Handspun Yarn

Zipped out a few handspun yarns for the shop:

That was spun from roving purchased at the KY Wool Fest from Diane's sheep. And I haven't quite decided whether to list it or not:)

Handspun and hand dyed merino with binder cord for detail. This yarn is available at: LunabudKnits

Another Handspun and Hand dyed yarn available at LunabudKnits.

They Arrived...

Well, in all honesty, they arrived last week:) My sweet little minors head parts for my Antique walking wheel. I did not take before pictures, but I really should have because the pictures I posted in a previous post really just do not do justice to how dirty these little wooden spindles were.

Here they are after a good hard cleaning. Several of the arms to which hold the minors head were full of mud dobber nests. All of the parts sucked up the wood oil like they were little oil vampires! Thirsty old wood in deed:)

Now, I'm off to whittle away a few little spokes to hold the minors head to the arms. And a few arms need proper repair. Until then, I can't wait to get them on my wheel!

A felting we will go!

I've finally done it! Felting that is. Years ago, I bought some felting needles and just never got into the needle felting thing. This week end while waiting on trick or treaters, I came across the felting needles and foam block. I thought what better time to have a go at the needle felting than when I am waiting for the little ghouls and goblins to come knocking at my door:)

The sheep above was my third attempt at needle felting. It has a wire base and the body was formed using left over wool from the flick carder. On top of the base is several layers of Lincoln fleece which was then covered in Lincoln locks. I used a touch of Corriedale dyed black to complete my little sheep's legs and head.

The second felt project used the same left over wool base covered in hand dyed merino and glitz. The tree trunks have wire bases and the tops are covered in a lightly spun single of merino, silk and firestar.

The Frog. This little fellow is my first attempt at needle felting. I have to say that I am as pleased as peach pie with how he turned out. Again, I used the left over base to start on the first lily pad the frog is sitting on and then moved on to the little pink flower. Well, if you know me, you know that wasn't quite enough, so I started another lily pad and thought... Wouldn't it be nice if it all sat on a mini pond. The water is made of two different shades of blue merino and glitz.

After finishing the base , yet again I decided that the little scene just was a tad on the bland side, so I figured I would try my hand at a little frog. The frog was formed using a Targhee fleece that had dyed and then realized it had a break in it. I just never had the heart to throw out the fleece because the color was beautiful so I have slowly been using it to make felt balls. It felts fabulously, so I thought I would give it a go under the needle. After finishing the little fellow and placing him on his lily pad, the eyes were added using a white merino cashmere mix.

I'm really very shocked at how well I did on my first felting attempt here. Have packed away my little needles and foam block, because I can see that if I leave them out I could be very tempted to pick up another little hobby. But perhaps, I can just reserve these little projects for a little pick me up on rainy days:)

Over the rainbow!

Ah, the joys of old wheels!

Just recently purchased. A lot of used walking wheel minors head parts and ..........

One complete Minors head.

The plan with the Minors head lot is to devise a way to attach a minors head to my current wheel. It looks like I might have enough parts here to make several complete Minors heads and surely one of them will work out.

Found this little charka wheel on one of my many searches on Ebay. It is in need of some tweeking that I have yet to get around to. I would consider this little wheel more of a vintage wheel than an antique.

This was taken Spring of 2009 as I was driving along I-75 in Kentucky. Not a great photo, but not bad considering it was a camera phone:) Just wanted to share a little Rainbow Joy with you today!

So, what do you think?

If anyone out there regularly reads my blog, I was wondering if you liked the new layout?

While I did like the old layout, I felt the need for a change. I found this cute little template at : http://www.yummylolly.com/ And you see, I do have a little thing for Japanese Cherry blossoms, so when I saw this sweet little template, well, I just could not resist.

I did have to reload all of my widgets, but that only took about 5 minutes:) Outside of that, I am very pleased with my new blogger threads.

Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival Pictures!

And here they are Pics from the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival in Corydon Indiana. It's not a huge festival, but it was cram packed with some of the kindest vendors your will ever meet. As you can see a great time was had by all!

A picture of the LunabudKnits booth to tide you over until next year!

I really enjoyed this little festival. I'm at a cross road right now as to whether I want to do this festival again or go for broke and try to get into the monster that is Rhinebeck. Not that I think I have a chance in heck of getting in at Rhinebeck....lol My plan with festivals is to vend at as many festivals in parts of the country I have never visited as I can. Sounds a bit on the crazy side doesn't it? But then again, I do have a bit of the wander lust in me:)

A picture of me goofing off snapped by the other Luna:)

My Wool Pencil Roving

A little selection of my hand dyed Combed Tops

Mom Has a little thing for cookie cutters:)

Luna Ortiz and Hubby in their booth Blue Ball Mountain Spindle Works

Susan Markle of Trading Post Fibers She and her happy helper (pictured above) were our next door neighbors at the show and two of the most absolutely wonderful gals around!

The Gals of Fiber Antics Fiber Antics

Bev Larson the Basket Lady

My BFL Sock Yarn

Dave and Pam Hoover's Kromski's at Rooster's Run Farm

My Ravelry Girls:) These gals are just too darn fun!!

Rooster Run Goats. I really wanted to take one of these little sweeties home with me!!

Rooster Run Finn Fleece was to dye for! Pun intended here:)

Luna Ortiz of http://www.blueballmountainspindleneedleworks.blogspot.com The picture of me is courtesy of Luna!

Mom's Yarn

A little story behind the yarn here. See, Mom & I were at the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival. She being Mom saw the cutest little felt bag. So, I sent her back out from the booth to find some fiber to be spun for her to knit into the cute little bag with trinkets tacked on. Well, she came back all excited talking about another seller who had the perfect shade of pink she wanted for her bag. I went back and haggled, well, not really. The woman hated the pink color and I asked her how much for all. We lucked into over 1 pound of pink romney for $10…lol I still keep thinking we made out like bandits on the fiber! And I’ll bet she is thinking we are the biggest suckers…lol

Anyhow, I carded up about 8 ounces of it with a bit of yellow merino, silk, red firestar and blue wool nepps. The pictures are a pictoral of how the yarn started and how it ends.

Original ball of pink with spun yarn

I don't often spin from batts in batt like form! As I am taking them off the drum carder, I use two knitting needles to roll them off the carder into drum carded Puni's similar to cotton Puni's. From here, I can either draft the puni, spin from the puni or un-roll the puni to spin from depending on my present mood:)

Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival!!

What's up for this week end? Well, another Fiber Faire of course!

I have yet to attend the Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival, but that didn't stop me from signing up to be a vendor. Most of the gals in my knitting/spinning group have been to the show in the past and I have heard nothing but good things about it! You can find out a bit more about it here: Southern Indiana FiberArts Festival.

There will be demonstrations, classes, critters and of course what fiber festival would be complete with out tons of fiber. I'll be there with two floor model Louet spinning wheels for anyone who would like to see and feel the joy of spinning on a wheel with ball bearings! If I had only known now, what I knew then, I would have bought a Louet....lol

Hope to see y'all there!

KY Wool Festival!!

And here it is! A few pictures of LunabudKnits at the Kentucky Wool Festival near Kincade Lake State Park in Falmouth, KY. A good time was had by all.

There are of course a plethera of craft vendors, demonstrations, pony rides and the carnival food area. Trust me that I had my fair share and then some of the sugary delight that is the funnel cake! A little bit of this and that to make even the fussiest faire goers happy. But what makes this little Kentucky event special is the WOOL TENT!

In the wool tent, knitters and spinners alike have plenty of options to choose from. I was drooling over the hand dyed rovings and yarns. We had batts galore as well as weavers who were busy at their looms. Spinners could be seen here, there and everywhere! There was a very nice selection of supplies for all fiber crafts, from felting to spinning, to knitting to weaving. It was a glorious week end for all! And here are a few pictures to prove it!

Yes, my booth can use a little help. But it will be looking a bit better at the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival Oct 16th & 17th.

One of my Ravelry buddies and I.

My little display tower of power!

We do have a blog up all about the Wool Tent and you can view it here: Wool Tent.

Perfect Pie Shawl

I was working a home and garden trade show when I started this shawl. I had brought the book ' Weekend Knitting' by Melanie Falick with me to keep me occupied, and decided on a whim to go to the kentucky crafted show that was next door. Bought a few skeins of Kid Mohair Blend from Koenig Farm Spinnery and got started right away. The pattern is actually a pattern from Veronik Avery. I opted to use the knit lace edging as opposed to the crochet edging and I really like how it turned out:)

Close up of Shawl Detail

whole shawl

It's a Bee Thing

More like a bee removal things;) I know Bill is happy, but I'm a little sad to see our intruders go. They were definitely not aggressive and were kind enough to let me mow around them. The good thing is they will be returning in a few weeks! I am definitely stoked about that. Hopefully next year at this time we will have our own honey! We have even come up with a label for our jars 'Strat'o'Bees' kind of a play on 'Billabong' surfer wear.

Bee Men Suiting up

Pulling up the siding. Note: The bee guys did an excellent job removing the siding:)

Sawing away the base to get into the floor joist.

Open Sesame

In almost 2 weeks time, this is what our busy little bees have been up to.

Removal of the comb.

The comb being put in frames

Removal of bees using a special shop vac that does not hurt he bees. It does make them very angry though.

All finished

My honey making friends ready to go on vacation until they get use to their new home and we get all cracks filled.

Faux Monster Socks

A simple pair of toe up socks all of my own:) I started out with a figure eight cast on and knit toe up to the hour glass heel. I am now in the final stretch to the finish line.

I don’t know about you, but I really like the look of monster socks. The idea of weaving in all those loose ends….. Not so much! So I thought on it and thought on it. Finally I hit on a little idea, fun little dye technique so that I can knit the monster socks and not have to weave in all the ends.

I’m a big fan of knitting toe up because it allows me to try on the socks as I am working on them. I know when to knit my heel and how well they will fit. I’m a big time frogger, so it comes in handy to not have to rip out an entire project just to get it right.