Tag Archives: spinning

Why didn’t I think of that?

Fall

Fall on my mother’s hill

Although it’s 95 here, I am sure fall is coming. At least the mornings are cool. And I love fall. It’s also the season for all the grasses. I never really appreciated grasses until I studied the prairie system. The other day I was driving along a neighborhood street and saw one pink muhly plant in the flowerbed. Beautiful! All the grasses are showing off right now.

Pink Muhly

Pink Muhly

Unknown grass

Unknown grass

So, my plan is to get in a bit of outside time in the mornings. After all, I did NOT resist the bag of 100 daffodils at Costco. Funny…I have no volunteers to help me plant them either.

In the why-didn’t-I-think-about-that department–I’ve been doing a bit of spinning and not really enjoying it. In fact I was thinking of selling my wheel and getting another one. As they say, duh! I suddenly remembered that this wheel has three ratios. I switched to the middle one (I was spinning in the largest one), and what a difference it made. That pound of bluish roving may go faster after all. Then I can move on to the burgandy-ish pound. Then I can start on the undyed churro roving. How great is that!

Ikat experiments and more

Grocery shopping

Grocery shopping

No, this picture has nothing to do with ikat, I just like it. This is the painting on the refrigerated box for a drink that I don’t remember the name of. Judging from the picture, it must’ve been a fruit drink, right?

Left: cartoon, Right: weaving

Left: cartoon, Right: weaving

So, ikat experiments–You can see it all in the above picture. I’ve recorded the info on the  cartoon; the cartoon is 6 inches, the woven is 2.5 inches. The yarn was measured in 1/4 inch increments for this experiment, so it makes since that this ratio is more than double the ratio for 1/2 inch measuring. The other cartoon with all its angles is not turning out very well. Maybe those need to be measured in 1/8 inch increments, something that I will have to think long and hard about.

spinning and roving

spinning and roving

…and then there’s the spinning. About a pound of Romney roving rests on the floor beside the spinning wheel.

Circular-warped Mirrix

Circular-warped Mirrix

… and the newly warped Mirrix, warped in a circular way without the use of the warp bars. Another experiment.

small pieces

small pieces

… and the small pieces I wove, oh, maybe a year ago. I trimmed them and dumped them in water. Next I’ll hem and stitch them to a canvas. Another experiment….

 

 

 

DFW Fiber Fest 2013

Overall So, how do you go to FiberFest and come home with a spinning wheel? You try it out and get hooked. Saturday my sister and I went to FiberFest DFW. She bought yarn
(we spent lots of time in the Madtosh booth–gorgeous yarns!) and I was feeling rather proud of myself for not buying any.The Madelaine Tosh yarns are wonderful! Creatively dyed, great fibers.

Then I tried out the Country Country-spinner Spinner. Even though this wheel is designed for bulky yarns, it worked just fine for finer yarns that I want to spin. And the bobbin holds over two pounds of yarn! spinning-wheel I bought the wheel from Gritty Knits, a vendor located near Houston. Since this wheel comes in a box, I am grateful that Natasha has been willing to answer questions. spinning-wheel-parts2

Aji-de-gallina On the way home from our outing, we stopped by a new place to both of us, a Peruvian restaurant called Ñusta’s Café. Because G and I used to like to try out new places, I would put possibilities in my Evernote file, making them handy when we were out and about. Mariscos The food was delicious! We’re going to go again to try other menu items.

Today I am sorting through colors of already dyed yarns so that I can make a list of what colors I need to dye for the next project. I also have to go back to Fedex because the enlargements they made for me are all the wrong size. It was written on each page what the size should be. That’s what I get for leaving them there instead of waiting for them. Such a waste of paper!