Category: Craft

Mint top fiber page

On By CarynIn Craft
Photo description: scrap book page with card from Hearthside Fiber in the upper left, single spun and chain plied yarn in the upper right, unspun fiber middle left, twined swatch middle, tatted swatch middle right, knitted swatch bottom left, and crocheted swatch bottom right

I think this was my bottle neck for assembling my fiber pages. I had several sets ready for assembly but this one wasn’t ready because the tatted swatch took a long time. I think next time I tat for the book it will be a ribbon rather than a rectangle. Or a small doily. Choices.

My favorite piece on this page is the crochet, because I used an orange peel stitch that alternates between single and double crochet and gives a beautiful texture.

The fiber is cellulose infused with peppermint, according to the description. It is supposed to feel cooler. I do not feel it. It was easy to spin thin, gives a nice drape in the knitting and crochet, is possible to tat with (but has more halo than pearlized cotton), but is not noticeably “cool”, any more than cotton can feel cool.

I might purchase this fiber if I had a light summer shirt I wanted to make, but I would be more inclined to purchase cotton or linen.

Jacob’s sheep roving

On By CarynIn Craft

When I was in Michigan I visited the Sweetgrass Jacob’s Sheep farm and picked up a bump of two-tone roving. The shepherdess told me it a pain to separate out the colors for the mill, but I’m very glad they do because this was fun to spin. I chose to spin it with my Ashford Traveller spinning wheel fitted with the standard whorl and the sliding jumbo flyer, but with a standard size bobbin.

Photo description: two-toned bump of roving made from Jacob’s Sheep wool, next to an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel spinning a single

The standard bobbin held all the singles I spun from the bump, barely. I should have started with the jumbo bobbin, but now I know.

Photo description: standard sized bobbin very full with a single spun from Jacob’s sheep roving

I love how this yarn is coming out! The random variations in the color ratios make me happy. Now, I’m not usually a fan of knitted variegated yarn, so I’ll have to ponder the use of this yarn for a while.

Throwback Thursday: Picture frames

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In May of 2013 I was into making sculptural wood and wire photo frames.

Photo description: oak wood photo frame with wire tree and Mother of Pearl buttons as leaves

I cut the frame from hardwood, sanded and finished it, then put a peg hole and dowel in the back to function as a stand. I drilled holes for the wires, epoxied them in and shaped them. I added tabs to the back to hold the photos in. Did I take a picture of the back? Not of this one.

Photo description: back of an owl photo frame showing peg stand, metal tabs, and hanging hardware. The eyes of the owl were fused glass with iron oxide pupils that matched the tone of the wood. the back of the eyes can be seen in the photo.

My photo skills took a slip back at this time. Many of the photos for the other frames were blurry, or at a strange angle, and others were taken with photos in them. Some of the photos of photos were decent, but since I don’t post faces on this blog, it made them unsuitable for future use. In my past-self’s defense, I had two young children and I’m frankly lucky to have remembered to take pictures at all.

Multi-use

On By CarynIn Craft

My turned rosewood distaff made by Enid Ashcroft is a beautiful piece of work. I appreciate that the top end is just the right size for a pencil topper, and not only does it function well for its intended purpose of holding fiber for spinning, it can also function as a ring holder. Pictured below it is holding many sizes of quartz bead rings.

Photo description: ring distaff holding rings with a heart eyed emoji topper

The thought process that lead up to this discovery was “I need something that will keep these rings in size order during transport.”

I gave them wings

On By CarynIn Craft

When we hide rocks for the Kindness Rocks project, we put some simple instructions on the back. I wanted to put something similar on my worry worms. I started with a scarf idea, with a simple slit for the attachment and words burned into man-made felt. After a couple tests, I thought the scarf looked more like wings, so changed my design in Adobe Illustrator, saved it as an SVG, and imported it in my laser cutter’s program.

Photo description: three worry worms with a scarf (left), wings with a bold font (middle), and wings with a thin stencil font (right)
Photo description: yellow and orange felt in the laser cutter, there were definite cutting differences between colors, in this photo the orange cut much cleaner than the yellow with the same settings
Photo description: purple glow worry worms with a with purple wings that say “Hi! You found me! Keep me or pass me on” with more worms and wings in the background

I just love their little wings! I did find it interesting that the thin stencil font was easier to read than a bold stencil.

I took these to my regional chorus competition and my chorus had a great time “hiding” them for other competitors to find.