MsFledermaus Arts

August 7, 2015

Beautiful or grotesque?

This time of year I start thinking about the Halloween yarns I enjoy making. Every year it’s something different and and interesting. Sometimes it’s a traditional yarn in pleasing fall colors, or deep reds and blacks with glo-thread, or some wonderful weirdo thing with skulls and little fake bones and silk shreds. This year, I think a big-fun zombie yarn with unsetlling silk cocoons may well be my thing…

Silk cocoons — Olive green silk cocoons…beautiful, and a little disturbing…

I love this olive color. They could be really striking, strung with beads and pearls in an elegant yarn, or perhaps something more seaweedy and pirate-y. There are some pretty fun possibilities here, for sure. Creature from the Black Lagoon? Yay! Unsettling eyeballs? Definitely! Zombies? Why, sure!!

I’m also thinking seriously about adding a few surprise gift-boxes in the Etsy shop. Perhaps a box with a few random, interesting mini-skeins, an ounce of random cool fluff or maybe a knitted critter. I love surprise boxes myself, so I reckon it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to offer for other people. Plus, it would be so much fun to pack them up! I could add little handmade stationary cards, or an odd polymer clay dollhouse figurine, or tiny spindles with eensy-weensy yarns wrapped around them. I’d love to know what people might enjoy in a surprise box coming from me…

Meanwhile, maybe I’ll play with the cocoons a little this afternoon, and see how they combine with a few other fluffy things..hehhehhehhhhhh…

July 31, 2015

Weird things in jars…

I took a little time off this week for dyeing more wool and various putterings. It’s hot and sunny out, which is perfect for drying lots and lots of fiber…I was also trying my hand at dyeing a fistful of silk cocoons a friend of mine gave me to play with. They looked a little more sinister than I’d expected, blobbing around in a jar of blue-green tinted water with a hint of pink.

Overdoing the fluff — Lots and lots and lots of fluff out drying in the sun…with a sinister jar of blobbyness…

Everything looks so wholesome in the photo except for that weird jar. What’s in it? Olives? Eyeballs? It didn’t help that the silk threads kept trying to attach to each other and they came out in a creepy globby green mass that stuck to my hand. It was like running into a spider web, except I’d done it to myself on purpose. But the cocoons turned out a pretty shade of lime, so it was worth it…

Also, I decided there weren’t enough creepy candles at my house, so I bought a few more. there’s an Etsy shop called Darknessvoid that offers wonderful spine-candles. (I developed a crush on them when I saw these huge, flickering spine-candles in Prisoner of Azkaban.) I thought I’d try a smallish one first before investing in one of the full-sized ones. There were also some great skull-candles to keep my crystal skull-head company…

Between the dyeing, carding, spinning and mercenary knitting I’m quite the busy thing lately. It’s a good thing; it’s why I went part-time at my day job; to have a little more time for money-makers that soothe me and make me happy. Just looking at all the fiber I dyed up made me so happy. So many colors! such great textures! And it was all for me to play with…

And today? I wonder if I can stick a few more cocoons in the dyeing jar, just for more globby fun…

July 17, 2015

Knitting mercenary…

Usually summer is my downtime for knitting for other people. I usually don’t get the panicked notes about lost hats and single mittens from people until at least late September. But this summer? Seems a little different…

One reason is we have a series of changes at the Jade Mines, where I work. New branding, new logos, new furniture, and new uniforms for us doorshakers. Instead of our Matrix-y Mr. Smith outfit we normally wear, we will have a softer look in khakis, a denim shirt and a black cardigan. The cardigan–made of scratchy acrylic yarn I wouldn’t have bought on a bet–has teeny, tiny little pockets that are totally unsuitable for our Guardy McGuard needs. So I’m already getting requests to sneak in new pockets on the insides, to accommodate the things we need to carry. I was going to do it for my own, anyway, but I have a feeling I will be a very busy little thing on my breaks, stitching in new pieces that won’t be too obvious. It’s for Great Justice, my friends…

Also, a while back I made a few gutmonsters for friends, and here and there people ask for a few more fun, tentacled monstrosities they can take home and cuddle. It’s the baby Squidlings that seem to catch people’s eyes. I just love how much fun they are for me to knit, cackling away on the couch and deciding how many tentacles to add. Hehhehheh…

July 12, 2015

Summery Summer is Summering…

Summer can be hard on spinners.

At least, it can be for me. Doesn’t stop me, really, but it’s more of a struggle than in cooler months. Wool can be a little uncomfortable on hot, sticky days, and after an hour or so of treadling I’m an overheated mess. But really it’s all the other projects, clamoring for attention. There’s plants that need watering, weeds that need pulling, a house that needs scrubbing, pets that need petting…and on top of that, I’d taken it into my head to try making an outdoor earth oven for pizza. I’d been researching, testing, making cute little bricks. I’m only about halfway finished, but I feel like I’m learning so much. But mostly it’s about a grown woman making mud pies in the backyard in the name of pizza…

Meanwhile, the bobbins waiting for me to ply them up are still sitting on the table, waiting and judging me…

I do think I can catch up a little bit this morning. Just to make the yarny judging stop.

June 26, 2015

Tarot of the Yarns…

There’s been quite the dust storm kicked up on Etsy recently, concerning purveyors of magical supplies and readings and such. While I’m very glad to see the obvious fakes and predators kicked off the site, sadly some of my friends have also gotten their items booted off–candles and herbs and such; actual items used for religious purposes instead of the amusingly priced “Call a Sexy Vampire” rings and necklaces. And mainstream religious items seem to be selling just fine. It’s more than a bit confusing for everybody involved, I think…

And how does that have anything to do with me? I’m glad you asked. I’ve always loved Tarot decks and readings, and have been collecting them for years. A while back for last Halloween I ran in my shop among the woolens and yarns a Tarot reading for knitters. For the princely sum of 3 dollars, I would do a three-card spread about a knitting project someone had problems with and give them helpful advice. I labeled it as Entertainment Only, but added the caveat that any reading I did would also be bolstered with solid knitting advice.

People seemed to like it a lot, but alas, I had no takers. I took it down right before the new changes took effect. Would Etsy have kicked it to the curb? I’m really not sure. Very probably, even with the amusing premise. Ah well. I suspect my time is better spent with the spinning wheel…

June 19, 2015

A little fun at the Mines…

Last night my sweetie and I went to my workplace to go have a little fun. We stopped by the Staff art show to go visit my shawl, before they take it down from the wall…

My Flourish shawl — My circle shawl, made with handspun and milled yarns, sequins and sparkle

Label — Shawl didactic with artist’s statement

We also checked out the Mark Mothersbaugh show, which was amazing. At work, I’ve been running into Mr.Mothersbaugh quite a bit here and there as part of my job. I’d grin and try very hard to be cool, then hand him a badge or open a door or what have you. He was very kind generally; tipped me a salute yesterday which earned him a very un-guardlike giggle from me. He seemed to be having a pretty good time last night…

Mark Mothersbaugh and me — A happy, happy Maus with a stripey Mark Mothersbaugh in the background.

Soooo, yes, a pretty good time. It’s nice to have a little fun here and there…

June 5, 2015

Batts and batts and batts…

Ah, weekend!For me, this means more time to play with the carder!

Fueled by marzipan rose tea and macaroni, I ended up making…well, quite a few batts. I got kind of carried away. But they were all so pretty!

Most of these I’m putting up on the Etsy site, but I do want very badly to spin some of these myself. I did reserve a couple just for me to play with…the best part was, most of these batts have at least some of the new wool I’d just finished dyeing, and a couple are almost all dyed by me. I’m feeling kinda proud, really. Even though I pricked my finger on a thorn in a bit of wool when I was nearly finished. Kind of a Sleeping Beauty moment, really, and I couldn’t even blame it on the spinning wheel. I bleed for my hobbies, people!! (Happily, not *on* my hobbies. I slapped a bandage on right after all the hopping up and down and cursing…)

June 3, 2015

In Between…

I’m in the awkward bit of the week. Most of my fibery exploits happen on Fridays and Saturdays, when I’m free. The rest of the week I have a day job to pay the bills and keep me in chocolate and creepy books. I work at a museum as a guard, so for the most part I keep anything expensive from walking off with the teeming hordes of people who come in every day. I call it the Jade Mines–or the Mines for short. Sometimes it can be great fun, and sometimes we get celebrities–Mick Jagger was in just yesterday, being all Mick-Jaggery. Which was pretty cool, but I kinda wish it was Marianne Faithfull instead. She’s awesome. Just sayin’…

Often I make lists when I’m on the job. Lists like “How many priceless artifacts will someone try to pet like it’s a puppy?” or “Fashion Faux-pas of the day!” (which is rich coming from me, since I wear a polyester clip-on tie at work.) But on days like today, just far enough from the weekend, I think of whatever fibery project is waiting for me at home. My beautiful dyed wool is all dry now and stuffed into bags, waiting for me to card it up and spin it. The plum color is still my favorite, but the red makes me so happy. I think of new things to knit for whatever season I’m in. I think of weird little things I could make for friends. Often I bring some knitting for my breaks. It helps me destress after wrangling a flood of schoolkids and their eagerness to climb pretty sculptures. Oh gods, so much climbing…

So, I’m getting ready to trot off to the Mines and the bags of fluff are just sitting in the corner…taunting me with their pretty, pretty colors. Seriously, I can hear the taunting from here. Maybe I’ll bust out Shreddica the carder tonight just to get some of the yearning out of my system…

Me at the Jade Mines, doing a spinning demo — Me at the Mines, doing a spinning demo for an evening event.

May 31, 2015

Shreddica…

One of the reasons I’ve been wanting to dye large quantities of wool is so I can make nice big spinning batts with my drum carder. I love that thing so; so much so that it has a name: Shreddica. And it’s a wonderful beast. It takes a chaotic handful of fluff and blends it into something really grand for spinning. Before I got Shreddica I mostly used hand cards, which took a while, or just shredded things with my fingers. (I still do that quite a bit with locks where I want to keep their shape.) Sometimes I have friends over and make them crank Shreddica while I feed wool through it’s hungry mouth, yelling, “Crank faster, carding-slave!” Oddly enough, people obey. I’m guessing feeding them cake and booze first helps…

I couldn’t keep my greedy mitts off the plum Shetland I just dyed, so I fed some to Shreddica, along with fistfuls of white mohair, border leister, a little merino and some leftover angora…

I also found some of my dark red had dried enough for me to play with, so into Shreddica it went, along with fistfuls of black merino and red-dyed “black” angora. I want to spin this one up myself, I think, instead of sticking it in the shop…

May 30, 2015

Some fun with the dye pot…

Recently I’ve been trying new things, like dyeing various wools to the shades I’ve always wanted. I love natural colors and I’m always happy to buy some pretty roving from a talented dyer, but sometimes there’s a color I just have to have in a wool and just can’t find. I’ve been having a great time with acid dyes I’d gotten from the local textile center, as well as a jaquard dye I bought at a spinner’s event. The results are here…

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