A Diet Of Fiber

I've been working on drop spindle spinning with silk, alpaca, and Norwegian wool lately as well as dyeing stuff. I'll let the photos do more of the talking here.

Also started a sweater for my daughter and a hat for my brother.

Staying active and busy.

Orange you glad I'm posting?

I've gone from a purple kick with my knitting and crochet to a new color... Orange! Our at least orangey themed hues. Hand spun hand blended yarn has been overdyed in rusty orange for a purse for my mom. Orange and black Norwegian wool spun to make tweedy halloweeny yarn. A hat in progress is predominantly orange. I'm loving the pop of color it gives everything.

Speaking of color pops, I managed tip successfully do my rainbow dye projects. Can't wait to spin and knit then.

Oh hey, this thing has an ap!

Now I see that I have no excuse not to post more often... Even if it isn't the best photos or in depth descriptions, and even if swype makes what I type cryptic and confusing, I'll post more. Starting today, going to show some of what I've been working on over the last year.
Currently, since I have a badly sprained hand and finger, I'm only spinning. Mill end wool, I think Norwegian but could be Corriedale, in pastel candy colors. will be two ply (I don't dare try more), about a light worsted equivalent.
I also dyed a lot of black and white mill end Norwegian into rich jewel toned roving, which I will spin next. It may be a bit bulkier.

My finger looks less like a sausage now but more colorful. Still in a splint, though I do try to move it a bit daily. It doesn't want to work. Considering how weird the injury was I have no idea the degree of damage and may end up going to an orthopedic doc for it.

Months go by...

I know it's been a couple of months since I last posted. I've made several more dresses
very nearly finished my brother's hat, and done some quickie projects just to stay busy. Here's one, my 'ugly purse'.
Edit: updating to include brother's finished hat!

Hoppin' to it!

I was in a productive mood. I keep weird hours - okay I am a TOTAL night owl. I stay up past 2am and sleep till noon or later. I get things done, but I just do them at different times of the day than normal folks. I get my morning coffee at lunch time. I eat lunch when the kids get home from school. I have a midday snack when they're eating supper. And after they go to bed I get some down time to just create. Today though, I started my creating early in the day.

The first thing I did was grab the green fabric I bought to match a bit of ribbon I got 20 years ago. There was a ribbon outlet down south of us at an outlet mall, and their big 'deal' was to stuff a zipper bag full for a flat rate. Well you can imagine I packed in as much ribbon as I could - some was remnant, some was tangled ribbon off-the-spool, and quite a bit of the massive mound of ribbon was damaged bits that the manufacturers still wanted to get a buck or two off of. I have a tight roll of 3" wide white satin ribbon begging for a project - probably five or more yards, at least. But the ribbon I have been most eager to use has been the 2" wide green satin ribbon. A great deal of it has a fold and discoloration, but enough of this ribbon was in good shape that I was able to use it for this dress. The rest just fell into place.

Matching pacifier, how cool is that!

I had the yellow fabric for the lining from a $1/yard sale at a craft and fabric store in Cali, back when I did a lot of Ren Faire. The frogs and turtles was a recent purchase, it sort of jumped into my cart off the shelves at Wal-Mart (I hear all you sewing mavens gasping and groaning - but my options are limited, as is my budget).



The buttons were from my stash of new buttons, not intended for this fabric. I had a pair of lime green buttons, because when I bought this I intended to make another reversible A-line dress and put another fun fabric on the back side - so I only needed the two green buttons. But I needed four buttons for this dress, so I had to go with what I had. I don't think they look too bad, they pull some of the blue accents out of the dress. it works.
 I made a basic bodice - actually used the pattern I drew up for the A-line dress, but changed the sides of the bodice so they were straighter, more fitted, and then split the back and added an inch to each center mark so there would be an overlap for the buttons. So there are three bodice pieces (six if you count the lining.) The skirt is in three panels, each double the width of each bodice panel, basted and gathered (draw up the bobbin thread to 'scrunch') to the right width.

The bodice's bottom edge sandwiches the top of the skirt, holding all those gathers in place. Then, because I think that edge looks kinda drab, the ribbon is added as a sash. I left the front of the ribbon sash wide, but gave the sides (just under arms) a little pinch and hand-stitched them into place. Then the ribbon just ties into a great big bow in back. The hem is simply blind-stitched, by hand.

When I make another little dress like this I may photograph along the way and try to make some sort of rudimentary tutorial, because as a NON-sewing person, tutorials have been a great help for me. I don't know all the terminology or all the tricks of the trade, but I have had fun coming up with things for Miss Maeven to wear.

1. 
   

I think she enjoys her new dresses too.

Hot Pixies

Er, I mean hot pixels. As in, my 7 year old camera is really in need of replacement. Apparently I have a lot more hot pixels than I used to, as evidenced by my recent long-exposure photos of a storm (yesterday evening we had QUITE the lightning show to the east.) I went through and touched up the photo to the right, but it took some doing. It was cropped, too, so I didn't have to touch up every hot pixel. I like having a camera that I can just turn on and shoot with, and know that every shot is print-ready without having to digitally edit. And though it still takes awesome photos, I feel like it's about time to upgrade. So now I'm sort of (passively) camera-shopping (dreaming) for the next big thing. Even though I am still learning to use this one. Yesterday, for instance, I finally figured out how to manually set the exposure time. Imagine that! This one was a 15 second exposure, on a wobbly compact tripod, with the wind gusting to 15mph at the least. One of a hundred shots I took last night. I'm stoked. Quite a few had impressive lightning strikes. All had really cool clouds. I love how, in this shot, you can see the glow from the right where the street lamp was really messing with my shots. I couldn't get quite the best part of the storms in frame because of that damn lamp. It really screws up our front yard stargazing, too. Didn't we move out to the boonies to get away from street lamps and light pollution? Well, didn't we? ;)

Calmer Weather

Well since the twister, I've been a little on edge, but thankfully still productive. I've been knitting on my brother's hat, bit by bit, and I will unveil it when I am done - it has hints of Fair Isle, hints of South American style, and will hopefully fit him when I am done.
I've also been crocheting on a special project, no big complex deal just something for a good, dear friend who deserves a little something. I'm slow going because I've had other things to do, and my arthritis kind of hampers intense crochet sessions.
Today however, I decided I'd make good use of my time and whipped out a dress for Miss Maeven that I've been planning and brainstorming for weeks. I took my 'standard' A-line style, and added a sash. That's pretty much it. The skirt is a little wider than my prior dresses, and longer too. I wanted to make sure that when Maeven bends over to pick up Easter Eggs, her little bum stays covered.
So now, I present, Maeven's Spring Flutterby dress:

She was not happy about posing, or swapping dresses, or anything other than snuggling at this point.

The little flutterby gems were randomly placed over the edges of the sash, to tack it in place more securely. I applied it with a strip of stitch-witchery tape, but my experience is the stuff eventually loosens up. This was just to get it placed properly, so the stitching would be easier, and so I wouldn't mar the satin ribbon with pins.