Tour de Fleecing

1. COLORBOMB 'Tour de Rainbow' Menage a Trois style handspun yarn, 2. Rogue Adventures SW BFL in 'Fun', 3. Rogue on the bobbin for TdF, 4. Happy Sparkler Day!, 5. My Wheel has a Tail, 6. 1 Down, 1 to Go!, 7. Tour de Toes, 8. First Full Bobbins of the Tour, 9. Topless Touring, 10. Tour de Rainbow closeup, 11. Tour de Rainbow all plyed and on the bobbins!, 12. Tour de Rainbow on the skeinwinder, 13. Ta DA! 1st spin of the Tour is Finis!

As a chronic joiner, I couldn't resist Tour de Fleece, the annual spinning challenge that runs concurrently with the Tour de France. 'Riding' for Team COLORBOMBers, Team Rogue, and Team Lendrum, I finished my first TdF yarn!

Tour de Rainbow, one of my Ménage à Trois™ style yarns, is 206 yards of stripey, bright goodness! It is superwash BFL fiber that I got from Trish at Rogue Adventures on Etsy. Can't recommend her enough!

Now, to find the right pattern for it...

Tags: Tour de Fleece, handspun yarn, COLORBOMB Creations

Hot AND Lucky

Do you remember this fiber? My hand-dyed bamboo in 'Hottie'? Yep, it was waaay too Velma to sell, so this one went into my stash. Bamboo Pigtails porn!

3.9 ounces of citrusy-TANGY-goodness in tangerine, clementine, ruby grapefruit, and lemon. OMG, I swoon!

I spun it up -- it was easy-peasy! -- into this Singleton singles that ranged from cobweb to a heavy fingering weight, for a total of 290 yards, ~20WPI.

See? I TOLD you it was gorgeous!

My original plan was to write a lace shawl pattern for it. You know, the hat trick: dyed, spun, designed, & knit by ME (I guess that's more than 3; what do you call that? A hat-and-scarf trick?)

But as it turns out, it's a wee bit arrogant to think that, having NEVER knit lace before, and NEVER made a shawl before, that I could just whip out a lace shawl pattern. Not to worry, though, I found the best pattern!

Bonne Chance, by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark of Kitchen Sink Dyeworks and Pie Bird Design, is almost exactly the look I had in my head when I was planning my own design. Knit from 1 stitch that gradually gets wider & wider (so I could just knit 'til I ran out of yarn), open & lacy, with diagonal ribs - just the ticket!

Look how nicely it shows off the sheen of my fiber! And drapey! Did I mention how drapey it is? Just divine.

I can't stop showing you closeups of the texture, I love it so much!

Despite the fact that bamboo has no "memory" to speak of, I decided to block it lightly, if nothing else so that I could compare how Bea's blocking wires performed in comparison with my yarn-stretching method from my blocking tutorial. Thanks for the loan, Bea, they worked great! SO much faster than running yarn along the perimeter, & easier to get a straight line. Totally worth the investment; it's on my list.

Ta-da! I knew you were waiting to see the real deal. Knit in just under 3 weeks (VERY fast for me) on US8 needles, I did a couple of mods to the pattern: I knit only 3 rows of garter at the end, rather than 4 (I was running out of yarn), & I did a K2, YO, knit to last 2 sts, YO, K2 pattern on those rows; oh, and I used Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off because I was worried about it being too narrow - LOL! Definitely NOT too narrow; it measures 56" wide and 34" deep. It's in my Rav projects here.

Plenty big, and so wide that I don't absolutely need a shawl pin because I can tie the ends together in front, it is so light I hardly notice it's there! I think I need to bust out my little black dress and my push-up bra and have Cole take me to The Pearl for cocktails.

Or I can just rock the babuschka look. ;)

Tags: handspun, knitting, bamboo

An (E) All of the Above Fiber Friday

Torn in myriad directions this morning with no sense of what to work on, I posed the following question to the Twitterverse: will it be a knit day, a crochet day, a spin day, or...? Thea of That Yarn Store indulged me, suggesting "Can't it be an 'all of the above' day?" - brilliant! And so it was.

I started out by knitting wedge #4 (of 5) on my No. 120 project. It is, as my mother would have said, humming right along! Yesterday I dug around in my button collection looking for just the right buttons for the 'closures' in anticipation of finishing soon, re-discovering these insect-a-licious beauties. Not sure they're quite it though, I rode into town yesterday in search of more options. I found 2 candidates: a card of 7 vintage 5/8" red moonglow shank-backed cuties, and contemporary loose 3/4" orange 2-hole standards. BUT, I'm not gonna tell you what I'm choosing! There has to be some incentive to get you back here, right?

Does anybody remember my Pink Pimple hibernating WIP? Yeah, I didn't think so. I started it in October 2007 but set it aside when I ran out of the Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille yarn. Last fall when I was down in Napa, I visited Yarns on First and found some! So I dug out my hook & started in on the crochet part of my day, yielding more 'pimples' for my hat that is inspired by Wooly Wormhead's Spiral Play tutorial.

I can't follow a crochet pattern for shit, hence the 'inspired by' - I couldn't get mine to come out like hers! But I'm pleased with my zit look, & I like the way the chenille obscures the stitches if when I forget how many stitches I've done & make a mistake. Very forgiving yarn. I made another 10 more pimples today!

As for the spinning part of our program, each night this week I've picked up my Jenkins spindle (a Turkish Delight) and worked a bit on the laceweight yarn I've been spinning off and on since last Halloween using a naturally-dyed silk cap from Tactile Fiber Arts. Today I started a 2nd spindle-full!

So my day was filled with a crafty triad: knitting, crochet, & spinning. Not bad! What did YOU do for Fiber Friday?

Tags: knitting, crochet, handspinning, fiber friday

Monday

A gift of spring, from me to you - I'm guessing this might be particularly welcome if you reside in a still-icy clime (I'm talking to you, Sharkbite Su!). This tulip is a volunteer, or, maybe planted by gnomes in the night? (More likely I planted it & forgot, lol). Whatev, Cole & I were tickled when it popped its sunny head up last month. Me likee tulips!

In knitting news, I'm getting close to finishing Color is a Lifestyle¹ sock #2, BUT... Yep, I made a boo-boo! I decided to add 4 extra stitches at the ankle, just after the heel gusset, but I didn't think through just how to do that, & all of them ended up on the same side - doh! Weirdly, it doesn't seem to affect the fit of the sock, so I decided to call it a wabi sabi socky design element instead of an error to avoid frogging back 3.5 inches or so. Why not, it's my friggin' sock! I started the calf increases last night, so am hoping to finish them before the end of the month rolls around on Wednesday.

This photo is proof that I'm continuing in my newly-renewed spinning jag. I can't even remember when the last time I listed a skein of LoopyDoopy™ yarn (my line of supercoils), but I put one in the shop today! Want to see more pictures? I know you do!

1. COLORBOMB 'Flashback to 1974' handspun art yarn, 2. COLORBOMB 'Flashback to 1974' handspun art yarn, 3. COLORBOMB 'Flashback to 1974' handspun art yarn, 4. COLORBOMB 'Flashback to 1974' handspun art yarn

Want it in YOUR stash? It's yours if you go here & lay down the cash! Better act fast, this one is likely to go quick. ;)

Before I go, I wanted to share this closeup of the fabric I bought on Etsy: stoner deer! It's part of Jay McCarroll's Woodland Series, & Saremy of Chicken Boots is going to make me a knitting needle case with it! And with that, I guess that's it. For today. Happy Monday!

¹Check it out! This link is my first test of the new Ravelry pony feature that allows non-Ravelry members to view Ravelry project pages that allow public viewing/sharing. So although I can't imagine there's a yarn-obsessed person out there who isn't a member of Ravelry yet, there might just be a VWorld reader who isn't & who wants to see my projects. From now on, all my Ravelry project links should be viewable by all! So, go forth & heart my projects at will, Ravelers & non-Ravelers alike! /shameless self-promotion

Tags: yarn, supercoils, COLORBOMB

Craft or Bust Week 12

Today finds us at the close of the 3rd month of Craft or Bust. Can you believe it? That's a whole quarter of crafting, with absolutely zero busting!

This week was almost exclusively about spinning yarn, in terms of crafty pursuits. Lots & lots o' art yarn!!

In the shop:

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Denim Shmenim

Melon Baller

Buttered Popcorn

Green Man

Oh, and Neon Filoffee, that last one, which is a TwoFer, it's bound for France, for a swap with another art yarn spinner. She says she loves it - score!

Don't you just love all that texture? We've got bobbles, we've got wrapping, we've got flowers, we've got supercoils. Enough texture to git 'er done, I'd say.

The weather all week ('til today) was sheer awesomeness, so I spent a good part of it doing my spinning outside in the backyard. There's not much nicer on a Saturday afternoon than sitting at the wheel amongst the daisies, letting wool pass between your fingers & listening to the chickadees in the Hawthorne tree. Look, I'll show you!

Tags: yarn, handspun, art yarn, COLORBOMB Creations

The Handspun Love Continues

Yes! MORE art yarn! I'm finally spinning again. I listed two, count 'em, two skeins in my Etsy shop today. This one here is called 'Melon Baller', 'cuz that makes me giggle uncontrollably. Tee hee! It is one of my Enwraptured™-style yarns, wreathed in myriad threads &, in this case, the secret ingredient: banana silk!

The closeup gives a good view of all the goodies packed into this singles, super-bulky yarn: locks of the Cotswold, BFL, Wensleydale, & Leicester variety; more wool, including Romney, Rambouillet, & Corriedale; cotton quilting fabric scraps; upcycled threads; and the aforementioned banana fiber. That last is a form of rayon, & adds the soft & silky look & feel that you KNOW you love! This is one texture-y good yarn! And it's listed HERE.

I also listed a new skein of 'Denim Shmenim', the blue shade of my Shaganator™ yarn like 'In the Buff' and 'Green Man' you saw the other day. It's jeans-inspired color palette would coordinate with anything, just like your favorite pair of dungarees! And this baby is jammed with more upcycled yarn scraps than you can shake a spindle at. The whole shebang is plied with a single strand of navy wool yarn to sturdy-ify the skein. Fun! Wanna see a closeup? I know you do!

Ain't it grand? Yeppers, & it can be yours if you go HERE. Hope to keep this spinning spree going, but I need your help - buy some yarn, mama needs to pay the RENT!

Tags: yarn, art yarn, handspun, COLORBOMB Creations

Handspun SQUEE!

Yep, I'm spinning again folks. We got us an art yarn bulletin! That there is 'Green Man', one of the colorways of Scraptastic™ yarn I make. Scraptastic™ is one of my Greenish™ yarn lines, made of upcycled materials. In this case, a metric TON of yarn scraps! I have myriad sources for collecting scraps, & I need to send a shout-out to one of 'em: thanks to all my local knit homies for saving your yarnie bits for me!

I also did a skein in off-white, which I call 'In the Buff'. Although both of these two skeins have already sold, I can generally gather enough materials to make a skein of Scraptastic™ in whatever color you want; just drop me a line!

These two skeins are paired, a TwoFer™. One each of Tufty™ (top) and LoopyDoopy Extreme™ (bottom). These skeins now live in France, with a handspun swapee! Super fun to make, can't wait to see what she does with them.

Last but not least is 'April Showers Bring May Flowers', the BOMBastic™ skein I spun today! Take some BFL wool roving, spin it thick-and-thin into a singles, then ply it into beehives, coils, turkish knots, & turbans with cotton, then add a few fabric flowers: voila! This one is headed into my Etsy shop as soon as it dries - it could be YOURS!

Tags: COLORBOMB Creations, art yarn, handspun

Craft or Bust Week 6

Week 6 of Craft or Bust! was CRAMMED with crafty goodness, what with Ravelympics, a book signing for 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse, and Valentine's Day all falling within it. All crafting, no busting!

I embroi-doodle-ry-ed yesterday to make Mr. Likevelvet a card, adding a heart to one of the designs in the Sublime Stitching Stitachable Stationary kit I won at Maker Faire last year. I used perle crochet cotton from the giant box o' threads I got from Kristy a few weeks ago; made it fast AND shiny! Cole loved it (as he should, lol!) and I got the obligatory box of conversation hearts to go with it.

And it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without heart-shaped bacon, right? Cole said it was an accident, but I'm not sure I believe him. ;)

Ravelympics occupied the rest of my crafty efforts this week, as this and this blog post can attest. In fact, between knitting, spinning, blogging, & posting all over Ravelry, I've developed an early wrist injury; good thing there is a First Aid Station for Ravelympics!

I continued to work on my Flying Camel Spin entry, Scraptastic yarn in colorway 'Go, Team, GO!', but as you can see by the photo, my painkiller-of-choice is beer, and that's never a good way to stay on-task, so I'm still not done with it after 2 spinning sessions, 1 Friday and 1 yesterday. Hopefully, I'll wrap it up today and be able to cross that finish line.

I received my first medal yesterday, for the Aerial Unwind event for frogging my Inflated Ego hat, yielding 2 skeins of the yarn below, Plymouth Rimini Rainbow; I've already found another hat pattern to use it, if I can get my hands on one more skein.

Other crafty doings this week include:

• FINALLY mailed off my swap package of handspun & goodies to filofee in France;
  
• got my One Skein Stole up to 33 inches before retiring it for Ravelymics
• picked out a stitch pattern for my HH4H blanket square
• created a Team COLORBOMBers roster image

Happy Valentine's Day, & see you in a week for Week 7!

Tags: Ravelympics, knitting, handspinning, handspun, Valentine's Day, Craft or Bust, COLORBOMB Creations

Craft or Bust Week 5

Kind of a quiet crafting week here in Velma's World. Mostly material acquisition, in fact. But I did get some crafting in around the shopping and the 1,000+ pages I read this week. And I did ship a lot of COLORBOMB orders! That's one in the photo above, some hand-picked LooseyGoosey™ wool winging it's way to Bloomington, Indiana.

Since this is a Craft or Bust! update, let's see what other crafty stuff I did this week:

• spun & fulled 'Rosy Nipples', the skein of yarn in the pictures above, for my friend Melissa; it's a new style called Turbanator™

• landscaping the yard: 3 fruit trees + 3 spruce saplings = new beginnings! mostly I pointed where I wanted Cole & Jeanne to plant things & I photodocumented with before & after shots (practicing my photography, that's crafty, right?)

• went to Purl 'n Hurl (our SnB) & worked on my In a Theatre Darkly stole; it now measures ~14"

• acquired a bunch of craft supplies: vintage fabrics, a giant box of crochet cotton, & an antique paper cutter - lots of plans for these goodies

• yarn p0rn stash enhancement: Noro Cash Iroha & Wollmeise 80/20

• attended monthly Midnight Madness at LYS - knitting 'til Midnight! captured the shot below, of Bea's baby booties
  

I guess I did get some crafting done this week! Looking forward to more in the coming week!

Tags: craft or bust, colorbomb

Go, Team, GO!

Didja hear the news? I'm captaining a team for the Ravelympics & I want YOU! Team COLORBOMBers: there are prizes (!), a discount in my Etsy shop, a personalized Ravatar, & even a custom BOMBits colorway in our Official But Optional Team colors, (orange & pink) available only to Team members! There are 8 of us on the team so far, but the festivities don't start for another 2 weeks, and we'd love to have ya - join us today!

I also put up this NEW skein of handspun art yarn in the shop, 'Spruced Up', one of my Tufty™ style yarns with tufts of fiber wrapped like little presents of love and sprinkled throughout.

It's a whopping 132 yards of snow-on-evergreen goodness, in undyed BFL wool with silky green hand-dyed mohair locks from my friend Janet Heppler's Nebo-Rock Textiles in Covelo, CA, plied in with a coordinating cotton thread. Weighing in at almost a quarter-pound, I daresay there should be plenty enough for a hat or other small project, even a pair of matching kids hats!

This last pic I'm throwing in 'cuz it makes me giggle: this is my Day 26 Year in Pictures entry from yesterday, entitled 'Busy Week at the Bomb Squad.' Seems bomb threat #2 of the week wasn't any more threatening than the first one (which turned out to be a bicycle light, not a bomb). Maybe this chin-stroking Humboldt's finest is contemplating what this one will eventually prove to be?

Tags: Ravelympics, COLORBOMB, handspun, yarn, Arcata

Dood! I'm on Craftzine.com!

And I'm all verklempt! Back in May I met Brookelynn Morris, author of Feltique & Craft: contributor, at Maker Faire 2009. Seems like I made an impression, 'cuz today I was stunned to hear from a fellow Purl 'n Hurler that she touted my new SmorgasBOMBs on the Craftzine.com blog!! Read her write-up here, and feel free to leave her a comment about how you knew me before Craft: made me famous! (Don't forget: SmorgasBOMBs will be available in my Etsy shop when I return Nov. 3).

Other things going on today include NEW YARN finished!! That's always exciting. The picture is of 'Flambe', the navojo ply I did this week that I posted about before. As you might remember, I was hoping for enough yardage to make Harf, a hat/scarf combo pattern by the Spincycle Yarns chicks, Rachel Price & Kate Burge. But (there's always a but, isn't there?). The Harf requires ~360 yards of light worsted weight yarn, & while 'Flambe' fits the worsted bill, I only managed to eke out about 22o yards. :( With four freakin' ounces, I'm not sure how that happened, but 3-ply eats up the yardage. Anyway, I perused my Rav queue & came up with Plan B: the Headigan, a cardigan for your head! This pattern is from Red Lipstick, a site I've been a fan of from way back. I'm planning on casting on for this when I'm away at SOAR.

Speaking of SOAR: anything purchased from COLORBOMB Creations in my absence won't ship until I return (duh). So, feel free to stock up on my faboo fibers (when you buy, I can shop for new raw materials!), but don't forget that your order won't ship 'til Nov. 3.

With that, I'll leave you with this YouTube clip from A&E's new "drama-cumentary" Pot City USA", which I just learned this week is about Arcata, where I live. It could not BE any more hyperbolic & fearmongering, but if it keeps even one person from moving here, well, that makes me a fan; I like it just fine the way it is.

Now, I'm off to Purl 'n Hurl! Wanna finish up my Annetrelac socks so's I can enter them into the YARN sock contest. I'd better get om the stick, since the deadline is while I'm gone, & I still have a half a sock to go!!! Ever the optimist...

Tags: craft, colorbomb, yarn, handspun

This is What Happens When You Blow Off Work

Today, like yesterday, was supposed to be silk-dyeing day. It wasn't. Instead, today was a day of complete & utter goof-off-i-ness. Check it.

My good friend Maia took these frakkin' HI-larious shots of me going down on an absolutely enormous Scharfen Berger chocolate bar. "Can I share 'em on my blog?" she says. "Of course, you know I love attention!" says I. But oh, no: that ain't enough for spotlight-hog Velma, no not enough at all. I had to put them up here, too. Check out this blog post over at Maia's for the full story of "The Chocolate Incident" and her shameless plug of luv of yours truly.

Need more proof that Rule 34 is alive and well? How about this video of gratuitous fondling:



Yeah, I know, I got carried away. Those of us who didn't get to attend the real New York State Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY decided that wasn't gonna keep us from pretending. Nope, we just invented ImaginaryRhinebeck, complete with a virtual beer stand, free cashmere for all attendees, a teddy bear shearing demo, & the aforementioned unicorn fiber fondling in the petting zoo. While having a beer with WonderMike, I even saw Elizabeth Zimmerman there!

One more thing: I'm making new yarn for a new project! That's one of my Menage a Trois handspun yarns, 'Flambe', made from retina-burning reds, oranges, purple, & yellow merino from Forest Fiber Works. I've got 4oz., & I'm spinning to make a Harf (Rav link) by Kate Burge & Rachel Price of Spincycle Yarns; the pattern is in the Best. Book. EVER. for handspinners: Intertwined by Lexi Boeger.

I started by spinning it up on my Jenkins Turkish Delight drop spindle, & finished up the 1st cop last night, plying it on the wheel (chain-ply, aka navajo ply). But I need to finish this in my lifetime, & I've already got a crazy-big drop-spindle project going, so I switched to the wheel last night. So far I've got about 25 yards completely finished, & about 1/3 bobbin of singles. Now that I've got a rudimentary long-draw under my belt, it should go much faster than my usual glacial pace.

Guess that's enough for today. Heading to the wheel with a beer. Happy Sunday!

Tags: silliness, yarn, handspun, knitting