Crossthreads fiber Guild meeting

These are some of the pieces of fabric that we dyed at our last FiberGuild meeting. They were done with the Accidental Dyeing Method. We got 3 yards of fabric. Divided them into 1 yard pieces and tied, bundled or whatever we wanted to cause a pattern to show up, kinda like tie-dyeing techniques. One piece is put in the bottom of a jar and the dye added, wait a while and add the stuff that stops the dying, add the next fabric then the dye A different color, to it and repeat the dye stopping solution. Add last yard of fabric and do the same with the third color. fill the jar to cover the fabric with the Soda Ash and cover and take home. Take the material out of this muck the next morning and rinse, rinse, rinse. When it rinses clear put them in washing machine and wash with Synthrapol soap and wash em up. These had looked like they were sitting in a jar of dark mud. No way did they look like they would turn out like these did. Major cool. That's me with one of mine the second from the right. I folded that one and then tied it up, it was the top yard of fabric.

Newton Hills, State Park Festifal Festival

First picture on the left is of Marti spinning on her very cute little wheel which I do not remember what it is called. She has a couple attentive little ones by her learning how to card wool. Second one is Barb with Pat behind her and an attentive lady learning about how this is done. People are always fascinated to find out people are still doing this!! We get lots of stories of wheels in the family or attic, etc. Next one it my wheel, off course I am taking the photo so I am not in the chair spinning on it. It is a Kromski, Mazurka. Made in Poland and imported. It's major selling points were: it's weight, only 9 pounds great for taking to different events also small size... it's price was mid-range. It's looks are Great and looks old and since I do a couple of reinactment events that is a plus.
This pix is just the other side of y wheel, the business side. I am spinning some Perridale wool that someone else had gotten from New Zealand. They were doing a stash reduction so I got some wonderful different fibers to try. This is the last of that stash and I have carefully avoided finishing this stuff off cause it is sooooo nice to spin. I could not find anymore of the peredale breed wool so just held on to this. This summer I found a source of white Peredale wool. So it is safe to finish this stuff off, I will still have more fiber from A Peredale sheep to spin up.

Last bunny pix

This one is "Silver" she is a black french angora bunny. Got her this spring as a tiny little thing from the Sheperd's Harvest Festival at Lake Elmo, Mn. She has been doing her first mold and I have been so busy that I have not been able to pluck or brush her and have lost most of the fiber. She is coming back with a lot darker coat of hair now.

Spirit of the West Festival

This is my friend and mentor Marion who does so many events and things to promote the art of Bobbin Lace. Willing to teach anyone who is interested. She is almost as old as my mom and much healthier so it is nice to be able to toodle around the country side with her promoting our art. The other picture is of my bobbin lace pillow set up. I am doing a sampler of some different Milanese style braids, trying to learn how to do it.

Colt at 5 months old

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This is "Thunder" born May 2nd to "Whitey" and "Cheyenne" his devoted mom "Cheyenne" kept him safe and did a great job rearing him this far. He loves to follow his dad around pestering him and taking things away from him. I watched them playing together yesterday morning as I went to the car to go to work. Too cool.

My bunnies

this is Freda, she came to live with us a year and a half ago. I fell in love at first site. Don't know why this pix is not so good.

This is Precious he is a fuzzy mini-lop. Came to live with us last winter. I saw him at the local pet store and kept going back and loving on him. Promised him if he was still there by a certain date I would bring him home. It was too cold to bring him home and put him outside earlier. He had been living in the pet shop so long he could have died from the temperature shock. He is still doing well and getting kinda ornery sometimes.

Hats!!

This was the first hat that I knit for felting. It was really hard to believe that this was going to turn into a hat!!! Well the brown colors are handspun and the orange is Brown Sheep. I was low on the tan color so I had to try to plan some other colors in it. Then when getting to the top I ran out of the tan so I just knitting the rest with the brown. A design feature I call it. Seems like most everyone liked it just fine that way. The fiber was the bad alpaca. Well that is what I called it cause it was a poor quality alpaca with lots of vm in it and purchased off Ebay. Sometimes they aren't such a bargain. But it made a very nice hat. There is a use for everything.

Well it did turn into a HAT Lovely to wear and got a lot of compliments till I sold it. I really need to make another one sometime. It was great for winter time, I put my earmuffs on over the floppy brim and it was really warm and held it down well in the Mn. winds.

I made this hat about a year ago for a little girl's birthday in Oct. Well I know it does not look like a hat so look at the next photo of it felted down to size. It is done in white alpaca that I handspun and decided to handknit because I have not figured out how to do the floppy brim on the knitting machine yet. If I made this again I think I would charge more than the $30. that I recieved for it. It was a lot of work! So soft and silky and the addition of the funfur yarn was wonderful to see how it changed with the felting process.


here is the finished hat. For an 11 year old's birthday. So the hat size is a wee bit smaller than for an adult. Very soft.

Me and my older wheel

This photo was sent to me by the person who took it for a small town newspaper. I was demonstrating spinning at the Festifall Celebration held at Newton Hills State Park in SD. I found the name and more details for the wheel on a New Zealand spinning wheel site. It is called a Sleeping Beauty and only came in kit form imported from New Zealand. Made in the early 1970's. This is my first wheel and was quite a challenge to learn to spin on. It is quite finnicky. But I have spun a lot of yarn on it! It no longer goes to the demonstrations with me. It is too big and one of the legs is just taped on so it gets to stay at home.