folktale

2012-01-21T17:11:00.010-05:00

In early december, my dog* suddenly and unexpected got really very sick. Sick to the point that I thought I might lose her. Long story short: she ended up having to be hospitalized for nearly a week, no one ever figured out what originally caused her to get sick, she got pneumonia on top of whatever it was she had first, and I'm now paying off huge vet bills. She's fine now, as far as I can tell, but since what she had seemed to be at least partly gastronomic in nature, I'm being super extra careful about what she eats.

The vets bills mean that I have to find a way to make more money this year, but I'm trying to see that as a good thing. I have tons of ideas for ways to expand my fiber business and for actually making some money from farming, so hopefully this is just the kick in the pants I need to make things happen this year!

I've been dutifully updating my etsy shop about every two weeks on the dot since December. I plan on continuing to update as often as possible, at least until craft show season starts. If you're dreaming of a particular patchwork colorway and haven't been able to grab it, let me know and I'll reserve it for you the next time I spin it. There have been new colorways & rare breed farm wools in the past few updates. I'm mostly putting up patchwork yarns, but there are more novelty yarns & striping yarns to come. And I'm busy sourcing millspun yarns made from small farm wool (and considering having a mill custom spin yarn for me) so that I can add hand-dyed breed-specific farm wool yarns to my lineup. I'd like to mix some sewing and felting in with my spinning and dyeing too, but I'm still working on dreaming up prototypes.

I've also decided that I need to eat more eggs. My chickens started laying last fall (brown, white, and green eggs) and haven't stopped, and since I don't spend a lot of time cooking for myself I've just been eating plain fried eggs. But that gets old real fast! The first new thing I learned to make with eggs is custard.

I used eggs from my chickens, milk from my goats, and whole vanilla beans. First I made baked custard (amazing), and then frozen custard (super amazing). But that was months ago, and I forgot about how fun it was to discover new egg recipes until today.

I made shirred eggs, which I had never heard of before, thanks to this blog post from Juniper Moon Farm, where they seem to be having the same sort of egg 'problem' (not that all the free-range organic eggs you can eat can really be called a problem). Shirred eggs are eggs baked with tons of grated hard cheese (I used parmesan) and cream. The JMF recipe calls for infused olive oils, but I just put red chili pepper flakes right in the eggs and it was plenty flavorful. Creamy eggy cheesy goodness! This has reminded me that finding new ways to use eggs is always a good thing, and I want to try and find a new egg recipe at least once a month. Please drop me a note if you know of a good one!

*I adopted a 9yr old welsh corgi last january. She's my first dog and she's awesome.

Crafty Bastards yarn preview

2011-09-30T13:19:00.008-04:00

Crafty Bastards is tomorrow! Here is a preview of what I'll have for sale:

Corespun yarns from my pygora goats fiber

Cherry Blossom yarn

Leafy yarns

One-of-a-kind patchwork scrap yarns

Brand new patchwork colorways

Yarnbow self-striping yarns. Lots of Yarnbow.

Pick-your-own felty baubles

Sheepy sachets filled with organic dried lavender and cedar, now in mushroom and chicken editions

Crafty Bastards

2011-09-25T22:35:00.004-04:00

All this month I've been busy getting ready for the Crafty Bastards craft show in DC on Oct 1st. My favorite craft show! It's always a ton of fun, but this year the DC state fair has been rescheduled to the same time & place as Crafty Bastards, plus there are handmade food vendors and contests. You can find me & my yarns in booth #40 - the map is right here.

Towards the beginning of this month, I had some interesting challenges while trying to prepare for this show. I lost electricity during the Hurricane Irene storm and we didn't get our power back until 5 days later, so I was spinning by candlelight. I was just starting to contemplate dyeing fiber over a campfire when the power came back on.

The one thing I'm most excited about for this year's Crafty Bastards is that I will have yarn for sale from my very own pygora goats. Pygora goats are a breed that was started as a cross between angora and pygmy goats, and they can have 3 different types of fleeces, ranging from a curly shiny fiber similar to kid mohair to a super soft downy undercoat similar to cashmere. Most of the yarns I'll have for sale were spun from my goat Aoife's (her name is pronounced "Ee-fah") fiber.

Aoife has type A fiber, which is closest to mohair. She produces the most fiber of all my goats and needs to be shorn twice yearly.

Her curly locks look just like mohair, but the handle is different - I'd describe it as a cross between silk, angora bunny fluff, and kid mohair. It's drapy and silky feeling, with a hint of wooly fluffiness not found in mohair, but still develops a fuzzy halo. I've been spinning it up into bulky but airy corespun yarns.

I will only have about 10 skeins of pygora yarn available, so I suggest coming early if you want one!

It's been too gloomy and rainy here to take many pictures, but I'm planning on posting a preview of all my Crafty Bastards wares towards the middle of this week.

Summer update

2011-07-25T19:06:00.010-04:00

It is HOT here, and everything seems to be thriving - goats, chickens, weeds. The baby goats are coming up on 6 months old and are looking leggy and tall to me. I need to finish up their paperwork, and then some of them will be put up for sale. I'm keeping Nymphadora, of course, my little shadow, and I'm holding onto Luna too because I'm hoping she'll inherit her mother's udder as well as her good looks.

I was resigned to selling Cassie, since I can't keep all the babies, but her sweet demeanor, moonspots, and good genetics are all conspiring to make this a hard decision.

My tiny little chicks are now pretty much full-grown chickens. I'm planning on sprucing up the coop & laying boxes for them this week in the hopes of encouraging them to start laying eggs. They were looking hot, so my mom talked me into getting them a watermelon as a treat. None of them had seen a watermelon before, and it was extremely entertaining watching them slowly edge closer and closer to these strange objects until one brave chicken took the first skeptical peck. They loved it! By that evening, all that was left was two hollowed-out rinds.

I'm actively attempting to get more spinning done, despite the stifling heat, now that the animals are more independent and don't need to be watched as closely. I just listed a big batch of yarn in my etsy shop:

I'm trying to spin down my stash, since my fiber room is overflowing, which means I should be able to update again in the next few weeks. Since I'm spinning stash fibers, there will be a wider range of wool breeds represented than usual - blue faced leicester, CVM, Warhill, and even some small farm merino that I just found hidden away.

I've been MIA the last few weeks since I had a houseguest (hi mom!) and a 3 hour long daily class, but the one really silly vacationy thing we managed to do was attend the midnight premiere of the last harry potter movie. I think my costume turned out pretty well - I sewed the coat completely from scratch, and I didn't start it until 11pm the night before! I debated about my costume for a while, but Lucius and I ended up going as our goat's namesakes - I went as Nymphadora Tonks and he went as Luna Lovegood ;)

(The coat is rather rumpled, but it was 114 degrees with the humidity when we took these pictures so I couldn't be bothered to fix it, I just wanted to hurry up and get it off. Ick.)

Farm Update: Babies galore!

2011-03-29T15:49:00.016-04:00

A few weeks back, we had four baby goats and 50+ day old chicks arrive, all on the same day. I thought it was probably about time to at least introduce the goats! We named them all after Harry Potter characters this year, since I just finished listening to all 7 audiobooks. I grew up reading the books, but this was my first time listening to the (british version) audiobooks, and my first time reading all 7 in a row. First up is Nymphadora, or Nymphie for short, whom you have already met and who is now a big girl at 6 weeks old.

Cameo and Tarot both had a set of boy/girl twins.

Cassiopeia and Orion are names from the Black family tree, and I picked them because they are also constellations and both babies have black moonspots.

I have been spending lots of quality time with the babies, especially Nymphie, who is my darling.

Actually, it's really hard for me to take pictures of the goats right now, because my lap is usually full. 90% of my pictures look like this:

(that's Nymphie, chewing on my scarf, which she is obsessed with - she has a terrible habit of either popping up into photos she was not meant to be in or knocking my camera hand just as I take a picture)

Orion and his little sister are so sweet. They're super friendly, just like their mom, and they will both happily fall asleep in my arms.

Draco and Luna on the other hand, are both a bit unique - like THEIR mom. They're friendly too, but much more independent. Luna is a perfect copy of her mother, she's similar both in looks and personality. I still call her Mini Tarot sometimes.

Draco seems to think that Cameo is just as much his mom as Tarot, he is constantly following her around and trying to nurse from her. He is huge, by far the biggest baby.

The chicks are also doing well. I picked out a mix of 13 different heritage breeds for our laying flock, so we have a wide variety. We will have multi-colored eggs too, green/blue, brown, and white. This is an old photo from their first week, they have now grown feathers, tripled in size, and look and act like mini chickens.

I will get better pictures of them once they are moved outside. They're in our basement right now to keep them warm, but I'm building a chicken tractor so they can forage around the pastures and garden during the spring & summer.

The kids are still nursing right now so I'm only milking once a day.

But when they are weaned in about a month, I'll be milking twice a day. I am enjoying milking, it's very meditative for me, like spinning. A nice quiet moment to start the day. Although I am a novice milker, so it takes me about an hour to milk three goats and do a few other chores. The milk is amazing, so lovely and rich and sweet. I don't really drink milk except for a dash in my morning tea, so I'm learning to make cheese. And also yogurt, kefir, ice cream, sour cream, and buttermilk. I'm dreaming of wheels of cheese aging in the basement, hopefully I will learn quickly and not make too many mistakes!

On the fiber front, I was a vendor at the Homespun Yarn Party this past sunday. It was super fun as usual, and I have some yarn left over so there will be a shop update soon! I have lots of fiber dyed for patchwork yarns, so expect to see a bunch of those popping up soon. I also have a few pygora goats that are about ready to be sheared.

Stardust, the matriarch/queen of our herd, is starting to shed. She's going to be really happy to get all that fluff off and enjoy the warm spring air!

Well, hello!

2011-02-13T13:00:00.008-05:00

We weren't expecting any baby goats to be born for at least another few weeks to a month, and I had just checked out the pregnant girls while clipping hooves and decided that none of them looked ready to go yet, so I was very surprised to walk out to the barn on friday to find this:

I hadn't built the kidding stalls yet (I was planning on building them this week), but the other goats were all giving Cowalick her space and she was by herself in a corner, calmly cleaning off her kids. She had a boy and a girl, but the boy didn't make it. I'm glad that I happened to go to the barn a bit earlier than usual, because it's entirely possible that if I had gone an hour later I would have found him dead and always wondered if I could have saved him had I found him earlier. We took him to the vet, and sadly they said there was nothing they could do. Luckily my friend Josie and her aunt were visiting that day, otherwise I can't imagine how panicked and scared I would have felt, but I'm very good at being calm under stress when there are other people around. What a day for them to pick to visit the goats!

I threw together a quick little stall for mom and baby to hang out in until I get the official stalls built. After suddenly losing one baby, I was very worried about this little girl and drove Cowalick crazy because I checked on them every hour or two all night long the first night. I don't have any real reason to worry, and this little doeling looked much better than her brother from the start and is giving every indication of being a perfectly healthy baby goat, but so many things can go wrong with babies and she's my first! She seemed warm enough friday night, but I wanted to make sure, so I knit a tiny little wool sweater for her:

She is so magical and perfect and sweet!

Here's a little video of her trying to figure out what her mom is eating:

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-23T13:21:00.005-05:00

From me and the ~~reindeer~~ goats.

Bonus outtake:

I hope everyone is having a warm and cozy winter! If you want more goat pictures, check out my flickr stream or this blog post by my friend Josie about my first time shearing my pygora goats.

Rain, rain, go away

2010-09-30T13:57:00.012-04:00

It is so very rainy here! All day it's been dark and dreary, and every so often the wind picks up and I can hear walnuts thunking onto the roof. It's actually pretty good spinning weather, but I'm crossing my fingers that my last few yarns dry in time for Crafty Bastards this saturday, and that the sun comes out for the craft show.

Here's a small preview of the many yarns that I'll have for sale at Crafty Bastards - the pictures are extra moody and dark thanks to the clouds:

Corespun yarn with lots of multicolored puffs

Cherry Blossom yarn, spun from naturally colored local farm fibers with a bit of hemp and hand-felted, hand-dyed, and hand-embroidered cherry blossoms

Mushroom Collector, with tiny felt mushrooms spun in

Handspun and hand-dyed recycled bamboo rayon

Leafy yarns! I have a lighter version and a darker version, four skeins of each

Now it's time for labeling and the final inventory. I know for sure that I surpassed my minimum goal for this show, and also broke my record for most yarns spun for a show. I have so much yarn right now. About three times the amount of yarn I brought to my first Crafty Bastards! Every year I manage to spin more and more.

Besides yarn, I will also have: felty baubles, 2 pairs of handspun + handknit fingerless mitts, sheepy sachets (filled with organic herbs), batts, and a few other fibers (hand dyed local wool locks & rainbow hemp).

Crafty Bastards is this saturday, October 2nd, 10am-5pm at the Marie Reed Learning Center at 18th & Wyoming in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC. The map of the fair is here - come look for me in booth #95!

Getting ready for Crafty Bastards

2010-09-21T11:24:00.010-04:00

It's that time of year again! Crafty Bastards is coming up fast, and I've spent the past month getting ready. Strangely enough, the usual craft show panic hasn't hit me yet. I'm feeling pretty serene. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm fairly certain that I'm going to break my record for most yarns spun for a craft show (or ever all at once) sometime in the next few days.

I also recently finished spinning the largest single skein of yarn I've ever spun. 9+ ounces! The hardest part was fitting this thing on my bulky flyer, I ended up having to stop because I had it packed on so tight that the back of the flyer popped off and refused to go back on.

I've secretly been referring to it as 'the beast' in my head. Although probably I won't actually name it that. Probably I'll come up with something nicer sounding.

Here it is next to a normal sized skein of my patchwork yarn (heavy worsted to bulky weight) for scale.

I was planning on spinning another huge skein or two in different colors, but I haven't quite recovered yet from the first one. We'll see!

P.S. This year at CB, when people ask if I raise any fiber animals, I will be able to answer: "Yes!"

But please don't ask unless you really don't mind hearing all about how awesome my goats are.

Goats!

2010-07-24T12:44:00.010-04:00

I have a few different things that I've been meaning to post about, but the only thing I can think about right now is: goats! Our three milk goat ladies arrived here this past sunday, and this week has been full of as many visits to the barn as we can fit in. We even contemplated sleeping in the barn (we're still thinking about it!). They're all registered purebred nigerian dwarf goats with fancy papers. Oh, and they're all under knee high - I think the average height at the withers for a nigerian dwarf goat is about 20". Get a ruler. It's little.

Let me introduce them:

This is Cameo. She's the daintiest of our goats and looks a lot like a fawn with her coloring and body structure - but she's also the most fearless and aggressive! She's our current herd queen.

This is Tarot. She's a big scaredy-cat but is coming around quickly. Tarot and Cameo are about the same age and I have a feeling they grew up together, because they stick together a lot.

And this is the lovely miss Cowalily. She's my goat (Lucius picked out the other two). She's a year older than the other two and so a bit bigger. I think she's just gorgeous.

We're going to take our does to visit a buck this fall and be bred, so next spring we will have tiny baby goats and milk. And my first pygoras will be arriving in about a month or less, so we will have a nice little herd soon! Next we need to think of a farm name so we can get started building a website and getting business cards and such in preparation for selling at farmers markets. I think we should just go with Folktale Farm, but L hasn't been very receptive to that so far.

I'll be back to talking about fibery things soon, I promise! I updated my etsy shop on thursday and it's already empty again - but I'm working on another big update in a week or two.

home sweet home

2010-07-16T11:12:00.010-04:00

Hello! I've sort disappeared from the face of the internet for a few months there - did you miss me?

There have been some big changes going on in the little world of folktale, mainly: we bought a house!

A house...and 4.5 acres!

And the past few months have been a blur of moving and adjusting. We bought this house from the Thornes, who are amazing. We didn't know this when we first found the house, but they're involved with the maryland sheep and wool fest and have a booth there selling wool, yarn, and seedlings (I'm pretty sure we even bought stuff from them in the past).

I love this house. It was built around 1950, and it reminds me of my grandparents house a bit (which was probably built around the same time). I'll have more pictures of the inside (including my small craft/fiber room) when it's a little more organized and set up, but here's part of the kitchen:

I have a small veggie patch going in the garden, but about 99% of the garden is giant weeds and wheat right now. The garden is huge. Huge!! Since we don't have a tractor, my plan is to build a ton of raised beds and then have some fruit trees and berries and herbs in the back. I'm really excited to be able to grow things, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with sustainable organic gardening. I did a bit of companion planting with my vegetables - carrots and calendula in with the tomatoes, and a "three sisters" patch with corn, squash, and beans planted together.

We also have chickens! They're pretty spoiled. I still can't get over their funny little dinosaur noises and their silly chicken mannerisms - they manage to make me giggle almost every time I see them.

And the best part: I'm going to have a small fiber flock. My first pygora goats will be arriving this fall, and we'll have a few miniature milk goats as soon as we finish fixing up the barn. I haven't decided whether or not I want to get sheep - I'm going to think it over and decide next spring after we've been living with the goats for a while.

I'm about ready to re-open my etsy shop. I finally made it through nearly all of my custom orders, and I have a nice little stash of handspun yarn stockpiled for the shop. I'm hoping to update sometime in the next few days - I spent this morning taking pictures of yarn on my window seat.

I kind of forgot about this until recently, but when I was about 12-14 years old I went on a field trip with my school to a place where you take a series of tests and then they give you an extensive list of ideal careers for you. My top careers all turned out to be things like "llama farmer", and the 12-year-old me found this hilarious. But man, those must be some crazy accurate tests, right? And I guess it's good to know that I'm suited to raising fiber animals ahead of time, haha.

Homespun Yarn Party tomorrow!

2010-03-20T13:36:00.013-04:00

I'll be vending at the Homespun Yarn Party in Savage, MD tomorrow - this is my second year selling there, and last year was awesome so I'm even more excited for this year. Lots and lots of local fiber people will be there, plus my favorite soap maker. HYP is located in the historic Savage Mill, which used to be a fiber mill but is now full of shops & restaurants.

I will be debuting some naturally plant-dyed combed top for sale tomorrow. I have naturally dyed yarn, too, a bulky wool/mohair blend. I'm so very happy with how it turned out:

And I am most especially happy with the greens. Green is my favorite color, and I have never before managed to so successfully dye such pretty shades of green with natural dyes.

In fact, I'm keeping this one (there are multiple chains of this colorway + a few others). And I'm kind of hoping the rest don't sell...

Another thing I'm happy about are my local fiber corespun yarns, spun from local kid mohair, local merino, and organic local blue faced leicester/border leicester wool, all processed by me from raw fleeces.

I have one really pretty tailspun skein, organic local bfl/border leicester from a sheep named Hadley.

Aaand, lots of other novelty yarns. Leafy yarns, several skeins of the cherry blossom yarn from my last post, patchwork yarns, a bunch of yarnbow self-striping skeins, and one yarn that incorporates plush stars hand dyed & handsewn by me from a recycled wool/angora blend sweater.

My only problem will be trying to fit everything on the table!

Fresh start

2010-02-12T10:22:00.006-05:00

I love the beginning of the new year. It's when I get a fresh start and get to re-think and re-organize and plot new things. I pick out what I need to work on to improve my business and my personal life. It's also right before spring and shearing season! I'm currently trying to decide what to focus on with my fleece-buying from local farms. I got some lovely samples of this years fleeces from one of my favorite farms:

My only problem right now is narrowing down my choices, because I want it all! I'll be talking more about the local farms I get my wool from later this spring, after I start making my fleece-buying trips.

I'm planning out lots of new yarns for upcoming shows & my etsy shop, mostly spring-inspired. Here is one of my favorites, Cherry Blossom:

I've had the idea for this yarn in my head for over a year now, and I'm really excited that it turned out so well. It's spun from a blend of natural chocolate brown merino wool locks from local sheep that are kept as pets, plus a bit of local natural brown rambouillet/border leicester locks, local natural charcoal kid mohair locks, local natural pale caramel kid mohair locks, and a bit of natural off-white loose hemp fiber. The cherry blossoms are hand-felted from merino x wool, recycled tussah silk, and hemp gauze, then hand dyed and embroidered by me. I have a lot of this gorgeous chocolate merino, so I'm spinning up quite a few of these skeins.

While my thoughts are turning to spring, its really very wintry here. We were hit with 30 inches and then another 10-20 within a few days, and everyone has been trapped inside on and off all week.

(Picture taken by L) That's okay, I don't mind being stuck inside - I know once spring actually gets here, I'll have a harder time focusing on getting work done, so right now I'm trying to be productive. By the time spring finally rolls around, I plan on having a nice little stockpile of yarn!

Yarn sale + preview

2009-12-16T15:50:00.004-05:00

I'm having a sale in my etsy shop: 15% off plus free shipping (to the US + Canada) for the rest of December. And I have about 10+ yarns to list this week, so there should be more to choose from soon! Including the first half of my luxury patchwork yarn mini collection:

(there's only five yarns, despite all the pictures) which will be listed on etsy all together, probably tomorrow afternoon/evening. Phew! Finally! Those yarns were so much work (but worth it) - it took me two entire months to dye, prep, and spin all the ingredients.

Happy winter, everyone! I can't wait until all the gift-making and house-cleaning and custom-order-spinning is done and I can enjoy all the cold crisp air and snuggly woolies and homemade treats and family time!

Customer Appreciation: Patchwork Mittens!

2009-11-19T13:13:00.012-05:00

It's been ages since my first (and last) post showing a few items knit with my patchwork yarns. This post is long overdue! I have quite a few finished objects made by customers to share, and I decided to start with a mitten-themed post because mittens seem to be by far the most popular thing to knit with my patchwork yarns. I think it all started with knitting school dropout's mittens:

Which you can find here and here on ravelry. Ever since I first saw the pictures of these, people have been requesting custom yarns from me specifically to knit mittens, and many more patchwork mitten pictures have popped up. Here are some of my favorites:

folktale mitts, made by doodles in string

super duper handspun mittens, made by knitting and dogs

copy cat mittens, made by mahimahi4

panama jack handspun mittens, made by sewdotty

and lastly, esmerine fingerless gauntlets, also by sewdotty. I really love the detail pictures of these on the ravelry project page - this particular skein had puffy blips of fuzzy white angora or mohair.

If you've made something with my patchwork yarn (or any of my yarns) and have pictures, I'd love to see them! I can't describe the feeling I get when I see things made with my yarn - sort of a mix of delight and awe and a happy thrill. I have enough pictures for a few more customer appreciation posts, so there will be more to come. Thank you to everyone for allowing me to use your photos!

P.S. If you want some patchwork yarn of your own, now would be a good time to request whatever colorway you'd like, since I'm dyeing my way through the rest of my merino x wool! I have a nice pile of patchwork yarns ready to list in the next few days, plus I'm working on finishing some 'limited edition' one-of-a-kind patchwork colorways that incorporate lots of luxe fibers like local angora bunny fluff, local kid mohair, local naturally colored wools hand-processed by me, whole sections of firestar sparkle, recycled banana silk threads, and more.

See you this saturday!

2009-10-01T12:32:00.008-04:00

Here's my last little preview of my wares for Crafty Bastards! The show is this saturday, October 3rd, 10am-5pm, at the Marie Reed Learning Center at 18th & Wyoming in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC. I'll be in booth #2 along with Molly Miller by Appointment.

Sheepy Sachets - these are hand sewn and stuffed with organic herbs blended by me, either lavender & rosemary or peppermint & eucalyptus.

A small army of Yarnbow skeins...I'll have quite a few of these, all from the same dyelot. They each have 32 different hand-dyed colors and self-stripe with no repeats.

Tailspun organic local border leicester locks from a sheep named Barley:

One of my favorites! This is called Kite Flying, and it's a blend of local cormo wool and merino x rescue wool, with puffy coils of white angora bunny fluff and tons of little kite-tail bowties of recycled sari silk fabric.

A sampling of some of the corespun local kid mohair yarns I'll have available:

And, a selection of wooly patchwork yarns (I also have some in organic cotton). These are almost all spun from local small farm roving:

Crafty Bastards is my favorite craft show of the year. I'm planning on stocking up on Biggs & Featherbelle soap (if I can find time to run to their booth). I'd also really love a hat from Rocks and Salt, and to take a peek at Maryink, but I doubt I'll be able to leave the booth long enough to actually shop. Crafty Bastards is so great...what other craft show has both a breakdance battle and a bike valet service?

Wirecore!

2009-09-23T13:41:00.008-04:00

This week's Crafty Bastards yarn preview is of a wire core yarn - I spun up some super soft local merino & local kid mohair fluff around thin-gauge jewelry wire. This yarn is amazing! It's super poseable and more like a sculpture you can play with than a skein of yarn. I especially like this type of yarn because it can be used by people who don't knit or crochet!

Only 10 days to go until the show!!

CB Preview #2

2009-09-15T14:46:00.009-04:00

Thanks to everyone who voted for my yarn! It was a runner-up and made it into the Member's Choice Gift Guide on etsy. If you're still in a vote-y mood, you can also vote for folktale in the Craftiest Bastard contest:

Here is this week's preview of one of the yarns I spun up for the Crafty Bastards show - it's made up of local kid mohair locks, recycled bamboo, recycled sari silk threads, handmade recycled fabric leaves, and three flowers gifted to me by Amber of Raimbowtree. This yarn is corespun for extra texture and softness, which means that the fiber is spun horizontally onto a core thread.

Vote for folktale! & a preview

2009-09-08T21:09:00.010-04:00

One of my handspun yarns, "Meadowsweet", is in the etsy "Which handspun yarn makes you feel crafty?" poll. You can vote for your favorite yarn here. If you vote for my yarn, please let me know either by leaving a comment here or sending me an email or convo! I like Meadowsweet - if I could pick any one vegan yarn in my inventory right now to knit, I think this is the one I'd pick. It's the first skein I spun from organic cotton batting - which is super fluffy, lightly textured, and perfect for thread-plying - with soft loose hemp fiber, shiny recycled bamboo, and recycled banana fiber threads. Banana fiber is wonderful, it's like a shiny vegan version of recycled sari silk threads but more versatile because I dye it myself. I love recycled sari silk, but it comes jumbled up in random color grab bags and inevitably about half of each bag I buy is a garish neon orange that I can never seem to bring myself to work into my yarns, even in moderation. Someday I will spin a giant neon-orange sari silk boa yarn with all the horrible orange threads I have collected over the years.

My poor neglected blog. I haven't been online too much lately, because I am hard at work getting ready for the Crafty Bastards craft show next month! I will be there selling my yarn and sharing a booth with Molly, who makes the most gorgeous and luxurious knitted accessories with handspun art yarns. I'm planning on updating my blog at least once a week until the show with a sneak preview of some of the yarns I'm working on for the show.

Here is one of my favorite yarns so far, Garden Gate. I've spun this one before (if you were at MDSW you may have seen it in the Cloverhill booth), but it's never managed to make it into my etsy shop. This yarn was inspired by the imagery of the brick wall covered in climbing ivy in The Secret Garden. I've loved that book ever since I can remember, and I just recently re-read it this spring.

I make the leaves for the yarn from a sheet of my own handfelted wool felt. The felt is undyed white, and I dye the leaves to match each individual skein after I cut them out.

Once the leaves are cut and dyed, I embroider them by hand or by machine (these are done by machine, as you can see).

The finished ivy leaves:

Nothing makes me so happy as a stack of felty leaves! For this yarn, I strung the leaves onto handdyed (by me!) olive green recycled laceweight wool yarn and plied them into the yarn (which is chemical-free merino x wool + lovely dark green recycled sari silk threads). These pictures were taken before the twist was set.

New Home, New Yarns

2009-07-21T16:15:00.002-04:00

We're finally done moving...at least the actual moving part, I have a feeling it'll be a while before we're done organizing. I'm still working on setting up my fiber & dye room. Unfortunately I somehow ended up getting a bad case of bronchitis/pneumonia in the last few days of moving, which were of course the most intense. The last time I was this sick (ages ago) I ended up in the hospital, but luckily I managed to pull through and get better with just the help of my own herbal remedies.

Speaking of herbs, a little bright spot in the midst of the moving craziness:

My calendula finally flowered! I was beginning to think they never would. I grew these from seed and am rather fond of them. I put all my potted herbs out in the backyard of our new place, but apparently rabbits really like calendula, because when I checked on them a day later, one of the bunnies that frequent the yard had gnawed the plants off at the base of the stem! I was worried, but as shown in the last photo of the mosaic, the plants are already springing back.

I also celebrated our new backyard with a new plant, found at a local farmers market:

Bee Balm! Also known as Oswego Tea & Bergamot. It used to grow wild where we lived down in north carolina, and the bright red blooms always made me so happy. It's both medicinal and edible - it has a nice flavor and I used to chop it up and add it into my homemade cheese.

I've been slowly arranging my fibery things and getting some spinning done, and I re-opened my etsy shop today! Here's a peek at some of the new yarns:

Also waiting to be photographed are several colorways of organic cotton & wool patchwork yarns, some yarnbow self-striping skeins, and some yummy novelty yarns spun from super soft (cormo & merino x) local & rescue farm wools. AND I'm getting ready to list some spinning fibers in the near future, including some organic local wool locks and some super soft loose hemp dyed in rainbow colors.

Ordinary thrills

2009-06-08T14:27:00.005-04:00

I've been back from WI for a little over a week now, but we're in the midst of moving and I haven't been spending very much time online. My little 'vacation' was great, I got to hang out with my family and my bestest friend and my first ever spinning wheel. I also got a bit of knitting done! I finished a smallish shawl knit from my own handspun yarn:

It's the swallowtail shawl pattern, and the yarn is lovely super soft natural grey pygora goat fluff (type C, which is similar to cashmere). I think I'm going to block the edges again to make them pointier, but I'm so very happy with how it turned out, especially since I altered the pattern a bit because I didn't want a full size shawl.

I'm glad I got some time off before the move - we're moving to a townhouse with L's sister and niece, and the entire place needs to be painted and the carpet replaced before we can even start moving things in. We're almost done painting. We bought no-VOC paint, so there aren't any fumes, which is awesome. I picked this pretty aqua/teal blue color for our room, and I'm so in love with it! I have a skein of my Rona patchwork colorway that matches it pretty well, so I'm saving it to knit something for our room - maybe a pillow cover? I'm also planning on attempting to sew a quilt to match, so I'm going to be bringing the yarn with me for color inspiration when I go fabric shopping.

I'm going to update the shop today with about 4 new yarns. I'm hoping to keep doing smallish regular shop updates until we're done moving. Right now I'm spending lots of time dyeing and prepping fiber so I'll have plenty of stuff to spin while I figure out my new dyeing setup (I'll have a separate room for dyeing, no more dyeing in the kitchen!). There will be lots of patchwork yarns in the next month, including new colorways, new fibers (several different farm wools), and organic cotton patchwork skeins!

Old Cabin & New Yarns

2009-05-11T14:21:00.005-04:00

We've been looking for places in this area to buy that have at least a few acres, and this past weekend we drove out to see the most interesting one. It's an old cabin that was built sometime around 1850! The realtor was great, he actually seemed to know a lot about it and explained how they dated the cabin & some of the interesting bits about it. The beams and the floor boards on the upper level are all hand-hewn, and the beams are american chestnut.

This is the only non-blurry photo I have of the inside, although we took a lot of pictures. This is the second floor. It was originally shorter, which is why the beams only come partway up. The bottom floor is set up for a wood stove, with a beautiful rock chimney. The chimney runs up through the entire cabin, but it's made of brick on the upper levels.

I think this place is amazing, and it's priced so that you're really only buying the land, but it would take SO much work to be able to live in it that I don't see it happening right now. Although that hasn't stopped me from daydreaming about it. It comes with about 2 acres, an old barn, and a wellhouse with a well & pump.

Also. I will be updating my etsy shop with at least 4 new yarns today, with another update tomorrow. Here's a preview of the yarns going up today:

I will be leaving for two weeks (May 14th - 29th) this Thursday, and I haven't yet decided whether to close my shop or just bring my yarns with me. But I'm looking forward to getting some knitting done on the 24hr+ train ride!

It's that time of year again...

2009-04-30T15:05:00.003-04:00

Maryland Sheep & Wool! And this year I'm extra excited, because my yarn will be there too. Cloverhill Yarn Shop, my favorite booth from last year, will have a nice selection of my handspun for sale. You can see preview pictures & more information on the other indie dyers/spinners they'll have on their blog here. There will be leafy yarns, novelty yarns, vegan yarns, patchwork yarns (including some brand new colorways), and a pound and a half of Yarnbow self-striping yarns, all from the same dyelot. Oh, and I also spun up an amazing, magical skein of extreme tailspun yarn. It's spun from organic local border leicester locks from a sheep named Barley:

I *love* this style of yarn so much. This is the very first tailspun skein that I've ever put up for sale, because I always want to keep them! It was super time-consuming to spin, and only 8 yds long, but it's still enough for a long skinny scarf or a super-fluffy scarflette. Or you can always just double the skein around your neck, if you're lazy like me.

I'm so excited for this weekend! This entire month has been super tough for me - I even ended up closing my etsy shop for most of it, because I just couldn't stay on top of things - but now I've got it together again and I'm really looking forward to all the woolly goodness this weekend.

Also, I'm putting together a teensy shop update today:

Natural dye results!

2009-03-17T15:18:00.003-04:00

The naturally dyed yarns turned out better than I'd hoped! I'm especially relieved about the indigo, since it was my first time making an indigo vat, but it was actually not as hard as I thought it would be. The whole process of dyeing these yarns was pretty involved, here's a brief walkthrough of the steps to give you an idea:

1. Make mordant solution. This either involves simmering plant material for 1-2 hours before straining it out, or bringing a pot of water to a boil & adding alum.
2. Mordant the yarn. The yarn is immersed in the mordant solution & simmered for another 1-2 hours over very very low heat. I like to leave it sit in the mordant solution overnight, just to be sure.
3. Making the dyebath. For each color used (and I sometimes used 2-3 on a single skein), I make a strong dyebath by simmering the plant material for 1-2 hours over very low heat. The exception to this is indigo - making an indigo vat using the yeast method takes 48 hours.
4. Dyeing the yarns. For the single color yarns, this means immersing them in the dyebath and simmering them, again, over very low heat for 1-2 hours or until you get the depth of color you want. For multiple colors, I carefully poured the different dye extracts over the yarn before heating it. Some of the yarns are overdyed (the greens & purples mostly), so after dyeing them for the first time I repeated the process again, minus the mordanting.

So each skein probably took me several days at least. I'm very happy with how this first batch turned out! I just started listing them over at my etsy shop today, and I'll continue listing them in small batches all this week.

What else have I been up to? Well, there was the Yarn Party this past weekend, which was awesome! The weekend before that, I had a spin-off with Steph, Molly, and Carissa, and I made a trip out to Digging Dog Farm to play with the sheep and buy lots of organic local wool. They're humane-certified, too - I'm so happy to have found them! We visited in the midst of lambing, so there were tons of darling, fuzzy little lambs toddling around. And of course, I somehow managed to forget my camera for every single one of those events. *shrug* Oh, well. I might be going out to Digging Dog Farm again soon, so I'll try to remember to take pictures next time!

The 'adventure' begins

2009-03-02T13:23:00.006-05:00

Today, the crazy super-crafting officially starts. It's less than two weeks now until the Homespun Yarn Party:

Yesterday was probably my last day off until then...we bought equipment to bottle our homebrewed beer and went to a local thrift shop that has an excellent pottery & book selection. We bought a bunch of books & records, plus a pretty brown earthenware crock:

And when we were checking out, a lady who was standing nearby asked what we were going to use the crock for. I was kind of nervous, because the last time we bought a crock at this same thrift store, the lady at the checkout was like, "Do you KNOW what this IS?!" and gave us a short lecture about how it was this rare brand of vintage crock and we shouldn't profane it by actually using it to store utensils in or anything crazy like that. L and I are very practical people, and I don't ever buy things for 'decor', I buy things that I'm actually going to use, and we use crocks to make fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi. So after a brief terrified pause, I told her I was going to use it to make sauerkraut, and to my relief she was delighted and started telling me how her mother used to make sauerkraut in giant crocks when she was growing up, and they used to have to climb into the crock and mash the cabbage with their feet! She was german, and we ended up talking to her for like 20 minutes about how when she moved to the US she was appalled at the food selection, especially the bread and the beer, so she had to learn to make her own. She was super animated and fun, and I wish I had gotten her contact info or invited her to come make sauerkraut with us!

Today, I'm starting work on dyeing my first batch of naturally dyed handspun yarn for the show. Here is the pile of mordanted skeins I'll be dyeing:

The bottom skeins are yellowy from the mordant I used on them - I'm experimenting with using plant-based mordants rather than the toxic metals usually used. Even though I won't be listing these skeins for sale on etsy unless there are any left over from the show, I'll be taking 'after' pictures of the dyed yarns to show you all. Wish me luck - natural dyeing is always an adventure (at least for me!).

Spinnin'

2009-02-07T14:15:00.002-05:00

It's taken me a while, but I feel like I'm finally back in the swing of things. All my December custom orders are being packed up & shipped out, and today I pulled my wheel out into the living room and worked on spinning up a big basket of fiber while listening to oldies on the radio:

My plans right now are to work on a new batch of custom orders, while still trying to list yarns in the etsy shop regularly as well as saving them up for a show in mid-March. I may have found a new local source for wool, so if that works out I'm going to test out offering batts for sale as well!

I'm also working on a line of naturally-dyed yarns, dyed and mordanted with plants...I'm hoping to debut them at the show in March, and then list them on etsy after that. I'm excited about the warmer weather and the new year ahead!

Home again home again

2009-01-21T13:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't mean to almost completely shut down my etsy shop for a month, but I ended up having a real vacation because of computer troubles while I was away visiting family. But I did still spin up lots of singles, so starting sometime this weekend I'm going to be re-opening my etsy shop and listing a big pile of yarn. Here's a preview - this is a haphazard yarnpile currently waiting to be individually photographed:

The rest of the yarns are still in various stages of drying. I have enough yarns to list consistently every day for at least a week, plus a big initial update. Yay! I'll be glad to finally have a non-empty shop again. And I'll be contacting people about their custom orders - most are either finished or nearly finished, but I have a lot of custom orders so it'll take me a while to organize & photograph them.

Even though I have a ton of stuff to do, it's good to be back!

Holiday Schedule

2008-11-24T14:54:00.003-05:00

First off, I wanted to announce my next craft show:

It's going to be a small, fun show, the last one I'm planning on doing for a few months! I won't be listing very much in my etsy shop until the show is over. Right after the show, I'm going to be leaving to visit family in WI for about a month. I'll be taking my yarns & a bunch of fiber with me, so I'll still have my shop open. Since I only have a Ashford Traditional with smallish bobbins up there, I'm planning on spinning up TONS of singles for patchwork yarns, and then when I get back to my Lendrum I'll ply them all. So sometime in early to mid-january, I plan on unleashing a barrage of patchwork yarns (both wooly and vegan) into my etsy shop. And I'm making an effort to come up with new colorways! I've been getting lots and lots of custom patchwork requests, but I don't have the time to spin them all before my show, so right now what I'm telling people is that if you have a specific patchwork colorway in mind, you can let me know and if I end up working it into my spinning schedule, I'll convo or email you to give you first dibs on the yarn before I list it. That's the best I can do for now - my custom patchwork yarn listing won't be going back up in the shop until mid-January at the earliest.

I'm really looking forward to seeing friends & family & spinning somewhere other than my tiny apartment, but I have a mountain of work to do before that happens, so I'm off to multitask like crazy in the hopes of getting lots done today!

Best cake ever!

2008-11-01T16:34:00.002-04:00

It's been a while, eh, folks? This past weekend was Lucius' birthday, so I baked him a nice homemade cake. A few days beforehand, I asked him what kind of cake he wanted:

L: A pumpkin cake.
Me: What's that?
L: I dunno.

Haha, so I googled it, and of course such a thing does exist! And I just roasted, mashed, and froze a bunch of locally grown pumpkin a few weekends ago, so this was a good excuse to cook with some of it. I cobbled together a recipe and it actually turned out to be the best cake I've ever had, so I thought I'd share it with you all. Now, I avoid refined sugar like the plague, so this might not be what most people think of when they think of 'cake', but I found it to be plenty sweet. And also the measurements are approximate because I'm not very strict about measuring and I tend to just wing it ;)

PUMPKIN CAKE

NOTE: this made TWO 9" round cakes.

3 organic eggs
1 stick organic butter
2 c pumpkin puree
dash of vanilla extract
2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c molasses
chunk of evaporated cane juice, dissolved in a small amount of water (you can substitute honey or sugar to taste)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp each cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix butter, eggs, pumpkin, vanilla, molasses, and cane juice or sugar. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda, spices, and salt, then mix into wet ingredients. Pour into 9" round cake pans and bake for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

ICING:
-organic cream cheese (you'll probably need at least 1 package per cake, so get 2 if you're making the full recipe) or homemade yogurt cheese
-honey

Blend cream cheese with honey to taste, chill and then ice cake. I like to use yogurt cheese - to make it, take a quart of organic yogurt and place in a muslin-lined strainer inside another pot and let drain for about 8 hours or until the yogurt is about the consistency of cream cheese. You can save the whey that drains off and use it for cooking (Nourishing Traditions, the cookbook I use the most, calls for whey a lot for soaking beans and lacto-fermenting vegetables).

Mmm. This cake came out perfect, moist and springy, and the cream cheese honey icing was the perfect compliment to the pumpkin.

On the fiber front: I'm spinning my way slowly but surely through custom orders, and will be listing yarns very soon! Most likely there will be a shop update early next week. I'm going to spin spin spin all this month because I'm taking a much-needed month vacation to visit family in December.

Handspun scarves = love

2008-10-01T13:32:00.005-04:00

So, I haven't done any 'customer appreciation' type posts in a long while, but I was inspired to do one by the lovely handspun scarves made from my yarns by Molly and Amber, two of my favorite crafters. Here are the yarns and what these two lovely ladies made from them - you can click on any of the scarf pictures to be taken to its etsy listing.

These yarns:

Became this scarf, crocheted by Amber:

(The leafies!! How I love them...)

This yarn:

Became this scarf, knit by Molly:

These yarns:

Became part of this scarf, crocheted by Amber:

This yarn:

Became this scarf, knit by Molly:

(I love the colors & textures in this one! It's got organic cotton, bamboo, tencel, carbonized bamboo/"black diamond", and sparkle)

This yarn:

Became part of this scarf, crocheted by Amber:

This yarn:

Became this scarf, knit by Molly:

I love the drapey elegance of Molly's scarves, and the thick snugglyness + awesome yarn-combining in Amber's scarves. I especially like the handspun tussah silk in the last scarf of hers (spun by snowberrylime. There's also some knittydirtygirl yarn in that one.

These two have me craving some handspun scarves! I have a feeling there'll be some scarf-making in my near future. Make sure to check out both of their etsy shops for tons more amazing handspun & handknit goodies (Molly) and gorgeous felted headbands (Amber).

A quick photo credit - the pictures of Molly's scarves were done by Dorean Photography.

Crafty Bastards fall '08

2008-09-30T17:57:00.003-04:00

I did it! Whew, it feels so good to have all that stress and crazy craftin' over with. I managed to spin more yarn than I brought last time, and I think I improved my booth. I sold more too ;) I brought home about 4 skeins, 4 batts, and a few knits. I didn't get as many pictures as I hoped, since I was so busy at the fair...I really wanted to take picture of my corespun kid mohair yarns, but I didn't manage to get any and they all sold. I hung up a sort of "yarn curtain" of corespun skeins along one side of my booth, which I thought showed the yarns off nicely - plus it attracted more people, since they stopped to pet the enticingly fuzzy yarns. Here are the few pictures I managed to snap of my wares:

I also had pick-your-own felty baubles again, and I have a lot left over, which makes me happy! So I'll probably be spinning up some bauble-y yarns in the near future.

Some of the yarns that didn't sell surprised me, cause I thought they were good ones! I just finished listing them in my etsy shop, so you can see more pics there. It feels good to have more than one thing listed on etsy again!

I also came home with a few other goodies - handdyed falkland wool sock yarn from Woolarina for teaching Lucius how to knit socks, and about 6 bars of soap. I picked out the sock yarn, Lucius is the one who went crazy with the soap. It's all really nice stuff, from Oliba and Biggs & Featherbelle. The only thing I'm sad about is that I missed checking out the awesome wooly hats at Rocks & Salt. I really wanted to get myself a hat from them, but the one time I managed to get away from my booth for a moment, their booth was completely full and I didn't have time to wait.

I'm back to spinning for etsy now, so I should be updating regularly again! Hurray! Did you miss me? I missed you.

EDIT: I can't believe I almost forgot! There was a huge B-boy battle at Crafty Bastards, right by my booth. Lucius sat and watched it for 2 hours! The guy in the rainbow shirt in the link above was his favorite.

Crafty Bastards preview

2008-09-25T13:25:00.004-04:00

Ack! CB is two days away! I'm almost at my "WHATEVER" stage of craft show preparations, where I throw my hands up in the air, polish off what I have finished, and stop my panicked crafting. Almost.

I've got self-striping yarns, patchwork yarns, vegan yarns, and novelty yarns. And even a few knits! I spun up a bunch of deliciously luxurious corespun yarns (pictures cannot even begin to convey their fuzzy-soft allure), including three from the batts in one of my previous posts:

Remember those purple kid mohair locks? Ohhh, so soft and gorgeous. I want to keep all these yarns and cuddle with them like teddy bears. They're super super bulky, about 70-90 yds per 4 or 5 oz, so these will knit up into awesome instant gratification scarves! And each skein should be enough for a scarf - you can probably use like size 30 needles, cuz not only are they really really bulky but they should develop a nice fuzzy halo with wear.

A bunch of the corespun yarns were spun from local mohair, fresh off the goat. I made a trip out to a small local goat farm two weekends ago and picked up 5lbs of soft goatie curls that were fresh off the goats. I washed, dyed, fluffed, carded, and spun them, and I'm hoping they sell well so I can make another trip out to see the goats!

I've been chucking all my finished yarns into a big plastic bin as they dry. Here's what I've got as of this morning:

Although I still have a bunch more that are either drying or waiting to be set. Whew. I have been crafting my butt off the past few weeks! Including making my own handmade wool felt and cutting it up into soft organic leafies to be spun into yarns:

I'm excited that I finally tried making flat sheets of felt, because it didn't take as much time or effort as I thought - so now I can make lots of fun felty embellishments for my yarns! I have some really thick felt leaves that are too heavy to be spun into yarns, so I may have some felt leaf pendants for sale at the show.

I'm excited for this sunday! Makes sure to come say hi if you're in the area - it might be rainy, so bring an umbrella. I'll be in booth #26.

Vegan Yarn Club - the making of

2008-09-16T13:15:00.003-04:00

I thought my vegan yarn club peeps might like to see a bit of the "behind-the-scenes" of me making their yarns, so last month I took pictures of the yarns in-progress. I think it's safe to post them now, since everyone received their yarns. I chose a theme of bright, multicolored gypsy-inspired yarns for August's yarn club, and this was the first month that everyone's yarns all came from the same dyelot (before this, I dyed up custom colorways for each person). I started out by sitting down and making up a list of 14 different colors that I wanted to include, and then I dyed up a storm...this is about 2.5 lbs of organic cotton, plus another 8oz or so of loose bamboo:

(you can click on any of the pictures in this post to see a larger, more detailed version on flickr)

I separated the fiber out into piles for each individual yarn. I spun two different types of yarns, according to each person's preference - organic cotton patchwork 2-ply and organic cotton/bamboo chunky thick-and-thin thread-plied novelty yarn. So for the patchwork yarns, I had to prep the organic cotton roving into a more easily spinnable form, and for the thread-plied yarns I carded up batts of organic cotton and bamboo. Organic cotton takes forever to prep or card, so this was the most tedious part of making the yarns.

Once all the prepping was done with, I starting spinning! And spinning, and spinning... Each skein was a hefty 5-6oz, so for the patchwork yarns that meant spinning 400 yds of singles (and then plying them together for a total of 600 yds of spinning, but only 200 yds of finished yarn). The thread-plied yarns spun up faster, since I only had to spin one ply and they were pretty chunky. My regular bobbins were packed full of fiber. This was the second most tiring part - and I got pretty sick of spinning the same colors over and over.

Luckily, I have a short memory, and so by the time it came to ply the yarns I was back to liking the way the colors were turning out. I'm especially proud of the dark teal color, which was a new invention for me! I mix all my own colors, so every once in a while I discover a "new" one. It's impossible to see the teal in the yarn pictures (I think the color is a bit off, since I took them late in the day), but if you look at the first picture of the organic cotton fiber you can see it tangled in with the pinks.

Once the yarns were plied, next came the boiling. Yes, boiling. It's my preferred method for setting the twist on my cotton yarns. I put a big pot of water on to boil, and when it's hot enough I plunk the skeins in, turn the heat down to a simmer, and leave it for a few minutes. I like watching the yarns plump up and relax into their new shape while they bathe. I didn't take pictures of this part since I usually do it late at night. After their hot bath, the skeins get hung up to dry, which can take quite a while for cotton, depending on the weather. If it's sunny, I stick the skeins in a window where they will be completely dry in 1-2 days, but if it's damp, cold, or rainy, they can take several days to dry all the way.

When the skeins are dry, I weigh them and write out the labels and make them look pretty before packing them up. Here are a few of the finished skeins from August:

Some of the lovely patchwork skeins.

One of the thread-plied yarns - this one was plied with a nylon novelty thread that was black with bits of red, yellow, and blue popping out. Most of the other thread-plied skeins were plied with metallic threads.

I'm working on September's yarns right now, in the midst of my craft show spinning - this is the last month of my vegan yarn club! It's been fun, but I'm also relieved that it's over. I will probably do another club in the future, but when I have more time & less craft shows!

Carding day

2008-09-05T15:46:00.002-04:00

I'm so super busy with fiber right now. A new 22lb bale of organic wool just arrived, and so I've been dyeing that up into new patchwork & self-striping yarns. I just finished up all the vegan yarn club yarns and custom orders I've been backlogged on, and now I'm spinning away for the fall Crafty Bastards show. Today I prepared for a corespinning marathon - I carded up a bunch of super airy, lofty, mohair-y batts:

That I'm planning on spinning up into a bunch of lovely corespun yarns like this one:

I love mohair, but it usually spins up too rough if I just spin it into a single or 2-ply yarn, and it doesn't really agree with thread-plying (unless you want a crazy slippery loopy yarn). Corespinning is perfect - you get a super soft yarn with a gorgeous halo. I've been carding shiny bamboo, soysilk, tencel nepps, and sparkle into the batts for textural interest.

Most of the mohair I'm working with is kid mohair locks (heaven!!) that I bought from a small farm. I'm using up the last of them now, so I need to order more! This is some naturally colored pale grey kid mohair that I overdyed in shades of purple, a color I don't work with often. The natural grey looks really good overdyed! I carded it up along with some bamboo & sparkle. I just watched the movie "The Dark Crystal" the other night, so this yarn is sorta inspired by that.

I give the locks a good floofing before running them through the carder - this ensures that they'll open up enough to corespin well, but still preserves some of the texture & curl. I alternate layers of locks with bamboo and sparkle and nepps.

The batt starting to build up on the drum - yum!

Back to work now!

Natural dye adventures plus milkweed fluff

2008-08-13T16:08:00.010-04:00

My natural dyeing experiment with the fleabane flowers that I collected on my hike was a success! They dyed a nice yellow color on wool & mohair:

And I ended up pulling out my entire mini-stash of naturally dyed fibers that I've saved up over the past few months:

And combined them into a few new yarns!

I still have enough fiber for one more skein. Now I have plans to (attempt) to dye/spin a whole section of natural plant-dyed yarns and fibers for the fall Crafty Bastards show. I'm really picky about my natural dyes, which is why I've never offered naturally dyed stuff for sale before - all my dyes are either harvested by me (and I always plan my harvests around the plant's fertility, so that I never interrupt the breeding cycle, plus I never take more than the local population of that plant can recover from) or purchased from sustainable, ethical sources. A lot of dye plants are endangered in certain areas, so I find it very important to make sure I'm not wrecking native ecosystems. I also never use toxic mordants. I prefer to use natural plant mordants that I can collect myself or natural dyes that don't need mordants, but I do occasionally use alum. There are three different types of alum, some more toxic than others, but I usually use the alum that is used in food - you can read more here. I always save and re-use the water from mordanting fibers in alum, so it never gets dumped down the drain.

I also used some milkweed seed fluff in one of the above yarns, and I thought I'd give a quick mini-tutorial for anyone interested in collecting some. Milkweed grows pretty much everywhere on the east coast and the midwest - I'm not so sure about the rest of the country. Oh, and also someone commented on my last post and reminded me that some folks are allergic to milkweed...it oozes a sticky milky white liquid when cut or bruised (like dandelions), and it can be an irritant to some people. I've never had a problem, and I've actually eaten milkweed before (the young tops of the plant in early spring, the flowers, and the very immature seed pods are all edible, but I think the rest of the plant is not only inedible but toxic/poisonous). Here's a link with more info if you're curious.

Milkweed seed fluff is shiny and soft, but not strong at all. I experimented a lot with spinning it a few years ago, and it cannot be spun on it's own, even with multiple plies - the yarn will fall apart with a gentle tug. But it does make an interesting addition to other fibers, so if you have hand cards or a drum carder you can easily blend it into your yarns. Milkweed seed fluff has other uses besides spinning, too - it makes really good "down" jackets or pillows. Milkweed fluff is lighter, warmer, and more compact than goose down! There have been attempts to grow milkweed commercially as a down substitute, but so far it hasn't been successful since not all of the plants produced seed pods. There used to be a pattern for making your own winter jacket stuffed with milkweed down on eBay, but I haven't checked in a while.

So, on to the tutorial. I picked a few pods while hiking, because I wanted just enough fluff to blend into a skein of yarn. Some people wait until the pods are old and crack open on the plant to release the seeds, but I prefer to get them while they're still green because the fibers are damp and much less flyaway. The pods have a "seam" up the back, and if you press on either side of it, it opens easily.

Inside is a core surrounded by the seed fluff, with the seeds on the outside. These seeds are immature - they should be dark brown when mature. I usually save the seeds and scatter them outside near where I picked the pods, but these ones aren't ready. I hold the fibers down with one hand and gently scrape the seeds off with the other, leaving just the fibers still attatched to the core.

Once I've stripped all the seeds off, I carefully pull the seed fluff away from the inner core. I say carefully because the core is delicate, and if you pull too quickly or too hard you can pull off pieces of the core with the seed fluff. Once you're done, you should have a pile of seed fluff, a pile of seeds, the inner core, and the outer pod.

Repeat until you have enough fluff. The fluff is super flyaway when it dries. I like to store it in a closed paper bag so that air can circulate. If you have mature seeds, please consider scattering them in an area where milkweed grows so that there will be more plants next year!

Ouch.

2008-08-06T14:50:00.002-04:00

Sooo, last week I felt like I was finally getting caught up on everything - spinning, shipping, etc. And then a bug bit me - in my EYE - and I've been mostly knocked out for the past few days. I've had random bad reactions to bug bites (especially mosquitos) ever since I was a kid, but it hasn't happened in a long time! Ugh. The side of my left eye was super swollen and painful when I woke up one morning, and the swelling then proceeded to spread all the way across my eyelid until my whole eye was swollen. As if that wasn't bad enough, I felt horrible too, all achy and feverish, so I've spent the past few days getting absolutely nothing done and slipping behind again.

Luckily I woke up feeling tons better this morning! My eye is still very slightly swollen, but it's not noticeable. I got a bunch of packing done today for a post office trip tomorrow, and I think by the end of tomorrow I'll be back on track. I'm giving myself until this weekend to pull it together business-wise.

Check back for a blog update in the next few days with my milkweed fluff & natural dye experiments!

Hunter/gatherer

2008-07-28T13:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I missed out on one of the spinning meet-ups, but I had a wonderful day. I decided to take the whole day off to spend with Lucius. We planned on going for a walk in the woods, but then we suddenly decided to go a local pick-your-own farm, despite the fact that it looked like an intense storm was gathering overhead. It was a bit of an adventure finding the farm, but we eventually did, and spent several hours picking amazingly delicious blueberries and blackberries. We filled up two big buckets, one of each type of berry, and so I have plans to brew some wine in the next few days. One of the farm workers seemed kind of freaked out about the storm, because he kept running into the field yelling about how he just saw some lightning or how the rain was currently two miles away and closing. I love the rain, so we just kept on picking, but quite a few people left. The silly thing is, the rain never showed up! All day long, the thunder kept rolling and there were dark clouds and occasional lightning flashes, but no rain. And the sun actually came out a few times. But we amused ourselves for the rest of the day by randomly bursting out with dire warnings about the weather.

After our berry-picking was done, we dropped the berries off at the apartment and headed for the woods. I think I need to sew myself a skirt with tons of large pockets, because I am such a gatherer. I brought home a bunch of little bundles and treasures from our walk, including:

-fleabane flowers for a natural dyeing experiment
-milkweed seedpods (pictured above) - I'm going to separate the seedfluff from the seeds and then card it into some yarns. The seedfluff is shiny like silk, but very delicate and not strong enough to be spun on its own.
-catnip, which I am drying and will probably make some cat toys with - but it's also a really good tea for fevers!
-autumn olives, which are beautiful reddish-orange berries with silver speckles.
-a black feather, to add to my small collection of found feathers.

The autumn olives were a surprise, because normally they don't ripen until the first frost! I love the way they taste, tart and sweet, but they're super invasive and non-native so I'm careful not to drop the seeds anywhere that they can grow. I'm glad we discovered them - I'll be back in the fall to gather lots more for fruit leather and maybe some wine. In the picture, the berries are in a simple muslin bag that I sewed to bring with me on hikes - because I've learned from experience to always bring gathering bags with me!

And now, back to work! I still have a bit of catching up to do and I want to have a shop update by Wednesday, which means I must go spin.

New yarn & interview

2008-07-18T13:56:00.003-04:00

Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique just posted an interview with me about my fiber business on her blog! So, click here if you want to know all my deep dark secrets.

I also finally, finally listed a new yarn on etsy today:

Hopefully the first of many, as I'm trying to get back to listing a yarn a day. This one, "Desert Blossom", is a yummy blend of organic cotton and batts of bamboo and hemp with cocoons. Perfect for late summer knitting! I have a new skein of my Canopy yarn with felt leaves drying in the sun right now, so that will probably be popping up in the shop sometime tomorrow.

Catching Up

2008-07-15T11:29:00.003-04:00

The art yarn workshop this past weekend was fun. I didn't take any pictures, but you can see one here on Jacey's blog. I love many things about Jacey, but here are a few: all of her wooly fiber comes from animal sanctuaries and no-kill farms, all of her spinning is geared towards sturdy yarn that you can actually use but is still magical and artsy, and she supports her whole family with her spinning business. My hero! If you missed out on her workshops, she's going to have a spinning DVD showing all her amazing techniques for sale in a few weeks.

Here are the yarns I spun at the workshop (click to see a bigger, more detailed picture):

I was a smidge worried that I'd already know a lot of the stuff at the workshop, since I have been spinning art yarns for a few years, but even the stuff I did already know was new to me because Jacey had her own way of doing it. Here are all the techniques we went through: thick and thin (balanced and workable), twists/loops, knots/stacks, coils, racing stripe, autowrap, tornado, Foreign Objects 1 (strung), Foreign Objects 2 (trapped), supercoils, cocoons, halos, corespinning, tiny circles, Foreign objects 3 (integrated), Foreign objects 4 (wrapped). That's a lot to take in over two days! I'm most excited about the cocoons and halos. And the tiny circles and the trapped foreign objects were pretty awesome too.

After the workshop was over on saturday, Molly and I went to Spinster Yarns & Fibers, which was right down the road. It's a sweet little yarn shop that specializes in local and environmentally friendly yarns, so right away I was in love. I managed to restrain myself and only bought a few ounces each of local, organic, predator-friendly wool and hemp. They're working on setting up a carding station where you can use their drum carder and selection of fibers and pay by the ounce! How awesome is that?!

In shop news, I just finished up a big custom order for 6 skeins (that's a whole pound and a half, 977 yds) of patchwork yarn:

And once I wrap up my vegan yarn club yarns, I'll be back to listing new stuff in the shop! Finally!!

A bit out of it

2008-07-10T16:10:00.002-04:00

It's been a strange two weeks, and it feels like I haven't gotten a thing done! I'm still plugging away at custom orders and now I'm working on the vegan yarn club yarns too.

I'll be away this entire weekend at Jacey's spinning workshop - so hopefully I'll have more to show/talk about once I get back.

Sorry to everyone who's waiting on stuff from me. I'm trying as hard as I can, I promise. If you've contacted me through etsy and haven't heard back yet, you might want to check and make sure that you didn't reply to the conversation via the email notification, because if you did, I didn't get it! I've been having a huge problem with that lately.

P.S. I'm about to go take down the vegan yarn club listing - if you still want in, just convo/email me. I might replace it with a 2-month membership, but I think I'm just going to close the membership for now. I want to wrap the club up by September so I can focus on other things, but it'll probably be available again next spring.

Crafty Bastards Silver Spring '08

2008-06-30T14:33:00.003-04:00

What a day! I'm still recovering from it. It was so very horribly hot and humid, I thought that I wasn't going to sell a thing...but I almost sold completely out! I brought about 40 skeins of yarn, a bunch of batts, a basket of felty baubles, and two pairs of handspun & handknit fingerless gloves. This is what I brought home with me:

Three skeins of yarn, some felty baubles (not pictured), and the leaves I embroidered during the show. It was a fast job packing my booth up, let me tell you! I felt sort of bad that I sold out, since my table started looking pretty pathetic halfway through the show, but I'm also in shock because I really didn't think I would sell even close to as much as I did! It was a bit of a livesaver, though, since I was worried that I'd be tight financially this month. Now I can afford to go to Jacey's spinning workshop next month! I'm so very grateful for all the folks who bought - or even just complimented - my yarns. I hope they bring you hours of happy crafting!

I loved talking to everyone at the show. Some highlights were getting to meet Jocelyn, a very good customer of mine. I've always hoped I'd run into her sometime, since she lives so close! She was adorable and sweet and bought me a bottle of water, which probably saved me from dying of heat exhaustion later on. I also met one of Cosy's friends (I had Cosy's book with me and was showing it to people - and quite a few people already knew of her work!).

More pictures of my stuff at the show:

Pick-your-own felty baubles...these were a big hit!

Lots of people ask me where I get my fibers from, and I'm always happy to tell them!

My vegan yarns also generated a lot of discussion, and several people told me that they were glad they got to feel the fibers in person. I had fun pointing out which yarns were made from bamboo and which had recycled plastic bottles in them.

My self-striping yarns sold out fast. I think that was the first thing I ran out of! I brought along a scarf that I knit from the original skein of my Selkie striping yarn, and that helped a lot to show how much mileage you get out of a skein.

A lovely basket of fresh patchwork yarns.

Batts! I sold every last batt I brought, plus a braid of handdyed organic cotton. I tried to make the novelty batts as fun as possible - they're full of stuff like sequins, fabric scraps, and the ninja batt has some black tulle in it.

Lastly, I had some hand-dyed skeins of commercially spun organic cotton & bamboo blend yarn. This yarn is so lovely. All the colorways are inspired by fairytales - the ones in this picture are The Frog Prince, The Princess + The Pea, and Snow White + Rose Red.

I made all the tags and signs for the show, and even my business cards, out of recycled brown paper grocery bags from Trader Joes. We mostly use cloth bags for shopping, but every once in a while we forget to bring them, so I save the bags to cut up and re-use. I love the texture of heavy brown paper bags! I either cut them up and write directly onto them, or I cut them into sheets the same size as regular letter paper and then stick them in a copy machine/printer and copy designs onto them. I'm no good at graphic design, so I just stick to handwriting/drawing all my labels etc.

I'm also grateful to the Crafty Bastards organizers for putting on such a fun, amazing show! They handed out hundreds (thousands? There were a lot) of Crafty Bastards tote bags (shown in the first photo), which were very handy because people had a place to stash their crafty buys. I brought some plastic bags just in case, but it was much nicer to see everyone using reusable cloth bags. I thought that was really great of them!

I have a backlog of custom orders and wholesale orders that I'll be focusing on working through this week, but I'll be spinning up more fun yarns for the shop soon. And there will be a shop update tonight with the few yarns that didn't sell at the show!

P.S. Someone asked for the recipe for the organic green tea chai that I mentioned in my last post. I just use the Yogi green chai and then add either almond milk or soymilk. It makes a great summer morning tea, because the milk cools it down a lot. And it's so very delicious! It gives me a reason to drag myself out of bed early in the morning.

Whew.

2008-06-28T19:55:00.002-04:00

I think that THIS blurb from the Crafty Bastards twitter pretty much sums up today's show.

More tomorrow! I'm super exhausted...the Crafty Bastards and all the lovely vendors put on an amazing show, the best craft show I've ever attended, let alone sold at.

Showtime

2008-06-27T23:13:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the Crafty Bastards show in Silver Spring! I'm finishing up the last of my packing right now before I go to bed, which for me means making iced organic green chai tea with almond milk (my new obsession) and baking some whole wheat pita chips to go with my hummus for lunch tomorrow. I'm excited and nervous!! I feel so inexperienced & unprepared when it comes to craft shows...this is only my second official show.

I'll be at booth #64 (you can see the map here), so stop by if you're in the area and say hi. I was planning on bringing my wheel, but now I probably won't because it looks like there might be some rain and I don't want to risk it. There's going to be so much fun stuff going on...live bands, food, supply swaps, plus inside the pyramid atlantic building there will be workshops! If you can't come but want to follow along from afar, the Crafty Bastards organizers have said they'll be posting little blurbs on their twitter all day long.

I'm going to try to take pictures this time. I'll have a few fun things that I didn't have last weekend, like "pick your own" felty baubles and handdyed vegan (organic cotton/bamboo) commercially spun yarns in fairytale-inspired colorways.

Oh, and if you're interested you can read my interview for the Crafty Bastards blog. I put off answering the questions until the absolute last minute, because I also feel so self-conscious/dorky!

I'll leave you with some pictures of my current dyed vegan fiber stash (you can click on them to go to the flickr page for more details)...this is what I'll be dreaming of during slow times at the fair:

Although really I can't start spinning it until I get all my current wholesale & custom orders done. But I can dream.

Pile of Craft

2008-06-23T09:27:00.004-04:00

Pile of Craft was fun, and now I feel much more ready (readier?) for Crafty Bastards next saturday! Pile of Craft took place in this gorgeous church:

(you can click on the photo to go to the flickr page & see the pictures better.)

And even though I am not really a city person, I was really impressed with the community in Baltimore, to the point that Lucius and I talked a little about moving there at some point in the future. The people there reminded me so strongly of my last year of high school, when I discovered the radical community in Milwaukee. I'm so glad that I went, and now I'm looking forward to applying to more shows in Baltimore so I can go back.

I didn't bring my camera to the show, since it's a clunky ancient thing that is current held together with a few rubber bands (sadly, this is not an exaggeration) and it can only hold about 9 pictures at a time, so the above pics were "borrowed" from other folks via flickr. But I did take one picture of a few of my self-striping yarns all labeled up on Friday:

I left off labeling my stuff until the absolute last minute, and it took FOREVER. Lesson learned!

I did well enough at the show to make it worth it, but not so well that I have to completely re-spin my inventory for next saturday, so it worked out perfect! I know I would have sold a lot more if I had been able to accept credit cards, but I put that off until the last minute too and ended up having problems setting up a merchant account, so I need to call and get that figured out today.

I had a bunch of batts with me at the show, and a lot of people looked at them but obviously had no clue what they were. Most people had the same reaction to them - a sort of blissful tactile awe combined with complete confusion over what the heck they were. This batt wins the "most-fondled" award for the show:

I think nearly every single person who laid eyes on it picked it up and petted it. But I think I'm going to spin it up myself now - it's a yummy blend of raw merino-cross wool from homestead that I dyed in seafoamy shades plus a hint of pale green, pale blue mohair, seafoam bamboo, sparkle, and white & seafoam tencel nepps from Steph. Yum!

I also brought home this yarn, one of my favorites:

As you can see, I've taken spinning leaves into yarn to a whole new level, hah. I call this one "Princess Tree", and I made some awesome abstract black & pink leaves for it. If this one doesn't sell next Saturday, I think I might keep it for myself. I also managed to cut out & embroider 30 felt leaves at the show! So more leafy yarns are on the way.

Come see me in person!

2008-06-12T19:23:00.003-04:00

The two craft shows I'm going to be at this month are:

and

If you're in the area, come see my yarns in person! I'll have loads of handspun, plus some other bits and bobs like felty baubles and handcarded batts.

I still have lots to do to get ready! I'm about to go back to spinning - I'm finishing up my vegan yarn club yarns for June. They'll ship on Monday!

I'm still here!

2008-06-10T15:13:00.004-04:00

Well, I was planning on updating my etsy shop regularly this week - until I realized that my first craft show is 11 days away. Eep! And my vegan yarn club yarns need to be ready to go by the end of this week. I spent most of today carding and prepping a bunch of vegan fibers to spin. I think I have about 7 skeins worth of fiber all ready to go for a major spinning marathon!

It is SO hot here. And I like hot weather (normally). I've been carding with a fan pointed straight at me, and it doesn't seem to be helping all that much. We have an AC unit in the living room (my fiber, carder, and wheel are in the bedroom), but I don't like to use it - except it's been hitting 100 degrees (or close to it) every single day this week so far! Ugh...I could stand it if it wasn't so humid. I bought one of those plastic popsicle-making thingies and I've been freezing fruit juice popsicles to help cool me off. Lots of showers and hot tea (to raise my body temperature) as well. The GreenCraft forum on ravelry has a thread with lots of awesome tips for keeping cool without AC...the next thing I'm going to try is putting cardboard covered with aluminum foil in the windows to reflect the heat. A bit crazy, but if it works my life will be so much easier.

I've actually been doing a few things other than dyeing/carding/spinning/sitting on the computer lately. Lucius & I have started running at a track by our apartment that is the perfect distance away - we can walk there, and it's just far enough that we're warmed up by the time we get there. And we also joined a local pool, so we'll be swimming soon (I'm going for the first time today!) as well. Lucius is taking adult swim lessons, which I think is super cute. He knows how to swim, just not all the different strokes etc. I haven't taken lessons since I was about nine or so, so I'm hoping I'll just magically remember everything.

I also actually finished the hemp market bag that I started crocheting. Amazing! It turned out perfect. I thought it was going to be too short & wide when I finished, but it stretches when you put stuff in it, so it's exactly the dimensions I wanted. I can't wait to take it to the farmer's market - I've already been using it to carry random things just because I'm so happy with it.

The book came!

2008-05-28T14:08:00.002-04:00

I think it got here a few days ago, and I've been pouring over it ever since. My mom got a copy of it too, and she called me to tell me how much she liked it. I spun her some self-striping yarn in blues (her favorite color) for her birthday last fall so she could knit the mittens from the book when it came out. Here are the photos of the pages with my yarns (pg. 88 & 100):

I'm planning on knitting the bonnet for myself!

Today I'm spinning up some vegan yarn from these beautiful batts:

I wanted to make my own vegan fiber blends, since they're usually expensive to buy in roving form when they're made with organic cotton, so I carded up these batts from 50% organic cotton and 50% bamboo and then hand-painted them. I have 2oz in pale yellows & green and 2oz in pale orange, yellow, green, and pink, so I'm planning on plying them together. I love how they're spinning up so far! The picture doesn't show it well, but the matte cotton and the shiny bamboo are all swirled together - lovely! These blends are time-consuming to make, since it takes several passes through the carder to get them well blended and smooth, but I might make some more to spin some single ply yarns from.

I also started crocheting a market bag from hemp twine today, using this pattern. I was going to buy a bunch of hemp yarn, but I decided to just use the cord I had on hand. It's stiff, and I sort of have to wrestle with it, but this bag should last forever! Our local farmers market starts next Thursday (I think), I'm so excited! It's literally right outside our apartment, maybe a block away.

Hurray!

2008-05-23T09:53:00.002-04:00

My yarn is in a book! And it's coming out soooon - I just got the shipping notification that it'll be here next Thursday. The book is called Knit One, Embellish Too: Hats, Mittens, and Scarves with a Twist, and it's written by Cosy of cosyknitsliterally on etsy. All her knitted designs are so lovely & amazing - I never buying knitting books, but I would have bought this one even if my yarns weren't in it. I think it's her unique combination of traditional & new styles, plus her good sense of color and pretty but simple embroidery. And the buttons - I'm a sucker for a good vintage button! You can see the cosy's flickr photos of all the projects in the book HERE, and the projects my handspun are in are HERE and HERE. I can't wait to get the book and start knitting!

In other news, Molly uploaded the pictures of our bamboo dyeing adventures to her flickr account - go see them!

Nevermind!

2008-05-20T16:57:00.002-04:00

The weather has been crazy today. It keeps getting super super dark and stormy, pouring down rain, and then five minutes later it'll be super sunny. And then it repeats all over again.

I did get some pictures taken today, though! So my shop is not completely empty. I'm going to try to spin a LOT this week so I can list more.

New yarns:

Here are some of the vegan yarns I'm saving for the craft show:

Dreary

2008-05-20T12:16:00.003-04:00

It's so very dark outside right now, it barely even looks like daytime. So cloudy! Which means that I probably won't really be able to update the shop today, since I can't take good pictures. I woke up this morning to a COMPLETELY EMPTY shop! Eep!! So I really badly need to update very soon. I have a pile of yarn that's been collecting, but I need to stockpile for the two shows I'm doing in June.

This past Sunday, I got together with Molly, Steph, and Carissa to dye bamboo, a super secret process. (Not really). Molly took pictures, so I'll link to them as soon as they're up! I'm rinsing all my dyed bamboo & organic cotton right now, so I'll be spinning that up as soon as it's dry. I also have a bunch of fun organic cotton yarns that I need to take pictures of to show you guys! I just spun my first 100% organic cotton patchwork yarn last week! It's so fluffy and soft, and perfect for summer knitting!

Wow, the skies just opened up, and it's pouring rain like mad right now! So much for that walk to the post office - I guess I'll try to grab a ride there tomorrow morning. Back to work for me! I'll leave you with this picture of some colorgrown (undyed) organic green cotton yarn that I spun recently:

Go go go

2008-05-13T17:27:00.003-04:00

I love being productive! Sure, my etsy shop is quiet (and nearly empty, eep!), but I've been making lots of things. Here are a few glimpses at what I'm working on:

I drew out some new tags for my handspun, plus some other business-related images, and today I just got an idea for a screenprinted shirt/patch, so I'll be drawing some more! I still need to make special tags for my batts, vegan yarns, and self-striping yarns. And also some more felted & embroidered leaves. Yep, I'm still spinning leafy yarns.

A pile of self-striping yarns for the craft show. I've almost reached my self-striping yarn quota for craft show #1! Not that that's a huge accomplishment, because I still have plenty of patchwork yarns, novelty yarns, and vegan yarns to spin. Not to mention I want to have some knitted stuff for sale. Oh, and then I need to do it all over again for craft show #2! Did I mention that they're only a week apart?

Aaand, a big humungous self-striping yarn custom order. These are the balls of roving all dyed up and ready to be pre-drafted. I'm done with the dyeing, so I'll probably start spinning them up tomorrow.

So, things might be quiet around here for a while! I'm hoping to have some yarns to list on etsy Thursday, or this weekend at the latest.

Whew.

2008-05-08T16:29:00.003-04:00

I managed to fill up all six of my regular bobbins today, but just barely! Plied yarns are hard work. I always forget how much actual spinning goes into them - they only end up being like 150 yds when finished, but if you count both singles + plying, that's 450 yds each!! My fingers & back kept getting really sore, so I took several breaks. But I did it! Once I finish plying them together, I'll have 3 new patchwork yarns, and one of them is 100% bamboo. I'm not sure if they'll be going up on etsy, though - one is a custom order and the others I might set aside for my upcoming craft show.

My bobbins are always so messy! Especially the bamboo, it likes to slide around.

I forgot to mention, we bought some plants at MDSW! There were actually several nurseries that were selling there. We got lemon balm, peppermint, and rosemary. I forgot to take a picture of the little plantlets that I planted a while back - our windowsills are almost full!

I also spun a bamboo yarn yesterday:

It's spun from a few different dyeing mishaps. I'm totally at a loss for what colors I was going for, but some of it ended up a greyish pink/peach (brains!) and the rest is a strange brownish pink with greenish bits (rotten meat!). It looked pretty gross before I started spinning it (the shininess didn't help), but I think it looks sorta pretty spun up. If it doesn't sell, I'll just keep it and make some sort of a zombie-themed project with it.

NEWS!

2008-05-05T15:22:00.002-04:00

Sheep & Wool was fun! But before I get into that, here's a bit of news that I'm even more excited about - I finally got it together and started a yarn club! It's all vegan fibers, too. Check it out!

I ended up only going to MDSW on Sunday - which was probably a good thing, because from what I heard it was MUCH more laid-back (but still crowded, and some long lines). I bought mostly business-related stuff, like an extra bulky bobbin for my wheel, more organic cotton (including some amazing colorgrown green) & ecospun, 5lbs of rambouillet top, and some washed kid mohair, but I also got one 'frivolous' thing for me:

2 oz of naturally dyed BFL in "Jade" (greys with greenish tones). I spent a lot of time looking at all the naturally dyed wares from A Verb For Keeping Warm in the Cloverhill booth. I almost never buy handdyed fibers, but I couldn't pass this one up! I managed to talk myself out of some of the naturally dyed tussah silk, just barely. I loved the Cloverhill booth so much - it was chock full of goods from lots of indie spinners and dyers, and I always love seeing other people's handspun in person!

I ran into a few people I know, but also missed a few people whom I 'know' from online. But that's okay, there's always next year!

Leafies

2008-04-30T11:30:00.002-04:00

I keep spinning leaves into my yarns. I can't stop! It's an obsession! I think I need to knit myself a nice leafy wrap or somesuch. I've been wanting to make some necklaces using my felt/sewn leaves, too - wouldn't they make lovely pendants?

NEWS! I got accepted to sell at the crafty bastards craft fair in Silver Spring, MD this year. So if you're in the area, you should come say hi. And, I'm going to be offering a very limited handspun yarn-of-the-month club starting in May (so, like, tomorrow) that will be all vegan fibers! Yay for warm weather crafting. Here are some of my recent vegan spins (click on the pictures to go to the flickr photo page & read what they're made from):

OMG, you guys. MD Sheep & Wool is THIS WEEKEND!! I'm more excited for this than I was for my birthday!

Really Good Mail

2008-04-19T10:28:00.004-04:00

I've gotten some good packages in the mail this week!

Firstly, I got TWO of Pluckyfluff's rainbow batts for my birthday. One from my mom & one from my partner. They are both so special! I don't even really want to spin them. I want them to be my pets.

And, one of the batts has some vintage paper flowers tucked inside it, which I recognized from this post on her blog. Awwh.

And THEN, today I got a package full of lovely handmade pottery & jewelry from a trade I did with nestingemily through flickr.

I LOVE the little birds nest necklace! I put it on right away. And aren't the mugs and the buttons gorgeous? I love love love the colors and textures and shapes.

jingle jangle!

2008-04-16T17:45:00.002-04:00

I just listed two matching (but different) skeins of gypsy-ish yarns with bells. They're both really jingly - I have a strong urge to grab one in each hand and dance around!

Must...resist...the bells!

These were so fun to spin...my wheel jingle jangled as I spun!

Plant fibery goodness

2008-04-15T15:54:00.003-04:00

I got a new shipment of vegan fibers today:

Mmmm. I've been petting them all day. The organic cotton is sooo silky-soft, the tencel is smooooooth and has such an amazing shine, the carbonized bamboo amazes me all over again every time I touch it, and the hemp is really interesting - I keep picking it up and poking at it. I've never spun hemp before! I'm going to try to get some of this in the dyepots tonight, but even if I do it won't be ready to spin until this weekend at the earliest. Did I mention that vegan fibers take FOREVER to dye & dry?

Oh, well. At least I got some spinning done yesterday & today! I'll be updating the shop with at least two skeins today, tomorrow, and Thursday. Today's yarns:

Also, I think that I'm going to do a vegan/plant fiber yarn-of-the-month club instead of a patchwork one. It's perfect for warm-weather knitting! So hopefully I'll have that together in time to start it next month.

My calendula seeds are sprouting!

Batts!

2008-04-12T16:16:00.003-04:00

I managed to list some sets of batts in my shop (two of my favorites are pictured above). There are still two left - I totally will not mind at all if they don't sell. I think if they're still there tomorrow morning, I will just have to spin them up myself.

A few things

2008-04-10T16:58:00.002-04:00

I planted some seeds today! In pots, because we live in an apartment, but I'm still really excited. When my mom was here, we went and got all sorts of supplies like organic potting soil and worm tea fertilizer and pretty pots from the thrift store. I planted basil, oregano, thyme, lemon balm, and calendula. We already have a gigantic lavender plant that needs to be cut back. I have a whole ton of herb seeds left to choose from - Jenny got a Lifeline herb seed set and shared a bit of everything with us.

Also - I'm not sure why it took me so long to discover it, but Google Reader is my new best friend. I love it! I check it all the time. It makes it soooo super easy to follow all the fibery blogs I like to read. You can even add people's etsy store feeds if you want to know everytime they list something new!

I got some carding done today, and hopefully I'll get a bunch of spinning done tomorrow! I'm trying to card some batts to sell by this weekend, but you know how that goes.

I just listed the last skein of yarn from the spin-off...I guess that means I better get some spinning done if I want to keep my shop alive!

Grunge Princess - all-vegan! Reminds me of my teenage days ripping up clothes and sewing them back together, and shopping on ebay for DIY dresses. I was vegan back then too!

April Spin-off

2008-04-08T16:45:00.003-04:00

Spin-off #3 was at Steph's house this past Sunday. I somehow managed to card up a ton of fiber last week, so I had a bunch of stuff ready to spin, and I cranked out 5 whole skeins!

I also brought spinning fuel - which for me means tea, cookies (all whole-grain & mostly organic), and homemade peach lambic beer.

Lots of people were there (at least it seemed like it - way more than the past two spin-offs!), but of course I ended up being the last one to leave. Eventually it got down to just Steph and me, and that's when things got a little crazy. Before that, I was just calmly spinning away, and then after everyone else left, we ended up experimenting and carding (Steph has THREE carders!) and making a big mess and inventing the best thing ever. Here is the only picture I took at the spin-off, in the midst of our carding frenzy:

That's an electric carder! I was endlessly entertained just watching it turn - especially because it spits out a steady rain of glittery angelina and fiber bits off the back as it cards.

I just listed two new novelty skeins that I spun up at the spin-off - I love them both!

I came home from Steph's (at like 1 in the morning) with 3 pounds of bamboo, so I'll have more bamboo yarns in the next few weeks. I'm still thinking about starting up a patchwork yarn-of-the-month club - but I prooobably will. Eventually.

It's that time of year again...

2008-03-31T16:51:00.002-04:00

It's getting warm out, and I'm starting to think more & more about spinning with bamboo, organic cotton, and other nice cool summery fibers. I just spun up two bamboo yarns today, with two more in the works - but they'll probably take a while to dry, so they might not get listed for several days.

I either have allergies or am coming down with something. I don't know which yet, so I'm just drinking lots of tea and waiting to see what happens. Yesterday I felt horrible & had no energy, so I got absolutely nothing done. I'm going to try to finish up some custom orders tonight - wish me luck!

I listed some yarns today, but the pictures are a bit gloomy due to the extreme lack of sunlight today. Hopefully I can get some better pictures taken tomorrow!

2008-03-24T16:57:00.003-04:00

I'm still busy being all touristy with my mom, but I just listed a new yarn in the shop:

That I love so much! I'm going to attempt to make some batts to sell next week (I aaaalways end up spinning them myself, plus I suck at taking pictures of my batts and they end up looking so boring), and I think I might make some in this same colorway! I love the richness and brightness of the colors. Yum!

busy bee

2008-03-18T17:00:00.002-04:00

If you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm scrambling to get together amazing packages for three separate swaps, finish all my custom orders, keep my shop updated + spin extra yarns to list next week, and clean my entire (very unbelievably messy) apartment from top to bottom, ALL in the next three days before my mom gets here! Ack.

The good news: I have a ton of homemade (by me + my partner) peach lambic beer that we just got from the brewery, and I did manage to list two new yarns today. Here's one of 'em:

Okay! Time to get busy...

manspun

2008-03-14T14:51:00.002-04:00

My partner has finally started spinning. He already knew how to spin on a spindle, but he's started using the wheel now:

This skein was actually a collaboration - he wanted me to spin part of it, so I spun one of the singles and he spun the other and plied them together. I let him pick out the colors from my stash of dyed wool - the emerald sparkle puffs were his idea too.

This skein is so much prettier in person! He spun this from a batt he carded (again, stuff he picked from my stash - multicolored wool + bamboo + sparkle) and plied it with some beige thread. His first time plying with thread, awww!

Hopefully he'll keep spinning in his (almost nonexistent) spare time! I haven't decided what to do with these two skeins - I might put them up for sale, or maybe I'll knit something!

Oh yeah!

2008-03-12T15:32:00.002-04:00

I always forget to update this thing! And it doesn't help that I really want to put together some thoughtful, useful posts with tutorials and other interesting things, but I have no time so I end up posting whatever.

What have I been doing the past week? I'm...not exactly sure. Hah! Well, I know SOME things I did. I spun up some amazing tailspun yarn:

from some pretty dark grey mohair. I'm in love! It feels soooo nice. I have a project in mind for this one.

I also did some natural dying with Jenny. I'll probably post some pictures of the results later on.

And, I dyed a ton of bamboo. Well, not a TON. Maybe a pound? Bamboo drives me crazy - it takes 24 hours to dye, and then like 72 hours to dry.

I'm going to TRY very hard to get in gear and spin spin spin the rest of this week, because I want to be able to keep my shop somewhat full. And my mom is coming to visit the friday after next, so I will be taking an entire week away from the shop - it'd be nice to have some yarns stockpiled so I can still list stuff!

Patchworkiness

2008-03-06T17:49:00.008-05:00

I know some of you have been wondering how my patchwork-style yarns knit up. I've been wondering myself! This past week, I've found a couple of examples.

YARN:

KNIT UP:

"Treasure" hat knit by jocelyngermany. This was one of my first patchwork yarns, and it's still one of my favorites! I love the way it knit up, and the little pocket on the hat. I'm a big fan of pockets.

YARN:

KNIT UP:

This is a pillow-in-progress being knit by Natalie, aka cloudlover69 on etsy. I think a handspun pillow is the best idea ever! As soon as I get the time (so...never) I'm going to knit one for myself.

And lastly...these fingerless gloves, knit by ME! These were a custom order that I'm really grateful for, because I finally got the chance to sit down and knit with my patchwork yarn! I'll add a picture of the yarn before I knit it if I can find a non-blurry one.

Shop Update

2008-03-04T17:40:00.002-05:00

I finally got some more packs of felty baubles listed - and a bunch of single ply novelty skeins, which I haven't done in a while! I think I'm getting burned out on the patchwork yarns, so I'll either be spinning less of them or raising the price. Although I do have two patchwork skeins that will be going up on etsy this Thursday.

Crazy spin-off & dye session!

2008-03-03T12:37:00.002-05:00

Wow. Where to start?

Yesterday I packed up my wheel and some hastily carded batts and carted it over to Molly's place for a spin-off. I was extra excited because two amazing etsy shopkeepers were also on their way - Steph of Loop and Liz of Hobbledehoy. I've always loved Liz's yarns, ever since she first started selling handspun like two years ago - and I've spent quite a bit of time drooling over Loop batts.

It was a blast! I spun up three skeins of yarn, carded some mini batts on Steph's Pat Green carder that she brought along, and helped dye up many pots of colorful fiber. The day flew by - we met around 1 pm and I didn't leave until 10! I was so pleased to be in the company of so many amazing fiber artists, and for once I wasn't the only crazy lady with multicolored bits of wool stuck all over her clothes. I've never really been able to spend time with other spinners, and I'm completely self-taught in everything (dyeing + spinning), so I loved just being able to inspect other people's wheels, watch other people spin, and ask lots of questions about how they do stuff.

I learned the most about - dyeing! I've loooong wondered at how Liz can be so amazingly prolific when she dyes. She's always posting about how she whipped out 10lbs of handdyed fiber in like 2 hours. I knew that she kettle dyes, but I never really got into kettle dyeing because I used to use a microwave, which was super fast, and now I use glass jars - I pour the boiling water into them, mix up all the colors, and plunk the roving in until the water turns clear. Except it doesn't always turn clear, since the water doesn't stay hot. It turns out that the method for cranking out dyed fiber is much simpler than I thought: multiple huge dyepots, all going at once! OH. Now I feel so silly, with my one little dyepot. I know what I'm going to be shopping for this week. Multiple dyepots really increase productivity immensely - we had three giant pots going at Molly's, with five ladies (my friend Jenny was there as well) all taking turns mixing up colors and plunking in fiber. We must have dyed several pounds at LEAST. Both Liz & I use Jacquard acid dyes, so it was fun trading our "recipes" for colors. Another big revelation for me was that when you kettle dye, adding more fiber at different times to the same dyepot will result in a range of different colors. It's so much fun! I dreamed about dyeing all night last night, and this morning I popped out of bed, revved up the dyepot (and a teapot while I was at it) and proceed to churn out a ton of dyed mill ends.

My leetle dyepot - it's hard to see in the picture, but there are two shades of green in the same pot.

I started out dyeing up some greens, and an hour later my bathroom looked like this:

And I wasn't even done yet in that picture! I went on to dye oranges, blues, and tans. I am so extremely pleased with my new dyeing method!

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures at Molly's. But I did take some pictures this morning of the fiber that I brought back with me:

Gorgeous tussah silk in green, yellow, and teal! This came out of the dyepots at Molly's. This was Steph's silk, but I fell in love with it and she let me keep it!

The mini batts that I carded on Steph's carder from one of my bags of scrap fiber + misc other things.

Batts, five colors of sparkle that I bought from Loop (I also got her Boysenberry batt, which I can't wait to spin), supersoft brown camel fluff from Liz, and rose grey alpaca from Steph.

Hurray! I cannot wait until the next meet-up. I feel so chock-full of inspiration and spinny love that I just don't know what to do with myself.

I guess I'll go spin!

Raimbowtree

2008-02-29T15:53:00.002-05:00

I got the sweetest thing in the mail last week...

A headband! From Raimbowtree!

I've spent a lot of time admiring her headbands online, but they are even more amazing in person. I love everything about it - the colors, the design, the lovely wooly texture, and the pretty needle felting & flowers.

Check out her etsy shop for more amazing felted headbands:

All of her designs are so beautiful!

Update

2008-02-28T16:32:00.003-05:00

I sorted through one of the big 15lb bags of mill ends, and I'm super happy with what I got. I thought it would be mostly little pieces, but I pulled out about 15 or so big 4 oz + solid pieces of top that I'm saving to dye up more self-striping yarns. I divided the rest up into 4 oz balls ready to dye for patchwork & novelty skeins. All the wool in the bags is my absolute favorite type of millend wool - really crimpy and crinkly looking until it's dyed, and then it spins up into a lovely lofty-soft yarn. Hurray! I can't wait to get started spinning it.

Yesterday I went to the thrift store with Jenny. Wednesday is half-off day, and it's usually crowded, but it was crazy yesterday. We got there about 10 minutes before the store opened on accident, and there was a LINE of people waiting. I wonder if it's always like that? I never went that early before. Anyway. After we were inside and started picking out clothes, we really had to keep an eye on our cart! At least two things were taken from our cart in the two seconds or so we weren't watching it. And Jenny actually confronted one lady who had pulled a skirt of hers from our cart and was modeling it for her friend. The lady just laughed and said she took it because no one was at our cart (we literally left the cart alone for maybe 30 seconds). Jenny told her she could keep the skirt. But it was weird. Especially since we had some personal belongings in the cart - like my purse/sidebag full of all my important stuff, our jackets, and my handspun & handknit hat. Jenny had a mohair sweater of hers that she took off and put in the cart because it was warm in the store, and a different lady grabbed it and started petting and talking about how nice it was. The people at that thrift store are often strange and in-your-face, but yesterday was the strangest yet!

We found a nice dyepot at the thrift store - I've been wanting one for ages! I left my last one at my mom's house in Milwaukee. Right now I dye in recycled glass jars for the most part, but we needed a pot for natural dyeing. We tried out some birch bark yesterday - according to miss Jenny Dean, the author of Wild Color, we should have been able to get a pale pink/purple. We actually got - off-white. Haha. It's a pretty off-white, though! A pale tan with a sort of peachy tone. Oh well. I have more promising naural dyestuff to work with: onion skins, burgundy henna, and turmeric. We also have some cherry bark that we gathered, but I'm skeptical about that one.

I meant to take pictures of the natural dye shenanigans yesterday, but I forgot. The story of my life!

P.S. Small shop update! I have a new patchwork yarn up:

wool delivery

2008-02-27T09:19:00.002-05:00

I finally bought a "big bag" of mill ends - 30 lbs. Plus about 5lbs of other misc mill ends.

I'm not quite sure where to put all this...time to start spinning, I guess!

I'm doing some running around today, and then this weekend I'm meeting up with Molly + some other fibery etsians, so...I probably won't have much time for spinning until next week. I'll be listing some custom orders and one new patchwork early tomorrow evening.

2008-02-21T12:32:00.002-05:00

I'm back! I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night, since we left NC late yesterday. I'm taking it slow, but trying to get some stuff done - mostly dyeing up fiber for custom orders. I don't feel like trying to take pictures yet, so I'll probably do a shop update tomorrow with some self-striping skeins and maybe a patchwork yarn.

NC was gorgeous and amazing, as usual. Here's a picture from one of our hikes:

It's so green! Even in the middle of winter. Mostly thanks to the rhododendron, but there were other plants growing as well. I really really love and miss the mountains, even more now that I've been reminded how wonderful they are.

I got some candle-making supplies from Earth Guild, which I am excited about. I wasn't planning on buying beeswax there, since I know I can get it cheaper elsewhere, but it smelled SO GOOD that I ended up getting 2 pounds of it. I also got a TON of tea from the co-op & Amazing Savings. Like 6+ boxes, plus at least another 6 bulk blends. Amazing Savings happened to have an entire aisle of delicious organic tea blends for super cheap, so I stocked up. I've actually been regretting not buying more. We got a ton of food there as well.

2008-02-16T11:10:00.003-05:00

Today is a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing...and I'm going to North Carolina! Yessss.

I'm so very excited to visit all my old haunts in Asheville - #1 on my list is, of course, Earth Guild! Oh, the memories. Earth Guild is the store where I bought my very first (and only) drop spindle and my first wool & acid dyes as well. And they have EVERYTHING. Mostly. I'm going to check out their fibers and see if I can find some fun sparkles or something. They used to have raw llama fiber and other interesting bits. I also want to get some candlemaking supplies, since I'm on a big petroleum-free candle kick. And I want to get some scrap leather for the soles on a pair of felt slippers I want to make. What else. I'll probably come back with like half the store.

#2 is the French Broad Food Co-op & Amazing Savings. The Co-op has this big wall of herbs, the best selection I've ever seen. I want to stock up on tea blends & herbs - I need spinning fuel! Amazing Savings is - I don't even know how to describe it. Here's a little blurb about it I found online: "One of Asheville's best kept secrets. Organic and natural foods at 50% to 80% off because they are either almost out of date or they are out of date or just overstocked." Some of our scores at this store in the past included: 30 lbs of organic prunes (for $10!), 25 lbs of raw cashews (free), 50 lbs of whole wheat flour (free), 25 lbs of organic blueberry granola ($25), and 200 lbs of organic refined-sugar-free peanut butter chips (FREE). All the "free" stuff is free because they were throwing it out. They have so much food, they're always throwing stuff out. We used to go pick the big unopened boxes of food out of the dumpster, and they would sometimes leave boxes of organic produce outside of the dumpster for us to pick through. One time I got enough organic apples to brew 3 gallons of apple-mint mead + I dried a ton to take hiking. Just...don't get me started on Amazing Savings.

#3 is the recycling center behind Earth Fare. Yes, it's an odd place to want to go, but you can find so much great stuff there. Although we're usually the only people carrying stuff AWAY from the recycling center...everyone else is dropping stuff off. I want to look for glass gallon jugs for brewing & glass baby food jars or something similar for candlemaking & homemade salves. And occasionally you can find fancy things like blue glass wine bottles that you can use to bottle your own wine/mead/whatever.

#4 is the brewing supply store, which I forgot the name of. I need some airlocks to go with the glass gallon jugs. Homebrew, here I come!

But mostly, I'll probably be out in the woods, climbing mountains and so on.

See you guys when I get back! (Probably around Thursday or so).

Blood, Sweat & Wool

2008-02-15T18:52:00.001-05:00

This little video makes me so happy.

I do have a pair of hand shears...

Customer Appreciation #2

2008-02-14T17:47:00.003-05:00

There have been more things made from my yarn popping up on etsy recently - here are a few of my favorites. You can click on the pictures to go to the etsy listing for each one.

Remember my crazy post-apocalyptic zombie yarn, All That Remains? This is what became of it - a gorgeous cowl! I'm half-tempted to buy it myself. I'm trying not to think about it too much! I will be jealous of whoever ends up with this one. This was made by SandAndSkyCreations.

This pretty wrap collar was made by CharteChic from my falkland/soysilk Hot Cocoa yarn (with marshmallowy baubles!). I like the design of this - I've been in love with the versatility of rectangles + shawl pins lately.

This is another of Raimbowtree's felted headbands made from my self-striping yarn. This one already sold, but there's another one for sale here. I'm a big fan of the tree applique! Make sure to check out the rest of her shop as well - all her headbands are so gorgeous!

Just Another Day at the Yarn Factory...

2008-02-14T16:40:00.002-05:00

Guess who spun up three new patchwork yarns today? I'll be putting them up tomorrow (although two are reserved right now). It'll most likely be the last update for a little while, since I'm leaving for NC on Sunday or Monday.

Has everyone seen the new Etsy t-shirt available in the EtsyLabs shop?

I bought one - I had to! It not only has yarn on it, but it's my favorite color too.

2008-02-12T16:45:00.000-05:00

The shop update is finished. But there's only one skein left (geez), so run on over there if you want it!

I got much less done today than I wanted to (as in, I spun most of one skein of patchwork yarn), so I'm going to try to get some late night spinning done and have at least two skeins to show tomorrow.

Also, I got the new pluckyfluff book - a bit bittersweet, as my yarn was supposed to be in it but got lost behind my desk & didn't get sent out. Oh well! The book is so super amazing, so I wasn't sad for long. I've been reading all the spinner's reviews on this book while waiting for it to arrive - which all pretty much say "this book is so super amazing!" - but, well, it's true.

Finally!

2008-02-12T11:12:00.000-05:00

That dye draught really threw me off! I had to treadle my heart out yesterday to have something to put in the shop today, and I still only finished 3 patchwork skeins. Here they are:

The one on the top is my favorite from this batch - and I'll be spinning up another identical skein of that one today. The light is horrible for taking pictures today (it's really really overcast), but I'm still going to try to get semi-decent ones.

I've been enjoying my brand new batch of dyes, and I still haven't worked my way through all the fiber I dyed up on Friday & Saturday:

So...I plan on spinning at least 2 more patchwork yarns today, and hopefully at least one novelty skein as well. Which means I should have another shop update tomorrow! I'm trying to spin as much as possible this week, because next week I might be taking a trip down to NC to visit friends & hang out in the woods for a few days.

2008-02-09T13:37:00.001-05:00

Those dang dyes finally arrived. So I'm dyeing up a storm today, and hope to be able to replenish my shop sometime early next week! It looks like there's going to be a avalanche of new patchwork yarns fresh off the wheel soon.

Dyemergency!

2008-01-31T16:54:00.000-05:00

Oopsie. I ran out of dye! This means that I'll only have about 3-4 yarns to list until my new dyes (that I'm about to order tonight) arrive. Oh well. I have some knitting I need to do anyway. Please hurry, UPS!

I listed some new patchwork yarns tonight:

As well as another novelty yarn, but the pictures for that one are so horrible that I'm thinking about putting it in edit mode until I get better ones.

I really want this blog to be more USEFUL to folks and not just about stuff I have for sale. What sort of things would you like to read about? Spinning tips/tutorials? Etsy finds? Fiber artist interviews? Contests?

Baubles!

2008-01-25T11:13:00.000-05:00

Well. I spent quite a bit of time making baubles the past two days, and it has paid off:

That right there is a gallon bag, filled with 300+ pretty felty baubles. I'm hoping to start selling them soon. If they don't start showing up in my shop in a week or two, then you will know that I have a real bauble-hoarding problem. You can't see the baubles all that well (if you click on the picture, you can see the bigger version on flickr), but some of them are extra pretty, with fancy bits like kid mohair and sparkle. I want to make some luxurious angora baubles, but I'm anxious about messing them up.

I also did a little experimenting, and come up with two different interesting felty configurations that I plan on incorporating into my yarns:

I have lots more ideas for bauble experiments, but I need to get some supplies first.

2008-01-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

SO! Last Sunday, I got to hang out with Molly of mollymillerbyappt. She first contacted me about getting together ages ago, but she planned a big spin-off for last weekend and invited several etsy spinners. Except somehow, I was the only one who made it! But it was a blast - we shared fiber, tried out each other's wheels (she has a Babe production), spun some crazy yarns, and best of all - I got to see her gorgeous, amazing, words-do-not-describe collection of handknit scarves (and a few other things) made from yarn spun by the most famous and talented etsy spinners. Including hobbledehoy, luxe, wooldancer, feltstudiouk, and I'm pleased to say there were a few of mine in there as well. I saw the Riverstone scarf with the felty baubles from my customer appreciation post, and I gotta say, that picture does NOT do it justice. At all. I mean, I spun the yarn and I was sitting there petting it in amazement! I also taught Molly how to make felty baubles, and she emailed me and said she made about 150 of them already! Yes, they are addicting.

I am very proud of myself because I just updated my shop for the second day in a row, PLUS I have yarns (patchwork + 1 or 2 novelty) for an update tomorrow too! Yay productivity! Here's what I listed today (the yarns from yesterday already sold):

Spectra V2 - I was asked to spin a repeat of my Spectra yarn, and since it's two different colorways plied together, it was easier for me to spin two skeins than one. The extra one is up for grabs in my shop.

Green And Speckled Frog - Soft & pretty organic cotton. I won't mind at all if this one doesn't sell! I keep looking at it and thinking I might keep it, so I need to go hide it in my etsy yarn box.

Shop Update + Customer Appreciation

2008-01-17T15:52:00.001-05:00

I wanted to share a couple things that were made with my yarn by other etsyians:

A crochet & felted headband with a pretty tree applique made from my Laura self-striping yarn by Raimbowtree.

A scarf knit from my Candy Mountain yarn (with felty baubles!) by Molly Miller.

And, a knit & felted bag made from my Clara self-striping yarn by myfinn.

All of these are for sale on etsy!

I also managed to update my shop today! Three new yarns are up, and I still have two to list later on tonight. I'm saving the best for last! Sneak preview:

Spun seafoam

2008-01-15T13:11:00.000-05:00

I'm working on my first yarn spun from the rambouillet:

I carded some up with soysilk this morning, and it makes beautiful fluffy-soft batts. This yarn is being spun from the soysilk/rambouillet batts, raw uncarded rambouillet, and bits of seafoam falkland wool. Hopefully it'll be ready to list tomorrow...

So much wool!

2008-01-14T09:35:00.000-05:00

I finally started feeling better, after being pretty much bedridden for a few days, just in time to hang out with my friend. And she has a CAR (I don't - I walk everywhere), and she took us to a rambouillet farm that I've been trying to get to for forever. I've been pining away for some lovely raw wool to work with. And we came home with 4 gigantic bags of soft soft fleece, estimated at ten pounds each, for a price that was so amazing! It's cheap because it's last years wool and he wanted to get rid of it. I contacted him after searching for local rambouillet farms, so I don't think he was really expecting to be able to sell it since it's almost shearing time again.

dark chocolate rambouillet ram fleece (I cannot believe how soft & fine this is):

white ewe, this one is my favorite, super crimpy and soft:

Yay! Look for yarns spun from this lovely local wool soon...but not that soon, because today is post office day.

*EDITED to replace with better photos! I forgot to turn off the micro last time...*

I'm sick.

2008-01-10T13:20:00.000-05:00

Bleh. I've been really sick ever since Tuesday or so, plus my partner is home sick, which makes it hard to get things done. And I have a friend coming to visit, so I need to clean, and my shop is empty, so I need to spin. Oh, and I really need to go to the post office. I can probably think of a few million other things I need to get done as well. SO, if you have contacted me recently and don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm sick and busy - not because I'm ignoring you!

But, there will still be a shop update today, with three new skeins:

A REAL scrap yarn, pretty bamboo, and a novelty yarn with my deformed felty baubles. And I have another 1-3 skeins (depending on if I decided to keep any to knit with) to list tomorrow or over the weekend.

Get to work

2008-01-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

Somehow my shop ended up really empty. How did that happen?? I spent today packing up lots of yarn to ship and doing some panicky spinning because I don't have much yarn to list! I spun a patchwork yarn on Saturday that I'll be listing later on tonight:

And today I've gotten a skein of bamboo done so far - I'm hoping to finish a novelty yarn and maybe another skein of bamboo tonight. And then I really need to get going the rest of the week - especially since I'll be taking at least one day off, maybe two!

In love!

2008-01-03T18:27:00.001-05:00

Ahh...it's the best feeling when you have an idea for a yarn and it works out even more amazing that you imagined. I love this yarn! I put it up for sale, but I definitely need to make more for me to knit with. So sweet!

I've been wanting to keep a LOT of yarns lately. I need to get busy and spin enough to fill up the shop so I can take a break - and spin some for ME!

2008-01-02T11:28:00.000-05:00

The singles from my last post, all plied up with invisible thread + felty baubles:

I was going to take some creative pictures of levitating felty baubles after I strung them onto the invisible thread, but I got bored quickly and gave up. Plus I didn't want to tangle the thread - invisible thread is reaaally hard to untangle.

Here is a skein of vegan novelty yarn that I just listed on etsy:

It's mostly bamboo, with some sparkle and lots of big slubs of ingeo. I found the ingeo (a fiber made from corn) in the craft store, being sold as eco-friendly fake snow! I've never worked with it before, so I don't know if all ingeo is like this, but from pictures I've seen I'm guessing it's not. This stuff is sort of tangled/teased fiber in a big batt, and it's very fuzzy and springy and almost wool-like in texture. I haven't decided how much I like it yet - but I plan on attempting to dye some of it and maybe carding it into vegan batts and experimenting some more. It's interesting stuff.

Wheel love

2007-12-31T13:48:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I've never actually taken a picture of either of my wheels before. So here it is, my first ever bobbin shot:

And a very familiar view:

I think I might have thought up a name for this wheel (a Lendrum DT). But I'm not completely sure yet. I loooooove being able to switch between the normal & bulky flyers, and the bulky flyer is just a dream come true. My last wheel was an Ashford Traditional, and since I didn't ever get around to getting a bulky flyer for it, I had to cope with the teensy bobbins. All my skeins in my etsy shop are about twice the size they used to be! And sometimes twice as bulky, thanks to the nice big orifice.

Aftermath

2007-12-27T12:42:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to recover from the holidays and get back into the swing of things. I got the most adorable fabric in the mail yesterday:

It says "organic sheeps"!!! It was love at first sight. I bought it from sakurafabric on etsy. I dunno what I'm going to make with it yet - a bag? A skirt?

I spun up my cocoa-inspired yarn with the white marshmallow felty baubles, but there was a slight disaster - there is a ton of soysilk in this skein, and I forgot that whenever I set the twist on soysilk, tons and tons of dye ends up in the water and I have to rinse it forever. So when I set the twist on this yarn, the brown dye in the soysilk sort of dyed the white baubles to a pale tan. Whoops! Oh well, it still looks good. Maybe it'll be a chocolate truffle yarn instead.

I'm trying to spin lots of yarn to keep the shop full. I managed to spin a few vegan skeins!

The shiny one in the front is bamboo, and behind it is bulky organic cotton with sections of bamboo. This is the last of my organic cotton, but I'm planning on buying some more very soon. I want to make a cotton-spinning tutorial for both the spinning wheel & drop spindle, since there isn't all that much how-to information on it.

Okay, back to the wheel! If it's sunny out tomorrow I'll be updating the shop, finally.

onward!

2007-12-21T15:46:00.000-05:00

I will be so happy when christmas comes and I can stop making things like crazy. I finished the scarf - I am AMAZED at how big it is! I only spun about 5 oz of yarn for it, and that includes the copious amount of fringe. It's actually kind of gigantic for an 8 yr old. It hangs down past my waist! Oh well, she'll be warm. I hope she likes big cozy scarves!

Whew. Next up: stripey fingerless mitts for my cousin!

I also decided to make some spicy brownies to go along with the hot cocoa - I'm making vegan brownies from scratch, with cinnamon and finely chopped bits of crystallized ginger. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to make them with whole wheat flour & no refined sugar, or just take the easy way out.

I got an amazing package from my mom yesterday that contained all of my favorite things (except wool): herbal tea, all sorts of chocolate delights sweetened with evaporated cane juice, and angora knee socks in three different colors! And a book: a brand-new copy of The Golden Compass, which I wanted to re-read before I go see the movie. I read this book when it first came out in 1995 (I was ten years old!) and it was my favorite book for a long time, but I haven't read it in years and years.

holiday freakout!

2007-12-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

Okay. I do this pretty much every year, but it still always surprises me: I wait until the very last second to make all my holiday gifts, which results in several days of me freaking out and crafting like crazy. But this year I have a secret weapon: lots of yummy and super energizing tea from TeaNoir! My package from her arrived yesterday, and just in time! I just brewed up a big mug of her Casablanca (minty green tea) blend, and am getting down to business.

I already mixed up a ton of spicy instant hot cocoa from scratch, with lots of cinnamon and a pinch of allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. Yum! Next up, I'll be making chocolate-covered pretzel bouquets and bags of chocolate-dipped marshmallows to go with the hot cocoa.

And knitting like mad - this bubblegum pink confection will be a scarf for my partner's 8 yr old niece. Yay for huge bulky yarn and size 11 needles!

Back to work! I can't wait to be done so I can get back to spinning and playing with my tub of freshly felted baubles.

Felty baubles

2007-12-18T16:21:00.000-05:00

What I did today:

Made a ton of felty baubles! I wanted to put together bags of them to sell, but I don't think I'll ever actually be able to let any of them go - they're too much fun to use. I also ended up with some crazy deformed baubles that I already have plans for:

And some fluffy white marshmallow baubles - I think I'm going to spin some hot cocoa yarn with these:

I really love felty baubles. I already want more!

P.S. If anybody wants to trade me things for heaps of baubles, let me know.