It is a mystery

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

( a few more pictures )
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

I received a beautiful mohair fleece from reedrover at Giant Cricket Farm, who raises colored Angora goats, during Rhinebeck 2023. It was from her Angora goat Marla and it was a beautiful tan color. I decided that I would make a garment from this fleece in a year, with the goal to have it done by Rhinebeck 2024. The fleece was 3 lbs, 10 ounces.


( this is long and has lots of photos )

listen. time has occurred.

August goals

• spin things! - I have spun things! I have still been making slow progress on cotton spindling. I spun up 8oz of something white and shiny from stash, needs to be plyed. I am 5/6 of the way through a six color spin on my electric wheel. it's too messy to spin in bed. I pushed my current wheeel project, over a pound of brown alpaca destined for a blanket to the side to get this spin done. also finished a red, green, grey spin that took me ages, no picture because I just didn't take one and it's across the room.
• knit sweater - worked on it, I've got both sleeves picked up and am working both at once! and paused to knit a hat for a gift
• weave sample and get the main project warped - samples woven, project adjusted, woven and most cut off the loom and washed. I did a time tracking on this project for fun and it took me 1 hour to wind and weave 8 bobbins of yarn, which made 27 inches of fabric on the loom. solid. so I really whipped through the weaving on this.
• twist fringe on pink shawl for sale - gave up on this
• finish the waistcoat - Finished! Will get a separate post soon
• work on great wheel - lol no
• woodwork a few things - pegs for great wheel, tall storage thing for weaving supplies - did make tall storage thing out of wood, works great
• other stuff done: wove a tablet band, wove a little message band for a friend, have another on the loom, cut and sewed a bunch of tablet woven bands into keyfobs, participated in the weaver's guild show and sale, washed one fleece, sewed a very comfortable giant hoodie, repaired my slippers, mockup of a purse done for my mom's christmas gift, started cutting fabric for the real one, started a mockup for a fancy coat for myself

something white and shiny from stash. I don't remember what it is, I think pencil roving from a local farm. maybe romney/wensleydale? I can't remember and my notebook with the info is across the room. 8oz, still needs to be plyed


( bunch more photos under the cut )
December crafting goals

• finish the color spin I've got and get back to working on the alpaca. spin some other stuff
• finish knitting the hat
• crochet a dice bag for my sister
• sew the purse for my mom
• work on coat mockup
• weave rug
• process fleece

June crafting goals

• Spin! finish the 6oz spin, and spin something else - 6 oz completed and I also spun and plyed 8oz of roving from Giant Cricket Farm to use as weft to finish the mohair warp on the loom, started 3oz of hand combed CVM from fleece and my goodness finewools are pretty
• knit sweater - worked on it a little
• start a crochet project? - nope
• get the tablet weaving done, it's just sitting - worked on it a little
• weave! get it off the loom? - got it off the loom! got it wet finished and also wet finished another older weaving project that has been sitting
• Buy sewing supplies - all bought! thread was buy 3 get 3 free at joanns, so I bought a bunch, also bought fancy horn buttons, crafting hangout helped me pick out which fabric to use with the waistcoat
• Wash fleece maybe with a new setup? - nope but setup ideas are all worked out, so I might actually get to it
• process fleece - worked on it
• Other - finish some things to put in the guild show and sale by twisting fringe, ended up buying a fringe twister, made some tiny cordage

I apparently don't have any pictures of the finished 6oz of fiber on the bobbins, but I left it as singles and I'm going to weave with it, so I put it on a cone yesterday. 1500 yards in 6oz. This is Wensleydale Angora blend roving that I got from a destash on Ravelry and it's hella shiny


( more photos and rambling )
July goals

• Spin the CVM
• Knit sweater
• twist fringe on shawl for guild sale
• finish weaving on the loom and start warping next project
• work on tablet weaving
• Sew the waistcoat
• wash a fleece?
• process fleece
• engage in shenanigans (already happening >:) I went out and collected some nettles and invasive phragmites from the swamp this morning)

April Goals

• finish the mohair, ply and cone up - done! technically I did the cone up today (5/2) but shhh.
• finish the purple spin - done! now I need to ply it. Also spun 4oz of white clun forest and started a new spin
• Skein and wash spins, cone up weaving yarns - nope
• finish the current alpaca fleece processing - yes, done!
• start processing a new fleece? - worked on a fleece that has been set aside for a while
• knit sweater - worked on it
• finish crochet mittens - just the thumb! - done!
• work on tablet weaving project - no clue if I worked on it, I don't think so
• get mohair on the loom? might be a stretch - nope
• Start muslin for vest - ...bought the pattern and printed it

Mohair! Singles on the bobbins.


( pictures! )

May crafting goals

• spin! currently 4oz of Romney on the wheel, maybe I'll do another weaving yarn, high twist for warp? (write about cotton spinning)
• ply, skein and wash yarns sitting around
• knit sweater
• start a crochet project?
• wash a fleece?
• process fleece
• work on tablet weaving project and get it off the warping board
• Get weaving!
• muslin of waistcoat - needs to be done before weaving finishes so uhh

February goals

• Spin mohair - three bobbins done, all around 5oz, so I might be halfway?
• crochet mittens - allllmost done, just need to bind off the top of the mitten and do the thumb
• knit sweater - making progress, split at the sleeves and now knitting the back section flat, I have remembered how to knit with both hands, so I don't need to turn it which is nice
• finish weaving project - DONE
• start processing alpaca fleece - started!
• spin more samples - I think I spun all of them!
• Cone winder alpaca, masham, skein rainbow, label - decided to wash the alpaca before cone because it was dirty, I didn't do a great job washing the fleece. Skeined it and gave it a hot wash with soap and it looks waaaay better. Now I need to figure out how to get it onto the cone since I don't have a swift. Probably drape it over my knees and wind it onto my electric wheel, probably good to give it a tiny bit more twist in some areas. Washed all the other skeins and they're now drying
• start sewing jersey - muslin? or just go for it? - made a muslin, working on real pullover now
• tablet weaving project darn it - someday I'll do this

The cloth! It is very heavy, around 6 pounds for ~7.5 yards of fabric that is 30 inches wide. It will become a coat someday, potentially even a really neat fancy one. I have no idea how I'm going to wet finish it, it's so long and heavy. I'm very pleased with it.


( more pictures )
March goals

• spin mohair, finishing it would be a stretch
• finish mittens
• knit sweater
• cone up alpaca
• process the rest of the brown alpaca fleece?
• sew pullover
• tablet weaving - make a loom for this?

I'm not doing a year end review but if you're interested in what I worked on in the past year, this tag has all my monthly posts

December goals

• spin alpaca, skein, wash and label yarns - spun alpaca, getting close to the end, I did skein, wash and label the yarns I had sitting around. I also spun the other 6 oz of merino just as plain singles (no picture), and then spun 8 ounces of dyed braids in like, six days over christmas which is bonkers fast and then chain plyed them in the last two days. Also finished a spindle spinning project, will update in January when I ply
  
• knit mittens for gift - my god I've never knit do fast in my life although it helps to have thick yarn or to hold the yarn doubled. three pairs of mittens knitted, two out of the reinforced merino, one pair full, one pair fingerless and one pair out of yarn held double
• crochet mittens - nope
• tablet weave gift - nope
• finish weaving current project and maybe warp on new project - finished weaving it fast and finished it! warping on new project didn't happen since it was a 7 yard warp and my warping board only fit 4.5 yards. I made new sections for the board to be longer
• mohair garment in a year - currently combing fleece - did a lot of combing in December
• 100 days of spindle spinning - starting Dec 1st, based on instagram - this is going great! I finished one spindle stick and am halfway on a second, only missed one day
• work on quilted jacket - done!
• wash a fleece? - lol no

( So many pictures for the wild amount of things I finished! )January goals

• finish alpaca, skein, wash and label new yarns, ply Masham on spindles
• finish combing mohair fleece (stretch goal but might happen)
• crochet mittens
• get weaving project on the loom
• work on tablet weaving project
• continue 100 days of spindle spinning
• wash a fleece?
• buy more fabric for muslins and find another project to start

Saturday I got some fleeces washed. Well, one and a half. Better than none! I put the mohair fleece in two baskets to soak and one pound of merino fleece from last year's New England Fiber Festival to soak, then ran out for dog food and an estate sale where I scored a nice workbench, a very nice vice for $50, and a bunch of assorted hand tools. Very pleased with the vice. I'm going to work on the shed in the next two weeks, get it cleaned up and start building some brackets to hold wood and a workbench that goes over the wood. I want to turn it into a workshop since the basement really hasn't been working for that.

Came home and in between baking, I washed the mohair and scoured the merino. I also made granola, gingersnaps and yogurt. In the future, I won't bake while doing this because I had to wash my hands a lot in between everything. For the mohair, I used hot tap water (120F) for the soak, then hot tap water with soap, then two hot tap water rinses. I let the last one cool, then did six (6!!!), cold water rinses until the water was clear. To be fair, the cold water rinses were plopping the basket back in the bin, using the shower nozzle on the hose until the fleece was completely covered in water, then removing the fleece and dumping the water again.

( boy howdy I rambled on fleece washing )

Sunday, I went to New England Fiber Festival. I went primarily to help a vendor friend pack up her booth, but decided to spend the whole day there. It's a wonderful festival, it's indoors, really accessible for wheelchairs since the parking lot and all areas are level concrete or pavement. The aisles are really wide, the booths are all pretty spacious and it's not super crowded at least on Sunday. There's a decent amount of seating around, both benches and places to sit and eat. It's very chill, especially in comparison to Rhinebeck. Lots more chances to talk to vendors.

( NEFF rambling )

I spent most of crafting last night quilting the jacket pieces, I only have the back left to go. I also got advice on my next weaving project, making it wide since I couldn't decide wide or narrow. I got all the bins cleaned up since it rained overnight and actually had success with my indigo processing. I finished running the water through a piece of cloth and now I have some gooey indigo. Not a lot but better than zero considering I didn't know what I was really doing. I think I could have let the plants ferment more but ah well.

I'm leaving for a work trip first thing tomorrow morning and getting back late Thursday so I'm going to miss my weaver's guild meeting which makes me sad.

It's been a few years since I went to NY Sheep and Wool, I think 2018 maybe was the last time. For various reasons I haven't been back since then.

Earlier this week, I messaged reedrover who takes her goats to the Northeast Angora Goat Show to show and figured I could meet up with her and chat for a bit. I've had great luck meeting internet friends and I figured this would be fun. A day or two before, she asked if I could help hold goats during the show as some of the folks' usual helpers hadn't been able to make it. Sure! Goats are fun! ( I ramble a lot )

Haul!

RR gave me a beautiful tan mohair fleece, it's so pretty!!!! I'm definitely going to comb it but I've been thinking through what to make with it. I think it would make great weaving yarn but I may also do some crocheting with it too. I've got some mohair I got in a destash that I could use it with too. I really should try tablet weaving with it too, omg the shine would be great on a plain band. hmmmmmm.


( more pictures )

July Goals - despite my wrist preventing me from crafting for several weeks, I still got a lot done and I'm very happy it's back to normal. I'd say most of this is just finishing things that were mostly done so it's not as impressive as it looks but progress was made. I wish there was a fun spinning event like Tour de Fleece during the winter, but alas.

• spinning - work on Pansy Pandemonium. I doubt I'll finish the 6oz in July but that's okay. maybe spin some more samplers on the eel wheel - all spun up! Nothing else spun but I started spinning something last night
  
• knitting - finish the sweater and get B to take actual nice photos of me wearing it - sweater finished! Crappy photo below. New sweater started
• finish the tablet weaving - done! I also did two more small bands and started one more that's almost done
• warp and weave the wool singles cloth - ugh. warped, beamed and stuck at threading the heddles since I don't have enough heddles yet. I'm halfway through tying more
• process fleece - now that I typed that all up above, I think I'm going to switch to carding the alpaca and comb a sheep fleece - carded almost all of the remaining super soft section of the fleece, just a little more to go.
  
• dye something???? - lol no
• wash a fleece - I washed a small fleece! An icelandic sheep that I sheared. I think it will be a carded and spun fleece since the undercoat is so short, I did a tiny sample.

Pansy Pandimonium! It is superwash Targhee commercial combed top, dyed by Llady Llama Fiber, a pound of it spun up. I will chain ply it to keep the color repeats intact and it will someday go on the loom for a squishy blanket or something.



( more photos! )August Goals

• spinning - I think I'm formulating a weaving idea to spin, but I'm not 100% sure I'll do that yet right now. So spin something, chain ply Pansy Pandemonium and skein/wash/label everything
• knit the new sweater
• crochet the second pair of mittens
• finish the tablet weaving
• finish tying heddles and thread the loom and reed and then weave jeez
• finish the alpaca fleece
• wash a fleece
• write one post about fiber arts stuff -  I have at least three things I want to write up, the plaid, the romney singles weaving, using fishing swivels with a backstrap loom