A new beginning

We have a new addition to our spinning wheel "collection". This is the Fidelis.
We got this wheel for people to be able to learn to spin. We thought it would be a great teaching tool.
The bobbins are pretty cool looking....
Why do we need spinning wheels we don't plan on using ourselves??? Jump on over here and see.
I will be posting at the new blog almost exclusively now. Come on over!!

Miraculous Miranda!!

Oh my gosh, ya'll!!! I am so in love with my new bag!
I made just a few modifications to her, so she can be my knitting bag. I left out the closure with velcro, because velcro eats yarn, and few other modifications I noted below.
Be sure and check out all the cool bags that Lazy Girl has on her site. They are an easy sew and very efficient.
So. here are some pics.




I quilted her myself, with just a criss cross
pattern on my machine.
Really simple and actually the longest process of the whole thing.
I used some really stiff interfacing, no batting.






Another modification I made was to put the stiff interfacing in the pockets, because I knew I was going to be using them alot and I made one pocket on one side big enough to hold a knitting book.
I also used the straps from the Gracie handbag instead of the straps that are with this pattern.


So, here is my little Miranda. I love her and look forward to sharing many knitting projects with her!!

Fun stuff

You Are 81% Creative

You are an incredibly creative person. For you, there are no bounds or limits to your creativity. Your next creation could be something very great... Or at least very cool!

How Creative Are You?

Changes

We have a craft room,Ladies and Gentleman, in all it's deliciousness. That is fibery, fabricy goodness.
I had to show you this really cool thing I decided to do to organize my sewing patterns.
We cut file folders down and separated the patterns by type and children or adult. Pretty cool, huh? This is one of the kids baskets.

This is my finished sewing area, complete with a cork board to hang my pattern in progress. I have always wanted one of these, I am so impressed with me...lol! Greg made this desk and the shelves look just like they were made to fit here.










He did a great job with this area and with the cabinets we use for our fiber prep.



Ashley is doing quality control on the cabinets, lol. She is really getting into the whole drum carder thing. Go see.



Here is a final shot of the whole area, the table behind Ashley got swung to the wall and is for me to cut my fabric on. It is tall enough not to hurt my back and I hung a bit of leftover cork next to it, to hold my fabric scissors.

The table in front of the window is for Ashley's beading and next to that is a bit of this and that, beading and yarn and stuff.

I also have an antique drying rack where Ashley dries her yarn and fiber that she dyes.

That concludes this tour, and now I can go and create!!

Right now, I am going to go and knit and watch my daughter play a game with her brother in Hawaii....isn't the internet wonderful?

Happy Valentines Day

I got this for my baby Ashley for Valentines Day. All my children have come with this sign around their necks! What can I say?

Fiber to finished swatch

Well, while we are waiting on Daddy to move cabinets and shelving, we got in a mood to create. You know, it is so funny how when you move something you haven't touched in a while, it suddenly seems like you absolutely have to touch it now!! The kids were that way when we moved the books in the library. All day after we finished shelving them, the kids were absorbed in the "new" books they had found. LOL
Ashley and I were that way when we moved our carder this past weekend. We had already dyed some fiber and it turned out when we were at a stand still with organizing,
we just had to see how well the fiber blended up.







Then, we couldn't, actually, I should say, I couldn't wait to spin it.

After I had spun it, it just turned out that it was



a perfect opportunity to do a little "tutorial" that we had been wanting to do, for people who have a hard time plying from a center pull ball. I wanted you all to see how easy it is and in fact, I really did have it all plied in about 15 minutes from the time I started. The bummer was that when we went to load the video, it said our file was too big. So we have to learn how to get our videos onto blogger, but we will, so don't give up!


I don't usually spin small amounts of fiber anymore, so have not plied from a ball in a really long time. I can feel that if Ashley keeps this up (of course she will, she is now selling it!) I am in for more small amounts of spinning.


After our little camera moment, I put it on the niddy noddy to make a skein.






Then I knitted up a small swatch to see what it would look like in a garment.










I really love this color blend. It ends up being kind of like a denim. Something about spinning a color blend, as opposed to dying a blended yarn, is that there is a depth of color that can not be achieved any other way. I just love spinning.

Chaos or organizing?

This is a craft room update for all my loyal followers....lol. I am sure you have been dying to know what I have been doing with my craft room and here are the pictures of today's busyness...
We brought down all the "toteable" stuff. Daddy is going to have to bring down our cabinets and move some custom shelving that goes over the desk that I am going to use as my sewing desk, but, at least all that we can move without Daddy is down here now.




It feels like we have not made much progress....but maybe we have.

I am just going to say that this is not where everything is going to stay, it just happens to be where little hands placed it.

Ashley confiscated the window for her bead work.

I am now in the process of looking for a second hand hide-a-bed for this room.

We decided that it was a bit of overload to leave a bed in here, as we are not expecting company until June and then again in December.




This is what I call the closet pass-through. It goes to the bathroom and has 2 small closets in it, one on each side. This closet on the left has my fabric and patterns and the one on the right has knitting books, needles and extra fabric, so far lol.