Holy newness, batman!

Yesterday, Majacraft unveiled their newest creation.  The Majacraft Overdrive Head.  I do believe I really really really want need this. So badly.
I watched the Fibery Goodness live-stream on youtube, where they went into great discussion about all it's features, and the development, showed all the prototypes. It was great to watch!  And it was great to "meet" Arlene and Suzy.  Their little duet at the end was awesome.  I'm going to share the video with you, so you can watch it, if you like.

So, back to the Overdrive head.  I have an Aura. I love him. He would be so much more awesome with this head attached.  I could spin yards upon yards of yarn!  So, I'd appreciate your help in getting one of these fabulous beasts.   Just to the right there is the link to my Etsy shop: SpinHeartSpin.  Check it out, and if you see something you like, don't be afraid to buy it ;)

~Kara

Handspun Christmas Wreath and Trees

There are monthly challenges on Craftster.org, and this month the challenge was 'Just Thread It!'  You could use any kind of thread and any methods you wanted.  I've been wanting to try out Jacey Boggs Tornado yarn method in Spin Art for a while, and this was the perfect excuse to do it!  I took a white pencil roving and 3 different crochet threads (one green, one variegated white/green/red, and one white with silver sparkle, but that sparkle doesn't show up in the picture) and went at it.  It wasn't as 'plodding' as she said it would be.  However I did find that if I worked with shorter chunks of the roving and joined them more often I could let out some of the extra twist that was accumulated before joining.  And it's not quite as densely tornado as the one in her book, but I think it's a great try!  I'll be doing this again in many colors, and hope to not run out of crochet cotton! Here it is on the bobbin.  I forgot to take a skein picture, and can't find the left overs to take a picture of what it looks laid out.

I took the yarn and wrapped and wrapped a 14'' foam wreath form, and when that was done I added the bobbles with some straight pins and hot glue for security.  I did the same with the foam tree forms as well.



I do believe they are going to look lovely together some where.  I was at a Christmas Bazaar on Saturday and got a lot of positive feed back on these, and someone who wanted to think about taking it home, and she knows where to find me if she decides she definitely does want them.



Making these makes me excited for Christmas, I'm almost swelling with excitement this year and I'm not sure why!

~Kara

I'm so Spoiled

About a month ago, we celebrated our 6 year Wedding Anniversary.  We've been together for nearly 11 years, but married for 6 of them (sure took him long enough ;) )  And every single day of this marriage/relationship I'm reminded how wonderful he is.  He brings me coffee in the morning, sometimes before I get out of bed.  He helps do the dishes, does the yard work, and plays with the kiddos.  He treats me like a princess.  And doesn't mind that I take a week a year to go to school, and leave him with the kiddos.  And on special occasions, he buys me pretty things.  This year he bought me an Majacraft Aura!!!!! It was my dream wheel, and he bought it for me!!! Wooohoooo!

So here it is, in all it's majesty, fabulousness, awesome spinning power...


And of course, I've waited so long to tell you all about it, because I wanted to spin on it before I shared.  So here are some of the yarns I made on the Aura.
This is the first one, I just grabbed some roving, and had at it, adjusting, tweaking and figuring out just what everything does! It's pretty thick, and at the end i wanted to see if it could handle undrafted top, and it can!! It's Navajo plied, and it can even handle three layers of lightly spun undrafted top.  Wowza!

Here's the second thing I spun, after deciding that I already have a traditional spinning wheel, that makes a very nice traditional yarn, so why keep trying to get a "perfect" yarn on a wheel that is made to do more then that?  It was tail spun, then coiled.  I'm so glad I decided to coil it.  In person, the BFL is so lustrous, and when the light hits it just right, it glows like it's strung with pearls.


And the last one so far is this one, thick singles wrapped with bamboo thread.  This one is kind of odd, I was having issues trying to get it to feed right and not spin to much at the same time...  The tension system is still pretty odd to me. I'll get it though!


I can't wait to get back from Fibre Week, so I can get to playing on the Aura.  3 more sleeps!!!

~Kara