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I just don’t like waiting for it to dry when the torment is done. I’ve shocked it in hot water and cold, thwacked, soaked, and snapped the snot out of this yarn so that it’ll be as tough as the hubs of hell. All the torture has felted and blossomed it just a little, forcing [...]

I’ve given up on FlyLady. Not without much debate, both internal and external, and not without more than a little guilt. Over the years Flylady helped me get a grip on my messes and taught me some good habits, the email reminders were useful (when I paid attention to them) and the testimonials were rather [...]

Yummy yummy yarn guts. Doesn’t this look like fluffy shiny deer guts? The effect is far more realistic in real life than I was able to capture with the camera. I thank goodness that the smell is not that of authentic intestines. One of the things I like about dying silk is that it’s fairly [...]

I decided to take a break from flax spinning and switch to something a little gentler. Bombyx silk fit the bill. I dyed this batch quite a while ago, the technique was really simple. I waited for a warm day, soaked the silk in water and soda ash, added a little ammonia, emptied dye into [...]

My new  bobbins and Ashford maintenance kit came in the mail. I can’t remember the last time I was so happy to do fixing up on anything. Why did I wait this long? I can’t believe the difference a new drive and brake bands make. Not to mention that it helps when the footman bit [...]

First, a picture of my spinning progress. Same bobbin as before, but a bit more yarn on it. I generally have the attention span of a hamster, so this progress represents more time than I care to admit investing into it. Life in Craftopia is getting expensive again: Before the weekend I ordered an Ashford [...]

When flax is spun, it turns into linen. Flax+twist=linen. Just like that. Flax is a bast fiber, which means it’s grown inside a plant and beaten out– the woody parts of the plant dried, retted (rotted) and removed, so that the long cellulose fibers remain. Ramie, nettle and hemp are also bast fibers. In the [...]

I’m usually not so cranky with my color choices. Hindsight being what it is, I think I should have chosen something a little more uplifting than heathered gray merino to put on the wheel. During our morning errands I grabbed a set of paint brush pen things and a sketch pad for Lexi. I’m undecided [...]

Days really should be a bit longer shouldn’t they? (Pictured at left is the former Evil Clown roving, transformed into the kind hearted gypsy princess yarn.) It’s still winter and I live  in a valley. I should know by now that the day light will always be a little shorter for us, I just wish [...]

I ran into an old friend while cleaning out my cosmetics drawer. A bit of Tish and Snooky’s manic panic hair color in a shade called “Ultra Violet” I remember buying it a few years back thinking that violet would be a good change from my usual mandarin orange. As it turned out, I was [...]