Skip to main content

Work in Progress Wednesday: Natural Dyeing, organization and new fleece!

Ok! Well I had so much fun posting yesterday's theme post I decided to do one today too!
Organization is a big deal for me. I live in a small house but I have big crafty area needs! 
I need areas to dye , to store fiber, yarn , to blend fibers and card, to spin, to occasionally sew, to make and store soaps .. and on and on! 

Dyeing is done now on my back porch and green house. 
I have a stove, stainless steel work table , shelving and screens. Picking and drying fleece also takes place there. Solar dyeing saves time and energy too! Only certain plants will successfully dye this way though.
This works well! Gets the dyeing components out of my house kitchen! And gives me a large area to spread out and do several things at once.

Organizing work in progress projects has been a challenge until now!
No fiber person I know only has one project going at a time. It can get messy and confusing! I try to limit myself to 4 crochet ( or knitting) projects at once.
I come up with this way to keep them in order.
A large basket that holds 4 smaller project bags. In each project bag is the pattern, the hook or needles used, and of course the yarn used.

I do a similar system with my spinning projects.
This has helped tremendously to keep my projects organized, to keep patterns from getting lost or the whole project misplaced! 

The organization of raw fleeces! To avoid the mountain of raw fleece that's impossible to work through I used to have I am trying to do what's best for the fleece...
I know that sounds funny! But in order to avoid fleece taking over my house or office or garage which it easily can do I sort through saving only the cleanest fleece for home processing or sale raw.
No one wants a dirty fleece! I certainly don't have time for them. The small mills do such a great job with getting the fleece clean and making excellent roving and yarns for small fiber farms. Yarn and roving is easier to store and organize. 
Win/win ! No big dirty time consuming fleeces to store and beautiful clean yarn and roving to use or sale.

Those are a few of my work in progresses and what I have come up with to help me manage my creative chaos! 

Till next time! Many Blessings! 

Popular posts from this blog

Marathon cooking Monday!

I am very much in to healthy whole food eating. But if I don't plan some meals.. Especially lunches I grab easy things like nuts or a green juice.. not enough to keep this body going! something I started a few weeks ago on Monday was what I call marathon cooking. I make up a couple of high protein desserts and snacks , a couple of easy things for a few lunches and dinner with enough leftovers for the next days dinner or more lunches. A couple hours in the kitchen and solid healthy food for days! While things are in baking/cooking mode I use that down time to organize patterns , work a simple project or promote/check social media. Don't let ok at it as, yuck 2 hours of cooking .. I look at it as 2 productive hours of multitasking.  Today's marathon cooking consisted of,, simple egg salad that we like put on a low carb wrap with spinach. Huge Baked sweet potatoes which I'll cut in half and eat for lunch or a snack with butter and goat cheese mashed up! Super yum!  A huge

Knocking it off dress

I feel in love with this Chanel look last spring.... so instead of making a Chanel jacket I decided to put that time toward knocking this off the best I could.... I am pleased with my results! Fabric from Miami's Rex Fabrics for the top..... and ofcourse fabric for the jacket and skirt... I found a close to perfect match at walmart! Of all places! Add so hip chain belts and here is my knock off! I made the skirt longer than the original.... and no collar on the little jacket... lower neckline on the top... and a bit longer on it too.... I have several other Chanel outfits I want to knock off too... soon as I can find similar fabrics for them! I had fun with this outfit and fun wearing it! Next V8489.... I bought this fabric on a trip to Panama City, Panama. This was an easy pattern and I will use it again in the future. I added a personal touch to the dress but it didn't photograph at all... asymmetrical from shoulder across the waist and to bottom I hand beaded swarvoski crys