Archive for July, 2009
July 19, 2009
Yesterday 3 (Mitzi, Alane & me) of us from Guild went to the Barboursville Civil War Days to demo spinning. We each spun on a wheel and a spindle. So I “caught up” on TdF, lol, for several hours. Finished one skein of bulky Coopworth on a wheel and one skein of maybe DK merino on my spindle.
I am also having a “secret” sale on my Etsy shop. If you put “BlogJuly” in your message to seller, I will give you $5 off a $25 in-stock fiber-animal-batik t-shirt. This is good until the end of July, 2009. I will send you a refund for the $5, it won’t come out automatically on your checkout cart.
Posted in River Cities Fiber Clan Guild, Tour de Fleece, alpaca batik t-shirt, batik, cabell county, etsy, goat batik t-shirt, handspun yarn, llama batik t-shirt, sheep batik t-shirt, special/sale, spindle, spinning, t-shirts, wool, yarn | Leave a Comment »
July 14, 2009
I oughtn’t tell you about Jude’s etsy shop, because theoretically we are competitors, but her plant-dyed yarns are SO YUMMY that I will anyhow.
And if you go to her shop and then to the Phat Fiber Blog and tell Jessie what you like best in Mama Jude’s shop, you can compete with me some more and try to win a free skein of lovely raspberry colored yarn.
Posted in Phat Fiber | Leave a Comment »
July 14, 2009
I’ve been spinning some carbonized bamboo sliver on my Baynes and spindling some samples every day (well, one or the other, or both) for the Tour, but it doesn’t make for exciting photos. No finished yarn yet.
Yesterday and today I spent several hours making some special order goat, alpaca, sheep & dragon shirts. And, since the new HP movie opens Tuesday night, I had to make special shirts for me & my friends to wear to the movie. I’m so geeky. Oh well.
Posted in Harry Potter, Tour de Fleece, batik, dye, spindle, spinning, t-shirts | Leave a Comment »
July 9, 2009
Well, a chance to win some, anyhow. Jessie is doing a giveaway for me on the Phat Fiber blog. Go there to see details. Feel free to comment here, as well. Buy something, too! :)
Posted in Phat Fiber, alpaca batik t-shirt, batik, bunny batik t-shirt, canvas tote bags, drawstring bags, etsy, goat batik t-shirt, handspun yarn, llama batik t-shirt, sheep batik t-shirt, t-shirts, wool, yarn | 1 Comment »
July 9, 2009
These are the shirts I made as samples with my “new” batik technique:
reverse stencil frog
stencilled monkey
I wanted the kids to be able to use their Tribe color and animal-mascot on the shirts, so I really was hoping to do batik, but since I use soy wax, and my regular method has the shirts in the dye bath for less than an hour and I didn’t want to handwash the shirts at camp, I needed something with lower water immersion levels so I could wash them in a few hours when I got home to my machine.
I suspected that spraying the dye on (already mixed with the soda ash activator) would be a good idea–less eating away at the soy wax resist.
For the frog (green), I did a reverse stencil. I cut out the frog shape with contact paper and and stuck that on the shirt. Then I splattered soy wax all around (making that puddley shape), and when it was hard I removed the contact paper from the frog and sprayed the shirt with mixed procion dye & activator solution. Bagged it up and left it for about 4 hours and then washed it out.
For the monkey (red), I used my regular stencil method, but I sprayed on the activated dye rather than putting the shirt in a bucketful of dye solution.
When I did it with the kids they didn’t turn out QUITE so well, but they were all new at it and it was HOT outside. I think the wax “ran” too much. Some of them came out nice, though. :)
And an update on my Etsy shop:
Posted in batik, dye, etsy, t-shirts, tie-dye | Leave a Comment »
July 8, 2009
I ordered some carbonized black diamond bamboo fiber from Cotton Clouds and it came yesterday! I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to spin any yet–but it sure is soft & shiny!
I missed spinning on Day 3 of the Tour de Fleece, but today I already spun a little on my spindle and intend to spin on my Baynes as well. I’m in the middle of at least three different spinning projects on my Baynes, so I’m not sure if I will get to the bamboo today, or keep on the BFL or spin some of the merino/silk that I have a bobbinful waiting…
“Stole” one of my own shirts from my Etsy shop today because it hadn’t sold in a while and it was the right size and the right color and I didn’t have a goat shirt for myself yet.
Gotta go clean for least a little while–I have the house to myself, so it does seem like a shame to spend the time cleaning, but I have to do SOME as it needs it. This week the boys had church camp–Evan’s staying over, but every day but tonight Christopher has just been in day camp, so I have been spending nearly 2 hours in my car (half hour each way, drop off & pick up). I guess I ought to have been listening to audio books or something, but the road is very twisty and people tailgate if you aren’t going fast enough, so I guess I need to keep my mind on the road. Monday I spent at least part of the day doing “samples” for my sprayed-dye-soywax-batik method that I did with the older kids at camp (see another post? maybe tomorrow?). Tuesday I spent the whole day at camp, since I was doing the dyeing with the kids for a bit over an hour and thought it would be silly to drive up and back THREE times. I think the kids enjoyed making their shirts–maybe too hot to get really effective soywax batiking outside, or maybe they used too much/too little wax. Some of the shirts turned out pretty well, but some were not distinct designs and some came out WAY pale overall (I believe that is my fault, near the end I watered the dye down some, which would have been okay, but since I had the activator/ash directly in the dye spray, I think there wasn’t enough activator in some of the dye). The counselors seemed to enjoy it, anyhow. THEN last night I went to the library and did round two of Battle of the Books tie-dye t-shirts! whew!
I will try to put up some photos & description of my “new” dyeing method soon… :)
Posted in batik, dye, etsy, fiber, goat batik t-shirt, handspun yarn, spindle, spinning, t-shirts, tie-dye, wool, yarn | Leave a Comment »
July 6, 2009
Was busy today with Sunday School and church and lunch (we went out to Five Guys–yum!) and taking Christopher for his first day of church day camp at Asbury Woods, and dropping Evan off for his first day of sleepaway camp at Asbury Woods…But, I managed to spin some while Andrew was playing a board game with Christopher–some BFL roving from Little Barn. I didn’t spin all of this today–I spun for about an hour during “Merlin”. Can’t decide if I like the show or not!
Posted in Tour de Fleece, fiber, spinning, wool | Leave a Comment »
July 5, 2009
I joined the Spinning Bunny Tour de Fleece team and it starts today. I will count helping children spin at the Festival, but I also plyed up some of the cherry Dorset blended with soy silk.
It is raining out, so I can’t get very good photos. this will have to do:
Posted in Tour de Fleece, spinning, spinning bunny | Leave a Comment »
July 4, 2009
I enjoyed the Heritage Farm Youth Festival, even though there weren’t tons of people there. Especially enjoyed talking to Margaret from Reid’s Apiary and to Dominique from Yellow Goat Farm. I showed some people how to spin and weave, and that is always a hoot.
Extending my sale/special through Monday, in case someone wasn’t online all weekend and still wants in. :)
Happy Birthday to my friend’s daughter, Ella!! :)
INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL! If you purchase any in-stock t-shirt or full-size skein of handspun yarn between right now (starting Wednesday afternoon) and 10 pm on (EXTENDED THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT) Monday, July 6, get a new mini-baglet (5″x7″) included when I ship! You may request a fiber animal or color, but I get the final word on what I send with your t-shirt. Don’t add the bag to your cart (they aren’t on the shop yet), I will include one for you–you might want to put a message to seller in there when you pay, to remind me.
Posted in Heritage Farm, batik, etsy, special/sale, yarn | Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2009
There is a big youth soccer tournament going on in Huntington this weekend and the Chamber of Commerce or someone asked people to do stuff to keep the visitors busy. The Perrys, who run the Heritage Farm Museum & Village are having another daylong festival on Saturday to help with the effort. Laura asked me in May if I could come help with this one too. At the big festival I brought spindles and wool and taught some people how to spin and I watched over the little frame looms they have for kids to weave on. Cool. But I hate those type of looms. So pick-up-one-thread-at-a-time. I feel bad trying to convince children that their ancestors not so long ago were stupid enough to make all their fabric that way, because, of course, they didn’t.
Carolyn Priest-Dorman has a bunch of references you can check out for warp-weighted looms. She is an SCA person who I always look for when researching Viking things–I am pretty lazy about it, but she isn’t, lol.
Another Brief History of Weaving.
This is cool, has Egyptian art showing looms and spindles…
Anyhow, fairly early (before the Vikings–before Christ), people made string heddles (they tied strings around some of the warp threads in bunches, so they could lift half of the warp threads, for example, at a time, and then lift another bunch so they didn’t have to pick-pick-pick all the way across), and then they made rigid heddles (like my popsicle stick thing with the holes and slots) sometime later (told you I was lazy)…Anyhow, WAYYYY before Colonial and Pioneer Americans…
I like the rigid heddle loom and I think it is easier to use and easier to teach kids about weaving on. Here is the one I built last summer. Since then, I have purchased a “real” heddle reed from Yarn N More, but I don’t want that getting broken and it has plastic in it…
If I can manage it tomorrow, I’ll put all the warp threads on my loom and put them through the heddle and tie the weights on and make sure I have all the pieces to assemble the frame and I’ll bring it to the Youth Festival at Heritage Farm Museum in Harveytown on Saturday to let people play on it.
Posted in Heritage Farm, build loom, education, huntington, rigid heddle reed, weaving, wv | Leave a Comment »
