The Fiber Side & My Life with Knitters Combine! See PS

 I've been playing with all the different fibers I've bought over the past month or two.  I'm calling the products of this daily practice RANDOM ROVINGS.  Above you can see a pile of various rolags composed of combinations of merino/silk & mohair, coopworth & mohair, & coopworth & merino/silk, dyed with Cushing dye (Egyptian Red, very weak) and handcarded.

This is a LOT like painting...

Back in the day, when I got tired of painting, I'd turn to sculpture.  I've used welding wheels like the one shown below as a 3-D material many times in the past.  (A blacksmith's wife always has a few of these!)

Best artist question ever: WHAT IF...?

A yarn sculpture! 

Actually, this is a new idea I have for displaying my handspun, which is beginning to take over the house as well as my bookstore.  Here you see a few of the skeins I've completed recently.  Jeff is helping by supplying me with hand-forged hooks.

Here is one of my current favorite spinning raw materials: Coopworth locks.

I spun some yarn directly from the natural colored, uncarded locks, then plied it.  I got a marvelously soft, fat yarn (it's a little too brown in the photo). Swatched it on #13 needles. Cushing is sending me some more dye this week, so I'll be making more of this to color!

Different fibers, beautiful swatch:

"Art Yarn" I think they call it.

The beautiful bench below was completed this past weekend by the husband-blacksmith.  The owners provided the rock & asked Jeff to create an iron support for it.  Don't you love it?

More from this creative outpost in a day or two, when the Coopworth is dyed!

PS For those of you who follow both, I'm going to make life easier for us all by combining my two blogs.  Village Books will continue to have its own, books only blog and a new website when Kathleen gets to it.
Meanwhile, the link to MY LIFE WITH KNITTERS is the one to use!