Thursday, November 28, 2013

Woot, first major commissioned handspun yarn complete

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I love hand spinning large amounts of yarn for other people.  Sadly I can't afford to do it for free, but sometimes I can do it for trade or money.  And I love it!

Spinning yarn to order is wonderful, because I know that the yarn has a destination and I don't need to deal with all the doubts:  What if no one likes the same yarn I do?  I know they want the yarn because I made samples and we talked about it's use and &c.



There are 24 skeins and over 1100 yards of boucle yarn.  It's spun from a delightful Romney fleece from a sheep from one of the near by islands.



It's absolutely delightful yarn, if I may say so myself.

In other news, I'm really interested in this idea.


I think we need a local network of textile artists and maybe set up some sort of exchange programme.  For example, I love to spin and weave, but I seldom sew or knit... so maybe someone else knits but doesn't spin... so maybe if I were to spin twice as much yarn as is needed for a project, then another person knit the sweater and they got paid in the same yardage as the sweater took to knit... Just an idea.  Don't know how it would work, or who would organize it... but it's a fun idea.


Thursday, November 14, 2013

Shhh... they are sleeping

Not much going on here.  Well, that's not true. There's lots going on, just not much to write about.  What there is worth sharing is mostly food related.

But here's an exciting thing.


They are sleeping now.  Live silk moths inside their beautiful cocoons.  When they wake up in the spring, they will flap their wings, find a mate and make lots of little eggs, which will hatch and eat and grow... and on and on.

But they are not your usual silk worm.  Oh no.  These are Polyphemus silkmoths.  A species that grows wild around here.

We are going to have a lot of fun together.

In other news, spinning lots.  Met an absolutely lovely person who asked me to spin some yarn for her.  It's just the project I needed to get my spinning mojo going again.