Autumn Leaves

I finished this necklace a few days ago.  The leaves are from this blog post: Autumn I should have made more, I used almost all of them.

I plan to make more leaves.  I'm thinking earrings, more necklaces and some leafy bracelets.  It seemed like a lot of leaves when I made them, but I guess it wasn't.

But, I've just started some Halloween items that I need to finish first.  In a week I've made maybe 6 beads.  And no, they haven't been cured. At the rate I'm moving they might be ready by next Halloween.  Maybe.

It Must Be Getting Cooler Because...

I've been working on some knitting.  Yesterday, I started a Jane Thornley freerange scarf.  It is based on a scarf "recipe" for it that is free on her website.

Most of the yarns I'm using are wool, plus a few novelty yarns.  The blue in the picture below is actually very purple.  The combination of purple and orange is giving it a bit of a Halloween look.  I wasn't really trying for that, I just like the combination of purple and orange.

I also photographed some things that I had finished earlier this year.  One of the items is this shawl which is mostly acrylic.  I like how it turned out, but I'm seeing that natural fibers sure do drape better than acrylic.

Also, wool breathes better than acrylic and retains it's insulating properties if it gets wet.  I would like to move away from acrylic and work more with wool. But sometimes price gets in the way. 

More Spinning With a Drop Spindle

Here is my latest attempt at spinning yarn.  It turned out much better than my previous two attempts, but far from perfect.  It has a lot of thick and thin but the yarn is not as bulky as my first two attemps.  There are also some spots that are a bit twisty from being over-spun.

I used the roving I had dyed with Kool-aid and I really like how the colors turned out.  It reminded me of the honey spiced peaches I canned last week.

With my first two yarns, I made some bulky hats.  Once the weather turns cold, they should be nice and toasty warm.

I'm going to pick up more fiber and I especially want some of the brown.  I have some more hat projects in mind to try.

Autumn

It is nearly autumn.  Hopefully, this will be the last week of 90+ degree weather and next week I can get some serious work done in the garden.

This last week, I spent most of the week dealing with canning peaches.  Ugh, the peaches beat me up and nearly won!  But, more about that in another blog post.

I have four small apple trees in my garden.  And the best of them are the honeycrisps! Big, beautiful, crispy, juicy, sweet.  Perfect apples.  I thin them a lot and then bag them with plastic baggies in the spring.  The baggies keep the nasty coddling moth out of the apples.  Hubby and I decided we need to plant a larger honeycrisp tree in the spring.

This week, I plan to focus on my ArtFire shop a little more.  No more major canning.  Maybe a project here or there but no more marathon sessions this year.

 I have some autumn colored polymer clay leaves I've been working on.  And I have clay mixed to make a few more.  I'm thinking some sort of necklace, but I haven't really got it completely thought out yet.

I want to get these finished up and move on to some Halloween ideas that I have.  Things I should have been working on a month ago. At the rate I'm moving they should be done for next year.  Maybe. . .

Attempting to Spin With a Drop Spindle

This last week, I went out and bought a drop spindle and some roving.  The one I bought was $22, much less of an investment than a spinning wheel. (Also way smaller and no complicated moving parts)  Here is my first sorry attempt at spinning.  Looks more like dreadlocks than yarn.

This is my drop spindle with some brown fiber I making into dreadlocks yarn.

It's not the most frustrating craft I've attempted, but it's right up there.  Soldering is #1 on my frustration scale, and #2 is throwing on a potters wheel.  Right now this is at #3 on my frustration scale. 

Ive been watching various Youtube videos on spinning with a drop spindle, particularly this one:

http://youtu.be/rPUORvO-GZE

But I think, I can only get so much from watching a video.  I think I need a live human to help me with this.

I've found a local class I'm planning to take to learn how to use the drop spindle.  There is also a beginning spinning wheel class.  The only thing is, I need a wheel for the class.  I would like to find something to rent - I sure have no clue what to buy!  I'll have to see how that goes.

And some more Kool-aid dyeing.  This was white roving that I dyed with yellow food coloring, and lemonade, orange, black cherry and grape Kool-aid. Hopefully it will end up as yummy yarn and not rope or dreadlocks!

Miss Fugly Yarn, Meet Mr. Kool-Aid

Last year around this time, I bought a bag of wool yarn at Goodwill for $2.50.  It was quarantined to the green house where I figured the temperature extremes would kill any wool moths.  Of course I forgot about it and found it when we cleaned the greenhouse out in spring. 

At it has been sitting in a corner with a pile of my junk since then.  There are 4 different colors of yarn and 3 of them are/were ugly with a capital "UGH".  Here are two of them - a much too bright obnoxious red and a nasty, nasty green.

Bet you are wondering why are their Kool-Aid packets in this picture.  In the world of ugly wool yarn, Kool-Aid makes everything better! 

Kool-Aid will dye protein fibers such as wool, alpaca, etc.  These animal based fibers need an acid type dye and Kool-aid has ascorbic and citric acids.  Note, this won't work with cotton or acrylic.


First I  washed and rinsed the yarn.  I washed it mainly because it was a thrift store buy.  If it had been new yarn, I would have just soaked it in tepid water.

I added water and a package of black cherry Kool-Aid to my pan here.  I also added a glug of vinegar just to make sure.  Then I added the fugly green yarn and turned on the heat!

It didn't take very long, before the water was clear and the yarn absorbed all the dye! Err, Kool-aid.

I didn't let the water boil and I did not stir the yarn.  I also waited till the yarn was cool enough to handle and before rinsed it in warm water.  I was pleased that I didn't end up with a felted mess.


Here are the green yarn and red yarn after being overdyed with the Kool-aid. The green was over-dyed with black cherry and the red was over-dyed with grape.

Here is all the yarn I bought at Goodwill.

The yarn in the front right of the picture, was the only one of the three I liked and didn't dye.  I washed it, and what a pain!  It bled really bad.  I added vinegar a couple of times.  Then with the last rinse, I added a huge glug of vinegar.  And it finally stopped bleading color.  But now it smells like pickles. . .

The yarn on the left started out as an ugly beige.  I added two packages of lemonade, two of black cherry and one of grape.  Took it out, decided it needed more.  I over-dyed it with two more packages of black cherry.


Oh yeah, this was way too much fun! And so easy!  I bought some food coloring today to try out as well.  I have some Lion brand fisherman's wool and some Knitpicks blank yarn I want to dye.

I have been wanting to try this for a long time.  There was an article in Knitty  about Kool-aid dyeing a few years ago.  Ever since I saw that article, I've been wanting to try it.  There are also several  YouTube videos on dyeing yarn with Kool-aid and food coloring. (Oh boy, YouTube is a dangerous place, can you say "spinning wheel").

Bracelet Fail

Yesterday I was sitting at the Master Food Preservers' Booth at the fair, when the bracelet I was wearing broke.  It was strung with elastic beading cord (don't remember the brand).  I made a couple of bracelets to wear and test to see how the elastic cord holds up.  And well, this is a big fail!  

I'm glad I was test wearing before just jumping into selling elastic bracelets.  Selling something like this and having it fall apart would plainly suck!  I'm not sure what I did wrong.  I tied a square knot and added a touch of glue.

I have one that I was ready to finish off, but now I'm going to have to figure something else to do with it.

I'm bummed about it.  I really like the continuous look with no clasp.  And they are comfy and fun to wear. 


Not sure if I didn't tie it correctly or didn't glue properly, but, well, dang.