Lemon Lime Fizzy Yarn Is The Beginning Of A "Rainbow Serpent Of The Dreamtime"...

When I begin to spin a yarn, as I've written in the last entries, I have certain standards and if they don't meet them I don't put the yarn in the shop but use it in a free form project, and so the "Lemon-Lime Fizzy" yarn as you have seen is going to be just that.

The fun part is that I have no idea what it's going to be until I start. At the end of the last entry you saw me beginning to knit the skein of yarn. This is what it looked like when I had knitted the skein, a long, VERY heavy piece...

And so I look at it and contemplate, meditate and let the spirit in the piece rise in my mind. I knew almost immediately what she would be, but I needed to keep working for awhile. Yesterday I got this far...

And as I began to work she started singing her silent song to me. It's time to create another "Rainbow Serpent Of The Dreamtime," and she told me, in no uncertain terms, that her name was Mellisandra. This amused me because I had written and illustrated a story some 15 years ago. It was a Goddess story and Mellisandra was the head Goddess in the story. It never occurred to me that one day she would come to me in serpent form, but the creatures that arise in my mind are shape-shifters so it wasn't a surprise but pure delight. For those of you who have never heard of the mystical Rainbow Serpent of the Dreamtime, click on the link above for more information. It is a legend rising out of the aboriginal tribes in Australia.

Here is a close-up of the 3 sections of the piece since it was far too long already to get a closeup of the whole thing. The whole piece you see above goes all the way across an ottoman. The serpents I have made in the past are 5' to 6' long and are embellished with vintage and antique buttons and beads, embroidery, and much more. I think Mellisandra will be at least 6' and maybe much longer. It is a real journey creating a Rainbow Serpent, a spiritual experience, not meant to be rushed but lived through with meditations and rituals and drums beating in far off lands, prayers, candles lit, chanting, right intent and more as she is infused with magic while being made. It has taken me roughly 3 months to make one of these and they both sold before they even made it to my etsy shop! We shall what Mellisandra's destiny is!

The sections aren't even but it gives you an idea and she is very much only at the beginning of her journey. All of the yarns are handspun, hand-dyed, or hand-painted and she will keep growing and growing in every direction, guiding me as she grows. Here are a couple of pictures of other Rainbow Serpents I have made, and you've seen at least one of them in an earlier entry...

Beatrix

This was Beatrix, not quite finished. She became a piece
of wearable art as shown below...

And then there was Cecilia who could have been worn as a stole of sorts but now inhabits the bed in the guest room of someone's home. He said people keep wanting to buy her. That tickles me, but I think these Rainbow Serpents end up just where they belong. To someone who needs their blessings and will take great comfort in them...

One of the reasons it takes so long is that I handspin every yarn except a very few that I have purchased over time from other artisans, but they are almost entirely my own yarns and if I had time and space to show the whole process you would see her from start to finish with spindles of yarn everywhere around her waiting to be used...

Cecelia...

Each serpent is on her own journey. I don't know how she will end up or who she will end up with, but I know she is meant to be and so I just keep moving forward with spindles, knitting needles, crochet hooks, spool-knitters and more and our spirits dance with one another and another serpent is born. 

Who will Mellisandra become? You can keep track of her journey here on this blog...

Blessings and Happy, Fibery, Magical Days to you all...

Maitri

When A Yarn Doesn't Make The Grade It Becomes...

You never really know how a yarn is going to
turn out until it dries...

Well, you never really know how a yarn is going to turn out until, having been spun you soak it and dry it and see what the outcome really is. This time it was... not quite up to snuff.

You see I had such dreams when I was spinning this yarn. The vintage green frilly trim was iffy, but it worked for the most part. The vintage ribbon, yellow velvet with lace edges, not so much. I didn't realize until the yarn had dried that the ribbon would end up falling out everywhere. Groan... The green trim did pretty well, but bits of it were (shudder) hanging out. It did remarkably well for the most part, but not enough so in the end. Sigh...

I don't put a yarn up for sale unless I am happy with it and feel it's a fair offering for the price and I won't sell inferior goods. Now, inferior doesn't mean that the yarn isn't usable, in fact, it may turn out splendidly if used the right way, and for me, when a yarn doesn't match the dream I had when spinning it, I keep it and use it in a free-form fiber art piece.

I had to pull out the ribbon which was hanging on as if by an inch of it's life, and it left tufty-fluffy places in the yarn which made it less than desirable, trimmed a couple of edges of the green diddly-daddle off here and there, and rolled it into a ball...

I set it aside as a yarn that wouldn't go in the shop and then started spinning again. I am spinning a yarn I am very happy with right now and it will be the next to go up in the shop. It is called "Peach Tarts and Plum Pudding at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party." I keep wanting to EAT it! But what to do with my poor "Lemon-Lime Fizzy" yarn (that turned out a little too fizzy for it's own good!)? I started to do what I always do. I started a new free-form piece and there's no way in the world that I can tell you where it's going to end up right now. It will be at the center, I am knitting it with BIG needles and I will start crocheting all the way around the edges of the knitted piece. That's as much as I can tell you right now because it's all I know. As an intuitive artist anything I start may turn into anything at all.

You might, in fact, like to take a look at the new entry I just put up on my main blog, Maitri's Heart. It shows a "knitted tapestry" that I worked on over a long period of time. I had no idea where I was going, I just kept going there. And I'm still amazed at how it turned out. I call this "Surprise Knitting." I guess my whole life is kind of a surprise. I never know what color, texture, or size the next piece of it will be!

So this is the beginning of a new fiber art piece and where it ends up I have no clue, but you can follow it along on this blog and I will show you the piece in stages. It's fun to have a yarn turn out funky and then have it turn into a piece of fabulous (Or so it seems to me!) fiber art. Fun, fun, fun all the way.

So I am sitting here with a pug on my person, surrounded with many types and colors of yarn and knitting needles and crochet hooks galore, as well as big bags of fibers and my big spindle right next to me. It will be a fibery Saturday and I know I will enjoy the calm of the day. Slipping my hands into fiber or winding yarn around my fingers is the utmost earthly delight to me and I shall revel in it all day long.

I hope you are having a happy Saturday wherever you are. If you'd like you can get out some knitting needles and a few different colored balls of yarn and just start randomly knitting. For serious pattern followers (I can't follow a pattern to save my life...) you will probably have a nervous breakdown trying to knit this way and I'd advise you to stick to the patterns. Your work is so beautiful that it has made me wistfully order patterns only to look at them with my eyeballs hanging out because the directions looked like a combination of Greek symbols and higher math (...and I wasn't any good at "lower math"...). I have stopped ordering patterns but still look at them wistfully.

For those who'd like the challenge, even if you're a little uncomfortable, come on in, the water's fine. Remember, it's about process, not product. Take care of the process and it will take care of you in the end.

This yarn is really thick. Size 50 needles might work but I think I'm just going to go ahead and use a couple of piano legs. One must be wildly adventurous and think outside the box to work like this and even if you end up in the loony bin your knitting will be good company. I know it has been for me!

Happy Healthy Knitting to one and all and remember, there are no bad yarns, simply unimaginative people! Let your imagination soar....

Maitri
 

Moe Touts The New Yarns, The Pugs Are All Passed Out, Exhausted From Moving!

"I'm so exhausted I can't hardly keep my eyes
open. Pugs are useless. Have them move a few
blog entries from one blog to another and you'd
have thought you asked them to move Mount
Everest! Just about the only time I hear my
name around here anyway is when I'm being
yelled at because I'm trying to eat a pug, or if
Mama Maitri needs help. Well, I've been with
her for nearly 17 years, AND, right in front of
all those little hooligans that look like baked
potatoes on short legs she'll shout, 'Moe is the
ONLY DOG IN THE HOUSE WITH A REAL
NOSE.' That just makes everything worth
while! So let's get to the yarns....

"The Garden In Springtime" ~ 3/4 of a pound.

Maitri put a new yarn up today. It's very pretty if I do say so myself. It DOES look like the garden in springtime, all of the various greens, and the pretty spring flower colors. And it's whispy and sparkly and thick and heavy and curly and lush, luscious! to hold. This one just went up in the shop today!

Then she has -- well, one hates to say it and I hope she doesn't hear me -- an especially, well, peculiar kind of yarn. I couldn't believe the stuff she put in it. 1001 elements like her usual handspun but she took vintage bright green frilly edging and spun in right in all throughout. And THEN she cut up a silk scarf from Japan and spun some of that in too, and then she made it VERY thick (I think it's thick as a piano leg!) so that after soaking it's fuzzledy. She said it would be great fun to use in some wearable art and is still trying to decide if she wants to keep it or sell it, but I did the "Big Sad Eyes," business and mumbled that some of us couldn't live on fiber alone. Some of us actually need food and treats and she'd better sell it to feed us. Guilt trips always work on her so"Lemon & Lime Fizzies" will be up tomorrow or the next day. The thing is the yarn is do durned thick it's taking awhile to dry, but here are some pictures, a little preview...

She got one of those funny looks on her face that she gets when she is getting all nostalgic. Said the name came from some kinda stuff she had when she was a kid. "Fizzies." You dropped these big tablets in a glass of water and they flavored the water and made it go all fizzledy. If you ask me it just sounds like "the poor man's carbonated beverage." I mean (whispering)  she's SO old -- 56 poor dear -- that I don't think they had much of anything back in the olden days when she was little. It's sad really and worse she just won't get with the modern times. She keeps buying old stuff to use. 

I'm going to go to sleep now. If there's more to do she can do it. Everything can't fall to the only boy in the house with a real nose. I mean, there are limits.

She'll get back to you tomorrow and probably have the fizzledy lemon and lime yarn up. Right now she's working with a huge box of super soft hand-painted thick cotton yarns doing a scarfish, shawlish, something-or-otherish thing that I can't quite make out. She has a whole pile of knitting needles and crochet hooks in ALL different sizes and even when she's knitting it's on two different sized needles and I just can't make heads nor tails of it.

Moe, the splendid boy with the great big enormous kissable nose...

A BIG Honkin' Spindle Full Of Yarn -- The Garden In Springtime..... And Sampson Says It's a Dangerous Place To Live With All Of These Dang Spindles Everywhere....

"I'm hiding under the desk. You could kill a
pug with all of those dang spindles all over
the place here. If you ask me spindles are the
REAL weapons of mass destruction. And NO,
I'm NOT coming out! (Unless there's a treat
involved. Or a little piece of that sweet
potato. Or maybe...)"

Well, Sampson was going to write this entry but he disappeared somewhere. He's positively terrified of the Monster Spindle (Wait until he sees the new spindles I am designing to have made. The whorls are as big as dinner plates!). He did however turn the spindle with his nose three times so I could take pictures of the new yarn on the spindle, then he skedaddled off to parts unknown. Sigh... Ask a pug to do a simple little thing like write a blog entry and he disappears between one eye-blink and the next. Good help is hard to find, especially here. Anyway, here's the spindle full of yarn. It will be coming off tomorrow, soaked and hung to dry...

And next to answer the oft asked question...

Why Are Art Yarns So Expensive For So Little Yardage?

This question is often asked and I'm glad to answer. Of course hand-spinners of art yarns have all different types of processes, prices, and ways of pricing. One of the reasons I started this blog, other than to have a little fun with the pugs, show the fiber art of the moment whether batt, art yarn or wearable art, and the works in process because I always think that kind of thing is interesting to see, was to speak about my process as an artist and my feelings about different aspects of work as a fiber artist. So, to pricing...

Art Yarns are not typically meant to make a whole project out of unless perhaps a scarf or something small. They are typically used as trim, edging, or sections of a freeform project. I also make "Crazy Quilt Woven Pieces" of all sorts and sizes using many different art yarns in one piece. Here is a piece of wearable art that is comprised of a great many art yarns. This serpent, whose name was Beatrix, was one of my "Rainbow Serpents of the Dreamtime," a line of wearable art, or, a person who bought a different serpent draped it all along the back of the couch. (Oddly, and rather interestingly, one woman bought one of my yarns and loved it so much she said she couldn't bear to use it and part with it so she piled it in a big wooden bowl on her dining room table! Now there's a place I never imagined one of my yarns to show up!)

Beatrix was spotted and sold before she could even make it to the shop, but I will be making more Rainbow Serpents for the etsy shop. These pieces take a long time to make which is why I started with the batts and the yarns. 

The yarn at the top of this page is a good example in the discussion about pricing. It took four days to spin. I sat for hours each day laying out, in 12 to 24" sections, as many as a dozen or more types of fiber. I sit with bags and boxes and containers of fiber and fiber elements completely circling me and it's a meditative process choosing each different section's worth of fibers, spinning that section, and then starting over again. This is why I like working with hand spindles. For me it is easier to lay out a section of fibers, keep changing them, lay bits of curly locks, perhaps, as with this yarn, sari silk, silk noil, Angelina for sparkle as well as Firestar, rayon, bamboo fiber, angora, llama, alpaca, mohair and very many different types of wools, all so soft they are like clouds in the hand.

When the yarn is finished, soaked, dried, and the skein laid on my long old farmer's table I carefully measure it to check the yardage and then weigh it on a digital scale. I price my yarns by the ounce, and the price per ounce varies according to how many different types of fiber have been used, a little more if exotic fibers are used, and the time it has taken me to spin it. All of these things factor in when I set the price per ounce which is different for every yarn. So this gives you a little idea of how my Art Yarns are priced. 

Finally, I thought I would show you a picture of the three pugs who helped me make Beatrix. I am loathe to put the picture up because I was at the height of fluffiness when it was taken (we call chubby pugs "fluffy"...), but the pugs are so cute. And when you've got arms-full of pugs it's something to see. I'm losing quite a bit of weight now (and I'd like to lose this picture of me so fluffy!) but the pugs are just precious to me and it was early on in my life with my wee little black pug Babs who went to sleep and passed away in my arms on June 22. Such a little peapod she is here with Sam and Coco. Harvey didn't come until almost a year later...

From left to right, Sampson,

Babsie and Coco, with my

lopsided forever smile from

Bell's Palsy. Note, while I am

fluffy in the picture and Sam

and Coco thinner, now I am

losing weight and they are,

ahem, fluffier. Somewhere

there's a balance but we don't

know where???

It is now time for the puggeries and I to take a nap. It has been raining very hard all day, and thundering which scares poor Big Dog Moe half to death, and at 3:00 in the afternoon it is as dark as night. I find these kind of days soothing but Moe thinks I'm nuts and the pugs sleep through everything.

Think happy puggery thoughts, and have joyful fibery days...

And P.S. Someone sent me this You Tube video of a pug singing (really!) the "Batman" song. I keep playing it over and over and it makes me laugh so hard I've had tears running down my cheeks -- a great antidote for those days when you are really down and blue. I sent it to my daughter to show my 6 year old grandson and they loved it too, so click on this link for a great big smile!

Pug Sings "Batman"...

P.S.S. Harvey was miffed at me talking about the singing pug and while he doesn't sing he likes to pose, like Batman, or Superman, or...

Sam Is Guilted Into Writing An Entry About Maitri's Low Tech Approach To Spinning Yarn....

Sam Speaks...

I would like it to be known that I am writing this under duress, and because treats are involved, and because, truth be told, our mother is the ultimate "travel agent for the guilt trip." Oy Vey, you oughta hear her moan and wail -- "All you all do is lay around all day while I work my fingers to the bone spinning yarn so I can buy you treats. The least you can do is write a blog entry now and again." -- and then she struck terror in the heart of every pug on the place. She started flinging things around in the studio and saying that she had come up with A WHOLE NEW IDEA and is very excited about starting on it as soon as she gets the first four yarns shown so far on this blog, and in this entry, up in the shop. We don't like it when she gets that look in her eye. She works all kinds of weird hours in the studio and won't sit in our big chair and I don't know where to go. Sometimes I help, I really do, if she just stays in our chair I help and we get a lot done. See.....

Well, ahem, maybe that wasn't the best picture to show but we got worn out separating the sari silk. 

Anyway, to the task at hand. I have to write this quickly so I can take a nap. I've been up for ten minutes and I'm ready to go back to sleep. 

Mama Maitri believes in a low tech approach to most things in life (except for the computer which, if you ask me, she is a daggoned fanatic about..). She writes with fountain pens, putters about barefoot in cotton caftans, ambles about in the garden slower than the snails, and leaves the house so little she hasn't put much more than 800 miles on the car since New Year's Eve. She's not exactly (whispering) a ball of fire if you get my drift...

Anyway, since we moved her fiber tools and whatnots are all asunder in boxes and heaven only knows where and she said, "Why waste money? I'll just use an oatmeal box." She already uses the old fashioned spindle spinning and she said she bets more than one spinner in the old days used an oatmeal box or something of it's ilk when coiling the yarn off of the spindle. You see here. And she used the yarn that she used for plying to tie off the little skein in 4 places...

Here's a closeup of the yarn on the box...

And a closer closeup of the yarn itself before soaking to set the twist...

... and off of the box...

... and sitting on the kitchen table while Mama Maitri gets a bowl of water ready to soak the skein...

... and into the water...

... and then hung to dry on the porch on one of the hangers she bought at the Dollar Store. Man, did she go nuts. They were 10 in a package for $1. She got 10 packages, half bright pink and half neon green. I tried to explain to her it's not a bargain if you buy 100 hangers you can never rightly use in your natural life, but she loves those hangers and she gave me The Look. (That means No treats for you if you don't shut your pug mug up right there!) We are all afraid of The Look, and you would be too if your treat was hanging in the balance!

Anyway, here's the wet yarn hung out to dry... (Gee, aren't the other 99 really useful? Snicker)

.. and finally dried in the bright sunshine...

I think it's pretty though I'm loathe to admit it until I've had my treat. The smug look of satisfaction she gets, well, it's pitiful really...

Now she's working on a yarn in many kinds of reds with bits of white. I hope it takes awhile because once she's finished on the oatmeal box it will go, they'll all go up in the shop and then The Big New Idea will unfold. (Shudder)

Anyway, here's the red and white yarn on the spindle...

... and a closeup....

... and now I'm going to go get my treat. I've done my duty and she's got it sitting next to her while she's spinning. Slave driver, that's what!

"I HEARD THAT SAM!"

"Mais non, eet twas not me, eet was Big Dog Moe!"

I don't think she bought it, but I got my treat anyway, and that's all that counts.

Sampson, Velcro Pug and Blog Author, who secretly hopes for a book deal any day...

Here Come The Yarns Starting To Go Up In The Shop This Week! And The Pugs Were No Help At All...

Dear Patient Pug and Fiber Lovers,

Well, the first 2 yarns have been soaked and dried and will be weighed and measured to go up in the shop. The third yarn I finished spinning and plying today and I will be doing one in reds tomorrow. By Sunday I plan to have 6 -8 yarns in the shop and then I will start making things like fiber based jewelry, beaded and more, and other wearable art, as well as the woven pieces. Things are moving right along now and it feels good to be back at work. In the next month the shop will really start filling up!

The first two yarns you saw in process in the last entry. Here you will see them having dried and ready to weigh and measure tomorrow...

First the first "Fairy Fleece Yarn" very sparkly, having been spun from a variety of "leftovers" from the batting process from the first 7 batts. It was so much fun to work with and turned out really pretty. I'm really happy with it and it is very sparkly but I can't get that to show up well in the pictures. But you can see the bright pretty colors and it would be great fun in a Freeform Crochet project or any kind of knitting or crochet piece...

The next yarn is the first "Pug Fun Yarn" is not plied and has so many wools, fibers, sparklies, and other materials I can hardly name them all. A very soft, beautiful, fluffy, wispy yarn and a fair amount of it. As I said it will be weighed and measure tomorrow and then I'll know exactly what I've got to put in the listing.

The final yarn you saw last time in batt form only. Here again is the batt. This will be the "Batty for Pugs Yarn," spun from a batt that I created, a beautiful silky soft yarn that you will not really be able to fully see until it is soaked and dried like the two above but I think it's fun to show the process for people who love the yarns but are not spinners. Spindle spinning is a very different process that spinning on a wheel, and one is not better than the other, I just find the old fashioned spindle spinning a very pleasurable experience, though you will soon be seeing yarns made on Big Bertha, my "Babe Electric spinner." I want to use the electric spinner so that I can spin up greater quantities of yarn for those who need more yarn than the art yarns spun on spindles will allow. So here again is the batt the last yarn was created from...

And the spun yarn...

The yarn partially plied...

The plying yarn, a wonderful, slubby yarn that you will see better when the yarn is finished and dried like the 2 at the top...

The two spindles in the plying process...

I tried to get one of the pugs to write this entry so that I could start working on the 2nd "Pug Fun Yarn" in reds. I'm very excited about that. But this being after 9:30 at night they wouldn't budge. Pugs have no work ethic. None. None at all. 

Coco, will you help me?

She wouldn't answer and what's pitiful is since Babs passed she likes to sleep in Babs' bed. They were always together and would sometimes sleep together in Coco's big bed. She wasn't quite asleep but she wouldn't budge. Sigh...

I thought that maybe Harvey would help because he's a lovie-dovie sweetie pea. No go. He wasn't budging either...

Harvey told me that he has such a hard life that he couldn't possibly be working this time of night. You can see what a hard life Harvey has above... Ahem.

I had a feeling that Sam would be a lost cause, but when you're desperate you try anything.

"Um, Sam, would you like to write this entry so I can start on the next yarn..."

Sam hid his face in the pillows. I'm not convinced that he was really asleep but he pretended he didn't hear me. Pugs are sly. Don't let the cute faces fool you. Sly, sly, sly. So here I go at almost 10:00, having written the entry with a whole huge box of various fibers beside me and I'll start spinning again. 

Pugs, whatta ya gonna do with 'em? I guess I'll keep 'em. They're good for squishing and kissing and I guess that matters most of all...