February Happenings

Results are in for the Phoenix, and they accepted all my yarns and the scarf! They may not end up putting all of them in the finished publication, for overall balance of composition, but the important part is that some will be shown :)

I did a bit of dyeing a couple of weeks ago. Here are the pictures!

Tropical Fish, 2 oz:



Ruby Tuesday, 2 oz:



Aaaaand! I got a new digital camera that gets colors accurately <3 It's super sweet. Awesome image stabilization, good macro, options equivalent to a film camera in manual mode, 12.2 megapixels...and all for $100!!

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited.

I've been taking a pottery class this quarter and once I get everything home aft er the quarter is over, I'll take pictures and make a post with everything in it. :)

.

I did a little dyeing this evening - 2 oz of a new colorway, and 2 oz of a repeat colorway that I put on a new wool. I'll add pictures once it's dry. I got lots of super bright colors and although I don't love the repeat colorway as much as I did on solid white wool, it's got potential as well. It might be prettier after spinning than its predecessor; we'll see.

The other thing I forgot to mention last post! Clark College has an art publication called the Phoenix that has been nationally recognized. I submitted a few yarns as well as my clapotis for jury. I'm not sure when I'll hear back, but the deadline for submissions is this Thursday, Feb. 10, so I imagine I'll know a few weeks after that.

The Good vs. Evil yarn I started almost a year ago I now plan to send to the Handspun Revolution for display in the giant skein of yarn they're making. I have to work on it, first, but it's not due till March. I have it out and I plan to put in a little time this evening but we'll see how it works out.

I am actually in the mood for more dyeing but I have other things to get to, so I'm letting the quarter pound be enough for tonight. Perhaps next weekend.

Happy (Belated) 2010!

I haven't been up to much. I guess that's what happens when life gets busy!

I did make a clapotis which it appears I haven't posted here (pics later). I bought 2 drop spindles recently - unusual for me, since I'm all about wheel-spinning, but more on that in a second. I've been spinning a 70/30 merino/tencel blend to ply with my black bear/qiviut/doghair yarn, since it's too fragile on its own for the needle size I have now, as well as for durability.

I picked up a 1.7-ish oz Ashford drop spindle from The Weaving Works in Seattle, recommended to me by my aunt Gail, and a 3-oz Schacht hi-lo drop spindle from Northwest Wools in Portland. I like them both for different reasons, but the Schacht is really what I was looking for. It spins for a longer time without needing additional momentum due to its weight, and I'll be able to make more heavy-duty yarns with it. I'm not sure why I bought them, except that I haven't been getting enough yarn in my life, and I need to be able to take it with me. I'm learning the beauty of dropspindle yarn, and though it does take longer, I have more control over each section of the yarn. I'll be exploring thick-and-thin yarns once I do a bit more test yarn on the Schacht. I am spinning the merino/tencel for plying on the Ashford, even though the yarn I'll ply it with was wheel-spun. It might not make a difference, and it might add more character. I'll find out soon enough! I will be wheel-plying, since I don't even want to mess with plying on a drop spindle until I have more practice.

I have dyeing and completion of a very fun art yarn on my to-do list for this weekend. I'm hoping to get a couple of new listings in my Artfire.

Sockies

I finished Joel's socks last night and they look great! Plus now his feet are super warm and he is really enjoying them. And these won't shrink! I didn't even get a picture of the last ones before they got shrunken to toddler-size :(

But! I got a whole pair of mens-size-11 socks out of 200 yards of heavy-worsted-weight yarn. And after working on the Clapotis for a couple of weeks, the socks were super quick!

I also just had a shop update at http://kimscorner.artfire.com. I like to keep different items listed in my Artfire and Etsy, so check them both out :)

So Far in December

I made a clapotis. I like it very much and I am waiting impatiently for the blocking to dry so that I can wear it! Pictures and such are available at http://www.ravelry.com/projects/knkurz/clapotis along with a day-to-day description of the project. Now I'm finishing pair 2 of Joel's socks, and after that I'll be working on a pattern called Diagonale with my 1122 yards of handspun cobweb silk. Other projects in the mix include re-backing Joel's quilt, making the rest of the curtains for the house, finishing my quilt top, and spinning the angora I currently have collected off of Bunny FooFoo.

Pictures of the silk:



And the Clapotis, dubbed "Symphony" [the colors appear very similar in the pictures, but this is made from a very different yarn than the silk lace]:

Things I've Been Up To:

-Created the FPGS bags!
-Quilt
-Angora
-Nylon/sock blend
-He estado practicando espanol [my computer doesn't do the accents and tildes in any manner that is quick or easy. Hooray, laptop.]
-Curtains

So! The Fiber Porn Grab-and-Spin Bags are officially in my store! I put them up on the 26th of October and I've created a couple more colorways since, which haven't been listed yet. I have been bagging samples to send to PhatFiber, which I plan to mail out soon. I also need to mail some yarns to my aunt for an event at which there may be an opportunity for my yarns to sell.

Pictures of dyeing and FPGS bags:




Speaking of dyeing, I dyed this batt which I personally think is SUPER ugly:

Which spun into this very gorgeous yarn:
And this other batt which I haven't spun yet but which looks promising:



Okay, on to quilts! My bestie in the whole wide world made this quilt for me and mailed it to me and it's warm and super awesome!

And here is the quilt I mentioned last post:

It's not done yet, but it's getting super close and I'm excited and it's gorgeous and OOOOH!

I got a bunch of wool off my bunny

and I spun it and I thought it was 1.25 oz but after the air got out of it all it only weighs 0.5 oz. But it's pretty and soft and it's a loooooovely fawn color:


Also new - the Fiber Porn Nylon Sock Blend! at least 25% nylon blended with superwash, hand-carded by me!

I also made it in a light green. More colors to come later, but it's gorgeous and shimmery and I can't wait to see someone make it into socks!

Okay, this was picture-heavy and I don't feel like lots of words. See you all next time!

Order is here!! Plus, FPGS Bags

I got the SSS order this morning and I've already dyed 10 oz of wool. I'm putting together a new product: Fiber Porn Grab-and-Spin (FPGS) bags. They will be very similar to this:


Basically a grab bag of fun stuff for making art yarns. Many of these first bags will have rovings, locks, and glitz, with the potential for other goodies thrown in. As the product develops, who knows what will be mixed in?

Feedback for this idea/for the actual product will be much appreciated. I'll be sending samples in to Jessie at PhatFiber, so hopefully some readers will get a chance to test drive the FPGS bags.

In other news, I'm still hard at work on both my quilt and the curtains for our apartment. I got one set of curtains done and they look very nice. I've had to do some unstitching and some trimming for the quilt but it's progressing nicely. Once I get all these pinwheels done, I'll add borders to the blocks and then piece together the keyboards. I'm way excited for this quilt and I want to get it done.

Tomorrow I am helping a lady from Alaska set up at the Portland, OR Farmer's Market (or some other fair that's going on??? But, I'm 95% sure it's the FM). I'm excited to talk to her about how she got established enough as an artist to be successful at the farmer's market and all the steps she took for paperwork and documentation (like business licenses and income tax, etc.). I think it will be fun. I'm optimistic at least :)

What else, what else... Oh, things for the future. I'll be developing a sock blend with nylon and offering the blend both as fiber and as yarn. My best friend made me a quilt and it should arrive soon, so I'll post that. I'm super excited to see it. She's also coming to visit around New Year's, which is even more exciting!!

Bunny FooFoo still hates to be groomed, but she figured out that papaya pellets are tasty so we're finally combating the wool block successfully. The unpeeled banana slices were only doing so much...my roommate is building her a new hutch so once that gets made, I'm going to cut her coat. I'm tired of fighting her and I'm tired of her having to get angry at me. I don't like angry rabbits. When she gets older and I've got a better setup, I'll breed her and I'll keep one of the babies for myself and handle it all the time so it is friendly and completely used to humans. If anyone's got pointers for me on grooming-breaking her, I'd love to hear them...I'd rather hand-groom her regularly than shear her coat.

Drum carder is still on the back burner. Waiting on loans...they're finally getting processed, though. Hooray...