Page 120 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 22, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are in the United States! In my family, it’s a wonderful day of incredible food and family being together. I feel fortunate to have married into a family that also values gathering together, since I live all the way across the country from my own family. We’re all looking forward to turkey and fun later in the day. I hope everyone else has a wonderful Thanksgiving too!

Thursday is my usual stocking day at Elliebelly, and I decided to let the yarn for the second week of my fundraiser for heifer.org go live today, despite the holiday. I hope everyone will eat turkey and enjoy their family today and take a look at lots of handpainted yarn tomorrow. There are lotteries and auctions listed as "Give Back" items, with the proceeds being donated to heifer to help hungry people become self-sufficient. So far, you all have helped me raise $234.00! I hope everyone will like this week’s items too. My goal is to raise enough money to donate the knitters basket (more on that below).

Here is a sneak peek at some more of the yarn you will find this week.

Although my original goal was to raise enough to donate one sheep, everyone’s generosity last week made a larger goal like the knitter’s basket possible, which seems so very appropriate in a season of thankfulness for what we have and love and charity towards others. The description of the basket on the heifer site reinforces for me how important it is too put together small amounts to help make a real difference in the lives of others:

This
year, instead of another sweater that will end up in the closet unworn,
why not honor Dad with a Knitting Basket -four wool-producing animals
that will give new hope to families in need? Your gift will warm his
heart and yield bundles of wool for clothes, blankets, ponchos and more
… handcrafted pieces to earn precious income for food and basic
necessities. Dad will love it!

Your
gift of a Knitting Basket represents two llamas and two sheep — four
animals famous for their warm, income-producing wool. From shearing to
spinning, weaving and finally to selling woolen goods at market, the
gift of a Knitting Basket will help struggling families earn extra
income to break free from the grip of poverty and hopelessness. Over
time, as that gift multiplies and more animals are passed on to help
others in need, entire communities will be warmed by the precious wool
of a knitter’s basket

**************

Enjoy your holiday today and join me tomorrow (or today if you’re doing a little post-turkey surfing) and help me Give Back.

Inspiration

Posted on November 18, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This weekend has been totally given up to family and fun. Our #2 child is home from school, junk food is in evidence, and we have accomplished little of any worth. We mostly try to sit around and stare at him when he will allow it.

Other than child-watching, I’ve been making some art and dyeing some yarn.

Vicki’s Pocketful Round Robin Book has been out on my table for the last two weeks, and I’ve been working on it here and there. I knew what I wanted to do the second I saw it — her book is titled "Habit" on the front cover and in my mind that immediately translated to "Habitat" and the idea of where I live — my comfort zone.

I have a beautiful rubber stamp of Catherine Moore’s that I love — an old garden chair that reminds me of my cottage garden, or at least of my pre-drought cottage garden, so I immediately envisioned using that stamp, making it multi-colored to represent all the colors in the garden and the pleasure I take in sitting quietly and enjoying it. So, I did this.

And strangely enough, chair was the theme at Wednesday Stamper this week, so this is my chair piece of stamp art, as well.

The other side of the pocket is done almost in a glue book fashion, using some of my own photos from the farmers market this summer.

I made a little babble to go inside the pocket — it’s an altered plastic tag that I’ve used images off of an old bird-watching book and an optometrist’s lens on, and tucked it inside the pocket.

Vicki’s book is beautiful — full of watercolor pocket pages and happy, pretty art. She’s going to be so happy when it comes back home to her!

After making art I did some dyeing. I’m working on presents for friends and family, several wholesale orders, and some yarn for the stocking at Elliebelly to benefit Heifer dot org. If you missed out last week, please drop by on Thursday when new yarn will stock and you can bid or buy raffle tickets, with the proceeds going to support a great charity that helps hungry people become self-sufficient.

Because of all the requests, I’ve done some Paintbrush yarns in "boyish" colorways.

and a silk/cashmere blend in the "Wanton" colorway.

There will not, however, be any organic merino this week, as a certain someone decided to claim the yarn I had measured out for her own.

The Power of Yarn

Posted on November 16, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This is the power of knitters — when faced with a need and a charity suited to meet it, they will rise to the occasion, swiftly donating money in the hopes of winning yarn, but really in the certainty that they can make a difference. That was what happened when I offered up my first few skeins of yarn today in an effort to raise money for heifer.org, a group that fights hunger.

My plan is to offer several skeins every week between now and the holidays as "Give Back" listings. Since Heifer lets you donate an animal, my hope was to donate a sheep, at a cost of $120. I listed my skeins of yarn today in the hopes that I could get part way towards that goal, raffling the yarn for $2 a chance and offering one skein of sock yarn as an auction. I was really astonished when I saw that the listings — what I thought was a really large number of tickets that might take a week to sell out — sold out in hours. Winners are drawn, yarn is in the mail, and we raised $200. The auction is not yet closed, but it is already at $25 with three days left to go. My original plan was to donate all the money raised, minus paypal fees and shipping costs, but I’m so touched by the speed with which these tickets sold out, that I’ve decided I want to cover those fees myself to maximize the amount of the donation. We are well past that first sheep, and I’m now dreaming of being able to donate a small flock.

Mark your calendar for next Thursday at noon. We’ll do it again with new yarns, fun yarns, yarns that will help hungry children eat. The Judge can make his petty little jokes about "when knitters rule the world" — I think even he has a sense of what a better place it would be if we did.

Cabinet Cards

Posted on November 15, 2007January 4, 2016 by Joyce Makes Art

***Before I start in with cabinet cards, I want to remind y’all that I am auctioning and doing raffles with yarn to raise money for heifer.org. The listings start today, Thursday, and will continue for the next several weeks, so please check back. It’s for a good cause! To be part of it, click here and look for the "Give Back" listings.

On to cabinet cards. I haven’t been able to share art for what seems like forever, due to issues created by the men in my house totally racking a brand new computer. I’ve rigged it so I can scan to the computer that has major issues, transfer to my laptop using a primitive USB picture card (they’ve messed with the computer so much it won’t even recognize my external hard drive) and give you a little peek. Like this.

This is Petunia, and she was my little warm up piece for Susie LaFond’s cabinet card book project. Susie’s idea was that we would each alter a cabinet card, front and back, and then make enough (embellished) copies for each participating artist. In addition, we were each to make two more original cabinet cards, which would be used as the front and back covers for one of the books. Susie always comes up with the best ideas, and I love playing in her swaps.

I finally ended up with this card as the one I decided to copy.

I rarely draw or paint because, well, I can’t. But this card cried out to become a nesting baby in a tree, so I did enough painting with acrylics to get a tree that my little nest could perch in. I dislike working on original cabinet cards, because of the sense that they are someone’s family, so I chose cards that were damaged beyond repair for this project — the acrylic paint is covering up lots of nasty spots and splotches and I think this sweet little baby is probably happy to be having an altered life. I didn’t scan after embellishing because, well, a girl has to have a few surprises up her sleeve.

This is one of the cards I did for covers.

This is the first time I played with my glass glitter (flower centers) and it is some seriously cool stuff. I must have been a crow in a former life because I love shiney things. It’s going to be a temptation to use this glitter everywhere.

And this is my favorite of all the backs. I think I’ll print out the scan and use it as the basis for some more art this week.

This was a fun idea and lots of good motivation to reach out and try new things. I’m not quite done with altering cabinet cards — I have some more ideas I want to play with, but it’s time to move on to my round robin book for this month and a few other things, so they will have to wait.

Taking a class with Nora Bellows from Noni Designs

Posted on November 13, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Today was the day I got to take a class with Nora Bellows, the wonderful woman behind all of the cool, unique Noni handbags. Since finishing and sewing are not among my strengths, I was really excited about this class.

When we walked in, we got to see lots of Nora’s sample bags.

They were even prettier in person and a little bit intimidating. I felt pretty sure I couldn’t make my freshly felted bag like as good as the samples.

Nora wrote down what everyone was looking forward to learning down on the blackboard at the beginning of the class.

Most of the other women wanted to learn how to make a bag the looked like it was professionally made. Nora characterized the goal as "handmade not homemade."

Jaime, one of the staff members at In the Making, the store that hosted the class, brought a cool bag. Like always, she had modified the pattern some herself, using the body from one bag and the flap from another.

Elizabeth made good use of the lecture time in class, picking up some of Nora’s ideas about how to firm up the sides of the bag and line it, while knitting another, really pretty, striped bag.

The first part of the class was devoted to stiffening the sides of the bag. It’s worth taking one of Nora’s classes sheerly to get the benefit of her advice on how to template the inside of a bag so you can interface and line it. Here, Frances is working on sewing together a needlepoint canvas framework that will serve as the support for her bag.

My bag, the Noni Adventure bag, is meant to be loose and flopy and doesn’t require any stiffening. So the first thing I did, gasp, was put in a zipper … with lots of help and gudiance from Nora.

Remember my bag from yesterday? That huge buttery piece of saffron colored knitting? I felted it early this morning and after Nora got her hands on it to help me get the zipper in, it looked like this.

I’m pretty proud of that zipper, although it wasn’t much more difficult than putting a zipper into a jacket.

After learning a lot of tips and ideas, along with watching hands on demonstrations, I really did feel ready to conquer the world of embellished bags. I picked up yarn for a couple more and went on to ballet where I sewed on the hardware and strap and then on home, where I pinned in the lining, although it isn’t sewn in yet.

Isn’t that amazing? It looks better than I anticipated and I feel like I learned so much, although I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open as I type. If you ever have a chance to take a class with Nora, do!

Posted on November 12, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

It was mostly meant to be a day doing things like this in my house, a lovely, sleepy, federal holiday of a Monday:

Some people, perhaps inspired by catnip treats, had different ideas however (please note that the male is sleeping while his sister takes care of business):

Since my dreams of a lazy day evaporated, I spent a lazy afternoon dyeing and painting yarn.

This is some of the yarn for the Heifer Fundraiser (it starts this Thursday — please drop by to read about it or scroll down to the next entry for info).

That’s cheating a bit, isn’t it? But I think you will love it. So far, I have two items up, sock yarn and organic merino and I’m doing a mixture of raffles and auctions. Lots more pretties coming, including this yarn, which is going to be done up in skeins for hat knitting.

And then there was this, painting some yarn. This is the last colorway for a wholesale order I have enjoyed immensely both because it is for an eco-friendly store and because the owner has a devastatingly good sense of color.

Don’t be deceived by the neat and orderly appearance. Although this was actually how the table looked when I was done with this particular colorway, generally, there are little pots of dye and brushes everywhere, and often a cat (or two) with a brightly colored tail.

Having survived the holiday, I am really looking forward to tomorrow! I’m taking a class at my Local Yarn Shop with Nora of Noni Bags — she is teaching a class in finishing. I have knit this:

I’m going to pop it in the washer at the crack of dawn tomorrow, before my 7:00 a.m. meeting, and then dash off to the class at 10:30. I am hoping I won’t be too much of a challenge for her teaching skills — I’ve got the two ended zipper and a couple of different potential fabric choices for lining, but the most I ever seem to manage are a couple of magnetic snaps, so this should be interesting!

Give Back

Posted on November 10, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I have an idea for helping other people. My life is so full and I am so fortunate. And a lot of the time, I feel like I don’t do enough to help others. So between now and the holidays, I want to try to do something that will make a difference. The issue that concerns me the most is hunger — the idea of little children like my own living in constant hunger.

One of my family’s favorite charities is Heifer. At Heifer, you can purchase an animal to help a family in need become
self-sufficient, and since I’m a knitter, I want to help buy sheep. This part of the site lets you pick out the animals you want to donate. I like the whole idea that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, if you teach him to fish, he can feed himself.

So between now and the holidays, I’m going to be dyeing up some special yarn and offering it in my store as a lottery or auction listing, with all of the money, minus only paypal fees and shipping, going towards purchasing a sheep from Heifer. Look for the items titled "Give Back."<br><br>

I hope you all will consider dropping by and helping out. Individually we might feel like we can’t do much, but if 60 people buy a $2 lottery ticket, that’s one sheep. This is going to be a whole family effort in my household — The little ones have been helping with colorways and dyeing, and my 17 year old is winding skeins. I hope you will catch some of our excitement!<br><br>

I would really appreciate any help you can by letting your friends know about this. Word of mouth can do so much on the internet! I plan to stock the first skeins as lotteries this Thursday, the 15th, at noon, and will keep stocking as long as there is interest. I hope to be able to buy one sheep, but would love to buy more — maybe an entire flock?