Addicted to weaving

I've added a few new Hazel Rose looms to the herd, plus I borrowed one to make a blanket. I bought some natural Corriedale from Whitefish Bay Farm and some dark Wensleydale/Coopworth from Homestead Sheep and Fiber Products at the Door County Shepherd's Market last month. I used a quilt pattern to piece it out and arranged the colors as I saw fit. It only took eight days and 11.4 ounces of yarn! I still can't get over how fast it goes and how little yarn it uses.









I also added a new wheel to my happy little household. I've been stalking Ravelry and Craigslist for a used Majacraft Little Gem for nearly a year. I tried one at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool last September and fell in love immediately. Unfortunately, everyone who owns them seems to love them too, so they very rarely come up for sale. Last week, I stumbled upon a great deal and couldn't let it pass me by. It came with the new green padded carry bag, three bobbins and a two-bobbin collapsible lazy kate. It's so lightweight and tiny compared to my Ashford Traditional. I've named her "Ruby" after my grandmother. Plus, it's a Gem!







I spun up some fine Icelandic singles from the lock to break her in and found I had to use the largest whorl. The smallest whorl apparently spins the flyer at light speed. Add in my crazy treadling as I acclimate to double-treadles and it was a recipe for either disaster or rope-burned fingers. This is SUCH a different wheel from the Ashford. There's no resistance whatsoever, the treadles "roll" more than go up and down and I can start and stop with my feet. I need to learn how to choose the direction with my feet, because I would slow down and suddenly start spinning in the other direction. By comparison, my Ashford is heavier, particularly thanks to the Jumbo flyer I added. Everything is bigger and heavier. I never figured out how to stop and start with my feet, so I always reach over and give the wheel a push in the direction I want to go. When I stop treadling, the wheel keeps going.

It's interesting because it's easy to think a wheel is a wheel. They're not! They are all such individuals. I never tried another wheel before getting the Ashford because I just happened upon it when I wasn't looking. Last year, I test drove every wheel I could find in hopes of finding a travel wheel. My Ashford barely fits through the back door of my car and it's not easy to carry. I've taken it out a bit and I'm always afraid it's going to get banged up. I sat down and played with every wheel I saw and didn't find any that felt right. The flyer was in an awkward position or the treadles felt shallow or they were too heavy or too light. Nothing jumped out as a good fit, although they're all nice wheels. Then I passed a booth that had a Gem sitting near the back. It didn't have a for sale sign on it, but I asked about it. The woman let me sit down and treadle on it and it was like that scene in "The Sword in the Stone" where Wart pulls the sword out and angels start singing and sparkles fall upon him in a moonbeam. Seriously. Since then, I've test driven Gems a couple more times and it's always been true love all over again.

I've become a firm believer that there is a wheel out there for everyone. All of the modern wheels are well-made, but they have their own quirks and uses. I can see now that my Ashford is ideal for spinning thicker yarns and plying. If I want low-twist singles, I'll go to the Ashford. My huge bobbins will hold 8-10 ounces of yarn. It's great for that. It's not great at very thin yarns. That's where Ruby comes in. I'll have to try out beaded yarns on both of them and see which I prefer. The flyers are made differently, so getting lumps and beads onto the bobbin may be easier on one over the other. I won't worry about upgrading Ruby with a jumbo flyer because I already have a wheel I can use for plying. It's win-win all around and I am so thrilled to finally have a wheel I can easily transport!

Warped!

I volunteered at the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival last weekend. I was in the fiber demo area spinning all weekend, and there were all sorts of other fiber arts demos. One of my friends taught needle felting, another friend taught drum carding and a woman from the local spinning guild was demonstrating weaving. I stopped by to see how to weave on square and triangle looms, but missed seeing how to start the process. It was a busy weekend with a lot going on, so we made tentative plans to meet and do some weaving. I also managed to win a volunteer raffle gift certificate, so I used it to buy two weaving books. The stage was set..

Last night I went over to my new friend's house to learn to weave. Her studio is a dream come true. It's like a weaving and spinning art gallery married to a yarn shop. She showed me how to weave on a Hazel Rose diamond loom and I took one home with me. I also got a brief overview of floor looms and general weaving tips. It was very inspiring and a lot of fun. I came home and wove a few diamonds last night and made some more this afternoon. It's very easy once you get the hang of it and it only takes 15-20 minutes to make a small diamond.

For me, weaving is faster than knitting and the color effects are different. I'm using my Phat Fiber yarn samples from past boxes. I can weave sport, dk or worsted as is, or I can double up a fingering-weight yarn to make my little diamonds. I'm going to save them up and sew them into a small blanket or perhaps a bag. I'll see what I think when I lay them all out. It's a very portable hobby if you're working with the small looms and there's no binding off. It's kind of like spinning and works great when I don't want to follow a complicated pattern. The yarn colors do their own thing, so each diamond comes out a little different.



Five of my fleeces came back from the mill on Saturday too. I have a few more to pick up in a couple of weeks, but these were enough to handle. They fluff up so much after carding and I had to work hard to find space to stash them. I've already started spinning the Romney fleece and it's a joy to work with. I spun about eight ounces in two days and it practically drafts itself. The colors are more evenly blended than they were when I flicked locks and drum carded, but it's a nice shade of grey and should be very pretty when it's plied.

Last but not least, I've also sort of learned to tat! My Great-Aunt showed me, my mother and one of my aunts how to tat two weeks ago. It's harder than it looks. I think magic is involved, because she would move her hands in a blur and out would come perfect little knots and picots. There's a right way and a wrong way to wave your hands around and they look nearly identical. One little move (that I have yet to master) is the difference between gorgeous lace and a mess of knots. For most of my lesson, I couldn't even SEE that little move. I thought I was mimicking her exactly, but I missed "flipping the knot". I've ordered a book and will be sitting down to make a determined effort to learn the different techniques. We didn't have enough time to go over everything and she lives out of town, so I'll have to sort out some of my mistakes on my own. I'm excited about it. Tatted lace doesn't look that exciting in photos, but when you handle it, it's wonderful. I had no idea it was so pretty until I saw some up close.

April Phat Fiber Videos!

The April Phat Fiber teaser videos are posted! This month looks like the best yet. My "Luna Moth" sample is at the 2:56 mark in the second video. I can't wait to get my box and see which goodies Jessie sends me.

The Joy of Fiber Mills

There was a comment on my previous post about using mills, so I thought I would explain a little further. (Click any photos to see them larger.)

Last year I bought eight fleeces from my favorite shepherd. She raises Romney x Wensleydale x Cotswold sheep and their fleeces come in all colors. They hang in long ringlets and have a wonderful sheen to them. I hand washed all of the fleece and then balked at hand-combing it all. I also had some alpaca cria fleeces in a wide range of colors - fawn, beige, grey, rose grey and a deep cinnamon. These fibers are gorgeous because of their color and I wanted each fleece processed into roving separately. Who would want to mix such unique colors?









When I buy a fleece, the first thing to do is wash it to get the lanolin, suint (sheep sweat) and dust out. I pick through by hand to pull out the obvious second cuts, big pieces of hay and matted locks. The detailed procedure is fodder for a later post, but suffice to say it's time consuming. Each batch goes through two or three soapy washes and two or three rinses until the water runs clear. This photo shows part of two sheep fleeces and one of those lovely alpaca fleeces from last year (blanket only) drying in my studio. It's taken me several evenings to wash all of this and now it's setting on racks with a fan blowing to dry. Part of the time limitation is how much shelf space I have to allow the fiber to spread out for fast drying. You can see the wet fiber on the lower shelves, and how much it fluffs up when dry.



I have equipment here to hand-process smaller amounts of fiber. I can use my mini-combs, which are great for longer fiber and which may come into use when I work on the really long Polypay fleeces. I've also used these on an alpaca fleece that was full of hay and straw. If that were run through a big machine, all the bits of hay would get smashed into the fiber and it would be unpleasant to spin. Combs are great because they comb through the fibers, straighten them out, and allow me to separate the good fiber from the chaff, so to speak. Short pieces of fiber, second cuts, tangles and vegetable matter all stay behind. There is more waste, but nothing beats the soft, clean fiber that results from combing. It's VERY labor intensive though because I can only comb a few locks at a time - maybe 1/4 to 1/2 ounce per batch.







I also have a drum carder. This is a mini-version of what a mill would use to card fiber into roving. I run the fiber through and the little teeth on the drum catch the fibers, sort of straighten them out and let me blend in other fibers like silk, bamboo, sparkle and other colors of wool. I can fit about an ounce and a half at a time on the drum. It makes lovely batts and I can pull those batts into roving if I want to. If I'm working with fleece, I need to fluff the locks up first, before running them through. Otherwise the tips catch on the teeth and too much fiber feeds in at once. This will jam the whole thing up. I love making batts with add-ins, but this would also be a lot of work to card through many pounds of wool.



For example, this is about 25 batts adding up to about two pounds total. You can see a soda can for scale. This took me several evenings to do and would maybe be one fleece worth of fiber.



I searched around and found a lot of mills have minimum orders for a batch. They need to clean the drums on their industrial size carders between each batch and it's a lot of work. Most of the local mills required two pounds or more of clean fiber per run. That's a problem when an alpaca cria blanket weighs less than that washed. Most of my colored sheep fleeces were also under two pounds each. I was going to have to cave in and blend them, when I found a mill that will process any size batch. I drove up there a month or two ago and dropped off all of my washed colored fleeces, several alpaca fleeces and a few other odds and ends where I had one fleece of each breed, like one Corriedale, one Rambouillet, one Shetland x Merino and one Romney. All of these breeds have different characteristics and the staple length of the fibers varied. I wanted to keep them separate so I could take advantage of their unique qualities, even if they were white.

When I found a source for Polypay fleeces, I ended up buying 20 pounds, which is about seven skirted fleeces. They were all thrown together in a bag because each sheep was similar to the next. The fiber had the same characteristics and it was all about the same length. There's no reason to keep all of this separate, so I found a mill closer to home that had affordable prices for both washing and carding fleece. I dropped off the big bag of greasy locks and walked away knowing that I'll end up with clean roving. I'm going to do the same with three Texel x Targhee fleeces (about 12 pounds total) I bought last weekend. They look like this right now:



When I get them back, they'll look like this:



In this case, it's very worth it to me to have someone else with better equipment do all of the work. I'd rather spend my time dyeing and spinning, especially since the shop is taking more of my time. I'll hopefully have the individual fleeces back by the end of the month so I'll have new photos to share. It also means I may be able to offer locally-raised wool roving in my shop. I can sell locks, but many spinners without this specialized equipment would rather buy roving.

No matter how much work it is or what the added expense may be, I really love working with fresh fleece. The smell of lanolin makes me happy and it's a chance to work with local shepherds. They have a market for their fleeces since I'm connected with the handspinning world, and I have a source for fiber that hasn't been treated with chemicals or over-processed to remove the bits of hay. It also means I have the chance to work with breeds of sheep that aren't often commercially available. Merino, Corriedale, Shetland and Blue Face Leicester are common, but unique breeds or cross-breeds are very difficult to find. Every breed of sheep has a purpose and their wool varies wildly. It's so much fun exploring all the different types.

Another productive weekend

How does a fiber artist spend their weekend? This one wasn't typical for me, but it was a lot of fun.

Yesterday I got up early and drove to a local fiber mill to drop off some fleeces to be washed and made into roving. I found a local source for Polypay wool and bought thirty pounds. My goal is to dye more local fiber whenever possible. It helps the farmers and it really interests me. I like having that connection to local sources. The opportunity to buy fleeces other than merinos is worth the extra effort. Polypays are bred to be good all-around sheep. They have lots of lambs, good weight gain for market and their fleeces are good quality. They aren't as super fine as some breeds and they can really vary, but I picked through and found the softest and crimpiest ones possible.



Three ewes missed their original shearing date and were done later, so their fleeces were longer. Although the mill equipment couldn't handle the length, I couldn't pass them up. The fiber is really soft and it's 6-8 inches long! I'm going to hand wash and comb these fleeces and see what happens.



After visiting the mill and meeting the very nice owner, I came home to warm up the dye pots. I focused on merino/silk yarns, firestar and the fiber for my April Phat Fiber samples. I stopped when my shower was filled and I needed to get to bed. I tried a new technique for the yarns, including an overdyeing step for some of them. I really like some of the colorways that resulted. One of them is gross and I need to re-do it, but I'll have to think about what colors I'd like to overdye with. Not every color blend is a success. In the photo, it's the weird pinkish-salmon and brown one. The red dye I was using didn't bond to the silk very well and it made this bizarre pastel color.



This morning I got up and headed to a local farm to demonstrate spinning. They open their farm for visitors to come see the new lambs and it's quite the event! Hundreds of people came through to watch me spin and ask questions. I like sharing my experiences with learning to spin and it gave me about six hours of spinning time. I took two bags of past Phat Fiber samples in blues and pinks and spun them one after the other to make a variegated yarn in each color group. I already did one in natural tones and I love how it turned out so I want to make more. These still need to be plied, but I think they'll be beautiful.





The best part of the farm visit is seeing the lambs. I still hope to have a farm someday and being around sheep makes me happy. The lambs were napping in a huge pile in the creep feeder pen this morning. Watching lambs dozing in the sunshine was a good way to start the day.



These are Targhee x Texel sheep and I brought home three fleeces from this farm as well. They're softer and springier, but will make very nice roving. I bought a sample of the roving from last year and really liked it. These will be going to the mill the next time I have a minute.

Tonight's plan is to wash some of the long Polypay fleece and then sit back with a glass of wine. I'm tired!

Spring is here!

It's been a busy winter, mostly occupied with dyeing yarn and fiber and working my way through the big pile of fleeces. I still have a few to wash, but I've decided that carding is best done by a mill. I'm working on a few sources for local fleeces, so I can offer roving in my shop from shepherds I know personally. It's an interesting work in progress, so we'll see how it goes.

Last weekend I made the rounds to three farms and saw fiber animals galore. I am aching for a farm of my own, but for now I'll have to live vicariously through my friends.

One has alpacas:



One has angora goats (from which we get mohair):



And one has lots of sheep and new lambs:



I've been getting out and spinning in public more. Now that spring is here, the fiber festivals are starting up and I have more opportunities to volunteer. It's good because it gives me a chance to spin a few things for myself. When I'm home, I'm focused more on business things and not so much on random whimsical projects. These are two skeins I just finished and I love them both. The brown one is definitely for me and I may or may not sell the other one. They both sparkle!

Big News!

I've been horrible at keeping this thing updated lately. I blame the holidays and my job, but I think things will start calming down soon.

I'll post pretty pictures of fiber and stuff here eventually, but the news of the day is that I finally completely my biggest 2010 goal and applied for a business license. Ambrosia and Bliss is going to be a legit sole proprietorship! I still have to figure out a lot of things like income tax, how to report sales tax and what to do about credit cards if I ever get a table at a craft show, but this is a huge first step. It's exciting!

Turquoise toes

I've had several really good days with my dye pot lately. I try to save energy by heating it in the morning and rotating batches of roving in and out all day. It makes more sense than hauling everything out to dye one or two braids. During this last big day, I tried my first kettle-dyed yarn. I love how it all turned out and I am itching to re-skein it and see the final project. It takes forever to dry, so I'm having a hard time being patient.

This is my first batch of dyed roving. Several of these have sold already and I had a lot of fun experimenting with color.



I chained all of the roving into nice little "braids" and used the ragged and excess bits from the ends to spin samples. I wanted to test the Merino and Falkland fiber and see how my dye-jobs behave in action. The singles marl and self stripe a little, but the really interesting part came when I plied the yarns. They come out more heathered and the shockingly bright colors are tamed by the darker patches, even if there aren't many. It's really wild and I love the finished yarn. I'm not a huge fan of barber pole striping in yarn, and this kettle-dyeing technique seems to help prevent it.









This is my latest batch. The first four on the left, hanging on clothes hangers, are my first hanks of yarn. I love all of them and I'm going to have a hard time letting them go. The brown is based on the same colorway as the brown roving above. It's really interesting to see how the colors behave differently on yarn versus roving. The yarn I spun from the fiber is a really complex mix of browns and came out a sort of warm toasted sugar color overall. I'm going to knit swatches of those four yarns to see how much they actually stripe or if they come out dyed more to the stitch.



The reason for the name of this post is that I managed to spill a little turquoise dye on my kitchen floor. I didn't notice until I stepped in it and smeared it across the floor. It wiped up easily and will likely wash out of my (blush) acrylic sock, but it dyed my "protein-fiber" middle toe a nice shade of turquoise blue. I feel fancy.

Live and Let Dye

I finally saved up enough to set up my dye "studio" and I'm loving it. I've been sampling Greener Shades dyes and keeping copious notes as I try different ways to prep, heat and add acid to the fiber. My love of lists and spreadsheets is definitely coming in to play here. I have a special dyeing notebook for each batch and then I'm keeping fiber samples from each one in a photo album. I figure if I am going to ever be able to sell repeatable colorways, I need to know what I am doing. I keep telling myself it's a business decision and not my nerdiness shining through.

This is my third batch of dyed fiber, when I mixed three colors in the pot to see what would happen. I love how it turned out. I've now dyed samples of all the basic colors except black for reference purposes. There is a rainbow in my studio! (Click any photos to see them larger)








I also rearranged my kitchen to move some of my fiber blending supplies into my work area. I had a small bookcase doing nothing but collecting clutter in my bedroom, so I moved it and filled the shelves with blending fibers. I always do my carding on my kitchen table, and now everything will be close by. I can also keep my scale there, since I use it for both carding and dyeing. All of my dyeing is done right next to my kitchen sink so there is no risk of spillage. Fortunately, I have the type of faucet that pulls out into a sprayer and it reaches the dye pot. I couldn't have planned it better.

Now my combs are clamped to one chair, I have the carder and scale on the table, mixing fiber on the shelves, dye supplies in the bin, and more mixing fiber in the white box. Since this was taken, I bought a box picker for opening up locks of fiber. I used it to pick some of the red dyed fleece and it's a huge time saver. Wool locks, still in tight formation, are almost impossible to run through the drum carder. The picker loosens everything up and helps the bits of hay and debris fall out before they get mixed in to my batts. I got a great deal on a used one and it's the perfect size for my work area. I like that I can latch the cover so my cat can't get into trouble. The inside of it is full of spiky heavy nails. Honestly, most spinning equipment is bloodthirsty! My combs are a serious harzard and I have a bandaid on my finger after carding part of my knuckle last night on the drum carder.



I think this will all pay off eventually. I just sent out several more batt orders and I have an ever growing list of reserve orders for the Sarah and Jareth batts. I also carded some "Hoggle" batts, mostly out of alpaca, and I love them so much. I hope others will like them too.

October Phat Fiber and an Abundance of Sparkles

So I previously mentioned I am now the happy owner of a drum carder. I bought a used Fancy Kitty "Kitten" in July. It hasn't made much of an appearance here because carding alpaca in summer heat and humidity is a misery, and I've been gradually building up enough of a fiber stash to really be able to make batts. Perhaps it seems odd that a closet full of fiber isn't enough to get started, but I have a lot of washed natural fleeces and hand-dyed roving and batts, and nothing in between. I want to spin the pretty roving I buy off Etsy and at festivals, not mash it through the carder.

The October Phat Fiber theme is "Masquerade". I was stumped for a minute and then thought of one of my favorite movies - "Labyrinth". Near the end, there's a scene where Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie are at a Masqerade ball. She's wearing a shimmering white gown that flashes green and blue when the light hits it and she's draped with silver and gold jewelry. He moves through the crowd in a stunning deep blue jacket crusted with gold and silver jewels. They were my inspiration for two different sets of batts.



The "Sarah" batts are white wool and grey Wensleydale X locks carded together with about six different dyed silk, bamboo and milk fibers and three colors of angelina. The result is a delicate, pale, ethereal batt that shimmers no matter how you look at it. I love these but I only had enough fiber to make 14oz. I ripped up some to make the samples and the rest already sold in a single order. I'm hoping to get more fiber and angelina to be able to make similar batts again soon because I would like to spin these myself! (click any photos to see them larger)



The "Jareth" batts are made with hand-dyed organic merino from ExtremeSpinning. I asked her for a custom order and she knew exactly what I was talking about since she loves the movie too. Before long, a box of goodies arrived on my doorstep and I was able to get to work. I blended the merino with a little bit of hand-dyed tussah silk, black carbonized bamboo and five colors of angelina. These shimmer so much, but it's more subtle. It's tough to call something that glitters really masculine, but I do feel these have a manly sparkle.

I ran them through the carder once. It's hard to believe such well-behaved rovings turned into this huge pile of batts.




(Note the soda can for scale. These were almost touching the cupboards above my kitchen counter - two whole pounds of bliss!)

I carded them one more time and the colors blended a little more and turned into these soft, squishable, gorgeous puffs of fiber. I have more of these since I ordered plenty of fiber, but it's still so difficult to put them up for sale. I keep reminding myself that my fiber addiction has to learn to pay for itself or else!



The Phat Fiber box videos are up and Ambrosia and Bliss is at 7:45 in the first one. Jessie made me blush with her description of my batts. I always thought I was alone in liking Labyrinth, but apparently there are a lot of us out there! I was giddy with delight and anticipation watching these videos. There is so much angelina in this month's box so my sparkle-loving heart is going to be happy with whatever surprises she sends. I think this is my favorite month yet based on the videos!

Long Overdue Update

This has been a busy month, and not all of it fiber related.

The biggest news is my handspun Mango Pomegranate Smoothie yarn took first place in the beginner class (spinning less than a year) at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool a couple weeks ago! I entered it on a whim so I could get feedback on my spinning. I knew I was going to lose points for some variation between thick and thin, but I felt like it was a pretty good skein otherwise. The judge agreed! When they put the ribbon on my skein, I was shaking so much I almost fell over. My friend asked me if I had to sit down. I've never entered anything in a fair and definitely never won first place before. If I enter next year, I think I have to enter the Advanced category because of the blue ribbon. It really made me feel better about my spinning and my decision to try to sell handspun. It was judged on presentation, skill, technique, use of wool and suitability for intended use. Because of the long color runs and short yardage, I said I wanted to use it for a self-striping scarf. It would have scored differently if I said I wanted to use it for something like socks because it wasn't spun tightly enough to stand up to that kind of abuse. (Click any photos to see them larger)






I also came home with a really good haul of fiber and yarn. I tried to behave and follow a budget, but the wool fumes got to me. I studiously avoided the fleece barn and kept to the regular vendors since I am still washing alpaca fleeces and I'm getting a few more breed samples for my fleece study soon. I can argue I need more wool to use with my drum carder, but I do need to behave. (Also, I had already planned to get at least one more Wensleydale cross fleece this fall!)



The judging for the Unity Bead Challenge in my last entry was on the 17th. I asked my mom to go check it out since I live a couple hours away. She's the one who picked out the beads for me and I mailed her my finished necklace to turn in. They scheduled a night of trolley tours to different galleries around town with refreshments and a silent auction. It sounds like she had a lot of fun with her friend. She called me, all excited, because my knitted handspun silk necklace took first place in the Necklace category. Again, I couldn't believe it! This was less than a week after WI Sheep and Wool and I had been looking at pictures of the other entries online. My mom said one of the judges was really enthusiastic about it because she knew about the extra work it took to spin and knit the silk. I admit, it was a lot more work than stringing beads on a cord, but some of the other entries were extensively wire wrapped and really gorgeous.

The September Phat Fiber box just came out. I made it in to this one, since I was so excited about the "Legends and Myths" theme. My two yarns look very similar, although one is mostly alpaca and the other is wool and mohair. They are both very sparkly, but subtle. I spun them from Dragonhair batts, which seems oddly appropriate. I called these two "Knight in Shining Armor" and "the Goblin King". It's really hard to show the sparkle in these photos, but the yard is loaded with angelina.






My box arrived in the mail yesterday and I love everything in it! I haven't had time to go through and make a list, but it's a gorgeous mix. It makes my little grey yarn seem so plain in comparison! I'm already beginning to think of options for the "Masquerade" theme for October.

Summer Slump

July was a terribly busy month and August has been hot. It's been in the 80's and muggy here, which means I have no interest in wool or alpaca. I'm being green (and cheap) and living without air conditioning. The cooler nights are making me think a little about knitting, so I ordered some Hempathy and Soft Linen yarn for some quick baby items. It's been a while since I spoiled my niece.

I sat out the August Phat Fiber box. It feels weird to miss one, but I couldn't find the time or enthusiasm to put together samples. I didn't have anything here that spoke to me and I didn't have the time to spin a good yarn. I'll try again for September and hope the fall weather brings back my spinning mojo.

I participated in the Better Footprint Unity Bead Challenge earlier this month. I bought a kit containing four packets of fair trade beads from Africa. The challenge is to design a jewelry item (necklace, earrings, bracelet, etc) using primarily the beads in the kit and your own wire, string and findings. I spun some hand-dyed tussah silk into a thin single, threaded on the beads and then knitted a free-form lariat-style necklace. I called it "Mermaid of the Nile". It's a pretty color and comfortable to wear, but definitely not your typical jewelry item. I liked the idea that it could be recreated using natural fibers and a spindle since it doesn't require any metal findings like clasps. The judging is September 17, so we'll see if anything comes of this. If nothing else, it was a fun challenge.