WhatKind of Knitting Needle are you?


You are bamboo.
Warm, cozy, and thoughtful, you take your time and
enjoy how things feel, smell, and taste. You
love the craft and beauty of traditional
things, and you value the comfort and
experience of knitting as much as the results.
But while you are reveling in your warm cozies,
don't get stuck. Warm is wonderful, but so is
the whole wide world!


What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Spindle of the Week































This beautiful spindle is made by Poppa Jim Mitchell. It was purchased from the Woolery

(although I think they no longer carry them - but check out the other great spindles) and it's quite delicate. It spins ok, and is lightweight. It's greatest value is in the beautiful cutout work on the whorl. Not for use over hard floors!

Nano Quilts

I work as a biochemist at UCLA and one of the things I do is make layers of self-assembling protein molecules. So basically, I take some proteins that like to stick to other proteins in a particular way... let's say they like to form a 3-fold association... then I fuse them to other proteins that like to form a particular association, let's say a 2-fold association. If I specify the angle correctly and do everything right, then they will form geometric assemblies according to my master plan.... mwahahahahaha!



























So, depending on the geometry I specify, the same subunits (the 2-fold and the 3-fold) can make either a cage or a layer. This is schematically represented in the first pic. The second picture is an electron micrograph of a 2-fold 3-fold cage.

It's alot like making little nano quilts.... Making stuff in the macro world helps me visualize and make stuff in the nano world.

What kind of sock are you?

Wow! I am TOTALLY this kind of sock!

Wow! You would have been a pair of socks as long
as it's possible for socks to be before they're
tights - and all multi-coloured with pretty
patterns and detail all over the place - then
you could stand and admire your sock-self all
day!


What type of sock are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Spindle of the week














This week's handspindle is a Cascabeles spindle made by Gabe Jaramillo. Mine features Honduras rosewood, spanish olive, and turquoise with an Israeli rosewood shaft and it's 1.6 oz. It's gorgeous and spins very well. I bought this about a year ago at the Torrance Show and Sale put on by SCHG. I recommend peeking at Gabe's website... he has spindles that will make you drool.... Particularly check out the "Native American Basketweave Spindle" button.... drool...

What kind of yarn are you?

This was my result.... makes sense, I like to knit with mohair!


You are Mohair.
You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with
others, doing your share without being too
weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely
refuse to change your position once it is set,
but that's okay since you are good at covering
up your mistakes.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Pearls

I made a micro skein of handspun pygora plied with a cashmere/silk blend with dyed freshwater pearls plied in. It was an experiment which is why it's so small. I'm going to knit it up next to see whether the yarn can support those pearls.

What a difference a day makes....

or a night to be exact. I actually figured out my dye problems in my dreams last night!

And here's a pic of Gwen... the brat! enjoying a romp in the field behind our house...

Yes, there really are fields in los angeles... folks in other parts might call them vacant lots, but to me they're mystical fields of Ireland...

I need a new knitting project, all the stuff I've started is not inspiring me....

Banjos and Dyes - Oh My!

I was asked to dye some yarns for a woman who is knitting sweaters, so I decided to start a dyeworks. I actually used to own a dyeworks business before, dyeing and printing velvet in medieval patterns in gold and silver and making them into pillows and such... but that is a story for another time.... suffice it to say that I understand what goes into a dyeworks business.

Or I thought I did! I have been dyeing and dyeing and dyeing to match colors and get the intensity right... then when I scaled up, I couldn't get the same intensity.... sigh.... I am quite frustrated right now with the company that sells the dyes because they don't make it clear how much dye is needed per dry weight pound of goods... overdye here I come!

Well... on to more exciting things... this weekend I'm going off to a bluegrass festival! For those of you who don't know, I've taken up the banjo this year. It started when I was doing a spinning demonstration at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle contest... it seemed so much fun, and since when last I checked I wasn't getting any younger, I decided I might as well fulfill that long awaited dream to learn an instrument! I'm hoping I like this bluegrass festival... I'm sure I will, there will be camping and marshmallows and banjos and tents! Plus I'll probably bring a spinning wheel or some spindles... ooowee!

Spindle of the Week

This is a Tracy Eicheim (woolly designs) top whorl "flowers" spindle. Tracy's spindles are gorgeous and he's a delight to work with. I love it, it's very sturdy and spins great. The rim weighted version like this has a beautiful laminated dark rim and the cutouts are so delicate looking. I'm currently spinning some silver shetland that I bought at Black Sheep Gathering earlier this year.

Needlebook














This is a little needlebook I embroidered using variegated silks. I embellished it with freshwater pearls and 14K gold swarovski crystals. I ended up giving this to my niece because she is such a girly girl and loves the dainty things in life....

Springtime Shawl

This is a pattern that I created myself for a lacey shawl. It's knit from 1930's baby fingering yarn. I wore this shawl to my wedding, which means I knit it about 7 years ago. Sadly, the yarn has disintegrated and these pictures are all that's left of this shawl.

Wild Bushwoman Yarn!

This is some mohair that I dyed at my guild's dyefest in June. I didn't have a plan when I dyed it and I just picked some random colors based on whatever dyepots were available. When I got it out of the dyepot I hated it! sort of sherbety colors and some mossy green... and some royal blue... what on earth was I going to do with all that mohair.... I wanted to tailspin it, but didn't realize I needed locks for that look.

So the other night I was cleaning out some fiber stash and ran across the mohair again. I brushed it up into a cloud and then began spinning it into lumpy bumpy fat yarn, grabbing colors at random... I was angrily trying to get RID of it!!! I thought maybe I can sell this on ebay or something....

Well, here's what came out of that.... Wild Bushwoman Yarn! I quite like it now! ... chuckle.

Playing with painted rovings...

I'm playing with some painted rovings. I don't really like stripey knitting so I've been thinking alot about how the colors come out when you spin a painted roving. You can spin it straight as it comes out of the roving. This will give you large areas of the same color. With some plying control you can come out with quite stripey yarn. If you split your roving into pencil rovings, your colors will change more often and you can get the stripes to be smaller or not very stripey at all. However this can also muddy the yarn somewhat. If you take one ply of large stripes and one ply of small stripes you get beautifully changing yarn without the stripes but also not muddy. In this picture you see the painted roving on the left and the bobbin next to it was spun directly off the roving. The bobbin on the right was spun from pencil rovings like those on the far right. You can see how often the color changes on the bobbins.

In the picture below, you can see the finished yarn.

My Frilly Mananita Poncho

This is a Mananita Poncho I knit from a pattern in a Schoolhouse Press (Elizabeth Zimmerman/ Meg Swanson) Woolgathering leaflet from about 13 years ago. I understand the original was a doily designed by Herbert Niebling, the amazing German knitted lace designer. Elizabeth and Meg skipped the first rows leaving a hole in the middle.... and voila! a poncho! I designed my own border for the poncho rather than using the one in the leaflet. The yarn was Karabella kid mohair. It can be worn either as a poncho or if you fold it in half it can be draped around the shoulders as a shawl.


It's impossible to see in this picture (because I did it after the pic was taken!) but the neck now has round amethyst and swarovski crystals crocheted in a loop motif around the neck.

The color is a really pretty pale lavendar and it's actually quite warm because the mohair traps air and creates a warmth layer.

I almost never wear this though... way too fancy for me!

Hello and welcome to Electric Ladybugland! My new blog. I thought the blogtrain was passing me by so I jumped on board. Hope you enjoy reading about my fiber exploits, my banjo mania and all things electric ladybug!

-- Janel