lulubeans

i just added some hand dyed, hand carded spinning batts and some handpainted  merino/tussah silk top to my etsy shop.  i'm feeling really proud of this recent batch and hope that you enjoy it too.  there's more to come over the next few days too!

i hope those of you who celebrate thanksgiving had a great one.  here's what i have been working on over the past few days.  they'll go on etsy at some point when i get a chance, hopefully by sunday evening at the very latest.  

there's a half decorated christmas tree and two girls with mugs of cocoa in my living room so i had better best skedaddle!  happy weekend, all!

a rather large shop update

i managed to restock my shop with a bunch of pretties this morning! click on the mosaic if you'd like to take a peek.

i gave greta a jar of what she calls "pretties" (yarn scraps) today, hoping that it would hold her long enough so that i could update my etsy shop.

she spent a little bit of time decorating the dog and then whoosh! onto the next thing.  i love the non-stop energy and excitement of life with a toddler, but man! it can take some serious strategics to get anything done.

i managed to take a lot of photos of yarn, but the big update that i have planned is going to have to wait until tomorrow.  

i did get this one batt set listed though.  yay for that!  it took some definite willpower to not spin these up myself- they are soft and lush and eager for someone to make them into yarn, that's for sure!

 

a pillow and a blanket

this pillow was going to be a purse.  i think there are a lot of knitters who, when initially beginning the great knitting journey, fall under the spell of the felted bag.  i know that back in the early days i made several, and that there are still a few random, unfinished ones hiding in my basket of arbitrary unfinished craft projects.  

this purse/pillow is something that i knit over 5 yrs ago, and it's just been sitting around ever since, destined to never be a purse.  the blue stripes are some of my early attempts at hand dyeing and spinning. last week, i seamed the thing, fulled (felted) it, stuffed it, and seamed the top shut. almost instant gratification!  now i want to pillow-ify all the felted bags of yesteryear.

 

the blanket is your basic log cabin, as inspired by mason dixon knitting, using scraps of bulky weight handspun.  this sucker is WARM. apparently there will be winter again this year in maine, so it will undoubtedly come in handy. (raveled.)

 

speaking of pillows, erin's pillow week challenge looks like a lot of fun.

edited to add: after my last post on spinning corners, i thought it would be fun to start a flickr group devoted to the places where fiber art + craft happens. i'd love for you to join in!

spinning corners

we have lived in three different homes since i began making yarn.  the corners where i've kept my spinning wheel have been my favorite spots in all three places. these days, my wheel is kind of migratory.  i've found that i can bring it over to the dining room table so that i can spin while greta snacks.  (she's a slow + frequent snacker, so this works pretty well.)  but this is the "official" corner for the wheel, as of right now:

 

 

 

and there's the last place, but honestly, i think you always remember your first with a special kind of fondness:

 

 

 

 

i miss that cozy little corner.

if you are like me (nosy) and like to see where other people craft, this flickr group is fun.

november's colors

something has shifted, and i am getting more and more drawn to darks (charcoals + somber grays) punctuated by cheery brights.  i am thinking there are peaches and fuschias and shapes of turquoise in my dye pots' futures.  

inspiring:

 

 

1. seaside, 2. addie's sunshine, 3. Houseboat, 4. Untitled

 

and here's what i am planning to spin into yarn today:

 

 

hope you are having a great wednesday!

yet another hat

maybe greta can go as lyra belacqua next halloween.

raveled.

it's not really fun

or fur.

it was seriously not my favorite thing ever to knit, but i made the baby a soot sprite hat for halloween with "fun" "fur" (yeah, i think that both words deserve their own quotation marks.)

 (and i'm not being a yarn snob- i don't think there's anything wrong with this kind of yarn if it is something that you enjoy working with. i just did NOT enjoy working with it- the "eyelashes" kept making me think of the many undulating legs of a creepy crawly centipede. ew.) 

it turned out that greta didn't really want to wear the hat much, despite our insistence that she needed to keep theme with her sister's chibi totoro costume. oh well. halloween was lots of fun anyway. 

i regret not getting better photos, but here are the kids:

miss chibi totoro.

and the little susuwatari.  

more of these colors

i'm working on getting october's colors out of my system so that i can move on to something new for november!  does that ever happen to you, with things you make? like you have to do as much as humanly possible with a certain theme before you can move onto the next thing?  i got pretty obsessed with deep ceruleans and rusts and golds over the past few weeks.

also: beautiful and haunting photo series by dima gomberg: the shepherds way. (via design squish)