Girl on the Rocks

formerly known as Knit This… Knitting, spinning, crafting - it’s all here.

 

Stuff for me. March 6, 2007

Filed under: Spinning and Dyeing, non-knitting related — karrie @ 12:12 am

I have been throwing a bump of roving into the dye pot at a rate of about one a day, just to get some stuff dyed. I had the intention of putting it in my etsy shop, but I like them so much I think I will be keeping them.

The bottom one is inspired by dandelions. I am thinking of submitting it to the Yarn Museum Flora gallery if I get it spun in time.

Even though I have deprived you of the opportunity to shop for roving, if you really want to do some shopping, I have somewhere to send you. Threadless.
Hurry over there cause they are having a $10 sale.

You might like this sheepy one:

f(x)=sheep(x) m - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

and my nerdy friends might like this one:
We Are Made of Carbon - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever
I like the subtle use of a unicorn…

And my students should like this one:

Planetary Status - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

It would have helped them identify the 8 planets in the solar system for their midterm exam. Yes, college students in a class called “the Planets” missed that question.

Related posts

 
 

How artsy of me! February 20, 2007

Filed under: Spinning and Dyeing — karrie @ 2:52 pm

I dyed some rovings and put them up in the shop.

They are all about 4 ounces of a super-soft Australian merino roving (21.5 micron), and all were kettle-dyed in my crock-pot. I think that the crock pot method makes the best color blends, and it requires no skill or attention at all.
And much to my surprise, the color schemes for two of these rovings were actually inspired…

and
.
I hope you can guess how they should match up!
i also made some crafty-styled etsy love buttons.

Remember, if you buy something, be sure to mention that you read my blog and I’ll throw in some extras.

Related posts

 
 

Major shop update January 10, 2007

Filed under: Crafty — karrie @ 11:07 pm

I am in the middle of a major update to my etsy shop in preparation for my debut in the etsy showcase tomorrow. *edit: I am an idiot. My Showcase dates don’t start until Friday* If you would like to be informed of updates to my shop and be privy to special offers, sign up for my mailing list.

The big ticket item in my shop right now is my Atari 2600 themed altoid tin.

complete with silver beads for levers and wood grain interior

I am wickedly proud of it. The price is steep, but there was just too much hand stitching in there…. There is also a tin just for SF Bay area commuters.

The button-maker (named Stampy) was put to work making treats for knitters

and moustache lovers.

There is also some roving and yarn, but I have been having a heck of a time trying to get good photos of it. Here are just a few:


I don’t know if I will be able to let this one go

see anything you like? If you buy anything leave a comment saying you are one of my blog readers and I will throw in something special for you.

Related posts

 
 

Can I be emotionally abused by a yarn company? May 15, 2006

Filed under: Tales of Knitting — karrie @ 9:43 am

I believe it was because of Tina over at Purls Gone Wild that I first heard of Handpaintedyarn.com . It was love at first visit. I love the kettle-dyed colors (variegated yarn is my favorite), and the prices seemed pretty reasonable. i bought enough merino for a top-down raglan (which, by the way has 1.5 more arms on it than when that picture was taken) and fell in yarn-love with it. Then…. tragedy struck. Something about the brothers that run the place splittign it up into two companies, one that would cater to retail stores…. Malabrigio was born, and it got custody of all of the merino. I suspected as much, after seeing that beautiful merino for twice the price on the Webs page. Even though it has been a year since this happened, the Handpaintedyarn.com page claims

We have run out of our Merino worsted weight. You can try at your preferred yarn store, we will make it available in our site as soon as we can.

No you aren’t. You aren’t trying at all! Don’t string people along like that!

What could I have done to prepare for this tragedy? All I can figure is that I should have stockpiled more yarn…

This incident has placed a little bit of fear into my brain every time i get yarn from the,. If i order something and i end up liking it (like the Ejido that i made a sweater out of) i immediately order some more - you know, because it might disappear.

I tried a little bit of their roving and then immediately ordered more for fear it would be discontinued.

Don’t get me wrong, all of their stuff is nice and I have never been disappointed - i just don’t like to shop in fear.

Here is where it gets sad. They have done it again. The superbulky has disappeared from their site. I first took notice of the yarn because Abby made such nice hats out of it… And Carmen took to it immediately - churning out a whole pyramid of hats.

hats

(aren’t they cute? Let’s bother Abby until she puts that pattern up on the internet). And then they took it away. From a newbie knitter!! Since both Abby and Carmen have had a go at it, i guess i will tell you that the ebay identity “Sanfelipeysantiago” is in fact handpainted yarn, and they were recently dumping all the reat of the superbulky there. I like you guys (my ten loyal readers) but I couldn’t tell you sooner because i didn’t want you bidding against those gals.

So overall the lesson here is that though we love handpaintedyarn.com for their great yarn and reasonable prices, they totally have us by our balls (of yarn). we have to abandon yarn diets and budgets to get more than we need of something we like because it could go away at any time.

Related posts

 
 

What’s Cooking? January 17, 2005

Filed under: Karrie's Current Projects, Spinning and Dyeing — karrie @ 4:51 pm

Why,
it’s some roving!! This summer at the El Cerrito city wide garage sale i picked
up a crock pot for $1 in anticipation of using it for a dye pot - and today was
the day! I was so sick at looking at sheep-colored yarn, so this weekend i
picked up some gray, brown and black dyes. Before i put this roving in, I dyed
some yarn that i had spun




Man, I really like it. I am interested to
compare the dyed yarn with yarn made from dyed
roving.

I also kool-aid dyed some of
the first “yarn” that I made, and i think i might make a hat out of
it.



I also tried to Navajo-ply after
watching a little video on the target="NewWindow">Joy of Hand Spinning webpage. It kinda worked.
It was certainly fun. This is what turned
out:



Tomorrow is my last night at
spinning class… how will i spin after that?? why with my new Lendrum
spinning wheel!



I got it yesterday at Carolina
Homespun
. That is a really great place, and i am so happy that they
had this wheel in stock. It certainly has everything that a knitter and a
spinner could want. Gen, Cheryl and I went, and we each left with a
wheel and a ton of beautiful fibers. So far it works like a dream. I got the
jumbo-ply head, but i haven’t yet tried it.
 

Related posts