Fiber arts

Last month the Huntington Library and Gardens had a Fiber Arts Day and members from the weaving and spinning guilds from the Los Angeles area gathered in the rose garden to demonstrate. 

It was a beautiful day and the roses smelled so good too!

The spinners and weavers were eager to chat.

When I got home, I was inspired to get out my spinning wheel.

At the Fiber Arts Day I learned there's a weaving guild that meets on the second Saturday of the month and a spinning guild that meets on the fourth Saturday (and the American Sewing Guild meets on the third Saturday of the month - convenient that they all meet on different Saturdays but I don't know that I can devote nearly every Saturday to fiber arts!). I did attend the spinning guild meeting last month and made a few new friends. Tomorrow I'm going to the weaving guild meeting - my first time attending.  I haven't done any weaving since I've moved here but I think I'll start a project soon. I have an idea for a band I want to weave on my inkle loom.

I also found out about the Weaving and Fiber Festival, held every year in May, and was just in time to go to it this year. I may have made a few purchases at the festival...

Fiber to spin, yarn and yarn kits to weave, and new tools for weaving and spinning.

 Add this to the haul from the LA Country Yarn Crawl in April:

The yarn stores in the area offer free patterns and 10% off the yarn for it.
Of course they choose the luxurious yarns that are too tempting to pass up!

I have to juggle my interests, doing one for a little bit of time and then moving to another, but I still manage to do work on a little bit of everything.

The little quilt has turned from pieces...

into an almost completed project.

I'm learning to crochet granny squares using some cotton yarn I purchased in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not sure what I'll make with it - maybe a bag or something.

I finished knitting some scarves, from the pattern book Curls by Hunter Hammersen. I'm working on a third one using some of the yarn I bought from the LA Yarn Crawl. 

Full shape while being blocked

A lot of orange!

I also have a sock knitting project, but I keep it at work for my Tuesday lunch time knitting meetups with co-workers.

And today I did some more sewing. A coworker wanted to make a costume for an upcoming Cosplay convention and I offered to help her. So she came over today and we found a pattern in one of my sewing magazines, traced it, made a muslin, made some changes to the pattern to match the character, and sewed up this vest:

She wants to be this character from a video game (it's Barbarian Armor from Zelda - I had to look it up!)

I think that brings my project tally up to date!