Belated Fiber Friday: Phoenix Fyre

I forgot to make my post yesterday, because the day before my husband brought home a new (to me) desk. Unfortunately, it was all black and I really dislike black furniture, because it makes me depressed and at least for me, gives off that "college dorm" vibe. I've had more than my fair share of the black furniture, because hey, we need furniture, and it's cheap, readily available, and did I mention cheap?

The caveat to that amazing cheapness is that when you move around as much as we do, you're usually having to replace it. It's cheap in quality as well as price.

Anyway. This desk is probably not quite as cheap as the too-many-to-count book cases we've had to replace, but our neighbor is moving to Korea for duty, and his family cannot go with him, so they needed to unload some furniture. LOVE when that happens. :) We got it for a great price, and happened to have a mostly full quart of paint in one of my favorite colors (currently) to decorate with. A quick coat of paint in a dry brush technique... and by quick I mean it took me 6 hours total to get the whole thing painted, not including dry time between some pieces that needed two coats due to the paint beading up.

My new desk!!

So this is what I was doing most of the day yesterday. We got it moved into the house and I had just enough time to relax for about 30 minutes before getting ready to head out for dinner with some new friends, and their adorable, spiky haired three months old daughter. Obviously, it's not most of my stuff put back on it, but you can totally play "what's she working on?" and "spot the kitty."

The real reason you're here, is because of the new yarn. I am progressing into making some smaller dye lot colorways because it's fun. And why put a dye lot indicator on my label if I'm not going to use it?

Phoenix Fyre

Image courtesy of tigerworldent.com

Phoenix Fyre is made in the Puck base, and can be found in the shop here.

Time to put Zeke out to pasture: Getting a new sewing machine and website updates

I have been working diligently since last Thursday on getting things moved from Etsy to here, just to have to move from here over to my very own dot com in about a month or so. My brain is mush!!

I have added a shop page (you can find it in the navigation menu up yonder) and in that page, you'll be directed somewhere else based on the yarn weight and fiber type that you're looking for. Then you get to see all the pretty yarn. We had a very nice photo shoot the other evening, and they're ready to show you their best top model photos. Not all of them are entered in yet, as it's still a work in progress of it's own.

I'm also working on a very pretty shawl, and though I started it out to list for sale, I'm falling in love with it the more I work on it, and holy crap! It's actually being made from my very own hand dyed yarn. Puck will be pleased, as it falls under his "line."

I'm not normally this productive. (Hey, what I've been doing may not look like much, but I promise, mushy brain is mushy like over cooked oatmeal.) I'm bribing myself, and finding that it's working out pretty nicely. I want to do two things; 1: I want to play good ol' Caesar 3 - I really can't get enough of this game. It's so zen when you're playing on the city construction kit...or as I like to call it 'Piss Off, Caesar' mode. 2: we refinanced our car, and in the process got some money back from our previous lender, and my wonderful, loving, amazeballs hubby took me to the store to get a new sewing machine....and I want to touch it!

I unpacked it, and put it on my sewing spot and haven't messed with it at all. I've been such a good girl! I told myself that when I made decent progress on updating the shop portion of the site, I would be allowed to play with my new machine... well, I'm allowing myself to learn what all these new doohickeys do. My first machine is fifteen years old,  and you wouldn't think that a lot would change in sewing in fifteen years, but oh boy...this thing has functions that I can't even begin to fathom what they do.

I know I'm not the only one that names my...how do I say this without sounding dirty....oh heck, we'll just stick with machines. My computer's name is Jet, because he's all black and dark gray. My first sewing machine I named Zeke, and I'm not really sure why. But Zeke will be going to my son, since now we've got two machines that work, even though Zeke isn't in the best shape of his life.

Now, my new machine, I'm calling her Mildred. For no other reason than when she's fifteen years old, I can say things like, "Well, Old Girl, you gave it a good try, but I think it's time you went to see The Doctor."

Here's a picture of Mildred. No, this isn't staged to show off the pretty yarn sitting next to her, that's just how it happened to be (aka: I pulled out the yarn so when making the entries for each skein, I didn't get the name wrong. Can you imagine how pissed Blue Fairy would be if I called her Cinderella?)

Do you name your sewing machine or laptop? I'd love to hear what you call him/her/them.

Why Another Hobby?

I know my husband thinks it, even if he's totally amazeballs and never says it. He's always 100% supportive and very honestly just wants my happiness. But I can see it for the most brief of moments, "Another craft?"  Which for most translates to, more money on crap that will sit around the house? Not for him, which is awesome. I know he just looks at our space and wonders where it's all going to fit, and when I'll find that one thing that satisfies me and I will never need another hobby.

Well, for my husband, and anyone else who wonders why the heck I need another hobby when I already knit, crochet, spin, and dye. This is pulled straight from The Colette Sewing Handbook:

We have no shortage of choice when it comes to picking what we want to wear. With constantly rotating trends, new looks, and "must-haves" every season, the simple act of dressing yourself can often feel overwhelming. [Not exactly overwhelming as it is depressing.] We're constantly urged to try new styles, and it's true that they can be exciting and fun. But if you're anything like me, deep down, all you really want is a closet filled with your favorite things. [YES!] These are the clothes that make you happy to put on, that make you feel like yourself. Instead, many of us feel that we have a closet stuffed with clothes and nothing we want to wear.

 It goes on to say that sewing your own clothing can magnify this problem. Ha! She does not know me. I am shorter than 5 feet, and so very, very tired of nothing fitting. Petite usually means rail thin, not built with shorter measurements. I used to shop in the Junior section...and then I had kids and my hips grew. I have several pairs of jeans, but I only wear one pair. No exaggeration. One pair. Because when I go to the store, they either fit my hips and butt right where I want them, but the waist is too high and nearly in my arm pits, or the length is too long and I'm walking on the bottoms of every pair of pants that I own. Or the length is right, but they're far too tight in the thighs and cut off my circulation around the middle. I have one pair of jeans because when I first bought them, they fit in the hips, didn't sag off my butt, weren't too high, and holy crap, they were extra short! I don't walk on them!!!... and they were the only pair left in the entire store.

Clearly, I'm not alone.

I would love  to have a closet full of clothes that actually fit me. Tired of buying shirts that are lowish on normal sized women, but when I put them on, the cut is so low, a boob is hanging out and the whole gym locker room can see the color of my bra.

So please, bring on the problem of having a closet full of clothes, and I still can't decide what to wear, because I want to wear it all.

I'm Going to Do It!!

Over the weekend, HusbandPerson and I cleaned out our under the stair storage area, that was supposed to be a craft area/study closet. Yes, it's that big.

We had it crammed full of stuff that we didn't really have a place for but didn't want to throw away. (Yes, I will some day use that rather large art portolio case.) Most of the space was taken up by half or less than half full boxes. So we unpacked them, put their contents (mostly yarn) in their homes, and put in a couple of cheap but very tall and narrow book cases that I got for a steal from a local garage sale community on Facebook. It's amazing how much more space you can find when you store vertically!

Anyway, while sorting and unpacking and placing, I found all my sewing patterns, fabrics, and my machine. Hooray! I knew it was in there somewhere! I'm going to do it! I'm going to finally take out my fabrics and do some thingmakery!

I really, really want to finish cleaning up the mess that we made when we organized. I do feel like we need one more bookcase to put paints, brushes, and papers on. So I will probably get to that before I get to cutting and sewing. Until we get another bookcase, I really don't have much of a choice but to put all those boxes back in and make my pretty new place all ugly.

My crafting closet; at the entrance

The top of my two new bookcases. One has fabric and a creepy head, the other has dye stuff and Gold Canyon candles.

The wire rack right across from the other two book cases. Has base yarn, dye stuff, two yarn swifts, packing materials, shipping materials, and my massage table next to it (topped with colorful project bags)

All the way back and to the right, oh what's this?? More storage space! This is the only part of the room I have to duck to get into. The level part of the ceiling is roughly 9 feet high.

Just in case you didn't see yet...

I'm super excited!! My first ever international yarning! Off to Ireland!

Just the thought of them being in another country has made my morning. :D

New home!

Getting set up here did not take as long as I thought it would! As much as I love the versatility of Wordpress, and would love to be there, I chose this place because of its integration with Google. I love me some Google.

So here we are. Take off your shoes, stay a while. I'll work on posting more than once every 3-4 months. In the mean time, thank you all so much for moving with us. I see this as a smaller apartment, with just the right amount of cozy, and cheaper rent. Cheaper rent is totally a good thing. In fact, it's free. Free is good, because I always forget to include overhead costs in the prices of our yarn, and it costs us in the long run.

The upkeep on the website wasn't expensive. I think we spent $200 in the course of 2 years, which is pretty darn good for web hosting as far as I'm concerned. If you want to know who we went through, I'll be happy to share. If blogger cannot contain our awesome in the coming years, we'll be going with them again.

Moving here was mainly a financial decision. It's hard to be a craft person in the age of disposable everything and consumerism. So that being said, give us your money! Buy our yarn!

Seriously.

I think if you click on the picture you can see it larger. I realize this is the same batch that we've been pushing for a while, but we need it to sell in order to bring you new stuff. That's the way commerce works and all that.

Titania: Fingering weight. Superwash Merino. Sparkle!
Puck: Fingering weight. Superwash Merino. Nylon.
Oberon: Worsted weight. Superwash Merino.

ADOPTED: 23; 24; 26; 28; 30; 31


If you're interested in doing bulk orders (10 skeins or more) for custom dyes, we are now willing to work with you on that. Just keep in mind our process. We are not a large industrial dye company. Skeins will vary.