Rumpelstiltskein #1! And a card!

I'm back after a pretty long break from blogging and it feels good. I think I've finally figured out what the heck I want to do this for, which helps out a lot. Oh, and if this type looks bold, I don't know why... it's not like I feel so ultra self important that everything I type must be in BOLD letters. It looks bold in my editing box, but later in the blog, the text turned normal... so who knows?

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching. Last year I made 14 cards for Adam, one for each day of February leading up to Valentine's Day. Last year it was a totally last minute idea, like I usually get, on probably January 31st... And I thought, "Ooh, that would be so cool!" And then I frustrated myself to death, because suddenly the standard had been set and I felt like if I only made him 5 cards, that would be woefully inadequate, and really... what kind of wife would I be?

Well, this year, I still want to make 14 cards. (Wait for it... I HAVE learned something.) But this year I'm starting early. I also frustrated myself trying to make all of the cards somewhat masculine last year. This year, I'm going to have every single card be a celebration of my own artistry and my own style. I'm having them be almost like big artist trading cards. Each one of them is going to be a piece of me. So I finished the first one last night and it's awesome. Yeah, I'm shameless. I love this thing. It was so fun and I think it turned out SO beautifully. The finished size is 5.5"x8.5". I made an envelope for it using the instructions in my Martha Stewart scoring board. I had seen the thing and thought, "Why the heck would you need that if you have a scoring blade in your slide cutter?" Oh, you need it. It has instructions for boxes and cards and envelopes... nothing you couldn't really figure out on your own with some only slightly complex number crunching, but not having to do it is so worth it that I think I would adopt the thing and buy it puppies if it were to ever gain sentience and express such desires.

Adam's first card: Pretty much all of this stuff (except for the little acrylic jewels and the sentiment and ribbons) is from the Jubilee collection by K&Company. How I love it! It's like bright and flashy vintage. Which is pretty much exactly my style. Adore!


Also, I blended some fibers for the first time. I did 80% wool and 20% silk. Here's what I started with:


Blended to this...


Spun to the pretty yellow... I'm calling it my Rumpelstiltskein... get it? Spinning gold!? Into a SKEIN!? I felt too clever. (Still do.)



I just absolutely love it. It's 1.5 oz. so far (half of what I blended)... A chain plied sock weight. (At least it looks like a sock weight... I didn't do anything so scientific as actually MEASURE. Just eyeballed it.) Can't wait to spin the rest of the blended pieces. I don't know what I'm actually going to MAKE out of any of this yarn I'm making. At first it was too precious. Now I think it's because I'm finished. Right? I mean, my project was making the YARN. It's finished. Yay! Move on... How do I take my yarn and make something else now? That project was finished. Now I start another one? LoL. Hopefully I'll get over that soon. I'm developing a wee pile of it.