Russian Grafting With Needles

Wool Quilting Batts Part 2

Remember the wool batts? I thought about them for a while. What to do, what to do? I don't like the looks of tied quilts and sewing by machine or hand through all the thickness was just not going to happen. It finally struck me! Duvet Covers! Some surfing and soon enough I came up with flannel Duvet covers and with sheep! of all things sheep all over!
I ordered two twin bed size knowing that the batts are lapsize but maybe two would fit in one? or I could always cut them down to fit. Here are the results, excuse the lousy phone pictures and the blur on the second one:

I stretched out one cover on the floor and the two batts on top, perfect fit...sideways but who said they had to go in lengthwise?

The tricky part, or so I thought, was getting them inside with no wrinkles, it was really easy holding the corners of the cover and moving my arms towards the opening:

Here it is! the two lap size batts in one cover folded in four. If they shift, I can always tie them ...I know I said that is what I did not want to do, but a girl can change her mind, we always do. After everything was set and done, I crawled under it on the couch to read and nap for a while. Wonderful!

Slouchy Hat

I have been working on samples for the kids to knit at Knitting Machine program down in Colombia. My 13 yo nephew saw the hats and wanted one in yellow and navy blue. I explained to him the hats were not mine to give away but that I would knit him one to his liking. I handed him a box of cotton/silk blend yarn that I had in stash and left him to decide on colors.
Quite a surprise awaited me when I came back to find him with 5 colors! He said it would look cool....OK....says me....lets do it!

We did the math and he stood by me handing the yarn over in the color order he wanted, and the number of rows that would give the thickness of stripe he wanted.
Here is his creation:

I have to say I love it! Turns out the hat matches his Nike running shoes!

Wool Quilting Batts

Sometime back I dyed a beautiful wool/silk blend with Indigo. It was great fun and the colors came out lovely. I was going to card it myself but decided to send it to a mill .... the name I will not mention here.
The carded fiber came back and into a bin it went....several months later I discovered the fiber had been shredded, a horrible carding job, the only way to recover some of the fiber was to comb it and see what I could save. In the bin it went again, with a firm thought of 'Never again will I use the mill'. I tried to spin it several times, the resulting yarn was lumpy and horrible. I was going to throw it away when a friend said she had heard that Zellinger Wool Co. would card wool to make quilting batts!
A quilting batt made out of wool/silk blend?! Now that would be warm. Since I had nothing to lose at that point and maybe lots to gain, I called, made arrangements and off I sent 5 lbs. I ordered 2 lap size blanket quilting batts. I had no idea what to expect because I could not find pictures of anything similar anywhere.
The batts came back a couple of weeks ago, I am beyond delighted to see the results!
Thick wool batts enclosed in cheese cloth, nice seams , and nicely tied to keep the wool in place!
Here they are, a couple of pictures to give you a good idea of what they look like. The pictures are a bit dark...but so is the world these days.
If you have any wool that has gone beyond the recovery/hope edge, I suggest you consider this alternative.
Now I have to come up with the top and backing for the quilts. I will probably tie them, there is no way to machine quilt these batts, they are too thick,hand quilting is not something I will do just because I don't have the time.

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Project Bags

I love bags, and boxes and anything that will hold something else. It seems that I have a bag/box for each thing and a thing for each box/bag. If you have visited my Etsy shop you have seen what I make. I also love embroidery and the embroidery machine. Out of all the embroidered bags I have made, of course there was yet to be one for me.

Most of my bags are my own pattern, adaptations from things I see. But when I saw the 241 tote pattern, I knew it was perfect to embellish with embroidery. I set to make my own version and make my own denim bag from recycled jeans.

It has a magnetic snap inside, I might make another one with pockets inside.

I debated if I wanted embroidery in the back, rubbing against the body might not be the best thing on the embroidery, but we will see. I don't plan to walk miles with it.

I am in finishing mode, you might see more things show up around here soon.

Wool People, Rhinebeck 2012

Earlier this year my two best friends and I decided to go to Rhinebeck. Good thing it was decided in March, we had a bit of problem finding hotel reservations, and finally settled for one night in one place and one night in another, no big deal. Of course when we realized hotels were taken in March, we wanted to go even more.

The clerk at the hotel asked us if we too were going to the Fiber Show, we said yes, are there others? at what he replied: 'Yes! the whole place is loaded with Wool People!'

They live in Idaho and Utah, and like in previous occasions, on Thursday , they flew in different flights that landed minutes apart. The fun began days before with the review of the vendor list and our own list of 'must see', 'must have', and must eat'.

We left Maryland Friday mid morning, the drive up to Harrisburg was uneventful, there the GPS took us off the main highway, via a little road, quite colorful and fun. I could not figure out why this was happening and thought the radar was avoiding traffic for us. It took a good two extra hours to get there, but the scenery was worth every minute of it. Settled in the hotel, off to dinner we went, the GPS would calculate up to 99% and get stuck, then and only then I checked the settings, it had 'avoid toll roads' checked and the poor thing could not figure out how to get us across Hudson River with its respective toll, and not swim!

After a delightful dinner and window shopping, back to the hotel. I of course woke up at 4:30 am like I have done for the past 8 years or so. This time it served us right, a good cup of coffee, and ready for the road. Our usual breakfast with cheese souffle at Panera Bread, and at the festival doors right before 8 am. We got a great parking spot right by the gate, we were 4th in line for the tickets, it worked out great.

The fun began, Fiber Optic was the first stop, I had not gotten over the lust since MDSW and had showed them pictures of the graded colors roving, of course they too wanted some. Golding booth was next were I had a big disappointment when I discovered that the cute travel wheel is loaded with plastic knobs, plastic ring on the drive wheel, and a metal type flyer.....I will reserve the rest of my comments on this. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but really? a lovely wood, folding wheel that does not fit in a carry on bag and is loaded with plastic? Oh well!

Then the Bossworth booth to pickup my pre-ordered spindle, which turned out to be missing and maybe left back home? I don't know I don't have my Rhinebeck spindle and I am quite disappointed with that. Hopefully Sheila will find it, or make another, and it will show up along with the other spindle I picked that day. I picked one, but did not bring it home with me, I wanted the Kauri wood spindle....

After that we were pretty much game for whatever came, browsed booths, and colors, and stools, and looms, looked at things we had or had not seen before.

The place was busy but it never felt crowed to me, lots and lots of people but no pushing, no one was grouchy, everyone was in Zen mode. Seriously, people focused on the treasures they wanted, and laughing and sharing with friends. What a wonderful place to go. One of the biggest highlights of the show are the knitters themselves, you see people wearing lovely handmade items, colors everywhere, people wearing their creations with pride. This does not happen at MDSW because May is too warm, but Rhinebeck! talk about a fashion show.

One of my friends found heddles for my Structo loom! what a treasure! I was overjoyed to see them and of course bought a bundle, now I can weave at 40 epi on it. Cutie and wonderful is my little loom.

We laughed and shared, I had a number of people I wanted to meet with, that task became difficult since we overloaded the cell towers and messaging and calls were not going through. I did get to see several of my favorite people and meet in person others that I had only met via the interwebs. It was all fun and plans were made for next May in Maryland. Fun fun fun!

My two friends and I had the most wonderful time ever, the trip was easy, no problems agreeing on what we wanted to do, eat or see. I am blessed with my two wonderful friends/sisters that share with me passion for fiber and love for it all.

The biggest laugh was provided by one of them, she was at a booth looking at a spool of silk thread, she bought it, a stranger close by asked her what she was going to do with it, my friend replied, 'Look at it', and that was it!
Oh I can just see the face of the other person, surprised and shocked! but isn't that what we do with most of our treasures that sometimes turn out to be too pretty to use?

I leave you here with the picture of the silk so you too can 'look at it' and dream of garments and wonderful things.