Took a few days off work last week. I really needed the "me" time and it was nice to get up to the studio and play. Since we are heading out of "scarf and hat" season, I thought it might be good to make up some other items. Made up some cute dishcloths and bath scrubbies.

Trying to be patient

Got paid today, so the new drive band for my new-to-me drum carder is ordered and on its way to me. I can't wait to play with my new toys.

In other news, I made up a short length of corespun yarn with a 32 gauge wire core. I haven't figured out what I am going to do with it yet, but I was thinking it might make some kind of fun thing for my hair. We shall see.

Belated Christmas gifts

I traded Christmas presents with a co-worker, finally. I made her a pair of fingerless mittens from some hand-dyed, handspun yarn. And I got an awesome pen and ink drawing in return. I feel lucky to have friends who appreciate handmade gifts and who create such beautiful things for me.

Yay!

Drum carder is on its way to me! I'm super excited.

Tentatively Squeeing

I may or may not have just put a bid in on a drum carder.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Enclosure - new handspun yarn

I have had this fiber sitting around for a long time. Spun it up into another single ply, thick and thin yarn.

The fiber is mostly black with pops of yellow, red and turquoise and is really soft. I'm working on some new yarn, my first attempt at corespinning, so I should have pictures of that soon. Assuming I can get to the studio sometime in the near future.

From the ministry of silly hats

I got a book of hat patterns for Christmas, and immediately had to try this one out. It is incredibly silly: 

 I used a combination of handspun, hand dyed and commercial yarns and I love the way it came out, except that it is a little too small for me. Also weaving in all the ends was a total bitch. Still, I will probably make this one again sometime.

Harvest

This is another new yarn spun up from some oddly colored fiber. Mostly Gold Ochre, with bits of Chestnut, Lilac, Chartreuse and Burnt Orange.

  

 Can you tell I've been into chunky, squishy yarns lately?

One of the things I want to do this year is set up a website...but I don't know what to call it. Since my Etsy shop and this blog are already associated with the name "inlerah" I want to incorporate that into the domain, but inlerah.com is already taken. I could do something like inlerah fibers or studios or crafts or designs...but nothing is really jumping out at me. I feel like this is my opportunity to define myself in some way, and I can't quite figure out what I want to say. Perhaps if I was getting more than 20 or 30 min of sleep a night, I might be able to think straight. But anyway....

...if you are reading this, you probably know something about me, and what I do.... what do you think I should call myself?

Figment & Cumulus

Had a productive day at the studio on Saturday. Spun up some tencel/merino fiber dyed in a really pretty combination of grey and magenta which produced a subtle colorway I find very appealing. It's so soft and shiny. It was lovely to spin. I was a little sad when it was gone...but at least I have a few more hanks of the same fiber in different colors, which I can spin up soon.

   

 And then I pulled out a bag of angora/alpaca fiber which is very possible the softest thing I have ever touched. I think this is going to make a new pair of fingerless mittens for me!  It's so dreamy.

A conundrum

I taught myself how to do a linen stitch this weekend, and started a hat, using some handspun I've had around for a while.



I think it looks pretty cool so far. The problem is that the linen stitch is not stretchy, and so the hat is coming out much smaller than intended. So...do I keep going, and just make a small sized hat? Or undo it and make a bigger hat? Any suggestions?

Illusive

Recently spun up a few single ply yarns, something I haven't done in a while, and I found I quite enjoyed it. Although I still can't quite manage a really funky thick/thin yarn (and who ever thinks when they first start spinning and that's all they can make, and they can't wait until they can make smoothly, perfectly even yarns, that one day they will want to do that?), I found that a combination of not pre-drafting the fiber, and not really paying attention to what I was doing almost did the trick:

Incredibly Bright Yarn

I still don't really know what I was thinking when I dyed this fiber. It is not at all like me, but this yarn came out really soft and squishy and it makes me laugh, so there you go:

At the studio today trying to do inventory and wondering how I let it get so far behind. Yuck.

To cheer myself up, here's some new yarn:

Bulky, slightly thick and thin, very squooshy merino. natural white plied with a variegated green dyed by Amber ages ago. I could sit here and squish it all day, but instead I should try and get some work done.

2 more hats!





Ok, really, I am going to go work on my sister's scarf. You know, the one I was supposed to give her for Christmas and which is still not done? That one.

another scrap hat

You know how when you finish knitting something you have just a little bit of yarn left and you can't bring yourself to throw it away? No? Hmmmm.... Well, in any case, I have this bag full of yarn odds and ends, and have finally started putting them to good use. So here are a couple of my latest adventures in knitting:





I have a few others I finished this week but haven't photographed yet. Now if I could just make myself finish my Christmas knitting.

New yarns

Have picked up spinning again after a little bit of a hiatus. Must be the change of seasons - summer doesn't feel like "spinning" time to me.

Have a few new yarns to share:


so far these are unnamed, so if you have suggestions, I welcome them.


merino yarn in purple, teal and white.


merino yarn in navy, purple, teal and magenta


cashmere, silk, merino yarn in smokey lavender, gray, and slate


llama, mohair silk yarn in blue, black and white


llama, mohair, silk yarn in brown and teal

My So Called Hat

One of the things that people ask me all the time when they visit my studio is why they should shell out money for my handspun or handdyed yarn, instead of going down the street to Michael's or whatever and buying a commercial yarn for a lot less money. I try to talk to them about the quality of the fibers that I use, and compare prices with commercial luxury yarns. I talk to them about the joy of knitting something that is going to be truly unique. But more often than not, they look at me like I am completely insane.

So, one of my current projects is to make up some sample items to show how using a handspun or handdyed yarn can increase the beauty of a knitted or crocheted item.

To start off with, I have so far knitted up 3 versions of the same hat. In case you are interested, this is an adaptation of the My So Called Scarf pattern, which I worked out to knit in the round.

The first is made from some Red Heart, TLC Heathers:



I think it's a perfectly good hat, but nothing to write home about.

The second is made from some hand dyed sock yarn, using the yarn doubled:


I love the variegation on this one, it's still a superwash yarn, and it is much softer to the touch than the red heart one (not that you're surprised by that, I am sure).

The third is a handspun yarn.


This particular yarn was spun from fiber dyed by my friend Lynne, and navajo plied to produce a fun stripey effect. This is also a superwash merino, and is super soft and warm. Although I personally like this one a lot, I think I might do another handspun version with a funkier yarn, just to see what it looks like.

I am pleased with the results of my project so far, and hope that it will help people to better appreciate what I do.

Baby Viking Hat

I learned how to make bobbles this week!
Took a test drive of the baby viking hat pattern: