Showing posts with label yarn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yarn. Show all posts

Saturday, August 9, 2014

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.
















Friday, July 25, 2014

Fiber Friday: A Pink/Purple/White Fingering Weight Skein of Gorgeous Yarn: Cheshire

Right now, I can't promise a new colorway every week, but I am Really excited about this one, with a capital R. I kept going back and forth on this one. Do I keep it? Do I see if it sells for X amount of time and then keep it?

In the end, I am trying my best to provide great colorways for you, so that I can buy more yarn from the mill, and make more gorgeous colorways. I worked really hard yesterday on this site and re-arranging furniture in our house to make more room for the ever expanding studio area, so I'm going to keep this short, as I totally rocked it out and earned a fun day.


You can find this skein and others by clicking the link "To the shop!" in the navigation menu.

Meet Cheshire. A pinky purpley mauvey with a hint of brown skein in Puck. While I think Cheshire would be great for some sock, I think he'd make an even better simple shawl to show off his colors. We all know Chesh is a bit of a show off. ;)

Colorway: Cheshire
Weight: Fingering
Yards: 438
Material: 75% Superwash Merino Wool / 25% Nylon
Dye lot: None
Available: 1

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

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.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Yellow and Gray Hand Dyed Superwash Merino Yarn and Coat of Arms

Yesterday, I broke out the dye pot because I wanted to make for myself some butter yellow and gray yarn, because those are my favorite colors right now. I love the color play between the two. If done right, it can be gorgeous and no bumble bee like at all.

However...

I was using a dye that I haven't tested yet, and I really know better. Sometimes, my excitement to make someone that I know I will love gets the better of me. Here's how it turned out:
You can find this skein of yarn, and others by clicking the link in the header named: To the shop!

While I adore how gorgeous the gray came out, the yellow was a bit brighter than I wanted. When I showed it to my husband, he went into a Google-fu flurry and pulled up his family crest.



 I started laughing, because the colors match so perfectly!! So here it is, a new skein of yarn and it actually has a name!!

Yarn Company: Little Bit Fae
Name: Puck
Colorway: Coat of Arms
Weight: Fingering
Yards: 438
Material: 75% Superwash Merino Wool/25% Nylon
Dye lot: None

If you want to check out his family crest, or look up what yours is, I've found HeraldicJewelry.com to be pretty helpful.

Monday, June 16, 2014

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.

Friday, May 30, 2014

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