Craft Monkey

progress!

The raglan seams and neckband have been completed on Honey! I'm out of yarn, and waiting for another skein to arrive so I can finish the button band. I haven't sewn up the side seams, so it's being modeled by a lawn chair on the deck of the yome...

This is the button I'm going to use. It's a vintage bakelite find from the 127 yard sale last summer...

I entered a contest over on Josie's blog, and won some really adorable polka dotty mushrooms and placemats!  If you've clicked over from there, welcome! Hope you stick around, and feel free to ask questions if you're curious about yome life, homesteading, crafty stuff, etc. :)

I've also been tagged with the 7 weird thigs meme, so I'll try to get to that later this week.

Goaty McGoat Goat!

We're getting goats! Jen mentioned last week that she had 3 crappy goats she wanted to get rid of, and it looks like they're coming to live with us at Ulinawi.  It turns out they're only crappy from a fiber perspective; there are 2 angoras and a cashmere, and the angora's have a really low quality of fiber. That combined with their inability to get along with the other animals on her farm make it totally not worth it for her to keep them.  Ideally they'd be placed somewhere where their purpose was brush-clearing rather than making mohair, and where they wouldn't be expected to get along with other animals. We currently don't have any other animals, and every time we try to figure out what to do about "the bowl" (~5 acres of land we'd like to eventually farm), it's pretty clear the first step is putting goats out there to clear it before we can either plant it or put other animals on it. For the last year folks have been telling us we need to put goats out there, and we've been putting it off. Not anymore!

Notice I only said the angora's were crappy? Apparently the cashmere has really nice fiber. I have no intention of doing anything about that for awhile, but its nice to know that I could maybe start stockpiling some cashmere in case I ever decide to learn how to spin...

If you click here and scroll about halfway down the page to where it says "Added to the herd 2/18/07" you cans see pics of Copper, Gold, and Pearl.  Copper is the wethered cashmere, Gold is the wethered angora, and Pearl is the angora doe. Wethered is another word for castrated, so no breeding for us! No milk either, at least not this year.

I'm so excited about this its kind of ridiculous... My bedtime reading is suddenly about animal husbandry and rotational grazing!

prize yarn

This is the yarn I won in Tiennie's holiday giveaway.  It is Spritely Goods  handpainted Sylph superfine superwash merino sock yarn in Peppercorn Blend. It's about 560 yards in a 4 oz hank, and will probably never become socks. I've come to the conclusion that while I really like sock yarn, I don't particularly enjoy knitting socks. I'm determined to finish the pair I started for B at some point this year, but that's it. This yarn will probably either end up becoming something for a baby girl some friends are expecting, or maybe some sort of lace project.

the rest of the nyc haul

Since we only had a few days in New York, I knew there would oly be time to check out a few places.  The guides and reviews from Liesl and  Manda (start with that post and work backwards) were really helpful in figurig out what not  to miss. There were plenty of places mentioned by of them that I didn't make it to, but that's probably good for the credit card... Amisha was also really sweet and helpful when I contacted her, and sort of reinforced my choices.   

I spent a couple of hours in the  tiny  Purl Patchwork, making piles of bolts until I ended up with this combination of 1800s reproduction, modern, and Japanese prints. The shop is small but crammed with wonderful stuff.

They have a basket of these books of scraps by the door for $5 each. I think it's a great idea to put remnants  together into these sewn groupings, and a hard time settling on one.

They also have a nice selection of wool felt. I plan to use these to cover barrettes.

This other pile of wool felt in brighter colors came from Brooklyn General.

Books, mostly from the new Bryant Park location of Kinokuniya. One of those titles is from the evening we spent at  the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. All of the others are about modern Egyptian society, from Kinokuniya. I seriously almost cried there when I found these. The new location has expanded its focus way WAY beyond Japan, and now encompasses most of the world. There is of course still an entire floor with books in Japanese (like the ones I posted about from the Rockefeller Center location), but I was reall excited to find books in English about most of the countries of the world.  Not only did they have a section on the Middle East, but it was broken down further by nation. I've never seen that before; usually i have to dig through all the titles o the off chance that I might fid something on Egypt (and not Palestine, Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq, the current most popular subjects).  There were 2 entire shelves of books on Egypt, with a lot of titles put out by AUC Press in Cairo. About half of them were on modern society (as opposed to Ancient Egypt.... books about Ancient Egypt are plentiful and easy to find, and I'm completely over them... not what I'm interested in). It was overwhelming and awesome, and I could easily have sent another $300 to get all the books I wanted.

Finally, the pile of linen from Grayline. Loved that place, and got a color card so I can order more when this runs out. This pile is destined for the 2008 purses.  $7/yard for 100% linen is awesome!

I also went into Mood Fabrics while I was in the Garment District. It was awesome, overwhelming, over my head, and out of my budget. I want to go back some day when I have real garment sewing experience.

gingham!

i found this 1/8" check gingham at Brooklyn General.  As soon as I can get to the hardware store for some hemasote, I'm going to use it to make my own blocking board.  Then I can finally start to finish my Honey cardigan. It needs the ends woven in, blocking, seaming, a buttonband and neckband, and probably some embellishment... I acidentally shrank my favorite thrifted lambswool cardigan while we were in
Brooklyn, and my favorite aspect of that sweater was the ribbon-embroidery rosettes. So I think I'm going to fool around with some kind of similar embellishment on the Honey cardigan.  If I can figure out how to do it, I'd like to try stars instead of flowers.

japanese craft books

ISBN4-89396-925-0

These are both from the Kinokuniya store closing sale. Everything in the store had been 50% off throughout the month of December, and I went on the 29th, so it was pretty picked over. I did manage to find these though. The images within totally have my mind working on the 2008 bag designs.

ISBN4-89396-873-4

There's a honeycomb patchwork technique in one of these that's making me desperately want to set the sewing machine back up. It's been packed away since June.

While we were in NYC, I was one of several winners in Tiennie's  sockyarn giveaway! I found the package waiting for me when we got home, but it's been raining so I don't have a pic yet.

not-so-baby new year

the birthday boy and his new robot dinosaur

Today he is 3! It seems like just last night I was in labor... We've already had pear-and-brie stuffed french toast, and a present or two. Later there'll be cake-baking, and this year he's going to help me for the first time!
Then a trip to the American Museum of Natural History to see dinosaurs, dragons,unicorns, and mermaids, and a big family dinner in Little Italy. Not sure where we'll squeeze in a nap...

Last night we went to the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors to hear a dialogue between Andrew Cohen and Alex Grey about creativty and spirituality, and to ring in the new year. It was great, and gave, me lots to think about, especially with regards to the way we make and the need to do so...

Happy new year!