Bumbling - the Fiber Portion

There has been a flurry of activity lately in the Dreams in Fiber world which is fantastic because I have been in a bit of a dye-slump lately; I didn't have any big inspirations as to what I wanted to dye, I had nothing on the calendar Club-wise at all for 2014, and I had nothing lined up for the remainder of the year aside from the upcoming series.  I was struggling, constantly trying to come up with an idea or two and nothing seemed to feel right/speak to me.  It had become un-fun and that is a big no-no for me.  So I took a break, tried to quit thinking about it, and sure enough, it became fun again - inspiration had struck!

Tarantulas.

I know I know, enough with the spiders already, right?  No!  I have been trying to convince people how cool tarantulas are and how beautiful they are and it hit me, why not create colorways inspired by some of the more than 900 different species of tarantulas?  During these past few weeks, I have spent time dyeing up prototypes for one of my new colorway lines and have officially launched the Tarantulas are Beautiful Campaign on Ravelry!  Don't worry, there will be no spider pictures here, just the colorways.  As it happens, I am still not overly fond of spiders in general, but I have become something of a tarantula advocate and that happened when I began to learn more about them.  Instead of making it a club, any of these colorways are available for custom order, on yarn, on fiber, and some of them will be dyed in a self-striping skein as well.  I couldn't resist dyeing up big hairy tarantula braids ;)  These are the prototypes, (sorry for the sloppy skeins), and I will have a tarantula update on Etsy late September featuring yarn and fiber.  For any curious parties, you can click on the links to view photos of each species.

Chilean Rose Hair (Grammostola rosea)

Rio Grande Gold (Aphonopelma moderatum)

Indian Ornamental (Poecilotheria regalis)

Cobalt Blue (Haplopelma lividum)

Greenbottle Blue (Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens)

Mexican Red Knee (Brachypelma smithi)

Antilles Pinktoe (Avicularia versicolor)

Ecuadorian Purple (Avicularia purpurea)

On my Ravelry thread, I have listed various facts about each featured species as well as a list of random facts I've learned about tarantulas in the hopes that it will enable others to be a little less afraid of them :)

Things sort of began to snowball from there.  I have been in contact with people that put together the annual Sticks and Strings event and I will be vending, once again, during the first part of 2014 so I will be busy dyeing for that this upcoming Autumn.  

At this point, I was still Club-less in 2014 but then inspiration struck again :D  During this Autumn, I will also be busy dyeing up skeins for my upcoming Clubs - yes, Clubs, plural.  I am still ironing out the finer details, but come January, I will be shipping out the first two skeins of my Fantastical Creatures Club - Part 1.  I have way too many fun creatures to create colorways from so I split it into two Clubs (and have enough for Parts 3 and 4 in 2015 if I wanted to).  Part 1 will last January-March, and will feature 6 different Fantasical Creatures (2 skeins/month) - in no particular order, there will be:  Kelpies, Griffin, Banshee, Hobgoblin, Leprechaun, Pixies.  The colorways will remain a surprise until they are released.  Fantastical Creatures Part 2 will run from August-October and will again, feature 6 different colorways.  This time, the Fantastical Creatures are, in no particular order,: Giant, Boggart, Will-o-Wisp, Nixies, Fire Salamander, Unicorn.

So what else have I been up to?  I have been knitting, weaving, and beading!  I managed to finish one of my plain Stockinette socks so I could free up my needles for the minions' back to school socks (which are on the needles now).  I don't remember when I started this sock, sometime back in Winter or Spring, I think.  

I'll get to the other sock sometime.  I also finished up the last of my Camelot patterns.  I will be shipping those skeins out early next week, but here are a few photos of one of the colorways.

I will not be making the mate to this sock - there is no way I will be able to make the match in a timely-enough fashion to match gauge so this will be paired with my single Huntsman sock from my Snow White 2013 Club - instant pair :D

While my Muse was on a roll, she gave me some inspiration for my annual handmade Holiday Ornaments this year!  More spiders - beaded though.  Most people think I'm insane, but there is an actual story about Christmas spiders and how pretty will these look with the lights hitting them?  I have made 7 so far and will make about 10 or so more before all is said and done.  Each one different than the others.  Here are a few.

Let's not forget the weaving!  I dyed up a skein of my Sarah Jane Smith colorway from the Inspired by Dr. Who series on Silken Sock and wove a scarf out of it.  I used a 12 dent read and had 74 warp ends.  

I took that scarf and the other one I wove using Fresh From the Cauldron's MCN Worsted in the Brown-Eyed-Girl Colorway to Living History Farms yesterday with the hubby and minions for a photoshoot.  Yesterday was the Grain Harvest Day at LHF so both minions were excited to go and see what the activities were.

Here are a few other pictures from our outing.

I have another scarf on the loom, socks on the needles, a handful of WiP's that I still need to finish, spiders to create, and dyeing to do.  Housework?  School shopping?  Cooking?  Yard work?  Bills?  Who needs to do any of that???  o.O  Looks like I will be busy!