Saturday, October 29, 2016

A little trip

LouAnn and I went to SAFF yesterday, just south of Ashville NC.   I had 2  things I needed to do neither of which involved any money.  I needed to deliver a spinning wheel that had traveled all the way from Minnesota  to my house and it just needed one last trip to get into the hands of it's new owner.  The other thing I needed to do was to see if the owner at the "Spindolyn"support spindle booth could help me with a bent spindle.  I had bought spindle years ago and it had gotten bent somehow, and therefore was unusable.

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 40 minutes before the wheels owner did, so we had  some time to look around.  We even had time to go  through the fleece venue and I barely escaped without purchasing a particularly lovely silver Coopworth!   We soon heard from the wheels owner and we were able to make the handoff right there in front of the fleece venue, a big hug and off the wheel went to be loaded up for it's ride home.

We went thru the first vendor barn and it was there that I found the "Spindolyn" booth and I watched the owner show off some of her new inventions.  She had a wrist distaff and  wrist lazy kate that were very interesting.  when it  was my turn to talk with her, I asked her if it were possible to repair a bend spindle and she said yes it was.  I showed her mine and she said that I should  just pick out a new one.  She said mine was so old and that she had made so many improvements that she did not want the older models in circulation anymore.  I proceeded to pick out a new one, in the next week or two I can take some pictures while I try it out.  (I will be sure to post them.)

And speaking of pictures, you would think that this post would be full of pictures of the event, but I have to tell you that the only pictures I took were of what we had for lunch!!!!  We were beginning to feel a little peckish, and we decided to take a break from all the fun and get a bite to eat from the little diner trailer that we had seen outside.






 LouAnn had chicken tacos and I had BBQ sliders, they were really good!  I had packed a lunch just in case but it remained in my bag and made it all the way home untouched.







I had already taken a bite before I decided to share the view with you all.






As the day wore on LouAnn purchased some lovely spinning fiber to entice her to work a little bit more on her wheels and I was sorely tempted by some camel/silk blend spinning fiber, oh so tempted!  But all I could think about was all the lovely stuff I already had at home just waiting for me to sit and spin awhile.

It was soon time to go home, and I took one last look in the fleece building, where that Coopworth fleece tried it's best to come home with me, but I held on to my resolve to not bring home any more fiber  until I had used up some of what I already have.  It was tough!!!!!

On our way home we stopped at one of those nice rest stops to stretch, and we came across an interesting sculpture, it is called "Good Morning"  and was put on display in 1996.



We made it home tired but happy, it was a fun fiber day.



On the home front, I have had a fairly busy week in the "making" department.  I finished a pair of socks to wear with my muck boots when I go to the barn in the morning.  Good sturdy heavy fingering weight socks in my favorite pattern "So Simple Silk Garden".  It is a simple rib with one cable running down the leg to the foot, it is my go to sock pattern especially for thicker fingering or sport yarn.







I also finished upgrading my first two bags, someone called them carpet bags, which is appropriate as these are made out of 8/4 cotton warp because that is the fabric I had on hand.


The red and white overshot one you have seen before but the one on the left is new.  This is made using the fabric I wove months ago.  On this one I used a hand dyed plain weave fabric with a pattern woven in using Monks Belt pattern blocks.

I have one more bag already cut out of fabric similar to this one, then I have some fabric with just the hand dyed weft in plain weave.




Since I am going to need some sort of embellishment for the last batch of bags since there isn't one woven into the fabric itself,  I turned to one of my new ventures, and that is bobbin lace.  I have found a series of patterns that will be both big enough and fast enough to make to use as an embellishment on these bags.  I have one on the pillow right now as a matter of fact, I should finish it tomorrow, and we will see if it will show up against the fabric, and indeed be the right size as is to do the job.  It may very well take a several tries to find the right pattern to do the job.

That is it for now, Until next time Happy Weaving, Tina











2 comments:

Theresa said...

What fun! And Tina you always amaze with your creations and bobbin lace.

LA said...

Just for the record....I've got that alpaca roving sitting right here to remind me to practice my spinning!!! It's so lovely and soft. Thanks for a wonderful day, Tina!!!