Archive for July, 2009
End of summer sale!
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
It’s the end of summer! The college students are back in town, people are buying school supplies, and now…
Everything in my Esty shop is on sale!
Hand dyed bamboo scarf kits have been marked down by 25%
T-shirts are only $15
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Raw silk yarn…mysterious.
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
I ordered some undyed raw silk yarn, and have been really enjoying trying to figure out what it wants to be.
When I placed the order, I expected this yarn to be worsted weight. Sometimes when I order through co-ops, I get a little surprise when the yarn comes. For me, that’s just part of the nature of the beast. Pay half price, you might get something wacky. C’est la vie.
I saw some really cool raw silk yarn at Loop when I taught there this spring. It looked really tough in the hank, but when it was knit up, it was so soft and cozy. I thought I had found the base yarn when I ordered this stuff…and maybe I did, but not at the right gauge.
So. I’m about to start swatching, wiggling, and washing, and trying to see just what this will do. The intriguing thing about this yarn is that while it does have a gorgeous, pearly sheen, it has a really rough look to it. The little noils make it look a little bit tweedy. In the hank, the yarn has a great body, but I really wonder what it’ll do when it’s washed? Will this make a soft, next-to-the-skin scarf or shawl?
I have a vision of a rough-hewn rectangular wrap. I’m not really the delicate, shawl that fits through a wedding ring type, but I would LOVE a wrap that looks rough, feels soft, and has a great texture.
I’ll keep you posted! 
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Tuesday
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
I just got back from my high school reunion! I hadn’t gone back for any of the previous ones, so it was really startling to see everyone. But, overall it was good and I’m glad I went. There was an informal party on Friday night at a sports bar, then a tour of the high school on Saturday morning, and finished up with a dinner on Saturday night.
Here I am with my two BFFs:
It was fun, but I’m so happy to get back to real life (and out of the past). Nathan and Mazie were SO happy to see me when I got home! That felt really great.
In Glampyre news, I’m working on a new “shell” for the website.
Glampyre.com started out 10 years ago as just a blog and then as I started to design patterns for sale, I added an auxiliary site to hold those. The whole thing is now kind of a mish-mash and it’s time to make into a more unified presence.
So, that’s in the works. WAHOO!
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Toddler-Wearing?
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
When Mazie was little, I wore her first in a sling, then a “snuggli” then back to the sling, then to several kinds of wraps. I really liked carrying her that way, and for the first four months of her life, it was the only way I could get her to go to sleep.
Now, she’s a big girl. She walks, runs, and loves her independence. Until I’m trying to do something in the kitchen. Then it’s “up, Up! UP, MOM!!!” (she calls me “mom” now. She’s 18 months old, and going on 18 years!) So…I need a way to carry her around and still bake bread, do dishes, etc. I’ve been just letting her sit on the counter, but I’m nervous. I was thinking, too, about getting some sort of stool or something that she could stand on and help me stir, knead, wash, etc. BUT…then she’s still several feet off the floor and not really stable.
I’m thinking about making one of these It’s a generic pattern for one of these….but I am really intimidated for some reason. I’m not exactly sure what my hangup is…
Carrying Mazie in something *I* made doesn’t make me nervous. I make our food because I like what I put in better than takeout or store-bought…so why won’t the same be true for this? I can double-reinforce everything, make sure I use proper weight fabric, and make sure it’s comfy and cozy!
OK. You convinced me. I’m going to try it! I’m SURE I have some fabric that will work.
ETA: Found these two: One is an upholstery fabric and the other is a lightweight corduroy. Either would work great!
Mazie is in an owl phase, so maybe I’ll do that one first. I’ve also got a little owl quilt in progress, it’ll hang over her bed.
Sorry for the fuzzy picture, the FO pic will be better! Those little multi-colored eggs are going to look like owls when they get their eyes.
In other domestic news, I found a simple recipe from this book online, and whipped it up on Sunday. It was so easy, and the bread is incredible!
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A few business-y announcements:
Monday, July 20th, 2009
1) I recently received a message from one yarn store who was interested in purchasing wholesale patterns direct from me, rather than through Stitch Co-op. This is definitely ok. Just send me an email and I’ll fill your order right away / stefanie(dot)japel(at)gmail(dot)com. For a while, I was so busy that I thought it would be a great idea to have S.C. handle all of that, but thanks to my quest to simplify my life, I’m able to print and ship myself if that is your preference.
2) I’m starting to fill in my fall / winter teaching calendar. I’m interested in traveling to teach about one weekend a month, so if you’re a shop owner or event organizer, and interested in scheduling a workshop, feel free to contact me at the above email address. If you are a yarn shop customer and interested in me teaching at the shop that you frequent, please feel free to pass my info on to the shop owner.
Thanks!
Here’s a little mini sneak peek at what will eventually be a new pattern:
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd’s Worsted. This is such supersoft yarn! I really love working with it!
Here’s the little raglan on my lap. I worked on this during our loooong road trip last weekend.
My favorite cables in the world. Honeycomb.
I’m making a girls’ version and a gender-neutral version that either little girls or little boys will wear… Stay Tuned!
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LOOOOooOOooong road trip…but a good one.
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
This has been a pretty busy summer already, and it wasn’t planned out to be!
Nathan’s parents were just here for a week. One of the things we did was take a little road trip up to Silver City. Well, we went to City of Rocks, Silver City, and then started up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings but made it about 95% of the way when majority vote wanted to turn around. We actually cut East much farther North than I traced out here, a little farther North than Elephant Butte.
When we stopped in Silver City, I visited the cutest yarn shop! Yada Yada Yarns.
I love the color! And all the racks of yarn outside really drew me in!
Mazie loved these big scissors!
Here’s the owner, bagging up my purchase.
It is a very beautiful, creative space, and there was a real sense of community. You can just feel that the LYS vibe is alive and well here.
Here’s me and Mazie walking back from having some gelato (Marv and Mary are in the background.) She was so covered in it that we had to take her shirt off! :0
After Silver City, we went on up to the Gila National Forest, then came back. The road doesn’t look that long, but you go probably 2000 feet in elevation up and down windy mountain roads. Believe me, as the person in the “way back” seat of the van…it’s enough to make you green in the gills. All that swaying back and forth, holding on, trying not to be sick! WOAH!
But, it was fun!
The parents have gone home, and we’re by ourselves. Mazie and I are taking it kind of easy today. I took some quilt FO pictures, made some frozen yogurt, and now we’re chilln’ on the bed. RELAXING.
Quilt FO (click to see more.)
This is the largest quilt I’ve ever finished. Finishing the binding warranted me putting on a dress and doing a little pose.
I was tempted to really crop these images, because to the casual observer, it may look as though I live in a prison yard, or am interned in some sort of work camp. Nope. Our yard and those of our neighbors are just Old School NM scruffy.
About the quilt. It’s about 8′ x 7′ and fits our queen-sized bed. I hand dyed nearly all of the fabrics myself. They are part of a mid-90s Moda series by “Patek” that I bought as an approximately 3lb lot on eBay for about $23 including shipping. They started out as the typical peach, sage green, burgundy, hunter green, and crayon blue of that era.
I used Dharma dyes in shades of orchid, rust orange, turquoise, jade, and strawberry.
Most of the fabrics were already in pieces, and I pretty much used them as I found them.
I used a bamboo batting, and a Tina Givens print for the back, adding strips of dark green Kona cotton at top and bottom because I didn’t quite have enough of the print.
I quilted the whole thing myself on the machine, using a back and forth long zigzag, doing small sections at a time. The “back” button on my machine stays on, so that I can reverse forever and have both hands free.
I quilted using lilac, olive, and turquoise thread interchangeably in both bobbin and spool.
I have two more unfinished quilt tops to piece, batt, back, and bind! I’d like to, as a little side experiment before going on to more behemoth-sized quilts, do a few little wall quilts or doll quilts to practice my freehand quilting. We’ll see how the rest of the summer plays out, timewise, I guess.
Posted in Trips | 2 Comments »
Back from Marfa, TX!
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Last weekend was our 10th (I almost wrote 25th!) wedding anniversary.
I wanted to take Nathan on a road tip that he’d really enjoy. He’d been talking about Marfa since we first moved to the Southwest about 3 years ago, so it seemed like the perfect destination for this short little trip.
We left on Friday at 3 in the afternoon and landed at the Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa, TX at around 6:30. The drive was ok…I was knitting away on a project, so the three-point-five hours flew by for me! (I’m sure that last leg through Far West Texas felt pretty long for Nathan, though!
That first night, we ate dinner at Maiya’s Restaurant. It was Reeeeally Good. I had some sort of grapefruit / tequilla cocktail…Highly Recommend.
Saturday, we went to the Chinati Foundation for the 10am tour, ate lunch at the Pizza Foundation (excellent, NY-style pizza) and went back to Chinati for the rest of the tour at 2. For dinner, we decided to go for “bar food” at Barunda’s. Great tacos and cold Tecate!
The Chinati Foundation is a big indoor / outdoor art exhibition. Donald Judd founded it in the 1970s, and it houses permanent exhibitions of his work, that of Dan Flavin, and others. I had never seen anything like it. The property was at one time used to housee refugees from the Mexican-American War, German WWII prisoners, and eventually the buildings were re-habbed into artist residences and exhibition spaces.
I liked seeing both the reuse of old buildings (and the intentional preservation of them in their “old-looking” state.) It was also interesting to see “one man’s vision” so to speak, carried to such an extreme. There must be 100 or more of these bunker-buildings.
The town of Marfa is population 2121. Really small, and not all artists. That was interesting, too. To see how this art space has affected the little town.
(As always, If you click on any of the above pics, you can see the whole set on Flickr.)
On a less happy note, my dad’s sister died on Saturday. She passed away during a diabetic coma, like the ones my dad has been experiencing this spring. If you are close to a person with diabetes, please learn what to do if you find them in a coma, or having trouble with blood sugar levels. They may be confused and not know what to do. Here is an article on the subject.
My father hasn’t spoken to any of his three sisters in over 25 years. Needless to say, this has brought them all back into contact. He left yesterday to be with his family and make the funeral arrangements. Initially, he invited my sister and I to go along, but on thinking about it more, decided to go alone.
I’m thinking about him today!