Charmed by Fiber Charmer

After receiving some beautifully hand dyed fibers from Fiber Charmer, I had to visit her Etsy shop. The shop is full of vibrantly colored hand dyed yarns. Her sock yarns made of include such wondrous colors as Beach Glass Mosaic and Red Grapes and my personal favorite is the Butterfly Bush Pooling yarn. You will have too hurry though if you want to get hold of either of the Bulky yarns which are currently on sale. Be sure to visit the page with all of her spinning fibers. There are a number of beautifully dyed silk caps. One of the items she sent me was a gorgeous blue silk cap that I can hardly wait to use. She also sent some lusciously dyed curls that are fust begging to be gently teased apart and spun into an art yarn. Visit Fiber Charmer today, you won't regret it.

The Benefits of Parkinson's Disease.

It's less than a month until my 60th birthday and I am finding the benefits of having Parkingson's Disease and getting older. Parkinson's Disease has benefits? It all depends upon how you look at things.

I was first diagnosed about 18 years ago when I was 42 years old and my daughter was still in elementary school. Eighteen years ago most people did not believe that you could have Parkinson's Disease. This was before Michael J. Fox made the news as a Parkinson's patient. I was fortunate that the neurologist I went to was not afraid to make the diagnosis for someone my age. He started me on medications and my life changed.

I was also fortunate that I had a quad amputee as a brother-in-law. Rod's attitude was a great inspiration for me. His outlook was simple. Nothing could change the fact that he was a quad amputee. That would never change. All the whining and feeling sorry for yourself would never alter the facts. That famous bumper sticker in Forrest Gump says it all - shit happens. Its a fact of life. The only thing that can hold you back is yourself and your outlook on life. With that in mind I decided to just live with the problem and work around it. With time it became easier and there were often days that I would forget that I even had a problem. (I have always been good at being able to put unpleasant things out of my mind, which is not always a good thing and is probably the root of procrastination.)

I continued working for another 15 years. The biggest problem I seemed to have was getting tired. I think that my body just used up my energy reserves in my efforts to overcome the tremors and carry on as normal. The symptoms only became really noticeable when I was tired. Over the years the neurologist would occasionally change and adjust the medications.as the energy levels waned and the tremors increased. It gradually started affect me at my job. One of the better medications was Mirapex (pramiprexole). The side effects of the drug started causing different problems and I occasionally had diifculties with sudden sleep onset. I would become unbearably sleepy at work in the afternoons. At this time I decided to make a big change in my life. Our children had all finished school (except our daughter who still planned on going to medical school now that college was over) and I had been doing fairly well with my small weekend handmade jewelry business. I talked it over with my husband and decided to take a year's leave of absence from my job and work on my jewelry designs and setting up an internet storefront. In this business I could work at any hour of the day or night depending on my energy levels. The best thing about this decision was the freedom it gave me to work at my own pace and available energy levels. After a couple of months, on the advice of friends and aquaintances, I applied for Social Security Disability. Every one told me that no one received it right away without having to apply several times and getting the help of a lawyer. To my surprise I received approval and my first check a month and half later. With that check came a newfound sense of peace and freedom. I was finally able to do things again without having to push my body to the point that I had no energy to enjoy life and the world around me.

Yummy Fiber at Giffordables

I just have to show you this fabulous batt from Giffordables. The colors are so vivid and the fibers really are luscious. You will also want to take a look at the Cotton Candy Batts in her shop. I don't know if I wished they were real enough to eat. They are so beautiful I think I'd rather have them as spinning fibers. I hope to have enough time to spin some of them this week. I was planning to spend all week spinning, but just learned about an upcoming baby shower so now I will be spending half my time knitting some booties and a cap. The mother to be knows how to crochet so I think I will also give her some of my handspun to make something for herself.

How to Attract Men

We were having an interesting discussion on men and what attracts them at the LYS yesterday. I was telling them how I always had a large crowd of men around me on Saturday mornings at the market. Now, I want to let you know I am not some young slender beautiful woman. This happened when I was 57 years old, overweight, with glasses and long hair pulled back in a limp ponytail.

So how did I do it? This happened every Saturday morning for about a year. I had a booth at our local Arts & Crafts Market for about 8 years. For this first 7 years I demonstrated beadweaving and sold my handcrafted jewelry and never had a crowd of people. I did pretty well with the chandelier earrings and the OOAK peyote stitch bracelets of my own design. In my 8th year at the market I made a huge change in my product line and quit selling jewelry. This was the year of the crowds.

What happened? I've always been interested in various needle fiber arts. Well to make a long story short our local Joann Fabrics closed their doors and I needed a new source for my yarn. At least this was the excuse I used to try something totally new (for me) and fascinating. I decided to learn how to spin my own yarns. Like most of the spinners I have met in Florida, this is a self teaching proposition. I got on the internet and found a drop spindle and some roving from Walmart On Line and spent time watching a lot of UTube videos. From there it quickly became obvious that I needed a real spinning wheel. More research on the internet led me to purchasing my first spinning wheel, a Kromski Prelude. From there it was a short trip to a new obsession and an interesting new business. This first year of spinning I still sold jewelry at the market until I felt my yarns were good enough to market. During this time I discovered Ravelry and lots of online sources for fibers and information.

Year 8 at the market I changed my business name and started demonstrating spinning and selling my handspun yarns. There is something about a spinning wheel actually being used that acts as a magnet for men (an women) of all ages. The guys would stand around me and talk while the wives and girlfriends explored the other vendor booths. I thinks its the engineering aspect that fascinates them. A simple machine with a wheel that goes round and round.

So how do you attract men in three easy steps:
1. Buy a spinning wheel.
2. Learn to use your spinning wheel.
3. Spin in public.

By the way we also discussed how men can attract women: Get a frou-frou dog and take it for walks in an area with lots of women.

Fiber Excitement from Wild Hare Fiber Studio

I just have to share the goodies I just received from Wild Hare Fiber Studio. I am so excited about these fibers. When the envelope arrived (the first one to come from our Angelina buying group) I immediately tore it open and saw this beautiful specialty batt, Flame. the colors are so vibrant and the fibers are some of the softest I've ever had in an art batt. I'm going to have to find something very special to make with this one.

She also included a fabulous Polwarth Top Roving in "Lavender Breeze". This one has already found a spot in my spinning queue. It is so soft with a very high loft and will make lovely shawl on my tri-loom.

You will definitely want to check out her etsy shop. She has lots of beautiful hand dyed fibers and handpainted yarns, some handspun yarns and even Spinolution spinning wheels as well as her handpainted drop spindles.

Love That Sparkle!

(Singing) "Angelina, angelina, angelina". Even after sorting, weighing and packing 150 pounds of Angelina, I still love it. It just adds the WOW factor to my hand spun yarns. I also took some new photos of small bits of it for my etsy shop. They are the best photos I've ever managed to get of Angelina. I am especially proud of the photo of the Silver Sparkle Hologram. It actually managed to catch all the fiery colors sparkling under my Ott lamp. It is so beautiful and brings my yarns alive when they hit the sunlight. They should have used it to make the vampires sparkle in the sunlight for the Twilight movies.

Creative Lighting

Last night our minister spoke about all the different effects that light has on our lives, from the physical effects of light (vitamin D, photosynthesis, sunburns, etc.) to the spiritual effects. As I mused on this later last night, it started another train of thought concerning the effects of light on my artistic fiber endeavors.

I think most of us have learned to look at colors under natural lighting and sunlight if possible. I know photos of my yarns and finished projects are always better when taken outside in the sunlight. Fortunately I live in Florida's sunshine city, Fort Pierce, and we generally have the sun shining at some time almost every day. Colors can look very different under different lights and it always helps to look at variegated yarns in natural sunlight, especially when you want to pair them up with solid colors. Unfortunately light can also have an adverse effects on colors over the course of time and bleach them out to a pale shadow of their former glory.

I also love the differences in color perception caused by texture under strong lighting. Sometimes, when playing with my dye kettle, its fun to see the differences in color when you dye different fibers and yarn textures in the same pot full of dye. A silk ribbon dyed in Periwinkle will look quite different from the bulky wool yarn from the same pot.

Another effect of light is seen in the slight variations of color you get when hand dyeing. Those of us who dye know that one of the beautiful effects from the process is that a solid color is not really a solid color. I love the slight variations in color that give character to my yarns. This effect can change greatly depending upon the available lighting. Last fall I had dyed 3 skeins of yarn in Spruce for a shawl. The lighting in my house showed some little variation in the color. Later in the month, while in rehab for my knee replacement, the color variation hardly showed up at all in the flourescent lights of the hospital room.

I also love the play of light that I get when I spin Angelina into my fibers. I recently used my drum carder to blend turquoise wool with small amounts of Silver Sparkle Hologram Angelina and black and white mohair and alpaca. Then I spun up all the batts to make a lovely yarn for use on a triangle loom. The finished shawl was a treat for myself. It is beautiful under normal indoor lighting. When you take it outdoors into the sunshine it becomes spectacular with little bits of colored fire sparking off the Angelina. I am adding photos of the shawl and have tried to get the pictures to show the effects of the Angelina but the camera's eye just cannot do the same job as the human eye. P.S. The model in the photo is an acquaintance from our LYS.