Invasion of the Hexagons!

I'm falling behind on my Tour de Fleece posts, but it is still coming along slowly. And I have been spinning at least 15 minutes every day! There hasn't been much color change on the wheel recently as I've been project hopping. I've sampled four other fibers and just got around to washing them last night so they are still drying. Two are silk hankies, one is shetland and the other is merino top. The merino sample is Ashland Bay's Snapdragon and I'm about halfway through spindling up the rest of it. The finished yarn will be a thick and thin two ply.

Now about the hexagon invasion...I was wanting a small project  I could work on while watching movies and after having seen some gorgeous hexagon pieced quilts I thought it would be a great project. They are addicting to make, very quick and easy. So now I've got to little hexagon projects going.

This is just a small sampling of each set. The lower one is obviously Halloween themed because I figure if I start it now it should be done by then. And the other is leftovers from Moda's Buttercup charm pack. I'm thinking of making decorative some pillow cases from them, but I'm not 100% sold on the idea yet. What do you think I should do with them?

Tour de Fleece Day 4!

I've been spinning away with a beautiful gradient of green from Fiber Optic Yarns. With spinning it as lace weight singles it is taking some time.

The color is less yellow/more green than the picture shows.

On day one I actually spun up a sample of some silk hankies I got and tried it as a two ply though I still want to see it as a three ply before I commit. I'll have to get photos of that little sample up soon. And get better photos up of the gradient.

Gifts to ME!!!

Picture from Caliope's Fibre

I've been really good recently with my budgeting and with saving up for my hopeful vacation in October. I say hopeful because I still have to snag a spot when registration opens. You will know more if I get to go...But a while back I was really wanting to spin a batt. Now, this isn't something I have ever done before and there is no local place for me to get one. So I decided to splurge a little. Enter Etsy. I found some beautiful batts even one including crab fiber!

Picture from Caliope's Fibre. The white is crab fiber!!!!

But I wasn't sure I could justify it, until two days later a coupon for Tour de Fleece goes up. It was meant to be and now I have somewhere close to 10 oz headed my way from Caliope's Fibre. I have two of each of these beauties headed my way and I can't wait! See I told you this was gifts to me. I also got myself a May Beach Bum sample box from Sampler Village. I mean I'm half way to my vacation savings goal so I needed a little something for me. I promise there will be tons more pictures when both arrive!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!

Late night projects

I’m part of the Spindler’s group on Ravelry and May’s spinning challenge prompt is: my precious. The great thing is that we can interpret the prompt in any way we choose, though most of us are leaning towards the Lord of the Rings interpretation. Last month I dyed up some wool in a yellow/green/blue color way and also dyed up some silk hankies with the left over Easter egg orange dye tablet. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted so I over dyed it to tone the neon orange down.

I also finished the pink singles from the last post and am working on plying them. I'll post pictures of it once it has been washed, whacked and dried.

The Never Ending Project

This pink merino is haunting me. Really it is. I think It has been on my wheel for about a month and I'm still not done spinning up the singles. Makes me wonder if it is taking so long because I can only stand pink in small doses. I am determined to get the singles done by the end of the month so I see some major spinning in the next few hours.

I also realized that I haven't shown off my Spunky Eclectic club fibers since I showed the spun up Peace on Earth fiber. So here is January, February, March and April! I ordered an extra of the January because I loved it so much. Each month comes with a slip telling us the month, color way name, fiber content, what inspired the colors and some tips on spinning it up.

Clockwise from top right: January "Birds 'n' Berries" Targhee; February "Abstract" Corriedale with sheep sticker; March "Little Fishes" Merino; April "Robin Red Breast" Gotland

One thing I'm loving about club is that the colors aren't always ones that I would choose on my own, but Amy does such an amazing job with her dye jobs that I love them all. I'm also getting to see, feel and (eventually) spin up new fibers I haven't tried before! Also with the forum on Ravelry, I love seeing how everyone spins their fiber up.

Crafting Spaces

I've decided that instead of one big long boring post on my new place I'm going to break it down into smaller posts. The first one I share is going to be the crafty spaces because, in all honesty, they were the first spaces completely set up. I have two major areas, the first being the sewing closet.

Comes complete with a cat

It sounds kind of silly, but when you live in an efficiency apartment and have a pantry, a small closet, a medium closet and a huge walk-in closet in combination with not having that many clothes to need 3 closets and no space to put the sewing stuff. Closet it is then. Right now my fabric is stored in the cabinet of my bookcase. I might move it up to the closet shelf.

The other crafty area is my desk. I found this at the Salvation Army and was debating if I wanted to spend that much on a desk when a guy waiting for his wife pointed out that it had been there for over 14 days. Well, 14 days means 25% off and I was sold. As you can see there is already a project taking over the desk. I'm trying a new way of scaling up patterns-radial projection. I think it might be my new go-to when scaling up patterns.

So there are my crafty spaces.

Spinning

A quick post on what I've been up to aside from moving to my own little apartment (tour to come in the next post). Sadly there hasn't been much going on but I joined the Spunky Eclectic fiber club in December and spun up the club fiber last week. And let me just say that the club is amazing! I am already spinning up January's club and can't wait for February's.

And I might have had a little too much fun with the photo edit feature...

I've also spun up a bit of some silk hankies on the wheel and was amazed at how quick it was to spin up. Since I needed the bobbin that it was on I made a tiny little hank of the silk. It is spinning up slightly thinner than the columns on the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the penny.