** NEEDLEWORK'S PLEASURE** SPINNING & FELTING FIBRES, HANDSPUN & HANDPAINTED YARNS

Everyone have a look in my Ebay store - I have put a good amount of gorgeous handspun and handpainted knitting yarns out for auction at very low starting prices!!! They will all end on Wednesday afternoon (British time). Grab yourself a BARGAIN!! :o) And: I have also added more handpainted spinning fibers to my website

 www.needleworks-pleasure.com 

and more handspun yarns will be displayed there as well tomorrow!

Right....what can I say, loads of work to do, and I am trying to fit an extra hour into my 24hour day - doesn't quite work though. I really need to stock up my new website but I also want to display some of my yarns and fibers on Etsy and in my Ebay store, where most people are used to finding them. So I work overtime ... again....

Today I started very early, and as I knew that this would be a looooooong day I baked a nice load of hot buns with loads and loads of icing to keep me going. Ohhhh the entire house smells of Cinnamon and Vanilla - the buns are so delicious and they DO keep me going :o) It is now 19.30h and I have been working since 9h - still not done though. I will, as usual, end up working until midnight or so. The frustrating thing is that there's absolutely NOTHING on TV to keep me awake and pedalling. In between mordanting and dyeing some rovings I started on a new BFL yarn, I think I will try to finish it tonight, but without a good movie for background noise I'm not so sure :o( I've got either audiobooks or DVD's running all day long when I have to do a lot of handpainting and spinning. Guess what's been running for the past 10hours?? Bloody "Van Helsing"... no comment.... over and over and over and over... I know the entire movie by heart, could actually play one of the vampire brides myself, just give me a cool wig and some floppy wings and I can do the whole thing without rehearsing!!

I once heard from another handspinner that she prefers to listen to the soundtrack of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" while pedalling away. It's just unbelievable how certain things get you in the right mood, heh? Anyway, I will have to choose a different DVD tonight, Van Helsing has already killed Dracula for the 51st time, he needs some time-out, and so do I! Not sure yet what I will pop in, it will have to be something I already know and that I can watch with one eye on the spinning wheel , we will see. Well, before I go I want to show you guys what I have displayed in my Etsy store , have a look:

Just to let everyone know that I have displayed two new combo novelty yarn designs in my Etsy store , "A Party at Troll Hill" and "Baba Yaga"! They have come out so nicely, and it took me quite a while to get all the necessary blending fibers together because I also had to wait on my new lot of hand dyed Wensleydale curls to come off the drying board, and I had to finish painting some of the purple tussah silk that went into "A Party At Troll Hill"

So now they are both finished and displayed, I hope you like them as much as I do :o)

I so enjoy spinning combo yarns, there really is no limit to creativity!! There is a lot of blending, wrapping and colour changing going on in those two yarns, I have mostly stuck with my worldwide Merino fibers - some were space dyed, others were blended through carding and of course the locks give some extra texture to the design.

By the way, I have successfully published my new website 

 www.needleworks-pleasure.com 

Everyone feel free to visit my site and view my new fibers and OOAK yarn designs!! Any comments and suggestions will be very welcome!! 

 I noticed that some of the pictures take a bit longer to download, and I will have to check it out again but for the rest I am very very pleased the way everything looks. It has taken me quite a while to get things together and fitting.

So now I will go ahead and spin and paint some more slub yarn to go on my website. I have already displayed my latest designs there, and I have got great ideas for more new colour schemes! Let me go and start on my project.

Everyone have a great great day and HAPPY FIBER CRAFTING!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous today, and people are out and about in their gardens, including me. I had to do some serious mowing, even though I prefer to leave the field of daisies alone, I really love little daisies. But the grass grows so fast, I think I will never get used to it. If you don't mow your lawn at least every 10 days up here in the North your lawn mower will give up on you...so there's no chance to get around that grass cutting :o( At least it will smell of fresh grass around the house for the rest of the day and I do love that too!

The custom order of dark grey Alpaca yarn has finally dried and is ready for display before it will be packed up to go to its new home in Germany. Have a look at this dark beauty:

This yarn is equivalent to DK/sport weight and I already know that it will be turned into a wide and warm wrap :o)

Another custom order finished, and my wool board is packed with wonderful dark grey pure Alpaca handspun yarn, it's such a delight to finally see it there ! The result is always my treat. As I mentioned last week I did manage to finish a OOAK Bluefaced Leicester yarn design in between, and it was gone so fast, I didn't even have time to put it in my Etsy store. Still, I want to show some pics of the yarn which I called "Water Bearer"- it has found its new home in the US:

I think the water theme has come out very well in this design indeed!

I am still trying to add some more yarns to my new website, which will open veeeeeery soon!! I am ready to publish all the pages - I just need to find out some tricky things the software keeps asking me now, e.g. the location address of the remote website.....yeah, for you out there who are good with IT and everything that comes with it, you will probably have a big grin on your face now, right? :o) No matter, I shall conquer this,  and I shall be immensely proud of myself once it's all set. There will certainly be hickups along the way, I can sense them already but still, I will be one happy Heike once I can type in my web address and find my newly designed web pages on the Internet. This will be soooooo great!!

Before I go I want to show you 3 new slub yarn designs for the dreadmakers and freeform knitters out there, who have been contacting me for the past few weeks to inquire after new colour combinations. So here they are, I really hope you like them -  they are already displayed in my ebay store, for sale in 4m lots:

Need any other colours? Just send me an e-mail, I am always open to suggestions, especially when I can get to see some pics of gorgeous dreads and knitting projects with those yarns later :o)

I am slowly getting there - one more custom order finished and the A + result is treat enough for me :o) Have a look at what I have kept myself busy with for the past few weeks, an absolute dream in white honey colour:

This fingering weight yarn has come out really really nice, I am indeed satisfied. It has already gone to its new home in the U.S.  You can find more details and yarn information  in my "custom made yarns" section of my ebay store , feel free to have a look!

Well, I am still fiddling around with my new website - yes, I've chosen a webhost (Yieeeehaaaahh....) and I've got my software, and still, I did not think it would be quite so difficult to decide on the entire look, colours, tables etc. I get along with html alright, and a little bit of experimenting doesn't do any harm either... but as soon as I have finished one page I feel I should perhaps choose a different background, hmmm, or, yes, add more pics, change the letter style, blah blah blah blah blah......yawn... Ohhhhhhh well!! I will keep going and I will set up my website pretty soon, I am certain :o) Anyway, have to go, mordant lots of slub yarn to make more dread yarn to go in my ebay store.

Everyone have a very good weekend!!!!

I have finished one of my custom orders of baby camel down/silk DK/sport weight yarn, these gorgeous beauties have found a new home in Slovakia! Here are some photos I have taken before I packed them up:

I haven't had any time to finish any yarn designs for my Etsy shop because the camel/silk blend is quite time consuming and requires focusing on the spinning that I cannot do anything else in between. So the new handpainted BFL rovings and fleeces I finished last week are indeed piling up!! Their colour combinations are really gorgeous and will make perfect OOAK yarn designs - I just need to find the time making them. Never mind, I will be working on the Alpaca yarn custom order next week, and this type of fiber allows me to switch for a day or two and spin some different fibers and colours for a change. I AM SOOOO LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!!!!

Everyone have a very nice weekend!! :o)

I have had such a great day out today! I went into the Lake District with Sam for a good mountain walk, and a mountain walk it was indeed. As I hardly ever take a map with me I never really know where I will end up, be it the wrong side of the mountain or even a completely different part of a mountain chain (yes, it has all happened before...). But Sam and I had all day to get lost and find our way back again. We started our walk/climb at Bowdale Stone located in the Borrowdale area - SUCH A BEAUTY!!! Now here are some pictures I have taken along with some beautiful pics of Herdwick sheep, Swaledale (Dalesbred) sheep, and what I think is a Cheviot ewe with her tiny lambs! Enjoy the photos :o)

Right, I have been working 24/7 for the past 2 weeks so I can take Easter off and go on a day trip with Sam!! And the weather forecast for Northern England is very very promising, oh I am getting really excited now! I haven't taken any time off since last October - I am planning my own website/webstore and still can't make up my mind which webhost to choose, I am not an expert and when these companies bombard you with all those technical terms and abbreviations I just want to run and hide far far away from the PC!!!!!

I already know how I want the store pages to look and I have finished some drafts and shown them to friends and family - the feedback was really good :o)  So for the past weeks, apart from all my custom and shop orders to take care of, I have prepared special handpainted fibers and handspun yarns just for the new shop, so people will find there what they can't find in my other stores - which means that my workload has tripled and I wonder what my breaking point is ... Oh well, all not sooooo bad I should think.... the weather is so perfect at the moment, Sam is sunbathing outside (yeah, he is doing it right), and I quickly want to show you guys my latest OOAK yarn design "Venetian Masks" made from British Bluefaced Leicester wool, of course :o) - goooooorgeousssss:

it can be found in my Etsy store All The Pretty Fibers !!

Oh and I have added a new VERY pink handpainted yarn to my ebay store, it's called "Pink Bunnies", here it is:

You can view it there in the -Handspun/Hand Dyed Yarns- section, just go through my auctiva shop which is linked to the ebay store :o)

I wish you all a very Happy Easter, marvelous weather and a great time out!!!

 I am moving at fast pace right now, I really can't seem to slow down, I am so into handpainting my wool fibers - it must be the spring season indeed, I am full of energy and the weather has been gorgeous over the past few days (well, it's raining right now but it was really sunny and warm earlier :o) ), birds are chirping everywhere, little lambs bouncing around in the fields, and for the first time this year I was able to leave my garden door wide open without freezing to death!! Oh I love Spring!!

So, I am trying to work ahead so I can give myself some time off over Easter. If the weather stays sunny and dry (PLEEEEAAASE), I will go on a nice long  bank holiday walk along Hadrian's Wall, Sam's coming too of course.

These are the rovings I had mordanted last week and then gave them a real good dip into some great great colours - have a look:

Apart from the last roving in the bottom right corner they are all extrasoft Merino wool rovings and displayed in My Ebay Store, and the sixth roving, which is an extrasoft British Bluefaced Leicester handpainted roving, is displayed in My Etsy Store!

The fibers I am selling as handpainted rovings are exactly the same fibers I use for my handspun OOAK yarns, same dyes, same dyeing technique, and yes, these combed tops make the best close to the skin cosy yarns and felt ever!! Well, gotta go, more rovings to paint and more fibers to be spun :o) I hope you have enjoyed the pics!