Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Tiny steps


Here's a bit of beauty to start off the day. The amaryllis our wonderful neighbors gave us is blooming. Here it has two blossoms, but now it has six. It is in the living room by my spinning area. I love sitting here in the afternoon (on my lunch break on days when I work at home) in the sun, spinning and listening to the news on NPR. Right now, I'm spinning more for a second attempt on the scarf for Kelly. The good news is that the first attempt can become an-already-ready Christmas scarf for someone petite. Whoo hoo!

Beading is happening. Slowly, but surely. Hannah and I can play and spin, play and weave, play and cook, play and fold laundry, play and wash dishes, play and wrap presents, but playing and beading doesn't seem to work. She just wants to take little pinches of beads and spread them around the house--and she's not satisfied with just one little pinch--no. She wants to take pinches of beads for the duration of the time that I have my beads out. It just isn't working very well. I know it is just a phase. So for now, beading must occur while Hannah is asleep. I have had some long meetings at work where I was able to get in a couple consecutive hours of beading--so that has helped. But, I don't think I'm going to meet my March 1st deadline (sorry Mary!).


Debbie at work received this beautiful(!) Australian Merino handdyed fiber (100 g) about 10 years ago from an appreciative customer and finally decided that she wasn't going to learn how to spin it. So she let me spin it for her--oh--it was fun. Mmmm. Like butter. I spun a thick and thin yarn for texture.
Now I have to take it to work and give it to her. I've been delaying. ...

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Valentine's Day Scarf



I finished Kelly's scarf before Valentine's Day. It just took a weekend to weave. The weaving was really fun--I loved watching the colors transform from spun thread into woven cloth. The only problem is that it seems a little short--what do you think? I have enough fiber to spin more, so I may do that and try again.
I mis-measured. I was about 10 inches off. I had to go back and go through my motions again to see how I did it, but it is clear that I did it. At first I thought the yarn was so stretchy that it lost 10 inches when I pulled it off the warping board, but no--it was me.