Just a note to say I have updated the website Sun March 3, 2013, and removed all SOLD items.

All remaining Rocky Mountain Dyeworks stock is 50% off – just use the coupon code 50OFF at check out.

Email if there are any questions or concerns.

You can find me at Raventwist, www.raventwist.com – the rebranded Rocky Mountain Dyeworks.

Can I also admit to you that I hate working with WordPress. So many people are huge fans and I respect you for it. As a Mac person, I find running an online store with WordPress difficult and tedious. The updates to the website take forever and they are painful to do. Maybe its my mindset and deep within my iPsychology I have come to believe that anything Mac/Apple is automatically easier to use. However, I did build my hubby a new website in two weeks using Mac-based Rapidweaver but struggled before that to build a WordPress theme based site for him. So I do speak from experience with both. I actually paid someone to build this site and she did a fabulous job. Adding and updating products is not easy and I do prefer the Mac drag and drop system. Enough excuses! I have started working on a new site and will continue to update this one until the new one is up and running.

I will be updating new yarns and fibres this week and will blog when the site update is complete.

Some images from in and around Banff last week, when a friend visiting from Germany took me out for a day of freedom.

Moraine Lake Excursion

Looking for a lunch that’s Grizzly sized

Ramblin’

You can find it at this link – Rocky Mountain Dyeworks.

A sneak peak at Anna Dalvi’s, of Shaping Shawls fame, new shawl designs. You can stay in touch with Anna at her Knit and Knag Designs website and blog.

New Anna Dalvi Shawls

Anna has a new book being published by Cooperative Press. This is all that we know about it so far! Can’t wait to see the full reveal on the shawls. Yarns include Rocky Mountain Dyeworks, Zen Yarn Garden, The Verdant Gryphon, Indigodragonfly, Claudia Hand Painted Yarns and Cephalopod yarns.

And for all those that are asking, the Rocky Mountain Dyeworks Newsletter is coming! It takes a while to build and I have broken my promise to try to do it more frequently.

I have re-skeined 185 skeins of DK and Sport yarn and have another 50 skeins of 100% Superfine Merino Lace waiting for their turn.

Crate of Paradise Valley DK yarns below. Yarns are being photographed and tagged and hopefully will be posted by the end of the week.

Paradise Valley DK - Superwash Yarns waiting to be posted on site

I discovered a few other gems:

a) They encourage you to dye your own sky. I loved this idea. We didn’t get to dye our own but I fell in love with the display. There were four of these walls and popular for photo ops with all the visitors.

Dye Your Own Sky exhibit at Telus Spark in Calgary

b) In the Creative Kids area there were four trees. The red one is the Wish Tree. Kids had written down their wishes, which had been hung from the tree. My favourites:

“I wish my family would win the lottery so I could keep getting Legos”; “I wish my sister was smarter”; “I wish my father didn’t have cancer.” I could have sat there for hours reading about wishes.

Wishing Tree at Telus Spark

The colourful tree was the “When I grow Up I want to Be” tree. THere were some funny contributions by adults who are still wishing but the kids dreams were fabulous and far too practical for most of them (I want to be a chartered accountant!?).

And my favourite – the Knitting Tree!!?? It was stunning and a complete surprise. It was covered with knitted and crocheted articles on the trunk, balls of yarn hanging from its limbs.

Telus Spark - Knitting Tree

Write A Message to Yourself – a place to sit and write a message to your future or past self. This one cracked me up!

Dear Future Self, Hope that the world hasn't ended when you read this.

If you aren’t in Calgary, check out your local Science Centre. I cannot wait to go back.

Snow Flowers

They are lying in the fresh snow on our back porch and with this photo I get to keep them forever.

I haven’t had time to knit for about four weeks now. I have been missing the zen of it but it is what it is.Here’s the only project (that I admit) I have in progress right now. Its a pattern called “Eliza Shawl” by Robyn Gallimore of Red Bird Knits.

Here is Robin’s Pattern:

Robyn's Eliza Shawl

Hasmi's Eliza Shawl

I chose the Rainbow colour way of Kauni Effektgarn yarn. I bought two skeins that were both about 1450 yards each, more than the pattern calls for but I wanted to make it larger. It was an unexpected foresight in another way -I found that because I wanted low contrast between the colour changes I needed more yarn so that I could pick through the colour changes to adjust them so that they didn’t end up blending together.

Robyn addresses this issue in the pattern – at some point you’ll end up with the same colour being knit at the same place. This happened to me a few times so I pull out a few yards of yarn or add a few yards to make the colour changes work. I’m happier with the results, even though it means more ends to weave in. Since the ends I’ve woven in to date have only taken about 5 minutes its not a hardship for ending up that works much better visually.

Center Stitch Increase - Knit yarn over through the back so there's no hole left.

As you knit more repeats per row, your yarn switches colour faster (the background always switches faster than the repeat). I wanted the width of each repeat to be about the same size, so that meant using the extra yarn I’d bought to augment. I hate stripes and it was important to add the extra colour to each repeat so I didn’t end up with stripes.

The repeat is really easy to do and once you’ve done a few its easy to remember. I actually made a mini one as a swatch for one of my fingering yarns. I haven’t cut it open and finished the edge yet but hopefully I’ll get it done soon.

Mini Eliza Shawl

This shawl needs Steeks! That is when you add in extra stitches (see photo below) and you sew two lines with a sewing machine or crochet support stitches on either side for the full length, then you cut them open. I’ve done it once before and its not a big deal. Wool that isn’t super washed sticks to itself. And Kauni Effektgarn is really sticky so give it a try. The mini one took less than a week to knit and I’ll practice my steeks on that one first.

Extra Stitches to be used for sewing before cutting apart

My friend Anne-Marie bought me one of the new “girly” Lego sets called Friends. She appropriately bought me the “Splash Pool” set since she knows how much I love to hang at the Banff Springs Spa pool.

First off, there’s been a tonne of controversy that these are “sexist” Lego sets because they come in pinks and purples. I’ve heard the arguments that there should be no colour distinction but honestly who cares? Its Lego! If you don’t have a kid, perhaps you think this is sexist but talking to Moms with little girls, these kids refuse to wear anything but purple and pink (my niece is a prime example) so why not have Lego sets in the same colours.

Turns out colour makes no difference to Lego. I didn’t get a chance to build my set. My son took one look at a brand, new, unopened Lego set, cracked it open and sexism was out the window – he built it in the 5 minutes of spare time he had before being bundled off to school. His comment on the “girly” set of Lego “I Loooooooove Lego so so much.”

“Emma” looked lonely in her hot tub (which is what this is, even if Lego calls it a splash pool) so we decided she needed some company. Jack Sparrow raised his hand first so he won time in the hot tub with Emma. He brought his bottle of rum and his Parrot. My son changed the top on Emma’s glass so she’s drinking margaritas (yes it was his idea).

Please play responsibly with Jack Sparrow. Margaritas not included.

Not sure where Emma should go on her next adventure. I think she definitely needs a convertible and a local coffee shop but after that, anything goes.

I made my Poppy Rug with on-line classes with Nicole of Festive Fibers.

Here’s one of her upholstered pieces that made me fall in love with felted fabric again. As soon as I’d finished trolling through her gallery, I signed up for an online class.

Tulip Chair by Nicole of Festive Fibers

The class was a private class but you can email Nicole and set up whatever works. We would get together every week or so through ooVoo or Skype, I would receive instruction, make notes, ask questions and Nicole would demonstrate technique. I’m a visual learner so no amount of reading could have filled in the gaps and Nicole was exceptionally generous with her time and teaching making sure I understood every step clearly.

Below are the broad strokes for those interested. There are many details I can’t cover in this post but hopefully you get excited to try. Here’s the rug of roses, made by Nicole, got that me started on this latest experiment with fibre.

My rug started at about 32 x 60″. Finished size, after I cut all the edges (I like them straight!) is 22.5 x 50″.

You need at least 2 pounds of fibre for the background and then lots of colours for your pattern. There are lots of resources on the web and I bought my fibre from New England Felting Supply. I bought the Norweigan fibre and it felted beautifully. Nicole can also recommend other fibres that will work well – she explained in detailed emails characteristics so that I could choose what would work best for me. I hand-dyed the background and poppy colours and bought a bunch of pre-dyed sampler packs to ensure I had enough colours to work with.

Step 1 – Colour Plan and Design. I gathered inspiration from books and the net. I don’t draw well so I found colouring pages of poppies that I reduced, enlarged and then cut out to make a paper layout.

Red Poppies by Georgis Mansur one of my sources of inspiration

Step 2 – Gauge Swatch! For all you knitters who dread them, you can run, but you can never hide from the gauge swatch!

I made a swatch and added a design. From that I learned that I needed to have Nicole guide me – my pattern was so whispy and…well yucky.

Step 3 – Lay out your background. I marked out a template for the size of my rug, taking into account shrinkage based on my gauge swatch. Then layered 8 layers of fibre. There are tricks to laying out the fibre and getting a rug that’s all even and i’m grateful to Nicole for taking the time to go through it all with me, more than once when necessary.

Sheets of fibre laid out

Step 4 – Layout your design

In Progress - partial paper layout

I added my poppies, stems and buds with the paper designs from the colouring pages first.Then I actually cut up the paper flowers petals to use as templates. Using the paper patterns got boring and difficult and felt constraining so I just eyed-balled them and cut out free-form petal shapes and created the flowers free-hand.

Poppy Rug Detail

Step 5 – Child Labour

My son loves making things with me and here he’s helping create pre-felts of different coloured fibre to use in the flowers and stems. I cannot say enough about how helpful he is when there’s something to be made and he really gets into it. Too bad his muscles gave out before we finished.

Step 6 – Felt your rug

There are multiple steps to getting to the felting stage. None difficult but all necessary. At this point I have wetted my fibre thoroughly and I’ve just started the rolling process that will create my felted material. This step needed Nicole and I to reconnect throughout the day to check on progress. Nicole would watch my technique then comment, or look at a detailed images of my rug to see how close I was to the fulling stage, make sure I was rolling it in a way that wouldn’t hurt my back, etc.

Wet Felting my rug

And the final step is fulling. That’s the tightening up of all the fibres, trimming the edges if you want straight ones and the final rinses. The fulling step made a huge difference to the final fabric and hand and rounded out all my edges to give the cut fibre a softer, more organic straight edge.

The Finished Rug!

Wouldn’t this be a perfect yoga mat? All it needed was a few more feet of length.

Here’s what finally happened to my rug – after a growling match and much jockeying between two large dogs, Wolfgang the older dog won. He won’t let Cash anywhere near the rug, or even into my office anymore. Wolfie sits on his rug to listen as I read to Conner before bed every night. This rug has already become a part of our family history.

Wolfgang's Poppy Rug

More Makings for January – I made a new website for my husband! Website design has never been on my life list but he was hanging photos at our local Starbucks in Banff for an unofficial show and he needed a site, and FergusonPhotos.com was born.

So for one of my January “Makings”I spent two weeks on a website. Barry has now taken over and posting new photos once a week. Drop by the site and check out his PhotoBlog.

My other long term project has been a felted rug with Nicole at Festive Fibers. I blogged about her in my last post. I’m close to finishing my rug design and will do a nice long post on development and process. I have to be ready to go by Monday when I will finally be wet felting it.

Here’s where its at now:

Poppy Rug

I will be spreading the poppies out, adding in depth with vague flowers and greenery at the bottom third of the rug to make it look more like a field and playing with the design. Right now it looks like I have three vases of poppies and a stilted design. I do like how the flowers turned out. I have feedback from my instructor and I will be working on the petal layers to make sure they don’t disappear in the background.

For my January 1st week I chose Felted Rugs. I’m in the middle of a course on that. Working on my gauge swatch tonight so will post my design and thoughts as soon as that’s done.

This is an image grabbed from my instructor’s site – she just created Felted Tea Cups. Check out Nicole at Festive Fibers. You can buy her art at her etsy shop. Or sign up for an online course! She’ll tailor it to what you’d like to learn and she’s just wonderful.

Festive Fibers Felted Teacup

For the Second week of January, I made a bird’s nest pendant. Every couple of weeks Tiffany Teske and Sheena Miller host a Craft Cafe at the Wildflour Bakery in Banff. Everyone’s welcome and the cost is usually about $20 average for the craft supplies and instruction. My friend Anne-Marie and I use it as a dedicated time to get together and to see and meet other locals.

Here’s what I made. Mine is the one with the mermaids and sea charts.

The other was made by Tiffany and I won it! Every Craft Cafe there’s a draw – sometimes you win a book, a gift certificate, the item being made.

Bird House Necklaces

I added an “Evil Eye” deflecting charm too! Many people still wear them – I wear my collection on a regular basis. If you see the back of my pendant, I’ve added another evil eye image just to make sure I’m fully covered so no ill will can stick on me!

Next week my son and I are making our own Lego Belt Buckles!

I’m working hard to get back into the swing of normal life, but I’m finally rested enough to create some new art so I’d like another week off just to play. Which leads me to January’s resolutions.

If you read the newsletter you’ll have read about my reluctance to make New Year’s Resolutions as I break them as quickly as I make them. I do like to make monthly resolutions since I’m not locked in for a year and I can adjust them as life changes.

I explained resolutions to my 6 year old and used mine – to become a better listener in 2012 – as an example. He thought long and hard and announced that his resolution was to “Party More!”. (Capitals and exclamation intended!) I laughed and tried to explain about personal growth so he considered it longer and harder the second time around and said “no thanks mom, I’ll stick with partying more”. I love him!

I have always loved the idea of contemplation and consideration, even if I’ve been a doer more than a thinker, my entire life. When I saw a book called “The Crafter’s Devotional”by Barabara Call, I was immediately smitten. A book set up for the contemplation of ideas and suggestions for doing them, there are over 300 different things to make, do and mull over. For my January resolution I am going to thumb through “The Crafter’s Devotional” and make something every week of the month (or year or however long it lasts).

I’ve started my first project – not in the book but I think it counts – a wet felted small area rug. I’ll post more by the end of the week on this project, the instructor and my preliminary sketches.

Happy New Year!