Time for a Change

I have really enjoyed blogging here and sharing my crafty and fibery adventures with all of you! However, I feel like it’s time for my blog to make some changes (positive ones, I hope!) and I’ve found that Blogger is a better format for me than WordPress.

As such, I’m moving to a brand new blog! I hope you will follow me over there and add that new blog to your RSS and e-mail feeds. Be sure to check out my most recent post, as it includes a coupon code you won’t find anywhere else!

I have already used the new blog to advertise my shop updates and share all my free knitting and crocheting patterns. As I continue to build it, the new blog will become the site for other crafty tutorials and update posts as well!

Thank you for sharing in my blogging journey with me; I’ll see you at the new place soon I hope!

– Jess

Shop Update and FREE SHIPPING Sale!

I updated the Storied Yarns shop on Etsy! (I’ll get around to Artfire this weekend, too.)

I added the following yarns:

and these batts:

The shop is nice and full of sock yarn, handspun yarn, and batts! There are even a few combed tops snuck in there. 🙂

Remember, if you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for, just send me a message and I’ll create a custom order for you! I can re-create my repeatable colorways on any yarn, roving or batt base and I can also dye up a new colorway inspired by your favorite stories and characters! If you’re not a spinner I can spin the yarn for you and if you’re not a knitter I can even knit something up!

Use the code September to get FREE SHIPPING this week in my Etsy and Artfire shops!

Fiber Arts Friday: Winner!

Thank you so very much to everyone who entered my yarn giveaway from last week’s post. Your comments were VERY helpful in my preparations for the fiber festival in October! I hope you will all continue to visit my little corner of the Web from time to time. This past week I have tried not to post too much so as to keep the giveaway post at the top, but I usually try to post at least a few times a week.

Anyway, without further delay, congratulations to Zilliah who was the randomly selected winner of the give-away! I have contacted you on Etsy about your prize.

For everyone else, I hope you’ll check out my Storied Yarns shops on Etsy and Artfire! I just finished updating them with a few new items, see?

Next week I’ll have an update of sock yarn, so if you didn’t win the give-away you might still be able to get your hands on your favorite colorway!

Also, I’m hosting a Knit-Along in my Ravelry group, inspired by the Wicked Lovely novel series by Melissa Marr. You can knit one of these two fabulous projects:

Visit my Ravelry group for further details, and purchase your spot in one of my shops!

Thanks again for visiting, everyone! Head on over to Andrea’s Blog and catch up with the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday fun!

Fiber Arts Friday: Color Preferences

I’m preparing for my first fiber festival this year, and it has me both excited and nervous at the same time! I wish I had the time and budget to dye and card up one of each of my colorways in yarn, roving and batt form before the event. Heck, I’d love to do two of each! But that’s definitely not a possibility; I’ve got way too many colorways. So instead, I’m hoping to bring the ones that are the most likely to sell. The problem is, as the person who created those colorways I love them all. I definitely play favorites, too, and I have the colorways that call to me more than others. I know, however, that just because I like something doesn’t mean everyone else will.

For instance, one of my favorite colorways is The Other Mother:

On the other hand, Phileas Fogg is a colorway that just isn’t my favorite, but it sold relatively quickly when I listed it:

So the problem is, which colorways to dye/card before the fiber festival?

That’s where you come in! Please head over to my Flickr Available Colorways set and pick a favorite – or two! Tell me WHY that item is your favorite if you don’t mind, and I’ll read over them and try to get a better idea of which colorways people like the best. As a bonus entry, leave another comment with some helpful fiber fest vending advice for me! If you’re a veteran vendor, what advice do you have for a newbie? If you’re a shopper, what do you like to see when you go to a fiber fest in terms of booth setup, customer service, or whatever?

Here’s the best part: I’m going to dye up a skein of 2ply Superwash Sock yarn for one random commenter to this post! As long as your comment involves one of my colorways and why you like it (or fiber fest advice – limit to two total comments per person), you can be randomly selected to win. When I choose your comment I will dye up a skein of yarn in YOUR favorite colorway, so choose wisely! Also, please leave me a way to contact you in your comments (e-mail, Ravelry ID, Etsy ID, etc.).

No purchase necessary to win. Simply look at photos of my colorways and pick a favorite, then tell me why (or give me fiber festival advice). I will mail you the yarn free of charge, it doesn’t get any better than that!

The contest will end NEXT Thursday, September 1, at Midnight CST. The contest is open to US/Canada and International participants.

As a thank you to everyone who participates in this little experiment of mine, use code FAVORITES to save 15% off your order in my Artfire Studio or Etsy shop. The code is good through 9/2/2011. While you’re there, if you happen to be sale 100 in Etsy or sale 110 in Artfire you’ll find an extra surprise tucked in with your order!

Here are the newest items I added to my shops yesterday:

Thanks for browsing, and thank you in advance for your helpful comments!

When you’re finished with all of that, head on over to Wonder Why Gal’s blog and check out the rest of the Fiber Arts Friday fun!

Upcycled and Refashioned Wardrobe Additions

So, today I finally got around to a few crafty sewing projects I’ve been meaning to do.

First off, I took a T-shirt I have from grad school that wasn’t quite everything I want in a shirt. I loved the awesome logo (Liberty University’s butt-kicking eagle, LOL) but hated the boxy, oversized-but-not-baggy fit. So I chopped it up a little bit and now I like it a lot better!

Please excuse the bathroom mirror self-portraits! I discovered today that having my 6yo take photos for me results in blurry photos that make me look pregnant b/c of her shortened height angle, so in my oh so humble opinion this is at least better than that!

It’s hard to tell, but what I did to this shirt was cut the neckline wider/deeper, cut off the sleeves at an angle going from the armpit area to the outer sleeve (removing the existing hem and making them a little more fluttery) and cut off the bottom hem (it had an obnoxiously big sizing tag on it, ugh). Then I stitched three or four lines of shirring around the neckline and voila! A girlier version of this tee.

Here you can kind of see the shirring at least a little:

Next up, another T-shirt project! This time I made a skirt. I’ve been loving this tutorial, but after closer inspection I realized that the 99-cent green tee I bought at Goodwill yesterday was going to make a mini-skirt if I cut it off below the armpits. So instead I cut off the sleeves and then cut across the chest, making it a little taller. I had to stitch a seam down the sides b/c the skirt stuck out a little where the armpits were, and then I did the shirring as suggested in the original tutorial. Now I have a new skirt!

One thing I learned with this project is that I should look for longer shirts. The other thing I learned is that it’s really hard to find 99-cent tees at Goodwill (on 99 cent day, even!) that don’t have a gigantic logo all over them. This shirt had one, but it’s far enough toward the top that it will never show under the shirts I normally wear.

My third and final wardrobe addition for today is a new dress, wahoo! I followed this awesome tutorial; the only thing I changed was to sew the skirt portion to a polo style shirt instead of a tank top. Also my fabric is actually a thrift-store sheet; I have a bunch of it left over so I plan to make one of these for Jilly to match!

If I make one of these dresses again (which I plan to do, with a cool grammar tee and another GW sheet), next time I’ll make the skirt portion a little lower down on the top. I wasn’t quite accurate in my measurements here, so the skirt starts just below my boobs, which isn’t my all-time favorite style but it’s still cute. It also means the skirt’s a little short, especially (ahem) in the back where my butt makes it stick out more, so I’d do better next time to make it a little lower, longer or both. Otherwise though I am at least glad to have one of these dresses b/c I’ve been ogling tutorials for them online for weeks now!

Hopefully I’ll have more thrift store refashioning posts in the future, this is tons of fun! 😉