Do You Have One of These?

Recently I was visiting my friend, Pam, and we were sewing together a project for the Sheep to Shawl team.  We had occasion to press our items and I was so excited to see this thing she had on her ironing board.  Do you have one?  I didn't.

Do see it there on the end of the ironing board?  The thing with the cord dangling from it?  It's a Walter Drake Iron Cord holder!

Now I have one and ironing is easier especially when pressing large items. For instance, fabric one is preparing for sewing.

It's flexible in the middle there so you can iron the full length of the board without dragging already pressed fabric with you. As you may know this causes the just pressed bit to wrinkle.

But what, you may ask, is that fabric there?  It looks rather like a tablecloth.  You know a nice summery one.  Maybe with red dishes for the Fourth of July.   Nope. No. Not so.

Photo from Craftsy.

The fabric came in this kit I purchased from Craftsy.com.  So I'm making it for my daughter, Elizabeth.

Come back and see the result in a week or 2.  Oh, you can come back before that, but I don't expect the dress to be finished sooner.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."

Mulberry Handspun

I love it.  I really love it. What? Mulberry hand spun yarn by me.

This is it.

This close-up has a flaw. There is an appearance of a variegated area in the center of the skein.  It is really a solid color.

Mulberry.

I went to a dye gathering with a small group I recently joined. Some brought fiber to dye and others brought yarn.

Here one of us is wrapping up her hand painted roving.  See anything familiar on the table?  Look at that red roving. The original color of the wool is grey.

More of our lovely dyed fiber.  It was fun and a great learning experience for me.  Perhaps I will try it again.

Would you like to try dyeing?  Did you know you can use Kool-aid unsweetened powder as a dye?  I'm sure there are directions for doing this online. My daughter dyed some white yarn a couple of years ago using Kool-aid.  Unfortunately, I wasn't home to see the process, but the results were impressive.