Blonde Chicken Boutique » fiber

Today! In Portland!

Tara — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:42:11 +0000

The yarn and I will be hanging out, knitting and spinning at Twisted PDX today, from 5:30-8pm.

Join us and be among the first to see the new Stabby Packs

Learn to dye with Easter egg dyes!

Tara — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:56:50 +0000

A few months ago, I shot some videos on How to Dye with Easter egg dyes. At the time, it answered the most common question I got: How do you dye?

Since posting those videos, the questions have switched to “where can I get those dyes?” “Are THESE the right dyes?” I’ve always answered with a general “Well, this is where I get mine”, but when I got an email from someone in Japan who loved the videos, but couldn’t find the Easter egg dyes at a good price (they go for $4/box on eBay!), I knew I could provide the answer.

I was telling Jay about how exciting it was to send something so American to Japan.

He responded said “So why don’t you offer kits to EVERYone who didn’t stash 1000s of boxes at Easter time?”

Duh! (I’m going to promote him from “tech guy” to “Product Development” although it occurs to me now that this might have been a sneaky plot to “help” me part with my huge stash of Easter egg dyes!)

Quick as a lick, I put together everything you need to dye some fiber using a pack of East Egg dyes.

12 oz of fiber, already divided into the size you need for each tablet + pack of dyes + instructions!

You can find the Make Rainbows kit right here!

And you really lucked out, because the dyes I have the most of come 6 to a pack (last year I only found 5-packs) and they are HUGE. Each tablet dyes 2 oz of fiber!

Your resulting fiber will look something like this:

(of course, if you don’t want to try dyeing, you can find the already-dyed fiber right here)

Change of Pace

Tara — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:29:23 +0000

Monday night, spinning along and *snap*, one of my treadles falls to the ground.
I look down and see this:

Ack! I broke my wheel!

A quick question to Twitter and I soon learned that little broken part is called a conrod.

I ordered a replacement (and an extra!) within minutes but until it comes, my wheel is out of commission.

I was desolate. This week I’d scheduled many spinny hours. After being on vacation last week, I missed my spin-time!

But this could be good

While wondering what I could do to replace spinning, I realized this is the perfect opportunity to focus on making more fiber bundles. These bundles (I’m looking for a better name, any suggestions?) have all the fiber you need to spin one of my favorite yarns.

Like Daffodils:

Available here, it’s all the fiber to spin this:

I have a few more ideas up my sleeve that I’ll share this week but I’d like to hear from you.

What other yarn would you like to see a fiber bundle for? What color combinations do you love?

Time to have a yarn-y adventure!

Tara — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:00:03 +0000

Thank you, darlings, for all the kind notes about quitting my day job!

This whole yarn-thing is going to be a huge adventure and I want to bring you along!

I was thinking about exploring and summer adventures and I came up with an awesome way for us to do this together – a summer yarn/fiber club!

Each month I’ll send you a skein of yarn (or 4 oz of fiber) – and every month we’ll explore a different eco-friendly fiber!

To help us fully explore that fiber, I’ll send you an email with info on the actual fiber (how it’s harvested, where it comes from, what makes it eco-friendly), tips for working on it and (for the yarn clubs) patterns that suit the skein of yarn you got!

As a little make-sure-your-summer-crafting-is-stress-free-bonus, we can hook up for a 30 minute help session. We can do this over email, the phone, or whatever chat thingy you use (facebook, gmail, AOL, whatever!). You’ll just shoot me an email when you have an issue and we’ll schedule a time (within 2 days) to work on it.

I first told my VIP list about the Adventure Clubs yesterday and already 3 of the 10 filled up! Some of those adventuresome-members had questions about the club. Below are the questions and answers!

(Of course, if you’re ready to join the Adventure, you can find all the clubs here.)

What kind of project can I make of 100 yards yarn?
100 yards of bulky yarn is enough to make a scarf or hat. I actually have a list of possible patterns on my blog.
What do you mean by “30 minute help session with me”?
The help-session is just for those who want it – you can email me with any question you have – anything knitting or crochet or spinning (whether it’s related to my yarn or not) and we’ll either talk about it over email, or we can schedule a phone chat (the free service Skype would make the call free!)I used to do this at yarn stores – customers would come in with any tricky thing they had during the hours I was there and I would help them with it.I’ve been wondering how I could offer that online and this seemed like a good opportunity to test it out!
Do you want to ship to Europe?
I don’t mind shipping overseas at all! You can see the shipping price at the bottom of the listing (and that price covers ALL of the packages for the entire length of the club)
What weight is the yarn that I’ll receive?
Every month will be different, because they’ll each be a different material. In general, though, my yarn is worsted or heavier.
I love bright colors. Is that a problem?
Bright colors are my specialty! You tell me what color you want and every skein will be in that same range (different materials take the dye differently, so there will be some variation, but they will definitely all go together!)If you really want to be adventurous, then each month you can get a different, surprise color!
Can you help me with possible patterns for the yarns I receive from you?
By the 15th of each month, you’ll receive an email that includes information about the fiber, some pattern ideas (including direct links to patterns that will work!) and how to best work with it. You also might want to make one bigger project using all the yarns together, so I’ll give some ideas for that, too!And here’s a little secret – I really want to make these monthly updates videos! If I can figure out the tech side of it, you’ll get a short little message from me, just talking about the fiber! Either way you’ll always get a written explanation that you can refer to when you don’t feel like watching the whole video!
I would be interested in a friend and I doing it together.
Awesomesauce! I think this would be super-fun to do with a friend! If you want to buy more than one club at once, just add it to your cart, then pick the number you want from the dropdown. If you want more than are available, drop me a note and I’ll list another (if the spots are still available).If you do buy more than one, just make sure to give me both addresses, so your friend gets theirs (or I can send them both to you…just let me know!)
What do you mean you have 7 spots left? Is that 7 months?
I mean that I can only handle 10 people in the club at month – to ensure maximum awesomeness. 3 spots have already sold, so there are 7 spots left for either the fiber or the yarn club.

Any questions I didn’t answer here? Just leave them below email me!!

LocalSpun – Fleece Transformation

Tara — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:41:41 +0000

The LocalSpun series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker.

Remember these shy little Jacob’s from Rammings Farm?

Well, I bought one of their fleeces, brought it home and stretched it out on an old clean sheet in the middle of my living room (too cold outside!)

I was pretty amazed at how clean this fleece felt. Unlike the Coopworth, it wasn’t greasy at all ! In fact, it didn’t seem to have any lanolin! Since it didn’t feel sticky, I decided to test out washing it in just water and salt – no soap!

I split up the fleece into 3 different pots for washing. The pots were filled up with water and placed on the stove (I’d do this in my washer, but it’s only hooked up to cold water).

After an hour of stewing (medium low heat), I turned off the heat and let them cool and soak for another 3 hours. After that, I dumped the water, refilled the pots with water, added 1/2 cup of salt and brought up the heat again.

After the second washing the fleece was super clean with no visible dirt, so I laid 1/3 of it out for drying.

I took the other two pots, dumped the water, refilled it with clean water and some dye.

1 pot was dyed this minty green, the other was hot pink.

This is my first time working with a spotted fleece, so I wanted to try all of the possible combination of colors. First I carded JUST the green, then slowly mixed in some black and then I carded just the black. My favorite combination is both the white (or dyed) and black in equal bits – it provides a lovely heathered effect!

I really loved working with this fiber, it is SO chushy and squooshy and SOFT.

If you want to get your hands on these batts, you can find it in the shop today!

Want to learn more about the Jacob sheep breed? Check out the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association.

What’s your experience with Jacob? Did you love it? What did you make with it?

Ask a Spinner – When do you Spin?

Tara — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:49:41 +0000

A little departure from the weekly “Ask Tara”, this week I asked a few spinners what their Spin-Life is like. I’m delighted by the variety of places and ways people spin!

Last week we talked about fiber studios and today we’ll talk about when and where they actually sit at their wheel.

(me at the wheel)

These are our spinners:

Liz of Hobbledehoy
Esther of JazzyTurtle
Velma of ColorBOMB Creations
Rachel-Marie of KnittyDirtyGirl
Lacey of In A Circle of Fog
Erin of Wooly Hands
Mia of Knit and Play with Fire

When do you usually spin?

Liz:

I can card for about 5 hours straight at a time- that’s about 16-20 sets of batts. When I spin, I usually start in the morning and end around dinner time (6pm). I can usually spin 6-8 yarns during that time if I’ve already carded the fiber or picked out colors for self-stripers.

I spin on my couch most of the time. I rarely spin in my studio space, because it’s really shut-off feeling. My husband and I splurged on a 56″ tv a couple of years ago so that we could work from home in a “theater” like space- it’s pretty cool! We’ve got a Pat Green triple-drum supercard on its way mid-march to early april, and he’ll take over a shift of batt work each day with it.

Esther:

I will spin for hours at a time. If I’m not at the spa doing massage, or carding in my studio- I’m spinning. At least 20- 30 hours a week, depending on my client schedule. If I have a long break between clients, I bring my wheel to the spa and spin there-I had a joy and I just got a new lendrum this weekend.

Velma:

Spinning generally takes place in this main room; during the day I spin next to a window for natural light, and in the evenings I spin in front of the TV. On days when we have nice weather, though, I generally spin outside, on the small deck in our backyard. I love doing that! That’s where I’ve filmed my 2 spinning videos, too.

As for spinning time, since I’m trying to make this a viable biz, I spend all day doing *something* related to COLORBOMB. It astounds me how many non-spinning skill-sets are required to have a spinning business. I usually get going between 8 and 10am, with email, convos, PMs, DMs, & every other possible form of online communication in the morning. When I blog, I usually do that in the morning, too. Shipping is next, if there is any, and I often take packages to the PO myself, riding my bike the 2 miles into town (we live in an auto-free household). When I do go into town, I take some time to ‘forage’ for materials for my Greenish(tm) products that use repurposed items, so I visit thrift stores, the recycling center, etc.

Spinning generally gets underway around lunchtime, continuing for a few hours & peppered with breaks to look stuff up, check messages on Etsy, Ravelry, Twitter, Flickr, email, etc. I tend to do fiber prep in the afternoons, for some reason. Oh, and photography; that takes an inordinate amount of time, and I prefer to do it in dribs and drabs as I get a yarn done. I try to list items in the evenings, as soon as I get decent photos. At night, I generally spin a few more hours. Most days are 10-12 hours, but I often take weekends off, or mostly off.
This is life at COLORBOMB Creations!

Rachel-Marie:

I spin in the studio, use my laptop everywhere… My studio is right next to my baby’s room so I just gate off the steps and he can play in my studio and his room while I work.

I used to do everything in the living room with my hubby (spin full time) but this works much better for me. He has his desk downstairs and I have my workspace upstairs, when we do spend time together it much better “quality”.

Anyway, I am sooo in love with all of our new space. All I can say is really take your time when planning a set up and system that works because once you get into your daily routine it’s hard to get out of. That’s why I am not letting myself spin in the living room at all here.

(I also get to spin at my part time yarn shop job http://lancasteryarnshop.com! So that’s really cool too!)

Lacey:

My daily routine is this:

Wake up, brew coffee- haha!
Dye about 8 ounces of fiber in a pot (one color a day). When all the dye has been absorbed, I turn off the stove and let it sit overnight to cool. Each morning I dump it into the sink for a cold rinse then hang to dry.
My drum carder is now permanently set up on the back half of my large table (back to back desks- not perfect but wonderfully spacious). Depending on my mood I card one or two hanks worth of fiber. This is usually 6 little batts per finished hank, equaling ~4 ounces.
Skein the yarn from the day before and soak to set the twist. -My least favorite part!
Then, around noon or one, I finally start spinning! This usually lasts anywhere from 2 to 5 hours. Usually spinning one or two hanks of yarn a day (about 400-ish yards). I get the most wonderful natural light in my new studio and I love having a place for everything. That room just calls to me!
I also try to find time to photograph and list finished yarns, usually around 5 o’clock, but this doesn’t always happen…

Oh, when I’m finished carding I put my batts on a flour sack towel (I pick up the towel from the 4 corners hobo style). This makes it really easy to move them around the studio or into the living room if I have a netflix movie to watch. It’s really important for me to keep all of my batts laying in the same direction because I need to spin each of them from the same end. Here is an example of what they look like:

I can also set the towel with the batts right in my light box to photograph without leaving fuzzies behind!

Erin:

When I sit to spin, I usually stay there all night – so, about 3 hours a couple of nights a week. There have been weekends where I sit there all afternoon and evening – but those are rare right now. I think that will pick up this summer as I prepare for the fall craft shows, but for now, this amount of time works for me. Actually, until I get a better spinning chair, 3 hours in an evening is about all my back can stand.

I’ve been known to spin by the computer – but that was a bad habit and I haven’t done that in a while.

Mia:

Since I live by myself, there is no one to complain about a wheel sitting right in front of the couch in the living room. I spin every chance I get a chance. I have rather large baskets of fiber and spun yarns in the living room despite saying I am cleaning it up.

I currently have a nice little stool that I use as a spinning chair because it is the right height for me. I have found one that is perfect but I keep spending the money on fiber instead.

When do YOU spin?
Have another question for our spinsters? Ask in the comments below!

Ask a Spinner – Do you have a studio?

Tara — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:00:34 +0000

A little departure from the weekly “Ask Tara”, this week I asked a few spinners what their Spin-Life is like. I’m delighted by the variety of places and ways people spin!

Today I’ll share their fiber “studio” set-up and next week we’ll talk about when and where they actually sit at their wheel.

But first, let’s meet the spinners:

Liz of Hobbledehoy
Esther of JazzyTurtle
Velma of ColorBOMB Creations
Rachel-Marie of KnittyDirtyGirl
Lacey of In A Circle of Fog
Erin of Wooly Hands
Mia of Knit and Play with Fire

Do you have spinning studio? If so, what’s it like?

Liz:

I have little corners of storage space set up like this:

for fiber to spin, handspun yarn, and batt bags. I spin out in my
living room most of the time, but I have a giant bedroom that I
sectioned into studio space (it’s seriously ginormous!) I usually
card at a table in my dining area (where we store my loom, but never
eat).
My bedroom studio area is a cat-free zone, so I keep finished products
there, a long L shaped desk with my sewing machine, a computer, my
fabric stash, and crates of bagged batts. I have a separate closet
for storing bumps of wool or large quantities of un-dyed fiber, but
bumps only last a couple of weeks, so that closet is mostly filled
with packaging supplies.

Esther:

I usually spin in the living room because that’s where the tv/dvr is. I keep my prepped fiber in a big wooden salad bowl- next to my wheel, and a pile of ‘next on the wheel’ fiber next to the couch (unless hubby puts it back in my studio b/c he’s a neat freak)

My studio has my desk/computer a bookshelf and 2 metal 5 shelves for rubbermaid tubs full of fabric, my sewing machine, serger and other supplies. I have a table for my printer and carder with fiber underneath. I have an entire wall of cubbies (that i got from target) where most of my fiber lives (what’s not under the carding table) the closet holds 9 cubes from the craft store that organizes all my scrapbooking supplies.

Velma:

For me, most of my house is my ‘studio’. I’ve taken over the larger of the 2 spare bedrooms, which is small (about 10×12), and it is designated as my ‘official’ workspace – aka The Bombshelter, the COLORBOMBshelter haha. But it is so packed with fibery & non-fibery stuff that I can’t actually work in there. I’ve been having fantasies of renting one of those portable ‘POD’ portable storage containers, plopping it in the driveway, carting all the stuff into the Shelter, & starting from scratch in that room! Then I could paint the room (I’m leaning toward orange & blue), & only put back what will reasonably fit in the space, so I can actually *use* the room for it’s designated purpose.In the meantime, I use the Shelter as a storage room for fiber, yarn, & extra spinning-related tools, like my 2 extra wheels & 1 of my drumcarders. I have a couple of those giant wire shelving units designed for garages and commercial kitchens; they’re filled with jumbo plastic totes & milk crates filled with my materials. If you want to see how crammed & disorganized they are, check out my studio set on Flickr.

Since I can’t actually work in there, I’ve spread out my working area over the entire main room of our house, which is about 12×17. The 3×6 table is covered with materials, laptop, tools, 1 of my carders, books, etc. There’s a pic of that in my Studio set, too.

Arrayed around the table & spilling over into the adjoining kitchen are my drying rack laden with skeins of wet yarn; skeinwinder with yarn ready to be set; jars of yarn scraps; a tub containing my current yarn stock; my Lendrum wheel, Harry; a bookcase w/ shipping supplies; etc., etc., etc… All the south-facing windows are on this side of the house, so I get good light for spinning & for photographs when the weather isn’t nice enough to use the backyard. Even the kitchen gets drafted into service: currently, the kitchen table is covered with a Husqvarna felting machine, felting supplies, my scale, and various bowls of fiber, tools, & miscellaneous work stuff.

Rachel Marie:

I store my drum carder on the shelf but I use it on the floor. I spin in the studio, use my laptop everywhere… My studio is right next to my baby’s room so I just gate off the steps and he can play in my studio and his room while I work.

I have my journal illustration supplies in a handy basket, so when I do need to work downstairs because I want to be around the family or something… it’s easy to take that down to the kitchen table.

Lacey:

My studio is shaping up nicely. Right now I have a pair of old bookshelves holding most of my fiber, but soon they will be replaced with an entire wall of built in shelves- I’ve been saving forever and am overly excited about them! I have all of my shipping supplies and art supplies stored on wire shelving in the closet. On one side of the room I have my drum carder and a wonderfully huge surface to work on, and my handmade light box, spinning wheels and comfy spinning chair fill up the rest of the room. Two weeks ago I painted the walls in my favorite color: peacock blue! I’ve never had a room that was 100% studio before and It is beyond inspiring!

Erin:

My yarn habits live in three spaces in my house. When I first moved into the place this past summer, my plans were to have it out on the back sun porch. It has AC and heat and electric, so I thought it would make a good place to spin. Even with AC and heat, the porch can get hot in the summer and very cool in the winter due to the leaky nature of the old porch windows. I’ve since moved my wheel inside even though my spinning chair and supplies (extra bobbins, plying thread, etc) live out on the porch. I have relocated my spinning wheel to the living room. It’s mostly out of the way so it just stays in there. I can spin while mindlessly listening to the tv and staying where the temp is more agreeable.

My wool stash lives inside of the guest room. The guest room has some wire shelving that I store it all in. I wish it were more organized, but there are still some boxes from the move in there, so I can’t really do what I want to do with the space. Maybe that will be a spring project for me. I keep all of my wool here. When I start a spinning project, I pick it out and take it into the living room. I can’t keep the wool in the living room ’cause my cat likes to eat it. I can close it up in the guest room.

Mia

I currently spin in m y living room but only because my studio is a complete and total disaster. My studio is a tiny room that also provides access to the attic. It is also my quilt studio and a place for books and fabric, needlework supplies, and yarn. Okay, I have yarn all over the house but the bulk of it is in the studio. There are also containers for spinning fiber in there too.

Come spring, that room will get repainted and finally finished. I have to have some place to put the drum carder I am planning on getting after all.

Thanks girls, for sharing your studios!

Where does your fiber and yarn stash reside? How do you have it organized? Answer in the comments!

Introducing: LocalSpun Fiber and Yarn Club

Tara — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:08:00 +0000

You know that I love local fiber, right? And that I love sharing it with you?
Inspired by the awesome response to the LocalSpun line (I didn’t get to announce the yarn, it sold before I got the chance to tell you about it!), I’ve decided to make it a monthly event.

The LocalSpun Club is all about sharing my local fiber with you, in both fiber and yarn form. You can subscribe to either the Yarn Club or the Fiber Club.
Here’s how it’ll work:

Each month I’ll visit a local farm, get a fleece (always a different breed!), take lots of pictures and get some info from the farmer.
Each month you’ll receive 4 oz of fiber or yarn by the 20th. 1, 2 or 3 month subscriptions are available and you can tailor your subscription by telling me your favorite color and by choosing between batts or locks (for the fiber club).

Along with your subscription, you’ll also receive information about the sheep that produced the fiber, the farm where it was raised and access to pictures and videos of the farm visit!

Know a spinner or knitter who might love this as a gift? It’s not too late for the holidays!
Within 12 hours of your purchase, I’ll email you a personalized, pretty, printable gift certificate for you to give to the recipient! They’ll receive their package with everyone else, by the 20th of the month! That’s right – you can buy a subscription to the LocalSpun club right at the last minute, until midnight on December 23rd!

Yesterday, I announced this to my newsletter (if you’re not on the list, your missing out on finding stuff out first! Sign up here!) and they’ve pounced on it! There is only 1 spot still open for the Yarn Club and 2 for the Fiber Club.
This is my first time offering a subscription service and I’d like to know what you think! What would you like to see in a club? If you subscribed, what would you like to recieve?