Category Archives: Tools

Studio

Loom with baskets to hold yarn on wall.

Loom with baskets to hold yarn on wall.

Yarn, yarn everywhere. The baskets holding yarn are the baskets used at swimming pools to hold your belongings while you’re swimming. The only thing I’ve bought on eBay. Below is the loom facing a different direction, moved with the help of super sliders. Notice all the lights. Still necessary. Studio-before

I tried wrapping in muslin for a while.

I tried wrapping in muslin for a while.                                 

This is how they are wrapped now.

This is how they are wrapped now.

Yarn guardian made by my son.

Yarn guardian made by my son.

DFW Fiber Fest 2014

What's on the loom

What’s on the loom

It was about this time last year, the time of DFW Fiber Fest, when I bought a new spinning wheel. I only wish I had known how stressful it would have been to put together. I had everything together but one pin that was supposed to go through the spinning-wheel-parts2 hub of the wheel and a hole in the crank (or whatever that’s called). I could not get it to go in. I finally had to put it aside because of all the other stuff going on. And it stayed aside for a year. Until Saturday. I took the wheel and the very kind husband of the couple who own the shop, fixed it. And there was a special trick to it. So there! Country-spinner

I also took some fleeces to Gail of Ozark Carding Mill, so that she can turn it into roving. There’s something sad about this, though. After my fleeces (2 churro and 2 mohair) are prepared, the mill equipment will be dismantled. Although this mill has Ozark in it’s name, it is located in Oklahoma, not too far from the Texas border. I wish there was a mill in Texas. Gail was there as Gail’s Fiber Delights, and she does have some really beautiful fibers.

Now for part three of this Fiber Fest saga. I met a really nice couple who are the owners of Mohair and More. Mohair-and-more I was excited to see their booth because they had ball winders that I’ve been wanting to try out. These ball-winder guys are expensive, and I certainly did not want to spend a bucket of money for one without trying it out. They forgot their business cards, so I took a pic of a label on a swift. This particular swift is metal with pegs that slide for different sizes of skeins. If I didn’t like my squirrel cage so much, I’d be tempted. Fiber-Fest

Value

Ruby-Beholder

Ruby Beholder

magenta

Magenta yarns

Yarns-blk-wht

Black and white of the magenta yarns

In a rag weaving workshop, I remember the instructor saying that when you don’t like the colors in a design, it most often is because of value. And that’s the first time I heard of the Ruby Beholder.

Usually you just know if a color doesn’t go with the others, there are other ways to check the value in the colors we choose. I took a black and white photo, thinking of the gray scale, but you can use an actual gray scale finder. Still another way is to use red or green filters. The handy tools come to us mostly from the world of quilters.

Gray Scale

Filters

Gray scale

Gray scale

While looking at my magenta yarns again the other day, I decided to get out the color wheel. When I pulled open the drawer that held it, I found something better, the 3-in-1 tool by Joen Wolfrom.

3-in-1

Color Tool

3-in-1-pages

Color tool contents

This tool has separate pages for lots of colors, from yellow green to aqua green, with all of their variations on little color rectangles on each page, AND there are also two filters, both green and red. If you want to read a bit more, all of the tools can be found on Amazon here.