Monday's Inspiration

With the last of my green alpaca and some odd novelty wool in my stash, I wove a piece of fabric and felted it. This morning the creative process did not disappoint.

 

 

 

And this is all that's left

 

Scarf In A Day Class in Ruidoso

Last week I taught my "Scarf In A Day" class at The Stitching Post in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Rita with her weft yarn perfectly angled
 

The owner, Kathie Bryant is a busy lady with her main store in Midland, Texas. She drives to the mountains of New Mexico each week where she has that store open Thursday through Sunday. As far as I can tell, as soon as she shows up on Thursday the yarn party begins. What an inspiring and fun place to hang out.

And what fun I had teaching this group!


Ava concentrating on an even beat

-- Ava was my youngest student yet. At age 12, she's a natural and I predict this won't be the last time she weaves.


Jane with her beautiful scarf



James with his "special" wool scarf

Squirrel Picnic and Croshades on Aliens

Once upon a time, I lived in Virginia. In my little weaving studio in the woods I had an apprentice named Jennifer. She was an art student whose creative brain never stopped. She constantly reminded me to not take life too seriously.  Fifteen plus years later and she's still making me laugh. Check out her blog, Squirrel Picnic, where she creates wild and wacky critters in crochet who have all sorts of adventures AND she gives away free patterns so you can make them too. 

This alien didn't have ears
so I had to hold them on
 

In a recent post from this summer she designed a pattern for crocheted sunglasses she calls "Croshades" to protect the eyes of poor objects d'art who never get a break from the sun. Read all about it here!

She challenged her readers to make their own croshades. I couldn't resist the challenge. I  crocheted a couple pair of my own and took them along on a recent visit to Roswell's Alien Museum.
 




                                                       
Like her Facebook Page too while you're at it!            

Knot for Knitters Only

Next month I'll be teaching Beginning Weaving at The Stitching Post Yarn Shop in Ruidoso New Mexico. While I was there working on our schedule, Kathie introduced me to a yarn she sells by Feza called Alp Premier. It's made up of a variety of novelty yarns all knotted together and knitters make wonderful yummy things with it. I couldn't resist buying a skein to weave on my Cricket loom.

 

And here's the final scarf. I love all the textures from the different novelty yarns and the patterns they created. This was a super quick and easy project. Love it!

 

 

Little Squares Everywhere and Summer Travel Fun

While traveling this summer, I packed my new Zoom Loom. I couldn't wait to try out the new portable loom from Schacht Spindle Company. But I was pretty sure I'd get bored making little squares. Well not at all. I was soon addicted and making lots of squares... in the car, visiting friends, and even at a party with live entertainment.










I started with a skein of turquoise alpaca. When I got bored with one color, I used some of my own hand-dyed, handspun merino wool. Then I mixed the alpaca and merino in some of the squares. So what does one do with 50 plus little squares?
 

 

My modern version of a granny square vest

And then we visited family in Pittsburgh and off to the Three Rivers Art Festival where I discovered the FiberArts Guild of Pittsburgh and their latest project - Knit the Bridge.
I added a few rows of crochet to the project. Wish I could be there for the installation of this largest yarn bomb in the US scheduled to cover the Andy Warhol Bridge in August.

Last stop was Michigan and there in the little village of Spring Lake was a wonderful fabric store where I spied a dress by Katherine Tilton, Butterick B5881. I bought the pattern and came right home and made it using some linen from my stash. Here's my version.

Kool-Aid Dyeing and Spinning

I started a spinning group this year as a study group extension of our fibercraft guild.



Bette Bossel at the Drum Carder,
Jessie Hanson at the Spinning wheel
with her daughter helping out.

For our May meeting our plan was to learn how to use a drum carder to create batts. I dyed the fiber with Kool-Aid dyes. This was my first attempt at Kool-Aid dyeing and it turned out a bit whimpy in the color department.

The recipe I found on-line said to mix 1 package of Kool-Aid in 8 ounces of water for every 2 ounces of fiber. The fiber
absorbed all the liquid and clearly need more. I added at least another 8 ounces of water to each of my colors and you can see the results above. And all ages were represented.

Too much fun in my studio!

I recently did a bit of traveling and needed a portable project -- or two (I'll write about the other one real soon).  So I ventured off the handweaving path just a bit. I had no clue what it would be when I started, but I packed my size 11 knitting needles and whipped this up quite quickly. When I returned to my studio, I discovered that the thrums (waste yarn after a piece is cut off the loom) from my Zen Jacket were the perfect fringe along with some blue ribbon I had left from another project. So fun!

 

As always, I was inspired by Blue Heron Yarns handpainted skeins. This one is Rayon Loopy in the Mossy Place colorway.