Dyed in the Wool: July 2009

New Roving! And more!

Labels: hackle, novelty yarn, roving, spinning, supplies, yarn | at 1:03 PM

I just got my roving, yay yay yay!!! I ordered it from Blarney Yarns on Sunday and I got it today, and the nice lady even included a 1 oz sample of some gorgeous green hand-painted roving with it! Yaaaaay! <3>.<

It's so ridiculously gorgeously soft... <3

AND! I went to Kroger earlier and I found a laundry bag there, and they also had these wide-tooth combs without handles that are absolutely perfect for making a hackle, so I'm going to do that soon, hopefully. Also, my mom bought me another book on handspinning (Teach Yourself Visually: Handspinning) and it's REALLY helpful and there's lots of interesting ideas and helpful informations in there. The best part is, it talks about spinning novelty yarns! Jeez, I didn't think I could get any more enthusiastic about spinning but I DID and now I just wanna spin spin spin spin spin! <3

Sorry for such a spastic post, but YAY! My first quality roving! It's so cuddly, I want to curl up with it like a teddy bear!

Spinning my first art yarn!

Labels: dying, roving, scarf, spinning, yarn | at 10:07 PM

I know, I promised pictures and I haven't posted any. I'll get around to it! I went back and re-dyed the roving, and dyed another as well. I've already started spinning them up.

One thing I've had a problem with is joining two pieces of roving. I noticed it really badly when I was drafting the dyed roving, and then again today when I was about to set the twist for what I'd spun thus far. About halfway through, the green bit just slid right off the red. I had to tie them back together really quickly so I could keep on winding the yarn off my spindle. It was incredibly frustrating. And it's not the first time it's happened!

Anyway, I forgot to relay the most exciting news of all.

My dad gave me the go-ahead to buy some wool off of Etsy! It was mailed out today, and I should be getting it sometime this week! Yay! I can't wait! Especially since I sweet-talked my mom into buying me some dye the other day, so now I can make beautimous colors!

Oh, and speaking of dye... Don't look at Sam Moon for a white silk scarf. They do not have it. I guarantee you. I searched that place for almost half an hour for any solid light-colored scarf made from a protein fiber. NOTHING. Once I got all excited because I saw a bunch of pashmina scarves. Then I noticed that the tag said something along the lines of

Pashmina feel (10% rayon 10% cotton 80% polyester)

Not cool, Sam Moon.

Not cool. At all.

I'm officially a spinning addict.

Labels: dying, roving, spinning | at 2:26 AM

A couple of nights ago, I was so desperate to spin something that I found a couple of new pill bottles, pulled out the cotton, and spun up a little ball of nubby crochet thread. Luckily, my mother realized that I was probably going to shave the cat if something wasn't done soon. This morning, she woke me up by tossing four little bags of JoAnn's felting wool on my head. I have to admit, I was surprised at her color choices -- "Moss Green" and "Red" -- but for all I care, she could have gotten Dirty-Diaper Brown. I'm gonna be spinning again soon!

Let's face it, though. Spinning red and moss green is going to look like a lame Christmas decoration, and that's definitely not the look I've got in mind. So... After everyone went to bed...

I dyed my first roving.

I took one package of the red and dyed it with a deep yellowish green, in hopes of darkening and mellowing out the bright red color. It's almost dried now, and I don't think it took as much of the color as I was hoping. I'll probably wind up re-dying it later in the same color.

My inspiration for this yarn is kind of a weird one. A while ago, I got some shampoo and conditioner and I absolutely fell in love with the way it smells. It's pomegranate green tea and it smells divine. Told you it was weird.

So! Pictures will be up later today hopefully. Much love!

Kirsten

Harry Potter and the World's Longest Scarf

Labels: charity, crochet, Harry Potter, patterns, scarf, yarn | at 8:20 PM

Yes, I am still alive! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've had a case of crafter's block, which you may know as granny's square. (I know, I know... lame.) Also, I've spent a lot of time hanging out with my very best friend, who just moved back into the area last week. Gotta make up for six months without him!

And, of course, I went to the midnight release of --- and subsequently drooled over --- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

What an awesome movie. Kudos, David Yates, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon, Evanna Lynch, David Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and whoever that girl was who played Lavender. Kudos to you all.

Anyway, enough fangirl giggling from me.

I've been doing a lot of digging on craft sites (all of which I will link once I've gotten the blogger interface figured out) and I came across a few awesome sites in particular, the first of which is berroco.com. Remember that best friend I mentioned earlier? His birthday is two weeks from yesterday. I'm pinching pennies, so I'm going to make him something. I was on the usual pattern sites for ages before I found this little gem. Highly recommended.

I also found Three Irish Girls. This site is awesome. In addition to having some of the most gorgeous yarns for sale, they also sell dyes and instruction books on how to dye your own yarn with stunning results.

But mostly, I want to draw your attention to Keep The Fleece. This site is many things. It is a celebration of the United Nations declaring 2009 to be the year of natural fibers. There are competitions in which the contestants submit items created of various categories of fibers. But what I'm really interested in is the collaborative project to create the world's longest scarf. Teams from all over the world will knit, crochet, weave, or felt lengths of scarves that are 9 inches wide. The scarf segments will then be joined together at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival on the 17th and 18th of August. The money raised from this project will go toward Heifer International, which will use it to provide needy families with fleece-bearing animals and training to look after the animals so that they can grow the herd's numbers and eventually become capable of supporting themselves financially. The scarf will be disassembled into normal scarf-length sections, and these scarves will be given to those who need them.

When I found out about the project, I immediately registered a team. In fact, in my rush to sign up, I almost forgot to ask the members of my team if they wanted to participate. I took up my hook, grabbed a skein of yarn, and got to work as soon as I'd registered the team. I have wanted for months to do something with this yarn, because it's just so fluffy and pretty. It's black and teal and lavender, and I love it.

I'll keep you updated on the scarf's progress. Hurry, go, register to make your own sections! Or, if you're not able to help with the scarf itself, donate on the site.

Ooh, maybe they'll let me take it with me if I go see Half-Blood Prince again....

Till next time,

Kirsten

Felting a bar of soap

Labels: felt, how to, soap | at 1:44 PM

So the other day I decided to make something for my best friend's mother, (and my second mother) Ginny from GinnyGoesGreen.com.

When I got home, I grabbed a bar of super fancy designer soap that I'd gotten for my birthday from a friend and never actually used. (Smells great, though, it came with the Curve perfume basket thing.) I opened up my packet of pink wool roving from JoAnn's, laid the soap down on the roving, and wrapped the wool around the soap. Then I turned the bar around and wrapped the wool perpendicular to the stuff already on the bar.

The feting instructions I'd read said that the wool would be loose and slide around a lot, and boy were they right. I was practically clinging on for dear life. Anyway, I dribbled hot water over the bar a few times until it was saturated and then gently began to massage the wool until I saw suds, slowly turning the bar in my hands. Once it felt like it was not in danger of escaping, I began to just wash my hands with the soap as normal, spinning the bar around in my hands as I rubbed. When I saw that this wouldn't get anything done, I continued washing my hands, but upped the intensity to that of Lady Macbeth.

A word of advice - Do not make a fist and use your knuckles to give the soap a noogie. You WILL get a rug burn on your knuckles.

So at long last, the wool began to shrink around the bar. The corners peeked through a bit, but I was too exhausted to fix it. On my first try, the wool piled up in the back and even after it was totally felted, it kind of flopped around a little bit. I shrugged it off and tried again. My second try was more successful, though it still wasn't perfect. I tied a bow around it with a piece of yarn that I'd spun, gave it to Ginny, and she loved it (once I told her what the heck it was.)

Felting is not as easy as it sounds. It's exhausting. But BOY is it fun. If you have ever played in the sink with the water and the soap when you were a kid, you'll love felting a bar of soap.

As for using the soap, I put mine to the test. It took forever to get it to lather on the first try, but once I got it going, the lather was GREAT. The next time I used it, it was a lot easier to get it to lather. I have to admit, I love using it. It's an awesome project. I will post pictures soon.

Till next time,

Kirsten

Awkward First Post

Labels: crochet, dying, felting, knit, spinning, yarn | at 9:31 PM

For my first post, I think it's appropriate to have an introduction. I'm Kirsten, and I stink at blogging. I update regularly for a while (if I'm lucky) and then I just abandon the things completely, only to come across them months later. Hopefully this one will be different, since it's actually about something specific, whereas the rest have just been a glorified diary.

So, then, what is the point of this? It's pretty simple. Lately I've been finding new hobbies and interests that catch my eye. With each one comes a new obsession, and they're all really freaking cool. Even better, most of them interact, so I won't lose interest in one when I discover another. How, you may ask, do you keep finding all these hobbies?

The answer is simple. I happen to be looking at something relevant to my interests, and a word or phrase or link pops out at me. Curious, I investigate further, and eventually it leads to the discovery of a whole new subject. You may know it as the Wikipedia Effect, but it doesn't always take place on Wikipedia. I happened to be browsing a handmade shopping site a few weeks ago, looking at what hand-knitted and -crocheted items were on sale to see whether I could make something to sell. As I was browsing, I came across a beautiful knitted top. It cost close to a hundred dollars, so I knew I couldn't order it. But it looked fairly simple. I'm not a knitter, but I could learn. And what was it that the top was made of? Tea-dyed muslin and slub yarn? What on earth was slub yarn? Simple enough to find out, thanks to trusty Google. A slub yarn is a yarn that is intentionally spun with the occasional thick, fluffy imperfection, rather than being spun the same thickness all the way through. I was curious. I hadn't ever heard of slubs before. Imperfection? I finally found a page that explained how the wool had to be drafted before it could be spun, and that the thinner the section of wool, the more twist it would take. The fat parts wouldn't spin very much, and that would create a slub yarn. Before I knew it, my interest in crocheting had turned to an interest in spinning.

And spinning led to dying the yarn and felting.

So now, dear reader, I profess myself to be cursed with arts-and-crafts ADD. That is the reason that I require a place to keep people updated on my current hobbies. And that is the reason, too, that this blog came into existence.

Till next time,

Kirsten

New Roving! And more!

Spinning my first art yarn!

I'm officially a spinning addict.

Harry Potter and the World's Longest Scarf

Felting a bar of soap

Awkward First Post

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