Handspun Yarn for My Mom!

My mom is one of my very best friends, and she's also the one who taught me to sew and crochet! Ever since I started learning to spin, I have had an idea in my head to make beautiful yarn for her. Of course, it took me a few test skeins to get to gift-worthy yarn, but I think I finally did it. My mom's birthday was yesterday, November 22nd, and this is what I gave her:

I even made my own custom label, but I must give credit to Blarney Yarn for her super-soft wool blend and gorgeous hand-painted autumn colors.

You may recognize this wool from my past post on the Vista Fiber Fiesta!

I spun and plied the yarn on my trusty Ashford spindle.

Stretching the yarn out on my noddy-noddy showed the colors to their best advantage and got it ready to soak. 

Yarn soup! Soaking the yarn helped clean it and set it.

Last, I hung it to dry on a hook that was left in front of what will soon be my craft room. (I can't wait to repaint or replace that door, though!)

What do you think? I want to try dyeing my own yarn next!

-Assunta

PS- I had a great time at Hearts & Hands on Saturday. I brought a friend and we each made a few spool knit hats for refugees. Making the hats was fun, but the best part was being around people from different backgrounds all working together and using their creativity to help others! It was wonderful to see!

Gem Faire and the Vista Fiber Fiesta

A few weeks ago a friend and I went to Gem Faire to look at pretty sparkly things! I got lots of nice green beads to make my beautiful mom-in-law this bracelet for her birthday. I had to wait a couple weeks to post it so I wouldn't spoil the surprise:

Then last week I went with a group of friends to the Vista Fiber Fiesta. There was so much beautiful yarn and fiber that it was hard not to buy way too much! I managed to keep my purchases down to three things.

The first is this hand-painted wool by Blarney Yarn. I bought some purple and gold wool from her last year and I just love her colors, don't you?

I also got this sock yarn by Laser Sheep. I have been looking for some rainbow yarn that isn't too loud and I think this is just perfect. The color is called Sheepicorn and it's made of wool and nylon. Laser Sheep also has lots of yarn inspired superheros and nerd culture. Very cool! 

I saved this purchase for last because it's the least brightly colored...for the moment. It's acala cotton from Brookmoore Creations and I'm going to try dyeing it with plant-based dyes like I saw in Guatemala. I don't know what colors I'm going to use yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it!

Well, that's probably all the new stuff I should buy for awhile, but at least it will keep me happy with spinning, knitting, and dyeing!

-Assunta