First Art Batt

In the world of spinning, a batt is wadded blanket or sheet of fiber that has been prepared on a drum carder.  You can see photos of the process at the Joy of Hand Spinning. The last of the three photos on their webpage shows a solid-colored batt being lifted from the drum carder.

While some batts are composed of solid-colored fiber, others have multiple colors blended together. The wildest of the multiple colored batts are referred to as art batts. I just bought my first one.

It had tons of wonderful colors, with a preponderance of lavender and turquoise. There were lovely textural nubs of wool, pieces of metallic, and other lovely bits to wind up in the yarn. My spinning process was more loosey-goosey than normal because I wanted a wild thick and thin ply.

Here are some other little bits that got spun into the art batt fiber: pieces of lace, tattered hunks of rayon fabric, strands of handspun yarn leftover from other projects, eyelash yarn, and more. The color tone of this batch of extras was most deep blues and royal purple.

Because I wanted to end up with a little more yarn than the batt would provide another ply of mostly a solid media aqua Merino was spun. This one was done with more evenness and about 10% of the original batt was held back to combine here and there.

The result was a fun skein of one-of-a-kind yarn:

Next post, I'll show you what I made of it.

When You Love Your Motorcycle Most of All

What do you buy it that aging motorcyle that you love but from which you cannot part? What would be the best gift to show it how much you care.

No question, this is it!

Knit Motorcyle Cozy at trixieandmilo on Etsy

Past motorcycle knits like this one by Portland artist Teresa Howell have been displayed around the country. Read more about it by following the link under the photo.

An awesome work of art such as this, that is so far beyond my ability, encourages me to get going on that next project!

Is it the new year already?

The new year has more than arrived, and I am only slowly waking up to it.

Are you one of those people who can wake up and jump right into the day's first task? Mr. Cha Cha is like that. Is it a guy thing? Such a contrast to my day which starts slowly in a groggy state.

Even though it's a new year and I intend to have intentions about it, it's a slow go right now. Just like starting the day, the year is only sinking into my consciousness a little bit at a time.

Print of At the Vanity by Frieseke for sale on Etsy by ArtdeLimaginaire

Truly, some thinking about changes to routines, the need for better organization, and a desire for more free time has been happening. It's just too lacking in precision to be put into words yet.

How about you? Do you make resolutions? Have you started them already? Any special dreams for 2012?