I saw sky today.  Real.  Blue.  Sky.  And sun.

For a little while, I was excited.  I took advantage of the light to pull back curtains that have been closed, to sit in the chair near the window and enjoy the sunlight with my coffee, and to take some fiber photos.  I played “sunny” music as I sat at the wheel for some spinning.  I love that a little bit of sunlight can improve my mood and give me some hopeful thoughts for this cloudy, dreary cold.  Of course, this evening, I’ve learned that yet another winter storm is scheduled to hit tomorrow evening.  I had almost forgotten that there’s another month of this left.  Almost.

I’m really pushing myself with my spinning lately.  I spent the first half of the week dyeing and carding up some batts and I’ve spent all weekend at the wheel treadling away.  I’m excited to play with my “Dead Yarns” line and I have a lot of ideas for some yarns that will fit in nicely with it.  I’m planning on spending every evening after I get home from my day job at the wheel working.  I’m also pushing myself with new techniques.  I gave wirecore a go today.  The results are wicked cool, but the process, itself, was a little frustrating for me.

fun with wire

As you can see by the last photo, I was having some issues keeping the wire untangled.  It was odd trying to spin something that doesn’t absorb twist the way fiber does.  I was trying to let the excess wire spin on its own, but it kept getting caught and then it would tangle and kink… and thus began the never-ending cycle of untwisting the wire, twisting the wire, untwisting the wire, twisting the wire, and so on and so on.  But the more that I look at the 2 yds of spun wirecore that is hanging on the wall next to me, the more I want to give this a go again and master the technique.  I think no beads is the way to go for my next attempt.  They seemed to be part of the problem, getting caught on the kinks, creating more kinks, creating more kinks that created twisted wire.  It’s an interesting technique.  And I’ve been looking around for some photos of work that has been made with wirecore, but I’ve not really found anything yet.  Personally, I want to make myself a bowl with it. Not sure why a bowl, but a knitted wirecore bowl just seemed really groovy.  Of course, the possibilities for this type of yarn are numerous!  It’s really very cool.  Definitely going to do some more exploring with this.

 

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