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Monday, April 23, 2012

One failed experiment

I dyed a number of shirts around Christmas, sadly too late to go into Christmas shows, but I've dug them out tonight because I have a spring show, the only one I am doing this year, in about two weeks (less!).

Seven of them I have passed as sale ready, five need more work and one was disqualified for the print being wildly off center.

And then there is this one:

spotted shirt
and... not quite.

I think it is a great idea, and yet a poor design. Pink and blue make purple, of course, and so it was bound and dyed in one color, then rebound and dyed in the other - and the white spaces became (pink) and the bound spaces remained (blue) while the rest of the shirt became purple.

But it just sits there and looks... chaotic. And not in a cool way. And now I shall spend a few minutes puzzling over whether there is a way to employ this simple technique that would look good, or if it will remain an unmarketable curiosity.

In the meantime, this particular shirt goes into the pile for gifting to pregnant friends...

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Yarns for February and March

In the annual tradition of breaking one's New Year's Resolutions, I've sort of given up on spinning. I am having some stress issues with my hands that make spinning and knitting untenable at this time.

However, I did manage to spin some yarns in February and March that I can show off:

pink yarn
can't wait to knit this up, when I can knit again... :/

Half of this is a roving purchased from my friend Riin at Happy Fuzzy Yarn. The straight up pink ply is something I carded on my drum carder.

superwash sock yarn
sock yarn! superwash and nylon blend

I bought this superwash natural colored merino... well, it's not exactly roving, but somewhat prepped... back at Greencastle's Fiber Event years back. (When I lived in Illinois; as Greencastle is now a bit far for a day trip.)

I carded it on my drum carder, blended with nylon that was dyed orange or gold or yellow. It was pulled out into a sort of roving and spun fine. The second ply is unblended merino. It should show subtle striping when knit up.

blue yarn
spun from lincoln locks and silk hankies

The locks I purchased at a recent Spinner's Flock meeting, there are two colors - turquoise and a teal. They were roughly combed with, uh, combs, to open and blend them, pulled out into a sort of roving-esque preparation and then I attempted to corespin onto a very thin, light green commercial silk yarn (to varying degrees of success - there is more of that visible than there should be). That was plied with a teal silk ply made from hankies I dyed years ago.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

folktale art quilt, finished!

tomtittot art quilt
It turned out a bit different than I had thought, but I'm pretty pleased.

The only problem I had was one I already had anticipated - with the thickness of the figures. I am working on alternate methods of assembling figures, though in my next quilts...

Also, I think there is too much blank space. But it does look like the plan. I'm just not sure it was a great plan in retrospect.

It's about 18 inches high, and 25 inches wide.

And here's the back.

quilt back
a bit out of focus!