1.27.2010

A MMMB video

The always lovely Jennifer Miller just made this video about our little band.

1.22.2010

New yarn

Since it is Friday, let's make it a fiber Friday.

This is my latest yarn, corespun from a batt I made yesterday with a silver autowrap. The little rainbow nubbs are recycled sari fiber and though you can't see it in the picture, there is some handdyed firestar thrown in for extra sparkle.

1.20.2010

Insubordiknit Nashville

For my birthday this year I decided to go to the Nashville Insubordiknit spinning workshop. There was a closer workshop last fall, but due to shop scheduling problems, that one really wasn't a possibility for me, plus waiting for the Nashville workshop forced me to stop procrastinating about taking a trip down to visit Nieves.

I could go on and on about the workshop and everything we learned, but it is all on Jacey's site so you can just see it there. Jacey was an amazing teacher, informative and entertaining. I was definitely one of the more inexperienced spinners in the group and with the exception of a couple of techniques I had very few problems. My favorite thing that we learned over the weekend was corespinning. I LOVE CORESPINNING!!! I understood the concept of corespinning, it was just a technique that I never bothered to try. The yarns produced by spinning carded fiber around a core yarn are light and fluffy and the technique really shows off the contents of a batt (especially a sparkly batt.) Here are the pictures of my favorite yarns so far.

My first corespun yarn. Jacey gave us some brown carded fiber to learn on. I later went back and autowrapped the yarn with some metallic red embroidery thread (you had to expect me to put some sparkles in somewhere.)

Next is the supercoiled yarn. I spun the single before class with scrap Ashland Bay top that was in the back of the shop. This was a really fun technique, but very time intensive when you calculate the amount of yarn that you end up with (it took me two hours to spin 10 yards.)

Last is the corespun that I spun up last night. I made a super sparkly batt just to practice this technique on my Traveller and I was so happy with the resulting yarn that I carded up a duplicate batt to make another hank of it. Lovely sparklies make me happy!

1.01.2010

It's that time again

Time for some New Year's resolutions. I have big hopes for 2010, especially since 2009 was such a horrible year (actually, the last month or so was pretty good, but the rest was positively dreadful.) The only goals I set for 2009 were to knit 12 sweaters (I only knit 6) and to read 52 books (I read 68.) I didn't quite make it, but in my opinion I was close enough.

For 2010, I don't really have resolutions, just a list of things that I would like to do so here goes.
  1. Start accordion lessons.
  2. Take the LSAT.
  3. Get my etsy shop up and running again.
  4. Completely revamp all of ReBelle's digital communications
  5. Remodel the backroom of the shop and put additional shelving in the front.
  6. Join a book group (I am thinking the monthly NPR group @LPL)
  7. Take a vacation, preferably two weeks in the Pacific Northwest focusing on hanging out with friends in Portland, visiting Crater Lake, and camping in the redwoods.
  8. Take a short NYC/DC trip.
  9. Continue playing in the MMMB.
  10. Build two pieces of mid century-inspired furniture of my own design.
  11. Format and publish existing patterns on Ravelry.
  12. Write 5 new patterns for publication.
  13. Start shooting again