Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Two New Kits and Lots of Fun New Colors & Fibers

Sarah and I came up with these great new kits utilizing my handpainted fibers, her handcrafted sewn bags and using both April's and Kathy's spindles.

The first is called the "Traveler Spindle Kit" and it is now available in the ETSY shop and soon available elsewhere..... It has the cutest bag that Sarah made. They are reversible and washable and are the perfect size for packing your spinning stuff for a short trip or even a week away! The kit comes with the bag, one of the spindles and four ounces of handpainted fiber that matches the bag. I probably will be using blue faced leicester for these because it is such a great fiber for every level of spinner... We'll have the student spindles, and the stone whorl spindles and hopefully in the future some hand-turned wood spindles.



The second kit is called the "Traveling Spinning Kit" and it is similar, just without the spindle, for those who already have plenty of spindles or want to use their own. It includes Sarah's spindle bag and four ounces of handpainted fiber to match... See it here for sale.

I really enjoy working with other fiber artists. There are some really other fun new products coming out soon.....

I did lots of dyeing this past weekend. I bought some new fingering weight merino-tencel yarn which is just perfect for socks actually. I thought blogger would cooperate but no, I can only update just three photos it seems per post! I guess I will have to make a separate post for these...Some are going in the etsy shop and some are going to kpixie.

Here is one of my favorite new ones Amethyst Sparkles for you purple lovers...I wanted you mostly to see the shine of the merino/tencel. Sarah is going to knit up a pair of socks for another project so I am giving her a skein of this same yarn but in a different colorway......



Time for a nap...I have a huge headache today!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Estes Park Was Amazing

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-there were so many sheep at Estes Park making that sound, I still hear them all in my head. I couldn't believe how loud they were! I am in love with sheep now....I want a few!

I truly enjoyed Colorado. I loved Denver. I loved Boulder. I want to move to Boulder as a matter of fact. If I could figure out a way to do it, I would. I loved Estes Park too. The mountains were gorgeous. We had perfect weather and great accomodations. We ate great food every day. The wool market was so much fun. This is kind of a photo heavy post so hopefully blogger will cooperate.

In Boulder, we first visited Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins, truly the most amazing yarn/fiber store of all time.


Since this is a yarn and fiber blog, I'll limit my photos to Estes Park. I also took a ton of photos of downtown Boulder, the mountain scenery, our cute inn, the Stanley hotel (where they filmed the shining) and other things.

When we first arrived at the Woolmarket Sat AM, we went to the "fleece judging competition." That was quite interesting. Our new friend Susan won first and second prize for her Cormo fleeces. Here is a photo of the shepherd judge going through the fleeces.


There was a children's booth where kids learned to spin and weave.

There were three or four tents of animals, one of goats and bunnies, one of various sheep, one of alpacas and one of llamas. Here is the cutest young alpaca boy having a bath. He was not happy!!!
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We saw many sheep including my favorite, the blue faced leicester. BAAAAAAAAA We also met many other types of sheep..Jacob, Shetland, etc.... Lots of goats including pygora, cashgora and angora goats. And bunnies..angora and other bunnies.....Here is a photo of some angora goats. I love these guys..they look like they have dreadlocks.
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And here is one of my favorite photos "pile of goats." The black one was sound asleep with his head on the white one's back. Too adorable....
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We met some new friends Friday night for dinner.....These are friends I met through the dyehappy list.....Hi Susan, Peggy, Patty, etc...(forgot all the names!).
In the vendor area, there were booths after booths after booth of fiber and yarn and every related item you could think of!!

I did pretty well actually. My goal was to only buy things I had never seen ever before. I found these beautiful green dyed rovings at Lambspun, a very cool booth from a hot store in Colorado Springs.
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I bought a mystery book, Knit One Kill Two, by Maggie Sefton takes place in Lambspun. I purchased the novel at their booth.
They also had these adorable chenille washcloth kits. I am waiting for the pattern.

I bought some beautiful hand dyed roving (corriedale and silk) all natural dyed in Osage and Indigo, from Handspun by Stefania. Her stuff was beautiful.
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I bough two angora sock yarn kits (yummy soft, and a small sock loom that I have no clue how to use yet.

It was fun...

Happy knitting and spinning.......

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

My Wonderful Dye-O-Rama Partner!

Krystal from Kindred Spirts Yarn sent me this absolutely beautiful hand dyed yarn! I can't wait to make socks with it. Thank you Krystal. She was a great Dye-O-Rama buddy. She always kept in touch and asked me a lot of questions. I was so excited when I opened this up. She also sent me some yummy m & m's and some kookaburra wool wash which I have been wanting to get!! Check out her web page!


My post from Estes park is coming along but taking awhile due to all the photos of fiber and animals. What a beautiful place!!! More soon.......

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Leaving for Estes Park

Well it is Wednesday night and tomorrow Kirsten and I are leaving for the Estes Park Wool Market in Colorado. This couldn't have come at a better time! I have had a lot of stress lately that I don't want to blog about but let's just say that life has been quite hard. So it will be so wonderful just to be in a new location for a few days, surrounded by the beauty of nature and mountains and tons of fiber and fiber animals.

In other GREAT NEWS......., check out the greatest on-line knitting store KPIXIE and see that our stuff is going to be on there for sale!!! They have not yet posted all the items but it looks like they are working on it. See Here: Yarn Botanika on KPixie. They have our spindle kits, hand-dyed rovings and hand-dyed yarns! It is really a compliment to be featured on their site and so I am very happy about that......

Talk to you you all next week.........

Friday, June 09, 2006

Dye Day Update-Finally

I still am unable to post photos on blogger. It is driving me crazy. So what I am trying instead are linking these posts to my photos on FLICKR. Hope I am not breaking any "bandwidth" type rules since I am not sure of those. I wanted to post about our fun dye day!

....Last Sunday afternoon, Kirsten and April came over and we did some roving dyeing. It really was fun and I really enjoyed myself..... Here is a photo of my two new fabulous fiber friends! They are both incredibly nice, fun and talented people and I feel lucky to have met them. Kirsten is a great knitter and weaver. April makes great munch batts and gorgeous stone spindles-you can see them on her site.... Kirsten and I are going to the Estes Park Wool Market next week! I cannot wait!

Here are some photos of the completed rovings. The colors are gorgeous. They are already in the YarnBotanika shop and a few sold right away.
Here is Nude Beach (thank you Gina for this name, I want to hire you as a marketing consultant, ok?)


This one is GORGEOUS. Kirsten, great dyeing job. But I had trouble coming up with a name. It is a combo of deep royal blue, a brilliant deep blue and then a bright and deep violet color. I ended up calling it Deep Iris finally

Here is Jungle.
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And Hot Summer Nights.

BFL-Hot summer nights

Followed by Lipstick.
BFL-LIPSTICK

In other news, I finally finished warping my loom in class and it was very tough for me. Not sure yet about weaving. The jury is still out. We'll see!
Estes Park is next week and I am looking forward to getting away for a few days. I really need a get away badly! I will take lots of photos of fiber, yarn and fiber animals for all of you!!
(BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!...LOL..Don't alpacas hum? I can't wait to meet a few!)

Lisa

Monday, June 05, 2006

TOTAL BLOGGER FRUSTRATION

I have been trying for days to do the greatest post of the dyeing day I had last week with two wonderful friends. But I cannot get photos to upload!! Are others having this problem? I do not know what to do. I have tried many things and so far nothing has helped consistently.....

I have some real pretty photos to show you of all the roving we dyed. We had so much fun.....

Oh well. I will keep trying............

Gosh it is like 111 outside today. WAY TOO HOT.

I hate to have a post without photos. So go to this blog and take a look at my new friend's Anastacia's posts about her new spinning adventures. I love her name! And she has a cute ETSY shop too.... She bought a spinning kit and has been spinning away!! I am glad you are enjoying yourself so much Anastacia!!

Lis

Sunday, June 04, 2006

First Sock Finished! Yippee!!

It is not perfect by any means, but its pretty cute! It is a little bit loose around the foot area and I am starting to think it is because of the yarn. The yarn is Knitpicks 100% merino sock yarn. It doesn't have any nylon in it and I prefer sock yarns that have a bit of give in them.. I am knitting another pair of socks with some Regia sock yarn and I will try those. I also am going to be experimenting with the various undyed yarns that I dye for the YB store because it is important to me that people really like what they get!!

Still, I am so proud of my very first sock!!