Thursday, July 12, 2012

FAF Fiber Arts Friday From PamsFiber

Hey ya'll. I hope your week was as great as mine. Where do I start? Well, lets start off with our batt exchange day.  Our fiber group gathered here on Dream Come True Farm and exchanged batts that we each created. We spun most up in one afternoon. It was great fun. Such interesting fiber choices.  Pictured below on the railing is a few of the yarn skeins that we spun from the batts, not all finished before leaving.  We also yarn bombed an antique wheel I had. Look at that color, doesn't it look great? That was  a lot of fun. Days end took us over to one of the girls house to pick some kale from her garden And we enjoyed some wine! Thank you Suzzy. What a great fiber day. I have such wonderful fiber friends, such inspiration!
  
  I carded up at least 1/2 dozen spontaneous batts to list on etsy this week, one of which is pictured below. I spun a few skeins of art yarn for etsy as well. My creativity has been awesome lately.
 The critters are all doing well despite the heat. I should mention that I shore the llamas myself with scissors! Poor llamas, bad hair cut! But we have had such hot weathe,r and I think for the very first time in their 13 years they were bothered by it. So chop, chop, happy llamas!

So for FAF i created the curtain valances you see below. I just love them! My Dahli llama has coarse wool so each time he is shorn I need to come up with ideas to use his wool that is not next to the skin. He is 13 now, I guess that would be considered a senior citizen so I wanted to honor him and create something special that I would have and enjoy for years to come. Not that he is going anywhere soon, but I love him so, so I wanted to create a Dahli llama heirloom. So hears what I did:

I hand processed his wool therefor no dehairing was done to his fleece. I handspun the yarn in a heavy worsted weight/light bulky weight yarn with the hairs poking out, adding character to the yarn. I CO 85 st on sz 19 needle (my favorite needle sz) and knitted my twisted drop stitch. Which if your not familiar with the twisted st there is a link in the previous blog to a tutorial that I did on You Tube to give a free lesson on it. Knit to the desired length. Next, I  then I knitted one row of plain garter st for the header of the curtain. If you'd like a bigger header try two or three rows.......there are no rules to my knitting! I then BO very loose VIOLA! Dahli llama valance! I uses a tension rod and wove in and out of st to hang the valance I put the first one in my studio wool room. I loved it so much I made 3 shorter valances and hung them in our family room. Im really loving them. I not only look up at the Dahli llama valance, I look out the same window and see him... He'll be with me forever and ever.
be your own designer, change whatever you think should be. Make it wider, longer, weave ribbons in through the st. Make it your own and enjoy,
 I hope you enjoy this idea and can apply a yarn to it.  I have also pictured a pillow I knit from his fleece and a market bag. These are great ways to use a fleece that my be coarse but come from a well loved and adored animal....(: 
I hear that we are in for a possible 8 day heat wave here on the east coast so Im going to wish everyone here that will experience it well. Until next Friday, stay COOL and spin or knit on! XO

Dont forget, join this blog as a follower in July and go in the drawing for the Spinners Notebook.....a book about wool  ! Something every fiber artist needs. Completley FREE! If your not familiar with the book take a peek at in my Etsy