Spin the Bin 2023

For the past couple of years I have participated in a "Spin the Bin" over on Ravelry. It is a personal challenge to collect together a bin of fibre (of at least 24 ounces), and spin it up within the year.

This was my bin of fibre for this year.

I started with 851g/30.1oz of fibre.

Mainly fibre that had been in my stash for over 5 years, that was too coarse to make garments with.

There is linen, a wool and linen blend, and some generic wool.

This is all the finished yarn!

1651m/1806yds of yarn, all for weaving.

The first project on the loom was with the wool and linen blend (an 80/20 blend from Louet). Some is natural and some I dyed before spinning. 

It is an overshot table runner.

This is what is on the loom now. Another overshot weaving. The warp and tabby weft are a commercial yarn (Harrisville Shetland), and the pattern weft is handspun wool that I had dyed before spinning in an assortment of colours. I thought that the 'busy' yarn needed a simple pattern, so chose a pattern with squares.

Pets -

All the best!♥︎

A Couple of Cooperative Projects

I recently was involved in a couple of cooperative projects-

This is a pair of quilts for my parents.

I cut out the fabric, my Mom sewed them and I quilted them.

The pattern is Twilight Hopscotch by Kim Diehl from her book 'Simple Comforts'. We modified the size to make bed sized quilts (72"x100" - 4x6 block layout with a 6" border). The fabric is from Connecting Threads. We used wool batting. They are free motion quilted with an all over meander (on my domestic sewing machine), and a hooked feather in the outer red border. I quilted them with Connecting Threads Essential Pro polyester thread and I couldn't believe how well it worked (normally my machine has bobbin issues when free motion quilting).

My also Mom made the pillows on their beds, and my Dad made the cross stitched pictures on the wall (my parents are in their late eighties and are just amazing!).

 This next project is a piece of stained glass that our eldest son designed, cut and ground the glass, and I soldered and finished. It is 3"x11".

Photos from around and the pets-

Sunrise and blowing snow.

Lot of tomatoes under the grow lights.

Lettuce and swiss chard under different grow lights.

Gray Partridges trying to keep warm.

Miss Maggie

Miss Molly

All the best!♥︎

More Weaving, Spinning, and Stained Glass

I finished a couple of weaving projects recently-

This first one is an overshot scarf, the last of my kits from the Yarn Barn.

The pattern is "Latte or Mocha?', made with bamboo. It is the first scarf that I have woven that is nice to wear. It is silky, 'drapey' and so soft. I thought it would be my last handwoven scarf (I find weaving narrow things harder), but I'll probably make some more like this. It looks nice on each side, the sides are opposite.

The last three projects I wove were all overshot - woven with two shuttles, with complex treadling sequences, all on four shafts, so I thought  I would have a bit of a break and weave something simple.

 Turned twill tea towels, on 8 shafts, woven straight draw with 2/8 cotton.

I finished spinning a few skeins of yarn-

A wool and mohair blend, leftover from last years spinning for socks. This is a local fibre blend, and for me, it is too rough for socks, I'll probably make some mittens.

This year my plans for spinning is to spin for weaving.

This first one is some Knit Picks Wool of the Andes roving that I dyed, and spun.

This is some linen. I am looking forward to weaving with this.

My brother-in-law asked me to design and make some stained glass windows out of the old coloured glass from when they had the windows replaced in his church.

The above is a photo of how some of  the windows looked.

Here is what I came up with. I wanted to keep the simplicity of the original windows (I even repeated the  four vertical windows in a few places). Since there was a red glass that was different from the rest I made that a feature (a path going through all the windows). Each window is 11"x25". These were a real family affair - my brother-in-law, sister, husband and two children all had a hand in these. I was a bit daunted when I was first asked, but we were all super happy with how they turned out.

Here they are up in the church.

Photos from Around-

Best friends playing their favourite game.

Our youngest son grows yellow tomatoes (as well as lettuce) in the basement, they are really starting to come in.

All the best!♥︎