Nifty New Site for Teaching, Cool!

I just signed up on Betterfly.com which is a nifty little site I heard about on Facebook today. It allows people who have certain skills, such as mad spinning skills like me, to be found by other people who want to learn said skills. I signed up as a crochet, knitting, and spinning instructor. We'll see how it goes.

When you sign up you can customize your page with as little or as much information as you would like. Decide what you want to teach and then make a class listing with a short description and the price you would like to be paid. Make arrangements for how you would like to be paid and then go to the calendar and set up times you are available. You can upload pictures and other resources for people to look at to help them decide if you are the teacher for them. Pretty nifty right?!

To learn more about Betterfly, click on the Betterfly widget to the right. Now to wait for my first student...maybe it's you?

Living the Dream - Katy of Urban Eagle

It's not every day that one gets to meet a woman who is truly a treasure. Today we all get to look into the wonder that is Katy of Urban Eagle Designs. Her shop has been open a little over a month now, so she is still “undiscovered”, but she should be right up there on everyone's go-to list for something extra-special. After I read her questions I just wanted to get on a plane and fly out to New Mexico to meet her in person...she's just that awesome.

First off, she's a wife, a mother and a grandmother. In a former life she was graphic designer for almost thirty years. She even had her own business in San Diego for twenty years. After doing her time in the corporate world, she went after her dream and moved out of the city on to 56 acres in northern New Mexico with her husband and two dogs. They live completely “off grid” which means all their electricity comes from photovoltaics. For all you novices like me photovoltanics is the application of solar cells for energy by converting sunlight directly into electricity. This spring they hope to build their own straw bale and adobe home. They have a lovely patch of land to work with.













Katy is currently a student working on her certification in herbs. Not only does she grow herbs, but also natural dye plants and most of the food her family eats. That's right, she buys her fibers from local growers and then dyes them using plants she herself grew and then spins her own yarn. She's all about being organic and non harmful to the environment. I told you she was awesome didn't I? Somehow she finds time to knit all her efforts up into wonderful offerings for her shop. Oh and she keeps bees...as if she wasn't busy enough.

She has been working with fiber since she learned to knit at the age of 14 back in nineteen mumble mumble. She started designing her own patterns in 1992 and was even a featured artist in "Knitting in America". Soon after that she learned how to spin and then to dye with natural dyes. She is most certainly in love with her craft because she has such wonderful attention to detail. Most of the inspiration for her designs comes from Native American Art. “I have a library of over 70 books of all sorts of Native American art from rock art to bead work to weaving to pottery. You name it, I've probably got a book about it! I also get inspiration from the spiritual world. Each of my garments have "totems" attached to them in some way.”

In Urban Eagle you can find high quality, labor intensive craftsmanship. Her favorite things to make are her vests, which are gorgeous. “I make my pieces for "real" people to be worn frequently.” she says and wear them they do.

“Most of my day-time hours (except for the dead of winter) are spent outside in my gardens and greenhouse. I like to do my dyeing, spinning and fiber prep in the afternoon and early evening. I knit at night after dinner. If the weather is bad I will knit during the day.” She is living a fiber dream come true. Even though the thought of Katy sitting and peacefully knitting is a tempting one, we now know that a lot of work goes on before she can ever sit down and rest.

Besides selling on Etsy and running her family place, she keeps herself busy with several other pursuits. She belongs to the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center and just recently signed up on Ravelry, although she admits she doesn't quite know what to do with it yet. I'm sure a few of us wouldn't mind reaching out to her as I have a feeling most of us are already floating around somewhere on Ravelry.
“I do at least two art tours here in northern NM - the Abiquiu Studio Tour and the Pedernal Arts Tour. I have had VERY bad luck with consignment so I don't do that anymore. Most of my sales, outside of the tours, are by word of mouth. I am also a stop on the New Mexico Fiber Trails.

Her hopes are that someday the revenue from her fiber (and herbs) will grow to be a good “supplement for my Social Security...when I'm eligible for it,” she giggles. You're only as old as you act, and as far as I can tell, Katy is one young spring chicken.

Beautiful, Inspirational Orchids

I have only a few minutes tonight to blog, so I just thought I would post some pretty flowers for you my followers. These have made me consider form and the bright colors have made me think of ways I might try to dye some of that roving in my living room.


All these were taken at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens this past weekend. Some of these were in the temperate house and the house with all the rose trees, whatever the name of it is. The orchids were from the show we went to in the main building.



It's going to be interesting to see if I can make yarn to reflect these wonders of nature. These flowers had such a sheen and soft texture.



What fibers could possibly come out as dewy and fresh as flower petals? What sort of draw would I use? What
sort of dyes? I feel a project coming on here.


















Last but not least, here is a parting shot of one of my most favorite places in the gardens. May all of you have enough time to stop and sit in the garden every-once-in-a-while. Have a wonderful day!

Isolated from the Spinning Wheel

I'm in spinning heck! I've been at the in-law's place since Friday and haven't been able to spin a single, well, single. There is the consolation of being able to periodically pet the yarn I brought with me to show everyone. I've spent several hours explaining how different fibers spin up in different ways. My mother-in-law patiently listened as I pushed skein after skein into her lap, she even tried to be enthusiastic, poor woman. She's an avid scrapbooker, maybe I should have pushed that angle. She's not a fiberholic like me. The withdrawl has been brutal, but they're trying to help me through it by keeping me otherwise occupied.

On Saturday Dear Hubby and I met my sister and her beau at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens, otherwise known as Shaw's Gardens. There was a beautiful orchid show set up in one of the wings and it was so worth the trip. I love going to the gardens, but have never been there during the winter before. We were surprised to see pansies blooming outside already, but they were off the paved path and I couldn't get a good picture of them. I got some inspiration for a few things for my shop from some of the things we saw and can't wait to download the pictures we took so I can see them larger.

Today we had lunch at my parent's place and then came back to the in-laws to watch the Daytona 500. I watched the greater portion of it with the roof of my mouth and started snoring very loudly several times. So embarrassing! I guess my feminine mystique has been shattered, not that I had much to start with.

Tomorrow we go home. Tomorrow evening will be spent with my wheel. Sweet, sweet spinning.

Yarn Yarn and More Yarn

Hello all you crazy crafters!

What a weekend! I have spun and spun and spun and finally have some yarn to show for it. Both of the yarns in these pictures have been spun from Linda's rovings. She runs Sunset Fibers on Etsy. I named the orange one "Poppies and Daffodils" and the blue one "Forget-Me-Nots and Violets". Nice Springy names for yarn I thought. The orange is a 2-ply sport weight and the blue is 2-ply aran weight. Too bad I didn't end up with more of it because I would really like to knit some up, but had to list them both in my Etsy shop instead to get the inventory up.

I also spun up my very first bamboo and Merino blend today, (from Bob at Winderwood Farm)which I have to say was different. It wanted to slip a bit more than I am used to and took a little while to learn to control. It was spun in fingering weight singles and then plied for a sport weight result. The yarn felt soft before I set the twist, but afterwards it has really relaxed into a supple strand that looks like it will have a very nice drape when knitted. I will have to put some pictures on here when it dries all the way. It's really beautiful, all multicolored and shimmery. Very nice.

Believe it or not, I also spun up 8 ounces of Merino/Alpaca yarn tonight in a very bulky weight. 100 yards of 2-ply yarn tips the scale at 5.75 ounces. Very heavy, but very beautiful. I had 50 yards left over which will probably end up as a nice hefty scarflette. The big skein will be listed in my shop when it dries and I can get a good picture of it.

I dare say the bunnies and hubby are feeling a bit neglected these past few days. I'll have to make it up to them tomorrow because tonight, I'm pooped.

Everyone have a wonderful week!

Lovely Squishy Corriedale

I have a secret shame. I don't think Merino wool is the one and only king of sheep fiber anymore. (Gasp!) Here's the thing, ever since I started wanting to learn to spin, people have told me that merino is the softest, has the finest micron count and is the best wool to spin. They said that I should start on other fiber and then work up to Merino. For months now I have been gathering bits of Merino roving like gold and hoarding them. Then something happened.

One day I was on Etsy.com, again, and came across Sunset Fibers. There are the most delicious rovings listed there and my fingers itched to be spinning some of them. One thing held me back though. She didn't have any Merino listed at all at the time. How could it be? In fact, one of her listings even said that she "preferred Corriedale over Merino"! Could I have found a spinning miscreant, a breaker of the rules, a fiber delinquent? The answer is most emphatically, YES and with good reason.

She hand paints her fibers and then sends them off to be processed by a mill of her choice. The result is an exquisitely divine roll of fluff that just melts into yarn effortlessly. I spun up four ounces last night of the February fiber of the month and am now the proud owner of 160 yards of 2-ply gorgeousness. I still need to wash it but will post pictures after I do as it fluffs up quite a bit after the twist sets. Even before a wash it is soft and just begs me to pet it. Actually I need to go squoosh it now...be right back.

To tide you over, here are some pictures of some of her fiber before and after being spun. This was the first fiber I ever got from her.


I just made a lovely neck warmer with this and it's gorgeous. I'll have to get a picture of it too. For now, I say goodnight to you and sweet dreams.

Etsy, Ravelry, Twitter and Me

For months now my dear hubby has suggested I start one of these blog things about my fiber projects. More specifically, my spinning of yarn, which I am currently obsessed with. These suggestions were normally put off with, "I'm too busy right now, what would I write about anyway?" Hmm. Apparently the "powers that be" were listening and I find myself with quite a bit of time lately due to losing my job. Sigh...no really, it's OK. Here's why.

Since September I've been spinning yarn on a Babe Double Treadle Spinning Wheel I picked up secondhand at a fiber festival. It's great, and I'm "in love" with it, but now there is a small mountain of fiber and fiber projects in my minuscule living room with nowhere to go. So what is a hot young fiber-holic to do? Why turn some of that effort into cash of course! Not to support the family you see, but to fund the addiction. Off to find some fiber-challenged enablers!

A friend suggested that I check out Etsy.com, which I did and subsequently spent two full weeks submerged in "research" of other people's shops. Several hundred dollars later and in danger of having to go without clean clothes, I finally opened my own little shop called Handmade Sunshine. So far in a month I've managed to have 2 sales and about 300 views. Not too bad for a first month.


I joined a few fiber-related teams on Etsy that keep blogs as well. A new fledgling team is Create Crochet! and is headed by a real sweetheart named Kristen. She is always looking for new ideas by people who are passionate about crochet and crochet supplies. She also makes some pretty amazing greeting cards which you should really check out.

Etsy FAST which stands for Fiber Arts Street Team, is a more established group interested in the promotion of fiber arts of all kinds from paper to yarn and everything in between. They have monthly challenges where fiber artists compete to create an item that best embodies the current theme. For instance, February the topic is "emotions" and several people have already listed their item in their shops. One example is the "That Warm and Fuzzy Feeling Scarflette"

Etsy has some amazing articles on how to promote a shop and that's how I found out about Twitter.com and got addicted to a brand new thing. Well, at least for me micro-blogging is new. So far I've been on for almost a week and have 39 followers. Not that I ever say much on there that is enlightening, but the voyeurism is rather fun. Usually the background is set to show off a new yarn listed in my shop. My hubby now teases me about being "such a geek" which I take in stride since he's an even bigger one. It's the whole, "it takes one to know one" kind of mentality that we have come to expect in our relationship. (Contented sigh, giggle, "I love him")

Earlier this year one of my friends had told me about Ravelry.com which is an wonderful reference tool for knitters and crocheters and unfortunately requires an invitation to log on. It's still in the Beta testing phase and so you submit a request for an invite and the moderator sends one out easy-peasy in about 4 days. Hey, they're young, they're hip, and extremely cool so it's totally worth the wait. Even bunny-loving spinners like me can find a niche on there. They have places to keep track of yarns, projects and books that you have pileing up around the house, forums where you can find the answere to every fiber question imagineable, and a nifty message center to keep track of new friends. Sweet!

So where does that leave little ole yours truely? Glued to the computer between spinning up batches of yarn and trying to maintain basic physical hygine requirements, that's where. I think I'm busier now than I ever was when employed. Every-once-in-a-while the bunnies come by and sit on my feet to remind me to feed them; either that or they're busy plotting the demise of my computer again. I should have never passed up that stock with the electrical tape company.

Here's to wishing all of you a happy and productive weekend! I've got some yarn to spin.