Embrace differences

On February 18, 2020 By CarynIn art

Uh oh, the outdoor vinyl cutouts are very addicting. I made the castle for my husband’s truck, the dragonfly for my vehicle, and then the other corner of my window needed updating too. I just happened to have some white premium vinyl that I used on the kid’s water bottles. That stuff has stuck on fast even with weekly trips through the dishwasher. But what to advertise to everyone sitting behind me at traffic lights? I wanted some variation on the theme that it is good that everyone is different; it would be a terrible if we were all the same. But that is a lot of text to squeeze onto a sticker. So I used two words: Embrace differences.

I created the graphic in Adobe Illustrator and used my Cricut cutter to cut the vinyl. I like the negative space “Embrace”. I also put this out on my Redbubble shop as a t-shirt design in white and black. The solid color prints come out nicely, with a bit of variation from the knit material, which I like. Below is a different design I had printed on a brown shirt.

T-shirt graphic by me, printed by Redbubble

Washing alpaca fleece

On February 17, 2020February 11, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

So excited! I’m getting into the alpaca fleece that I bought from a local alpaca farm over a month ago. I followed the instructions in Mary Egbert’s book “The Art of Washing Wool, Mohair, & Alpaca” and washed an armful of each color.

Raw fleece (from Aimee the alpaca) above, wash bin on right, rinse bin on left, drying towel behind, cat photo bomb

I used a capful of Amway LOC soap in the wash bowl, and let the fibers soak for a few minutes. Since alpaca fiber doesn’t have lanolin I didn’t have to be as diligent with keeping the temperature consistently hot. I used hot water from the tap for both the wash and the rinse. I gently squeezed out the soapy water before putting the fiber in the rinse bowl, let it sit, then gently squeezed out the rinse water and rolled the fiber in a towel to remove most of the water.

Sugar Plum’s fleece raw center, wash right, rinse left

The alpaca fleeces seemed relatively clean to start, but as you can see in the picture of Sugar Plum’s fleece above, there was still a fair amount of dirt in there! Which is to be expected, since alpacas like rolling in dirt.

I bought a dark brown (Aimee’s), a fawn (Donnabella’s), and a cream (Sugar Plum’s) blanket fleece. The most dramatic difference was in Sugar Plum’s fleece wash. The cleaned fleece was nearly as white as my towel!

New drying rack with freshly washed alpaca fleece

I installed a new drying rack in the bathroom over the tub. This pop out hanging tray system can have six layers! Lots of space for drying fiber! After washing and rinsing, I put all my fiber here to dry. Carding comes next!

Rainbow cloche

On February 16, 2020February 14, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

I crocheted up the rainbow yarn! Rinsing the single ply on the niddy noddy worked great to set the yarn. At just over 50 grams, there was not enough to make an adult sized hat, so… I spiral striped it with black. It came out well!

Even though my spinning still has thick and thin places, the crochet looks nice. I did remove some of the thinnest spots, especially along the edge.

Commercial spun yarn on left, my spindle spun on right

Though honestly, the practice is helping. I found a left-over bit of merino wool I had purchased years ago, and the yarn I made is comparable. Neat.

Rip repair

On February 15, 2020February 12, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

I tried a new method of rip repair on my eldest’s pants. It always seems to be the back pocket the pulls apart at the corner. Probably because this is where she puts her phone! I’ve tried a whip stitch, which looks bad and pulls apart, a mattress stitch, which also pulls apart, and reweaving which is effective but visible. I had the idea this time to use the weaving method, but only pick up fabric threads from the wrong side of the fabric. So I sewed back and forth across the rip rather than along the rip. The hope is that I caught enough fabric to support the thread, and the thread will hold the rip closed.

Repair barely visible from right side of the fabric

The idea came from browsing all the beautiful embellished repairs on Pinterest. However, my eldest likes subtle, so didn’t want me to use rainbow thread on the outside! I can report that at the end of the day, the stitching still held. Hurray!

Spinning Rainbows

On February 14, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

I spun up my rainbow rolags! The big fluffy rolags were nice to spin; the fibers pulled out smoothly and the color variation came out well. (And it was very pretty on the spindle!)

I strung the finished single on the PVC niddy noddy, rinsed it in cold water, and let it dry. The yarn seems to have set well.

I took the rainbow hank off the niddy noddy and used my swift and wool winder to make a rainbow cake.

The resulting yarn cake is 53g and about 78 yards. Not enough to make a hat. Hmm. But I have some ideas…