I brushed one of the cats, then as I cleaned the fur off of the brush, I wondered if I could…
So I did.
I spun cat fur into yarn.
Cat yarn
Category: art
Spinning
It occurred to me that I haven’t done a spinning wheel bobbin picture in awhile.
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Finished Skirt
Add some crochet, and voila!
It’s a micro miniskirt!
But I’m letting my 2-year-old wear it instead.
This has been another episode of Weaving Is Fun.
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Rigid Heddle loom project #2
I got some different yarns to experiment weaving with, which is turning into a huge amount of fun and I can totally quit whenever I want. #JustKiddingI’mAddicted
This one is mercerized cotton, which has been treated to have a shine.
Wait a second, and let’s backtrack.
I forgot to mention that I bought white yarn and dyed it a speckled peacock blue and hot pink. Basically, after soaking it in soda ash, I sprinkled the blue dye powder over one half of the skein, and the pink dye powder over the other, and let it set for a couple of days before washing.
On the loom, the mercerized cotton naturally wove with lots of spacious gaps between the yarn, so it almost looked like a type of netting. However, after I washed it, all of those gaps disappeared and I got a decently solid fabric:
Now I need to figure out what to do with it.
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Rigid Heddle
Back in January, I got an inkle loom for weaving straps, and fell madly in love with the whole process. A month ago, I got my hands on a rigid heddle loom.
I’ve been going through my stash of acrylic yarn on practicing, experimenting, and learning, and finally decided that I was up for using my handspun on the loom. The result is pictured above.
The kids have claimed all of my earlier pieces for themselves and their toys, so only heaven knows when I’ll see those again, ha ha. I guess they make some pretty good doll blankets and shawls.
Weaving actually has a therapeutic effect because of the repetitive motions of passing the shuttle from one hand to the other, combined with the feeling of accomplishment at making something. I like to joke that maybe it will help get me out of my massive feelings of disillusionment towards humanity, but really, it’s best to be honest with ourselves and accept the fact that the disillusionment is here to stay. The past couple of years have been playing out worse than I expected, and here I thought that I was a cynic before 2020 — now I realize that I had been an optimist.
I’m pretty heavy into the “just one more pass with the shuttle,” as an hour goes by. My husband once took the loom away from me so I would actually go eat. It draws me in, and I love it so much. Weaving makes me happy in a way that knitting and crochet never did — I’m even starting to make a sizeable dent in my yarn stash.
When I don’t have a bunch of small children running around, I’m probably going to end up with one of those big shaft looms.
Now I just need to figure out what to do with all the cloth I’m making.
Thank you for sharing my work!
Inkle Band #6
Since I recently had a baby and didn’t feel much like playing with dyes, I decided to buy crochet thread online for this project.
I ordered copper. What I got was … a diluted washed-out faded copper. Also known as: tan.
I will probably end up re-dying this thread before I use it again, because I’m not really into the “pastel brown” class of colors. I like my browns to be boldly brown.
Anyway, as an experiment I combined peach and yellow threads for the pattern, to see if I could get a “rose gold” effect. It looks much better in real life, especially because looking at it from different angles subtlety changes whether pink or yellow is more dominate.
Not that fond of the photo — it doesn’t give the proper overall effect.
And the “copper” was supposed to be much darker for better contrast. XP
I used a historic Norwegian pattern for this band, which is very pretty.
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Fiber of the Month – April
Paradise Fibers’ fiber of the month club
Yes, I am way behind.
For those who don’t know, I had a baby at the end of April, and this was the first yarn I’ve spun since. Honestly, it probably wasn’t the best choice to get me back into the swing of things, and I had a difficult time controlling the nepps and mixed fibers in the roving. It’s … um … very textured.
But, thankfully, I can always call the yarn ‘artistic’ and use it anyway.
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Butterflies and Stars Inkle loom pattern
I accidentally misclicked and screwed up the pattern below the middle butterfly, but it’s supposed to be worked the exact same as the other two.
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Fiber of the Month – March
Through Paradise Fibers
I’m moving pretty slow these days for some strange reason … XD
For March, Paradise Fibers sent out neon merino wool. All of my kids were just as excited about this one as I was, and we agreed that the colors were delicious enough to eat, lol.
So rainbowy and beautiful. 🙂
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Princess Dress
Other people on the internet talk about turning woven bands into things like belts and dog leashes.
Me?
I cut mine up and used it to embellish a princess dress. XD
It actually went pretty smoothly. I did steam iron the woven band first to set the strings into place, and it didn’t unravel at all after I took the scissors to it.
It’s like a pretty custom ribbon!
Also, stencil+paint for the birds and flowers.
VERY princess-y.
By Autumn Rain 