April Showers

April is almost half over already! This is both fantastic and shocking to me. I haven't done much so far this month. I made a corespun from various handfuls of the uncarded, dyed wool pictured below. I also started to spin the purple batts into a gorgeous lace-weight yarn. Hopefully it will photograph better as a yarn than it did as a batt. It's about 28 wpi, and I originally intended to navajo-ply it, but I don't know if I will anymore. It'd make a great 2-ply as well, but I don't remember how much I started with, weight-wise, so I have no idea when I will be halfway. I've put about 6 hours in already, and my bobbin isn't even half full. I've not even gotten halfway through the second batt of it yet, either. I'm hoping I'll get lots of yardage--maybe around 500 yards or so? That might be pushing it, though. Anyway, that's what I'm up to.

I forget if I mentioned it before, but I finished one of the doghair socks. I need to take a picture or three of it, and I need to make yarn for the other sock, since I seriously underestimated my required yardage.

Goodbye, March.

There are the batt pictures I promised. I ended up only getting through four of the seven batt bags. Another of the bags turned into this yarn:

"Princess and the Parrot", 169 yards, corespun and plied with feathers and sequins:



In addition, I got a raw fleece from my LYS and I dyed it up with Wilton's. I have all sorts of fun, bright colors, and I've been experimenting with acidic conditions and Red #3 (it's lots of fun!).

Here's me skirting the fleece and some pictures of the post-wash product:








I really like it. Some parts are curlyish, while others still have crimp. Here are a few pictures of the brightest of the dyeing:






I still don't have any good purples, because I haven't picked up a violet dye yet. Mixing red and blue doesn't work out as well as I thought it might. I've had lots of fun and learned a bit dyeing this fleece. The majority of the fuzz pictured here was taken by the owner of the LYS, because I agreed to bring her back part of it seeing as how she gave me the fleece for free. I still have somewhere between 4 and 6 ounces of fleece left to dye, though, so once I decide what colors I don't have enough of, I can fix my predicament. I will definitely be dyeing more of the orange, and without the green. I also ordered another white fleece online today, and am in the process of acquiring a black fleece as well. I'm excited!! The method I used for cleaning the fleece was fast and easy. Very good deal.

That's all out of me for the evening...I've got to get to bed. I finished one of the dog hair socks, so a picture of that to come, as well as the yarn I make for the next one (I ran out after the first sock somehow...silly me, not planning well enough!). The sock fits perfectly, though, and he's really pleased about it. I'm glad, because this project has taken me wayyyyy too long. I'm hoping the second sock goes faster now that I know what I'm doing. Anyway, goodnight!

More in March

Spring break came and went. I lost some teeth, did next to nothing, and went a little batty. Pictures to come! I made up 7 bags of rovings and fibers to card into batts, and I only got through four. One is now being corespun into a yarn that is so far turning out well for me. The other two are likely to be corespun as well. Again, pictures to come. I don't think I got much else done since my last post. I finished the third February block and I'm on round 9 of the fourth. I also started my March blocks. I didn't like the pattern that was chosen, so I used a filler that someone posted. I REALLY like it so far! It looks really pretty in the variegated yarn I'm using, as well. I kind of want to make a whole blanket with that pattern and that yarn...maybe some other time ;)

As I said, pictures to come. Back later!

March is here!

It's been a while. I guess things have just been busy around here. Mostly I've got a few yarns to share. No new crochet, the socks aren't done, the hat isn't done, my sewing machine isn't here yet, and I haven't made any batts. Oh! I built a lightbox so I can take better pictures. I didn't take a picture of it, though. Anyway, I used the tutorial available here: http://www.studiolighting.net/homemade-light-box-for-product-photography/

So, onto the yarns:

This one I only dyed. I used Wilton's, it's sock yarn, yadayada. It's 100 g (300 meters) and it's all wool. I call it 'Tahiti Sunset'.

In this bag are 2 oz of locks, 2 oz of superwash, and LOTS of glitz (although you can't see it in this picture). Here's the yarn it made, called 'Fairies and Dragons':

From the roving I didn't like comes this slightly-blurry picture of yarn, called 'Fingerpaints':
The next two are navajo-ply yarns. The first is 80/20 merino/silk and the second is wool with a little mohair (<10%).



Up next is 'Tumbleweed', a hemp yarn plied with cotton and glass beads:

And the newest additions to my yarn family. 'A Phoenix Reborn' and a nameless red superwash, some of which was used to complete the aforementioned yarn:


I think that's all I've got for now. As always, all the yarns here are for sale. You can get them in my Etsy store (linked in the left column of this blog), or if you see something here that isn't listed yet, comment me or email me or something.

Oh, and whenever I finally finish the layout for my site, I'll be available at http://www.kimscraftythings.com.

February, so far.

Let's see. What's happened since my last post?

...I guess I haven't been very productive.
Basically, I crocheted two and a half of my four blocks for this month of the crochetalong. I also finished that dog hair yarn (finally!) and dyed it today. Oh! And I made three batts in the same colorway, available as a set, totaling almost 5 ounces.

Pictures:

Heart block #1

Heart block 2
Heart blocks 1 and 2 cuddling on our indoor porch swing!


Dog hair yarn before.

Dog hair yarn drying after dyeing (I still liked it better before it turned blue).
A picture of one of the batts. It's hard to see the gray and the glitz in this picture, but you can see all the lovely green and teal.
And the yarn it turns into. Again, hard to see the gray and the glitz, but they are definitely there.

Also, I had a couple of incidences with my food dyes:


This is after he purposely ate some of my royal blue Wilton's, rubbed it around on his lips and teeth, and then liberally applied his toothbrush and toothpaste to the blue areas. If you look closely, you can see that his lips are still tinged blue.


Aaand...freshly consumed kelly green. His finger turned green, because he rubbed it around on his teeth, too. How silly.

Also, it was Joel's birthday a few days ago. Here's a close-up of one of the lilies that I bought him [lilies smell gross, by the way]:
I can't wait for spring.

More stuff.

Sooo...

I spun cotton (ew) and flax (hooray!). I still have to do hemp. I still have to spin the dog hair for those socks [ASAP, hey?!]. I ordered some more locks from dyeingforcolor.etsy.com so that I can make another fun art yarn. Ooh, I just had a great idea for that yarn. I'll go write it down.

My mom gave me this really pretty journal with gorgeous artsy horses on the cover for a Christmas gift in 2007. I never used it, as I never thought of something good to use it for. Today I decided that I will write down my ideas for fiber projects in there, so that I can look back and see what I was thinking. I show you guys the final product and share what I did and didn't like about things, but keeping the process a secret is kind of a good idea :P

So, the cotton:
So far, I don't like cotton. This is partially because I'm not used to it, and partially because I have always preferred long staple. This cotton had a staple of 1/4 to 1/2", and it wasn't very fun. Because it is so short, it needs a lot of twist. But, I spun it thin, as it was difficult to make thick, and thin yarns need less twist. Anyway, I ended up with too much twist. But I think it makes the yarn more interesting, because it would be a boring old cotton yarn otherwise. Maybe I'm just biased towards plain yarns. Lots of people like them. I just prefer fun ones.
Hm, that's not a very good picture, is it. Anyway, that's the flax I spun. I enjoyed it because it has a looooooong staple. It also didn't take as long to spin as the cotton did, both because the flax was spun more thickly and because cotton is such a light fiber to begin with.

And the roving:
Guess what I did wrong! Yep, I didn't use the turkey baster. Oh, besides that? I don't think I put enough color into the dye. I'm still working out the Wilton's dyes. I guess more is better...but I like the colors that came out where the dye actually took/touched the wool. This is superwash, by the way, so I can redye it all I want without worrying about felting. I'm going to spin it before I do anything else, because I might end up liking what turns out.

Anyway, that's about it. I still haven't finished my first February square, because I'm chicken and it's not working out quite right. That's all for now. More to come (obviously!).

Happenings.

I finished the shell of the crocheted hat. Now to get polarfleece for the lining...I'm also waiting on my sewing machine to arrive. I'll have to use it here on my desk where my laptop normally sits, but I'm not too worried about that.

I used up half of the cotswold locks I got from dyeingforcolor.etsy.com. I ordered four ounces. Then I split the bag in half. I took one half in a plastic grocery bag to the local fiber shop and found matching roving colors. I also picked up some angelina for glitz.


I really like it. It might even be my favorite over Starry Night, despite the fact that I enjoy cool colors much more than warm ones.

I also did a little dyeing. In my head I had bright colors, and I used grey wool. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, now the gray has undertones of color, and I can't decide if it will spin up nicely or if it will be gross. I'm probably going to navajo ply it and call it "Dyer's Regret". On the plus side, it didn't felt!!

What else...Oh, I started my February squares for the crochet-along. The craftster pattern has a heart in the middle (gag me), so I'm using the Ravelry square as a filler after I do two of the heart squares. Bleh.

Speaking of which, "bleh" is how I feel today...I want to stay home and craft all day. Yarn yarn yarn, all day long...I wish. I have class, and I'm becoming more and more late for work the longer I sit here. Irresponsible. So, off I go to start the day.