You Spin Me Right Round

Spring must have put me more in the mood than usual because it has been craft central around here!  Not only have I been knitting and spinning as usual, but now that the upstairs has been cleared out (got rid of some old excess furniture) my sewing machine has a permanent home.  I suggest if you don’t sew as often as you’d like, try to carve out a little spot in your home where you can leave your machine set up and have easy access to your tools.  It makes a huge difference when you can just walk in and get started rather than having to drag out the machine and try to find a place to work.  Oh, and getting a new machine *might* have something to do with the resurgence as well.  More on that tomorrow!

Now, for the spinning.  I got quite a bit of it done when I was in Arizona last time.  First, I spun this great Lazy River colorway from fiberoptic…who incidentally is based right here in Cincinnati!  It’s approximately sock weight and I can’t believe how much easier it was to spin for socks from a pencil roving.  No splitting, just draft and go!  I also had some merino I had mostly spun quite a while back.  When I started again I did nothing but fight with this fiber.  It looked so terrible I decided to try my first “art” yarn.  I plied it with a coordinating thread and it actually turned out pretty well (could have been better but was limited by my orifice).  I’m thinking my scarf queen sister might be able to turn this funky yarn into something cool.  Since I returned home,  I spun some more sock yarn using roving from one of my online friends, Silver.  The colorway is called “Firewood” and I would say it is quite aptly named!  I think she sent along some of her good spinning mojo with it too because I swear this is some of the nicest sock yarn I’ve spun.

Another project I took on recently was working on some valances for my friend Terri.  She bought a new bedspread that she absolutely loves and is redecorating her bedroom around it.  We were talking about what she should do and of course when she said valances/cornice I said “We can do that!”  And so…we did.  Fortunately her husband is handy with a table saw and made the valances out of 1″ think board.  Then it was our tun.

The comforter was on sale at Target so for coordinating fabric she just bought another set.  Then we got to work with some seam rippers and seperated back from the front and at the occasional tacking throughout the comforter.   Once we were finished we had plenty of fabric and a nice big sheet of batting.  Then we (and when I say “we”, I mean she) ironed all of the fabric.  Next we laid out the cornices on top of the batting, cut to size and stapled.  Repeat for the fabric and VOILA!  Beautiful professional looking cornices for a fraction of the cost.  I can hardly wait to see whole effect when it’s finished!  I’ll make sure to post more pictures.

Cute sewing projects tomorrow…I’ve been experimenting with some prototypes for bags I might sell at Diva Knitting.