Wanting

I don't want for much. It's not a big life, but I am content with it. The people around me are inspirational, genuine, kind and funny (sometimes kind of funny). We have a lovely place to live, our animals, and I have as much fibre in the house as I can possibly fit in.

And yet, I did want something...a weird thing, an unnecessary thing....but something that has added wildly to my happy factor.

Gertrude (Gertie) is going to make a lovely addition to the already crowded house. She will come to craft shows and trade shows with me. She will travel and adorn herself in half finished scarves. She will inspire new designs and keep me company during the design days.

I didn't think I could fit anything else in my life, and I've long since given up collecting anything other than wool, yet somehow Gertie fits in just fine.

Beautiful Things

My friends make beautiful things. I just received these from Joan yesterday. I have a design specifically for them (which I did not have prior to receiving them).

I mentioned in passing that I would love buttons that looked like stone. I think these are just amazing. I have used her buttons in my designs before, but these have excited me more than the world's largest fudge brownie.

And since I am plugging my friends today...

Claire makes outstanding journals, recipe books and hand made cards. My favourite is her teacup cards which are photographs of her personal collection of tea cups with gorgeous teas inside. They make the best get well cards ever.

Stephanie has the quirkiest collection of tea cozies and bodum covers made from recycled sweaters. She is my favourite "green" artist. She has also developed a new line of fibre jewellery that just rocks.

Oh, and I managed to collect the rest of my hand dyed fibre today. Without tooting my own horn, I find them kind of pretty...

From left to right: Hand painted roving of merino, bamboo and rayon. Hand painted superwash merino and seacell. Hand painted hand spun BFL.

And I'm knitting something super sweet, inspired by these peas.

Transformation

I was finally able to spin my own hand dyed roving this morning. What a thrill. As I split the 100% kid mohair roving, I could not stop staring at the colours that were unfolding before me. The more the roving was drafted, the more hypnotically I became attached to watching the flow of the colours...


The funniest thing about spinning my own hand dyed means I probably will not go back to spinning what other people have dyed. I say funny, but I really mean problematic as I have now added yet another layer to the pre knitting production work.

Knitting with this wool has bumped the design up yet another notch. It's another calling card of uniqueness for the work. My colour choices, my textures, my designs. How delightfully selfish.

I would like to apologize for how self indulgent this post is. I had a moment with the yarn, one that was truly mine and I needed to share how great that felt. Someone please tell me you have had an amazing yarn love story so that I know I am not alone.

I'm not Worthy!

So begins the new year and the first jury is out of the way. YLFMS is an exhausting market to apply for. Consider pre-jury, then formal jury, then choosing market dates and finally trying to survive the season with 8:00am weekend tent set ups come rain or shine.

I digress. When I am preparing pieces for a jury I am considering a multitude of things, not withstanding, who is the "jury". Who is this mystical group of people that can determine my annual income and in a lot of ways what course my business might take.

When I am accepted into a jury, I am quite certain that these are a group of people with impeccable taste. When I am rejected, I consider that the jurors were from a pool of prison inmates who were given a day pass and free sandwiches to offer their services for the process.

No one likes to be judged. What I came away from this recent experience with is that it just doesn't feel good if your talented friends aren't along with you for the ride.

Breath deeply, stare in amazement at your acceptance package and reward yourself by knitting something that is not a jury piece (or if you love it, could become a jury piece). One down only six more to go.

A State of "Exhaustion"

Okay, so no one told me that dyeing involved flames, chemical masks, mathematics and does not allow for a nice big piping open cup of coffee in your work environment. Last last condition alone might mean that dyeing is not for me.

And then I saw the colours........

fuchsia TEAL
orange chartreuse

All of these greens came from the same dye pot. It's an exciting exploration to see how each fibre accepts the dye.

There was so much more accomplished in the afternoon than simply making seas of green. Since I spin, I focused on dyeing rovings...What a difference between the BFL, kid mohair and wensleydale. The lustre of the kid mohair is remarkable. I also had a small silk skein as well as a roving of merino, bamboo and rayon that made it on to the painting table. I'll be picking up those finished fibres on Thursday.

The only thing missing in the new process for me is actually raising the animals providing the fleece.

Hop on the Bus, Gus.

Pearl sent this to me this morning and I am still trying to recover. My dream come true. A knit bus. Come on knitters, hop on and let's take that trip to the magical wool store, where nothing itches, ALL of the wool is in sale bins and just the right colour and enough for your project.

The yarn taggers and graffiti artists out there rock my world. Other than world peace this is the best thing ever.


BTW, a book about this new wave of yarn taggers is coming out and it's local gals....You've got to love the West Coast. Click here for the link.

This is much more interesting than the piddly little skein I was going to show you today... Oops, here it is, just for comparing how uninteresting it is now...

Gotta go, heading out to the bus stop.

Nothing is Better than Silk

I will not be moved from this opinion....Silk, silk, glorious silk.

The fushia tussah silk has such an incredible shine to it. As I was coming home on the bus, I pulled it out of it's clear package and spread it across my knees, actually fanning open the roving. I held it up to the sunshine and then ran my hand across it several times. I then touched it to my face.

For a moment, it was just me and this glorious fibre. For everyone on the bus riding with me, it was an interesting spectacle. No one seemed freaked out, just a bit curious. After I packed it back up, and pulled out a knitting project, my behaviour apparently made more sense. No more spectacle.


Once I got home I continued to play with the fibre. The fushia layer on the bottom, then teased beautiful mohair locks, the mustard is a squishy merino and the coffee coloured topper is some local romney locks. Quite the fibre cocktail.

I won't be spinning this for a while. I just like looking at it on the shelf. It glows when the light comes into the room. Yep, nothing better than silk.

Crochet at it's Finest

I tend to keep politics out of the blog, but when it involves knitting or crochet, I'm willing to make an exception. Originally spied on Lime and Violet this morning, and then went straight to Ravelry.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Here is the link for the artist.

Finally on the Right Track

So I bring my embarrassing yarn to class and it's just not right, well, not exactly not right, but unfinished. It needs to be plied. These yarns are not singles. Back to the drawing board.

Toni is now in my class. It was exciting, but seriously no visible Starbucks in Coquitlam and only one hiding in a Safeway. Finding our way back to class was a bit of a misadventure, but it's no fun to get there in a straight line!

So much pretty fibre in class today. It was a silk fest. As soon as I came home, I started spinning the matching singles to ply. It feels good to finally be on the right track.

A new WIP

I have retooled a design from last year. There was nothing wrong with the design, but my yarn suffered a slight accident in shipping. This disentangling has given me some extra time to contemplate the original design.

It's given me a bit more time for something else I have not experienced for a while. Stillness. I am delicately and intuitively detangling and winding...up, over, under, around, over again...and with no reason to rush or hurry. Mindfulness, calmness and an all over sense of peace over what would ordinarily make me crazy....

Blah, blah Canada Post, curse, curse.....deadline.....argh, the universe.....blah, blah..

I have no idea when this shift occurred or if this will happen again at the next misadventure. Somehow I am hoping it will. It felt nice.

Work = Reward

I have been diligently working on my homework all week. Spin, draw, wind, ply, repeat, adding up piles and piles of project yarn. I've even won Toni (already a much better spinner than I) over to the dark side so I have someone at school with me, moral support, I guess.

I have been finishing orders and ignoring jury pieces, but getting lots of paperwork done. Although scattered, at the end of the day, the accomplishment column is much more loaded than the "how come I couldn't finish....?" column.

My reward.....

14 hours of Battlestar Gallactica. All of the 4th season including the finale and the first episode of the new and final season. A definite reward for an accomplished week, but even better, I am getting more work done during the self imposed couch time. And the fun is only just beginning....

I have a photo shoot at Grouse Mountain this weekend (where I will manage a little ice skating time). I also have two orders to pick up at the post office. I have such a hate on for Canada Post right now I can't begin to describe it. They are the only affordable option for shipping so I am stuck with them, but they lie, lie, lie, like a cheap rug. My orders are at the post office because I was "not home" ----was so, was so. A delivery notice advising attempted delivery was left with me.....------so, was not.....oh, I really don't like Canada Post.

Now, this is five pounds of custom dyed silk and wool blend that I have been waiting for to finish a jury piece. Wish me luck that this time crunch does not affect the quality of the finished piece.

Oh BSG is sooo good. The knitting is furious to keep pace with the episodes. I won't be able to put down the needles or pull myself away.

Back to the "Long Draw"ing Board

I've been spinning and selling my handspun for more than a year now and I've never formally learned how to spin. With Art Yarn, imperfections add a bit of excitement to the skeins, and it certainly makes them fun and surprising to knit and crochet.

The flawed fibre makes every skein of yarn unique. I've allowed myself the pleasure of discovering the characters of each different type of wool, roving and carded batts. I've let the texture sink into my hands. I'm really proud of things that I have created, but always twigging in the back of my mind was....

"what about the basics"?

....This is a legitimate question coming from someone who will dive from the high dive before checking the pool for water. That kamikaze approach seems to have worked for me for most things. Or what I also refer to as pulling stuff out of my butt...

Not good enough. Place des Arts was just in process of starting a new term and I met Irene at the guild meeting where she mentioned the course. I was hooked, and also in a bit of hero workship (pun intended), Irene is an amazing teacher.

Bundled up in the rain, sporting my best hand knits, and with all the enthusiasm I could muster for a 7:30 am commute to the burbs, I headed out.

I am absolutely thrilled because today Irene reintroduced me to wool. It's a relationship I was taking for granted. We are now in an early old style courtship phase, the wool and I. I will not blow this relationship by trying to get to third base on the first date.

Yes, it will be a long courtship, but this relationship is a keeper and deserves the best me I can put forward.

My new love. I shall call her "Crimpy".

And here she is after just a bit of teasing....

And now on to the carders for some delicate combing.

And finally, after our first encounter, a little batch of rolags.

I will be spinning this today. I know it's not going to look great, but I don't care. I will drown myself in the warm wonderful feeling of discovering this fibre from the ground up.

Gotta run!

A New "Floor " Model

I've got a lot of tidying up to do in the studio. Things have been pretty hairy (fluffy, furry, yarnie) since Circle Craft. I just haven't been able to get the studio in order.

I had the perfect excuse today as my friend Joan brought her daughter over (a talented knitter in her own right) who was curious about the drum carder. I wanted to show her some carding and just grabbed a few handfuls of what lay behind the fabulous blending machine on the carpet and ran that through.

How fun, merino, perindale, corriedale, silk, kid mohair, bamboo, yak, mohair locks, angelina and who knows what else. The resulting batt was just a plucky bunch of fibre fun. And moreover, it was sort of housework.

Cat Batt Inspection

I was fortunate to be able to spin myself stupid. The last web order was shipped today (or so I thought) Oddly enough, every time I go to the post office, I come home to another order. I really should start hanging out there.

Oh, I wanted to show you what cruel and unusual punishment I inflicted on that lovely piece of fabric yesterday.

Okay, now what do I do with it? Back to web orders.

The Anatomy of a Batt

Web orders almost being caught up gave me license to play a bit today, so I worked on a few things that just needed sorting out.

1. Create batts to formula. If someone loves it, how am I going to repeat it. Up until now things have been whimsical, but very random. Today I measured things....oooh scary.

2. Finished a jury piece. I've been working on it for weeks off and on and it's finally done. Now if I can remember where it is when I bring everything to set up.

3. Shredded some beautiful fibre for a project that I have been working on. It hurt, but what's done is done. No turning back now.

4. Looked at, but could not complete a "Craft Jury Artisan Questionaire" How do I explain to people who don't know me or my work what I do. It's easy to sound arrogant, or too flippant or too mechanical. I tend to fill these things out like I am explaining a tooth extraction. And.....it is paperwork (which, to anyone who knows me, knows it is not my strong suit).

5. Forced myself to look through a box of scraps and found the most wonderful chunky vintage boucle that made some excellent pom poms.

6. Pulled out bits of another jury piece to work on. Found the angora that Pearl gave me for Christmas, which will work perfectly for this project. With deadlines fast approaching these fibres have to be transformed into beautiful things in a very short time frame.

Wish me luck.

An Important Decision-Finally

As the New Year starts, I am already chasing my tail with how busy things have become. This has put me in the position of stating full on that I am no longer doing commission work or custom orders.

I am losing a lot of production time to design that will not become part of my regular inventory. It is time that I cannot recover. In retrospect, it may be one of the reasons why I was so overwhelmed last year. Don't get me wrong--for those that follow the blog, you all know I love a good challenge and 99% of people are pleased with the final design...BUT....

I've only ever calculated the time in making the finished product and not the 3 times that I ripped it out to start over or sketched or resized something. Now this doesn't mean you can't have an existing design in a different colour or wool. I feel awful even writing this, but one of the reasons I started on this path was to bring my visions to light. In some ways I have lost sight of that.

It's 2am and I'm working on an order. No,this was my design that some one asked me to replicate twofold. This one I am having enormous fun with. I hope I am not harming the business in any way by imposing this limitation. This year will be a selfish MelonHead me, all me design year.

Oh, and hang on to your hats. I am immediately applying this now freed up time to taking a dye workshop at the end of the month...

Storage and Pretending to be Organized

I'm moving things around again. There's nothing like a good Canadian Tire Sale in the houseware and storage section to get my ass in gear. New devices for yarn force me to organize the collection that is so much more massive since obtaining the drum carder.

I'm certain that there is now over 100 lbs of undyed fibre in the house as well as finished inventory and it is getting harder to find space around here. Harder, not impossible.

Just a few new yarns, batts and hats for the new year.

Some yarn.

Some Batts.

And a hat. 120 grams of hand spun fun.

Even the concept of time organization is being played with via my new fab Rumi Daytimer. I do find it a bit odd that they would fashion a day timer after someone who would spin for days (and I'm sure missed a few appointments as a result). I have written things in it, so I guess I'm committed.

Winding Down With the Last Five.

16. Habib...My oldest cat and sweetest couch pal. Although, I wish he wouldn't have to sit on my lap while I was knitting, I'd spend a lot of lonely hours if he didn't. I need him to outlive me by at least one day. He's the only one of my animals that would let me do something silly like this.

17. Press. This year was the year that my work caught attention in the press. Canadian Family, the Georgia Straight and 2 pieces of my work for Circle Craft. It was thrilling to see my work "out there" and to have people recognize it.

18. Our home. Before we moved to Vancouver, my brother did a lot of footwork to find us this place and we've been here for 5 years now, with no intention of moving any time soon. It is just enough for us and our furry family, the knitwear biz and contains all that we need. Last night in front of the fireplace, bringing in the new year confirmed that for me.

19. Relative Good Health.... I had a bit of a scare last May when I thought my eyesight might be gone, or altered for good. A misdiagnosis of temporary double vision and loss of depth perception frightened me more than I was willing to admit. Not being able to see my yarn, or the colours and textures.....well, I'm sure you can imagine. I look at things in a different way now, almost drinking in everything around me.

20. Peace, calm and enjoying every moment that I can. Recognizing that some things can't be changed, to forgive myself for mistakes made as long as I am willing to learn from them.

Well, it was a long list, but something I really needed to commit to recording. I have taken the grand step of making absolutely no resolutions for the new year. I am happy to continue on the wiggly path I've chosen, tripping up along the way, but always dusting myself off, looking ahead to new challenges and appreciating the gifts I have been given.

Enjoy each moment of your new year and beyond.