highlandheffalump

YOP9 – Week 12/52

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Felting

I had a few days on my own and one of them was a very wet rainy cold day, so I stayed in and made some fairies/princesses for the Fuzzy Thistle shop.  Do fairies need to have wings?  I’ve called some ‘princesses’ because they don’t have wings!  But really they are fairies…perhaps they are like Clarence, the angel from It’s a Wonderful Life, where he hasn’t got his wings yet!
I dropped 10 of them off on Saturday and have priced them quite low, in comparison with the effort.  Some of the fairies had been made earlier by me, but I’ve added some sparkle or improved them and given them a bit of a makeover.  If they don’t sell they will move back in with me and join my own private collection of fairies.  They’ve asked me to make a Scottish dancer in their daughter’s hair colour and same dress colour she wears…I’m not sure how easy a tartan felted kilt will be, but I’ll give it a go.
The photos aren’t great but it has been a hectic week.  You wouldn’t believe photography is one of my hobbies the way I snap some of the things for my posts!

Knitting

This week has been dishcloth crazy.  I mean seriously, these little things are soooooo addictive to make.   The pattern sizes I think are ridiculously big and so I’m shrinking them down.  I did a post earlier this week about ones I’d made and since then I think I’ve made another 3!  I basically used 2 full balls of Sugar ‘n Cream worsted weight yarn in their Mistletoe colour to make 8 different sizes.  Then I was on to Amazon buying more colours of the same yarn to make more for me, Christmas presents and maybe for the shop.  Other than chocolate I don’t really have any addictions…but dishcloths may just be one!  I then started to think about next year’s yarn diet, so I need to slow down their manufacture and save some yarn for next year too.
On the Mildly Granola blog, she was talking about having ‘Finishing Fridays’, where she concentrates on finishing long term WIPs.  I was thinking this may be a good idea for me to slot Void into.  If I just knit it on Fridays then at least I’d be making some progress towards finishing it, rather than it just being tucked away for months on end.  Of course the first Friday came along and I still had some of the dishcloth cotton left, so I finish that up instead!  Next Friday though I’ll pick it up.
Oh, and in case you didn’t follow the link to my dishtowel post, you won’t have seen I had to frog Such a Winter’s Day.  My maths was so off so I need to re-swatch.

Sewing

My brother in law has been staying in the room with my craft supplies and sewing machine, so I’ll be digging out the sewing machine this week for tea towel hemming.  More on that under weaving.

Spinning

I haven’t done any spinning, but the sheep fleece I bought at last week’s Guild open day has been getting some attention.  I split off some sections of it and washed one lot in Fairy Liquid dish washing liquid (which I think Dawn is the US equivalent).  The other section I washed using Stardrops, which allegedly can be used for cleaning just about anything, from windows, floors, clothes etc.
I set up some drying stations in my greenhouse and on Friday when it was dry I started to comb the Fairy Liquid washed wool with some dog combs!  Proper wool processing combs are very heavy and expensive.  Quite a few small bits of vegetable matter were still coming out of it and I think it is going to be a slow process to wash and prep the full bag of fleece.
I haven’t tried spinning or felting it yet.  I may spin it undyed and then dye it if it is ok yarn.  Some I may dye up first and then felt it.
Here’s a snapshot of some raw fleece, washed/dried and then combed.  I’m also going to have a go at playing with some of it on my hackle and my blending board or hand carders.
Basically, I want to properly experiment with these bits first before I process the rest of the fleece.

Weaving

I finished weaving the long strip of tea towel fabric during the week and just need to divide it into 3 and sew the hems.  I’m going to make one smaller one that will have the thin blue horizontal line at one end and then the rest of the length I’ll split in 2.  The wee one will be ideal for camping where we tend to only dry 2 x spoons, mugs and bowls.  A wash in the machine really improved the edges and they feel good.  Allistar pointed out they were a bit narrow, but I’m limited by the width of my small loom.  You can do double width weaving on the loom, but you need a duplicate reed of the same size (dpi) for the second heddle.  As weaving cotton is much trickier than wool I won’t be buying another reed for wider tea towels.  The tea towels are fine as they are in my opinion.
If you are thinking of taking up weaving I strongly recommend you buy wider than a 10” loom.  The finished fabric ends up narrower and on a wider loom you can choose to weave less if you want something narrow.  I’ll keep mine though as for scarves and slimline tea towels it is fine.
I’m ready to switch to weaving something chunkier now, and considering using some yarn that I was going to use for a brioche scarf, but now wondering whether to weave with it.  We shall see.
I do need to learn brioche stitches though and if I use the yarn to weave …hmmmm…more thought needed.

Other News

Well I managed to tick something off on my Year of Personal Projects list that I created on my Heffalump Ramblings blog….I painted our garage door.  When we moved in the door was a yucky yellow colour, we then had it painted a maroon (reddish brown colour) and the paint was starting to peel/chip and show bits of yucky yellow.  I have painted it a much nicer colour (in my opinion).  The colour is Fish Tail!  I cleaned, sanded it and gave it 2 coats of paint this week but it will need a 3rd coat on some parts and I’ve not done the 2nd coat on the inside edges yet.  By the way, if you are thinking that’s a small garage door, you’d be right…I have to fold my wing mirrors in to get my small car in!!!

Talking of my YOPP list, next week is the end of the first quarter!!!  I’ll do a post on that blog about my progress on those personal projects…meanwhile I have also started to look at where I am on my crafting YOP list for next week’s quarterly review.

By Tuesday my MIL and BIL will have left and the house and my normal routines should return back to normal.  They had a good few days touring the North Coast 500 route and I joined them on a day out in Inverness.  Last Sunday they took the dog to Glen Affric, so I managed to get out to see the Downton Abbey movie.  I so love Dame Maggie Smith and how she plays her character.  She made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions.

 

 

 

This is a Year of Projects update.  If you would like to find out more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, or you’d like to join in, please follow the link for details.  To read what the other members of the YOP Group have been getting up to please click on the latest weekly folder and follow the links to their blog posts.  This is a friendly group with a wide mix of skills and crafting interests.

15 comments

  4. What a great idea to have a finish Friday. I may have to steal that too as I have a few UFO’s that have been hanging around for years! Your fairies/princess’ always bring a smile to my face. I think you have quite a challenge ahead with the tartan one. The color of your garage door is gorgeous. Reminds me of the sea. I am sure you will be happy to have your house back to normal next week. It is always nice to have company but nice to get back into a normal routine again too. Have a great week!

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  8. I love your tea towels, long and thin are fine, I’m sure they do the job just as well. And your fairies are delightful, I bet they get snapped up.

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  9. Cute little fairies but my favorite are the tea towels! You get so much done even with company! Love the garage door…lovely color. You’ve been working hard on that fleece and what a difference after you wash and comb. I did dishcloths last Christmas in that exact same yarn. It’s a great holiday yarn. I think I might be joining you and Mildly Granola for Finishing Fridays…I have many to work on especially final finishing of cross stitch projects. Have a great week and it;s nice to have company but also nice to get back to your regular routine.

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  11. Hmm. I am thinking I should mail my combs to you. Would you like that? I never use them. If so, let me know and I’ll send you an email about it with a photo. Your fairies are lovely, as is your photography, as always!

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  12. Your fairies and princesses are gorgeous, Liz. And fun! I imagine they will all be snapped up quickly. 🙂 And your garage door is beautiful! How wonderful that must be to roll up to every time you come home. Finish it Friday! Thank you for the link. I checked it out and I have to say I think the idea is brilliant!

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