Neglect...for a cause?

I have neglected this blog, dismissing my reminders one after the other...

But I have been on a mission!

A few weeks ago, there was a blog post on the Oregonian knitting blog, where they took a day to explore organization techniques for the breed called "artist". I am usually one of the members of this breed that is scatter brained and my organization technique is called planned chaos. But those days have long passed, I have taken the last few weeks of blog silence to reorganize my life.

Not only have I started to ball my yarns, and sort them into boxes marked for plain acrylics, specialty acrylics, variegated acrylics, and non acrylics, but I have also been able to add a box for hand spun and hand painted yarns.

That is right, I am now spinning more and faster than ever because I bought...or am buying...or am trading services for a brand new Majacraft Pioneer double treadle spinning wheel.

Here is a picture of it, from the factory:


Being the creative type I am, I began working with Pam over at Wild 'N Wooly Farms to buy this baby off of her. Through photography, and web development and working for her at the local Saturday Market (She is a busy woman) we have come to an agreement for to get the wheel.

I couldn't have just a plain old spinning wheel, and the Pioneer lends itself for so much creativity with it''s solid and smooth wheel space. I got lost in my studio with my boxes of fabric, and my bottle of mod podge.


I took the wheel off the body of the Pioneer, and found a plate that fit within one of the sets of circles on it. I traced the plate onto the fabric (purchased at Walmart) and cut out 2 circles of fabric. I folded the fabric into quarters and cut a small section of the center off. This fit over the bolt that holds the wheel on the body. once in place, I began slathering mod podge on the wheel, and pressing the fabric over it, once I had the fabric stuck to the wheel with mod podge, I took an old library card and "squeegied" from the bolt in the middle toward the outside edge to get out any wrinkles, then I slathered a layer of mod podge on top of the fabric to seal it in.

I did this on both sides. Don't worry about the holes for the treadle cords, you can feel them under the fabric when it is dry.

Then once both sides were finished drying, I poured a bit of mod podge out onto a glass plate, and added a drop or two of concentrated water color paint, when mixed and applied to the edges of the wheel this makes a transparent but colored glaze, giving this wheel a finished look, you can still see the color differences under the glaze that occur naturally on the wood of the wheel, but now they are coated with a protective and colorful layer of glaze. I have been told that it looks ceramic.

Check out Majacraft to get your own Pioneer!

Now, remember me saying something about that whole planned chaos theory?

Here is my method for planning non-chaos!

BOXES!

I took a set of plain bankers boxes and a couple of $15 Walmart press board shelves, a little rearranging, and voila! Organization...now over the next few weeks, I will be prettying the boxes themselves with mod podge, glue and scrapbook paper, but until then, this functions!

I have a box for raw fiber, weather too little quantities to spin, or enough to make a few hundred yards of fine fingering weight yarn (yeah right...) I put it all in here, seperated by plastic bags.

Then I have a box for my "cheap" acrylic plain colors, and my "cheap" acrylic variegated. And another for specialty acrylics, such as boucles, thick and thins, and blends.

And another box for my hand spun and or hand dyed.

Then on the other side of the shelf, I have a box for fabric scraps, and another for large pieces of fabric, each chunk of fabric that is destined for a project is kept in a bag with its project specs so I can remember what I am working on.



On the wall above the shelves I have thumb tacked my looms in some sort of order from the round looms, across the wall to my long looms.

These are a few of the projects that I have been working on that have been keeping me away from this blog. Other activities include school, work, and running errands, and overall, being a distractable artistic type.