braided colors of New Mexico

Encouraged by some kind fiber enthusiastic friends on Instagram I spent the Sunday afternoon handling fluff, taking pictures, indulging in colors, naming color ways and sorting wool. 

Which was a good thing, considering our heat system failed on us and the only current heat source is the fire place in the living room. *sigh*

So my Etsy shop has been updated with lots of colorful fluff, some of the last mystery pencil roving, a blend of all kinds of fiber from alpaca to yak (you never know exactly what you get, cause my New Mexican fiber mill doesn't tell me!) and my personal current favorite, Churro lamb, which is fluffy with a bit of fuzz and squishy and super soft. 

Thank you to all of you sweet folks who already took the chance and shopped! One of the braids named "Ice queen" will even be traveling to Norway!

Now if I could just go and snuggle up in the wool like Ike until the plumber comes…!

Happy Monday, friends!

knitting with a fuzzy purpose

While I crank out a ton of fingerless gloves and other stuff every year to sell at the High Desert Studio Tour and whatever other event I attend, what delights me the most is knitting for my kids. 

One item that tops the list are wool mittens.

I admit that I didn't make any for my children when they were little (*gulp*), all to quickly was I convinced that "purchased in a store" meant "of higher quality and better warmth". 

Boy, was I wrong. 

I am not sure what convinced me, I guess at some point I must have made some and when the kids used them it was the total lightbulb effect. To this day I am so delighted by this wool-mitts-miracle, that I have to document it every chance I get ("hold on kids, I gotta take a picture real quick"):

Crusted with ice and snow, yet dry and warm on the inside

And then they end up in a wet sheep smelling bundle on the bathroom floor until they are dry for the  next time!

The lightbulb-moment-mittens and fingerless gloves are a favorite gift for my kids. They are a fast knit (except when you go overboard and make something like this out of lace weight hand spun…)..

And a lot of times you can use that odd left over ball of yarn and still get a pretty result.

Or you can quickly spin that unique special yarn because finally your son really likes something that you make. 

I have some yarn requirements though, it has to be somewhat fuzzy yarn or they are just not right!

Anything else is optional, like the little loops that can be used to attach the mitts to a coat.

Neat.

 While I gladly give away most outgrown clothes, I have to keep the gloves and mittens. They all tell a story, you know, like the single one, whose brother got lost on the subway in NYC last spring.

 Then out of the blue it hit me the other day - I have a nine year old niece in Germany, who has to walk to school every single day for HALF AN HOUR…at least! She is freezing, suffering, crying, hurting from frost bite, because she has no wool mitts!! I got frantic, pulled out the stash, pulled out the left overs, nothing! Oh what to do? I'm thinking "fuzzy fuzzy" until I remember the generous amount of mohair samples from Kid Hollow Farm, one of my favorite Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival vendor.

I got to work and finished a first beautiful colorful oh-so-fuzzy bat, that just begs to be spun into mitten perfect fuzzy yarn!

Never mind that later the same day I found this very fuzzy loveliness in a basket in my bedroom!

 I'm going to have a really hard time to choose! All I know at this point is that there will be lovely and very fuzzy warm mittens soon!

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!

colors and loops

This is what I have been spending my time with. I have dyed loads of spinning fibers for the yarn store at Nob Hill. Didn't my bathroom look pretty?

The first load has already been delivered, mainly rambouillet fine wool, and there will be some more mystery roving coming, that I still need to bundle up and label.

Ike always enjoys when the fibers are out. He picks a napping spot right on top of the fluff. Always.

Dyeing the fibers brought me to another UFO, which slept in the closet since last Christmas season, yep, twenty-ten.

Somehow this is a repeating pattern in my life... I get to a holiday and wish I had started hooking a holiday theme early enough to be done by then, but I have not! I had started Rudolf about 2 weeks before Christmas and put him away when I took down the Christmas decorations, nose and face only were done.

I have decided to finish him now and dyed the purple and blueish white woolens for him.

Last night Lewis asked me, why Rudi's antlers are purple, choosing his words quite carefully (he did not want me to be offended and/or think that he doesn't like it). I told him I chose an unexpected color to add that extra interest. - That he asked showed that it is doing its purpose, right?!

Rudi will be ready next Christmas. Maybe I will hook a little Valentines mat in March?