Hello again friends! There was a lot of new stuff, projects, and objects for this week. So let’s get into it.

Mittens

I mostly finished Gwen’s mittens… I only have the thumbs left to add but it got hot and I didn’t really want to work on them so I started some other projects and will hopefully come back and finish these up soon.

English Paper Piecing

Because it got quite warm here for a few days these past few weeks I pulled out some of the quilt pieces in a box and tried to figure out what was going on with them. It seemed like some kind of paper piecing, which took some investigating. Paper piecing quilting is when you cut out (in my case cardboard) shapes and use them to wrap the fabric around. Then you baste down the fabric so it doesn’t just fall off the shape. And finally you whip stitch the edges of the pieces together to make a bigger strip/square. When all of the sides of the shape have been sewn together you pull out the basted stitches and paper piece and you have a quilt strip/square.

New Acquisitions

There were several objects added to my collection of fiber goodies lately. The first of which is some yarn and wool from a local Alpaca Farm that we visited with Grammy. Harvard Alpaca Ranch was so much fun. We got to pet the alpacas and give them treats. they also had yarn from individual alpacas for sale as well as some alpaca and merino wool fiber for sale. The girls also picked out some alpaca yarn for me to make them something as well.

The next acquisition is some beautiful purple merino and tencel fiber that I am so excited to try spinning and see ow it behaves. It is from PansGardenYarn on Etsy and it is gorgeous! They kindly even sent me a small bag of an extra fiber as well.

The final recent acquisition is the one I am probably most excited about. It’s a new (to me) spinning wheel. It is another antique/vintage wheel. She was clearly well loved and repaired throughout her years but it seems like she will spin well. I am waiting on a few leather maiden bearings before she will be usable but she cleaned up really well and came with a flyer, bobbin, and whorl.

Porch Clean Up

Ben, the girls, and I cleaned up the porch up a bit as well. In preparation to use it when the taxis bushes get removed and replaced with something a little, smaller. So that I can sit on the porch and be able to see something other than the inside of a bush. We didn’t really find anything exciting. And a chunk of it is just going to stay there until we have a bit more space opened up elsewhere to put things. I did find a flower pot with a magazine article in it about where it could possibly have come from. The armoire and chest were also full of fabric that we didn’t go through right then either.

New Projects

I started a few other new projects. I started a knit linen top with the remaining linen yarn that I spun previously. I also started a cotton crochet top with some cotton yarn that I had sitting around as well. One is significantly further along than the other. My only reasoning is that working stockinette stitch flat with fingering weight yarn is boring and takes forever. The final project is already begun and finished. We realized with the tiny heat wave that Gwen had outgrown all her shorts so I whipped some up with a pattern that I found online really fast. All that’s left is to add the elastic.

Miscellaneous

There are a few other things that I did this week. One was collecting lichen from fallen tree branches while the girls were playing outside this week. My hope is to eventually be able to dye something with the lichen. I also needle felted a few cat toys and filled them with catnip to send to a few friends with cats.

Thank you all for joining the adventure!

Lots of Love,

The McMullin Family