Please Hold The Line

As some of you probably know, I have been working on my master's thesis for quite a while. Actually, it's been a lot longer than I anticipated, and I really want to get it out of the way.

At the beginning of 2012 I decided to decrease the work on the shop slightly, to have more time for the thesis, but somehow that didn't really work out. I did less, but it's still something that's in the back of my head, especially since I really want to work on the shop - to be honest, I'd rather do that than work on my thesis and that's where the problem really lies. I realized I needed to focus much, much more on the one thing that really needs to be done. So I made a tough decision - I will put the shop nearly on hold. This doesn't mean it will be closed, and it doesn't mean I won't write the occasional blog post or put a new yarn in the shop from time to time, but I won't do all that on a regular basis. This post is meant to make this clear for myself as well as for you, our dear readers and customers, as I see how badly it worked when it was only a vague idea in my head ;-)

We will still ship out orders within our usual time frame of three work days, and I will probably spin every now and then to clear my head, but I won't pressure myself to keep everything up to date and I don't think I'll be able to do custom yarns for a while.

I do hope you'll bear with me/us! If you want to be notified about any news (new yarn, new blog post), please become our fan on facebook, as we will post updates there should they occur.

I'll miss you!

More Hats!

Sheila Harden has made two more wonderful hats from our art yarns! I especially like the design of the green one, it's so creative and I like the different kinds of texture!

 Dolores Umbridge

You can find this hat in Sheila's Etsy shop, right here :-) There are more pictures, too!

Winter Delight

The green and white part in the back is made from our yarn. You can find more pictures in the actual listing - there's also one that shows our yarn beautifully :-)

Thank you for sharing the pictures, Sheila! :-)

Etsy Loves Us!

Yesterday, I looked into my mail box to find a small package from Etsy Germany.

There was a Valentine's card in it, a tote with an Etsy logo, and an Etsy pin. We didn't know this was coming, and we don't even know why they picked us (or did every Etsyian in Germany get a parcel like this?), we were very pleased.

It's the small and unexpected things that tend to make us happy, isn't it? :-)

How Ron's Dressrobes Turned into a Hat

You might wonder, was it magic? One could certainly think so! ;-) The magic used is called crochet, and the one who performed it was Kyuubi No Kitsune. Thank you for sharing the photos with us and our readers :-)

Ron's Dress Robes

The yarn, as it was listed in our shop. Maroon, with bits of lace, just as described in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

 

 The hat it became...

 ...which features a neat steampunk button :-) Great idea, I think!

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.