Tuesday, June 20, 2006

A ton of lace!


I just finished dyeing some lace weight yarns. Some in soft superwash lamb's wool and some in a gorgeous Silk/wool blend.
They came out just gorgeous - with beautiful tonal variations. Ready to be made into beautiful knitted or crocheted lace!
The smaller images on top are sock yarns in fingering & DK weight.
Free shipping till June 30th 2006 to US & Canada - all yarns.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Rizwana's Magic




I was stunned when I saw these hand embroidered bags & picture frames my mother had made.
She sells them at Rizwana's Corner
Her other embroidery work lives at http://creativeembroidery.blogspot.com/ Her media include Silk, Khadi (hand woven textiles) and other crazy things.
She's a self taught artist, a Bonsai Maestro & a prolific author of books & stories in 2 languages (Hindi & Marathi). Her work has been exhibited & shown in and around Mumbai (Bombay) & Pune.
She draws her inspiration from nature & her extensive travel throughout India & it's heartland.
As teenagers we used to laugh when people called her a 'witch' for being able to accomplish so much independantly.

Friday, June 16, 2006

A WORD OF ADVICE WHEN WEAVING ALPACA...

For all those weavers who haven't yet encountered the horrors of using an Alpaca warp but are fondling hundreds of yards of Alpaca for warp they plan to use in the near future - a word of advice.
Alpaca is treacherously deceptive. Even if you test -break the warp thread to see the strength in tension, it could mislead you. Alpaca warps - especially thicker ones - tend to rub against the reed & heddles & pill insanely till you're left helplessly praying against one or several broken warp threads. As you start to wind the warp on, spray it with lots of sizing spray. I use the lemon scented one my husband uses on his cotton shirts before ironing them. It definitely helps. It might make the warp look stiff & ugly but will wash off easily when you block the finished textile to reveal the same beautiful Alpaca you'd fondled lovingly. Do the sizing BEFORE the weaving. If during the process of weaving it looks like the warp is still pilling near the heddle/reed area, blast it with more sizing spray! You can't go wrong with this approach. I did this Alpaca shawl & nearly tore my hair our because the warp pilled & broke 7 times! Then I did another Alpaca shawl with a much finer thread but used sizing spray & it didn't break once.
Keep the sizing spray handy & all well twisted Alpaca can be warped.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

CHARKHAS ARE BACK!


And this time, they're bigger with more capacity.
These beautiful 12x7x2, hand crafted Large Book Charkhas or Attache Charkhas have great capacity & a handle. Also, with them are available fabulous 75 minute long DVDs & VHS tapes by Charkha & spinning/weaving guru Elaine Benfatto. It is PACKED with information on how-to, trouble shooting, techniques, spinning with traditional & non-traditional fibers & advanced techniques - all that good stuff.