Now through Sunday, April 5–> buy any in-stock t-shirt and I will send you a fiber-animal baglet (my choice) FREE!!
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I was also excited today to hear Suzanne McMinn, who is on the WV Fiber Artists Forum on Ravelry, on WV Public Radio this morning! Her blog is fun…
Knit a bit on the next set of fingerless mitts.
Just finished painting these:
If you are one of those fiber-animal people, please let me know if I’ve portrayed your animal fairly. The neck was too short on the baglet llamas before (okay on the t-shirts, I think). Do I need to put a little tail on the alpaca? I’m working on a batch of these to send out for phatfiber boxes and to sell on etsy and to do shameless commerce at Guild meetings and the retreat. 🙂
At Guild last night I brought my sample batik animal bags. I was right. The llama necks were too short. And I had requests for alpacas and goats on t-shirts/bags, too. So today I designed some more.
Soon I will make up some more bags with the redesigned llama and the other fiber animals. THEN I will get to work on the 50 bags to send off for the phatfiber boxes! I am planning to be included in the May box.
I got the first “tester” set of the batik bags I’m planning to send for the PhatFiber boxes done last night. Need to tweak the llama a bit, I think (does the llama have to have longer legs??), for the template. But overall I found them fairly pleasing. These are 8 x 10″ bags — I have one like that hung on my wheel with tools and oil and stuff. Or they could hold a small project. Hopefully they will be good advertising for my batik t-shirts and possibly sell a few in their own right. Haven’t done any bunnies or dragons or grasshoppers yet.
Last night I decided I might have to try some Magic 28 socks, too, although I’m wondering if there is a thickness of yarn that will result in the socks fitting me or not? Better do a little more research–if YOU know this, please leave me a comment! I guess charity knit socks are good, too.
Guild meeting tonight and Aimee is bringing my FLEECE and I am bringing Nadine’s sheep shirt! Congrats to Nadine for not only being in the Ashland paper, but also in Spin Off for her spindled yarn! 🙂
I want to get in on the PhatFiber box (I’m not sure if I should post the link, apparently it is a huge new thing for spinner-knitter-fiber types to want this, and now I want one too).
I can’t very well send out 45 free batik t-shirts, and I wouldn’t know what sizes to make for people anyhow. And I’m not sure that I spin enough to want to increase my yarn market that much…although maybe…
Anyhow, Evan is home sick today and I’m spending too much time on the computer (I really have done a little research on the collared lizard, which is Oklahoma’s state reptile), and thinking about what I could send as a sample for batik t-shirts…and it struck me! Little cotton drawstring bags with the sheeps and llamas batiked on and my etsy shop name!!!! Is that brilliant?? I can get the bags for not too much and then they can be used to hang spinning tools/supplies on a wheel or as a little project bag!
If you are actually reading this, please comment or something with feedback.
🙂
Nadine took some photos.
The guy on the left is my husband.
The heavy fighting & ladies’ gallery.
So, over the last week I washed up some rambo/cormo and a little sample of targhee. Carded a bagful of the turmeric-dyed suffolk. Spindle spun some of the turmeric-over-dyed blue lagoon superwash. Just put some more coopworth in to soak.
Found out that my older kitty is diabetic (peeing everywhere and meowing at me and I took him to the vet and his blood sugar was ridiculously high). So, now we have glypizide pills to give him twice a day (ask me how funny it was that I haven’t given pills to a cat in 20 years and he didn’t want to take it) and give him a lower carb diet. He doesn’t like the diabetic canned catfood and doesn’t really seem to like the diabetic kibble. Dr. Laura (Fulks) says that any canned food is better than any kibble, so I’m having a little bit better luck with Aldi canned cat food. But, here I am, heating up a tablespoonful of stinky cat food in my microwave so it will be more appealing to him and he is incredibly picky AND I’m supposed to get him to eat nearly 3 cans a DAY because he weighs almost 20 lbs and if he loses weight too fast it can result in liver failure. ugh. If I mix in the diabetic food, he doesn’t like it. If I give him the non-fish flavors, he doesn’t seem to like it (and a couple of online places say that the fish flavors are not so good for cats–they deplete some B vitamin, sheesh!). I”m considering trying a meat diet for him, but then I will have to add kelp and eggshells and stuff or buy whole/ground-up rabbit meat or something and I hate the idea of DOING that and having him still not eat it.
I am also working on a sweater for a Guild baby shower! 🙂 The hooded sweater that I “always” make, although I always make modifications to it (and I will have to re-type those from my hard copy, because the file was lost with my old hard drive). The “original” sweater is here at Bev’s Country Cottage, Fran’s Hooded Baby Sweater.
The Canton of Gleann Iaruinn in conjunction with Shawnee State University’s
S.W.O.R.D. student group are once again hosting a Schola on the campus of
Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio on April 11th beginning at 9am
and lasting until about 6-8pm depending on class volume. We are calling all
teachers interested in teaching classes to both SCAdians and the mundane
peoples of the student body that wish to attend. Enterance fees are $5 per
person, $3 for SCAdians, or $10 per family ($15 per non-SCA family). Our
website will be up this Thursday and we’ll have more information there. All
teachers and their families get in free!
Food can be purchased at the price of $6.50 for a lunch buffet and $8.50 for
dinner buffet. We’re working on getting this price down, so keep a look out
for changes.
We are in desperate need of teachers willing to make the trek to Southern
Ohio. We need children’s classes, music, sewing, dancing, cooking, A&S,
Fighting…. .anything you can think of.
This event is open to the general public as an outreach project to help
increase both the numbers of the local SCA groups as well as the student
group, so there will be those not dressed up in the various classes.
Finally, if you would like to sell anything, merchant areas are free. The
more the merrier.
Get the word out, as well. If you know of anyone interested in teaching
their newest studies or looking to attend a laid-back event, please let them
know so that they may join us in a fun day full of events.
A brief description of available teaching spaces:
Shawnee State University <http://shawnee. edu> is a small state university
situated on the Ohio River at the crossroads of Rt. 23 and Rt. 52. The
campus currently has layers of construction going on in an attempt to expand
quickly to meet the growing needs of the local student population. SSU has
a student body of about 4,000 in a town of about 20,000 people.
We have three fields for combat or outdoor activities, a dance hall (with
hardwood floor), over a dozen classrooms including those designed for
chemistry experiments) , a planetarium, and several open halls. If your
needs require a special room or area for your activities, please let us know
that we may work to accommodate you.
Thank you all for your time and consideration,
Lord Arthur of Gleann Iaruinn
Yay! Mitzi has scheduled our retreat!!! April 3-4 at Asbury Woods (Salt Rock?, WV). Goodie bags for the first 30 people who sign up. Details to follow.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rivercitiesfibergroup/
If you live around here and want in on this, check out the yahoo group for more info about our Guild in general and also to sign up for the retreat. This year the theme is Fiber Fiesta again, which is good because nearly everyone likes Mexican-type food, which we made our main theme last year. Lots of chips and make your own burritos/tacos/rice. And treats like cake. Of course.
Last year I had so much fun! We had a ton of yummy food and even more yummy fiber goodies. Stayed up late Friday spinning (seriously, I have to get up and stretch more often this time) and eating and we had door prizes and lots of good fellowship. Been in negotiations with DH about going–he doesn’t mind, but April is iffy with Blackstone Raids and the Yeager Scholars trip… I started reading Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat to my kids tonight and the girl’s parents are never home. My younger son kept saying how awful that was and how he knows that I would rather be with them than away on vacation for 5 weeks. That is true, I said, but I am going to take TWO days and go about 12 miles away for this Fiber retreat next month and you will stay with Daddy and you’ll be fine. He’ll spoil you for the weekend.
I told Mitzi I’d donate a batik t-shirt. I’ll bring my basketful of “stock” and the recipient can chose one so they can get the right color/animal/size.
A friend of mine (Aimee) bought me a Shetland fleece (greys & browns, she said, I haven’t seen it yet) at a fiber retreat on Saturday (Hawk’s Nest, Fiber Network). This morning I washed up the last I had in a box from handsandnotions etsy shop–rambo/cormo with a little “free sample” of Targhee. I LOVE the targhee so far (and it isn’t even dry yet)–I might need to see if I can get more of it.
And I started on the process for the Sunny batik shirts. I painted/dyed the yellow parts on two kids white shirts and used the blue glue to outline the sun on a yellow shirt. When the dye and glue are dry, I will (soy)wax over the suns and dye the shirts in a bath–haven’t decided black or cobalt blue, yet. Whichever one will also be the color for the special order llama shirt I’m doing. She couldn’t decide which color. I’m leaning toward the black/dark grey…but haven’t definitely decided.
There was an article in the Ashland Independent about our Guild, too.
http://www.dailyindependent.com/Lifestyles/local_story_065115820.html?keyword=topstory
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