Apologize

Reference

Well, Mel ask for a close up, so here it is.

Yep, the tattoos are long gone. They only lasted about two days, and then they started to wear off, so we washed them the rest of the way off. You see, they were only airbrush tattoos. Sorry to disappoint.

We got the tattoos on vacation down Rehoboth Beach, DE. On our first night down there, we were walking Rehoboth Avenue, and saw the tattoo designs outside of a place that does teeth whitening and spray tans. (Wait, it gets better.)  As we were looking at the designs, our twelve year old saleslady comes out to greet us and inform us that the airbrush tattoos are buy 2, get 1 free. How could we refuse? (So, Roseann, you are correct, there was a Chinese character on Mr. Penney’s upper arm. That one was performed by our young saleslady. That was our free tattoo.) The tattoos were rather realistic while they were on, as we went to the Double L (a leather bar) and people were surprised to hear that the tattoos were not permanent.

As for how long they lasted, they started to wear off after two days. Not wanting to look smudged, we washed them off after that.

I was actually kind of surprised by how mine looked. While I like how tattoos look on some people, I figured it just wasn’t something that wouldn’t look right on me, like I was trying to be something that I am not. But the armband that I chose, that couldn’t go around my whole bicep (Welcome to the gun show!), reminded me if ikat, and didn’t look totally out of place on me, like I feared. Maybe one day I will get a tattoo, but I do have the concern that Lisa expressed, which is how it will look 30 years from now. Everything might not be so taut and lovely as it is now.

As for fibery things, all that is moving along at a good pace. Here are a couple pics of the spinning as of a few weeks ago.

All of my available bobbins were full for this picture. I have had to wind the yarn off the bobbins to free them up for more spinning, of which I have done two more bobbins. I figure I have about three more bobbins worth of spinning to go with this fleece. I am thinking of dyeing the yarn different colors for warp and weft, so if anyone has recommendations for dyeing handspun singles such that they do not become an unruly mess, I am all ears.

The socks are nearing completion.

And Roseann was correct again, these are for Mr. Penney. His birthday was while we were on vacation, and these are to keep his feet comfy. They were also a chance for me to test knit the write up of this pattern, which was a good thing, because the instructions for the heel were a mess.

The scarf is coming along as well.

It is still kind of boring as far as knitting projects go, but the change in colors helps.

And there is one more thing,

That I will get into later.

Copyright 2010 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Hide and Seek

Reference Actually, this is my least favorite track on the CD.

This is kind of embarrassing to admit, given how I tease others for having to go through their stashes so that they don’t go out and buy something that they already have hidden away somewhere; but when I went searching through containers to find the worsted weight that I told you about in the last post, I found yarn that I forgot that I had! Fortunately, it is such great stuff that I have gotten over my embarrassment rather quickly.

As a means of setting the scene, the Interlacements yarn was purchased from Judy Ditmore during MAFA’s 2005 conference. That was the same time that I purchased the yarn for Mr. Penney’s sofa shawl. Well, one of the other vendors at that conference was Habu!

Yes, that’s right. It was chance to see Habu’s yarn’s first hand, rather than just on the website. And to see and touch these yarns meant that I had to purchase some.

This is 20/3 bamboo. It feels wonderful, and I have 13.7 ounces of it. SQUEEE!

This is 2/48 merino wool. I have about 7 ounces of this. There is no suggested epi for this yarn on the site, so I am going to have to do a wrap to find out what sett I will do.

And finally, there is this little wonder, 21/3×2 silk organize. According to the label, there are 4600 yards per skein for this silk, and I have 4 skeins of it. Working with this will probably make my head hurt, but it will be worth it.

Now, if you notice, all of this is undyed. Toward that end, this arrived in the mail the other day:

Granted, I have done dyeing before; but having additional references is never a bad thing for me. Dye days will be in my future!

Copyright 2009 by G. P. Donohue for textillian.com

Warp painting – scarf

This is my experiment with warp painting.

Warp painted scarf

See what happens when I have idle time on my hands. I had always wanted to try warp painting; and since I had accumulated all of the supplies, I went for it.

The warp and the weft for this scarf is a cotton novelty yarn that was purchased at The Mannings in Pennsylvania. The dyes used were from a Procion sampler pack. Both the warp and the weft were dyed with the blue, then the warp yarn was painted additional colors using a cool red and a yellow before the warp was placed on the loom.

Below is a close up view of the weave structure. It is a simple plain weave. The pattern requires 2 harnesses, and the sett is 10 e.p.i.

Warp painted scarf close-up

Natural dye blanket

This is the result of a natural dye workshop.

Natural dye blanket

My weaving guild had a natural dye workshop with Louise Wheatly. I had just received a large amount of yarn that I had spun for me by Taos Valley from Romney that I had bought from Triple R Farm. This is what I used this for the workshop, and is what I used to weave this throw.

The warp and the weft are the same wool, with the warp being composed of various dye experiments (walnut bark, indigo, weld, and coreopsis) from the workshop. The dye used for the weft was the exhaust from the dyebath of the walnut bark.

Below is a close up view of the weave structure. It is a simple plain weave. This pattern requires 2 harnesses, and the sett is 6 e.p.i.

Natural dye blanket close-up