A student is attending Fibres West https://www.fibreswest.com later this month and asked me about the features I look for in a Plying Kate. Free Standing: The ability to position the Kate a distance from the wheel helps to even out the twist. Compact: Can be broken down for easy storage.… Read More »Hardworking Kates
I thought I would share a few photos of a knitting project in travel mode. The project currently on my needles is “Alfred” by Norwegian knitwear designer Wiola. The photos below show how I manage to keep my knitting organized while traveling. When I bring along a stranded knitting project,… Read More »If the shoe fits
Any Guild or Associate Member belonging to the MidAtlantic Fibre Association is eligible to register for this virtual workshop being offered in the Spring of 2026. Membership info may be found here https://mafafiber.org/about-us/join-us/guild-membership-application-renewal/ or here https://mafafiber.org/about-us/join-us/associate-members/ One Handpainted Braid – Six Different Color Effects Handpainted braids are wonderful sources of… Read More »MAFA Virtual Workshop
Dressed distaff before… I thought this might give you a gigge. When I wrote the “Dressing my Distaff” post I could not find the photo of how I dressed the distaff before I dizzed handpainted braids in one long strip or thought of adding the twist. This worked fine, but… Read More »Dressing my Distaff 2
Dressing my distaff with dizzed sliver or carded roving has been an evolution. In the beginning I placed the lengths of dizzed sliver/roving in a bowl (see above). As my lengths of dizzed fibre became longer, I needed to figure out a better system. This is when I turned to… Read More »How I Dress My Distaff
My last two handspun, hand knit projects were stranded knit hats. I used a gorgeous natural dark brown for the MC (main colour) and a handpainted braid from Crafty JAKS in their “Sea Stars” colourway for the CC (contrast colour). I choose Sea Stars because to me the colours and… Read More »A Distaff & A Lock-Pop
I was recently asked if I could share how I maintain grist, a consistent thickness in my handspun. First, I think it is important for me to stress that my spinning does contain inconsistencies but those inconsistencies are not nearly as noticeable once turned into woven or knitted fabric. Here… Read More »The gist of grist
As mentioned in Part II, my hands get quite warm and sometimes moist when I spin silk. Not a good combination at all. As the silk starts to stick to my hands, the fibre source becomes disheveled causing the fibre to draft poorly. Several years ago, I decided to see… Read More »Eri Silk, Part III
HYDRATING ERI SLIVER The night prior to preparing rolags, I place a length of sliver in a baggie along with a damp cotton ball, which has been gently squeezed to prevent dripping. After tucking the damp cotton ball into a corner of the baggie away from the sliver, the baggie is… Read More »Eri Silk, Part II
The handspun textural accents in this scarf were spun from hand-painted eri sliver. The fibre preparation had a silky soft hand and a satiny sheen. Quite a contrast to my first experience spinning eri fibre from India in the early 1980’s. At that time, the traditional degumming process subjected cocoons… Read More »Eri Silk, Part I