Friday, November 5, 2010

The Most Amazing Sweater EVER EVer ever!!!

The Most Amazing Sweater Ever is finished!!
It took 8 weeks to complete from
spinning to knitting to finishing!
And somewhere in there I took about a 2 week break.
So really, I could have finished it in 6 weeks!
Here it is, in its first live appearance at Bear Paw
Photo Credit goes to Carrie (CraftyPuppyLover)


This was so much fun!
Thank you to everyone who has joined me
on this little adventure of mine!

And thank you to all of the following
amazing fiber artists whose talent went into
shearing, cleaning, dying, carding, pulling,
and what ever else you talented people do to make pretty fibers!!


AbstractFibers
AtomicBlue
Bitsy Knits
BohoKnitterChic
ButterflyGirl Designs
By Rebekah with Love
CCSmile2006
Chrome64
CJ Delights
Creaturecomforts
Corgi Hill
ColorBugYarns
Cozy Cove Farm
CraftyPuppyLover
Desert Garden Farms
eXtremeSpinning
Feistywoman Designs
FiberFancy
Friends in Fiber
FroggyFibers
FuzzyBunny
Gale’s Art
Galia
Edith (geFilzt)
Giffordables
GrapeSheep (silhouette169)
H.A.Y
HippiePenguinFibers
It’s A Colorful Life
JAHtsemer
Knitcave
KnitTink
Loop
MoonwoodFarm
MyHeartExposed
Natchwoolie
NorthStarAlpacas
Picperfic
PrancingPixel
SilverSunAlpacas
Spindies
Spindipity
SpinneretteFibers
SpinStitchSew
Storied Yarns
SouthernMystic
SweetPeaFibers
The Bear Necessities
TheCritterRanch
W.C. Mercantile
WildethymeArt
Zauberzeug
ZooCreations

And of course our Queen of Enabling:
Jessie with Phat Fiber!
More Information on Phat Fiber can be found here!

And the Fibreholics Group!

If you've seen your fibers spun up on spindles
and posted on my blog from August - September
and you don't see your name here or,
if your store link is missing or not working,
please email me at: chrome64knits@gmail.com
and I'll correct it!
 

And of course, another Thank you goes out to the Spindle Makers
who made my ability to spin non-stop a reality!
Over 80% of this sweater was spun on my Jenkins Spindles
15% was spun on my IST Crafts spindles
and 5% was spun on my Spanish Peacock spindle
(Mike, it would have been more but my SP just wasn't very portable!)


Look, we could be sisters!
Me on the left, Carrie on the right!


If you are new to the Amazing Sweater
and how it came to be, 
you can go back and read all about it!
Links to Sweater Update Posts:
Almost Done

And AtomicBlue was kind enough to locate a
great Top-Down Sweater Tutorial
for anyone interested!

And here's a link to where you can purchase this pattern:
Direct Pattern Link 

And the posts in between show spindles and spindles
full of the yarn that was spun for the AMAZING SWEATER!!

If you are looking for the pattern,
I started with the Knitting Pure & Simple pattern
for a Neckdown Long Hooded Cardigan (#225).
But somewhere past the shoulders,
it took on a life of it's own!

YAY I'm Done!!
Posted by Chrome64 at 12:26 PM Comments

Seattle with CraftyPuppyLover

 The George Gorge
Or The Gorge at George
Something like that...

 Or... Charm the snakes with your cool spinny thing
and then control them to do your bidding...

Houseboats are cool, except when your home sinks, that's not so cool

Gianormous Air compressors

Carrie and me in Seattle






Archie McPhee was loads of fun!
Full of many shiney things that no one needs.
I bought so much I couldn't get all of it in my
luggage to get it home!
Posted by Chrome64 at 9:52 AM Comments

Friday, October 29, 2010

Bear Paw 2010


 Welcome to Bear Paw 2010
I got a great opportunity to go to a Spinning Retreat
in Newport, Washington!

It turns out that with all this traveling that I do,
I had earned enough miles to fly for free! 
(well for a $10 fee...)

When I arrived, I met some of the most famous
Fiber Gals in the world!

Many of them get credit for the amazing fibers
used in the Most Amazing Sweater Ever (updates to follow...)


We had a blast! 
And the only complaint I had was there wasn't near enough time! 
(Reit is the lovely lady on the far left in this photo!
She was great, and had some great advice 
about husbands and relationships...)

We all chipped in and knitted a scarf for the bear
out of lovely thrift store yarn that Sue (Tighe)
was kind enough to bring!
-hey the bear wasn't picky!



 So here we all are, From Left To Right:
Me (chrome64), Sue (Tighe), Brittany (Bohoknitterchic), 
Carrie (Craftypuppylover), Shannon (Sparkleshan), Kat (Atwhittzend), 
Jennifer (Desertgarden), and Kirsten (countingcoup).


Loook at all the Wheels!

 See, I'm even trying a spinning wheel, 
A Babe to be exact!
 Shannon (on the right) flew in from Connecticut!
We both got a bunch of attention just because
we flew all the way out there
just for a spinning retreat!

Loving on some Craftypuppylover fiber in person!

Getting lots and lots of attention as I try to corespin!
It was a crazy, prison like, feeling being stuck
to the spinning wheel. I couldn't get up until I was done.
I think that's one of the reasons that I love my
spindles so much! I could walk around the room and
see what everyone else was doing while I was spinning!

We even made it to Idaho, briefly,
after we missed the turn for Bear Paw!








And this was the Throw Down!
We all brought fibers in pink, white, and silver
and then we weighed what we brought,
mixed it all up, ran it through the picker (a.k.a death machine),
and then everyone got back the same amount they brought,
only all mixed up!

This was Sue #2 (only because Tighe was the first Sue we knew)
And she was loads of fun!
But she doesn't have a computer,
so she likely won't read this,
unless someone prints it out and takes it to her.
But she gave me her number
and said I could come stay with her anytime I'm in town!
YAY!
 She was veeeery excited about the throw down!

This is DesertGarden (Jennifer), Tighe (Sue), and Sue #2
with the above mentioned Death Machine.
It has Giant Death SPikes on it and is covered in warning signs.

You have to swing it back and forth with the 3inch iron death spikes
getting dangerously close to your chest 
and to the person on the other side!

See?
It still scares me just to look at these pictures!
 

Sue (Tighe) was a master at the Picker (it was her's after all)!

She also went home with a very special,
Texas Ebony Jenkins Kuchulu!
It was such a pretty little spindle!
(see pic of JQ with said spindle below!)

Oh and I managed to take a nice little family of Jenkins
to sell at Bear Paw!
It was so much fun to watch people's faces light up
when they saw them for the first time!

Sue #2 bought 2 for herself and a third for a friend!

Once Sue #2 saw the Amazing Sweater,
she was convinced that if she touched me
and my spindles then she would
"absorb the awesomeness"
and be able to spin instantly!
 She was also convinced that I would be able to teach
the ways of a top whorl spindle...
Well, all I can say is, it gave me a chance to spin
on a Bossie, which was cool,
and it was a very pretty spindle. 
But, alas, top whorls are just not for me!

And still, no magic was transferred...
 

And this is Jennifer (Gynnifer)
Who was so very excited to find
that I had brought some Jenkins Spindles to sell!
 

 JQ (JQKnits) is trying out Sue's new Kuchulu!



Carrie and Brittany were very sad when it was time to go.
:(


Now having met some of my favorite fiber artists on the webs,
wouldn't it be cool if we all cleaned out their etsy stores?
Here are links to each of their shops for easier shopping ability!
Have fun!


Posted by Chrome64 at 2:26 PM Comments
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