Mill ends roving for spinning

I am so excited I can't contain myself!! I've ordered some big one pound bags of roving from Brown Sheep www.thesheepshedstudio.com . As soon as it arrives I'll add some photos of what I get. I ordered 3 bags of dyed, and one bag of undyed shades of brown which may or may not include some taupe and light colors that I might dye one day.

If you have not heard of this business, Carol Lee gets leftovers that yarn mills consider unusable both yarn and roving for hand spinners. So I feel good that I'm recycling something otherwise unusable. With the colored roving I can blend with other colors with my new handcarders to make new colors.

I am also a fanatic about frogging sweaters I buy from thrift shops. Frogging is deconstructing or pulling out the yarn in the sweater, hopefully with all the long yarn intact without cutting into any. You pull out the sewed seams and then pull out the knitted yarn. Somehow it is just really relaxing for me.

Yarn spun from newspaper! Imagine! Maybe this is not such a new idea, but it's surely new to me. Greetje Van Tiem has come up with the idea of spinning newspaper into yarn that's best used for weaving into rugs and the like. I don't personally do any weaving, but maybe that will be my new passion someday.

I've been thinking about doing more focal beads, so I did this large one and with the leftover clay I made some coordinating beads. I strung them temporarily on craft wire with some commercial beads in between. I hope it gives someone browsing on Etsy an idea or 2 that they could make with the set. Because of the hole placement in the focal bead, it could be turned and used in a different setting as well.

The next 3 sets of beads that I'll be listing in the next 2 days are some that I am trying something new with. The polish that I have been using produces a nice sheen which is perfect for some projects. The 3 new sets have been polished with a diamond polish that creates a high shine end product. They are really pretty, in 3 totally different color palettes.

Working with polymer clay is really rewarding. Like working with paints as a kid, you can blend any colors you want to create a new color. stacking, slicing, and blending and forming create subtle changes in the colors, and the designs you can make with the colors within the shape are endless. Lots of artists like to make "canes" with intricate designs of flowers, etc. You can buy a pasta machine to do all of the blending for you, using charts and recipes for just the right amount to get the color desired. I prefer to handblend because, after all, it's about handcrafting, the pleasure one gets from working with one's hands, and enjoying the different colors that emerge during blending. Many times I am aiming for a certain color blend, but something else emerges partway through blending, and I like it so much I stop blending right there. I like the more organic designs that come from less elaborate stacking patterns. Sometimes a soft blending of 3 or 4 base colors leads to the most breathtaking finished beads.

Working with the clay is therapeutic too!