TNNA Blogging

I'm headed to Columbus tomorrow for the TNNA market. I'll be there Thursday - Monday, and I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to get ready. I need to pack, pay the store bills, straighten up around here so Kristen doesn't trip over anything or run out of change while she's watching the store for me, print some shirts for Steve's company, and go get my hair dyed.

I'll be updating my twitter through ping.fm all weekend so if you're interested in knowing how that goes down before I get back and post about it you can follow me there. http://twitter.com/Elabeth They don't allow pictures on the show floor or in the fashion show, but I can be pretty descriptive in 140 characters & I'll be posting pics from elsewhere.

LOL

may 2009 050
Originally uploaded by willy0426.

This is a pic of me taken at the sheep to shawl thing last weekend. HAHAHAHAHA! I love it.

Sheep To Shawl 2009!

Yesterday I went to the local spinning guild's Sheep To Shawl competition in Prairie Grove at the battlefield park. This is my team. We were the first to finish our shawl/scarf, but ours was just plain tabby weave and everyone else did at least some kind of pickup stick pattern and used smaller warp yarn. Ours was worsted weight at 8dpi.

Left to right that's me, Dominique, Lynnell, Kate, Dominique's friend who's name I can't remember, and Jane. The picture is one that I stole from Kathleen's flickr cause I forgot my camera and only have a few crappy iphone pics of the day.

Each team showed up with a pre-warped loom. Each team got 8oz of pre-washed fleece, and got to work carding, spinning, and weaving our shawls/scarves. They had to be at least 10in wide and I thought 60in long but some of them didn't make it to the length. We didn't care cause it was mostly just for fun.

Here are pics of the other teams:

that's Kathleen there in the middle. I can't remember the names of the other ladies. I suck with names.


That's Cecelia in the middle. Again, I can't remember the other ladies' names.


This team was made up of people who just showed up hoping to be placed on a team who didn't really know eachother before then. 2nd from the left is Melly and 4th from the left is Anne. Those are the only two I know the names of. haha

Here is a pic of all 4 shawls at the end of the day

Hey, remember the sparkle handspun lincoln/merino/glitz shawl I started in October of 2006 on the triloom? Sure you do! That sucker is thisclose to finally being finished. I put it off for a long time because it got down to the pain in the butt last 20 or so nails there in the center of the tri-loom. I've got ten to go, then fringe to add before May 7th when I take the loom to it's new owner at Yarn School. I'm hoping the fiber will get back some of it's sproing in the wash. At least I know it's strong being stretched out like that for dang near 3 years. ugh.

Weaving Loom Madness!

Well, here are the scarves I made on my Cricket loom:


I really like how they turned out. The blue one is my handspun for the weft with a commercial yarn for the warp. The pink one is Wisdom Sonnet for both the warp and the weft. I like how the self striping yarn used as both warp and weft makes such a cool pattern just in plain old tabby weave. I'm going to have to mess with that some more :)

OK, so last week I got a call at the shop from a local lady with a 25in 4-shaft Schacht table loom to sell. The loom had been boxed up in her Mom's garage since shortly after it was purchased back in the 80's. It was in perfect condition and came with a giant bag of yarn, a couple of books, and some stick shuttles all for $300. Was I interested? I jumped on that!

Once I got finished gloating over my new baby I realized I now owned 6 looms. (!!!) LOL How did that happen?? Somebody would have to go, so I decided to sell my big triangle loom, the 15in Schacht Table Loom, and the 32in Kromski Rigid Heddle as soon as I finish the big shawl, the little birdseye twill scarf, and the Sheep To Shawl competition on May 16th. The triloom is going to a girl at Yarn School, the rigid heddle is going home with a friend of one of my sheep to shawl team members, and the table loom is going in the mail to a livejournal friend. I should be down to three looms (45in floor loom, 10in rigid heddle, & 25in table loom) by the end of May.

One good thing about buying fiber equipment is that it holds it's value really well and there are always people out there in market for used equipment so it's pretty easy to move it when you decide you don't need it anymore or you upgrade :)

Springtime!

Happy Easter!
What am I doing??

Weaving
I've been doing some scarf weaving (sorry, no pics of that yet) and planning of other weaving projects mostly.

Knitting
Mostly store sample things. I'm a little over half done with a leaf lace shawl in Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton, a little over half done with a no-pattern triangle shawl in Plymouth Kudo, and just started a Claudia Handpainted French Scarf Kit. It's all about the shawls lately. haha I'll post pictures when those are finished.

Crochet
Still sometimes working on that Babette Blanket. That thing is so boring...

Other Crafty Things
I just ordered a Yudu Screen Printing Machine. I've got all the supplies for traditional screen printing, but this thing is sort of a combination light table/exposure unit/dryer and the emulsion already on peel-away sheets looks super fast/easy/non-messy and very attractive to me since getting that stuff on there evenly without making a HUGE mess is the hard part of screen printing for me.
Here is a video showing how it works:



I'll post a review once mine gets here and I'll show you what I make with it :)

Camp Pluckyfluff!

Last month I went to Harveyville, KS for Camp Pluckyfluff taught by Lexi Boeger her own self.  I can't believe I didn't run home and instantly blog about it here. I'm totally slipping on my craft blogging. Ravelry has pretty much sucked all the project documentation motivation out of me somehow. There is a big Yarn Room reorganization/move coming up at my house so I'll be sure to document that here for your viewing pleasure. I'm sure there will be some half done something or others that turn up for us to laugh at. 

So anyway, Camp was great! There were only about a dozen students so it wasn't all crowded. We made lots of awesome yarn, ate a lot of really great food, and invented a drinking game that involves the word orifice. That's all you need to know. haha 

Lexi is really nice and she's a great teacher, so if she ever does one of these workshops near where you are and you have ANY interest at all in learning to spin novelty stuff you should sign up.

Here is my little pile of yarns. Just click on it to see the whole set on flickr.