One of *those* fans.

Hi everyone! I'm sorry this is late. I got back from Boston on Sunday evening, absorbed dinner and proceeded to do nothing of use whatsoever for the rest of the day. But I can announce that the winner of July's giveaway is Lorraine!  Thanks for participating, everyone! I'm percolating what to give away for August, and I have an inkling of a good idea. It depends on what I can get done in the next couple weeks.

Meanwhile, since I've already exposed myself as one of "those" fans, I've decided I should just go with it and talk about my recent visit to Boston and the concert I attended. *cue excessive emoticon use* :D :D :D

Before I get into my concert aftermath, I also want to wax enthusiastic about the lamp I bought on Saturday. It's the Ikea Sunnan solar powered desk lamp. I bought it to see if it would be suitable as supplemental lighting for my festival booth and by gum it is!

My yarn needs good light to be appreciated, and sometimes venues get dim if the weather doesn't cooperate. I've been looking for something battery operated so I wouldn't have to deal with a power supply. This trumps that with its removable solar charging battery. I also wanted the light to be strong enough and warm enough so the yarn pops even if it's dark elsewhere. It's definitely bright enough, and it's immeasurably better than the smaller lamps I've tried. The light is a touch cool, but it's by far the best so far. It's much warmer than the led lights that managed to make even my skin tone sickly. At $20 each, they're inexpensive enough for me to get at least 3, and the flexible gooseneck means I can aim the light anywhere I want. It was a fortuitous discovery and I'm ridiculously happy with it. :D

Now, speaking of lighting up....

 
This picture is blurry, but I like it anyway. :D

More after the jump....

Frightful weather (and a December giveaway)

Today it rained so hard that it got brighter from the light reflecting off the sheets of water.  It didn't last for long, but it was definitely startling.  Now the temperature is dropping and it feels like December again.  I'm not sure why it's allowed to be December when I was just getting used to November, but there it is, December 1st, 2010.

This month's giveaway is a bit of a tease. See, I've got these fun red boxes.


So this month, I'm giving away a box. The contents of said box is a surprise.  Think of it as a mini swap box, it will contain at least 50g of fiber or yarn and some other goodies.

This month, I'd like to know about the best gift you've ever given.  I found this kind of a difficult exercise that sounded easier than it was, but that may be because I'm hit or miss with the presents.  So tell us a story! And it doesn't have to be fibery, although knowing this crowd I expect that more than a few will be.


For me, it is possibly this hat I made my cousin for after he had surgery.  Knit out of butter soft fingering weight Dalegarn Baby Ull, it covered up the incision and kept the cold off. Practical and simple, it's not the most impressive thing I've ever knit nor the most complicated or difficult, but I do think it's one of the most appreciated.

Now, you know the drill.  Post here and make sure I have a way of contacting you if you win. I'm letting this one play out until December 8th, since I'm up to my eyeballs in fest prep. I'll pick a random winner on Dec. 9th.  And yes, you can double dip with the Ravelry group. :D

Meanwhile, if you're in Boston this Sunday (Dec. 5), come by the Boston Bazaar Bizarre and say "hello".  It's at the Cyclorama and KnittinK and I will be in booth 110 trying to keep our gigantic piles of yarn and fiber from spilling out from the tiny, tiny booth and into the aisles.  This is my first "away" festival and I'm both nervous and excited.

Tetris

First things first, the winner of this month's fibery giveaway is OneOfTheHive!  Please let me know where I should send the top and I'll get it right out for you. Thanks for all the great ideas, everyone!

Meanwhile, I've got interlocking cubes on the brain.  See, I'm supposed to do the Bazaar Bizarre Boston with KnittinK in December.  The problem?  The space is 1/4 what I'm used to filling.  For two of us.

You can see where this is going, can't you?  My own stuff fits comfortably into about 24cu.ft.  That's just my stuff. In 18 wire cubes. Comfortably.

Yeah.

At the height of the madness of trying to eke out some extra space without making it impossible to assist shoppers, I came up with this. Please disregard the mess that is the room and look instead at the blatant crazy.


*sigh*

The one good thing coming from all of this is that I'm getting really good at figuring out how to assemble these cubes without having to remove the ties and reposition them. But any more of this and it's going to be like when I got hooked on Tetris in undergrad. I started seeing interlocking cubes everywhere.

ETA:  Oh yeah, today I reached 1,000 Etsy shop hearts.

Better late than

I meant to do this yesterday, but it was the last push to get everything dyed in time to dry for Saturday's festival and I never managed to do so. But I'm here today! (Cannily avoiding inventory and labeling, too.) And I get to announce that Random.org picked cthulhulovesme to win the giveaway of lovely LylianMae Fiber Arts fiber.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did a quick test of my new booth setup today and this is how my wall o'yarn looks.


It's most but not quite all of the yarn. The laceweight is still drying and there are some odds and ends lurking in a box that I haven't excavated yet.

Those are my giant homemade needles on the table in front of the yarn. I decided that the roving was thin enough to knit with straight and so I'm going to make a scarf with some that got a wee bit felted.

I also have a card table to lay out the samples I've made and such. And since I'm in the booth alone this year I'll be bringing some extra chairs so people can relax. There was a definite lack of indoor seating last year so I think it'll be good. I'm leaving the dress form home this year, though. I didn't dye up any more of the colorway I used in the shawl so I don't feel right displaying it quite so prominently.

Oy, OK it's time for me to catch the rabbit and put him away and then I need to finish this inventory. One more day!

Ice cream social III - the end of summer draws nigh

Summer is coming to a close here and the weather has turned cool and drippy. We'll no doubt get another blast of heat to remind us that it's not done with us quite yet but it's almost time for apple picking and pumpkin pie again.

This picture isn't indicative of the weather at all. I took it earlier this summer, when I wanted to melt. But ice cream is always appropriate. So here's another ice cream giveaway.


This time I'd like people to talk about what fibery, crafty goodness they're starting up. It's not the end of summer everywhere, but a change of seasons is creeping ever closer and that tends to shake things up a bit.

Just comment here any time through Sunday, August 29th, and you'll be entered in the random drawing. Please leave a way to get back in touch with you, or check back here on Monday, August 30th to see if you've won. On September 1st, I'll have another fun giveaway with some lovely items from LylianMae Fiber Artistry.

Once again, this coupon expires in 2011 and is only good in the US.But don't let that stop you if you're outside the US. If you win, I'll send a little surprise instead.

And as another reminder, my Help Pakistan fundraiser box auction is here. The value of the contents of the boxes go up as the bids increase, and at this point the boxes will be fantastic

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I'm very busy indeed. I have a festival in less than 3 weeks and it's gotten to the "eep!" point where I need to get too many things done at the same time.  Once I finish a bunch of really important tasks this week, I'm going to go into a solid week of dyeing yarn just for the festival. Then the last week before will be full of labeling and inventory, and bajillions of little tasks that always fall by the wayside until the last moment.  Fingers crossed I do well there this year. I'm by myself this time, so it's a lot of space to fill with little ol'  me!

And somewhere in all of this, I need to prepare and ship out my Phatfiber samples.  I will get another update in the shop done this week however, hell or high water. I want to give everyone a good chance at the skeins of Arctic Hare I have dyed up already, before I take everything to the festival. 

Bleat (and a tiny video tutorial)

I'm working on lots of things to gear up for the festival next month, and this one keeps cracking me up so I have to share. But before I get into that I just want to remind everyone that I have two yarny fibery swap boxes up for auction at the Help Pakistan LiveJournal community.

Now, on to the thing that's been amusing me for days. See, I like to hand out free patterns when I do a craft show. Ideally they're made out of my own yarn and I can display the finished product around the booth. It draws interest and is a great ice breaker.

So I wanted something new this year. This time I decided to make a sheep mug cozy based on a discussion in the Ravelry forums. I had intended to do something rather different at the start but the idea grew and evolved and... well, this is what happened:


One sheep mug cozy on a standard mug, before blocking.

Pigment, not dye

I'm covered in pigment ink. My new stamp pad came today so of course I had to drop everything and try it out. Trying it out led to stamping 25 shopping bags until I could reliably produce something halfway decent.


I did say "halfway". This is actually one of the first ones I did. I consider the "oopses" as part of the rustic charm. *cough*

As long as I'm careful, they turn out well. If I get careless, then I forget and lift the stamp before I've checked that all the points have made contact. This is where a flexible stamp works *really* well. I can lift just the corner and check, and press down on just one spot to mould it around the handles and creases.

All in all, it does what I intend it to do and it's colorful and fun. I'm very happy with it. Even if I'm covered in ink.

Luckily pigment ink wears off after a few washes. This is quite unlike the turquoise dye I spilled all over my hand earlier today. That's going to linger. Not exactly how I want to have a green thumb!

Oh, who am I kidding? All us crafty sorts know that getting messy is half the fun.

So this is one more thing done. I've signed up to accept credit cards, I purchased new insulated gloves, and now I have logo shopping bags. Can you tell I'm excited for the Garden State Sheep Breeders Festival? :D