not another yarn blog (spinning, weaving, and natural dyeing)

Today I am playing with a new yarn on an Ashford Knitters Loom: Yoga Yarn is a cotton yarn designed with a bit of stretch so it's easier to weave with on a rigid heddle loom.

I love it!  

Also, my first time playing with colour and weave patterns.  Which is different patterns of light and dark yarn (light light, dark, dark.  Light dark light dark.  That kind of thing.)

You made it in Seahawk colors!



I totally don't do football, but living down here, everyone is about the Seahawks since they won, and people have "blue Friday"s where they all dress in Seahawk colors.

You might just have a huge market for such a blanket just south of your boarder. People seem to buy most anything that's blue and bright green, at least when the Seahawks are doing well...

(My favorite day to shop is when the Seahawks are playing. The stores are so nice and empty and parking is so easy to find. Truly lovely!)

Some yarn I spun a while ago.  I wrote down somewhere the yardage but can't find it.  Too lazy to re-measure.  

Someone asked me about acid dyes and I fell down a rabbit hole.  

Which ended in me making some vibrant colours.

the rainbow grows as I decided to dye the weft too.

so beautiful!!! thank you so much for sharing the pics, and the process. Gorgeous.

This blanket could easily have been dressed (put the yarn on the loom) and woven in an afternoon.  The yarn is delightful to work that every step is effortless!  But I had to keep stopping and waiting for good light so I could take photos.

But here's an attempt to take a photo in the dark with some artificial lights.  I think it turned out okay - except one hand holds the light and one hand holds the camera so it's not as good a photo as I want.

Here's some fun I had playing with a draft to see what it would look like in finished cloth.
the draft (draw down) https://handweaving.net/draft-detail/8771/crackle-with-swirls-sally-breckenridge-california-2004-2017

Here's exactly the same draft but 'turned'.  It's like cutting out snowflakes on a paper, if you fold it just right, you only need to cut out one quarter of the flake and unfold it to see the finished design.

I'm going to be focusing on my shop more this year.  

Suddenly a lot of projects have fallen away leaving time for more crafting!  YAH!

Right now, I'm experimenting with free shipping in Canada and the USA on orders over a certain amount.

I've also relisted the learn to spin flax kit as this was popular last year but I kept running out of envelopes to ship it in: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/692617357/learn-to-spin-flax-kit

I'm thinking of redesigning the learn to spin flax kit to include a smaller spindle and ship in a box instead of in an envelope.  The price would go up a bit as those spindles are more, but it would be a better quality kit.

I had a lot of fun the other day playing with some new yarn: caterpillar cotton

This yarn is very soft, very light, and very strong.  It has a squiggle to it which makes a thick and thin texture and a delight to weave.

I found a pattern for a shawl that could be woven with just one cone - a whole shawl, one cone!  That's amazing.  I had my doubts.  No need for doubts.  It worked like a charm!  

I so want to learn how to do this. Unfortunately, I have not found someone in my community who teach.

Jodi Barr wrote:I so want to learn how to do this. Unfortunately, I have not found someone in my community who teach.

If you had someone to teach, what would you want to learn first?

There's nobody in my community to teach either, but I've found a couple of really useful books: The Joy of Handweaving and The Weaving Primer that have gotten me started. I'm sure there are more out there, and probably youtube tutorials and such (love the internet for stuff like this).

Not to mention people on sites like this!

Catherine Carney wrote:There's nobody in my community to teach either, but I've found a couple of really useful books: The Joy of Handweaving and The Weaving Primer that have gotten me started. I'm sure there are more out there, and probably youtube tutorials and such (love the internet for stuff like this).

Not to mention people on sites like this!

What part of the state are you in? I'm in a spinners and weavers guild, really we have a lot of people and every craft someone has dabbled in or is a pro. I know of some other guilds in other parts of the state. Feel free to purple moosage me.

Thanks Kadence! I'm an hour northeast of Columbus. I'm hoping that my life will slow down a bit and I'll be able to find a guild and attend meetings.

Of course, I also have to land a day job, shear my sheep, spin up my backlog of fleeces, keep the raccoons from eating my show birds, etc. There's so much I want to do, but not enough hours to do it.

Catherine Carney wrote:Thanks Kadence! I'm an hour northeast of Columbus. I'm hoping that my life will slow down a bit and I'll be able to find a guild and attend meetings.

Of course, I also have to land a day job, shear my sheep, spin up my backlog of fleeces, keep the raccoons from eating my show birds, etc. There's so much I want to do, but not enough hours to do it.

Gal after my own heart! haha sounds about like my life. I'll link the ones I know of..
https://wrspinweave.org/
https://cuyahogaweaversguild.com/about/
https://www.weaversguildcincinnati.org/
https://yawg.group/

Those links are great resources! I hope other people use them as well.

Given the COVID-19 outbreak in the state I don't know how likely people are to attend meetings for a while. I've spent most of the day corresponding with fellow board members about our policy for meetings and events we host (Humanist Community of Central Ohio) for the foreseeable future.

At least this all gives me an excuse to stay home and work on all the fiber that's sitting around....

social distancing measures are a great excuse to learn a new craft.  I've been thinking how much more time I'll have to weave if we shut down the city.