Carrying on from a previous Sunday where I shared some of my Life Drawing, here are some more excersises I found fun and useful. Looking at movement and body posture. Drawing the same figure over and over again in different poses.I know my proportions are off, they always are. I'm more concerned with mark making and shadow and 'feel' rather than everything perfectly in place. Some of the professors teaching us were very particular about proportion and accuracy. This was difficult for me to listen to (you know how teachers can get sometimes... droning on and on about one aspect), but I tried to take in as much as possible and seeing all the examples of human figure drawings through the ages was exciting.In previous sessions of drawing, I began playing with holding one colour in my right hand and one in my left, drawing with both simultaneously. Using one to correct the other and vise versa. Above are two examples of this while also trying to not use traditional lines. Very fun! I think I have some more to share- are you enjoying these? -Kimxo
When buying anything online, sometimes it's hard to know what that product might feel like, or how it will hold up to wear and tear. Since we're all about honesty and high quality goods here, it's only fitting that you get some feedback from customers. Amy Florence from The Happy Daisy wrote about her recent Art Equals Happy homespun wool purchases. You can see her full post over at her blog (here). Below is what she said. It's a fairly comprehensive review, so be prepared for some reading. :]
"It's partly Kim's fault that I've turned into a bit of a yarn and fibre snob. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about using 100% acrylic yarns for my projects, lured in by the price and the wide availability. But as my skill level has progressed, the maxim "life is too short to knit with cheap yarn" has become all the more relevant to me, however, even now, colour, over almost anything else, is what attracts me most when purchasing yarn. I avoid overly bright, neon colours, preferring the more natural shades, mustard yellows and greys - the colourways in the Art Equals Happy Hand-Dyed range are right up my street.
I bought several skeins of yellow - dyed with Buckthorn, and two shades of chunky/bulky weight yarn dyed with Indigo, amongst others. The chunky yarn is lovely to handle - I've incorporated my indigo shades into an oversized cowl and it's added a lovely texture to the project.
Working with the yarn is pleasant, it's sold in attractive skeins that are easy to wind into balls. Only one of my ten skeins (yep, I went a little crazy!) had yarn breaks that I noticed whilst winding it, but that doesn't particularly bother me, I wound it into several smaller balls and put it aside to make socks with at a later date.
The dyeing is a high quality of all over colour, reassuringly there's no colour residue to come off on your hands whilst you're knitting and there's no pulling apart the chunky yarn with your bare hands, it's been plied well and you'll need scissors! They're all attractively labeled with the wool used (Blue Faced Leicester) and the dyeing extract used. The only thing missing are washing / care instructions - but as any seasoned knitter knows, hand wash only for 100% wool yarn, and you can find Kim's recommendations for which size needles to use for which weight, on her shop site.
As far as purchasing goes, if you're buying online, you'll be treated to high quality photographs - the colours of which are very true to life. I also received a 10% coupon code for my next order - which is always nice - Kim's yarns are of an extraordinary value when you consider each stage of the process they go through, from white fleece - coloured skeins, all by her own hands. If you're a fibre fan or general creative type and want to find out more about her processes, you can find out more about them on her blog.
Unless you have a generous budget, hand spun yarn isn't really practical for larger projects like jumpers - and even if blessed with a full wallet, it's hard to get large quantities of the same shade or dye lot if it's been hand dyed. However, it's perfect for smaller projects like socks or scarves, depending on the weight you choose - or mixing with other yarns from your stash, adding trims or decorative ribbing to projects.
If you're a fibre enthusiast, or a fan of natural dyeing, I'd totally recommend Art Equals Happy yarns. I can't wait to get to cracking on some more of the projects on my 'To Knit' list."
Thank you Amy! -Kimxo p.s. If you're a customer and would like to submit a review of any Art Equals Happy products, please e-mail me (address in the sidebar) or link me to your review on your blog. I would also really love to see what you've made with my Wool! Thanks in advance.
Well, it's been a couple of weeks since we've had a Tuesday Video! That's mainly because I'm in the final year of University and my schedule is wall to wall college work. Ah! It's kind of a crazy time over here. There's a lot of things coming your way soon! My hand in date is May the 31st, and our show is June the 15th so that gives you an idea of when new things will be showing up here.
In the meantime, here's a fun little video that I took during the Peoplespace market opening!
It's Sam and Rowan on top of the boat at Camden Lock Market. Enjoy!
This hat is made with the same pattern as This One. The big difference is that's it's made with my Self Stripe Handspun. I gave mum 100g of it, and asked her if she'd make me up a sample so you could see the stripes when it's knitted up. Funny thing is, we were doing a market that weekend, and ALL my stock of it sold out! Haha. So now we have a beautiful hat with a discontinued yarn (it's not naturally dyed)- but good news is Mum wears this during the winter and always gets compliments, so that's good. :]
I really like it, it reminds me of a watercolour drawing. We added a little 'Art Equals Happy' pin badge (get one here!) onto the turned over bit of the hat. Love it!
During the first term of this year, every monday (or most mondays) I went along to a Life Drawing session put on at Uni. I'd done a little bit of this before, but mostly draw people with thier clothes on. haha. It's a really great excersise to get to used to drawing people more.There were 'excersises' given to us each week, and I tried to play along as much as possible, but there were also certain aspects of my drawing that I wanted to focus on (i.e.using two colours, drawing without lines and porportion). I'm dreadful with proportion, haha.
An excersise that I found really interesting was drawing the 'movement' of the body in a still image- using shading and arrows. Below is an example of this.
The other thing I really enjoyed was the opportunity to do things that you usually can't do with real life models- and that is get them to do odd things. For example, the one below is a model in the same position but rotated. So we got a few minutes from each angle to draw. The study of hands below is a favourite of mine.Hope you're having a good Sunday and I'll share more of these next Sunday!
This little hat was made up of some precious Handspun of mine. I had originally intended this yarn to be used in a jumper, but that project got scrapped. It was also pretty similar to some of the Self Stripe yarn that I made for the shop, that needed a sample. :] So we picked a favourite and much loved pattern and made up this little cutie.I really love how versitile it is, and how WARM. That's the thing with 100% wool. With all the imitations out there you can forget how wonderfully soft and warm a real wooly hat can be.
It's so amazing to be able to dream up a fibre, mix it up, spin it, and then knit it up. Every single time it's unique and different and super special. This one has really subtle stripes of ligher yellow and then some tweedy bits of red and mustard. Thanks for letting me share. :] Kimxo
Hey! It's Wednesday! Sometimes I do what I like to call 'Wool On The Wheel' on Wednesdays. Pretty much I share with you a yarn that I've spun up recently. Sometimes it's actually 'on the wheel' when I photograph it, and sometimes I share the end result. This week I want to wet your appetite a little bit for a shop update that's in the works.
This yarn was my first real experiment that turned into a new Collection called 'Medieval'. It's a sock weight 2ply yarn and completely natural! Dyed BFL fleece with natural dyes (here, Logwood, the purple!) is mixed with natural brown and grey BFL to create a more 'earthy' and 'old world' colour and texture.Originally I was inspired by the elaborate garments shown in paintings of Royalty at the National Portrait Gallery- but I also wanted it to be a bit more down to earth, so I started watching programs set in that era (and also fantasy like King Arthur and Game Of Thrones) and found that there were a lot more knitted and handmade looking garments in the lower classes. I love the big stitching on jackets especially.
Anyway, I digress. This yarn brings back all those feels. It's an absolute pleasure to spin, although because it is so skinny, it takes me AGES to get through one batt of fleece and even longer to fill up one bobbin. I like to imagine a slower pace of life and the spinning for a need (i.e. a family member needs a pair of socks because they got eaten by a dragon or something... haha) rather than a want. I usually listen to Shakespeare radio plays or watch Merlin while I'm spinning this.
Pictured above is the skein tied with some White fleece. I washed and fixed it with this in place so I could see if the dye ran. It didn't!
There will be four colourways of this wool up for sale in the Shop soon. Are you excited? I'm excited!Above is a close up of the yarn, with a little cheeky bit of turquoise that weasled it's way in to this particular skein. Naughty!Lots of Love, Kimxo
As some of you know, I hold a little Craft Club at my house on Wednesdays. And to celebrate some new features on Hobzy, we had Pizza and Wine and made some fun things out of felt. Here are some little snaps I got of our silly creations.Jazz made a brilliant headband with feathers!
And I created a little mask that I might wear if I were a superhero!Hehe! Sophie made a little creature and we posed for our buddies back in Bristol, to send them a little message. [:Negs was very lazy (as usual!)We've all got Hobzy accounts- come hang out with us there. [: Kimxo
Wow! These last two weeks have flown by in a crazy whirlwind of activity. I've been doing a lot of Markets & working on a big project (I will share all details as soon as the photos are edited). Those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram will know all about that. I have also been getting my shop organised- getting ready for a long overdue update. At the moment the only thing really online is the postcards. Please bare with me.
My Dad has been in South Africa visiting the Grandfolks, and he got back on Sunday- so the last few days have been catchup time (both with him, and with my body. My body is TIRED).
I am very thankful for all the tweets/e-mails/comments from you readers with kind words. It really does mean a lot to me, that you enjoy and get something positive from this blog. Blogging is still something I love dearly and don't worry, I'm not going to stop!
And to all New Readers that I've met at markets recently- HELLO! And welcome! Back to work, Love Kimxo.
