Candles, Roving, and New Friends

I had the loveliest day yesterday! I headed over to the Urban Craft Center in the afternoon for a candle-making class. We had a lot of fun playing with soy pillar candles, honeycomb wax, and beeswax sheets, along with a variety of scents and colorings. I came home with a lovely variety of candles and can't wait to start making my own here.

My favorite candle is definitely the mermaid, made using a silicone mold out of honeycomb. I plan to give this one to the Boy's mom as part of her Christmas present.

I've been making slow and steady progress on the second part of her Christmas present, her falling leaves scarf, in white. I can't wait until this is finished and blocked. I hope she likes it.

After my candle-making class, I stuck around at the UCC for their open studio night to work on the above-mentioned scarf. About an hour into the studio hours, Ana, from BananaKnits walked in to work on some of her beautifully dyed roving. I asked if I could watch her fluff it up (I apologize fir obviously not knowing correct fiber terminology) and I'm glad I did because she was wonderfully sweet and helpful. A few minutes later, some of her other friends joined us, with fiber and yarn in hand. They proceeded to tell me about various knitting and spinning groups and meet-ups in the Santa Monica area. Ana also showed me how to use a Turkish spindle to spin fiber!

I certainly did not expect to start learning how to spin fiber when I woke up yesterday morning! Working on the Turkish spindle was a bit difficult for me, but I think I started getting the handle of it towards the end of the evening. The UCC has a bunch of different types of spindles in their collection, so I'm going to play around with a few until I find one I like. The also have a variety of wheels, so I will definitely check those out on Monday morning.

I signed up for a monthly membership to the UCC for October. I was going to wait around until November, but then I realized I would have to start studying for the NY/NJ bar exam then. So, I'm committing to making the quilt I started last April in NYC. I have a bunch of beautiful fabric, some of which has already been cut and is ready to be sewed. I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish the whole thing, but I'll do my best and see where I end up.