Online Auction to Benefit my Niece, Alena

I am holding an online auction on Facebook for the next week or more. The proceeds of this auction are to benefit my niece, Alena, who is recovering from uterine cancer. She had surgery in late June and is unable to work for six weeks. She had to borrow the money to have the necessary surgery to remove the cancerous tissue. Her insurance would not cover the surgeon's fees and those fees needed to be paid up front before the surgery would even be scheduled. While she is unable to work, she does not have paid vacation or paid sick days so she is without any form of income for six full weeks. This means she does not have the funds to pay even her basic necessities of rent, utilities and food. So, I decided to do not only the Chip-In event for her, I also decided that an auction would be a great way for people to get some beautiful goods and the proceeds would go to a very good cause.

In the auction are some handspun and hand painted yarns that were donated by a wonderful customer and friend, Cassandra.

And a handspun skein of Falkland wool yarn spun and donated by Marlea in Wyoming.

Also up for bids is a hand dyed skein of wool dyed and donated by Lydia of Prairie Fire Soapworks & Fiber - on ArtFire.

Also available is some extremely yummy olive oil donated by Kitehawk Farm: Kitehawk 100% Organic Arbequina Olive Oil - 250 mil bottle. Estate grown and milled at Kitehawk Farm, located on the lovely central coast of California.

And two big boxes of soy wax scented tarts for use in a tart warmer - each box contains 25 two ounce (2.0 oz) tarts (over three pounds of tarts!) donated by Auntie Di's. You can find Auntie Di's on facebook, on her own website and on Etsy.

Another gorgeous item up for bids is a stunning chalcedony bracelet handmade and donated by Patty of Broken Teepee Designs in Montana. Broken Teepee Designs is also on Etsy.

I donated a first shearing llama cria (baby) fleece. I normally would never sell a cria fleece but I wanted to donate something that I thought would sell well and this fits the bill very well.

My niece, Alena Scott, is a also very talented artist. She makes some incredibly beautiful mosaic pieces of art. Some of these pieces are available for sale right now in the auction on Facebook. Here are her pieces available in the auction:

A mosaic candle holder

A candle holder or candy jar (has a lid)

A mosaic frame that holds a photograph of a rose (taken by Alena)

A gorgeous patio table or tea table

And a framed mosaic wall piece titled "Green Mask"

Other people have donated items to the auction and I will be adding those over the next few days as time allows. I will be adding some Mary Kay cosmetics, handmade earrings, a handmade angel "ornament" and other items.


A huge thank you to everyone who has donated items or money to the Chip-In Event! The outpouring of kindness, generosity and love has been amazing and the entire family is extremely grateful for everything that everyone has done to help. Of course, all the prayers are very much appreciated and have made such a difference in the healing process.

If you are interested in bidding on any of these items, you can find the online auction HERE.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow Finished!

Back in April I purchased a merino roving from Spinning Awesome Good on Etsy dyed in her Zinnias colorway. I loved the bright colors of this roving and thought it would make an awesome bright yarn for summer.

I started spinning the merino roving and ended up with two skeins of yarn from it. I started spinning thin and smooth but it was taking forever so I decided to navajo-ply the first half of the yarn and spun the second half thick and thin and plied it with a rainbow colored cotton thread.  The skein at the top of the photo is the one I used on this project and I made another knitted scarf out of the bottom skein (more on that project later.)

Shortly after I purchased this roving, Esther at Jazz Turtle posted photos of a skein of yarn she had just made using Teeswater locks that she tailspun into an exquisite skein of art yarn. I fell in love with the yarn but balked a bit at the price (not that it wasn't worth the price she was asking because spinning tailspun yarn is a labor intensive and time consuming process) but when Esther wanted to order some of my dyed fibers to use in her fiber art batts we decided to do a trade for the Rainbow yarn. So, I added this incredible skein of art yarn to my stash.

So, with the yarn already spun into two skeins and the navajo-plied skein already knitted up, I decided that the scarf I knitted with that yarn was too lacy to work well with the weight of the tailspun yarn. I decided that the tailspun yarn was such a masterpiece on its own that it really just needed a small piece of "canvas" to display it so I crocheted up a long skinny scarf with the second skein of yarn and then crocheted the tailspun yarn across one edge of the long scarf to create this stunning scarf that I am calling "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Somewhere Over the Rainbow is just over 7 feet long and the fringe varies from 6 to 9 inches in length. You can wear this scarf so many different ways: draped around your neck and shoulders as a long fringed boa, draped around your neck with both ends wrapped around again (as shown in these photos). You could drape it to hang in front as shown or turn it around so that it cascades down your back. Imagine this with a little black dress - and if that little black dress has a plunging back, this would look awesome cascading down the back!

I hope you enjoyed the insight into the creative process that goes into designing and creating fiber art!

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is available for sale in my etsy store. If you would like to purchase it but don't quite have the cash reserves at this time, I would be happy to do a layaway plan for the purchase. Please send me an email if you are interested.

UPDATE: Somewhere Over the Rainbow is Reserved/On Hold!
If you like this scarf and would like to discuss having me make you something similar, please contact me.

Another Art Yarn!

I recently traded some dyed fleece for this fabulous fiber batt from JazzTurtle on Etsy. The batt contains: merino, bamboo rayon, soy silk, milk protein fiber, corriedale fleece, targhee fleece, merino/cormo fleece, kid mohair locks, bamboo noil, silk noil, sari silk and angelina. I stripped the batt into several thin strips and then started with the tan and worked my way through to the blue fibers. I spun it thick and thin (although I wish I had spun it a bit thicker) and then plied it with an organic cotton thread in coordinating colors and formed coils and beehives by pushing the fiber up onto the cotton thread as I plied it.

The batt started out like this: Day at the Beach fiber batt

And the finished yarn looks like this: Day at the Beach Art Yarn

This yarn is available in our Etsy store. 84 yards and 4.0 ounces.

Another Custom Order Finished!

This started out as Galaxy - a Custom Fiber Blend batt consisting of superwash wool and cultivated mulberry silk. I love the colors against the black background and I am thrilled with the finished yarn!

 

And, the finished cloche hat!

Have a fabulous day!

Long Skinny Art Yarn Scarf Finished

RIO LONG SKINNY SCARF

I just finished knitting my first art yarn scarf! This yarn is bulky so I used size 15 needles and created my own pattern with a dropped stitch to give it an open look to showcase the beautiful yarn.

This beautiful scarf was hand knit using handspun art yarn purchased on Etsy from Kittygrrlz. Gorgeous bright colors including pink, peach, coral, turquoise, blue, orange, rust, red and yellow. The art yarn is handspun merino wool with novelty yarns and plyed with thread. Very soft with loads of texture and eye catching colors. Scarf measures 3 inches wide and 67 inches long plus 8 inches of fringe on each end for a total of 83 inches long. Plenty long to go around your neck once or twice, loop it, tie it or just drape it. Or, use it as a sash or wide belt.

You can find this scarf in my etsy store here.