A fiber-filled week

Sometimes I think I am not doing much with fiber, but then I write a post for this blog and realize, no, I am involved in a LOT of fiber related activities. I just don't get much of anything finished.

Dyeing: Yesterday a bunch of us visited the Wabash Woollen Works for a natural dye workshop - separate post to follow. After hearing Lisa at WWW comment that sometimes a dye bath looks like there is no dye in it when there is, I decided to give sunflowers another try. Right now 250g of fresh sunflower blossoms are steeping in the sunshine AFTER I poured boiling water over them.
Fiber prep: After reading the section on blending fibers on a drum carder in The Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs, I decided to give it a go on my drum carder. However, mine is rather small, and I discovered 15g is about the max I can card at one time on it. And I forgot to take pix. (Some of you may recall that I took a fiber blending class at PlyAway in 2018, so one would think I would know what I am doing, but my brain is a sieve.)
Knitting: I took the socks with me to WWW and am almost ready to turn the heels - yay! I've also been knitting the Lempi sweater and reached a point where I thought the pockets should go, but no. The sweater is MUCH longer than I thought. I compared it to another cardigan I have and debated whether to make the Lempi the same length or go all the way. Since one of my goals is to use up as much of the naturally dyed yarn as I can, I will keep going and make it longer.

Spinning: I really messed up the last attempt at core spinning, so I wrapped it in silk thread and called it a day.
Weaving: I warped the inkle again, this time with a less busy version of the previous strap; I think it will look better with the L-Bag.

And I attached the Freedom Roller to the 24" rigid heddle. Now I will probably have to detach it in order to add the warp, then reattach it to finish the warping. There will be more waste.

The weaving guild is in the home stretch of prepping for its exhibit at the Allen County Public Library. I submitted several pieces, but what gets displayed is up to the gallery director, so it will be a surprise. Actually, I will be surprised if *any* of my pieces make the cut, but I felt like I had to submit *something*. Gotta support the team.

Have a supportive week.

Inspiration

I like to visit art museums and galleries to get ideas I can steal. We went to the Garrett Museum of Art Friday night, to see their current exhibit, "Women Take the Walls". The works by Susan Hensel were made with "digital embroidery".

Chromatic Wave I

When I saw the following piece, I thought to myself, I can do something like that with my imperfect inkle bands. The question is, Will I?

Seed Pods

Seed Pods, detail

Dyeing: I tried sun dyeing - put 400g of sunflower heads (before seeds had formed) into a glass container, covered them with tap water, and left it all in the sun for a couple of days. (I forgot the part about boiling the water before pouring it over the flowers.) The results just look murky. I'll ask about sun dyeing and dyeing with sunflowers at the natural dyeing workshop next weekend.

Before sunbathing

Knitting: I did rip back about 50 rows to fix the buttonhole problem. Then I performed the increase row too soon, so had to back out of that as well. Now I have scrap yarn in both the buttonhole band and where the increases occur, to remind me.
Spinning: It doesn't take long to forget how to do something: I tried my hand at core spinning "art yarn" again, but I seem to have lost my touch.
Weaving: The inkle band is off the loom, but I am not very happy with it, so it may be used to suspend a houseplant. This was also a case of forgetting - after a few days of not weaving, I struggled with my technique for maintaining straight selvages.

My schedule seems to be opening up a bit, so I am finding more time for fiber arts. I'm also trying to physically rearrange a few things to make my work spaces more conducive to, well, actually working. I'm never organized enough.

Argh!!!

I was knitting along on the Lempi sweater, fat, dumb, and happy, listening to an audio book, when I realized I had forgotten about the buttonholes. I missed not one buttonhole, but two. I do not want to rip back 50 rows of knitting, but I will if I have to. But first, I will try to drop the stitches in the middle of the buttonband to see if I can insert them. Meanwhile, the sweater is in a time-out.

(I took the sweater off the needles again and checked the size again. Also, I was curious about how the sweater would look without the lower buttons. Um, no. It needs the buttons.)

Knitting: See above.
Weaving: The rag rug on the Grizzly was pulling in so badly I unwove most of it and started using a temple to keep the selvages straight. Speaking of selvages, I've been working on the inkle band, which is turning out nice, but again, those selvages could use some work.

I've been getting the itch to do some dyeing, maybe because the natural dye workshop is coming up at the end of the month. The instructor sounds much more detailed in her approach to dyeing, while I'm more experimental, but then she dyes larger batches and sells the end product.

I also miss spinning, so don't be surprised if more art yarn pops up here. I'd like to improve my technique.

Too busy to weave

I've been chauffeuring my granddaughter to colorguard camp which inserted interruptions into my days. That ended with a performance in the Three Rivers Festival parade yesterday, so maybe I will be able to get back to my looms this week. Fingers crossed!

Knitting: Instead of spinning at the spin-in last Saturday, I took knitting. Progress was made on the socks, plus I showed off the Lempi sweater. I took it off the needles to check the size and it seems okay.

While knitting at home, I have been listening to a podcast, "Wiser than Me" with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Veep and Seinfeld fame). Julia is 62 and interviews a series of women who are older and wiser. This is the first podcast I have listened to, but I am really enjoying it. I'm open to suggestions for more, if you have some favorites.

Judge me

Last Sunday I picked up my entries to the county fair. Monday a fiber friend who had also entered items in the fair called to complain about the judging. For each item entered, we receive a ribbon and comments from the judges. Sometimes the comments make sense, other times they don't. My friend won best-in-show for one of her entries, but the ribbon was attached to the wrong item. I won best-of-show for one of mine, but when I looked through the comments, there was no mention of it, so now I wonder if I received someone else's ribbon. And one of my items received a red ribbon instead of the usual blue, but I have no idea what that means.

Knitting: I'm past the increase rows on the Lempi sweater.
Weaving: I made some progress on the rag rug. The inkle loom is warped.

I was still second-guessing my choice for an inkle pattern, and ended up selecting one from Anne Dixon's book, The Weaver's Inkle Pattern Directory. The pattern I chose is called "single flowers" and has three columns of flowers. What I didn't notice was one of the columns was offset from the others, and not the center one.

I ended up modifying the pattern so all three columns line up.

It's been a while since I have woven on the inkle, so I had to refresh my memory by accessing how-to's. That didn't prevent me from screwing up a time or three. It took two days and a lot of patience, but I finally succeeded.

Now I have four looms warped, and I may warp one more, the 24" rigid heddle, so I can try out the Freedom Roller. And I may warp the SampleIt and weave loopy washcloths; they are my favorite and I have only one.

Have a warped week!