Fiber at the Speed of Life

Erica has knitted about 12 shawl minis. She had a great time knitting the minis shown above (photo taken during the blocking process :), while travelling to Scotland to visit her in-laws! The whole family enjoyed the train ride and Erica made loads of progress on her mini shawl samples! She has been knitting these minis from the remainder of the handspun yarn she used for TJ's hat last winter! She knit the following minis from Laura Nelkin's Shawls 14 Ways class : square top to bottom square center out triangle bottom up On a trip to Aberdeen: tip to tip square Top-down crescent, Heart-shaped crescent Tip to tip center panel crescent Hal Pi circular 12 rows Top-down semi-circle shawl Erica appreciates everyone's patience with the editing of the last episode as she worked on getting the drawloom set up! It's been on a bit of a hiatus but is getting back to it. Erica has also woven samples of handspun single yarn for the Collaborative Cloth projec...

In this episode Erica & Michele discuss swatching, sample organization, felting, weaving, knitting socks and more! We introduce our British Breed Study and have a good catch up! Check out this episode!

This has been quite a couple months for Erica and Michelle. They both did some traveling and spent time with their kids who were home from school, but also managed to get in some fiber time. Michelle spent a week in northern Michigan where she did some spinning by the lake. Going back home was difficult. Finished Objects: Erica managed to finish a number of projects this summer. Erica wove a Handspun scarf! It is very Whovian! Erica also finished her Colour Study knitting samples! This is the second step in the overall study.  The next step will be to weave a gamp/sample blanket with all these yarns.This has been a really interesting study so far. Although Erica still has a hard time deciding which technique she likes best or might use in future for spinning multi-colored tops. it is good to know that each technique produces great results. Erica does not feel like she encountered any muddying of colors. Erica thinks this is due to the use of analagous dyed color ways....

Influence In this episode we discuss our fiber stories and influences. Erica is very much influenced by history and historical textiles, especially 7th C Persian textiles, such as taquete, samitum and damask. Taquete photo of pillow  (photo above). Samitum cuffs Michelle is really influenced by her friends and family. She had a good example of someone who crafts in her mom (Hi Mom!) and enjoys being able to do crafts similar to those around her so she can chat about them with her friends. FOs: Erica Erica's finished all 11 swatches of handspun yarn. These are the knitted sample for her colour management study, overall these samples use only 2 different colourways, but just look at the variety of swatches! Woven swatches to come (probably much much later). The swatches have now been washed and blocked! Michelle Michelle bought a summer membership to a local pool. She needed easy projects to work on when the girls were in lessons and at the pool if ...

Erica's Projects Erica finished up a big spinning study. She started a spinning color study in December. This study used all the color management techniques she has learned in Felicia Lo's BluPrint class and Sara Lamb's Spin to Weave book and video. She talks more about this process in this post on Weavolution . Erica has wound all 1,400 threads for her next Drawloom warp. She looks forward to studying drawloom weaving with JoAnne Hall this summer! Erica has sampled weft possibilities for her handspun scarf. She is weaving along with the middle weft, which is a medium grey. She feels this allows the focus to be on the beautiful handspun war. Michelle finished needle felting the sorting hat. She's pleased with how it turned out. She'd have liked to make the hat have more folds around the back of the hat but is afraid of messing it up. Michelle experimented with needle felting and wet felting a bowl. She needle felted over a hat form and a...

Check out this episode! Find us on social media Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker Erica is  Weavolution: Erica J Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: weavemage FB: Weavolution Catch up Thanks to Michell’s posts many year’s ago, my son is still enjoying Kiwi Crates . I look forward to the time when TJ is old enough for MEL Science for older kids!  Our lives are full, this episode we talk not only about our full schedules, but also our plethora of stuff. Erica is enjoying the Kon Mari process . Michelle shares what she enjoys about The Life Changing Magic…by Sara Knight. FO's Erica I finished the handspun hat for TJ. This hat was knitted on Zing 4.5 mm DPN needles. The yarn was Falkland fibre Z spun S plied Fireglow colourway. I purled in th...