My New Drum Carder

I finally got a Drum Carder! I think God got tired of hearing beg for one! It is absolutely wonderful! It is a Fancy Kitty Kitten Carder and I must say that if you are ever in the market for a carder, you must check these out! They are incredibly affordable as far as carders go. Very nicely made in the U.S.A. by Ron Anderson! I know this sounds a bit like a sales pitch, but I really am thrilled with it and if you ever have a problem, you can actually reach Ron by phone. They really do have customer service which is almost unheard of these days! So if you are in the market for a drum carder, check them out http://www.fancy-kitty.com

Christmas yarn

Here is my first Christmas yarn! It is beautiful white mohair, once again from Sugar blended with red and green silk! I am really happy with the way it came out! Right now I am working on a custom order for some beaded yarn! Yes I am doing another one!! And after that I am probably going to do a white yarn with red beads! I know I am nuts, but I am having fun!




I finally dyed my first batch of wool with commercial dyes and it came out really nice! This is the wool for the custom order and it will have silver lined glass beads in it when I am done!

My New Wheel and more!

My friend Carol reminded me that is has been a while since I have posted anything so I figured I better get something new up! Things have been very hectic around the house. I have been home schooling my 3 kids and that in it's self is quite an adventure! I have been trying to get some new yarns done for an art show next month and we might be moving some time this month!! The place we might be moving to has a tub and I promise you if everything works out, I will be doing my own rendition of "Calgon, take me away" the first night! Oh how I would love to take a bubble bath! It's amazing how little things like a tub can make one so happy!

Here is a picture of my pretty little new wheel! It is an early 1800's Romanian spinning wheel and I absolutely love it! I had seen it on Down in the Country's website and fell in love with it! I was hoping I might be able to talk hubby into it, but no such luck! The next thing I knew it showed up in the mail and I found out my mom had gotten it for me with a bit of help from a complete stranger! This lady Pat had stopped at my mom's to pick up some stuff she was buying from my mom on craigslist and they got started talking about kids and my mom told her about the wheel. Pat said "Oh my gosh, that's why the Lord brought me here and proceeded to give my mom some money towards the wheel! My mom decided to put in the rest and have it sent to me! What an incredible surprise it was!

I have been working on some new yarn and here are some pics of them. This one is a black Romney wool that I blended with dyed nylon roving. I really like the way it came out and it's really soft and fluffy!
This one is from white Romney wool that I dyed myself! I think it came out really pretty!
This one is mohair yarn with light blue beads! The mohair came from Grace's goat Sugar and it has been a dream to spin! In fact I bought all of the rest of it that she had listed on etsy! If you are ever looking for some of the most wonderful fiber to spin check out Grace's fibers on her etsy site at www.larkspurfunnyfarm.etsy.com! And yes, I did a 2nd beaded yarn! Actually I have done 3 so far!
This one is from white Romney wool that I dyed myself and it is super soft and fluffy!

Here is a pic of the 3rd beaded yarn I have done! They haven't taken as long as the first one and yes my family thinks I am nuts! I tired to get my son to help me slide beads on one of them and I even offered to pay him and he said"NO" ! My hubby said" You're doing another one of those!" Maybe I am nuts, but I sure am having a lot of fun!

Birth of a yarn!

I thought this yarn would go fairly quick! Boy, was I wrong! I started off by spinning 2 full bobbins of black Romney wool that I had washed and carded. Next, I realized that I did not have enough beads for all the yarn I had spun so I mixed in some gold glass beads and set out to string on approximately 1200 beads! After spending about 2-3 hours stringing beads on I started the long process of spacing them out on approximately 350 yards of yarn!
There is incredible wisdom in the saying " measure twice, cut once". For spacing beads it would go something like " measure twice, space beads once"! You can probably see where I am going with this... I thought about 6 inch spacing would be good, that is until I got half way through and I was about to run out of beads! So back to the beginning to re-space the beads a foot apart!!

Finally after what seemed like forever I got the beads spaced out and set out to ply the 2 singles together! They seemed a little off, but I just couldn't figure out why! At the end of plying a full bobbin, I finally figured out what the problem was! The single with the beads had lost some of it's twist and I decided the only right way to fix it was to separate the 2 and re-ply the one with beads! My hubby and I spent about 45 minutes undoing the yarn! He is absolutely the best hubby in the world! I redid the beaded single and then plied the 2 singles together again and happily I am done with the yarn! I was a bit surprised that I never started to actually hate the yarn and I have to say it actually came out really nice and fluffy! And Yes! I am starting another beaded yarn! I think it is one of those things that if you don't give up in the middle of what seems like a nearly impossible task, you get to the end and maybe are a little bit better off and maybe a bit wiser for pushing through!

I realize in writing this, how things that we struggle and labor for can become mundane and common to us! Things such as our children, that we have joyed over after giving birth, when they sit there and say mom,mom,mom 20 times when we are tired or a house that we built and were overjoyed with, but now it's been lived in awhile and it's become just where we live! Ihope and pray that we will not loose the joy of the things we have struggled for no matter what they are!

New Yarns

I have been trying really hard to actually get some yarns finished and here is what I have so far. I am a bit proud of myself because I have done most of these this past week and I feel like I have actually accomplished something! I hope you will enjoy looking at my latest creations!!

This is a single of black Romney wool that I working on. It is spinning really nice. It is really soft and has a bit of a silver highlight to it!I am going to spin another bobbin of it and then ply the 2 together with some iridescent blue glass beads.

This is some wonderful mohair roving from Sugar that I got from Grace at www.larkspurfunnyfarm.etsy.com ! It is so soft and absolutely a dream to spin! I am not quite sure what I am going to do with it yet! I do know that I am not sure I will sell it!!! Oh Grace, just wait until I win the lottery!!

I really like the way this one came out. I started with beautiful white Romney and dyed it and then I plied this with 2 strands of cotton sewing thread! Next time I want to spin it a bit thicker to ply with the sewing thread so it will have a bit more curl to it, but I think it came out nice and I love the colors in it!


This one is Romney wool that I blended with nylon roving that I dyed. I wasn't sure how the yarn would turn out because when I started to blend them together I was worried about the colors looking muddy, but I think that they came out pretty clear!

Butterfly Cupcakes

I was asked to make cake for the party at Sunday School and my 4 year old, Olivia, asked for butterflies on it. I decided to make cupcakes with butterflies! Everyone liked them except one little boy, Tucker, who wasn't too crazy about the butterflies! I figured next time I would put gummy worms on them instead just for him!

Art Yarn and Dyeing Wool

I am finally figuring out that you seem to have to do things backwards on blogger to put up pictures in the order you really want them! We will see when I am done if I finally got this right! These are pics of my 2nd art yarn I have done and I am starting to get a million ideas for them. I even broke down and ordered a copy of Spinning Designer Yarns since, a year after I started spinning, I am still kind of winging it!
Here is a close-up of the yarn. It is a Corridale wool/ pink silk blend spun onto rayon thread and then top plied with silk thread and I am very happy to say that it sold in just 3 days of listing it on etsy!



Even though I want to use commercial dyes for dyeing, I could not wait any longer to try hand painting wool. This was my first batch of hand painted wool and I am really happy with how vibrant the colors came out! I am so hooked on this now!
I am happy with the way that this one turned out. It reminds me of the mountains and sky at sunset in the desert.
This one I dyed with 3 different shades of Kool-aid and I am kind of torn between whether or not it looks like a vintage rose shade or watermelon!