Snape and the Pirate

Hi everyone, it's been quiet here on the blog for a while now. I've had so much to do I was hardly able to keep up with it all (well, *not* able to keep up with it all, as my absence here shows), but I've wanted to show you two finished pieces by one of our customers for so long now, and now I finally can:

Severus Snape

Heather combined our Snape art yarn with mohair and made this stunning hood. She let her daughter wear it for the photoshooting, and she told us 

"I can't wait for cold weather to see the silk fluttering in the wind!"

 What a wonderful thought! :-)

A Pirate's Life for Me

What a gorgeous piece, and how fitting for the pirate yarn! Here's what Heather says:

"I added a little bit of a gray and black yarn at the top that had long locks spun into it that matched your yarn perfectly! This is the link to the pattern I used: www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hole-y-triangle-scarf
It's a great pattern to use for this type of yarn, I think it really shows the textures and the add ins!"

You can find Heather as ThePinkPirate on Etsy, or visit her blog. Heather, thank you so much again for the pictures!

About Inspiration, Lost Opportunities and Comic Books

A few days ago, I rediscovered a number of silver bells in one of my yarn add-ins drawers. I had wanted to spin another joker/jester art yarn for a while, so this came at the right moment. My first jester art yarn was among the first art yarns I ever spun, and I liked the idea of coming back to the general concept and creating something completely different this time. I chose red, green, and black fibres, carded them up into a gorgeous batt, and spun it into 220 m of wonderful art yarn, adding the bells and some eyelash yarn, as well as black glittery thread.

Midnight Joker

Shortly afterwards, I suddenly realized the bells would have been great for a Harley Quinn art yarn, as well. As I mentioned before, I love comic books (and graphic novels), and though I am fairly new to the "classic" comic universes (having started my adult comic book life with Hellboy and The Sandman), I have some general knowledge about a few of the characters (and Wikipedia always helps ;-)). I watched the (admittedly rather cheap and predictable) Birds of Prey TV show recently, so that's probably why Harley Quinn popped into my mind. Anyway - I have only six bells left now, and that's not enough for a yarn. But I already carded up some fibres and will search for more bells as soon as possible. I might even have a few more, though different-looking ones, and I will have to think about whether using different bells would be a good thing or not.

Speaking of comics and the "classic" universes, look what arrived today: The DC Comics Encyclopedia.

Just look at the size of this book! My foot (large-ish standard foot, I like to think ;-) German size 40/41) looks tiny beside it. I had no idea this was so huge when I ordered it, and I am so happy :-) Now I have a means to learn about all those characters, maybe choose the next comic book to read, and find some inspirations for new art yarns at the same time. The inspiration part was the main factor for ordering this book, actually. Ahhh, I already love it!

Orc Camp

Remember my plans for an Orc Camp art yarn? It was complicated and took me quite a while what with all the searching for the right fabric, and the making of wire spirals - but it's done :-)
It's very ragged, which I love, but which I find far more difficult to accomplish than smooth yarn - and it's also got a lot to do with the choice of materials. Locks and highly textured fibre are more suitable than the average fine merino wool.

The batt I carded for this yarn consisted of spanish merino wool of natural dark brown, naturally brown Icelandic wool with locks and lots of texture, some white bluefaced leicester wool, wensleydale locks, light brown alpaca, and merino wool of rusty red. I also added copper angelina, because this kind of glitter seemed fitting even for orcs ;-)
I spun in different kinds of bone beads: smooth whitish ones, dark disks, and white skulls. I also added hand made copper spirals, and strips of cotton fabric.

Pirates or Football?

Last week, my husband and I spent a few days in Hamburg. I used to live there, and my family still does, so we visited with my mother and went out to lunch with her, my dad and my gran, whom I hadn't seen in two years. She is too old to come to Heidelberg, and last year we didn't manage to go to Hamburg, so that was quite a long time. It was nice to catch up, and we had a good time and good food. My gran is always interested in my spinning and the shop, and I like talking about yarn any time ;-)

On Saturday, my husband and I went into the city, did some shopping, met a colleague of his, spent some time at the Alster, and then went to the Gateway of the World - the port of Hamburg. I brought a graffiti which I had made a long time ago and saved for a special place. This was it! After all, this was a pirate graffiti and the famous pirate Klaus Störtebeker was beheaded in the port of Hamburg, it just seemed to fit.

 

The thing is, Hamburg's football club FC St. Pauli has a skull and crossbones in their logo, and some people just can't tell the difference between football and pirates :-P When I installed the graffiti, there was a group of people coming past, and I heard them say something like "oh, a St. Pauli fan". I just ignored them, and thought of proper pirates, rum, and lots of treasure ;-)