Pet Beds from T-shirts

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Want a way to recycle T-shirts and use up fabrics, batting and scraps along with some other things that would otherwise go to a landfill? 

Carole (From My Carolina Home) shares a project that is fast, easy, and will clean out your sewing room in a hurry. 

Carole writes, "Rural counties are always in need of donations to help with their work saving animals that need homes. The farther away from a larger town, the more they need help. As a result, they are happy to have little extras for the dogs and cats. I spent two afternoons making dog beds and crate mats to take to the humane society groups needing the most help. These are ridiculously simple and will clean out all the bits and pieces you want."

Carole shares a tutorial to make these quick and easy pet beds and crate mats. 

Weigh & Estimate Yarn

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Sometimes you need to know if you have enough yarn leftover to either complete a project or make more of something — like a second sock or mitten. You could roll the working yarn off the ball and measure it as you roll it, but that’s time-consuming and really annoying. 

Instead grab a food or postal scale and weigh the yarn. It’s the easiest way to figure out how much yarn you have left. It’s also a fantastic method to make sure you have enough yarn when you’re trying to work from your stash.

Craftsy explains the easy steps in this post. 

Fiber Body Art

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Do you love your craft enough to get a tattoo? Interweave shares some interesting fiber-related body art in this post. The tattoos range from knitting, to crochet, to spinning.

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Slang Terms

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"Prewashed" Labels

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How many times do you pull fabric out of your stash and ask yourself, “Has this been prewashed?” 

Orange Bettie shares a free printable label to affix to preached fabrics to eliminate the guess work. 

Prewashed Fabric - free printable

10 Tools for Rigid-Hedge Weaving

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“Rigid heddle” is a long term for a simple loom. On complex looms, two separate pieces control the spacing and movement of the warp yarns. Rigid-heddle looms have just a few basic parts, making them easy to use.

Interweave shares a list of ten tools necessary for using a Rigid-Heddle loom.

Warping a Rigid-Heddle Loom

How do I get the yarn on the loom? It's not nearly as complicated as you might think. Warping a rigid-heddle loom is particularly easy and fast. Liz Gipson of Yarnworker demonstrates in less than 3 minutes how to thread the loom. As the saying goes, you have to be warped to weave! 

Weaving Seamless Stripes

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The Woolery Guy shares a printable on how to achieve seamless stripes when weaving.

Seamless Stripes - free printable

Bus Trip to Buffalo

Brenda H., Cheryl O. and Jeni V. used the time on the bus to work on
knitting projects. 

Those who participated in the Guild field trip brought knitting and crochet projects to work on during the three-hour road trip. Members also enjoyed visiting, playing games for prizes and even enjoying a cocktail if they desired.

Lemon Drop martinis were a hit with many on the bus

Cinde P. 

Woolen Mill Trip

Mountain Meadow Woolen Mill is one of the few
mills that processes wool from the raw fleece to the
finished product of roving or yarn. 

Guild members began the mill tour by learning some of the background
on how and why the mill was started ten years ago.
Mountain Meadow Woolen Mill, Buffalo, WY
September 16, 2017

The skirting process was explained 

Ben explained how the skirting process not only removes vegetable matter
but also short cuts that can occur during shearing 

wool grease is a by-product of the scouring process.
The equipment in the mill ranges in age and some machines
were manufactured and/or obtained overseas. The machines
 often came without instruction manuals or the instructions
were in Spanish or Portuguese. The mill had to be innovative
to get the machinery running.

The wool is sent through drum carders as well as
pin drop machines to make sure the wool fibers
are parallel. Guild members were able to feel the
difference between the processes from the samples
shown in the box

The pin drop machines have fine combs that separate
the wool fibers. The wool is put through the process
several times. 

The wool is guided through a pin drop machine

drum carders

spinning the wool onto bobbins

one of the many boxes of wool being spun into yarn at the spinning machine

The spinning machine was turned on during our Saturday visit, and Ben demonstrated how quickly a broken strand could be repaired.

Large bobbins filled with yarn

Once the yarn is on the bobbin, it is skeined and then
wrapped on cones.

This machine wraps the yarn from a skein onto a cone

Some of the yarn is also dyed at the mill, and the
mill store has many gorgeous skeins for sale.
Buyers can also purchase roving from a variety of
sheep or exotic breeds. 

Finished wool items are also for sale (sweaters, hats,
mittens, throws) in the mill shop

The owners and founders of Mountain Meadow Wool share their story in the following video.

Techniques for Aging Hands

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As you age, your body changes. This is especially true for your vision, hands, and overall coordination, some of the most essential parts of knitting and crocheting. While you may have learned how to crochet years ago, the truth is that sometimes with age you have to relearn how to crochet or how to knit in a more convenient and comfortable way. Aging does not mean you have to give up your favorite hobbies, but making some adjustments to your techniques can make the whole process much more enjoyable. Check out the 6 Knitting and Crochet Techniques for Aging Hands on Fave Crafts to learn about some adjustments you can make to your crochet patterns and knitting projects to make them easier and more enjoyable.

Reminder

Due to the field trip to the Mountain Meadow Woolen Mill in Buffalo, WY, the September Guild meeting has been cancelled.

The next meeting will be on October 21, 2017 at the REACH Foundation Clubhouse in Riverton, WY at 10 AM

Options for Toy Eyes

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Sew Mama Sew provides six options for creating eyes for children's toys.

Please note that not all options are appropriate for children under three years old. 

Long Draw Spinning Tips

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Spinning long draw is a great way to create light, soft, fluffy yarn. As you spin, air is trapped between the fibers, which creates a warm, nicely insulating yarn. Long draw spinning can be a bit frustrating at first, because you need to manage your fiber and twist a little differently than in short draw spinning, but it’s a lovely method once you get your rhythm down. 

Craftsy offers a free tutorial on the process

Join Us on the Tour

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A few seats are still available for the day trip to Buffalo, WY to tour the Mountain Meadow Woolen Mill.

What: Tour of the Woolen Mill - Buffalo, WY

When:  September 16, 2017 (all day)

Transportation:  WRTA bus - leaving from the Riverton City Hall parking lot at 7:30 AM on the day of the trip. We will return that evening

Cost:  $20 for non-guild members and $10 for guild members (guild members usually get a discount on classes and trips)

Lunch: on your own - we will stop at a local eatery

Additional stops:  Fiber House (yarn shop) in Sheridan, WY

Need more information? Send an email to the address in the upper right column

Podcast - Dora Ohrenstein, Crochet Designer

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Dora Ohrenstein is a designer of fashion crochet, author of 6 books, and a writer specializing in crochet history and international traditions. Dora’s designs appear in all the major print and digital crochet publications. Given her avid interest in advancing the skills of the crochet community, she includes lots of in-depth technical information in all of her books. She also teaches crochet at Vogue Knitting Live, on Craftsy, and in yarn shops across the country.

Listen to Ms. Ohrenstein talk about her craft on Power Purls Podcast - episode #47

Video Quilting Tutorials

If you learn best by seeing a technique demonstrated, check out the informative step-by-step videos of tools and techniques on Connecting Threads, and take your learning to the next level.

Note that there are three pages of videos available

Weaving Podcast Episode

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This episode of Power Purls Podcast is about all things weaving with special guest, Liz Gipson, known as Yarnworker in the yarn universe! They go beyond knitting and crochet and explore the influence that weaving has had in the yarn crafting world over the past several years. Liz shares her experiences, passion and knowledge as an expert weaver, editor, author and teacher. Liz writes a popular weaving for knitters column for Knitty and regularly contributes to blogs and fiber-related publications. She’s the author of A Weaver’s Guide to Swatching and has had numerous appearances on PBS, DIY and HGTV networks, where she introduced weaving and spinning to the yarn world.

Listen to this episode here. 

Eleanor Roosevelt - a Knitter

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Knitty magazine (Winter 2009) featured a vintage mitten pattern reworked by Franklin Habit. The original pattern was in Eleanor Roosevelt's handwriting.

Mrs. Roosevelt was an avid knitter and carried her knitting with her everywhere. In her autobiography, Mrs. Roosevelt writes that when she was five or six, her nurse cut holes into the socks she had knit so that she would learn how to darn heels properly.

The article and pattern can be found here.

Other information about Mrs. Roosevelt's knitting can be found in this Interweave post.

Yarn Organization

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Finding it difficult to identify scrap yarn because the ball bands have been misplaced? Kathleen Berlew has a solution you might find helpful: printable yarn organizer cards. Her design is nothing fancy, but it does have space for all the information you might want to keep on file about the yarn in your stash--name, color, fiber content, weight/yardage, needle/hook size, and yarn weight (4 for worsted, 6 for super-bulky, etc).

Her free, printable organizer cards can be found here.

Joining Crochet

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Cherry Heart Crochet Corner shares four methods of joining crochet unit together. The links can be found here.