I am a yarnie!!!

Have you heard of Ravelry?  Chances are if you are at my blog you probably have. Well I have finally gotten around to setting myself up as a yarnie so you can now stash your handspun and batts under my "yarns":

I am so excited for people to start stashing.  There is nothing better than seeing something I made out in the world!

World Wide Spin In Public Day - Sept 15

I just learned that a week from now it will be Spin In Public Day!  How much fun is that!  So I am organizing a last minute spin in!

I think Memorial Peace Park on 224th in downtown Maple Ridge would be a fabulous place for us to spin in public.  The Haney Farmer's Market will be there too so we will have all sorts of home made and home grown goodies and all sorts of shopping available to us.

The details:

Date: Saturday September 15, 2012
Time: 9:00am - 2:00pm
Where: Memorial Peace Park, 11925 Haney Place, Maple Ridge
We will meet on the patch of grass beside the bandstand and behind the popcorn maker.

Bring your wheel, drop spindle, your fibre, a chair, and a towel to protect your wheel from the grass.

Shannon from Muse Fibre Works (previously known as Unwind Yarn) will be at the market with some beautiful hand dyed rovings for sale!

Lets hope for good weather!  I will borrow one of those tent things in case it looks rainy.  Come on out and join us!  This will be so much fun!

Lending a hand...

Brenda from Natchwoolie is raising some money to bring water to her farm.  The drought has hit her hard and her well is all dried up!  You can donate on her blog here and read more about it.

There are a few other fundraising activities going on.  You can adopt one of Brenda's adorable animals.  You  donate money to cover your chosen animals food and care for one month (or more) and in return you get pictures and a roving from your chosen animal.  One of Brenda's little lambs is named Caliope, so it was a no-brainer for me on how to chose.

How could I resist that cute little sheepy!?!?!?

Right now there is another fundraiser going on.  Phat Fiber is doing an auction and all the proceeds will go to help get water to the farm.  You can check out the Auction here on Ravelry.  It closes at 2pm PST today.  So there are a few more hours to go bid on your favourite items and help out this excellent cause.

The Ravelympics... Ooops! Ravellenic Games

I have been a very negligent blogger.  As soon as the Tour de Fleece was over the Ravelympics, ahem... sorry, (name change due to Olympic Committee crap), the Ravellenic Games began.  The idea is to set some goals and finish them during the Olympic Games.  I set some pretty ambitious goals and knitted like a crazy woman, hence the no blogging.

I wanted to finish a really old project, started in 2009.  So I entered the WIPs Wrestling event and I finished!  May I present The Lyric Tree.  I may re-work the collar I am not entirely happy with it, and I may over dye the entire sweater, pale pink is not really my colour.  But for now, it is done!

Then since this year they added a weaving event and my poor loom is sadly neglected I thought I would do a weaving project.  In the rules you are allowed to warp your loom before the event as "training".  So I thought: I will totally do that, the actual weaving part isn't that hard.  I thought I would put the pattern in the warp to keep the weft simple.  Well I did not get my loom warped before the Games started.  However, I did get it warped AND woven during the games.  Another event completed!  Yay me!

My third event was Modular Relay.  It is where you make pieces of a whole.  Since I have been bee-keeping I thought I would also make one honeycomb each day of the games, 17 total.  Guess what?  I accomplished this event too! I used some awesome yarn I got from Quaere, who is my newest favourite indie dyer.  She uses several different dye techniques which keeps her yarn fun and interesting to use.

Since I was making such great progress on all my events I decided to enter a 4th project.  I did not complete it, but I have been working away at it since the games ended.  I will share it when it is done, which will be soon... I hope...

Tour de Fleece

The Tour de France started on June 30.  Me and a couple thousand other people have been spinning along with the cyclists on our wheels and spindles.  It is called the Tour de Fleece.  The goal is to spin every day the race is on, there are a couple of rest days and a challenge day.

I picked out a bunch of stashed fibres I wanted to spin.  And I spun all of it except one art batt kit.  I also spun a few other batts and roving I hadn't originally intended to spin.  I spun a lot of textured art yarns.  They were all either 2-ply or navajo plied.  A couple skeins even have beads worked in!  I spun every single day including the rest days.

Last year I participated in the Endless Art Batt Club offered by Lanitium ex Machina.  I managed to spin the all 7 batts and rovings.  They were so much fun to spin.  The colours were so different from anything I would have put together.  I really enjoyed being forced out of my colour comfort zones.  

My Grand Totals:

Weight: 4 pounds 13 ounces 

Finished Yarn: 2070 yards or 1.18 miles 

Singles & Plying: 7340 yards or 4.17 miles

Number of skeins: 18

Challenge: finding time and making beaded skeins

MIA: TdF

I have been spinning like crazy for the Tour de Fleece. But I have still managed to make a few hexiphats:

The semi solid purple is dyed by Moonlight and Laughter and so soft. The darker puffs are from Lanitium ex Machina's samples and probably one of my favorite colour ways!


Here is a group shot of some of the yarns I have spun over the last 10 days:

I have spun a couple more skeins since this picture was taken.  I think I must be getting close to 2 pounds of fibre spun!  I will post more details about the spinning soon!

Purple Hexiphats

I have made a few hexiphats this week.  All purple with a bit of green!  All three of these yarns were awesome to work with.  They have great stitch definition and make a perfect little puff.


The top hexiphat is from Rebel Yarn.  It has 1 ply of superwash merino and 2 plies of regular merino so the different plies take the dye differently and make for a tweedy looking yarn.  The colourway is Naiad's Dream, it is so pretty.  The base yarn feels a little scratchy though.


The middle Hexiphat is Vervaine.  It is a superwash merino and nylon blend from All For Love of Yarn.  It is gorgeous.  I love yarns like this where there is one colour that pops out and you get excited every time you get to that part of the yarn. I was like Oh! red stitches!  The red is just gorgeous in this yarn.


And on the bottom is Hulk Smash from Gnome Acres.  I absolutely love everything Gnome Acres make.  I like there cute gnomey logo and their bright run colours.  This superwash merino and nylon yarn was no exception!


I am going to be slowing down on the hexipuffing for most of July.  It is the Tour de Fleece!  So I will be spinning in every single spare minute I can find.  Stay tuned for some awesome handspun yarn!

Seaside Storms

I am so excited to finally be contributing batts to the Phat box again!  It has been nearly a year since I have had time to do more than stitch markers.  I love how these batts turned out!  I have 9 full size batts that will be available in my shop but when they are gone they are gone...  I am out of pretty much everything needed to make these batts.

Not only is it the first time in a while that I have sent in bitty batts, its the second ever time I have dyed my own fibre.  These batts are 50% fake cashmere and 15% firestar all dyed by me to look like this picture that I found during some random web surfing:

I had so much fun with this month's theme I am already half way through carding my bitty batts for next month.  I can't give away the theme but they are going to be quite sparkly!

Orange you glad I made more hexiphats?

Ok, lame title I know... but I just had to do it.  I finished up my batch of orange hexiphats.  They were a lot of fun to knit as always.  These little honeycombs are just so addictive. 

The goldish orange hexiphats at the 2 and 6 o'clock positions are from a Wandering Wool sample called Topaz.  It was a great sample to knit up.  It made a nice soft solid fabric.  The subtle variations are very nice.

The bright hexiphat in the middle of the flower is from a sample called Diwali Rangoli dyed by Fiber Charmer.  It was such a fun colour to knit up but the yarn is a lighter fingering weight so the stitches at this gauge aren't quite as defined.

The pretty little puff in the 7 or 8 o'clock position is Melt Away Mints dyed by Shetibo Presents - Knotty Ewe.  The colours are so exactly the little mints I eat every Christmas.  I didn't love the yarn base though, it held up nicely to the stitches but it was awfully splitty.

Nouveau Pumpkins

Here is my next installment of hexiphats:

The puff on the left is from Wandering Wool.  The colourway is Jack-o'-lantern.  It is the "Rock Creek Sock" base and lovely to work with, great stitch definition, nice and soft.

The puff on the right is Nouveau Sunrise by Creature Comfort Craftworks.  This isn't my first hexiphat from CCC and I love their yarns.  I was not disappointed, the colourway was fun with colours that ranged from very pale to very dark.  

And since I can't bear to waste anything.  I made a puff out of the leftovers. A bit of Nouveau on the edges and pumpkin in the middle!

Blue Willow

I have finished the last hexiphats of my blue installment.  Blue Willow by The Lazy Lamb Shop.  It has some lovely soft striping.

I used up the Blue Willow leftovers with some of the leftovers from yesterday's hexiphats.  I really love making puffs that use more than one colour of yarn.

Experimenting with Increases

Today I tried using a different increase that I saw mentioned on Ravelry somewhere...  Instead of KFB you yarn over and then knit through the back on the next row.


The puff on the left is the KFB as written in the pattern.  The right puff is with the YO.  I think I prefer the KFB.

The lighter blue hexiphat is made with subtley sparkly yarn from Allicats Designs and was lovely to work with.  It has fabulous stitch definition.  The darker yarn is from A Million Stars and has such pretty colour variegation.

Stripes

I love the way these two hexiphats stripe.


The Ulysses Butterfly yarn by Neurotic Knitterz is amazing. I love it's big stripes! I love it so much I have tracked down a few samples from generous Phatties online and am working on arranging a couple custom skeins from NK even though her shop is closed while she is going to school.

Today's second hexiphat is made from Creature Comfort Craftworks' Bollywood sample. It has some fabulous striping as well. I especially love how some of the stripes are longer and others shorter. It's also sparkly. Sparkly puffs are my favorite puffs.

The Copper Corgi

These hexiphats were a lot of fun to knit.  I think this sample was from the Wine Country themed Phat box.  It is dyed by The Copper Corgi.  The colour is so dark and saturated.  It was also a huge sample.  I knitted nearly 4 hexiphats, I added in some leftover bits from previous hexis and had to improvise a cast off that used less yarn to be able to finish the 4th one.

Eternal Love

Today's hexiphat installment is brought to you by Nea of Lanitium ex Machina. This yarn is so pretty. I also have an art batt made by Nea in this same colour scheme.

The batt is one of 2 pounds worth of batts and roving from Lanitium ex Machina that I plan on spinning during the Tour de Fleece.

This sample was huge, I got nearly 3 puffs from it. I used up some scraps from one of yesterday's puffs as well.

New Love: Sparkly Hexiphats

I have a few more finished hexipuffs.  Actaully I decided last night that I should call the ones made from Phat Fiber samples Hexiphats.  :)   This first one is my most favorite so far:

It is called 'Danae' and is from Out of Step Dyeworks. Gold sparkle with these rich colours all in cute little hexipuffs format. Love.

















Then I knitted this puff from yarn by The Alpaca Legacy. It's a little bigger than my other puffs. I hope it will fit into the blanket.

Last but not least is this beautiful 'Black Pekoe and Cherry' yarn from Lampyridae. The red is so deep and rich.

Bee Keeping - The beginning.

I have been so busy lately, family, school, work, and fibre.  I have had a baby, started an etsy shop full of squishy batts handy locking stitch markers and handspun art yarns and bought a house.  I went from just me to a family of 5! There has just been no time for blogging.  I keep thinking about it though.  So I am giving in to the blog bug and am going to have another go at sharing my musings with the world!

Recently I embarked on a new project.  Many of you will know of what I speak: The Beekeeper's Quilt.  It is self-published by Tiny Owl Knits.  This is the most addictive pattern I have ever started.  I don't think I have gotten more than 5 hours sleep per night since I cast on my first hexipuff.


Another exciting part of my life is Phat Fiber.  It is this great box of samples that you can buy once per month.  "Buy" makes it sound so simple.  It is more of a mad race to buy one of a limited number of boxes, it takes a very dedicated type of fibre stalker to successfully purchase one of these boxes.  This box is stuffed full with yarn and fibre and notions made by independent fibre artists all over the world.  It gives you a chance to sample their wares, to touch and pet and smell the fibre before you buy it.  Phat Fiber is more than that, it is a family, it is a group of amazing people that I feel privileged to be a part of.  Every month I send a batch of samples off into the world and every month a wonderful box makes its way to my door step.  


This box contains many samples, a lot of them are fingering weight, fingering weight just happens to be perfect for making hexipuffs.  Mine are more hexiflats since I am not stuffing them but I like the word hexipuff better.  So I am going to share my Phat sample hexi puff journey with you.  I might throw in the odd post about my shop, my family, the mushroom colony on my front lawn... but for now we will focus on hexipuffs because that is really all that this addiction will allow me to do.


This is my first batch of Phat hexipuffs:

It was made last week.  These hexipuffs were so much fun to knit.  The colour gradient in the yarn was mesmerizing.  The yarn is from Play At Life Fiber Arts.  I liked it so much I actually sent her a message practically begging for more little baby sockie makis but alas, there were none to be had.  


This is my next batch of Phat hexipuffs:

The amazing green puffs at the top are from Shenanigan's Yarns, then the bronze age and bornite (orange/blue/purple) puffs on the left side are from Fiber Charmer.  I liked the bornite so much I couldn't bear to waste it and used the little bit of leftovers to make a stripe of it on the bottom middle puff.  The green puff in the middle is from The Dyeing Arts and the colourful puff to its right is from Color Bug Yarns.  Finally, that leaves the lovely shiny navy grey puffs on the bottom row from Sky Loom Weavers.

Now that I have caught you up on my hexipuffing I am going to get back to knitting...

Cali