Archive for the 'fiber' Category

Winter knits and snow fall

Published
by
robayre
on February 8, 2013
in fiber, General Update, life and Projects
. 0 Comments

Just finished knitting this slouchy hat for myself.

My sister in law mentioned that she would like a slouchy knit hat. For Christmas I bought a yarn in a color she likes and knit her a hat. When I knit I’m not the type of person to follow patterns, I make stuff up as I go. I don’t do swatches and I rarely follow suggestions for needle sizes. I like it that way because the things I make are my own, BUT it also causes some grief and a lot of ripping out and frogging. I knit the hat for my sister in law and I actually decided to buy a pattern beforehand. BUT the yarn was chunky and the needles I had on hand were 3 sizes too big. I shoudn’t have been surprised when the hat turned out to also be about 3 times too big as well!

Take two, I had her pick a worsted weight yarn she liked and borrowed the correct needles from my sister and it turned out great. Who knew? I liked it so much that I decided to make one for myself. The hat I made for myself was a chunkier yarn so it’s a bit big, but it still fits and looks great.

This winter has been a weird one, more rain than snow. I love spring, but I need a good long hard winter before I can fully appreciate and feel all the awesome inspiration and energy from spring. Yesterday in the chicagoland area we finally had a good snow. I went home for lunch and the snow was falling in big clumps. What was supposed to be less than an inch turned out to be at least a couple inches. I went home for lunch and then didn’t want to go back to work, so I called work, told them I was sick (hack, hack) and couldn’t come back. I was joking and my manager knew but said I could have the afternoon off. I have truthfully NEVER called in sick or skipped work or school by pretending I was sick. Anyway I stayed home, and watched the snow fall and made the above little video on Vine. It took me a while to figure out how to embed it here on wordpress but I finally got it. Unfortunately, it’s not showing up in google reader. If you wanna see it, please just visit the original post.

After Matt got off of work we had to run to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for dinner and the snow was still falling. As we pulled into the parking lot I had a brief moment of worry that the store would be packed with those “BREAD AND MILK SNOW STORM!” people. It wasn’t packed, but I still had to laugh when Matt found and sent me this hilarious video this morning.

Edit: Just thought of one more thing that I wanted to add to this post of wintery things. A few weeks ago my brother, sister and I took my little nephew to Russell Woods for a winter event they were having. We took a winter hike, rode on a horse drawn wagon, and we pulled candles. The candles pictured were some children that were making their own. We had a good time and look forward to going to back to the woods during the spring.

 

Antique Shopping and Penny Rug

Published
by
robayre
on April 19, 2011
in Cool Links, fiber, Fun, General Update, life and Projects
. 6 Comments

Entrance to Josie's
My sister-in-law Dacia and I love garage sale, estate sale and thrift store shopping. A couple weeks ago we visited a local-ish antique shop called Josie’s. A coworker had tipped me off about this antique shop located on an old farm off of historic route 38 (the lincoln hwy.), about 10 minutes away from where we live. Although my coworker told me about all the various farm buildings full of antiques, we were still blown away by room after room in building after building full of antiques. We were there for 3 hours roughly and could have easily spent more time, but Dacia had to get to an appointment.

Immediately upon arriving I had to take out my iphone and take pictures of some of the amazing goodies that were there and others that would have to come home with me.
cluck cluck Sebastion look alike
bah ram ewe peacock
You can see it really was a working farm with chickens and miniature horses, sheep and even peacocks.
LUFF

glass jars
another shelving unit that I want
Dear Gertrude

the kitchen
This Polaroid Landcamera in it’s lovely leather case, as well as one of these wooden bowls came home with me.

When I saw this little piece that was marked “penny rug” I was immediately drawn in. I had never heard of it before, but right away it reminded me of my yoyos and I knew that I’d have to take a crack at this craft myself.

I found these tutorials online

a storybook life

penny rugs and more

As simple as it looks, it was a lot more time consuming than one of my yoyo sets. I wanted my circles to be irregular and organic. I handcut each circle free hand, no templates. I basically spent ALL DAY Sunday making this below:
4.19 penny quilt
and here is the same thing with a white background
4.19 penny quilt

I still need to attach it to the background and was trying to decide, white or black. Unlike the dark more earthy colors that I’ve seen of penny rugs online, my initial inspiration was this photograph by Sandra Juto of granny squares on a white floor. I liked the white background of the floor, white edges of the squares and bursts of color in the center. But, according to comments on flickr, people like the darker background because it makes the pieces pop out, which is completely understandable.

I love how this came out, and can see myself working on these just as often as making yoyos. Busy work, perfect for doing while watching netflix with my honey. I plan on framing the one above, similar to my yoyo pieces. Once it is complete, I’ll return with another picture.

Kool-aid dyed yarn

Published
by
robayre
on June 14, 2010
in Cool Links, Coverage, fiber and General Update
. 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 fiber, Fun, General Update 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, fiber and General Update
. 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 fiber and General Update
. 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 fiber and General Update
. 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 fiber and General Update
. 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 etsy, fiber, General Update, life and My Artwork
. 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 etsy, fiber, General Update, life, My Artwork 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

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