27 February, 2011

Fiber Club 1 Yarn


Here's what I made of my first fiber club roving. It's wheelspun, though. But I used my new spindle to ply. :-)
The roving was a handpainted, 50/50 merino silk top.



It's a three ply. I'm not really a fan of jewel blue but I like how this yarn turned out.

Fiber Club: Part 1

Last year's christmas gift to myself was a membership in zebisisdesigns fiberclub for three months. Maysha makes wonderful stone whorled handspindles and beautiful fibres, too. The club deal is, you get one spindle and ca. 4 oz. fibre every month for three months. So, my christmas gift will last til march. A surprise box full of lovelyness every month. 

My fisrt club package contained this beautiful top whorl spindle. It has a handcarved rosewood shaft and a silver hook. I love the colour of the whorl. It looks like arctic ice and water.. It's a blue druzy and weights 0.92 oz.



The roving was this blue and green hand painted 50/50 merino silk top. It's so soft and fluffy! :-D Indeed, I'm a bit late posting this, because I already got it a month ago. That's why I can say this roving was such a pleasure to spin! But more about that and the yarn later!

19 February, 2011

Making Ghee

If you love Indian food as much as I do, then you surely know what ghee is. If not, ghee is kind of a boiled down butter. It doesn't need to be refrigerated and can be used whenever you need oil or fat to roast. And you can smear it on fresh, warm naan. Yumm! :-P



Making ghee is actually quite easy. But it takes some time. I had a lot of butter in the fridge and needed the room for other foods. So I decided to make ghee because of the non-fridge storage thing..
First, you'll need butter. I had about 750 gramms. Cut it in small bits and put it in a large pan. Slowly heat until all butter is melted. Be careful, don't let it burn! This may take up to 15 minutes, depending on the amount of butter.





Boil shortly and then let it simmer 40 minutes. Check it regularly. While simmering, white tatters will apear.



Now we need to filter it to get rid of those white tatters. We don't want them in our ghee. Use a funnel and kitchen paper towels. This takes time, too. You'll have to replace the paper towel from time to time.




Now we have lovely, clear and golden yellow liquid ghee. Fill it in clean and dry glass jars. It will become solid once cooled down. In a dark place, you can store ghee for months! 


17 February, 2011

Pro Verzasca Yarn


May I inrtoduce my latest spinning: A lovely creamy-beige single spun.

This one is made of very special wool, even if the sheep is unknown.. The roving was a gift of my mother. She got it in the Valle di Verzasca, Canton Tessin, Switzerland. Way back in this small valley, there's a small town, Sonogno. They started to produce wool, plant dyed yarns, embroidery and woodworks in the 1930's to come over the economic crisis back then. Soon they founded the association Pro Verzasca, which is still working today. You can visit their website, unforetunately, it's only in German, French, and Italian.. I really need to visit Sonogno myself and see all the lovely plantdyed yarn and wool. :-P Maybe this summer...






14 February, 2011

A new easy headband

I was inspired by Frau Kichererbse's cool headband and knew I had to make my own! I usually don't wear headbands, even though I like them. They always run up my head and won't stay where they are supposed to.. However, this one behaves perfectly! 


It's made of black and red and beige checked jersey fabric, with a black band to wrap arround. I made it far to long intentionally so I can wrap it three times arround my head.








 Please excuse the silly face.. Taking my own picture was more difficult than I thought..

12 February, 2011

Awesome single spun yarns

These are some of my very first wheelspun yarns. I got an Ashford Traditional some time ago and I love it. Not that I don't like my handspindles anymore, but wheelspinning is so much faster! 
I got the roving at Wildhare Fiber Studio on Etsy. They're named "Irish Eyes" and "Lucky Penny". So beautiful and soft and fluffy... I'm really into multicoloured singles recently. Love the colour changes..














An Afternoon Walk


 Because the weather was so sunny, nice and warm, I went out for a walk yesterday. I couldn't  resist taking my "new" camera with me and play. It's not brand new, actually, I got it on ebay. But it's much better than my old, small pocket camera. And it has a great macro! Ideal to take nice detail pictures.



I'm not a fotographer, but I'm quite pleased with my pictures. Wasn't it a wonderful day?