...and Halloween is only one month away. I love spinning Halloween art yarns, but somehow I always start too late. Also, August and September have been incredibly busy the last few years. This is why I have only a few themed yarns, not all of which are listed yet. I'll try my best to put them in the shop over the next few days so they will arrive in time for a Halloween knitting party - or a Halloween party you just take your knitting to ;-)
Bats and Pumpkins
This one features the traditional colours and also bat charms and pumpkin charms. It's 168 m / 112 g
Gotham Night
This one is already listed, you can read about the details here.
Also, there are these two - not Halloween yarns as such, but the colours fit the theme somewhat and I'd like to show them because I like them a lot :-)
Gallifrey
This one features hand dyed bluefaced leicester wool and silk as well as merino wool - and semi-precious stones (fiery red agate, carnelian, and citrine) strung onto a shiny orange thread. 251 m / 113 g
Friends of Slytherin
This is one of my recent favourites - I absolutely love the snake charms. I've been meaning to spin another Slytherin yarn for a long time now, but it took me a while to find suitable add-ins. This art yarn is sparkly (silver angelina) and features wild silk, alpaca, linen and merino wool. Also, I spun in silk fabric strips and beads. 112 m / 95 g
Long time, no blogging... I am sorry I've been so absent, there was such a lot going on. I've been writing job applications, we're still renovating, I had to go to the hospital in July, and somehow now it's nearly September already.
But let me tell you about my recent craft activities :-)
A few months ago, I was asked whether I could spin a Doctor Who yarn with TARDIS beads in it. I went into research mode instantly and went looking for TARDIS beads or charms on the internet. There were not many to be found, and the ones I did find were handmade and (rightly!) quite expensive. As I need several beads or charms for a yarn and have to stay within a certain budget, these were out of the question.
I kept thinking what I could do. Making some from polymer clay myself came into mind, but that would take so much time that it would blow the budget, too. I finally remembered to have read about shrinky dinks - you all probably know it, as it seems to have been and still be very popular. But for those of you, like me, who have never heard of it, let me explain. It's a kind of plastic sheet which you can colour and cut to your liking and then heat in the oven where it will shrink to harder, thicker plates. It's used for jewelry making and I thought maybe it would suit my purposes, too. I ordered a few sheets at once and tried it, but it took me some time to find the right size for my TARDIS.
Today, I succeeded. I made nine TARDISses (and some other stuff from the scraps, just to see what can be done) and I am really looking forward to spinning the yarn!
As the potential customer asked for a yarn inspired by the eleventh Doctor, I'm thinking browns and beiges (tweed suit), a bit of white (shirt) and some red (bowtie, fez) or maybe even small fabric bowtie-y things. I think it will be rustic in a very charming way.
Let me introduce one of my latest creations - another Doctor Who yarn, inspired by one of my favourite episodes. Even from one of my favourite favourite episodes, as I like so many of them a lot ;-)
For those of you who don't know Doctor Who or haven't watched a lot of it yet, let me quote the person we are introduced to in this espisode: SPOILERS! (not many, but read on at your own risk)
The colours of the yarn were inspired by the library itself: brown shelves and furniture, with late sunlight falling in (represented by coppery angelina). I spun in silver book charms to represent the actual books (of course), also known as the forests of the Vashta Nerada. I added six strips of white silk fabric to represent the space suits of River Song and her team. Each of the silk strips is accompanied by one or two large green glass beads which stand for the green light of the communicators which are located at the collars of the suits - and which, as we know, tend to Data Ghost, resulting in Ms. Evangelista repeating "Ice cream, ice cream" in the end.
This yarn hasn't made it to the shop yet, but I hope to list it this week, along with some other new ones. Aquamenti (Harry Potter inspired) and Praios (from the RPG system The Dark Eye) are already up for sale, and then there are others, like Nemo, Thank You For The Fish, and Black Widow, which will be listed shortly.
I have to admit: when I was still studying for my exams, I spent quite some time on Ravelry, having to procrastinate every so often ;-) I used to look for new patterns (especially asymmetric ones), but also browse my favourites and imagine how glorious it would be to have some time for spinning art yarn for myself and starting a larger project.
I decided on the Line Break shawl which calls for about 800 m of fingering yarn. I wanted a simple art yarn - no ribbons or charms, but tiny beads and sequins for a glittery yet elegant effect - and I wanted to spin in from a black fibre blend. I recently got my hands on some (commercially dyed) black Bluefaced Leicester fibre which I blended with glossy black alpaca, luxurious merino/silk blend and black merino wool. I spun in black sewing thread strung with black and silver mini sequins and tiny silver seed beads. I love the yarn, and spinning the first skein was a lot of fun, but I tend to find spinning lots of the same yarn quite tedious... I managed about 1000m nonetheless and now I can knit a really large version of the shawl, yay!
I named the yarn and the shawl "Delirious Diva", still being under the influence of the "Sing-Along Songs for the Damned and Delirious" album by The Diablo Swing Orchestra :-D
I started a few days ago, while being entertained by my husband playing The Walking Dead on the PS3. It's quite disgusting, but fun to watch while knitting (also enthralling), and I'm looking forward to more :-)
I always find it hard to take photos of black fibre and yarn - these could be better, but I hope you enjoy this post anyway :-)
I found an intriguing pattern called Tentaculum. I was in posession of a wonderful skein of art yarn at the time which I really wanted to knit up myself, and the two kind of happened to coincide. Here's the result :-)
I originally intended to make and keep this for myself, but then I decided to give it to my mum for her birthday. It felt right and she likes it :-)
I made another one I didn't really intend to keep, but now I am wondering... I wanted to knit another one because I had so much fun with the pattern, and I decided to spin a white snowflake art yarn since I've always wanted to knit one of those myself. The thing is - I don't like wearing white. I don't think it looks good on me, and I usually prefer black with a splash of either red, green oder dark teal. All I wanted was the bliss of knitting a wonderful mixed-fibre art yarn with snowflake sequins into a fun garment which I could then trade or give as a gift. Then I put it around my neck and was amazed how white actually can look quite good on me - unfamiliar, but not at all bad. So now I am not sure whether I'll keep it or not. I haven't even gotten around to weaving in the ends and blocking the thing, which is why I can only show you a picture from the very beginning:
I am so in love with these snowflake sequins! I always have been, from the first time I saw them :-) I even wondered whether they might look good in a black or teal yarn *g* Maybe I'll try that some day.
...or so goes the proverb. It is certainly true for my studies, as I have now (finally!) completed my degree :-)
I am proud and relieved - and still exhausted, but that's fine as I can take a break now. I look forward to spinning and reviving the shop, but before that I will spend some time doing absolutely nothing useful, preferably in the garden :-) I have a new book and a new music album I am looking forward to: "First Among Sequels" by Jasper Fforde (the fifth book in a series I've enjoyed over the past two years) and "Sing-Along Songs for the Damned and Delirious" by Diablo Swing Orchestra. Both are fantastic!
After dyeing my first sock yarn, I had a conversation with my dear friend FibrePiratess about yarn dyeing. I was talking about how easy it is to mix colours like blue and green that go well together, as it won't matter if the colours bleed into each other, and how I wouldn't (at the moment) dare to mix complementary colours together as I was afraid of ending up with a disgusting and undefined mud colour. At this point I felt the immense urge to try a sock yarn of green and orange, and it took only a few days until I gave in.
I did kind of cheat, however. I added yellow as a barrier between the green and the orange, as I knew it would go well with both and prevent the dreaded mud colour ;-) Yet there was still the matter of preventing the orange parts from mingling with the green parts before the colours were set. I thought of this before I started, but modified the measures while I went along. But let me start from the beginning.
When dyeing with easter egg colours, I usually just mix each colour in a normal drinking glass. I put in the little tablets (or paper strips, as there are several different kinds of easter egg colours), add a bit of vinegar and hot water and stir, sometimes breaking the tablets with a spoon when I am impatient. I let the yarn soak in water mixed with vinegar and squeeze it before I apply the dyes.
In this case, I did the orange part first. I wrapped some plastic wrap around it to protect it from the green parts and added the yellow colour. This was how I had planned it. I was afraid it wouldn't be enough, though, and did the first thing that came to mind: I stuffed the orange part of the yarn into an empty drinking glass, then transferred the whole skein and the glass onto a baking tray, fanned out the yarn a little, and poured the green colour on the yet undyed parts. I tried to let it bleed into the yellow parts as I wanted to prevent bits from staying undyed, but I didn't manage perfectly. I then transferred the skein into a bowl (the baking tray wouldn't fit in the microwave, of course), putting the glass with the orange part on top (and adding a little water to it so the yarn wouldn't get too dry).
I heat-set the dyes for 3 x 5 minutes, always letting the yarn rest after 5 minutes (and for 5 minutes) before turning the microwave back on.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take better pictures. The orange part was quite shy, you only see the yellow and the intersection between orange and yellow here. The real orange is a lot brighter. I love it :-) I thought of parrots at first, until, suddenly, a character from my favourite opera (The Magic Flute) popped into my mind and I thought this was so Papageno!
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