The Yarn Company

I visited the Yarn Company yesterday after work because I was desperate for some new yarn at a place that wasn't too far from midtown. The Yarn Company is located in 82nd and Broadway. I've passed it tons of times but this is the first time I've ever been inside. It is lovely, very warm with wood floors and tables and I believe a larger space in the back where they hold classes. The two women who were working there yesterday evening were very nice and really helpful. The yarn is on the pricey side but it's great quality and just lovely to look at.

I picked out two skeins of a brushed suri one in a powder blue and the other in plum. All you wanna do is just squeeze this stuff and hold it your face. It is insanely soft! I just love it. The yarn is spun very thin and I thought I would trouble crocheting with it but worked really well and I was just very careful to unravel it bit by bit as I worked. It looks just like cotton candy and I think that the combed mohair kept it from slipping off my hook too often. I made another puff stitch hat with the some of the blue skein last night. I haven't timed myself but I can whip one up in less than an hour for sure. It's just so much fun to see how each hat turns out using these different textures. Working with the suri last night I can see how almost anything that can be turned into string or rope or yarn can be be knit of crocheted, because the brushed suri seems so much like some kind of hair and I guess that's what a lot of yarn is, just hair, cotton, fiber of some kind spun into string, thread or yarn. That's just fascinating to me!

So anyway, I'll be making a few more of these hats for Blythe Warmers and maybe thinking about embellishing them a little bit as well. I'm kind of addicted right now an not really thinking about how much this is costing me. LOL! At some point I will need to slow down. I do want a couple more skeins of this brushes suri though to makes hats for a couple of people, maybe even myself!

Blythe Warmers Has Finally launched!!

ON SALE NOW!!!

I finally just up and did it. I had to create a whole new account which I anticipate being a pain in the ass but it really wasn't that bad and making the listings seemed so much simpler this time. Thank goodness. Plus there are some good tutorials on how to create a shop banner which I really suck at. The one I have up is pretty bare but it will do for now. I hope you'll stop by and check it out soon!
'Tis the season!

Blythe Warmers Project

This is the latest poncho I've made for Blythe Warmers, which I really need to set a launch date for because what's happening is this. I make a poncho. I like it. I have another idea for another one and I like that one better which makes the previous one look not that great to me and so on. I have now made about five of them and I like this last one I knit last night while watching "Dancing with The Stars" the best. I like the length of it and I like the flare I get from decreasing stitches as I go. I think it looks adorable and authentic. It's not perfect but it's a huge improvement. I  keep wanting to do more though, something fancier, finer. And while this is happening, I am not in fact launching the darn store. I'm just knitting! LOL!! Which I love. But I really need to start setting up shop.

I guess I'm a bit nervous. I've never sold any kind of garments for Blythe before. I feel like I need to start thinking about packaging, branding, that sort of thing. Nothing fancy or expensive of course but even the most basic stuff requires more thought than just stuffing a product in an envelope. But I don't want to get lost in all that either. I'm looking at this initially as just an experiment. I am also hoping that my friend, Cecelia will contribute to Blythe Warmers by making some of her adorable crotchet pom pom hats which I love

Well I'm going to start another poncho now but I swear this will be my last. Okay, maybe one more after that and then I'm going to start taking some product photos and just do this thing. Stay tuned!
: )

My Bedroom Has Become my Studio

I woke up early Monday morning while my fiancee was still asleep and went into my bedroom to continue re-rooting Emily's scalp with the thermal changing orange saran I got from restoredoll.com. And it's taken me some time to realize it but my tiny bedroom is my studio. My fiancee and I sleep in a futon in the livingroom. He stays with me in my apartment during the week so technically we live together but it's really my apartment that I share with him.

My bedroom is kind of like the only room to go to for privacy. Inside there is a huge television I rarely ever use which sits on an Ikea chest of drawers. There is a tower of used journals, books and a Blythe stand on top of the television. I have a hope chest at the foot or head (depending on how I sleep) of my wooden captain's bed with more clothes spilling out of it and a stack of books and shoe boxes nearby but then it kind of gets taken over by my eight Blythes, two Barbies, a Domo Domo Kun Doll, my shark hand puppet, two shoe boxes full of doll clothes, one filled with accessories, a toolbox, bottles of acrylics, pastels, and a bag of spray paint and hair and customizing tools. Presently I still have that Blybe doll from the Netherlands sitting in parts in it's box waiting to be turned into, I'm not yet sure what. It's my studio/bedroom is what it's become. And I go in there there to continue projects, to start projects, to style the dolls for photo shoots or just to listen to music and upload pics to flickr on my laptop like I did yesterday after I'd gotten tired of re-rooting. I wish I had more time to do stuff like that. This weekend the weather was incredible, ideal actually. The light was lovely. There was no humidity.

I took a trip to Knitty City this Saturday because I can feel my knitting bug coming on whenever it starts to get the slightest bit chilly. I bought one skein of yarn and a ball of small scale yarn because I'm toying with the idea of making something for the dolls. I had to buy a pair of thin knitting needles for this. I'm sure I could have gotten everything cheaper at Michaels but I really missed the ambiance of Knitty City. It's just one of those cute lower level yarn shops that's crammed with yarn and has a knitting circle towards the back. Someone's always sitting behind a wooden loom behind the counter spinning yarn by hand. I just really like that. I will be visiting Michaels again soon though since I can't afford Knitty City regularly on my salary. Knitting calms me and I've been pretty stressed out lately. I find that focusing on making something with my hands always puts me in a better space when my mind is mucked up. I really desperately want to learn how to crotchet and knit in the round so I can start make something more than just scarves. I think I'll start focusing on that for the Fall.