Saturday, November 2, 2013

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.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

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.

Friday, September 6, 2013

2013 WI Sheep and Wool Festival

I LOVE Woolfest!!  I took a felted bangle bracelet class this morning from a Milwaukee felt artist-Jan Falk.  She did a fantastic job and she's such  nice lady.  One of the other students was in a class I took back in April at the WI Spin In.  Small world.  We talked all about felting, of course.  I definitely learned some new techniques to make more felted jewelry.  At least I have all the tools and a ton of supplies for these new projects. (Although, it did not keep me from buying more wool.)

And here's today's haul that will help keep my fiber addiction going for a long time.

The finished felted bangle bracelets-the first of many more to come, I'm sure.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Good Clean Fun

I ventured into a new hobby yesterday-Hand Made Soap.  I was felting soap one day about a week ago using soap I bought at the dollar store.  A little voice asked me if I could do this with hand made soap, and I could not stop thinking about making my own soap.  So...With a trip to the dollar store for tools and supplies, and Wal-mart for oils and such I was armed and ready.  I just happened to have a jar of lye left from my adventure with indigo dying so I had all I needed.  The internet is such a wonderful tool-I think I watched every You Tube video there is out there, read a zillion blogs and websites and then found the Soaping 101 group on Facebook.  I got the confidence to give it a try.  The dangers of using lye scared me a bit.  But I took all the safety precautions and just plowed ahead.  It was fun to make, I felt a bit like a chemist, and I even got the bonus of a good cleaning of part of my kitchen for the project.  So after getting each batch in a mold I had to wait overnight for the reveal--TA DA!!-I have soap!!  They came out of the cheapo molds I used and cut up very easily.  They now have to air cure for about 4 weeks before I can use them.  I'm already thinking of what I can make next.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Hand made paper

Yesterday I tried my hand at making some denim paper. I had help from Sophie and we chopped up some denim from and old pair of jeans into teen tiny bits, threw them in the blender with some torn up envelopes from junk mail and made 18 sheets of really cool "jeans" paper.   Then today I spent most of the day making more paper.  I had an old catalog made from really cool paper that I wanted to recycle and then just added some dye to get some different colors.  It took a while to perfect the method-but putting the pieces on my french door's glass to dry worked just great.  I love the results and can't wait for them to dry.  Not sure when I'll do this again-I'm all pooped out.  I'll just sit now and try to design some cool paper jewelry to make with my new creations.

Finished

Here is the most recent work I've finished-a shawl for Sophie.  She specifically asked for those colors and wanted it made just like one I had made for myself a while back.  She's such a ham for the camera.              

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

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.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

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.

Sunday, March 31, 2013

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.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

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.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

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.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

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.

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