Seabreeze Spinners

This is the logo for the new Ravelry Group, Seabreeze Spinners.

The new group takes a fresh look at spinning, knitting and weaving with a tropical twist. We’ll explore exotic and classic fibers which lend themselves to warmer climes . . . bamboo, silk, llama, linen, and cotton. Our focus is hand spinning, and hand knitting and weaving on small looms. (You need to do something with all that yarn.) Novice and experienced spinner alike are welcome whether planning to buy a wheel or looking for ideas for your next project.

Individuals who wish to sell off any of their personal stash or yarn, needles, magazines, books are encouraged to list it here. This is not a group for business owners to sell same or for selling stuff you make, but for individuals to sell their used stuff. You may post links to Ebay if you are selling your stash stuff there.

All who have an interest in fiber are welcome to join. This is a drama free zone. No adult content. “Disagree” is for “I disgree with someone’s stated opinion”. “Disagree” is not for expressing “I think they’re asking too much for their item”. Advice and suggestions are always welcome, but please, keep it positive and helpful. Please stay on topic. This is a place to chat and share with others who share your obsession with fiber.

Tropical Twister

“Marmalade” is 100% wool, spun from “printed” Louet rooving. The printing process for “northern lights” rooving very closely resembles hand painted rooving. The finger rooving is easy to spin and plying two singles, creates beautiful, complex yarn.

The second skein was handspun from hand painted fiber purchased at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, SAFF. The locks were sewn in after the yarn was spun and before it was fulled. The finished yarn was soaked in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes without stirring which caused the locks to be felted permanently into place.

On this blog, there are other examples of faux hand painted yarns.

Visit us again here at Seabreezespinners.com We’ll be posting a demo of various ways to add locks to handspun yarn.

Tropical Twister

This yarn was inspired by the Smoky Mountains … blue skies, brush stokes of white clouds and leaves every color of green. I spun Louet Karaoke Angelfish (50% wool / 50% soysilk) spun with a pinch of Angelina (Peacock Green).

Tropical Twister

These two skeins were inspired by my recent Jacey Boggs Insubordknit art yarn workshop. While I favor tiddy, small circumference yarn because I actually want to knit with it, I was delighted to experiment with some of the techniques I learned and adapted them on a smaller scale. Both yarns are aproximately bulky weight but no where near the heft of “art yarn” thick and thins which may only have a few wraps per inch. The bright multi wraps 8+ wraps per inch and the green, blue, purple wraps 10+ wraps per inch.

I hung the finished skeins outside in the fresh air to dry after fulling the fiber by hand “washing” in Soak, agitating, and then rinsing in cold water.

Tropical Twister

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Just spent the most amazing spinning weekend attending the Jacey Boggs Insubordiknit Art Yarn workshop on Anna Maria Island. A very pregnant Jacey Boggs challenged us by providing introduction to the technical aspects of Art Yarn. The fast paced two day workshop provided exposure to no fewer than a dozen techniques to create sturdy, outrageous yarn. The spinners included a novice with less than two days spinning experience, an eight year old and well seasoned fiber enthusiasts. Jacey’s warm, friendly teaching style engages the seasoned spinner and novice alike making the workshop just plain fun.

I may have been the only one at the workshop that didn’t know Jacey offers a video CD on her web site CLICK HERE and who hadn’t already purchased the CD and attempted the techniques before attending the workshop. While the video/CD is excellent, (of course I had to purchase and have already sneaked a peek), I would encourage the one-on-one experience of the workshop. A simple reminder to slow my treadling made all the difference when I was struggling with cacoons.

My yarns:

Mermaids, slippers, jewely and piles of fiber…

Jacey promises a new workshop for 2011 and her book is schedued for publication fall 2011 … I’ll be watching for both!

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I’ve been following Jane Thornton’s blog and have been inspired to engage in some “free range knitting”. I’ve a combination of space dyed cotton, blue mohair, blue-green tape and handspun blue purple wool. More as this project developes.

Tropical Twister

To the fair and back. Four blue ribbons but no rosettes, I’m dissappointed but will be back next year.

Have been enjoying my new wheel, an original Reeves hand turned Oak Spinning Wheel.

Reeves on YouTube

Reeves on YouTube too

Tropial Twister

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Used hand spun beaded yarn to create top down beaded shawl. The yarn is wool and alpaca. The spinning process was described HERE and HERE in the blog. The beads are silver lined glass beads and antique Chec beads from an old lamp. I’d gotten an ounce of Momi fiber (wool, silk and glitter the color of sunset) from the Ashville fiber festival which I spun on the Trindle I’d purchased at the festival. Too little yarn for a project but worked great to provide an accent of colored lace.

I used the same pattern as the pink top down shawl

And, an interesting aside. Lacy, my mostly border collie … just learned she has no discernable border collie DNA. Had her DNA run through Wisdom DNA thinking I’d learn border collie and what. (No blood is taken, cheek swab.) Learned she has only two breeds discernable: Austrailian Shepard (that fits) and Cocker Spaniel (didn’t see that one coming). It was great fun and splendid painful anticipation while waiting for the DNA results.

Tropical Twister

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Completed the hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit lace shawl. The pinks blended nicely but to pick it up a bit I knit lace panels. The lace was knit from a bit of yarn previously spun. The yarn was a caliopi of colors but not enough for any project…but, a great accent. See the finished shawl below.

Happy “Black Friday”

Tropial Twister

Playing with my recently arrived Royal Hare Support Spindle. It’s pictured with wool/silk/bamboo fiber from Louet and a spindle case from Royal Hare.

Not me, but you can see a YouTube video spindling on a Royal Hare Support spindle by clicking HERE.

UPDATE 11/9/09

In response to an inquiry: I found my Royal Hare at Woodland Woolworks (CLICK HERE to go to their web site). When I ordered mine in June they were back ordered but they were finally able to ship the spindle this month.

Tropical Twister