art equals happy.

One from the vaults- The Test 2009 :: Video & Animation.

This video was also made during my A-level animation course at school. It was a test for multiple processes like using acetate and filming something backwards as well as cutout.
When I look back at this, it makes me just want to play with stop motion again. This was done in a few hours using very simple techniques. If you've always wanted to try animation but never have- I say go for it!

Love, Kim xo.

p.s. remember to like & subscribe on youtube if you haven't already. I'm making this a regular thing. New videos every tuesday!  

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Yellows and Reds and Pinks. :: Natural Dyes.

Mmm. Delicious Madder Reds.
Mmm. Bright Buckthorn Yellows.
Let's put the second exhausts together and see what we get...
... some Pale Peachy Oranges:

I love it that Natural Dyeing is always surprising me with it's colour combos. Always blow away that these colours come from nature and plants. The earth really does provide enough.
Some more yummy eye candy & experiements:

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Gradient Cowl. :: Spinning & Knitting Adventures.

Finished Story Socks. :: Knitting Adventures.

Indigo and friends. :: Natural Dyes.

Before. :: Making the 'Hobzy Jumper'.

Indigo and friends. :: Natural Dyes.

For those of you that have never done any dying before. The general procedure is to make a dyebath and put the wool in it. Then you wait for a while, take it out and it's dyed! It's kind of hard to go wrong, really.

With Indigo, it's a slightly different process.
You make the dyebath through a bunch of science like mixtures, and 'oxidize' the water (which sounded really high-tech to me). You don't need to pre-treat the wool at all, except wet it. The tricky part comes when you actually get down to the dyeing part. You can't leave the wool in too long or it will 'contaminate' the rest of the dyebath. And, get this- although you're dying it blue the dyebath is yellow. YES YELLOW. When you lift the wool out of the dyebath it changes magically before your eyes. MAGIC. 

I nearly squealed in delight at my potion brilliance. (Slughorn would be proud.) You can only use the dyebath once because as soon as it gets oxygen in it- it turns blue and you can't reuse it. You can, however, re-dunk wool to create darker shades.

This is a sample of my first Indigo experiments (done in Nov 2012).

(From right to left: Once in Indigo. Several times in Indigo. Grey fleece several times in Indigo.)
Also, because I'm an overachiever (Not really, I just get excited) I tried overdying with some wool that had previously been naturally dyed Yellow.Yellow + Blue = Green!Because it was my first time, I only tried little bits and played around with times. The darker blue I 'dunked' several times. I even tried leaving some bits in the remainer of the dyebath once I was done (for like an hour) but it didn't look much darker.You like? Kimxo

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A couple of peeks into my studio while making swatches...Those colours make me crazy with happiness. :] Kimxo

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Snowy. :: My life & photographs.

Last week we had a some snow in England. I love how everyone goes crazy over it. My instagram feed was full of white snowy landscapes and I spent most of the day sitting by the window, watching it fall. It felt like christmas, waking up every morning and peeking out the window to see if more had fallen.(These cool snowflake banners were made by a friend of mine. haha. it says 'Kim is Awesome, and Negs as well'. haha. love it!)So peaceful and quiet and lovely. Negs wasn't really that bothered, she just cuddled up next to me to keep warm. So cute. Love, Kimxo

Lynn's Custom gradient Yarn. :: Spinning & Shop.

Around christmas, a lovely neighbour friend of my Mum's (and mine!) commissioned some beautiful handspun from me. She saw something I'd made for Mum and wanted something similar. So we got together and chose colours. I'm pretty proud of this, cause it's mostly naturally dyed colours! But the really cool thing about it, is that it's spun in a gradient so when she knits it up, it will go from those dark blues through to the magical purples and into that bouncy pink. There's just enough for making 1 cowl, so it's really unique! You can see that I've plied it with a thin sewing cotton, to give it strength. :] It's also nice and thick'n'thin so it's fun to knit with!

During one of her visits, I also gave her a refresher course in spinning and here are her results:Pretty good, eh? :]
Kimxo

A Weekend at Mum's. :: Life & Workspace

It's often struck me how lucky I am, that I have a such a good relationship with both my parents. I don't mean to brag, I just really appreciate it, y'know. There are families out there that don't speak to eachother, and even hold contempt for one another. I'm just very thankful that I consider my parents to be two of my best friends. They are always there if I need them, and have always supported me with whatever dream I've been following. I'm also super super lucky my that Mum comes to visit me often and thier house isn't too far away. I love being able to spend the weekend at thiers if I need a little bit of time away from London. It's such a cozy feeling, being at home (Negs comes too!), playing board games or card games and spending the mornings in bed, and working on creative projects. Here are some photos of my most recent weekend down there.Kimxo

Mordant and Fixing. :: Natural Dyes.

When I'm dying fleece in my kitchen, it's usually an all-day event, and I don't get to the exciting colour-on-fleece part till 3/4 the way through. There's a lot of prep and post things to be done. Soaking the fleece, getting the mordant ready, cooling the mordant, transferring the fleece to the mordant...It's a labour of love, but that's why I like it so much. It's magical. And time is a crucial part of it. Time and chemistry. And searching dusty old volumes in the library- looking for the perfect way to fix dye.Finally found it this weekend! Victory! And you know what that means... no running dye. Which means... I can sell Naturally Hand Dyed Wool in the shop soon!!!!!! I've been holding out because I wanted to be confident that it was going to stay. And now it does! I'm so happy. :] Kimxo 

Busy little elves. :: Shop talk & Workspace.

The Art Equals Happy studios or factory or my living room, have been in full production mode! Photoshoots, designing, making, sewing, cutting, knitting... it's a lot of fun! I've also had my Mum and Amy over to help a few times. Such good little elves.Here are some 'outtakes' from a shoot we did the other day. These are some sneak peeks! Thanks to everyone who has supported me with encouraging texts, yummy dinners, or nice tweets- even likes on instagram & comments here makes it all worth while. You're the best! I literally CANNOT WAIT to reveal the new products properly at Renegade & then do a big online shop update. kimxo

Spinning loose ends. :: Dyeing and Spinning.

I have a really hard time throwing away dyebath. Like- I just can't. haha. At least until I've exhausted it a few times. So I end up dyeing loads of fleece and end up with a pile of light shades from leftover dyebath. These particular colours were from when I dyeing Pink and Green for the 'Bi' exhibition. (I combined the blue and yellow to make green). It was using commercial dye and I kept getting it confused with my natural dye bits SO I decided to just spin it up and just add whatever there was to my stockpile of yarn ready for knitting.A very pleasent thing happened as I was doing this. I had two shades of each colour (the first exhaust, and the second). Instead of just mixing it together, I spun the first exhaust and the second exhaust seperatly and plyed them together. The result is a pleasing two-toned effect. And I like it so much- I think I'm going to try this with the next batch of Natural dyeing I do.Subtle but special. Also it was super fun to spin so tiny. I usually don't have the patience but I kind of wanted to make it go as far as possible. I know. I'm a dork. It's not enough that I've already saved some dyebath from waste. Sometimes my need to reuse & recycle gets me into trouble. Like all the paper I've been stockpiling for years... Perhaps I should make up some kits and sell them? Love you. kxo