My First Pencil Roving

On the way home from our trip to the Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival in May, I was lucky enough to be able to stop and visit Blue Mountain Spindle & Needleworks shop in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  While there, I purchased 100% Fine Merino in fabulous colors: spice, green and lilac. 

 On my homemade hackle (see post "Hackle DYI Discovery" on this blog or click link to see instructions for making your own hackle  http://yarnzombie.net/Travis/?page_id=87)
 

I placed each color across and then another across until the hackle was almost full.  Then with the fender washer a.k.a. "a diz",

I pulled the fine merino colors together to make a pencil roving, my first pencil roving.  It was not easy but eventually got the hang of what I was doing and made three very nice balls of roving.  

As the evening grew on though, I made a huge mess.  I got tangled up somehow and the merino would not slide out of the hackle as it previously was.  I'm ready to try again.  I hope to make enough pencil roving to spin a single ply with it to knit or crochet something pretty and unique. 

Hats for Christmas - Needle Felting

Have you tried needle felting?  It's addictive.  At a recent craft show I was participating in I received an order to make a special color (turquoise) needle felted hat.  Once I completed the hat I delivered it to a co-worker who had ordered it.  That turned into an order for five more hats.  Black hats.  I found out that black wool is not cheap!  The dyes are expensive making the black colored wool expensive.  So, I emailed Ms. Luna and she was able to send me four gorgeous batts of naturally black wool from her Shetland sheep.  The wool needle felted very well.  Once the hats were completed I again took to work to my co-workers who ordered them.  Doing business with friends and family is sometimes a delicate situation.  A comment was made that the "black" was too "brown."  A defensive emotion came to me but I had to be calm.  I explained that the Shetland black wool was natural from the actual sheep and the color was not going to be a flat commercially dyed black and that the dimension in the wool was a gift.  I sold 4 out of the 5 hats specially ordered!  One co-worker just couldn't accept the brown in the black.  I was disappointed but also took a deep breath and got over it.  The pics below are of the needle felting process and some finished hats!  Enjoy! 

 

Merino and Silk

What a beautiful spun yarn.  I really love the way only 2 ounces of merino and silk spun for me.  It's the first silky roving I have spun and it was easier than I thought it would be.