What the? Etsy? Oh yes she did.

Excitement!!!!  I opened an Etsy Shop!!!  For now it will mainly be spinning fibres and tools, with a few yarns as I'm gearing up for craft shows, and have a feeling yarns will sell better then spinning fibres  considering the number of spinners in my area is small, but knitters and crochetters are everywhere!

Here's a sampling of what's available right now in my spanky new Etsy shop, SpinHeartSpin.

Happy shopping and thank you for checking out my new endeavour!

~Kara

Found it friday- Turn baking soda into washing soda!

Right this minute, my oven is pre heating to 400'F  so that I can turn my baking soda into washing soda.  Now, some of you may be wondering why one would want to do this, and just how does it relate to spinning?  Well,  washing soda is good for making laundry detergent, and general other cleaning things. But the very specific reason I want to do this is because in order to degum your silk cocoons, you need washing soda! And you need to degum your cocoons to make muwata (aka silk hankies)  It's sometimes hard to come by, and I'm thinking it's a bit more expensive per ounce then baking soda.  Don't quote me on that though. I haven't been on a big search for washing soda, and I have lots of baking soda kicking around.  So this is the easier solution.

But wait! It's found it friday!  Where did you find the recipe for this magical transformation???  I found this lovely post on Nature's Nurture, via a friend on Facebook.  Sarah (of Natures Nurture) links to her original source as well on her blog post.

I'll give you the basic outline of the process you need to undergo to do this bit of chemistry/magic.

1. Pre heat your oven to 400'F
2. pour your baking soda on a cookie sheet.  I lined mine with parchment paper so that removing it from the pan will be easier.
3. Bake your baking soda for 30 minutes, or until it looks grainy, more then powdery, isn't shiny anymore, and wont clump.

That's it. Simple! Now use in your silk cocoon degumming solution!   And spin those muwata you just made with the help of chemistry/magic.

~ Kara

Knit notes- Gentle on My Mind

It's all knitted and blocked but it turned out much bigger the I thought ( don't forget I tweaked as I went to make it bigger, just forgot that blocking often makes things even bigger!) So, since it's wool, I chucked it in the wash with the towels. Let's hope for the best!  But here's the before fulling pic! 

~Kara

Block all the things!

Apparently I've done a lot of knitting (for me) this year so far!  I've been done knitting two of the three of these projects for quite a while. I finished my modified Gentle on my mind this morning. I decided that today was a good day to block them all.  They are obviously just getting a gentle block, but it's better then none!  I really need to invest in blocking wires. That shawl could use a stronger block for sure.

I'll be sure to get them each their own post, but for now they sit and air dry :)

~Kara