Etsy-tastic

I've finally spent some time photographing and prepping for Etsy several items I made months ago. I always tell myself it will take no time at all, and then, of course it takes all afternoon. Part of the hold up on some of these things was that I told myself I was going to make 10-15 of them for the sake of experiment and design exploration. I stuck to this plan for about two weeks before it began to taper off with a grand total of four completed. I told myself repeatedly that I would continue with the rest, but that hasn't happened yet, so I decided to put what I had up on Etsy since I'm satisfied with them thus far. 

This series of mine is several felted "nest" shapes, akin to an oriels nest, attached to a branch of grape vine curl. The wool is a smokey mix of several fibers and doesn't felt as smoothly as the usual roving. The effect is more organic and I like it. I've been stitching little bright beads into it hoping they'll look like little spoors or seeds or eggs... or.... something like that. They're interesting as necklaces, but I'm thinking of putting them on hair pins as well so it would be as though something had nested in ones hair. 

The woodworking items on Etsy have been taken down at the request of their maker, Chuck. I worked with Chuck at his wood shop, but he's out of business for the time being. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about what happened yet, but I hope it's good news and not bad. 

In reviewing the remaining items, I find myself getting critical of my writing style again. Apparently, writing the product descriptions is the tricky part for most people. In mine, I try to balance candor about how I feel about what I've made while making it interesting and not coming across as patronizing or glib. I'm probably more guilty of over-thinking them! 

Rita has lately had me processing some dyed-in-the-grease wool. I like this sort of thing and how it feels very close to the material. I like the terms for the tools; the doffer, the picker, the flicker, the carder. I also seem to be able to focus for long periods of time on stuff like this-- I get particular about pulling burrs and dense short bits out while carding. She let me take the pulled out bits with me, so now I have dyed wool that is still rather raw in every other way. This will probably be quite interesting to work with...

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

In my quest to know everything there is to know about making stuff, I've begun to learn how to spin. I got to go along to the Michigan Fiber Festival this year with Rita of Yarn Hollow. I already had a neglected drop spindle and had bought a bunch of spinning-roving and used much of it for needle felting (which is a pricey way to do needle felting). I finally got a book, in violation of my usual I'll-figure-it-out-as-I-go method of learning things. This is pretty much how I learned to needle felt, and hang dry wall. I think it was okay with the needle felting and less efficient with the dry walling. 

The book has been quite helpful and I've got one quarter of my roving spun. I was even able to two ply it, which had been a bit of a mystery to me. I understood the twisting in principal, but I didn't understand how one got all of the yarn to do it at once. The Andean method involves a particular way of wrapping  ones hand in yarn and then spinning the two lengths together. 

I mean to get the rest of it spun up soon, but I'm also making socks for a friend of my who's currently in Iraq (and obviously needs socks), and I've got a great idea for a hat (because I obviously need another hat), so focusing on one project at a time is getting tricky.