IxCHeL Fibres, Yarns & Art

Friday, April 9, 2010

The technicolour waiting game

Two reasons to have a veggie and herb garden (see above)

In a way it has been a good week. You know, one of those weeks where a lot of things happened, a lot of appointments, a lot of ..well, stuff.

First of all I had an appointment with the oncologist at the hospital to be tested and prodded and poked and questioned. I did not expect this period to be , well what to call it...anxious? but it was. After a cancer diagnosis and treatment, for the first half year , every three months you are checked out. Then after that every 6 months, and then finally after 3 years of investigative probing you are officially declared a "survivor" with a clean bill of health so to speak.

After each test there is a waiting period of about two weeks to get all the results back and ofcourse you tell yourself ït'll be fine" but subconsciously there is this wretched stressy nervousness going on....but, it'll be fine I keep saying to myself and ..it will !

I do not know how other people deal with this kind of thing but I have a strategy...I keep myself so busy that worrying or stressing about "stuff" is just not possible :) So, I almost finished painting the hallway this week in sage green with gold paint accents, I managed to clear the slope where the legendary archeological find used to be (see story of the blue tarp in last weeks blog) and make it into a herb garden with lemon and lime verbena, hyssop, lots of lavender, thymes even a mushroom plant that looks like basil but tastes like..well..mushrooms. Apart from that I have even added a chaste tree and last but not least Sage..and a bay tree ofcourse....

The last step next to the chickenrun finished filled in and oh well, just has to be filled a bit more with woodchips...

The Stonewalled Herb patch

Since we are on a slope of some proportions..ahem...I needed to construct some kind of wall so I rounded up all the rocks I could find on the property and made a stonewall..looks awesome ! And I found a huge flat rock that can serve as a seat ! nothing better than to relax on a rock with a good book and surrounded by lavender scents in the air :) The rain has been coming down here in the mountains so I could not finish it all but give me another week and it will look gorgeous. I feel good ! Although a wheelbarrow decided the slope waas too much and toppled over , cushioning down a load of rocks on my foot..ouch! thankfully I was wearing my Blundstones and only had to use a limited selection of my swearing vocabulary....

Now don't think I just tinkered around the house, a week would not be complete without fibre and dyeing :) and clipping some bunnies ofcourse :) I have a new season of angorinos for you on offer this week as well and I have to admit it is one of the softest blends I have felt in a long time ! organic 18micron merino with angora bunny : an absolute yummy blend to spin or felt with.

Ofcourse I have been experimenting again with my new dye technique and have come up with some very interesting and nice colourcombos for the 4ply sockweight blue faced leicester bunny yarn: really nice to knit with or weave! and with its 340meters per 100grams you can do a huge amount of knitting or weaving !

Last on this weeks blog update is some mulberry peace silk tops that are just fingerlicking yummy !

So, here they all are! Enjoy, drool snd stalk me anytime if you would like to give these babies a good fibre home :)

Have a wonderful weekend! ((Hugs)) Charly

Hand dyed Angorino - organic 18micron 95%merino 5%angora 100grams/AU$17 !

Warm Chair Attribution

Carb Friendly

Handbag Husband

Gymbunny

Blingfish

Geek chic -1left-

Poddict -sold-

Warm Fuzzies -sold-

Dream Team

Hand dyed Blue faced leicester bunny 4 ply sockweightyarn

90-100grams/AU$26 specially dyed to knit up in the most spectacular way !

Adrenaline bOOst -sold-

Cruizy -1left-

Hedgehog Concept

Jitterati

Swanky

Woo factor -1left-

Conspiracy Theory

Hand dyed Mulberry Peace silk Tops

50grams/AU$23

great for spinning fine and plying with the angorino or to add in felting or in your art yarn !

Rave -1left-

Babblegram

Frou Frou

Riverdancing

Reality Check

Friday, April 2, 2010

Eggciting, Eggcelent and more Easter Eggs

A week has passd since my last confession...ahem...and everytime I am amazed at the speed of time, but I won't get into that E=MC2 again....it is only when I look back at what I have been doing the last week that I think : "Ooooh THAT is why it has flown passed".

As usual I have crammed a huge amount of stuff in too little hours of the day, hours of the day I might add , that are shrinking here in the southern hemisphere as I type this ... it's dark now when I get up in the early morning and for once I can say that I am getting up earlier than the chickens...normally I do not need an alarmclock because I have our "Alarm chooks" that can get anybody out of bed in a 5 mile radius who does not wear earplugs. Well, it is either the darkness that keeps the chooks quiet or it is the impending busy Easter time when they all gather around and paint their eggs-----I wish....:)

As a kind of a science nerd I always wondered what could happen if you combine the easterbunny with a chicken and let me tell you: it is not a good look.......

On the Ixchel Fibre Farm we are surrounded by the quintessential Easter animals: lots of bunnies and chooks, but unfortunately neither of them are very good at delivering chocolate eggs...I guess I have to train them better.

As I told you earlier I have been busy again. Sometimes things get up ones nerves and this was one of those unnerving weeks. The steps that Paul had started working on TWO years ago and were left unfinished due to so much "other stuff" was poking me in the eye and I got up the courage:got the shovel, the wheelbarrow and other instruments of mass destruction and got busy. While I was digging away at the pile of dirt that Paul left on the spot where I wanted to put my herb garden, I made an archeological find: the blue tarp that had gone mysteriously missing two years ago had been hiding under the huge pile of dirt and little by little gave up its bluey plastic cover..."aaaah THAT 's where it was! ", Paul said with a smirk on his face. Which basically was a very brave thing to do, because at the time I did have a shovel in my hand and was not afraid to use it.. Anyway, the blue tarp has been recovered, the steps finally finished, and this Easter weekend I am going to put my "medieval"herb garden in place....promise!

I am a true believer in multitasking...unlike Paul or any male on this planet or hovering above it in a space station I am sure. So, with the digging I thought I needed a bit of distraction and started painting the still salmon coloured hallway in a gorgeous shade of sage with gold accents on the trimmings. It is amazing what you can get done when you are totally fed up with something.....! That said: THe other way to get a huge amount done is when you are totally "into something" like spinning-dyeing or weaving. I just lose track of time when I do things I love: that's why I seem to get such a huge amount of tops and yarns and funky bunny batts done: mesmerised by colour and fibre I call it...:) So, to make a long story short: if you want to get things done you have to hate it or love it ?! Strange how the mind works.......

We are on the verge of Easter so I am offering you some very yummy easter eggy batty yarny and fibery stuff to feast your eyes on. I am especially happy with some of my eggy inspired batts. I am not a fan of yellow but I must say when combined with silks and soy and camel and bunny it sure makes my mouth water, so here's to Easter, eggs, bunnies and Fibre !

Have a wonderfully Happy Easter !!!

((hugs)) Charly

Hand dyed Baby Shetland 4ply YArn
(+/- 320meters/100grams, AU$20/90-100gram skeins)

Amazingly soft and a new Ixchel Dye method with luscious colours in very very short repeats that will make magical patterns :)

Peach-plum-pear

This side of The Blue

Seamless dreams

Hand dyed Baby Navajo Churro Bunny Tops
(90% baby navajo Churro, 10%Angora Bunny) 100grams/AU$20
Help save the Navajo Churro breed and spin this rare sheep breed that I blended with angora bunny to make it soft to the touch but strong to wear ! Great for socks !

Foggy Fields

Verdant veils

Vapid Vines

Warp-woof-wimble

Mossy Mist

Blue Bears

Rocky Road

Whining Willows

Walnut Whales

Hand dyed Funky Bunny Batts
(AU$32/100gram luxurious batty goodness)

For more information and more photos nd close ups ofthe Easter batts please visit my photostram at www.flickr.com/photos/ixchelbunny
ingredients: 18m merino hand, angora bunny, yak, baby camel, silk, soy silk, bamboo, lue faced leicester, glitz, angelina and surprises like feather and shredded US currency (no. it's not paper : US Currency is made of linen! and washable....) and did I tell you? Lots of BLING ! ;-)