TR By Hand

It has been busy most of the winter with mainly soap making, followed by finishing off some fine cotton and silk scarves, inspired by the course I took in the fall from Jane Stafford. The scarves wove up well and are lovely.

I had a friend who had a baby boy and I was fortunate enough to have a blue and white changing pad on hand, but it made me realize that I needed some baby items on hand. I do not personally need them, but do have friends having babies so am working on a set of cotton warp and chenille weft baby blankets. Chenille looks thick, but is actually quite slow to weave.

My neighbour has decided to start weaving so I sold her a loom and taught her how to put on her first warp. Her scarf is really quite nice for a first one. I bought a small 8shaft loom so I will be able to continue with the projects I learned from Jane Stafford. I have yet to try the new loom.

I also decided to make several felt tea cozies and they sold well at the gift shop where I spend quite a bit of time working. I am able to take my spinning wheel and knitting to the shop so end up getting a fair bit of yarn spun. I have not sold any hats recently so will need a different project. I do wear them as well and often use handspun and have two new ones for myself.

The weather is variable but we are thinking spring even though there is a lot of snow coming down. Different birds are coming to the feeder and the chirping is really nice to hear.

I have been busy making soap for the coming fall and winter season. Two are related to the local area and are called Nancy Greene Lake soap and Kootenay Columbia soap and have the scents and colours of the lake and river and the wood smoke of the wood fires. Two have been requested by a friend and are Coffee and Coffee Mocha. These are made from freshly ground coffee and have the grounds included as exfoliaters and have a hint of orange and other delicious scents. Do not eat!

One is a pure olive oil soap for the people who do not want coconut oil and two are goat milk with olive oil only. The goat milk is the liquid I use which means I have a maximum of the goat milk properties in the soap. I also have two soaps made by using aloe vera as my liquid and I find that makes a lovely, mild and well lathering soap. One has apple juice in it and then there are a couple of lavender as well. These have all been wrapped and are ready to be delivered to the shop where I sell them. I have them ready in my studio as well.

Coffee Soap for coffee lovers and to clean onion, fish smell from your hands.

Another Coffee soap to scrub your hands.

Poppy seeds are a mild scrubby soap and also look nice

An overview of the soaps made recently. See the different colours and textures.

We have been working on this website and now have some new information and, yes, some photos. I hope to get more soon as well.

We have been working on the website, washing fleece, doing a bit of spinning. Here are some of the dyed scarves I have done recently.

An assortment of recent dyed projects

I carded some more wool today to work on the workout mat. When I went to felt it, found I needed a longer bamboo mat so worked on that and then it was time to get dinner. I now plan to felt the batting and then put it into the cover. It is all an experiment.

I have spent some time today working on the website for trbyhand.com. It will need some refining and lots of photos as well.

I was planning a project this morning which was to be a workout mat, sewn with a lovely Guatemalan fabric and stuffed with some warm wool fleece. Bookwork and phone calls took most of the time so this was postponed until tomorrow. Tomorrow, Thursday is my regular spinning day and I expect a couple of people in the afternoon, with three unable to come. It is a relaxing day which I look forward to each month. It is on the second Thursday of each month and is open to anyone available to come. We spin, talk, give each other tips on all sorts of things and share.