Spin like a Pirate

Meet Captain Jack Sparrow, and his beard, which was a huge part of my inspiration for this yarn ;-)

This is finest black alpaca fibre, corespun, and containing bone skulls, bells, sea shells and pieces of some Pirates of the Carribean merchandise (a replica of the red kerchief Captain Jack wears). Arrr!

Tour de Fleece - Day 21

I haven't had much time for spinning lately, as was to be expected with all the stuff that's going on. We spent the past weeks renovating, and I spent the last two days studying for my exams and trying to squeeze in some house time (renovating again, and also getting some bills in order) in the evenings. Today was reserved for shop work, but I watched some documentations about Ancient Egypt while spinning :-) Twisted and some other friends gave them to me years ago, and I had already forgotten a lot, so it was nice to watch them again. It felt reasonable to combine spinning with some kind of learning/revising stuff that might be helpful. But enough about my studies, I'm going to show you the yarns :-)

 I carded some batts first thing in the morning and hoped to be able to spin them all up, which was indeed the case. I love the colours of all of them!

 Snow Daisies

I always love to use white fibres because their quality is somehow different than the dyed variety. Also, I don't have any dyed bluefaced leicester wool the texture of which is heavenly, so I like to use the pure white stuff. I combined it with only a small amount of green and yellow merino, shiny white alpaca and white lambs wool, and I spun in shimmering snowflake sequins and textile daisies. There's also a bit of commercial eyelash yarn in this one, and I used mother of pearl thread for even more of a shimmering, snowy touch.

This one is still without a name. I was thinking of naming it Koi Pond, but I think Twisted had a yarn once with this name, so I might want to use a different one. Maybe Sparkling Koi would be good since there is a lot of heavenly, peacock angelina (glitter) in this one. It's light fingering or even lace weight, though it looks sturdier in the picture.

 Bubble Gum

I'm not entirely satisfied with the name, maybe I'll think of something else. Bubble Bath is already taken, though the Bubble Bath yarn would also make a great Bubble Gum yarn due to its colour *g* Both the bubble yarns glow in the dark and feature these cute little glittery pompoms.

It's Tour de Fleece time!

I was so looking forward to this year's Tour de Fleece, and I thought I could make quite some time for it this year - but my plans have been thwarted once more. Not that the thing eating up my time isn't  a good one, but I'll come to that in a minute. I'll try to participate in the tour sporadically, and today was a good day (no, not to die - in case there are other Klingon fans here - but to spin!):

120m / 90g of heavenly soft corespun, with beads and sparkle and sari silk threads. I like corespinning, and though I have done it often in the past, I am astounded every single time at how long it takes and how wonderful the texture is. Can't get enough :-)

And now for the big stuff: Apart from polishing my thesis and learning for my final exams (hello, Middle Egyptian, among other things) we're very, very busy renovating. Not the flat we've been living in for the past ten years, but our very own house. Well, it will be our own once we pay off the loan ;-) We, in this case, means Twisted, myself, and our husbands. We have searched for a house for two years, and we finally found it. It was hard to find a house which could be split fairly, since the four of us don't want to live together but in two separate flats inside the same house, sharing the garden. Anyway, we're currently in the process of doing all the paper work, renovating, planning etc, and since my husband was able to take some leave, the Tour de Fleece time span will be filled with removing wallpaper, hanging new wallpaper, building a kitchen and a bed, and other fun stuff. If you'd like to see pictures, please come and visit our blog. It's in German, but if you want to know what we're talking about, maybe google translate can help. It's always hilarious to read the translations, in any case ;-)

Yummy New Yarns

As promised, here are a few pictures of my latest projects :-)

I thought of naming this first one something to do with twitter, since the bird charms remind me a lot of the twitter icon, but I might also name it Frozen Sky, in the style of two other yarns I named Frozen Sea and Frozen Lake. It's of a similar colour scheme, so it would fit nicely.

Now this one I spun with a clear idea in mind: this yarn I call The Huntress, after a comic book figure. I have to admit I never read the comic books, I only saw the (very trashy, yet somewhat entertaining) TV show "Birds of Prey". I took the idea for the colour scheme from pictures of the comic books, though. I also added strips of black silk, alluding to a super heroine cape.

I don't have a name for this last one yet. I spun it with Ireland in mind, as you might have guessed from the colours and the shamrock charms ;-)

I have also spun a Hedwig yarn, inspired by Harry Potter's owl, but it's still wet and photos will have to wait.

In other news, we have a new listing in our shop which is no yarn, but yarn related: the Surprise Stitchmarkers. The listing is for one stitch marker (for $1,50) which we will pick at random. They are all handmade by us, of course, and they are all made from silver plated copper wire and will fit needles up to 5,5 mm (US size 9). The other materials vary, as you might know we are partial to semi precious stones and bone skull beads ;-) But there are more possibilities than that. We started off with listing a quantity of eight markers, but we're able to make more. They will be shipped for free if bought together with another item! :-)

New Project

Two weeks ago I found out that one of my oldest friends is pregnant. I decided to make a baby blanket, and I hope that I'll finish it in time. It has to be handspun, of course (I think I've never bought yarn since I started spinning my own), so I quickly carded some batts and started spinning. Here's a work in progress photo from last week, I've actually finished the yarn and started knitting by now. More photos soon, I hope, and I also hope to be able to share some art yarn photos soon, too :-)

Back in Business - and Starting with a Sale!

Hello everyone :-) I hope my long absence has not induced you to wander off...

I am very happy to announce that I nearly finished my thesis (which means I need to add some pictures, check a few references, wait for correction and add/change the things other people think I should), and work on the shop has begun again!

I thought it would be great to celebrate with a sale, so as of now all the old items (items added before today) are marked down to make room for the new. The sale will be active until Sunday, 3rd of June, 12 am EST. You don't have to enter a coupon code or do anything else to get the discount, it's already included in the prices now shown in the shop.

As for new stuff, I have quite a few ideas :-) I made a really extensive yarn plan a while back, and since I can now take down my thesis plan, I can hang the yarn plan back on my wall - so there are lots of things to come. I have already spun three new yarns which I will add to the shop shortly, and I have also carded a couple of batts, so there will be even more new yarns soon :-) If you're looking for a custom yarn, that's possible, too - just message us on Etsy!

Oh, it's so good to be back!

Message from the Exile ;-)

This was going to be just a short note to letting you know (if you're interested in my private affairs ;-)) that my self-imposed exile was the right choice. I've been working hard on my thesis, and made quite some progress. I really do hope to finish it by the first week of May, though there might be some delay because I had a bad cold and had to take a few days off. But May it should be!

Now for the extra part ;-) I've been meaning to show you some photos which I have just rediscovered, so I chose to put them in this post, too, for a bit of colour. Last year, I knitted a hat and a pair of arm warmers from a skein of gorgeous corespun. I don't have a photo of the yarn or the arm warmers, but here's the hat :-)

The yarn was spun from a complex fibre blend, some of which was hand dyed, and it didn't contain any add-ins. I used the whole skein of about 100 m, which was enough for both the hat and the arm warmers, and I used 6mm needles. I think I must have written down the pattern as I went, but I have no idea where I put it. Maybe I should use a note book for future knitting projects, as I always find myself in this dilemma: I write down everything on small pieces of paper, and when I'm done I put them away so I won't lose them, intending to write a neat version down some time. When I get around to blogging about the project I can't remember where I put the pieces of paper...

I also took some time for spindle spinning recently. I bought these wonderful spindles from Zebisisdesigns shortly after Chrismas (my mum gave me money to buy two of them because she didn't feel comfortable ordering them herself, but it was a wonderful gift, of course! :-)), and delivery got delayed because the wonderful shop owner wanted to do me some good and made me another spindle, free of charge! I was absolutely amazed, as you can imagine. I had ordered a labradorite and a lapislazuli spindle, commenting that I really liked the one lapislazuli spindle in her shop (which had the wrong form for me) since it reminded me of a starry night sky. She only had a whorl of lighter blue left, but then she made me a starry night sky spindle from what I think might be called blue goldstone (please correct me if I am wrong!), and she also sent some hand dyed fibre along, also free of charge. Thank you again so much, M.!

I started spinning, and both the goldstone and the labradorite spindles turn beautifully. I haven'd tried the lapislazuli one yet. I made some more progress during my lunch break today, watching Star Trek DS9 (for the fourth time, I think) and trying to relax my mind a little.

I love the colours of the hand dyed fibre, they are very bright and intense.


Ahh, I do miss working on the shop. Please wish me luck so I can finish my thesis soon and start spinning for real again! :-)