Fiber at the Speed of Life Podcast

Erica & Michelle discuss life and the fiber arts they manage to fit into their busy lives!

Episode 41: How long has it been?! 03/08/2024

Episode 40: Fiber, Life, and a Puppy 09/23/2023

Yes we're still here!! 06/23/2023

Episode 38: A New Year 01/29/2023

Episode 37: Life and Crafting 11/14/2022

Episode 36: Recommendations 02/20/2022

Episode 35: Upsidedown and Backwards 02/02/2022

Episode 34: Holidays are a Comin' 01/16/2022

Ep 33: Finished Objects Galore 10/11/2021

Ep 32: Camping, Lakes, and Crafting 09/08/2021

Episode 31: Surging Into Summer 06/23/2021

Episode 31: Surging Into Summer Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on ! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: 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 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. <3 Oli loves the scarf. The Duelling MItt 1 for TJ is finished, he also loves it. This has been a great knit so far. Erica hopes that TJ will help string all the beads for the second mitt! WIPS Erica is warping her Glimakra Ideal Loom to weave cotton fabric for an underdress for her 7th C Persian costumes. Erica is also spinning for some weaving samples. These samples will look at what, if any effect, the spin and ply direction of a yarn has on woven cloth. She is particularly looking at the claim that stripes can be made simply by using both ply directions in the warp. Erica is sewing her into the raw hem edges of her handwoven Persian robe/coat. Erica is still working on deciding exactly to do with her handwoven damask cloth which she originally intended for a Persian wrap. She has posted her /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/19577564

Ep. 30 Two Years and Running 04/26/2021

Ep29: Back in a Groove 03/23/2021

Ep 28: The One with the Intermission 02/26/2021

The One Where Michelle doesn't Sew 01/30/2021

Ep 26: Christmas Presents!!! 01/15/2021

Episode 25: Special Guest Stars 11/22/2020

Episode 25: Special Guest Stars 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 . 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 . This will be a 4" warp sett at 60 epi (2/dent in a 30 epi reed). She is using the last of the T 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 and he chose for the contrasting color for his initial. /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/16906091

Episode 24: I've got big bobbins you know that! 10/17/2020

Episode 23: The great pile of dyeing! 09/26/2020

Episode 23: The great pile of dyeing! Sponsored by Weavolution If you would like to support the show, become a and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on ! We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: Michelle is Ravelry: MichelleTF Instagram: Facebook: Erica is Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: Facebook: Intro and Outro Music: 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. /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/16165010

Ep 22: A Long Time Coming 08/30/2020

Episode 21: Discoveries in Fiber 08/01/2020

Episode 20 07/06/2020

Episode 19 06/21/2020

Episode 18 06/10/2020

Episode 17: Live 05/23/2020

Episode 17: Live Sponsored by If you would like to support the show, become a and get access to exclusive Patron content from Erica. Where to find us: iTunes, please leave us a review on We have an e-mail account, please feel free to e-mail us! Podcast Instagram: Michelle is Ravelry: MichelleTF Instagram: Facebook: Erica is Weavolution: Erica J, Jahanara, or Weavolutionary Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: Facebook: Intro and Outro Music: 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 , 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 . 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 on BFL/Silk bleand (braid undone and wound in large ball below) and. 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 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 The first one she chose to spin was the below Wensleyday, her first longwool spin for her 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 . :) 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. /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/14538206

Episode 16: Guest Episode 05/15/2020

Episode 16: Guest Episode Where to find us: Michelle is Ravelry: MichelleTF Instagram: Facebook: Erica is Weavolution: Erica J, or Jahanara Ravelry: weavemage Instagram: Facebook: Intro and Outro Music: 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 . 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 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 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. /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/14430218

Episode 15: Work Smarter Not Harder 04/27/2020

Episode 15: Work Smarter Not Harder For photos and links, please see the . 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! :) /episode/index/show/fiberatthespeedoflife/id/14162294

Episode 14 04/12/2020

Episode 13 03/24/2020

Episode 12 03/02/2020

Fiber at the Speed of Life Podcast

TOPICS