Never pass up a bargain!

It all started with an innocent shopping trip to my local K-Mart to get a birthday present for my granddaughter, Sophie.  After finding a couple cute outfits for her, and looking at all the Barbie's, I took a stroll down the sale aisle.  Well, there they were, a bunch of boxes of  Easter egg dye on sale for 19 cents a box.  Insanity took hold and I grabbed them all.  Eighty boxes!  I apologized several times to the checkout lady who had to scan and punch in numbers for each one separately. I did tell her, and several people around me, that it was all for dying wool.  What else?  Certainly not eggs.

Another wheel??

Yup, I got another wheel.  I saw an ad on Craigslist for a wheel for 40 bucks in a town not far from me.  I had to check it out.  It was love at first sight.  She doesn't appear to be very old, and seems to be handmade.  I had to make a new drive band and attach the footman with a leather lace.  Cleaned and oiled really well and started spinning.  She spins just great.  She's double drive which can be a little tricky-but she goes really fast and smooth.   So the total now is 4 wheels.  I think I'll be needing spinning wheels anonymous pretty soon.

Easter-2013

Happy Easter!  As usual, I spent a little time with the dyepot this weekend.  I first colored a few eggs, and then filled my jars with wool.  I used 4 tablets of color for each jar, water, vinegar and about an ounce of wool in each.  I boiled it all for about 45 minutes and then just let them sit to cool.  I got some super bright colors to ply with.  Then, of course, I had to use the fluff to do a little Easter decorating.

fun with fiber

I've been spinning, spinning, spinning, but not your regular old skeins of yarn.  I have a pile of glitzy, textured, colorful strands of soon to be necklaces.  I made several different wild rolags with my new blending board and found that they spin into some interesting yarns.  I decided to ply the yarn back onto itself and really liked the look.  I hope they will make really cool necklaces.  I still need to finish the ends and add some wire clasps and closures.  Making these is very addictive-so I hope to have plenty and maybe sell some when I'm done.

New Tools

Wow it's been a while since I've done any blogging.  I've been distracted with so many other things I forget to post.  One of my latest distractions has been joining a group on Ravelry called Rollin Rolags  that has been making rolags on blending boards.  These kinds of boards have been around for many years, but there's a new resurgence of them being used by fiber artists.  Some major companies have added them to their lineup of fiber tools.  I and a few others in the group found them to be a bit out of our price range-so we started a DIY group.  So I ordered some carding cloth through the co-op, shopped around to find the right board and proceeded to make my own.  I used it for the first time and rather enjoyed the process.  Now I just have to start spinning the rolags I'm collecting and see how they come out.

Who'd a thunk it?

So, who would have thought of making earrings out of recycled elephant dung paper?  Me, of course!  I managed to find some paper made from elephant dung.  I think it's from Thailand.  When I go back to buy more I will pay closer attention to that part.  But...I have been having fun using my laminated paper technique  to make several pairs of earrings, and the paper beads that go with them.  It's even more fun to see the reaction of people when I tell them what my earrings are made of.  I hope to get these all on their own earring card holders and eventually sell them.  Till then I'll enjoy playing with the elephant poo...paper.

Gel Printing 101

I've been eyeing up the new gel printing plates out there for sale-but they are a little pricey for me.  So...the cheapskate side of me found a recipe for a home made plate and I managed to make it and even get it right.  I boiled 2 cups of water and added 8 packets of Knox gelatine.  I stirred until it was totally dissolved and then poured it into a little square pan lined with plastic wrap.  It set up really well overnight just sitting out on the counter.  Tonight I gathered together some things to make marks, stencils, and masks and proceeded to print with plain old craft paint and a brayer.   It wasn't hard to do and was fun.  I need to make myself a bigger work space for the next round of printing.  I'm thinking of cutting the plate down to ATC size and printing each card separately.  I think I'll be saving my pennies to get a larger store bought one to make bigger prints at some point in the future.