card huge fleeces, so I'm using some holiday cash and having it done. I didn't finish up washing my adult mohair yesterday. It's drying on the kitchen floor.

I've finished some project which I want to take pictures of. A mohair beanie for Mike, 1 pink sock out of 2 some day they'll be a pair, a water bottle cover which is a trial run to see if the pattern will work for baby bottles and half an elephant toy.

Yarn Museum

My Beach Baby Yarn hangs in the Yarn Museum, in the No Wool exhibit. I was pretty happy with the results of this spin. Spun out of hemp fibers, muslin, pink sparkle and fabric flowers. I want to knit it up into a summer hand bag. I just have to find the right handles first. Click the link to the museum to check out more shots of my yarn and lots of other skeins!!!

We have Kids!!!

Goats that is!!!!! We are getting 3 lovely Angora goats for the new homestead. We visited Cold Goats Farm in Haddam Neck, CT yesterday and we picked out new additions and will be picking them up on our final move in June. We got Snowdrop, the mom and her newly born set of twin boys. They are super freindly, nice and soft. I can't wait until we pick them up. These are fiber animals, they will get sheared 2 times a year and the Mohair will be spun into wonderful yarn. How exciting!!! To learn more about Cold Goats Farm visit www.ColdGoatsFarm.com