On Saturday I took a one day Novelty Yarn Workshop through my guild. I had no idea how a few hours sitting and plying could have wiped me out so much! My goal was to refresh my plying techniques and hopefully to use some of my handspun in my weaving projects.
We started with a Marl yarn, which was essentially spinning a tri coloured yarn. This one was a breeze for me as I have used this technique often and most recently on
this post.
Then on to Navaho plying, I had learned this technique sometime in the 1980’s and had never found the need to use it; but now with the abundance of wonderful rainbow dyed roving for sale, it’s a winner!
This Beaded cabled yarn is a ‘not so much’ for me, it just didn’t float my boat! Its very time consuming and a bit too random and unpredictable for my taste.
This is Angora rabbit encasing a 2/60 silk yarn. Wow, oh, wow! What a wonderful feel and the weight is virtually nothing, it too is a cabled yarn. I loved making this yarn and with just a wee bit of Angora you can do so much.
This is dyed Mohair locks encasing the same 2/60 silk. Fun and easy to do, but again too lumpy and bumpy for me.
This one is Mohair boucle and after I got the hang of it, it was easy to create. I don't care for the look and just can’t see using it in my style of weaving.
My personal
un favourite Slub yarn – I just dislike everything about it and can’t wait to hide it away!
Last week we were given the Ponderosa Guild shawl that we made in September at the Sheep to Shawl competition. Ngaire and I spent a rainy Sunday finishing it off. I twisted the fringe and stabilized it with a single thread knot rather than an overhand knot and then added my corded edge treatment.
I decided to add the corded edge for two reasons; because there were a few nibbled edges (the shawl was made in 2-1/2 hours in a competition after all) and to echo the thin baby camel down stripes outlining the Finnish lace areas. I think it worked well and was thankful that I still had some of the handspun marled merino and camel left.
Ngaire, meanwhile was beading the fringe, she did a small seed bead treatment, with just one tiny Oriental metal coin in the centre. Just a light touch was needed on this shawl which will be donated to
Evergreen a local fund raiser for the Youth Arts Program in Kelowna.
We had another late night visitor on Thursday! This 4 inch long salamander was nestled at the edge of the deck and the concrete the deck sits on. I just looked him up and I found out he is a
Western Redback Salamander. Amazing that this amphibious fellow lives in my garden, we are after all in a semi desert and other than a wee bird bath have no water at all!
On Saturday I took a one day Novelty Yarn Workshop through my guild. I had no idea how a few hours sitting and plying could have wiped me out so much! My goal was to refresh my plying techniques and hopefully to use some of my handspun in my weaving projects. 
8 comments:
Lynette, guess what ? I'm here on your blog also !!
I like the idea of your corded edge, I sometimes have some bumps to cover up and would love to know how you do it ?
Susan has got me thinking about using end feed shuttles to help with selvedges but need to save up first, I didn't realise they were so expensive !
I definitely echo the wish to learn more about the corded edge!!! Seems like it would come in handy.
All that spinning seems pretty tempting (although I'm still not a spinner). I saw some beautiful homespun boucle last week. But it's the kind of yarn that tends to look beautiful in the skein, but maybe not so much in actual use. Well, maybe I take that back. I knit a cushy, thick, scrumptious scarf out of boucle with big loops and it's quite nice if I do say so myself.
Cool salamander! We have tons of amphibians near the house where we live right now. It's really cool!
Sue
The spinning /plying looks neat! Even the ones you don't like look nicely done :) I have been spinning more lately too and I have heard that from a number of people. The wheels are being dusted off and spun again.
The shawl looks wonderful with your corded edge treatment. It gives it an elegant finished look.
Perhaps you could demonstrate the new way of wrapping the fringe as a tutorial sometime?
Your slippery critter is a cutie! We used to find salamanders when we lived at Okanagan Centre. That was hardly wet there!
Susan
(where we had a pest guy come and deal with a wasp nest today in my studio wall no less! Scary stuff...)
I think I agree about the 'funky' yarns; I see no good use for them in my weaving or knitting. I can admire the color/texture of them but that is all. I am wowwed by the shawl; the weaving/edging is perfect. So, how do you attach it to the shawl-sew it on by machine?
Thanks to all who want a demo of my corded edge treatment. I will do a tutorial for the blog in the next few weeks.
So many exciting yarn types, I think I like the white angora/silk best.
The corded edge is really a great idea, and the shawl turned out beautifully. The salamander is really cute!
Spending a rainy morning reading new blogs. Just wanted to let you know I stopped by. Love the name of your blog.
What a wealth of beautiful photos! The salamander is a treat - we don't have creatures like that here.
I like Navajo plying, there's a few other techniques here that I haven't tried. I guess that's the best thing about a workshop, getting to try things you might not otherwise get around to.
Post a Comment