New Stitchmarkers

I always try to have some small giveaways handy, and those of you who have followed my blog for a while probably already know that I make new batches of stitch markers to give away in somewhat regular intervals. Here are the new ones - I've already sewn them into paper pouches, and I even made the one snowflake paper myself :-)

 

I made the first batch for a crafts fair years back, and I quite liked them, so I decided to keep some of them ready to ship as little thank you's.

Harry Potter Art Yarn Advent Calendar!

I did it! I really spun a whole Harry Potter art yarn advent calendar, or more precisely, enough yardage for three of them (one of which already sold). I already wrote about the project here, and I started spinning immediately after writing the blog post. It took me over a week to finish all the 24 mini skeins of delicious Harry Potter themed art yarn, and it was so worth the time - and also a lot of fun.

I decided on spinning scenes / people / places / phrases in chronological order from the book, so the finished object will tell the story from beginning to end, starting on Privet Drive and ending with Gryffindor winning the house cup. The mini skeins are as complex as my regular skeins, and as much careful planning and working out the details (and, of course, spinning skills) went into each of them.

The calendar is already listed on Etsy - without pictures, so as not to spoil any surprises. I decided to do the revealment as a virtual advent calendar, so from December 1 to December 24 there will be a blog post each day, taking you through the story of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone again, and showing off all the yarns :-)

Harry Potter Yarn Advent Calendar?!

I've been thinking a lot about offering mini skeins lately. Or maybe even smaller amounts, such as a few metres to embellish projects and gifts, for example. I often see small embellishment packs on Etsy, with four or five different yarns, a few metres each - but never handspun.
I wondered whether this would be a good thing to offer for Christmas, and I decided to try it out - but this took a whole new direction when I posted a photo of the Christmas mini batts I made for this project on Facebook: two very dear customers jumped in immediately with their own ideas, one dreaming about a mini skein Advent calendar, the other suggesting making said calendar with a Hobbit, Lord of the Rings or Doctor Who theme in mind. This really got me thinking. And planning! (Thank you so much, you two! You know who you are ;-))

If you follow my blog and shop you will have noticed that I've always been a huge fan of the Harry Potter books (though I have to admit I am more and more irritated by the gender roles lately, but I still like the books), and I think they would make a fantastic story Advent calendar. I had pieces and ideas forming in my head immediately - such as the snake in the zoo, Hagrid with his pink umbrella, "you're a wizard, Harry", potions class, "Mars is bright tonight" and lots more. I ended up having over 30 yarn ideas, only from the first book, and I could have easily written down even more, but I had to narrow them down to just 24, obviously. It will still be a huge project with 24 yarns, even though there will be only small amounts of yarn, and there is not much time left if I want to make this happen, advertise it, and ship it out in time. But I am on fire here!

My current plan is to take 24 small paper bags or something like that, write the numbers from 1 to 24 on the front, and put between 10 and 15 m of "scene art yarn" in each of them, writing the title of each yarn in the place where I fold the bag to close it. It's planned as a surprise, so there will be no photos of the yarns themselves in the listing, but I will document the yarns in case someone wants a peek to see if this is the right thing for them. I just don't want to post spoilers, so photos will be shown by request only.

So, what can you do with only 10-15 m of yarn each day? Embellishing gifts and project is one idea, but maybe it would be sad to take the yarns out of context, and don't forget that the whole amount will be at least 240 m! So what about a striped story scarf? You can knit or crochet or weave a bit every day and see it grow as Christmas approaches. You could also add some plain yarn (something neutral, like black or white maybe) and make a larger project, alternating plain yarn and art yarn, making something larger, like a shawl, maybe. A set of striped hat and wrist warmers would also be great, or a bag, or a pillow case - there are so many possibilities!
The yarns will differ from each other in texture and thickness, so they would make a very interesting project. I'm sure they could also be used for needle felting and maybe even emroidery projects, and I bet you will think of lots more to do with them!

Now excuse me, I'm off to start spinning Harry Potter scenes! ;-)