I’m really Jazzed! My quilt, Moonlight Sonata, has made it on the front of another Post Card mailing for one of the exhibits on it’s 2 year tour.

And the company it’s keeping! The piece above mine is called Allegria by Cathryn Amidei and it’s the most awesome Jacquard weaving. This is in the New Fibers 2008 exhibit which I’ve just been to see at Eastern Michigan - Wow!

The Bonifas Art Center must be a great place as it’s even offering fiber art workshops, including an Art Quilts 101 by Kathie Briggs. So, if your in the northern part of Michigan - go see it! Just click on the image to biggy-ize it for reading.

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Monday I went to my spinning group (Friends of the Fleece in Imlay City, Michigan) and continued spinning on my yummy teal fleeced I dye and mentioned in an earlier post. It will be plied with the bright colors roving (dyed by me) that I finished spinning a couple of months ago. Don’t you think they will look great plied up?

I’m getting eager to see it happen. Of course, spinning is one of those luxuries I allow myself about two hours a month so….

Also at Monday’s spinning meeting, Kay S showed us wire knitting with beads. Here are some of her samples (click to big-ma-fy). Pretty cool! I think I could get a little hooked. Here is (left to right) Kay S, Mary D, and Carol E at our meeting.

First, she had us thread about 100 beads on some wire. I used a 26 gauge, teal colored wire and a mix of purple, size 11 Japanese seed beads. Then we simply cast-on five stitches and knit garter stitch, sliding 2 beads up the wire at every row turn. Notice I blithely said “simply”; wire is stiff, it had a small learning curve but “it’s doable” (to quote Mac in Entrapment). I diligently knit away until I had it long enough. Actually, until I ran out of beads! I have discovered you can fine tune the fit by stretching the knitting in either direction. It’s wire, it stays where you put it! I added a clasp and Finished!

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I thought it was fun, so started another

And lastly, I’m always looking for something new to torture into a use it was never intended for.

CD’s melt with a heat gun and the printing on the labels can give you some pretty cool textures. I’m not sure what use I will ever put it to, and you can tell by the scorch marks on the wood cutting board that you have to get it really hot - do this outside BTW, it’ hugely stinky and I’m sure, quite toxic. But, it was fun to torment the old free CD’s we all get so many of in the mail.

My biggest project for this week is getting ready to go to QSDS, I leave on Sunday for a 5 day workshop and I’m really excited about spending a week in such creatively charged company and atmosphere. I’m going to take my computer and if they still have wireless at the hotel, I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I’m off to start collecting my supplies.

Deb H

 This Monday was Spinning group day. I belong to the Friends of the Fleece spinning group that meets in Imlay City once a month on the 2nd Monday and we sit and spin and do other fiber related things as well. This month Margot L. taught us all how to make braided rugs out of felted roving. I did not attempt to start one as I already have 9,456,351.6 projects in the works and let’s face it, I think I’ve finally hit my limit for WIPs. I did file it away for future consideration as I have a braided mat someone brought me from a trip once and it’s the perfect trivet! I did do a bit of spinning though.

I like color. I like bright colors. I like a lot of color. Have I mentioned I like color? Here is a picture of my spinning WIP, a painted roving by moi that is being spun into sock yarn. It started life in my possession as a pure white, lovely, super-soft, superwash merino top from Louet. I just love this top (top is like roving but combed more for more parallel fibers). It’s a delight to touch and run through your fingers, in other words, a delight to spin! Throw in some color and you have nervana 

This top was dyed by the “paint” method. I soaked it in acid water, squeezed it out (not too dry) and laid it zig-zag style in a (clean, never used!) cat litter tray. I then applied dye from squirt bottles in stripes cross-wise across the zig-zagged top, sorry, no pictures of this step. after baking in the dye oven and rinsing and drying - it became truly luscious stuff! Since I seriously believe all projects have to have a challenge where you learn something new, my something for this yarn is to spin it a little thicker than my usual default of super fine lace weight. My goal is something between sock and sport weight. At the moment it looks a bit more like a thick-and-thin yarn but I’m working on it. I do plan on dyeing a solid(ish) teal merino superwash to ply with it to give it a bit of contrast.

True confessions, I rarely get time to spin, I go to spinning group just so I can actually do some spinning. So, 2 hours of spinning, once a month, calculates to a finished yarn, ready for knitting in June of 2012. Check back here on that date and see if I made it! ;o)