My loom

This is the first rug on my rigid heddle loom. I have several inches woven in white. I'm doing plain weave and just getting used to the process. It went pretty fast so far.

Piles of fiber

I spent a lot of time this weekend carding up Romney fiber to spin for rugs. I also started weaving the first one. Now I have to decide which colors to spin first. It all carded up bigger than I thought it would. I wished I'd gotten some spun.

I love the bright colors and enjoyed getting the fiber all smooth, fluffy and ready to go.

Hemp habit

I got a bracelet at the yoga studio a while back and I just love it. So I decided I could make some. So I went through my beads and bought some hemp. This week I started creating and I took some pictures of some of the things I made. I made the one above. I like making and wearing the bracelets. They are not typical hemp bracelets and I liked the look of them. They are lots of fun. And still sort of fiber related. LOL I have got to use up some of my bead stash so this is part of that effort.

Baby stuff

So my daughter is having her 1st baby, a little girl and so I have switched over to knitting baby clothes. I'm going to see her this coming weekend and going to a shower for her. Did I mention I dislike baby showers? But it's my little girl.

I will admit I like knitting baby clothes as they work up quickly and are so cute. I am using sock yarn for some of it as it is washable. I will be doing more but I'll have a few things to give her. Plus I pulled out the baby things I saved of hers and am soaking the stains out. (I hope)

It should be fun to see her and her brothers. I can't wait!

Final version

As you may have seen in my last post, my first effort to dye 3 different fibers didn't turn out like I'd hoped. So I overdyed the "blue" silk with magenta. Then it was way darker and a blue purple so I used the only other purple and overdyed the mohair and cashmere.

They ended up much closer, at least in the same color family so I am using them as is. It should look pretty, I think. But I do love purple.

Dyeing different fibers

I spun three different fibers for a sweater. Cashmere, silk and mohair. They all went into the dyepot at once but dyestrike aside, they turned very different colors. The silk took up the blue but didn't soak up any red in the purple dye.

This is one argument for dyeing first because then the uneven dye is spread throughout the yarn when you spin. Not that it would have fixed the silk problem. I might try to overdue it or just not use silk in the design.

I'll do some test swatches. Maybe I should have chosen blue after all.

Hemp bracelets

I am making hemp bracelets lately. I got the purple one at the yoga studio and I was so taken with it that I had to get some hemp and dig through my bead collection to find some good beads to use with the hemp. Of course, I ended up at the bead store for a few more things, and also raided my mom's stash. The red one is my first effort. It's not bad and I am making another one now for my friend Gloria.

Of course, spinning some cotton and waxing it would make it even more my own creation, but I would have to get cotton dye as I currently only have protein dyes which won't work on cotton. But I can always get some if I can spin the cotton firmly enough and fine enough to handle the wear and tear of the beads on it. This could be fun!

I had a visit yesterday with Kathy to see her latest projects. She is always a great inspiration for my creativity and I need to keep in touch better. Trouble is that I don't always visit Tucson.

So I'm going to make hippie jewelry for a while and maybe put some of it on Etsy. It's really yoga jewelry for me, with OM symbols and chakra colors. I love color!