Most Luscious Yarn.

4 oz/139 yards
113 g/127 meters

Certainly an experience trying my patience, I first unspun, then respun some yarn recently. The finished goods were slow in the making, but I think there was never a more luscious sock yarn ever made.

This granite tweedy yarn is 50/50 merino/angora, hand blended without any tools into this two ply fingering-sport weight yarn.

definitely high on the labor side - first unspinning piles of singles (I unspun a total of about 12 ounces of yarn) onto my hand spindles, then respinning and plying them on my wheel, I'm not certain if my fingers will forgive me anytime soon - it seems there was a fair amount of stress on my index finger and thumb while drafting because I was unable to completely remove the twist from the singles the first time round. In any case, the result is pure softness and luxury! If no one buys this yarn, I'll be happy to turn it into socks for myself!

Like Pixie Stix, but Better!

Better, because it's Yarn! Previewed here, but to be offered for sale on Etsy if they don't move before then...three skeins of luscious Blue Faced Leicester Wool hand spun into approximately worsted weight 2-ply yarn in hues of pinks, blues and purples.

3.3 oz/116 yards
95 g/106 meters
$40

I should probably tell you that if you click on any of the photos, you can see a much larger image of the photo in question.

Each skein is continuous, and has no breaks at all, so rest assured, there are no lurking hidden knots inside.

The image to the left is a closeup of a section of the above skein...isn't it lovely? Don't you just want to reach out and pet it?

This skein is the largest of the three, and also seems to have the most pinks throughout.

3.2 oz/97 yards
90 g/88 meters
$30

This second skein seemed to have a touch less pink in it, and a bit more blue and purple - or it could just seem that way with the plying!

All of these skeins came from the same hand dyed roving - so the colors in each of the skeins matches those in the other skeins. Each skein varies from the next a little because of the way I split the fiber for spinning.

I should mention that the yarn is incredibly soft and has a very subtle halo to it, probably best visible (but still not terribly obvious) in the pre-plying photos seen here.

3.2 oz/103 yards
90 g/94 meters
$35

It seemed to me that this skein is a touch more blue than the previous one - but it could just be an aspect of looking at yarn for too long :)

You're probably wondering why I'm calling these the Pixie Stick lot - it's because that's all I could think of as I spun the yarn up and plied it together - for some reason, the colors remind me of pixie sticks and sweet tarts.

In any case, if you're interested in any or all of these, drop me a note by email or leave me a comment. Once they've been here for preview for a while, I'll send em over to my Etsy Shop.

A Little Tacky

wee little decorated thumbtacks

While we were busy cleaning up the house, we stumbled across a box full of office supplies from when we were both in school. Inside, I found a box of thumbtacks. Since my marble magnets aren't selling, and glue and a hole punch languishing by, I thought I'd see if I could make the thumbtacks look more unique and colorful.

Leafing through some magazines and catalogues yielded some cute images. I also gave a try to using some handmade papers I have sitting in my paper stash. You can see some of the tacks up close and personal over yonder to the left.

I think I've succeeded, don't you? They do take a bit of work, and some fussing - I never realized how poor the quality control is in thumbtacks. Some had pins that weren't perpendicular to the back, others had chunks missing off the flat bit, as if some crazy tack eating monster had to have a nibble. The variation in the diameter of the thumbtacks was also surprising. I fear I'm showing my engineering nerdiness so I'll hush up now.

Colorful thumbtacks in hand, I'm ready to post all my crazy ideas on a board for easy perusal... my problem now is that I don't have a bulletin board. *sigh*