Wow.  I find it hard to believe it’s the end of January, but yet, here it is 31-Jan.  The month really did speed by.

I’ve been working on some projects that I really can’t blog about.  However, as I am working with this one particular fiber, I can’t help but think what a wonderful pair of socks it would make.  At least it would FEEL wonderful.  That got me thinking.  I love knitting socks and am so glad I am able to knit them again.  I have several pairs that I have knit over the years.  Some I run to more often then others.  The ones I find more comfortable are yarns without nylon.  They seem to be holding up just as well as the ones with nylon in them.

So, my question to you is….which do you prefer?  Socks using a yarn with nylon or without?  I would love your opinons on this.  No contest this time around, however, since February is almost here that means FIBERY BINGO.  Stay tuned for more details coming very soon.

Well, the schools are out again today and after a bit of torture yesterday by still doing school with the kidlets, we decided to let them have the full day off today to play in the ice and and slush that should be gone by the afternoon.  A warm up is expected so a melt down should occur.  Oldest daughter spent so much time snow plowing (herself) outside I had to do a full load of wash just on her wet clothes.  I think she ended up changing something like 4 times????

I plan to persue fibery “stuff” safely warm and dry inside while the kidlets have a blast.

What’s on your agenda for today?

The 20th person to leave a comment was TURTLE.  Here’s your prize:

400+ yards superwash wool/nylon fingering weight sock yarn.

Thanks to all who participated and who left a comment.  It truly was very interesting to see what preferences are.

And if you didn’t win this round, don’t dispair.  Coming back, due to popular request, is Fiber Bingo.  Stay tuned to February for more details.

…what does the fiber freak do?  Finish her socks of course.  I am so excited that I was able to knit these in just over a week.

Pattern:  Parting Ways from HeartStrings Fiber  I got the pattern from Heritage Yarns a few years ago.

Yarn:  From a friend I knit a hat for.  No name on the label.

Love the pattern.  Easy and fun to knit.

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And here’s how the kids enjoyed the ice storm.  Yes, it’s all ice and not snow.  And it’s still coming down.

I took 5 skeins from my dyeing on Friday to make a special project for me.  When the kids came to live with us we went from no kids to 5 in a year’s time.  Believe me it was chaos at times and even something as simple as a cup on the counter led to fights and confusion.  One day I went to Wal-Mart (although in this house we tend to call it “stuff mart”) and and found a set of 5 different colored cups.  One for each child.  They each got a chance to pick “their” color.  Those colors have sort of stuck ever since.

Oldest boy child…pink (don’t ask…it’s what he wanted…he was younger at the time)

Oldest girl child…green

Middle boy child…blue

Youngest boy child…red (or sometimes orange)

Youngest girl child…yellow.

So, I picked out pink, green, blue, red, and gold from my newly dyed yarns and created a woven word scarf spelling out our last name.  I chose the colors to match the kid’s age order and each color represents a letter in our last name and I wound enough ends to indicate that letter in the alphabet (a-1, b-2, c-3 etc). I chose to do 4 color repeats of our last name (there is a reason but it’s sort of personal.) I was able to get the warp wound to the back beam of the loom on Saturday night while Daddy-Man and the kidlets watched a cowboy movie (Guns of the Magnificent Seven).

Sunday after church, I threaded the heddles and sleyed the reed and started weaving. Early this morning, I finished it up, got it off the loom, washed, pressed, dried, and ready to show off.

Warp is 2/20 fine merino wool (lace weight) at 30 epi.  Weft is lace weight alpaca.

8 3/4 inches wide, 69 inches long with 2 inches of fringe on each side.

It’s super soft, very warm, personal to me, and all mine mine mine.

If you’re interested in a personalized scarf, contact me, and we’ll talk about it and see if we can’t work something out.

Yesterday afternoon while the cold front blew through, I found myself winding off 17 one ounce skeins of lace weight yarn and kettle dyeing them.  The results…..yummy yarn destined for future weaving projects.

Today more yarn is finding it’s way to the dye pots.  With Mr Daddy-man home again, I am finding that I have the ability to spend more time at the dye pots and that’s such a good thing. 

“…for our God is a consuming fire.”

Hebrews 12:29

Warp colors hand dyed tencel in soft orange, clear yellow, and a reddish/peachy color.  Weft is grayed mauve tencel. This is a woven word scarf ala Bonnie Tarses style which spells out Consuming Fire.

Measures at 75 inches long with 3 inch fringe on both ends and 6 wide. 24 epi

When I sat down to weave, I had a structure in mind, but I ended up treadling wrong for some reason.  When I started over, I realized I didn’t like what I had originally planned to do and went back to the wrong treadling sequence.  I love the look and want to do more weaving with this plan.

So, I’ve been doing a lot of yarn painting lately.  Solids, semi solids, and space dyed.  I find that I like to weave with more “predictable” colors.  As I explained during a conversation with a friend the other day, I am a color in the lines kind of gal.  Things have to follow a specified order.  Control.  Predictability. That would describe me.

BUT…..(isn’t there always a but?)

When I paint yarn, I don’t like to do the same thing over and over again.  I like to just throw things in a pot and see what happens.  I’ve painted about 2 pounds of yarn over the last two days and I think that the last few skeins have been the ones that have caught my eye the most.  Just a mish mash of colors thrown in wherever.

So tell me.  What’s your favorite yarn?  Solid, semi solid, self striping, variegated, predictable results, one of a kind colorway that never could be repeated even if you tried, or something else.  Come on, chime in.  Would love to hear from everyone.  I am thinking there might be a contest in this and the randomly chosen winner gets a skein of newly painted yarn.

It’s true I didn’t give birth to my children, but I take credit for the birth of yet another weaver in the house.  Youngest boy child has been begging to weave on the inkle loom.  Yesterday was his day to learn.  He sat for quite awhile working away at it until he had the hang of it.  Then he went out to play “manly boy kind of games”  (you know football and man hunt and the like) but every once in awhile, he’d come in, throw a few picks, and run back out.  This morning he woke up and finished his piece.

Youngest girl child wants to weave now too.  But alas, with oldest girl child using a loom, middle and younger boy children using looms, I am out of looms.  Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What are we going to do?  We’ll figure it out.

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Differences:

These two ARE birth brothers and are only 10 month apart in age:

But even as 12 and 13 year olds, they still like to dress in dad’s old uniforms and try to beat the tar out of each other.

Youngest boy child has grown smart though….he padded his uniform with pillows so when he got his “butt whuppin’ (to quote his older brother)…he was well padded

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And there has been fibery things going on as well.  Lots of weaving, spinning, yarn painting, and even some sock knitting.  Will have pictures in the next day or two.

Or something along those lines. Lots of pictures to show off.

Shibori Scarf

I decided to try my hand at Shibori Weaving and Dyeing

First I wove the cloth inserting the tie up strands

Then I pulled the strings as tightly as I could (but now know I could have pulled them tighter)

Then soaked it and prepared it for painting

Painted ready for heat setting

Heat set and washed, pulling the tie threads out

All pressed and dried

Honestly I had hoped for more white, and I think had I pulled my strings tighter, I would have acheived that.  There’s a reason the author of the book suggested using bobbins as leverage to tie the strings

Tencel Scarves

I bought a painted warp from Margaret over at Heritage Yarns last summer.  Lovely Gulf Breeze Sunrise.  Yum. It stayed, hung on my warp wall where I could admire it, but I feared trying to warp the 200 plus threads.  However, due to my genius husband rigging up my warping bar, I decided to give it a try.  I beamed the warp in record time with great tension.  The loom was threaded and I found myself weaving in no time.  About half way through, I remembered that I also had a hand painted skein of tencel in the same colorway, so I decided to try an experiment.  Using the same colors, the same tie up, same threading and treadling, try different ways of winding the warps to see what the outcome would be.  I was amazed at the results.

Margaret’s Painted Warp along with teal weft

STUNNING.  The picture here simply doesn’t do it justice.  The drape is wonderful, the colors glorious, and the shine is stellar.

Then I took the skein of Gulf Breeze Sunrise and warped the same number of ends and used the same teal as weft.  Again I used the same threading and treadling sequence.

Again, the drape and shine and amazing.  The pattern got lost a little bit but if you “look” you will find it.

For the third scarf I decided on the solid teal for warp and the Gulf Breeze Sunrise as weft.

You can see the pattern a little easier on this then the second one but again, still need to look for it.  Drape and shine are wonderful.

Three very different looks made from the same yarns.  Simple presented in different ways.  The possibilities don’t end there and many others still remain.

But I was wanting to get this on the loom.

Which is again one of Margaret’s lucsious colorways called *Moonlight Stroll that my secret pal sent me for Christmas.  I did a little bit of ikat warping and some random.  Will see how it turns out soon.  I need to sley the reed today, tie on, and get busy.

* in a previous post, I believe I called this colorway Moonlight Sonota.  I apologize Margaret for getting it wrong.

And of course, there was a bit of painting going on yesterday as well.

Honestly, I approached the dye area with rusts and oranges in mind.  Obviously THAT didn’t happen.  I also painted some cashmere (oh yum) that I didn’t take a picture of.