Not Dead, Just Spinning!

Ah, life. How it gets in the way of our real passions.

I have neither abandoned nor given up on this blog and the pursuits that led to it, but the beginning of this year has been packed, with things both textile and non.

Most of a final spinning project for my OHS Spinning Certificate level 1 got handed in on time - and the rest is glaring resentfully at me from the pile of rolags in the corner. Hopefully I have passed despite the late penalty, as I've just paid for year 2, coming up in August.

The dye pots, however, are going back on the boil some evening this week, indeed, I'm tying up yarn as I write this. I'll be cooking up a range of samples/one off based on some of the colours captured in photos of my recent trip to Cuba to test out for some spring colourways. I have one wholesale order to get to then hopefully can restock retail and Etsy.

See you soon!

Kitsched Out for the Holidaze!

I'd like to post a short, but heartfelt THANK YOU to all patrons of the last 2008 Stitch'n'Kitsch yesterday. What a great crowd to brave the freezing rain and pelting... slush? Ice pellets? Whatever that was - I think it depended on what moment you stuck your nose out as to what was flinging down from the sky.

Special thanks of course to those who checked out Lofty Fibres' tiny little table, bought yarn, and even tried out my handspun or the Learn To Knit kits! (New knitters - email me to let me know how it's going, loftyfibres AT gmail DOT... you know the rest.)

As a token of some ongoing thanks, and to give all my knittin' pals a holiday break, stay tuned to the Etsy shop (Over there --> on the right....) for the next couple of days. All 2008 yarns remaining are being reduced!

My reasoning is two-fold: 1) It's the holidays, we all need a break! and 2) Etsy is great. It's a superb, economical, pay-as-you-go venue for the small crafter. BUT, for us Canadians, they don't yet have a Canadian currency option, which means with today's economy and exchange, it's harder for Canadians to buy on line. It's great if my US friends do because I win on that exchange but not so much for us in the Great Wet North (yes, still raining today).

So! All in-stock yarn will be reduced so I can make room for more! And the Canadian Economy bonus is, $1 per item shipping anywhere in Canada! US shipping is still a reasonable $5 on the first, $1 for subsequent, items, but the price reductions apply regardless.

Happy Holiday yarning, everyone.

Lofty Fibres, Live! Episode 2

Please come out an join us at the Holiday Stitch'n'Kitsch! I'll be there with (of course!) yarn, but a couple dozen more local artisans will be showing off their best, just in time for Holidaze shopping!

It's Almost Spinning Itself....

I'm in the midst of a bit of angst and tedium. Angst: OHS Level 1 project 2 is to first of all mount up all our dye work from the summer school week - and I'm sorting the dye-class box but still only have vague ideas about a good way to mount. Part 2 of project 2 is a dye gradation exercise - 11 steps from "undyed" to "full strength" at 0.1 increments. Not in itself a daunting task for me, I can do it all in one pot with a handfull of baggies. BUT - our instructor said that while she wasn't grading our spinning, she expected our dyeing to be on our own handspun. The Tedium, thus: Monique is engaged with a half-pound pile of plain old white Corriedale, which is a basic and sturdy wool, good for practice, but not particularly thrilling or motivating to spin for me just now.

So, of course, having developed some sort of attention-deficit problem due to extreme creative multitasking, I got into other things to take the edge off. I've declared this to be my Rhinebeck project:



It is the over 200 grams of Ocean fibre (seawool) dyed by the uber-colour-savvy Dianne of Creatively Dyed, and which you met a couple of posts back It is being spun on one of my family of 5 Bosworth spindles, this one the 39 gram Purpleheart I special-ordered, and picked up at Rhinebeck. Hence, the Rhinebeck project.

While I'm here, a quick pre-reminder: I'll be selling my handpaints at the last 2008 Stitch and Kitsch show in another month, on December 13th. If I do any more dyeing before then it will be very little. A few samples are up in the Etsy shop (see the right panel) and there are actually lots more, I just don't want to pay to list them yet if I'll be trucking them all out to a show. They'll go up after the 13th, though, and can ship for Christmas if ordered quickly.

Handspinner's Toolbox

Just a little photo exercise I had to share.

Post-Rhinebeck Spin

As you can see on the right, I did get a few new uploads to the shop. Life has been busy with spinning, knitting, finishing a quilt top, succumbing to the lure of new fabrics when I dropped the quilt off for quilting, and photographing the recent few months of stash.

My first Rhinebeck was a whirlwind, lots of fun, some confusion, and just an overwhelming amount of fibre fumes. I spent probably more than I should have on a beautiful Romney Hogget fleece - it was $55 for just over 2lbs, however, it had already been washed, skirted, and was very very clean. She's a beautiful pale gray and I've sampled a bit by just spinning a few locks right out o the bag on my new spindles.

Unfortunately, I somehow did something boneheaded and lost yesterday afternoon's hour of work photographing my spindles.

Here are shots of the very few - well, the only two, really - fibre and yarn purchases.

First, I had to go by The Fold's booth and check out the BMFA goods live. This one followed me home:



I am NOT really in need of more yarn, given the stash has long since escaped its closet, however, it will be a long time before I can spin silk this well, and BMFA's colour sense is something any dyer should aspire to. I love the way a brown/orange dye looks metallic on silk, and Amber comes out a gorgeous copper colour here. I could see this being a wedding shawl. The hunt for the perfect stole pattern begins!

This second purchase goes with the recounting of the repeated and slightly bizarre experience of walking around Rhinebeck with a Ravelry button on, and having "strangers" run up and greet me like they knew me - and I guess we were all doing it! One who did so was Dianne, "Creative" on Ravelry, the mastermind behind Creatively Dyed Yarns. Dianne is a really prolific dyer and I've not seen one single colourway of the hundreds she has posted in our dye group that I wouldn't love to have. I didn't make it to her tent with the cash until Sunday, when much was gone already, but it was still nearly impossible to choose amongst the glamour of what was left! I narrowed it down to a range of fibre braids that were really grabbing me and just closed my eyes and reached in that general area of the rack and grabbed one.



This is her "Ocean" fibre (wool/Seacell) and I love the way the different dye takeup makes it look like seafoam.

I have a feeling you may see this again once Monique the JourneyWheel and I are finished with it.

Not Dead, Been Dyeing! (and spinning)

Check it out on the right! I've started loading the latest into Etsy. Sorry for the wait. Right after a moderately-successful Stitch'n'Kitsch, I dove headfirst into my spinning assignments for the OHS class, so the lag has just been in getting time at the keyboard to reload the online shop!

Here are a couple of my other ventures, not quite ready for sales yet: