Christmas table runner will be for late 2021

I've decided that I'm just not feeling it to finish the Christmas table runner I started a few weeks ago. 

I had put one green border on it, and it made the other greens look dull. 

To the stash!

I found a good red fabric with poinsettias, and that's going to be really good. I think the green will still work as the binding, but after taking off one of those looong sides I don't feel like pushing on that project right now.

Last night as I was finishing cleaning the drum carder the band snapped. I had fused it once, and hopefully I'll be able to do it one more time, but it's getting super old and cracking so I decided to just bite the bullet and get a new one. 

I'll photograph the yarn I spun and plied this week later when there's good light:

Luckily Gillian's quilt was coming along very nicely! The goal was to have it finished by Saturday morning (it's currently Friday evening) so that she can take it with her for her third semester of college. I'm so proud of the way she's taken this project by the horns and run with it! She's done every bit of the sewing and cutting (except for four blocks for the borders that I cut).  We've faced reality and pushing to get it done before she leaves would be insane, so we'll ship it to her once it's finished.

Experiments with carding fiber

The drum carder has been calling to me, and I went a little crazy on the Paradise Fibers holiday sale. 

In preparation for getting some nice fiber (merino) I decided it was time to pull out the mystery fibers and play a bit.

I was going for a yarn that would be interesting, and I was hoping for something that would read as a purple-ish yarn. Time (or more accurately the spinning) will tell.

Here's the first layer of red:

Then some blue that came from the spinning guild, then some coral on top:

I also used some pink/orange Angelina-type sparkly stuff, and a tiny bit of a light tan wool.

Here I'm about to start dizzing off the wool to make a roving-type prep:

And a some-what accurate photo (in my computer chair) of the roving:

This is slightly too orang-y, but it's not a terrible representation; I'll take better pictures in the daylight.

On the piecing front, I put a border on my Christmas table runner but don't like the fabric with the pieces parts, so that's coming off. I cut it at 2.5" so it's still super usable. Now to dig through the stash for something better.

Gillian finished piecing the center of her throw!!! Now she's cutting the parts that came out of the second cuttings and we'll use those for a border. The goal is to have it done by the time she leaves for school on Saturday, and I have to admit that it's not looking good. It's still a possibility though.