Arts and Dannas

January 29, 2009

Ugh, sick again.
It's really just a cold at this point, with a bit of a sore throat thrown in for good measure. The worst was waking myself up coughing this morning, but the most annoying is the constant drip, drip, drip from my nose. You know when you have one of those good cries and everything just goes everywhere and, well, you know what i mean, right?
It's like that, except all outta my nose.

Yeah i know, you probably didn't need that mental picture today did you?
I was going to try to catch up with some things i've been working on such, but I just can't bring myself to do it when i feel like i just want to curl up into a snotty ball and sleep for days!

Ah well, maybe tomorrow right?

January 26, 2009



I don't know how i forgot about this yarn i spun last week. It's a blend of baby alpaca, carbonized bamboo, merino and lots of angelina sparkle. i made the rolags on my hand carders and didn't stop until i ran out the stuff i had out for blending. the alpaca and merino were dyed by me with a mix of plain food coloring and professional acid dyes. acid dyes are scary! i mean, the fact that i have to wear a protective mask when mixing the powders? scary!
Then again, i'm used to working with food coloring, which at best stains your fingers for a day or two. ah well.

Back to the yarn!


weighing in just under 3 oz, it's about 70 some yards of navajo plied squishy goodness! seriously, seriously soft stuff here. I think i might just keep it for myself... as long as i can find a pattern that fits it! Otherwise i don't know if i can justify letting it sit with no use, it's seriously that awesome.

Does anyone have any ideas for this super soft and squishy and sparkly and other S-adjectives yarn?

January 23, 2009

Things on my to-do list today included taking a shower and not being a bum.

Considering it's almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't done either, that's pretty bad.

but I'd like to think I have a really good excuse! Well alright, not a really good excuse. Probably not even a pretty crappy excuse. I blame the weather:


It's been like this for weeks now. It's been above freezing all of three days this month, and probably only for a few hours at that. That isn't to say that it's been snowing non-stop, it's just that the snow hasn't melted yet. Which means there's probably a good foot of snow on the ground that just wont go away! It doesn't help that it really hasn't been very sunny either. Ehh, don't get me wrong, Michigan is fine, winter is fine, but the no sun bit sort of grinds on me.


In better spirited news, I bought a huge 8oz thing of Northern Lights in Violets, and spun it all up last week. I made a ripple cowl out of one skein. I really didn't check out a pattern, I just sort of made a starting chain and went from there. I'm glad it didn't turn out massive or tiny, and holy crap is it soft! I really was not expecting to get something that soft out of the roving, which I felt was a little scratchy and sort of low quality... But that isn't to say I wont buy it again. I was left with another skein of 2 ply, and a single.








That's pretty much all I've been up to in the fiber world.
Classes started again last week, and I've only got two classes this time around. Hopefully I'll be less stressed knowing that I'm almost done at LCC, and these classes seem like they're really straightforward and fairly easy. Time will tell though, I guess. I get pretty bad by the end of the semester with homework and things like actually going to class. We'll see!

January 13, 2009

A little while back, I won some yarn from a blog giveaway here: http://peasoupoftheday.blogspot.com/

I had no idea what to do with it. 300 yards of superwash wool? I didn't want to just simply make another hat, oh no- this yarn was special. I carried this yarn in my purse for weeks on end, just hoping that one of the zillion times I had to dig in my purse for my wallet or keys would magically grant me realization of what to do with this yarn. I tossed around a few ideas here and there, but nothing really seemed appropriate. Until a few days ago, that is. My plan came through fruition on Sunday afternoon, while spending some time at my Dad's house.
I give you, the Divine Cowl.



I decided to use a stitch pattern from rheatheylia to work it's magic. I just sort of started in the middle of the pattern, after making a starting chain and slip stitching into the first chain to make a loop. I did not expect the yarn to line up colors like this, but after the second round I noticed what it was doing, so I tried to keep my tension steady so as to continue what it was doing.



Isn't that just magic?

January 5, 2009


I just finished this hat for a friend of a friend.
I made it using Jo-ann's sensations Natural Collection, Dream Weave in Purple.

Simple ear flap hat, with braids and pom-poms. No real pattern, but because I've made so many hats I just sort of go for it. I pretty much only bought the yarn because I thought it was the color she'd want. She said bright purple wool yarn- but the only yarn I could find that matched this was this stuff. And it was sort of expensive (for me) even though it was on sale for just under $5. I had seen this yarn before though and really liked the feel of it- And realistically though, who can beat a yarn that's 75% wool, 25% silk for that price?



I doubled up on the yarn, holding two strands together for a thicker fabric. I knew I needed over 100 yards to complete the hat itself without the flaps, braids, and poms so that was at least two balls right there. I decided on five because it seemed most logical at the time. Two for the majority of the hat, two more for the rest and flaps, and the fifth just in case I didn't have enough for the poms. Well, I ended up using just under three balls of yarn. Which is fine, but I'm also slightly annoyed that I spent that extra almost $10 on yarn that I didn't need. (which again would be fine, except that I'm not making as much money at my new day job...)

In any case, this hat is very warm. I wore it around the house for a few minutes after taking pictures and I didn't want to take it off! I hope she enjoys it, and maybe I can make myself a hat with the extra- perhaps minus the pom-poms.