Going round in circles

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out some Icelandic roving and my Turkish spindle and started to play.  (And that sounds like a small world, right?  All I needed was a Belgian waffle and a Brazilian... um, nevermind)

Here's a video all about Turkish spindles, with Abby Franquemont, who is the Master of All Things Spindly.  I watched that one, as well as several others, as I got ready to give my new toy a whirl.

Assemble the parts.

I love how it sits at a jaunty angle when at rest, rather than rolling off into the next room when it hits the floor.  Or worse, rolling towards the nearest cat, who will be utterly convinced that you've brought it the Best New Cat Toy EVER.  (Woohoo!)
There was a learning curve, combined with a re-learning curve.  I haven't done any spindle spinning in at least 3 years, and I've only used a top-whorl spindle.  The weight distribution of the bottom-whorl was a little hard to get used to.  (I may try to assemble this one upside down and see it it's usable that way.  Experimenting is always fun.)  (Well, not always, but usually.)  (Well, sometimes.)

Once I got some singles built up, I pulled the pin,

yanked off its arms,

and was left with a little center-pull ball ready to be plied.
I tied the leader back to the spindle

and plied from both ends and ended up with a sweet little ball of yarn.

It's not my best spinning ever, but it's by far not my worst, either.  (Full disclosure - there was a lot of cussing involved in the plying process.  Those singles were really lively and prone to twist.  With each other, with themselves, with my hair, with the spindle itself.  It wasn't all "Tada!  Yarn!") 
And even though it's all neatly packaged in a nice center pull ball, I'm going to hunt up my kniddy knoddy and wind it off into a skein so I can soak it to distribute the twist a little better. 
I'm really pleased with this new spindle.  It's fun that it disassembles to pack flat, which makes it beautifully portable.
I'm already planning to make a bag for it, too.  Because obviously I don't have enough to do.

'Playing Catch-up' should be my middle name

Since I'm running behind in the RSC (because apparently I mislaid the first two weeks of May) (they're probably on my cutting table somewhere, buried under some 2.5" strips) (though if you should happen to see them somewhere else, would you send them back to me, please?) (now where was I?  Oh, yeah), I continued to work with green today.
More kaleidoscopes, of course.  But you knew that.

And one Chantal's Pinwheel.

And I made a push on April's 365 Challenge blocks and managed to get caught up through the 15th.  Yay!  I'm only a month behind again!

One of the personal challenges I've found in this project is making use of what I've got.  I normally cut strips and squares in 1.5", 2", 2.5", and 3.5" sizes, and making these small blocks frequently calls for off-standard measurements.
I needed a 3.25" square, which I trimmed off the end of a 3.5" strip,

and four 1.75" squares, which I got by cutting a 3.5" square into quarters.

These went into making some quick-pieced flying geese, which is a technique that is the next best thing to magic.

Though I found that the measurements were off in the block patterns, and I would have been a lot better off starting with a 2.75" square rather than that 3.25" one.  Lesson learned.  (Math is our friend.  Seam allowances are not.)  Next time I make 3" Sawtooth star variations, I'll know exactly what I'm doing!


And for the record, I haven't started a new project.  It's purely a coincidence that I've been experimenting with applique for no particular reason. 

As one does.



Linking with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come watch us all play with scraps!

April Showers Bring May... um... Piglets

Trying to get back in the groove, here.  I had a fabulous time at Maryland Sheep and Wool - saw lots of sheep and fiber and bunnies and fiber and more sheep and much much more fiber.

I had to keep reminding myself how much wool and alpaca fleece I have tucked away already in order to not be tempted by all the goodies on display. (And my oh my, were there ever goodies on display!)
I did buy a Turkish spindle, which is one of those things I've always wanted, and I'm going to play with it as soon as I go dig out some of that aforementioned wool.  (Expect a post sometime soon!)

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I've been learning to use the new sewing machine my kids gave me for Mother's Day.  It's down on the simple end of machines these days, meaning it does way more embroidery stitches than I'll ever use and the manual is the same thickness as the one that came with my car.  But OMG it threads its own needles and I've played with that feature more than is strictly necessary because look what it did! and I'm easily tickled.
So once I got comfortable enough with it that I no longer suspected it would sew my fingers to my leg, I put it to work.
First, of course, were a couple of piggies.
Angela has given us a foresty green for May, and I found a few suitable fabrics right off.

And then I had to make a couple of kaleidoscopes.  Purely in the interest of research, mind you.  Testing 1 2 3 and all that.

And there are a couple more strip sets already ready to go, so I suspect there will be more.

Can't wait to see what this sewing machine gets up to next!


Linking with So Scrappy for ScrapHappy Saturday.  Come see big green fun!
And I almost missed the May linkup for Scraptastic Tuesday, so here ya go.  Even more scrappy fun!

On the road again!

Heading for Maryland for Maryland Sheep and Wool.  Woohoo!  My first time ever, so I'm excited!
And going with my kids?  Priceless...

One medallion down, a couple hundred blocks to go!

I finished the corners and borders for the 365 Challenge central medallion and got them all sewn together.  Woohoo!

 Then it was back to making dark little 3" blocks to surround that medallion with.  There will be 96 of them all together, then we move on to the 6" blocks for a while.  Woohoo!

I finally found the ruler of my dreams, which is making the squaring of these little blocks a whooooole lot simpler!

I'm almost caught up with the first 2 weeks of April now.  Then there's the second two weeks of April.  And however much of May has gone by, by the time I finish April.
Yeah, this'll work.  I can totally do this.

And there's a new Quilt Along starting up that's very intriguing.  Not that I'm going to join it, of course.  Absolutely not.  Just because I already had a basket block traced out that I was planning to do eventually anyway is no excuse to start a new project.  No way am I going to tackle this.  Nope.  Totally not happening.  Nope.
Of course, there's no harm in pulling some fabric.

Purely as a hypothetical, of course.

The Last Pigs of April

(Does that sound like the title of an awful novel that we had to Read and Discuss in an American Lit class, or is it just me?)  (It's just me, isn't it?)

Anyway!

I finished my last two orange piglets for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  I'm trying not to think about the fact that I made at least ten of them in orange.  My original goal was to make four of each color for the RSC, and I think I've made at least eight every month.  At this rate, by October I'll have enough blocks to make a quilt that will stretch from here to Iowa.  (Hear that, Cathy?  We're coming for ya!)

Much as I love my kaleidoscopes, these piglets are really my favorite of my RSC blocks.  The Amazing Sally T gets the blame credit for my mad piggy-making, since she's the one who designed this little cutie.  (See the 'Featured Post' in my sidebar for links to her tutorials.)

Though the ten piglets were an easier thing to keep up with than the 30 orange peel blocks of April (Thirty?  //muttering 'thirty days hath September, April...'  Yep, thirty!) that got away from me for the Quilty 365.  I ran out of steam around mid-April I think, with some blocks stitched,

and others just cut out and pinned.

I think with a bit of a push, I can catch up and put this project back on track.  A little snipping, a little stitching - totally doable!
Though sometimes I think optimism may be my biggest character flaw...

Not all the scraps make rainbows

After that heroic effort to catch up with the 365 Challenge, I've managed to fall behind again.

The first four days of April were meant for making the borders which surround the central medallion.  I'd hit a stop with these while I was visiting my daughter, since I hadn't brought enough fabric with me to make these 6"x18" blocks.
I've now managed to get one of them done.

And the first two corners that will help rope in that medallion.

So, taking the medallion that I made at the end of February,

I've posed it with one border section and the first two corners.

One side surrounded, three to go.
I think I can, I think I can...



Linking to Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.  Come join the fun!