Episode 15: Work Smarter Not Harder

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! :)