Let there be yarn!

Yes, I've been quiet. It happens. February's always a busy month, with the Florida Renaissance Festival and its accompanying four-hour-one-way drive every weekend. I also did one craft show — well, technically an antique show — a few months ago, as a favor for a friend who works for the antique shop that hosted it. And finally, I decided that this is the year I'm going to really put effort into the hobby business; this is the year it stops being just a hobby and starts being something I might be able to support myself on. The inspiration: I want my soul back, and I'm not going to find it in a nine-to-five office environment where out-of-bounds behavior and micromanagement are the rule.

So. June was crafty research-and-development month. To kick-start my fiber machine, I spun up an ounce of Bransonas Shetland kindly sent to me in a swap package.



Then, to get into the habit of spinning larger amounts, I spun some Lapoli hand-dyed mill ends using the short-draw spinning style, which took about a week of spinning after work, for several hours some evenings.



I learned the long-draw spinning technique and made some funkyfluffy white yarn, which took me under an hour to make, including plying (but not including washing/soaking).



And then I went back to the abandoned Crazy Corriedale. I excavated the bobbin of Crazy Corriedale singles and plied it just to see what came out.

Before...


...and after.


It looks much prettier as yarn than it did as fiber — at least, I think so.


Today, I also re-carded about 3 ounces of the above Corriedale and am working on spinning that long-draw style. The finished yarn will be compared to the short-draw-spun stuff.

In my wicked fiber arts frenzy, today I also bought a used Schacht Cricket loom from Meridith of SweetKnits, which is coming to me with a copy of Creative Weaving.

And I have a test knit coming from Phoenix Bess, plus I've volunteered to put together the 2009 EtsyFEST catalog.

Don't I seem terribly productive? For me, to me, compared to recent-me, I feel pretty productive. The trick will be to continue being productive until something good comes of it.

Then, I'll be myself again.

:D

New project: Alan's scarf

Started today for the package of stuff going to Chicago:

Big Ribs Beanie: Finished!

Not the best picture, but the Big Ribs Beanie is finished! Hurray!



Now, on to something else. :D

In progress: Big Ribs Beanie

To go with the ScWiNoNa, a Big Ribs Beanie for the sister's guy.

Handwarmer gloves and other wearables

A very cool idea. And in a similar vein, I am super-jazzed about the idea of wearable technology. This is what I've been wanting to do to my Jedi/smuggler costume for a while ... and what I'm so happy to find when I come across it occasionally, like with Swarovski's USB jewelry.

Why has it never occurred to me that two of my passions might end up fused into a marketable profession?

Extreme DOH!!!

Now I have a more legitimate-sounding excuse to go back to school for fashion design ... ;D

ScWiNoNa

This will go to Chicago with a batch of knitting for some newly-frozen ex-Floridians:





It's the ScWiNoNa pattern from knittywhipped.

Off to work on the test-knitting.

Preview of the new chain mail

Brian and I went to the beach for this week's weekly meeting, and while we were there, we busted out the camera and finally took decent photos of all his chain mail, which will eventually go up in the Etsy shop. Here's a preview:





Note to self: Do more photo shoots on the beach. ;)

More handspun yarnage

This one is from a while ago, but I think I forgot to take pictures:



And this one was made from singles that were originally meant for plying with Spring Misty:



It originally looked like this:

Pantone rocks

Is it bad to be wearing next season's colors this season? ;)

I'm excited by this fall's Pantone color forecast — it's full of colors I already own and wear. And like. ;D In fact, I'm wearing the navy/ivory combination today. Ha!

When I remember to, I love fashion. ;D

Return of the Jedi Crafter

Let's start off with the generic disclaimer-of-absenteeage: It's been so long since I blogged. Ergh. There, now that I've gotten that out of the way...

This job has been sucking my soul, but the boy and I have Plans. We're going to BE crafters, dammit. I have someone sending me an application for a local show, Art Arbor, which alas does not have an online presence except in the form of reviews and miscellaneous mentions. Art Arbor is at the beginning of November, which was when the boy and I were planning on really getting cracking anyway -- considering it's the beginning of holiday shopping season. And if we can't get a decent inventory built up in what, three months? Then we're loser slackers and will never succeed at being crafters. ;)

But we Must Succeed, so that I can get out of this ridiculously, unnecessarily stressful job. It's not actually the job that does it, it's some of the people -- but I digress. Here's a sampler of what I've been doing while I've been off the radar:





















And oh yeah ... I went to Hawaii for the first time. It was for work and for like 2.5 days (about a day of which was spent on planes or in airports...), but I guess that's better than never. ;)



And also (there must always be an "and also"): I MUST HAVE a yarn bowl. Someday. I must. I love pottery. I love yarns. This involves both. Yum!

Want a pocket wheel...

Another tiny, portable, disasssembling wheel that I want. Very cool. Even smaller than my Sonata...

Oven-dyeing experiments

So the Evil Corriedale of Eternal Stickiness got re-washed last week, and this week I decided I should comb or card it so it's more easily spinnable ... but while I was playing with the combs and hand cards, I decided that dangit, this stuff should just be spun up so I don't have to worry about it any more. But if I tried to spin it undyed, well, a wool with a history of being a pain already would drive me up the wall. So I looked up some oven-dyeing instructions and had at it in an extremely haphazard way. As long as this stuff got some color into it and was spinnable afterward, I wasn't going to complain. Here's what came out:



Which should make a pretty cute yarn, self-plied. ;) It was almost dry this morning, and if only I'd put down the big drying screen it would have been even closer. Oh, well. That's what I get for being lazy.

But the oven-dyeing thing was so easy and fun that I decided to do another batch today, since I have some white rovings that are just sitting around taking up space, but that are part of the personal stash and need to be spun to practice on. I'm also trying to use up some of the random food dyes I have sitting around, so I did this tiny batch of roving solely with Easter egg dye (one orange tablet, one "red" tablet that turned out pink, and one "green" tablet that turned out yellow, which at least I managed to expect ;)). Voila:

<

And this is what it looked like fresh out of the oven:



Yay. :D Irritatingly bright, isn't it? But although I'm not a huge neon person and none of the colors are among my favorites, I still really like it. I'm making an attempt to branch out in my spinning fiber color enjoyment so I can broaden my horizons (and maybe spin yarn I can sell rather than getting attached to *snort*). See? I'm doing pretty well so far ... right? ;)

Dehairing llama, as written by Amelia

Amelia of The Bellwether made a blog post last year that I've just noticed, on dehairing llama and cashmere fiber by hand. That'll be useful when I finally get around to playing with that llama fiber I bought a while ago. The entire reason I haven't spun it yet is that it has guard hairs in it ... but as Amelia recommends that fiber for dehairing be washed first, I guess I have some more washing to do this weekend. Too bad it's not sunny today. Oh, well...

More stash enhancement: Homestead Wool

Mmmm. Lavender. That's what I smelled when I opened the box, because the Ryans are awesome people and included a little fresh lavender sachet with my animal-friendly fluffies. This is "rescue roving," from Homestead Wool and Gift Farm -- and look! They included a little green fluffy from one of their Romneys. :D



Here's the description from their site:

We purchased our little Theo when he was a lamb, and he is no longer so little! He is a Corriedale sheep with soft soft wool. His best buddy is our Marshall, another sheep from the same flock...

Shari did a wonderful job blending Theo's wool with gray Alpaca fleece from our friend Jenny's flock of rescued Llamas and Alpacas. She also pindrafted the fiber, so so easy to spin, could be dyed, felted and take you wherever your imagination takes you! Definitely next to the skin soft and a unique blend.

As of right now, there are six ounces left of the Theo/Suri roving ... in case anyone is hankering. ;)

Fiber acquirement: Lapoli hand-dyed roving

Ordered this last week, I think, and it got here today ... Oooh, what's inside?



Looks like ... Pretty fibers! ;D (Ignore the slight blurriness. I've been taking pictures all morning, and of course, this is one of the two that came out blurry. ::rolls eyes:: And I'm a slacker who's too lazy to stage an equally-prettily-arranged new photo. Oh, well.)



Cheryl of Lapoli is new to Etsy, and is apparently not just a nice person who gives great customer service, but she cares about recycling and likes trades. Mmm ... trading. Maybe next time...

I'm taking up the hook again

For National Crochet Month (thanks to Lime and Violet's Daily Chum for the heads up). As -alongs are nigh on irresistible in the Quicksilver Crafter world, I'm participating in the NatCroMo Freeform Crochet-Along. It'll get me back in the crochet mood and stashbust at the same time -- double points! (Maybe literally, given Knit Wars...) I'm using this random number generator.

Playing catch-up, I did...

March 1

Random number: 2
Yarn: pink and metallic stash yarn
Hook: purple size L

March 2

Random number: 3
Yarn: pink and metallic stash yarn
Hook: size J

March 3

Random number: 8 (from candles we attempted to light in candleabra at FlaRF)
Yarn: darker pink and metallic stash yarn
Hook: size J

March 4

Random number: 14 (from page of A Dyer's Garden I'm on)
Yarn: darker pink and metallic stash yarn
Hook: size J
I'm stopped right before doing March 4, for now, because I don't know how to do filet crochet yet, and it's 11 p.m., and I need to sleep. ;)

The magical 20-minute tripod stool!

Tripod stool, originally uploaded by JeweledClaws.

Altogether, I think this took about 20 minutes to make, and that's including the time it took to have the dowels cut for us.

Wooden dowel rods + cotton canvas + leftover cotton warp yarn + fudging = tripod stool for this weekend at FlaRF. Huzzah!

The sides of the triangle are somewhere around 15" long. The entire thing is fairly jury-rigged: No clue how long the legs are, as we just had the dowels cut in half, and I fudged the triangle seat measurements with a Sharpie and a yardstick rather than actually measure angles. The wood could use some sanding and the legs could use a neater and more secure tie, and the edges could be hemmed under, but it works! I am amazed at making a near-instant replica of the squeaky embossed leather tripod chair I loved as a kid.

I could even add embroidery and padding and prettify the legs, and it'd be quite decorative. Maybe I'll make a horde and see if anyone wants to buy 'em. ;D

Hats for nuns!

I love it. A charity that's knitting hats for Buddhist nuns. Must ... knit ... hat...

Because the knitqueue always needs to be longer. :P

Regnbagsull!

Regnbagsull Merino.jpg, originally uploaded by JeweledClaws.

Whatever that means. ;) That's on the label that was on this happy fiber that I spun up yesterday. This is part of the birthday fiber, the bit I bought specifically to use as a learning experience on the spinning wheel. (Hugs to my Kromski Sonata! Nom nom nom!) I've been eyeing this stuff at Uncommon Threads for months, but didn't really have the funds to spare for a colorway that didn't jump out at me. Once I started spinning it, though, I liked the colorway a lot more. Ha. ;D Now I want to dye some more yarn like this. Also: pencil roving is pretty cool. Huzzah.

This weekend, and the next five after: Florida Renaissance Festival. Considering bringing my oh-so-unperiod spinning wheel. No one will notice it's not period-accurate, right? ;)

Oh, and I just noticed that this is my first "Look at this yarn still on the bobbin that I just spun isn't it pretty" picture. Hee. ;)

Note to self: blocking is good

There are a couple of steps along the way to a finished product that I always dislike. For sewing, I dislike having to pin seams before I sew them -- but sometimes it reeeaaally helps. In knitting, I dislike blocking. Annoyingly, it looks a lot like pinning pattern pieces for a sewn object, which I kind of enjoy ... but pinning pieces to block takes me like four times longer than pinning pattern pieces. Oysh!

I can hear Brian outside, sawing wood for my tri-loom. I hope it doesn't frustrate him too much. ;) If I'm super lucky, maybe I'll have a tri-loom by the end of the weekend. If I'm super realistic, I should have a tri-loom shortly after the end of the Florida Renaissance Festival ... which ends in March. Yeah.

Well, at least I'll have one...? ;)

Next up: sewing seams. Which I really enjoy in sewing, and rather dislike in knitting. But not as much as I dislike blocking. ;)