>>> Shop Upate

Looky! I added a few more things to the shop.






-Alice

Shop Update

Yesterday, I found some extra time to add a couple of my jar cozies to my shop. Check 'em out!

-Alice

The Days of Another Indian Summer

Summer weather has finally seemed to find its way to the Bay Area. Sunshine and unexpected heat have been in the forecast for the last couple of weeks. Better late than never, i say!
I've put knitting on the back burners only because the heat makes knitting a little sticky and shifts at the coffee shop have drained most of my brain power and emotional will. I have half cocked plans to get more items into FINE+dandy, but haven't the time. Soon, I will make some.
Until that happens, here's some news from my life:
Jamie and I got a kitten a few weeks back.

Her name is Charo, but Jamie calls her Meemers (he calls all cats that) and she seems to answer to that more than Charo. She so fluffy and pretty and we love her soo much, even though Jamie is very allergic to her.

I also cut off all of my hair, well almost.

I haven't had my hair this short since second grade; I'm digging it a lot more this time around. As with all my haircuts for the past few years, I did this one myself and its not bad. I've learned that the best way to learn how to cut your own hair is to just do it and try not to care what the back of your head looks like.
My hair cut came just in time for the heatwave that hit the Bay Area last week. For the past couple of years, the warm summer weather has been compressed into a couple weeks in August and September. The Indian summer is nice, but i loved waking up today with fog clinging on to the Oakland/ Berkeley hills and the morning sun peaking out behind scattered drizzly clouds. Can't wait for some good knitting weather!
Tah tah for now!
-Alice and Charo

Cozy on Up!

I'm one of those people who HATES to throw anything away. Rubber bands? i'm gonna need those some day. one inch scraps of yarn? DUDE! That could come in handy!

But the one item i save the most from the trash has to be glass jars.

I love jars. I love using them for storage in the fridge or in the cupboard. I love using them for flower vases or keeping my parsley and cilantro fresh. And i love to use them for drinks.

At the coffee shop, I see alot of kids reusing glass jars for coffee and tea. And let me tell you, my hands have gotten used to handling alot of hot things, but a hot glass jar is a difficult thing to hold. But I have a solution.

Jar Cozies! Hand knitted by moi! (actually , my very first ever thought-out, worked-out, written-down design! These are pretty great; not only do they prevent you from burning your fing-ghee's, but they also keep hot drinks hotter for longer. :)

I like to use these with iced drinks too. The cozy soaks up the condensation on the outside of the glass. Sooooooo, no puddle when you're enjoying your refreshing iced beverage.

Right now I'm just making them for friends, but I'm trying to work on a marketing plan. More on that later.

Toodles, al

mmm...Handspun.

Look at all that handspun! All done by me, with MY hands and my top whorl spindle.

We'll start with the boring practice fiber, super wash wool. That'll be the purple and white in the photo above. Their not that great, but I'm learning.

Here is my latest and favorite work. Single-ply, half wool and half soy silk Karaoke in Calico from Louet. I really enjoyed spinning this stuff. It was a much needed departure from what I was spinning before.

Currently, I'm spinning up some cream-colored cotton. Gotta say, cotton is really difficult and I am not finding it as fun as the wool. But cotton is a whole other kind of fiber beast and it'll just take some getting used to. The other sad part about the cotton is that it will be harder to dye this stuff than the wool because i can't use my Kool aid.

That's right. I said Kool-Aid. Remember those blond girls from school who would come to class one day with cherry red hair? Well, that was because of the wonderful acidic properties of Koo -Aid powder.

The bright food coloring paired with the citric acid in Kool-Aid makes it the easiest method of dyeing yarn and fiber, as long as that yarn and fiber consists of animal protein (i.e. fiber from sheep, rabbits, camels, worms(silk), yak, even human. Cotton is a plant fiber, thus Kool-Aid not very effective.)

This week was fun with Kool-Aid and the white and purple handspun got a makeover.

The purple got a wash of grape/pink lemonade. It has a hint of burgundy running through it.

The white was blasted with Black Cherry and a hint of strawberry and the result was this bright tomato color. I have christened it as a "Heinz" colorway. I'm thinking some kind of Valentine's knit. We'll see.

Makin' Thangs

Meet Flor the owl.

She is the first product of my new found desire to "just make shit." And I am pretty damn proud of her. She is made of felt sheets, hand stitched together and stuffed with bits and bobbles that i had laying around the house. Her eyes are a little off, but that is alright because she is an owl with an attitude and she knows that you are up to no good.

Or she 's got one of those crazy eyes. Either way, we still love her.

In other news, I felt like getting sassy and i painted my nails. I got really fancy and put spots on the over coat. It won't last long since work is such a pain on my hands, but it's a fun look to have even for just a short while.

I like feeling fancy every once and while. Put on a pretty dress and getting dolled up for no particular reason other you're tired of feeling poor, homely and depressed.

That's the way i felt this past week. It all started with a trip to Fourth street in Berkeley. Jamie (that's my wonderful boyfriend) and I had the day off and we went to get breakfast at Betty's Oceanview Diner. I love this place. Best poached eggs EVER!!!!

After our lovely meal, I headed over to Anthropologie while Jamie did some of his own shopping at the hardware store down the way. Now, I know that don't have the money to shop at this store. I am poor. But I do like much of the style of Anthropologie AND if i were a skinny girl with a modest trust fund, I would work it!

But....that ain't the case! So what does this poor girl do in such a place? I steal ideas... I mean, I find inspiration for knitting projects.

Now, the thing about knitting is that once you become good at it, when you see knitted items in stores, you immediately think "I can make that!" And sometimes you do, most times you don't. But during this trip, I came across a cute little headband that I was sure I could make and i went home, I thought "I may not have the cash to spend at a store like that, but I got skill and talent and I'm gonna prove it!"

Here's the proof:

This is my cute little Anthropologie-inspired headband. Knitted with Spincycle yarns in colorway 'For the Birds' which I got at the last Renegade Craft Fair in San Fran.

I might write out a pattern for it. Might even put this one up in my Etsy, still thinking about it.