mamalojo

mad carding

mamalojo — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:43:52 +0000

when i card batts, its usually at 2 am and its sheer madness. lovely really…were all doomed, were all doomed

i cant stop reading and rereading and cracking up at the sleep talking guy, check it out here. sewing some sweet little felt lined wallets for your phone, chopsticks or deck of playing cards. will list soon! xoxox keep it real

organ izing

mamalojo — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:46:00 +0000

yep…new shelves, lots of yarn and fiber…um…everywhere and keeping them out of tiny hands is like the major challenge. so its early spring cleaning around here…as always every winter as soon as there a handful of sunny days i jump at the chance to spring clean. what chaos…what fun!

whats coming

mamalojo — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:40:46 +0000

what i am, and what i am not…that is the statement of the day. I have a yarn midway on the wheel, waiting to be finished and plied. I have cute necklaces almost finished that i will post under the “other stuff” section. I am waiting for a load of fiber to come. waiting….waiting…cant wait! I am trying to figure out a way to feed Matilda’s facebook on this site…and making available some of her more striking photos for you to download (make cards, screen savers, framed art…whatever) I have been messing around with some of the illustrations and some other photographs to bring to you a fabulous coloring book…i am carding some beautiful batts using some processed natural cotton i scored at our local art and crafts warehouse…thats mostly the yarn news. And i wish i could spend all of my waking hours actually finishing these things…but alas we move on to what I am vs. what i am not. I am a full time mom…and so instead of making batts and coloring pages, i took my two sweet girls for a bike ride and we cruised all over town. ran errands, grocery shopped and tried with all our might to hang out with the firefighters. I will confess that i put having fun with my kids first on my list. What I am not is someone who will deny a bit of baby tossing and dress up tea parties in favor of some spinning. I do think about it often…how much i could really get done if I quit sharing tea and doing puzzles with the littles….but ill never stop being a kid at heart with them, thank goodness!!

On a lighter note…biking all over town today proved that Arcata is chock full of random beauty and a perfect place to photograph my next project: knitting in public weeeee!

line drawings and coloring books

mamalojo — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:44:02 +0000

line drawings. im so in love with them. i love contour and i love the flat simple style of a good line drawing. And so i also love coloring books. My friend showed me a coloring book he received as a gift and it was so amazing and perfect, that i feel inspired to create a yarn and craft coloring book…ya know, for all the kids and adults too, of course. i finally finished the line drawings for the website and im planning on using them, or versions of them in the coloring book. what fun!

tillys new dress

mamalojo — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:50:04 +0000

so i was freeform knitting this hat, which turned out to take on some odd twists and turns in respect to its…um…shape. I think that the engaging conversation i was having while casting on for this “hat” allowed for this beautiful disaster to take form. i know! Im always looking to blame…okay enough of that….i just didnt realize that i was actually knitting a dress for matilda. anyway, its perfect for her and she loves it…such a nice winter gown….now if i can just felt some matching hair it would be perfect…but the freshly showered look is cool i think.

spinning is worth it

mamalojo — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:41:45 +0000

ill admit, i have not been working very hard the last few months…well thats not entirely true. I have been working hard, but I sure havent been making yarn the way I could be…and instead I have been preoccupied with babies, ballet dancing 4 yr olds, listening to david sedaris, mastermindin’ my music collection….hey do you remember that peg board game, mastermind? I loved playing that game! Anyway, I have been enjoying the outdoors with my best friends, taking photographs of beautiful birds, and reading about a dozen books of which none I am even 1/3 of the way through. So your thinking…who cares? I know…its like…so talk to me when you post some new yarn already…because otherwise this is just boring! well Ha! I did spin two new yarns and i didnt even stop when my tiniest little found some orange paint (hrm, maybe she cant open it) and some purple paint (same thought) and then some brushes…and then she spilled it on the carpet (oops) and then some more…and im looking down at all this freaking awesomeness being spun from this kick ass rainbow batt…and I just let her go. the spinning is worth it. the yarn was sooo worth it. And if I dont nod off mid-sentence in the next few moments, i will post them. and its all for you

ummm. yeah.

lightbox

mamalojo — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:19:54 +0000

thank you!! the holidays are over and my favorite day of the year (january 15th, and well the whole month of april) is right around the corner! I have been up to my neck in holiday crafting and carroling and whatnot…so its nice to finally have some space. goodbye tree and ornaments. fairwell paper snowflakes and walnut baby jesus cribs. adios nasty gingerbread house and star cookie stacked icing globbed trees….okay the pink LED lights can stay…but seriously….Helllloooo lightbox! i have wanted/needed/coveted/dreamt about a lightbox for years. ohhh how it would be sooo nice to photograph my yarns and not have them turn out blueish or yellowish or glowing from the setting sun. its so hard to photograph and get the colors REAL. i try to take a lot of photos, so that one can see the slight differences between the 4 o’clock sun (thats pale yellow, not goldenrod) and the 530 setting sun (thats pink, not purple). well, now…i cant complain anymore…she is built. it took about 12 minutes and she’s awesome. i will update all photos here so very soon xoxox happy 2010!!p.s. i want my velcro space shoes and assistant computer named HAL…wtf happened?

progress of winter hat

mamalojo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:57:41 +0000

making progress, but i totally cast on way too many stitches while chatting with friends…so im going to start a random decrease until the yarn is gone, then for the tippy top i just spun a very beautiful fluffy soft kid mohair yarn that i will add-in…so to fix this huge size issue i figured when the hat is finished i will pinch and gather two bundles of excess on either side of the hat and use a simple gathered stitch to fit the hat better. Then i can attach another yarn or whatever to create some i-cords off of the pinched bundles…like aviator style only…um…way different

my new hat

mamalojo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:05:40 +0000

im going to knit my new winter hat…yippeeeee…finally after wearing old lunatic for years…im over it…i need something new…so im using this beautiful whispy grey and purple yarn with unspun locks. it reminds me of the mountains in winter right before the snow…from a distance when everything turns blue or purple. (cheeesssy lo…just cheesy)

the new pretty yarn…and below the im so over it lunatic hat

light up yarn

mamalojo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:20:30 +0000

after seeing all of the LED lights this halloween Im obsessed with figuring out a way to spin them into a yarn. I have a few sketches and as soon as i figure out the technical details i will get started. has anyone seen my drop spindle??