Spinning

Tuesdays are for spinning, so last night after finishing my reading, I divided up some fibre into three equal lots and started to spin. I’m aiming for a traditional three-ply and want to make socks with the resulting yarn.

This is how much I got done before heading to bed.

It’s not often that I spin to a plan, but the fibre is not next to skin soft. This is south down fibre that Gorgeous Man bought for me for Christmas (yes, I’m aware I’m only getting to it 5 months later). He’s been very good about seeking out fibres I haven’t spun yet. To be honest the prep for this fibre is a little disappointing. It’s a bit neppy and I’m having difficulty getting it fine enough for a three-ply sock yarn. However, I’m sure it will even out in the end once it’s plied.

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Some crafting

I have a milestone for my Masters coming up. I had to submit a 3500 word (minimum) draft (mine ended up being closer to 4000 words, an academic portfolio and a bibliography, and I need to fly to Australia and present an oral presentation along with some other Masters students and then have an interview with the committee. This is to determine whether or not my thesis and research is on track. I sent all the documents away on Friday and so gave myself some time off to play with the fibre that was on the wheel.

I finished spinning up the fibre and plied it. I didn’t get the colours to line up terribly well, but I love the finished yarn.

A close-up.

It came off the wheel perfectly balanced (not to brag at all lol). It still needs to be washed.

There’s also been some card making. I’m not 100% convinced that this one works as well as it could…

I love this next one though.

I highlighted the embossed area with white chalk.

Recycling a very old calendar.

And a simple one to finish off.

In other news, the traffic jams that have plagued the morning school run appear to have completely disappeared. I’m so glad to have that commute back to normal, aside from the whole time factor our fuel efficiency has also increased and we’ve been spending less on fuel.

 

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Sidetracked

I got side-tracked from my plan of lining a bag last night. Instead I ran a bunch of quarter square triangles through the sewing machine.

This is part of a quilt for my little brother.

I’m using a block from a magazine, but have altered the setting. Hopefully it will work out OK.

Since my last leaders and enders project is in the process of being basted ready to quilt, it was time to start a new one.

Ahem, probably should have ironed that before snapping a picture… Just a simple strip quilt to try and use up some of the strips that seem to multiply when I’m not looking.

Then, although I was trying hard, I could not resist the call of the fibre sitting by my spinning wheel, and so I started the second bobbin.

It’s just gorgeous to work with.

Right now I’m going to take advantage of the brief bit of cooler weather brought on by the rain and go hunt through the fabric stash to see if I can find some fabric suitable to line a knitted bag.

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Spinning

Shamelessly copying the Yarn Harlot, in my house Tuesdays are for spinning and yesterday, for the first time in a long time I was able to spin for a few hours.

After visiting Michigan, I headed up to Washington DC to visit some archives there. I was very privileged to meet up with the lovely Jody. We’ve been friends online since I started blogging in 2006, so it was great to finally meet in person. We had a very delicious dinner and then visited a yarn store where I got to fondle  see in person many of the beautiful yarns I’ve only previously seen online. I was very restrained and my only purchase was some fibre for Gorgeous Girl to spin. Jody spoiled me tremendously with some lovely yarn and fibre all packed in a beautiful handmade bag.

Since Tuesdays are for spinning I decided to break out the fibre she had gifted me with.

This is a beautiful blend of Blue Faced Leicester and silk from Hello Yarn. An episode of The Voice (Australian version) and American Pickers later I had this beautiful single.

Isn’t it pretty? I can’t wait to see the rest of the fibre spun up and plied together.

Tonight I need to try and work out how to insert a lining in a knitted bag, oh and I need to find the right fabric to use…

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Yarny goodness

This yarn seems to be unending in my stash. I’ve lost track of the number of baby hats and things I’ve made out of it. Yet another one.

This was finished ages ago, I just had trouble getting around to photographing it…

For my birthday last year Gorgeous Man gave me some beautiful corriedale fibre from here.

It was beautiful to work with and it turned into this yarn.

The colours in this look very much like the Queensland Team colours in the State of Origin.

I’m an honorary Queenslander and am married to a born and bred Maroons supporter, so I’m calling it my State of Origin yarn.

~ 195 metres. Not sure what I’m going to make with it yet. But I’ll probably knit it up during the matches.

This is the first yarn in a long time I’ve been able to spin using the double treadle sewing machine because of my foot issues. Admittedly I did have to wear my supportive shoes while doing it, but it’s progress. I have some gorgeous silk planned next for the wheel.

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Spinning

I finally managed to turn this:

into this:

I spun it continuously from the top and then chain plied it to preserve the colour runs.

All wound up into a yarn cake.  I’m very impressed with the polwarth fibre. It’s definitely one I’ll be spinning again.

Shopping in Papua New Guinea can be a bit of an adventure. We can get most things, but not all the time. Recently we were without tinned corn in the stores for about 4 weeks (I now have a stock-pile) and feta cheese appears about once a month. Most of the non-food items are made in China for the non-Western market and so are of very poor quality and often infringe on copy and intellectual property rights. But occasionally a bit of goodness sneaks through. Like this traditional African wax cloth that I found in the supermarket this week.

It’s going to be added to the African fabric I bought in Zambia last year and used in at least one quilt. I have a few with an African theme planned. Just need to get some Christmas sewing and my brother’s quilt finished first.

Sewing has been stumbling along. My biggest issue is being able to stand long enough to cut fabric. I’m having a good day today (foot-wise) and have managed to get fabric for the last teacher’s gift cut. Hopefully that will get sewn up today, but I’ll see how much time I have as Gorgeous Girl is home from school. She and Gorgeous Man sat in traffic for 45 minutes and had gotten less than one third of the way to school. Gorgeous Man realised that it was going to take them hours to get there, so they did a U-turn and came home again. Hopefully the run to school will be better tomorrow.

 

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It’s been a busy few weeks…

It’s been a busy few weeks here at ruthsplace. Gorgeous Girl had school holidays for a week, and Grandma came to visit.

A certain Gorgeous Girl had a birthday.

I baked the cake and assisted with the spreading of the cream, but Gorgeous Girl cut and placed the strawberries all by herself. At the equivalent of $8 for a small punnet strawberries have become an occasional food (as opposed to last year when we lived near strawberry farms and they were an every day food…) Gorgeous Girl is an interesting child who doesn’t like icing (she says it’s too sweet), so strawberries and cream are her favourite cake topping.

Gorgeous Girl’s school is amazing. I sent cake in with her. When we picked her up, the whole class was wearing happy birthday crowns they had made themselves and each kid in the class had made her a card. The teacher does this for every child in the class.

There was presents.

And joy over new clothes. (Thanks Nana).

This colouring book from her uncles was a huge hit.

It has been great to have in the car this week as we have spent a lot of time sitting in this.

It took 2.5 hours to do the school run on Monday morning – a 34 kilometre round trip. The trip to school required a detour on Port Moresby’s back roads, I just followed the car in front and hoped for the best. The picture is the congestion on our normal road home.

A butterfly came to visit Gorgeous Girl.

Yes, she is inside.The building has no walls.

In amongst all the driving and cooking and birthday celebrating I managed some crafting time.

My first (and probably last) time spinning Wensleydale wool.

The colour is pretty, but the yarn itself is hairy and feels very coarse. I have a second braid which I’ll spin up to match, but I don’t think I’ll buy this type of fibre again.

My paper mojo is still hanging around (my knitting mojo seems to have up and left).

My brother took these photos at the beginning of the year and they are just lovely. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a very simple scrapbooker. Clean lines and minimal embellishments. The big flower was cut from patterned paper and the stickers were a gift from my fabulous friend Kerin.

I got a new sewing machine for Christmas. It has sat idle for a long time. First I needed to wait (until May) for my fabric stash to arrive. I used it to finish a few quilts and then my foot got so bad I couldn’t stand to cut fabric. With the improvement in my foot, fabric has been cut and piecing has begun.  Progress shots to follow.

And in the interests of keeping things real, you will notice if you look really closely at some of the photos that there are unpacked moving boxes in the background. Part of it is that Gorgeous Man’s new office at work is smaller than his old office and can’t hold all of his work books and we need to buy (and find space for) another bookshelf and part of it is that I can’t work out where I want to hang pictures or where to put things that need long term storage as a few of our closets are damp and turn things mouldy. I’m chipping away at it bit by bit, I got rid of another box yesterday…

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Spinning

This yarn is the summary of several months worth of spinning. It was spun on the Ashford Traditional and plied using my left foot to treadle as my right one is no longer working properly. I find treadling with my left foot awkward, so there isn’t much spinning going on at the moment. I do have a double treadle wheel, but that is too painful to use at present, and a certain Gorgeous Girl has it full of her yarn in progress.

This is from fibre that I dyed myself when I first started spinning. It was pretty matted and felted, so there was a fair amount of fibre loss. The unspinable fibre will be used to stuff soft toys.

All up I got about 390 metres (about 425 yards) so not sure what I’ll do with it yet. Probably let it sit and marinate in the stash for a while…

Yesterday I was working on getting some fabric ready to be paper pieced and Gorgeous Girl wanted to craft too. So she chose some felt from the stash (I stocked up on felt before leaving South Africa and got more when we were in Australia, it’s a good craft basic to have if you have small kids). She then borrowed my Sharpie pen and got to work. When she was done she asked to borrow my camera and took a picture.

It’s a butterfly. She also used my tiny fabric scraps to glue onto cardboard to make a collage.

I sewed down the last bit of binding for a quilt last night, but that deserves a post of it’s own, and my foot needs to feel well enough for me to go outside and photograph it.

The good news is that I now have my plane ticket and appointment to go and see the orthopedic surgeon in Australia next week. I cannot wait to be better and go for a long walk.

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A knitting finish

This little guy has been knitted for a while, but was lacking eyes.

They got added today. (The view is our side driveway which goes to the front door under the house).

The feet are mostly handspun yarns with a few yarns I received from swaps. I free-hand cut the eyes, glued the black centre to the blue and then blanket stitched the blue on. I seem to have lost my embroidery thread, so just used sewing cotton double over. (I’m sure hopeful the embroidery thread will turn up, I just don’t feel like going through the craft tubs at the moment).

Here he is in his natural habitat.

However, he probably won’t stay here for long. Dry season in PNG seems to be the time when lots of grass is burned. As we have no glass in our windows, the house is continuously filled with a fine layer of ash and asthmatic me is having problems breathing.

Gorgeous Girl has shown a renewed interest in spinning. This time around we are working on drafting and not just feeding the pencil roving onto the bobbin.

This is top that I dyed myself back in South Africa. The beautiful couch comes supplied with our house.

Gorgeous Man gave me quite a scare this last week ending up so sick that he needed 2 doses of IV antibiotics. They have done the trick though and he is looking 100% better than he was, though he still has a way to go before he’s back to full strength.

I’ve been enjoying knitting while watching the Olympics,  a lovely lace shawl and some charity baby booties are currently on the needles. When Gorgeous Girl’s yarn is finished and set I’ve promised her I’ll knit it into a monster that she spied in my Ravelry queue. No point in knitting her a hat with it. It never gets cold enough here to wear one.

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Surfacing

Our trip home, as lovely as it was, made us all sick and we are only now starting to feel human again. I had a chest infection, Gorgeous Girl woke up with infected ears at 3 am the day we flew home (good thing was she slept for most of the flight home…) and Gorgeous Man got the flu. We are now fully acquainted with the private medical clinic here in Port Moresby and are feeling much better.

Today I received word that my quilt had arrived at it’s destination, so I can show you a picture.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out. It did have it’s challenges at times, but it’s amazing what a run through the washing machine can do to finish a quilt off. This was 100% from stash, including the backing and included fabric from every quilt I’ve made.

I’ve got the binding cut to add to my second quilt of the year. I’m looking forward to having that finished.

There has also been some knitting. A little cardigan for charity.

One of the sleeves is a 1/4 inch longer than the other. I’m trying to decide if I should cut the sleeve, knit two more rows and graft it together, or if I should follow Gorgeous Man’s advice to just stretch the other sleeve. Do you think anyone other than me will  notice? I also suspect that the neckline on this is very wide, but I don’t have a real baby to test it on…

My first PNG spin.

This was a gorgeous fibre from Nurturing Fibres in South Africa.

Finally a picture of Gorgeous Girl enjoying a curry on our last night in Australia.

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