Fiber Sprite
  • Blog
  • About
    • Classes
    • Policies
  • Tutorials
  • Store

Fiber Sprite​

Handspun Square Lace Shawl

9/1/2020

 
Picture
A couple of years ago, I finished spinning a laceweight yarn that I had been trying to replicate for years. Naturally, the yarn had to sit in the stash for a while before I cast on. The pattern for this shawl isn't written down anywhere - it's just a square shawl, worked from the center out, with three different motifs that I liked.
Picture
Since it's a square shawl, it can be worn like a cape, or folded in half like a triangular shawl.
Picture
Now that the weather is finally starting to get cooler, I'm looking forward to getting to finally wear it!
Picture
Here's a close-up showing the lace patterns.


P.S. - You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much lately. I'm still writing, mostly in my email newsletter. So if you  haven't signed up and want to hear from me, that's the best place to go.

Making Roving from a Swing Picker and Drum Carder

5/26/2020

 
This year I've been working on chipping away at my stash of wool fleeces. I've amassed quite a few over the last four years. When I get one home after a fiber festival, I scour it, which is a time consuming task in itself. Once that's done, I'm properly sore from hauling hot water all over the place, and the clean fleece sits on the shelf for an embarrassingly long time!

This year, with no fiber festivals or other bright shiny things to distract me and plenty of stash to work from, I've turned an eye to these fleeces. Follow along as I spend some time making roving from my swing picker and drum carder!

Drum Carding a Gradient

4/28/2020

 
Picture
This past month, I decided to create a gradient of colors on my drum carder. It's almost all the colors in the rainbow (leaving out yellow and orange). Most tutorials show how to create a single batt that contains a gradient. However, I knew that I wanted a large amount of yarn of each color, so in this instance, I created a single batt that contained each color, and then pulled the batt into roving using my Spinner's Multitool. 

My gradient starts with green, and ends with a dark pink. These were created from Spring and Confetti. The blues and purples in the center were created from Orion's Nebula. Where I had similar colors lurking in my stash, I blended those in too. 

To start, I carded three colors - the pale green, the middle blue, and the pink. Then I blended each together with its neighbor to create an intermediary color, and then once again, for a total of seven colors. I'd meant to create a video tutorial showing how this is done, but after spending a whole day recording, the video was out of focus! Maybe next time. 

I did manage to get a video (with no narration) showing how the colors are blended on the drum carder - in thin layers to promote a heathered effect in the final yarn. There's more detail on how layering colors works in this post. 
Once all the fiber was carded and pulled into roving, I spun it into singles. Most of the fiber in this blend is Falkland, which is a medium wool with lots of bounce. I also knew that I wanted a bulky yarn. Mostly I spin very fine yarn, so this was a challenge for me, but I took my time and checked my yarn thickness with my spinner's multitool. I spun the singles at 18 wraps per inch, then chain-plied them . After wet finishing (with a good thwacking), the final wraps per inch measurement is between 6-9 wraps per inch - a nice thick yarn like I wanted!
Picture

Crafting Healthy Hands

3/31/2020

 
Picture
If you're staying at home to help flatten the curve of COVID-19, you might have more time on your hands to knit, spin, weave, crochet, or participate in other fiber arts. This can be a silver lining, and it is also a time to make sure you're taking care of your hands! It would be a huge bummer to be staying inside with hands that are too sore to knit!

​I shared some of these links a few years ago, when I was suffering from repetitive stress at work.  Now, they're updated with a few more tips I've discovered.

ICYMI, How to wash your hands. And, if you're tired of humming "Happy Birthday" twice through, you can use this website to come up with a different song (plus a downloadable poster). And don't forget the lotion!

If you're missing that massage you'd normally get during a manicure, here's how to massage your own hands. 

This video helped me a ton. And I wish I had incorporated the exercises from this video a little bit sooner. 

Esther Rodgers (aka Jazzturtle) has a great class called Fiber Preparation for Spinning. Don't let the title of the class fool you - she shares lots of ergonomical tips and exercises for taking care of our most precious equipment - our bodies. 

We Are Knitters has this handy infographic. It moves! (Is gif-o-graphic a word?)

If you're more into the written word, Carson Demers is the expert on ergonomics for knitters. He has this fantastic book, and he's written a few great articles for Ply Magazine, too. He also has an interview on the Fruity Knitting Podcast. (Interview starts at about the 41 minute mark)

Everything we do with our bodies has a cumulative effect, which is why I love "spoga," aka Spinners' Yoga. Also great for knitters, weavers, crocheters, rug hookers...basically anyone who sits down and uses their hands to craft.

I'd love to know if there are any other resources you find really helpful for keeping your hands in tip-top shape!

Not a Snow Day

3/17/2020

 
Picture
I bet I don't have to say it, but here it is - everything is up in the air right now.

I'm still showing up to work, because it's pretty much the same as working from home. My husband and I run our businesses out of our big warehouse building. It's just us and one employee, so social distancing and sanitizing the surfaces we touch are all pretty easy. Or not easy, but very, very possible.  We don't have many visitors and have shut down our normal "open to the public hours" for now.

I'm lucky that I still feel like I have somewhere to go, but everything is topsy turvy. Like a lot of other folks, I've had at least one event cancelled due to COVID-19, and there's the possibility that more will be canceled. It's really hard to tell how much of an impact this is having on my business, since this is the first year I signed up to do fiber festivals.

Instead of doing my normal dye runs last week, I decided to experiment instead. I was gifted a bunch of "worms," or offcuts from Pendleton blankets. These are a by-product of the industrial weaving process, and people can buy them for weaving, rug hooking, and more. I have a big stash of them, but they weren't really in colors that were exciting to me, so I decided to see what would happen if I overdyed them.
Usually when I dye, I'm using pretty exact formulas to get exactly the colors I want. But with these, I eyeballed everything. When the pink was getting *too pink,* I threw in a handful of unspun BFL locks to absorb the extra dye, a tip I learned from Suzy Brown of Fibery Goodness.

There's still a huge pile of braids waiting for labels and to be listed on my website. I also have a couple of new products to photograph and list, so those will be coming soon. But for now, I'm trying to do as much offline as I can, so I don't fall down the rabbit hole of reading headlines.

​How are you staying busy?


<<Previous
Forward>>

    Archives

    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Affiliate
    Annavestkal
    Bangoutasweater
    Basketweaving
    Books
    Breed Swatch
    Cables
    Classes
    Color Theory
    Colorwork
    Design
    Differential Shrinkage
    Diz
    Dog
    Downloads
    Drum Carder
    Dyeing
    Embroidery
    Ergonomics
    Felting
    Fiber Fix
    FOs
    Freebies
    Knitting
    Konmarie
    Kumihimo
    Lace
    Links
    Log Cabin
    Mending
    Multitool
    Onesockkal
    Patterns
    Podcast
    Ravelry
    Rigid Heddle
    Rug Hooking
    Samplealong
    Sashiko
    Sewing
    Shop
    Slow Fashion October
    Socks
    Spinning
    Spinzilla
    Stash
    Steek
    Swatching
    Sweaters
    Tour De Fleece
    Travel
    Tutorial
    Tutorials
    Upcycling
    Video
    Weaving
    WIP
    Wool
    Wovember
    Wpi

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
Copyright P.S. Kreative LLC © 2015-2021
  • Blog
  • About
    • Classes
    • Policies
  • Tutorials
  • Store