Back in September the guild had a dyeing party, I dyed a skein of previously hand-spun wool in blues and greens, and some Blue Face Leicester roving, putting half of it hung into a pot of blue/teal dye and then after that I laying it into an electric chafing dish used as a double boiler with a little water in the top and sprinkled over it with some hot pink dye powder.

The last few weeks I've slowly turned it into this...

As of this morning, I finally turned it into this...

I'm fairly pleased with the results. I really like the results of the color. I might have been happier had I spun it a little more even, but it's still passable. Hopefully setting the twist will help relax some of the areas that laid compressed on the bobbin too long, evening out the weight of the yarn and balancing the ply.

I haven't set the twist yet because our pipes were frozen this morning. The pipes are now un-frozen (three cheers for indoor plumbing!!) thanks to slightly warmer temps, working heat tape, and a father and a BIL that trekked out to the pump-house to MAKE it work. But the window of opportunity has passed and I'll have to wait to set the twist until later this evening.

I didn't even bring a project with me on my trip - is that crazy or what? And while I deeply enjoyed the yarn store in Edinburgh, I found myself preferring to help others more than purchasing yarn myself. (of course the recent purchase of an expensive plane ticket and the terrible exchange rate from earlier this summer might have helped to stave off the yarn buying temptations... with the current exchange rate I'm not sure I would have been as misguided strong)

It's been awhile since I've knitted something I felt REALLY good about and REALLY enjoyed knitting. It's also been awhile since I chose a pattern to just sit and knit up - lately it's been mostly designing and editing. Maybe that's why I was losing interest and turning more to my weaving?

About a week ago I decided that I really wanted to knit something and at the encouragement of my mother, I decided that something warm and bright for winter might be just in order for my Secret Sister gift I needed last Tuesday.

Going to the stash we dug up some "Sleeping Dragon Yarn" it's a merino sock yarn that my mom had acquired in a yarn swap or stash buster sometime ago. It's in lovely bright pinks, oranges and yellows, but as it wasn't superwash it hadn't been used yet (Both mom and I prefer superwash for socks, so that the bottoms don't threaten to felt, and they can be dropped in the Washing machine.)

Once I selected the yarn and decided to make mittens for the elderly woman who is my secret sister, I went over to
Ravelry to find a pattern.

Of course when I go looking for one thing, I'm bound to stumble on something else that would be so much better, first I saw some adorable lace gloves in a nice oldfashioned lace pattern, and then I spotted the Knotty Gloves of course with my terrible soft spot for cables and I couldn't resist these. After finishing them and lightly blocking them, they just finished drying in time to wrap for the party Tuesday evening!

Here's a photo of our room after the first day - though we'd already sold many of our rugs and dishtowels and were starting to spread things out to fill empty spots.

I put out 15 towels and came home with only 2, one of those two was put out in the last 2 hours of the sale. The other was marked as a 'table runner' for the majority of the sale. There were so many people that saw it, and said "Oh that's pretty... but it's a table runner...", despite the fact that it's ALSO 100% cotton, the same color, and texture as the dishtowel and only 4" longer, for some reason just because it was declared a 'table runner' that's what it MUST be, and couldn't possibly be used for ANYTHING else.

All in all I sold 13 dishtowels and a Christmas ornament. And now have money for some Christmas presents! (and more yarn!!)

Above is almost everything I put out at the sale, there was one more dishcloth that I decided to put out after the photo was taken. My workmanship wasn't quite up to my preferred standards, but the ones like it went SO fast and were SO well liked I figured someone might like to have it more than they cared that one border didn't quite match the other (it was a little shorter than the other from being woven tighter).

It most like the navy and white dishtowel in this photo:

Except instead of white bands on the border it had red bands.
These were done for our guild's color and weave challenge this year.

I made enough money to buy some Christmas presents - which was good since I didn't have a lot of time to MAKE them this year! (dishtowels don't work for everybody ;-) ) Of course once you see all the the lovely items for sale there's not always much left of your earnings by time the sale's over... This year I resisted temptation, well... mostly...

Next year I intend to have some blankets and rugs woven. The blankets will be a 'big ticket' item which will hopefully bring in more money for the number of hours spent weaving.

On the knitting front, I knitted 4 little Christmas ornaments using the knitted and felted ornaments and garland for my pattern. I went down to a size 2 needle and knitted it on sport weight yarn (patons "brilliant"), I played with some beading on them and didn't really know what design I would knit onto them until I cast on, and didn't use any patterns for the designs. It was the seat-of-the-pants method that I'm all too well acquainted with.

I was pleased with how they came out. My dad has already hung the 3 I had left around the house - the first of our Christmas decorating.

I feel so festive now.

I've actually been home awhile now, but for some reason haven't made it by here to say so.

My trip took me through Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England... sort of in that order.

In Scotland I stayed with a young family that my friend was working for as their nanny over the summer. With them we took a trip to Drumnadrochit and saw Loch Ness and Urquhart castle, and some of the Scottish highlands.

And I made sure to take Nessie with me... (more on that later)

Also while staying in Edinburgh with the family I climbed Arthur's seat, ate at the Elephant House, went to Edinburgh Castle - saw the crown jewels (of Scotland) and the stone of destiny, visited a the tartan weaving museum-and-gift-shop, held a brief conversation with a slightly drunk highlander, viewed a lovely weaving exhibit as well the bones of a viking from 900AD and other artifacts dating back to B.C. times at the National Museum of Scotland (among many many other interesting museum-y stuff), visited Greyfriar Bobby's grave (he's a dog... with a statue, and a tombstone), set foot in an old Scottish kirkyard after dark (for all of 2 seconds... we didn't stick around.). Went into the "Creepy Wee Shop in the Graveyard" (yes, there was a gift-shop in a graveyard) explored a 15th century castle without a roof (Craigmillar Castle), took a day trip to northern England and went to the part-time island of Lindisfarne. Among many other things.

Oh yeah, and I saw LOTS of plaid.

That's as much as I can say today, I'll have to tell more later. For now I'll leave you with some photos of the aforementioned places...

Edinburgh Castle

Bobby (he even has a bar named after him!) & Bobby's Grave

Lindisfarne Causeway, The foot path (complete with a safety lifeguard like bench in case you're too slow when the tide comes in), and the castle by the seaside...

Craigmillar Castle

The idea of a solo flight with a connection intimidates me a little, but hopefully I'll get through it all ok.

I'll likely make it up to Inverness, so to be certain I saw Nessie there, I'd decided I'd better take my own:

The blue blind flipperless Nessie is mine, waiting for flippers and eyes. I ran out of yarn, so I'll have to find a 'similar' blue and finish it real quick.

The green one will be for the older of the two little girls my friend is the nanny for. He has some sort of neck disorder... apparently not many chiropractors deal with Loch Ness monsters, so he'll just have to live that way. Something funny happened when I picked up and/or grafted the stitches there. I was a little disappointed, but there wasn't much I could do by time I discovered it, and it wasn't bad enough to make me frog/pick out the kitchener for that whole area. The blue one's head still lists a little in that direction, but not quite so bad.

I just finished washing all my hostess gifts and my 'accessory' scarves to go with my mix & match brown/tan clothes. All of them are hand woven. Everything is rayon.

The green dogwood flower lace pieces are small table runners/mats. I did 2 17" square pieces and 2 17" x 25" pieces. I LOVE working with the 8/2 rayon and I really enjoyed the dogwood pattern. I did a slightly larger one about 37" long as belated thank-you-gift to my great aunt and uncle for giving me my great-great-grandmothers wool cards. It always feels so good to have something that you've been needing/meaning to make DONE. Now I just have to write a note and send it!

Here's a closeup of the pattern. A slightly lacey pattern with plain-weave flowers...
 

While weaving the scarves, there's just enough interest to keep you going, but not so many 'rows' in the pattern that it slows you down. They're a nice quick project.

If you look close at the group photo, you'll notice that the ribbon doesn't show on the back. Pretty nifty, eh?

The 2 chenille scarves were deliberately done in a more masculine design...

The rayon chenille makes such a wonderful finished project, but it's not quite as enjoyable to weave. It softens up a TON after washing into a beautiful slinky soft fabric, but before the wash it feels like a hard stiff canvas. I originally set it at 20 threads to the inch, panicked when I felt the pre-wash fabric and reset to 16 threads before the 20set has completely dried... It's fine at 16, but I could have left it at 20! :-P

I also did up a long runner in the dogwood pattern for my grandmother's buffet with a gray-green weft (the horizontal threads) and the light green warp (the vertical threads) it has two slightly different sides and is a slightly more subdued color.
 

In all I wove over 15 yards, worked 68 braids and made 856 twists for fringe!

I invested in the Leclerc Fringe Twister Quad. A little gadget that consists of 4 alligator clips, some 'bent' metal rods, and two pieces of wood. It cut my time spent fringe twisting down by about half! It also kept my fingers from getting sore. Though after awhile my index finger felt a little bruised from opening and closing the clips... but not nearly as sore as when I twisted the strands between my finger and thumb.

And last but most certainly not least -- I found these cute little gals. They're a pig-tail set of hair-bands I picked up at the natural food store while I was finishing up my 'trip shopping'. They were too cute to pass up, and will be saved to give to my long-haired-pink-loving-niece (who's just too cute for words in pigtails...) at some opportune moment when something really cute - and pink - is called for...

I can't believe it's been almost 10 months since I posted last.

The 2nd annual spinning party is coming up next month!

I'm working on socks out of this yarn:

It's Pagewood Farm 100% merino super-wash sock yarn in "Really Red" . It's a really nice yarn. My mom has used it for a pair for herself and for grandkids, and it's held up very nicely and is sooo soft.

I started this on a guild loom:

And finished it!

Then I made these for our "Color & Weave Guild Challenge":

They're just cotton kitchen towels on a log cabin color and weave threading. Pictures of the finished towels in more colors are to come later.

Right now I have light green 8/2 weight 100% rayon warped on the loom in an Atwater-Bronson lace 'dogwood flowers' pattern for table runners, one's done with a few more to go.

Well this year has certainly been busy.

In February we said Goodbye to my Grandfather. He is much loved and sorely missed by all.

In May we said Hello to my new niece! She's certainly a cute one... And I'd say that even if I weren't a little biased...

In late May a friend of mine (who also happens to be my sister's sister-in-law) came up to see her niece and learn to spin and weave.

She's been here almost a month now. She has a set of dishtowels almost threaded onto the little table loom I borrowed from the guild. Though it took a run town to a friend-and-fellow-weaver's house to borrow some more heddles (a part of the loom - each one holds one individual string of the warp.) so she could finish the threading!

In August I leave for Scotland and Italy! The friend I'm meeting is already over there 'waiting for me'. I'll have about 2 weeks in Italy and 2 weeks in the UK [note after the fact: I didn't actually make it to Italy after all, but the trip was awesome anyhow.]. I'm really excited and I have finished most of my shopping - including the plane tickets and passport! (the most important parts! ;-) )

I'm sure I'll see lots of sheep and tapestries and tartans and all that good fiber-ey stuff. After telling one woman from my guild that I was going to Scotland she immediately remarked "Ooh!! You'll get to see sheep!!".

I'm not sure just how Scottish sheep differ from the American sheep that I see driving in to town every week (maybe they baa with an accent??) but they must be much better because after all they're in Scotland, and I've gone all that way to see them.

First things first - It took us some time but by late July we nailed down a date that the largest number of us could make it for, this happened to be the 4th week in August - our usual spinning week for each moth.

Once we had a date, mom called up Paradise Fibers for some fiber suggestions. She generously ordered us 11 different fibers to try! Paradise fibers sent 3 more fibers for a whopping 14 types of fiber!

I broke each of these fibers into 12 4"-6" samples (whatever came to about .10oz) and numbered them like this;

1. Paradise Fibers Microblends Opal Spinning Fiber
2. Ashland Bay Tencel - Black
3. Louet Hemp Top Spinning Fiber 7.121
4. Paradise Fibers "White Vanilla" Alpaca Top
5. Black Diamond Bamboo Top Spinning Fiber
6. Baby Camel Down Natural Brown
7. Paradise Fibers Natural Flax Top/Roving Vegetable Fiber
8. Special Merino Tencel SuperWash Spinning Fiber (White) 50/50
9. Gotland Lambswool Top-Spinning Fiber
10. Sweet Grass Targhee Wool Top (Natural White)
11. Ashland Bay Blue Face Leicester Top
12. Paradise Fibers Natural (Honey Gold Color) Soy Silk Spinning Fiber
13. Black Welsh Mountain Top
14. Ashland Bay Corriedale Cross (this is actually Natural Fawn not ecru like the link)

I made up a price list that corresponded to the numbers and attached a paradise fibers card to each one since they were all purchased there. Then I did up a paper with just a list of the names and a place for the numbers left blank so that I could make a game of it and have the ladies guess which fiber was which. One of each of all the fibers went into a bag, I did up 12 even though I only expected 8, I didn't want to be wrong and come up short!

I was glad I'd done all 12, by time everyone had arrived for the party we had 8 spinning wheels and 9 spinners present -- look at all those spinning wheels!

One woman who was expected was unable to come at the last minute, so I set a side one of the bags of fiber for her and then saved one to bring out to the guild building to keep there for future orders. So it turned out that I used all but 1 of the bags - I was really glad I'd done up all 12!

Once everyone got there I we passed out the fibers and the sheets with the list of names out of order and the numbers left off for the ladies to try and fill in themselves. I knew some would like it, but I was afraid that a few of the ladies might be bored or annoyed with the guessing game, but they actually really enjoyed it! I had a prize for who knew the most (one woman had 12 of the 14! Just had the hemp and flax switched) and a random door prize, but one woman only got 2 right and was a good enough sport to admit it, so we all decided to forgo the random drawing and give her the prize!

When we finished that we headed in for lunch - I did up Raspberry Italian Sodas, with organic raspberry syrup and organic cream (it's organic therefore it's healthy.) and mom had prepared a pasta salad. Most ladies had also brought a lunch.

When lunch was over we went back out and started trying some of the fibers. It was a lot of fun to see how different people spun it up different ways or hear the different opinions and favorites of everyone. I didn't spin much, I ended up wandering around and watching what everyone else was doing! One woman who was spinning but was going to do the plying at home had all the fibers piled up in stripes - it looked so cool. Another who had come with 2 empty bobbins would go ahead and Navajo ply everything and then show it around while everyone expressed their opinions on that fiber whether they liked it more or less once it was spun up, or what you might use it for.

When things started to wind down and there were just a few ladies left one of them asked if they could hear my harp, so I brought out my lever harp to them and played a coupls songs, we ended on that note (no pun intended) and everyone left... or so I'd though, one woman came back to ask if we had something long to help them get into their locked car... lol.
She, and another lady with her daughter had carpooled with here and were locked out of the car 25 miles from home (and at least that far from any locksmith). They had left the window open a crack, so we pulled got a walking stick and tried and tried to hit the automatic lock button, one stick was too short to reach, another stick was too long to maneuver... Finally I realized that my arm would fit about halfway in the window, not far enough to hit the button, but far enough to move my wrist and hold the walking stick, which was too short just stuck in the window. But it was a short car and I'm a tallish person - my arm was still a tight fit and the stick was heavy, so I couldn't see what I was doing, and my control wasn't the best, with directions of "Up a little... not that much - down a little... right just a tiny bit... too far... back... good! up... up... push the button!" we finally got the car unlocked. I was sure to inform them that if they ever dropped their keys on the wrong side of a chain link fence, I could get those for them too (I know this from personal experience).

All the ladies want to do it again next year, they really appreciate all my mom did to put it on (and I do too - thanks mom!) - and next time they want to put in a contribution for the fiber. They also want me to set up the guessing game again. Despite the 30 minute drive that many of them had to make to come out here - they really liked the setting my parents had for it - early on we moved a few yards over into the area of the yard that has our volleyball net up, it's mostly surrounded by big trees and less clover in the grass, so we weren't sitting right in the sun and there were less bees. We all got to spin and chat while sitting with God's glorious creation all around us... in one direction you look into a green forest in another direction a little dirt lane going into the woods, then finally you look up and see an evergreen covered foothill looming over it all that us locals know is only the beginnings of the mountains that we're so blessed to live right by...

One of the first rules of weaving is never to judge a product until it's been washed. See the difference?

(the lighting's a little different in these pictures. While the texture did change,
the colors didn't actually change much when washed)

When I wove mom's towels I didn't want to get bored, so I decided to mix up the color scheme as much as was possible with two static colors in the warp. This actually works really well with this pattern... I've also heard it looks really nice with a lighter and darker shade of the same color.

My First towel Was Off-White & Navy



Then I Tried Off-White & Sage



The Third I did Sage & Navy



And finally, I did only Navy.
Simply to see how just one color in the weft would look in this pattern

Once they were all washed and hemmed, they were at last ready to be wrapped and presented for mothers day!

It's taken several washings to get both the natural and factory applied oils and waxes off the cotton, but I think they're finally absorbent enough to work well as hand towels.

When I go to the houses of the other weavers they have their kitchen towel drawers full of all sorts of different handwoven dishtowels that are in just gorgeous patterns and textures and all in an eclectic assortment of beautiful bright colors and lovely soft color combinations. Maybe someday my kitchen towel drawer will look like that