Baby Kimono, Designing

I have so much I want to be saying and the words aren’t coming out in any way that seems pleasing to me. I’ve been sketching and designing all day, organizing my ideas into computer files, collecting photos with elements that inspire me, and browsing Colour Lovers for awesome colour combinations. I have so many ideas floating around in my head, and I’m not quite sure where to go from here.

I’m working on a some sketches for jacket with toggle buttons, a mandarin inspired collar and a diamond stitch pattern, as well as plans for my Fair Isle sweater I’m making from my Blue-faced Leicester and white alpaca fleeces.  I’ve been taking full advantage of my tablet to doodle with, I’m really excited. I plan on drawing out images and repeating patterns and overlaying knitter’s graph paper to give me an instant chart to work from, it’s going to be awesome.

This is the first drawing.

The light and dark grays are the natural colours of the beeeeeautiful second prize winning BFL fleece, and the pink/red will be nature dyed alpaca from my second fleece, probably dyed from Madder and a tiny bit of Brazilwood. I haven’t yet decided what kind of motif will be the stitch pattern, I’m not overly familiar with traditional designs, but I’ll figure it out in the coming weeks.

I (started and) finished a baby sweater for a friend’s month old sweetie pie. It was one of the fastest things I’ve ever knit. Such a fun pattern, and so easy!

Hoorray!! It’s been too long since I finished something! ^_^

And for those interested, I recently made my Twitter feed public and open to all again, so follow me and I’ll follow you back!

Ideas and guns!

It’s been almost two weeks since I posted, and I’ve been cooking up some ideas.

I’ve recently been in touch with a couple sweet ladies on the internet about starting a new collaborative blog-project-resource for fibre artists and the like. I’m really ridiculously excited about getting involved in something new and I hope this takes off as well as I think it will.

Keep an eye out!

I learned how to shoot a rifle the other day! We went to a gun range off in the woods and I did some target practice.

I had so much fun, and I think I did well

Video Update!

So.. I made a video instead of taking photographs because I just had to blog again. Everything was building up. I tried to keep it short to prevent you folks from getting bored

This was fun!
(You may have to crank your audio, I’m still figuring everything out and my mic wasn’t turned up enough, apparently.)

more about “Video Update! on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

Ideas.

So, PainfullyHIP makes me happy. They especially made me happy this morning when there was a new article posted about the new term “recessionista” and how everyone is jumping on the “let’s sell cheap, mass-produced, poorly made clothes that looook like you spent 3 hours on your bedroom floor sewing buttons zippers on so you don’t feel bad about continuing to consume in these tight-wad times”. BLEUUUURGH.

Anyway, I made a comment on the article, it’s the first one.

I covered my house with scoured and still-wet sheep’s fleece the other day.. I love the weird farmy smell of wet wool. I also scoured some llama fibre with about a million guard hairs in it that I don’t know how to remove. ADVENTURES IN LEARNING, GUYS!

Here’s the mountain of Merino/Romney cross after I washed it.

It had been in my closet almost a year, unwashed, so the lanolin was pretty stubborn but after a few baths it let go. I want to somehow learn how to collect the lanolin from fleeces I’ve washed so that I can use it for handmade cosmetics that I eventually want to make.

A few days ago, Alex secretly picked me up in his garguantumongous work truck and we drove 2 hours to Saskatchewan to make a delivery at a pulp mill. It was a great excuse to take some knitting along that had nothing to do with my course (it’s been far too long since I’ve done any of that) and he liked to have my company. We saw about a million deer on the way there but I didn’t get any photos of them

My friend Chris James (poet-brainiac-bowielover extraordinaire) just emailed me! Just this second! I do believe he has poetry books of some sort in the works to send me. He makes me want to create a giant through-post arts collective of people who mail eachother pieces (writing, little paintings, doo-dads, etc) for collaborative works.

I love having ideas, even just baby ideas. I have a few people in mind for this already . If this thought progresses past the larva stage, I’ll let you all know <3

-Kate

Business.

I’ve been almost overwhelmed with how busy I’ve been lately. I love having places to go and people to hang out with again. I took an Intro to Herbs class, and I learned about how to make medicines from common herbs. It’s really exciting to me, to be able to take control of our health this way. I eventually want to line the walls of my house with huge jars of herbs and make my own teas, oil infusions, salves and tinctures. The next class they’re offering is going to be a hands-on type of workshop where we actually get to try the whole process ourselves. I wasn’t sure I wanted to participate, but I’m so glad I did.

The only downside to all of this is that I fell behind on my project 365.. I’ve been doing more interesting things, than trying to find interesting things to take photos of. Fair trade.

On Tuesday I’m dropping off my latest painting to the Art Society to get put on display in the cafe as the gallery is undergoing some renos and getting some new lights put in and will be closed during April. It’ll be so nice to see my very own painting in such a public place.

I started going to the SCA here in town here and it’s been so much fun. I’m learning to fight with a rapier like a musketeer on Wednesday nights now and meeting lots of people. I love getting dressed up and getting together with people and learning about history.

I bought the prettiest mortar and pestle instead of a coffee grinder to crush up the cochineal for one of the last of my dyepots for the nature dyeing portion of my course. I’d much rather have something I can wash thoroughly and reuse for herbs than a coffee grinder I’m never going to use again. Alex and I went to Lori and Oliver’s and we had a few drinks while I taught Lori the basic premise behind nature dyeing and fibre prep. I got some amazing colors from the cochineal, but the indigo I used turned out to be pathetic because I didn’t use a reducing agent and the indigo is insoluble in water.

Yesterday we went and saw Barb (owner of Wild Geese Fibres) and we gawked at her wares and hung out for a few hours. She and her husband are some of the nicest people I know. At the end of April Barb and I are going to Kamloops to the Twist of Fate retreat for a Fair Isle class Barb is teaching and I’m so excited to see Erin again, and anyone else from Olds last year who is going to be there.

I love being a part of this whole fibre community we have, and I think that I will always have it as a part of my life. I love knowing what I love to do.

365.002

365.002, originally uploaded by Gaminelle.

Balls of hand-dyed yarn that dried overnight.

Fleece Artist Handspun FINISHED!!

Fleece Artist Handspun, originally uploaded by GoetheGamine.

This was from half a batch of Fleece Artist roving I bought from River City Yarns at Fibre Week this year. I managed to get approximately 600yds, lace-fingering weight.

Beauty. I’m so excited about this. I know I don’t want it to be socks, because despite the fact it’s superwash.. this is precious handspun that took me WAY too long to spin up. It has to be something special – what, I don’t know.

It’s a huge beast of a skein and I still have half the roving left!!

Fleece Artist – ALMOST FINISHED PLYING!!

Fleece Artist, originally uploaded by GoetheGamine.

Tiny tiny 2 ply superwash Fleece Artist roving, purple with shocks of electric blue!

I can’t wait until this is finished! There’s only a tiny bit left on each of the bobbins. I’ll finish plying tonight, wash it to set the twist and show off the skein tomorrow!

Stash

Stash, originally uploaded by GoetheGamine.

My roving and yarn on a nice little shelf

I have got to get knitting/spinning some of this up.

I like watching the puddles gather raiiin.

Mixtape o’ the Day – Songs of right now.

1. Milk Thistle – Conor Oberst
2. King – Weezer
3. I Was Meant for the Stage – The Decemberists
4. Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap
5. Staralfur – Sigur Ros (my personal wedding song)
6. Homecoming – Kanye West ft. Chris Martin (of Coldplay, who apparently knit together!)

It’s getting chilly again. I’ve been spinning and painting like a madwoman lately, as I’ve mentioned.. but I have pictures now to prove it!

Here’s the most recent painting I’ve completed, and I love it. I can’t decide, though, whether to keep it, try to sell it in the gallery or try to sell it through etsy.. and how much to sell it for. I custom framed it at work all fancy, I like it.

(click to see the full size)

The idea was of a bird that flies around the planets bringing night to the sky. The one I’m working on right now is of some winter trees, and the next one I have planned is a chakra diagram of sorts, with a little more flow. Keep it, or sell it? Keep it, or sell it?

Here’s my tiny spinning! That bobbin is full now, and I’m about a third of the way through the second one. I’m getting amazing yardage out of these.. what, four ounces of Fleece Artist? I’m ecstatic, and I can’t wait to have it plied. It’s going to be SO pretty (AND SUPERWARSH, ZOMG).

Tree Jacket is still coming along. I feel badly, as though I’ve been neglecting it in favor of these new pursuits. I’ve just been bitten by the lace bug, and am dying to get my hands on a shawl of my own. Yeah, I know, anyone who isn’t a knitter thinks shawls are old-ladyish. I think they’re beautiful, and would wear one with pride, knowing full well how many hundreds of hours they can take.

I unpacked my yarn today, and found that I have no room for roving on the shelves. I’ve still got a garbage bagful from Fibre Week that I have yet to take stock of, and put away. I’m so surprised at how much I’ve acquired in the last few months.. from nothing, to a whole walk-in closet full of roving, yarn and spinning wheel parts.

I recently acquired the Twilight Series audiobooks. I’m unsure of whether I’ll actually take the time to listen when I do get my new iPod. It might help the time pass at work, if the person’s voice isn’t incredibly tedious. I hope it’s a good story. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but the general consensus is that it’s great for mindless entertainment, but don’t expect anything of major substance to be gleaned from it. Thanks for the hot tip, guys.

I just had a cup of coffee. It’s 10pm. I did this on purpose. There will be no rest for the wicked Kaitlin tonight.