Sale in the ArtFire Store

Through Sunday November 7th, save 10% off all handspun and handpainted yarns in the ArtFire store.

Visit SplitRockRanch's Studio

SAVE 10.00 % On Select Studio Categories

Use Coupon Code:

B8FCCBD83C-625727FD01

during checkout.

Handmade Toys

Chinese Lantern Hand Knit Scarf from Handspun Art Yarn

Remember the scarf I made a few weeks ago called "Mum's The Word"? Well, I bought another skein of handspun art yarn from the same fiber artist/seller, Rachel at Coolclimates on Etsy. This one is called "Chinese Lantern" and oh my gosh is it gorgeous! Rachel posted photos of Chinese Lantern on her Ravelry page and I immediately sent her a message telling her I wanted this yarn. I knew right away I wanted to make another scarf but I wanted this one to be different from Mum's The Word. I wanted something wider with more of a "canvas" to show off those fabulous Chinese Lantern flowers!

Again, I had another project on the needles and was going to finish it up before starting on Chinese Lantern but I made the mistake of setting that gorgeous skein of yarn on my work table next to the computer and it kept calling to me. So, I grabbed a pair of #13 knitting needles and started a scarf. I made the pattern up as I went along, letting the yarn tell me how many stitches to make and how wide to make the scarf.

And here is "Chinese Lantern" the scarf!

Materials: wool, mohair, firestar, tencel, bamboo, recycled sari silk, fabric flowers, silk and alpaca yarn

Lush fall colors of pumpkin, spruce, cedar, rust, pine, saffron, copper, tangerine, jade and celadon.

Scarf measures over 7 feet in length and 5 inches wide.

Stunning texture and color to this yarn.

Pattern is my own design.

There are so many ways to wear this scarf. Drape it around your neck and wear it straight and long. Its long enough to wrap around your neck a couple of times and still have some to drape down the front. Fold in half, drape over your shoulders and pull the ends through the loop. Your imagination is the only limit to the number of ways you could wear this scarf!

Sure to garner loads of compliments and looks!

Chinese Lantern is available for sale in my ArtFire store. If you are interested in this scarf but don't have the funds right now, I can hold it for you or do a layaway plan. Just contact me or leave a comment here and I'll respond. 

Misty and Foggy - Long Skinny Scarves Made With Handspun Luxury Yarns

I love silver and gray - they coordinate with so many different colors. I think gray may even be the new black - the color that never goes out of style. Over the years I've spun lots of different silver and gray luxury yarns using ultra-soft alpaca, llama, lambswool, bamboo and other fine wools to create some gorgeous yarns. I finally decided to dig into my silver/gray luxury yarn stash and create something. I came up with "Misty" and "Foggy" this week.

"Misty" - Hand crocheted long skinny scarf made from handspun yarns and a novelty "fur" yarn in varying shades of silver and grays. Alpaca, llama, wool, mohair and bamboo. 61 inches long with 7" fringe at each end for a total of 75" in length - 2 inches wide. Even if you wrap it around your neck twice there is still some left over to drape down the front. Use it as a scarf, a lariat necklace, a belt or use your imagination!

Foggy

 

Foggier

"Foggy" - Hand crocheted long skinny scarf made from handspun yarns and a novelty "fur" yarn in varying shades of black, silver and grays. Alpaca, llama, wool, mohair and bamboo. 67 inches (5 feet 7 inches) long with 6" fringe at each end for a total of 79" (6 feet 7 inches) in length - 2 inches wide. Even if you wrap it around your neck twice there is still some left over to drape down the front. Use it as a scarf, a lariat necklace, a belt or use your imagination!

I used some of the same yarns as the "Misty" scarf for this one but Foggy has a darker side and a lighter side - foggy and foggier - for two different looks!

Both of these scarves are available in our ArtFire store. Click on the link on each name to go directly to that scarf's listing.

Psssstttt: Check it out in the right hand column - a coupon code for a SALE on Misty, Foggy and Mum's The Word scarves!!!

Mum's The Word

Last week I did a trade with another fiber artist - Rachel at Coolclimates on Etsy. Actually she bought some of my batts and I bought a skein of her yarn. The yarn is called Hyakkaryouran Hana - after a Japanese textile.

Here is the Hyakkaryouran Hana fabric

She strung fabric chrysanthemum flowers and leaves on pink cotton thread and plied with a chunky spun yarn consisting of wool, mohair, tencel, bamboo and recycled sari silk in a spring-summery mix of pink, peony, fuchsia, coral, apricot, mint, lime and salmon.

Here is the yarn before spinning

I immediately fell in love with this yarn and was so glad that Rachel had asked me if I was interested in trading some items. I got the yarn several days ago and it has been sitting here at my work station in a zip lock bag, calling my name. I already had a silver/gray long skinny scarf on the crochet hook and was going to finish it first but this gorgeous yarn was calling to me over and over and over...so yesterday I caved. I knit it up on size 13 needles making the pattern up as I went along. I managed to get all the flowers and leaves on the right side of the scarf and allowed it to roll to the center to create a tube.

Here is the finished scarf - Mum's The Word

As promised, here is the link to the Mum's the Word scarf. You can find it in my ArtFire store.

Fresh off the spinning wheel - Maerchengarten

I just recently finished spinning this beautiful Falkland roving called Maerchengarten, which is German for fairy tale garden. The colors are so gorgeous - forest green, earthy brown and petal pinks with a hint of gold throughout. I Navajo plied this yarn to retain the beautiful colors. Here is how the roving looked before I started spinning it.

And here is the finished yarn.

This yarn is 342 yards of DK weight and weighs 4.3 ounces. Falkland is soft and squishy and is a very "green" fiber. The listing in my Etsy store can be found here.

Wordless Wednesday

Spinning, Dyeing and Working with Fiber

I thought I had posted photos of the yarns I've been working on lately and realize in going back through my posts that I've mostly been showing and talking about the foster kittens! Honestly, I do work around here and not just play with kittens all day long!

My latest projects have been to spin a roving that I snagged from somebody on Ravelry who was destashing. The roving is called "Just Figs" and was the March/April spin along roving for the Into The Whirled group. One of my customers fell in love with this colorway but only had one roving and needed more yardage so when I snagged this I asked her if she was interested in having me spin this for her. Of course she said yes!

So, here's how the roving started out. It has lovely purple, russet, gold and soft green in it and they blend so beautifully together.

I spun the first 4 ounce roving and then Navajo-plied it. Navajo plying is also called chain plying. Basically you form a big loop or chain and then ply the yarn back on itself; it is a 3-ply yarn and the beauty of this plying method is you can keep those colors together rather than have them fall where they may, looking more like a barber pole.

I have another 4 ounce roving that the customer originally wanted to have spun two-ply but I emailed her photos of the N-ply yarn and she loves it so much she decided to have me N-ply the second roving, too. I'm about half way through spinning that skein.

Day before yesterday I decided to start dyeing up some skeins of yarn to sell in the store. It takes so much time to handpaint rovings and handspin them; I wanted something that gives me almost instant satisfaction so I hand painted several skeins of yarn. These skeins were dyed in the same dye pot using the same dyes applied at approximately the same rate on each skein. The darker skein is 100% New Zealand wool which is coarser than some wools but it showcases color sooo well and it is a perfect yarn to use for knitting or crocheting something that you want to then machine felt. The lighter skein is 92% wool and 8% acrylic and is a sock weight yarn. I'm not sure if this is a superwash wool or not, the skeins are not marked superwash, but it took up less dye than the NZ wool skeins. 

I took photos of the skeins after dyeing and drying and then again after I reskeined them into 2 yard long skeins. I love how the colors look so different after the skeins have been rewound!

I listed these two skeins in my Etsy store yesterday and then posted them on the Split Rock Ranch Facebook page. By the time I went back to get the URL for the second skein, there was only one skein left. The first one had already SOLD! By the time I finished posting the second skein on Facebook and got back to my Etsy store the second skein had sold, too! The woman that I am spinning Just Figs for fell in love with these yarns and wanted to add them to her order.

I  was a little disappointed that the skeins turned out so dark and so predominantly purple and burgundy so yesterday I did another dye pot with the exact same skeins of yarn. And here are the results of using less burgundy and purple and longer sections of gold and green.

And here are all the skeins together - even though one set is lighter and has more gold and green, they go together beautifully and they are perfect with the Just Figs yarn!

This morning I sent photos of the second batch of yarns to the customer to see if she would prefer to have the lighter skeins instead. She said she wanted them in addition to the ones she already bought! I was so tickled that my last two days were so productive and that I have a happy customer who will have some serious yardage to work with when I'm done with the next skein of Just Figs and get all these yarns shipped out to her.

I named these yarns Ceres in honor of the Roman Goddess of Harvest. The colors seemed appropriate. I am in love with this new colorway!

Kittens and Pups - What a lazy crew!

Over the weekend, I caught little Blackberry, under Munchkin's tutelage, harassing poor Rosie, our Cockatiel. Fortunately the bird bites hard enough that once is enough to teach the cats and kittens that she does not make a good play toy. She is, however, good for some cheap entertainment value.

And this morning while I was spinning in the great room, the motley crew is lounging around - apparently they all did a little too much bird watching this weekend!

Foster Kittens Snoopervising

I posted this on Facebook yesterday. It is my foster kittens snoopervising loading of the dishwasher. My friend Barb put this comment under the photo, which I think is absolutely perfect!   
Ah the Itty Bitty Kitteh 
Dish Washing Committee

Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough Dancing with the stars Viennese Waltz

Do any of you watch Dancing With The Stars? I love watching it and this season's line-up is one of the best, in my opinion. I recorded Monday night's episode and watched it yesterday while I was spinning. Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough danced the Viennese Waltz and it took my breath away. I cried watching them. They danced to the song "These Arms of Mine" which Jennifer danced to with Patrick Swayze in 1987 in the movie "Dirty Dancing" - one of my favorite flicks! She got very emotional, remembering Patrick Swayze - it was very touching.

Aspens - Fall Foliage - Colorado - 2010

We took a drive yesterday to Breckenridge, Colorado, to visit a gallery featuring the work of energy artist Julia Watkins. I fell in love with one of her paintings and bought an original signed 5"x7" framed painting titled Sentient Being II. Appropriately enough it is of an Aspen grove right here in Colorado. The photos of her work don't even begin to do justice to how it looks in person. The original paintings have raised swirls on them and the colors are so incredibly rich and vibrant. You can view more of Julia's work on http://www.platris.com/

And here are a few photos of the Aspens and Fall foliage that I took while we were on our way to and from Breckenridge. Most of the photos were taken out of the moving vehicle with the window down and I haven't had a chance to tweak the photos or crop them but you get the idea. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day that was absolutely perfect. 

This particular photo was taken from Main Street in downtown Breckenridge. Isn't it gorgeous?!

The above photo is of a small lake near Blue River.

This photo was taken just outside of Breckenridge

And this final photo was taken just this side of Hoosier Pass

Wordless Wednesday - Relax and take it easy!

Barbie, Kenny, Krissy & Jellybean Update

As of last night all of the kittens from the last batch of fosters have been adopted! Kenny was the first to be adopted, followed by Barbie. Kenny was so incredibly gorgeous, that really doesn't surprise me. Krissy and Jellybean got very sick while they were at the shelter so they were in quarantine and weren't available for viewing by potential adopters so that is part of why they took so long to be adopted. They were taken to a PetCo in Colorado Springs a week ago in the hopes that someone would fall in love with them and adopt them together. Yesterday afternoon Krissy was adopted, which left Jellybean all alone. If we had voted on Cat Most Likely To Be Adopted First, Jellybean would have taken that award, paws down. I was chatting online with my daughter when I got the email telling me that Krissy had been adopted. She couldn't believe that Jellybean was still there...alone. Her BF had just come home so she went and told him and he told her to just please go get Jellybean and bring her home! He had already said "I wouldn't be upset if I came home from work and found Jellybean here." (there's a huge hint if I ever heard one!) So, Jellybean is now in her loving furever home. And the best part of it is I get to visit her whenever I want to!! Woo hoo! Way to go Barbie, Kenny, Krissy and Jellybean!

And now Krissy and Jellybean are doing the happy dance!!

Congratulations Kemui Yama! Grand Champion x TWO!

This past weekend we attended the LOCC (Llamas of Central Colorado) Fall Classic Llama Show and the Rocky Mountain Regional Llama Show held together at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, Colorado.  Because we were volunteering to help at the show we only took one llama since we knew we wouldn't have time for grooming or preparation once we got to the show. We decided to take Midnight Hour's Kemui Yama. You've seen him before here on the blog - last summer I did a before and after segment on shearing llamas and Kemui was our model.

We entered Kemui in the Adult Medium Wool Male classes at the two shows and he placed first in both classes and then took Grand Champion Medium Wool Male! We're so very proud of Kemui, especially since he is a product of our breeding program.

Here's Kemui - photo taken last night after we got home from the shows. The wind was blowing, the light wasn't great at the end of the day and we were all dead beat, but here he is!

Kemui is a Midnight Hour son out of Nuance, a female that our daughter bought with her own money. Midnight Hour is our first show llama that we fell in love with when he was born in July 1997. We started showing him in January 2008 at the National Western Stock Show.

Here is Kemui's sire, Stage Stop Midnight Hour

And here is Kemui with his mother, Nuance, when he was just a little cria.

We hope everyone had a safe, relaxing and fun Labor Day weekend!

Happy Caturday!

We're just hanging out today cuz our foster Mom and Dad are at a llama show this weekend.

Hope everybody has a safe and relaxing holiday weekend!