a return to quilting

I used to dabble a bit in quilting in the early years of our marriage. The least quilt I made was seven years ago. It was a baby quilt for Christian. When Christian came home the sewing supplies were put away, except for occasional repairs.
I have been kicking the idea of sewing quilts for each of the boys for their birthdays this year.
I saw a blog post about a Spring Quilt a Long. I decided that this would be a good way to get back into quilting. The quilt pattern is simple and the instructions thorough. I am borrowing my mother's sewing machine and yesterday, I bought a free-motion foot for doing maching quilting. Learning to do machine quilting is going to take a bit, but since we will keep this quilt it can have flaws and no one will care.
Since I have the sewing machine here, I also have many other sewing projects stewing in my brain and a basket full of fabric.

finished bag

I logged on to the blog to write about a different project and realized I never posted a photo of the the finished knitting bag. I finished it several weeks ago and have been using it often. I want to sew a messenger bag next.

a bag in progress

I have been wanting to knit a bag to carry my yarn and knitting supplies in. I wanted it to be a felted bag. I found one pattern that I kind of liked on Ravelry and printed it up, but I just was no passionate enough about the pattern to cast on. Yesterday I picked up the book Knit Wit 30 Easy and Hip Projects from the library. There was a photo on the front page of the bag I wanted, so last night I cast on. I had to cast on three times before I got it right with out twisting. The nice thing about this bag is that it will be felted, so little mistakes can be ignored, twisting was too big to ignore. I am using the yarn that I dyed last week in Kool Aid. I love the color palate.
I am also dying some of my wool today. One crockpot has coffee in it and the other black beans. I have seen photos of black beans making a nice violet, by beans seem to be making a gray. I have plenty of wool to dye and gray would make a nice mens item, so I will keep on playing around with dyes and see what I get. I also ordered a carder, but it will not be here for 2-4 weeks. I will try to get all the wool that I want to dye, dyed by that time, then I can get the fiber ready for spinning.

felted slippers and new drop spindle

Here are the felted slippers. After the first felting they still a bit too big, so yesterday, I washed them in cold water with a load of laundry then put them in the dryer. After they came out of the dryer, the size was perfect. That will be the last time they go in the dryer. My next project is a felted bag. It takes a lot more knitting, but the felting will be easier since it does not have to fit a head or foot.

I made another drop spindle last night. I took a cork from an empty bottle of Charles Shaw wine, a chopstick and hook. I used a but of glue to keep the chopstick in the cork.
This spindle seems to work good with my angora fur and for spinng small fine yarn.

still working on slippers

My felted slippers were still too big after they dried up. I am washing them again to shrink them a bit. I will be back with photos later this week.

I think I had a break-through with the drop spindle today. I am reading the book Respect the Spindle and working with some Alpaca Rovings. I spun a bit this evening and will keep working on it. Stay tuned.

felted socks - pre-felting

I knit up these slippers this week. I took the photo pre-felting. I tried to get some pics of the felted project tonight, but I was not happy with the photo quality at all, so I will try again in the morning. I am not very happy with this picture either, but since I am trying to do project 365, I guess this counts as a photos.
I will be back with a nice picture of the slippers. I am wearing them with a pair of David's tube socks so they can for to the shape of my feet. I used a worsted weight yarn that was given to me for this project. The pattern was a free download, so the total cost of the project...$o.oo

Last project of the decade

David had to work last night, so I spent the night dyeing yarn. I took a skein of Fisherman's Wool and dyed it with Kool Aide. I hope to knit this Bag. It is a felted project. I am knitting slippers to felt right now. I should be ready to felt them this weekend. I also have to do a Kool Aid run to buy more blue and green kool aid to do the second skein.