Tuesday

Spun Yarn and the Wooden Dough Bowl

My mom and I love to visit consignment shops and Goodwill stores for stuff...you know you need it when it finds you that kind of stuff.  While rummaging a Goodwill in Kentucky, my mom found this wonderful dough bowl and I begged her for it. Oh, mom...blah, blah.  She gave it to me.  It is about 14 inches across and not a crack in it.  

The yarn inside the dough bowl is the first yarn that I have spun ever.  The green is dyed from Jello lemon-lime flavor.  The orange and white is a pumpkin roving I bought from an etsy lady who lives in Virginia.  I plyed the pumpkin yarn with some white Merino yarn I spun from my Kromski Sonata,   and the brown varigated yarn is from some roving that I bought at the Indiana fiber show this past fall.  There is also some orange yarn peeking out from under the rest because it is my first attempt at spinning and it's bad - really bad mostly kinks.  

I asked Luna from Elizabethtown, Kentucky http://blueballmountainspindleneedleworks.blogspot.com  what is a good spun yarn and she answered, "If you love it, it's good spun yarn."  What a great answer. 

Bamboo From China

Again, shopping on ebay I found a wonderful bargain on bamboo yarn.  So many pretty colors and I bought all of the skeins on the auction - 16 skeins for only once cent or two cents per skein.  I thought that was a pretty good deal until I received the invoice and I owned $48 dollars.  I thought to myself, "Where did I purchase this bamboo yarn from China?"  And sure enough that's where I had bought it from.  Forty five dollars was for shipping and handling to the United States.  I have really enjoyed the bamboo yarn and the ebayer from China was very kind.   

Felted Tote

Foiled48 is the Ebayer that I have purchased quite a lot of wool yarn from.  At the end of the summer this year when visiting a fiber fest in Northern Indiana, I was checking out some wool yarn and recognized it.  Sure enough Mr. Foiled48 was standing there in person.  It is a small world.  The colors are beautiful and felting...it is the best felting wool ever.  Give him a try if you don't spin your own or if you do.
 

I crocheted this bag using two colors of wool yarn for the muted colors by creating a rectangle for the bottom and building up using only the top strand of the "v" in the single crochet to work the material straight up not out.  Otherwise you would get a bowl shape instead of a tote shape.  I crocheted to handles for the tote by chaining 100 single crochet and four rows, folding in half and stitching them together.  I felted the tote and handles in hot water my washer and shaped the tote using a cereal keeper (cheap $3 from Wal-mart) which wasn't planned but works great! Of course I took the cereal out before placing the keeper in the tote to dry overnight. 

The pic to the right is the completed bag after adding the handles.  To add the handles since the felted material is sturdy, choose where you want to place them poke a hole through the felted material with a pointy scissors.  Tie a knot to keep the handles in place.  I made it pretty deep so my stuff doesn't fall out and even my new Spin-Off mag fits in perfectly. 

My Kromski Sonata

I collected business cards and flyers during the Harrison County Fair Grounds Fiber Show.  I walked around in ah looking at the yarn successfully spun.  I wanted to buy roving but without a wheel I wasn't sure what was a point to buying, but I bought some anyway - some fluffy white merino.  Once home I made myself a top whorl spindle and began to wear out my leg spinning and spinning.  A couple of weeks passed and I really wanted to try the spinning wheel.  I pulled out those business cards from the fiber show and began calling spinners asking if they knew anyone with a used wheel for sale.  It worked out great for me because the someone who had my wheel for sale lived only 30 minutes away from me.  What a great lady - Sherry greeted me and told me to come on in and try out the wheel.  She explained how to use the wheel and take care of it. She showed me some of her beautiful spun yarn.  Oh, some day I hope to spin something that beautiful. She told me about "roving of the month clubs" which I haven't joined any yet but I plan to.  After spinning a short while I purchased my cherry finish Kromski Sonata (born in 2006) and packed her away in her green "Ninja turtle" case.  

 

70% Cashmere

Before I attended my first fiber show and discovered roving and spinning, I searched second hand shops for beautiful sweaters and harvested the yarn for just a few dollars.  This is one my of favorite finds.  I love the blue color and the texture is very soft.  When I first felt the sweater I thought it was a very soft cotton and then read the label cashmere and silk oh-la-la.  Here are a few pics.  I haven't crocheted anything from the yarn because I want to get much better at crocheting before I use it.  The size small sweater yielded eight cakes of yarn from the winder enough for something lovely to wear.