IxCHeL Fibres, Yarns & Art: April 2010

Friday, April 30, 2010

Autumn Mushrooms, Giant Nebulas & Lots of Fibre

Agreed, it is getting cooler and cooler (and wetter I might add) but it had not really sunk in that Autumn is well on its way here. That is, until I came home last night and the headlights from the car illuminated a gorgeous setting that happens every autumn : huge mushroom parties as I call it. Last year there was an enormous Witches circle just outside and now there are heaps and heaps of mushroom formations exploding all around us. It is magical.

Just a little bite.......

Mushrooms, Autumn leaves, the full moon and the crispy misty air makes me want to curl up near the fire, knitting up a storm. I am actually doing some squares for a swap on the Over the Fence group on http://www.ravelry.com/ called Square dance and I am having heaps of fun with them. The first batch has been sent to my april swap buddy and now I am already working on the next set. I think I am still inspired by that awesome blanket of love I received from all my friends last month as a reminder how everybody was thinking of me when I was battling cancer. On that note: I have finally received my test results back from the first testing and poking sessions at the oncology department at the hospital and it all came up rosy! no abnormal cells found ! Yeah! It was such a nervous time waiting but thankfully all is well. Now the next testing fase is in August, after Bendigo sheep and wool show that I am now full on preparing for.

Bendigo sheep and wool show is going to be HUGE this year ! I am prepping lots and lots of new blends and fibres and spinning heaps again, because this year I am going to have even more space to flaunt my fluffy fibres and yarns than last year! You can find me in the Flowershed at the Bendigo Showgrounds with Mandie of EGMTK. It is going to be HUGE FUN! I am already having lots of fun creating art yarns with funky additions and corespinning some batts, making more batts with heaps of bling and clipping our bunnies who are producing so much fine gorgeous fibre ! Amazing.

This week has been super busy as well because of all the fibre and batt and sock it to me yarn clubs that needed dyeing, drying, labelling and posting. It is so funny when I have it all ready and show up at the local post office with my huge bags filled with all the club parcels. All the members should be receiving their club parcels very soon and there are some yummy extras included as always. I have posted some teaser pics on www.flickr.com/photos/ixchelbunny for you to have a look at as well. Not that I want to give too much away ofcourse but I was very happy the way all the clubs turned out. With the sock it to me yarn club comes an awesome sock pattern included as well called FAN and it is such great fun to knit. Even if you do not want to make the socks you can use the stitchpattern and the yarn for an awesome shawl ! hmmmm.

The Ixchel Fibre, batt and sock it to me yarn clubs are sent out every month and sign ups for the next three months (april, may and june) have ended 2 weeks ago. However, if you want to sign up for the next clubs (july-august-september) please let me know and I can put you on the list to secure a spot ! Better to secure a spot earlier than later because they are filling up fast !

Apart from getting the clubs ready I did do some dying for this weeks update and it is Autumn inspired with a little Outerspace as well. The Hubble has "posted"some awesome photos of nebulas (the Carina nebula) and the colours and shapes are very inspiring as well :)

Minne our REW angora bunny is getting on a bit as they say . With her 9 years she is eating fine and enjoys being with her kids Pippi, Max and Flopsy. She is suffering from breast cancer though and a bad case of conjunctivitis. We are keeping her safe and warm and happy and giving her lots of treats and lots of good care. She is eating like a pig and still bossing her kids around not letting anything fase her. She is such a brave good bunny mum ! Here are some photos of Minne with her bunny babies 4 years ago. Wow how time flies !

feeding the baby

Cuddling up

Here are this weeks fibre offerings: two coil yarns hand dyed and hand spun superfine angorino and Tencel on a variegated cotton thread and some hand dyed blue faced leicester Bunny blended with Seacell(=seaweed) tops.

I used natural dyes combined with food dyes for the autumn red combos and indigo-walnut natural pigments combined with Landscape dyes for the blue/green combos.

Have fun looking at this weeks photos and email or message me when you want to snaffle some of these new autumn fibre babies :)

Have a wonderful week !

((HUgs)) Charly

Blue Faced Leicester Bunny + Seacell hand dyed tops (65/5/30)

AU$21/100+grams

Equinox

Solstice

Pixies Party

Berry Harvest

Warm Fire

Mushroom feast

Saraswati

Autumn Leaves

Hand dyed and hand spun Coil yarns (Superfine angorino, Tencel, cotton)

AU$27/100+grams

Walnut

Happy

Friday, April 23, 2010

it's no Bunny !

IxCHeL art yarn "lifeline heartbeat"

It's been full on busy last week with two Bunny spin ins here at the farm and a hugely succesful Spin in Fair of the Grandvalley Spinners at Montrose last Monday. Not only did those events make me spin and dye lots of fibre, but most of all the amount of housecleaning to make the studio and all adjacent rooms representable to "normal" people was daunting. It was worth the effort though and I am now totally convinced that it's better to clean house and get rid of clutter at least once every ...eh..couple of months...lol. I mean : no use housecleaning every week :it gets too normal and you don't really see a difference, you are just maintaining a status quo. As with everything I like the graph to show hills and valleys instead of a flatline. Call me Chaos Bunny :) Besides who has time to clean when you can play with fibre? I also love the fact that when I vacume I have the most blingy dustbunnies you will ever come across...no, I am not spinning those (but....it did cross my mind..lol).

It was so great to have fibre friends visit on the bunny spin ins and have them cuddle bunnies and show them fibre stuff. As you know every third saturday and fourth thursday of the month (except July) there are bunny spins here and everybody is welcome for a spin, a chat or a knitting/crocheting fun day out !

As you know I am always attracted to weird words, facts and science. It's not really that I am specifically looking for it: my brain seems to just pick up on weird stuff. I was reading something on line about movie premieres (Emma Thompsons red carpet walk for her new movie Nanny McPhee more specifically) and I noticed an odd animal she had on a leish : a pig no less! no, not a normal pig, it was an actual Sheep-pig -no I kid you not!- or what is commonly known in Serbian as Mangalitza (=a hog with a lot of lard). Apart from the fact that it is cute it is also ..hairy! I ofcourse googled it and it appears that it was actually shorn once a year to make sweaters ! and was a common sight in Lincolnshire, UK, until its extinction in 1972 ! Anyway, here is a photo :)

..now where can I get some sheep-pig?.....hmm....

Because I was so busy out and about and on the fibre farm I did not get the opportunity to spin and dye a super lot for you but what I got is defenitely special and yummy :) The blend is a new one and totally awesome: superwash blue faced leicester and cashmere ! so soft it is unbelievable! great for the most luxurious socks or that top you always wanted to make :) also some bamboo bunny silk yarn in 4 ply with the most amazing softness and shine! some art yarn and last but not least a very blingy rainbow batt :) Have a look, a drool and stalk me anytime if you want to adopt these fibre babies ;-) Succesful snaffling !

Hand dyed Superwash Bluefaced Leicester and cashmere top

(90%/10%, 100grams/AU$24)

Cadborus-sold-

Gougou-1left-

Ogopogo-sold-

Pingo-sold-

Sasquatch-1 left-

Hand dyed Bamboo bunny sock weight yarn

(+nylon) 90-100grams/+/- 420meters/AU$26

Bangbelly-sold-

Beavertail

Impignorate

Hodgepodge-1left-

Witwonka

Hand dyed Yak Bunny merino yarn 4ply

with amazing yardage (+/- 525meters/AU$28/127grams)

Lotus -sold-

hand dyed Blue fAced leicester Bunny sock weight yarn

AU$26/90-100grams/+/- 325meters

Anglewitch-sold-

Burpalurpa-sold-

Ixchel Art Yarn

(kid mohair, bunny, bling, silk, angelina, superfine merino, yak, alpaca, tencel

techniques: corespun, autowrap )

134grams/AU$29 (+/- 190meters)

The meaning of Pie

Hand dyed Funky bunny batt

(ingredients: polwarth, angelina, angora)

Manga 117grams, AU$32 -SOLD to a "norty girl";-)

(more photos of the batt on www.flickr.com/photos/ixchelbunny)

Friday, April 16, 2010

Party like a .....or: what do you get when you mix Travolta, James Brown and the Haka?

Last Saturday Paul and I were invited to a Purple Party...everybody had to be dressed, painted or attired with things purple.

It was Pauls sister Margs 50th Birthday bash by the way and a huge event !! Now for us girls just a glance in our wardrobe and bingo! we have purple, so no problems there..for guys however the colour can be a bit daunting apparently.

The only thing in purple Paul had in his cupboard was a woolen knitted sweater :) As a profound professional shopper....NOT!...Paul set out to get some purple clothes for this important event and ended up at an op shop close to his work. He ended up in the womens section because in the mens section no purple was to be found (what a surprise)...well I tell you , he came up with some amazing outfits. It was not really one outfit, no ! THREE!!! he enthusiastically said to me the moment he got home "wait here, I am getting changed : check this out!" I sat down without too many expectations..I mean..how purple can one get? but Oh my Gawd I laughed so hard I cried.

On the night of the event he casually walked in the venue in his purple very tight pants and purple woolen jumper...very "normal"....he did mention to all he had three stages of partying ..a remark that was met with a lot of quizical looks I might add. There was awesome fireworks that Margs son Brett had organised (he is a professional pyrotechnician and a stuntman. by the way: if you want to have a BIG BANG of a party ask him !!!!! btw he is to be seen in Pacific the series as well ! Go Brett!!!) Anyway, after the fireworks the evening progressed very nicely and the music got louder and dancing began ...it also got a bit too hot for the sweater so Paul thought that stage two was in order....BANG! well that t-shirt was a hit!...lol....most of the people thought that was as far as he would go..but they do not know Paul.... as soon as he saw his sister Marg alone on the dancefloor in between songs he walked up to her and the performance began. The song was an instrumental one (no idea what it was) but it reminded me of a sixties guitar meets indian warlord tune that Quentin Tarantino could have used for pulp fiction. You get my drift. I have to advise you that Paul is not a dancer...he can move though, keep a beat, but like most guys he's not the ballroom dance kind of guy. The way to describe the whole dance performance he did was John Travolta meets James Brown meets a maori Dancer doing the Haka....it was..to use Margs words...very memorable ! The room went silent when Paul strut his stuff and when he, in the middle of the song, proceeded to take his second layer off ....BANG! there was stage three. I heard a guy walk passed me saying "well, I hope that is as far as he goes".....lol.

The evening was a great succes !!!! It was great seeing friends and family again and meeting new friends ! I was also given some licorice for a knitting project by Emma C. ..more on that in later blogs no doubt...lol..still working on that one...:) thanks Emma C!

ANyway, all partied out and working hard again :not only for this weeks update but also for the Bunny Spin In tomorrow! the first one! I cleaned the whole studio ...almost...(amazing how many things one keeps accumulating ...) The Bunny Spin Ins will be held every third Saturday of the month and every 4th Thursday here at the farm (email me for more info). Tomorrow is going to be the first one: very exciting !

Here are this weeks update fibres: Hand dyed 18micron angorino, Blue faced leicester and Bunny and Kid Mohair~tops ! and last but not least Funky Bunny BAtts! Have a look, a drool and contact me anytime to have your fibre of choice sent to you :)

The names of all the fibres are bizarre words by the way that realy exist ! (http://www.brownielocks.com/words.html)

Have a fun week and ....don't forget to dance! :)

Hand dyed Angorino tops (18micron merino+angora 5%)

100g/AU$17