Hello again, my dearie dears! I hope the beautiful October weather is everything you’ve been dreaming about all this time. I know it is for me!
Anyway, I thought I’d have some fun with something new…a coupon! A coupon for you! Yeah, you, I see you there, looking sheepish. I know I’ve been on this painting and embroidery kick for a while, but this website started out as a site for showcasing a bunch of my handspun art yarns. Recently I’ve been spinning more again, and realizing I could use a bit more space for the new yarns. And that’s when the coupon comes in!
Basically it goes like this: If you’re in the US and you purchase more than $75 worth of yarn, and type “yarn75us” at checkout, you get free Priority shipping. (And also a happy fistful of postcards, because why not?) This coupon only works once per shopper, but I’ll keep the offer going for a while.
I just hope it’ll be a little helpful, for people wanting something really pretty to play with on their needles, and it’ll help me make room for more fall and winter yarns. There’s a few knits going into the shop soonish too, which will be nice. And of course, more paintings, embroidery and amusing miscellany…
When I was young, I was often scolded by adults for my scattershot approach to things I wanted or needed to do, (Mostly for things like drawing during my math classes, which is probably why I’m still math-weak to this very day.) I would explain that I was indeed paying attention, (and I was) but that I was also doing this other thing, which needed doing, thank you. It never really went over, but as I got older I found that my strange puttering had a name. Multitasking! And it was not only a useful skill, but sometimes the only way I could get done all the things that sat there, demanding attention. For example, while I’m writing this post, I’m also making tea and lunch, working on an embroidery, waiting for some photos to finish loading, checking on a cat or two, and listening for a delivery. Obviously I’m not the only one doing this sort of thing, not on Planet Pandemic. Everybody is still cobbling their lives together any way they can make it all work, and our concentration is still not great, and we all still have a big raft of worries we’re all floating on, trying to make it to friendly shores. It honestly makes me wonder how many people actually tackle things that need doing in a linear fashion. I mean, who has that luxury? Almost nobody I know, really.
For years and years, I’ve done what every other artistic person I know does–they hang on to a day job to pay the bills and keep a roof over their head while scrabbling together projects in between everything else. Which often meant I had a few projects going at a time. It was handy, especially if I was tired or low energy, because there was always at least one easy project within reach I could make a little progress with at least.
Jellyfish heaven is a lot like L.A…
It’s been a useful habit, especially when I had a few projects that were almost done at the same time. There is such a rush when I can present a handful of pretty things that actually took a lot of time, thought and energy to get together. It makes me feel like I’m so much more productive than I actually am. People don’t know that the pretty yarn I just finished making had singles stored on bobbins for a week while I was busy knocking out something else. Or that the painting I just finished sat for a month on a table, while I figured out what it needed to be.
This yarn had to sit a while before I realized what it needed to be complete was delicious jade colored beads…
You would think, now that I’m home all the time and trying to make a go of this Arting From Home Business that these habits would change. And they have, a little. My concentration has improved tremendously, but I do have other things to distract me now, like the unmistakable sounds of a cat barfing somewhere, or a delivery, or a needful errand. I still find myself with a handful of little, half finished embroideries and a bobbin of yarn that still needs a friend, or a painting that needs its first washes put down. And I’ve’ come to accept that this seems to be my process, and this process isn’t actually a bad thing that needs to change drastically.
This last week I felt like I was less productive than the usual. I had other things that needed taking care of, and this last Friday I got my second Covid shot. I was and am beyond grateful for it, but it did knock me down for a little longer than I thought it would. But even then, I still did some spinning. It helped with my poor sore body and it distracted me from some of the symptoms. So I was a bit surprised when I actually had a few things to list in the shop, a painting to put into Redbubble, some really nice Icelandic wool that was clean and de-burred and ready to spin up and a fun jellyfish for a friend. Where did all this stuff come from while I was on the couch, binging Youtube videos and drinking gallons of herbal tea? Oh yeah. My weird multitasking ADHD self, doing a little bit here, a little bit there…
So don’t be hard on yourself if your way of doing things isn’t the way people told you it should be. Especially now, when all bets are still off and we’ve got a long way to go before Normal is a thing. It all adds up in the end. And sometimes it’s such a good, good feeling when it does…
It’s been a little while since I posted here. Life just got a little more hectic recently, with projects and and whatnot. I also…heh…got engaged. I’m very happy about it all. Of course, now I’m thinking about things I’d never really considered before. Are there registries that aren’t specifically full of beige-colored towels? (Apparently there are. I still have to go digging around for them, though.) What will I do about a dress? How much cake? What kind of cake? And how many Gothly decorations can I bust out at the reception? (Quite a few, actually.) Do I change my name, and to what? Sadly, even though it would be perfectly legal, my sweetie put his foot down at being called Mr. and Mrs. Dracula. *sigh* Another dream shot down…
Meanwhile, a dear friend of mine brought me a very interesting bag. Cornelia had been traveling through Scotland recently, and spent some time happily wandering around the sheep-filled heather, plucking bits of wool off the fences here and there. People used to do this sort of thing all the time to get a little wool to spin up; it’s the original meaning of the term, “woolgathering.” When she came home, she presented me with a nice fully Ziplock full of soft plushy wool…
A wonderful bag full of Scottish fluff!
The wool smelled wonderful, all heathery and peaty. I kept inhaling the scent while Cornelia told me with a grin, “That, my dear, is what Scotland smells like!” Scotland smells this good? Wowwwww… I gleefully showed off my bag to my boss at work, who is very pro-Scotland. After happily squishing the wool and huffing it, he asked if he could keep a pinch, for the innate Scottishness. Of course I let him. How often do you get to snort another country at work and have it be legal?
So now I’ve been spinning it all up. I hand-carded the wool that very night, and chose my nice heavy Ashford spindle to do my spinning. For some reason spindle spinning just seemed right with something like this. The sort of thing someone would do while walking a hedgerow, woolgathering…
A spindle full of Scotland! Well, maybe not full, not yet…
What will I do with the yarn once I’m done spinning? Hard to say. I’m guessing once plied up there will be enough for maybe a couple of sachet bags or some cool cabled bracelets. If I need more, I’ll have to talk Cornelia into going back to Scotland to gather some more wool for me. I may have to go with her, for ummm…quality control. Yeah. That’s it…
I have always played around with glow-thread and it makes for some really fun Halloween yarns…but this looks pleasingly chunky and wonderful to play with. I can hardly wait to get my mitts on it!!
There’s so much opportunity for fun here.
Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a chemo cap for a friend of a friend…and a little more spinning here and there. I’ve been spinning more on breaks at the Mines, just to relax. It’s fun to watch my coworkers when the spindle goes around and around…sometimes I’ll laugh and whisper, “Sleepy…you are getting sleepy…ALL HAIL THE HYPNO-TOAD!!” and we’ll have a good chortle. This weekend I’d like to put up a nice spinning tutorial for beginners, so I’ll play with the camera a bit this afternoon. The last tutorial was so much fun, I want to do more…
It’s cooling off…the sky is darkening…the leaves are falling…and I love every second of it!!
Finally, the month I’ve been waiting for!! Delicious, wonderful October!
So to celebrate I’ve been spinning a cheerful Halloween yarn or two. Look at these happy, happy skulls! A promising start to some happy, happy skully yarn!
While I love my spinning wheels to distraction, sometimes a spindle is ideal when you’re adding on loads of bulky things like beads or cocoons or scraps of silk and whatnot. I’ve also been using a cool trick for adding the beads: Stringing them into small bits of the roving with a needle-threader, then fluffing out the roving so it grabs on to the rest of the yarn. It doesn’t ladder like a thread can do with a heavy bead, and is remarkably stable!
Meanwhile, last night I just got back from visiting a friend who has an art studio at the Northrup King building in Northeast. I love those spaces, full of color and light. I kind of covet them, to be truthful. Studio spaces are so great. I never really used one myself, though. Why? Welllll, when you really get down to it; creatively I can be a bit lazy. When inspiration hits, the last thing I want to do is haul myself down through the cold, windry weather to where I put all my tools, paints, wool, etcetera. I’d just rather hop out of bed, have a wash, run downstairs or upstairs to the wool-bins and start mixing the fluff. These days I’m awfully lucky to have enough space at home where this is doable. If I was doing this sort of thing full-time, a space would make more sense,but I’m grateful at the moment I don’t need it. There are times though, when the paying job gets stressful and I think about starting a small yarn shop. There’s a bit of a yarn-shop gap in my neighborhood, and maybe , just maybe…
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…
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…
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… A few bobbins waiting to be plied…and waiting…and waiting…
I do think I can catch up a little bit this morning. Just to make the yarny judging stop.
