A Badly Needed Update

I just realized it's been over three months since I updated my site. My apologies and I promise, promise promise I'll upload some photos of my work soon. We've been back and forth with hard drives and also it's been a bit nutty with my job and family lately.

In the meantime just a quick update on what I've done when I've had that rare and precious spare time. Mostly I've been learning some new things - punch needle embroidery, cross-stitch, and hairpin lace. I've wanted to learn the latter two for quite some time and now I'm finally doing it! As always they ended up just looking a lot harder to do than they actually were when I sat down and gave it a try.

The end result is that all the ladies in my family (and a couple of the gents, if I have time) will get something handmade for Christmas. My daughter, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and husband's aunt are all getting a punch needle project. I also did a cross-stitch brass bookmark mongrammed with my daughter's name that turned out wonderful, and I did a fun and funky scarf with hairpin lace and bright colored fuzzy yarn that I'll send her in her Christmas care package.

By the way if anyone who wants to try out hairpin lace is having a hard time finding a loom like I did (NONE of the Michaels, JoAnn or Hobby Lobby stores near me carry them in-store, online only), you can DIY your own. The Little Projects blog shows how to make one from wooden skewers and glue sticks, while 10,000 Great Ideas has instructions for doing one from a coat hanger.

I did the coat hanger one and while it works well I still wanted something adjustable. So I went to a Michaels, found myself a pair of plastic knitting needles, two large foam letter I's, and went to work. I poked "starter holes" at 1", 2", 3", and 4" spaces starting from the center out in each of the foam I's. I then pushed the knitting needles all the way through one, then I used the other to cover up the needle points. I find that the foam grips the needles really nicely and doesn't fall off.

I'm still planning to get myself a real hairpin loom come next payday *blush*. But, I sure didn't do too bad with the one I made, and at $4 total for the parts it's a bargain compared to getting something similar online that would have cost twice as much between the actual loom and shipping costs.

Pine Ridge Reservation Needs Your Help!

My husband just sent me the following email... if you knit or crochet for charity this is a great opportunity to help someone out:

There is an Indian reservation that is in really bad shape. Unemployment is 85%.
Apparently they need blankets for the elders and children.

"If you know how to knit or crochet visit the Love Afghans for Pine Ridge Reservation. This group collects knitted and crocheted afghan squares and makes them into for full size afghans to send to Pine Ridge. You can also donate yarn you have left over from your projects."
(if link above doesn't work, here's one: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loveafghans4prr/ )

Computer Down

Looks like our hard drive decided to say sayonara last week, it just went downhill fast all of a sudden while hubby was working on it. Fortunately he's very good with problem-solving these things, so we've got a spare drive hooked up until he can order a new one, and he was able to slave the bad one and with the help of a Linux OS called Ubuntu, pull off all our files onto DVD backups. So thank God I didn't lose all my photos of projects I've done or the ones I recovered from my business a few years ago.

But it does mean that until I can figure out how to use Gimp (Linux's answer to Photoshop) in conjunction with our digital camera on Ubuntu, I won't be posting any pictures. Hopefully I will catch that up fairly soon.

In the meantime, a quick review of stuff I've been working on...

First, I got my Mother Marion kick spindle a couple of days ago from the lady whose husband makes them. I absolutely love it! I tend to have a problem with spinning too fast and over-twisting the yarn with it, but then again I have that problem with the drop spindle so what else is new?

But it's definitely easy to learn and it works fast. I was able to crank out four ounces using dyed wool roving from Sullivans in Rich Autumn shaeds. I decided to try something different and spin fibers of different colors together at the same time - I spun the brown, blue and green together, then I did the purple, gold and red. From there I twisted the two separate yarn shades using the kick spindle to make a bulky double ply yarn that is quite stunning. I really am enjoying working with this roving.

I'm also spinning some yarn from the Vintage colors. I'm doing just one color at a time like I did with the School Colors for my daughter's hat. I spun half on my drop spindle already but I'm going to finish it on the kick spindle and then do another two-ply yarn. Since I picked colors randomly back and forth that should give it a different effect.

I'm planning to use these yarns to knit felted clutch purses for my mother in law and sister in law as Mother's Day gifts. Yes, I know I had mentioned doing a jacket for MIL, but I'm running out of time... and I admit I'm having so much fun with the handspinning it's taking the fun out of knitting from premade yarn.

Speaking of felting, I did my first project in that a couple weeks ago: A pouch for the rosary my SIL gave me as a Mother's Day gift a couple years ago. It used to belong to her and hubby's grandmother and it deserved a better place than the cardboard box it came in, so I made the pouch out of the remaining yarn after my daughter's hat was done. I then followed the directions I found online for felting using a washing machine. I just thought it was the coolest thing when it came out the way it was supposed to - I'm so used to the opposite on everything I do the first time!

So hopefully I can turn out some nice projects for my SIL and MIL too... and hopefully they aren't going to visit my site in the next week or so and have their surprise spoiled *blush*

Finally, I bought two pounds of natural white NZ Corriedale from Paradise Fibers this morning, which I'm hoping to spin into yarn that's a bit better than my first efforts for that sweater I might finally get around to knitting for my husband (gah, my procrastination is showing!). It looks like they have a pretty good selection of different fibers, colors, dyes, etc.

I was very impressed with their prices - even with shipping costs I still saved seven dollars over what it would have cost me to get what I wanted over at my local spinning supply store. I was even MORE impressed when they let me purchase it through Google Checkout, so I was done in less than five minutes... and then they shipped it out not even an hour after I placed my order! Woo hoo!

So once I figure out how to get the camera working with Ubuntu to post new pictures (and learn how to edit them in Gimp) I'll throw up photos of what I've been up to... and maybe the wool I bought will be in by then too. I'll let you know whether the quality of their product is as good as their customer service.

My New Toy...

I got an early Mother's Day present... or maybe a belated birthday present, since we're right in between the two.

I have been looking at alternatives to drop spindles that would let me crank out yarn a bit faster but still be fun and fit within my budget as well as my tiny living room. I looked into charkhas and possibly making my own wheel or charkha.

Enter the Mother Marion kick spindle. While I automatically fell in love with the idea, the original models, however, are still a bit out of my price range.

I decided to look for them on eBay and found someone whose engineer husband not only figured out how to make them but improve on them. He added ball bearings to reduce friction so the spindle can spin longer between kicks. I've included links to their YouTube videos on the left that demonstrate how these work.

After patiently answering my many questions (including a "yes" to whether I could buy one directly) I settled on a wooden model with a scalloped wheel. My total cost was about half of what I'd pay for an original Mother Marion, not to mention I'm plain impressed by innovative these are. I should be getting it pretty soon.

First Handspun and Hand Knit Project

Well it's not much but I've knit my first item out of yarn that I spun by hand - it's a hat for my daughter that I'm sending as part of her belated Easter package later this week. I used Bev's Stretchy Hat pattern in the adult size:

I've tried it on and it's comfortable, stretchy and kept my head very warm. It'll be good for times her Dad takes her up to the mountains.

Spinning Cotton

I've been playing around with cotton a little bit. I found a Web site called Cotton's Journey a couple weeks back (I have their site under my links as well), they sell educational material on growing cotton, supplies, even a spindle with a sliver of cotton for someone who wants to spin cotton thread.

So I ordered a bag of Pima cotton bolls (you get about 30), and a 4" cotton mini-bale that is enough to make a long-sleeved top if spun fine. I originally thought of buying the seeds as well to grow my own, but realized that there would probably be more than enough contained in the bolls... that is if I can get them to grow in the climate where I live, apparently I do not live within the cotton belt so I may not have much luck.

My order came in the mail just a few days after I placed it. Here you can see the process as I've prepared the fibers and then spun them. First I pulled the cotton locks out of the bur:

From there I extracted the seeds out of the locks:
I then did a process called hand carding, to straighten out the fibers and prepare them for spinning. Yes, that is a dog slicker brush I'm using - I bought two of them and find that it does the job just fine for an amateur. Not to mention it costs about half as much as it would to purchase a set of hand carders and, well, sorry but I'm cheap:

From here I gently shaped the rolags of cotton I carded into slivers:


Finally, I spun the cotton fibers into yarn:


As you can see it spins a little finer and tighter than wool. Like the wool, I also have had to get a feel for just how much I need to draft out while spinning so my efforts are uneven, but better than I expected for my first try. Unlike the wool however, I plan to make this a two-ply yarn since it is spinning so fine, at some points it's like thread though bulkier in others. But that's all right with me, it just makes for a more interesting yarn :-)

Once I'm done with the bolls I'll try to figure out how to bust open the mini-bale and spin that too. Though at the same time it just looks cool the way it is... then again, nah, I can always get another if I want a conversation piece.

Nephew's Hoodie - Finally Done!

Gee, I'm only, what, a month late on this? Oy...

So yes, I finally finished my oldest nephew's hoodie, a belated birthday present that more or less ended up being an Easter present. Again this is the one in which I used a free pattern from Lion Brand using Bernat's Soft Boucle yarn in Slate Shades.

He wasn't as thrilled about it as his Mom was. As with my friend's son, she will be able to hand it down to her youngest when it's outgrown, so it will get to see a lot of use.

In the meantime, I've continued with my handspinning. My ball of natural wool has continued to grow - it's up to four ounces now:

I also spun four ounces of multicolored yarn this week. Hobby Lobby has bags of wool roving that's for needle felting but I found it spins into a real nice yarn - this was six small balls of different bright rainbow colors:

It proved to be a lot of fun to spin. I've since set the twist on it and am using it to knit my first handspun project - a hat for my daughter, yet another belated gift that will go out with her Easter package when it's done.

I am also working on another project, a jacket for my mother-in-law as her Mother's Day present. It's a cute swing jacket pattern from Lion Brand and once again I'm using Bernat's Soft Boucle, this time in Richest Red.