Tour De Fleece

This was my view for most of my Fourth of July weekend. It was great! I spent Thursday through Saturday doing spinning demo's with the River Cities Fiber clan at the Mountain State Arts and Crafts Fair. This was the first time I got to spend all three days and it was so much fun. Although today is the first day I haven't noticed any soreness. Spinning/carding/picking for 10 hours a day for three days straight is tiring. Not to mention all the shopping and fair food. Oh and MSACF has so many wonderful booths (like ours) where you could make something using older techniques. I forgot to take pictures of the paper marbling I did. I got in when he didn't have anyone and he just let me play until I though my booth would fire me for going missing. A tote bag with nature printing on it. I think I am going to add some embroidery to this to make it pop.

Stained glass WV. I got to use a soudering gun for the first time. I am very proud I didn't burn myself. Now the picker and great wheel might have kicked my butt. Did I mention I got to spin on a great wheel for the first time, and with cotton for the first time and in front of people. Every time I stepped up to the great wheel I had my picture taken like 5 times. It was fun.
The MSACF also fell on the weekend that started the Tour de Fleece. Nope, I spelled that last word right. We crafty people like to take over sporting events for our own purposes. First it was the fiber Olympics, now the Tour de Fleece. Anyway, the point is to spin (fiber spinning not like bike spinning) every day of the Tour de Fleece. It takes place on Ravelry(the website above is from last year) and there are prizes and whatnot. My goal for the Tour is to spin up as much of my Romney fleece as possible. I would love for it to actually be a sweater some day. And thanks to the MSACF, and needing to demo the picker and drum carder I got about half of my fleece carded up and ready to spin. I only wish I had been more optimistic and taken the other bag of fleece. It would probably be done too. But now to the spinning.

I want to make sort of a heavy worsted, bulky weight yarn and I thought the best way to acheive that would be to do more plies. So I am aiming for a three ply (we shall see after some sampling, I have lots of fleece to play with). I am also only running the batts through the drum carder once. I want it to have lots of character and still look like it used to be on a sheep. If I wanted it to look like commercial yarn, I would buy commercial yarn.

I have to say the one thing that amused me the most about this weekend (besides Judy's terror of the fiber butterflies we were making) was how many people were shocked that this brown was the natural color of the wool. A lot of them didn't beleive there were brown sheep out there.

Crafting Monogamy

So it appears that in addition to having problems staying faithful to projects, I have problems staying faithful to one or two crafts. There were several days last week where I didn't touch a knitting needle or crochet hook. I blame Haley and Craftzine and maybe Sam a little bit.

We have painting. Pottery Place moved to a new location and I finally got to try it out. I am in love.

And there was spinning, which will lead to knitting.

And embroidery. I've never embroidered on canvas before.

Oh and I guess this was crochet, but it was with a tiny hook and embroidery thread so it was something I hadn't done before. And it was for Knit in Public day so I thought I would be a rebel and crochet.

But it is ok, because I've returned to knitting and crochet. Although I'm not doing good at focusing. I was able to make some cute new things for the Etsy store. And I am supposed to be knitting a shawl for LilBear for a bit of spending money, but I am distracted by a very cute new purse pattern. So I am working on that.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I hope you look awesome in this:

Now that you are 29. :)

Another episode of "Heidi the adorable"

I feel I am a bit overdue on a blog post about how cute my dog is. I'm sorry I have to do this, but if I was a mom this would be about my kid.

First up we have proof that Charles Shultz had beagles. Heidi does a very good impression of Snoopy. Don't you think? She was pouting at me sitting at the computer and not playing with her.
This is her pathetic face. As in "No one loves me or gives me food or pettin's or anything. Everyone is so mean to me." In actuality I had stopped petting her to take a picture.
But it was closely followed by crazy dog face. This is what happened when I tried to resume petting her. ZOMG! Couch Beagle Shark! Look out, Zach!

And I think my favorite picture of them all. Here is Heidi dancing and singing along to "Thriller". I giggled for about 10 minutes when I thought that up. :)

Sew-Sew-Sew

I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. I finally got around to sewing some new bags for the store. And even made one for myself. I don't think I would sell them made from this fabric. It unravels very easy. But it looks awesome.

And a little sneak peak at my sock in progress. Yes, that is colorwork. It actually isn't too bad and goes pretty fast when I actually work on it.

Why wouldn't I be working on my knitting, you might ask. Because of Haley. It is all her fault. See we have established I'm a bit of a craft hoar. And I'm not very monogamous to my projects. But she has gotten me infatuated with embroidery. I'm not super at it. I think I need to work on my patience and making my stitches more even.

But this will become a dishtowel for a swap partner. I want to make myself one of these. And another one with a burger and shake on it. Yay!

And this one was actually the first embroidery I did. It got turned into a bag. I already have another bag with a pattern transfered on. I am just trying to be better about finishing some things before I start on it. Oh and I have become a little obsessed with making skirts.

This skirt came from a tutorial on Freshly Picked for the Elastic Waistband Skirt. And even better, it has pockets! I love it. Since it is so full, it turned out a bit short. And it is very poofy on top. I need to wear it with something very fitted on top so I don't look ginormous.

This skirt is a rectangle with an elastic waistband. But I love the material. Even if I forgot how much of a pain jersey knits can be to work with. But it wasn't too bad. I love this skirt.

And this skirt turned out super fun. I had some fabric in my stash that wasn't very wide. Maybe 2 feet. And on one edge it has embroidery and eyelet lace. I want to say it might be for curtain valences. That is the only thing I could think of. Or maybe the edge of a dust ruffle. Anyway. I cut it in lengths about 6 inches longer than my hip measurement. I think I got 5 pieces out of it, but I only used 4. I then layered them and sewed them together. Sewed up the back with about 1/2 an each selvage (adjusting for uneven edges). And I put it on at that point to figure out where I wanted it to hit and sewed in an elastic waistband. I love it. It turned out just like I wanted it to. That doesn't happen too often when you are winging it.

Baby on the brain

Well, it is on my brain, but not my baby (sorry Tracey). But I have been doing a lot of crafting for babies. There is my niece, Julia, who I have not made nearly enough things for. Or seen nearly enough. I think that needs remedied. Soon. So she gets a pretty spring dress. And I am starting an embroidery project for her.

And there are some other expectant moms in my life. So I've been making things. Even though I have a while. I just think I needed some quick and easy projects to do. And this sweater was quick. But it is a good thing the baby is due in the fall, because it would die of heat stroke in anything other than cold weather.

But I have been raising and nurturing something. My Garden! Look! there is green. And flowers. I'm shocked and so excited.
But the best part, BABY TOMATOES!!! I might actually get to eat something from my garden. Craziness! And they are now even bigger than they were in th

Dames For Dogs

So through Justin Brock, I have gotten involved in a great organization: Dames for Dogs. It is an organization that raises funds to help shelters in Eastern Kentucky. I haven't moved, it is just close enough for me to help. You can donate on the website.

But their big fundraiser, which is where I got involved is their pinup calendar. Justin is shooting pin up photos of a bunch of Dames with their Dogs. Lots of people have been doing photos so I'm not sure if I'll make it into the calendar.

They have a facebook page and have some of the outtake photos (the ones that are good, but not the best) up there. Including mine. Yay!

My pinup name is Betty Baker, because I knew the only way to keep Heidi's attention was to have food so I baked dog biscuits.