Identify Mystery Yarn

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Roving Crafters provides help those struggling to identify the oddball yarn that may be the yarn stash: the balls without a label, the yarn from a friend.

The three steps Roving Crafters provides should help identify the mystery yarns in your stash.

How to Identify Mystery Yarn

Leather E-reader Cover

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Made by Me, Shared with You blog provides a clear tutorial to make a durable and quick case for an e-reader, a tablet, or even a phone. The directions can also be adapted to make a business card or credit card case.

The materials might be available at a local thrift shop.

The step by step tutorial can be found here.

Zippered Scissor Case

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S.O.T.A.K. created a step by step tutorial on making a zippered scissors cozy or case.

The cozy will protect your scissors and keep them secure in your project bag or sewing machine case.

Phone Case from Necktie

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Vicky Myers Creations prepared a tutorial on how to turn an ordinary necktie into an elegant phone case.

Make Your Own Design Wall

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Quilters often find themselves using the floor to arrange blocks. Sew Many Ways has a step by step tutorial to make a portable and light-weight design wall out of PVC pipe and connections.

The tutorial with photos can be found here.

Hand Dyeing with Kool-Aid

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Noble Knits' tutorial on How to dye with Kool-Aid may have you looking at the simple children's drink in a whole new light.

Show and Tell - January

close-up of the button made by Sali A. 

Show and Tell at the January meeting was packed with a wonderful variety of beautiful items. Our members have been busy and productive. Well done, ladies! This is a picture heavy post.

Whenever possible, the pattern links are given.

Briana F. knit a hat for her fiancé, Patrick

New member, Carrie J. shared a knit hat with "smocking" and a pair
 of mittens and liner knit as one piece, end to end , for double-thick wooly warmth.
The mitten pattern is called Karen

Cinde P. shared a white cowl with fringe, a sweater that she is not happy
with how it looks when worn, a market bag, and light-weight cowl.

Dana H. is knitting a hot pad cover

Dawna H. knit boot cuffs, a Christmas stocking, a linen stitch scarf,
and a mini stocking 

Other projects Dawna H. shared were a vest with lovely drape,
a beret/tam, some tin-can lid ornaments, and a mini stocking she
made for friend Christmas gifts

Jeni V. knit and wore My Friend Virginia capelet and shared a headband,
a knit and felted bubble bag with a long handle, and a cabled cowl

Julie W. knit a lacy diamond scarf, a Baltic Summer shawl/scarf, and is currently
working on a poinsettia shawl/scarf

Laura B. purchased the kit for her hand-knit and felted bag. She created an adjustable
i-cord handle for the bag. Laura spun the yarn and knit it into a lovely vest. 

Mary H. shared an auto trash bag that she made in class taught by Jeni V.
She showed the members an electronic tablet case she made out of
cork cloth. The cloth is made with a thin layer of real cork. Ask Mary for details.

Nancy S. wore the hand-knit shawl with a beaded bind off
The shawl's pattern was Sweet Little Nothing Shawl

Rachel B. is knitting a baby blanket.

Sali A. spun the thick and thin yarn for the coat that she crocheted.
Sali brought many cowls and scarves and a dog coat that she crocheted.

Sam G. designed and crocheted this sweet little doll

Sandy W. shared the baby booties she knit, the Year of Stitches project -
improvised embroidered design, a baby hat and mittens, and a knit and
felted bubble bag with a long cross body strap.

Sue O. brought some hot pads made with a Crohook, a crochet hook with
a hook on both ends. It creates a Tunsian crochet stitch with two colors
of yarn. Sue used a pattern she saw on this Guild blog post to make a
durable hot pad. Sue has been crocheting ditty bags with handles
 for a 2018 convention. She was asked to make 100 bags,
and she has 93 already made. 

Vicky B. knit a Sheep headband and a Project Peace Cowl. She also
presented the program at the January meeting on embroidery stitches.
Hopefully some of the Guild members will participate in the Year of
Stitches project.

Cinde P. brought a gift she received from a friend.
The bag is made from a zippered money bag.
Hopefully, Cinde will be able to have her friend present
a program on how to make the bag at a future Guild meeting.

Transfer Thread to Smaller Spools

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One of the top tips from Makery is transferring thread from a large cone to spools.

The step by step tutorial shows how easily it can be done.

Weaving Tips

The following tips for weavers were shared on the Weavers of Orlando website.

•  Bent-handle scissors are perfect for snipping loose ends off your web while it’s under tension on your loom. The duck bill prevents you from accidentally cutting other threads. The bent handle allows you go get the cutting edge absolutely parallel to your web. And the position of the cutting edge allows you get flush with the fabric.

•  Sometimes it’s best to remove your rings when warping or weaving, so that ends don’t snag on them. If your rings won’t budge, squirt a little Windex on the rings and they will slip right off your finger. Since they will be slippery, they could get away from you, so make sure you do this over a towel, and with the sink stopper in place and the toilet lid down. The Windex also will clean the rings. I learned this trick from a jeweler who needed to make sure the rings being trying on in their store didn’t get stuck on anon-buyer.

•  The easiest way to break a thread exactly where you want it to break, is to tie a knot in the thread where you want it to break. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, because you would normally tie a knot to hold two threads together. However, when you tie a knot, the fiber right next to the knot is weakened by being bent in the direction of the knot. Then when you pull on the two long ends, the weakest “link” is what will break first, so one of the threads right at the side of the knot will break.

When would you use this technique? When winding a bobbin, for example. You want the end of the thread on the bobbin to be broken and frayed just a little bit, so it beds down nicely in the fabric. A cut end tends to poke out of the fabric. Some yarns break easily, but for those which don’t, I’d take the bobbin off the bobbin winder and tie an overhand knot in the thread between the bobbin and the cone of yarn. Then I’d pull the thread on both sides of the knot, and it will break where the knot is and the knot will come undone.

The easiest way to untie a knot is with a pair of scissors.There is no point taking pins and trying to pry the knot open, as you’ll just fray the yarn. And for what? To save 2 inches of yarn? Just cut it cleanly with a pair of scissors. Doing it in this manner will save your sanity.

•  After dyeing fabric with indigo, the excess indigo often “crocks off” and turns your skin or underwear blue. One way to prevent this is to paint the fabric with soy milk. Let it hang dry, and don’t wash it out for a month (three months is even better). No, it won’t smell. The proteins in the soy milk act like little coils that bind the indigo to the fabric, and they bind tighter and tighter the longer you let the fabric cure. When you finally do wash the fabric, the soy milk and any residual indigo will
come out in the wash, and you’ll be left with a fabric that will not turn you blue.

•  If you have a Schacht Standard, Mighty Wolf or Baby Wolf loom, the little nuts that hold the shafts in place can be tricky to remove and replace because they are so small. They also get loose and need to be tightened periodically or they work themselves off and disappear under the loom never to be found again. I’ve replaced all my little nuts with size #8-32 wing nuts. The wings make them easier to tighten and loosen, and because they are bigger, they are less likely to get lost.

January Meeting Reminder

Fiber Guild Meeting 

Saturday, January 21, 2017

10AM

Fremont County Public Library

   200 Amoretti Street

   Lander, WY 82520

Program by Vicky B. and Sandy W. 

following the meeting

"Embroidery"

Visitors and Guests are always welcome

Weaving for Kids

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Interweave has a free ebook of weaving project to do with kids.

Clear, step-by-step kids weaving loom instructions in Weaving for Kids: Free Weaving Patterns for Kids guide weavers through the process of creating a cardboard loom from a box to create a unique tapestry bag plus fun felted winter accessories. Great for any beginner, the techniques learned in these kids weaving projects can lead to endless possibilities. See the love and joy of handweaving come to life for any child exploring these fun and easy projects.

Ribbon Rosettes

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My Poppet Makes shares a tutorial for making Ribbon Rosettes.  These rosettes can be worn as brooches as she indicates, but they can also be used for awards for exhibits and shows. Best of all, they can be personalized for the specific show or occasion.

Warmth of Animal Fiber

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Interweave recently shared how the fiber harvested from fiber animals ranked as to warmth. The top-ranked fiber may surprise you. The article can be found here.

Repairing Knits - Darning

Rips and tears happen in knits no matter how carefully they are treated. Very Pink shares a video tutorial on how to repair the damage by darning.

Adding Beads to Crochet

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Adding beads to knitted accessories has been popular in recent years, but beads can also be used to adorn crochet items. Roving Crafters shares the technique and tips in two separate posts.

         Part one: Pre-stringing

         Part two: Setting Beads as You Work

Exercises for Knitters

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An editor of Interweave states, "Are you finding that your hands are sore in odd places? I have the weirdest pain in between my pointer and middle finger on my right hand. It’s a dull ache that is exacerbated by knitting. It must be all of that Christmas knitting catching up with me.

I can’t have my knitting interrupted, so I went searching for some relief. In the Summer 2012 back issue, Rebecca A. Watson wrote an article about avoiding injuries just by doing some easy stretches. They’re helping me already! Here are a few of the ways you can prevent or soothe injuries."

The stretches are not only helpful for knitters, but also those who crochet, spin, sew, and weave. The stretches and exercises can be found on this Interweave Throwback Thursday post.

Join as You Go

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Crochet Corner shares a joining technique that saves the trouble and bother of having to sew or crochet all squares or motifs together once they've all been made. Using this method, the units are joined to each other as they are made.

Photos and instructions can be found here. 

Crochet Tip

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Found on WEBS Tuesday's Crochet Tip: If you’re new to crochet, or a seasoned veteran that gets tripped up by that last stitch in a row, this tip is for you!

In crochet, it can be tricky to keep track of the last stitch in your row, especially when using dark yarn. Your first stitch in a row tends to be a little tighter than the others and can even curl a little bit. This makes us unsure if that last stitch in a row is really part of the row we’re working on, or if it’s the side of a stitch from the row below.

To keep track, I put a locking stitch marker at the beginning of each row I start. This way, when I turn my work and start working back across the row, it’s very clear which stitch is the last in the row. It’s a simple tip, but can come in really handy!

Plying without Lazy Kate

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How to Choose and Use a Wheel

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Interweave is offering a free ebook on how to Use and Choose a Spinning Wheel.

The book gives advice from spinning experts:

Maggie Casey
Denise Jackson
Rudy Amann

More information on the book can be found here. Share the link with anyone who is thinking of learning the craft of spinning.

Benefits of Knit Night

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Interweave recently shared, "One of the main draws of knitting is the duality of doing it by yourself and knitting with other people. On the one hand, it’s a great activity for personal quiet time because it has that meditative and therapeutic quality; on the other, it is a marvelous way for people to come together and connect. “Knit nights” happen every day all over the world, organized and driven by knitters and yarn shops.

Not sure if you want to go to a knit night with other humans? Check out this list of reasons why you should try it!

Known local opportunities to knit, crochet, spin with others:

Lander

     Knitting Social meets at Lander Art Center (schedule can be found here)

     Needlers meets at Lander Senior Center on Tuesdays beginning at 1PM

Riverton Knitters (those who crochet or spin are also welcome )

      group meets on Tuesday at Central Wyoming College

      west lobby of the Health Science building from 7 - 9 PM

      If the college is closed, the group meet at the Riverton Public Library

Blocking Basics

Greeting Cards

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Create some unique greeting cards for any occasion using embroidery floss, a simple cross-stitch design that you print on card stock.

The template shared on the dandee website could be used to create a card for a wedding, for Valentine's Day or to create a collection of cards as a gift.

Other tutorials can be found on the following websites:

Little Lovelies - get well card

Little Birdie Secrets - love notes and note cards