Winter Is Coming

Some of you might be familiar with the fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. If you're not, you might be familiar with its TV adaption Game of Thrones, like me. And if you haven't heard of either, but like fantasy and don't mind a lot of blood and a certain brutality, you might want to follow the links to see whether it's something you'd like to read or watch ;-) It is very good, but it is also very, very intense (and brutal, that was no joke). I don't mind blood and murder too much (on TV!), but I have big problems watching sexualized violence, and it can't be denied that a certain amount is to be seen there. I was able to watch the whole first season, but I think this shouldn't go unmentioned.

But I don't intend to go into all this too deeply now, unless some of you would like to discuss things further. I am introducing all of this because of my new yarn, of course ;-)

One of the concepts of the epic is that "summers span decades and winters can last a lifetime," and now, Winter Is Coming! This is the title of the first episode, and also the motto of House Stark, the rulers of the north. The northern border is fortified by The Wall, a solid barrier of ice, 800 feet tall. Beyond the Wall, the White Walkers dwell: a supposedly mythological race who haven't been seen for thousands of years and are said to be extinct or never to have existed in the first place - but rumor has it they have returned.

Winter Is Coming

My new yarn comprises the coming winter, the terror of the White Walkers, the ice of the wall, and the grey that is prominent with House Stark in the TV show. It's made from a gorgeous blend of white fibres, a small amount of blue linen, and some shiny grey Gotland wool. I spun in white sewing thread to stress the snow/winter theme even more, and bone skull beads as well as round bone beads to represent the threat of the White Walkers and the deadly long winter itself.

257 m / 110 g, to be listed soon :-)

The Fairy Ring Hat

Sheila of Fun Funky Fibres bought our Fairy Ring art yarn...

...and made this gorgeous hat from it:

She tells me she loved it so much she couldn't give it away, and she wore it all through the holidays. Now, that does make this spinner happy :-)

Music, Yarn, and Pirates

Yesterday brought me new ideas and old songs: I don't know exactly how events/thoughts took their course, but I was thinking about spinning another pirate-y art yarn (I just love those!), inspired by a delivery of new bone skull beads. Suddenly, I had a nearly forgotten song in my head and the name for the yarn was clear:

Under Jolly Roger

Things fell into place quickly: I wanted ocean colours and white bamboo flakes (waves) as a base, and black silk strips to represent the pirate flag - and the skulls, of course, as they are also part of the flag, and therefore highly associated with pirates.

(sorry for the crappy pictures, I had to take it indoors, with artificial light and the colours are off)

I used more skull beads than I usually do, and I spun a highly textured art yarn from the batt shown above. It contains merino wools of dark blue and deep teal, hand dyed BFL/silk blend of a wonderfully intense dark turquoise, and white bamboo flakes. The black silk fabric strips make a great contrast. Here's a picture of the finished yarn in daylight, but since we don't get much light nowadays, it's still not as brilliant as it could be:

I still don't know whether I'll be able to part with this yarn, I am quite in love!
I also found another version of the song which I like a lot better than the one linked to above: Under Jolly Roger - by Therion.

Spring Has Sprung!

 ...at least in the local home deco store. Otherwise, it's cold and somewhat grey and rainy (wish there was snow!), but I am very glad about the premature offer of spring deco, because the store now has some of my favourite ribbons available again:

There was also soft pink and lilac, but no light blue, which I would have liked to buy. Red, green and yellow are wonderful, though, and I do like the dots :-)

Something I also like is what Twisted gave me for Yul: a package of soft, brightly coloured, sparkling puff thingies. I alrady used a lot of them, and this yarn is my favourite:

Alien Frog Pond

The others were also a lot of fun to spin. There are three yarns so far featuring the whimsical puffs:

I have enough red ones for another yarn (at least I think so, I should check) and smaller blue and violet ones for another, so there will probably be two more quite soon.

Introducing: Trashy Tuesday

Happy new year to you all, our dear readers, customers, and friends! :-)
I'd wanted to post a fireworks picture at the beginning of the new year, but I was too busy watching the fireworks and hugging my friends, so I forgot to take pictures... So, let me start with a regular post then.

Twisted and I have decided we need to spend more time together, which has become more difficult with increasing work. So we agreed on starting a tradition of Trashy Tuesday: each Tuesday (or at least nearly each one) we will meet, have coffee, work on crafty things, and watch a trashy movie together. Sounds good? We think so too :-) Trashy movie? you might ask - well, let me give you an example ;-)

Last week, we watched Robin Hood - Men in Tights. And not for the first time, I might add. In fact, we've got a kind of tradition already with this film, and it's the only one I really like to watch in German because I know the words. Let me show you one of my favourite scenes:



While this film is cheap and trashy, it's also quite witty, actually. There are some clever allusions, and (of course) side blows to the original film, Robin Hood - King of Thieves; like this one ;-)



I am currently thinking about spinning one or even several yarns based on this film. One idea would be Latrine's scrying soup of which, sadly, I found no video I could show you. Another one might be a general Robin Hood yarn, or something to do with Sherwood Forest, but I am still collecting inspiration.

Today it's Trashy Tuesday again - and we will watch Red Sonja, which I haven't seen yet. We also thought about watching King Arthur - with 32% on Rotten Tomatoes it should qualify as trashy enough ;-) Spaceballs and Dracula (Dead and Loving it) could be on the list, too, as well as Splitting Heirs or The Life of Brian - but we've already seen all of them. If you have any other suggestions for trashy movies, please leave a comment!