voile scarf {anna maria horner}

Figuring the Eight {Anna Maria Horner}


Materials:

• Two 1/2 yd cuts of 54" Voile

 Pattern Notes: 

• Cut each Voile into two 9"x54" pieces. 
• 3/8" Seam Allowance.

 Stitching Notes:

• Stitch each Voile to itself along 9" edge (now 9"x108"), trim ends by 15" to make 9"x78" Scarf Piece.
• Pin Scarf Pieces RST and stitch along both 78" edges.  
• Pink seams and turn scarf right side out.
• Pin one 9" edge to matching Voile and stitch, leaving other edge open.  Press entire scarf & opening.
• Topstitch 1/4" away from each circular edge to prevent edges from rolling.
• Handstitch opening closed.

petal pillow {fabric-by-fabric one-yard wonders}

Materials:

• 1 yd 54" Corduroy or 45" Essex Linen
• Pillow Stuffing and Buttons 

 Pattern Notes: 

• Cut two 4.5" strips from folded 54" edge to make four Side Pieces (4.5"x23").
• Fit two Top/Bottom Pieces in remaining folded fabric, makes four.  
• Cut 3" strips from remaining fabric and alternate Petal Pattern to cut as many as possible.

 Stitching Notes:

• After stitching petals to pillow + checking fullness, topstitch petal bases in place to hold petals flat.
• Stitch one end of Side Piece making one long piece. 
• Stitch to Top Piece (fold petals back), fold edge of Side Piece at beginning and overlap end.
• Stitch Bottom Piece to Side Piece, fold edge of Side Piece at beginning and overlap end.

• Stuff Pillow through folded opening in Side Piece and hand-stitch shut.

new year, new lessons

Another round of mid-week snow flurries is fine by me; snow-days make excellent sewing days.  I've got a pile of demos to stitch up for the new sewing classes I'll be teaching later this month.  It's very exciting to look forward to a New Year filled with crafting, shop-tending, and teaching!

morning nibbles

Enjoying breakfast @ Chase's before work. Perfect way to start the day.

all stitched up

Fingers crossed...alterations are done. BFF gets hitched 10/9/11. Now just need to whip up a little something to wear myself. Where are Cinderella's mice when a girl needs them?

back from college

Home from Fiber College and a fantastic weekend of being in class and playing with craft elements not usually on my center stage...Fair Isle knitting & color-work, tatting, photography.  Certainly got the creative juices flowing, the perfect kick-off to fall.

easter delight

You can tell it's Spring when the Peeps are gettin' their Spray-Tan on.

Castro Street salon window, San Francisco 2006

oh, spa!

 

What a fantastic weekend at NETA's Knit & Spin-In SPA in Freeport!  It was so lovely to spend hours talking about knitting, needle organization, sheep breeds and other technical fiber details.  And nothing beats cabin fever better than a little fiber retail therapy!

Plus our new booth display worked out fantastic!  We even had one comment that one could tell our booth was inspired by lobster crates and island seashores.  We were quite happy.  Always going for the "Rugged Island Chic" look, you know.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by, chatted for a bit, and especially to those who took a little fiber-y goodness home with them.  Spending time with people like you reminds us why we're in the biz.   ♥ 

ch-ch-ch changes

We're all packed up and moved out of our Bar Harbor storefront.  But don't be too sad!

A fabulous new store will be moving into the space, Spruce & Gussy, filled with local jewelry and handmade goodness - very exciting.  Even more exciting - I will be moving to the Rockland area!  I'm very excited to be one step closer to a permanent location, both for the shop & myself.  There are wonderful fantasies where I have a space up and running early this Fall... keep your fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I'll have all the Starcroft fibers at the Maine Fiber Frolic, June 5 & 6th in Windsor.  I'll also have more of our NEW L'stell Bags featuring Nash Island Felt, which were such a hit at the SPA Spin & Knit fair in February.

There will also be Starcroft & L'stell goods (along with many local, handmade products & organic veggies) at Hattie's Shed, the farm stand at Darthia Farm in Gouldsboro - if you're headed Downeast this summer.

We'll keep you posted on the move.  See you soon!

starcroft's nash island yarn

I tell this story every day, and never get tired of it...



Once upon a time (about 90 years ago), on an island in Downeast, Maine, a lighthouse keeper's daughter started a flock of sheep. When she passed away a few years ago, she put the flock and the island in the care of good friends of hers who lived nearby, knowing that they would be tended with the same love and care.


A few years after starting her spinning mill, my mom had met the lighthouse keeper's daughter and her sheep, and feel in love with the island and the 'fog-washed' fleeces the sheep produced. Every year since, she's joined the Wakemans (the care-taking friends) on trips out to the island to help with lambing, shearing and tending to the flock. This is the best part of our job - working with our close friends, the Wakemas, to keep a traditional farming practice alive. Each time we're out on the island, tromping through the hillucks after sheep, we're reminded why this is a special place, and a special way of life.

When shearing happens in early Summer, my mom sorts out each of the hundred or so fleeces into different grades, right as they come off the sheep. Sorting allows us to use all of the fiber to its best end. The Nash Island Sweater Yarn is made from some of the softest ewe fleeces, while our Nash Island Scarf Yarn is made from the lamb fleeces, with a little home-grown angora added in. The other fleeces are used for felt, rugs, or woven blankets.

To make the yarn, the fleeces are washed, opened, carded, drafted, and spun on our Mini-Mills machines at our home in Monroe, Maine. Each machine requires either my mom or my dad (who often helps out) to be standing by, feeding the fiber in and checking the quality, picking out errant bits of seaweed and such. Each year's "clip" (all the fleeces shorn that year) requires a few tweeks to the spinning & drafting process, to make sure that the skeins stay an even thickness & weight from year to year - no easy feat.

All the yarn, (as well as the roving and felt) is hand-dyed in small "kettle" batches, using big lobster pots and a special technique. Valuing simplicity and beauty, we created a method of dyeing our fibers to give them subtle variations in hue. That way, each skein, batch of roving, or felt piece ends up being different and unique. Each knits, spins, or felts up together into a careful blending of light and dark shades, in colorways which play off of the scenic and natural beauty we find on the island. It really is a most inspiring place. As you knit with Nash Island Yarn, we hope that you're inspired too.

the CGCF

Idyillium will be closed Thur, Sept. 24 - Mon, Sept 28 because we're going to the Common Ground Country Fair! I'll be manning the Starcroft Fiber Mill booth at the Fleece Tent, so we're cleaning out the shop and will have all the yarn, roving, felting fiber, as well as 1lb. bags of clean Nash Island fleece for sale at the Fair. We can't wait to see you there! I've been dreaming of Pie Cones for days now...

hemmin' it up

New life fantasy: Spend afternoons sitting on a back porch rocking chair enjoying the afternoon sunshine, mending pretty vintage dresses with tiny little handstitches. At least I have the pretty vintage dresses to mend, thanks to Bluebird.

{Originally uploaded by somethin'}

This beauty could be yours, just visit here.

spoiled with flora

Only the good stuff - lillies, gerbera daisies, and foxgloves from my sweetie. He likes to leave a bouquet on the door to our apartment when I fly home, to greet me on my arrival. We made it in rather late because I made him meet me right off the plane-train-bus ride at our favorite Indian restaurant downtown. A girl needs Paneer Tikka Masala the moment she lands in SF.

handknit holiday

Hung by the chimney with care, these Lace Scarf kits my mom makes are the cutest little gift for your knitterly-love. Mum handknots the bags they go into, which are modeled after traditional fisherman's net bags used for lobstering - and are perfect for carrying your scarf-in-progress as you knit!


Each color is specially hand dyed, and inspired by the Maine coast - Sea Lettuce green, Sea Star purple, Oyster natural white, Clear Skies baby blue, and Anemone pink. The lace pattern is very easy, even for a non-adventurous knitter like me. Now I just need to pick which color...

Nash Island Scarf Kits by Starcroft Fiber Mill, $25

order online

friday is cleaning

This was a collaborative craft project: Joan stitched the embroidery, Emy stitched the bag, and I added the rick rack. Joan and I agree that the traditional "Day of the Week Chore" dishtowel patterns are better on things that are not dishtowels, like this little library tote. Emy made the bag from vintage sheets, so the bag is super soft and sturdy. There's a little interior pocket for your library card & keys - how thoughtful.

Just in case you were wondering what you were supposed to be doing all week:

• Monday is Wash Day
• Tuesday is Ironing Day
• Wednesday is Sewing Day
• Thursday is Market Day
• Friday is Cleaning Day
• Saturday is Baking Day
• Sunday is Day of Rest

"p" is for pretty, "j" is for joan

My friend Joan likes to embroider. But she hates to sew. So I stitch up her little embroideries into makeup bags for her to gift to her girlfriends. We're working on Christmas ones right now, 8 in all.

We meet up at one of my favorite local tea shops or a cafe and discuss what fabrics will go with which embroideries and such. Then I stitch them up at home, each one turns out a little different because the size of the embroidery piece differs.

crabster roll

We've been having beautiful sunny days here in SF this week; guess it's Indian Summer, pt. 2. Means you have to hang out in the park every chance you get, especially since it starts getting dark around 5pm. Matt got out of work early enough on a Friday to stop by the fish market on Valencia, and surprised me with crustaceans for dinner. Lobster for me, crab for him.


His crab was ginormous!! 2 lbs. This meant plenty of leftovers. So we picnic'd in Dolores Park the next day. The fog had already rolled into the Sunset, so we knew Golden Gate would be chilly, but ever sunny Dolores gave us enough sunshine to enjoy our crabster rolls and a little afternoon nap in the park.

Got Matt his new tee at the Noe Valley Harvest Festival. I like building up his wardrobe with handmade/local artist tees at craft fairs. The goldfish is saying "Where the f%@#'s my bicycle?", which is funny on a boy who goes through withdrawls if he can't ride his bike everyday.

We remembered that the fish & bicycle joke is that, "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", so then he was worried it was some feminist/antifeminist tee. The phrase was actually coined from a philosophical text that said "A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle". So our goldfish is either looking for religion, or a domestic partner, or maybe he really did just lost his bike. Must have parked it at the Main Library, cos that's where all ours got stolen.

Crabster Rolls
Lobster tail & one claw meat, roughly chopped
1/2 Crab body & leg meat
Mayo, one large dollop
1 Scallion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. Celery salt

Mix together in large bowl, adjusting mayo & seasoning to taste. Stuff as much as you possibly can into large whole wheat deli rolls, sliced open vertically. Enjoy in sunny park.

notes he leaves

Round about October I start making Xmas gift lists on the white-erase board in the hall by the door - the catchall place for apt/to-do lists. Most are not really a finalized holiday requests, but more of a collection of assorted, "oh wouldn't it be cool if I had a new one of these..." thoughts.

Matthew likes to add his own recommendations.

sunday afternoon bakery

Yes, that’s the cookbook balanced on top of the coffeemaker. That’s how much counter space we have. But we play bakery anyway.


Because nothing beats thin, gooey chocolate chip cookies with a glass of cold soy milk while you’re lying on the couch, watching Next Food Network Star episodes back to back.

***
After the cookie photo-shoot I spent a week looking for the camera, which was in the pocket of my apron, hanging in the pantry.

practicing my blind-nun sewing: mending lace

Some afternoons we’d be sitting in the costume shop at Bennington, all huddled over buttons and trims, hand-sewing, and our costume professor would mention how we were all destined for the nunnery, to do meticulous needlework until we all went blind.

There is something innately satisfying about needling (literally) over something as delicate and tedious as vintage lace dotted with holes and shreds. All you can do is pull together the ripped bits at the edges and cover everything with little stitches and then mark it “For Display Only”


Which really, is all you want to do with such a pretty top anyway.