This post will be sort of jumbled, and jumping from thing to thing - Just like my state of mind right now! :) But, it's all good, as I'm still getting things done.
Since moving into the house and having a $0 decorating budget right now, I'm really heavy into renew, reuse, recycle. I wanted a new look on my bathroom window sill, so I decided to reuse some emerald green sparkling cider bottles to decorate with. They match with the green marble tiles on the floor. I may embellish them a bit more later, but, so far, this is what I've come up with. It looks kinda neat to me.
Here's a look at some of my lovely plants:
Here's my finished Dane Shawl, first shown in the October 27, 2010 post. It turned out great. This one is from sheep to shawl. For those of you who don't know what that means : I got the raw fleece, washed it, dyed it, spun it into yarn, and then knitted it into this shawl. I love it and it's happily on display in my craft room.
I made some new bead spindles. I made one a couple years ago (it's shown here in my December 30, 2010 post, and my November 27, 2009 post). But, after seeing similar bead spindles in an online friend's post on http://www.ravelry.com, and on her blog, http://www.fiberdrunk.blogspot.com, I had spindle envy and decided to make some also. They are made with African beads and bamboo for the shafts. One has a vintage no.3 steel double pointed knitting needle as a shaft. Three of them spin very well (including the one with the steel shaft), but one has a little wobble. That's the one with the cotton fiber on it. I'm hoping that a bit more fiber on it will make the wobble disappear, as sometimes happens with spindles.
Here's what they look like:
I was gifted an interesting spindle by an online friend, Janet, I met on ravelry. It's called a PHANG spindle, and is used in Asia. If you go on youtube.com and type in phang, you will be able to view videos of women using them. For some strange reason, I can't insert links here. Maybe someone out there can tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Janet makes these spindles by hand whittling them from wood in her area of the country. I saw her post showing some she'd made and I was intrigued so I asked if I could buy or trade for one, and she decided to gift me one! The selfless generosity of Fiber folks never ceases to amaze me! Anyway, along with the spindle came some lovely llama fiber to practice with. I've been practicing and getting use to the feel of the spindle. Since I'm already familiar with support spinning, it's not too difficult. But, there's still a learning curve. :) Here's a look at the spindle:
Lastly,my 7 year old recently lost her mittens on the bus on the way from school. I'm making her another pair from handspun yarn (made on a spindle) I made about 5 years ago. I'll be smart this time and make an I-cord to run through the sleeves of her coat, so these won't get lost! The handspun actually looks very good considering it was one made during my first year of spinning. They are being knit on bamboo double pointed knitting needles that I made from bamboo skewers. They are a size 4 and they knit very well.
A shot of the needles
