I've been Tagged!

I have been blog tagged by yellowfish and so I shall share seven random things with you...

#1 I live near this mountain - Blanca Peak

#2 I once peed in a field of land mines, oh Mozambique.

#3 I am a full time volunteer working as an Immigrant Advocate.

#4 I never ordered a burger at a fast food restaurant until I was a Senior in High School, what can I say, I like chicken.


#5 I love to cook and experiment with new recipes.

#6 I can't stand it when my husband picks at his beard, which is ALL the time, ha ha.




#7 I am a recovering camp-aholic - yeah Menno Haven ...... I was a camper since I was 8, a staff member and counselor forever, met my husband there, got engaged there, AND got married there!


Alright time to tag seven other folks: hilo verde, Cute Indie Finds, Ophelia Miller Boutique, The Shetland Trader, goshdarnknit, Yarn Miracle, and Indigo Mouse.

Don't forget to VOTE on the NEW POLL!!!

Spin it!

It has arrived! How amazingly beautiful are these colors? I think I'm going to spin it into sock weight yarn. I saw an inside out stocking cap at REI this weekend that I really like and I may try something like that or actually knit a pair of socks for myself. So many choices, but I just had to share this lovely roving with you. If you are interested in something similar you are invited to visit The Chicks with Sticks.

The Spirit of Giving

I'm in the spirit. Soon you'll be seeing this purple pocket on subu's blog give away. Here is the blog address so that you can get your chance to win one of her many give aways - http://www.suburose.com/blog.

Also this week I decided to gift this recycled silk hat to a dear friend of mine who is working very hard to make the lives of troubled teens better. This friend is also the one who first inspired me to work with recycled silk.

So I have taken these listing out of my shop, but there are still many items to choose from, and I am still up for custom orders. Feel free to come by and have a look! Enjoy!

100% Recycled and 100% Experiment

First let me explain the recycled part. The white yarn is some that I unraveled and washed from an H&M sweater, it is 30% wool and 70% acrylic, and very chunky. Then on a whim I decided to spin it with some recycled silk, which comes from cutting off the ends of saris in manufacturing.

So I had this neat looking yarn on my spindle and I had no idea what to do with it. Then I thought... "I've never crocheted a hat, I've crocheted other things, but maybe I'll try a hat." So I did.

It is chunky and rather reminds me of a snow cone, in a good way. One very nice thing about this hat is that even though it is super thick it has great ventilation because it was crocheted on a large needles so whoever becomes the proud owner will not get over heated.

Please still cast your vote on my poll, and as always I love to read your comments. Have a great weekend!

Oh the Kitten who lost her mittens...

...is it you? If so, no worries, I have them in my shop! (I know, dumb joke) Anyhow, I have recently listed my very first pair of mittens and I thought I should share with you why they are so wonderful.

One of the first things to appreciate about these mittens is that they are fitted. Wearing these there won't be any flopping around, you'll still be able to pick up your cup of coffee.

Also, these mittens are made from upcycled yarn. I took apart a Burberry Sweater that I found at thrift store and hand dyed it these lovely shades of lavender, green, and teal. Yes, you did read that right a $200 sweater can now be luxuriously worn on your hands. The wool is 100% Alpaca so it is amazingly soft.

Those are just a few of the wonderful things about these mittens. To see them modeled, read more details, and to see more angles check out the listing in my shop.

DON'T forget to VOTE on my poll (look to the right of your screen)

Hooray!

Tah dah! This scarflette comes from the bag of wool in my earlier post. This wool is so ridiculously soft! I hand dyed it these bright spring colors, and I spun it on my drop spindle. I decided to double ply the yarn so all the amazing colors would come through.

Also, I am excited to share this big red button. I know it may not seem like much, but I purchased this button when I was living in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. A good friend and I happened upon an old shop. It looked like your classic old general store with tall shelves and small drawers all around. There I bought this button and some old ribbon. Now I wish I had purchased so much more from this shop. Maybe one day I'll get to go back.

I am spinning more of this yarn, but it will be a finer weight. I plan to make head bands and a French press cozy. I haven't offered cozies in my shop previously, but just this weekend I was using the cozy I made for myself and fell in love with it again - so I thought I should share the love.

******NEW POLL- please cast your vote on my new poll and spread the word!

NEW Headband

I haven't been much in the mood for blogging this past week, but over the weekend I prepared some new items for my shop and now I am pumped to share them.

My new listing today is this headband. I made one for myself (as you can see me in the bottom photo), and I just love it. I really enjoy how comfortable it is, and it doesn't slide on my head.

Also, I am excited to make a bunch of fun variations for people to choose from. My plans are to make some neutral colored ones - brown and cream with stitching - and I have plans for some really bright springy ones! If you have any fun ideas that you would like to see me offer go ahead and leave them in the comments and I'll see what I can do!

Keep checking in, this week has a lot in store!

Twisted Candy Hat

Introducing you to my newest shop addition. This hat has to be one of the most snuggly hats I have ever made. The yarn is from an upcycled sweater and I dyed it, originally it was white. You can read a bit more about that in the item description.

There is a bit of a funny story to the pattern. As I have mentioned before I have fellow volunteers here in the valley and a few of us were teaching one of them how to knit a hat. We started her with a 2 by 2 ribbing pattern, but as she got about half way up the hat we noticed that it was swirling because she had one extra stitch, and it looked fabulous! So with her permission I used her accidental discovery for this snuggly cap.

Also today I posted a new poll - cast your vote!

You asked for them and here they are....

...Recycled Silk Fingerless gloves! I have been taking various polls on this blog. One of which was what type of yarn do you prefer, the result was recycled silk. Another poll, which you can still vote on, says that fingerless gloves are what you hope to buy this month. Combining those two results I have knit these beautiful fingerless gloves!

I found it interesting that in the end these gloves didn't have as much give to them as my knit hats, and previous recycled silk gloves. Because of that it does take a little tug to get them on, but I made the specially for spring. The colors include a great bit of yellow with some green accent and I made the fingers a bit shorter so that they will be comfortable to wear as it gets warmer.

They were posted in my shop just this morning so head over there to check them out and see some more views of them being modeled and at different angles. Enjoy shopping!

Introducing HiloVerde

It's time welcome a new seller to Etsy HiloVerde! This shop has already been featured on the front page so you know the items are fabulous. These are the beautiful convertible mittens that were featured.

The designer of the shop, Claire, is actually my fellow volunteer, yarn stalker, and thrift shopper. We both moved to this valley in the fall and have been knitting away ever since.

Claire's shop has a specific focus on being mindful of the our impact on the earth. Whenever possible she strives to use natural fibers or upcycled fibers. To find out more about this check out her profile.

Come on now, who would like to be her first sale? Have fun shopping!

So Excited!

Alright, so I know this bag may not look very exciting, but think of all the possibilities!!! I just had a lovely trade for this fabulous white roving, and I can't wait to start dying.

The truth is I haven't had a whole lot of experience dying yarn. The one time I did do it, it turned out fabulous! I found this great color card online that really helped me get a legit idea for what kind of kool-aid to use. I haven't tried any dyes other than kool-aid, but I may be willing to experiment. Also I have heard of adding a certain kind of tea to the kool-aid that dulls the brightness a bit so I am hoping to find that as well.

Anyhow, I just had to share my roving excitement. Right now I working on some alpaca mittens with the yarn I dyed previously... I'll work on getting you a picture. Also I am combining the results of two of my polls and making some fingerless gloves out of recycled silk - be watching for them to pop up in my shop!

*** don't forget to vote on this weeks poll***

The Saga Continues

So, are you tired of hearing about my leg warmers? Well, I am about to be done with them. So here is a photo of one completed using the entire patternwith all my hand spun yarn - brown, and blue with cream. As you can see the pattern is barely distinguishable. So sad. Also, there was no way I would have had enough of either yarn.

The solution. My friend offered me some upcycled red yarn. Though it is acrylic it is super soft and recycled - both things I appreciate. Also it gave a brightness to the pattern that would stand out. To be sure I have enough brown (or at least closer to enough) I decided to only do a little over half the pattern. As you can see on the photos on the bottom. The left is the the half of the pattern I decided to do and the right is what my first leg warmer looks likes - I am about ready to bind off. I do believe the problem is solved, and I may need to spin a bit more brown, but that is do-able as I mentioned in my previous post.

** new poll today - cast your vote**