Archive for the ‘Spin Cycle’ Category

But I will anyway.

You see the reason that I don’t blog often is because I feel if I’m going to blog, I need to make it interesting, and interesting to me means including pictures.  But adding pictures brings a whole new slew of perfectionism.  First there is taking a good shot, making sure it is exposed properly and such.  Then there is uploading to the computer.  Then there is editing, which is usually just resizing and raising contrast.  And in my head, that just takes too long!  I swear sometimes I think I have ADD because I just can not stay focused on one project for more than 10 minutes.  So to spend half an hour with pictures, instead of just writing, makes it too much of a time suck, not to mention that by then I figure you wouldn’t even care much about the post to begin with.

Sooooo… no pictures!  I’m just going to blog the nice old-fashioned way!

My birthday celebration was quite the success!  I am so proud that it did so well.  A huge thank you to the ladies that joined me : Lisa, Rebecca, Paty, & Tasha.  The stocking could not have been what it was without you ladies.  And a big huge, sloppy kisses & hugs thank you to all of my customers!  Without you, well, where would I be?  Drowning in mountains of fiber, that’s where!  Not that that is the worst way to go..

I am planning my next stocking as we speak.  I have been told via my Ravelry group that boy colorways are wanted.  I stepped back and looked at what I have been stocking, and the amount of pink surprised me!  So yes, I am working on boy colorways – right now in fact.  The first is cooking on the stove-top as I write this.  I have 4 total new colorways planned.

I just placed an order for 12 lbs of roving, some new things as well as old favorites.  Keep an eye out for it!

And now, a confession.  I am scared of spinning batts.  There!  I said it!  I have had these beautiful batts in my stash in the past, but I am unsure how to spin them.  So I ended up selling them when I needed the cash.  I do have one remaining batt, and that is a FOTM club installment from Becoming Art.

I have been after Theresa, who makes and spins from batts to make a video for all of us batt nOObs out there to teach us!  She plans to make several installments, and her first is dizzing a batt.  So, I watched her video and found myself a diz – a wooden donut bead on an abacus that was laying around the house receiving no love.  The hole is the perfect size, according to Theresa – 1/4″.  And indeed it was!  I made a lovely roving from the batt, and am spinning it now.  I have to say, I am no longer scared of batts!  Dizzing it did wonders.  I can’t wait to diz my next one!  Thanks so much Theresa!

My friend Shannon threatned to break all my knitting needles if I didn’t post a new update.  Apparantly a week of nothing new is too long to go between posts. :p

I’ve been working on a fairy doll as a present for Abby’s birthday, which is, ah, NEXT WEEK.  OMG.  It’s all too fast, man.  Too fast.  She is turning five.

I have a bit more done on this now, a leg, and the hair.  I haven’t worked on it anymore than that, because yesterday I spent all day dyeing 3 lbs of yarn!  That was a lot of work!  Today I’m re-skeining, and hope to get a few lbs of roving dyed.

I also finished plying up the first half of the Nurturing Threads swap.

Ah, I guess I need to get back to re-skeining — but I’ll leave you with a picture of what is happening behind me right now

Mostly because I’ve been busy!

I am participating in the Hyena Cart Forums fiber for yarn swap.  Buyers sign up to send a spinner both fiber for spinning into yarn (for the buyer) and payment fiber of the same amount for the spinner’s personal use.  So far I’ve completed two swaps, and started the third one two days ago.  I believe I still have two more after this third swap, for a total of five

Shetland in Peony by Spunky Eclectic. Spun to a 2 ply heavy worsted weight.

BFL in Joshua Tree by Spunky Eclectic. Spun the same as Peony.

BFL in Black Cherry by yes, Spunky Eclectic Spun the same as the above two.

And here is the swap I'm working on now. It's 8 oz of superwash merino in Nurturing Thread's Wizard colorway. This is for Stacy herself

My payment fiber

And lastly, I’ve found a new hobby.  Not quite as addicting as say, spinning or dyeing, but still quite fun, quick, and satisfying!

I’m also working on getting new stock ready for my HC re-opening.  I don’t have a set date yet, but I know it will have to be soon as I need more supplies and I’m out of money!  I’m planning auctions, lotteries, and maybe even freebies!  More details will come, well, as soon as I know more!

My son is just a bit over two years old, and I still rock him to sleep.  Some may think that he is too old for this, but I treasure it.  His soft little check nestled against my neck, the sweet little boy kisses as he tries to prolong sleep – it’s heaven.  Well, sometimes not, like when I want to go get some work done and it’s taking an hour and he’s still blowing raspberries and trying to tickle me, but I digress …

Anyhow, as I was putting him to sleep last night, I was trying to think up a colorway to dye up after he was asleep.  I knew I wanted to kettle-dye it as it’s faster and I haven’t felt up to hand-painting lately.  You see, I have a good amount of neck, shoulder and back pain and I visit a chiropracter weekly for this.  I started out going 3x a week for a month, to twice a week to a month, and I had just weaned down to once a week for a month when Richard lost a whole lotta hours at work.  I thought I would do my part and cut out expenses, so I cut out the chiro visits.

This was a mistake.  I pretty much reverted to how much pain I was in back in November when I started getting treatments, all in the span of a month.  I have since started going back weekly.

So where was I?  Oh yes.  I’m not feeling up to hand painting just yet so I knew I wanted to kettle-dye yarn.  I’ve wanted to do a pink & purple colorway for awhile now, so I thought about adding in some turquoise.  When I finally got to the dye pot, I added silver on a whim.  Once I saw all of the colors together, it just so strongly reminded me of my daughter Abby.  At 1AM I was trying to name the yarn and all creativity had run dry-  I originally was going to name it Abbyloo (Abby’s nickname).  It didn’t fit though, so I slept on it and came up with Firstborn this morning.

Tonight I am dyeing another new colorway, again one I was inspired to try while putting my son to sleep.  I caught a glimpse of the toy rocket he received from Santa last year and thought it would look nice on yarn.  So stay tuned for Retro Rocket tomorrow!

And I leave you with this lovely baby alpaca/merino yarn I spun up for a friend in a fiber trade.

I am currently fighting with my camera, trying to figure out settings.  So please forgive the poor format of the pictures.

This is on the wheel right now, it’s Shetland wool dyed by Bohemia Yarn Co. I have just about half of 8 oz spun up.  It will be a 2 ply yarn.  Shetland is so fun to spin!  It goes so easily and quickly.  Lots of squoosh factor

Next up is one I’m not so impressed with, I guess it is my first art yarn.  This is a batt from Butterfly Girl Designs.  It consists of bamboo, superwash merino, and firestar, in her Tuscanny colorway.  I intended it to be a singles yarn, but halfway into it realized the staple was not long enough.  So I continued on, and then ran it through again, adding more twist (apparantly not enough though), then plyed it with a gold metallic thread.

This next one is a singles BFL that I dyed with dye leftovers.  I intended to sell it, but it became quickly apparant that while getting to know my new roaster oven (which I use to heat set) I felted the fiber.  I got so frustrated I chucked away half of the roving and just wound off what I had.

I am so in love with this next yarn.  It is a 2 ply, 1 ply is white mulberry silk, and the other is pure bamboo in crushed cranberries by Exclusively Linda Lee.  This was my first time spinning pure bamboo and I do believe it is my new favorite fiber to spin!  It practically spins itself.  I think this will become a calorimetry.

And finally, my Celeste colorway on a merino/tencel blend roving.  I can’t seem to capture the colors in my lightbox – but they are pale blues, white, black, & pink.

Firstly, check out the wonderful fiber goodies to be had at my congo, Indie Dyers on Hyena Cart!

Now, onto the custom.  I am doing this as a trade for some website design, and I can’t wait for it to get to it’s destination so that she can get started!

My Ella, on custom spun superfine merino

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BEkbAhYaEo&hl=en&fs=1]

I’m not sure how to write this without seeming full of myself but I am just utterly suprised that there are people out there that admire my work.  Lately it seems there are people that really enjoy my handspun creations, and are asking me for customs.  I love it, it’s always good to be wanted, right?  At the same time I’m truly baffled – I was never one to stick out among a crowd.  So it’s hard for me to believe it.  I keep thinking, oh no, not me, so-and-so spins  much better than I do!  I am so grateful to these people for telling me that they admire my yarns, and so very honored that they ask me to spin for them.

I truly LOVE spinning.  Up until now, I never felt I had found a craft I truly enjoyed and was good at.  Sewing was always kinda meh for me.  I hate the process of sewing, and it’s all about the finished project.  And often, there are so many mistakes that I’m not happy with the item.  I do love to knit, it’s an incredible stress-reducer.  I enjoy the process, I enjoy making a fabric from yarn, and in turn, shaping that fabric to become a garment as I’m knitting.  But deep in Southern Louisiana, many knit items go unused.  It also hurts my back, neck, shoulders and hands.

But spinning?  Oh, how I adore to spin.  I can spin all day without stopping.  I can just get in this zen-like trance, where my worries melt away and I just flow with the twist of the yarn.  (How corny does that sound? lol)  I adore the process, I adore the finished product.  I honestly feel at peace when I sit down with my wheel.  And the fact that I can produce useable yarn makes it all the better.  So it’s a bit unreal that someone, somewhere will actually PAY me for doing something I love to do.  It is a dream come true.  And even if no one would every buy my items, I would still do it.  My house might become over-run with yarn that would never be used, but still I would spin.

I’ll be selling my yarn & fiber soon — look for more news to come!

Hi y’all!

You may know me from my other 2 blogs (that I never keep up) neversatisfied & Cajun Cloth.  Neither of those names work for me anymore, and frankly I am tired of changing names!  So I figure ‘Cajun Crafting’ will cover all my bases

I am a momma of two youngn’s – Abby & Matthew.  Abby just started Pre-K this year and loves it, and is quite the chatterbox.  Matthew is your basic two year old boy – very active, very destructive, very loud.  But he is also so very sweet and loving.

I began my crafting journey when I started cloth diapering Abby at 11 months old.  Seeing the high price of a diaper (averaging $15) made me want to learn to make my own.  Little did I know how addicted I would become to making them and all the cute fabrics!  So it didn’t turn out any cheaper *laughs*

Learning all about cloth diapering (and there is alot to learn!) had me wanting to learn to knit.  A knit pair of longies would average $50!  Totally worth it, but at the time totally not in my price range for a single pair of pants.  So I began to knit, and again, little did I know how addicted I would become to yarn! (see a pattern yet?)

Learning to knit just eventually led to my newest love, spinning my own yarn and dyeing the fiber/yarn.  My heart was never really in sewing, no matter how badly I wanted it to be, it just wasn’t.  I just don’t have the inclination to sew like I do to knit and spin.  Which is a shame because I have some beautiful fabrics and wonderful patterns, but they just sit.

I can’t even tell you the last time I turned on one of my sewing machines.  I have three – you see when I start a hobby, or anything for that matter, I dive in headfirst and go all out.  I want it all!  So I have my basic machine that I started with (a gift from my mother and a lovely workhorse), a serger (finicky thing that she is, but sooo worth the time she saves!) and my newest, a combination sewing/embroidery machine.  I would like to upgrade her honestly, but I just can’t justify it when I might only use it a dozen times a year.

So here we are today.   Just call me a cajun momma with too many hobbies