Curly Bird Express

A Gathering Of Magical (aka Sparkly) Pink Clouds

2012-02-10T00:06:00.011-05:00

I was asked to spin a soft, fluffy, cloud like yarn from the PinkFog! Alpaca and Silk Spinning Clouds. I may have gone a bit over on the fluffy! I put the #2 pencil in for scale reference, as you can see even where the strand is small, it's mostly more than pencil thickness, and the bulk of the skein is, well, really bulky! It's a super bulky 1-3 wpi, but it's light as air and as soft as super soft alpaca and silk can be.

I hope I captured the cloud like effect of this yarn, it's hard to photograph clouds...camera shy, hahaha.

Do your hands get cold? Mine do, especially when I'm sleeping. I'll wake up and one hand will be absolutely freezing cold from being out from under the covers. So I knitted myself some cuffs, of course they had to have bobbles! They have been so nice, I like them much better than fingerless gloves, I can wear them around the house when I'm working and the fingerless part means I can push them up on my wrist and out of the way if I need to. I'm currently working on a second pair, I decided I wanted them a little longer so I can scoot them down over my fingers a bit more if I want and my wrists will still be covered.

But, the most exciting fibery thing this week is, that yesterday I got my copy of Lexi Boeger's new spinning book, Hand Spun, New Spins on Traditional Techniques. It's completely wonderful!!! I was so excited, I dropped everything and sat down and started reading it...then I remembered I was on my way out the door to run some errands! She puts together a great book! I've gone through it over and over. I do that when I'm excited about something, what I will eventually do is make myself slow down and really absorb all the information.(To accomplish this, I will have to try not to let the wonderful photographs distract me!) Not only are there spinning techniques and patterns, but there are also interviews with some of the many fiber gurus that inspire us. It's so cool to get a closer look at them and their creativity and the paths that lead them along their fiber filled adventure. Buy the book spinner friends, you will not be disappointed!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Pink Fog!

2012-02-03T02:02:00.006-05:00

I'm in a Pink Fog, it's a good fog though! I've dyed some of gorgeous alpaca in shades of soft pinks and orchid, then I tossed in some of my new custom blend of Angelina sparkles, FaeriePrincess and PixieDust, plus beautiful, glossy silk fiber and pale pink Pizzazz sparkle fiber. Ooo, it's good enough to dive in and go for a swim, I love it! All super soft fibers, these alpaca/silk spinning clouds dance really well together!

So well, that I had to drop everything and dance some up onto my bobbin! I played around with the single, making it fatter and thinner to see how it worked up. I even did some core spinning, I like it every-which-way, it's pink, soft and sparkly, what's not to love!

I was super busy with fiber activities this week, but I'm too tired and lazy to post any more pictures! haha! I hope you had a wonderful and creative week!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Hummingbird Garden

2012-01-27T05:36:00.010-05:00

I was playing around with plying this week. I spun up a super textured, super chunky single, chock full of locks and other goodies. Then I Navajo plied it, then I Navajo plied it AGAIN, this time in the opposite direction, and I had myself a huge strand of chunky goodness! I ended up with about 7 yards of yarn. This lariat is a little over 90 inches (2.5 yards) which makes for plenty of length to work with for different styling options.

I've been thinking about different ways of using my Faerie Bells-Silk Cocoon flowers and super chunky art yarn makes the perfect lariat/skinny scarf, so why not combine the two?

I dyed up this special batch of cultivated silk cocoons in sunset and moss to make the Faerie Bells, and I added some funky free form tassels/flowers. Guess what I made the tassels with? Confession time, I hoard all these little bits if stray fiber along with random chunks of handspun too pretty to toss. Normally I used them for felting or to add into a batt when I need more texture. I think that these wild tassels look like exotic flowers. I have some pretty little charms of humming birds, honey bees and dragonflies that I think I will add...now where are they?

I hope you all had a wonderful, creative week!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Love Buzz!

2012-01-20T01:29:00.006-05:00

I'm calling this skein of art yarn, LoveBuzz. Ahhh, remember how completely blissed out you become when you first fall in love? Like there's this cushion of happiness between you and the world, and even the meanest of meanies can't steal your bliss! (No wonder they say Love Wins!) All the color and texture in this yarn definitely make me and my eyes happily blissed out! I carded up a juicy batt with an interesting color palette, added in some locks, and then spun in some lengths of sari silk ribbon. It was a great surprise when I took it off the bobbin, it really came to life!

(I should have put something in for size comparison, these are a little longer than two quarters side by side and at the chubbiest it's big enough to hide a dime.)
I've been working on my Cocoon art yarn technique this week too.(ETA-I realize I left out the description of the cocoon technique, which is drafting fiber around a core yarn at a 90 degree angle, much like core spinning except the fiber is concentrated in one spot to create a cocoon like element fixed onto/around your yarn.) My plan was to be consistent with my size and spacing, that's coming right along, but I also need to work faster so I don't over spin my yarn. That's the fun of the art yarns and spinning in general, there's always something to work on and perfect.

I was also able to scour some fleece and get it dyed this week. We've had the typical Michigan weather, one day it's like spring, the next, freezing cold. I was able to spend a little time enjoying the great outdoors during some of those spring like days.

I hope you gave yourself some time this week to follow your creative muse.
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Free Range Shawl

2012-01-13T01:29:00.010-05:00

I finally finished this free range shawl (free range knitting = multiple yarns/sizes/colors knitted in combined strands and individually, changing stitches and making up the design as you knit.) and it has been safely delivered to its new home, so now, at long last, I can share pictures! I decided on a flower and vine theme and used multiple shades of green accented with pops of orange/gold and with tons of texture.

Here's are some close-ups of the knitted fabric to give you a better view of how all the different fibers work together.

Nearly all of the shawl is knitted in my hand spun art yarn, you can get a better feel for the different styles of yarn I used, shown here in individual strands. I even crocheted my own berry and vine yarn out of recycled cotton. The orange yarn is a Navajo plied, super bulky, with crochet flowers spun in and gorgeous lengths of sari silk ribbons. I also used a spring green to spin a cocoon yarn. The other mossy green, which is the base yarn, has tail spun Lincoln locks and strips of batik fabric, plus lots of other goodies. I really enjoyed working on this project, I got to play with some different spinning techniques and the free spirited, make it up as you go knitting, is my favorite!

I finished the wrist cuff I started last week. I ended up changing the buttons about a hundred times, I think these really work. I crocheted some lace for the edge and then decided not to add it...the design process for me is all about try it out and take it off if it doesn't work. The lace is already being re-purposed in another project, so it's not wasted. During the embellishing process, I gather a palette of beads and buttons, ribbons, floss and other goodies...I end up with this ever growing tray of elements that starts off looking all neat and tidy, but by the end I have a lot of reorganizing and putting away to do!

You can see the whole length here, I made the ribbon roses out of pale pink and lavender organdy, the darker bluish purple flowers are on a bit of trim I had left over from some baby booties I knit.

So there's a little glimpse of what I've been up to lately, I hope you are having a creative 2012 as well!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Starting 2012 With A Creative Burst

2012-01-06T02:19:00.009-05:00

After I finished my prototype of the Winter Hood last week, I was really excited to get started on the Snow Faerie version using my hand spun Winter Wonder art yarn. Then I added a wooly ruffle and long ties made from another of my art yarns, an extreme tail spun yarn done with Wensleydale lamb locks. It's super fluffy and so cute with all the little lamb curls popping out all over.

There are lamb locks spun into the Winter Wonder yarn too and I was delighted each time I saw them pop up as I knit the hood. I made sure to scoot every little pop of texture to the right side so I wouldn't lose any of those cute little curlicues.

I have also been working on a new wrist cuff, this one's almost finished...so close it's hard to walk away from it, but tomorrow's another day. And if that wasn't enough I am finishing a free form capelete I've knit/crocheted using a combination of my regular hand spun and my art yarns. I love free form and I always say I'm going to spend more time working on it...maybe this is the year!

I hope your 2012 is starting off with a creative burst of energy too! I'm excited to check out all the blogs this week, so many creative people and great projects to read about!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Snow Faerie Hood

2011-12-30T00:49:00.010-05:00

I've wanted to knit a hood using my Winter Wonder art yarn for quite some time, but first I needed to work up a pattern. Pictured is my Snow Faerie Hood which I knit using some of my juicy, extra special yarn stash I've been hording for a couple of years, it's Colinette, Prism, in the colorway mushroom, a fitting color for a Faerie hood. I love the comfort of a hood, which is gentle on the hairdo, while still keeping you cozy and warm.

It looks cute with the edge folded back a bit too. My model here is the Greek goddess Eirene, the goddess of peace and of the season of spring. She used to be one of my garden sculptures, but lacking enough garden space, she has lived indoors these last couple of years. (And I don't think she minds it a bit.)

I spun a huge 10 ounce skein of my Winter Wonder art yarn this week and now that the pattern is complete, I will use it to knit a Snow Faerie Hood..or two! I'm excited to see how this knits up into the hood. It's a pretty palette of colors with lots of sparkle and texture.

Oh Boy!!! This cake of art yarn is all measured off and ready to become a Snow Faerie Hood in the very near future. It felt so good to card up a batt and spin it just for me, it was a little post Christmas treat for myself after all the busy holiday doings.

I hope you are having a delightful holiday season and I wish you all Happy New Year!!!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-22T23:29:00.002-05:00

However you may celebrate this season of love, light and new beginnings, I send you warm thoughts and good wishes! (And lots of creative energy too!)

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Faerie Nest

2011-12-16T01:30:00.007-05:00

The Faeries have built a nest in my house tree recently, a very sparkly blue nest! At first it was just a little wispy snaggle of sparkle clinging to one of the upper most branches. It stayed like that for the longest time...weeks. I can't even remember how long ago I noticed it and thought, that's pretty, how did that get there? And I just kind of left it there, didn't really pay it too much attention. Then, it became something, and that something was a nest that was settled into a perfect little crook in the branch. How do I know it was the faeries, you may ask, and not the pink curly birds?

Well, I peeked inside and saw there was a stash of faerie treasures and trinkets! They're very speedy, I haven't caught sight of them yet, but I've got an eye out. I think they were attracted by the sparkles from my icicle collection.

My Santas are all set up, I pushed the coffee table over in front of the window, they make a cheery display. I love looking at them and remembering where each one came from. I set the whole thing up while my Mum was out of the room and she was so tickled when she came in and saw them. But later that afternoon, she completely took credit, not only for setting them up, but she also took complete ownership of all the Santas! I said, I bet you remember where each and everyone of those came from...No..she says, I can't remember. She's silly, she keeps me on my toes!

Other exciting news on the fiber front, forever and ever ago I pre-ordered this new art yarn spinning book by Jacey Boggs and yesterday it arrived!!! I've peeked through it and I'm looking forward to digging into some different techniques. It looks really good and it includes an instructional DVD as well! The bonus is that it's signed too, super cool right! You'll definitely want to add this to your art yarn spinning reference library.

I hope you are all having a warm and loving holiday season!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

I'm A Sparkle Junkie

2011-12-08T23:26:00.007-05:00

I freely admit it, I'm a sparkle junkie! I make no apologies, I love the combination of color and sparkle in spinning..and,well, in anything. So it's not a big surprise that I have added tons of Angelina colors to my shop but I've also given them a little twist of my own. I'm in the process of creating custom blended Angelina fibers based on some of my favorite color palettes that I've been using in my dyed fiber and art batt blends!

PixieDust
This special blend is my PixieDust color palette. I could dive into this yummy sparkly goodness! The picture doesn't completely capture the depth of color and sparkle, but it comes close. My all time favorite color palette captured in sparkle, what could be better!!!

LightningBug
One of my other personal favorite color palettes, this is LightningBug. This color palette evokes quiet summer evenings and the childhood delight of chasing those glowing little lightning bugs that seem to twinkle and disappear only to reappear as if by magic.

Paint a Sunset
We have beautiful sunsets here in Michigan (I may, however, be partial.) and I tried to capture the glorious hues and depths of color in this palette I've named, Paint a Sunset. This was so tricky to photograph,as anyone who has tried to photograph Angelina will confirm. Angelina is a very mysterious fiber, very chameleon like, which is what makes it so wonderful and surprising when blended with other fibers like wool, alpaca and silk (just to name a few) but this same quality makes it a bit of a bugger to photograph! (Camera shy maybe?)

I have a few more custom blended Angelina palettes I'll be listing in the next few days. I painstakingly blended each batch by hand, which is no easy task, as you can imagine if you've ever worked with Angelina, but it's totally worth it for the depth of color and sparkle that is achieved. I'm very excited about these one of a kind blends!

I hope you have a delightful weekend and that in all the hubbub of this wonderful and festive season, you are finding some creative time for yourself too!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Felted Fiber Goddess-Plied Skein

2011-11-25T01:20:00.006-05:00

I can hardly wait to knit with this yarn! I finished plying my Felted Fiber Goddess Art Yarn.

Just like the spin, plying this yarn was fun, it really kept me on my toes. I like that, these little challenges keep the spinning interesting. I really love all the colors and textures of this art yarn, there is a lot of sparkle too...yum!

I ended up with 55 yards/4.5 ounces/ super bulky (1-6 wpi)

As I said, I'm so excited to knit something with this yarn. It will be interesting to see how the felted bits are incorporated into the knitted fabric.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday, have a safe and enjoyable weekend!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

(Felted) Fiber Goddess

2011-11-18T00:38:00.004-05:00

Alchemy: A power or process of transforming something common into something special.

I love creating little figures. No matter what medium I'm using, at some point I always seem to find myself working up little figures, whether they are angels, faeries, little people or like this one, a wildly whimsical and colorful goddess figure. She's a little fiber goddess. I'm reminded of the kiln gods from pottery class, a little figure to watch over the creative process and help ensure a happy outcome. It should be a happy outcome too, because this little goddess was a part of a happy accident. Quite some time ago I was experimenting with nuno felting and while I knew that a more open silk fabric was used as a foundation, I thought I'd give it a try using one of the silk scarves I use (and had on hand) for silk painting. Well the fiber did not entirely mesh with the silk. I was not, however, the least bit disappointed, because what I ended up with were all these gorgeous, wildly colorful, ropes with beautiful clusters of organic growths and tuberous roots! I wanted more! So I tried to duplicate the process and it turned out entirely different, though equally gorgeous, I say gorgeous without meaning to take any of the credit, since the alchemy at work here was clearly out of my jurisdiction. This second time, I was given something more like fabric. Stunning passages of color and texture resembling a topographical map, I was in love! I knew I would use these beautiful felted pieces, but it took awhile to discover what was needed. They were quite beautiful all on their own, several times I pulled them from their box and spread them out on my work table, arranging and rearranging them, but they always ended up put back away. It just wasn't time yet I guess...till now.

I suddenly (haha after a year!) knew that I needed to spin them into a yarn. I carded up a nice sparkly batt, chock full of texture and color. But before I could spin, this little fiber goddess just needed to be made. Her headdress is a crown flowing with hoarded scraps from my handspun yarn. It's hard to see in this picture, but her breastplate is an Indonesian silk cocoon that I had dyed pink. She'll be added to the yarn once it's plied.

It was crazy fun spinning in the felted pieces. Thank goodness I have a Lendrum, I was able to power the bulky sections through all the tight spots as it made it's way on to the bobbin. And once on the bobbin, I tucked all the flailing tubers and organic growths safely under the yarn as I went along. Next week I'll show how it all came out!

Before I end for this week, I want to thank Heather Woollove for the fabulous messenger bag she felted for me, you can see the whole amazing process over at her blog, be sure to check it out! Part 1 and Part 2. Heather and I decided to do an exchange, I am busily working away on hers, she and her work are extraordinary, I hope I can do her justice with the gift I am making for her!

Have a delightful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Juicy Art Yarn Spinning, Fun, Fun!

2011-10-28T01:15:00.013-04:00

I had the opportunity to do some juicy spinning this last week, boy did I enjoy myself! You may remember the Big Blue Sky, Flower Power art yarn I spun up for a special order, well this is a second skein. This version is slightly darker with the addition of a deep sapphire blue and it is also slightly bulkier. It was a really enjoyable spin, with all the different elements it really kept me on my toes. The whole process involved managing the time/space between the thick and thin and the different focal points spun into the yarn. I tried to distribute all the elements to balance out the yarn, so there would be passages of thicker yarn or the cute little lamb locks, blending into passages where the yarn thins down quietly, to welcome surprising little pops of flowers or other colorful accents. One of my personal caveats for the art yarn that I spin is that above all, beyond the flash and all the various exciting elements, it must also be entirely functional, so I try to be mindful of the fabric it will eventually create.

This companion yarn (to the Flower Power) is a super bulky 3-4 wraps per inch, I'm calling it Deep Celestial Sky, it's a gorgeous blend of deep sapphire, and multiple tones of turquoise, with a sprinkle of silver.

Gosh I love spinning coils, probably because it took me so long to get a handle on the technique, the coils look deceptively simple...I had a lot of jacked up looking yarn for awhile there when I was learning this spinning technique, lol. This batch of coils has been sent off to a felting artist, I can't wait to see how she uses it!

(This is my jumbo Lendrum bobbin)

While I was getting all my fiber prepped for the spinning projects I had in my the queue this week, I thought...what if I spun some really GIANT coils...I wonder how big I could make them? So I dyed up some fiber just for me and had some fun playing around with the size. These coils are super chubby! It was so funny squeezing them through the orifice on my Lendrum, even though I was using the jumbo flier, it was still a tight squeeze! But it was also a good test of their durability, I figure if the coils can make it through that maze of tunnels and guides and then being squeezed like sardines on a bobbin and still look good, then the yarn will hold up!

So there you have it, a little peek at some of my fiber adventures for the week. I look forward to reading all about your creative adventures too!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Preparing Washed (scoured) Alpaca Locks For Spinning

2011-10-23T17:26:00.020-04:00

In response to the big pile of alpaca from last weeks Fiber Arts Friday post, I had this request from Beth;
Spinster Beth said..."Would you mind sharing a brief description of how you prep and spin alpaca? I have three big zip bags full of alpaca, and I know how to wash it ... but it is giving me the dickens carding and spinning. Is there a secret to it?"
Well, I don't know that there is a secret, but this is how I prepare my alpaca for spinning, I hope you find it helpful!

(I've also been known to use a fine comb.)

Often times alpaca has guard hair, depending on how coarse or fine it is, you'll probably want to remove it if you can see/feel it.

At this point, I quite often just spin right from the lock, my preference is drafting from the tip end. Or I can take the locks from this stage and blend them with other fiber (more alpaca, or wool, silk, angora...) on my drum carder or hand carders. Alpaca can get a little bit fly away, so I keep an atomizer with water handy and all it takes is a fine mist to settle things back down. I have also discovered that if I let it rest on my drum carder for a couple of hours it gives the fibers time to settle into a nice cohesive batt. I also let it rest like this if if I am going to pull a roving off my drum carder, it makes a world of difference. If you don't mind mixing your fibers, just adding the smallest amount wool makes the alpaca behave so much better, it's amazing! I like to lay out a layer of alpaca, with a little "dusting" of wool and feed it onto the drum carder. Not only does it help with controlling the alpaca, it's also a very complementary spinning/knitting blend.

The following describes blending fiber using a homemade hackle. Before I decided on the Pat Green Big Bat Carder, when I was doing research on drum carders, I stumbled on a tutorial for making and using a homemade hackle. It's a great, easy to make and use, tool for fiber blending. If you are interest in more information on this tool, a search on youtube will provide you with lots of information.

Goodness, I've used more than my fair share of pictures in this post! I hope you have found something useful to take away and apply to your fiber prep techniques.

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Whew!

2011-10-21T02:59:00.006-04:00

Whew, I am so glad to have this project behind me! For the last three weeks, along with all my other fiber projects, I have been diligently spinning away on 2 3/4 pounds of alpaca, spun worsted weight. (Zzzzzzz) In between alpaca spinning, I got some dyeing done for my shop, and took advantage of some nice weather to get some more fleece sorted. Then it was back to the alpaca, always back to the alpaca! I ended up with 9 skeins, each 4 ounces (some were a little more) and the average yardage was 146. (I add this info, because I know my fiber friend Jan will want the statistics, we like to talk about stuff like this, we're fiber geeks, lol) By the time you read this, all these lovely little skeins will have been picked up and I will have happily said good-bye to them. I'm already working on other things, my eyes needed a goodly dose of color!

Pretty cosmic looking, huh? It's silk I have prepared for painting. This is photographed from the underside. (It reminds me of Close Encounters) Before I can paint on the silk, I needed to draw the design on in resist (It keeps all the color trapped in one place on the fabric, otherwise the dye would seep all over.) It needs to dry completely before I can begin painting.

The silk is all painted and drying at the mo, when it's dry, I will set the color and wash out the resist. Since I needed two of the exact same design, I cheated and stretched them on the frame together...we will see how it worked, the resist went through both layers, so that was successful. But when I pulled back a little corner and peeked at the second layer, it doesn't look like the color is as intense. This was just along the edge though, so that may be why the color wasn't as concentrated. We shall see how the more saturated images transferred to the second layer of silk when I am able to separate them. The white sprinkles all over the surface are large salt crystals. The crystals absorb some of the dye and create an interesting effect.

I hope you have been having some wonderful artsy adventures yourself this past week!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Tonks Socks

2011-10-07T00:38:00.007-04:00

Many, many moons ago, I bought some of this fun Opal yarn, it's part of the Harry Potter collection, this particular color/pattern is of course Tonks. As you may remember my mum hornswaggled me out of my last pair of socks, so I started another. Fortunately I don't thinks the colors in the Tonks skein is as appealing to her as the colors I knitted in the last pair, she doesn't seem nearly as interested...maybe I will get to keep these! Though they are a simple vanilla sock pattern, I did try a new cast on just for fun. It's the picot cast on, and it adds a nice little ruffled edge, which I think will be comfy, especially for socks I will mainly wear as slippers. That being said, I cast on, knit what you have before you and they have been languishing in my knitting bag untouched. I've been busy with other fiber activities, spinning, scouring wool, carding batts, mostly taking advantage of this bit of nice weather we've been having, and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

I hope you've been having a wonderful, fibertastic week, can't wait to read what you've all been up to!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Blue Skys

2011-09-30T08:59:00.005-04:00

Blue Skies Flower Power Art Yarn with Gourmet Mix-Ins

I had a request for my Flower Power yarn, so I spun some up, with a few little twists, I thought I'd share a picture for this week's Fiber Friday post. Like all my art batts/yarn, this contains multiple colors, distinct textures from multiple types of fiber, and added elements, all spun together to make (hopefully) a beautiful, interesting yarn.

As autumn approaches, folks (including me!) are thinking more and more of cozy spinning or knitting projects to keep our loved ones warm. With that thought, I'm off to do some spinning, two pounds of alpaca is calling to me!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

This Just In...

2011-09-23T02:03:00.005-04:00

When I'm interested in something, I like to learn as much as I can about it, so I am always on the look out for useful books. I recently picked up the wonderful book, Beautiful Sheep by Kathryn Dun. It's chock full of gorgeous, full size, glossy, color photos. Each breed gets a two page layout. The left hand page outlines all sorts of useful information about the breed and the fiber. It's such a nice reference book. It will go right on my desk next to the book, In Sheep's Clothing, by Nola Fournier and Jane Fournier, this is my "go to book" when I'm sourcing fleeces and fiber. It's well organized and it's a good size to tuck in your bag when you head off to the fiber festivals.

At spinning recently, one of my friends recommended the book Sheepish, by Catherine Friend, which lead me to another book of hers, Hit By A Farm. Both are great reads, they are the perfect combination of information, paired with hilarious anecdotes.(And some not so hilarious, but it's important to see it all, right?) I came away with an honest glimpse at their path as they became sheep farmers.

The last two are oldies but goodies, Raising Sheep The Modern Way and Turning Wool Into A Cottage Industry, both by Paula Simmons of Pat Green Carders fame. I have quite a few of her books, love them all!

Now you may be wondering, why does a spinner need to know so much about raising sheep? It's interesting for one, but also, I have learned so much about the fiber I work with everyday. There is also the dream of so many spinners, me included, that someday I will have a little spinners flock on my own little farm. Stay tuned for that!

If you have any books you would like to recommend, I'd love to hear about them!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Love All the Way From South Africa!!

2011-09-15T23:07:00.011-04:00

Look at this awesome package I received from Natalie, all the way from the Republic of South Africa! We were paired in the Sending Love Heart Swap over at Natural Suburbia and I couldn't be more thrilled! Natalie sent me these wonderful red fingerless gloves, which I really need, since my hands get so cold sometimes. I will get just as much use from them indoors as I will outdoors, very nice. Plus she made me a beautiful little silver plaque embossed with a tree and a moon and star. I need more trees in my life, maybe this will be the first of many beautiful trees to come into my life. Natalie also makes and sells yummy seasoning blends in her shop, Marigoldsloft and she shared a delicious blend of herbs, Himalayan salt crystals and sea salt. I used it when I made chicken soup the other day, it was a good complement to the soup. I love it! And I really love my heart swap parcel, thanks Natalie!!!

This is the little stained glass panel I made for Natalie, it's about 8x8 inches and I was so relieved that it made it all the way to South Africa safe and sound!

It has been a good week for crossing things off that old to do list, and some of those things were knitting UFO's which are now complete. This is the Mystic Midsummer Wreath Mystery KAL I had been plugging away on. As you can see, I have finished it and it's all blocked, YEA!

I really enjoyed this KAL, and now it makes the boring vanilla socks I cast on so that I would have something on the needles, a big giant snooze fest.

It's hard to tell, but I added a little sprinkle of clear iridescent and silver beads in the rows between the two lace charts.

My bobble sleeping socks/slippers, became my mum's slippers. As I was finishing them she made so many comments about how nice they matched her robe...Sooo

How could I resist? They look so cute on her, and she is tickled with them, plus they're really warm and her tootsies get cold. I think I'll try for another pair for myself, we'll see how that goes LOL!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Busy, Busy, Busy!

2011-09-09T00:00:00.001-04:00

( It's my spinning wheel-iversary, I bought my Lendrum in 2008 at Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan. My cat Ciss loves her as much as I do, as you can tell!)

Golly have I been busy! I wish I could share photos with you of all the projects I have been working on! Some are top secret for the moment ;0)

I don't know about you, but these seasonal changes always inspire projects which involve organizing, paring down, setting goals and working toward completion. For me the turn toward fall inspires the same kind of clean up energy that spring invites. In that spirit, I have put together an awesome shelving system with plenty of room to store all my fleeces. No more piling them willy-nilly all on two shelves, they are all sorted and organized, even more importantly, they have a bit of breathing room. (and I have more space)

The next thing on my list was to set up a separate studio space for my glass work. This was a big, big project! I had to totally rearrange an entire space in order to still accommodate my dyeing area, while bringing in my work bench, tools and glass, much of it was in storage and all of it was very heavy! I still have a bit to go, the glass is now all on site and will soon make it's way to the happy, organized work area! My goal was to have this done before the snow falls, so that I can work on some stained glass windows over the winter.

In the fiber world, it's been a whirl wind of activity, August is a busy month! First the Michigan Fiber Festival, then Stitches Midwest and I think there might have been a couple of other things thrown in there too, it's been such a blur of activity! I love fiber, don't you?!!!

I hope you are enjoying all your fiber activities and projects, I look forward to checking out your fabulous (fiber) creations! (Next time more pictures, I promise!)

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

I'm seeing spots!

2011-08-19T00:50:00.006-04:00

You may remember these images, of the Dot yarn I spun during the Tour de Fleece. I had a special project in mind for those pretty dots.

I wanted to make a coil basket, woven so all the dots jingled on the outside of the basket, I love that musical little sound.

When the body of the basket was done, I decided it needed to have a footed bottom. I had a bit of an idea of how I wanted it to look, but I wasn't exactly certain how to accomplish it. So I had to start with what I did know, and move forward from there. I knew if I made the felted bits, the round felted tubes and the round felt beads, I would be half way there. Once I had my felted components, I just kind of lived with the idea. Sometimes you have to wait awhile, things happen just when they are meant to. (There's a life lesson or two in there somewhere.)

I added a polka-dot patterned flannel band around the rim, and used one of my vintage buttons for a closure. I love circles! (I was advised by one of my favorite professors in art school, "Everybody has this thing that wants to crop up in their work all the time, with you it's circles...try to edit the circles." That conversation still makes me giggle!)

I really enjoyed this project, I know, I know, I say that with every project, but it's true!

I hope everyone has a delightful weekend, and if you are in Michigan, or close by, tootle over to Allegan to the Michigan Fiber Festival and check out all the fabulous doings. Including the booths of Andrea the Wonder Why Gal, and Melissa of Needle and Wheel Designs and of course so many more!!!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Button Give Away Winner!

2011-08-12T00:38:00.008-04:00

These are my treasured, private reserve buttons. They are all that remain of my Grams button box, saved by little Melissa soooo many years ago. I horded them away in little baggies, change purses and old pill bottles, waiting to be rediscovered by the grown up me. I was just as excited by them as an adult when I came upon my little forgotten treasures as I cleared out my childhood bedroom. Since then, more than a few pretty buttons have found their way into my treasure trove and I'm excited to share some of them with one of you! I used the random number generator to select the button give away winner, Vivian you won! If you'll post your email address, (I won't publish it of course) I'll get in touch with you so I can get those buttons right out to you! Congratulations!

I've been working on a number of projects lately, including this lace shawl. I participated in a mystery KAL over in Ravelry, which sort of overlapped with the Tour de Fleece, so my knitting was given very little attention as a result. I'm plugging away at it again, it wont be too much longer since it's not a very large shawl. The pattern is Mystic Midsummer Wreath by Anna Dalvi. This was my first mystery KAL and I really enjoyed the process. It definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone since I had to knit on faith that I was doing it right. I rationalized that as long as I kept having the correct number of stitches for each repeat, I must be on the right track.

I hope you are all enjoying the weather, I know I am! It's been nice to get back outside and tackle some of the fleece that has been waiting for me.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Who Loves Buttons?!! (Button Give Away)

2011-08-05T10:20:00.006-04:00

I love buttons, and I just adore vintage buttons. I have fond memories of sorting through the old button box when I was a kidlette. Not too long ago I participated in a button swap in the Button Addicts Group on Ravelry. I rounded up all the buttons I was willing to part with and my mum and I had a great time sorting them all into color groups and tucking them all into yummy packages of "Button Candy."

These are the buttons I contributed to the swap, the purple collection, Ooooo-Ahhhhh, buttons! I'd love to share some of my buttons, if you'd like a little collection for your own project, let me know in your comment if you have a color preference and if you have a favorite button project you've done, I'd love to hear about that too. I'll draw a name next Friday and some lucky button collector will have some yummy button candy to add to their collection!

This is one of my favorite button projects, my Silk Razzmatazz Necklace, you can find instructions here in one of my older blog posts if you are interested in making one for yourself.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Tail Spun TDF Challenge

2011-07-29T00:46:00.006-04:00

My Tour de Fleece spinning project for challenge day (July 22) was to create a tail spun yarn. The extra component to the challenge is that I would be spinning this in public at a little spinning rendezvous with some of the local TDF Team of Wonder. Here's my finished skein, all plied and ready for a project. For those not completely familiar with art yarn spinning, tail spun is the technique of adding long locks, spinning only the base (cut end) into your single, leaving the curly tail dangling like fringe. With this spin, in addition to the tails of curly wool locks (Teeswater) I also incorporated whole locks into the body of the yarn, in other words the majority of the length of the lock is spun into the single, giving you gorgeous curly lumps and bumps and little stray pops of curl running along the single.
Now, what shall I make with it...

I hope you have a delightful and creative weekend!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Plying...

2011-07-22T01:14:00.005-04:00

I've been plugging away at my Tour De Fleece goals which were to work on blending alpaca with various fibers and also to process and spin Suri alpaca. I've really enjoyed working on both goals. I have to confess I have several projects going on, this is unusual for me. I typically work on 1-2 projects steadily until they're complete. This week I pulled out an old UFO, a crocheted afghan I started eons ago. Done...my Mum already claimed it. Then I decided I liked the crochet stitch so well, that I'm working up a scarf. In addition to that I am in the home stretch of finishing a special woven project. And if that wasn't enough, I pulled out the gesso, got my surface prepped and started a new oil painting. See what I mean, I'm really bouncing around creatively. In the spinning department, I've been plying some of my TDF spins. I'm still mulling over the gold bobbin pictured above, I did a little test ply using a really pretty metallic thread from sulky. I need to live with it a bit to determine if it's the right finish for this single. That's ok, plenty of other bobbins are waiting to be plied!

I hope you are keeping cool, have a wonderful weekend!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Fiber Arts Friday Post

2011-07-15T09:29:00.003-04:00

Here's a little peek at some of the fiber goodies I have been working on this week. The TDF rolls on, and I have been spinning away, however I feel like I am neglecting my other fibery interests, so I squeezed in a little work on some non-spinning projects too. I finished up the HailDust and GoldDust bobbins, I plan on thread plying them with metallic thread. I spun up some small skeins of coil yarn to use in a felting project, you can see the start of it there in the center. I was inspired by Heather Woollove's posts showing the technique she uses for felting her lovely purses. I wanted to try my hand at this technique while making a new felted bag for my spinning wheel, incorporating some of my coiled art yarn. I need to do some needle work to embellish my new little bag before it is truly finished. I have to thank Ms.Woollove for her excellent and inspiring posts.

I hope everyone has a delightful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

TDF Spinning!

2011-07-08T01:18:00.007-04:00

For the first time, not only did I signed up for the Tour de Fleece, I am actually spinning! I've really enjoyed all the beautiful yarn pictures being posted this week in the Wonder Why Alpaca Ravelry group, pop over and check out all the inspiring spinning going on!

Rather than re-post photos of all the yarn I've already spun, I thought I'd share what I've been whipping up for upcoming spins. The photo (which really doesn't do the fiber justice) above shows a pretty golden blend of Suri Alpaca from Princess (light fawn, my fav!) this gorgeous fiber came from Melissa over at Needle and Wheel Designs. this was the first time I've worked with raw Suri fleece, processing it from start to finish. I really enjoy getting to know a new type of fiber. Along with Princesses fiber, I included Finn Sheep, Coopworth, Bamboo and Silk top, all dyed in shades of gold, oh yeah, I had to sprinkle in some gold Angelina too, you know how I love sparkle!

This is also Suri from Needle and Wheel Designs, John Cash's scrumptious jet black fiber was blended with Silk Top, Mohair and Coopworth all dyed in shades of silver and of course I added black and silver holo angelina.

I'm getting ready for a little tail spinning using my favorite shades of green and blue green. Fun, fun!

And last but definitely not least Is the gorgeous rose colored Suri/Merino fiber I bought from Wonder Why Gal! I've already spun this, I couldn't wait...it's pink! I blended Andrea's lovely fiber with some of my favorites all dyed in shades of pink. It took a while to spin, because I wanted to do a nice lace weight single, and because I didn't have nearly the time I would have liked to spend with my wheel.

I'm really excited to get spinning on these blends, really excited! I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

A Little Sunshine Makes the Daffodils Blossom

2011-07-01T00:00:00.002-04:00

I picked up this wonderful Pink Lemonade Fiber Art batt from Kelly at Felting Sunshine back in May. It's really gorgeous and chuck full of lots of soft and sparkly pink fibers, my favorite combination! I just love pink, that batt had my name all over it!

Along with the batt from Felting Sunshine, I spun in generous clouds of my Petal Pink Lamb Locks and Sari Silk Tangles, Plus the pink daffodils I made special just for this spin. The skein is 82 yards, 5.25 ounces and Super Bulky 5-6 wpi. It was a really fun spin and I think the daffodils are right at home in this yarn.

Be sure to check out Felting Sunshine for some gorgeous fiber and pop over to Wonder Why and Natural Suburbia to see what all the creative people have been up to this week!

Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Faerie Bells and Daffodils

2011-06-24T02:45:00.005-04:00

I thought I'd share some new spin-ins I've been tinkering with. I've made them with silk cocoons which I hand paint using silk dye, then I steam set them to fix the colors. These latest creations are another variation of my HotHouseFlowers.

These newer flowers have more detail, tiny little touches here and there. I love fussing over little projects like this and I already have plans for them!

Now I'm off to go see what all the creative folks have been working on this week over at Wonder Why and Natural Suburbia, the Friday blog hops are really inspiring, pop over and check them out!

I hope you have a wonderful, creative weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

A Little Lace Weight Spinning

2011-06-17T01:32:00.008-04:00

Recently, I decided to do a little spinning just for myself. I picked all my favorite fibers and dyed part of the batch in lovely soft shades of pink, the rest of the fiber I left natural. I used BFL, Corriedale and Coopworth wool, Alpaca, Angora, Cultivated Silk Top, Recycled Sari Silk, and Angelina. I used my Pat Green cradle picker to open the fiber and then ran it through again to blend it. That Picker works like a dream.

The next step was to blend it on the carder. I didn't want to completely blend the different fibers or the colors from the dyed fiber, but yet I knew I was going for a lace weight yarn so I wanted a smooth, well carded batt. I ended up breaking up my fiber into four batches and running each batch through the carder three times. Then I layered them all together and ran each combined batt through twice. For these batts, this nicely blended the different fibers/colors enough to make smooth batts, while retaining some of the variation in colors.

With the addition of the silk and the longer wool fibers from the Coopworth, I would have felt completely comfortable using these bobbins as a singles yarn.

For this application I decided I wanted a balanced yarn, so I plied them together. Which still gave me a nice, fine, lace weight yarn with lots of softness and sheen. When I begin knitting with this, I am a hoping there will be a little halo bloom from the angora as I work the yarn. The plan is to knit a shawl, I haven't decided on a pattern yet...

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Tea Cozy Swap

2011-06-10T00:24:00.007-04:00

I've been working on a secret project, I'm participating in a tea cozy swap over on Ravelry. My swap partner Lisa received her parcel this week, so I'm free to post pictures. I knitted up this fulled tea cozy using the stitch count and decreases from this pattern by Kristen Nicholas, from knitty 2006. I added my own touches, the checker board pattern, the ring at the top, and an i-cord edge so I could personalize it a bit for Lisa. I also lined it with red quilted fabric to keep that tea pot of hers extra cozy warm!

This is a picture of her kitchen, which I love, she even has a red microwave! I think the tea cozy fits right in.

I wanted to explain about these little felted rings. They're drip catchers meant for the spout of the teapot. You can buy something that works similar, a plastic ring with a little terry cloth insert. I was hoping to find a nice red one to send along with the swap parcel, but no luck. Then I had the idea to make a little felted ring myself. It's actually an advantage, since these are much easier to wash.

If you want to make some for yourself, it's really simple. Using size 6 double points, cast on three stitches using two strands of 100% wool held together. Knit an I-Cord for 4.5" then bind off the stitches as one stitch and join the two ends to form a ring. There is a great tutorial here at Natural Suburbia, if you need a refresher on how to knit an I-Cord. After you get a few knitted up (it's always nice to have a spare or two) toss them in a hot washer and agitate until they're the right size to fit snugly over your tea spout. Here's a little trick I use when I'm felting/fulling in the washer, I put the items in a mesh lingerie bag along with three tennis balls. This keeps them all together and the fulling process goes a lot faster.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

That's a BIG Bobbin!

2011-06-03T00:00:00.000-04:00

I collected all the fiber samples I received from the last three months worth of the Phat Fiber Sample Boxes, carded them together into three gorgeous batts and spun them all on my Lendrum. I like to spin using my jumbo flier and the nice big bobbins. I decided to weigh this one after it was full to see how much the bobbin could hold. I actually think I could have gotten a bit more on it, but I ran out of fiber. The bobbin itself weighs 6 ounces, so I deducted that from the total weight and I was amazed to see that it weighed in at exactly 8 ounces of handspun! Now I need to decide how to ply it. It's really pretty fiber from all of the Phat Fiber Posse, and even though there were so many different colors, they look great together!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Faerie Cottage

2011-05-27T00:27:00.009-04:00

Part of the creative process for me means that sometimes I just need to let the idea percolate. I've wanted to make my own little Faerie Cottage for some time, I've seen some really great creations, I just needed to wait for...the right idea to come to me. I've made this faerie cottage and the faerie using the wet felt technique of layering feltable fibers, wetting the layered fibers and rolling them up around a foam tube (water noodle) and then rolling the whole wet, soapy business until it felted.(Here's a tip, when I do the rolling part, I use the top of my washing machine and all the excess water seeps around the washer lid and into the washing machine. It sure saves a lot of clean up!) This created wonderfully textured and sparkly felted fabric. I then needle felted the fabric into the shapes you see here.

This is my little Faerie Cottage and Faerie so far. I actually did this back at the end of February beginning of March. For some reason I thought I should have it 100% complete before I shared it with anyone. But I'm looking at it differently now, maybe you will find it just as interesting to see it as a work in progress?

Here's a close up of my wild little faerie, she's a colorful little thing!

The roof comes off the little cottage so you can see inside her house. I have been adding embroidered embellishments, with much more planned. I'm picturing an entire felted, magical faerie forest. As things progress, I'll post more pictures.

Have a delightful and safe holiday weekend! Blessings Friends! Melissa

Michigan Fiber Fiesta

2011-05-20T08:47:00.003-04:00

I had a wonderful time at the Michigan Fiber Fiesta last weekend! Last year I was there strictly as a shopper, and this year I brought my Twirly Curly Bird KIT with me. It was so nice to meet all the folks who stopped by to say hello! Then after I got home, it was the perfect time to reorganize my inventory shelves. I had picked up these pretty organizer boxes, now their all nicely labeled with my p-touch. Gosh I love just looking at the nicely organized shelves...I've said it before, I'm a geek for organizing!

Silk Noil/Carrier Rods, Multi-Packs in hot colors

Now that this has been done and the shop all updated, I can spend a little time working on fun projects, yea! I cast on for a tea cozy last night and I have my fiber for Bohoknitterchic's Harry Potter SAL impatiently calling me from across the room! Hopefully this next week will allow for a little fiber play!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Spring Cleaning!

2011-05-06T01:25:00.004-04:00

Well, it's that time of year...Spring Cleaning!!! I have all this roving I picked up over time, pretty stuff, but it's not getting spun. And I pretty much dye my own now, it's funny but it feels a bit like cheating if I don't do everything myself. So there was all this roving clogging up my fiber storage. I gathered it all together and divided it up into equal piles, so that each one had approximately the same amount and colors of the roving, I also added some recycled sari silk and a couple of colors of angelina. (I especially love using the peachy colored one, which I call pink grapefruit, it smells just like Little Kiddles, which were these tiny little dolls from my childhood, they came in jewel shaped broaches and rings, and they were scented like flowers. It's the same effect as crayons or play-doh, I am instantly transported back in time.)

But I digress... so I took all of that up there and....

I'm making all of this here!

I carded it up on my wonderful Pat Green Big Batt Carder and pulled it into a very beautiful roving. Only six more bags to go! It's even more attractive in the new blended form. It's destined for the homes of some fibery friends, though I will have to keep a little of it to spin for myself.

That's just a little peek at the fiber doings in my studio this week, it's been busy, busy, busy, I love it!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Lemongrass

2011-04-29T00:47:00.003-04:00

Yum, lemongrass! This months theme for the Phat Fiber Sample Box is Spice Market. Now for some reason, I really pondered this one for awhile, I could only think of my everyday favorites and they are all tones of brown, it seemed like they might be too obvious a choice as well. I love cinnamon, vanilla, cayenne, clove, nutmeg...then I remembered my favorite green tea with lemongrass, perfect choice as I have been feeling the green lately! The hand pulled roving is a blend of Corriedale in bright chartreuse, creamy bamboo, delicious citron Angelina and another layer of Corriedale in moody, bruised green tones. The colors were layered individually on my drum carder, so when I pulled the roving, rich veins of color run along the length. I'll have them (full and sample size) in the shop soon, the beautiful Citron Angelina is already available. (Look carefully if ordering, I also have Lemon Zest Angelina, which is nice too. In the pictures the colors look very close, but the citron has a definite chartreuse glow. I'm making myself a wig out of it, hehehe...no I really am, giggle, just as soon as I get my top hat!)

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

New Fiber Goodies

2011-04-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

I added some extra special, fiber goodies this week, my all time favorite sparkle add in, Silver Hologram Angelina!

Plus some new long Teeswater locks dye up in some new color palettes, this one is Stone Moss.

This is Orchid.

I hope you have a delightful weekend, I hope we have good sunny weather. Blessings Friends!

Melissa

Fleece Sorting And Scouring Season Has Begun!

2011-04-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

My favorite season, spring, and of course shearing time! I'm so pleased because this year things in the fleece skirting/sorting arena have gotten even better. I started out using old window screens to lay out my fleeces and sort them and getting the fiber ready to scour. This worked nicely for a number of years, then last year I got a look at my friends skirting table and decided I needed more room to skirt/sort my fleece too. So I picked up this nice large screen on sale at a local home improvement store. In the past I balanced it between two lawn chairs and spread out my fleece to skirt/sort. But this year I have these wonderful drying racks, complements of my friend Jan. (Thanks Jan!) They work perfectly, the screen and the racks were made for one another! I especially like the flexibility, I can work standing up or adjust it lower if I want to sit. This makes a long process quite a bit more comfortable.

Ooo, look at this gorgeous fleece! So pretty and clean I hardly had to do anything to it, and it came clean in one wash and rinse! I still have my smaller screens, which I can use for drying my fleece and something even more convenient, if I get to a stopping point and I'm not finished with the fleece, I place another screen on top and I can easily transport the fiber safely back into the garage. Saving me from disrupting the fleece, and it makes for a quick set up when I want to get working on the fleece again. All of these items are really compact and portable, another bonus.

Here's a close up of the beautiful fleece I was working on when these pictures were taken, stunning right! I already did a little test spin on my spindle, beautiful! I plan on blending this with alpaca and some other goodies.

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Fiber Play

2011-04-07T23:48:00.006-04:00

You may remember these batts I carded up for myself awhile back, Harbinger of Spring, well I finally got a chance to spin them up! I've been doing a lot of spinning this week and I'm lovin it! Between spinning and plying, my trusty Lendrum, Mirabella, has been getting a real work out. We both needed the exercise!!!

I spun those batts into a thick and thin single, which I auto plied with a fine cream colored silk strand, then I plied it into this super coil yarn, I had a blast playing with the coils! This worked out to be 4.25 ounces/35.5 yards/Mondo-Bulky 4 wpi.

I've given myself a little more me time this week, spinning just for fun and reading, I hope you will remember to pencil in a little time to nurture your creative spirit too!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Butterflies

2011-03-31T23:22:00.006-04:00

The butterflies have arrived a little early this year, and this months Phat Fiber Samp le Box is bursting with beautiful butterfly inspired fibery goodness! For my contribution this month, I made these colorful stitch markers. The butterfly is a sparkly Swarovski crystal, with opalescent glass beads, all dangling from a coordinating o-ring. These little cuties will fit needles up to size 13.

I'll have full size and sample size stitch markers in the shop this weekend. The full size set includes six stitch markers, one of each color, and they come packaged in this pretty little keepsake bottle, all nicely tucked into a cute little transparent notions bag perfect for carrying your essential knitting notions.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Lot's of Fibery Goodness!!

2011-03-25T01:13:00.009-04:00

Fibery topic number one, I added some new Wensleydale locks to my shop this week. They're super nice locks, averaging 6-7" they are soft and glossy and have a wonderful crimp and nice tight lock formation. You'll find them perfect for lock spinning and also beautiful for felting.

Some of the new locks dyed in my new Waterfall color palette, frankly these locks are pretty enough as they are, dyed or natural, if you're a wool lover like me, it's enough to handle and admire them, you don't need to do a thing with them! I have a feeling these wont be around long! I'm hoping for some more nice weather so I can scour the rest of the fleece!

Fibery topic number two, I'm so super excited, I got my first Phat Fiber box! This is my contributors box, I had tried to buy one last month, but I was too slow to snag one!!! There are tons of beautiful samples in this months box, I was so happy to see a lot of the samples I had my eye on in the Ravelry group thread, made it into my box! So much fibery goodness!!! If you want to check out the rest of the contributors, pop over to the ravelry group or you can find them here at the web site, plus Jessie is always having awesome giveaways here at the Phat Fiber blog, check them out, you wont be disappointed!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

WHOOPI!

2011-03-18T04:19:00.007-04:00

I hope everyone had a fabulous St Patrick's Day, and you have had the time to recover from the festivities, tricky to do coming so closely on the heals of day light savings time! I'm sharing pictures of batts I carded this week, tone on tone greens with little kicks of color here and there. The one above is listed in my shop.

These I carded up for myself, I needed a huge dose of color and I put together these scrumptious greens I'd been dying up in multiple fibers.

I needed a color fix, because for a few days I was working on this brown and it took a long time to spin, at least it seemed like a long time. To tell the truth, there were times when I'm sure I was sleep spinning! This is chiengora, aka dog fiber, and it spun up very nicely. The fiber is from Whoopi, a Newfoundland/Wolf/Husky mix, it was a custom request. It turned out very soft, and there's a lot of it, so Whoopi's mom will be able to make a little something as a remembrance. It's nearly dry, then I can ship it out.

Here's another little incentive I carded up while I was taking a break from spinning miles of brown dog fiber. This set of Blossom batts uses alpaca, angora, finn, bamboo, silk, and coopworth. Look for some of these to be added to the shop as well.

I felted these Jumbo beads to go with the Blossom batts, that's a quarter resting on top of one of the beads, I'm really excited to get going on this project, just a few loose ends to tie up and I can dig into a colorful spin!!! (I'm going to list some of these too...if I can part with them!)

Lots of fibery goodness this week, I'm off to check out the wonderful posts at Fiber Friday and Creative Frida y, I always find plenty of inspiration, take a peek see what you think.

Have a wonderful spring weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Sweet Shop! Yummy Phat Fiber Samples!

2011-03-11T00:21:00.008-05:00

This months Phat Fiber samples (above) have made their journey to Phat HQ and I've happily listed some in my shop too. This months Phat Fiber theme was Sweet Shop and my contribution was inspired by the yummy childhood favorite, Pixy Stix, I carded up sparkling Sugga packed batts of glossy white alpaca, blended with loads of Silver Holographic and Aurora Crystalina Angelina, swirled with stripes of Berry Blue, Lemon Lime and Strawberry, Milk Protein Fiber and Grape Blast Merino/Tencel blend

The sample for my shop is slightly larger and includes all the flavors!

I've listed a full size Sugga-Sugga Spinners Candy, it also includes all the yummy flavors for a total of a little over 4 ounces of sparklin spinnin fun!

If you have a bit of a sweet tooth, pop over and check out the thread on the groups Ravelry page, it will make you seriously hungry!

I've got tons of interesting projects going, I bet they all wind up at once and I wont know which one to post, stay tuned for my adventures in spinning chiengora, pictures here in the Ravelry group Spinnin' Chien if you want to investigate. I think you'll be surprised at the beautiful yarn pictures posted in the group! (Jan, you may have to join Ravelry after this post! teehe)

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

On the Bobbin

2011-03-04T00:55:00.006-05:00

I did a little core/tail spin this week, it's a different color palette than is typical for me, I'm pleased with how it turned out. There is a lot of texture going on, gotta love texture!

Here's my pre-spin palette, Wensleydale locks, Corriedale, Finn, Mohair, a couple shades of recycled sari silk and some corresponding bling.

And here's my finished skein after a day of resting on the bobbin, it's now having a little tubby to set the twist. I sure had fun with this, I custom dyed all the fiber for this color palette (except the sari and angelina of course) Rich reds, silver, gray, black, bronze...I love color, don't you?

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Watermelon Tourmaline Art Yarn With Felted Beads

2011-02-25T09:14:00.008-05:00

I was inspired by this months Phat Fiber theme of Gems and Minerals when I spun this yarn, watermelon tourmaline is a
gorgeous semiprecious stone and I absolutely love the vibrant color combination. I've pre-strung the yarn with 25 of my hand made felted beads for even more gem-appeal. This yarn is worsted-aran weight, making it easy to incorporate into any project where you want to add the flavor of a hand spun art yarn without completely overwhelming your other yarn. With 112 yard, there is enough yarn to create a wonderful stand alone project like a shawlet or a scarf. The felt beads, which can be repositioned as needed, would make this a lovely choice for fiber crafted jewelry too.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends! Melissa

Spun My First Boucle!

2011-02-18T02:12:00.007-05:00

I saw a great thread over in the Art Yarn Group on Ravelry with tips for spinning boucle yarn, I had to give it a go! I already had the perfect type of single for boucle all ready spun up, lace weight 100% mohair, hand painted in my Big Blue Sky color palette, plus some cobweb weight silk which I hand painted in my Dragonfly color palette. I love learning new techniques! It took a few yards to balance the right amount of twist and the size of the loops. So you can imagine, at first it was all stops and starts as I spun a little, then coaxed/scooted the mohair into little loops...and big loops, and every size loop! After the first quarter of the bobbin, I was able to pretty much manage the loops while slowly, yet continuously spinning. I like how it turned out, I learned that if you want big loops, you should spin a little heavier mohair single. The biggies looked good until I set the twist, and then some of them twisted on themselves, looking more like little fish than circles, I don't mind them actually. A whole skein of them would be cute! I should mention that this is a three stage project (actually five when you count spinning the singles needed) I used silk as my base single and my binder single, next time I will use something sticky like a cobweb mohair single or commercial yarn for the binder. I think that will lock things down even better. What else did I learn? Well, this is actually the most useful and important thing for me and I know I will benefit from this in future spinning. This is BIG news for me, if you ever tried/wanted to change a plied yarn by adding another single and been disappointed with the results read on!!!

It works like this you have two singles spun like normal to the right (Z twist) and you ply them in the opposite direction, like normal, to the left (S twist) THEN when you add the third single, you think of the two ply yarn you just made as an S(left) twist single. How do you ply an S (left) twist single? You use good ol (opposite direction) Z (right) twist. Which means the new singles you want to add to your plied yarn should also be S(left) twist. Voila, no more loosy goosy yarn where the ply you added hangs along the strand like it doesn't belong. I'm thunkin myself in the forehead for never making this connection myself! I love the boucle, and while I already have spun a couple of skeins, this was the best thing I learned from the whole process!

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Phat Fiber Samples and Full Phatties Are In The Shop!

2011-02-15T13:11:00.008-05:00

I am so excited, I've been waiting for so long to list these! Finally here are my very first contributions to the Phat Fiber Sample Box! Pictured above and below are the Dancing Gypsies! Mini-Batt and Roving. I created this special batt for the Phat Fiber Sample Box. February's theme is Gems and Minerals and when I think of gems, I think of all the swirling colors and bejeweled opulence of Dancing Gypsies! These batts hold a special little secret, they have goodies incorporated in a way that make it super easy for even a beginning spinner to create a beaded, tail spun art yarn, with lots of texture. I've include directions/tips for spinning this batt which will liberate you from the belief that art yarn spinning is for others, if you're not already, I'll bet this batt will have you searching for goodies and textured fiber to add to your own spinning palettes.

Mini-Batts And Full Phatti Batts are available now!
Happy Spinning and thanks for stopping by!

Blessings Friends!
Melissa

The Winner Is!!!!

2011-02-14T12:30:00.001-05:00

The Winner Is!!!

Here are the yarn specs, which I forgot to add to the last post until it had been up for quite awhile! 168 yards/3.75 oz/worsted weight 9 wpi

Well, here we are, it Monday and I put all the names in a hat this morning for the big drawing!!! 23 people posted comments, thank you all so much for your interest and for taking time to stop by and post! Lake Michigan All Spun Up goes to....drum roll...WonderWhyGal!!! I'm really please to have my skein of yarn go to Andrea, it worked out "wonderfully" since she is so generous with hosting Fiber Friday and I have always really appreciated the nice comments she has made not only on my blog, but on all the Fiber Friday posts!!! Thanks WonderWhyGal and thank you to everyone who posted! I'll be sending off an email to you Andrea, as soon as I get your address, this happy little skein will be on it's way to a new home!

Have a great week! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Lake Michigan Give Away!!!

2011-02-11T00:09:00.004-05:00

Hello there fiber peeps! You may remember this Lake Michigan In The Summer Batt that I posted about a few weeks ago, way back in mid January. Well, I immediately spun one up for myself, fully intending to post the skein in my shop, but could never bring myself to list it! Sometimes you spin something and you just need to hang out with it for a bit...get to know it. So I have been thinking about what will become of it these last few weeks, and I have decided to do a give away! I have to say, and maybe brag a bit, about how lucky we are here in Michigan, it's a really beautiful state and of course the Great Lakes are an enormous part of that. Yea Michigan!!!

When ya got yer self a nice juicy batt in front of you, like me, you probably ponder a bit about how you want to spin it. With this batt, I decided that rather than sectioning it off lengthwise, which would effectively cut up all the marvelous colors of the shoreline, I wanted to spin it so that all the colors would blend together. I made it into more spinable sections by peeling off layers of the batt and rolling them into a tube, which I then elongated into a fatish roving which represented a cross section of all the different colors and fibers. And the results of that are pictured here in this skein I've called Lake Michigan All Spun Up. And I would like to send a little of Lake Michigan Home with one of you! If you would like this skein of yarn, all you have to do is post a comment about your favorite way to spin a carded batt or if you don't spin, you might have an idea of how you would use the yarn. When Monday rolls around, I will randomly draw a name from all the posts and and we'll meet back here so I can announce the name and email the winner to work out the details of getting the skein to her/him!!!

Best Wishes, thanks for popping in, I love reading your comments every week and I learn so much and get tons of inspiration from checking out your blogs! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Hello, forgot to add the yarn specs!
168 yards/3.75 oz/worsted weight 9 wpi

Recycled Cork Board

2011-02-08T16:13:00.005-05:00

I have been toting this cork board around for years, it's a relic from younger days, which I just couldn't seem to toss. So I shuffled it from place to place, always with the idea that I would use it...sometime. Well, today was the day! I had some notices for upcoming events that I wanted to put somewhere I would see them and be reminded. I peeked through my fabric stash and found a nice bit of denim to cover the faded glory of the the old cork. It was easy enough to tack in place with my staple gun. If I want to in the future, I can easily remove the denim and use it for something else. For now it has refreshed my old cork board. I used a length of purple polka-doted ribbon for a hanger.

The glass worked hat pins are remnants from messing around when I was making beads one day, they make excellent and festive push pins too!

I have hot glued tacks to the back of some of my favorite souvenir buttons, they will get much more use on my bulletin board! We all buy these, but how often to we actually wear them? I think this is a good way to recycle them and it's a nice reminder of a special event...now, where's that old Huey Lewis Pin??? I have a little stash of tack pins from work events and fund raisers, those will end up on the bulletin board as well. I have some left over upholstery tacks being used as push pins here too, they are also nice for hanging pictures. I use them all the time for hanging those little pictures/objects where the nail would otherwise show.

So there, you go, lots of renewed and refreshed items, and a bit of a walk down memory lane as I recall how these little bits of memorabilia came into my hands. I snuck an extra little post this week, but I've got lots of fiber goodies to share with you on Friday, see you then! I hope you will share your ideas for renewing, recycling and upcycling, I love that kind of stuff, don't you?

I hope your week is going wonderfully! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Yarn Feast!

2011-02-04T02:29:00.006-05:00

I've really had some great fun spinning lately, I've spun myself up a little feast of yarn, take a peek!

I've actually name this one Yarn Feast, because it's so delicious and full of color and texture, a feast for the eyes!

Quartz

Graphic

Lake Michigan All Spun Up

Watermelon Tourmaline

I had a wonderful time with this bit of fiber play, I really needed it too! I'll be listing these in my shop this week, with all the particulars if you're on the look out for juicy yarn!

I hope you have the best weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

The Roman Gate

2011-01-28T01:07:00.007-05:00

I love this picture, I took it my first day in Rome, the first day of my first vacation in Italy. It's the gate to the garden belonging to a monastery, right in the heart of Rome. I see this image every time I upload new pictures and I always have to pause and look at it for a moment, it takes me right back to Italy.

And here is my tribute to that beautiful image, made with knitted wire and beads.

I made my wire fabric especially to fit this glass vase, and added a wreath of pink mother of pearl discs around the top. The beaded wire fabric really draws your eye, lots of sparkly beads to look at. I didn't scrimp on the beads as you can see!

If you want to create something similar for yourself, I can give you some details that will help you estimate the materials you will need. This vase is 8" tall with a 10" circumference, so I needed to make a knitted wire panel 8"wide by 10" long. I took those measurements and used them to figure out the square inches, this helped estimate how many beads/wire I would need. So 8x10=80sq inches. I knew from my test swatch that I liked how it looked when I used approximately 15 beads per square inch. Let me just stop and talk about beads here for a moment, I used a variety of sizes from seed beads on up to around 10 mm. I chose a color palette of pinks, purples and blues and some beautiful Swarovski lead crystal, clear beads for extra sparkle. When I was stringing them, I counted groupings of smaller beads like the seed beads as one bead, so 3 seed beads = 1 regular bead. For this project I used nearly two 40 yard spools of 28 ga wire, I had probably 10 yards left over, but for something like this it's better to have too much than too little. So lets just use a nice round figure, two spools equal to 80 yards total divided by the 80 square inches of fabric created, means that for every knitted square inch, you will need approximately 1 yard of wire. Calculating the number of beads, as I said I used 15 per square inch, so 80 sq inches x 15 = 1200 beads. I strung half on each spool and wound it back around the spool to keep things tidy and organized, plus I used some iridescent beads and I wanted to protect that surface from getting scratched and banged around. So now, the last important detail, how many stitches to cast on? I used size 7 bamboo and for every inch of wire fabric I wanted to create, I cast on 5 stitches, so for my 10" circumference vase I cast on 50 stitches. Your gauge may be different, with something like this, it couldn't hurt to do a test swatch. When it was done, I sewed the butted up ends together with wire, and slipped it over the vase. I like that it comes off so that I can wash and dust the vase if I need to.

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

February Phat Fiber Sample Box

2011-01-26T16:30:00.003-05:00

I'm so completely excited to say that I am participating in the awesome Phat Fiber Sample box! I have already sent in my samples

for next months box, with the theme Gems and Jewels. I wont say too much more about it for the moment, but pop on over to Phat Fiber and check out all the creative indie fiber artists who are participating!

Hope your week is going wonderfully! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Wire Core Spinning!

2011-01-22T10:14:00.004-05:00

Hey artsy spinners, I found paddles of this pretty burgundy 24 ga wire, perfect for wire core spinning, in with the discontinued Christmas items. It was only .19 cents!!! I originally picked up two, then went back for more last night...good thing, there were only two left!!! (Kentwood store) Check your local craft store maybe there is hidden treasure mixed in with all the glittery poinsettias! It's gonna be wonderful for wire core spinning, if a little shiny wire peeks through, it will look pretty.

Spin-tastic Fibery Adventures!

2011-01-20T23:23:00.008-05:00

I've been totally immersed in all kinds of very satisfying fiber doings this week. I got an order for a custom spin, which was a real treat so I got to have some fiber play time, I really enjoyed myself! And by tomorrow this artsy skein will be dry enough to ship off to her new home. I ended up with 91 yards of chock full of pink lamb locks, metallic threads and ribbons, hand dyed silk cocoons, chiffon ribbons, and of course, sparkle in a beautiful palette of pinks! It was totally my kind of spin.

All dry now, or nearly so, I'm pleased with how this spun up and the recipient is too, and that's the big thing.

Another noteworthy fiber happening is this Lake Michigan In The Summer, spinning/felting batt, which is a collaboration between my shop and the shop of my good friend Via Verde Farm. We each have one listed in our shop, I really want to spin one of these, so I'm going to have to do up another for myself. The fiber is a gorgeous blend of alpaca and silk from Via Verde Farm and my hand dyed wool, mohair and silk noil.
I'm hoping to get in a little more spin time in the coming weeks, I've been away from it for a bit and I've really missed it, so that's one of my goals, the other is that I have set Thursday as my day to update the shop, so look for new fibery goodness every Thursday, with small updates here and there in between. Which reminds me, somebody talked me into the twitter thing...and I'll be trying my hand at that to see how it goes. If you would like to follow me (please) you can find me at TwirlyCurlyBird.

Have a wonderful, fiber-tastic weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Thanks Friends!

2011-01-13T23:48:00.007-05:00

It's been an eventful week, chock full of good friends and fiber adventures, and I've experienced so many generous moments, thanks everyone! I brought my Mum along with me to my Spinners Flock meeting, we both really enjoyed it. She was thrilled to cuddle a darling little jacob lamb named Bella. My Mum is always happiest when cuddling babies...this little one is no exception. You can just tell she's smitten! Me too, such a little cutie! Thanks Bella!

After the meeting, my friend Jan gifted me with generous heaps of fiber, including this mohair roving from her own goats. As you can see, I've been at the dye pots this week, I could not resist dying up some of the white mohair in my Big Blue Sky color Palette. Boy, I can hardly wait to get spinning! Thanks Jan!

I did not realize until Sunday morning, that I had received another bunch of fibery wonderfulness in the mail on Saturday. After we got home from our big trip to Spinners Flock (2.5 hour trip ,one way) Mum and I settled in for the evening, and I completely forgot to check the mail. I was thrilled on Sunday when I found this absolutely delicious, chubby parcel, chuck full of bling! My new friend Moe had gifted me with the remainder of her Pizzazz stash from when she had a shop! Oh Boy, the picture doesn't come close to doing it justice!!! Thanks Moe!

To top it all off, I went to visit my fiber buddy Tamara yesterday, and on the way out she produced these lovely strands of tiny pearl beads for me, I was even more excited when I got home and saw that they were PINK!!! (In the dim afternoon light, I thought they were champagne colored.) Thanks Tamara! (And also thank you for rescuing me and my car Trinket when we couldn't get up the hill, that's what friends are for, to give you that extra little umph, when you can't make it on your own!)

I am surrounded by wonderful friends who are generous in every way, especially generous of spirit, and that, I think you will agree, is the best kind of generosity!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Getting My Fiber Ducks In A Row

2011-01-07T11:31:00.007-05:00

This has been a week filled with all the little steps of preparation that go into working with fiber, a week of getting my fiber ducks in a row. I'm doing some mini batts, like those above which I made for my spinning friends. I hope they like the colors, my eye likes to see a lot of color, as you can tell.

Next, I dyed up some Wenslydale locks in my Vintage Velvet Flowers Palette, I want to hog them all for myself!!!

Ahhh, heavenly clouds of fluffy clean white alpaca, I could just dive in!

I added the finishing touches to my PixieDust fingerless gloves by crocheting a picot edge in the pink angora I dyed up just for this project, they make my hands happy!

So, that's a peek at my studio doings for the week, a lot of little stepping stones go into completing a project and I have enjoyed every bit of the process.

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Wet Felted Beads-Sparkly Fun!

2010-12-31T00:09:00.007-05:00

Fibery jewelry with lots of texture and shine, nothing wrong with that!

I've created these tubular beads ranging in size from around .5" to 1.5" using the wet felting technique of layering many feather thin wisps of fiber with lots of metallic threads, Angelina fiber, sari silk and other goodies nestled in between. The non felting fibers are trapped between the layers of feltable fiber creating beautiful pops of color and shine. I've made them with a generous 4mm hole for stringing them on hand spun for a funky, artsy flair. They would also be wonderful strung on a short length of fiber/yarn and used as a spin-in, and of course they already have a jewelry like quality and would be perfect for adding some fibery goodness to any jewelry design. These bead sets have already been listed in my Etsy shop, but I know I will making some for myself very soon!

Have a wonderful and safe weekend.
Happy New Year, Blessings Friends!

PixieDust Fingerless Gloves

2010-12-24T00:25:00.005-05:00

I've really been hankering for some fingerless gloves, my hands get so cold sometimes, I thought they would be nice and cozy for around the house as well as out in the big wide world. I spun up a batch of my PixieDust blend in worsted weight and with 70 yards had exactly enough to finish! I wasn't too worried, I was knitting two at a time on a circular, so I knew if I needed to I could mix in another color of hand spun if I ran low.

I dyed up this luscious angora fiber in a pretty, soft pink. I'm planning to spin this and crochet a fluffy trim around the cuff. It's on the roster as soon as I finish a couple of secret projects.

Wishing you all the best of the season and on into the New Year! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Twirly Curly Bird-Shop Update

2010-12-17T08:22:00.007-05:00

It's been a crazy busy week, normal for this time of year, it will settle down soon enough. It's been especially productive on the fiber front and I have added lots of goodies to the shop! Here's a tiny sampling.

I am now carrying one of my favorite all time spinning add-ins, Angelina! I have a few colors with plans to add more! Ooo, Ahhh, Sparkle!

I've added a few new items to the Spinners Candy section of the shop, new fiber palettes and art batts, lots of color and texture for spinning play!

I've put together a kit for those who want to do some pixie knitting of their own, it includes patterns for stockings hats and sweaters perfect for the wee folk in your neck of the woods. I've also included two balls of my PixieDust hand spun, one in lace weight and one in sport weight, the kit contains enough yarn for two sets of each pattern, plus tiny colorful hangers and diminutive little clothes pins, perfect for hanging your pixie knits. The hangers and clothes pins come in an artsy little keepsake tin.

Take a moment in this hectic holiday season to put your feet up,kick back and take a peek around the shop, I've created a coupon for my blog readers giving you 20% off, good for purchases through the rest of the month.

To use the coupon code:

Visit my etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/twirlycurlybird

First add an item(s) from my shop, to your cart and when you’re finished shopping,start the check out process.

Enter the code, CURLYBIRDEXPD2010 in the ‘notes to seller' and the email address where the revised invoice should be sent.

Complete the order but do NOT go to Paypal to pay.

You will receive a revised invoice, and a link to complete payment, via email reflecting the discount.

Have a great weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Textile Art Market

2010-12-10T16:00:00.003-05:00

(click to enlarge postcard)
Hello Fiber lovers! If you're local and want the opportunity to shop the wares of tons of talented fiber artists, stop by and visit us at the Prince Conference Center. I was helping set up earlier and there are so many beautiful items!

Have a great Weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Winter Wonder Art Yarn Scarf

2010-12-02T23:42:00.011-05:00

It's been a really creative week, I've been doing so much spinning and knitting, plus lots of other fiber related activities, which I always enjoy. On my list of things I wanted to get done were some scarves knitted with my hand spun art yarn. Those delicious thick yarns can really sparkle up a simple scarf.

It all started with this batt I blended up, Winter Wonder. Chuck full of super soft, creamy white and silver fibers, like angora, alpaca, mohair, wool, milk protein fiber and lamb locks. Providing tons of softness and sheen. For little wisps of color I added soft tones of my hand dyed, in blues, pinks and lilac. I also sprinkled in short lengths of some of my favorite novelty yarns, like Crystal Palace Stardust and Splash, they really gave the spin that jack frost touch. You can see the silvery splash dancing across the batt, looking very much like frost on a window pane. Plus shimmery Angelina for extra sparkle, like sunlight on an icicle.

I ended up spinning and plying four strands of wintery art yarn and plying them together with another Crystal Palace yarn, a super soft pure, beautiful white pom yarn, which I over wrapped with various styles of silver thread. Above is a close up of the yarn.

This is one of my latest creations, the Winter Wonder art yarn scarf. I'm really happy with how it turned out! When I finished knitting this, I noticed that it wanted drape in soft swirls. I decided to really play that up by weaving through ribbons of tulle (love tulle, can't get enough of it!!!) which I hand dyed in pale turquoise. (I've been playing with dying lots of synthetic fibers lately!)

I added Winter Wonder fringe to the ends and included some more tulle, I really like the effect. You can sort of see in this close up, the Winter Wonder fringe is knotted on the ends, creating these chunky little snowballs. It reminds me of the little balls of snow and ice that clung to my wool mittens as a child.Remember how your mitts would just be caked with little snow balls when you finally dragged yourself in from playing in the snow? What I find interesting about this scarf is that while it has these little whimsical touches, it is also artsy and beautiful. As always, I really enjoyed the creative process, it's cool how sometimes things work out better than you could have imagined or visualized at the start.

I hope you are all enjoying the fresh start to the new month and the fresh layer of the first snow (first for us) crisp and clean as we wind down this last month of the year and gear up for the new year to come. Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Hand Dyed Fabric-Upcycling

2010-11-26T11:05:00.008-05:00

I had fun experimenting with a new fiber this past week, and my upcycling friends will love this! I was thinking about a fabric to use for lining the gift boxes I made a few weeks back. Then I remembered something I learned from my multi-talented craft group ladies who are scrapbookers/paper crafters. They had painted dryer sheets and used them to embellish their art projects. I experimented with different pigments made for scrapbooking, but in the end I decided to try dyeing them with my fiber dyes. I wasn't sure the acid dye would work because this is a synthetic fiber and also because of the fabric softener residue left on the sheets. As you can see it worked out wonderfully! The colors turned out so beautiful and I left the rumpled textural look to the sheets when I affixed them inside the boxes. Gosh I love texture!

I found I was able to achieve a really great dimensional look by layering the fabric and applying dashes and swirls of shimmer on the multiple layers. This creates a neat effect, which doesn't quite photograph, it's very understated, but adds that extra little zing.

With some of the scraps I made these cute little Yo-Yos with buttons and sparkle trim. They will make great embellishments for my boxes and decorations, and they'll make a fun addition to gift tags too! I'm also saving up sheets/scraps for spinning into my art yarn, I'm hoping it will add a cool textural effect to my yarn too. I think I'll do a little test spin today!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa
P.S. My friend Tamara (Via Verde Farm) saved me a large sheet of similar material which came wrapped around a new appliance! Thought I'd pass this on to everyone since this is the season for giving and receiving electronics of all shapes and sizes so that you can be on the look out for upcycling opportunities of your own!

Icicles on My (Inside the) House Tree

2010-11-19T08:48:00.014-05:00

I know, it sounds kind of strange, right? Referring to my House Tree, so let me explain.

I stumbled across an image once, this was quite awhile ago, of a beautiful tree that someone had made to cover a support pillar in the middle of the room. I think it was made from paper mache, but picture something far more beautiful than the stuff we worked with as children. Anyway, I thought, I need a house tree too! I wanted something a little more portable and I was on the look out for the structure I had in mind to make my own paper mache house tree. Before that could happen, mother nature gave me the perfect little branches to create a house tree. I had an old enameled French flower bucket, and using plaster of paris, I securely set the branches in the base. Voila, House Tree. My idea was to use it as a display for pretty little collections of one type of item. Some of my past displays include old antique keys, curly birds (birds with curly feathers or long curly tails) and hanging tea light holders. Last year sometime, in one of my favorite catalogs, I saw some beautiful quartz crystals that had been made into hanging ornaments. They were sort of pricey, and I thought, I bet I can make some of those myself. So the idea of the icicle collection had it's germination. Being a big fan of icicles I had already made or collected a few, so I had a nice start. Here's how I work when putting these collections together, I gather the items I have that obviously fit into the category, and figure out how to hang them. But then, over the course of a few days, other, not so obvious items that fit the collection will come to mind and I add those too. It's a really enjoyable process, I'll stop, add an object, and go on about my work. Or sometimes it's just about looking at the collection as a whole and deciding where things can be better placed or maybe removing something that really doesn't fit after all. With that wordy explanation/introduction, here are pictures of the House Tree all decked out in icicles, it's my favorite color, shiny! (click on any of the photos to enlarge)

(L)The tree with full branches (R) One of the crystal icicles next to a wire icicle

The quartz crystal and lead crystal garlands

The long dangling icicle is actually a rhinestone necklace of my mums, I added a tear drop lead crystal

On the left is another of my wire icicles and one of my most favorite is on the right, a stunning aurora borealis necklace, more of Mum's bling from glamorous days of yore!

If you would like to make your own quartz crystal garland/ornaments, it's simple. I just used E6000, my favorite go to adhesive for jewelry design, to attach little silver rings to the crystals. Once dry, they're ready to hang individually or as I have, as a garland.

Have a wonderful, sparkling weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Lots of Fiber Fun!

2010-11-12T05:06:00.011-05:00

It's been a busy fiber week, lots of projects and experimentation. I did an extreme tail spin yarn with some of my baby lamb locks, it turned out soft and fluffy. I have two long strands which I ended up spinning and plying on my spindle, it was just too chubby to fit through the orifice on my wheel, even the jumbo orifice on the plying flier! I love how this spun up and I have been swaddling fluffy curly lengths of it round my neck as a scarf, it's so cozy warm and luxurious feeling!

Next up, some more tail spinning, I've done another PixieDust blend, and this time I spun in some of the lamb locks dyed in soft gorgeous shades of pink! (my favorite color) I'm tempted to keep this for myself, but it is destined for the shop. I know I'll be whipping up some more of this yarn, it was super fun to spin.

I started knitting this scribble scarf yesterday, using some of my hand spun coils and my gumball yarn. It knits up really fast, I'm using some of the pink mohair I received a while back from katie7, in the shawl exchange group on Ravelry, it's a perfect base yarn for this project!

Also on the to do list for this week was to make up little window boxes for the spin-ins I have listed in the shop. I'm loving how they turned out and they will keep the spin-ins tidy and safe until they reach their new homes.

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Wet Felting Fun

2010-11-05T10:00:00.005-04:00

I've been having so much fiber fun lately, dyeing, spinning and felting. Yesterday was another big dye-fest, once I get started, I want to keep going. Next thing you know the drying racks are chuck-full and am forced to pause long enough to let the fiber dry. Which gave me a good opportunity to update my spinning/dyeing journal. I keep track of my dye recipes and color blends along with spin combinations and new types of fiber I've spun. For each new submission to my journal, I sew in swatches so that I have a nice little visual reminder.

Once I got the journal caught up with my latest dye blends, I decided to try some more wet felting. I've had this idea for a long skinny scarf floating around in my noggin and thought I'd give it a go last night. I used merino, alpaca, silk, mohair, finn/merino, wenslydale lamb locks and of course some sparkle. I positioned some of the locks so that they came off the edges of the scarf. It ended up working out nicely, with cute little curly locks popping off everywhere.

I love how the silk strands formed beautiful shimmering streams on the topography of the scarf. There is a nice soft hand to the fabric too, with a very inviting textural surface imparted by all the various fibers I used. The other project I wet felted used mostly merino and had a much smoother surface, I liked that look too. But the softness created by this blend is perfect for a scarf. I think I will embellish it further by using some silver floss to stitch patterns onto the surface.

These felted beads are what I like to call a happy accident. I tried one of those short cut methods I read about for scouring fiber...I should know better by now. Some things just can't be rushed. It really ended up taking longer using the "short cut" method! Plus some of my alpaca started to tangle and felt. I was able to gently separate/open up most of the tangled fiber. Some of it, the messiest, I decided to use either for wet felting or felted beads. You can see I went for the beads. I dyed the tangled locks, originally white fiber from Birch at Lonesome Oak Alpacas, adding all my favorite color combinations. Alpaca dyes up so beautifully. I love felting beads, it's so addictive. By the time I forced myself to walk away, my hands were shriveled prunes! I enjoyed it so much that when the tangled locks were used up, I started looking for more fiber to felt. That's when I said to myself, OK Miss, that's enough, walk away! The largest beads are about the size of a ping pong ball, the smallest about the size of a pea.

I hope you are all spinning and knitting up a storm too, it's good weather for it as the temperature begins to drop.
Have a terrific weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

New Etsy Shop

2010-10-29T09:40:00.003-04:00

Hi folks, it's been a crazy busy week! With tons of fiber happenings and lots of other stuff going on too. I guess the big news is that I finally got around to opening an Etsy shop! I've been meaning to do this for some time now, and with our guilds Textile Art Market coming up, I wanted to have the shop set up so that I could include it in the contact information on my product. The shop is mainly geared toward fiber arts, but I will be adding some other little non fiber gift items in the future. For the moment I have just a few goodies listed but that will be changing soon, as I have dyed up some fibery goodness which I plan on listing early next week. Here's a sample of the goodies.

These charming little Dancing Flower Faeries fall into a category I'm calling Spinners Candy. Each one of these cuties was painstakingly hand stitched for quality and durability. I wanted to be sure that they were spin friendly and water friendly. These will make a great spin-in or tie on for your handspun. They would also be lovely hung as a decoration for those places around the house which are calling for a little faerie magic.

Also a spin-in/tie on, these HotHouse Flowers are made from silk cocoons. I hand painted each little piece and fashioned them into fun, bright, flowers.

Under the Knitters Candy category I have these pretty little stitch markers in a cute little decorative bottle with a cork stopper. I originally came up with little sets like this to give as gifts to my friends, and have been thinking that others may like them as well. The set includes 6 stitch markers made with gorgeously colored glass, crystal, metallic and semi-precious beads. The markers feature a trigger clasp so that you can easily move or remove your marker while you're working. Rather than having to knit around to it like the fixed ring markers.

So, that's a little peek at some of what I've been up to this week. If you are interested you can visit my Etsy shop here; TwirlyCurlyBird plus if you're local you may be interested in the Textile Art Market coming up in December.

Happy Halloween! Have a great weekend. Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Warm Woolies For The Local Pixies

2010-10-22T00:00:00.000-04:00

I decided to do a little pixie-knittin' this week. It's getting colder around here, I thought the wee folk could use some fresh warm clothes. I looked through my stash for the skinniest yarns I could find and they were all too big for my purpose. Then I remembered that I was a spinner and I can make any size yarn I need, silly me! So I gathered a glorious collection of colors, fibers and sparkly za-za-zing and spun this gossamer strand of pure happiness. I'm calling it Pixie Dust. I think the faeries will love it.

While I was waiting for the yarn to dry, I whipped up a little acorn bag from some of my other hand dyed spinnings.

Finally the yarn was dry and I was able to work up a pattern for this petite pair of stockings. My eyes are very happy, boy do I love color!

Next came a wee little sweater. This is a new pattern too, I couldn't locate the one I made up last year. Now that I've written another, it will turn up. This sweater, knitted up in my Pixie Dust yarn is so tiny, it makes the other sweaters look like they're monster size! I have some more knitting to do for the faeries, more hats, scarves, socks and sweaters are in the works. I've spun up some more Pixie Dust in a slightly bigger yarn, I can't wait to start knitting with that. I may have to spin a sock weight Pixie Dust and make some stockings for myself. This kind of fun should really be illegal, I'm a total yarn geek people! Clap if you believe!

I hope you have the best weekend ever! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Berry Tea Cozy (UFO Becomes FO!)

2010-10-15T01:00:00.000-04:00

Yea, another finished object to cross off my list of lingering projects. I started this tea cozy over two years ago...maybe longer. I can't really remember why I set it aside, but it ended up in my spinning room up on top of a tall cupboard, I kind of forgot about it, until those times I used my giant tea pot, then I'd think, hey I should finish that cozy. I was forced to squeeze my existing cozy over the tea pot, which made it look like I had a little pig hidden underneath there, cute but a little snug. It didn't take too long to complete, I was almost finished knitting it when it got put up.

I fulled it, decided I didn't love the original idea I'd had, then I cut it up and refashioned it into this design. My original plan was to embroider berries and vines around the body in the upper solid border to match the Juliska, Berry and Vine pattern of the tea pot. I've mulled it over for about three weeks now, and decided not to add any embroidery. It's done, and it works quite nicely, it keeps the tea nice and hot while it's steeping and it's my favorite color, pink!

I bought another fleece this last weekend. I've been blabbing about it all over, so it's not really news at this point, but there is another little story to go along with this. I was sorting the wool (Wensleydale) in the garage, the lawn service has full reign of the neighborhood on Mondays so I had to work inside. I was standing there near the side door, the fleece all spread out on a large screen, sorting it into mesh laundry bags for scouring. I had my ipod in one ear and I was quietly singing along. (I hope I was quiet) I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked to the left, nothing, I though it was my hair...you know how you see your hair out of the corner of your eye...So I'm working away and I've been standing there for a couple of hours, doing my thing. Suddenly, I get the feeling I'm not alone, I turn toward the side door and I'm not kidding or exaggerating at all, there are eight teeny little red squirrels surrounding the door! They were scattered on the stairs to the left of the door, in front of the door and also to the right side of the door!!! It startled the heck out of me! I chortled out a little startled..ahh! They didn't budge! It was amazing, they were so interested in what I was doing. I had to yell and stamp my feet and fuss and even then not all of them scattered! A couple of them needed an extra, SCOOT! I wonder if one of the little squirrels happened by and saw me standing there, heard me singing my little songs and smelled all sheepy goodness, then went and told his little squirrel buds, "You have got to come and check this out, you wont believe it...I don't even know what it is!" Those little buggers kept coming back too, not all at once, it was more of a squirrel at a time, drive by situation. The little rascals! I was so worried they were going to get into the garage without my noticing. I still have some bags of fleece stored in there which might temp a furry critter to set up housekeeping for the winter. After I gave myself whiplash glancing over my shoulder every two seconds, I remembered I had other screens and put one in front of the door to block the entrance. Crazy little squirrels, I didn't even know there were that many of them in the neighborhood! I wish I'd had my camera...

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

A New Ditty Bag!

2010-10-07T23:17:00.007-04:00

I have been fooling around with felting for awhile now, mostly regular old ordinary, knit it big, felt it till it's small. I've seen so many beautiful felted projects using both the nuno and wet felting techniques, I was excited to dive in! I first tried nuno felting...while both attempts did not work out how I envisioned, (in other words, the way it was suppose to) I absolutely loved the resulting felted noodles and wild fabric. I'm definitely percolating away, thinking up a project for them. In the mean time I saw some really great tutorials and I was able to see all the steps I needed to be successful in this project. I can see now that earlier tutorials I peeked in on were not as thorough in showing all the steps and tips. If you would like to check out the tutorials, you'll find them here at Felting Lessons. You wont be disappointed! I really, really want to get busy on the nuno felting, but I need to get some silk chiffon, the silk scarves I have are not quite gauzy enough. In the mean time, I played with wet felting. I just did a small test swatch to begin with, it started out 12x20 and felted down to about 6x16. Of course I wanted to make something with it right away! I put together this new ditty bag to hang on my wheel. I recycled the little crocheted pouch that holds the oil for my wheel and the crocheted posies too. I stitched the pouch in, tucked over to one side to keep the oil securely in an upright position, and you can see that I attached the posies to the bottom of the ditty bag.

I was pleased I was able to find a way to incorporate the old oil pouch. I crocheted it using some of my very first hand dyed, hand spun yarn. Of course I had to add some vintage mother of pearl buttons from the old button box! All and all I'm pleased with my first attempt at wet felting, those tutorials made all the difference. I have a lot of ideas for this medium and I can hardly wait to get rolling on them! If only there were more hours in the day!

Have a delightful weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Blackrose Wristlets

2010-10-01T12:12:00.003-04:00

I took a little break this week from my UFO round up to spin and knit these cozy wristlets. The pattern is from knitty, check it out here if you're interested, the pattern is for socks and wristlets. It's a quick easy pattern, great for gift knitting. I was concerned that I might not have enough fiber to knit them as long as the pattern suggested, so I knit them both at the same time using the magic loop technique. I started with 1.25 ounces of raw fiber from my friend Tamara at Via Verde Farm, which spun into close to 300 yards of two ply lace weight. The fiber came from her beautiful little cria, Delphine. I did end up shortening the length slightly from 7.5 to 6.5, then I switched to a darker brown for the ribbing and crocheted a petite picot edge to finish. The dark alpaca I used is also from Via Verde.

Here's the little cutie that provided the lovely fiber, look at that sweet face! It spun up into a nice lace weight two ply, just spinning from the washed locks. Such soft cozy fiber and it has a beautiful halo too. By spinning it from the lock I was able to maintain the natural variation of color in this little guys fleece. I was pleased with how they knitted up and I happily presented them to Tamara so she could have a little keepsake from Delphine's first shearing.

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

UFO Round Up-Sari Silk Satchel

2010-09-24T10:56:00.005-04:00

Yea, another UFO becomes a FO! I have been working on this one for awhile. I had to set it aside while I waited for more recycled sari silk yarn to arrive. Then I needed to get around to sewing the original liner which was in silk brocade. However when I saw it inside the bag...I didn't like them together. (Nice, now I have a liner for another satchel, so no worries!)

I eventually decided on denim, then I got the idea to recycle a pair of jeans. Turned outside in, I sewed the liner to fit, keeping all the pockets for compartments inside the satchel. Even the belt loops will function as a place to clip my keys. It was a difficult task because the sewing machine was so temperamental and the distance between the pressure foot and the feed dogs on the weird, off-brand machine of my Mum's is so narrow that I had to manually push/draw the fiber through, not fun. I must to admit to having more than a few harsh words for the sewing machine! Plus toward the end of the project, the bobbin tension went crazy and created all those lovely loops on the underside of the fabric...NUTS!!! But now it is complete, it's not as professionally sewn as I like to see, but I opted for finishing it as opposed to letting it hang out till I got the machine tuned up. I will definitely have to look into a new sewing machine! The nice thing about sewing is that I can always redo the parts that need tweaking later. But for now, I'm calling this one done! Another UFO crossed off the list, Yippee!

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

UFO Round Up-Scarflet With Vintage Buttons

2010-09-17T09:30:00.006-04:00

I'm so excited to be back working on my projects again!!! I decided that before I start a new project, I will round up my UFOs and finish them. I have four knitting projects, one crochet and one sewing project to complete. I'm happy to say that I completed two of my knitting, one of which may still receive some surface embellishment, so I'm not posting that one (felted tea cozy) yet. Plus I finished knitting and lining a satchel I was working on. I need to find/make a buckle for the strap, once I know the size of the buckle, I can whip up the strap and attach it! So though technically it's not done, the hardest part, lining it, is. I'm in the home stretch on this one, so I'm calling it 95% complete.

This little cutie is 100% complete! My Scarflet with Vintage Buttons. I love how this turned out, it's knitted with Mini Mochi in #102 Flame Rainbow, using size three needles. ( I always google the color number to see what the name of the yarn is. I wish they would print it on the label.) It's a cozy, soft merino blend which is perfect for snuggling around your neck to keep the chilled winds at bay

One of the reasons I'm so excited about this project, aside from finishing it, is the BUTTONS! I was able to use some of my vintage buttons for the closure, and also for embellishment. I have a few little jars of buttons I magpied from the old button box when I was a kidlet. Thank goodness I was such a little button hound, when I was in my early twenties, my folks house caught fire and the gigantic button box was destroyed. As I was going through my closets and drawers when we were cleaning out the house, I kept coming across little baggies, old ring boxes and change purses stashed with pretty little buttons! I had completely forgotten about them, it was a nice surprise. I don't want to give you the impression that I have pounds of old buttons, it probably adds up to about a cups worth. But little Melissa had a good eye and chose some of the prettiest buttons! It was nice to be able to use some of them in this scarflet project.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Annis

2010-09-10T11:09:00.003-04:00

I have to confess, I have hardly done any knitting and absolutely no spinning in a couple of weeks, that's just not like me. I got sideswiped by a pesky germ of some sort and I have been out of commission, yuck! I have thought a lot about spinning and knitting though, it actually gave me some time to sort through the many projects I have wanted to work up. One that is definitely at the top of the list is a lovely little shawl pattern from Knitty, called Annis. I decided to spin up some more of this recycled sari silk, I think it will make a pretty Annis shawl. The sample below is single ply, so I think I will do a little test knit to see if it's durable enough knitted as a single or if it needs to be plied.

Pretty pattern huh? I'd better get spinning!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Ravelry World Wide Shawl Exchange

2010-09-03T11:52:00.005-04:00

Now that my swap partner has received her parcel, I can post pictures of the shawl I knit for her. My out going shawl went all the way to Germany! I knit Nicole the Andrea Shawl, with just a couple of additions, I added a beaded row in dragonfly colors and a simple yo row bordered by purl rows. I added these elements to the body of the shawl where it was otherwise solid st st.

I also received my shawl from Katie, who lives in France! She knit me this wonderful stole, which has a lovely drape and soft hand. I was so excited to receive this beauty!

If you are interested in participating in the next exchange, you can find out more about the Ravelry group here; RWSE2
It's a wonderful, nicely organized shawl exchange, I highly recommend it! I was introduced to the group by my friend Jeannie on Ravelry, who is one of my birthday twins.

Have a delightful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Lightning Bugs In A Summer Garden

2010-08-27T09:01:00.007-04:00

Yea, my fiber exchange project is complete! I used all the different yarn I spun to knit up this circular shawl and I am super pleased with how it turned out. I was really mindful of all the colors as I added them in, all the while wondering how harmonious the final composition would look. I was concerned that I might over play my hand in the color department, I like to see a lot of color, but didn't want it to come out looking like I knit it for clown!

Pictured above unblocked, the shawl measures 50" across. The pattern I used is called MorPork Pie, by MMario, it's an awesome pattern and an easy knit. I used large needles, size 15, to accommodate the various art yarns I used. This gave even the chunkier yarns a lacy look. I worked the pattern pretty much as written, adding occasional straight knitting rows where I needed them to help transition the art yarns. I left off the pattern at row 80 and added my own border, it was already plenty large enough!

Here I've got it all blocked out, which itself was a labor of love, morphing from one irregular circle to another as I slowly moved it into a nice circle. You can't imagine how pleased I was when it measured the same distance across when checking multiple cross sections. It went from 50" unblocked to 66" fully blocked. The shadowy line you see whispering through the right hand side is from the loose tails of the weave-ins. I wove in all the ends, but did not snip them until after it was off the blocking wires. I wanted to make sure I had room make adjustments if needed, to blend the weave-in section to the pattern if I found I had gone too loose or too tight while sewing in the tails. It all worked out thankfully!

Nicely fluttering in the breeze, I love all the colors and it was really educational working with so many new (to me) fibers. This project includes Blue Faced Leicester, Finn, Merino, Alpaca, Romney, Cheviot, Jacob, and Mohair. Plus my add-ins of Angelina and the Indonesian Silk cocoons I dyed and spun into one yarn. I'm pleased to have this project completed, but it was such an enjoyable process I almost hated for it to end. Good thing I have other projects calling to me!

Have a delightful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Mixing Up The Colors!

2010-08-20T09:33:00.007-04:00

I've been diligently working away on the Fiber Exchange project, I was nearly finished crocheting this lovely flouncy jacket when I realized I had looked at the wrong number for yardage and that I may not have enough to finish. I have plenty of yardage from the exchange spinning, but I was concerned that I would get to the point where I was having to use the colors I had left instead of the colors that would look best. I thought about starting over and using a giant crochet hook, however while I was unraveling row after row of crochet I had time to mull it over. I decided that I would save crocheting this awesome jacket for a future project and use one color/colorway rather than having the granny square effect I got using all the different colors from the exchange. It crochets super fast and it's a wonderfully written pattern, I can hardly wait to dye up some fiber and spin for this project, but first things first. I've got some knitting to do. I went back to my original idea for this project and I'm knitting right along, not too many more rows to go!

One thing I discovered while crocheting my way through the first pattern was that I needed to make some color adjustments. All the fiber was beautifully colored, but some did not blend nicely side by side. In particular the natural brown fibers, while beautiful on their own, to my eye, they did not flow as harmoniously with the other dyed fiber as I would have liked.

This was originally a brown alpaca/merino blend, I dyed it with my stone washed blue mix and a little accent of purple heart throb mix. I was really pleased with the results!

Pictured above is the original color of the Romney fiber I received, I had spun up two different yarns with this, a thin two ply (above) and a thick and thin single (below.) I left the thin yarn as is.

I over-dyed the chunkier yarn, using my capricious blue green mix accented with turquoise. It gave the yarn a great depth and it looks wonderful knitted in my project.

This was another of the natural browns, it's BFL, you can still see segments where the natural color is peeking out. I dyed it a nice rich grassy color mix that really enhances the beautiful natural brown and it coordinates nicely with the other colors in the project.

I'm knitting away on the current pattern, it's coming out nicely and I will be done in plenty of time for when the fiber exchange folks gather for show and tell.

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Fiber Exchange Update

2010-08-13T10:32:00.013-04:00

Ooo, I have been having so much fun with this project! You may remember the ombre gradient fiber I dyed, pictured above. I spindle spun and wheel plied this yummy fiber. Before I spun it though, I mixed in some sparkle!

Picture here in the pull skein, you can get a better feel for the color gradation. I ended up separating it into three pull skeins, light-med-dark, this is making it easier to show the gradation in my project.

I decided to blend the two fibers I contributed to the project. The blue is a mohair/fine wool blend and the chartreuse is alpaca. I used my home made hackle to blend the colors and of course I added in some sparkle! If you're interested in this blending process, there are tons of tutorials on youtube, search the term Fiber Blending Hackle. There are also a lot of directions available for making your own including this one which gives you all of the information on how to make and use one yourself, all in one spot. It's such a wonderful tool, nice for quick blending and it offers those of us without a drum carder the ability to blend our own artsy fiber mixes!

I'm so pleased with the color combination and how it spun up.

Using the same singles, I also plied a smaller skein with Indonesian Silk cocoons which I dyed in three different shades. I strung them onto a variegated denim cotton thread, looping each one in place, then I plied them all together.

I had one remaining bundle of white fiber, which I'd set aside when I dyed the others. I was waiting to see if I needed a white in my mix or possibly another color. As you can see, I decided to dye it. I used a similar pallet with the blue-greens, but also added a new blue and of course some pink.

Before I plied, I wound one of the singles onto a new bobbin so that they would ply together in the opposite color order. I love the colors! I'm sort of kicking myself now for not adding more colors to the other white roving(s) I dyed, you live, you learn!

This project is coming right along, I'm already working away on my garment. I've been doing a little more dyeing too. (more next time)

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, keep cool!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Wire Core Spin Along

2010-08-06T12:26:00.011-04:00

This months spin along in the Art Yarn Spinners Group on Ravelry is wire core yarn. When I saw all the cool, beautiful, inspiring spins, I just had to give it a try myself. What a blast! These first two photos are two views of the same yarn, my first wire core spin.

Doodle Yarn (view 1 above, v2 below)

And even though I have another great spin project I am already working on, I could not resist some more playing with this technique! After spinning, I shaped this yarn into the curls and twirls that I love to see, it reminded me of a bright beautiful doodle, which seemed like the perfect name...Doodle Yarn.

Doodle Bracelet 1

When we were having show and tell at my spinning group, I showed them my first wire core spin, it was all coiled up to keep it from spronging everywhere and getting tangled, my spin friend Tamara said it would make a great bracelet! That really stuck with me, so when I did my second spin, I fashioned the doodle wire into these two Doodle Bracelets. They're fun to wear, very whimsical, which is totally my cup of tea!

Doodle Bracelet 2

If you're a spinner, or you just like art yarn, you should check out the Novelty and Art Yarn Spinners group, you'll be completely inspired by the artists in the group, as I always am! And if you're not a spinner, but want to own some unique, fabulous yarn to knit with or to just feast your eyes on, you will find that a number of the spinners are big time sellers/instructors with their own shops!

Have a great weekend! Blessings friends!
Melissa

Spindle Spun

2010-07-30T11:45:00.003-04:00

This is the latest spin (in progress) from the fiber exchange. The fiber is a blend of Cheviot and Jacob wool which I hand dyed in an ombre gradation. My plan is to ply the two singles from light to dark. I started this on the spindle one stormy day when it was too wet to take Mirabelle (my wheel) to the spinning group. I considered transferring it to a bobbin when I got back home, but I thought it would be nice to have at least on skein of spindle spun/plied yarn in this project. It's been slow going in the spinning world, I've had a number of gift projects to finish which has interrupted my spinning progress. I don't feel too bad though, since I enjoy knitting as much as I do spinning!

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Fresh Spinning!

2010-07-23T14:14:00.004-04:00

Ahh, fresh spinning! Here are my first four skeins from the fiber exchange project.

The green on the far left is the Chevoit/Jacob blend that I dyed, I spun it using thick and thin spun single with a first time (for me) technique of Crescents. To ply, I used a single which was spun fine with the same fiber and a strand of metallic thread.
The multi-colored blue-green-chartreuse was spun as a thick and thin single then plied with a finely spun single to give the yarn that yummy, wiggly look.
Next is the Mohair/black lamb blend, I spun both singles as a lace weight, but I added some purple iris sparkle, which goes nicely with the beautiful silver mohair.
The last skein is mystery blend fiber, called the beast, I spun it using the super coil technique.

I'm really enjoying myself, it's great working with all the different fibers, and figuring out how best to spin them.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Fiber Exchange Beginnings

2010-07-16T12:29:00.006-04:00

Check out all this yummy fiber. The guild I belong to had a fiber exchange, there was a predetermined number of participants and we each brought enough of our fiber to share two ounces each with the other participants. The idea being that we would meet back and share our creations. It will be so cool to see what the other spinners have created! The roving with the green, turquoise and chartreuse was hand dyed by a young fella who looked about 10 (but I could be way off), his mom dyed the beautiful purple, they're good color pickers! My eye is full! It's so great to see parents passing on hand working skills/love to their young people.

We received such a nice variety of fiber too including, Mohair/black lamb, Blue Face Leicester, Finn/Merino, Alpaca, Romney and Chevoit/Jacob. Originally I was thinking I'd blend them and create some of my art rovings, but after considering all the different breeds represented, I decided to spin them separately, maintaining the original qualities of each fiber type. With the leftover singles, however, I will ply the different fiber types together. I'm really excited to have a garment with all these different fiber incorporated!

When I had all the fiber out on the table, I decided to pull some of the whites for dyeing I wanted to add some more blues and blue-greens to the mix and of course a bit more of lovely chartreuse.

I was really pleased with the way the colors came out and I think they will blend nicely with the other dyed and naturally colored rovings from the exchange. I've already been spinning away, and I did sneak in a little sparkle, with plans for more, it's good to have a little sparkle right?

Have a wonderful weekend! Blessings Friends!

The Finish Line (or very near)

2010-07-09T11:06:00.008-04:00

Whew, there were times when I felt like I'd never get this spun. I checked my notes and I started this project back in April, but actually it goes back even a bit farther, before I could begin the dyeing I had to sort, scour and hand pick (clean out any remaining vegetation/open the fibers for carding)all the fiber. I loved mixing all the dyes for this batch of fiber, yum! And watching the pink fiber goodness dry like delicious fluffy jewels, was exciting. It took some time, between life and other projects to card together all the different fibers components. Then for a while I had three nice fat bobbins of art singles waiting for me to get my caboose in gear and spin up three more bobbins of simple, skinny singles so I could ply them.

I now have a combined 969 yards of 14 wpi Lt Fingering yarn, the skeins weigh a combined total of 14 7/8 ounces. More than enough for the beautiful pattern I have in mind to knit, more on that later. I have only one more loose end to tie up with this spin, I also dyed some Indonesian silk cocoons if you remember back to the fiber I started out with, and I'm trying to decide how to incorporate them into the project. This will have to bubble away on the back burner for a bit longer, I've started working on the fiber from a fiber exchange now. A bunch of us from the guild (Spinners Flock) that I belong to, brought enough fiber so that we could trade 2 ounces each with the other participants, with the idea that we will meet back and share how we all used the fiber. We ended up with such a nice assortment of fiber, I'd better save the details for next time!

Have a great weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa

Multnomah Update

2010-07-02T09:33:00.008-04:00

Just thought I'd update the Multnomah shawl, I finished knitting the shawl awhile back and posted pictures, but it just didn't feel like it was finished. It languished, folded nicely over the back of my office chair, waiting for me to figure out what to do next, I hadn't even woven in the ends, thinking I might need to unknit something. I knew I wanted to add a few rows along the top edge, but should I get fancy, add width? In the end I kept the width the same and kept it fairly simple, some garter rows book ending two or three yarn over rows, finished with a knitted picot bind off. The yarn is all my hand spun and where you see color, my hand dyed. The pictures don't really capture all the yummy hand spun goodness, you'll just have to take my word for it! I have to give credit to my wonderful fiber friends, who are my good friends first and fiber aficionados as well! This fiber is a blend of super soft alpaca from Lonesome Oak Alpaca (Kim,Kevin and the boys)and angora from Critterville Woolery (Jan).

So now she is all done! Since we've been having a bit of cool sunny weather here in our part of Michigan, I've had a couple opportunities to wear it already!

I hope you have a delightful holiday weekend!
Blessings Friends!
Melissa