Patti Gill

OK. So here’s the pictures I promised.

Oh My!  I’ve got a new passion! We went to the Routt National Forest last weekend and took along our new 4-wheeler that my hubby just had to have for moving stuff around on our property. I never knew that anything could be so much fun!  When I was a kid, my Dad had a Toyota Land Cruiser that we used to go 4-wheeling in. It was so much fun, but vehicles like that are few and far between these days. Our new 4-wheeler can go places even that old Land Cruiser couldn’t.  We had a BLAST!  I’ve got some fantastic pictures, but I couldn’t get Yahoo to upload them this morning so I’ll have to post them later. My hubbie is visiting family in Ohio right now, but when he comes back we plan on 4-wheeling every weekend we possibly can.

In the meantime, I do have some beauties coming up on EBay so without further ado …

That computers and cameras and all that other stuff that is required to get your art out there can eat up more time than making your art!  It’s just sooooo frustrating!

Anyway, here’s my first listing on EBay in a really long time.

So here’s the next few auctions coming. If you want them, post something BEFORE they get listed on the Bay. Thanks!

OK. So now that it’s warm enough to venture out to the glass studio, I’ve been busy making some heart pendants because I HATE cleaning beads. Here’s about half of what I’ve got. I’ll probably list them on EBay for about $15, but you can get them here by emailing me for $12, shipping included. Thanks!

OK. Well, the picture of beads came out all fuzzy so we’ll skip that for now. But here’s a picture of my latest shawl. Made of 100% superwash merino (so soft), hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit. Thanks to Maggie for modeling for me. Oh, and by the way, I am willing to part with most my work if you just have to have it

Well, I’ve been such a slacker so here’s a quick update. Sadly, my dear, dear geeky friend passed away. He will be missed.

I purchased a Spinnolution Bee!  Wee! LOVE it. It’s ratio is super high so I’ve been practicing spinning my lace weight yarn.

I’ve spun several skeins of super yummy yarn on my new wheel.

I finished my first shawl made 100% of my handspun yarn.

With the arrival of spring comes the urge to make beads again. The shop is too cold to make beads in the winter time, but now it’s very comfortable out there. I’ve been practicing making heart pendants. I also bought some molds and cast a few heart boxes.

I found a face mold made by a tool designer named Carlo Dona and couldn’t resist. I can’t wait for it to arrive.

My hubby’s friend Sparky built me some traditional Estonian blocking frames which I made shawl blocking sooooo much easier!

OK. Now I’m off to try and get pictures of all this for you. Have a great Sunday.

So, I went out to the shop and finished carding the Kid Mohair spinning project. Here’s what it started out as.

I doesn’t look like enough to make anything with, but when you pull the individual curls apart, they really fluff and I’m able to spin it really thin. The yardage will be very interesting on this one.

Here’s a pic of the finished cashmere/silk yarn.

So those are in the win column. In the lose  column, I tried to build the self-striping sock yarn apparatus, but I accidentally purchased the wrong size of pipe.  GRRRRR!

Well, I got to about Tier 7 on my Forest Path Shawl and found a mistake 2 tiers back. Normally, I’d forgive myself and just move on, but this was a major mistake. I made a triangle where I shouldn’t have. No recovering from that one. I un-knit for a couple of hours, but the yarn is a little fuzzy and I was doing more harm than good so out of frustration, I just broke the yarn and decided I would tackle this pattern some other day.

I found a posting on Ravelry that describes how to build a contraption for dying self-striping yarn so I ran out to the hardware store and bought everything I needed. I hope to build it this weekend and will be sure to post pics.

Finished spinning the ultra gorgeous cashmere/silk yarn. OMG it is so beautiful I’m afraid to knit it. It turned out to be 485 yards of heaven. I’ll post pics of that too.

The new spinning project is well underway. I bought 4 oz. of dyed kid mohair at Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins. I’m finding I need to break the curls apart and run them through the drum carder before spinning, but that allows me to spin it really thin. Pictures to follow, of course LOL!

I’ve got a cold so I’m moving slow right now, but I’m gonna get myself up and moving soon.

Oh my heart is heavy.  Have you ever met someone that was hard to talk to?  I know a guy like that. I met him about 15 years ago and over the years we’ve become good friends. On the outside he is large, awkward and appears to be uncomfortable. On the inside he is brilliant, warm and sensitive. I received word yesterday that he has terminal cancer. I will miss wandering down to his office to swap stories and try to figure out what to do. I’m so sorry my friend.

Well, I realized that I forgot to update you on the proof of concept project. There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that I LOVE the yarn. It has a wonder feel and drape so I will continue the spinning. The bad news is that I HATE the dye painting. It just looks ugly. Maybe I picked a bad color. I was trying to highlight the knit pattern with dye and it just didn’t work. Well, have a look and see what you think.

So, it starts on the blending hackle. 50% cashmere and 50% silk … YUM!

After spinning and knitting, I laid the swatch out on saran wrap …

I painted the dye onto the swatch with a tiny little paintbrush …

Rolled it into a log and cooked it in the microwave …

After washing, blocking and drying … YUK!

Well, at least my Triinu scarf turned out nicely. You can’t see it, but there are tiny little sparkly beads throughout. So pretty!

A close up. If you look VERY closely you can see the beads …

Oh, I didn’t spin this one, but I did dye it

OK. So the proof of concept is underway but more about that later. Today I decided it’s time to block the finished scarves I have laying around.

It’s a snowy day today so I thought I’d let the bunnies run around in their pen for a while. They had so much fun it was tough to catch them and put them back for the night LOL!

Then I decided that a nice big pot of green chilli was in order … Shhhhhh … don’t tell the kids that mom’s cooking … yum!