Knitting Dragonflies

Last year I bought some lovely fiber from a fiber festival. It was so soft, the kind of fiber you pick up and just want to rub and snuggle with. Then I had a day off, and some sunshine, I pulled my wheel out onto the deck, even with a cool breeze and my jacket on it was a pleasure to sit and spin. The Fiber is: Screaming Wild Monkey! A special house blend of 70% super wash merino/15% Banana/!5% Seacell (impregnated with silver) 4 oz. (what ever this means!!??) Did that stop me from buying it? Oh no. The photo doesn’t show the colors, they are vibrant. made by River’s Edge Weaving Studio at  weavingstudio.com It was a dream to spin! I spun it up fairly quickly. After some consideration I decided to try my hand at Navajo Plying. I used this You Tube video from Rexenne on Navajo Plying , she has quite a personality, and the video is very through, even including slow motion. After plying I was amazed at the difference in the color!! Plying in the Navajo style with multicolored single

I found this stop motion tutorial on flickr, The Making of Origami Koi by MABONA ORIGAMI, website here http://www.mabonaorigami.com/ , full of inspirational images! This will make you take a second look at the blank piece of paper. Need a Mid Century Birdhouse ? I grew up in a ranch style house, and now my birds can also. Chris at Curbly.com show us how to make one! Don’t let your birds be homeless! Need a cute Mini Terrarium ? Jenny Ryan on Craftzine shows us how to make one using a Mason jar. Put a little mushroom in and a fairy and what little (or big girl) wouldn’t enjoy having this on her desk? A Copper Ring Tutorial from Karen Makes Stuff, stop and look at her blog, she has plenty of ideas you will be interested in. And for all of you knitters and spinners, take a look at the Knitty fall 2010 , and the Knitty spin close look at Navajo Plying   Knit Fast, Dye Yarn "Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass... it's about learning how to dance in

I read about Navajo plying recently and found a couple of videos on You tube. This on is good , and here is another from the Yarn Wench It was easy to start out and I got the hang of it. I had a small amount of roving left of a color way and decided to try it. Here are my results I love the look of it and will do more. It has a slightly braided/twisted look. Give it a try, it is fun. Here is some more spinning I have going Some orange that I am going to ply with a little teal blend added in. This is going to be blended into a yoke for a sweater. It was all orange with a solid teal for the rest of the body. But I decided that looked too harsh. I like the added color it looks a little softer. I also spun some reddish/pink singles that I am thinking of Navajo plying May your knitting needles (or spinning wheel) fly as fast as Dragonflies…. Technorati Tags: Spinning , navajo plying , knitting , knit , how to navajo ply