Fiber at the Speed of Life Podcast

Well there has been a lot of life and quite a bit of time, we are still here and sharing the fibre arts we do as life allows!

We had a lot of life and even more fiber arts! Check out our show notes at https://weavolution.com/fiberlife

Michelle and Erica catch up on their lives (as always) and crafting. See weavolution.com/fiberlife for full show notes.

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast Finished Objects Erica finished sewing a new Persian Robe out of purple and fuscia handwoven twill fabric! TJ finished weaving off the warp on his rigid heddle loom! Erica will be warping the loom up again for lessons for other kids in the SCA here in the UK and Europe. WIP's Erica is working on thank you gifts for her upcoming Laurel elevation ceremony. She has woven wool cloth for her Laurel Robe of Honor and is using the rest to make the covers of needle case books! She has warped the loom for about 15 handwoven hankerchiefs, because she knows of few of her close friends will be crying a lot of tears of joy during the ceremony! :) Erica has been working on another pair of socks for TJ.

Erica and Michelle talk projects and TV recommendations. Feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments of this episode's show notes. weavolution.com/group/fiber-speed-life-podcast/episode-36

Sponsored by Weavolution Full Shownotes at https://www.weavolution.com/group/fiber-speed-life-podcast/episode-35 If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook Weavolution New intro and outro music Bring Me the Sky by Scott Buckley https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/ Finished objects: Michelle has been working on macrame plant hangers. This teardrop white one is a shape that she likes, but the execution of the bottom is not quite right.  She finished this orange plant hanger, but hasn't put a plant in it yet.   Works in Progress Michelle is working on a version of the white teardrop in blue, without the tassel on the bottom. She learned how to make other plant hangers without tassels but is working on figuring out how to make this kind on her own.   Second pair of hand knit socks!   Damask trim   Works in Progress Duelling Club Fingerless Mitt two from Knitting Magic. Erica has had quite the journey knitting this pair of fingerless mitts. It has taught her a lot and has been quite fun and funny! The journey even including making her own "circular needles". Erica really appreciates the spining her friend Julian and Kristin have done. She is having a blast winding the warp and looks forward to weaving cloth that they will share!

Full Show Notes at: http://weavolution.com/group/fiber-speed-life-podcast/episode-34-0 Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook Weavolution:  Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you Finished objects: Michelle has been crocheting. She made a griffin and a phoenix for her daughters. Technically the griffin is still a work in progress as I forgot to attach her tail.  For Halloween, in the interest of distancing, I made my daughters "floating" witch hats. We didn't have costumes for them, so they wore their Harry Potter robes from a couple years ago. That way, I could make these hats where it might look like they were casting "Wingardium Leviosa" on them.    Michelle bought this cross stitch pattern for her daughter a couple years ago but decided to do it herself when her daughter didn't. She's glad her daughter has since picked out something else as this one has way too much gold thread, which can be difficult to work with. She still needs to get it framed.   Erica and Oli installed a new kitchen door! Hurray! Erica also finished her Ginny Cardigan! What?! She is in love with this cardigan, she shawl collar is the length she wanted and it fits beautifully!   Erica finished her cotton underdress, the only thing it needs is the have the very inside seams turned over and sewn down.   Works in Progress: Erica is working on the second pair of socks for herself.   She's also working on a hat for her dad for the holidays! This hat is being knit from her own handspun yarn. Finally she has woven a damask sample to show to Her Highness Rogned. Her Highness loves the design and Erica will be weaving the trim in this design. Her Highness noted that the bottom is  a bit flat, so Erica has taken out the first line of the design and the crescents round out really well.   Finally Erica's spin direction study project is on hold after discovering she spun and plied one  of the yarns in the same direction! Whaw, whaw, whaw! :(  

For show notes please see: weavolution.com/group/fiber-speed-life-podcast/episode-33 For early access, please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/weavolution

Finished objects. Previously, Michelle talked about how her daughter was weaving a rug. Her younger daughter also wants to weave one, but all we had left was white rug yarn. So we dyed it. It's red, fuschia and purple. Works in Progress:   Michelle did some spinning. This was roving dyed back in her Washtenaw Wool dyeing days. 

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast Finished objects Michelle made some "flannel towels" to use in place of paper towels. She was given a serger to use, so she had to figure out how to use it. Eventually, she got it working properly and made a large stack of flannel towels. They have nicer edges than the ones she had only zig zagged.      Michelle also warped her loom and wove a rug with her core spun alpaca rug yarn. It's so soft! She had sent some alpaca fleeces to Rovenko's Windy Acres mill to be spun. They variegated (after asking) the colors in the yarn and it turned out so perfect!   Michelle's daughter (Thing 1) asked to weave a rug, so Michelle taught her how to weave when she finished her rug. Thing 1 is now half way through weaving her rug. There should be enough warp on the loom for one more, which Thing 2 has asked to weave.   Erica finished weaving Oli's scarf from Handpsun yarn, the project page can be found here. This was woven mainly with Wool N Spinning Breed and Color Study yarn, which was formerly known as the mystery wool spin on the podcast. This  yarn was spun while watching Wimbeldon right before Erica's last trip home to the US.

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast FO's Erica has finished the loooonnnngggg linen band!!! Yeah, on to mangling it (soaking it in hot soapy water then abusing it)!   Michelle has been playing with macrame this month. She made 4 plant hangers to help with her growing plant collection. Three look like this one.     This was the first one she made. There was enough string left over so she decided to make this one a double hanger.     Michelle finished the test knit she was working on. It still needs to be blocked, but it will be a beautiful shawl (as long as her mistakes aren't too obvious).     WIP Erica is still working on the Dueling Fingerless Mitts. The mitts are coming along nicely!   Erica is putting another handspun warp on her Glimakra Ideal loom for Oli. He picked these yarns out of the handspun stash for Yule a few years ago!     Erica is also looking to upgrade some equipment in her studio, more on that in future episodes!

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast Finished Objects Erica has finished one object! This handpun yarn. It was a great project and she is glad to have one FO.   THE BIN         Works in Progress Michelle continues to knit on the test knit she volunteered to do.     Michelle tried making rolags with her blending board.  This is a Shetland fleece she obtained a while back. She planned to blend it with a darker Merino also from a while back.       She opened the locks a bit then ran them though the wool picker her dad made for her. This opened the locks further.   She loaded her blending board with some of the lighter Shetland and darker Merino and started rolling it off into rolags.     The finished rolags.     Erica has started spinning another one-of-a-kind, Once in a Lifetime colourway from Fiber Optic Yarns! It is beautiful!  The Dueling Club Fingerless Mitt for TJ is coming along nicely! Here is the cloth Erica's student is weaving. :) Erica's handspun study warp #2 will be used as photographed below, a 3/1 twill, which really emphasizes the handspun yarn over the structure of anything else. 

Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Thank you for tuning in, Erica is a bit off her game in the first half, which was recorded the week after her second COVID shot/jab. Erica thanks our listeners for their understanding! Erica Finished threading 800 beads for TJ's first Dueling Club mitt.     Finished knitting the body of her Ginny cardigan. While knitting this cardi (and listening to one of Rick Riordan's books on Audible) it occurred to her that knit stitches are a bit like finger cuffs, if you get them too far apart from each other or too close together they get tighter! :) Thank you Jenny of Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off!! I don't know who you are or how you figured this out, but yes this is the perfect stretchy bind-off!!!! The bind off took quite a bit of time, but it was definitely worth it! Erica has also picked up and knit the stitches for the shawl collar!! This feature is the reason she chose this pattern. Thankfully two days before she was ready to pick up and knit the stitches, she listened to the most recent Two Ewes Fiber Adventures Podcast. In this Episode Kelly and Marsha talked about 2 tips they had learned for great results when picking up and knitting stitches. Tip 1 use 1 size smaller needle when you are doing the pick up and knit stitches! Tip 2 pick up and knit all stitches, then decrease as needed to get the final amount of stitches that you need for the pattern!     Erica's second pair of socks, sock #1 is going pretty well. Dueling Club fingerless Mitts are underway! :) Now that she has started knitting with beads, she's not sure why she ever thought she did not want to knit with beads! It is very easy! Erica does however recommend finding small children to thread the beads, if you have a large number to thread.      Erica spun singles of Sweet Georgia Yarn's Polwarth Silk blend in the Saltwater colourway. She rewound all the singles onto actual weaving bobbins, so there are small amounts on each bobbin. This will allow her to randomly ply the singles together with each other, in theory, this helps normalize the final yarn and help with consistency in the yarn.   Michelle sewed loops on some bowl buddies made by her sister https://www.facebook.com/mosburgjulie . Now they can hang on the wall and be easy to find.     Michelle made a bunch of flannel towels to use in place of paper towels. They measure 10X12 inches, which is what she saw in store bought ones. The scraps were used to make more tissues as Michelle is loving her reusable tissues and dispenser.     Since Michelle had the sewing machine out, she also converted some hand towels and hot pads into some hanging towels to put on the oven door handle.       Michelle finished another yarn bowl. It is very...bright. The picture doesn't do a good job of showing the pink over the yellow.   A failed yarn bowl that taught Michelle some lessons. Don't curve the sides of the bowl in, or they will slump and fuse the place for the yarn shut. Also, paint the underglaze on more thickly.     Michelle signed up to test knit a shawl. She has made it half way through the charts, which is not half way through the shawl.   The start of Frankenwheel: The original base with the leg glued back on. (Look at all the floor space she found in her craft room!)     The uprights need to be slightly further apart to hold the old flyer from my Ashford Traveler, so Michelle is going to use this piece of 1X2 inch board to put the uprights in.                

    Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Finished objects Erica's new chair for podcasting. She has been looking at this Ikea chair for a while. She finally purchased it and Oli helped her put it together before the podcast!   Erica has finished her 3 ply Fractured Dawn yarns on Organic Polwarth. She split each braid in 3 and spun one single of each before returning to the first braid. All 3 splits from the same braid were initially plied together then more yarns were made plying singles from different braids together.   Erica also finished her Wool N Spinning Charollais Breed and Color Study! She split the batt in three across the colourway, then rolled each piece and spun it long draw. The plied all three singles together. The final braid is a two ply of the remining singles.   She still needs a name, but Michelle finished her crochet spider that she started almost a year ago. She loves how she turned out! There are 64 "flowers" that make up the spider with little other crochet work. African flower spider pattern     The pattern only calls for two eyes, but a spider should have at least four.   Michelle has one finished yarn bowl. Others are waiting to be glazed. The underglaze needed to be a bit thicker, so the yellow made it a bit green, but she's happy with how it turned out. It's a smaller sized bowl.           Works in progress Michelle made a tissue dispenser for reusable tissues. She has started making tissues to go in it. Store-bought handkerchiefs are just too big and rather thin, so she got some flannel and a hemming foot for her sewing machine. It's working out pretty well.  There are a couple tweaks to implement for the next one I make.     Of course she didn't go for plain white. These are the colors she's made. The two on the very right are purple, but the picture shows them as blue. The lighter blue is also more of a teal.     The large handkerchiefs seemed way too big for single uses. Michelle made hers about 8 inches square, which seem to be a great one-time-then-wash size.     Erica has started spinning singles in two colourways. She is on a spinning roll and will start plying when she runs out of storage bobbins or enthusiasm for spinning singles! One set of singles she has spun is in the Bee Mice Elf Sprout gradient colourway. The second is a Targhee, Silk, Bamboo blend from Fiber Optic Yarns in a Once in a Lifetime colourway.     She has cast on the Ginny Cardigan from Harrisville Designs Nightshades Last Call colourway.    Finally, Erica and TJ are working on threading (correction) 800 beads for Dueling Club Mitts, from the book Harry Potter: Knitting Magic.    

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!   Finished Objects Erica Several Weavolution Tutorials. Weasley Jumper to TJ!!! I'm so excited that TJ will have it to open on Christmas day! Duplicate stitch was more difficult than I thought, possibly, because the main color is black./so dark. Two color knitting is quite easy in Portuguese style knitting, so for the next jumper I will knit the initial into the front of the jumper. I've also rewritten the pattern to knit the jumper in the round. I'm not exactly sure how I will deal with the sleeves whether I will still knit sleeves flat or pick up stitches and knit sleeve in the round top down.    I did finish Oli's socks in time for Christmas! Yeah!  Michelle Tawas Point lighthouse. Michelle saw this cutout of Michigan's lower peninsula and knew that it needed a lighthouse. She started this about a year ago, but just put on the finishing touches and glued it on the board. Two gnomes received their beards. Both have locks from the same Icelandic sheep.   Michelle also did a bit of spinning. This is either Polworth or Falkland. It is the last of the fiber she dyed this summer.   This blue wool is of unknown breed. Michelle believes the white in it is mohair.  Works in Progress Erica Oli sock #2 is going along really well, I also hope to have it done by Christmas to be opened as well, we shall see.   Damask Trim I have one entire design woven, hoping to make good progress over break.   Linen lining/tape I think I've got at least a meter woven now, also hope to make good progress over break. Organic Polwarth, picked back up just today, now that the jumper is done I'll be getting back to this spinning project. I took 3 braids and split each in 3 vertically. I have put storage bobbins and the fiber in their own plastic bags to keep this project organized. I am spinning one part of each braid, then a part of the second braid, then the third, and back to the beginning. I am doing this in an attempt to keep them fairly consistent. We shall see if that works! :) I also cast on a hat in some handspun to knit for my dad. Hopefully, it will knit up in time for him to get it this winter. :) Michelle Four gnomes that just need beards.   Crochet spider. 62 of 64 "flowers" made.      Michelle made a few yarn bowls that she added designs to. They're in the WIP because they still need to be fired and glazed. Her new kiln should arrive within a week or two!            

Finished Objects Erica The shawl!!!! Erica was so excited to finish her Half Pi Shawl. In Episode 1 she was swatching for this shawl! Erica has knit a few small shawls, but really wanted a really nice big shawl! She switched between Signature Needle Arts and Chiaogoo circular needles. Erica does love her Signature Needle Arts needles, but found the join on these difficult once the shawl got large and heavy.  Erica would love to hear listeners tips for knitting from center pull balls. Do you knit from the center or the outside? Michelle Michelle has been going through some of her older hand spun yarn and setting the twist in it. She was particularly bad about wet setting a couple years ago and the wash is helping refresh the yarn as well. Some was balled up already so it had to be put back into skeins. She finally got the opportunity to use this beautiful Amish style swift that was made by a friend of her Mom's and gifted to Michelle.       Works in Progress Michelle Michelle skirted and washed the fleeces she got from shearing day at Queso Cabeza farm. They are taking a long time to dry out in her garage in the cold weather.                Erica Erica seems to have taken Michelle's spinning mojo, oops! Erica is back to spinning the Organic Polwarth in the Fractured Dawn colourway from Crafty Jax. Erica purchased 3 braids and decided to spin a 3 ply yarn. Fractured Dawn is a random colourway so each braid starts with a different color. So Erica split each braid into 3 carefully put each split into a ball, then put all 3 balls from the same braid in a bag together. Erica is spinning a single from braid one, then braid two, then braid three and will start over again to make up for not being able to randomize the singles when plying to help distribute any variance in the singles spinning.     Erica is prepping the drawloom for her next warp. This will be a 4" warp sett at 60 epi (2/dent in a 30 epi reed). She is using the last of the Treenway Silks Bordello color yarn from her previous project. This will be woven into trim to use for her husband's garb, and probably some for herself too.     Socks Erica currently has socks on the needle for everyone in her family! She is extending her previous sock study by trying toe up socks again and testing out different short row methods. She has cast on the second sock for Oli's second pair of socks. For this sock she used the toe up Ann Budd short row toe method.     She cast on the first sock for TJ's second pair of socks. For TJ's sock Erica tried out the toe up German short row. Erica thinks TJ, yet again, picked the best color of all of us.     Erica also cast on for her second pair of socks using the toe up wedge toe, which she was the very first type of toe construction she tried and did not initially fall in love with this method. She is enjoying testing out new methods and looking forward to finally settling on a method that she really likes.     Finally, Erica bought the book Knitting Magic and plans to knit a Weasley Jumper for each member of her family. She started with TJ's jumper that is in Harrisville Highland Black and he chose Periwinkle for the contrasting color for his initial.      

  Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast Michelle is Ravelry: MichelleTF Instagram: michelletfcrafts Facebook: Valdelia Maker Erica is Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: weavemage Facebook: Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!   Shearing day: Michelle and her daughters attended shearing day at Queso Cabeza farm. They go whenever they can to help schlep fleeces, skirt, round up sheep and whatever else they can do to help Laura and Rick on the day...and to play with sheep and fleece, of course. They have about 45 Icelandic sheep in their herd. The weather was good and they had a good time, as always. Michelle learned that Icelandic fleece grows at about an inch a month, so they're plenty warm for the winter despite being sheared in October. The shearer does most of the work along with Rick and Laura.   This may be a fleece that followed Michelle home.   Thing 2 helping skirt. The sheet on her head was used to transfer the fleeces from where the shearer was shearing to the skirting table The shearer is quick, so they didn't get to fully clean any of the fleece before having to roll it up and bag it to start on the next.   Ryder the guard llama.   Thing 2 and Stevie, one of the bottle lambs.   This fleece followed Michelle home after the sheep "undressed".           Finished Objects! Michelle: Michelle finished skirting one of the Icelandic fleeces that followed her home. She plans to try tail spinning this fleece.       Michelle continues to spin down her stash. Here is a selection of what she has dyed and spun. The fibers include Polworth, Falkland, Targhee (she won't be spinning more of that) and Corriedale.         Erica: Erica finished weaving over 4 meters of purple damask with red weft! This warp was wound 1.5 years ago! Erica can hardly believe this cloth is all finally woven. Can you believe she first talked about her warp calculations woahs in Episode 2! She thought she might have a bit more warp on the loom to weave more cloth in another weft. Now she is contemplating whether to use this 4+ meters for a Sasanid Wrap or a Sasanid Robe.     Erica is also super excited that she has finished knitting another sock! This is sock #1 of pair #2 for her husband, Oli! Once she really got going on this sock it really was quite fast, but life, etc. means that this sock was 2 months in the making, definitely at the speed of life!     The magic swatch! Erica swatched for Weasley jumpers and got gauge on the recommended needle size. She actually got gauge on the first swatch. Erica and Michelle did not think that actually happened to people! :)   Works in progress   Michelle: Michelle is currently skirting the second of the Icelandic fleeces that followed her home.         Michelle is also spinning a Cheviot/Dorset cross white fleece. She's decided to use some of these singles for tail spinning the Icelandic. The rest will be plied and possibly dyed.     Erica: Erica continues to work on knitting a shawl for herself. ?This fingering weight semi-circular shawl is very fun to knit. Erica is glad she is back to knitting on it most days. She is using Replenish Rambouillet yarn in Persimmon from Two Ewes Fiber Adventures Shop. Her knitting pattern is: K2, P2 K2, P2 P2, K2 P2, K2 Erica thought this was double seed stitch, but now she thinks she may have not written the pattern down correctly, still, it is quite beautiful and she really loves it. She is excited to finish this knit, so she can compare wearing a shawl with wearing a cardi with a shawl collar.  

Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook:  Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Finished objects! Erica: Erica completely finished her 7th C Persian Cowl made from her handwoven damask silk! This has been a long term goal. This is one of the things she really wanted to weave when she decided to purchase her drawloom over 10 years ago! I turned out beautiful and she really feels like a Persian Countess when she wears it. :) The campervan arrived, finally!!! Erica and her family have also finished their first camping (or glamping) trip in the van! The top photo shows Erica in her Hogwarts camping pj's and the shawl she wove 8 years ago. She also enjoyed wearing her hand-knit socks on the trip! The second photo is Erica roasting a marshmallow over a camp stove, she really needs to get a small fire pit just for S'mores. ;) You can also see camping with her family includes a lot of art supplies, yarn, knitting, drawing, coloring, etc. :)       Michelle: Michelle did a bunch of spinning and dyeing. She has been having fun dyeing gradient/variegated combed top using one color of dye. Here is a sample of one in the dye pot.   Some of the colors she's dyed:       Michelle has confirmed that she doesn't like spinning Merino wool. Targhee is enough like Merino that she wasn't really enjoying that either, so she's braided up what she dyed with a plan to sell it. She had lots of undyed Targhee top from her Washtenaw Wool days. Most of it is in the picture above. Some of her spinning:     Here's a couple samples of how the gradient yarn spins up when 2-ply. Michelle loved the result of the first few she spun, so she kept up that style of dyeing. Works in Progress: Erica: Erica's glamping trip helped her get some good progress going on the second pair of socks for her husband. She finally feels like a sock knitter. Erica  has set a long, long term goal of knitting about 5 pairs of socks for everyone in her immediate family. She is on round 2 and will keep a pair of socks on the needles until she reaches her goal. These socks are being knit on 2 mm/ size 0 Chiaogoo needles with a 37" cable. The socks are knit in Crafty Jak's Tough and Tender Pine Needle yarn. When the trip started Erica had only knit a few inches, by the end of the weekend trip she had knit over 3" and changed to the main gauge needle! Erica has also picked up knitting on her semi-circular shawl, which she also knit on her camping trip. The shawl was more van driving knitting than hanging around knitting. :) She has made it past the halfway point, in terms of the number of rows. However there is still 1 increase row left, which will double the number of stitches in each row, but we're not going to do the calculations to see if the halfway point in the number of stitches has been reached yet. :)   Erica and TJ are now weaving the hem reinforcement band together! This long thing band of plain weave linen, will be used to finish and reinforce the seams on her handwoven 7th Persian wool jacket/robe. While handing out in the studio with Erica, TJ asked if he could weave on this warp. Erica was happy to show him how to weave this. Can you tell where TJ was weaving and where Erica was weaving? Erica is so please that TJ is interested in weaving on this warp! Erica is still weaving on her damask warp with the red weft. It is coming along and Erica is excited to be nearing the end of this weaving!     Michelle: Michelle is spinning  some purple Corriedale cross that she dyed and playing in her pottery studio.  

 Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook:  Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Finished Objects! Michelle Erica TJ's Socks!!! Erica finished knitting the socks for her son, TJ. He loves them and has been dancing and sliding around the living room in them. :) Erica finished weaving off her handspun warp for TJ. It still needs the weft thread ends trimmed and the fringe twisted (if he is going to use it as a scarf). He probably wouldn't use a bag and seems to like it as a quite long scarf! Masks :) Ginny Cardigan swatches Deep Cove Handspun, Saltwater woolen prep 3 ply handspun, Nightshades       Works in Progress Michelle Erica Erica has been weaving away on the damask with the Treeenway Silks Zolo Borello colourway weft. She has done a lot of thinking about how to handle the possibility that there will be variances between the different dyed skeins, it will take about 4 skeins. Erica decided that in the Middle Ages, based on the textiles she has studied, that weavers would keep with one skein until the end of a repeat. This is based on studying partial textiles which do not show any variance in weft color within a single repeat. Here is the damask photo with two different dyes lots. Here is the damask woven using the only one skein.   Do you see a difference? :) Erica has cast on another pair of socks for her husband, Oli. The whole family now has one pair of hand knit socks. Erica is considering. over time, knitting 4-5 pairs of socks for each family member. Stay tuned. :) Erica is also working on finishing the seams on her handwoven robe. In order to finish the hems, she has started warping a narrow, long linen warp to weave a reinforcement for her robe. This decision is based on the The Metropolitian Museum's analysis of a 7th C Persian Riding Coat. Erica took her knitted shawl out of hybernation. This shawl is knit on 5.5 mm Signature Needle Arts needles, in a fingering weight yarn from The Two Ewes!  

Sponsored by  If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on  Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook:  Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!   Finished Objects! Michelle Tour de Fleece! Michelle finished spinning the Coopworth/Shropshire fleece. She ended up with 1329 yards of 3 ply yarn. Michelle set the twist in a few of the Coop/Shrop skeins and dyed some of this yarn blue. Erica Erica has spun one three-ply yarn during the Tour de Fleece and a sample of Sweet Georgia's Saltwater color way to swatch for the Ginny sweater, more on this under WIP's.   Erica finished weaving the first length of her silk damask in the black weft. She only needs one yard for the cowl she is making. The fabric is about 32" wide and 34" long. She is hoping to get her serger working soon. This will be a 7th C Persian cowl and the hems will be hand sewn, however, she does want to serge the cut edges before hemming.   Works in Progress Michelle Michelle has started felting a dwarf hamster for Thing 2's teacher (she'll be getting it late).  Right now it looks like a large pumpkin seed. Erica Erica is swatching for the Ginny. Erica has watched in the original yarn, the Harrisville Designs Nightshades.   Erica fixed a problem with her Glimakra Ideal loom (below). The countermarche jacks on top of the loom were improperly mounted, so the jacks on the left were hitting the frame. That was fun! :) Now the loom is weaving like a dream again! :) Erica I currently weaving a plain weave fabric from several of her handspun yarns. The yarns that are barberpoled (dark and green yarn on the left and blue/purple in the middle of the photo below) create a twill effect in the plain weave cloth!   TJ's sock, is still in progress. She is nearing the heel, which usually builds up momentum in her knitting. Aplogies there are no progress photos at this time.   If anyone else is interested in coding for kids, the box Erica discusses getting for TJ it is here.  

Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on iTunes. Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!   Finished Objects Michelle Michelle and her Dad built a box to hook her Electric Eel Mini spinning wheel on. It has a space below for her battery and screws in the top to hold the wheel. She's very pleased with how it came out. She spent more time attempting to spin on the Mini and finally figured it out in the end. She needed to find the balance for where to place a brake band. Too tight and it slows the wheel quite a bit. Not tight enough and it won't pull in. She had her doubts about the wheel during the first two bobbins, but was able to figure it out in the end and was able to spin 4 more bobbing relatively quickly and easily.  It will be nice for travel, but won't replace her home wheel.        Erica Erica has plied and wet finished her Ramboullet Gizmo yarn, fiber from Fiber Nest Studios. This was an interesting spin and has apparently resulted in Erica's son, TJ, wanting a gremlin to take care of, he promises not to feed the gremlin after dark.   Erica has also finished and wet finished the following yarns: BFL/Silk Tea leaves from Sweet Georgia Yarns Gotland Falling Leaves from Sweet Georgian Yarns. This fibre had become quite compacted in her stash and the result is that some parts of the final yarn are VERY OVERSPUN. She will have a think about either not using those parts, seeing how it weaves up, or possibly take the twist out of those places. The last is rather unlikely as the overspin did not happen in the plying. Wensleydale Once in a Lifetime yarn finished out at  5-11 wpi. Erica learned a lot from spinning this long wool as well. The longwools really need a much bigger pulley/ratio to spin them rather lightly. It was finally time for Erica to wet finish the yarns in her not yet wet finished bin. Once finished and dried the yarns weighed nearly 1 Kg (2 pounds) of handspun yarn! This was all spun between 30 April and about 15 June 2020 she was rather pleased with how much she had spun in that time period. She always knew her commute to work was taking away too much time from her spinning and weaving, haha! Size doesn't always matter, but Erica and Michele find that the physical size of their stash does significantly decrease with each spin. Below is a braid of unspun fiber compared with a ball of the same amount of spun fiber and a skein of the same amount of fiber. Finally the ball and the skein on top of the unspun fiber, showing that the fiber takes up about half as much space once it is spun! Collaborative Cloth all samples have been finished, mounted, measured and mailed! Erica is very excited for the group to make a final decision on breed for the project and get underway. She knows her fellow conspirators, wait no collabrators are excited to get the project going in earnest as well! Wish us luck! Works in Progress   Michelle Tour de Fleece! Michelle has started spinning the Coopworth/Shropshire cross fleece that she carded.  Some was spun on the Electric Eel mini spinning wheel (bobbin on the left) and some on her Ashford Traveler with the jumbo flyer (bobbin on the right). Erica thought the difference between the two bobbins amusing for some reason.      Michelle has started needle felting a second Appa from Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the image, on top is the first Appa that she's using as a guide for the one she's working on below.     She also has removed some of the twist from some Icelandic Lopi style yarn she's been trying.       Erica Erica has not done much knitting on TJ's second sock.   Erica has started her Organic Polwarth Fractured Dawn singles . She split one braid split in 3 vertically. First single was spun before the Tour de Fleece, remaining continuing to spin for Tour de Fleece.   Erica is sampling Deep Cove Polwarth Silk handspun to possible spin and knit the Genny Sweater by Andrea Mowry, the start of the yarn I have spun is more fingering weight the pattern calls for DK. Should I spin for the sweater or just purchase yarn dyed in this color from Sweet Georgia, cost is about the same. In the discussion with Michele the possibility of just purchasing the original intended yarn also comes up, it is a beautfiul tweed yarn from Harrisville Designs.  Damask Cowl nearly done weaving the black. Erica has accepted that the color variation in the warp is just what comes from using hand dyed yarn, even professionally  hand dyed yarn. Had she realised it was hand dyed in Vats, she would have wound the warp multiple yarns at a time. She has ordered more red from Treeway Silks, it will have to be dyed and mailed, at least 4 weeks. Do I start with the remainder of the Bordello from Treenway I already have or do I wait and start from the new dye lot? This will also be hand dyed, so she is thinking about winding her wefts in very small bouts and switching between skeins.   Handspun warp is fully warped, tied on and treadles tied up! Just need a videographer to film me starting to weave, so I can show Weavolution Patrons how I weave a header in 4 picks! Thank you Laura Fry! :)

Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on iTunes. Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!     Tool tip: Michelle ordered a brush cleaner to try on the drum carder she borrowed from the library. She had carded the white Coopworth/Shropshire (Coopshire? Shropworth?) after carding the black llama and then used the usual cleaning brush on the drum before trying this brush cleaner. It was obvious, because the fiber she got on the brush cleaner is gray, that there was still some llama left on the drum.       It did a number on the brush cleaner, but she thinks it will work better with fewer teeth anyway. She thinks the teeth are just prone to turning on this particular one.       Finished objects:   Michelle finished carding the Coopworth/Shropshire fleece. It became very floofy.           British Breeds Study Spun Yarns These were not spun recently, however, Erica came across the breed study yarns she has finished spinning. In the photo below you can see from left to right Jacob, BFL, Suffolk, Shetland. The Weavolution sponsored Breed study includes the following breeds:   Suffolk Jacob Romney Marsh Shetland (moorit, humbug) Black Welsh BFL (oatmeal,  Masham Erica still has a few sample packs left she can send to listeners, if you are interested e-mail her.   Erica also completely finished her Community Cloth Sett Samples, by mounting them on card stock with their records. You can see various details about each sample on Weavolution. Merino Sample,  Merino Sample 2, Merino Sample 3, and Shetland Sample 2. See WIP's for Sheltand Sample 3.           Works in progress:   Since Michelle is traveling this week, she pulled out her Electric Eel mini spinning wheel to start spinning the Coopworth/Shropshire cross. She hopes to talk her Dad into helping her make a box for the battery to add some weight to the very light wheel.   Erica commented on how small the Electric Eel mini spinning wheel is, so Michelle had to get a picture that showed the size of the wheel. Here's a picture with the wheel sitting on the bottom of Michelle's sandal to keep it out of the sand and keep it from moving. Michelle does have big feet, but it may give an idea of the size of the wheel.     Erica Erica has finished spinning the Rambouillet in the colourway Gizmo from Fiber Nest Studio. According to Deb Robson's Fleece and Fiber Source book, Rambouillet began in France in the 1700's. Louis XVI was allowed to import 359 Spanish Merino to his estate in Rambouillet. His breeders bred for different specifications, thus creating the separate Rambouillet breed. When Erica showed her spinning to the Wool N Spinning Community she received several great descriptions pointing out that it is a very grippy and sproingy/springy yarn. Erica had noticed it was Targhee like, the grip is great for spinning, until it isn't. Erica experienced far more times of the fiber separating and pulling into the orifice than she does with other wools. In her post recording investigations, Erica learned that Targhee were bred from Rambouillet rams and a combination of other sheep. So it is no wonder that Rambouillet is more like Targhee than it is like Merino. Erica has also done a bit more sampling on her Damask warp. Since the colors she chose from Halcyon Yarn were out of stock, she ordered a red and black from Treenway Silks to test. Treenway has a variety of reds, fortunately the red they had in stock is so very close to the red from Halcyon that Erica liked. Let us know in the comments what you think of the difference (bottom sample that has been cut off the loom is Halcyon Yarn Gemstone Silk, upper cloth still on the loom is Treenway Silks). In this photo you can also see the area where the sample was mistreadled and inadvertently cause some very long floats. When weaving damask you only tie each thread down once in a 4 pick repeat, so missing a treadle creates a quite long float. After consulting with other drawloom weavers on Weavolution, Erica will be weaving her cowl face up on the loom to prevent this from happening. This is a cowl that was made for Erica when she was Queen. This is included, so listeners can see what she means by a 7th C Persian Cowl, it is a very different shape from what we modernly use the word cowl to describe.   Finally, Erica has finished weaving the third sample for the Collaboartive Cloth project, sett at 24 epi on the loom. She has embarked on this project with 3 other SCA spinners. The other members will spin the yarn and Erica will weave 4 meters of cloth for each member. She is really excited about this project, because she has always wanted to have a very authentic experience where she works with friends who specialize in spinning to make cloth for everyone. This is how communities functioned before the guild system. She finds this project is building even more a sense of community amoung her and her friends. She will also invite all the spinners over to weave a bit of their own cloth, if they chose to do so! She hopes, despite the current pandemic, that everyone will be able to see and touch the samples and the group can make a final decision, between the Merino and the Shetland, so they can embark upon the final project soon.   

If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on iTunes. Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Announcement: Live recording 14 June 1800 BST/1PM EDT You can join in to listen to us record and may ask questions in the chat, we are not asking listeners to turn on their microphones. :) Acquisitions: Michelle ordered a Cotswolds fleece from Ewetopia Cotswolds and received this gorgeous fleece. This will be great for hair and beards. She'll leave some white and dye some.   Finished Objects: Erica's pair of socks is officially done, she now has 2 socks in this lovely worsted weight yarn! She is sad to see BluPrint is closing. She learned how to knit on Bluprint and still relies on it to learn how to knit new things. She is now a confident sock knitter. The first photo is the unaltered photo, you can see ends of one knot sticking out and if you look closely can see the swirl of end of needle stitches. The second photo is the glamour shot. :)      Here is Erica's beautiful damask sample. The black (top), the next light purple (third from top) and the red wefts are all Gemstone silks from Halcyon Yarn. All these colors are out of stock at the moment, some colors are currently in stock, if you are looking to buy some lovely silk yarn. Gemstone silk is great for weaving as warp for normal things. Erica would not recommend it for warp on a drawloom, where you need very high tension! It is a great yarn for all other uses. She has some new silk weft to try from Treenway Silks, more on that in future episodes.     Michelle carded a Romney fleece. It still has more lanolin in it than she's used to spinning so it will be interesting to see how it spins.       Michelle has dyed locks.  These will be used for needle felting.   Michelle's daughter wanted Evan's Icelandic fleece dyed to make a colorful teddy bear.  She needed to test out a few colors so she dyed a few more of the gray Lincoln locks in addition to some white Cotswold locks and then her daughter made her decision (the bright cherry red on the lower left on white wool) and won't be using Evan's fleece for her bear.  She'll be able to use the locks for felting.         Works in Progress Erica Erica has spun both her Gotland singles. The second single, which was steamed for about a week in the bathroom, spun much easier than the first single. Erica is interested to see how much variance there is in length. Longwools definitely want less twist, using bigger whorls and slowing down your feet. She did still spin this her normal supported long daw style.  Erica has spun one single in this gorgeous Rambouillet. This is colourway is called Gizmo, for all children of the 80's. and is from Fiber Nest Studio. Rambouillet is related to Merino, but the wool is much more like Targhee, very spongy and sproingy. Below is a prepped half of the braid, the top of the bobbin, because I was not thinking, and the three-ply sample I made from the last bit that was not quite a full repeat of the colourway. Below is the first single still on the bobbin.    Yes, Erica is really feeling like a sock knitter now, she has started on the second sock for her son, TJ. His sock is in a fingering weight yarn and therefore has a lot more knitting in it than her sock. So you'll be hearing about this sock from several more episodes. :)  Below is the well-loved cup Erica has started using, instead of a yarn bowl. She does not have yarn bowl, but has wanted one for years. This cup still sparks joy, but is not quite functional as a cup anymore. So she is using it as a yarn cup, and loving it in this capacity, photo with her second sock, but now being used for TJ's second sock.   Michelle has started carding a Coopworth/Shropshire cross fleece. It has wonderful crimp.   Michelle has started knitting a purse out of core spun rug yarn. She thinks it will look great but might weigh a ton.    

Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a Weavolution Patron and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on iTunes. Podcast FB Page! E-mail! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: fiberatthespeedoflifepodcast    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! FO:   Michelle finished spinning Evan's (moorit gray Icelandic fleece). Some of it needs to be dyed to be made into a teddy bear for her daughter. Erica has finished spinning her Finn Breed and Colour Study yarns. She finished off by spinning up the batts she created with the Artic Berries colorway, from Crafty Jaks, the larger skein in the image below left. She combo plied some of what was left with another colorway grapevine, which is primarily very dark purple and green. She also combo plied the Lakeside colorway, also from Crafty Jaks with the colorway riproaring. Listeners may remember this color way from the beginning of the podcast and Erica's color management study. Erica finished spinning her latest superwash yarn, in the colorway Petal, more on this spin posted on Weavolution. Although she got rid of most of her superwash stash in last year's destash, there were some colorways, like Petal, that were so beautiful they did "spark joy" and she kept them. Although she still does not like the feeling of superwash fibers in her hands, this colorway was so beautiful it was still a joy to spin. Erica is actually looking forward to weaving or knitting with these superwash yarns to see how they behave and see if that changes her mind about superwash wools.     WIP:   Michelle started spinning another Icelandic fleece. This time she's trying to make a Lopi style yarn by spinning it bulky without lots of twist. She's then putting it back through the wheel as if to ply, but leaving it a single. This takes some of the twist back out. This leaves a very squishy, airy single.     She may have taken too much of the twist out in some areas as it pulled apart a few times while putting it on the niddy noddy.  It sits as a nice flat skein though, which she thinks is a good sign that it doesn't have too much twist for a single.   Michelle has also been carding some Romney fleece from a local farm called 3L&S. It has much more lanolin in it than she's used to and ended up washing this fleece again after opening up the locks.   Erica has been spinning up a storm! She recently spun two different colorways from Sweet Georgia Yarns Tea Leaves on BFL/Silk bleand (braid undone and wound in large ball below) and Falling Leaves on Gotland. Erica loves Sweet Georgia Yarns fibers, she loves them so much most of the braids she has bought from SGY have remained stashed. Unfortunately this was a bit hard on the Gotland braid (below right). The first single of Falling Leaves was left to air out for several weeks, but was still quite compacted, not unsurprising from a long wool. She took advice she received in the Wool N Spinning Community and is steaming the second half of the braid in the bathroom. Tea Leaves Fiber                                                               Tea Leaves single on the bobbin   Tea Leaves single rewound onto storage bobbin             Falling leaves rewound             Erica was actually fortunate that Ply Away was cancelled this year. Erica generally is unable to attend Ply Away without taking a significant amount of time off work, hopefully it will fall over Spring Break one year! Due to the unfortunate cancellation of the event, she was able to purchase several One of a Kind colorways from Fiber Optic Yarns. The first one she chose to spin was the below Wensleyday, her first longwool spin for her 51 Yarns study. The staple length was about 8". Erica saw first hand that longwools do not need much twist at all before they become a bit ropey. She is going to study up and practice a bit more, before spinning the purple one of a kind colorway she also ordered in Wensleydale. It has been a lot of fun to have some new fibers to spin and become familiar with, especially since Erica has actually traveled to the actual town of Wensleydale. :)   Erica is glad to be back at her damask weaving, she has resleighed the reed and is again sampling different color weft and refining her design.  

Where to find us: Podcast FB Page!    Michelle is             Ravelry: MichelleTF             Instagram: michelletfcrafts             Facebook: Valdelia Maker     Erica is             Weavolution: Erica J, or Jahanara             Ravelry: weavemage             Instagram: weavemage             Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you!   Finished Objects:   Oli We had a guest on the show today, Erica's husband Oli. Oli shared two of his recent fiber arts projects. First a bag he made from the remaining fabric Erica wove for his Viking coat. Second he made Erica a facemask. He used some patterned fabric Erica has had for years with some Persian figures on it. He did a great job matching the patterns on the fabric when cutting out the pieces. Erica had seen that some people are using elastic bands for securing facemask. Since her hair and TJ's hair is too thick to use the thin hair ties, they have about 20 laying around the house not doing anything, so this seemed a good use for those hair ties. Erica's persona in the SCA is Persian, so this really does suit her.     Erica Erica finished the first of TJ's socks. These socks follow Ann Budd's BluPrint class pattern. TJ really likes them. They are knit with a 3 x 1 rib in a glitz sock yarn from Gynx Yarn. Erica's bin of handspun yarn that needed wet finishing hit the overflowing state, so she spent some time wet finishing 12 skeins of yarn. She simply soaks her yarn in hot water with a bit of soap, rinses it with warm water and hangs it to dry. Since most of her yarn is destined to be woven then wet finished more, she does not do much vigorous wet finishing in the yarn stage. More detailed photos of her color study yarns will be coming in future episodes as she discusses her comparison of the various yarns. For the very last bit of her Finn colour and breed study.  Erica made 2 batts out of the remaining Artic Berries, from CraftyJax. Erica will spin the two batts and ply them together. She is looking forward to getting all the yarns together and having a look at them side by side, stay tuned for thoughts on this study.  Erica finished her final yarn for her Organic Polwarth Breed and colour study with a 2 ply Graffiti colourway yarn. She is quite pleased with it. Both singles were spun quite consistently, likely, because Erica is spinning almost every day and spun the singles in rather quick succession. Erica finished a number of other yarns since the last episode. You can see in the photos, how Erica uses tyvex wrist bands to label her skeins. These can be written on in permanent marker and the wrist bands make it through the wet finishing process just fine. She has also adapted this process for her warping chains when making new weaving warps. Deep Cover colourway from Sweet Georgia Yarns.  Lakeside colourway from Crafty Jaks  Two of the Arctic Berries yarns     Michelle finished the cross stitch she's been working on. It may have to wait until the stay at home order is over to get it framed.     Michelle made two needle felted air plant hangers that she finished. Squid:   Octopus:         WIP's Erica has spun the singles of this beautiful colourway. It is called Petal from Bee Mice Elf. Erica still has quite a stash from this dyer, who is no longer dyeing. Below are the last two colours from Erica's advent calendar colourway. The single on the left was a bit naughty and thus is now knotty. Erica lost the end and created such a mess trying to find it had to cut the yarn and start at a random point. She is curious to see how this works out when she finally plies the yarn. The second photo below shows the mess that was made when trying to find the end, Erica tried for about 3 days on and off the find the actual end of the yarn, before deciding her time was more valuable and cut the yarn and kept spinning. When she rewound the yarn (above photo left) she had to break the yarn a few times and knot it back together, hence the yarn being knotty. :)   Erica decided to tackle the 5 ply yarn from her 51 yarns spinning in an unconventional way. Inspired by the crazy yarn Michelle showed her while recording a previous episode, Erica took 5 different bobbin ends and plyed them together, then put a knot in each time she ran out of a yarn, thus creating a skein with samples of 5 ply, 4, ply, 3 ply and 2 ply yarns to compare. Erica used a rigid heddle, which she often substitutes for a warping paddle, to seperate the 5 yarns. The below photos show the rigid heddle Erica used and how she had to use 2 lazy kates to accommodate 5 bobbins of yarn. It was a fun experience, but Erica is not sure when she might ever need a 5 ply yarn.       Michelle started needle felting a Cthulhu air plant holder.   She needs to finish turning him green and wet felt some wings for him.     Michelle has picked up an old project from years ago.  Her husband asked her to make him a cloak and requested embroidery all over the back of it. He did help her with the embroidery, but it's been sitting for years waiting for a lining. She has now cut out the lining and is just waiting for some black thread to stitch in the lining. Here's a picture from the pinning process.  

For photos and links, please see the blog.  Finished objects: Michelle finished skirting this brown and white Icelandic fleece. She cleaned and put away the drum carder. Michelle finished her online master rain gardener class. She just needs to build her rain garden. The digging has begun to get rid of the lake at the end of her driveway. The rain garden will extend along the driveway. We started the digging in the clay at the end of the driveway to drain the lake before continuing to dig. The next day most of this puddle was gone. Although Michelle dislikes sewing, she decided to make covers for her patio chair cushions after the old ones disintegrated at the seams in the wash. It would probably look better if they were fitted, but that may be beyond Michelle's abilities...or willingness to sit at the sewing machine. Michelle also made a travel case for her felting needles. She's not traveling these days, but has been wanting to make this case for a while. Now it's ready. The needle pad is glued to the lid on the bottom, so it can be easily used when open. Erica finished her first sock for herself! She is quite proud and as she is not really a matching sock type of person, she has been wearing it already. :) Spun Yarn These yarns have not yet been wet finished, in fact Erica's wet finishing bin is starting to spill over! Grafitti Interrupted Organic Polwarth split in half and spun to bobbins and plied. First Impressions this is a spin that Erica has been wanting to do for some time. The colourway is beautiful, as is the resulting yarn. It was a colorway from Bee Mice Elf, who as regular listeners will no doubt remember is no longer dyeing. Advent Calendar one more plied yarn. This was a great colourway, again no information on the fiber content, but a lovely colourway. Works in progress: Michelle has been working on some kumihimo for mask straps. Here's a sample of what she made resting across the face of the kumihimo disk. Michelle's husband modeling her mask with the kumihimo straps. Once the electronics come in, it will light up. Here's a link to the video the idea was taken from. https://youtu.be/aYAwOimNzb0 The other project that Michelle has been working on is some cross stitch. The pattern was designed by April of Crown Street Cottage. https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrownStreetCottage?ref=ss_profile She has lots of geeky patterns in her shop. This one really spoke to me. It will read "Welcome to my home. Roll initiative" Michelle dyed the fabric with RIT dye and knows exactly where it will hang in her house when finished. TJ and Erica carded some of the Icelandic fleece that Michelle so kindly sent us! This has been a really fun project for TJ and Erica to do together. TJ is honing his studio assistant skills! :) Erica is very close to having completely spun her Advent Calendar fiber. She spun up the last singles and hopes to decide what to ply them with by Episode 16. :) She talked about her process for always rewinding her singles onto storage bobbins after doing the Be Kind Rewind yarn from 51 Yarns. Erica has just recently passed the halfway mark in her 51 Yarns journey. If you are a spinner and have not yet gotten 51 Yarns, it is a great book and a fun path to travel. More about the rewinding of one of these yarns in Episode 16. As you can see her storage bobbins sometimes live on a shelf with fandom/geekdom memorabelia. :) This lovely spin has been languishing. This fiber is in the Deep Cove colourway from Sweet Georgia Yarns on the Polwarth Silk Fiber. It is 85% Polwarth and 15% Tussah Silk. The resulting singles are gorgeous!!! Erica started this spin in August 2019 and is excited to be finishing it up! Erica surprising chose to spin up some of the little remaining SW Targhee she has in her stash. This one was in the colorway Petal, it was such a gorgeous colorway she kept it even though SW Targhee is not a fiber she adores. On the bobbin you can only see the last two colors. The colorways starts with a beautiful yellow and grades into orange, then a deep red, the into these lovely purples. :) You can also see Erica's Fiber Stash page for this fiber on Weavolution. Erica finished relseying the damask cloth. She switched to the 20 epi reed that her husband got her for Christmas (thank you Halcyon Yarn for having them in stock!). She has relseyed at about 46 epi by sleying the reed 2-2-3. Erica is making good progress on TJ's sock #1. She will still have the second sock for both TJ and herself to knit once his first sock is done. This sock is knit on 2.5mm Signature Needle Arts DPNs. They will also be knit in a SW Merino, Nylon, Stellina yarn from Gynx Yarns, who alas is also no longer dying. I hope the listeners were excited to hear that Erica has restocked some stash from dyers who actually are still dyeing! :)

Where to find us: Podcast FB Page! Michelle is Ravelry: MichelleTF Instagram: michelletfcrafts Facebook: Valdelia Maker Erica is Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: weavemage Facebook: Weavolution Intro and Outro Music: Sundown by Joseph McDade, thank you! Finished Objects: Michelle has the drum carder from her local library. She finished carding Evan's fleece. In the process she picked out lots of locks to use in needle felting. Here is a sampling of the different locks from this fleece. Michelle made a tall gnome to go with some of the long locks from Evan's fleece. Michelle received a request from a friend for some cloth face masks. Michelle's friend works with the elderly and wants to be able to protect them and her family and asked specifically for ones that you can insert a tissue into because that provides a better barrier than the cloth alone. Erica finished her tweed yarn. This yarn was spun from superwash targhee and silk she carded together. She spun one single and plied that bobbin with itself using a center pull ball. Erica plans to try this again with fewer passes through the drum carded to see how that changes the yarn. Erica plied together her Organic Polwarth Graffiti and Graffiti Interrupted singles, She is very pleased with the results. Plying two different color ways together can produce a variety of results. Erica has gotten back to her Advent Calendar spinning, now that she is working at home and can reclaim her commute time! :) She has spun two more combed tops from the fiber advent calendar and most of a third. The first combed top she spun from the advent calendar was spun as a 3 ply and is complete. Finished or WIP? Michelle has pulled out her dye pot for the first time in a few years and is trying to dye some locks. They dyed well, but they need to dry before Michelle can determine how well the locks held up. Here is the tub and mesh bag Michelle mentioned that should help her keep the locks in better condition. Works in progress: Michelle has started to card another Icelandic fleece. This one is most likely a moorit (brown) gray spotted fleece. Unfortunately she misplaced the card that was with this fleece, so she can't check with the farm for confirmation. Yarn from this fleece will be a lovely light brown when finished. Erica has started knitting a pair of fingerless mitts for a colleague who is retiring. These were meant to be a useful gift for work, but as with many things life got in the way until now! Erica is still working on knitting a pair of socks for TJ (green) and a pair of socks for herself. She has now turned her first short row heel! So far the short row heel is her favorite heel. Erica has spun two of her advent calendar tops as singles, the green single will probably become part of her "crazy yarn", aka plied with all the other left over singles from previous spinning projects. The purple silk single will be plied with itself, as a 2 ply yarn.

Michelle and Erica talk about recent fiber arts, fleece processing, 3d fiber art sculptures, spinning, knitting, and weaving. We blog and post show notes at https://fiberatthespeedoflife.blogspot.com/

Finished objects: Michelle finished her Waffa bird. Erica finished the toe up socks (pictured below with TJ's thumbs up of approval). The toe up socks were knit in fingering weight yarn from Gynx Yarn, who is no longer dyeing. Erica also finished 1 of her the cuff down socks for TJ, but it did not receive a thumbs up and has now been frogged to be socks for herself! These socks were being knit in worsted weight yarn on 3.25 mm needles. Now that they have been frogged Erica has started a new pair of cuff down socks for herself! Michelle checked the drum carder out from the library again and finished carding two fleeces. The first is the llama fleece that she recently skirted. It was just too soft to send to the mill. She wishes you could feel how soft it is and really looks forward to spinning it. Michelle also finished carding an Icelandic fleece. As she was carding the fleece, she kept an eye out for nice locks to use in needle felting. She is planning to dye some of them. The locks from the same fleece are both straight and really curly depending where on the sheep they were. Both will work well for beards or hair. A jackpot of curls! The carded fleece ready to spin: Erica has finished combo plied yarns of the Lakeside colourway (below under works in progress on the left) and the Artic Berries colourway (below under Works in Progress on the right) with the Fractured Dawn colourway. Erica has cast on 2 new pairs of socks, a pair of fingering weight socks for TJ, since he did not like the worsted weight yarn on his feet and socks for herself out of the yummy worsted weight yarn. She is using Ann Budd's class on BluPrint to learn new heel and toe knitting techniques. Erica hopes to really feel like a true sock knitter someday! Erica has spun singles of the Lakeside Colourway (left), part of the Wool N Spinning Finn Breed and Colour Study. She has also spun singles of the Artic Berries colourway (right) for the same study. She is focusing on spinning up Lakeside and plans to make a 3 ply yarn in an attempt to keep the original colourway fairly pure. Giveaway winner! Thank you Kay for your comments on our Episode 9 post on FB. Michelle will be giving you some yarn to use in your crochet projects! We hope other listeners will comment on future posts, we really look forward to having more of a 2 way conversation with our listeners! Podcasts: Erica recently listened to the Power Purls podcast series on "Taming Your Time". She learned a lot from this podcast and is working on scheduling some actual downtime for herself! Erica also found the Ewe University podcast on lighting for crafting. She recommends this episode for those who are interested in further discussion of this topic!

Finished Objects: Michelle finished skirting the llama fleece that she was working on at the last episode. She originally was going to send it to the mill, but has since decided to spin it herself. She has moved on to skirting the seconds from the same animal. It is still so soft, but this is definitely going to the mill. Erica has finished plying several yarns! Erica has plyed two of her advent calendar yarns with semi-solid or solid yarns in an attempt to highlight the original advent calendar yarns. Feel free to comment on the FB post to tell her how you think she did! Works in Progress:   Michelle has started making a Waffa (wild and fun fiber art) bird. She got the idea from a Living Felt tutorial  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2lcWgD5lQM) and she has really been having fun. Erica had a lot to say about her current works in progress. If you have thoughts, please do comment on our FB posts ! This sock is so close to bind off, then they both need heels put in and they will be done, done, done. OK weaving in ends too. :) TJ's socks have made good progress, but not really enough to post photos. I do apologize there were some sound issues with the recording and parts of our needle storage conversation did not record. Circular needle storage mentioned by Michelle: https://carolullmann.com/diy-circular-needle-storage/

Finished Objects Erica has a mostly finished and a totally finished object she shares on this episode. Erica plied one of the advent calendar yarns over the holiday break. While travelling in Helsinki, Erica twisted the fringe on her handspun scarf and wet finished it when she returned home. This scarf contains many of her color management study. Michelle finished separating and carding a Jacob fleece. She didn't think it would be that difficult to separate, but it turns out that the divide between the white and brown isn't distinct. She ended up with three colors, but for now is planning to spin the brown and white separately and then ply them to get a barber pole yarn. Works in Progress Erica is has made fairly good progress on both socks. Though the socks for TJ had one heel that ended up with twice as many stitches as the other. She is going to try doubling the decreases on the bigger heel and see how that goes. These socks are being knit from Gynx Yarns Merino Worsted First Bloom yarn. Unfortunately, Gynx Yarns is no longer dyeing and selling yarn. Erica has used several BluPrint classes to learn to knit these socks. Erica has used both My First Socks and Knit Socks Two at a Time! When we discuss the oddities with these socks, we discuss some of the differences with the Portuguese style knitting. Erica learned this style, which finally clicked for her, also on BluPrint.   The other set of socks will probably be for Oli, Erica's husband when finished. She is very close to finishing the second main sock, then each sock just needs the afterthought heel. These socks are being knit from Gynx Yarns Fingering weight yarn, mostly on DPN's. Erica is knitting these toe-up, one at a time. She has tried using DPNS, magic loop and two circular needles. ?Thus far dpn's seems to be the fastest method. As she's just starting sock knitting there are a lot of explorations to go! Erica has learned to knit these socks from My First Toe Up Socks class on BluPrint.   Erica did some more spinning on her Advent Fiber Calendar of the breaks. She is also planning to ply these yarns with semisolids in the sane/similar hue families. So she has started spinning this Polwarth/Mohair/Silk semisolid yarn for plying the yarns that are in the red hue family. Erica has finished one of the two motifs she is weaving on this first piece of Damask! She is weaving two motifs and some extra to send to a friend who will bead it and make it into a 7th C Persian headdress! Erica hopes listeners enjoy hearing about this project because there are at least 7 more meters to go to be woven into cloth for a robe and a Sasanian cowl! Erica also talks about identifying her mystery yarn from this summer! This is Finn dyed by Crafty Jaks for a Wool N Spinning Breed Study. Erica ordered a "reading buddy pillow" it's more like a lounger buddy pillow! :) Erica's sunroom is still in the progress of being set up. Here is a photo as it is right now! There will eventually be one couch in the sunroom. :) These photos were taken about 11, so you can see in January how much sunlight comes in before midday to the sunroom. We did leave one corner (photo below taken from this corner) without windows, to allow for a space to store things that should not be kept in direct sunlight. Michelle is also working on her crafting space, but she's pretty sure this will be a work in progress for many years as she continues to tweak it. She did recently get rid of a bench she had in there, that had been there when she moved into the house. Removing it was an adventure, but it wasn't a good crafting space because drawers made it difficult to sit at. It was also very big. She has replaced it with a table that she can sit at to craft, so now she has a "messy craft" (resin, clay, paint) work space and a fiber/clean craft work space. She's still working on organizing shelves and work spaces, but she feels like this is a huge step.The bookshelf on the right is between her crafting spaces and will be used for supplies. The one on the left will actually be used for books. As part of her craft room progress, Michelle has decided to send all of her camelid (alpaca, llama) fibers to the mill for processing. She currently has a large table set up in the middle of her craft room to get these skirted now so she doesn't have to do it in a rush later to get the fiber to the people from the mill when they're in town. The skirting does put a halt to the organizing of the craft room because she can't get around the table, but she figures getting it skirted to get it out of the room counts as organizing.   This may be the first llama fleece that Michelle has skirted. It is so soft that she just wants to lay in it. It seems a shame to have it spun into yarn at the mill, but she realizes that she's not likely to process it any time soon, so it needs to go. The fleece is darker than it looks in the picture.   While in Joann Fabrics, Michelle found some simple metal rings that she thought could be the beginning of needle felted wreaths. She's decided to turn the one into a winter scene. The bottom is thicker than the top to allow for animals to be on it. So far it has a Narwhal. She's working on a polar bear, but is suffering from "I don't know how to make a polar bear", so progress is slow. Michelle has started a wheel throwing class. She's had a couple classes and some open studio time and can finally make a decent cylinder with even (ish) walls. The project that she's currently most proud of though is a little cup where she did some experimenting with belling out the sides to resemble some pottery cups we have from our reenacting days. The upper edge ended up uneven, so she turned the thicker part of the rim into a spout and now it's a cream/milk pitcher.

Erica and Michele talk about some spinning progress and much much more. Show notes at https://fiberatthespeedoflife.blogspot.com/

We both have safe place experience. We talk about many finished objects and our fiber goings one.

In this episode Erica & Michele discuss swatching, sample organization, felting, weaving, knitting socks and more! We introduce our British Breed Study and have a good catch up!

We discuss summer travels, spinning success and mishaps, setting up a drawloom and more!

In this episode we hear about a lot of fiber arts that life has allowed. See all our show notes at https://fiberatthespeedoflife.blogspot.com/

In this episode we talk about felting, spinning, weaving, and knitting socks! For full show notes see fiberatthespeedoflife,blogspot.com