Sunday, July 27, 2008

whole lotta roving

This was the first weekend I tried to bust my ass over the dye pots. I only really ass-busted yesterday, but that's because this morning I saw the new X-Files movie! Anyway, I met my "goal" which was 18 four-ounce handfuls of fiber. I managed to dye 5 skeins of yarn (custom order) and 13 rovings. I'm keeping about half of them for myself to spin, and I listed the rest today in my shop. Here's my favorite so far:

cyprus - merino

And here are the others, all hanging out in my yard, post photo-shoot.

roving pile

I was so tempted to fall asleep in the roving pile!

I did a few more today, including some for the Craftster Fiber of the Month swap. Now I'm finally going to go spin. This past week has be exhausting, for some reason, and has sucked away my spinning mojo.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

holy fiber art!

I went up to the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair today with Ben. This is pretty much the first time I've been able to meet real live spinners and let me tell you, it was awesome. Not only to be surrounded by everything I loved, but finally see my hobby outside of my living room and the internet. It made it that much more REAL! I did pretty well, all things considered, and only managed to buy some stuff that is really new to me:

loot from the fiber fair!

From top left: Sari silk, organic cotton roving, cotton and ecospun roving, loosely carded ecospun (all from Little Barn); merino-sea cell roving from Creatively Dyed, a handful of freshly sheared alpaca, and silk hankies from Lone Tree Wools.

We almost came into owning a "fiber rabbit" too:
ben w/ fiber rabbit
I honestly don't know if I've ever seen Ben happier than when he was holding that bunny!! Only $30 too; I thought they were so much more (I know the pedigree ones are.) Maybe when I get that farm house...

I also got to meet some fellow Etsyians- KittyGrrlz, My Favorite Thing, and Spinundrum. We may even meet up and have a spinny session or two in the future! Yay!

All in all, a really great event. If I'm anywhere near Illinois next year, I will definitely consider participating as a vendor.

Off to watch the old school "Batman" and to spin up some of this loot!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

experiment

I need to publicly announce goals or else I am much less likely to follow through with them. You all need to help keep me accountable for achieving this!

The goal: to devote an entire month to some hard-core dyeing & spinning. Hard-core meaning ~30 rovings/skeins of yarn dyed on the weekends, and spinning every night. The BF encouraged me to see if I could bump this whole side-project woolly business up to the next level, and he promised to help. I placed some mammoth orders on Monday- 10 pounds of merino, 7 pounds of falkland, 6 pounds of BFL, 27 skeins of yarn, and dyes. Yeah, my bank account is freaking out a little bit, but hopefully I can get through this in a month and more than have it paid for in a week or two. This will also help me get geared up for doing the craft show(s) in the fall.

In other news, two of my newest yarns:

Another Elvis-inspired yarn, "Viva Las Vegas", spun from Hobbledehoy batt,wrapped in gold thread with some sequins here and there:
viva las vegas handspun yarn

And "Monster Mash" from some Falkland roving I dyed up. Colors didn't turn out quite as I expected them too (I wanted more vibrant purple) but it will still stripe nicely and it's bouncy fun!
monster mash handspun yarn

Saturday, July 12, 2008

back to it

A week ago, I got back from vacation. This pretty much sums it up:

heron pond

But if you'd like to see more, they're on my Flickr account. Gratuitous greenery! The BF and I visited one of his old classmates who now lives on small farm and has plans to flesh it out and make it fully sustainable over the next couple of years. I got to spin outside under a giant tree with hummingbirds flitting around and big ol' farm cats flopped about on the grass. Yeah, it's kind of a wonder I'm back in Chicago. I don't know how well I'd handle country living, but I'm getting closer and closer to making the jump and trying it out. But I don't want to work. I just want to retire to a full time spinster at age 25. Wishful thinking, eh? I don't think I can afford a farm AND student loans on a spinster's income. Rats.

I did a lot of spinning while I was down there- mostly in my BF's parents' house and in a local cafe. To my surprise, only the bus-boy asked me what on earth I was doing. Maybe it's rural enough down there that most people are familiar with spinning wheels?! Anyway, here is what I got done last week and some of this week:



From top left: Laminaria, hand dyed BFL; Calico, hand dyed merino (huge skein for a two ply!); Prismatic Wall, hand dyed merino; Harlequin, merino from Pigeonroof Studios.

I finished two yarns yesterday, including the first of my Elvis-inspired yarns that I've been dreaming up (I went to Graceland last week!) More will follow, rest assured...

Time to get back to the dye pots. And to place another wool order. I may do something crazy like purchase an entire bump. WHOA.

Oh, P.S.- I got into YarnCon! I've got time, but I have to lay out a Plan for inventory, setup, etc. And I'm feeling kooky enough to apply for DIY Trunk Show too. I'm out of control! It's probably actually not-so-smart to do two craft shows within two months of each other in the fall when everyone is clamoring for holiday shopping and I'm only doing this part-time. But I'm enough of an over-achiever to try it anyway.