New Link: All Fiber Arts

Another of my favorite sites for how-to articles, tips and ideas: www.allfiberarts.com. It's also listed in my Links section to the left. Anything and everything you ever wanted to know about any and all of the fiber arts! Check it out!

Party in a Bag

That's not my name for it! I bought this stuff from a vendor at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival a few years ago. She basically threw everything she had lying around into the picker and this is what came out the other side. This is all I've spun so far. I have 2 more lbs to do. I'm not going to ply it. I like the singles just fine as they are. What do you think?

Mixed Up Scarf

This scarf sparked my love of mixing things up. I bought the wool several years ago from a woman on Ebay who had run a natural dye workshop. She had small amounts of wool leftover from the workshop. There was about a thousand different sheep breeds, plus llama, alpaca, mohair and animal fibers. Each little bit had been dyed with about a thousand natural colors. I loved them all but couldn't begin to think what I would do with them. So I just carded random handfuls together and spun them. I liked the yarn, but I loved the scarf. This one is mine -- not for sale! The pattern is simple -- it's just garter stitch from a point at one end to a point at the other end with a YO eyelet edge all around and a nice fat, fuzzy tassel at each end. I just fell in love with the colors and the texture. The yarn seems to self-stripe all on its own. And it's very soft and warm, too!

Handspun, Handknitted Hats

So I thought you might like to see some of my finished products. These hats are all handspun and handknitted.








This hat above is made from mystery wool.






The gray part of this hat is Jacob wool and the white part is Karakul. They are both primitive breeds and the textures are very different. The combination made for an interesting end product.






This hat is 100% Jacob.

Latest Kool Aid Skein

This is the latest batch of KA yarn from Fiber Space Designs. I don't have a name for the colorway yet. Suggestions?

Why I Knit

This is another essay assignment for the Pen & Thread fiber newsletter:

Why I Knit

By Fiber Maeven

When I was given this assignment, I jokely responded that I knit because it keeps me from inflicting bodily harm. Although that’s not entirely untrue, it’s not the only, or even the biggest reason.

It all started because I needed a hobby that would keep me from snacking in front of the TV in the evenings. It had to be something that would keep my hands in perpetual motion but that allowed the rest of my body to relax. It had to be repetitive enough that I could still pay attention to CSI, yet interesting enough to keep me . . . well . . . interested. What were my options? Hmmm . . . solitaire . . . jigsaw puzzles . . . juggling chainsaws . . . and all fun things to do, but not one of them quite fit my criteria. Oh, yeah, I forgot . . . my holy grail of hobbies had to be creative and constructive.

I seemed to remember that my mom had attempted to teach me to knit when I was a child. I hadn’t been very good at it. But I’d been seven. Twenty-five years had passed. Surely I had acquired some dexterity since then.

Let’s explore a knitter’s psyche, shall we? I, like so many of my sisters, learned to knit as a child. My mother used to knit sweaters and doll clothes for me. I’m not sure who taught her, but she tried to teach me. Of course, she tried to teach me lots of things, but I was a typical kid who would have none of what the adults were selling. Later, much later, actually, when I was in my 30s, I got the urge, for no reason that I can readily identify, to learn the craft. My mom hadn’t knitted for at least 20 years, so I decided to take formal lessons.

My first project was a 2 x 2 rib scarf, but it quickly grew tiresome. I moved on to a baby afghan, which was actually good enough to give as a gift, and that is exactly what became of it. I made several more of those, and then decided that I was bored with making squares and rectangles, so I learned to knit hats in the round on circulars. Next came socks on dpns. Eventually I tried sweaters. Interesting but boring. And the finishing . . . my word . . . the finishing!!!

Apparently I have an issue with finishing anything, actually. My house is strewn with project bags containing UFOs. A sweater in the round for my dh that begs me to finish the neck; a poncho desperately in need of fringe; a plethora of other projects that only need to have the ends woven in. But it’s not knitting!

Knitting has a rhythm all its own. It has a feel and a mood. It puts me in a trancelike state of solitude. It’s Zen.

And did I mention that it keeps me from inflicting bodily harm?

Some Close-Ups

Even though you can just click the pics to get a better look, I enjoy posting. Humor me! The first three pics are close-ups of different batches of my Chaos yarn. That's what I call my random Kool-Aid colorway. The other pic is my yarn label. Oops! I see a mistake -- I should have deleted the bottom sentence for a label on a natural skein! Think anyone else will notice?