I thought it might be time to give my blog a little update. Not sure if I'm crazy about what I did-but at least it is a bit different. I decided to start adding some pictures of my latest things I've been working on. I have been needle felting more critters. These are in progress and still have a long way to go.

Wow-almost 2 years since I've been here. I've been filling my retirement days with lots of needle felting. I taught a class and used the parts I demonstrated with to make this "cute" little witch. I named her Ezmerelda.

Wow, this little blog has been sorely neglected. I spend more time on Facebook than I should. I hope to remedy that. I plan to catch up on all the poor neglected things around me now that I have all the time in the world. It still doesn't seem possible that today is the first day of my retirement. I don't think reality will sink in til I have more than a week's worth of vacation time off. I plan (that's a really big word) to get loads of stuff done and then hopefully post all the fun stuff I'm doing. We shall see how far I get. Gotta figure out some sort of schedule or I'll never get things done.

Good Luck on Friday the 13th.

I had a day off work-that made it a GREAT Friday the 13th.  I got out all the stuff and recipes for making an indigo dye vat.  I used a 5 gallon bucket out on my deck and dyed anything I could grab.  I had some older skeins of yarn I had spun and wasn't crazy about the color-and I had some I purposely spun up for this project.  I had some fabric pieces from my stash, and a T shirt, a white cotton shirt and an old faded denim shirt to throw in the pot.  The results were amazing.  I plan to do more.  I happen to have this 5 gallon bucket now that's full of indigo.  Anyone want to come by and do some dyeing?

Dyeing on a Dreary Sunday

It's a gray and dreary day, time to break out the dye pots.  The weather is messing with my sinuses and my mood, so I figured I needed some bright color to cheer me up.  It began with two skeins of white wool (no idea what kind-its from ages ago) and two cakes of Lion's brand Fisherman's wool.  I decided to dip dye each end of the skeins in two separate pots-Jacquard turquoise and hot fuchsia.  I let the ends soak about 15 minutes and had poured a bit of each color up to the middle. I was pleasantly surprised when the combination came out to a wonderful shade of purple.  For the cakes I dipped half in each color-holding them there for only a few minutes each. Then I set them in a bowl and poured a little of each color over to mix them up. I then nuked them in the microwave for two minutes.  Gorgeous color, and great mood lifter.  Unfortunately it did not help my sinus trouble.

Art Studio Tour

It's been a long time since I've added anything new to this blog.  I've been either too busy, or too lazy.  BUT, in the meantime I did manage to gather up enough stuff to have a pretty good presentation of my "stuff" to set up for the Art Studio Tour back in October at http://www.glasshausonline.com/.  My brother and sister in law own the studio and had me there as a guest artist.  It was a very nice weekend.  We had a good amount of people come through, but not a lot of sales.  I enjoyed talking spinning to people, and some ladies were very interested.  But being that I live pretty far from Green Bay I couldn't help them out.  I guess there's a really nice spinning group in that area.  I told them all about Ravelry and YouTube videos.  Two great places to learn all about spinning.  This was also a great experience in finding out if all my stuff fit into my new car-it did!  With a little room to spare.  So If I ever get to be in a show somewhere I know I can pack up and go.

Another Two Days of Wooly Fun

The whole reason for the weekend

Eco dying class-picking out plant materials

rolling up the silk scarf with plants

steaming silk bundles

my finished scarves

We also did some flower pounding, which was great fun but very noisy.  Not sure I will do this at home, but it produced some interesting results.  Now I have to wait another whole year to take more classes and overdose on all the wonderful wooly goodness that is at Wisconsin's Sheep and Wool Festival.