Rooted in Mississippi

Okay, first I offered Yarns to Dye For & Dyers Companion on Spindlers and Melissa responded that she wanted both and would trade for fiber. Wow, did she send me a mix of great and unusal stuff. It was just wonderful. I am so pleased with this trade and I hope that Melissa was too.

I splurged and bought myself a lot of fiber, using my birthday as an excuse, and most of it came in the mail today. There are two batches of hand-dyed wool from Kae/FaeryLady, she said that the bright one was known as “Muppet Guts”. Also a Kokovoko Farms spindle with a copy of Spinning from Novice to Expert & some roving. And the big splurge was two pounds of merino roving and some wool dye.

Of course, my credit card bill came today too, so that will be the end of my spending for a little while. LOL

Oh, and how could I forget, there was an extra box when I got home! My DH bought me TiVo for my birthday!

Comments(6)

I made yarn again! Here is the end result of some Cheviot fleece I washed, dyed and spun (see previous post). If I had used my hand cards, this would have been one pretty much consistent color, but instead I used my flicker brush to fluff out the fleece and spin it without further processing. I love the way the yarn ended up! And I loved my Sleeping Beauty Spindle.

Here is the hand-dyed Merino top that I bought from Kae/FaerieLady on the spindle. I just got this started at lunch today. I am so impressed with the depth of color and the way this is spinning up. I am making it a little chunkier than the stuff above, because I want to try a bulky knit project!

Comments(2)

There has been so much drama and trauma over my really nasty fleece, that I decided to take a break from it. Depending on my mood, I may post about it later, but if you read Spindlers then you already know about it.

That said, I did wash up some Icelandic fleece (see below) that was a freebie with my purchase of a Turkish spindle. It came out pretty nice. I was very pleased with how it washed up and I hope to find time to spin some up soon. I also washed the last of the black Shetland so I can store it, but it is still wet and looks a little like some poor person’s fright wig. LOL

One pound of Icelandic, washed and dried.

This is some Cheviot I washed and dyed with Persian Gold, Lavender and Saffron OzeCraft Dyes last weekend. The colors were great. I loved the way the fleece looked. Today, after the funeral, I was sitting on the sofa and looking at this wool. I pulled out my flick carder and brushed it out, knowing that my spindles would be here any day.

Here it is brushed out and fluffed for spinning. Then the mailman came. He pushed some of the mail through the slot, but I opened the door to check for packages and there was a box with some spinning books *and* my Sleeping Beauty & Rapunzel spindles from Simple Market Farms. I started spinning this fiber up on the Sleeping Beauty right away. I spun the whole batch (see below), then I wound it into a ball and plied it on the same spindle. I also washed it to set the twist. It is upstairs on my umbrella swift drying. I’ll take another photo when I have wound it into a ball.

Tomorrow I go back to work and try to act like a normal person. I am taking my new Sleeping Beauty spindle and my hand-dyed merino roving from Kae, so that I can spin some at lunch.

Comments(2)

Well, to be honest, there have been some bright spots to the weekend. I have some really wonderful friends. Shay, a most special friend, (with help from BarbE) sent me a subscription to SpinOff, some DMC Linen Thread and fabulous clay face. Before I go on, let me tell you something about Shay…

Shay used to put on these incredible stitching retreats in Dallas before she went back to work full-time. So I got to know her in person as well as through Internet needlework groups and email. She made me the most beautiful photo box (again with help from Barb E) for my wedding. Then I went out to Martha Pullen’s Market and to take classes from the Country Bumpkin folks last year and Shay offered for me stay with her. I was worried that she might just be making a polite gesture, so I talked to Barb E, who assured me the offer was genuine. Shay and her husband Jim made me feel so at home. I told my husband they made me feel like family, but what I meant was, they made me feel *better* than family. That is probably why I go to Dallas more often than I go to Atlanta.

I also got a lovely orchid from my dear friend Jenny in Jacksonville. A beautiful beaded lariat for scissors from Barbara, another top notch Texan. Plus cards and fabric from several other wonderful folks. I have a place in the studio where I display all the wonderful stuff my dear friends have gifted me with over the years and every time I look at that stuff, I am amazed by how lucky I was to meet such special and caring folks over the years. I just wish they could all be my neighbors.

My stomach is in knots, I am about to get ready to go to the funeral home and I am dreading it. I just hope that nothing dramatic happens and if it does, I will be changing the names and writing a book. I am beginning to understand why so many classic Southern Gothic writers came from Mississippi.

Comments(3)

My father-in-law died yesterday. My poor husband has lost both of his parents this year. He went into the hospital two days before my husbands birthday and died two days after. This has not been a time for celebration.

I had to go to my old house to find my low-heeled dress shoes, since I can’t wear heels yet. While I was there I picked up three giant bags of Luster Sheen yarn & Aunt Lydia’s Crochet Denim that were still in the closet in the spare bedroom. I have to go out to the post office to mail off the books I traded and I will need to make a stop by Hancock Fabrics to pick up some elastic, since I got out my summer silk suit and discovered the waist band had rotted.

I have a lot of housework to do, so…

Comments(4)

Okay, I did something really stupid yesterday. I slipped on a mountain of laundry and did a very ungraceful split as I went down. Amazingly, I am not bruised, but my left ankle is swollen and I have it propped up on the coffee table. See what happens when I try to do housework? If there is a moral to this story, it is that housework is a pain!

Last night, I went up to the studio and finished the last block in a Beaded Round Robin. This block is for Julia Camilleri, whose work has graced the cover and the pages of Australian Embroidery and Cross Stitch on many occasions. The block was so full by time I got it, that I needed to study it for quite some time before I could figure what I could add that would enhance it. I finally decided to add some pearl seed bead flowers on the two outermost arm panels and a couple of Swarovski crystal flowers on the bottom outmost panels. Then I added two small dragonflies with faux pearls on each side to the floral beaded panels. The dragonfly has become the totem for our small group.




Wait, I hear the dryer beeping. hehehe

I was trying to get the dog to come back in and I spotted this guy on a branch. Since I was just talking about how the dragon fly was the totem for the Crazy Gathering group, I thought I should try to get a photo.

Comments(3)

Ever since I finished my French Market Bag, I have wanted to make a felted purse. Despite buying a couple of books, I had a specific shape in mind, so I decided to just do my own thing. I finished everything except for one the straps at least a month ago. Then because of the move and my crazy life, I sat it aside. Last night I picked it back up and finished it.

I was home sick again today and when I started to feel better, I decided to go to my old house to check on the bug bombs. Since nothing felts in the front loading washer I have at the new house, I took the purse, some soap and pillow protector to my old house and felted it. I am drying and blocking it now.

When I got back, I was in a felting mood, so I started making some felted mice. I’ll edit this to include photos later tonight.

This is the inspiration for the purse shape & size.

Comments(5)

Okay, this was the dirtiest, smelliest three pounds of fleece I have ever touched. Oh, yeah, I haven’t touched all that many fleeces. hehehe I was so grossed out by the smell, in part because of the raging sinus headache, that I finally resorted to using my pond insert (it is not a water feature any more because of mosquito-borne illness) to get it all washed at once.

The upside to living in Mississippi during the summer, and there has to be an upside, is that 90 degree days mean the water warms pretty quick. I used three lingerie bags, two mesh plastic baskets, salt, citric acid, nearly a whole small bottle of Dawn detergent & a lot of water. The whole nasty mess is soaking in my greenhouse and I plan to leave it there for at least a day. The temperature should not drop too much tonight and will warm back up to ninety again tomorrow, so I am not worried about the lanolin rehardening.

The ultimate irony here is that I really like processing my own fleece. I have used the stuff I have done myself and not really touched the roving I bought. I just hope I don’t get stuck with anything this yucky in the future, unless it is free.

VM, tags and second cuts with some poop that I picked out.

Comments(4)

I am home sick today. :-/ I have had a sinus headache since Saturday, but I just did not sleep with a darn last night and it all caught up with me this morning. I did manage to get out of bed and hand my husband his birthday gift…two Nautica shirts…but they weren’t wrapped. LOL Oh, well. Maybe I need to drag myself to the grocery so I can make him a cake.

The stinky Romanov fleece is still on my table and in my wash pot. I have to get it all washed up or the smell is going to be the end of me!

Last night I soaked some more Cheviot, getting it ready to dye. I did a really small batch of OzeCraft Persian Gold and Lavender and it looks good. I’ll take a picture when it is dry.

I got several good books this past week. Color in Spinning, In Sheep’s Clothing, Spin It, Spinner’s Companion. Too bad my head hurts too bad to sit and read them. LOL

Comments(3)

My nine pound bucket of citric acid finally arrived. Don’t be too shocked, because it is really not as much as you might think. The bucket it about the same size as a bucket of OxyClean detergent. I wanted a less smelly substitute for Vinegar for my dyeing and wool scouring. Kae tells me that “1 tbsp citric acid substitutes for 1 cup of vinegar” so I am set for a while. LOL

Speaking of smelly, I opened up the bag on three pounds of Romanov fleece to pick out the debris and…wow…I was practically knocked over by the smell. This is the first raw fleece I have gotten that was really smelly. It also had a lot of felted tips, something I have not had before, and trash. But the color is just lovely, so I am already soaking it. I really hope it works out. The picture can’t possibly translate the stink…not even if you scratch and sniff the screen. LOL




Yes, those are CIGARETTE BUTTS!!!

This is probably the dirtiest first soak I have ever had. :-/

Comments(5)