Since setting up my spinning wheel, I've only been able to find a few hours a week to spin. I've completed about a dozen skeins in various colors and textures and am quite pleased with the results of most. I am now capable of spinning an even skein that's balanced before setting the twist, however, I like the uniqueness of the thick & thin slubby skeins most. Early on I gave soy fiber a try. I was very proud of my first skein, which I plied with a cotton/rayon thread. My second attempt was frustrating and I realize that while I am now comfortable spinning wool at a faster pace, the soy, a shorter slippery fiber, requires a little extra time and care. My friend in Jo sent me a lovely package of incredibly easy to spin corriedale in a variety of colors.

Here are a few examples. From left to right:
Louet Merino plied with Brown Sheep Wool
Corriedale: top-red plied with orange, bottom-sky blue plied with navy
Brown Sheep roving handpainted in shades of midnight: top-plied with black corriedale, bottom-plied together
Bamboo plied with cotton/rayon thread then handpainted.





Most of my time over the last two months of 2007 was spent finishing up holiday gifts, and then, a gift for my sister whose birthday is this month. I made this sweater (The Gathered Pullover, Interweave Knits Winter 2007) for my mom (sorry no pic) and I loved it so much I had to make another. My sis has terrible allergies so I chose a fingering weight alpaca in natural grey.




We've also been able to get the studio set up and I'm back to painting so I'm finally listing on eBay again. The studio had been storing some of my grandparent's furniture that my aunt wanted to keep. I've also been trying to source new yarns for the website. Fuel prices have caused everything to go up in cost significantly. I would really like to add alpaca and llama yarns to the website.

I've spent some time in the last month researching natural plant dyes. Now that we have so much more land I'm very much interested in growing my dyes. I feel like I've been doing so much and accomplishing very little but it will all fall into place.

So many plans, so little time. I hope the new year is off to a good start for all.

Thanks for visiting!
Angelina