FRIDAY

I have been looking forward to today all week!! Work has been insane and in my passive agressive way at getting back at them I blog during the day, yeah yeah bad employee. But today is friday and I get to go to the movies tonight and watch History of Violence, tomorrow stay in and knit, spin and chill all day. Sunday is Knit out in Union Square park, I can't wait to go. I'll be the one trying to sell her yarn to all the lovely knitters out there.

Why is it that although I spin my own yarn, and spend a ton of money on it, I have the urge to buy up all sorts of goodies in my LYS??? I think spinning has made me even more in love with the colors and textures of yarn. I must go on a fiber diet for a month at least. I have a ton of commercial yarn stored in tubs (5 of them to be exact), and I literally have fiber piled to the ceiling of my craft room.
This is just the yarn I have spun in the past couple of weeks!
It's time I had a little self restraint, a little common sense and use up what I have before I go on a bender and buy up everything I see and touch. So with that said, I am not going to buy fiber for one whole month. Baby steps, if I try to go for more then a month I might lose it in the middle of month 2 and buy my weight in fiber (that's a lot of fiber!, even if I were skinny it'd be a lot).

But on the bright side, I will still be spinning all the stuff I have, and that's quite a bit. And I have some ambitious projects to start in october...next week...eeeks.
Look a FO!! I like this shawl it's wider rather than longer so it wraps nicely and I can also use it as a scarf. Perfect for the autumn season, especially since it's been getting much cooler out lately - I'm loving the crisp air, and the fact I don't need to use the AC anymore.

Hopefully on monday I'll have lots of new stuff to show and tell. Off to finish my work so I can get out of here on time today.

i-cord you cord...

Well, since sweetgeorgia fessed up to a little office spinning, I'll fess up to some office i-cord making. A month or so ago I was so bored here at work I came up with a makeshift i-cord maker, using a coffee cup, rubberband, tape, and jumbo smooth paperclips...


crafty huh? I like a 4 prong i-chord maker although I've also made them with as many as 8, so I get a nice big tube, hmmm maybe I can make socks this way? I think I better learn the regular way before I start inventing shortcuts! And here are pics with yarn on the i-cord maker:


and the result is...



sorry for the funky fuzzy yarn, it's all I had with me today at work, it's from this which should be done tomorrow...YAY.

It's not all about knitting...hello the name of the blog is Brooklyn Handspun! Last night I spun up a bit of hand dyed tussah silk, I love spinning silk although I've got to make sure I'm wearing slippery pants or it will stick to everything - especially bare leg stubble!!!! Yeah yeah I know you all don't shave those legs everyday!


Don't you love the colors? I am biased, they are my favorites! Give me purple, and green anyday.

In other spinning news, I've got the next project all laid out and ready to go...here Igo with my rainbows again! What do you guys think? Should I attempt a rainbow supercoiled yarn? or maybe a thick and thin? Any suggestions? This is the same yarn as my Rainbow Blast yarn (the funky birds nest one!).

Progress

Ok, The Multidirectional scarf is on it's way, here is my progress so far:



Notice the office phone and the sickly grey of the cubicle desk? Yes I'm at work, but I just had to take a pic of the scarf, my boss stepped out and I was able to snap it fast. Good thing I work in a small firm.

I'm having fun with this scarf, it's really going fast and I love the triangles. I'm going to have to knit it up again with some of my self striping yarn!

As for other projects, my weeknights (the only time I really use for serious crafting) are going to start getting really busy soon, with the Opera rehearsals starting, making it to my voice lesson once a week, and not to mention learning all the music! but I think I can get in a a night of dyeing in at the end of this week. I have pretty much spun up all the dyed Romney, and am craving some cuddly softness. I think I'll shoot for maybe 3-4 pounds of soft stuff, that should keep me busy for a little while. Some Merino, Falkland, and BFL....ohh I can't wait!

For some reason can't bring myself to spin undyed fiber - anyone else have this problem? It bores me to tears! I ALWAYS have to dye the rovings first.

I'm on the hunt for a simple sweater to knit, I need a beginner sweater to work on for a long term project. If you know of any good, EASY, sweaters let me know! This is going to be a learning experience...I feel like such a big girl actually knitting a real garment. I've sewn stuff to wear, but that's much easier than knitting one, just slap some fabric on the body pin in desired places and sew - oh I'm not much on patterns and such, probably because I hate measuring. If my end product is lopsided I tell everyone it was a design element!

Experimentation

Last night I ditched my regular two-ply and decided to do something a little fun and funky with my spinning. I spun up a bunch of hand dyed roving into a rainbow, and then plied that with a black cotton-rayon thread, while plying it I decided to throw all caution to the wind and place little funky birds nests throughout. This is what I got:





here is a closeup of the little nests:



I love the way this yarn came out and I'm calling it Rainbow Blast

So, after the appaling show of terrible knitting yesterday, I decided it was about time I tried a real pattern. Up until now, for the past year, I've been knitting everything without patterns, just kinda glancing at patterns or objects and making them. But now, I've decided to grow up and join the real knitters. I've started the infamous multidirectional diagonal scarf. And I'm going to knit proper untwisted stitches...I promise. Here is the mini acrylic test of the pattern to make sure I could do it.



I'm going to be making the real scarf in the softest yarn I have ever fet, berocco Softy. Yes yes I know it isn't a natural fiber, and I know it's a novelty yarn, but seriously now it's so friggin soft! And I must admit I happen to enjoy making scarves with novelty yarn, I don't care if they only last one season, by next season they will be out of style anyway! --- so there! And I've had this yarn in my stash for a while now, I scored a ton of yarn when my LYS went out of business, sad, but I had to take advantage of yarn that was 50% off!

I'll post the progress on the scarf tomorrow.

Time to show a little knitting

Ok since this is a spinning and knitting blog, I guess I must show my pathetic knitting skills. My stitches are all twisted, I screw up the pattern and keep going, and I have no regard for the "rules", I tie knots to join new colors, and I rarely ever weave the ends in, I end up cutting those bad boys off, blocking...what's blocking???

Here is a section of a scarf I finished last month in a sorta basketweave pattern. I have been spinning so much I've totally neglected my knitting, I hope to have a few new things soon, maybe something which shows I CAN change my twisted ways and knit the straight and narrow - this only applies to my knitting of course!



Don't be too harsh!

In other news the jewelry show was this weekend and it went fairly well, we sold some stuff, and made a few contacts. Hopefully something will come of it. Right now I have to focus on updating our tired old jewelry website, suggestions are always appreciated.

Introductions are in order

Now for the prerequisite kitty pictures -

This is my sweet girl Gina, she is 3 or 4, she followed us home on valentines day last year. When I say followed us home I mean literally, we fed her and pet her and she just walked with us into the building and up the stairs into the apartment! And a few weeks later, she had 2 cute kittens, we had grandchildren! We found homes for the boys but she stayed with us.



And this svelt sweetie is Guidy, she came along with E, and I love this grumpy chick. She growls just like a dog, I love it! she's 9 and calls the home her guidocracy - and she rules with an iron fist, Gina and both her humans must do her bidding at all times...it is law and we obey (yeah yeah we are suckers)

Now, don't be scared of the clutter, this is the craft room. It is my city luxury to have a 2 bedroom apartment and one of those rooms be entirely for crafting.



Ok not entirely the whole room, the other wall is lined with about 5 ikea bookshelves (what can I say I'm a book whore as well). See the fiber piled up high, isn't that a lovely sight? Some people without the fiber gene (E) don't think so - I get yelled at all the time for buying too much "stuff".

That's my louet - GOOCH - in the forefront, she's a good girl and is frequently transported to the livingroom so I can spin and mindlessly watch TV at the same time. I have lots of fabric for quilts, the pink one you can see is almost finished, it's a little one for my niece. And I have beads galore, E and I have a jewelry business and all the mess is becasue we are preparing for a show on saturday. Here is a close-up of the bead storage and some jewelry on the desk.




I think I better get back to work - yes I am doing this all from my lovely cube...heheh..my bosses are suckers too!

My oh my - this is a problem

Ok first off here are my latest yarns:


Boysenberry - This one was spun stright from the lock - how fun! It is so textured, fuzzy and fluffy. The Romney locks were dyed then spun up.


Summer's End Stripe - E (my partner in life and crime) loves this one. It's a self striping yarn with some of my favorite colors thrown in, lilac, teal, sea green, and pinkish red.

I love self striping yarns then I don't have to weave in those pesky ends.

Although I am known to tie ends together when I join and then just snip those bad boys off...yes yes sacrilege...whatever, I'm LAZY! I never said I was a good knitter, I love my scarves, shawls, hats and funky bags and totes. I haven't ventured too far away from those. I hate patterns.....ok I only hate them cause I don't like being told what to do, and I always screw something up. Not to mention I recently found out I knit all weird like. I twist my stitches something awful, this is what I get when I am too pigheaded to get someone to teach me - all I need is yarn, needles and a book (hey it got me this far). I also taught myself how to spin, make beaded jewelry, solder umm almost anyting I've ever done I've taught myself with the help of Amazon.com.

Back to the knitting, I've reread the books and figured out what I am doing wrong, and now I can actually follow a stitch pattern and it looks like the pics...yippie. Now it's time to start making socks!!! I will do it one day - just not today.

Today I got in fibery goodies! Wanna see??? Of course you do!



Lets see I have 1 lb of 18 micron Merino, 1 lb of Falkland wool, 1/2 lb of South African wool, 1/2 lf of dark BFL, 1/2 pound of lambswool and Angora, and one pound of cheap mystery wool.

Some people need coffee in the morning and all I need is pounds upon pounds of fiber!

More yarn!

ok I went a little crazy with the pictures but hey I know everyone loves to look at pictures in a blog so here goes.


I Love love love this one, the orange is so lovely, it's Romney and soy silk, and I actually met the sheep who were gracious enough to give me this fiber! Theya re so friggin cute.


This one the colors are perfect for the autum harvest - not that we harvest anything here in Brooklyn!!! It's Romney and Kid Mohair


Can you see the office supplies and my messy desk in the backround of this picture? I needed to post this on my Etsy site and I had to sneak it at work! It's Romney and an amazing Bombyx Silk and Mohair blend.


This was one of my early dye jobs using kool aid (the universal beginners dye!) It's Domestic Wool.

I have been spinning one skein a day or every two days so I'll be posting lots and lots of stuff. In addition, I'll be having a dye day soon so I'll have plenty of stuff for show and tell.

Bloggety Blog Blog

I am so way behind the times, I can't belive it's taken me this long to start up my own blog. I've been reading other blogs for ages now, and have been a lazy ass in starting my own. But finally I bit the bullet and said enough is enough and look here I am! A little about why I am starting this blog - I am a crafting addict, my main crafts are Jewelry and Fibery stuff like spinning yarn and knitting. This addiction is so far along that I have an entire room in my apartment dedicated to crafting. At the moment the "craft den" is being quickly filled to the brim with pounds of fiber for spinning. I'll be posting pics of my yarn and other crafty bits form time to time. I's rather be posting fun stuff then sitting here languishing in my mind meltingly boring 9-5. so for your viewing pleasure here are some of my yarns.







What do you think?