This Week's Fiber Fun

I'm looking out my window wondering why in the world they didn't cancel school today! It's snowing HARD!! But at least it's giving me a chance to get a blog post written without 3 of the 4 kiddos home.

It's Fiber Arts Friday and I have some fun things I've been working on this week. It's a little disjointed, but hey, that's my life!

First up is a skein of yarn that I spun using Phat Fiber and other samples. I made two piles, weighed them out to make sure they were even, then spun the piles separetely, one sample after another, and plied together.

Here's the hank pile to show all the lovely colors.And here's the ball. You can see how the colors change in the layers.

It'll be part of a sampler blanket I'm working on. It's using the log cabin technique (knit in garter st, bind off, turn your square/rectangle, pick up stitches along the side, knit in garter stitch, continue the process). I'm using samples, odds and ends and some of my handspun, all in fingering/sock/light dk weight. Because it'll eventually get too big for samples to work well, I think I'm going to do small blocks and then sew them together. That'll be easier to carry with me anyway.

I need to finish the strip I'm working on, turn and do one more strip, then start another piece. They may be different shapes, but I'll pieces them together and add strips as needed. It's an on-going, in-between projects, late night knitting sort of thing.

I also have some more Firefly-inspired batts to get up in the shop later today.

Zoe

Simon

Core Planet, Ariel's, bioluminescent lake

I'll be spinning up one of the "Simon" batts (because I can't resist) and posting is as handspun for sale in the shop as well.

If you didn't see, the core spinning tutorial on spinning with locks is up and running! Yay! Thank you to everyone who has already viewed it and left me some great feedback.

And on a non-fiber-y note, my son, Brendan, who is 12, made his first turned pen. He's planning on opening up his own Etsy shop and selling them! I'm so proud.

First pen!

Showing off

I have some stuff to show off:

Captain Malcom Reynolds

Kaylee:

Inara:

River:

Wash:

These are the fibers and yarns I have up in the shop that are "Firefly" inspired. More are coming soon!

The items are great, but what I'm really showing off is my new-found toy: Picasa! It makes great collages and is so simple to use! Aren't they shiny?!

Core Spinning Tutorial with Locks!

Grab some popcorn, a soda and some wool! The tutorial is here!

Follow this link to the video or click on "Tutorials" in my menu bar.

Core Spinning Tutorial Update

Oh. My. Goodness. I haven't created a tutorial, I've created a MONSTER!

First, I'm not good at editing myself, and the video is really long!

Second, I had a lot of fun doing it, so be watching for more topics!

Third, my husband is preparing his Oscar speach for his win in Directing and Editing.

As of right now, Saturday, Jan 15, it's still on the editing room floor, but will be up and running by tomorrow.

Let's Hear it for the BOYS!!

It's pretty standard practice to buy and work with fleece from ewes: it's usually softer and there are more girls out there than boys! But I just realized that my studio is brimming with awesome male (some rams, some wethers) fleeces, and they need to be celebrated!

First off are the mohair locks that I recently purchased from The Critter Ranch. Her angora (and a cute little pygora) boys are wonderfully soft. If you want to meet the guys, she's blogged about them today as well. Sue is also a personal friend that I've sucked into Fiber Arts Friday!

This is Gus:

 

And Woodrow:

Them playing together well:

And Gus in a rich, purple batt that will be a layer of my soon-to-be unveiled Inara batt (again, part of Nerd Wars on Ravelry!).

The mohair locks were originally purchased so that I could make some tailspun yarn to put up in the shop, but I'm having a lot of fun playing with them in so many ways, I may need to get more from Sue!

And here's "Willie", a Bluefaced Leicester Ram. This is his first clip, so it's shorter than most BFL and finer. The crimp is to die for!

I'm thinking he may need to be core spun, too!

In other news, I have my core spinning tutorial filmed, and I'm just waiting for my husband to do some editing before posting it tonight. It features my Phat Fiber samples for January, but anyone with some locks and roving can spin along with it. (Hmmm . . . just realized, the locks in the video are from a Lincoln Longwool sheep named "Willie" as well. Gotta love them boys!)

Head over to Wonder Why for more Fibery fun this Friday!