Amish inspiration

After my visit to the Amish community, I was inspired to create a few batts of the wonderful colors if the clothing they wear. They are made with black alpaca, teal, straw, and white wools. I love how they turned out and I spun some yarn from one right away to see how they turn out-Love it! I have some other colors besides teal to mix in and maybe veer off to add some glitz just because I like glitz.

I have one alpaca picture here because of visiting Felvolden alpaca farm on Saturday-It was national alpaca days-I bought some fiber from them(of course) and learned even more about alpacas. What a great weekend I had!!

Cranberry Fest weekend (or just another excuse to go shopping)

Had a great weekend getaway with Carolyn and Rollie-and of course the rest of the cranfest gang. Carolyn and I didn't actually go to the fest-we went shopping in the Amish community near Pardeeville, WI. It was a very pleasant afternoon and had a chance to talk with the owner of Katie's fabric shop. She showed us her rug loom and all her wonderful woven rugs. I would love to have taken a pic of her-but I know that's a no-no so the mental picture will have to do. Had a great time.

first batch of batts

This is the first try with the drum carder-its working great-it would take me hours to card all that with hand carders-It took about a half hour with the carder.

Last day of WI Woolfest

I walked through the sheep barns-saw triplets being born-lots of sheep waiting for judging and that crazy set of horns on the Jacob sheep. Then watched the shearing-got the before and after pictures.Of course I had the spinning class which was great-I learned a lot.

My New Toy

WOO HOO !!!!!!!!

Check out my new toy! I got it at the woolfest today-it was either that or a new refrigerator--who needs food??

Its a Louet Jr.

scroll down for the rest of the fibery fun-I still haven't figured out how to get all my pictures arranged correctly-but enjoy!

Fiber Arts Friday

It was definitely Fiber arts Friday today! I went to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson. I took a class from Vanessa Kessler on dyeing yarn and fiber. It was a great class-we learned a lot and had five really nice class samples to take home with us. There was a lot to shop for after the class and I did some serious damage to the checking account-oh well---I go back tomorrow for a spinning class-and again on Sunday for a plying class-I'll be "spun-out" for sure. (That gal in the pic is Vanessa-she wouldn't hold still to get her picture taken)

I was able to squeeze in some fiber-time-and had fun. I had to do the tedious picking of the VM out of my "Gracie" wool-but got 5 ounces done to play with. I took the idea of the "canning" method from the video on Alpaca farm Girl's Fiber Arts Friday group. I used two packages of Kool Aid for each jar-black cherry, orange, lemonaid, lemon-lime and berry blue. The berry blue seemed a bit "wimpy" for color, so I added a few spoonfuls (after adding water) of the black cherry to it. I added a cup of very hot water to each jar-a glug of vinegar and shoved an ounce of wool into each. I poked them down til saturated and then added more water-about an inch from the jar's top. I put them in the pot with water and brought it to a rolling boil then turned down to simmer for 45 minutes(or so). I let them cool overnight and took them all out and rinsed them this morning. All but the blue came out great-the blue is varigated blue/purple--but its ok. I have them sitting outside on the lawn chair to dry. I'm not sure what I will make with these, yet, but I can just enjoy looking at them for now.