Serendipity

8 new batt sets

2010-06-17T23:44:00.005-04:00

Here's a sneak peek at the latest batch of batts,

which will be hitting the shop tomorrow!

Moonlit Titania

2010-06-13T18:09:00.003-04:00

Moonlit Titania batts are in the shop!

I wasn't able to capture the colors as accurately as I usually do. Still trying to get the hang of taking photos in my new space with its different light sources, windows in different places, etc.

I ended up with a lighter blue wool than I originally had in mind. The result is that they're very similar to my Water colorway from the Elements series. Which isn't bad I suppose, just not what I had intended. Moonlit Titania is Merino/Bamboo (Water was Domestic/Mohair/Bamboo) and uses a lighter, more cornflower colored base blue wool. The bamboo is lighter, has some aqua, and uses peach instead of dark gold. So, similar, but not quite the same. Moonlit Titania is also repeatable, whereas Water was a one-time dye job I'll never be able to replicate exactly.

If you'd like some, you can find them here.

Namaste

2010-05-26T23:24:00.004-04:00

The great thing about dyeing is that if you're rushed or distracted and don't end up with exactly the beautiful color you were going for -- you end up with a different beautiful color. Then you grab some more wool & dye the color you wanted in the first place, and you end up with twice as much stunningly beautiful wool. It's a low stress job. ;-)

One of my red dyepots took an unexpected swerve into fuchsia this week, resulting in a decidedly Om-like color. So I carded it up with some bright fuchsia, dark purple, and stunning gold bamboo and tencel, and decided to call it Namaste.

Think of it as Om's sophisticated older sister.

Get it here.

Phat Inspiration Photos

2010-05-26T17:35:00.005-04:00

This month's Phat Fiber theme is A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I'm going to try a couple hand-dyed silk scarves in the shop.

One similar to the wrap in this photo:

And one similar to the flowing sleeves of Titania's dress in this photo:

My contribution to the box will be batts inspired by a vision in my head of Titania at midnight, standing in the moonlight in a light and dark blue silk dress, with moonbeams setting her pale skin aglow.

New things!

2010-05-24T22:01:00.003-04:00

New batts in the shop!

Also, the Art Club is taking new subscribers this week (at a reduced price!),

and there's a brand new batt club!

The Choose Your Own Theme Batt Club allows you to do just that --

Pick any theme & get a custom series of batts just for you!

I'm also starting two newsletters: One for Serendipity Shop News,

and one for Small Biz Tips & Resources.

You can click the links to sign up, or click the pages at the top o' the blog!

Sale!

2010-05-09T15:48:00.001-04:00

These beautiful batts are on sale!

Come take a look!

Shiny new things!

2010-04-17T09:42:00.003-04:00

It's Box Drop Day for the Phat Fiber community!

This means a teensy shop update of limited edition batts!

Grab 'em while they're hot!

Snag your fave here: Serendipity

Spring Scarf Sale!

2010-03-22T19:22:00.004-04:00

Spring has sprung down here in the South,

but if it's still nippy in your neck of the woods,

grab yourself a handmade knit or crocheted scarf while they're on clearance sale!

All scarves are marked down 40-50% to make room in my crafty space for new spring things.

My spring cleaning is your opportunity to keep yourself warm & snuggly!

Element Batts

2010-03-14T11:07:00.004-04:00

Element batts now available in the shop!

Little shop update

2010-03-13T15:40:00.002-05:00

These things

Are here.

Coming up tomorrow:

Element batts

May Spin-Along openings

And I haven't forgotten about the second part of the series on start-to-finish batt making!

Weekend Color Explosion, Part 1

2010-03-06T14:41:00.005-05:00

It's a beautiful sunny day with a bright blue sky. Which is extra-special, because we've had nothing but cold gray days for quite some time around here. The good weather couldn't come at a better time, because this weekend is going to be one of much dyeing and carding. On the agenda: ARTinis for future club shipments, Phat Fiber samples (OMG late! again! gah!), and if there's time left over, lots of yummy batts for the shop.

I thought I'd give you a peek into my creative process and let you see how batts come into being, from the white woolly beginning to the colorful batts you see listed in the shop. So. Here's what's going down.

I do all of my dyeing with Greener Shades heavy metal free professional acid dyes. They work great and I absolutely love them. They're one of the least toxic kinds of dye out there, so I feel comfortable dyeing with them in my kitchen, so long as I am careful. (Which for me means using gloves, a dust mask, and safety goggles when I mix the dyes, and NEVER using any of my dye implements for food).

My dyes are acid dyes, which means they'll dye any protein fiber. Protein fibers include all animal fibers (wool, mohair, angora bunny, silk, etc.) and a few synthetic fibers (Soy Silk, milk fiber, and nylon, which means both firestar and the nylon that's used to make socks more durable).

What my dyes don't do is cellulose fibers, which means natural fibers from plants (cotton, linen, hemp, flax, etc.) and a few synthetic fibers (all forms of rayon, which means Tencel, viscose, and bamboo fiber, which are all almost identical, but differ in what they're made from and are sometimes produced using slightly different techniques.) They also don't do any other synthetics, like polyester, acrylic, acetate, spandex, etc.

But that's okay, because those aren't used much for spinning anyway. The only spinning fibers that I frequently use in batts that I can't dye myself are the rayons (Tencel, bamboo, viscose). I can dye my own milk fiber, but it's easier to dye with the same kinds of dyes used on rayon, and is kind of a pain to dye with acid dyes. So I usually buy these fibers hand-dyed by other fiber artists who are set up to work with these kinds of dyes.

And of course I can't dye angelina sparkle fiber, because that's a kind of plastic that can't be dyed by mere mortals. It has to have the color added during the production process while it's still molten. Once it cools and solidifies, the color can't be changed. This is also true of a few other things, like Ingeo corn silk fiber and EcoSpun fiber made from recycled soda bottles.

But I can dye almost everything I'll ever want to spin with myself, so I'm pretty content with that. And it gives me a good excuse to buy beautiful hand-dyed fiber from other fiber artists. Which I did recently! I snagged some amazing bamboo from LushMommy on Etsy. I wanted a lot of different colors in fairly small amounts, so I snagged 2 oz. each of four of her delightful multi-colored colorways. And I love the fiber I got. Her colorways are amazing, with nice even dye jobs in a wide range of colors. You should totally check her out.

These are the colorways I picked up:

They are, from left to right: Brook, Last Call, Electric Boogaloo (light), & Faerytale.

These are going to be incorporated into several different types of batts,

so the first thing I did was separate them out into individual colors.

And now I'm going to go dye up lots and lots of wool to go with them.

Check back in a couple days to see the batts they've become!

Goings On

2010-03-03T19:22:00.004-05:00

Things are afoot. There have been secretive goings-on.

And there still are!

Lately, I have been doing some planning. Not your everyday, garden-variety planning, mind you. Hardcore planning. With paper and calculators and calendars. And hope. And caution. And back-up plans. The kind of planning you do when you are hoping to pull off some big cool things, but aren't sure yet if you'll be able to swing it.

So. Many plans for many potential endeavors are slowly forming and shifting and taking shape in my brain.

And I'm not going to tell you what they are yet. Because they might not happen. Or they might not come to fruition when I expect them to, and instead go down at a totally different time. So they will stay under my hat. In my brain. Percolating.

But I can tell you one thing that's going to happen.

Over the next few weeks, my shop is going to experience a renaissance.

Over the last several months, I have been neglecting my shop a bit. When I moved in August, it was really stressful (because moving is always really stressful for me, and even though I ended up in awesome new digs, this move was insanely un-smooth). I felt off-kilter for a while, and it showed in my dyeing. I found myself dyeing different colors than I usually do, and drawn to different textures than I usually am. It wasn't bad, per se, but there was less variety in my shop.

And right as I was starting to find my way back to on-kilter (because if you can be off-kilter, I for one maintain that you must be able to be on-kilter as well), my aunt died. She was sweet and kind and lovely. And it hurt. A lot. I scaled back my fiber commitments for a while, because I just didn't feel up to dealing with much of anything.

And when I started getting back to all my fibery pursuits, I still didn't feel good. I did all the things I do, dyeing and carding new batts for the shop, answering convo's and emails, hanging out on Twitter and Ravelry, and trying to find my rhythm again, but I didn't feel well.

My artistic spark was gone. I didn't feel drawn to it, I didn't feel driven to create, and even colors didn't matter to me the way they usually do. And it snowed. We had one of the snowiest winters we've had in years. Snowfall after snowfall, with the sky always gray and overcast and the light always slanted and dreary and the wind always bitter cold.

I'm not sure what happened. It was no one thing, but rather several little things, and the passage of time. Whatever it was, I'm starting to feel better. I still miss her a lot, but for the first time in a long time, I have my spark back.

Colors are amazing again. I am overflowing with ideas for new colorways and new series of themed batts. And I'm feeling drawn to the colors and textures I haven't used in a while. My old favorites, like old friends I haven't seen since last summer, and new combinations sizzling in my mind's eye waiting to soak into wool for all the world to see.

So I can tell you one thing.

I bought 10 lbs. of wool.

And, at least in terms of dyeing, I'm back in my groove.

So these are the before pictures.

(The wool is bigger than I am!)

The after pictures will show up in my shop over the next few weeks,

in the form of dozens of new batts.

Yes. Dozens.

Yay!

Spin-along

2010-02-22T20:44:00.002-05:00

Hey everybody,

I am thinking of doing a spin-along. I've never done one before, but they look like lots of fun. Basically the way it works is everyone gets a batt set that's designed just for the spin-along, and everyone receives their batts at the same time. With your batts, you'll also receive a link to our Ravelry thread, so we can all chat and post pictures of our progress as we spin. The goal is to finish up your spinning by a certain date (usually a month from when you receive your fiber), and there is generally something cool for folks who finish.

Sometimes it's a coupon to use in the shop, sometimes it's an entry into a drawing for a free batt set, and some spin-alongs even have prizes for various categories like "most creative" or "most evenly spun," etc.

There are a lot of variations on spin-alongs, and I've seen some really cool and creative ones out there. With some, everyone gets fiber that's exactly the same, and it's fun to see how different it looks when it's spun up by different people using different styles & spinning techniques. One person might do a thick & thin single, one person might do 3-ply laceweight, and one person might do a crazy art yarn filled with beehives. At the end, we all stand back and are amazed at the variety that came from one simple colorway.

Other spin-alongs send a different batt set to each participant, with all the colorways fitting a theme. They might all be inspired by different world cities, famous paintings, or characters from a book or TV series.

I have a lot of ideas for series that I've been wanting to do. So I really like the idea of having a spin-along where I get to do lots of different batt sets along a theme & whisk them off to happy homes across the world.

Because this is my first spin-along, I'd like to keep it pretty simple. So how about this: Everyone's batts will be inspired by a different semiprecious stone. This way there are lots of different color options, and you can let me know if you prefer pastels, bright colors, dark colors, or neutrals (white, browns, grays, black). You can let me know if you like your batts all one color, or made up of several colors. Or you can tell me you like surprises. (Which means you can't think of ANY color combo I could possibly send you that would make you anything short of gleeful.)

I think 50/50 merino-tencel blends lend themselves especially well to semi-precious stones. So that's what most colorways will be made up of. A few colorways might also have extra fiber in them, like tussah silk, bamboo, firestar, angelina, or bamboo noil, if I think those things go well with the texture or color patterns of that particular stone.

The default option will be 4 oz. of smoothly-textured batts plus a small specimen of the stone they're based on, for $24. If you want more or less fiber, or prefer chunky art-style batts, that can be easily arranged. Shipping will be 1st Class, so it'll be $3 for US orders, $4 to Canada, and $6 to everywhere else in the world.

Tenative timeline: I'll keep sign-ups open for a week or two, then order fiber based on how many people we have signed up. Once it gets here, the dyeing and carding will commence, & batts will ship out about a month from now.

So... what do you think? Love the theme? Hate the theme? Too long of a wait? Had your heart set on different fibers? Tell me in the comments!

The Bakery Analogy: Or, Why I'm Emily, Even Though My Name Is Rachel

2010-02-08T19:04:00.007-05:00

A while back, someone who does not knit or spin asked me what I do. And I told him, but probably didn't do a very good job of explaining. Because I am not very good at talking about what I do to people who aren't involved in the fiber arts. Which is a thing I need to work on, but that's not the point right now. The point is, I explained to this person (who had never met a spinner before) that what I do for money is dye and blend unspun spinning fiber, and sell it to spinners who would like to turn it into yarn.

And he was confused. (And not just because he had never met a spinner before, but I'm sure that wasn't helping him any.) And he said to me, not in an unkind way, but in a truly baffled way, "But, isn't what you make available to your customers cheaper commercially?"

And I kind of froze for a second. And I said yes, and I tried to explain why there is still a place in the universe for the things I make. And he was still confused, and didn't look at all convinced, which is probably because I didn't do a very good job of explaining, because I am not very good at talking about what I do to people who aren't involved in the fiber arts. (Sigh.)

But today, long after the fact, I came up with the perfect analogy to explain to non-fiber folks why there is a place in the universe for the things I make, even though similar things are available cheaper commercially. Of course now I will probably never see this guy again, but that's okay, the analogy will still be useful. Because I get this question a lot.

Here's the thing. This would work a lot better as a comic strip, but I can't draw at all. So you're going to have to use your imagination. I know you have one, or you wouldn't be here. Ready? Awesome. Let's do this thing.

A guy walks into a small, independently-owned bakery. You know, the kind that is tucked away in a cozy little nook somewhere between a couple shops and owned by a friendly girl named Emily who does all the baking herself every morning and runs the cash register in the afternoon. The kind of girl who rides her bike around town with a loaf of French bread and a bouquet of red tulips in her bike basket.

The guy stands in front of the display case for a moment, taking in all the different breads for sale: white, wheat, sourdough, rye, oat, challah, baguettes, pan loaves, shaped and laminated breads, and he looks up at at Emily and says,

"Wouldn't it be cheaper for your customers to go buy a loaf of Wonder Bread at the grocery store?"

Emily blinks twice. There is a pause.

"Well, yes."

Another pause.

"But you can think of some reasons why they might not want to do that, right? They might want this instead."

The light bulb illuminates. He gets it. Because he is a person who has eaten bread before, he understands.

"You can't find as many kinds of bread at the grocery store. There are a lot of different brands, and they each have a white and a wheat, but they're all pretty much the same. And even when you do find a sourdough, it's flat and uninteresting. If you manage to find a challah, it'll be thick and gummy without much flavor. There's nothing at all that has a perfect crisp crackly crust like these rustic loaves. And none of it was baked this morning.

Of course, there are times when you want those store-bought breads. Sometimes you are flat broke and don't want to spend $4.50 on a loaf of bread. Sometimes you'll be using it for a purpose where it won't matter if it's the very best bread -- like making breadcrumbs for meatloaf, or feeding the ducks at the park. And if for some reason you were to find yourself needing 15 loaves of bread that were all perfectly identical, you'd probably want 15 one-dollar loaves, instead of 15 $4.50-loaves.

But sometimes you want the very best bread. Sometimes you want bread that was made this morning.

Sometimes you want bread that's not quite like any of the breads in the grocery store.

Sometimes you're allergic to an ingredient, and want a baker who can make a loaf just for you.

And sometimes you find a little bakery that makes a certain kind of bread just the way you like it, and you come back for it whenever you're in town, as a special treat for yourself. Sometimes you're happy to pay more for it, because it's your favorite and you can only find it at that one little place.

Sometimes you want bread from a grocery store. And sometimes you want bread from me."

That's why I have customers. That's why my little shop exists. That's why it's not stupid for me to think that anyone would ever buy something from me.

Because sometimes you want mass-produced spinning fiber. And sometimes you want spinning fiber from me.

p.s. -- It is probably a good thing I didn't try to turn this into a comic strip. Turns out, Emily is as wordy as I am! Who'd'a thunk? ;-)

p.p.s -- If you do want spinning fiber from me, of course you can always find it here.

Let's get rid of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

2010-01-19T00:15:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure I like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Don't get me wrong, he was a great guy. And he did a lot of good in the world. But, I'm not sure it's a good thing to have a federal holiday for his birthday. For several reasons.

I'm sure he saw his work as more important than himself. If we're going to celebrate him, doesn't it make more sense to celebrate the anniversary of something he did or accomplished, rather than his birthday? (And especially rather than the third Monday in January, which is approximately his birthday?)

And honestly, I'm not sure we should celebrate him when we don't celebrate other people who also did a lot of good in the world. We don't have a federal holiday for Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Ghandhi, or Mother Theresa.

If you want to disqualify those last 5 because they made the world a better place but were foreigners, then maybe we ought to talk about the fact that while we have no federal holidays that honor women, American Indians, Latinos, Asians, or members of any minority, we do have one for Christopher Columbus, who was both a foreigner and a cruel and violent man. Also, he didn't discover America and wasn't unique in his opinion that the Earth is round. (I'm not wild about the lies that surround Thanksgiving either, but I like the idea of a day of giving thanks. And if you take out the happy friendly pilgrims & Indians and just give thanks, I'm down with that. But there's not really any part of Columbus Day worth keeping.)

Martin Luther King, Jr. did a lot of good work. Instead of celebrating him and his work, I think he'd want us to celebrate civil rights. I think he'd want us to remember the race relations problems our country used to have, and to take a moment to be grateful for the fact that a lot of them have improved. And then I think he'd want us to look at the race relations problems our country still has. And I think he'd want us to look at all the groups of people in our country who are still fighting for equal rights, even when those groups aren't defined by race. And I think he'd want us to sit down together and figure out what we plan to do about that.

And once we've solved those problems, I think he'd want us to look at all the other social problems we have. Like the fact that a lot of people in our country don't have access to affordable healthcare. Like the fact that there are people in our country living on the streets. Like the fact that our infant mortality rate is almost three times higher than Singapore's. Like the fact that the infant mortality rate for black Americans is almost three times higher than the infant mortality rate for white Americans. Like the fact that we have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the developed world. Like the fact that we don't have enough schools, and a lot of the schools we do have are in bad need of repairs. Like the fact that our prison system is overcrowded and overburdened. Like the fact that a disproportionate number of the people in our prison system are black or mentally ill. And I think he'd want us to sit down together and figure out what we plan to do about that. Because that was his thing.

Let's replace Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with Civil Rights Day. (New Hampshire kind of already does this.) Or even better, Let's Fix Shit Day. (We'll need to rename that one so it can be celebrated in elementary schools.)

And if we are going to add one of those days and still celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, let's make it a public holiday, but not a government holiday. If for no other reason than the fact that today, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, my city drastically reduced the public transit service -- making it harder for poor people to get to work.

Discuss, people.

Look what I made!

2010-01-15T20:28:00.005-05:00

Hey, people.

Time for another shop update.

My goal this week was to get 10 new batt sets dyed, carded, and in the shop, plus re-photo several older batt sets. Well... I fell a little short of my goal. Which is okay, because I knew it was going to be a stretch, and I am happy with what I've gotten done so far. I made several new pretties, and am now ready to start working on a few housekeeping things like neatening up my shop a bit and getting my act together to launch my new fiber club this weekend.

But until then, here are this week's awesomenesses:

If you think one of them wants to come live with you,

you can stop by the shop and snatch it up

and take it home with you

and turn it into beautiful handspun goodness.

:-D

My wheel is here!

2009-12-30T23:18:00.004-05:00

Today was the best mail day ever.

My Phat Fiber box came, and it is amazing.

Beautiful, incredibly soft batts came from my swap partner.

And my first spinning wheel arrived.

Technically, the week and a half I was out of town on vacation were several great mail days, but the point is, I got everything today. So it still counts as the best mail day ever. :-D I mean really. EVER.

Did I mention my wheel has a quill? Because my wheel... has a quill. And it's a big deal.

Because I learned point spinning first, and it's how I roll, baby. Don't get me wrong. I love "normal" wheel spinning, too. But I love speed and efficiency, and the prospect of being able to spin long draw a yard at a time as fast as I want without having to stop every 3 seconds to go backwards and wind on manually makes my inner point-spinning speed demon cackle with glee.

Also, no orifice = no restrictions on my art yarn. Hells yes. Because, hello? Restrictions? On art yarn? Unacceptable. And most spinning wheel makers don't seem to get that.

So, I haz a happy. In this wheel, I get a basic spinning wheel for a great price, and a travel wheel, and a charkha on steroids. All at the same time.

Three words:

Cheaper

than

therapy.

Bright Colors & Soft Colors

2009-11-29T15:06:00.002-05:00

Here are a few relatively new things, some newer than others:

All available at Serendipity, of course.

Gift Certificates, u can haz them!

2009-11-28T21:04:00.003-05:00

It can be hard to shop for a spinner if you don't spin yourself.

You thought it would be easy, right?

I mean, how hard could it *possibly* be?

So you headed on over to Etsy and you searched for "spinning fiber"...

...And then you realized that there's batts and top and roving and clouds and sliver and silk hankies and loose handfuls of curly mohair or wool locks, and you're pretty sure that at some point in your searching you saw actual silk cocoons dyed with a worm quite possibly still inside them, and you have NO idea what a person would do with a silk cocoon dyed bright colors with a dead worm in it. Except that they must be good for something, because they're for sale and people buy them.

But you persevered! You picked a type of fiber. Batts. Or top. Or loose fiber. Whatever your choice, you made a choice. Go you! Mission accomplished!

...But, then you realized that there's wool and mohair and silk and alpaca and llama and cotton and angora and bamboo and flax and hemp and you're pretty sure at some point you saw actual camel fur for sale. And you figure it must be good for something, because it's for sale and people buy it, but there's a little tiny part of you that is afraid that it might not be a good idea to buy your loved one several handfuls of camel fur for Christmas.

It's not that you don't trust the shopkeepers, it's just that, you know, you're trying to think of a worse Christmas present someone could give YOU than several handfuls of camel fur, and you're just not coming up with much.

So you decided to keep it simple and go with wool.

Excellent choice.

...But then you realized that there are several hundred breeds of sheep, and apparently they are all different. Merino and BFL and Punta and Falklands and Corriedale and Cheviot and Targhee and Shetland and on and on and on... and then there are crosses that combine more than one of the breeds... and then there's something called "superwash" which doesn't sound like a kind of sheep at all...

...And now you're ready to buy a gift certificate.

Good news! Spinners love gift certificates! As a matter of fact, store credit at a fiber shop is pretty much the best present you can get a spinner. Your beloved yarn-maker gets exactly what he or she likes best, and you only have to click one button. Everyone wins.

So I decided I ought to make some for my shop.

And I did.

And they are here, and you can buy them if you want.

Yay!

New Pretty Things!

2009-11-26T12:24:00.002-05:00

Just a quick peek at yesterday's teensy tiny shop update:

If you're into gift certificates, or if you're into my fiber & your loved ones are into gift certificates, they'll be listed in the shop tomorrow.

Cheers!

~Rachel

Scarves for the Gallery

2009-11-25T04:43:00.008-05:00

I have been neglecting my Etsy shop a bit in favor of getting some winter scarves finished up & shipped off to the gallery. The funky fuschia scarf will be heading off to the gallery today, along with 4 others. I hope to have 5-6 more made and sent out in the next two weeks. Here's a peek if you're interested:

They're very simple scarves made with commercial yarn, so if you knit or crochet yourself, please feel free to check out my Ravelry projects section to find the yarn, stitch, & gauge info. You're welcome to make them for yourself or for sale, I certainly didn't invent double crochet or the drop stitch!

If you don't knit or crochet, or if you have so many projects going and so little time that you'd prefer to simply pick up a finished scarf, I'd be happy to make you one. The fuschia/black & gray/black drop stitch scarves are $45 each, and can be made in any color combination your heart desires. The crocheted scarves are $35 each, and a quick Ravelry search for Moda Dea Tweedle Dee will show you all the colorways this particular yarn comes in. Want to order a scarf? Got questions on how to make your own? Leave a comment here, or email me at SerendipityFibers {at} gmail {dot} com.

Funky Fuschia Scarf

2009-11-16T00:33:00.006-05:00

One of my scarves just totally wrote a personal ad. I guess she's tired of living in my "Scarves to Send to the Gallery" basket. I'm not sure if there will be much interest for her here, since she's pretty different than the other things in my shop. I think my gallery customers and my Etsy customers are very different kinds of people who are looking for very different things. But she had a few hearts on Rav, and more people will see her on Etsy than at the tiny little gallery tucked cozily away in the mountains of North Carolina, so I decided to let her try to find her owner here for a couple weeks before mailing her off to frolic in the crisp mountain air. Which means if you want her, you should grab her quick. She looks like this:

And you can find all her details here.

I may add a few more scarves to the shop over the next few days. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I'm still knitting on this amazing yarn from Cool Climates:

Which is in the process of turning into a truly amazing drop stitch scarf that shows off the crazy texture of this yarn in all its glory.

Have I mentioned how much I love art yarn?

Box Day Eve -- November

2009-11-14T22:19:00.003-05:00

It is Box Day Eve. All of you Phatties know what that means. And all of you who don't know -- well, probably don't exist, because I am fairly certain that almost all of my blog readers, Twitter followers, Rav group members, and customers discovered me through Phat Fiber. But on the off chance there is anyone not in the loop on this, here, allow me to loopify you: www.PhatFiber.com. Go there. Read the homepage. Poke around a little if you want to. No, really. Go. You there, you too. It's okay. I'll wait.

Back? Yes? Excellent. Now you know how awesome Phat Fiber is and how much you want to snag a Phat Fiber Box of your very own. Good news! Tomorrow is the day you can do that! Or rather, tomorrow is the day you can attempt to do that. Every month there are somewhere around 200-250 boxes, and probably about a couple thousand people try to snag one. Good luck. May the Force be with you. Click quickly.

Here is a tutorial designed to offer helpful tips in maximizing your opportunity to snag a box by not making stupid n00b mistakes. And here is the Rav group where all the cool people hang out on the internets and gaze lovingly at each other's yarn and fiber. And talk about spinning and dyeing and knitting and crocheting. It's good times. You should be there. There's a multicolored felted sheep. I mean really, what more could you want in an online colorful fluff community? (His name is Shearlock.)

Okay, so here's the thing. I didn't contribute this month. Because I am a loser. Or rather, because October sucked. A lot. I had Bigger Issues At Hand, which totally threw my life off-kilter, and I didn't get my act together in time to send in samples for this month's Box. Boo. This sucks. Fortunately, I am working towards getting my life back on-kilter, and remain cautiously optimistic that I might manage to succeed at that despite not actually knowing what a kilter is. (Okay, okay. I couldn't stand it. I checked. And it's totally boring.)

So to make up for the lack of Serendipity awesomeness in this month's boxes, I'm taking part in a pretty crazy sale that's going on tomorrow. It was someone else's idea, and several of us Phat Fiber contributors have jumped on the bandwagon. Basically you go here and jump through a few fun little hoops, and get a pretty enormous discount on awesomeness from a wide variety of shops, including mine. But you have to jump through the hoops tonight, and you can only use the discount tomorrow. So go forth! Hoop jump!

ps -- Since I started moderating comments, there have been no comments. This probably has something to do with the fact that it's only been the past few posts (which have been mostly uninteresting) and this blog doesn't actually have, you know, readers. But it's making me wonder if the comment moderation thingy is doing what it's supposed to do. So to give me a chance to practice moderating comments, I will give a 5% discount to everyone who leaves a comment on this post, which can be combined with other discounts. (No, if you comment twice you don't get 10%. Sorry.) So if you have a 15% off coupon floating around, you'd get 20% off your order, or if you rack up a 25% discount from the hoop jumping, you could get a 30% discount. Okay? Awesome. Now go hoop jump. Then give me comments to moderate.

Tiramisu

2009-10-26T18:35:00.003-04:00

A while back my housemate and I made tiramisu for the first time. I was looking for something I could make quickly and easily for an Italian dinner party later that night, so I grabbed a recipe off the internet and modified it heavily to fit what we had on hand. We made the happy discovery that tiramisu is very forgiving.

We substituted extra-strong regular coffee for the espresso, and used store-bought ladyfingers instead of piping our own. We also made it in baking dishes, but it would look beautiful in cups or glasses.

If you're ever looking for a rich, delicate dessert that you can make at the last minute, I recommend this recipe. The flavor will improve after it's been in the fridge for a day or two. But I know for a fact that instead of waiting you could just eat it all immediately as soon as it's chilled.

Ingredients:

6 cups of coffee, brewed extra strong (we used four scoops of coffee in a drip coffeemaker)
7 Tbsp. Kahlua
4 eggs, separated
slightly more than 1/2 c. powdered sugar (we didn't have castor sugar, so we used powdered sugar we'd made in a blender, and just went by taste)
500 g mascarpone cheese
2 c. heavy whipping cream
500 g ladyfingers (savoiardi)
cocoa powder for dusting

Beat egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until the mixture goes pale and thick.
Add mascarpone and beat until combined. It doesn't matter if it's a little marbled.
Whip the cream until stiff peaks hold, and fold gently into the egg mixture. Gently!
In a perfectly clean metal bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks.
Fold the whites into the cream.
Mix the coffee and Kahlua together in a small bowl.
Dip ladyfingers in coffee & drain well.
Cover bottom of dish with ladyfingers, layer with half of cream mixture.
Repeat with another layer of ladyfingers & cream.
Smooth top & dust with cocoa.

2009-10-19T05:05:00.003-04:00

Fiber has kept me sane through some really difficult times, and this week is no exception. Having a simple mechanical task to complete helps, especially when it means you get to touch something soft and watch something colorful.

I've had a few skeins of yarn waiting to be wound into balls for quite some time, and this week I've gotten most of them ready to be knit into scarves and neckwarmers and other warm things. One of them didn't have ends. No, really. It was a skein of Manos with a few knots in it, and apparently somebody skeining it got knot-happy and accidentally tied the ends together. It was like Sam Beckett's life all tangled up in a big red yarny octopus made of one continuous loop. I made a break in the loop and got it all untangled and neatly wound, so I guess he gets to go home now.

And there's this:

It's the most awesome yarn ever. It's handspun art yarn from Cool Climates and it is filled with bazillions of fibers in bazillions of shades of white & off-white, and LOTS of wild and crazy texture, and bazillions of cool things in it like pearl beads and antique lace and super twisty bits of overspun crazy-plied awesomeness. It's going to be a scarf or neckwarmer when it grows up.

2009-10-19T03:31:00.004-04:00

For the past several weeks, I have been semi-absent from a lot of the great online communities where I usually hang out. As some of you may know, my aunt passed away recently after a long battle with cancer. It hurts. A lot.

She was one of the rare people in this world who are truly kind all the way to the core of their being. Kind and sweet and gentle and smart and fun to be around. She cooked and baked extremely well. Like, made-from-scratch cheesecake well. Like the chocolate-covered cherries at Christmas were made individually by hand and the sweet creamy filling inside them started out as powdered sugar and vanilla and whatever magic dwelt in her kitchen. She made beautiful jewelry. She was wicked good at Scrabble.

She was good at life. I miss her.

Her death and her life have given me a lot to think about. I've been trying to find my way back to a normal routine and get back in the swing of things. Some days I succeed more than others.

2009-09-14T13:05:00.002-04:00

Shop update!

The Club is Afoot!

2009-07-27T14:08:00.003-04:00

Today I am feeling optimistic. It's been a good fiber week. I got everything in order for the Myth & Magic Club (which you should join, because it's awesome) and things are well underway. I was really afraid that I would solicit the assistance of other artists to make the non-wooly surprises for the club packages, and talk up the club all over the internet and then no one would ever sign up and I would be totally embarassed and have to go back to the artists and say, "Actually, it turns out that I won't be buying several custom items from you after all, because no one is even remotely interested in this club."

I mean, how awful would that be? But, I have been saved from this terrible fate! The club will take place after all! Which excites me to no end because I am really looking forward to it and have plans for some really amazing batts. They will be a bit more luxurious than the batts usually available in the shop. I'm using this club as an experiment in making batts with a higher percentage of fancy fibers like bamboo, milk fiber, silk, angora, etc. And as an experiment in branching out a little into using some fibers that I didn't dye myself, but bought from other fabulous indie dyers, some of whom use different dye techniques than I do.

There is still lots of room in the club, and 1 month subscriptions are available for those on a budget. So come play with us!

In other news, today my first-ever Ravelry ad started running. It's just a simple banner ad I made for the Myth & Magic Club, and it will run for 1 week, until sign-ups for August close. I have no idea if it will be effective in selling club subscriptions or bringing people into my shop, but I will know in a week. So that's a new thing too.

And speaking of new things... soon I will start dyeing silk scarves for the gallery, some of which will be available in the shop at some point. Like several weeks from now. And I'm going to try my hand at indigo dyeing. So indigo dyed fiber will be available in the shop... whenever I get the hang of indigo dyeing. Best not to hold your breath, I hear it's insanely difficult and takes a long time to learn and that the learning curve is steep and fraught with peril. Then again, I heard that about point spinning and long-draw spinning only after I had taught them to myself with little difficulty & was surprised to hear it. So, we'll see.

That's it for now. To the Post Office!

Seeking Artists & Crafters for purposes of Awesomeness!

2009-07-20T17:30:00.002-04:00

Today I'm working on the details for my new fiber club. Which will be announced soon. And which will be awesome. For right now, let me just say this: It will be 4 oz. of spinning batts each month for 4 months, and there will be a theme. I've never done a themed club before, and I'm super excited. I'd also love for this club to have the option of coming with a few extra treats like herbal teas, handmade soaps, etc. for those who like a little extra pampering.

So I'm looking for folks who make those things who'd like to be a part of this. I figure there are two ways this can work. Folks can send in sample sizes of the things they make along with their business card, a coupon, etc. and use this as free advertising. The samples could be included in fiber club shipments at no extra charge to club subscribers. Or, I can work out a deal whereby I buy full-size items & include them with the monthly club shipments, and customers pay a bit more for their subscription to cover the extra awesomeness. Some folks love extra goodies in their clubs, and some prefer just the fiber. I will offer customers a choice between a no-frills fiber-only club and an extra awesomeness club.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Handmade hot- or cold-process soap that is all natural & scented only with herbs, spices, & pure essential oils. No melt-n-pour or premade bases. No artificial ingredients. Just the good stuff -- high quality fair trade oils and butters, fresh dried herbs & spices, pure essential oils, and of course organic ingredients are always a plus.
Other bath & body goodies -- bath salts, lotions, etc. Again, all-natural is key. No artificial fragrance oils.
Hand-blended teas -- Fair trade and organic will always get you brownie points, because they are good karma and the world needs more of that going around. :)
ACEO's or small art prints
Greeting cards
Hand-poured candles -- scented w/ essential oils, & made from palm, soy, or beeswax.
Stitch markers for knitting/crochet
I'm open to other things that I think fiber folks will like.

The extras in the boxes don't need to be the same each month, so you may participate for just one month or more. It's completely up to you. Most importantly, things need to go with the theme of that month's box. I'm keeping the theme a surprise from customers until I introduce the club, so if this sounds like the kind of collaboration you might be interested in, please email me atSerendipityFibers@gmail.com to find out the secret monthly themes & see if they're something you'd like to work with.

Shop Update

2009-07-12T15:52:00.002-04:00

A little weekend shop update to start your week off right...

Available at Serendipity!

Goings On

2009-07-12T01:10:00.001-04:00

I'm going to be scaling back my fibery activities for a few weeks because I have a lot going on in my life right now that needs my attention.

I won't be submitting samples for the August Phat Fiber box, but I plan to be back in the box in September. I will be doing a giveaway on the Phat Fiber blog in July (and probably August too), so you'll still have a chance to snag some of my fibers in the meantime. I don't know exactly when the giveaway will happen, but if you want to be in the loop on that the best way to be sure you won't miss it is to follow @PhatFiber on Twitter, or check the Phat Fiber blog daily.

I'm moving in three weeks. Just across town, but I'm really stressed out & unhappy about it. After much consideration, I've decided to leave the shop open and have a gap in shipping. So you can still buy things, but if you buy them during the critical packing-unpacking phase, it'll be a while before you get them. Because, you know, everything I own will be in boxes. And if you've bought something from me, well, one of the things you own will be in those boxes too.

Here's how shipping's going to work:
If I have your payment (have charged your credit card, your check has cleared, or am holding your money order in my hand) by July 27th, your package will ship sometime between the 28th & the 30th. After that, my next shipping day will be around the 6th or 7th. So, if I receive your payment on the 28th, it could be about 2 weeks before you get your package. If there's something you have your eye on and you need it before the second week of August, PLEASE buy it early and get your payment to me before the 27th.

On a completely unrelated and much happier note, I'm going to be starting an awesome series of interviews with a lot of truly amazing fiber artists. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I'm really excited that it's finally coming together. Be on the lookout for the first interview in a few days.

Whoa! Briny Deeps!

2009-06-20T19:37:00.003-04:00

Wow. Okay, so I got a little off-track in my fiber schedule this week because something really cool happened. I've never made repeatable batts before. I generally dye fiber in small batches and create one-off batts in whatever colors strike my fancy at the moment. I made a huge batch of identical batts for the Phat Fiber box this month, and offered full-size sets in my shop.

And they were popular. Like, way more popular than anything else I've ever made. It was... kind of amazing, actually. And a little overwhelming. I'm... totally flattered, guys. They've sold out a couple times, but as of this writing there are two more sets in the shop. These will be the last sets that are identical to the samples in the box. If these sell out and there are still folks who want them who haven't been able to get any, I will do my best to recreate them but I can't guarantee they'll be exactly the same.

If they do sell out and you still want some, leave a comment here or convo me on Etsy. No pressure or obligation to buy at all, I'm just trying to get a general idea of how many people want them so I know about how many I need to make. They're $5.5o/oz. and they look like this:

Thanks for all the support, everyone.

Happy Spinning!

Shop Update

2009-06-16T16:30:00.005-04:00

Hi guys,

There are a few new things in the shop, with more new things to come later this week or possibly this weekend. I will get a real blog entry done soon, but in the meantime I thought you might like to see the pretties! (And in order to put pictures of the pretties on Ravelry, I have to have them online somewhere else. And this is a very lovely somewhere else, if I do say so myself.)

Yeah... it's been a while...

2009-06-10T01:44:00.005-04:00

So, it's been a couple months since I blogged. Oops. The upside here is that now I kind of feel like if I blog any time in the next two months, I'll be all On Top Of Things blog-wise. (If anyone is actually reading this at all and cares whether I blog more often than two months apart, you should probably leave a comment because talking into a big empty void feels kind of weird, like talking to myself in a crazy way. Bonus points if you have a question about fiber or a suggestion for a blog topic. Seriously.)

Anyway, parenthetical weirdnesses aside, some cool things have happened in the past couple months. I got more involved with Phat Fiber, and have really enjoyed that. Phat Fiber is amazing and if you are the kind of person who likes buying yarn or fiber from indie dyers or spinners, you should totally check it out. There are also really cool handmade porcelain buttons that sometimes show up in the box, and they are absolutely amazing. And handmade stitch markers and project bags and knitting-themed greeting cards and handmade soap and all manner of things that we all know fiber people love. You know you want this.

Being involved with Phat Fiber has gotten me more involved with Ravelry, and you'll find me there every now and then posting in the Phat Fiber forum as well as several other fora, especially ones about spinning and art yarns. My name over there is, *gasp*, SerendipityFibers.

I did actually FINALLY get around to organizing the batt clubs and getting them listed, and they are a lot of fun so far. I've dyed milk fiber, which is a really lovely fiber that everyone should try at least once. I dyed locks for the first time today. They seemed a little intimidating compared to top and roving because I was worried that the shorn ends would felt together into a big colorful lump of weirdness, but all went smoothly and they were a lot of fun to dye. They're Cotswold, and will be in the next Phat Fiber box assuming I manage to get them dryed, labelled, and in the mail as-soon-or-possibly-sooner-than-humanly-possible.

And to that end, I am going to bed now-ish so I can get up early tomorrow and wrangle them into neatly labelled little plastic bags. Yes.

Introducing... ARTinis!

2009-04-10T14:58:00.012-04:00

ARTinis are teeny little 1/2 oz. batts bursting with color and texture, just waiting to be spun up into a fabulous art yarn! ARTinis generally contain a little wool and a LOT of special fibers like bamboo, milk fiber, SoySilk, tussah silk, sari silk, tencel, Ingeo (corn firber), locks, snippets of yarn, etc.

Try them! You will like them! They are a lot of fun to make, so expect to see more of them showing up in the shop in the future. In the meantime, these two sets are sitting in the shop already, glimmering and sparkling and waiting for someone to take them home.

First set is here, second set is here.

Cheers!

Dyepot preview!

2009-04-05T23:00:00.007-04:00

See Rachel dye.

Rachel likes to dye.

See Rachel dye wool.

See Rachel dye tussah silk from happy caterpillars.

See Rachel dye super-awesome MILK FIBER.

See Rachel dye angora from happy bunnies at Evergreen Vistas.

See the shop on Tuesday & Wednesday for brand new 1/2 oz. batts!

English Rose

2009-04-04T20:52:00.003-04:00

Today I whipped up a batt set that instantly became one of my all-time favorites. English Rose is 3 ounces of hand-dyed mill ends (domestic wool with a touch of mohair) in two super soft squishy floofy batts just waiting to be spun or felted. If you spin it as is, the resulting yarn will alternate between rose by itself and barber-pole sections that twist dark green around the rose. Or you can separate the sections and spin it any way you choose! If you want it, grab it quick, before I decide to keep it for myself! And be warned... whoever spins this one up had better send me pictures! I can't wait to see the yarn it becomes!

Announcing... Phat Fiber!

2009-04-03T21:20:00.005-04:00

Big news... I will be contributing to the April Phat Fiber Box! If you're new to Phat Fiber, check it out here. Basically, it is a box filled to bursting with little bits of fiber joy from dozens of indie fiber folk. Every box is unique, and each month is completely different. Past boxes have included such goodies as mini skeins of handspun, mini carded batts, locks, dyed roving, stitch markers, and hand-carved wood buttons! It's also stuffed full of coupons each month to the various shops contributing to the box. If you want one, you'll need to join the notification list so you'll be emailed when the boxes become available in the Phat Fiber Etsy shop. Phat Fiber is only a few months old, and the whole thing (box packaging, blogging, videos, Etsy shop sales, etc.) is all run by one woman, Jessie, and her husband Marcus. There are never as many boxes as people wanting them; last month they sold out in 90 seconds! So be sure to visit their website and get on the list so you'll have a chance of snagging one. If you aren't quick enough, there is a consolation prize... anyone on the list who doesn't get a box gets access to a secret website filled with coupons to the various shops. Did I mention there are frequent giveaways of full-sized items on the blog? Phat Fiber rocks! Come join us!

I sent in several kinds of samples this month. Here's a sneak peak at what some of the mini batts looked like:

The photo came out a touch too yellow, but you get the idea. 1/2 oz. is a nice size for batts. You can do a lot with mixing and matching them, and they're fun to card, so I think I'm going to make a few zillion more. I hope to have them in the shop by the end of the week.

To that end, I will be dyeing up some of this fabulous fiber:

Plus lots of tussah silk:

So stay tuned for great things hitting the shop later this week!

Coming Soon: Serendipity Batt Clubs!

2009-01-28T19:59:00.003-05:00

I have super exciting shop news! I've decided to start offering batt clubs for all the spinners out there who like to get a regular fiber fix with minimum hassle.

Here's how it will work:

Subscribers will have the option of letting me know their preferences for things like texture, sparkliness, favorite and least favorite colors and fibers, etc. Or, they can skip that part and receive a totally random surprise each month. Art yarn spinners can choose to receive a few free spin-ins with their batts each month, which might include things like locks, beads, sequins, or little snippets of interesting yarns or ribbons.

The club will be for a 3 month subscription. Each person will receive their batts toward the end of the month, in February, March, and April.

To keep life simple for everyone, payment for the whole 3 months, including shipping, will be made up front. Shipping will be $6, which will cover all 3 months of the club.

For those shopping for the spinner in their life, I will happily offer gift wrapping and ship directly to the recipient's address, along with a note explaining the club, at no extra charge.

Once payment is received, all you have to do is sit back and wait for super awesome batty goodness to show up in your mailbox each month.

There are 3 main questions I need your opinion on...

Wool and Vegan Clubs

I would like to offer a club option for those who don't use animal fibers. This club would also be a great option for those who would like to try spinning some of the exciting new fibers on the market today, such as bamboo, Soy Silk, EcoSpun, Tencel, SeaCell, etc. These are some truly luxurious fibers, but they do cost more than wool so I would need to charge a bit more for them.

Pricing

The price for the wool-based batt club would be $6.00 per ounce, whereas the vegan batt club would be $7.00 per ounce. I think these prices are fair given the cost of materials and time involved in making the batts and running the club, but I realize they may be a bit high for some people, especially the vegan club. What do you think? Are these prices within your budget? Which club would you choose, and why? Would you buy for yourself, a family member, or a friend?

Keeping in mind the prices above, how much fiber would you like to receive each month?

Thanks for all your opinions! I really appreciate your feedback!

Sneak peek at the dyepots

2009-01-27T13:05:00.006-05:00

I had a fabulous dye session this weekend that resulted in some awesome colors. This dye pot yielded some very pretty roving that will be in the shop as soon as the dreary weather turns sunny so I can get some nice photos.

Here's some tussah silk roving that has already made its way into a soft, shiny, wintery blue and white batt.

Last but not least, I dyed up some merino, silk caps, throwster's silk, mohair, and firestar in bright yellows and oranges.

I threw in some red merino that had been waiting for just the right batt, and fed the whole thing through my amazingly awesome Strauch Petite drum carder.

This is what it looked like fresh off the carder.

It's called Flame, and is already in the shop (www.SerendipityFiberArts.etsy.com). The rest will join it sometime this week, as soon as I can get them photographed.

Shout out to the Blogosphere!

2009-01-27T02:49:00.001-05:00

Welcome! I hope this blog will be a place to offer others a glimpse into my adventures on my journey to becoming a fiber artist. I intend to blog about new skills and techniques I learn; reviews of fibers, yarns, dyes, and equipment; and the stories behind my most recent creations, which will of course always include lots of pictures.

I would love to hear what you'd like to see on this blog. If there's a fiber or technique you'd like to know more about, or a product you'd like to see reviewed, let me know! I've learned a lot from other people's blogs, websites, and videos, and I would love for this blog to be a great resource for people on their own fiber journeys.