It's the Little Things

This has been a very busy week, for me, the kids and Mike. Tuesday was Seth's end-of-season volleyball party that he volunteered me to bring cupcakes to. Wednesday is his final game, Thursday is a Girl Scout meeting that I'm set to bring snack to, and Friday is Hannah's Halloween class party and Kitty's Birthday party. It's not a ridiculous schedule, but it just seems like a lot of baking this week.

And to top it all off, I'm trying to get my Phat Fiber samples out the door. The batts are made and the samples assembled; all I have to do is tie them up and box them. But I just can't find an hour to do that. Well, actually I should be doing that right now! So this will be a quick post and I'm off to tie and curl ribbon.

The nice little things that have made the week more manageable are: Kitty is walking (not so little!!!), and I got the nicest message from a customer about some hand-spun yarn she bought. Her name is Autumn Summerfield, which I think is one of the best names ever, and she has a beautiful blog dedicated to her passions as an artist (she does EVERYTHING!). She blogged about some hats she made for an upcoming art show, and she used my yarn! I'm so honored.

Here's the hat:

Follow the link to her blog!The top is my handspun, the ear flaps are three strands of commercial yarn held together. Just lovely! Thank you so much Autumn for letting me know about this.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Walkin' in High Cotton

I'm an Air Force kid, my dad was a fighter pilot, and so I was raised all over this great big, beautiful country (and for a while in Japan), but home to me will always be Tahoka, Texas.

Tahoka is a very small town south of Lubbock in the plains of Texas's panhandle, and where both my parents were raised. Needless to say, I'm related to most of the town! Every summer, and most Christmas's were spent with my extended family there, and to this day, I drag my Yankee husband and four Yankee kids with me to Tahoka every Fourth of July (there's nothing like a Fourth in Texas!).

And what do we all talk about? Cotton. Both my grandfathers, all my uncles, a cousin, and most family friends have been, or are, cotton farmers. Tahoka is surrounded by cotton fields, and it is the sustaining resourse for life on the plains. Everything revolves around cotton.

My Grandfather, his brothers and their wives and kids on tractors--farming cotton.

Last year, in the midst of all this cotton talk, my uncle Gary turned to me and said, "Why, you could spin us up some of that cotton." Let me take a minute to address the type of cotton grown in the heat of Texas. It is not long-staple Egytian cotton that glides through your fingers at the wheel. Nope. It's short-staple, denim or T-shirt cotton. As all you spinners out there can understand, I froze. Ummm . . .  I could physically spin it, with a lot of patience and determination, but what in the world would the finished yarn look like and how would I use it?! I had images of finished yarn simple drifting apart once it hit water!

Gary, hilarious and determined man that he is, was set on my daddy buying me a bale of cotton for spinning.

And here it is:

That is 30 pounds of compressed West Texas cotton from my uncle's co-op. Luckily, my dad now works for FedEx and got it to us for a reasonable price! 30 pounds! AND, luckily, my mom was with Dad for the purchasing, and got me a little tourist version so that I don't actually have to open the big bale (could you imagine 30 pounds of cotton popping out of those metal bands?!). It's currently being used as a footstool/cat bed. And a good one at that.

I opened the small, 1 pounder, washed a bit up (when wet, cotton closely resembles a spit wad), and sprinkled it onto a batt. There is no way to card it by itself for a resonable puni unless I get out my hand cards (I'm soooo not getting out my handcards!).

And, besides, I'm loving this:

This is Bluefaced Leicester dyed in shades of denim and Texas sky. The white, webb-y stuff on top is the cotton.

I knew I didn't have time for spinning this, but wasn't really ready to put it up in the shop (Frankly, I wasn't sure at all how the cotton would react once spun! And this was just one of those batts that was hard to let go of.)

What to do? What to do? Fate would have it that my best friend, and fantastic spinner, Petra, fell in love with it!!! So it was gifted over to Petra as long as she promised to spin it up and let me take pictures of the finished yarn.

Ta-Da:

Isn't she a fabulous spinner?! Didn't the yarn turn out awesome?! I love the texture of the cotton, and Petra assured me that she really enjoyed spinning it up. She's encouraged me to make more for the shop, so that's on the to-do list, right after I get November's Phat Fiber samples ready! And battle more laundry.

I'd love to hear what you think about this little adventure!

Adventures in Yarn Design

I decided to make Hannah a vest for her school picture day. Of course, being me, I decided this two weeks before the big day AND felt I needed to design it from scratch with a coordinating hand spun yarn for the edging. Oh, and take pictures along the way for the blog and a publish-able pattern.

So . . . Hannah looked very cute this past Wednesday in her dress from Tea and leggings (sans vest!). Oh well. Sometimes life forces me to be realistic (see this post from Wednesday). And she wasn't too disappointed, in fact, I think she was a little relieved.

But she will get a vest soon, designed from scratch, with a handspun yarn accent, that I will make her wear at least once to school.

Here's what I've been up to:

These are the colors I chose to stripe for her yarn. The gold will be a thin layer over the other colors to create continuity through the stripes.

This is the final batt, ready for pulling.

Some of the pulled roving and the last batt to go.

The vest, part-way finished, laying on the pulled roving.

I plan to have a tutorial on creating the batts and pulling the roving up next week. There's a tricky little catch in the way I pulled the roving!!

And the pattern will be written up and for sale soon.

As of today, the yarn is half-spun, the vest is separated for front and back and my laundry room is almost finished!

Gotta keep all those plates spinning!!

Have a fantastic Fiber Arts Friday, Creative Friday and Crafty Friday! Follow the links to get a full-dose of artsy goodness!

Creating a Signature Yarn

It's a Fiber Arts Friday and Crafty Friday! Click on the links to check out all the other great blogs that are spreading some fiber-y goodness around the world today! Better yet, join in!

I know that the title of this post sounds a little high and mighty, but I've been trying to work on getting a green yarn that is "me" for my Etsy shop banner and my blog banner. I was going to use Corriedale because I've been saving some back for myself to make a sweater, but I just couldn't get the right "pop" with it; mainly because Corriedale is one of the finer medium wools and has low luster. Wonderful to wear, kinda boring to photograph.

So I decided to play with some of the Romney that I recently dyed, and created a nice green yarn with lots of sheen and I'm pretty happy with it. Amazingly, it includes equal parts emerald, teal, gold, dark brown and dark blue. I love blending colors on a drum carder: it's just wonderful how you can acheive a solid color from afar, but up close it's full of complex colors.

I left the yarn on my niddy noddy and took some preliminary photos for a banner. The ones here won't work for the shape of a banner, but they were so pretty, I had to share!

Romney Yarn on Niddy NoddyWith roving in backgroundMy logo is finished, and today I'll be working on incorporating photos with the logo and getting all my sites looking pretty. Not really a very fiber-y Friday to-do list, but worth the work!

My Creations in the World

I love getting to see what people do with the yarn and fiber I've created. I plan, I make, I admire, then I send it off into the world to be loved by someone else. Sometimes it's hard!

One of my best friends brought over a neck warmer she's knitting for a friend, and, being the good friend that I am, I ooohed and aaaahed over it. It really was beautiful--she'd spun the yarn herself and then knit the warmer in an Entrelac pattern.

She smirked at me and said, "It's your BFL."

Oh. Don't I feel sheepish? It was a Color Blending Kit of BFL that I'd dyed more than a year ago and she bought from me. The woman she's knitting for had bought the finished yarn from her and then gave it back to have it knitted as well.

I was so pleased with myself. Especially after finding out that the woman who owns the yarn, and will soon own the neck warmer, loved the yarn so much that she took it with her to hold during her meditation sessions. That just warms my heart! Of course, the beautiful spinning  and knitting done by my friend is what makes it soft, loveable and squishy, but I'm pretty happy with my role in the finished product, too!

On top of that, I had a past customer send me a link to her Ravelry picture of her finished yarn with another of my Color Blending Kits!! It was called purple pansy and included a roving of brown and a roving of purples to be plied together.

Heiress21's Purple Pansy Hand Spun YarnThis was only her second hand spun yarn! Can you believe it? Just beautiful. AND she spins on a drop spindle. I know that's how most of us learn, but I'm still amazed at the patience you need to finish a whole skein of yarn on it. I really take my wheel for granted!

Really, I love seeing the Color Blending Kits most of all. I plan two colors to be either drafted together or plied together, and even though I base them on color theory, I really don't know what they'll be like once spun up. It's hard for me to turn some of them lose without spinning them myself. They're little mysteries that are just too tempting!

Thank you to all my past and future customers for creating such beautiful and inspiring work with my supplies!