Baa Baa Black Sheep
Black Sheep
Keeping with my creative interest in textiles this month, I visited the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend. Seeing the wool from its source, is way cool. There is something I love about milling around people who live in the country and love nature. Many think of nature as flowers and trees, but animals is where this fair is at. Shepherds brought their young lambs to sell, vendors sold spinning wheels, fresh wool, all the tools needed to card and spin, as well as homespun yarn.
Sheep make almost pleading sounds when crowds gather around them. They stay in groups and allow themselves to be herded by sheep dogs. Their hair is very warm and is shorn yearly.
Sheep Shearing Event
A different world, that is for sure. Surrounded by a sunny sky and the sounds of fiddle and celtic harp music, this was truly an enjoyable day!
Read more at: Playing.
Confessions of a Textileholic
You know who you are, you textileholics!! We love the feel, color, and visuals of fiber, can’t get enough of it! Does anyone who isn’t one of us understand? I sincerely doubt it, but let me try to explain. It is sensual almost sexy to touch the silky fibers. Bumpy, oh, that yarn is so fun to just feel, knitting it is a pain, but the finished product, so many colors, so variegated, so, so bumpy!
And then there are the different stitch patterns we can make, oh lordy, how fun!!
So many different yarns are available. One of my recent favorites is the homespun sari silk yarn from Nepal. Recycled fiber from women across the globe is knit into a garment. Good energy in that.
Knitting has been done for centuries by men and women around the world, for warmth, comfort, consoling, love. Knitting my own sweaters and for people I love makes me mindful of what we wear, what keeps us warm. Someone spun that fiber, sheared from an animal or cut from a plant, put thought into dying it, and is offering it to you to make a garment full of love. Us textile lovers knit stitch by stitch thinking, laughing, gazing, and remembering who it is from and you it going to. Love that.
Creative Journey: Searching Through my Stash
Cotton yarn
Next month I am going to embark on my first Creative Journey Month of 2013 and explore Textiles.I have sewn since college, knit since I was 8, and love the feel and look of textiles. I am in the throws of organizing my fabric studio, perusing my stash. Numerous fabrics and yarns from travels, relatives, shopping expeditions, and who knows where I got everything? The colors alone are so addicting!I think of the textiles in my fabric studio as my palette, almost like paint. What should I make? Sometimes it is sad to use a fabric or yarn, it is like letting an old friend go.
May 1 I start on my adventure, can’t wait!
Batik cotton
cropped pullover
Sweaters are Cozy
Love the colors on this yummy, soft sweater jacket.
I have been perusing my fabric and yarn stash. I have finished several projects, bought some cute cotton fabric for little girl skirts, and started to clean up for the new year, a great feeling!
I finished my pastel knit sweater jacket made from hand dyed mohair, silk, wool yarn in happy pinks, blues, soft yellow and mint green. Who says pastels are just for spring? I feel that a high key palette makes for a pleasing and uplifting feeling.
I also finished a patchwork velvet and silk Asian style evening jacket.
silks and velvets in a long evening jacket
This has been so much fun!
Read more at Bread Month
A Day in the Life: Fabric Art
Trying to work in my studio while setting up my new shop hasn’t been easy. But I have been able to work in my fabric studio and have made progress on a couple of projects.
sweet skirt
I made this skirt for my sweet 5 year old granddaughter.
Then I have been working on a cropped cable pullover I am designing with handspun yarn.
cropped pullover
Fabrics and yarn seem to be my comfort studio time 
Read more at: Sunsets.
Week Word: Recycle
Fabric for napkins
Recycle, a great word to elaborate on!! I personally love to recycle in my fabric stash. This past summer, I took some left over fat quarters and made napkins out of them.
Sweater
I have been known to use extra yarn or yarn from a previous knit sweater and make something entirely new from it.
My new coffee sleeve!
Or I have used old fabric to make a coffee sleeve.
Read more takes on this Week’s Word at: Textilspanieln blog .
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