Nature's Fury

It's hard to see from this photo, but the cloud in the background is a 1000 acre fire near Sedona. It looks like an atomic bomb - I was just thinking this morning that we really haven't had any major fires nearby and on the way into town this afternoon from the top of windy hill, it was a massive plume of smoke. They've evacuated 100 homes - Sedona is full of multi-million dollar homes - hopefully it will blow away from town and away from homes.

We're at least 45 miles south of Sedona, but it's still impressive.

On a more fiberly note, I've mostly been spinning and actually making progress on the rug I've been weaving for ever. This is 525 yards of romney single ply with kid mohair blended in dark tangerine and a dark grey/teal - a nice yarn if I do say so myself - I'm thinking of knitting a shawl with it.

I can tell when I weave a rug and it's the downhill stretch because as I weave, my mind gets caught up with what the next rug will be. I've been thinking of using some of my churro handspun yarn and making a simple striped rug with possibly some twill worked in somehow. I think I have enough warp on the loom to do another rug. Another idea I've had is to use the same colors has the current rug but use mostly stripes with very little tapestry work in it.

Well, say a prayer for the folks in Sedona - and I'll be back hopefully a little more often than I have with some news, like finishing the rug

I can't even think of a title of this post. Today was another dyeing day. I dyed roving in various colors and also dyed some more of the romney fleece. I finished spinning some of the fushia/yellow fleece. It came out as a beautiful peachy color. I have a little left and am blending it with the salmon colored fleece. It's hard to imagine that this was the garish colored fushia in the last post. Alot of the fushia color didn't take (thankfully) and most of the yellow did, so it came out like this.

Very little progress on the rug - maybe a few inches since I last reported.

My ds and I went to Prescott yesterday for a day of shopping and eating out. This is something we don't do very often as it's an hours drive to anywhere with a mall. I don't even really enjoy shopping the way I did years ago. However, we both enjoy eating out and getting away from home for awhile.

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend

Dyed in the wool

Well, it's been awhile since I've written anything. I haven't done much weaving, but I did buy a fleece from Jean Kamenicky of Grants Pass Oregon. It is a beautiful, lustrous, soft romney fleece and very reasonably priced. I washed it last week and today on my only day off this week, I am dyeing it in 6 oz increments in various colors. I do love to dye! I created a beautiful blue green that is my favorite so far. I still have a fushia with some yellow added that's still cooking as I write.
Four colors today and more in the coming days. I don't know why, but I love to take a relatively clean fleece and wash and dye and spin it. Don't know what I'll do with these colors, but I'll find something to do with them. I saw a beautful picture of a shawl from the Maryland show on yarnahoy's blog. It amazes me what people can do with yarn.

April 17, 2006

Finally a day off work. Here's the yarn I made from the roving I displayed. It's the style of yarn I sell on ebay or etsy. What I spin for myself is finer, and usually from a fleece that I've bought. My current favorite wool is CVM. It's so nice and soft and is easily spun. I also have been spinning some churro that I bought on ebay that will make a great rug wool.

I am making progress on the rug and in fact, when I finish here, I'll be out on the porch weaving away!
Only 25 more inches and I'll be done.


I have some rugs to make for some friends to complement the entertainment center my DH made for them. They want some kind of a 'yei' picture rug which is something I said I'd never make because it has religious meaning to the Navajo. So maybe I'll talk them into buying one made by the Navajo and I'll weave something else. The two doors which hide the TV have inlaid pictures of a Navajo woman receiving a gift from a Yei. He also did other inlay work on the the smaller doors.

This is a closer view of the inay feathers on the loom that my DH built for me. This picture was taken when he was building it about 2 years ago.

This loom sits on my front porch because there is no room inside for this loom. My house has been taken over by weaving and spinning stuff! One of the reasons I started this blog was hopefully re-invigorate myself to weaving rugs. The rug on this loom has been there for awhile and it's time to finish it!

Due to the high cost of medical benefits, I've had to go back to working full time so we can have decent healthcare, which doesn't leave much time for doing what I love to do. So I find myself doing more spinning and knitting, which I can do in the evening.

This is some roving I recently dyed. I handpaint roving to spin into yarn to sell on either ebay or etsy. After I'm done handpainting, I take the leftover dye, put some roving in a pot of water, and heat it up to about 175 or 180 and pour the dye in - lots of fun to see the colors blend. The one on the righ was only 2 colors - turquoise and yellow. I have an account at etsy - www.skyweaver.etsy.com . If you haven't taken a look before, check out etsy.com. Lots of crafters selling there craftwork on this site. The cost for selling is very reasonable. I do better there than on ebay, where I barely break even on costs.

First Post

Well, for so long I have been reading other people's blog about weaving,spinning,knitting that for some reason, I decided it was time to start mine. I'm not even sure why. I love reading blogs, it's inspiring to see what others are doing and who knows, maybe I'll inspire someone.

I am firstmost a weaver of tapestry rugs. I learned Navajo style weaving about 10 years ago and then spent time in Northern New Mexico Community College in El Rito New Mexico learning Rio Grande style weaving. The tapestry techniques are similar, but the looms are very different. I have come to prefer the 'standing' or 'walking' loom. This picture is my current long term work in progress. It's a take off of the 100 stars style of rug that would have the 'stars' throughtout the entire rug instead of a zigzag line. I like several types of rug wool. This is Wild & Wooly from Burnham's trading post in Sanders AZ. I bought white and dyed it in bright colors. I also like to weave with Churro wool. Churro is my favorite. It has a wonderful history in that it came from the original sheep brought by the Spanish into the southwest hundreds of years ago.

I am fortunate to be married to a woodworker. My DH made this loom and if I can find the pictures I'll post some of the inlay work he did on it. It's a walking loom with a 36" weaving length with 4 harnesses.

Anyway, this will have to be it for a first post. I know nothing about the workings of blogging, but I guess I'll learn as I go.