A New Weaving Project

During the summer I spun some yarn for a weaving project.

This is about 700g of fingering weight yarn made from one sheep's fleece that I had cleaned and combed for spinning.

This past week I dyed it. The top 4 skeins were dyed in a pot with all the same colours to make tonal yarns, and the bottom 5 skeins were 'painted' with dye to make variegated yarns. 

The variegated skeins were used in the warp (the yarn on the loom), and the tonal yarn is for the weft (the yarn being used in the bobbin to weave with). I am weaving this to make fabric to make something out of (I'll have to figure that out after weaving - so far it has come out different than I had originally planned).

This past week I also finished knitting a couple of pairs of socks made from the same fibre blend (80/20 Merino/Nylon), but each one spun a different way. The blue/purple pair are made from a regular 3 ply yarn and the orange/red pair are made from yarn that I spun with an opposing ply (I talked about it here).

It was an interesting experiment for me. Each one knitted differently (the opposing ply yarn was a bit unruly to work with - it seemed under spun but was twisty, the yarn was splitty, and it was also rough on my hands, but didn't feel rough), so it will be interesting to see how they wear over time.

The last two pairs brings my total of socks that I have dyed the fibre, spun the yarn and knitted to 8 pairs (that I can wear - I have made others from pure wool that ended up being too itchy for me, these ones are all a super wash wool - mainly Merino and a couple pairs with BFL, and nylon blend). When I first decided to start spinning over 5 years ago I imagined that I would make yarn for socks, and it took quite a while until I could make a consistent sock weight yarn.

All the best!♥︎

Another Quilt!

After moving I realized that I didn't need any more quilts, but I have fabric, love sewing and can't seem to resist the Temecula Quilt Company sew alongs! Last Friday I finished unpacking boxes and organizing my home, plus the TQC started a new sew along - it was just meant to be. A new sewing room and a new project!

This one is called Secret Santa Sew Along (I also love Christmas quilts). These are 12, 4" blocks from Step One.

Some people have asked me questions about the farm we bought - it is 12.5 acres. The previous owners were grain farmers - that is why there is a large machine shed, gas/diesel tanks and grain bins. They sold off the farm land years ago. We hope to start our hobby farm with bees, then chickens and hopefully a couple of sheep, and of course a large vegetable garden.

This is a panoramic photo my son took from on top of the tallest grain bin

It is lovely to walk around the on the dike surrounding the property (we are on the prairies and it is prone to flooding in the spring), the other day I scared (and they scared me!) 3 deer -

they quickly ran off -

I have scared a few more since then, but I am getting used to them.

Last week there was a Downy Woodpecker hanging around -

The sky is always amazing -

Sunset

The moon reflected in the pond outside our property.

Moon reflected on our pond

One day last week it was quite warm and my son decided to have a very quick dip in the pond (it was frozen just a couple of days before) - 

This last photo was taken on the way into town -

The sky was full of geese!

All the best!♥︎

New Sewing Room

I am still unpacking but I sewed my first seam in my new sewing room today! Fixing a pillow case, but so nice to sew.
The house is slowing all coming together, it is lovely here!

We have been seeing lots of wildlife - we have seen a duck, a heron and a pelican on the pond.

Deer

Partridges

These three photos were taken on my son's trail camera set up at the pond -

This last one is a bit gruesome but a real surprise to see, it was taken last night.

All the best!♥︎

We Bought a Farm!

No sewing or any making for me this week - we moved!

We had been looking for a place with a bit of land for a few years and this one fit the bill. It is only about 20km from our old house.

It has lots of great out buildings,

a pond,

and lots of room to garden.

The house is a bit smaller than are old house (good reason for a proper clear out!), and it needs lots of renovations.

It is surrounded by farm land.

There is the nearest neighbour.

We even have a tractor!

You can tell that I am a quilter from my packing boxes - scraps of fabric make great, reusable packing material.

Hopefully by next week my crafting area will be set up.

Every one is really excited (just exhausted from moving). We were all ready for new projects.

All the best!♥︎

Finished Sweater

I finished knitting a sweater with handspun yarn.

It is a simple top-down, raglan sweater (no real pattern, I just do a small swatch to figure out how many stitches per inch, and from that calculate how many stitches I need to cast on for the neck).

For the raglan increases I used simple yarn overs every second round for a decorative effect.
I also knit about 8 short rows on the bottom of the back of the sweater to make it a bit longer in the back (Japanese short rows).

The fibre I spun was about 200g of 100% Polwarth, that I had dyed.

This is the spun yarn (it was really hard to photograph this colour - every picture is so different!).

The only quilt along block that I made this week was the September Antebellum Album BOM from Civil War Quilts blog. This block is called 'Lexington Belle'.

The Temecula Quilt Company 1880 Sampler Quilt along is finished now, and I just didn't get around to making any Moda Blockhead blocks.

At the start of the year when I decided to start making different quilt along blocks, to make an 'Orphan Blocks' quilt, I thought I would make blocks until the end of the year, or until the beige background fabric ran out, or until my storage tin was full - it looks like my tin is pretty full (although I will probably squish a few more in there).

All the best!♥︎