Small February Crafting Update and March Goals

[unicornduke]

listen. I'm trying.

February crafting goals - most of my supplies are packed up and at my parents but I still have spinning fiber, sewing supplies and a fleece to work on plus I should have less time for crafting in the next two months. plus the sweater

• spin whatever I want! alpaca or wool or cotton or all of them - all of the above! Worked on the alpaca a little bit, finished and plyed 8 oz of wool and plyed another 4oz. Did some spindling. Coned some fibers to get them off the bobbins
• knit sweater - made significant progress on the sleeves while traveling
• process fleece - made significant process on the bag. Probably 1/2-2/3 done with it. wild that if you work on something every day, even just a little, you make progress. I have fulled filled my first small bin, so now onto the second
• Work on coat mockup - mockup done, adjustments made to pattern
• Sew something else - started working on coat

coat mockup


This was a Christmas gift from my SIL this year, 8 oz of superwash Blue Faced Leicester from Llady Llama Fiber Co, in red, pink, grey tones, more autumnal than picture looks. Two ply.



This is 4oz of wool from Foster Sheep Farm, Romney Wensleydale cross, dyed with marigolds. 2 ply.



I coned up the plant fiber samples in singles that I didn't know what to do with as well as some wool singles that I think will be some kind of weaving project at some point, but it's only 12 oz so not enough to do much with since it's pretty scratchy wool. I'm thinking I will spin up some neutral grey and ply them together and then weave it, maybe with some black to make the color pop and to get enough yardage for something. I need to either purchase more cones (at $9 a pop), or have the family actually invest in a 3D printer (Dreaming Robots makes the plans free online), since I know I'll be doing more cones of handspun in the next few years for weaving.

Apparently I only took a picture of the plant samples, mostly to show off the different colors they are on the cone. It was 25g samples of a bunch of stuff, I think my plan is to use them as warp on the loom, so the stripes show.


March goals

• Knit the sweater
• Process the fleece
• Finish spinning the current alpaca bobbin, wind it off and pack up wheel. Skein yarn on bobbins. Spin more laying in bed
• Sew coat - this is currently in the handstitching the interfacing and wool layers together mostly during craft nights

Comments

[graydon]

All this craft stuff is supposed to be fun and relaxing, and during a house move, change of occupation, and miscellaneous life updates it might legitimately not be the case that there's a lot of room for fun and relaxing.

I'm impressed that you're getting anything else done at all.

[unicornduke]

I have a surprising amount of downtime with a lack of work, February and March are typically my slowest months. I don't feel good about doing side job work on "work time", so I tend to do crafting or reading instead. The crafting is nice and relaxing and I've found another tv show on youtube "The Repair Shop" that is excellent for some day time crafting. I'm struggling to pack more boxes right now since I have filled the staging area in my room and there isn't that much space in the living room, so next week should be peak packing once I've taken another truck load to the farm. Still doing around a box a day even if there isn't space, just making the piles higher.