Archive for the 'fiber' Category

Kool-aid dyed yarn

Published
by
robayre
on June 14, 2010
in Cool Links, Coverage, General Update and fiber
. 4 Comments

Speaking of Tumbler (my lil post the other day)…

Yesterday I posted this old picture of some yarn I spun from wool I dyed with kool-aid. Today I found that picture was posted on tumblr by robot heart. Currently that image has been “noted” and “reblogged” 47 times. How cool is that?

I love tumblr, but usually I just “heart” images that I like, and only share my own images, as I kind of feel weird reblogging another person’s work. BUT, in the case where my image is the one being reblogged, I’ll jump in on the fun and add it to my own tumblr.

Day Twenty-One - Spinning

Published
by
robayre
on February 21, 2010
in Fun, General Update, fiber and life
. 1 Comment

Today, for Thing-A-Day, I spun for a couple hours. I’ve been working on this super thin yarn that will be plyed with another to make a crazy sock yarn. Normally I spin barefoot, but I just got home so I still had on my shoes. Normally I’ll just spin from a long roving, but because I want the colors to alternate a lot, I’ve been pulling bits the staple length and spinning from those. There are a total of 17 different colors and they are all a really nice merino wool.

I posted an animated gif file I made while spinning earlier this month, but you really can’t see much of a dent on the two hours more I’ve added. It’s so thin that it just doesn’t add up quickly.

The colors may not look that great right now, but once plyed, the finished product will look closer to this other yarn (below) that I spun, only all of that was dyed with kool-aid and it’s a much chunkier yarn.

Tonight my best friend and I went to go see Gaelic Storm (for the second time) at the Historic Egyptian Theatre. We had a really good time and now I’m in a St. Patrick’s Day mood. I always love going to concerts like that because the audiences are so energetic. Mostly, I think it’s the Irish crowd, because it’s the same vibe when I’ve gone to see Black 47 and Irish Festivals.

Here is a quick snapshot of what it looks like inside the theatre. We were sitting on the balcony.

The band performing. One thing that was REALLY cool was that the lead singer told the audience that he met his wife for the first time at Eduardo’s (a well known local restaurant). She was a grad student at NIU. How cool is that? Singer from Ireland, tours the world over and he met his wife in my own town.

And finally, the gratuitous shoe shot. I had to use the upstairs restroom and just loved the checkered flooring in there. Someday I will have black and white checkered floors in my home.

Spin and Knit

Published
by
robayre
on January 11, 2010
in Artists, Cool Links, General Update and fiber
. 5 Comments

Bri of TheCraftBegins recently posted and shared this scarf that she made from my handspun yarn she purchased.

I wish I had a picture of the original fiber, unspun, but on the left you can see I have a picture of the single ply, the double ply, on the knitty knoddy and in skein form. Here is her post!

I am just thrilled to see such a beautiful finished product, that in a way I had a hand in as well. She did such beautiful work, AND she created the pattern for it as well! She has several other beautiful and equally warm and cozy knits in her Etsy shop.

a new yarn

Published
by
robayre
on November 30, 2009
in General Update and fiber
. 3 Comments

I made this yarn over the last few days. It’s 68 soft yards in length.

It uses a tiny bit of fiber I had left over from the most beautiful fiber I think I’ve ever purchased. I’m sad to see it all gone. I’m not even sure what kind of wool it was other than I bought it here and it has the most beautiful colors and is so soft to touch. With such a small portion remaining I decided to make a very fine yarn and extend the fiber as far as I could, plying it with a wonderful white Blue Face Leicester. There are so many colors in the first fiber, I think the white works wonderfully showcasing them all.

Here is the other yarn made using some of the same fiber. I striped this one with white and then plied it with a black cotton string.

As I mentioned in a previous post there was a knitalong for making tall socks with handspun yarn and I wanted to see if I would be able to make a yarn thin enough to be sock yarn. I have a tendency to spin thin, naturally, but have you seen sock yarn?!?! It’s SO thin! Well, when I showed this complete yarn to Matt he said “it’s like thread” so I will take that as a positive. Maybe I will be able to make my very first socks with my very own handspun someday :)

Tada!

Published
by
robayre
on November 9, 2009
in General Update and fiber
. 2 Comments

Another handspun yarn done!

This was one of those nightmare fibers I spoke of yesterday, one I purchased based purely on the beautiful colors. And the colors are lovely, aren’t they? Very Autumn. In fact the fiber is a very itchy, wiry one that would not work well against the skin.

What else could you knit with this yarn that you wouldn’t wear?

Yarn Destash

Published
by
robayre
on November 8, 2009
in General Update and fiber
. 3 Comments

I finished spinning and plying this yarn last night. You might recall it from a few posts back when I posted some poorly photographed progress pictures.

Last year, or earlier this year, I promised myself not to buy any new fiber until I spun up everything I already had. This is an attempt to prevent my collection growing out of control like my current store bought yarn situation.

I’m excited because I’m getting close to the end of the collection. When I first started spinning (2004) I would impulsively buy rovings based purely on colors. When I’d get home and try to spin them, I’d often find the colors didn’t suit me after all, or the fibers were troublesome, scratchy, nubby, riddled with vegetable matter, and/or over dyed/partially felted. Immediately I’d stick them on the shelf and not even want to look at them again.

The case with the fiber above was more of a color issue. Green is my favorite color and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the green and red color combination. They’re called complimentary colors, but I rather like to think of them as competitors, fighting for which one makes more of an impact. It wasn’t until I got it home that it struck me “oh no, Christmas colors”. You will never know how many times this has happened to me, where I create something that I love and only once it’s finished and I’m happily admiring my work that it occurs to me “Christmas!” and instantly I am repulsed by it. It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, it’s just that I have an aversion to my work resembling Christmas craft/decorations.

Well, now enough time and experience has passed that I know a better fiber when I see it. From now on I’d like to keep better track of what breed all my fibers are actually from for selling purposes. I’d also like to think I have a better eye for color and have learned that a more blueish green or teal-y color and red still create the same impact that green and red do, but without the negative connotations. AND lastly, I want to buy a ton of fiber because I’ve had this project in mind for a couple years, to spin enough yarn to make a simple vest for myself. I mentioned it first in this post.

One last bit of fiber inspiration: Yesterday I saw a tweet post by knittydirtygirl where she is starting a knitalong project on Ravelry to make knee high socks, toe up, from handspun yarn. Here is the yarn she will be using. Dare I say it, but after the vest project I’d like to tackle that one. I’ve never made socks before, not for lack of trying though. I think I will need some guidance from my sister, the sock knitting expert.


Productivity Begets Creativity

Published
by
robayre
on October 26, 2009
in General Update, My Artwork, etsy, fiber and life
. 1 Comment

I’ve added one more reproduction print to my shop. This piece was another from my August challenge that sold very quickly. It was based on a blurry photograph I took of a street scene. After posting the original back in August I immediately received messages from a small handful of people who wanted to buy it but were disappointed to find it already snatched up. Here is another chance to make it yours for only $9.

For weeks I have barely passed the threshold to my art studio. Honestly, it’s a mess and instead of facing the monster I would dash in, grab materials I needed and work in my bedroom or living room. Finally this weekend my desire to use my spinning wheel grew larger than the power that laziness has over me. Once I got into the groove of the pedal and fiber, inspiration took over. I wanted to make more. I found myself cleaning off my drawing table which had been mounded with a foot high’s worth of materials. I wanted to paint, I want to draw, I want to create new paper spiral pendants, I want to knit mittens, I want to assemble envelope sets, I want to create found art pieces, I wanted to break out my sewing machine, put together more recycled bubble mailers and create the coloring book extra I mentioned a post or two ago. It goes without saying a simple action has refueled my creativity.

Last week I signed up for a local community education wheel throwing ceramics class with a bunch of friends. It starts this week, meets for 5 sessions, and the teacher is great and is allowing us to come in on our own time outside of class and work. I’ve been thinking of all sorts of ideas. I have so many areas of interest and have the idea of incorporating some of my handspun into some porcelain pieces. It’s been a while since I’ve done wheel throwing so we will see if any of my designs make it to fruition.

Been Busy!

Published
by
robayre
on September 16, 2009
in General Update, My Artwork, etsy, fiber, life and shop update
. 3 Comments

I’m on a roll, checking things off my lists.

Dinner is on, changed the cat’s litterbox, changed the burned out lights in the garage, photographed and listed new items in my etsy shop. Now it’s time to knock out this one last item for tonight. Blog.

I can’t believe it is already Wednesday. I wanted to post about my whirlwind weekend and it’s seems the week is slipping by just as quickly.

Thursday evening my best friend and I went to the Sandwich Fair. It’s actually the county fair and pretty small-town. Imagine tractor pulls and lots of 4H kids running around. I got to visit the rabbit house, the chicken house and ate corn on the cob, onion blossom, ribs and fried cheese, what more can you ask for? Erica and I took a picture together in a BIG chair, which goes along with our eternal search for BIG things, like here and here.

   

Friday, is my errands day and I went to get reproductions made of 3 original pieces of mine. I’m very excited to offer these as I’ve been wanting to do it for so long, they are such great quality and they are extremely affordable. They are listed in the shop right now :D

Saturday was my cousin’s wedding at the Drake in Chicago. We dressed up and a great time. Really, I couldn’t have been more happy after I found out that they had a photo booth at their reception. That definitely made my night. Congratulations to David and Sarah, they seemed to be on a new plane of happiness that day, and congratulations to my Aunt, who reads here regularly :D

These are the pictures from the photo booth. It’s my sister, matt and I. 1st picture is just smiles, second picture is the paparazzi shot, 3rd picture is sad face, fourth picture is roller coaster.  Funny enough, afterward my brother and sister in law were showing their pictures to us and they did something similar, ending in a picture called “tyrannosaurus!”

Sunday my sister and I went to the Renegade craft fair in chicago. I didn’t buy one thing  and that wasn’t for lack of desire. I found many things I liked but it would be way too expensive, they didn’t have my size, or the variety was gone and I wasn’t crazy about the remaining color selections. Lesson learned, it’s better to go on Saturday before all the good stuff is gone.

And then Sunday evening on the ride home I finally finished my cowl, and of course, it’s been in the 80s all week long. I’m excited to make more of these. In fact, now that I’ve completed posting and crossing off the final item on today’s to-do list I think I will begin a new one.

Thanks for stopping by and reading :D

Still sniffling over here

Published
by
robayre
on January 2, 2009
in Cool Links, General Update, Mail Art, My Artwork, etsy, fiber and life
. 2 Comments

I’ve decided to participate in NaBloPoMo for January, which means I will blog daily for the whole month. Last February I had such a great experience blogging daily over at Thing A Day, so I’ll probably do that as well, which means, blogging daily for two straight months, woah! But, for now during NaBloPoMo, if you don’t see a new post here, it might be because I posted over at the Every Day Create group blog or the Makers group blog, but I will definitely post somewhere.

I have a couple things to share today.

Above is one of my mail art pieces that was up at my show last month. I’m excited to finally share the pieces online. Some might be added to my etsy shop, so check in there ocassionally.

My friend Kelly made this awesome wrap using some of my handspun yarn. I had given her the yarn as a ‘new mom’ gift, and being a knitter/crocheter, I knew she would get use out of it. How exciting, to see what someone has made with my yarn. I think of this quote that I have blogged about before by Lexi Boeger “Handspun yarn is more than simply yarn…Every Inch has been fed through the hand of the craftsperson…Each yarn is a reflection of the individual spinner who made it. It is this quality that makes handspun yarn so amazing to work with. As you work through a skein, you can see, inch by inch, the decisions that the spinner made. It passes before you just like a story.” And the same can be said for handknit items as well, so Kelly’s work with my yarn should tell twice as much.

Lastly, a kind of update and announcement about my friend Nikki who has been fighting? no, Battling? no, let’s say “DESTROYING” cancer, has been told she is in remission. After a long series of intense chemo treatments starting last summer and ending in December, she has kicked that cancer’s ass. As she is planning her formal wedding this summer, she entered an essay contest about whose “Love Rocks” the most and was nominiated in the top three. Please go to this site, read the stories and vote for her and my friend Tom’s story. I think you will agree, it is the most touching, but also the best written and composed essay.

Okay, that’s all for tonight. Good night everyone.

Esther’s Place Fiber shop

Published
by
robayre
on November 6, 2006
in Cool Links, General Update, fiber and life
. 0 Comments

 

This weekend my sister and I went to Big Rock to check out this newish fiber store Esther’s Place. It was great, the people were very enthusiastic and friendly. They are involved in the Illinois Green Pastures Fiber Cooperative (which just received a USDA grant) and also have a farm with their own sheep. I highly recommend it to any fiber enthusiasts in the Chicagoland area.

I bought 3 different roving wools. The picture above is a corriedale and mohair blend. Often, when I get wool, I spin it, make yarns and then stop right there. But with these wools I just bought, I’ve been spinning continuously, and I plan on taking it from the roving to a finished knit product. A hat, scarf, mittens, who knows.