Saori Banner

Here is my first Saori style of weaving. I had intended for it to be a scarf-but it ended up being 10 feet long-I sort of miscalculated-a bit. Oh well-I love it and will use it as a banner. All of the weft yarns are handspun. I have a large stash of practice yarns and that's what I used-with a little roving and locks thrown in here and there. I'm getting ready now to make another banner for a weave-a-long going on at the Saori weaving group on Ravelry. I'll be using mostly the yarns I've had stashed forever and haven't found a use for-and I have a lot of those. I hope I can remember how to put the warp on the loom-and not make it way longer than I need.

Another "toy"

I'm not sure how or when I got bitten by the weaving bug-but I did. I know I started checking groups on Ravelry and ran into the Saori weaving group. I'm so smitten with this style of weaving. Its totally arsty and free form and just for me. Well, I was telling my BFF Carol all about wanting to get a loom but would have to start saving my pennies when she asked if I'd like to buy her loom that she bought a few years back but never put it to use. I didn't hesitate to yell-YES! So, I now am the proud owner of a new-to-me Harrisville 36"/4 shaft floor loom. I spent a day cleaning her up and setting her up-I only cussed a few times. It took another two evenings to figure out how to warp it-and then I got started on a really simple scarf. I'm having a blast with it. The only problem is the size-who needs a living room? Right? Things got sort of squished together-but I'm still happy. And of course I'm into naming my fiberdance toys-so meet---Isabella.

Inspire My Life Art Retreat

I'm happy to announce that I'll be teaching two classes in Manitowoc, WI this summer. Check this out- http://inspiremyliferetreat.blogspot.com/

One of my classes will be a little fiber wrapped pin, and the other will be embossed paper beads. Both are fun, fairly easy projects and I'm looking forward to sharing them. If anyone can make it, the whole weekend looks like it will be great fun. Plan a vacation to Wisconsin this summer!!

Boucle

I tried my hand at spinning some boucle yarn. My first attempt was from some instructions I found on the web-not a good choice. I didn't take pictures. Lets just call it "yarn barf". So then I decided to go to my spinning books-which I should have done in the first place. Anyway, I spun up 3 spools of some of the Jacob wool I got from the girl I bought my wheel from. I didn't worry about the lumps and bumps that happened from not carding it well enough cuz I was anxious to get it going. It all went together pretty well, even though I had trouble getting the little loops to look loopy like they're supposed to look. Its far from perfect but I got a good size skein of some very nicely textured yarn that I can't wait to find a project for.

I decided to finally work with some alpaca I purchased a while back. The color is a pretty shade of rust and I like it a lot. What i don't like is the problem I'm having combing or carding, or just plain handling it. The bag did not say if it was Suri or Huacaya. It's very straight and handles more like fine human hair than fiber. I was hoping to use it as is, but may need to blend it with wool to get it to not be so flyaway, and fluff it a bit.

I would appreciate any ideas, or suggestions, or any expertise from fiber artists that raise, or work with alpaca fibers.

Thanks a bunch,

Kathi