Divinely Crafty

Handpainted Blue Faced Leiscester aran I dyed up this week. Gorgeous rich blue shading with splashes of greens. Not knowing what to call this beatiful colorway I sat on the loo and contemplated the hank hanging to dry on a hook across the room. When I happened to turn my head and see the print of the a Geogia O’Keefe painting of Machu Picchu in the morning mist we have on the wall – in the exact color scheme. So in its honor I am calling this one Machu Picchu Morning.

So in keeping with the South American theme I am calling this one (also BFL aran) Carnival.

Both are soon to be made into what else?…..baby hats!

Tags: dying, inspiration, yarn

Making full use of my new skirting/drying table. Airing out my Lleyn fleece which got soaked in a summer shower the other night. Bad me thinking it couldn’t possibly rain. Dyed up some of the odd bits of lleyn and dorset that I got several bags of. Much of it will become batting/stuffing or core fiber for needle felting, but oh what lovely stuffing it shall be. Now just to decide what to make with it…
Been shopping some lately too. Ordered hand carders and a new drop spindle. And a niddy-noddy. And some yarn. I forgot to get needles…do I dare get another thing? I hope I sell some of my stuff in my Etsy store. Not sure what I have up there is really what the demographic there is very hip to. I dunno. But maybe someone will see it and like it. I am working on taking pictures of some super cute dresses for girls that I made. Some really sweet stuff. I need to stop playing with wool for a moment and get these darn things listed!

My recent acquistion of a kilo of Blue Faced Leicester and a bunch of acid dyes has me playing around with making my own colorways. I think a new addiction has been born.

My first go at handpainted yarn. Calling the colorway “totally hippy” in honor of my lovely hubby who declared it was ‘total hippy colors’ when he first saw it. Thanks for the inspiration my dear!

Just a few pics…who me excited???

Hanging to dry. I was a bit skeptical at this point as the colors seemed to be a bit off from how I envisioned the. Keeping faith I hung them to dry on the patio and crossed my fingers, secretly wondering what I was going to do with 100gms of yarn I couldn’t stand…

Lesson #1: Never judge a color before its dry. I was pleased to find that the colors gained quite a bit of depth and richness as they dried. This is actually more or less what I had in mind when I started. Not too bad considering I mixed the colors without any sort of recipe. Just a dash of this and that and a quick prayer.

Time for test a swatch…

Then felted the swatch…

Success! My plan is to make this into my felted messenger bag, which I promise I will be writing up a pattern for this time!

YEah!

My ode to Anhata, who led me to the beauty of the Indian Sunset. Can you feel its radiant glow?

Continuing to go through and weed out whats left of my yarn stash. (Making room for the kilo of Blue Faced Leicester that arrived today. :::drool:::) My own pattern that I made up as I went along. I had originally planned to try some shibori felting on the flap, but changed my mind half way through the felting when a couple of the resist sections came undone and my design got screwed up. I’ll have to give that little experiment another go some other day. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. A little tweeking of the pattern and it will be perfect.

Before felting…yes, it was truly neon. Thankfully a good amount of the dye came out during the felting. Front,back, and flap are in stockinette and sides in garter. The idea was to make the sides a bit thicker, but it didn’t really work out that way. Next time I am gonna give seed stitch a try for the sides. Maybe. I need to think it through a bit.

And because I am such a dork – I have to show off my new 49p supa-cool gloves from Ikea. I do all my felting by hand (my front loader washer is no good for felting)and being the delicate flower that I am, I need proper protection lest my skin turn into prunes and split open.

Stylish and functional.