Sunday 28 September 2008

The new wrist warmers have arrived

Finally I have gotten around to finishing these handspun soy silk wrist warmers I had sitting around for a few weeks, almost finished, but not quite. Well, I think it was worth the wait, as I am delighted with how they turned out. So far there are three different pairs, one with the black patterned pure silk fabric below, one with my favourite ever pure silk fabric in a light pink and purple design with teal and one with a cute brown polka dot fabric.
I have also worked on another one of my original fingerless glove designs, which is a variation of 'circles', only a little better, of course. ;) To fulfil the brief I found some commercial pure Merino yarn which comes in the prettiest colours. Below is the brightest one in rainbow, but I also bought this yarn in dark purple, dark reds and earth tones. I don't know what it is, I am generally very much into a more glamourous style, which shows in my designs, but sometimes I have this little twitch that will make me choose the brightest yarn or fabric possible and create items fit for matching a box of crayons.
The purple wrist warmers also turned out nicely btw, but sadly the pictures did not.Of course I have also been spinning, most recently 'Le boudoir', a Merino and Tussah silk yarn with pearl beads. Drying right now are also a few pure linen yarns and I am planning a few scrap yarns soon as I need to use up some of those little bits of hand dyed fibre.
Oh, plus I have finally taken the plunge and bought some polymer clay whilst I was in Munich and have started sculpting some beads for my yarns. One of the project I had in my sketch book for ages includes little comic style bones, and that is what I have mainly been sculpting so far.

Thursday 18 September 2008

Flower bag WIP - crochet

Yay, I got my crochet hook out and finally started working out one of my tweed flower bags according to a sketch I made earlier on. I will crochet all around the top with a beautiful wool and silk dark green tweed yarn I have and then either continue with crochet or - as originally planned - switch to knitting on the top part.
It is going to be a lot of work as I have to push holes in the fabric before starting the first crochet row and the needle size will be quite small - but hopefully it will be well worth it!

If I do another version of this in the future, it will probably be in a chunkier yarn and then definitely knitted. Perhaps also on a smaller bag, this one measures about 40cm at the top, so a circumference of about a jumper size!

I also almost finished a pair of very sweet wrist warmers made from handspun yarn.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

Candy the way it should be

Just thought I'd share this snapshot of a candy store in Belgium. It was so overwhelming, the whole store was like this and it was just gorgeous!

Other than that my shop now has its own domain: www.snowberrylime.com and will be getting a pretty big update taking place every day of this week. All fresh yarns and I am currently working on some snuggly accessories which can be found there soon. :)

Sunday 7 September 2008

Close to 1000 etsy shop hearts. :)

My pink soy yarn made it on the front page today (it's actually still up whilst I am typing this) and my shop is now very close to having 1000 people who have added it as their favourite on etsy. To me that is quite an impressive number and reason enough to send out a little handspun thank you to the person who catches number 1000.

So hop on over for your chance to get some free handspun. :)

http://snowberrylime.etsy.com

Saturday 6 September 2008

14 bags


14 bags
Originally uploaded by snowberrylime
Can you see my table? Oh, right, it is covered in bags to be sewn, ie. fabric. Ah well, it will all get done eventually. Most of these embroideries have been done on the evenings of my holiday in Belgium, whilst normal people read or something....

The overdimensional swatch towards the front is me knitting my handspun soy silk yarn and will eventually be turned into some wrist warmers. 'Eventually' might just become my word of the day....

Friday 5 September 2008

Sushi yarn


Sushi yarn
Originally uploaded by snowberrylime
My Sushi yarn is finished! I think I may be in love. :)
It should gently self-stripe randomly between black, white and sparkly red. I want to spin another one, hahaha.

Oh and you know what? It's Friday, so take this as my fibre friday entry...

As much as I love weekends, this one is going to be a busy one. Luckily all things to do with craft fairs and yarns/fabric, so it's not too bad. I also got some new inspiration in the mail today (yes, that is my excuse for ordering supplies online) in the shape of beautiful glass beads and stunning glass buttons from the 1920s and 30s (!).

Well, gotta go, do stuff. :D

Wednesday 3 September 2008

A big pot of ...what was she thinking?


what was she thinking
Originally uploaded by snowberrylime
Well, I did some dyeing and whilst the first pot was filled with a bit of a classic, light yellow with all kinds of different shades of teal and blue, the second was rather, um, questionable....

What happened was: I had mixed upscary amounts of blue and had originally intended to dye something with green for the second pot, but I also wanted some brown, so I started mixing up some red. A lot of red, because it quickly switches into pink. After some fiddling around I had bright red, lots of blues/teals, lots of dark greenish brown with a hint of rusty brown.

Did I ever mention that my colour combination from hell is light pink, pine green and navy blue? Well, in the pot it looked scarily close to that and I panicked a little. The panic passed quickly and I just kept pouring on the ugliness... all of it.

BUT then this happened:
Yes, it actually turned into a decent (and subtle) colourway: the blue is now dark prussian blue, the unidentified dark green stuff turned into a subtle grey with its own beauty and the red become a beautiful dark burgundy on the silk and a subtle vintage rose colour on the wool you can see in the front. These outcomes are why dyeing can be pretty exciting and so well worth it. :)

Saved by the bell!