I've started spinning more, trying to spin a couple of days a week. I still need to photograph and post some of what I've done over the past few months, but I did photograph what I did this week.

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The Dye O Rama had close to 280 participants, and almost 40 different donated prizes for a raffle drawing that was conducted at the end. Much to my surprise, I actually won something ( Read more... )

My 'secret pal' for the Dye O Rama swap was Tess of http://wildgeese.blogs.com

She sent me an absolutely gorgeous yarn, dyed with Wilton's violet, aqua, and cornflower blue, that she named Oceana Wannabe:


( Read more... )

I finished the yarn! I ordered two skeins of Knit Picks dye-your-own sock weight merino wool yarn. Because of the way they were skeined they tangled very easily. The first skein I used to make small sample skeins to test my dyeing (using Wilton's dyes). The second I rather laboriously wound into a ball (tangle city!) then wrapped around the ( Read more... )

In a fit of insanity I signed up for a yarn swap. Dye-O-Rama to be precise. It is a 'dye your own sock yarn' swap. I sensibly signed up for the "WTF" rather then the "I'm experienced" group, having not really done any dyeing more complicated then plopping fiber into kool aid. The irony here is that I've never crocheted a sock (though I did ( Read more... )

A spinning update.

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Today I had a lesson in spinning. First I got to see what raw fiber looks and feels like. Then I carded it (and I'm still feeling *that* in my shoulder), then I spun on a hand spindle, and then finally on a spinning wheel. I have a big bag of raw fiber, a set of hand carvers, and a homemade spindle with which to do my 'homework' between now and ( Read more... )