Archive for » July, 2011 «

Summertime

The weather SUUUUUUCKS.

The heat is insane. Add in the humidity and I can’t get any fiber dry! The club is officially dyed, but I’m trying to get it dried so I can send it out.

The next update of the shop is also mostly dyed, but… same thing with the drying. Insane.

Garden’s producing well, should remain so assuming we can keep it from drying out completely in this drought. Amazing, things are dying of lack of water and mildewing at the same time.

Here’s my latest garden pickings. An array of slicing and pickling cukes, a bunch of tomatoes arranged more-or-less by variety, a kohlrabi, some squash, onion stalks, parsley, two kinds of peas, and string beans. Nom.

Veggggggiiieees... are nom.

And a “look I’m an artiste!” view (actually, just trying to give a different scope, holding it above my head to get it all was hard for the first one).

Look at my fancy camera angles, Ma!

That’s about it for now… I’m working on something I’ll tell you more about soon.

Oh, right, today’s clue for the club’s identity: Cricket

And your gratuitous dog for the day. Gobo in the hydrangeas.

I loves my flower cave!

That’s all for now!
~The Gnome
Gnome

Category: Uncategorized  Tags:  One Comment

Anubis

So most, if not all, of the Mythic Club people should have received their first club entry by now.

It was, as the title suggests, Anubis, the psychopomp (guide of the dead) of ancient Egypt, and one time King of the Underworld (abdicating as Osiris grew in popularity). (For those who missed it, that’s what the random odd “clues” were on the blog before)

Beyond the, “Ooh shiny” the club actually does affect the regular storegoers of Gnomespun. Why?

Recipes.

This is my first experience with doing large batches of an identical (within reason) colorway, and thus I have actually begun to develop repeatable recipes for some colorways. This is a good thing for you! It means I can actually do large batches, and when you get “Falling In” it’ll be basically the same as any other time you get it, rather than variable!

Of course there will still be *some* variation, but not nearly what there’s been in the past. But don’t worry! Not all the colorways will be reciped, I’ll still be doing plenty of colors by the slap-dash creative methods I’ve used in the past.

So, anyway, Anubis.

Anubis

Here, he is represented in wensleydale, a longwool with a luster befitting the pharaohs in rich pure jackal head black, lapis blue, and gold.

Recipe dyeing as an interesting experience. There’s always one batch that decide to not quite look right.

Anubis

Then of course I had to make the stitch markers I promised. In obsidian or lava, lapis, and brass.

Stitch Markers

Then time to bag up the fiber and markers…

The Stuff

Then get the description all written out.

Everything for the club

And send it out!

Then, all that remained was to wait and see what people did with it! Here’s some examples so far…

Rhynwa split her fiber down the middle to preserve color changes. Rhynwa’s Anubis, in a lovely montage:

Anubis

PaA split his for “Fractal Spinning” (which is really more like an exponential progression). ProgrammerAtArms’ Anubis:

Anubis

Anubis

ABA also split hers for fractal spinning, but spun a slightly thicker yarn for a different effect. AbqBalancingAct’s Anubis:

Anubis

So that’s the first club! First clue for the second club is that one of the stones for the stitch markers is carnelian. More clues to follow.

And your gratuitous puppy! BAAAAAAAALL!

Mokey

Category: club, roving  Tags: ,  2 Comments

So um… festivals?

Right, I went to them. Like um… ages ago. I’ve been a very VERY bad blogger.

So lets see…

First was NH Sheep and Wool, where I was very glad for my woven scarf. It was cold! And then the second day it was RAINY. Like torrential downpours, people not in buildings were making moats around their tents!

Didn’t do well at photos though.

As usual I was with the fabulous Jennifer in her Holiday Yarns booth.

Stuff!

Gnomestuff…

Stuff!

Then I joined her again at the ever-sunny MA Sheep and Wool festival, at Cummington. A very fun, smaller festival. Holiday Yarns had a double sized booth in the barns this time, which was different, and neat! Lots of cool people came by.

And here’s more Gnomestuff!

Stuff!

Theeeen came the biggie. Due to circumstances and stuff, Jennifer wasn’t going to be able to make it to the Maine Fiber Frolic to use her booth space. So, she loaned me some gridwall and some pegs, packed me some of her lovely yarn and fiber, and off I went…

To Maine.

Alone.

To vend.

EEP!

So I packed up all my stuff to go.

And theeeeen the tornado hit a mile away tore the every loving heck out of everything and killed our power for a while. I’ll make a post about that later (though by now most of you have probably seen all the photos).

Anyway, I ended up pulling everything back OUT of the car so I could drive down to CT and fill up gas cans to run the generator on.

Weekend came, I packed everything BACK in:

Packed!

Huh, fits real well.

And started driving. Theeeen I realized why it fit with so much space. I hadn’t packed the wall pegs, the stuff from Holiday Yarns, or the stuff from Jesh and Jellyfishknits. Oh crappity. Turn around, drive home, throw it in the car, set out again.

So I drove the umpteen hours to Maine. Yay! No disaster. Find the space

Stuff!

Unpack the stuff… wow it looks bare.

Empty Booth

After a couple false starts…

Stuff!

…and moving things around as I picked how I wanted to organize… (read several hours later), I had a Gnomespun booth!

Gnomespun Booth!

Still looks emptier than I’d like but a lot of that’s because I was cramming everything very deep on the gridwall. If I do this more I need more gridwall/shelves/etc.

Very tired by this point, I went to the (somewhat) nearby State Forest campground and set up camp.

Campsite!

Slept like a rock, got up early, and hiked up Battie Mountain, which is right at the edge of the campground. Good lord it’s a beautiful view!

Me!

And here’s a beautiful panoramic, made a link so it doesn’t explode the page.

Beautiful View

Then it was off to the Fiber Frolic. Where I put up my makeshift signs, and was off! You can’t see them, but they’re my gnomes, my slogan, and my business name. I was pleased how well received they all were.

Booth!

Met a TON of people and spun a bunch of samples and even sold some stuff.

But then it was time to go home, sad but the necessary part of amazing events. So I packed up again, plus the 3lbs of alpaca I bought, and the tunis fleece I was given. This time I got everything into the car on the first try!

Packed for Home!

So time to go home! Except… partway home, but still in Maine, my check engine light started to flash. Oh boy. I drove home, very carefully, as things got worse…

Turns out I had completely torched one of my engine’s pistons, and busted two other valves. So by the time I got it in for fixing, it was basically a one piston engine! Whee!

She’s ok again now, which is very good.

And now, your gratuitous puppies. Aren’t we so good? Don’t you want to give us your cookie?

CUTE!

~The Gnome
Gnome!