Posts Tagged ‘Spinning’

Hi all! A few things to update you on. CB is in the hospital. Nothing to worry about at the moment. He hasn’t been feeling well for a couple of weeks. He started having difficulty breathing last week, causing headaches and fatigue. He finally was willing to go to the doctor yesterday morning. The doc immediately found the oxygen level in CB too low and sent him to the emergency room. They performed tests on him for the entire afternoon and could not find the cause. Finally in the evening after doing a CT scan, they found pneumonia in a hard to detect region of the lungs. So, now he’s in the hospital for a few days to get better. They are also performing extra tests to see there’s anything else. It’s a relief to have found the cause of his illness. Now we can focus on getting better.

Remember that yarn that I named Forest Jewels?

I am going to start knitting something with it. I’ve always had Drifting Pleats from the book Knitting New Scarves in mind. A little scared of the pattern, but am going to give it a good try.

I joined Katherine’s Le Tour de Fleece 2008.

I had so much fun spinning and knitting for Fibre to Scarf Exchange, I thought I’d join up another spinning challenge. Maybe I’ll do well again doing a project with time restraint? We’ll see. Now I have to find something in the stash to get going.

Happy Fourth of July! I’ll be spending the afternoon with CB. :-)

OH! Almost forgot. Chris, here’s the cotton I have to work with:

I am not an experienced cotton person. Maybe it is usual to get cotton in this condition. (It was given to me.) I have at least 30 times more of this cotton. What do you think? Keep or let go? :-)

May’s GLASG meeting was another fun-filled and informative one. It was good to get out of the house and stop thinking (worrying) about what’s happening in the family. Too bad the Jills weren’t there.

The highlight of the meeting was Janel’s lecture on dyeing and color theory. She is a chemist, and she brought to us so many interesting facts. I can honestly say that it was actually FUN talking about chemistry and how our eyes perceive colors. Who’d knew! :-) Janel also announced her new book, The Eclectic Sole, which is available on Amazon. How exciting for her!

Tomorrow is GLASG’s May meeting, and… HOLY SMOKES! I forgot to post last month’s photos. And, it was such a fun, colorful event that I just have to get a few pictures up.

We had a “Kitchen Sink Batt” class with Janel. We carded scraps of leftover fiber together into colorful batts to be spun into unique yarn. (I’d bet there will be a lot of interesting yarn in tomorrow’s show and tell.) Guild members brought in their drum carders to share with the whole group. People donated TONS of fiber for the class. It was so much fun. And so much fiber! But it also fed my desire of owning my own drum carder. Tempting, tempting, tempting!!!

See more photos here.

Last Saturday was the monthly GLASG meeting. We had our usual meeting and show and tell. Plus, Randall gave an introduction to spinning wheel mechanics. I should have listened carefully and learn a few things. But I was spinning with a drop spindle and was so focused that I didn’t hear most of it. Sorry Randall.

We had lots of beautiful show and tell items:

Do you see something familiar? Well, it’s probably hard to tell, but that’s the Hugger in the middle of things. Aren’t these a colorful bunch?

Here’s Dorothy showing off her needle felting jacket.

Jerry showing off his second finished skein of hand spun:

More amazing items:

See more pictures here. Next post, a very long, but very wonderful day at the temple.

This last Saturday’s spinning guild meeting was quite fun and educational. We had Dr. Elizabeth Barber giving a lecture on ancient textiles. She was quite engaging and funny. Lots of interesting info. Ellen and Jerry were there, too! You can read more about the lecture on their blogs.

DSCF4295.JPGDSCF4301.JPG

DSCF4297.JPG

Then during Show & Tell, Ruth introduced us to the Caracol dye.

Caracol dye comes from the Caracol snails. No snails are harmed to get the dye. They release the liquid when handled in a certain way. Maybe a defense mechanism? The dye goes on the fabric kind of muddy green. After it is exposed to sunlight it turns magenta. Fascinating. You can see pictures of the snail on Ruth’s blog.

More photos here.