Well this past week has just slipped past me! I suppose that's what happens when you fill your days with book-writing and book-making and book-reading. Whew, that's a lot of bookish things! So my weekly fancy is going to be not bookish at all, really. I hope you don't mind. ;)

In fact, I'm going to be revisiting one of my favoritish, things quite a bit, and you all know that's fiber. ;)


Take this superwash Merino from KnitFitKnitter. Is that gorgeous, or what? It's called Twinkle, 220 yards worsted weight, and I just love it. Maybe it's just my old AP art history class (which was longer ago than I've realized!), but I look at this and all I see is Van Gogh. It's perfect, isn't it? Gorgeous stuff!

And talking about gorgeous...


I can't help but be stunned by this. It's wall art by box64studio, more specifically an 18x18 inch Paper Collage Floral Burst. I am amazed that people can make such gorgeous things out of paper. It seems like such a delicate thing, which I suppose is part of the very beauty of it. These floral bursts remind me of my mother's Hawaiian appliqué, which is something that I've always wanted to do myself. Beautiful stuff!

And then we have this:


Hee. Oh my goodness if this isn't one of the cutest little monster(pair!)s that I've ever seen. This is Daphne and Delilah the Mommy and Baby Monster. It's a pattern, to make your very own little set of monsters, and I can't get over how darling these little gals are. The listing shows the pattern done up in a few different colorways, so you can get an idea of what your monsters might turn out like, and all of them are adorable! This is from dangercraft's shop, and really all of her patterns and creatures are just fabulous.

My next pick for this week is from SunshineMaker, who is brand new to Etsy!


She's got lots of lovely fibery things, but this right here is her Purple Rain batt. 50 grams of gorgeous purple wooly goodness with just a hint of white viscose to make it pop! This makes me wish (not that I hadn't already!) that there had been room in the car for my spindle and fiber when I made the move... They'll get to me eventually, they're tucked up safely down in San Diego... but I see stuff like this and I want to spin NOW. Sigh.

And lastly...


YES PLEASE. As you can see, this is the Buy Handmade shirt from phippsart. What a great way to tell the world your opinion on hand-crafted, high-quality items, versus the dross that we see in department stores? I love everything about this shirt. The color, the style, all the detail!

It's in conjunction with The Handmade Movement, which, if you haven't checked them out, you really should! It's a fabulous blog that coordinates sneak attacks on various Etsy shops... meaning a shop can be "sponsored" by someone, and announced to at a specific time, and as many people as are willing go and purchase something from that shop! It's such a great way to promote Etsy artists, and I tip my hat to them!

I can't help myself—this one's all fiber, folks! If I had the time I'd expand, do Wednesday Wants and Fiber Fridays... but sadly there's no way I could manage that, so you'll just have to suffer through it. :-P

Firstly....


This is the lovely Age of Wisdom Luxury Lace by theyarnside. These colors remind me of a cool autumn evening with falling leaves. And with a mix of baby alpaca, silk and cashmere, it'd be sure to keep you cozy, too. Think of the shawl you could make with this! I don't think I could resist doing some lacy, leafy pattern. Mmmm.

Next we have a bit of grunge! But grunge at its very prettiest.


This fantastic colorway is called Swamp Fairy, very appropriately. It is by the isajulfiber, who has really gorgeous things. I just love the playfulness of all these colors, mixed in with the bold black and white bits. I can just imagine the awesome funky yarn this would spin up into! I love it.

And then... sigh. Mulberry Silk Top in Evergreen, by chimera.


I admit, I have a thing for shiny. There's a reason why the first spinning fiber I bought was a smidge of soysilk at a ridiculous price. It was shiny. And soooo soft. Just look at all of these lovely, shiny greens! I've never spun silk before (haven't even touched my soysilk yet - I'm a bit afraid of it!) but it's supposed to spin like a dream. Maybe if I had the generous 4.6 ounces here, I wouldn't be as worried about messing a bit of it up. ;)

My last pick is... well really just a doozy.


Take a closer look at this picture. Don't just let your eyes glance over it, because you're bound to miss something if you do, and the listing really is for all of it. It's pumpkinhaus' One Gallon Top Whorl Spindle and Fiber Kit in Superman Ice Cream. So there's a spindle, 2.7 ounces of very Superman-y colored merino, a project bag, plus scraps, buttons and some pre-spun yarn to play with as you will! Pumpkinhaus is quite the spinner herself. I haven't really tried any artsy spins as of yet, but the idea does really intrigue me. Definitely an awesome kit for someone out there!

So there you are. That wasn't so bad, was it? ;)

In the hectic world that is my life at the moment, crafting has been an escape to simplicity for me. So don't be expecting cables and lace here, darlings.

What's on my spindles:



The orange is merino, my first time spinning straight merino, and I'm loving it! Have to work this one off of the spindle so that I can get to the other half! The grey/beige is... well I'm not entirely sure what it is. A stickier stuff, part of a package RAK'ed to me by myrtili over at Ravelry. It makes for a very interesting yarn, and I'm finding that if I spin it, I sort of fall in love, no matter what it is - unless it makes my hands itch, which thankfully hasn't happened with anything yet!

I can't tell you how happy I am to know that I'm not flat-out allergic to all wool, just one or two little kinds. Lamb's Pride, for example. Definitely allergic to that one, unfortunately.

On the needles, I'm continuing on with my sock-yarn clap. Two skeins of Heritage Sock and I love it to bits.


Maybe I should have gone with something a little more neutral-ish, but this picture doesn't really do justice to the colors in this yarn, pinks and pinks, and a few peaches and a bright orange, and even a deep, nearly purplish maroon. I'm onto my second skein and haven't gotten sick of the yarn yet, so boo-yah! This project is perfect for any downtime - reading, watching TV or a movie, whatever. And, since the Clap is such a simple pattern, it's something I can easily pick up for a few stitches, then throw to the side if necessary. Because you'd better believe life has been cutting into my crafting time lately.

Speaking of... have to go get some stuff done! Happy Tuesday, all.

All of this packing and organizing and giving stuff away for the move can, understandably, burn me out. So, when the chance presented itself to sit down and watch a couple Austen movies (I was burning them onto DVD for later... Persuasion and Emma—the Kate Beckinsale version) I really wanted to do some spinning. Sure I had my clapotis sitting there almost done with its first skein, but I hadn't done any spinning in ages (I still haven't posted pictures of my last) and that's what was calling to me.

But... well in all of this mess, I've momentarily misplaced my drop spindle. And even if I had found it, it still had the yarn of my previous attempt on it. And... well I've been curious about lighter-weight spindles, and still being in the experimentation phase (really, I think I always will be, if you know what I mean!) I was wondering about CD drop spindles. But I didn't want to have to go to the store and buy a wooden dowel or drill anything, quite honestly. Not because I don't know how to drill—my father refurbished houses when I grew up so I darn well do. I just wasn't in the mood to get so complicated.

And so, my new variation of the drop spindle was born!

Take all of this:

Go ahead and take the cap off of the pen and pull the ink tip out of the spout. Not the whole head of the pen, mind, just the little part directly connected to the ink shaft. Then take a pair of pliers (or maybe you can do this by hand, I couldn't.) and bend the inside of the lanyard hook out and straight out, bend it only at the bottom of the hook, don't bend the straight parts, or obviously the hook itself. This should give you something just awkward enough to be shoved into the pen shaft without wanting to budge once it's in there, like so:


Then, position the bottom rubber stopper (mine, I'll admit, came from a little set of eraser pencil grips) wherever you want, drop the CD down, and put the other one on top. And voila:


Here's a pic of my spindle along with the roving I was working with and the yarn I made from it. Quite fine stuff, actually! Not very good yarn, because I'm still new to this and I know I have a ton of weak spots in it, but the spindle worked well enough. It wasn't perfect, the grips are a little looser than I'd like, but that's mainly because I wanted it to be take-apart-able later. If you don't, of course you could glue the grips and CD into place. Either way, this isn't very fancy, but it's a very simple little spindle, popped together in a matter of minutes, made from stuff you probably have around the house anyhow. Enjoy!

Some weeks it takes some time to go through my favorites and find something that I really want to post about—that is not at all true this week!

Firstly, let's look at jesh's Pink Glow Drop Spindle. Is this lovely, or what? All of her spindles are lovely, really! I'm starting to think that maybe I've outgrown my run-of-the-mill starter spindle, and this is very, very tempting...


And what to spin on it, you ask? Well... step over here and take a gander at hobbledehoy's stuff!


Yummy, right?! This is her Lemon Zinger hand-carded batts. Gorgeous stuff! I've never spun from batts before, and would love to add that to my repertoir. These colors are just beautiful. Love that blend of oranges and yellows and greens.

And lastly, something that's as practical as it is beautiful:


This is one of lilypang's customizable laptop skins, this in particular is the Moonlight Owl. This is something I'm really looking forward to buying, just as soon as I make a sale that warrants it. I have a new laptop, and this is just what I need to keep my baby protected—and gorgeous, of course! I've seen a few at Fry's and Office Depot, of course, but I have an oddly-shaped laptop, and besides, what's the fun of that? lilypang's skins can be ordered to the size of your own laptop, and she even has matching skins for the hand-rest area! My only problem is deciding which skin I want, because all of them are utterly gorgeous. Go look for yourself!

Just a quick little post! That there are the first four attempts I've made at handspinning yarn, in order. The first is mega bulky and not very even at all. The second is thinner but still fairly bulky and a little uneven. The third I think is fairly even and fairly thin, making it to some 41 yards (yay!). The fourth is fairly the same, though the fiber is different—BFL, I believe, I've lost my little card with the notes on it!

I've finally gotten even spinning down—so of course then I wanted to see if I could do thick/thin! haha And so this was the result of that little inclination:


That's some true experimentation on my part... this was just a little tiny bit of fiber I had from my bag from DeeAnn a while back, and it only ended up as seven some yards, and while it's not quite what I was evisioning, I do kind of like how it turned out:


Now I just need to get brave and set some of these babies. And I suppose I should play with plying, too, though I really do like the look of singles. But I have lots of thread, too, so... Maybe I'll ply this yellow, see how it looks. I don't think this particular little skein could get worse. :-P