Spinning Romney and Walnut Dye.

Happy Autumn my friends! It is hard to believe that October is almost over! Only one day left. This month has flown by. I have not accomplished quite as much in the fiber arts as I was hoping to this last month as we have been busy preparing for winter. The garden is cleared of produce though we still need to pull out plants and burn them. We also started on a new venture that has taken up quite a bit of time, I'll be sharing that in my next post! We had a beautiful week and a half of Indian Summer weather this October. It was amazing to have such warm weather for so long in October, we spent as much time outside as possible! I was picked up my Romney again and started working on it during our Indian summer. I finished carding all the Romney locks and now have a bag stuffed full of rolags. I also started spinning up the rolags into this yarn. This is a project that I am taking my own sweet time on as it is for me and doesn't need to be done at any particular time.

I still am completely happy with my purchase of this Romney! It was a joy to card up the locks and such a pleasure to spin as well! 
The other big project I have going right now is walnut dye. My brother and I saw a bunch of walnuts scattered along the side of the road and stopped to ask permission to pick them up. The gentlemen said to take all we wanted so we picked two grocery bags of ripe, green walnuts.

I let them sit over the weekend as I was busy and a few of them ended up going bad. I was following the instructions for walnut dyeing in the Spin Off Summer 2011 issue. I wore old clothes and gloves as I did NOT want brown hands for several weeks. I used an extra paving stone and hammer to pound off the husk.

All the good husks I tossed into one of our big metal tubs. The few bad pieces I had I tossed into the fire pit to be burnt.

And the nuts went into a basket to dry and later be cracked!

Despite the fact that I wore gloves, a little bit of walnut juice somehow managed to leak into the glove and my finger was slightly brown for days! I ended up putting some slim plastic gloves under the heavy gloves to protect my hands. 

I put just enough water in the tub to cover them. The next step is to let them soak for a week to a week and a half. We ended up going on a short family Holiday so my walnut dye will have been soaking for two weeks come tomorrow. I have three more grocery bags of walnuts to prep tomorrow. My Dad found a place where we can get as many as we need, and can come back next year too! Such a blessing as we have had a hard time finding somewhere to get decent walnuts. The walnuts that my Dad brought me look amazing! They are huge, and almost flawless, they look like pears! I'll probably end up soaking them for two weeks as well because I want my dye to all be of the same strength. Though I suppose if I mix it all together in one big batch it won't make any difference. My end goal is to dye up enough of the alpaca fiber that I was given this summer to make myself a sweater. I'm hoping to make the sweater this winter, but that might not happen as I'll have to spin all the fiber up still! Right now I'm just trying to get the dye made up while the walnuts are fresh and available, and the fiber dyed. Maybe after all my Christmas presents are done and set aside I can focus on making some sweaters!

Just A Bit Of Birthday Sewing

This past week my sister and I puled out the scraps and did a little bit of birthday sewing for a friend. At first we were contemplate a small quilted table scarf but then we hit upon the idea of these coasters. Everyone needs and uses coasters, right? Of course! It was the perfect idea. We brainstormed colours, then patterns. We decided upon Courthouse Steps, Log Cabin, Vertical Stripes, and  Crazy Quilt block.
Once colours and patterns were decided we set to work cutting, tracing, and sewing.
The coasters went fast, and were fun little projects to make up.

Court House Steps Coaster

Now I RARELY machine quilt anything, (in fact I believe in all my years sewing I have only ever machine quilted one thing and that was my quilted knitting bag) but we decided to quilt the coaster as they will be seeing a lot of use and also tossed in the washer quite a bit. Machine quilting will give them more durability and they should hold together for years to come. 

Log Cabin Coaster

Crazy Coaster

The Crazy Coaster was my personal favourite. I just love how the colours, shapes and quilting came together for such an interesting textured look.

Diagonal Stripes Coaster

We made them approximately 4 1/2 inches square. Not too big, but just perfect for holding a large mug of cocoa! 

 Hello there my friends! It's lovely to be back with you again. This week I washed up some of the fiber I purchased recently. It was a grubby fleece from a ram, but it washed up SO beautifully! Above is the dirty locks going into the mesh bag. 

 And here are the washed locks. Aren't they lovely? I was washing fiber with a friend so we each took a mesh bag, picked the fiber, laid the locks in neatly and took them in to the spare kitchen sinks. We did three 20 minute, hot water washes and 2-3 hot water rinses.

I couldn't believe the dirt that was rolling out of these locks! I'm not sure how many ounces we washed, but I made a good sized dent in my pound and a half.

 When I was @ the festival I was looking for a dark brown because I have a Christmas present planned that requires a dark color. So yesterday I took some of my cleaned locks and carded it up, adding angora as I carded. In the above photo you can see the Merino/Dorset/Corriedale washed locks on the left. The angora fiber is above right. And the combined, carded rolags are at the bottom. I've just started spinning it. I'm so pleased with how it is turning out!

 Between fiber washing/rinsing my friend and I sat outside and worked on carding and spinning. There's nothing like good company while working on fiber. :)

 I do have a few other things to show you. I just finished navajo plying my Corriedale in the Tuscany color way. It's 4 ounces total between the two skeins, but I don't have my total yardage yet. And no, I have no idea what I will do with this yarn yet!

 My Romney is waiting to be plied. This is the fiber that I showed you in the previous post. I have quite a few rolags left, not to mention more fiber to card, but my spindle was full so I wound it off as a center-pull and am plying it up. It is such a silvery, oatmeal colour. I'm quite impressed with this fiber!

I'm working on appliqued leaves for my bed quilt. I have four left to baste and then I can applique the vine and leaves onto my quilt. After I do that I will be ready to quilt! I'm quilting by hand, so the sooner I start, the better. I can not wait to show you my quilt once I figure out what quilting patterns I am doing and once I finally get started on the quilting. I sewed it up three summers ago and

 I am getting most anxious to finish it and put it on my bed. Lord willing I'll get it finished in time to use yet this winter.

Projects Galore!

I'm sharing a few projects, both old and new, with you today. By old I mean that it has been finished for awhile. It's been awhile since I had the chance to post so I am trying to catch up on a few things whilst I have the opportunity.

This is the "Reading In Bed Shrug" designed by Pam Allen.

I knit it out of some handspun I had around. This is one of my earlier skeins of handspun so it was quite lumpy and rather over plied in some spots, and under plied in others. But it is a nice cheerful green and I thought it would look great with this pattern.

I did change the pattern a little, in that I did a moss stitch cuff on both sides.
I haven't had a chance to wear it yet as the weather has been far too warm! This is another on of those knits that I can look forward to wearing when the cool days of fall arrive.

When I was taking these pictures and weaving in tails, Sadie had to come see what was going on. She didn't find it very interesting because I wouldn't let her lay on my shrug. So she cleaned her paws instead.

I haven't showed you much in the way of sewing these last few months. Over the summer I have had several different quilting projects going on, most are small wall hangings. The flying geese units pictured above are part of a quilt that I designed and am now piecing by hand. I find I prefer hand piecing, it is so precise and relaxing. I also am working on a flannel crazy quilt with all the little flannel pieces we have leftover from other projects.

I went to the quilt shoppe a month or so ago and got 3 sandwich baggies full of flannel scraps for only $1 a bag! My friend and I dug through the scrap tub and found all sorts of treasures. I'll have to go back in to the shoppe soon and see what they have available now. It helps to have a few other options to work from besides just my own stash of flannel scraps. I tend to only have certain particular colors and I want it to be an interesting throw quilt, so supplementing from the quilt shoppe scraps is quite handy.

Up-close on some of the quilting detail my green and red triangles wall hanging.

It is finished, I just don't have a photo of it yet.

I started this quilted center piece around the 4th of July. I made it up in two days but was undecided as to how I was going to quilt it, My Mother suggested stippling the middle which I thought was a wonderful idea. It looks nice and isn't overpowering to the overall design of the quilt in any way. I stippled most of it over a couple days, not I just need to finish a small section and move on to the outside wedges. Right now though I am helping take care of my Grandma who is recently out of a month stay in rehab. I did bring this quilt with me, but so far have not pulled it out to work on it.

This yarn I blogged about here. It is merino top that I purchased at the most recent fiber festival I was at. I was a little disappointed in how it spun up, the outside layer of fiber was slightly felted and I had to really work with it at times. But I am happy with the finished yarn.

I cast on for the Helix scarf the other day. Originally I thought I would try designing a cowl with this yarn. But my sister is knitting up the Helix right now, and I really like the way it looks. Plus with where the color repeats fall in this yarn I feel like the beauty of the fiber will be lost if I do a circular design. The back and forth rows of the Helix Scarf showcases the yarn perfectly. It is striping somewhat, but that is fine with me.

Ah! Knitting on the deck in the cool morning air with a cup of coffee.

I spun up less then 2 ounces of the 4 I had, so I have more to spin up soon. Usually I wait to start a project until I am done with all the yarn, but I was so enthused about trying this yarn with the Helix that I started right away.

I'll post finished pics of my Chocolate Mint Helix soon, Lordwilling!

For now, have a great week my friends!

Quilting Projects

When we went on our mini-trip about a month ago, I saw a little quilt that I loved. I didn't have $54 dollars to spend on a tiny wall hanging ,so I studied it carefully and determined to make one myself. This is my rendition.

I cut out the triangles over a week or so, with scraps from our fabric stash. Yesterday I sat down to sew them up. It only took a few hours to sew, from start to finish.

I'm quilting circles in each of the squares composed of four triangles. In the corners of the quilt I'm probably going to do a feather stitch.

Here is the first quilted circle. I have a thing for quilting circles, I'm not sure why. :) I find them quite appealing. The batik quilt that I made two summers ago is also quilted in circles.

Oh! I don't know if I ever showed you a picture of this quilt! It is my almost-queen-size bed quilt. I sewed it up late summer 2008, but haven't quilted it yet. I was waiting on the batting and then it got put on the back burner as other projects were started. The batting I use is the all natural, cotton batting which tends to be expensive. It was half off at the fabric store a month ago so I finally was able to get my batting. I still have to applique a vine all around border #3. I thought I was supposed to do it after I quilted it, but when I glanced over the intsructions recently I realized I read it wrong and need to do the vine and leaves before I start quilting.

I didn't have any fabric that I liked for the applique so I stopped at my LYS yesterday and picked out a few options. There was a sale going on, which was lovely. I was able to pick up the fabric for my binding as well. Now I have everything I need to complete my quilt! I'm pretty excited about it. I was helping a friend work on her quilt a few weeks ago and it put me in the mood to pull out my quilt and finish it. Now everything is falling into place and, Lord willing, I can soon have it ready to quilt! I am planning on hand quilting it, which will take awhile, but I'm looking forward to it.

Well, I'm off to drink a cup of tea and quilt some more circles.

Have a lovely evening my friends!

Flowers seem like a pleasant way to get things started, don't they? So cheerful and elegant. Especially on a rainy day like today.

My sister found this little nest upside down on the ground underneath the crab apple tree. I have never seen a nest that looks like this! Grandma put some little ceramic eggs in there for decoration.


It is most unique. Constructed of all these little roots, pulled from somewhere in the woods.

It is lined inside with some very soft grass.

I wish I knew what kind of bird made a nest out of roots. Because there is no lack of bird nesting material around. A bird would probably only use roots if that was instinct.

Yes, there are a couple sticks in there, even a bit of fishing line wound around it!

Tada! My sewing of this week! I rarely have sewing to post, mainly because we sew our own clothes and that is about it. Other than quilting of course, and because I hand quilt, those projects take longer to complete than knitting, so they don't show up on here as often. But after doing the last fiber fest, I decided I would like a banner with my business name on it! I wish I could say this was my own splendid plan, but I saw another gal at the festival with just such a banner.

I could NOT find any letters anywhere, although I looked high and low through all our quilting magazines(and believe me, we have "several") as well as through our quilting books. I finally decided to just make my own. What is lovely about that is that I was able to almost replicate the exact font that I have on my blog heading! How fun is that!? It took some time and tedious effort but it was all well worth it in the long run. I did change the "r" and "n", mainly because I thought they were too odd looking.

My blanket stitch leaves somewhat to be desired. But I forgot that normally one would blanket stitch with embroidery floss, not thread. I am using 2 strands of regular cotton sewing thread and it is a pain. I will be blanket stitching around every letter.

I have this lovely print here for the backing and binding. Now all that is lacking is the cotton batting for the inside. It will just be a small skinny piece though. I need to get to the fabric store soon.

Here is one of my past knitting projects that I forgot to share with you. This is the shawl that I gave my Mother for Mother's Day. It is a free download on ravelry. The name is Aubergine Bamboo Shoulder Wrap.

I modeled it out of sheer necessity this afternoon because it matched my dress better than Mother's dress. :) And I wanted to blog it.

It stays draped over the shoulders like a dream. But that could have something to do with the way I blocked it and the yarn I used. It took around 200 yards of light worseted/dk yarn. IT was a merino wool that I spun up on my top whorl drop spindle last fall. I also blocked it very fiercely. Very Fiercely meaning that I wet it through, then I stretched and pinned until I was happy with the way it looked. I blocked the top edge to lay straight, not slightly pointed like all the ravelry pictures show.

And since starting this post with flowers was such a treat for the eyes, we will finish with flowers too!

Have a lovely day!