Crafting Chaos

Abigail Z progress pics

Abigail Z send me progress pics for her Merce piece which will be in this year’s Beyond The Fringe.

I was at her house the other day and got to see it in person. It looks great!

I especially like the little flower poofs.

3 comments January 23rd, 2010

Abbey legwarmers

Abbey asked what I’d like for my holiday present. I’ve been wanting to wear more skirts in the winter and needed some legwarmers to keep me toasty. She made me a great pair.

Sieben and I went for a walk in the snow and I wore the legwarmers over my jeans.

They’re a wool/mohair blend and kept me nice and warm.

Abbey made up the pattern for me. I’m encouraging her to write it up officially.

They’ll definitely get a lot of use this winter!

After our gift exchange we went to see the Twilight: New Moon movie. OMG it was so fucking funny! I loved it-just not in the way it was intended. The cheesiness, the bad acting, the plot holes, the immortal vampires wanting to conform to Judeo-Christian morals even though they would theoretically live past any religious social trends-it was all so funny. There were points in the movie where I was crying from laughing to hard.

I was laughing so much during the movie the guy in front of us moved away. Later I heard him grumble that I was “worse than the teenagers”. During the climatic ending Abbey actually put her hand over my mouth because I was so out of control. Here’s me afterwards:

If you want to see a hilarious unintentional comedy go see New Moon. It’s craptastic!

Add comment December 15th, 2009

Dye day with Laura

Recently Laura and I got together for a dye day. It was so fun! I brought my gray heathered yarn and some commercial socks to dye. She had yarn and roving to kettle dye and handpaint.

Laura gets ready to mix up dye:

Here’s me filling up a pot for kettle dyeing:

Presoaking the fiber:

We both used Jacquard Acid Dyes. This is Chartreuse.

Laura dyed silk roving and Knit Picks bare yarn. My white socks are in here too.

I brought Sieben along for a doggie play day. He was SO excited to play with her dogs Bobo and Didi.

Our dye prep area:

Here’s Laura handpainting some mohair roving:

Our friend Meredith had suggested dyeing darker colored yarn. I decided to try it with my gray yarn. Here’s the Chartreuse:

From the left-my socks, Laura’s bare yarn and silk roving.

From the left-her handpainted mohair roving and bare yarn.

I split my yarn into two batches. I’m dyeing the second batch in Kelly Green.

Her metal grid table worked great for laying out the wet yarn.

We learned some things that day. We ended up using too much water and too much dye while kettle dyeing. For the Kelly Green I used less water but forgot to use less dye. Laura liked the way her handpainted roving turned out but didn’t like the look of the handpainted bare yarn.

We also forgot to rinse out our fiber. The smell of vinegar was pretty strong! I rinsed out mine yesterday. More pics in the next post.

The weather was wonderful for a dye day. Sunny, warm, no wind-a wonderful fall day. We had such a good time and will definitely do it again!

3 comments November 9th, 2009

Unusual seaming

Laura came over recently. We seamed up her sweater for her husband Paul. We used an alternative method:

Yup, we cut several inches off of the knit pieces.

Have a sweater that turned out too big? Here’s what you do. Pin it together and try it on. Pin it again until you get a good fit. Then grab some good scissors, take a deep breath and cut off the excess. We left about a 1/4″ for seaming.

Getting it through the sewing machine is a bit tricky. I used a heavy duty needle and went slow.

First we cut the excess off the sides, about eight inches total.

Next up we sewed the tops of the front and back together.

Then we cut about four inches off the sleeves and sewed them to the body.

We tried it on and it fit Paul! Later Laura picked up stitches and knit the neck ribbing.

Want to know the punchline to this whole situation? She got gauge for this pattern. Yup, gauge can lie.

2 comments October 25th, 2009

Wool Fest fun

Every year the Taos Wool Festival is so much fun. What a wonderful weekend.

At the Ravelry tent I met Ellen (and her husband Larry) from Los Angeles. She made this cute crocheted headband.

This rocking horse from Ellen’s Wooly Wonders had a knit giraffe animal on it’s head. That and the monkey cracked me up.

Some pretty dried flowers.

This guy walked by me wearing this awesome hat. I asked if I could take his picture and he gave it to me to try on. It’s a wild one! Warm too.

One of Merce’s felt skulls.

A buffalo felt purse. Expensive but oh so pretty.

Thebes thought this one looked cool. It looks so manly.

Yarn goodness.

A knit hat. I need to make one for myself one of these days.

A pretty spinning wheel.

Some felt bags in the Lonesome Stone booth.

A pretty felt bag with dyed mohair locks detail.

A gorgeous woven shrug.

This is the biggest skein I’ve ever seen. The vendor told me it was 1,400 yards, enough for a sweater.

Laura took this funny pic of me.

She also took this picture of Benk, a spinner and knitter from Santa Fe. She spun this vest all from one fleece.

Another pic of my ribbon because I’m still excited about it.

These little goats were so cute. I wanted to take them home.

These two were cute as well.

I simply adore alpacas. They are just beautiful creatures.

Next up-the goodies I brought home.

3 comments October 15th, 2009

More Wool Fest pics

I had such a great time at this year’s Taos Wool Festival. Here’s me and Abbey:

Abbey and Merce in their booth:

Merce had some of these handspun woolen bowls.

What to use them for? Abbey had a clever idea:

This woman makes groovy clothing. Her name is Lynn and her designs can be seen at her website Lynnie B. Creations.

Her needle felted poncho won first place. She let me try it on and pose for a photo.

Not only is it gorgeous it felt great to wear too.

The Ravelry tent was a fun place to hang out. We knit, spun and ate cupcakes. What a great day.

Here’s the two yarns I entered into the yarn competition, novice category. The purple yarn is Churro wool and the gray is Icelandic wool booth bought at last year’s fest. While I didn’t win any ribbons I did get great feedback from the judges. I plan to enter again next year.

Thebes and Daniel pose with Aurora. They look so handsome.

Then we got a group photo. This is one of my faves.

2 comments October 14th, 2009

More ribbons

Abbey entered her felted entrelac bag into the bag competition at the Taos Wool Fest.

She won second place.

Meredith entered her wool 3 ply handspun yarn into the yarn competition.

She won reserve champion and second place in the novelty yarn division.

Merce entered a piece into the wall art competition. This piece appeared in the Beyond The Fringe show.

She won third place.

She also entered her wool and lichen yarn in the novelty yarn division. (Yup, that’s real lichen in there!) She won grand champion and first place.

Congratulations you three!

I modeled my sweater and ribbon at the Ravelry tent. Laura took this pic:

3 comments October 12th, 2009

2009 Taos Wool Festival

Last weekend was the Taos Wool Festival. I had a fabulous time!

I have a lot of photos from the weekend and will breaking them up into several posts.

This year the festival organizers provided Ravelry with a large meeting tent. Here’s Laura, Meredith, Tara and David getting together.

Meredith got attacked by a Dr. Who scarf. Pink Porcupine is behind her. She’s an Albuquerque knitter that I met over the weekend.

A clever way to advertise some fleece:

Check out these gorgeous felt scarves:

This is a rectangular loom for weaving scarves. Clever design.

Speaking of clever designs, this triangle loom was interesting. The vendor gave me a quick tutorial on how to use it. The warp and weft is done at the same time.

Abbey and Merce shared a booth this year.

Their booth was very colorful and groovy. I tried to visit in the morning and it was packed with people. I waved and came back later.

Here’s Merce wearing my Luna Valentine Shawl. It was fun to collaborate with her.

Normally I hate dolls but this needle felted skeleton figurine was quite cool.

I met a fellow knitter named Lauri at the Ravelry tent who had this gorgeous bag. She spun the wool, knit and felt it. Stunning!

A pretty pillow with great texture:

I liked the color in this woven poncho.

There was colorful yarn everywhere.

More to come soon.

2 comments October 9th, 2009

Merce yarn and art

Merce will be selling her yarn and felt art at this year’s Taos Wool Fest. Her work is called Vortex Spinning. Neat eh? Here’s some pictures of her creative handspun:

And here’s an example of her felt art.

She’ll be in Booth #26 with Abbey.

2 comments September 29th, 2009

Abbey’s Wool Fest creations

Abbey is selling some cool stuff at this year’s Taos Wool Fest. She calls her work “Ab-Original Designs” which is super groovy.

She’ll be in booth #26 with Merce this year.

You can find her on Ravelry as Frekkuls. Speaking of Ravelry, show her your Rav button and you’ll get 10% off your purchase.

Add comment September 28th, 2009