The Yarn Harlot (with links!)

The Yarn Harlot is a lady who knits. Kind of like the lady who hilps but this one knits. And she knits well. It's impressive. Anyway, she's recently undertaken the task of riding in one of those charitable bike rides, where people pledge money for her riding a bike, and it's donated to help people with HIV/AIDS. She became the top fundraiser for the rally, thanks to the knitters who follow her blog.

She has an interesting take on knitters and how they view the world. I like it. She says it better than I could try to relay it, so I'll just link you on over to her. I recommend reading it.

In other news, I'd love it if you'd like my Facebook page! Once we get to 50 Likes, I'm giving away a Luna Lovegood scarf, in a color that has yet to be determined! This is the first one I made >>

I gave this one to my dear friend from college who is about to travel to a faraway country to adopt a sweet toddler with special needs. The giveaway scarf will be brand new and specifically for the winner.







Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I have to clean my room today. Don't you love imposing rules on yourself as an adult? That's a conversation for another day.

In the works...

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not the most organized person on earth. I have plenty of organizational materials, but somehow, organization seems to escape them. I don't know why. *side note - as I sat here typing this, I suddenly wanted to put some backs on some earrings and started to: "OOH, I'm gonna put --- No. I'm going to focus and finish this, and then finish those." Amanda laughed. She's helping me organize today.

To get back to the update -- Amanda is helping me organize, and sort out some earrings. We're making sets, deciding what colors and shapes and patterns go together. I love it.


So that's what is in the works. This is what's coming up in the shop. More organization, more patterns and sets and designs and colors and, if you ask me, magic.

sneak peek

Tomorrow I plan to try spinning again. We'll see how that goes.

Fabriiiiic

Look what magic Amanda found on our Hobby Lobby run.

Oh lord.

Featured Seller Interview - w/ updates!

The AREtsy blog featured my work for the month of July. Click the link to see the original post and its photos! However, after I submitted my answers to the questions, I realized I'd left out some key information. I wanted to add a few updates!

aren't we precious!

I forgot to mention that my mom and her side of the family have been influential in my work. My mom made a lot of stuff when my siblings and I were young. She did a lot of cross stitching needlework, sewed the stockings we still use at Christmas, and made our Easter dresses one year. The one standing up but almost falling over laughing? That would be me. Mom's obviously the one with the sexy 1994 haircut and red dress, which I'm sure has shoulder pads.

we keep utensils next to the whipped cream vodka

Another question asked which handmade possession I most cherish. I do love the painting I mentioned, but more than that I love a set of pottery my friend Zach Neel made for my kitchen. He is a fantastic artist in general, very creative and very dedicated- but his ceramic work is just really solid. I love it. He made two containers (I don't know what the technical word is for them), one for sugar and one for flour, and a utensil holder. They've survived multiple moves with little to no injury. I think one lid broke once, but it glued back together easily. I love these things.

All right, I guess I only had 2 changes to note.

The Yarn Mart had a sale... oh, snap.

I had just gotten off work yesterday when I got a text from my roommate: Did you see Meredith's status? Apparently Yarn Mart is having a sale.

My plans changed immediately, and I ran- literally- to The Yarn Mart. No, I drove. Anyway. I made it there before closing to find that they were going to be open an additional three hours beyond their normal closing time. More excitement. Long story short, I made out like a bandit. Nine skeins of yarn for under $25. I decided to photograph the loot.

This is the lot of it.

Soft yellow Soft Linen

 Four yellow skeins and five skeins of mixed colors.








This yellow Soft Linen was made in Romania for Reynolds Yarns. I saw Romania on the label, so naturally had to grab multiple skeins. Whatever is made from the Soft Linen is mine, just on principle... the principle that it was made in Romania, the home country of my heart.

This Tempo yarn is a cotton/acrylic blend made in Italy, apparently. It's got a lot of different textures and colors spun into .. looks like 3-ply. I love it. It feels fall-ish. It, like a lot of my yarn, will probably be turned into a scarf. Please note the Tempo's texture close-up!

multi-color Tempo

photo enlarged to show texturrrre

Holiday Louisa Harding yarn!

^ This is a Louisa Harding yarn, and it reminds me of Christmas. I bought three skeins because that's all they had left in this particular color blend. It's a blend of several different materials, including cotton, linen, silk, and acrylic.

This yarn will probably sit in the Room of Requirement for a while as I work on other projects, and while I wait to find each yarn's most ideal pattern and project. I love, love The Yarn Mart! If you follow them on Facebook, you'll see sale updates - that's where they were updating sales that were going on all day yesterday.

The Room of Requirement

... that's what we call the third room in our apartment. It holds... mostly all of my craft supplies. Anyone who crafts knows this can become unruly in an inordinate amount of time; this is true of our room. Because I have a wide variety of supplies, we named the room, aptly, the Room of Requirement. Bringing organization to the room seems a little like a travesty given the state in which we frequently see its namesake, the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. However, the real RoR is supposed to serve the needs of whomever requires it. Currently, I really require it to be more organized. I need to know what I'm working with here. So... I'll let it go, and try to bring some reason to this room.

Spinning? with Pictures!

roving and drop spindle and confusion

A few (read: sevenish) months ago, I bought a drop spindle and some roving from The Twisted Purl... I wanted to try spinning yarn. Clearly, it had to sit on my shelf for a few to several months before I could work up the balls or the boredom to actually try it. Everyone says it's really difficult to do when you first start. They weren't kidding.






I used some red Caron yarn as my leader. I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but ... that's what I did. And it picked up the roving with the first spin!! What!

But then the strand broke.

.... but it looked ... somewhat yarnish, right?

Anyway. I kept going for a bit, and kind of felt like I was sort of getting the hang of drafting- which is what it's called when you pull apart the fiber a little (I think) to add to the yarn on the spindle. As the yarn on the spindle twists and you let fiber bits lead into the yarn that's already on the spindle... the twist travels up the drafted/pulled fiber and that magically turns it into yarn. It's pretty cool.

Eventually I couldn't really tell how things were going with it. I kept having it break because little puffs would pile up and it seemed that the twist didn't make it into the puffs, but the twist would all pile into one small, very thin strip of fiber. So I ended up with a lot of this:

lots of broken bits of "yarn" which I think was just slightly tightened roving

But I did have a little of this:












<<<That almost looks like yarn... yeah?


In any case, I'm calling it a night on the spinning. I figured you'd all be dying to know how I was spending my Monday. This was the long version, with pictures. The short version is this: I spent thirty minutes fighting my cat off my ankles and roving scraps while I tried to turn a ball of fiber into a strand of yarn.

In any event, you should check out The Twisted Purl's website. She makes beautiful yarns, among other things. Her Etsy shop is currently on vacation until August, but take a look at the site! Click the name of the site... there's a hyperlink but the text makes it a tad difficult to tell.

On a somewhat related but mostly unrelated note, I'm really digging Ellie Goulding's Lights (Bassnectar Remix) right now.

yarn!!

I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a skein of yarn to finish a project, and found THIS magic: 

I Love This Cotton! ... how did they know?

Love love love. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet. I have something involving a half-scarf in mind... but we'll see.