pluckyfluff

brokenblog

2007-03-12T01:03:00.001-07:00

Holding Projects/Yarn Hostage

2007-03-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

Whew! just about done! got it wrapped up and just sending in the last odds and ends. THANKS to everyone who submitted projects and yarn!! All the projects are now with the tech writer who is meticulously measuring and counting stitches. She may have them for a month or two more. If you really need something back let me know and i will see if i can get it.

Yarn donations: I did not end up using every yarn in a project. So if your yarn did not go into a projects i am going to feature it in the gallery w/full credits, so either way, if i accepted your stuff- it will be in there somewhere. I am going to eventually knit/crochet everything and keep it on file for sucsequent books or articles. So your stuff may actually pop up twice.

Art recommendations: thanks for the response!! very interesting stuff. (i still can't reply to my own f-ing blog!! got to get that fixed....)

Final Request

2007-03-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

Today is the day! Am wrapping it up and sending it off. Wish it were that easy...still alot of cranking and tweaking after this i'm sure.

NEED ART!
I need more examples of art that uses handspun yarn. I am looking for high resolution professional quality pics. (not the actual item!) So if you have recent gallery or portfolio pics please send an example (email low res please!). or if you have seen any good art lately w/handspun please forward me the info.

thanks!!

F-ing February!

2007-02-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

Why does February only have 28 days!!?
Ugh. 3 days left.
fully freaking out here. can't talk. can't blog. can't email.
will resurface in March....hopefully.
-L

Focus on Freeform

2007-02-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

I am just working on the Freeform Crochet section for the book which will feature the work of Kathy Foster www.electrickat.com, Linda Scharf www.stoneleafmoon.com, Elaine Evans www.fuzzybumblebee.com and of course ANA VOOG www.anacam.com/hats. I just got a huge box of new work from Ana, which is amazing especially considering she's pregnant and should probably just be sleeping on the couch and rubbing her belly. But she was kind enough to create some incredible stuff just for the book!!!! yay! i will be taking pics on weds. and will post them as soon as possible.

Here is one of Kathy's hats that will be featured. This is just totally amazing to me. It is like a deep-sea queen hat. [This picture was taken by my friend Kyle Parker, doing tons of awesome pics for the book.]

More later- back to the grindstone. 10 days and counting!

Actually, i can't wait to go back to just spinning on my little website and writing nothing longer than a short email. This is probably more of my procrast-distraction, but i have just started a new book. "Bush on the Couch". VERY interesting. it's a remote psychological profile of G.W. and traces back to his childhood and his relationship w/his mom. If this does not make you take a good hard look at the importance of mothering nothing will! ee gads! i read the first chapter i thought -oh shit! i already screwed up my first kid....i may have already created a dictator! hopefully i can undo... :)

Two Scarves and A Muffin

2007-02-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

First- let me start with saying i still have not fixed my f'ing blog so that i can reply to your comments! i love your comments, and thanks!

On to the post:

Here are a couple of things from the section in the book that shows projects that two or more people contributed to. Ie: one person's yarn and another persons knitting etc. The moody dark green Octi-scarf was a freeform crochet piece by Linda Scharf (The Yarn Museum and StoneLeafMoon.com and was made from a green mohair yarn with red beads.

The next one is a woven scarf by Tereza Havrdova from the Czech Republic (tereza-havrdova.blogspot.com made from my Aura yarn. My favorite yarn style ever.

Book almost done. I have, like 100 extra pages (what!) and am going to have to cut cut cut. Guess i will have to do a third book.... yeah- um what the hell am i talking about!!!

On my current distraction-
To focus on completly irrelevent things and avoid the task at hand, i have put myself to the task of finding the PERFECT PUMPKIN MUFFIN recipe. I have spent 2 months and tried one or two new recipes a week and sorry to say- none have thrilled me. So after much sampling and tweaking, i have fused, like, 10 recipes into one. And i think this may be very close to the perfect pumpkin muffin. if the mothership of an alien race who worshiped pumkins were to land in my neighborhood i am pretty sure that i could save the planet from anniahlation with this recipe. especially since i added the crumble top. that will save us for sure.

INGREDIENTS

* 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
* 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
* 2 eggs
* 1/3 cup buttermilk
* 1/3 cup butter, melted
* 2 tablespoons molasses
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup canned pumpkin
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans, walnuts, raisens or ALL of these!

Crumble Top:

2 Tablespoons Flour
1 Tablespoon white sugar
sprinkle cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter

Cut butter into dry ingredients. Mince w/fork until crumbles form.

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin-pan cups

2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

3. Beat together the eggs, buttermilk, melted butter, molasses, vanilla, sugar and pumpkin in a large bowl. Stir in the dry ingredients, all at once, just until moistened. Fold in the nuts. Spoon into the prepared muffin-pan cups, filling almost to the top.

4. Spoon crumble top mixture over each muffin.

5. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the centers comes out clean. DO NOT OVER COOK!!!!!

Remove the muffins from the cups and cool on wire racks. Serve warm.

Billion Dollar Idea #1 and #2

2007-02-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

Here is the frustration of the ADD brain.... i get ideas all the time, tons of 'em. Can't turn them off. Most of them are probably crap but every now and then i think..OOO..i should DO that! If only i had the time. and the money. and an assistant....
So i have resolved to just put them out there. I can't do them. But maybe someone else will. So here are two to start. Look for more periodically. Especially when i'm busy. For some reason....when i have something I'm actually supposed to get done, i think of all these big impossible OTHER things I could do. So this is going to be my new system. Once i put an idea out there, it woun't bug me anymore and i can focus on what i'm supposed to be doing.

That said...if anyone, or any entity, gets bloody rich on one of these ideas. Send a few bucks back my way. i could use it!

Billion Dollar Idea #1
Volksbellys

Volkswagon and Jelly Belly need to get together and offer paintjobs for the new Beetle that look like the different Jelly Bean flavors. Especially the pretty ones that are speckled. Like the orange with pale yellow spots. Then you just order your favorite flavor. 2007 Beetle in "Buttered Popcorn", "Sour Apple" or "Rootbeer". This IS the age of cross marketing after all.

Billion Dollar Idea #2
What's In The Fridge

I got this idea last night when i was going to make dinner and i hadn't been to the store in a week. I had like, one carrot, some apple sauce, collard greens and a filet of Tilapia. What are you supposed to do with that?

Well...you could go to www.whatsinthefridge.com and find a recipe. It would be a big recipe archive that users submit recipes to. the search on the site would be more complex than just a one or two word search. you would enter all your main ingredients , and select a couple of other options like you're looking for an entree or a breakfast or whatever. or vegetarian, vegan etc. then it takes the criteria and searches the database and returns you the top recipes that match your ingredients.

That's it- no more peanut butter chicken casserole!

Someone Shoot That Girl With A Tranquilizer

2007-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

Cause she's freakin out! OH my god. 4 weeks and counting until i have to turn in this book and uh.... there is so much to do!! I totally had a panic attack last night watching the season finale of Top Chef. They were like, all stressed out...putting the 5 course finale dinner on... and i was totally having trouble breathing. my chest was all tight, i was biting my lip...going "come on marcel! you fucking forgot the fish! the tear-drop vinegrette emulsion is not working! your going to serve the judges a plain green salad!!!!! no!!!!". um..yeah, and then i was like, wait a minute....is this really about top chef? i mean...granted- marcel totally should have won. he is way more cutting edge. so what if he's an A-hole. Ilan is definitly cuter, but Spanish-infusion...yawn! let's get over it already...

no. i am definitly freaking out about finishing this book. tons of projects to finish...pictures to take... ILLUSTRATIONS even. i opened my big mouth and suggested we do super easy right-brainer quick reference illustrations for the projects (for those of us who hate patterns..), but now i have to draw them!! what was i thinking???

what am i doing writing a 300 page book! i have two kids and a fat mortgage. the cupboards are bare. this book better get printed on organic paper because i might have to eat them.

and as for the off-coffee thing. yeah- that is SO over. i'm pounding like, 3..4 cups a day not to mention the midnight cups when i'm just trying to get through the email (sorry for slow responses guys).

um..ok- that was a rant. feel a little better...oh look here...some one did shoot me in the ass with a tranquilizer...

Taos Camp Info

2007-01-28T00:48:00.000-08:00

I am so F'in excited to go to New Mex!!! I am taking my whole family and renting a vacation adobe house right in town. I recommend this if anyone is traveling in a group...the rates were really good! Split between a bunch of roomies would be even better-
http://www.taosvacationhomes.com/Town.html

Also- email Martie at www.Taossunflower.com (camp host), she said there were cheap teepees or yurts or tents or something near by to rent.

Here's the deal though...it's the Wool Fest so stuff books up FAST. And Taos is pretty small i think....

Putting It Together

2007-01-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

I am beginning to put the yarns you guys sent together with the project ideas and it turns out that some of the yarns want to be with eachother!! When i looked at the whole collection of skeins together, it was like there were invisible lines being drawn connecting this one to that. So what i thought would be a 2-way collaboration (your yarn and my stitching) is turning into 3 and 4 way collaborations.

Here are a couple of projects (top secret!) that i have already started. The paired yarns are: Punk yarn by Barbe St. John of www.saintsandsinners.com with a wool/possum tradition yarn spun by Lou from Lofty Lou's here in my home town. The next two are "Burger Bar" bulky 2-ply by claire of www.missbell.co.uk with Autumn Walk by LynnWigell of www.yarnwench.com.

Broken Blog

2007-01-27T07:56:00.001-08:00

If anyone is wondering why i never respond to your comments it's because my stupid blog is broken! It won't let me leave a comment. So i am not a jerk who just blabs and then ignores everyone.....i just need to wait for my sweeet hubby to fix the bug. Please email me directly if you need a response.

In answer to the most common question- NO- I don't need any more yarn...i have a ton now! but thanks....

2007 Spinning Camp in Taos!

2007-01-19T15:19:00.001-08:00

HOLY COW! I'm goin to NEW MEX!

Fall '07 Camp Pluckyfluff is officially on the calendar! And it is going to be in gorgeous Taos New Mexico the week before Taos Wool Festival. This is the biggest and bestest wool bonanza in the west so come to Camp Pluckyfluff and stay for the Fest. We can all go fleece-finding together! It will be a race to the prize Merino...

Camp will be hosted by my good friend Martie at Taos Sunflower, an awesome yarn shop in Taos. Camp will be two full days of non-traditional yarn spinning instruction. There is lodging, yummy food and sight seeing in and around Taos, but get your reservations soon as wool fest books everything up fast.

Taos is a fantastic place! Beautiful landscape and the famous Taos Pueblo.

Oct 3rd and 4th 2007
Go to www.taossunflower.comfor tix and info.
Taos Sunflower: 505.776.5644

$200/person
Includes some materials

see my camp page for basic camp description.

Details Details

2007-01-13T23:44:00.000-08:00

I just realized I have never really given the details about this book. And you guys were so generous to contribute without the information! AH...the trust... so here are the basics. The book is titled "Intertwined; Creativity, Collaboration and the Art of Handspun Yarn" and is being published by Rockport Publishers and is due out in Fall '07. It will be appx 260 pages and will be LOADED with page after page of gorgeous yarn pics. The central theme of the book is the collaborative nature of handspun yarn.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:
"Though a spinner's individuality is reflected in a yarn, the process it goes through reaches beyond the individual spinner. The spinner is just one stop on a journey, one in which the yarn is perpetually destined for new hands. When you wrap yourself up in a scarf of handspun yarn you can hold it in your hands and trace each stitch the knitter made. This connects you to the knitter through their work, just as the knitter is connected to the spinner through theirs. The yarn passed through the knitter's fingers just as it passed through the hand of the spinner. And the fiber passed through the hand of the spinner just as it passed through the hand of the person who dyed it, and that like the hand of the farmer who raised it, sheared it and washed it. This phenomenon is a joining of hands through a single strand that stretches across spaces and through time. The yarn becomes a bond that connects separate people into a collaborative group all working towards a common creation. The final form that the yarn takes is not the work of one artisan, but the synthesis of many."

I am also posting a pic or two of the projects. i will try and post previews periodically. i hate to say i'm so busy with the book i can barley even blog! The final due date for the book is march 1st...so bear with me. After it's done there will be lots of yarn and info back on my site.

Pictured: Guys scarf made from a menchanic's clean suit that i shredded and spun, "HAND" felted mittens with yarn that had little embroidered flowers in it, and 100% recycled sari-silk yarn.

Thanks again for all the yarn contributions!! I'm getting all my thoughts organized to match the right yarn to the right project.

So Much Love!

2007-01-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Wow....I am so excited to get all these yarns. I had specific projects planned out for the book, but browsing everyone's yarns just blew all that out of the water. Each yarn definatly knows what it wants to be, and now i have a whole new flood of ideas! But of course it would work out that way...it's the premis of the book after all.... That every creation is actually a collaboration. And here i was trying to spin and knit everything! but there was no way. i couldn't do this book without everyone's help. from all the contributions and yarn donations to everyone who just throws in their 2 cents every now and then....it is all coming together as one big group effort to help get this information published ....so that more people can discover handspun yarn...and then my evil plan will come into fruition....that every heart will be snuggled in it's very own heart cozy knit from handspun yarn! figuratively speaking of course.... yuk. Or...wait...heart cozies? ah ha! another project for the book!

PS- got my red hair. Check it out!! I feel alive.... ALIVE! waahahaha!

Yarnvalanche

2007-01-06T01:57:00.001-08:00

HOLY COW! All i can say is holy C O W. You guys have answered the call in spades! I have had a ton of emails offering up skein after skein of delicious fantastic yarn. i feel like i am in some roman dream where i lie on my chez as lovely boyans in grape leaves file by holding out this skein and that, dangling mohair and silk two ply over my outstretched hands. i'm running each one accross my cheek, closing my eyes, breathing in the fiber fantasy....

it's a fiber-spree. it's not fair...everyone should experience being able to look at so many yarns and just say...why yes..that one, and ooo definitely that one....and um, i'm SURE i can think of something to do with that! maybe someone should set up a yarn-swap website...like ebay but no money is exchanged. you can post yarns you are willing to give away. if you post, say five...then you get five yarn credits and you can go through the site and choose up to five from everyone else's selection. then they send you your selection and if someone chooses yours you mail it off! or each skein would have a "value" based on yardage/material....say a 1-5 scale. small simple skeins 1, big skeins or cashmere etc 5.... some smart bunny who can handle the programming of this kind of thing should get on it, because i want you all to know what this feels like!!!!

so thanks for the great response. these yarns are going to make this book so much richer and more COLLABORATIVE, a major theme in the book anyway. all the offers have been beautiful.

IF YOU EMAILED ME-
I have not been able to get through all the emails yet. I'm not ignoring you! just with the kids and all (it's 2am right now! JUST got the 3 year old down for the count) it's been a tough couple of days for email checking.

THANKS AGAIN!!
I LOVE ALL OF YOU SO DANG MUCH!
-lexi

Desperately Seeking Yarn!

2007-01-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

Aw hell! I have 8 weeks until this book is due and 16 more projects to make and NO TIME for spinning. So i am looking for yarn. If you are a spinner and are interested in having your yarn in the book please email me a picture and the yardage info. If it will work for a project you will get a full image of the yarn published and you would get full credit of course. I am looking for mostly simple styles, thick and thin singles and two-ply (to show off knitting), but also need some crazier stuff too. i can't buy the yarn...sorry!! too flat broke. so you would be donating it. hopefully, you will recieve good charma and eternal fame in return.
love lexi.

PBMS

2007-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

Back to life...back to r e a l it y. just got back from santa cruz where we took off to on friday in a last minute vacation. my parents house is under construction and they could not stay in it for a couple of days and they wanted to stay in our house. So they sent me and my family to a beach side vacation rental for the weekend!! why didn't they just take off to a vacation rental you say? they are workaholics and didn't want to stray from the biz. Or- maybe they just felt sorry for us. cooped up in our tiny house in the middle of winter in our tiny town with our tiny kids who claw the windows like cats when it's rainy and they can't get out.

regardless....it was fantastic. big spacious house, tastefully decorated, cable, ocean "viewing deck"....i'm sorry- i mean it "boasts and ocean viewing deck". the works man. that was livIN. but was also slightly depressing because looking around the neighborhood i realized that everyone else lived there full time. they OWNED those houses. they are not even big fancy houses...in fact they are mostly tiny bungalows, but they still run close to 800k to a million bucks. i can't even fathom that. but that what is depressing....that that is no problem for alot of people. i am 2 days short of defaulting on my tiny-town mortgage almost every month! all this talk about the economy being good is BS. it's good for someone alright....but not me and not most people i know. most of my friends live month to month and have no health coverage.

anyhoo...enough wallowing.
got to crank this book out so i can get me dream rental in santa cruz. i'm already thinking of another book after this one. it will be called PBMS. Peanut Butter Menstral Syndrome. i just thought of it just now as i sit eating my little cup of ice cream peanut butter soup. to make ice cream peanut butter soup you put one big scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cup and an EQUAL scoop of PB and mix it up until it's soft-serve consistancy. it's yummerific. sometimes i like to sprinkle rice crispies in for a cruchy effect. the ice cream makes the crispies really cold- they are like toasted ice...

i realized that i have so many special recipes using peanut butter that i could make an entire cook book. some highlights would be:
Hot Oreo cookies with peanut butter
peanut butter and apples dipped in chocolate
peanut butter on a stick
pretzle and peanut butter casserole

the casserole is bound to become a tradition in households accross america.i just need to perfect the crumble top. it's a toss up between the butter/flour/chexmix and the butter/flour/chocolate sprinkles.

Spin to Knit stuff back

2006-12-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

hooray...finally!! got my hat back from the Spin to Knit people. so- it has been for sale but unavailable on my site forever. but now it really IS for sale. will put it up tonight. trying to get a little extra cash so we can get out of town for new years. i mean...placerville is VERY exciting indeed... but santa cruz might be better...

New Yarn Ahoy!

2006-12-27T09:04:00.001-08:00

wow! i am in a vortex... have you ever had the energy, the will, the desire to accomplish so much...but then unseen forces seem to be contriving to stop you? that is SO what is happening to me. so many things i want to write, yarns to make, family time to spend but there is an army of ghosts and real estate agents that for some reason cannot let me progress. the ghosts will do shit like, make me trip on my computor cord and break it, thus putting it out of commision. or they make my gas guage read 1/2 full when it's empty so i run out of gas and lose a half a day. and the real estate agents! don't even get me started. but honestly...who looks at houses the day after christmas. who does that?? the ghosts again maybe... all i know is we get a phone message the morning after x-mas, "we'll be there in 1/2 an hour". half an hour to clean up a two kid christmas mess, plus the "real" cleaning, plus get the kids dressed and out of the house, all this when the little one is sick and was up all night crying! then when, they don't show and we call them they say..."oh...you don't have to worry about cleaning up- we drove by hours ago and decided it was too small."

maybe the ghosts made the appointment.

anyway. i did get one scrappy yarn made. threw in the shreds from some new denim i washed. will post it today. oh yeah...but the shopping cart is broken...so later today?

Xm-ass

2006-12-24T09:23:00.001-08:00

ok- i have finally crossed over. i'm over the christmas hump. no more sitting on the fence. it's official. i can't stand christmas. i'm too old to enjoy it but not old enough to be treated to it, i'm too broke to participate but not broke enough to be excused from it.

Christmas. it's like being under attack. commercials throwing toys, diamonds and cars through the tv at me. people vying for pole position at the grocery store with their carts full of cranberries. i just want to buy my beer and diapers. i'm mean, come on- i'm not fooled. i know they all can't stand cranberries in their dinner. ceareal? yeah...ok i'll give 'em that one. but cranberries rolling into ham juice? we know deep down it's a huge pretense. a grand play!

i have a three year old. i HAVE to do christmas. my concious says "teach her the real meaning of community, and the joy of family during the holidays. forget he commercial money-suck of presents, presents, presents. gimmme gimme gimme". but i know better. if i don't give her the gift-wrapped candy-caned x-mas, and instead give her the socially-concious abstainer version, she is going to hate me later and blame me for all her problems later. and she will EMBRACE the commercial christmas as an adult. just to get revenge. she will feel robbed. everyone else got piles of desposable fall-apart toys made by little children in china who don't get holidays where the main idea is to smother children in an unending river of gifts and delights. why didn't she? no- we should say no. no gifts! at least for adults. and kids should get some assortment of toys and things that the people who love them made for them, or at least found or got second hand. and just a FEW. fill in the rest with cookie-making, snowball fights and crafts or something.

ok- i'm being a little grinchy. but i really identify with the grinch...only in a nicer, more globally minded way. global-grinch. social-reform grinch. Usher in the Age Of The Grinch!

alright! you got me...yes. i'm just a stressed out mother of two who can't get organized enought to make this holiday go smoothly. whatever! ..... do the gifts really need to be wrapped?

ADDville

2006-12-19T12:06:00.001-08:00

Wow...I finally finished One of my 2824 projects! Yay! This scarf in finally done. And i got a fantastic model to make it look even prettier. I am so jealous of her red hair. I immediately phoned my hair guy to make an appointment for color. I am going to be a red head. I have to do it. i am trying to grow my hair out...am normally a short haired person because of my ADD. I get bored with my hair after, like, three weeks. so i'm constantly getting it cut. and well, when your trying to grow it out, you can't cut it every three weeks. so i am at the end of my rope with hair-boredom...and my only alternative is color. i was thinking dark dark dark brown until the girl i work with kind of did that look like she just bit her tongue but is pretending like she didn't, and says...are you sure that won't wash you out? i think she was insinuating that i'm pasty. i might be a little pasty (2 kids, no exercise). so i am going to go with red. red makes pasty skin look "porcelain". i want to be porcelain, NOT pasty...so i'm going red. defiantly red.

i'm sure it will look good. this year is me and brent's (my hair guy) 20th anniversary. And we are like...synchronized. our relationship is stronger than EVER. This year has been one breathtaking haircut after another. it's like...he knows me so well. we don't even need to speak. i just sit down and he nods...like he knows just what i'm thinking...and then voila- half and hour later...best haircut ever.

I don't know what cut to get yet. that is next on my list after posting my new yarns, editing the motherf'erartlogpaininmyass, and going through my pantone book for the best shade of red. cherry or apricot?

The Coffee-Work Complex

2006-12-18T08:39:00.000-08:00

I have uncovered a conspiracy! It is the Coffee Matrix. It's Caffeine-Nation! And i have been unplugged. I'm finally off coffee. My husband needed to quit a couple months ago and i was totally being the supportive wife and saying "sure! i don't need that evil crap either. i'll quit too honey". but after a couple days of being a horrible crabby dragon i started finding excuses to go out...out to the coffee box! i was taking the kids to the park one, two sometimes three times a day. just so i could sneak a John Wayne with cream and one sugar. My kids...god they don't even know what their mother was doing. I might as well have been meeting my dealer at the merry-go-round and smokin crack in the Lion-tunnel. i had a problem.

bur no more! it has been 2 weeks with no coffee and i am in a new world. everything has slowed way-down. it weird. i am totally more relaxed. not grouchy at 3:00 and have way more patience. and the veil has dropped. i sit quietly and watch the amped-up clusters of workers in their cars, angrily racing to get to the starbucks drive through before the SUv with 4 carpoolers in it (knowing, as we all do that carpoolers in SUV's order time-consuming drinks like frappachinos and caramel-macchiados and all the frozen milkshakes masquerading as "coffee").

then it's onto the freeway and hit the gas, weaving and speeding, then screeching to a crawl to sit in commuter traffic for two hours. Then to the cubicle where they log in 12+ hour days with coffee breaks every 2, then back to the traffic jam, then home. there is no way you could do that with out being amped up on the juice.

anyhow. i'm free of it. coffee is how i wrote my first book, late nights with an infant. now i have to write one 10 times the size, in the middle of the day with a 1 and 3 year old and do it sans-caf. but i think it will work out.

As for SPINNING MY ASS OFF this weekend. of course that didn't happen. i made one cool yarn for sale which i will post directly. all the other yarn iv'e been making is going towards top-secret projects for the book. to be seen in the future..... the clear, bright, non-caffinated future!

Pattern Perfect

2006-12-15T16:31:00.001-08:00

So i am supposed to have 30 projects with patterns for this book. Thank god the publisher hired an awesome pattern writer who can take the hat, scarf or whatever and turn it into a legitimate pattern. but here's the thing, I can't read patterns. Does anyone else have this problem? i mean, i understand the short hand and everything...and i can probably struggle through it, but basically when i look at a pattern all the symbols and letters just scramble around and melt away into gibberish. it's like my brain just refuses to absorb that information. it's like my brain is a bowl of water and the pattern is an electric wire going in. A frenzy of painful confusion and then everything just goes black.

The whole idea seems some what fraudulent to me. Saying- oh here's this nice scarf i made...and the pattern too. but if you fed that pattern back to me without the picture i'd be like "uh- what's that shit?". Now, i am convinced it not just a matter of learning to read them...i know how to read them...i just can't read them.

so here is my thought....i think i want to present a new kind of pattern along with the traditional patterns. a "Pattern-ish" so to speak. more of a diagram...simple instructions. arrows (LOVE arrows. totally understand arrows. put a few arrows on something and it's like...oh- i get it!). illustrations too! but most of all- SIMPLIFIED. less information. not every-single-dang-stitch spelled out. more of an outline style. the GIST of the thing. let the knitter fill it in. it's like In and Out Burger -vs- Taco Bell. 3 or 4 things on the menu and if you care to dig a little deeper you can, at your own pace. Taco Bell- so many things on the board you can't even tell what you're looking at.

so...look for the new In and Out style patterns-ish in the new book. if the publisher goes for it that is. it's not a given.

Cashmere of the Plains!

2006-12-13T17:38:00.001-08:00

Have been in book writing HELL lately. No time for spinning...just
time for art logs, spell check, edit tracking and aw...... heck. just
left-brainer stuff that i totally SUCK at and makes me want to slowly
work my eyeball out of it's socket with a US #9 double point.

But on the good side of things...i finally did get to spin some
heavenly BUFFALO DOWN that was sent to me from Buffalo Gold (
http://www.buffalogold.net ). This stuff is so f'in amazing i can't
even say. it is so creamy!!!!! so dreamy!!!! and that PERFECT brown
color that only the most majestic of land creatures could produce.

I know what your thinking.....how do they shear a buffalo? they don't.
the meat industry has been getting into Buf as a new alt-meat...very
healthy if you like meat... and they had been just discarding the
fiber! it's so ironic. we...."We" i mean, just never seem to get it.
first it was slaughter the buffalo for their beautiful hides and leave
the meat to rot. now it's slaughter the buffalo for their meat and
leave their beautiful hides rot!

but the smart and fiberific people at buffalo gold figured out what
was going on and now they go in and have saved the fiber from being
destroyed.

so... check it out. this stuff is truely THE CASHMERE OF THE PLAINS! yahoooo!

ps- there is alot of CASH in Cashmere.... even buf cashmere.

ThanksXmasTime

2006-12-13T01:39:00.000-08:00

Howdy all! finally just broke down and got a blog so i dont have to jumble up the yarn page with notes all the time.

Sorry so few yarns for sale right now. im right in the middle off this honking-ass book and i am prepping, like 400 yarn pics and writing every technique i know, plus i have to come up with 30+ new patterns for knit/crochet/weaving. all this with my 10month old biting my knee and my 2.5 year old helping by re-arranging all the files into a beautiful pile on the floor covered with raisens and diaper ointment.

Plus the holidays are here, and since i am completly broke my entire family will be getting lovely handspun items. i am sure they would rather have a landsend gift certificatebut, wellits just not going to happen. I am pensive about christmas. the holidays seem to bring out the worst in my family. i am still getting over thanksgiving. it wasnt horrible, but i wouldnt exactly call it fun either. if it were in a movie it would have been fun. we spent it 20 miles off the grid in the nevada desert at my aunt and uncles outpost. there were many days of drinking, knife-weilding and saw playing. several people will be on the wagon permanently, and a majority of the married couples will be entering counceling. i dont know if i can even go into details. my mom called me a relentless, mechanical dust-supressing machine. ? which, i dont take personally. its just her way of saying she loves me. my husband thought i was a medicine ball, picked me up and rushed my cousin pat. then he smashed wine glasses with his saw bow.(we had an improv band and played the musical saw). my cousin got so drunk the electric mixer flipped her on her ass when she tried to make whipped cream. my uncle yelled at his grandson from alaska in front of everyone for not wanting to sleep in a freezing cold tent in 10 degrees outside in the desert. called him disgraceful. a macho hot shot skier who was too much of a baby to freeze his ass off. (the kid lives in fairbanks where it averages 20 below in the winter) my daughter got a massive splinter and we said we would need to cut it out w/a teeny needle she was freaking out. then my uncle the mountain man comes out of the kitchen with a 12 deer skinning knife. my daughter thought that was really funny. she showed it by screaming her head off. it sounds bad but i do really love them all. they are a freakshow but their MY freakshow. soim going to buck up and get ready for christmas. and hopefully i get some yarns done for the site too.