New spinning chair!

My old chair I use for spinning is looking a little tired and needs to be re-glued.  So after looking around last Friday through a couple of op shops for a microwave I purchased a new one.  It used to be brown but after a quick undercoat and a spray on enamel top coat I have a new chair!  $10 for chair and another $10 for paint so I am happy with that.  Sadly no old microwave for fleece dyeing but will keep an eye out for one.

Might make a nice cushion for the seat too.  Patchwork one would look great on it I think.

5000 Poppies

Here's a couple of nights worth of poppies that I will take into the library to put with all the other gorgeous poppies they have received.  But first to make up another 100gms worth of red wool!  I am enjoying both the knitted and crocheted ones.

Pictures of some finishes for the shop

These items are destined to appear on the shelves of my Etsy store over the weekend.  I'm also having a play with pic monkey which is a great photo editing program available on the internet for free.  

 

 

 

Scarf

100% merino thick and thin scarf all finished!

Loving picmonkey!

Some other spinning finishes with better photos are:

Much better photos now.

I've also done a fair amount of spinning but haven't taken pics of them or finished them off into hanks yet.
So come back next weekend as I am hoping to have a very productive week!

Dyeing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lovely sunny day here today so thought I would do some dyeing.  I pulled out a heap of dyes and some bags of Bendigo Woollen Mills fibre and these are the results.

 Front: Machine wash/bamboo Lucerne, Various mohair

Next row: Machine wash/bamboo Mushroom, Plum, Indigo

 Various Bendigo Woollen Mills mohair

Back: One pot dyeing using Gaywool dyes.  

Middle: Machine wash/bamboo Cyclamen, Honeycombe, Primula

Front: Machine wash/bamboo Raspberry, Avocado, Blueberry

Once this lot is dry I will be able to card it, blend it and add to it.  Will be nice to have plenty of colours to play with.  Each lot of machine wash/bamboo is just over 100gms each.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog which will be linked to my etsy shop.
Please bear with me while I am adjusting and organising everything.
I will be back by the weekend to load up some goodies!

Surprise!

Well maybe a couple of people will be surprised lol.  Not many of you were.

A brand new Ashford Traveller Wheel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now I had been saving to buy a secondhand one but they kept going well over what I was willing to pay and they were the older ones with single treadle etc.  Well with what I had saved ready in case I got lucky and some eBay sales I have managed to get enough to purchase a brand new one!   The catch was I was going to finish it to save over $200.  Initially I was going to french polish it but with such lovely birch wood from New Zealand I decided she might end up looking very orange after a while.  So out came the carnauba wax and she has the first two coats of many that will be applied regularly over the years.  Mind you she drank up the first few coats so I will  give her another go tomorrow if the weather is nice.  Has to be done outside as the citrus smell from the wax really upset several members of the house Wednesday night.  Whoops!

So after 1hr sanding a few edges and waxing I spent about 35mins assembling her.  Apparently wheels need names but I cant think of any suitable ones just at the moment.  Here she is! 

The old girl as the other is known will be kept and I will pull her apart and give her a good clean and wax job too.  The traditional might have only been $50 but she is still a good wheel that I might be able to make better after putting the new one together I can see some areas that now need a little work on them.  Then I will decide if she stays or finds a new home.  I think I will end up keeping her as Mum now has her old wheel back that I started off on.

Merino, mohair and angelina

  

 

 

Will have to try getting a better pic of this outside to show the colours and sparkle better. 

Watch out for some very excited pics next weekend as I am getting a brand new toy!

Red corriedale and cream alpaca

loving it!

Before washing

Finished 8-10ply

One cat annoyed because I wasn't paying him attention lol