Not so much gardening that you can't enjoy fiber work, I hope! :)
I'm still working on the towels on the AVL--no deadline, so I'm lazing my way through the 25 yards of warp. I'm about 2/3 of the way through, I guess, and enjoying it since we seem to have worked out all the bugs.
Got an overshot table runner on the Schacht--Whig Rose on opposites, using white pattern weft, unbleached tabby weft, and yellow, green, blue, and red stripes for the warp. It was a bear to figure out my threading, and there's a little bit of a mistake on the borders, but it's symmetrical, so it doesn't *look* like a mistake, so I guess it's OK. Our weaving guild chose overshot for the year's project. I have enough warp on to make the runner and probably a towel--no napkins this time :)
Spinning a boucle yarn for the spinning guild's project--novelty yarns. I don't really like novelty yarns in general, handspun or commercial--I mean, they're often very beautiful, but they're usually kind of a pain to actually use. We have one non-spinning member of the our group, and I offered to do her yarn, and she chose a boucle in blue greens. I spun a quick sample a couple days ago, and it was a lot easier than I expected. So yesterday I microwave rainbow dyed some mohair top in yellow and two blues, making mostly greens with just dashes of yellow and blue here and there, and spun the singles last night. I also dyed some musket Shetland with yellow and 4 different blues, making a mass of various teals, along with a smaller batch of chartreuse to spark it up a bit. Going to start precarding and drumcarding that today. I still have to decide what my own yarn will be--I had chosen a cabled yarn, but since then two other group members have done or decided to do that, so it's back to the drawing board. Maybe dye some more mohair and do some sort of fuzzy yarn, those are a bit challenging, so it might be fun.
Haven't yet gotten back to the oily combing :) I want to Navajo ply the little sample I did--luscious moorit brown, a rich color with sunbleached tips for a little 'heathering', and a lamb fleece, so it's quite soft even when worsted spun. Will be a lovely 3-ply at about 28-30 wpi. But I need some smaller needles in the short length for glove fingers--size 0s aren't small enough for this yarn. I have down to 0000 in regular dp lengths, but I'm not sure that's quite fine enough either. I want the knitting to be fairly dense.
And I've taken some 3 ply light sport weight yarn I spun from rainbow dyed Merino top in fall colors and begun working with it again. Last fall I started a sample for a scarf, in mitered squares, and did 3 x 3 squares before I decided I didn't like it and set it aside. I got it out a few days ago as a relatively large gauge (well, size 5 needles is big for me :) quick project to work on, and folded in some 'points' and realized I could turn it into a felted bag with just another 4 or 5 squares. I've done the squares, now I'm knitting on doubleknit handles. I hope to throw it in the washer later today. If I like it, I'm going to do a bigger bag. This one will probably finish out just large enough for a ball of yarn, and will hang from my wrist as I knit, but I doubt it will hold the project as well :)
And I bought a lovely spindle at the Spring Fiber Fling, and a beautiful skein of sock yarn from Trekking--4 plies, each variegated lovely oranges :) I find I love orange more and more as I get older--suits the bright greens and yellows I love for spring/summer, and the rusts and olives I love in fall/winter. After painting 4 rooms this past winter, I'm more aware than ever before how color affects me. The living room is now a rich green--like sunlight through summer leaves--which I find uplifting. The studio is a light peach, and it's like climbing into the womb to look at it, enticing and comforting. The other two rooms don't count, as others chose those colors <g> My bedroom, which I did a couple years ago, is a light yellow--like sunlight on the walls, though the room faces north--lifts my spirits in the darkest days of winter. Color is really an amazing thing!
Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
