I've Been A Little Busy...

...lately. Between a fabulous trip to Banff to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, my birthday, and helping out puppeteers, I have had no time to blog.

I have had time to knit, though. As part of my ongoing involvement with the Odd-lot Puppetry Co., I was invited to put items for sale into a marketplace booth at InterPLAY last weekend. So I made puppets. More specifically finger puppets, or, as I called them, Puplets. I designed knitted and fulled finger puppets based upon the characters in one of the shows the puppet troupe performed at the festival.

I started with a character, a sketch and a few scraps of handspun or custom-dyed yarn.

Then I knit an oversized finger puppet on 4 mm double-pointed needles.

Each Puplet was hand-felted with lots of soap and hot and cold water. I found that Body Shop Sorbet Fizz bubble bath worked realllly well!

After being washed, the Puplets shrunk to about 2/3 of their original size and were wonderfully compacted and fuzzy.

Then each Puplet was hand-finished with noses, eyes, and other features by using various techniques, such as needle felting, embroidery and beadwork.

And we have a Neeno Greckon Puplet. Neeno is one of the stars of the Odd-lot Puppetry Company's show K.I.N.D.A.Works. Some of his costars include...

Phil, the apparently sideways scientist. (Clearly my technical skills are collapsing around this post--I have no idea why this and the following picture have been turned sideways by Blogger, or why my presumed-deleted dial-up wizard keeps popping up while I type! Help! I need a nerd!)

My personal favorite was Larry the Lab Rat. Just tilt your head to the right. He's cute--and he sold out!

All in all, I made 40 of these little suckers over the course of about a week. At about an hour each, that made for a full-time workweek! The best part was that I sold 25 of them.

I have never considered myself much of a production type. I prefer to do something once, them move on. This was definitely a production project, 5 of each type of puppet, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Perhaps it's time to set up at craft sales...

Maybe later. Right now, I have to go throw my computer out the window!

Catching My Breath...Again

It seems my life had settled into a pattern of frantic activity followed by a period of absolutely nothing happenning. Fortunately, I am in one of those periods of nothing for a while. I can catch up on my sleep and chip away at a few UFOs for the next couple of days.

So what have I been doing to keep so busy? I'm glad you asked...

The middle of June was the ANWG conference, as mentioned in the previous post. This is a close-up of the other piece I had in the instructors exhibit. Handspindled silk, the warp is a painted sliver plied to keep colors together and the weft is silk hankies.

I came home from that and rolled straight into the corrections and changes to my in-depth study. The only remark that I will make about that is that computers and I are still not seeing eye to eye. I hate it when a computer's default setting has to be circumvented to make a simple thing happen. The correction of 13 typos and renumbering the pages took three tooth-grinding days. I have turned it in again for a final review, but it looks like it is done and I am officially a Master Spinner!

Then I remembered that I had promised Lexi a wrap for her grad. I had cast on a lovely silk thing in March, using this pattern from Knitty.com. and a silk/sea silk blend yarn from Handmaiden. Then I set it aside. Three days of panic knitting ensued, but it was finished and blocked the evening before the grand day.

I think it turned out okay. And a close-up of the fringe...

Grad was Friday, Canada Day and a barbecue with friends on Sunday, packing Monday, then off to Fibre Week in Olds and Calgary with Lexi and Cameron on Tuesday. I only had time to take one workshop this year, so Wednesday I took a class on 3-ply yarns with Dianne Cross from Sydney, BC. It was soo much fun to just play, making wee samples with all kinds of different fibres. I came home with this...

...to show for my efforts.

The kids went to Warped Tour the Thursday we were there, so that meant a road trip to Calgary and a stop a Krispy Kreme. Mmmmm, there's nothing better than a ring of fried dough coated with sugar!

We drove home on Friday, with only a quick stopover in Edmonton for lunch. I was wiped out and my back was killing me from all the driving. So naturally, I got up on Saturday and warped up the loom!

The warp is a commercial 60/2 silk, sett at 50 epi and the weft is another Handmaiden silk--rumple this time. The picture doesn't do the colors justice. It is a bright red with tiny streaks of hot pink and a scarletty-orange. I have run out of weft, but I will be picking some more up next week when I embark on yet another adventure!

Today is reserved for getting life in order...laundry, house cleaning and updating the old Blog.

And maybe just a little spinning...

Home Again

Yes, I'm home again--for more than a couple of days this time. The last trip was to the ANWG conference in Red Deer, where I taught a spindling workshop and presented two seminars, one on fulled knits and the other on recycling and reusing materials for handspinning. All sessions seemed to be well-received and I had a great deal of fun with the participants. Thanks to Judi for the lovely description of the recycling seminar! I also got a chance to reconnect with some old friends I hadn't seen since the broken wrist, and to make some new friends with some very interesting people.

This was one of the samples that I made up for the recycling seminar. It's a little shrug knit from handspun merino salvaged from leftovers with rayon chenille inserted during the plying to make the little squiggles. This picture is lifted off the Powerpoint and really doesn't do the piece any justice, but since I didn't have time to take any pictures at the conference, I needed something for eye candy.

I also got my in-depth study back at the conference with comments and changes, 90% of which appear to be typos and printing errors. One very valid point at which a paragraph was clearly abandoned in mid-stream, then picked up later to veer off in another direction. Wrong terms in the wrong places. D'oh! And I have the nerve to lecture my kids on the value of proof-reading...

Well, I'm home, and the larder is restocked, family has been caught up with and it is time to knit. Life is beautiful.

In Memorium

Terry Yushchyshyn December 25, 1936-June 7,2007

My Dad died last Thursday after fighting cancer for a year. When he was diagnosed, he was given 3 months. As usual, Dad did not do what was expected of him...

I have been quietly contemplating his life and the impact he made on mine, and I am grateful for the love and lessons that he passed on to me. He was an important player in the movie exhibition industry for 50 years, but the person I knew was also a sensitive and playful Daddy, and that's how I will remember and honor him.

I learned a lot from my Dad. Here is a short list of the most important lessons, in no particular order:

-Everything in moderation.

-When someone says something that upsets you, consider the source.

-Fishing isn't about catching fish, it's about sitting in the middle of the lake enjoying the quiet.

-Everything will grow with enough water and fertilizer.

-Sometimes it's better to be quiet than to be right.

-Friends come and go, but your family is forever.

-One good dog is better company than a hundred friends.

-You'll appreciate something a lot more if you have to work to get it.

-The best wild blueberries grow in clear-cuts and pipeline pathways.

-Always be ready for the next adventure.

-Take life seriously, but don't take people seriously.

-A long, hot bath solves just about everything.

There was so much more, of course, but these ones are the bits of advice that I hear running through my head most often.

I love you, Dad.

You Know You're Old When...

...you are knitting at a rock concert.

Yes, this is me at the Police concert at the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton. And in my own defence, I must point out that I was only knitting while they reset the stage between the opening act (Sloan) and The Police. The rest of the time, I was on my feet dancing, cheering, and singing along. Honest.

Ahhh, Sweet Freedom

Well, sort of.

I am free to spin the yarns I want to--no more socks for a while! I am free to spin or knit when I want to. The family has scattered for the long weekend, and as much as I love them all, I am free from cooking and cleaning (not that I really do that, anyway) and driving.

So what do I do to celebrate this newfound freedom. Invite people over for dinner and plan a gourmet meal. Spin samples for my upcoming seminars. Finish UFOs.

Boy do I know how to live!

I did take some time to see a couple of movies--while I was spinning. I highly recommend The Queen, Dreamgirls, and Shortbus. But only watch Shortbus if you have no aversion to penises--you see one or two--or any other material of a graphically sexual nature. Just a warning, Mom.

I took Teagan to the dog park today. She loves to see the other dogs, but is a little overwhelmed by the big ones. There were a Cockapoo and Shih-Tsu/Poodle cross there that were her size, but those Labs and Shepherds were not quite her cup of tea. Gan. Get it? Ha, ha?

Tonight is a seafood feast for me and the boys and the season finale of The Simpsons.

I said it before: Boy do I know how to live.

It's Done!

My in-depth study is done! I put it in the mail to my instructor yesterday, and now all I have to do is wait for her comments and changes and I will officially be a Master Spinner. Huzzah! This mother has taken me two years, with interruptions for broken bones, surgeries, and strokes, but it is OVER. Yeeehaw!

No on to the next thing...I am making a series of recycled yarn samples for a seminar I will be giving at the ANWG conference in Red Deer next month. I am trying to illustrate specific techniques and ideas, but I seem to go off on tangents. I have this great big bag of scraps, bits, and just plain crappy fibre sitting in the middle of the living room, and every time I glance at it, I see a great new yarn idea. I am currently obsessed with lumpy garnet yarns, using noils and huge cuts of yarn. I have enough samples of this type of yarn for 6 seminars. I need to focus on some other types of yarns, but I clearly have my favorite.
















I dont' have any pics of the finished yarns uploaded yet, but here's a shot of one of the blends being carded. Like, I said, lumpy with big noils.

I will also be teaching a spindling workshop and leading a seminar on felted knits in Red Deer, so there is a great frenzy of sorting and stacking going on in between spinning bouts. The conference is 5 wweks away, but the excitement is already building--these will be my first workshops since the Great Hippo Attack of Ought-Five, so I am nervous about getting back into the teaching mode.

Enough rambling, more spinning!