Late Night Studio Fabulosity

Holy crap it just got hugely windy outside. We’ve had a Chinook wind  blowing for the past 24 hours but this is like SOOPER CHINOOK RAWR! Seriously, the house just shook and I didn’t know this house would do that. I’m a trifle concerned. Also, a Chinook is a warm wind that eats snow. No, really.

Just a mo’.

Yep, windy as hell. And now it’s raining. Hard. It sounds like handfuls of pea gravel are being thrown at the windows. This does not bode well should it get cold again. Blargh.

Hm.

Anyway.

Whilst at my mom and dad’s for the holiday I was working on a bit of knitting that was supposed to eventually turn into a felted bowl. Only I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and before I knew it It was no longer a bowl. One thing you should know about me is this: If I mess up knitting I either tear it all out, right down to the very first stitch. Or I cry and stuff it in a drawer and forget about it. Until now, I’ve never just soldiered on and worked with what I have.

So the bowl became this weird gathered at the bottom…thing. I threw it into the washing machine and felted the crap out of it. When it came out I kind of laughed and then walked away, utterly disgusted.

About an hour later I came back and poked at it. When it didn’t bite me I thought maybe I could work with it. I formed a plan in my head that I fully expected to forget all about on the way home but I didn’t. When I came home I made some more things to go with my plan and those things became straps for a bag. Then I found some sturdy clear nylon thread and doinked (it’s a word I said so) in the edges and sewed some straps on and suddenly voila, where there had been a miserable failure of a felted bowl there was a bag. And maybe I’ve been playing with too much novelty yarn but I’m oddly proud of this cobbled together creation.

Behold:

Oh yes I did so mix all sorts of wool with novelty yarn. Be afraid all ye who loathe of the Fur that is Fun. I may make a button closure with some of the remaining gray I used for the bottom and the straps, I’m not sure yet.

Paired with a dead sexy sweatshirt, mmhmm, oh yeah.

And, AND, I had the brains to write down what I did in case I ever decide to make another one. And I just might because I have a lot of yarn that I really wasn’t aware of and, yikes.

This weekend we rearranged the living room and in the process I was able to get my desk where I wanted it all along, which was in my studio/workspace at the end of the room. It looks cramped but I assure you it suits my needs perfectly. Anyway, in the massive cleaning and organizing project that ensued, I found a lot of yarn that isn’t for sale and somehow, somewhere, found it’s way into my house. *cough* That big bag on the left? All yarn that needs to be made into something. O.k. and so does the bag on the right. The bag underneath that is roving that I’ve hoarded like a filthy little yarn junkie for the past couple years and the bag of white stuff on the left is my latest fix, er, shipment.

O.k. fine. And if you turn around all those Rubbermaid totes are full of yarn too.

Oh come on, you totally want to come over and play at my house. At the very least if fiber doesn’t do it for you, you can play Guitar Hero if we can coax my husband into sharing.

Progress, I make it.

O.k. I realize that the pile o’yarn probably doesn’t look like it’s expanded much, but since my last update I’ve added 8 new skeins to the pile! I’m getting really tired! The show in Sheridan is exactly a month away. I was thinking of taking a break from spinning and dyeing yarn this weekend but then my eyes landed on the cones of undyed sock yarn, the huge bag of 8 ounce dyed rovings and the stuff that I might have accidentally ordered onlien in a fit of “OMG I NEED THIS STUFF.”

Ahem.

In between all this I’ve managed to squeeze in a custom yarn order at Etsy. I am so flattered that I was chosen to create this yarn! The lovely customer wanted roving dyed in shades of silver and brown and then handspun super bulky and thin. It was hard for me to deliberately place huge slubs into the yarn but the results were so nice! Super soft and an amazing texture. I’m really pleased with it, I can’t wait to see what she makes with it!

300 yards. I never formally named it but started to think of it as Sepia.

And with that, I’m keeping my promise to myself to get to bed at a decent hour tonight so off I go. Goodnight!

Upcycling Halloween

Yet another idea that stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away! Actually, I have to give Jen a lot of the credit for this yarn, I think she thought of it way before I did. Every Halloween you see those bags of spider web material that you can buy and stretch all over the place and then embed the plastic spiders that come with it. To be honest, I’ve never bought a bag! Then this year when Jen was here we discussed what would happen if one were to spin the material and voila, the yarn was born!

I bought purple and green webs and spun each. The green allegedly glows under a black light, but I haven’t tested this theory.

Spooky Kid Smoosh!

The purple yarn is handspun and smoosh plied with a black cotton thread, 30 yards. Bulky art yarn, WPI: 5 to 7.

The purple/green yarn is handspun and plied, 102 yards. WPI: 7 to 10.

Plastic spiders included! They keep startling me so they’ve got to go!

One more day please?!

I’ve done it, I’ve reached the point where I’m physically starting to feel the burn out from work. You know, my day job that doesn’t involve anything yarny? I feel like all I do is beg for more time to get everything accomplished, it kind of sucks.

Ah well, the bills have to be paid and until I can figure out how to take over the world with yarn this is my reality.

That said, I had a very productive weekend yarn-wise and am pleased with what I accomplished:

Special Order for Etsian RoaringBravado:

Sea Sea Sea, 465 Yards:

Rainbow Dog! 160 yards, Chiengora from Koda the Samoyed:

Estelle: 150 yards merino and novelty yarn:

Hidalgo 200 yards

Farfalla: 180 yards

Violetta: 164 yards

Grotto: 192 yards

Tour de Fleece 2008 End!

O.k., so I didn’t post every day of the tour, but darn near. However, I did spin every day of the tour, even on one of the rest days so I consider this entire journey a success!

Weekend stuff and wow, I’m pretty tired!

New and exciting things to come soon!

Day 15

Untitled, 250 yards. LOVE how this turned out, I don’t know if I’ll be able to part with it!

TdF-Day 14

The little bit of Jacob fleece that I washed last night was dry by the time I got home tonight, thank you hot temperatures and wind! I ran it through the carder and spun up the batt, 66 yards.

While I love the look of this yarn, I am not loving all the work that went into producing this tiny skein. I really need to finf someone local to process all the remaining fleece!

You’d think that living in Montana that this would be pretty easy but suprisingly, no.

Tour de Fleece Day 13 and SCORE!!!!

My friend Jen says I either have the best luck or the most rotten, I’m inclined to agree with her.

Focusing on the good, I was fortunate enough to score this tonight:

That, my friends, is two full Jacob fleeces, one in each bag. There were seven available, but I could only shove two into my car and only had room to store two. Best of all, they were FREE. Yep, free! A local friend of mine tipped me off when she saw the ad in the newspaper and I was the first person to call and leave a message and went out tonight after work to check it out. All the fleeces were equally gorgeous, I almost died when the lady told me what she had.

SO, even though I said I wouldn’t buy any new material during the Tour de Fleece, I never said anything about free spinnables so, YAY! Score!

I’m going to have it shipped off to be professionally processed because I just don’t have the facilities to do it myself. I did test wash a triple handful of it tonight and it came clean pretty quickly so I’m confident that having it professionally worked up will be a breeze for whoever I choose for the job.

Little wash in my kitchen:

Jacob fleece is especially awesome because the wool is a mix of black, white and brown and it makes some amazing natural colored yarns!

My only contribution to the spinning cause for the Tour today:

Finally, the lovely yarn that I spun a couple nights ago is twist set and ready to go!

Tigerlilly, 215 yards. WPI=10 to 11.

That’s all for tonight yarn fans!

TdF 2008-Day 12

You know, I’m really glad I’m not riding a bike because I’d probably be dead right now. Yarn? Psh, no problem!

See You In The Funny Pages Kid! 62 yards, Smoosh yarn, super coily and bubbly. Plied with pink silk thread.

Tour de Fleece Day 10, Rest day 11

Spun this last night on day 10, it is probably over 200 yards, I just took it off the bobbin tonight and haven’t counted the yardage just yet. Sorry for the cruddy photo, it was late and the room was dim! It’s a lovely orange with hints of pink though, I loves it.

Untitled-Day 10

July 15 is a rest day for the Tour, I actually hadn’t realized this until about an hour ago. Which is good, it’s been a busy day for me! Plus, I had to bake Amish Friendship bread tonight as the batter/starter I was given by my boss had matured and was ready for the added ingredients and baking. Word to the wise, don’t ever, ever stick your nose in a just opened ziplock bag of fermented bread starter unless you want to feel your sinuses burn for several minutes afterwards. That said, I have four bags of starter, does anyone local want one? Bread in 10 days with minimal effort!