What else?

On June first the registration opened for the Utah Quilt Guild's Annual Quilt Festival that is being held September 15-19, 2015. Always a fun time! It is a chance for me to hook up with my Salt Lake quilting buddies. The theme this year is Quilt Camp. I designed "Tent City" just for the theme. It is a fun, easy, paper piecing project. Great for those who would like to learn how to paper-piece. I will have some tree designs for the students so that they can customize their quilt.

Tent City

Last night I baked a loaf of bread. It looks so wonderful! Usually the loaf will grow a nose or something, but this one was picture perfect, so I just had to share!

Pretty loaf!

The start of my Cording

I saw someone mention this blog post about making cord out of leftover strips of fabric. It involves twisting the fabric and then back on itself to make a double ply. Since I am trying to get into spinning, this really intrigued me, so I had to try it out. (I have a big bag of thin strips that I use for my clothesline bowls) It works!  I don't have very much done yet, but it really is simple. I can see this cord making my bowls and maybe some coasters or placements.

Close up of the twist

Speaking of spinning, I plied! It turned out well, for a first try. The last time I was at Karen's house for knitting/coffee group she spun and gave me a lesson as she was spinning. Her yarns are fabulous! Check out her yarn shop to see some of her wonderful spins! You will have to look at her sold section, since her yarns are so popular that they sell out quickly.

Plied!

Right now my singles are still very thick and thin. It takes practice to even that out. But sometimes I like the look of the inconsistent thickness. It will knit up an interesting texture.

This is my Off the Wall post for this week. 

Sidetracked again

I have a small knitting group that meets every couple of weeks for coffee and chatting. We have been getting together for several years now. Started off with just me and Karen. We found Joy about 2 years ago and she is a good addition to our group. We meet at Karen's house and I bring some of my fresh roasted coffee beans.  Karen and Joy both are spinners. A couple of times Joy brought her wheel and they both spun while I knitted. Although I love handspun yarn, I was NOT going to get into one more craft. Famous last words. So I hit up Karen about letting me use her wheel to spin one skein of yarn. I did some research, read some books, watched some videos. When I saw an old friend in CA in January, she was getting into spinning and suggested I should try a spindle to get the hang of it before trying Karen's wheel. Karen lent me a couple of spindles. I had bought a bit of fiber in CA at Dharma, but didn't want to use the good stuff to practice so I got some clearance stuff from Knit Picks (that is why I have pink) and tried it out. The first time was a disaster, the spindle went all over the place, I had no control over it. So the next knitting group Karen advised me and I used the other spindle. IT WORKED! Okay, I am now hooked. I bought a set of 4 spindles and gave Karen hers back.

I made yarn!

My pink practice fiber

My set up for now

So I have a couple of batts and a roll of fiber. I am still very slow and can't do a lot at a time. But hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will be able to ply. Stay tuned.

Soon to be a bowl

I love making clothesline cord bowls! I had a bunch of scrappy brown strips and so decided to make a big bowl

Starting out

I found that I like my open toe embroidery foot better than my walking foot for this technique. It seems to work better.

Big Base

I had a lot of cord, so this guy is gonna be a big boy.

At the curve

I hold my left hand under the base to tip the bowl while stitching to form the curve.

Big Boy!

Little green brother

Last week I made this little green guy.  I love to use up scraps of fabric in my quilting and sewing projects.

So these two guys are now in my Etsy shop. Now that I am hooked on spinning I want a wheel. So now to save up some $$ from my shop. If you are interested in anything in my shop I have a coupon code good for 10% off anything in the shop BBLOG10. I also am downsizing my studio and have a lot of wonderful, lightly used to new books and patterns for sale. And some of my hand dyed fabrics.

This is my off the wall post for this week.