Shifting Stash

I think it's quite fascinating that I can decrease the volume of my stash by spinning yarn from it - which doesn't need as much space as unspun wool or other materials ;-) It needs even less room when wound to balls (I had a bag full of skeins and after I wound them they took about three quarters of the bag).
Anyway, enough of strange thoughts. I just wanted to show a picture of the nine small skeins I spun yesterday, with the intent of knitting them into graffiti. They are roughly between 30 and 60 m each and I will have a lot of fun combining them and embellish some lonely lamp posts or some bleak landscape - although I have to watch which of the yarns I'll use for land art, since I really don't want to leave anything that won't decompose, such as angelina or metallic thread. Well, I'll have a few days to get creative, since Twisted, our husbands and I will be spending some quiet, lazy days together. I'm really looking forward to that :-)

Happy New Year to all of you!

Loving Graffiti

No, I haven't been out putting up more graffities, but I've been busy knitting two more and spinning some suitable yarn - eight mini skeins, to be precise, to take on our mini vacation, so I can knit all I want and put up some tags somewhere else ;-) I haven't managed to take photos of the yarns (it was dark long before I stopped spinning), but I can show you the two graffities, ready to be put up somewhere:


Now, we still need a name and some great labels, both TQ and I hope to be successful on both counts tomorrow :-)

(The pirate tag I might label in honour to Captain Jack Sparrow ;-))

Dragonback - my first yarn guerilla mission

It's been in my head for a while now, I've seen pictures of others doing it, I've read blog postings and I wanted to do it myself. What am I talking about?

YARN GRAFFITI!

At first I had a hard time getting ideas, so I postponed any action and just found the general idea very appealing. Then I got a smashing book for Christmas: Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain (our German readers will certainly enjoy this blog posting about the book), whose blog can be found here. It is full of ideas, pictures, interviews, instructions/guidelines, it's absolutely fantastic and inspiring. Suddenly, ideas started pouring and I couldn't wait to get home, grab some yarn and knitting needles and start doing it.

I wanted to start with something simple and I wanted to start close to home. I decided on a stylized dragon because the idea was suddenly there and I planned to decorate the public park behind our flat. So, when my sisters in law sat down to read the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the older one, 28, reading to her younger sister, 9), I saw my chance to both knit graffiti and listen to a good story (normally I listen to Jim Dale reading it to me, thanks to my father who gave me the whole audio book series for my last birthday). When we had to leave for the restaurant I took my knitting and made good progress while sitting in the tram, while waiting for dinner and while standing outside waiting for the tram back home, which was slightly uncomfortable/freezing. When we got home I crocheted the spikes and then around midnight my husband and I went outside - I to sew the tag onto a lamp post, he to document it for you ;-) (He did get a tripod for Christmas, so he kind of jumped at the chance).



I know some people think it's about letting go - you should walk away from your graffiti and never look back, but I like the idea of walking past my first one whenever I need to go into town or somewhere else the tram can take me. I'll try to be less sentimental with the next ones ;-) I am curious how long it will last, though - and whether my favourite neighbour will ask me if I did it, since she knows about my spinning and knitting.

(By the way: my hand/wrist warmers are new, too - I hope to take a better picture of them soon)

Look at this!

Earlier this year, we offered a free art yarn (Summer Sorbet) to the person who bought the 200th yarn from our shop. The skein went to Max, who has already supplied us with numerous pictures of the stunning things she has made from many others of our art yarns - and now she was so kind to send us pictures of the hat she made from the Summer Sorbet art yarn.

Just to remind you - this was the yarn:

Max tells me her daughter was very persistent and finally Max gave in and made a had for her, rather than keeping the yarn for herself. Here it is, isn't it just adorable?

I hardly recognized the yarn, to be honest! I mean, I liked it as a skein, but knitted up it's so much more wonderful. Usually, I have some idea as to how a yarn might look when knitted into a garment, but with this one I am very surprised. I love this hat! :-)
Thank you so much for sharing this, Max!

Need... more... time!

I can hardly keep up with listing, blogging and making new yarns, bags and stitch markers ;-)
Here are some of the latest items:

Laceweight yarn of different fibres, all of them hand dyed (except for the white, of course) and spun as a gradient from dark plum to a slightly greenish, dark blue, a lighter blue and then to white. Over 500 yards, photos are already done, will hopefully be listed soon already sold.
***

Laceweight art yarn spun from hand dyed Bluefaced Leicester wool/silk blend and adorned with tiny stars of antique gold. Some golden angelina adds some more sparkle. Will be listed soon as well (hopefully) Already sold.
***

Another gift set, consisting of the Physalis art yarn (has been listed for a few weeks), magnificent stitch markers of naturally banded carnelian and light green seed beads, and project bag of wonderful, brown, embroidered taffeta.

I do love the fabric, and the overall-look of the bag. I've added a maple leaf and a carnelian bead for tassels and I think I need to make another bag like this for myself :-)
***

Now, I need to be off - more spinning to do, and I hope to get some listing done later, as well. Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Looking for the perfect gift?

We've tirelessly worked to finish something very special in time for Christmas: our fabulous gift sets! My dear friend and shop partner Twisted/TrashQueen had the idea and I had the sewing mashine - and now we'll be able to offer sets of art yarn, matching bag and matching stitch markers, all handmade by us :-)

For example: A pirate's Treasure. Our "Hair of a Pirate" art yarn, a cotton bag with printed white skulls on black background and with fake coins for tassels, and a set of 4 luxury stitch markers, containing genuine facetted garnet beads.



And: Winter Sky. Our "Winter Sky" art yarn, a white velvet bag with tibetian silver snowflake pendants for tassels, and a set of 6 stitch markers, containing biconical crystal glass beads (I do hope to take a better photo...)


The light was not ideal for a photo session, but that's winter, I suppose. Here's some of the sets together, anyway:

Soon to be listed in our shop!

It's nearly Christmas! - Special Offer

Christmas shopping is in full swing, preparations are being made and we've been in a pre-Christmas mood for a little while now. What better way to celebrate than to offer something special to our faithful customers?

Buy 2 or more yarns and get 2 free stitch markers for every skein you order!
And these are no left-overs, they have been specially made - for you! :-) If possible, we will give you markers which go well with the yarn you buy.


This offer is valid from Saturday, 28th of November, until Christmas Day!
Please understand that we can't combine this offer with the previous stitch marker offer.

You might also be interested in the fact that we plan to list stitch markers in our art yarn shop as regular items.

Let me just say: AAARGH!

It's nearly impossible to take adequate photos of the yarns in this weather/winter/light. I HATE it!

Sorry, had to say this. *grumble*

I want a Klingon Shawl!

Yesterday it was suddenly very clear: I want a shawl with stockinette Klingon insignia on a lace background. I even have quite a clear picture in my head - but I have no idea how to accomplish this. I am not a very good knitter (though advancing) and I have to learn a lot about knitting until I can design stuff like that. Oh my... Have to plough through a heap of knitting books now and hope to find something that'll help me :-D
Think I'm weird? Well, yes - I am called Weird, ain't I?

Done - Gorgeous - Sold

Just a quick update before I'm off to the kitchen to cook a late lunch ;-)

1. I am done with the scarf - it took me about a week and I didn't knit every day, so that project was less work than I feared. I will present my mother in law with it on Friday, hope she'll like it.


2. I've made corespun yarn from Bluefaced Leicester wool and kidmohair blend (purchased at Das Wollschaf) and it's a dream of creamy heaven!

I think this blend is even better for this special technique than pure kid mohair fibre, it makes the texture richer and even more interesting - I'm in love and I'll definitely have to order more of that gooorgeous stuff!

3. The Funky Christmas Tree yarn hasn't even made it into the shop, it was requested beforehand. But I have enough fibre and baubles left for one more skein (I just need to find more ribbons since I've used all my red ones for the first skein), so a similar yarn will hopefully appear by next week or so. Thanks for all the hearts on Ravelry btw! :-) :-) :-)

How funky is your Christmas tree?

As funky as this Christmas Tree yarn? :-) This is what I made from the felt orbs and batts I wrote about a few days ago:

Soon to be in our shop!

First Funky Christmas Yarn this Year!

Yes, I've started! You can't begin early enough ;-)
I spent some time felting little glittery baubles this week, and today I carded two gorgeous, also glittery batts. The baubles will dangle from the yarn like the felted pumpkins, the yarn will be green with a bit of red - and, yes, that's right: TINSEL! :-D


I had lots of fun already, and I'm really looking forward to spinning this yarn :-)

Must... Knit...

I've made some progress on the scarf for my mother-in-law I wrote about a few days ago - 4,5 mm needles are a lot nicer than, say, 2 mm needles (which I am currently using with another project and it's hell - but more on that some other time, maybe) and I think I am about half done. First, let me show you a photo of the yarn:

At first I thought the yarn was too irregular for the pattern, but I have come to like it a lot. I hope my mother-in-law will like it, too (AND wear it).
It's a razor shell lace pattern which can be found in more than one book, which I have modified only slightly.

I've also spun some plant fibre yarn recently, which I want to knit into a wash cloth/wash glove. If that stands the test and I know how much yardage a project like that will take, I will probably spin some similar yarn for the shop, maybe selling it with a pattern. I am very eager to start knitting that, but I suppose the scarf should come first ;-) Some spinning in between will have to happen, though - but more on that later today, if I find the time, or during the next days :-)

Last Minute Project

My mother-in-law will be celebrating her 50th birthday in slightly less than two week's time and I thought about knitting some wrist warmers for her - a small project which could easily be accomplished in that time, even with spinning the yarn.
My sister (in law) wasn't sure whether wrist warmers would be a good idea, but she said my mother-in-law was looking for a scarf and wasn't able to find one so far. Now, this is quite a large project and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to finish it, but I can't let a challenge like that pass ;-)

I started carding last night and spun the yarn today. I really hope it will be enough for the pattern I have in mind - it's 150g/235 m. I haven't gotten around to taking photos of the yarn, yet - it's still drying and there's not enough light to take photos, anyway. I hope I can start knitting tomorrow...

SpinOff!

I've finally got a SpinOff subscription - yaay! Thanks to Jinx I found a German online shop where I was able to order it. My cat seems to quite like it, too :-D

Colours

I've just spent four or five hours in the kitchen, dyeing various types of fibre: merino/bamboo blend, alpaca, soy silk, tussah silk, milk proteine fibre, Blue Faced Leicester/silk blend, and kid mohair.

I do love the outcome and think it was well worth the time - though I always hate cleaning up afterwards... That's done now, too, though :-)

I am running out of space for hanging all this stuff up, the bathroom is not too big. It's a good thing there wasn't enough time to dye even more fibre...

Many Many Many (yarns)

I've been busy. VERY busy.

Two of these have already been added to the shop, most of the others will follow. I'm not sure about the orange/green lace, yet - I am so in love with it, I might have to keep it ;-)
Anyway, I am currently addicted to green/red/orange combined and I will probably make some more yarns of these colours. It's nearly November and maybe I should start thinking about winter yarns, but then, why should one always spin according to season? I like colourful yarns especially when everything around me is white (haha - would be a surprise) or grey and dark. But there will be some winter yarns as well as some Christmas yarns, I promise! :-)

Halloween Special Offer - until November 8th!

*buy any 2 yarns and get 5% off your whole order

*buy any 3 or 4 yarns and get 10% off your whole order

*buy any 5 yarns or more and get 15% off your whole order

This special offer extends to the weekend after halloween (Sunday 8th of November), so be quick! :-)

Halloween Pumpkin Bag

I've already written about the pumpkin yarn I wanted to turn into a bag. Well - I'm done :-) And I want to show you some more photos of different stages of the process, and, of course, of the finished bag.

...the batts...

...the felted pumpkins I spun into the yarn...

...the yarn - one of the most gorgeous I ever spun, I think...

...the bag :-) I put a parcel into it in order to be able to take a better picture. Measurements are 25x18x5 cm

Except for the knot pattern on the flap, I designed the whole thing myself. I am quite proud since I used to be quite a bad knitter and I see I've learned quite a bit by now and getting better all the time :-) I am also very glad I didn't run out of yarn since it was all a lot of guesswork and there isn't much left, indeed.
The knot pattern is from the German version of Viking Patterns for Knitting: Inspiration and Projects for Today's Knitter by Elsebeth Lavold

Maybe it will be necessary to line the bag since it is a little wobbly and it will stretch quite a bit when I put something in it.

Recent Favourites

Some of my recent yarns have dangling beads or other (also dangling) stuff included in them. I didn't even notice at first, but I seem to be partial to that technique right now ;-)



The toadstool yarn is very bright and funky, it glitters and has a lot of texture. It's already in the shop, so be quick if you're interested! ;-)


The pumpkin yarn is for a private project which started with some activity in our german art yarn community (spinnkult.de) and was supposed to be part of a guerilla spinning and knitting event, but then kind of developed a life of its own and wanted to become a bag/purse for myself ;-)
I still want to do the street art/guerilla/public yarn event, though. Hopefully, Twisted and I will be able to on Halloween. As long as there's reasonable weather and enough orange wool I see nothing stopping us. As for the weather, please wish us luck - and as for the wool, there's really no need to be nervous *g*

As for more yarns with dangling bits, I've already posted my Scarecrow yarn and my Stone Age yarn.

Cultural Ages - new series coming up

I have long wanted to spin some yarns inspired by our various cultural ages. As an archaeologist, this might be a bit obvious ;-) and after our journey to Ireland I was inspired even more. So I started right away and have now finished Stone Age, Copper Age, and Bronze Age.



These yarns are not meant to represent anything authentic, I didn't use only materials that would have been in use during the respective age. These yarns are art yarns, inspired by the particular age, but not being limited by it. For instance, the Stone Age Yarn (which I like best) contains bone beads, which, in some form or another, were common during that time, but it also contains glittery angelina which is an artificially produced fibre.


The Bronze and Copper Age yarns look quite similar, though they are made from different fibre and while the Copper Age yarn contains hammered copper spirals, the Bronze Age yarn contains spirals made from brass, since bronze is very hard to come by and I am not sure whether it's even possible to get some bronze wire. You'll probably have to know the right people ;-)

My next yarn in this series will be a Golden Age yarn, I'll use naturally white Blue Faced Leicester wool, golden thread and brass spirals. I could use gold plated wire, but I'm afraid it will look coppery after a while, so I'll stay on the safe side.

I've also thought about a Star Age/Future Age yarn, but I haven't planned the details yet.

We love Halloween!

I, for my part, also love Helloween (the metal band) and always confuse the spelling, but that's not the point here ;-) What I wanted to share were some photos of my latest halloween yarns:


These three are quite typical as to their colours and they are all plied with a glow in the dark thread. The orange/black one has also got some pumpkin and bat sequins in it, the white/orange one contains luxury fibre and seed beads, and the black/orange one contains orange ribbons, screw nuts and metal discs, belonging to my punkrock series.
Then there is also a halloween yarn that lacks the usual colours, but I think it's absolutely gorgeous and it will be very hard to part with that one - meet my Scarecrow yarn:


It is rather less soft than the others, not as squashy, and might be more suitable for a small purse/bag (wich my fingers are really itching to make! But I'll be strong and list it anyway) or some other accessory not worn next to the skin. It contains ribbons with leaves, some other ribbons that resemble rough material as you would imagine for a scarecrow, and handmade heads from polymer clay the lighter parts of which glow in the dark.

I really wanted to list all these yarns (and more) before going to Ireland, but I just didn't manage, what with the wedding preparations and everything. So I'll do my best to list them soon, still in time for Halloween. Even if they won't arrive in time to become finished garments before Halloween, they should arrive in time for potential buyers to take some stylish knitting to any Halloween party ;-)

Just Married

Well, two weeks ago ;-)

We had the most wonderful ceremony in a vinyard and a fabulous party afterwards. Lots of good food, dancing and spending time with friends and family. We knew the day would be great, but even we were surprised at HOW great everything turned out :-)

We went on our honeymoon to Ireland the day after the wedding and returned two days ago. We had a wonderful time with good weather (or what passes for good weather in Ireland, meaning no rain, but not a lot of sun, either - no offense meant, of course ;-)), many sheep and much to see. I'll be posting some spinning/wool related stuff soon.

Now I have a lot of catching up to do, but I'm looking forward to it. I hope I'll be able to blog more often, I have quite a few things to share with you, our appreciated readers :-)

Time is running

I had wanted to write so many things - for instance, a posting about my new-found love for amigurumi and photos of what I've done so far, photos of my batshawl (in progress), more glow in the dark yarns and a cowl I'm knitting from my "Dark Side" art yarn - but I have had little time during the last few weeks. I have a very good excuse, though ;-) I will be getting married next friday/saturday (friday will be the official registry office stuff, saturday will be an outdoor ceremony and the wedding party with family and friends - I'm so excited! :-)) and I had got my hands full with lots of organising and, of course, "normal" every day life, which included finishing some papers for University, working at the excavation and looking for a new job since the dig is over now. We'll be going to Ireland for our honeymoon directly after the wedding, so I won't be able to blog for a couple of weeks. Just so you know - I'll be back and I'll definitely show you my knitted glow in the dark garlic then! ;-)
Take care!

Let me introduce...

...one of my favourite online comics and a new art yarn that was inspired by it.
I am talking about the Unspeakable Vault (of Doom), where you can find very cute strips about Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones. I have always liked the Shoggies, all wobbly and with many eyes, and have wanted to spin a yarn inspired by them for quite a while. Well, I finally managed:





I have used fluffy, squashy Blue Faced Leicester wool which I have died with easter egg food colours. I plied it with glow in the dark sewing thread, strung with eyed made from glow in the dark polymer clay, and made lots of coils. I didn't manage to take a better glow in the dark photo, here you can only see the eyes, but the plying thread glows, too.


My friend and shop partner suggested for me to knit a brain-eating hat ;-) But since pink is really not my colour, however cool the yarn, I'll put it into our shop soon.

Curious about more Shoggy strips? Shoggies and Cthulhu, Bowling, Shoggies go Battlestar Galactica. There are more, of course - just browse The Vault! ;-)

Halloween Stitchmarkers

They're monstrously large, monstrously cute and, of course, monstrously halloweeny ;-) They fit needles up to 10 mm, so they're great helpers for knitting art yarns.

They are also a custom product, so you won't find them in the shop (unless many people beg us to make more ;-))

Ocean of Zombies - Creepy? Fun!

As I mentioned a short while ago, I was quite tempted to spin a very different ocean yarn, wich I did. It's for a monthly challenge on our new (German) community over at www.spinnkult.de, as well as the second yarn I'm also about to show you. But first, let me introduce the zombies ;-)

I do like very textured yarns, as I've probably also mentioned before. For this one, I used a wonderful, hand dyed merino/bamboo blend, some glow in the dark thread, some snail-shells, mother of pearls discs, angelina and, of course, the zombie heads made from glow in the dark polymer clay. It's 146 m, 138 g and about 10 wpi.

Here's a glow photo, but since I've taken it with my mobile you can't really see how nice the thread glows, only the zombie heads:

(More pictures on my flickr page)

And then, there's a very nice (and not so strange) corespun yarn, also with snail-shells and angelina, made from kid mohair fibre (also hand dyed) that has been spun around some glow in the dark sewing thread:

I don't have a glow photo, though, since my mobile is not good enough for that. I really need my shop partner (or my fiancé) to show me how to use the real camera with glow in the dark stuff. My last attempts were not as good as they could have been, though passable ;-)