Thursday, May 29, 2008

woolly week!

I ordered a ton of fiber last week and it has all started pouring in, including stuff from my first Craftster swap and first club installments!

Here is what I got from Lapoli- May FOM swap- i love the purple and gray:

lapoli craftster swap- may

And here is my first LOOP spontaneous spinning batt- I chose autumn as my favorite season, and I'm psyched. Steph also posted this on her Flickr so I got to drool over it for a couple of days- I was so happy when it turned out to be MINE! I couldn't get a good pic of the whole batt (it is HUGE) so here's a pic of the little flowers it come with- LOVE THEM!

loop may batt- autumn

And finally, my first Hobbledehoy batts of the month! I've started spinning these already! I love purple, green & blue:

hobbledy may batts

Aside from all this fiber to make me happy, I posted a bunch of stuff on Monday and had 4 sales within as many hours. Woohoo! Thanks to the loving BF for helping me package stuff up and ferry it to the post office. Time to finish up my smoothie and head off to my "real" job...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

days get better when...

This week started sucking a bit yesterday when one of my fellow admins quit unexpectedly during the middle of the day. That of course left the rest of us scrambling with a game plan to divvy up the work until we can get another person hired. No biggie, but just not the most fun thing to deal with. So after working an hour late last night and tonight, I was SO jazzed to come home to this waiting for me on the front steps:

pluckyfluff stuff

I ordered this last week as my mother's day presents from my cats to myself ;) They know what I like! The fluffy rainbow batt is in a place out of reach from little claws on the very top of my stash shelf. Will I ever be able to bring myself to spin it? Inspiration is not lacking; as you can see, I also got Handspun Revolution. Yes! This three day weekend is going to be great...

If that wasn't enough, I actually went looking through the Treasuries on Etsy and look what I found!

treasury color me central america

Maybe it'll get to the front page!!!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

new fun things

This past weekend was super productive. On Friday night, I spun a gimongous skein of yarn. This was the first time I had maxed out my jumbo bobbin- 170 yards, 5.75 ounces! Yowza! I call it "Corsair", because it reminds me of an elegant pirate:

corsair handspun

I really love this. It's a mash-up of several different batts, but mostly some superwash merino from Enchanted Knoll. I think this yarn would make the most gorgeous cape or shawl EVER, so I'll be sad to see it go... and not so sad if it doesn't sell ;)

Also, on Saturday, my awesome BF finished up the banner he designed for my shop & blog (see above!) and then formatted parts of it to make into stickers! Yes, STICKERS! I've had a sticker fetish since I was a kid, so this is a huge deal for me!

stickers

So the kite-sheep is my logo, and the other sticker, the one with the clouds and the sheep, is something he did just for fun. You can't read it, but it says "Domesticated Sheeps- Making your day more happy." Ain't that the truth!

I also finished up the book Craft, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco last night. It was a great step-by-step on how to turn a craft hobby into a full-time job. Granted I won't apply half of it to myself because I am in no way ready to do this full time, it was good to know the first steps- like applying for business licenses, etc, which are mostly necessary to do shows and stuff. Hey, who knows, this could go somewhere!

To reward myself for feeling all ambitious and productive, I bought a ton more fiber. Well, at least a couple of pounds anyway. I realized a 3 day weekend was coming up and I wanted to get psyched for busting through most of my stash. I also packaged up and sent off handpainted rovings for my first two swaps- one through Etsy and the other through Craftster. AND I just wound off a skein and am setting the twist now, so hopefully it'll be dry in time for Fiber Friday!

Hmm, yeah... I HAVE been busy ;)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

sheesh!

First off, I just want to say that getting my paws on some Pigeonroof Studios roving must be even harder than getting Hannah Montana tickets. Not that I have tried getting Hannah Montana tickets, but that is the best analogy I can come up with. At least people aren't buying the roving only to sell it on Craigslist for 10x what they paid!

Anyway, I've been busy with keeping my apartment clean. Seriously, that is a full time job. I have actually done a lot of spinning this week though:

MOULIN- spun with some batts from Hobbledehoy, Loop, and Mandalinn, plus some stuff from my stash, plied with woolly nylon:
moulin handspun 4

MIDGEWATER- my first TRUE scrap yarn, spun from a thousand different batts and rovings, worsted to bulky weight:
midgewater yarn 5

COSTA RICA- I spun this sitting outside last weekend. Drop-dead gorgeous BFL from Allspunup, spun into a striking worsted weight single:
costa rica handspun 3

POODLE SKIRT- spun from a batt by The Ranch, super thick and plied with clear poly thread:
poodle skirt handspun

On the bobbin- SUGARCUBES roving by Hobbledehoy, spun into a worsted weight two-ply, ready to be crocheted into a baby hat/booties set for a coworker- stay tuned for FO pics SOON!
sugarcube handspun

Time to go rinse some roving and set it out to dry. I FINALLY got to dye some wool this weekend, it's been ages!