Year End

So as 2009 comes to an end, I take time to go through my efforts of the last year. I keep a journal of my spinning, weaving, knitting, and quilting, with photos of the great successes and the abysmal failures. There are notes on each project, "try again", "don't ever try again" and "what was I thinking?".... it gives me great satisfaction to know that so many will be warm and comforted by the items I have made this year, and it gives me great joy to reflect on all the support I have received from other fibreists. Many thanks to you all and here's to another year of discovery and creation!

Alpaca Scarf

I received a half fleece from a 4 year old male named Saku at Windy Ridge Alpacas and decided to spin it straight out of the bag, and weave a scarf as a sample. It was a joy to spin and I did up 225 yds of two ply to sett the scarf at 8 epi, 7" wide and 72" long. After fulling in the machine for 2 minutes, hanging to dry, then finishing in the dryer for 2 minutes, the scarf was 5.75" wide and 66" long (excluding fringe). It is wonderfully soft and light, with a lovely hand... I will gift it to Les, who arranged for me to get the fibre, and thanks to Denise at Windy Ridge Alpacas! The remaining fibre will be spun up for scarves for W.A.R.P.

Quilting

This quilt pattern is called "shadow box" and it is made by adding a dark strip offset to the main block (which can be any block). The trick to achieving the shadow effect is to add a piece of the background fabric to the dark strip. I quite enjoyed this new technique and although this quilt is tied, handquilting the sashing would accent the shadow effect. Karen has been my quilting co-conspirator since she first taught me to iron, press, and iron again! and she has a wonderful sense of colour for fabric choices. This quilt is my gift to her.

Handspun

So last September I dyed some local fleece (see photo) and have now got some spun up and woven. The warp was 8" wide in the loom (96" long on the warping mill) and I used 6 epi, balanced tabby, and about 200 yds of two ply handspun. The scarf was somewhat rough when it came off the loom, but it washed up beautifully soft, finished at 6.25" wide by 70" long, with 7" fringe.

Last of the Scarves

These are the last scarves for the community free day. It brings the total scarves woven and donated to 120 since last January. It has been an amazing project, very rewarding and I've learned a lot about weaving!

Community Thanksgiving

What a day! It was wonderful to be part of giving to the community, 44 scarves and 25 hats! The few items left will be passed on to Victoria for their homeless project. During the day we wove on a peace banner, prayers and good wishes to all those in trouble and strife. It is a 12 epi mixed warp, 7.5 yds long. There were lots of folks who wanted to try out the loom and contribute their thoughts to the weaving.

Winter's Work

We got a purebred romney fleece on Thanksgiving Weekend. It is now washed and dried, ready for teasing. An hour's worth of work for the two of us yields only one pile ready for carding, but I love raw fleece!