Odd Searches and Superman Knits?

Flopsy enjoying a read and contemplating her next soccer move no doubt

The internet is a strange and mostly HUGE place where odd bits and pieces can be found randomly and without effort. I was just looking into what people "google" to get to this blog site...well, apart from the obvious " Ixchel" and "Ixchelbunny" and "Angora Rabbit" so is "why does a chicken cross the road?"(see my story about Caramel our chook here... http://ixchelbunny.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-does-chicken-cross-road.html ) , and ..........."why does my bunny poop so much?"...

Amazing but true, there are those who google exactly that sentence and they get redirected to this blogsite..Well, You all know me so well: I am not going to disappoint the people in anguish over their bunnies' poop mayhem, so here is an explanation.

It is ofcourse obvious that the more "input"your bunny gets, the more "output" it produces. The reason why it seems to be such a vast amount is because the bunny has a natural tendency to catapult the "output" here, there and everywhere. Not only that, I have found that they are excellent soccer players as well (or footy or rugby players, although I have never ever seen a bunny pick output up and run across the room with it). I know this for a fact because I have seen Flopsy, who is now living in my studio to be observed and treated for a minor skin condition, is continuously kicking and catapulting her output every which way.

Mind you, bunnies are very clean. They mostly put everything in the one place, but every now and again their naughty soccer skills come to the surface and Pow!....Goal! Not to worry it is easily cleaned up..phew...:)

Maybe you may call it "Eeeew", but us bunny people do have to observe Bunny poop on a regular basis: when you see that your bunny produces the so called "string of poo pearls"it is time to give it bird seed to prevent blockage. Bunnies, as you know, groom themselves like cats but cannot produce hairballs. When you do not intervene in time, your bunny can die ! So, hence the bunny poop inspection.

Also, don't be alarmed if you see your bunny eat their poo....it's okay...they need the extra nutrients. Enough ...about eeeewwww!.... bunny output: to Quote Monty Python....Now for something completely different.

News flash: Superman Knits!

Did you know that Superman knitted? I for one, had no idea he did this, nor that he does this in full regalia, but I have proof! Arts Centre MArkets & Bunny Spin INS
Last Sunday I went to the Arts Centre Market for the first time after my traumatic operation. It was great to see everybody again and with the help of Kylie the setting up was easy ! Thanks Kylie! It was also a very emotional and tiring day. Emotional speaks for itself, tiring....well..that speaks for itself too...lol.. I was there at 7am and home at 8pm..a long day. I was not ready. Not at all. So, instead of pushing myself to the limits and doing the wrong thing I decided it was time to give the Arts Centre market a rest for the time being. It was a very hard decision to make, but it was necessary.

I did think of organising some amazing BUNNY SPIN INS here at the Ixchel Fibre Farm starting in April ! (hey when is Easter?lol) More on that in later blogs though and on http://www.ravelry.com/. Everybody is welcome to come and visit , have a spin, knit or crochet , cuddle a bunny and have a nice cuppa...you can still hug a skein or the tops I dye ofcourse and every now and again there will be workshops as well ! The specific dates will be posted here and on Ravelry.

I have been dyeing some of my handspun pure yummy fluffy angora yarn and I am very happy with the result! the yarn is supersoft (low twist and low ratio plying), has a huge 110meters per 50grams and above all the colours are just great :) you will love the softness of it all and the projects that you can make with the yarn. Also some hand dyed organic Angorino (18micron organic merino 95% and 5% angora bunny) in braids weighing 150grams each! I have experimented with some awesome colour combinations and I am sure you will love their names as well :) Well, better let you all enjoy, drool, stalk and snaffle :)

Have lots of fun! and email me or message me on RAV if you want to cuddle some of these babies at home :)

((hugs)) Charly


Hand Spun and Hand Dyed pure organic Angora bunny yarn
(110meters per 50grams,gauge 4.75st/2.5cm/inch needles 5-10mm AU$26)
Limited supply !

Purple Dragons Raspberry Dip Charcoal Bun Granit Fluff Velvet Underground Opal Sky Vampires kiss-2left- Koalas garden-sold- Platypus'stream Bush flowers Bunyip

Hand Dyed Organic Angorino Tops
(95% organic merino 18micron, 5% angora bunny. 150grams AU$22)

Cheshire Cat-sold- Forget Truth that lacks Lyricism -sold- Killing dinner with Karate Balloons make calm canaries irritable Tumbleweed twirl Unending Afterthought-sold- Funny Thing -sold- Tadpoles talking Fauns and Ferns-sold- Should we go outside? Inflammatory writ -sold-

Reversing Established Orders, Brain food & Little Parcels of Peace

Jazz in oil

This week has been a very contemplative one. A year and a bit after the bushfires we are looking at new life sprouting from ashes like a Phoenix; amazed at the enormity of destruction and at the same time the beauty of natures regenerative powers, in awe of the energy of Mayhem still hovering amongst the blackened treetrunks. Yes, this week has been a contemplative one: One that I am still trying to survive and get to grips with. Not only am I trying to make some logical sense of the world order (note: impossible) but also of my body and brain (note: also impossible).

When you hear guys complaining about women and their hormones I have some news for them: wait til they do not have any hormones left and you will RUN and wish you could still complain about pms ! I tell ya: after my op and being absolomed/lunged/luged (and other winter olympian terms come to mind) into sudden menopause I can only describe it as ....well...."gothic".

Apart from that I have had the distinct pleasure of dealing with some obviously crafty challenged Australian / New Zealand Quarantine services who think that Batts or tops (or sweaters for that matter : I kid you not!) need a veterinary health certificate to be able to bring them into New Zealand. I have been talking like a diplomatic lawyer and trying to stay calm but to no avail: Illogical pandemonium it was.

The whole world was topsy turvy and Alice in Wonderland immediately comes to mind: "Sentence first-verdict later", Or in Gilbert and Sullivans town of Titipu, where the tailor KOKO, condemned to death by decapitation, is elevated instead to Lord High Executioner because-it is so obvious after all- a man "cannot cut another s head off until he's cut his own off"..........And I am right and you are right and all is right too-loora-lay".. .. .. .. .. .. ..... ... ... ..yep I think I lost my brain ....but there is hope: apparently somewhere in this world there is a drive-in where you can buy a brain for 25cents (see photo below)........What keeps me going ?I hear you uttering in amazement...well, apart from Paul, Jazz the bunny dog, all the fluffy animals here on te fibre farm and all my numerous passions it is exactly that: trying to make sense of a world and staring at the duality and mystique of humans and nature and hopelessly "logicalising"stuff....

If all were just simple and fluffy and spinnable and cuddly, all would be well in the world. It's no wonder that Ghandi advocated that if everybody would spin at least an hour each day it would bring peace to the world. I agree totally: how can anybody even contemplate anything illogical while spinning yarn? lol ANyway, enough rantings...

I have worked on lots of different stuff: hand dyeing kid mohair curlzzzz that are amazingly soft and wonderful to make a funky yarn, some hand spun Camel yak yarn that is the softest !!! yarn I have ever spun ! really! AND last but not least: some wonderful gorgeous blue faced leicester bunny seaweed blend :)

Have a look, a drool, contemplate on the infinite logic and possibilties and stalk me anytime on RAV or by email to have a little Parcel of Peace come your way :)

Big hug!

Charly

Kid Mohair Curlzzzzzzzzz 50grams/AU$9.50

Berry Swirl

Raspberry

Strawberry

hand dyed and hand spun Camel Yak Yarn (50/50) 50grams skeins/AU$24, 110meters per 50grams, needle size 8-10US, 5-8mm)

Bushflower essence

Reversing Order

Topsy Turvy

Blue faced Leicester Bunny Seaweed (30% seaweed, 5% angora, 65% BFL) AU$21/100gram braid

Craze for Aquariums

Bushy View of Evolution

Signs and Symbols

Cro Magnon Moon Party

Hippocampus debate

Global Warming

Martian Meteorites

Nervous System

Passion for order

If anybody wants to know more about what is going on here at the Ixchel Fibre farm please have a chat on my Ravelry group site ! what? you are not a Ravelry member? Inconceivable! go to http://www.ravelry.com/, sign up and be amazed :) Want to see more photos and crafty rantings? Go to www.flickr.com/photos/ixchelbunny.

Have fun and ...Spin for Peace :)

Extreme Fluff & Valentine !

Although temperatures were rising all over Victoria including here in the mountains, I could not help myself and prepared some extremely fluffy stuff for this weeks update just in time for Valentines Day this Sunday :) So there is a lot of RED...lol..I could not help myself..maybe it was the heat, but I got stuck into Reds and Burgundy and pinks.

If somebody would have watched me working in my studio and the dye room they would have shaken their heads in amazement at this red faced woman who was surrounding herself with HOT stuff in these HOT temperatures..all of you who are fibre holics as well know the truth: even when it is 40C we still cannot leave the fibre fluff alone.

I had some wonderful visitors to our little fibre farm on Tuesday (Mel R, Mocha and Anna) and they already had some sneak views of this weeks update but there was so much more that was still in the dyepot, drying or in the making as well. It is a constant process of creating and it never stops, because it is so much fun! I was amazed how soft and luscious the new Yak Camel had come up in tops but also in the dyepot.

YOu have to know that the baby camel + yak blend is natural light brown with honey coloured and brown coloured yak. So to dye a blend like that you will get totally different hues than dyeing on a white base. It can be tricky and ofcourse it is not possible to dye a very bright rainbow colour mix on such a dark base. It was a big effort but when you see the result (and feel it) you will see that it was worth all the trouble. I liked to just have the natural base peeking out here and there to give it that almost three dimensional look and I love the combo it created in the "farewell to whiskey"top :) ANyway, you just have to have a look for your self.

Skye had been behaving quite strangely by the way the last week and it seemed to me that she was missing her sisters and her mum as well. It is all well and good to have us humans surrounding her and a big dog but nothing beats family. The heat was so extreme in the studio last week that it was an easy choice: we took her to the rammed earth bunny bunker where her family was staying cool and happy. Skye had to adjust a bit ofcourse because there were no cones of yarn she could molest in the big cage there ..but after a couple of hours she and her sisters and mum Topping were having a great time giving each other kisses and getting into the fresh cool cabbage leaves.

Apart from the whole fibre dyeing and batt and top making, I have been doing last week I have been having lots of fun with my Lyrebird Harp. (see photos and go to http://www.harpsaustralia.com/.)

I so wish I would have paid more attention to music theory and reading music. There are people who can read music like a book and are so fast doing it. I on the other hand am a music note dislectic..lol...I think from very early on in life I noticed that I could play the music by ear, I could remember tunes and notes and have a great ear for the right tones and the music , so I never bothered with that whole reading music in depth. I so wish I had now. But I am determined to learn. There are all these amazing medieval and Celtic Tunes to discover and I am only just starting ! I have mastered some O'Carolan tunes in a simple basic way but my left hand is extremely lazy.

The thing about playing an instrument, any instrument -or doing anything really!- is all about practice. I have read somewhere that you do not need to be a genius to be extremely good at what you do: the difference between a concert pianist and a regular pianist is just the extreme amount of time the concert pianist has practiced, played and lived with his piano.

I think that is so true with everything in life come to think of it: when you really really want to do something you need to have an extreme love doing it and then you have to put an extreme amount of time doing it. What seperates us all from being a "genius" is time (Just remembered Groundhog day , the movie...lol) . So whatever it is you love to do: make time for it and you will excel and have so much fun as well :) So....here is some extreme fluff for all of you who strive to be a fiber genius or just to have good fun !

Stalk me, email me or pm me on http://www.ravelry.com/ if you would like to get some Extreme Fluff Practice :)

Hand spun Yarn hand spun angora bunny

(Babe+Minne) natural white, AU$25/50grams, yardage: 110meters/50g

Hand spun Angora Silk plyed with cashmere

AU$14/25grams Wandering star +/- 150 available

Hand spun Yak Camel In a Twist

+/- 110meters/50grams AU$23/50grams

Hand spun Yak Camel plyed with cashmere

O'Carolan (+/- 185grams available, AU$24/50grms)

hand dyed Angorino Deluxe 50% 17micron organic merino 50% angora AU$19/50grams

Chant of Paladin

Persian Love song

Yulunga

Cantara

Tristan

Sanvean

Duality

Hand dyed Wensleydale wool tops

AU$20/100grams

Song of the Sibyl

Nadir

Ullyses

Hand dyed Camelbunny AU$18/50grams

Paikea

Reiputa

Waka in the sky

Whalerider

Magnet

Pilgrimage

Music box

The Wren

Tempest

Faeries hornpipe

Shadow hunter

Hand dyed Yak Camel
(Natural 100g / AU$30 or AU$17/50grams, hand dyed AU$19/50grams)

Natural Yak Buny Tops

Aion

Saltarello

Zephirus'garden

Dark Rose

Farewell to Whiskey

Funky Bunny Batts
(ingredients: Angora, organic merino, silk, australian mohair, yak, soy silk, cashmere, glitz, angelina, AU$32)

Little Princess (117g)

BunBunBerry (125grams)

Gothic Bun (110grams)

There are lots and lots omore photos of the fibres and more on www.flickr.com/photos/ixchelbunny: you are welcome to have a look anytime! Have a wonderful fun filled week! ((hugs)) Charly