My Crafting Adventure

School is back in, busier than ever. I haven't been able to do what I planned on because of school, but I'm still working on opening my Etsy shop. I was hoping to have it open by the beginning of February at the latest, but as you can see that did not happen.

Well, even though school is in full swing again, I skipped my first Friday classes to go on a crafting adventure with my mom. We drove six hours to lovely Asheville, NC for the Friends & Fiberworks Winter Retreat 2012. Now, my mom is not a crafter at all, so I thought this would be the perfect trip to get her craftyness going. Plus, I wanted to learn how to spin yarn.

We signed up for the beginning spinning class and the polymer big buttons class. I wanted to take the beginning knitting class, for both mine and my mom's sake, but it was full. I ended up trying to teach her how to knit, and so far I think she is getting it. She even seems excited about it and wants to do it. Yay!

The beginning spinning class was our first class on Saturday morning. We signed up for a full three hours of spinning with Ms. Julie from Jehovah Raah Farm. I had somewhat of an idea of how to spin, although still difficult and confusing. But my mom had no idea what she was doing. She ended up taking an extra hour to spin her two grams of fiber and then ply them together. I was so proud of her for finishing though and not giving up. I spun my two grams of fiber and then added some black and grey alpaca and wool mix fiber then plied the two together. It turned out an interesting mix; most of the fiber was brown and then there was the random black and grey on the ends. My first skein of handspun yarn!

I ended up buying a spinning wheel that day. Ms. Julie sales Lendrum spinning wheels, the same ones that we learned on. I was so excited to finally get one of my own. Now with school, I haven't been able to do much on it, but I did spin about seventy yards of two ply one weekend. It was a lovely black and grey mix once plied together.

Our big button class was later that Saturday afternoon. Me and my mom ended up making many buttons and some earrings. I had never made anything out of polymer clay, so it was a new experience, but I did enjoy it... would love to do it again. My buttons were silvery grey diamond shape with a light purple tint to them. My earrings were the same, just with holes at the top of the diamond instead of button holes. Mama made royal blue squares with a light shimmer to them. She also made earrings, one the size of her buttons and another pair of smaller squares. Our buttons also had textures to them, of our choice. They turned out really pretty, need to take some pictures of them.

Before taking all of our classes, Friday we went to the Biltmore Estate. It was so cold that day, so we were inside mostly, but we did visit the greenhouses where all of the orchids were. They also had a Tiffany Glass exhibit. It is amazing how much money a man can make all of some lamps. They were beautiful, and I would love to have one. But my goodness! They are so expensive.

Favorite orchid from Biltmore

Overall, the trip was great. We ended up taking many detours on the way home to antique shop. A lovely mother daughter bonding weekend indeed!