Cold Weather No More?

I've been closely keeping a eye on the weather in Baton Rouge.  It's supposed to go up to 90 degrees there today, and that makes me nervous.  Why?  Not so much because I'm not really a hot weather person (though I'm not), but rather, because of the implications for my knitting.

Every knitter in a cold weather zone knows that fall is knitting season.  I start getting excited about knitting every July 4, when I bust out my poolside knitting for my family's annual Fourth of July picnic.  What follows is a rapid slide into sweater season... by the end of October, I've usually gotten at least one sweater and a couple of fun accessories off the needles.  By the time the really frigid weather comes in January and February, I'm more than prepared.  Knitting is not only fun, but practical, and a great skill to know in the face of the inevitable zombie apocalypse (or most other apocalypses that don't involve a plunge into extreme heat, I guess.)

So what does one knit in a town where it never snows and that boasts that the weather is warm all year long?  I guess I'll have to learn, because I know people who knit down south, and I've already located two yarn shops and at least one knitting group in Baton Rouge.  In the meantime, I've been knitting here in Pennsylvania, and have more or less tried to strike a balance with early fall accessories and lightweight sweater patterns.  We'll see how they go over in the Red Stick.  Here are a few that I've finished recently:

The Ireth Carnesîr Capelet

I may have mentioned the Ireth Carnesîr Capelet in an earlier blog post; either way, I know I mentioned designer The Jane Victoria earlier this fall.  This pattern was at the top of my knitting queue this season, and I knit it in Madeline Tosh Vintage, in the colorway "Kale," which is an awesome brownish plum color that I've been admiring since I first saw it in person last summer in Boston.  I accented the finished garment with handmade stamped muslin ribbon from my friend Alura (VampireGothChick) of Moonspell Crafts on Etsy - I'm kind of addicted to her hand-stamped ribbons and to her shop in general.

Lúthien Ar-Feiniel Opera-Length Fingerless Gloves

The Lúthien Ar-Feiniel Opera-Length Fingerless Gloves are another pattern from The Jane Victoria, and appeared on my Fall Fashion Wishlist earlier this fall.  I did these in Tosh Vintage as well.  The colorway was "Antique Lace," and once again, I finished the project with Alura's hand stamped ribbon.

Rippled

"Rippled" is a new pattern from Laura Nelkin that caught my eye right away.  It's a super quick knit that you can do in an evening, and she makes it even easier by making kits available in a couple of different colors.  I decided to try one out, and I must say that it was well worth the money.  The yarn was top quality, the color was great, and the kit came with all of the coordinating beads (the pattern requires two different types.)  The pattern is also available separately through Ravelry.  I enjoyed this little project so much that I may order a second kit in black.

So, which of these projects are going to fly in the deep south?  The necklace should be ok, but I hope I'm not resigning myself to a life of nothing but knitted jewelry.  I'm pretty sure the capelet will be useful temperature-wise, perhaps even more so that in the northeast, where it tends to get too cold for such things as soon as fall rolls around.  But will the style be too "cold weather" to wear in BR?  The gloves I'm simply not sure about... they're arm length and worsted weight, and might just be too warm for my new digs.

I guess I'll find out soon enough... as of next Sunday, I'll officially be a resident of Louisiana.  Life is such an adventure, LOL, right down to the potential overhaul of my knitting agenda.

My Fall Fashion Wishlist

Want to know what I'm eyeing up for fall? Well, maybe it's all the time I've spent with the Time Travelers Team this summer, but I'm really feeling anything with a bit of a steampunk edge. I'm looking at browns, reds, gold, brass and copper. I'm also knitting up a couple pairs of fingerless mitts with a Neo-Victorian feel and vintage embellishments, and I've ordered a few gothy accessories in basic black from some of my favorite Etsy sellers.

Here's a peak at some of the things that I've bought or am planning to buy for fall.



I want to highlight some particularly amazing shops that are included in this list; I LOVE shopping, and when I find a brand I like, I tend to be an extremely loyal customer. First, let me draw your attention to two outstanding knitwear designers: NeuroticKnitterz and The Jane Victoria. Both have patterns readily available in PDF format in their Etsy shop (I LOVE PDF patterns because they offer an immediate solution to the knitter's syndrome commonly known as "startitis.") NeuroticKnitterz seems to draw inspiration from a variety of sources, and I've already purchased a few of her patterns. I'm planning to knit her Last of the Sky Pirates mitts later this fall in a fabulous brown sock yarn, and I've already ordered the antique buttons to go with them. The Jane Victoria has a distinctly Neo-Victorian aesthetic that can be made goth or steampunk depending on the knitter's choice of colors. I am currently knitting her Lúthien Ar-Feiniel Opera-Length Fingerless Gloves out of Madeline Tosh Vintage in the colorway "Antique Lace." I must say that I am enjoying the pattern immensely... it moves quickly, is easy to follow and memorize, and looks amazing. My experience with the designer is that she is very helpful and quick to respond to questions about her patterns, so I would highly recommend any of them, even if you think they might be a challenge.

For those without an inclination toward the fiber arts, check out ScarletRabbit for ready-made crocheted accessories that will fit into your steampunk, goth, or chic urban wardrobe. I recently purchased a large collar and matching wristlets for early fall, and I was blown away by the quality and craftsmanship of the items. This is another designer whom I highly recommend.

Finally, I have included two absolutely outstanding perfume designers on my Fall Fashion Wishlist: Catrianna of Deep Midnight Bathery, and Sara of Sarawen Perfume Art. I've recently begun wearing more natural perfume oils and fewer commercial products, and have become seriously addicted to both of these gals' fragrances. I now own two from Sara and three from Cat, not to mention the 17 sample vials I have floating around. Of course, it's hard to describe fragrance in a blog post, especially when you don't know jack about perfume design to begin with. However, I find that Sara's fragrances are deep and rich with a few clearly recognizable notes, while Cat's are complex, with subtleties that will make you think "what IS that unusual smell?" as the perfume dries and changes throughout the day. Of course, the best way to check out any fragrance is by sampling it; luckily, both of these ladies offer sample vials in their shops. I would highly recommend going and getting lost in their stores... their photos and descriptions will have you dying to sample every one of their creations!

Oh, glorious shopping. Don't you just love it? I have really enjoyed writing up this post, and I hope you've enjoyed it too. We all know that fall is the best season for fashion and for changing up your wardrobe... I hope you've enjoyed my recommendations, and I'd love to hear some of yours as well!

Adventures in Spinning: A Tale of Steampunk Yarn

Custom spinning... talk about pressure!  Someone has made a special request and is anxiously awaiting a beautiful, perfect skein of soft yarn spun precisely to their specifications.  Your creative freedom depends upon the extent to which they've decided to relinquish control over the design.  And then there's the giving away part... assuming you do attain perfection, you immediately have to package up your work of soft, fluffy art and ship it off into the great beyond.

I recently had the privilege of spinning for Boston-based jewelry designer and animal activist Claudia Bruno, who has become a great friend and mentor to me when it comes to jewelry design and metal collage.  Claudia and I hit on the idea of a steampunk art yarn while chatting on Etsy, and we both got really excited about the idea.  For me, the idea of spinning a steampunk yarn was fascinating, because it would involve spinning in hardware - Claudia and I discussed gears, watch parts, brass jewelry findings, and even pieces of barbed wire.  While I'd worked with a variety of different spin-ins in the past and thought I could use the same techniques, I knew that it would be a challenge to find exactly the right pieces of hardware that wouldn't be too heavy and that would fit through all of the orifices and hooks on my spinning wheel, but that would still give the yarn the beautiful steampunk look that we were trying to achieve.

I was lucky in that Claudia gave me almost one hundred percent creative freedom over the project.  The only things that we really decided on up front were that the yarn would be some shade of brown, with gold or bronze angelina sparkle, and that she would pick out the spin-ins from her own stash and mail them to me.  The first thing I did was search Etsy for the perfect spinning fiber, and I found it pretty quickly in a batt called "Sepia," from Unwind Yarn Company.  A little while after I received the fiber, a big bag of gears, beads, watch hands, and brass roses arrived in the mail.  Joy!  Only another spinner can imagine the excitement I felt when I looked at that stuff and pictured it in a skein of yarn.  A couple of weeks later, those gears and roses and watch hands and fiber had been transformed into a huge skein of remarkably plush and squishy steampunk yarn!

As for the process...

The first thing I did (after weeding out any pieces that wouldn't fit through the plying head of my spinning wheel) was to pull off small strips of fiber (about 1/2 thick and 3 inches long) and thread them through the metal pieces that had larger holes, such as the gears (you can see one of those in the picture above) and the watch hands (pictured below.)

I then spun a super bulky weight, thick and thin single, feathering in the strips of fiber with the metal pieces attached.  I spun this directly onto the plying head of my Lendrum DT, because the orifice and hooks are considerably bigger than on the regular one.

Once I had my single, I wound it off so that I could use the bobbin a second time, and then I used gold metallic sewing thread and threaded all of the smaller pieces (that is, the brass roses and very small brass beads) onto that.  I thread plied this with the single, allowing the occasional beehive to form, and not worrying too much about uniformity (this is art yarn, after all.)

The result was, in my opinion, spectacular.  Not to praise myself too much, but the results far exceeded my expectations when it came to this yarn.  I have to admit that there was a part of me that was afraid that this project would turn out to be a massacre... that the metal parts would be too heavy, or the thread plying would go haywire, and I would have to Claudia that I had ruined her yarn.  In the end, however, it was a wonderful challenge and a joy to spin.

I am so glad that I took on this project, and that Claudia allowed me the privilege of spinning for her.  I will definitely be working with watch hands again - in fact, I already have some on special order - and I'm still very much intrigued by the idea of that barbed wire...

So, our tale of steampunk yarn ends with success and the yarn's safe arrival in Boston.  Until next time...

Time Enough For Love

In my last post, I left you with a treasury created by a fellow Etsy seller. In this post, I will leave you with one made by me.

I recently joined the STATTEAM (Self Taught Artists Treasury Team) on Etsy, and like many of the teams there, they host a weekly treasury challenge every Saturday. I had never done one of these challenges before (though I've created many a treasury), so I decided to try it out.

The treasury had to meet certain requirements - namely, it had to include listings from a specific number of team members, including two featured artists, and it had to be centered around the inspirational word of the week. This week, that word was "time." Easy peasy for a Time Traveler, right? (I'll probably be talking a LOT about the Time Travelers Team on this blog, so stay tuned.)

The requirements made it a little hard to remain cohesive, but I'm pretty happy with how my treasury came out. I settled on the title, "Time Enough for Love," based upon the classic science fiction novel of the same name, by Robert A. Heinlein. I got to pull in all kinds of vibrant colors, lots of hearts, and a lot of clocks and other steampunky goodness. Let me know what you think... but more importantly, visit the treasury, comment on it, favorite it, click on a few items, whatever... the more people who do that, the better my chances are of being a finalist in the treasury challenge!