The best way to spend a Saturday morning

I love it when it's warm enough outside to sit out & do my carding. I don't have to clean up all the debris after.



I found a box of shetland lamb fleece - washed, picked, & sorted out in ziplock bags. I think the idea was to blend it with something. Can't remember what I had intended to do with it. I do remembered changing my mind about what I was going to blend it with. Anyhow, I spent Saturday morning carding the fleece into fluffy batts. I even had my spinning wheel outside for a while until it got too warm.

Thankful for:
1. A bit of rain last week - plants are loving this weather.
2. A relative quiet day at work to catch up on stuff.
3. Spent time playing with my drumcarder and spinning wheel.

An attempt at Silk Fusion

I hang out with a group of really cool fibre friends - Twisted By Choice. Every so often, we get together & do fun fibre stuff. That was what we did yesterday.

The day was filled with catching up on each other's news, wet silk dripping everywhere, and lots of good tasty food. It's been a rough time at work. Having a chance to spend a day like Saturday just playing and squishing wet silk on a nylon mesh is really good for your soul.


This piece is made with some leftover dyed silk. I can't remember if it's Bombyx or Tussah but it is really REALLY shiney! The top has been embellished with dyed silk rods and silk waste. This sheet was the second one. The first one didn't turn out so well with the top layer pulling apart already. I think the medium wasn't worked thoroughly enough. I'm going to try and coat the surface with a gloss finish to see if that helps.

Thankful for:
1. Perfect weather on Saturday - not too hot and no rain (just a couple of drops).
2. The Clubhouse - where we meet up & play with fibres.
3. Moroccan olives!

Cool Knitting needles!

One of the joys of blogging is that you get to read and see a lot of really neat stuff other people do. Came across this at Craftster...how to make your own resin knitting needles! They are so cool!

I know I still have a can of resin the garage somewhere.

Things that made me happy:
1. Mairuru's sarubobo and pattern...I'm making one right now.

2. Being a couple days ahead of schedule at work...so I have a few days grace to fix mistakes & make changes.

3. Good friends at work to lunch with.

BFL

At lunchtime today, I walked over to SweetGeorgia's studio to pick up the Fibre Club fibre. May's offering is a beautiful handdyed Blue Face Leicester in greens & blues with a touch of brown (but it looks a bit copper-y in the sunlight). The colours were inspired by a local eatery called Foundation. I love the colours in that place with all the old formica kitchen tables and vinyl chairs. I have a thing for old formica tables. We still have the set inherited from my parent-in-laws when we first got married. The table ended up as a baby change table when my son was young.

You can't see it but I've pulled a bit off already and have been finger spinning it at work this afternoon. How can you resist?

Things that made me happy today:
1. Lunchtime walk to Felcia's studio.
2. Fibre at the end of that walk.
3. Ice cream for the walk back to work.

How many pairs of knitting needles does one really need?

The age old question.

It's embarrassing but I do have a lot of knitting needles. I had no idea until I started cataloguing them in my Knit Buddy application on my ipod. I have 53 pairs of circular needles, 23 pairs of straights, and 17 pairs of double pointed needles. All in various sizes...except 8mm. These are the ones not in use in my box. That's insane. I keep all the packaging for my needles so I when I'm done with them, they go back in the packages. There are empty packages as well in that box. Quite a few empty packages. I think one of the things I need to do this summer is to go through everything and take apart any WIPs that I know I'm never going to finish. I did a cleaning up of my yarn stash last year but this year will be WIP clean up time.

Knit Buddy also allows you to track your yarn stash too. I'm not going to even attempt that.

Did I mentioned that I signed up for a beginner's crochet class at Black Sheep Yarns?

Thankful for:
1. Sunny, hot day.
2. Sushi for lunch.
3. A nice cool breeze tonight.