art equals happy.

Yarn Shop Day 2017 :: Shop Talk

Always a good event, so many people popping in to support us. It means the world. Your local yarn shop loves you!

Fun Felt. :: Friends and Crafts.

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

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Indigo and friends. :: Natural Dyes.

Finished Story Socks. :: Knitting Adventures.

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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Finished Story Socks. :: Knitting Adventures.

These socks have such a nice story behind them and in them! I started these about a year ago on my friend's canal boat. (post here) The yarn was given to me as a present and I was really into samples and small colourwork patterns at the time. I mean, I'm still into that stuff, but I just had such a big itch to go kind of crazy. I was also covetting some dainty stocking-type socks that I was seeing in vintage pattern books. The kind that are misshappen and knitted on the tiniest of needles and have intricate 'clocks' worked into them. While working on the first sock (The mainly brown and pink, post here.) I knitted in little elements of whatever I was doing at the time.I've always loved the idea that a crafted object tells a story- that with each stitch, you are weaving in a pattern of emotions and thoughts. These socks took me the better part of a year to complete (finished in December 2012) and I love that I can pick out what I was doing, and read it like a story.They also look a little wonky and funny, but they fit SUPER GREAT! I wore them to the Knitting And Stitching Show last year and got loads of compliments. haha.
A great, special project. I'm kind of sad to see them finished now, actually. Perhaps I'll have to start a new pair for this year? Kimxo

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Just for fun, Blue. :: Wool On The Wheel & Spinning.

Wool on the Wheel this week is something I spun up just for fun. :] I bought a big bag of reduced turqouise wool/synthetic mix fleece (months and months ago) & it's been really fun finding projects for it- it's such a great colour. The only thing about it is that it's not 100% natural... which is kind of my thing. But I'm not one for waste either. This is mixed with a soft BFL in a grey to tone down how bright the turquoise is. it's also got bits and bobs of other things... kind of my favourite thing to do- just add a bunch of other little bits to keep it interesting.It feels like a DK in most places, but might be more on the chunky side. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet... maybe a hat or a cowl? It's so soft!

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Amy's yarn. :: Wool On The Wheel & Spinning.

This weeks Wool on the Wheel : This is a little skein I made up for my friend Amy's birthday/christmas. I had some left over fleece from another project, and they just looked like Amy's colours- so I went with it. It's plied with some grey machine thread & is chunkyish.She made a lovely stripeey circle scarf & used it! Isn't she beautiful? (below photo from Amy's blog.)

Love love love!

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Lomo on my phone. :: Photographs & My life.

I've got to admit, I've not been taking my film cameras out much this last year, but I still have such a huge obsession with Black and White and with Double exposures, and all the 'mistakes' that go along with film photography and Lomography.

I have been much better at making sure I snap a photo of something everyday due to my love of Instagram, though. There's a great app on the iPhone that is my favourite to use because the results feel much more 'organic'- you choose the 'film' and 'lens' beforehand and then you snap away- not knowing what the colours/effects will be until it's 'processed'. It's called ClassicToy. 

All the photos in this post were taken with a B&W 'film' and the Double Exposure 'lens' in that app. I took them during a couple road trips recently. I hope you like them as much as I do...Love, Kimxo

Beth's Socks. :: Knitting adventures & Shop Talk.

These happy little socks are off to go and live with thier new owner, Beth. She's a sweet girl in my Illustration class that asked for custom designed socks. :] She loves comfy and mix-matchy and fun. Here is a photo of her little tootsies all cozy and warm in her new socks with shoes!Something blue, with a little bit of gold sparkle. Something like the night sky. Maybe a moon or star on the heels! And darker heels and toes and cuffs.These were super fun to make, and I sort of designed them as I went, only with a vague idea of what would go where. The purple accent on one sock is made with handspun that was a little bigger than the rest of the yarns, so the sock is a little bigger there- but I think it adds a fun variation. :] All wools are either handspun bits and bobs that I had lying around or 2nd hand wool.

To learn more about my handkint socks, check out the shop. There are three pairs up for grabs! And if you wanted to order a custom pair, shoot me a little e-mail.Lots of love, Kimxo

...and forget all your troubles. :: Double-Exposure drawings.

Today is for visiting friends and relaxing and playing music and connecting with nature.
I did this drawing of Sam a few months ago. He was staying with me at the time and there were times when I would be knitting and he would be playing guitar and it was lovely and peaceful and we were both taking much needed 'time out' from the busy london life.

London is great, but sometimes I want to run away to the country and live on a farm. And not have to worry about city things. Today is a day for that, I hope. 
Love, 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