Hunter-Gatherer

I suppose that is what I have become now that the natural dye bug has set in.  Today I took the camera with me as I was visiting with the horse and totally neglected to take a single picture.  But, I did manage to come home with a bounty of lichens and fungi for dying.  

Walmart bag half full of lichens and spider stow away.

Mystery fungi.  Anyone know if it will give dye?  There are plenty more small ones growing where I found these.

  

Pretty sure this is a lichen of some sort.  Found it on the base of a rotting log.

And what is this?  Well, I'm working on a free pattern for a new lace yarn.  Let me tell you this is one yummy little number!  More details coming soon!

Mid-Ohio Fiber Fair

The week end of August 20-21 found the LunabudKnits booth at the Mid-Ohio Fiber Fair in Newark Ohio.  The setting was absolutely wonderful.  All of the vendors were indoors in the Reese Center on OSU's/Central Ohio Tech Campus; completely air conditioned and out of the rain!

It just wouldn't be right if our fun little handpainted Louet S17 wasn't there to say hello to everyone:)  Of course it is cushioned with a few of the art batts!

For a first year festival, there were a ton of great vendors there as well as a very good little crowd.  I had a ton of fun getting to know the customers, other vendors and playing with the Strauch Mad Batt'r as a demonstration.

It was pure joy to meet the gals from the Ohio Natural Fiber Network.  I especially had fun with the girls from That'll do Farm picking out colors, fibers and things that glitter for their first go round of art batts!  What fun!!

The tidy side of my booth.

The messy side of the booth.  One would think by now, I would have learned to hide my hot pink bins BEFORE taking the picture!

Spun and knit sample of the Baby Camel and Merino blend.

Handspun yarns.

A few of the new hand dyed colorways from left to right:  Acerbitas(dark reds), Orsus (blues and purples), Chronos(browns/grey), Thanatos(purple/black), Euryale(gold, blues, browns, touches of green, etc)

Tour de Fleece Start

Started the Tour de Fleece this year with a bang literally!  Bill frowns on bringing a spinning wheel to the lake when we go so this year, I opted for a couple of spindles.

After giving the boat a quick clean and hitting the dock kitchen for a greasy burger & fries, it was time to hit the water to drift in wait for the big 4th of July fire works show put on at our end of the lake.  This year it was between Kennedy & Sunset Marinas.  

This is the first year that my allergies have really gone hay wire.  I think that since I have quit smoking over a year ago my nose is really affected by all the things that never bothered it before.  I'm not complaining though as I very much so enjoy being able to breath after going for a short walk;)

Our boat.  Click to 'biggify'.  The arrow points straight at us.

Spindling before the big show.

The pre-show.

The big show about to start.

After the show, get out of the way or prepared to be run over.  This is a wall of boats heading our way to go back down the lake to their perspective docks.

Singles

Dropped the fiber into the lake.  No way am I going in after it.

You too can be protected from the big storm...lol  Amazing what you see on the way to the lake!

Handspun fingerless gloves

Oooh, I love spinning blended silk singles! The last batch I did was using alpaca, firestar, glitz, sari silk and silk hankies and it was devine! Here is how I worked in the hankies. After they are dyed, cut them into quarters and pull them apart with your hands before feeding them into the carder. You are going to want to recard this blend several times to get a good mix. The joy of this prep is that you get some very lovely silky slubs in your yarn. You can see the results in the finished gloves below.



I've got a smidge of the yarn left over some where. If I ever find it, I'll post a pic of that too:)

Etsy Updates

I have listed tons of new fun stuff in my Etsy store Lunabudknits/Weed of Dreams. From Roving to yarn you can see a few examples below.....