Hello everyone! You'll probably have noticed that the blog looks different! Feel free to nose around and check out the new things. I'm still tweeking and adjusting (and adding the Ethos page soon), but it's all pretty much functional (woo!). Please also take a look at the shop. I've tried to make the blog and the shop very compatible with eachother (Notice the matching headers)!
You'll also notice a new Sponsor section! Say hey to my friends over there (right hand sidebar). And if you want to come and join in on the Summer Show fun, check out my 'events' section (left hand of the right sidebar). I'm busy gearing up for a full time shop open all the days on both our final shows. Please come down if you can. More info soon.
This Saturday on the Regents Canal by the St Pancras Locks near Kings Cross we are doing our second Peoplespace market! It'll be on most of the day and we will be hanging out enjoying the weather (hopefully) and the nature and eachother's company. It's an event hosted by a few of my best friends and I. (Like those signs? I painted them!)
Last month we held our grand opening in Camden and it was a great success! The boat is equiped for selling off the side and for performances (musical and otherwise). Weather permitting, I will be spinning on top of the canal boat, and many our friends are talented with guitars and singing. It's going to be a perfectly chilled day.
*NOTE! We are still looking for stallholders/nice people who make things! Space is free and so are hugs and good conversation. We're looking to meet like minded folks who like to make things that are nice to the enviornment and to ourselves. Please email me or message the team on facebook.
To find us- Hop on the Regents Canal toe path near Kings Cross and take a lovely little jaunt along the canalside. Depending on available space we'll be somewhere near the locks. Look for a bunch of hippies and our big orange sign. I've got to say, the Canal is one of London's hidden gems. It's so peaceful and a much 'slower' way of living- and a perfect escape from busy busy London hubbub.
"We are aiming to gather momentum and collective inspiration for these changing times, towards living in a holistic and homeostatic relationship with our environment , with a focus on being less worried about money, more enthused about community, by coming together and thinking, listening and feeling, by planning and doing." Photos and Quote by the Peoplespace Team.
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
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