caracolina

I haven’t had a lot of time for practice since my mom is here but I’ve become a lot more consistent and the yarn is thinner, too. I’m in the middle of a roving I picked up at Yarn School last year, unfortunately the tag is lost so I don’t know where I got it. […]

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I love indigo blue and the Mister found pre-reduced indigo for me to experiment with. The cool thing about this is that you don’t have to go through all kinds of chemical experiments to come up with your dye vat. The way John described it, it couldn’t be any easier: “The lady on the phone said, just put […]

Read the rest of Indigo experiment I

Finally, I tried out my own dye lab (courtesy of Mr. Wise). I split 8 oz. of superwash merino top in half, soaked it in vinegar water, mixed up several flavors of kool-aid and poured it on. I didn’t do any color mixing I just wanted to see how the colors would come out straight […]

Read the rest of Kool-Aid dyeing for the first time

I don’t actually remember what kind of roving it was and whether I got it at yarn school or not. Bad, bad, job. I do believe everything else is labeled though, and stashed away neatly. Anyway, this is yarn I made after my tutoring. It is a lot more even but I am still struggling […]

Read the rest of Brown two-ply yarn

Today John drove us out to Mesa where I attended a 2-hour one-on-one session with Barbara at the Fiber Factory. This is such a nice store, I wish it was closer so I could attend real classes sometimes. John of course had talked to the people there several times while shopping for birthday gifts and so they recognized him […]

Read the rest of My Private Spinning Lesson

After another early morning MacDonalds trip we left Santa Barbara to drive home to Phoenix by way of the “Danish town” Solvang, north of S.B. Some might say Solvang is a bit of tourist trap, but it is definitly nice to see a town that is NOT looking like any other town. The old town is full of little shops, pastry places, and […]

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I’ve yet to upload a photo but I managed to spin two bobbins and ply them, my very first 2-ply! I used some pink dyed stuff from yarn school and it looks nice for a first effort. Unfortunately the singles were kind of loose so that they kept falling apart during the plying. I better practice a lot […]

Read the rest of My first plied handspun

John got a cold/cough after we came back from Oregon. I thought it would pass me by even thought just about everybody in the office was sniffling. Well, now I’ve got it. In true form, it started on Friday and I’ve been in and out of bed all weekend. I’m trying to finish a couple more […]

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I finally got some quality time at the wheel today. After several hours of frustration, struggling, handwringing, and nearly freaking John out, I reached the point again where I get a continuous thread (not very even, yet, of course). Predrafting really helped, because the roving I’m using has some felty spots. And I don’t just […]

Read the rest of Learning to spin

My Fricke spinning wheel was delivered today by UPS. John and I put it together after dinner. I tried it out, but it is obvious that I need a lot more practice. I’m getting some books from the library tomorrow to help me with potential pitfalls. I don’t really have that much time to indulge in […]

Read the rest of Yay, Wheel!