Jim & Pam, inspired by The Office

Ok, all you patient would-be yarn-namers!

I pulled out my big list of yarns to spin and decided which one of the many (many!) suggestions I would use!
The first winning entries are:

If you are either one of these winners, please email me at blondechickenboutiqueATyahooDOTcom and I’ll give you a code for 25% off your next purchase from the shop!
I’m going to pull out my dypot tonight and get going with these colors and will probably be putting them in the shop next week! I’ll let you know when I do!
Now, the contest isn’t over, because I still need some more ideas! Please read the other suggestions first and then leave me a new suggestion in the comments to this post!

When I first started looking for sustainable and responsible fibers to spin, dye and knit with, I mostly focused on organic cotton and recycled materials (mill-ends, recycled sari silk, etc). As the world has become more ‘green’-minded, I find it’s easier and easier to find organic wool and natural-grown cotton. What it’s not so easy to find, is proof that this is sustainable or assurances that these products really are the best I can do. The more I’ve learned, I’ve begun to redefine what I consider ‘sustainable and responsible’. Reading Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral impacted my thinking on supporting the local agricultural economy (and I’m blessed to live in an agrarian area). So, too, did learning that very few people in this area grow sheep for wool, due to its low market value and local alpaca farmers can get more for their crop if they send it to South America to be spun and knit. This excess transportation (fuel) and energy and the fact that the area is losing the community that is built around supplying each other with what we need, has honed my focus on finding local suppliers of fibers. I will still buy mill-ends, recycled fibers (like bamboo and soy) and other things I can’t get locally. But what I can buy here, I will.

It was with this commitment that I sent emails to 10 Tennessean (and a few from VA and NC, since I live near the border) fiber farmers. The first I heard back from were Chuck and Nancy from Silver Thunder Alpacas. Jay and I scheduled a visit for a Saturday afternoon. The drive to the farm was beautiful and the alpacas themselves were more than we could have hoped. Nancy and Chuck entertained all of our (even silly) questions. In the two hours we were at the farm, we learned more about the industry and care and lifestyle of alpacas then we could have imagined. We petted the alpacas, hugged the ones that would let us and gushed over the fantastic guard dogs.

Afterwards I purchased some brown roving and later spun into this week’s Ross & Rachel yarn.

I have a lot more photos of the farm, and hope to share more as I get to know these and other local farmers better.

(a yarn inspired by a TV show)

I’ve spent a lot of time in bookstores and watching movies the past week (yay, long weekend!) so today is going to be all about book and movie inspiration:

I lovelovelove Juno: the handwritten titles are so beautiful and the music is so vulnerable and sweet. I buy very little music (more about that in a minute) but I very nearly might buy the soundtrack.

We watched Paris, Je t’aime last night and it was just I had hoped: small, quirky stories that were neither too emotional or sappy.

I’m particularly loving the book about creativity that I’m reading: The grace of great things : creativity and innovation, by Robert Grudin.

How to Make Books (got a great review on Supernaturale), such thorough instructions in a great tone

This month’s Fiber Arts and Selvedge both had articles about sustainability in textiles and gorgeous pictures.

Oh,and why I don’t buy much music (other than a small budget): there are some very good podcasts that have free music:

All Song’s Considered
Song of the Day

I also listed to Itunes radio nearly all day at work (my favorite channel, under Eclectic: Radio Deliro)

If you’re here for the contest, scroll down – I’m still taking entries!
Wow! You people are really creative, I’ve got a great list of possible yarns to dye! In case you’re wondering when you’ll find out if your a winner…well, I don’t know. I’ll decide on which of your ideas I want to use next time I dye and since I already have enough fiber dyed for next week’s batch of yarn, it’ll probably be mid-week, next week. Then again, this is a long weekend for me (MLK Day!) so I might just pull out the dyepot soon! When I do start using your ideas, I’ll post it here, so be watching this space! I’ll also attempt to contact you, but most comments just link to other blogs and if your email address isn’t obvious, I don’t know how else to get a hold of you.

This Fiber Friday I want to share some of the couples I’ve already come up with, along with a sneak peak of what’s next:

Lucy and Ricky (available here)
Johnny and June (listed here)

Coming next week:
Homer and Marge

piles of wool, for a few early-90’s era couples

While brainstorming color ideas for new skeins, Hub and I started talking about being inspired by people and how some people just have a color associated with their personality or that in some way symbolizes them. This led to discussing if being part of a couple changes one’s color and soon we generated a list of famous couples (romantic or platonic; real people, characters in pop culture, etc) along with their colors.
In celebration of Valentine’s Day and inspired by couples the world over, I’ve been spinning this couple-inspired yarn. We’re calling this the Month Of Love series, at the end of it, I’ll have exhaustively explored the connection between personalities and color. For the next month, starting tomorrow, January 16 through V-day, February 14, I’ll be posting 1 new yarn/weekday.

However, my imagination (and my knowledge of pop culture) in limited and I need a few more couple-ideas to spin and/or dye. I think a contest is in order!

Contest Instructions:
Please leave a comment (to this post) with a couple (romantic or platonic, real or imagined) AND what colors you believe symbolize them. If I choose your couple, you will receive 25% off ANY 1 skein currently available in the shop. I’m having the entries left in the comments so that I don’t get duplicates, so be sure you’re posting a couple NOT already in the shop and NOT already mentioned by a previous commenter. There may be more than 1 winner, as I’ll probably choose more than 1 couple from the suggestions. Each commenter is limited to 1 suggestion, so make it a good one!

She sure did, read about how to get press in her business article for Venus Zine.
Thanks Jenny!

I first met Maple of North Star Alpacas through Yetsy, the yarn-centric Etsy Street Team. I was immediately smitten with the pictures of her alpacas; they accompany every listing, which really connects the fiber artist with the fiber producer!
Last week, running low on fiber, I contacted Maple to ask a few questions about her fibers. BCB is committed to using only eco-friendly, animal-friendly fibers and finding suppliers that fit the bill is a challenge. Some possible suppliers don’t respond to my questions or respond defensively (although I really try to ask the questions as un-judgmentally as possible!). I was thrilled when Maple answered me honestly and completely, so I thought I’d share a bit of her response,:

We just do the best that we can to take care of our little piece of the world. I’m probably more concerned about being animal-friendly…I think that all the farmers that I know are environmentally conscious because we value and want to take care of our land.

Well, I immediately bought a natural gray blend of alpaca roving. The deal was sealed when I realized one of the alpacas name was Weatherby, my maiden name!
PS. See that bit of pink? She threw that in for free, along with two cards with the alpacas pictured on it! That’s what I call customer service! Check out her blog for regular tutorials/tips on dyeing!

TIF Tuesday is a weekly series in response to Sharon’s Take it Further Challenge. January’s challenge is to create a design using the concept “Someone you admire” as the theme.

When I read this month’s challenge, my mind immediately started racing. I spend a good amount of time each week being inspired by other artists through their blogs and flickr; although I don’t know these people, I certainly admire their work. For some, it’s the art that I admire; for others, it’s their aesthetic or their boldness or their business sense. I also admire the real-life artists, crafters and business people I know. I didn’t consider narrowing it down to just one person, until I looked at the flickr group and saw that most people were creating something to honor 1 person they admired. This surprised me, but I decided to go with my gut reaction to the challenge.

So how do I create something conceptualizing a group of people I admire? I decided to explore what characteristics I admire and instead of symbolizing those traits, I would actually act on them.

Through my journaling, I realized what I admire is the chutzpah to say “Hello world, I’m an artist. This is what I felt like making, so I made it.” To really claim the beauty and express it through one’s unique view, to put one’s stake down without fear or doubt. To acknowledge and explore what’s rattling around inside and then legitimize it with action.

Whew, that’s a lot of inner searching and discover. Enough for one week!

Next week: what project can I apply this concept to?

This week I’ve been nearly obsessed by patchwork and fabric dyeing. I can feel myself being sucked into new crafty pursuits!

• Lisa Cogden’s quilty pillows. I especially love her use of patches; we have a lot of band patches laying around and I’d love to work them into something we can see everyday.
• 6.5 stitches is another quilter that uses little unexpected touches like tags and untraditional textures.
• Stitch in Dye is so inspiring, I woke up on Saturday thinking about the use of color and line in her fabric and quilts.
• My (so far just theoretical) foray into patchwork has turned up a bunch of great fabrics like:
• The Echino Woodland Damask
• Amy Butler’s Belle collection
• And my favorites are the handmade fabrics from indie sellers:

Sprout Designs
Auntie Cookie
Kristen Doran
Hollabee

What am I going to do with all this inspiration? I’ve been spending a good amount of time absorbing ‘input’ and I almost feel ready for some ‘output’ of the quilty variety. Wait and see.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a few a weeks, bringing Fiber Friday to the blog!
Each week I’ll either be featuring one of my new yarns or someone else’s that has a good story. Many fiber-y things are posted and Fridays tagged “fiberfriday”, so go over and have a look!

This week I am smitten with First Flurries (the yarn seen in the above banner). I’ve often thought that snow piles look as soft and billowy as piles of yarn and I finally acted on that inspiration!
It very rarely snows here in East Tenessee. Well, it snows on the mountains, just not here in town. Last week was the first snow and then this week has brought a good bit of it. Last year it only snowed one day, while my little brother from California was visiting. He was thrilled with it and tried to skateboard through it. I was thrilled to get this shot…I love that the snow blurs everything but him.

Last week during our first bit of snow, I pulled out all of my fluffy, undyed fibers along with a bit of gold recycled silk scraps and piled them up.
I considered the various fibers: wool, mohair locks (mill ends), gold recycled silk thrums (long strands), eco spun (made from recycled plastic bottles!) and silk hankies (squares of stretched silk fibers). I knew I ‘d want to hold the ecospun with wool, because it’s hard to spin by itself, as its just a ‘fluff’ of fibers and not long parellel fibers. The recycled silk fibers can get a bit whispy if they are plied with something more elastic. All of this helped me decide that one ply should be the non-wool fibers held with a bit of wool, spun a bit tighter, so they’d be secure. The other ply would be wool/mohair spun light and lofty for that soft, snuggly snow feel. The first ply was spun with sections of the different fibers, so that for a few yards it’s Ecospun, then silk, then recycled silk. There’s no repeating pattern and none of the fibers are throughout the yarn (except the wool). Plied together it makes for a yarn that should knit or crochet into a supersoft fabric that has small stripes of the various fibers.
This is my first time really writing about my spinning process and I wonder, does it make sense? Is it boring to non-spinners or do you like to see the process?