Gained a Dress Form!

I found a cheap dress form/mannequin. Might help cut down on the myspace-esque photos! In the process of carting it home I figured out that one of my car doors will not open. Not sure what happened to the car door- the handles won't work or anything. It is the back passenger door though, so not really an issue since people are never in the car with me- I only drive maybe once a week anyways.

The mannequin is adjustable up and down but is only one size- close enough to me that it is ok for my purposes, I am not planning to sew anything that I can't try on myself as I work anyways. I mostly sew sans pinning fabric too. The cat just knocks the pins over, and the knitted fabrics I am working with right now do not like the pins anyways.

Sewing- converting a shirt to PJ shorts

See this shirt? It fits funny. The elastic bunches up higher than the waist should when you move around leaving you looking...odd.

But the elastic is nice- makes a nice hem. So I cut up the shirt. I cut just above the elastic, then folded it over to sew a zizag hem over a section of fabric that didn't have elastic (it is in 4 panels so I sewed between), pulling the fabric tight since the fabric is not stretchy.



I used part of a sleeve to create a gusset at the bottom after sewing up part of the flaps on the side to make sure the bottom was nice and roomy. Kind of like these boxer instructions, but since I was using the bottom of a shirt I had fewer seams to sew. Sadly not enough fabric at the top to make a matching tank style shirt for sleeping in, but maybe once my stretch lace comes I will make another pair. I need to find more colors of thread first.

$15 grab bag sale

Just a $15 grab bag sale on etsy here
(Plus the usual $10 sale items!)

Micro Greens

Microgreens salad with flowers. Found it at Whole Foods. It is quite tasty, much more interesting flavor than most lettuce mixes.

Spinning fluffs

I am spinning the wool/shredded silk/+ stuff mixture up in tight singles, about a dk weight before washing, hopefully still nice and tightly twisted but closer to worsted when I am done- same as how 220 is a bit thicker than dk but a thin worsted.


It's really quite shiny spun up, despite not letting the mohair fluff out (that makes me itchy!)

Carding Fiber- Silk thrums

Getting ready for the final go through the carder. There are two sections of batts I am spinning separately. One has more hand shredded silk, has gray and white dyed mohair, and plastic bottle fiber mixed with wool. The other is hand shredded silk, clouds of mohair, and lots of cream colored unbleached soy silk.

Free Patterns

The free patterns are back up on Midnightsky Fibers. Includes ideas for knitting projects with just 50 and 100 yards of yarn!

Whip Up Prizes shipped!

The giveaway at Whip Up has ended and prizes have been shipped off! The winners got to choose their kits. Winners chose:


Canalis Treastie


Lavender Dusted Scones


...and Girlish Flight.

As with all the Space Hats, they shipped out with a pattern for 4 different hats, each in three sizes.

Grab Bag Sale at Midnightsky Fibers

Midnightsky Fibers is having a $10 grab bag sale for handspun yarn! Check it out at Sale Yarns or Midnightskyfibers.com

Grab bag yarns:
Get one skein of yarn that normally retails for $15+ (most yarns retail between $20-30) for just ten dollars. I will choose the yarn, it is the same style yarns as are on my site- coils, thick and thin, core spun, mohair, soy silks, sparkly yarns, and more. Yarns are labeled with yardage, content, etc just like the yarns on my site.

Free Art from Indie Fixx

Indie Fixx has some great free art downloads:
Free Art From Indie Fixx(Downloadable pdfs)

I am especially in love with the bird/hand by Tara Hogan,Craftyfolk, Naoko Stoop's, and if I had a kid I would hang this one in their room.

Cool tiny house

Another cool tiny Tumbleweed house. Looks like this one has a toaster over for cooking and not just a single burner.

Also watching: Mini Mobile Cottage

Needs

A cool new project exploring the idea of need.
-Via Glitter

Pretty Good

I have spent way too much time looking at the pretty pictures on Pretty Good. I want the scalloped curtains and bike poster so bad (and tiffany blue walls with white trim...someday!). I will fully admit I am in the mindset these days of "thinking happy thoughts". I've had enough of the complaining, drama, and so on. I am liking things with a happy bright and cheery outlook. Strawberries help make things good too. I have been eating them with sour cream and brown sugar.

Ebay

duckduck
Originally uploaded by midnightskyfibers

Sale stuff: Clearance yarns on ebay.

Peonies

I do believe that peonies are my favorite flower right now. I love roses too, but not the type you find in stores- I like the frilly, delicate blossoms that are very thorny and refuse to grow on nice long stems, instead growing in pretty clusters.

These are from my mom's garden. I had looked all weekend for flowers with lots of peonies in the bunch at the markets I was at, but most of the bunches only had one or two peonies in it, and just the peonies were $$ (guess everyone else had the same idea of wanting lots of peonies too!)

Pegboard

I have been toying with a way to hold yarns that are waiting to be listed on my site or that I want to have out for inspiration. Reading Decor8's new post on small office spacesreminded me that ReStore in Balllard has bunches of drawer pulls that would be cute on pegboard- used to hang yarn on.

Right now the yarn mostly lives piled on a table (which has a TV above it and the drum carder next to it- I rarely eat there and mostly eat at the kitchen island) and on the cart my drum carder sits on. The only downside to doing a pegboard to hold some yarn would be that I am not sure I could then push my loom or drum carder up against the wall next to my desk. A bookcase wouldn't work- heavy, don't want to have to move it- and the collapsible cubes would be a disaster with the cat.

Ok

Weaving, continued

Sock yarn warp + weft continues. It is what I imagine a really cool Ruana might look like from Peru.

When I wound the warp I used two strands of sock yarn at once, winding on until it was too short to wind any more on, then tying on a new sock yarn and saving the leftover bits for the weft. This worked rather well since it balanced out the colors and differences in thickness of the sock yarns.

New plants

I got new flowers from the farmer's market on Saturday and planted them where my old, dead plants had been!



I got a new lavender, sage, 2 basil, a tomato plant, cucumber, cilantro, and peppermint.


I put the mint (I wish they had had more than one type, I LOVE mint and there can never be too much of it growing!) in with the basil and cilantro- both of which I expect to eat to the point of killing them by the time the mint expands to fill the pot- I don't dare let the mint and rosemary live together in the big pot, between them they would totally take it over!

The snail is from a trip to Portland recently, from their Saturday Market.

flickcarder

flickcarder
Originally uploaded by midnightskyfibers

Destashing a flick carder, I already have one :)..and a drum carder...and handcards, so really don't need 2 :)
(in my shop sale section)

knittingneedles

knittingneedles
Originally uploaded by midnightskyfibers

I am destashing knitting needles.
(in my shop sale section)

Weaving sock yarn

I am not sure how it did not occur to me before since my loom fold up, but I can collapse my loom to make warping easier. Not that it eliminates the achy back, but it helps. The smaller loom also helps the achy back too. This is warp + weft of misc balls of sock yarn.

A rather dead balcony garden

My plants seem to be dying on my more than usual this year. I swear I am water them! But no surprise, I am quite good at killing plants! The rosemary and small tree are still alive at least, and something flowering- an onion I think? at least is green.



About the closest the cat has ever gotten to the edge of the balcony. He had just walked through a spideweb and wasn't quite sure what to do about it!





What you can't see in these (well, if you look at the big sizes you can) is the massive amount of spider webs all over my deck.



Hard to keep Joey off the deck while photographing how dead the plants are. What you can't see is some very dead sage behind the lavendar/thyme(also dead) oregano planter.

Medium is the Message v2

IMG_0750
Originally uploaded by midnightskyfibers

Sweater is coming along nicely, almost done! The front side looks much more tweedy than the inside that you can see here.

Giveaway!

Midnightsky Fibers is having a giveaway on WhipUp for 3 of my Space Hats Kits. You can check it out and enter at: http://whipup.net/2009/06/10/midnightsky-fibers-giveaway/

Birthday Sale!

A quick, one day sale- ends June 9th- my birthday is only one day after all! In celebration of my birthday, use the code Birthday09 to get 40% off orders of $10 or more!

Shop at: Midnightsky Fibers

Not available for wholesalers or overseas customers (please email me for overseas specials)

Rhubarb

Rhubarb
Originally uploaded by midnightskyfibers

Fridge: Full of rhubarb, water chilling for making sparkling water, and lots of onions and garlic. Yes, a rather odd combo of stuff to be sure!

Medium is the Message

This is for the start of the Medium is the Message sweater I am making. I am making rather substantial changes- no turtleneck, cardigan instead of pullover style, garter stitch edging, etc.




The yarn is 2 ply wool indigo dyed with touches of fustic blended with angelina, cochineal dyed soda bottle fiber, soysilk, Falklands blended wool blended oranges (madder and fustic) and yellow (fustic).

Bike

Ack. Just talked to a bike shop by my house and they told me it would cost me at LEAST 1k to buy a bike (hybrid style) that would fit me properly if I want a new bike (which I don't, used is fine). But still, even then ouch.

Quilting

I divided all the hexagons I had been making up in to groups of 7, with one section of white pillowcase- the one where some of the pieces have embroidery- or sheep print as the centers.


...and started sewing them together! I am undecided if I should make TONS of these 7 hexagon groupings or a set amount (25 for a 5 x 5 blanket) and add another layer around- 12 hexagons around the outside side each!

Fabric & Peiced Quilt

Pieced Hexagon continues. I got some fun farbics from the Goodwill, including 2 pillowcases, one of which has embroidery that I plan to center hexagons over.



I've made a TON of hexagons, all basted and ready to go and be sewn together.

Midnightsky Fibers Fibery Update- Lots of new roving!

In addition to an updated look for the website, there are lots of new naturally dyed and undyed wool and Falklands wool rovings and batts up on Midnightsky Fibers! This week there was lots of cochineal dyeing going on! There are new cochineal dyed yarns and handspun yarns, and much of the wool fibers are cochineal dyed as well.

Check out all the new items in the shop!