Day 2 - Tour de Fleece 2021

Last month was Tour de Fleece (an online spinning event that takes place at the same time as the Tour de France).

My goal was to spin everyday.

I didn't get as much spun as in previous years, but at least I met my goal.

314g of fibre spun, 2135m of singles spun, resulting in 793m of yarn.

The first is a 3 ply sock yarn (a BFL and nylon blend).

This one is just the start of a large spin, with some local fibre that I blended some sari silk and silver angelina into one of the plies.

All the best!♥︎

Day 1 - Weaving

Over the past 2 months I have woven a few things.

The first started out as fabric for a ruana, but once the fabric came off the loom I decided against that.

It is about 4 yards of 22" wide fabric.

The warp is all leftover handspun, in shades of purple, blue, pink and red.

The weft is a commercial lace weight 100% Merino yarn, that I dyed shades of pink and purple.

There is also little pieces of handspun in the weft too.

I don't know what I will sew with it, but it is nice fabric.

The next thing was on new-to-me loom that I bought back in December, but due to COVID just received last month (it was in a neighbouring province).

The loom is an 8-shaft Mighty Wolf loom by Schacht, with 36" weaving width (about 14 years old).

(My old loom is a 4-shaft Nilus by Leclerc, with a 27" weaving width - about 60 years old.)

Tea towels from a pattern from the May/June 2020 issue of Handwoven magazine (North Light Meets Southwest Dish Towels, p26). In 2/8 cotton.

Putting on a striped warp really helped to make sure all 8 shafts were threaded properly.

I had added a bit of extra warp to try out something different. With the leftover I tried a tie-up and treadling pattern from the book '8-Shaft Patterns' by Carol Strickler (#315-4, p85). It ended up being big enough for another tea towel.

Fresh off the loom.

Hemmed and finished towels.

For one of the towels I used some leftover cotton boucle for the weft, and am really happy with how it turned out.

On the loom now is the start of a table runner (or maybe it will end up something different). With commercial fingering weight wool for the warp and tabby weft, and handspun for the pattern weft.

All the best!♥︎

May Update

This past month I finished a few projects that had been in the works for a long time!

This is a Baby Jane (small Dear Jane) quilt that I started in 2012. I made blocks here and there, and finally decided that there was enough to make a wall hanging (I never had the intention to make the full size quilt). The blocks are about 4" and the quilt is 33"x39".

It fits perfect with the wall quilts in the sewing room.

These are small art quilts that I made in 2013 (I challenged myself to make a small art quilt every month for a year - each one reflects something that happened that month). They sat on a shelf for years. I always intended to make something with them, and I finally figured out what to do them. 

I used wire and beads to join them together into a wall hanging (there is lots of wall space in my new sewing room/craft room/weaving studio/happy place...).

Next are a couple of more recent starts-

I wove a piece of fabric out of mainly handspun yarn. - silk, linen and merino, along with some silk ribbon that I had dyed.

I sewed the fabric into a poncho. More details on my Ravelry page. 

Finished another pair of socks - with handspun yarn too.

All the best!♥︎

Another Month Gone By

So much to show after a month!

This is probably the finish that has been the longest in the making -

This is my version of the Pieces of Time quilt by Lori Smith. It started as a block of the month with friends in 2013. I have had the blocks made for a while and had to start on the appliqué border. I finally realized that it would never get done and a finished quilt would be better than blocks sitting in a box, so I added sashing, corner blocks and a border and finished it up. I am happy with how it turned out, and more importantly that it is finished.

This is how the quilt was supposed to look.

I did some more cross stitching using some fabric and floss that I had dyed. The motifs are from the Ultimate Sampler Motifs Source Book by Brenda Keyes.

The pin cushion on the left started out as an old thread spool and two circles of wood-

I covered the circles and added mother of pearl button to the bottom one.

And glued and stitched everything together.

I was inspired by something I had seen on Pinterest.

I finished a few more pairs of socks (all from handspun yarn) -

Socks are the only thing I have been knitting recently.

Finished weaving another set of tea towels-

The pattern is from the January/February 2015 issue of Handwoven Magazine.

These are woven with 8/2 cotton. One has white cotton for the weft.

I tiled the backsplash in the laundry room-

The cross stitch pictures on the little door are ones that my Dad stitched (all garden themed, and since the laundry room is also where the grow lights are it seemed appropriate).

I started a couple new hobbies recently (something I definitely don't need, but I love learning new things)-

One of them is wood carving! I received some knives and a spoon blank for my birthday and carved my first wooden spoon - we were surprised with how well it turned out (lots of sanding really made it nice). It was so much fun and easier than I thought it would be - it helped to have the proper tools and the wood was a soft hardwood.

Photos from around -

A Starfish cactus bloomed under the grow lights (the flower is about 15" wide, and so stinky!).

Best friends!

Enjoying the shade on a hot day.

We had a whole year's worth of weather in the past month - all the snow melted, to +20ºC sunny days enjoying cold drinks in the sun room, 

to more snow than we has all winter in a couple of days last week.

We are back to waiting for all the snow to melt and things to dry up again.

The dog is not allowed upstairs so the cat sits just out of her reach.

All the best!♥︎

All the Pillows

I have been enjoying my new crafting space/work space/sewing space/studio (I still don't know what to call the space) so much that I haven't spent anytime on the computer, so I have lots to show. This post I'll just show some pillows I have recently finished.

The first is a stitching one. 

This is a piece of cross stitch that I had started last year.

The chart is from this Sajou book. I used almost a whole skein of a Thread Worx floss (colour #1070), and stitched (3 over 2) on a 25 count natural linen.

I backed the piece of cross stitch with a dark fabric because I thought it showed off the texture of the fabric better (in the top photo of the cross stitch I was trying out a white piece of cotton and a dark piece).

For the back I used a scrap of blue velveteen, and just did an overlap (it is covered in down in the photo - more on that in a minute).

The next pillow is a quilted one - although there is some stitching too, but not mine.

These are some cross stitch pieces that my Dad has been making recently (the charts are from the book 'Répertoire des Motifs' by Valérie Lejeune). I tea/coffee dyed them (they were on white aida cloth). I pieced them together with 1+1/2" pieces of fabric, and quilted it with a walking foot. The back has a button closure.

I used 1+3/4" single binding to put the front and back together.

I couldn't be happier with the results - I stepped out of my box for the colours for this (there are no reds!).

I made the pillow forms for these two pillows out of a very old, worn out down parka (such a messy, time consuming job - I don't know if I would do it again).

The cross stitch pillow needed a specific size and then I just cut up the rest of the ticking and made the other pillows. The large one needed a bit of feathers from an old pillow because I didn't have enough down from the coat (I am sure only about half of the down from the coat made it into the pillows - I wore a mask and a large plastic apron, and worked in the craft room storage room with the door closed to try and contain the mess).

The next two are tiny pillows ('pin-keeps') that I cross stitched using linen fabric and cotton floss that I dyed (more about that on another post). Both are stitched one strand of floss over two linen threads (1 over 2).

This one is a free pattern from Blackbird Designs - Souvenir de France. I stitched it on a 28 count linen.

This is one that I designed. It is stitched on 36 count linen (I wanted to see how it was to stitch. It was easier than I thought it would be - with a good light and 3x magnifying glasses).

I finished them both off by machine stitching them all around, making a slit in the back to turn them around, and stuffing them (they are stuffed with shredded wool batting). After the slit is whipped stitched and covered with a felt heart. I learned this technique from a Lori Holt video.

They are only a couple of inches in size,

and fit perfectly in an old basket with sewing things (the basket was given to my Grandmother by her Father-in-Law - full of fruit, when my Dad was born - 86 years ago)

These are more tiny pillows that I finished for my parents - my Dad has been doing lots of stitching during the pandemic (I believe the charts for these are all from the book 'Point de Croix Retro' by Véronique Enginger).

All the best