Update, 1/8/21: Now available as a PDF as well! Handspun Cowl Recipe For me, spinning is meditation that also makes yarn. Everything about spinning is restorative! There's nothing better than sitting down at my wheel with a braid of beautiful hand-painted fiber in my hand and letting yarn happen. My favorite way of spinning hand-painted… Continue reading Handspun Cowl Recipe
Tag: handspun
How I get the gross out of raw fleece
After I've selected & skirted a fleece, I usually wrap it up in the plastic drop cloth and store until I'm ready to wash. If there was a lot of VM that shook out, I will gather up the fleece into smaller bags and shake the VM off outside. Another thought about the VM -… Continue reading How I get the gross out of raw fleece
How I buy all the fleeces!
It's no secret: I love wool. I love soft wool, I love toothy wool, I love the texture of wool, I love working with wool. Sometimes, I even love the smell of it. I love the feel of lanolin on my hands after rubbing on a sweet sheepy face. But, as we all know, sheep… Continue reading How I buy all the fleeces!
Donita2017 Reflection
My theme for 2017 was to "Maintain My Groovy Self". Maintaining what we've been working towards the last few years proved more challenging than we anticipated when I chose this focus. But I'm so glad that we did. Because we didn't have crazy ambitious goals and timelines in our minds, we were better able to… Continue reading Donita2017 Reflection
Donita2017 Q4 – The Home stretch
Well, it's time to shut 2017 down. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. I knit up a cowl for the hubs, to match a hat he made himself a few years ago. This was my first time knitting with Briar Rose Fibers yarn and this base was SO squishy and… Continue reading Donita2017 Q4 – The Home stretch
Donita2017 Q3
Summer has gone and fall has come. It's finally sweater weather and I couldn't be more happy about it! First up in July, I finished a top (that I started in May), because I finally found a pattern that I could use this yarn for! And I used EVERY. LAST. BIT. July is Tour de… Continue reading Donita2017 Q3
"That’s gonna be a fascinating transition!"
Tour de Fleece 2017 was a win! Since yellow makes me look dead, I'll post about it here instead of getting a yellow ANYTHING, let alone a jersey right next to my face. Tour de Fleece is a "competition" that runs concurrently with the Tour de France. The idea is that every day that the… Continue reading "That’s gonna be a fascinating transition!"
Donita2017 – Q2 update…up late
Well, since it's halfway through August, it only makes sense that I finally give you an update on how spring went, right?Q2 kicked my butt - I'm not even gonna try to be nice about it. It was rough. I was so ready for it to be over, it's not even funny. There were a… Continue reading Donita2017 – Q2 update…up late
Donita2017 – Q1 update
Here we are, the end of the first quarter of 2017. While I've been short on words the last few months, I've not been short on FOs. I've finished 3 sweaters in 3 months! It's crazy! I decided that I really had so many nice sweater quantities of yarn, with so many nice patterns… Continue reading Donita2017 – Q1 update
From fluff to finished object
I love spinning (have I mentioned that?). And I love the path spinning takes to yarn and then later, finished object. Fiber Optic has the most luscious fiber, it's always beautifully prepared and is a joy to spin. That was exactly the case with this braid. Seriously - click the link and go get your own.… Continue reading From fluff to finished object
Donita Westman 