By Tara, on December 23rd, 2008%
Just a quick note to remind you that it’s not too late for gift certificates! You can get them until noon tomorrow, December 23rd! Once you purchase it, I’ll email you (within 6 hours) a personalized, printable gift certificate (it’s no extra cost if you’d like me to mail it, but obviously it won’t get to the recipient before Christmas!)
(an example of a gift certificate)
Even though I’ll be away from a lot of usual internet-y places (like the blog and flickr), the Boutique will continue as usual. In fact, I’ll be adding a bunch of new yarns, including a new color of Bananiere on Friday!
By Tara, on December 19th, 2008% All the goodness of Localspun yarn & fibers, straight to your mailbox! . . . → Read More: Introducing: LocalSpun Fiber and Yarn Club
By Tara, on December 15th, 2008% I’m a homebody. A real, honest-to-goodness, I-could-stay-inside-for-weeks type of homebody. I’ve built a home-friendly business (spinning and dyeing requires that I remain near my kitchen and couch!) and if it weren’t for the dayjob, I might never venture forth. Which is exactly why I insist on applying to crazy-huge, far-away craft shows.
They challenge me and stretch me and, yeah, force me out of the house. The last two weeks, nay, the last two months have been consumed with preparing for Urban Craft Uprising. I made more yarn than I ever thought possible, created a new “mini-series” (yarn with jingle bells! yarn with pompoms! Holiday Happiness!) and packed it all up and lugged it across the country. Once in Seattle, I met customers, vendors, authors! I explored, I rode busses and ferries and planes, I consumed hundreds of cups of coffee (if you’d like a coffee review, I kept embarrassingly . . . → Read More: Reentry and Recap – Seattle and Urban Craft Uprising
By Tara, on December 3rd, 2008% Are you a crafty soul in Seattle? If so, you simply must come to Urban Craft Uprising this weekend! I’m at booth 56 with loads of BCB yarn and Cloudlover’s roving!
Here’s some more info:
Over 100 vendors under one roof for one stop holiday shopping that will make you feel good about the holidays.
Date: Saturday, December 6th and Sunday, December 7th Time: 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. Where: Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Admission: Free!
What is Urban Craft Uprising? – A craft sale by indie designers and crafters throughout the day beginning at 11 a.m. – Swag bags will be handed out to the first 100 visitors each day with samplings from vendors and sponsors – so be sure to arrive early! Last year a line started before our vendors arrived! – DIY wrapping station- recycled materials to make your . . . → Read More: Attention Seattle Knitters: Urban Craft Uprising
By Tara, on November 26th, 2008% This Thanksgiving I’m so very grateful to you and to the entire fiber community. Last November, I sold a skein of handspun for the first time in the Boutique. That sale and the more than 200 that follow, pursuade me daily to pull out the dye pots or sit down at the wheel. This blog, the Boutique, but most of all, YOU have stretched me. I’ve been challenged, inspired and encouraged. You, darling reader, have pushed me to try things I never imagined or to step into a role I hadn’t dreamed of. Because of you, I’ve started making small videos, to visit fiber farms and to try carding my own fiber. For that, I am eternally grateful. A simple Thank You doesn’t seem like quite enough, so I hope you’ll enjoy the Thanksgiving Day Sale – 10% everything in the Boutique (even Gift Certificates!) from today through December . . . → Read More: Happy Thanksgiving!
By Tara, on November 19th, 2008% What does “eco-friendly yarn” mean? In the next few weeks I’ll explain the three main tenets of Blonde Chicken Boutique: Local, Sustainable and Recycled. . . . → Read More: Eco-Friendly Yarn: Local Fiber
By Tara, on November 17th, 2008% You know by now that I’m dedicated to only spinning and dyeing eco-friendly yarns for the Boutique. But what does “eco-friendly yarn” mean? In the next few weeks I’ll explain the three main tenets of Blonde Chicken Boutique: Local, Sustainable and Recycled. Living consciously is a journey and I’ll be sharing the books, websites and people who have informed my journey. Eco-friendly means different things for different people, but this is what it means for me and for Blonde Chicken Boutique.
Although all BCB yarn is eco-friendly, my first priority is always to find the most local fiber. Today I’ll cover the locavore lifestyle and tomorrow we’ll talk about what that means for yarn.
So, What’s a Locavore?“Locavore” refers to someone who is committed to eating locally: local veggies, local meat, local dairy. I’m blessed to live in a very agricultural area with a long growing season. For 9 months . . . → Read More: Eco-Friendly Yarn: What is a Locavore?
By Tara, on November 12th, 2008% As the holiday season approaches, I’m beginning to ponder the inevitable Christmas Gift List. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I always feel the pull of handknitting gifts for my very dearests. The trickiest people on that list are also the smallest.I have two, sweet little brothers, ages 8 and 9. Although adorable and irresistible they have one ginormous flaw: they have extremely specific ideas of what constitutes “cool” handknits. They love knowing I knit something for them, but they are very particular about what they’ll wear.
Here are just a few things I know they’d love:
Stegosaurus Hat Ok, this one is a cheat: I designed it two years ago as a Christmas gift. Actually, D helped me design it: he drew a picture of his ideal hat and this is how it turned out!
Fingerless gloves Both the boys want a set of fingerless gloves for recess. . . . → Read More: 6 free kntiting patterns for boys
By Tara, on November 11th, 2008% As the days get shorter and the opportunity for color fade into the brown of winter, I find it harder to become inspired. . . . → Read More: Finding Inspiration
By Tara, on November 3rd, 2008% Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the past few weeks, I’ve worked through and documented the process. You can read them all here. Today’s the last step: The Spinning.
Finally! The exciting part – turning fluff into yarn! Every time I’ve posted a video about the process of turning this fleece into yarn, I get the question, “But how do you SPIN it?”. Well, here’s the answer. In this video I show I how I spin one of the LocalSpun batts into a Local Spun Yarn:
The finished yarn looks like this, all soft and squooshy:
This yarn is Hilly Bourn and is available here. The name (and all of those in this line) are inspired by the John Keats’s poem “To Autumn”. I . . . → Read More: How to spin from a batt
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