Divine Bird

I think I've finally got it figured out.

From this point forward *crosses fingers* I should be posting directly to my website, using WordPress's lovely blog feature.  I have set it up so that you don't need a special ID to post (though you can create one if you want), you can still comment, you can still see the art/yarn/woodworking, and I THINK you can even get an rss feed going.

If you would, please check it out and let me know how you like it, then bookmark it for future updates.  I will continue to be a member of my LJ communities, of course, but will likely not post much of anything here from this point onward.

Eventually, I'll have divinebird.com point to the divinebird.com/wordpress/ address, but that's for when I have brain cells left to process the, uh, process.

You may have heard of this little site called Ravelry.  Got my invite a couple of weeks ago, and OMG I love it.  Look for me there as divinebird and ADD ME if you like. :D

Some recent pics of knitting (and crochet!):

And spinning:

WARNING: HIGHLY PIC-HEAVY.  If you're on a slow connection, you may want to go fix yourself some lunch or something.

Ok so--I've been so busy that I haven't even taken the time to make a real blog post for most of the month.  This should catch you up to what's going on in my world--at least the fibre-enhanced portion thereof. ;)

It started with the arrival of a box from Crown Mountain Farms.  I am spinning some of their Sock Hop yarn, so three pounds of it are sitting in my living room right now. :D  I plan to do about a pound a week, but the first one went VERRRRRRRRRRY slowly as I was getting used to my new wheels, the fibre, and concentrating on making it to their specifications.  Teyani (and everyone else) warned me that spinning for production is a very different mindset than spinning for oneself, and I completely understand it now.  I'm about halfway through the box, which is good, but much slower than I'd anticipated.  I see myself speeding up a lot in the coming weeks, though, so I should do pretty well with this.

A massive collage of pics I took a couple weeks ago of my first 2 skeins (in colorway Great Balls of Fire):

Here's a couple of collages featuring yarns I've finished.  You may recognize the Iris Garden Stripe as the yarn that was on my wheel in the last entry.

My crochet class ended on Wednesday, on a high note. I was thrilled to bits to see everyone making something--even the two who had never done any yarn crafts before!  It's so amazingly wonderful to see progress like that.  Even the one who was frustrated because she didn't think she'd ever get it was changing colors, experimenting with yarns, and gaining confidence.  My work here is done.

About midway through the month, I was struck with an inescapable urge to dye silk.  What a success!  There's nothing like seeing a brilliantly-colored swath of silk fibre to make one feel like one can do ANYTHING.  I used McCormick's food coloring, citric acid, some plastic containers and my microwave, and in one afternoon I had this:

The pink/orange/purple one is spinning up beautifully.

I finished two pairs of the mittens in my 3-pair commission; I got slowed down considerably when I had a few weeks of no knitting at ALL.  I worked in the wood shop, babysat, ran errands, did taxes (both personal AND business), cleaned my apartment, did a mountain of laundry, and cleaned out the van & my car.  Oh, then I helped my sister pack for moving (she's coming back to CT! YAY!), worked for my dad, and went through a series of doctors' appointments for various small things.  I have discovered that I am highly allergic to cats (though mine doesn't bother me symptom-wise), somewhat allergic to dogs and some pollen, and not allergic at all to dust mites or cockroaches. Eww.  I...guess that's good?

I got the Babe spinning wheel at this month's Guild meeting, and though I loved its portability and durability, it just wasn't working out.  I was kind of disappointed after spending a tidy sum on it, and couldn't figure out why I liked using Debbie's so much but disliked mine.  Why was it so difficult to spin?

It turned out to be a combination of things.  First, I had used Debbie's on her hardwood floor, whereas I have thick carpeting with double padding.  The entire apparatus would wobble when I treadled, meaning it was extra work to keep the wheel going.  This wouldn't have been a problem, except that the very design of the wheel put it off balance.  The maiden juts out unsupported over the treadles (you'll see it in the photos below) and once it starts to move, the only thing keeping it upright is a single pole along the back of the wheel.  Think of a flagpole in the wind--it's still upright, but it snaps back & forth at the top.  It affected the takeup as well, making it hard to wind the yarn onto the bobbin.

My solution was to add stability to the design by placing a support under the maiden that would attach to the bottom frame between the treadles.  I found a piece of cherry (my favorite!) that had a slight warp in it, and therefore was unusable for furniture.  It's unnoticeable in this situation, though, so I cut it to length, then cut out the areas for it to surround the frames on each end.  I put a small nail into each end, then drilled a tiny hole in position on the frame to correspond with the nails.  After adding a decorative cutout and a good sanding, the piece was done.  Check it out!

The wobble is gone, and I can even use the support piece as a carry bar.  It's like a totally new wheel.

On the shop front, I have seen my sales pick up a bit.  Instead of months between sales, it's been a few weeks between each one. This IS an improvement, though far from my goal of a few sales a week.  I've got a bunch of new yarns that will be posted in the next week or two; I want to do a few craft fairs over the summer and I'll need stock!  I've also got a crochet project in the works for the shop; not sure what it's going to be but the squares have built up throughout my crochet class.

Not sure if you remember the Tiger Lily yarn I spun up from Abby's luscious batts, but I was JUST getting ready to wind it into a ball after the guild meeting so I could start knitting my socks.  I was showing the fat skein to one of the lovely ladies of the guild when she gasped and said, "You HAVE to enter that into the skein contest this fall!"  I demurred (I really wanted my socks) but when I talked to Abby, she was like, "GO FOR IT."  And so I'm gonna re-skein it (it's gotten a bit out of place from being handled so much), tag it, and enter it in pretty much ANY skein contest I can find this summer. :)  Why not?  It remains my favorite skein to date--and I'm a girl who LOVES all of my yarn.  It would be kind of cool to even say I participated, y'know?

Geez, I think that's enough for now.  I'm sure there's a ton I've missed, but it will have to wait til later.  Enjoy the pics, check out the shop, and drop me a line to let me know someone's reading this! :D

Working through my stash some more--today I've got just a few small skeins to show off.  Some of these were spun a couple of weeks ago but the weather hasn't cooperated to give me good light lately.  It's a bit on the bright side today, but still MUCH better for photos than dull grey!

First, here's the purple contrast for the Tiger Lily yarn, also displayed against the striped skein to show how they'll look together.  It's the same blend of colors only MORE blended, with an emphasis on the purple.

And this is a little collage of three different sock yarns.  Yardage is noted on the collage.

I may be posting more later--I am spinning up some mystery fiber in a beautiful range of light blues and greens, among other things. :D

First off, check out the March Sale at my Etsy shop!  All GREEN items are 10% off until the 31st.  This includes my Mardi Gras yarns, the Iris Garden yarns, and the Dragonfly scarf.  I have some other green things coming soon; mostly yarn, but we'll see if I can get my butt in gear to post some other fun things too!  Also, I have a signed print of the Mermaid from last year's Merchant Road series up for auction on Ebay.  Please consider placing a bid, or spread the word! :D  

OK so, funny story.

I signed up to teach 3 classes in my town's Adult Ed program: Basic Knitting, Intermediate Knitting, and Basic Sewing.  The second two were cancelled due to not enough people signing up, which was too bad, but I'm ok with it.  The first one started last night and was GREAT, but that's not what this story is about.

So I'm home tonight, plying some pretty pink self-striping yarn when I get a phone call from the secretary of Adult Ed.  What follows is pretty much word-for-word.

Her:  Jenny, do you crochet?

Me: ...uh, yes?  A little?

Her:  Would you like to teach a course?

Me: ...I, uh, well, I don't know, I, er...

Her:  It's just Basic Crochet.  *cheerfully* I'm sure you could do it.

Me: ...Jule, I don't know...I crochet, but not a lot...I've never taught it before...

Her: *reading the pamphlet* Oh, it says "Fun with Granny Squares"!  See, that's really easy.

Me: I've never done a granny square in my life!

Her: It's only for six weeks.  It starts tomorrow night.

Me: O_O (I'm sure she could hear it, too)

Her: See, the problem is that our usual teacher thought the class was going to be cancelled, but at the last minute we got eight students.  But the teacher went to visit her family in Norway, so she's not here...

NOTE: I would like to mention that I am not making this up at all.  This is pretty much how it went down.

Her: *continuing* ...and I know your Wednesday classes were cancelled, so you could teach this one instead...

Me: ...ok.  But...this is not enough time.  I need to learn how to make granny squares and work out a curriculum before the class, and I can't with less than 24 hours' notice.  Can we start next week instead?  Since it's only six weeks anyway?

Her: *thrilled* Of course!  I'll call the students.  See you next Wednesday!

*end call*

*cue Jenny freaking out, with husband LOLing at her*

So yeah, now I have a Basic Crochet class to teach. I have never taught crochet to anyone, nor have I ever actually crocheted a granny square.  Ever.  I need to learn how, preferably right-handed.  I'm a lefty.  *facepalm*  And then, slightly less pressing, I need to come up with 'fun projects' that use granny squares.  Please don't tell me--I know I'm screwed.

Actually, I'm not, but MAN I am feeling like I am at the moment.  I'm gonna get some sleep, then tomorrow I'll grab my crochet hooks and see what I can do.  I at least have a week, thank the gods.

And remember--this is on top of my knitting commission, my artwork, and my spinning.  Oh, and babysitting.  *diez*

So, anyone got any good sources for ambidextrous crocheting of granny squares? :D

I am terrible about updating this blog!  Sorry--here's a little entry about my fiber addiction. :)

It might kinda sorta be obvious to the casual reader of my blogs that I kinda sorta like yarn.  Not to put too fine a point on it, I kinda sorta like fiber.

I know a lot of spinners and knitters out there.  Some like coarse, heavy fibers like Navajo Churro.  Some like fine, soft luxury fibers like silk and cashmere and angora.  Some like soft, spinnable wools like Shetland, Romney, and mohair.

Me, I like 'em all.

Enough with the rolling of eyes and stuff, you guys, I know this is nothing new.  It's just...I found myself getting choked up over the page for the Foxfire Fiber Farm.  Specifically over the parts that talk about spinning.  Also over the Jager Icelandics webpage, and their pictures of "Fresh Fall Fleeces".

I don't know what it is, really.  I started spinning only a little under two years ago, and I've been knitting for maybe five or six years.  I have always loved patterned, woven fabrics.  I do have an appreciation for textiles in general.  Still, there's nothing in my past that I can recall that makes me go all emotional for fibers and yarns.

My husband jokes that I'm part kitty because I play with yarn.  My beloved Drakonlily once said, "CG, I think you don't just like yarn.  I think you...LIKE...yarn."  I go to Guild meetings and get a contact high from just being around so many fibers in different stages of preparation.  I love the smell of lanolin, the feathery texture of angora and baby camel, the smooth sliding of silk or alpaca over my fingertips while I spin.  I seek out every different possible fiber I can find, just so I have something new to try.

I revel in a thin, even single.  I keep going thinner and thinner until it's hair-fine and still strong, always thinking of how I'll ply it to make a finer and finer finished yarn.  I hold the yarn or the fiber or the single up to the light to study the halo of fine hairs surrounding it, and to see how deep the colors appear, like a newly-engaged girl admiring her diamond ring.

I do the same thing with my spindles.  I sometimes take out my box of drop spindles to admire their different qualities--the slender, handmade, unique ones; the heavy beginner ones; the one I made myself; the unusual stone ones.  I like to see how the bloodwood inlay on the top of my favorite spindle can look satiny when I turn it.  When I spin on the small purpleheart spindle, I barely feel it moving, it's so well-balanced.

I dream of the day I own a parcel of land and can put sheep, maybe an alpaca or two, out to graze.  Maybe I'll have a few different breeds, maybe even have a goat!  I want a bunny.  I'll get a llama or a dog to watch over them all.

I wonder if I'll have a wheel of my own.  Or two!  Or three!  One to spin fine yarns, one for production, and one to take with me wherever I go.  I'll settle for one.  I'll probably end up making it myself.

I dream of spinning.  My husband woke up a few weeks ago to see my arm sticking up in the air, and when he asked what I was doing, I made the motion as if I was winding on the single and put the 'spindle' down.  All as I slept.  I woke up this morning to find my foot 'treadling'...that is, pedaling the spinning wheel.

Here's the wheel I'm borrowing:

It's a Thumbelina "Sleeping Beauty" wheel, made in the early 1970s.  It's older than I am, though not by much. :)  I'm borrowing it from a fellow guild member, who will forever be thought of as 'the awesome lady who fed my fiber addiction in a big way'. ;)

And here are the first two bobbins of singles that I spun on it.  The one in my hand is actually only about 100yd of singles; there was already some commercially-done yarn wound on the bobbin that I used to work on my treadling.  The bobbin still on the wheel is more of the Scottish wool.  I've since added more.

And now I'm off...got some more of that baby camel/silk to spin. :)

I hate "mall mixes"...you know, the stupid replayings of holiday music that play the same crap over and over and over until you WANT TO KILL SOMETHING AND IF YOU HEAR SOME 80s NEW WAVE VERSION OF RUDOLPH AGAIN YOU *WILL* KILL...

*ahem*

So I like the 40s and 50s for Christmas music...and I went to Pandora.com and made my own holiday mix.  Starting with Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and let them do the rest.  It rules.  So far, I've listened to Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and of course Bing Crosby.  It's exactly what I wanted.

Naturally, you can also put together your own preference for music--looking for that Beach Boys version of "White Christmas"?  Or the one by Lee Ann Womack?  Go ahead and click. :)

I sound like an ad, I'm sure, but c'mon!  Free internet radio, tailored to your personal tastes.  If a song plays that you don't like, you give it a thumbs-down and it'll move on to another song.  Add more music or more types of music, and it'll grow as you like.  I had a subscription to another Internet radio site, but I'm thinking of letting it lapse.

The only drawback to the site is that it doesn't do classical music...yet.  Check it out, read about the Music Genome Project (which is freakin' cool) and if you do sign up and want my mix, let me know and I can email you an invite.  You don't need to download anything, even.  And when the holidays are over, check out the selection on other types of music.  I have two techno stations--two different subgenres, natch--as well as a hard rock station and a soft-folk-guitar station.  Seriously!

*urges* Now, go check it out! :D

Pandora.com

Sorry I haven't posted recently!  November is National Novel Writing Month, which means I have been working like crazy on a story that's fallen behind, and on top of that, this is the time of year when I freak out about how many gifts I need to finish by Christmas...not to mention that both of my parents' birthdays are in December.  *cries*  I have too much to do.

So of course, with all this Stuff to Do, I decided to slack off participate in the "Flash Your Stash" on secretpal_lj3, over on LiveJournal.  It took me an hour to photograph the whole stash, which I discovered would NOT fit onto a queen-sized mattress.  Not even with stacking.  -_-;;

So here we go!

My Spinning Stash, with my 3 spindles, niddy-noddy, 3 bumps of wool from a local CT farm, a lot of my handspun, a bag of washed but uncarded fleece, and a bag of bunny

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino aran & cashmerino chunky, and a few skeins of a knockoff

Assorted chunky plied yarns, some of my chunky handspun, sparkly and shiny yarns, recycled silk, recycled silk & wool...the white mass in the middle is some fingering weight vintage wool.

Worsteds & DKs, plied. Lots of KnitPicks WotA, Cascade 22o, Cascade Eco wool, some vintage teal green wool, two colors of a local co-op's wool (the bright green & yellow on the right), 2 cones of wool, OH and some KnitPicks Ambrosia in the very front & center. :) Also, some laceweight alpaca made it into this pic somehow; I must have been distracted by the cat and put it here by mistake. :)

Cottons, sock yarns, & Superwashes. Superwashes in the upper right, including some Filatura di Crosa and some Mission Falls 1824. Kitchen cottons in the upper right, then moving down to Berber Cotton, then sock yarns...some Mountain Colors Bearfoot, Trekking XXL, Cascade Fixation, some leftover Artyarns Ultramerino 4, then some Nature Cotton, and mercerized cottons on the bottom left.

Single-ply wools. Includes some Tibetan wool on the left, then some Manos del Uruguay and some debbie bliss that matches it exactly, a lot of Reynolds Lopi & Lite-lopi on the right, the multicolor in the front is Farmhouse Yarns (local spinner), 2 skeins of Brown Sheep Co. Lamb's Pride in purple, and last some assorted yarns from old projects.

Fuzzy and shiny yarns. Starting in upper left, a metric tonne of a kid mohair/acrylic blend that I got online, some acrylic thick & thin that makes amazing scarves, 1 skein of Berroco Sizzle, several skeins of Bernat Boa and some Splash that looks like lettuce, 4 skeins (well, 2, but the socks take up the other 2) of Reynolds Devotion, an angora/nylon blend that makes awesome socks, a few balls of mohair, some Plymouth baby alpaca, a few Target yarns, some mohair/nylon blend called "college", and the single green skein on the left is what's left over from my husband's alpaca socks.

Eleanor (from the book Scarf Style) in progress, with 3 balls of the yarn being used, plus 1 of the same yarn in a different colorway. The yellow is called 'citrus' and is dyed locally by my favorite LYS owner. She dyed the yarn for Eleanor specifically for me; it's called 'citrus grove' because it uses the same colors but in different amounts. I have 2 more skeins of this on hold for me at the shop...I'm buying it one at a time. :)

...And that, my dears, is what obsession looks like.

This week is killing me.  I will have pics of the finished bad-ass bag once I recover from finishing an art commission AND a knitting commission that's almost done.  XD

Anything in the stash that you have suggestions for me to knit?  I'm open.  I need to add some new items to the Shop.  :D

I belong to several communities on DeviantArt under two different identities--one is my personal ID, "chocobogoddess", and the other is my community about spinning, "daspinners".  DASpinners is part of a larger network of 'artisan crafts' communities.  One of them posted a poll asking what we thought the difference was between an art and an artisan craft.

I voted "something that gives priority to function over design" because I think that's really the only difference. As a spinner (of yarn, not of wheels ;)), I know that my end product can be utilitarian as plain white wool with no embellishment or as frivolous as cashmere and silk spun with glass beads and flowers.

Honestly, for me, the difference between art and craft has always been the same as the difference between talent and skill. You are born with a talent, but you can learn a skill. I know many skilled people who can draw pictures with amazing detail, and people who have little skill but form pictures that evoke an emotional response. The talent lies with the second person, not the first. It's the same way with artisan crafts--the question is not how technically well does one do their craft, but how beautiful is the product?

Food for thought.