Bee Mice Elf

Color Inspiration, Succulents

2011-08-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'm officially obsessed. I've been collecting succulents. I can't get enough of them. It doesn't help that there are thousands of varieties out there. Each one is so beautiful and unique.

(I really need to make one of these living pictures, so cool!....Soon!)

I'm helping out the environment by planting drought tolerant plants, see? Water conservation should be practiced by all. What? You're not buying that excuse? Me neither... I love these little plants because I can't kill them no matter how long I neglect them. :) They are all still sitting pretty in their little pots even after a week of forgetting about them...probably even longer!
The symmetry of their leaves is a work of art. The leaves alone are amazing; cute and plump, some are even furry and downright hug-able...though I wouldn't recommend cuddling with them.

From icy cool tones to warm deep reds, how could I not be inspired to create a colorway just about them?

So here we go! The August Club Fiber is here! :D I hope you love it!!

Little Things

2011-08-13T22:21:00.001-07:00

Back before fiber arts took over my life I was into digital art. I have few of my own paintings that I may share someday but in the meantime I'd like to introduce you to Meowza. He is my absolute fave artist. He's so amazing and creative. How awesome is this?!...he has a collaboration with a gal who sews!!...and on top of that...it is a knitting themed accessory bag!! How could I possibly pass it up?! My new bag!

How cute is it?! It's perfect for all my knitting accessories!

Kukubee on etsy carries tons of other cute bags in various sizes and lots of different themes. Zombies, nerds, coffee addicts, animal lovers, and even the 80's. The illlustrations are from the amazing mind of Meowza (Brent). I can't gush enough about his work! You can check out his portfolio here. :D

This one is my personal favorite, of course!

Summer Fun

2011-08-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

Summer has always been my favorite time of year. This summer was full of fun here at the BME hive. My sister and her family come out to visit from Missouri every year. I'm talking a long visit, like a month! It's a whirlwind when they're here! I get to become a local tourist. :)
This year they came out at the beginning of July. We were busy almost everyday! Lots of fun evenings just relaxing too, of course. It was great to see our kids having so much fun together.

(My kids with their cousin in the middle)

We all made a trip up to Santa Barbara for a couple days. It's not too bad of a drive from here, about 2 hours. We visited the SB Zoo, went wine tasting (Oreana and SB Winery), swimming, dinner, and walked along the pier...and that was only the first day! The next day was a bit more relaxing building sand castles at the beach and swimming in the pool at our awesome hotel, the Harbor View Inn. I just wish we could've stayed longer.

(our private patio view)

(my mom and I wine-tasting, beach, zoo, and swimming with the kiddies)

The day after we got home we went to Disneyland. Always fun! After that we had to slow down and concentrate on Renegade Craft Fair. My sister and I shared a booth this year. It was wonderful seeing some familar faces visit my booth and great to meet new friends. The fun thing about Renegade is bringing spinning out in the open and educating curious people. I hope I inspired more than a few people to give it try!

(my newest wheel! a Spinolution Mach II)

TdF Prizes

2011-08-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Thank you team! You all did an amazing job!!

Prize: 8 oz of ANY color custom dyed

$25 BME Credit

Free BME Braid

My New Dyepot!

2009-10-04T13:35:00.001-07:00

I never would've guessed I could get this excited over a pot. I love it! I added a massive stainless steel brazier style pot to my dyepot collection. It's huge! The pot needs 2 burners to heat and barely fits on my stove. I can fit up to 1 lb of fiber in it.

I wanted a pot with a lot of surface area for kettle painting fiber and yarn. I like the stockpot style but the dyes don't get to the fibers on the bottom without stirring. We all know what stirring hot fiber does! With this pot there is no stirring needed. :D The pot is wonderful because its shallow and not as heavy as a stockpot would've been.

I've been experimenting with heat, acid, and dye recipes. Sometimes the dye colors splitting is really beautiful so I've been tracking at what temperature and how much acid is needed for certain effects. Here are some of my experiments so far.

Fiber Club!

2009-10-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

I finally started a fiber club! I've been wanting to do one for sometime now and I don't know why I put it off for so long. It's so much fun!

The subscription lasts for 3 months, September, October, and November. Each month the members get one braid of fiber dyed up in an exclusive club colorway. The braid weighs between 3 to 5 ounces depending on what kind of fiber I use for the month. The memberships sold out fairly quickly so I may start a waiting list for the next round for new members. Current members are guaranteed a spot if they choose to be in it again. :)

I wanted to do something really special for the first one so I found an amazing blend! It's 50% silk, 30% superwash merino, and 20% seacell. It is soooo amazing to work with!

My inspiration for the fiber colorway was the Autumn Moon Festival. Every year on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar the moon is at its maximum brightness. It occurs late September or early October. This year its on Oct. 3rd. It is traditonally spent with loved ones to give thanks, eat mooncakes, and make paper lanterns. I focused on the paper lanterns and tried to create September's Fiber Club colorway thinking of the lanterns glowing against the brightly moonlit night sky. Deep plum, purple, navy, and blues with a touch of a fiery glow. I hope everyone will enjoy spinning it while thinking loving thoughts of family and friends. :D

Spinning at the LA County Fair

2009-09-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

The LA County Fair has an awesome art gallery, the Millard Sheets Gallery, and this year the exhibit's theme was The Making of Art, the first 30,000 years. The exhibit was amazing! The art gallery at the fair has always been one of my favorite things to visit so you can imagine how excited I was to be a part of it. The exhibit starts out showing visitors how humans first created art with their bare hands and later invented tools and methods to aid in their expression.

The really cool part is that they invited modern day artisans to demonstrate these skills...and I was one of those artisans! They also had a weaver, ceramic artist, wood carver, glass maker, and a rock sculptor. It was so fun to be a part of this amazing gallery! I had my own little platform to spin on with a table to display my goods and they even printed my name out and framed it. :D

Most of the visitors who stopped by knew nothing about spinning. There was a lot of fascinated looks by adults and kids alike. I got the usual comments: "You're too young for that", "Why do that when you can just buy yarn in a store", "Spinster!", and of course, "Don't prick your finger. " LOL! It was wonderful to hear stories from people of spinners they knew and how it brought back memories for them. I had a nice conversation with a sweet senior man about how his mom would spin on their porch and how she made woven clothing for him. Really cool stuff. :D

This weighted loom was a replica of one they found in a cave dating back 10,000 years!

I had such a wonderful time but just wish I could have stayed longer. :)

TdF Random Prize Pick

2009-07-27T18:01:00.001-07:00

The Tour de Fleece has ended! Yay for Team Bee Mice Elf :D

It was so wonderful to see everyone's gorgeous yarns. You all are so talented and should be proud of yourselves! As promised there will be 2 prizes awarded among Team BME members. First is the random draw prize which is a free 4 oz braid of your choice from my shop, either in stock or custom dyed.

Now I know there is probably some more high tech way of doing a random drawing but I just simply put all team member's name in a bowl and let my kid choose one. So here we go! I had all the ravelry names of anyone who posted a picture of any yarn or work in progress in either the "official" BME team thread or the tdf thread within the BME group.

Here's the list: ishirlz, aquaknits, Panthyr, owenj, LushMommy, xanandali, shellebelle216, doglover, epspins, wannabe, ChanaMaja, ilikecake, mommyknits, Bee, vortenjou, and lilreb673.

Lily shaking it up!

No peeking!

Revealing the name :D

And the winner is....

ChanaMaja! Congrats!!

Thank you to everyone who participated! I hope you had fun :D

The next prize is for Team Favorite where we all will vote. I'm going to start a thread over at ravelry within our group which will explain how that one will work. See you there!

Felt Yummies

2009-07-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Remember that felt food I use to carry at my etsy shop?

It's available again! Thanks to my super talented sister, Lisa :D

Check out her newly opened etsy shop, Feltalicious.

I showed her all my felting secrets and she took to the craft immediately! While on her visit here to California this summer, we stayed up late at night felting away in our parent's kitchen. I think the most important part of making the felt food is putting lots of love into their creation. Lisa definitely does that and I think it shows! She's in the process of creating new items, she's already listed her new concha pan dulces, yum. :)

Learning to Weave

2009-05-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to learn how to weave for quite some time now and found the perfect opportunity a couple months ago. There is an adult education/enrichment program in the area called Tri-Community. They offer tons of classes at different locations in the area. It just so happens they offer a weaving class about 1 block from me on Wednesday nights. :D

I was super impressed with the classroom. It's pretty old and needs some major upgrades but it is HUGE with about 50 looms. The classroom was used in the 50's when they taught weaving in the regular high school curriculum. Some of the table looms date back that far too! The high school classes eventually disappeared and the adult enrichment class was born in the 70's. They've been collecting all size looms since then. They receive a lot of donations in the way of looms and yarn...the whole top area in the picture is just bags and bags of donated yarns that they let the students use freely.

They also have a small spinning area with a few wheels, hand carders, tons of spindles, and some donated fiber and fleece. The kitchen area (not pictured) is in the back and it holds an overflow of looms, warping boards, warping reel, swifts, and ball & bobbin winders. The kitchen is also used for dyeing if we choose to do so. They have a dye specific microwave and some tools for us to use.

It's a really cool class because we basically can do whatever we want during the class time. Some people spin, some just sit and knit, but most of us are weaving. I haven't done any actual weaving yet, haha! I'm still stuck on learning how to warp. Last class I tied on a dummy warp, then tied on my real warp to that. Next class the teacher is going to show me how to tie on the front and hopefully I get to start weaving!

My project is a simple plain weave scarf so I got assigned to a table loom. I'm using some cotton hand painted yarn I got in a swap on ravelry as my warp. The weft is a solid color superwash sock yarn I dyed in a purple/lilac color. I'll post some pictures as soon as I get started!

The projects are truly amazing and the people there are some of nicest I've ever met. It's fun to hang out with other fiber lovers!

Here's a pic of just one of the beautiful projects being created by one of the students:

Sneak Peek! Restoration Collection

2009-03-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've been busy creating 4 new color collections for Sping/Summer this year. The Wildflowers Collection is done and already up in the shop. The 2nd one, Restoration, will be available after this Saturday, March 28th.

I did research on what color trends were going to be for the warmer seasons. I tried to create Restoration with colors of a sun drenched landscape or the weathered wood of chairs on a Mediterranean piazza. Restoring hues for relaxation and inspiration: calm pebble grays, sky blue, pistachio green and an acid tangerine.

Here's a sneak peek!
This collection of colorful fibers is sold as a sampler pack (1oz each) or as individual larger braids. You can make one humongous skein or a bunch of little ones. I love making fun colorful patchwork yarns with them. Each colorway is meant to compliment the next so it's really up to one's own imagination what to do. :D

What's the 3rd color collection? It's a secret! But I will say it's super bright and fun!
I love doing these Color Collection samplers because it makes me work with colors I wouldn't normally consider using, forces me out of ruts, and allows me to discover and play with new combos!

Tutorial: Mixing Dyes

2009-03-23T11:04:00.001-07:00

Here's a fun and easy way to learn the basics of color theory for mixing your own dye colors. This is for acid dyes or fiber reactive dyes on wool. I did this last year when I first got some Procion MX dyes. It is a 12 step dye triangle. Here's what you'll need:

Dyes in primary colors (I used magenta, turquoise, and yellow here) or you can use red, yellow, blue

12 small pieces of wool

12 dye cups

3 bottles for making dye solutions (I just use cleaned water bottles)

spoons for mixing

gloves

vinegar or citric acid

salt (if using fiber reactive dyes)

saran wrap

steamer or pot with rack (make sure you use pots for dye only, they will not be foodsafe after dying)

First, soak your wool pieces in some water and a touch of liquid soap/detergent. I use about 5" of combed top...probably about 0.1 oz or less. You can dye as much as you like!

Next step is to mix your primary dye solutions. I don't like working with powder much so I mix all my dyes from stock solutions. I use roughly 1% solution. Use your gloves and a mask when mixing stock solution! To make it just add 1 tsp of dye powder to 250ml hot water. Put in your bottle and shake (or stir). Make the stock solution for all 3 of your primary colors.

Third step is to lay out your triangle with your dye cups. Now arrange remaining cups like in the chart and label each one. Add water to each cup, about 3/4 full.
Add your stock dye solutions. I wanted a medium tone so I used a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon..you can use a smaller or larger amount depending on how saturated you want your colors. To add dye just follow the chart. The top cup gets 4 spoonfuls of your yellow stock solution, the cup next to it (left) gets 3 spoonfuls yellow and 1 spoonful red, next cup gets 2 yellow spoonfuls and 2 red spoonfuls and so on....

Add a small amount of acid to each cup. If your using vinegar just add a tsp or so, add more if you're dying larger amounts of wool. If you're using citric acid you won't need more than 1/8th of a tsp.

If using fiber reactive dyes, add some salt. (I forgot how much I added..maybe 1 tsp?) Skip the salt if you're using acid dyes.

Here's what the solutions look like:

I was using fiber reactive dyes for this so I put a piece of wool in each cup and let it soak for a while. You can soak your wool in each cup if you choose to do so even if you're using acid dyes.

Next get some saran and place a slightly damp wool piece in center of saran sheet. Pour some dye from a cup onto wool until it has good even coverage. Wrap tightly and place the little bundle in a steamer. Do this for all 12 of the dye cups. You will have 12 little saran bundles in your steamer so make sure you jot down in a note where each color was placed!

Steam for about 30-45 minutes. Let them cool overnight or to room temperature. Rinse a few times gently in lukewarm water without agitation. Let dry. Now you have a rainbow of colors to play with! I saved a few poofs to make a chart and filed it away for future reference. With the rest I made this colorful handspun yarn. :)