I’ve been playing with yarn for quite a while now.

Knitting it since I was a child

Crocheting it since as early as I can remember

Learning to spin my own in late 2008

There is so much creative potential in a strand of yarn.

Enjoy!

First up? Mushrooms – A Bolete to be more precise. Which Bolete one might ask? I have no idea & won’t pretend that I do. But see the interesting underside of this one? So cool. And watch what happens in the next photo.

Well, would you look at that! In the dyebath, those spongy tubes pretty much stick together. Icky and awesome all at the same time!

All of these mini hanks on the were dyed with mushrooms, the yellows and greens on the right were dyed with the Boletes, the 5 mini hanks on the left were dyed with dried mushrooms – a miscellaneous mix that I collected a while back and didn’t do a good job of labeling. Some were dipped in a copper sulfate bath after dyeing.

I’ll upload my walnut and goldenrod dyed yarns when I can – stay tuned!

After 153 jars and 4 days I can honestly say I no longer fear the pressure cooker.

No longer King of the South, but it’s definitely still grown here.

I wish I had confidence that this lovely boll would be completely processed here in the U.S. after it’s harvested.

Maybe I’ll just stay living in this bubble for a little while longer. Along with the dream that it’ll all be dyed in an environmentally friendly way too.

Want to join me in my fantasy world?

Cotton. It’s a beautiful thing.

So I went to the yarn drawers looking for a couple of potential combinations to start a great accessory.

These two jumped out at me together and gave me absolutely no choice but to put them on my ball winder and get ready for the road.

It is time to get in the car yet????

My Mom gifted me with a planter she received as a gift when I was born. Ironically, I started college as a music/piano major & finished as a horticulture major.

The repurposing of the planter & the organization of my needles makes me quite happy.

I’ve been working for several months on pulling together the details for hosting a spinning retreat. This time last year I was a brand new spinner and traveled to the panhandle of Florida for the opportunity to spend the weekend with other spinners. I had a blast, but 10 hours (one way) on the road seemed like a lot……. so I started searching for other spinning events.

When I couldn’t find anything closer, I figured there might be a few other people who would also be interested in getting away with their fiber, their wheel or spindles, and being surrounded by other people who “get it” when words like drive ratios, treadle, S or Z twist, BFL vs. Romney, combing vs. carding, rolags, roving, batts, punys, all those esoteric details that our friends and family endure, sometimes politely, sometimes rolling their eyes, come rolling off our tongues.

(By the way non-spinning people, the smirks and eyerolling really aren’t necessary. Just a genuine oooooohhhhhh, or aaaaahhhhhhhh when we show you the latest skein would be wise………Here’s the most important tip I can give to a non-spinner: when shown a skein of handspun yarn, don’t ever let your first question be “what are you going to do with that”? Just don’t go there.)

I digress……. back to the retreat. So I decided to explore hosting a spinning retreat and today the registration information is ready. You can click on the link on the top right sidebar, or you can click here. Here’s a photo we took when we selected the site for the retreat:

It’s going to be a fantastic weekend. Classes will be available, but optional. Vendors will be available. Evening activities are being planned. Door prizes are being gathered. Spinners and fiber fanatics are going to be together on a southern plantation (here’s where we’ll be), in the southeastern United States, in the early spring. What could be better? I hope you’ll make plans to join us.