Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale!

Looking for a gift for that special someone on your shopping list? Think about buying handmade this Christmas.

And I'm not just *suggesting* you buy from me, there's tons of sellers on Etsy who are offering Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Actually, if you search Black Friday 215,072 items come up!

I'm offering Free Shipping at my shop http://etsy.com/shop/fibrous until November 30th! Just use coupon code FRIDAYMONDAY Thanks for your support! Happy Friday!

btw, I'm not blogging over at my new home http://fibrouscreations.com

Easter sale!

I’m having an Easter sale over in my Fibrous etsy shop.

15% off everything with the coupon code EASTER.

If you've been wondering we're I've been hiding, the answer is over at my new blog, http://fibrouscreations.com!!

New fibrous project

This is the last post I'll be making on this blog! (probably, maybe, I tend to change my mind about these things). But I'll continue blogging over at fibrouscreations.com
You can subscribe to my posts over there by clicking the "Posts" link on the upper right hand corner.

I have a new project!


It's a yarn club with UK indie dyers and designers. Eventually it will get to the point where I'll send out a different yarn each month, but for now there will be a different yarn and pattern every few months.

Please check it out! I'm very excited. As you know, I love yarn! http://ukfibreclub.com/

Weird pedicurists

Yesterday J went for a pedicure.

I declined to get my feet done though because the pedicurists were ugly.

And they sucked.

And here's a photo to prove it:



Yup, they're fish. Garra Rufa fish to be exact. A place opened up in the mall right before Christmas where you can get pedicures by little fish. J asked me twice if I had gone to look at them, and I interpreted that to mean she wanted a gift certificate to it for Christmas. Turned out I was wrong about that, but after the initial shock of oh-my-god-I-have-to-get-my-feet-nibbled-on-by-fish it didn't actually take very long for me to convince her she should redeem it so I can take a pic for the blog...

I like the idea of it. Symbiosis, that is. And if it's good enough for hippopotamuses I suppose it should be good enough for me. Except it is kind of ... creepy.

J said it didn't hurt, and that it felt like she had her feet in a pool of soda. Not sure that description really won me over. I don't really like soda... I think I'll stay on the other side of the water for now...

And the results are...

Two weeks ago I posted that I would like to sponsor a crafty project. I received two emails, both were for charitable causes. So instead of choosing one, I've gladly sponsored them both.

Juliann, The Sick Chick, has received $10 for her new charity Healing Arts International. She'll be making cards to send to chronically ill adults and carers. The $10 will go for the postage for the cards.

And I've sent $10 to Georgia who will be making Crayon Roll-ups for kids at a hospital and at the Ronald McDonald House in Columbus. She recently has a grandson who has undergone surgery and chemo treatment, and I'm sure these will make a little child very happy.

Thanks for all the RTs and the support I've received for this idea. Let me know if someone else is doing something similar! I'd love to see crafters sponsored monetarily for their creativity and ideas.

Impatient patron of a crafty project

So a week and a half ago I posted I'd want to be a Patron of a Craft Project. Well, I received 1 submission.

Why?

I had a nice reaction on twitter, people seemed to like the idea. So what happened? Not enough money to warrant writing an email? Or do people think their craft project isn't worth being paid for? I still don't know the answer. Perhaps people just need to be reminded?...

The deadline for emailing me the idea of your crafty project is January 27th, 2011. Please email it to thea.yarnstore gmail dot com. It doesn't need to be the most spectacular craft project ever. It doesn't even need to be interesting, or cool. I value crafts, I value crafters and making and I'd like to give someone $10 so they know that what they are doing has merit.

*stares at inbox impatiently*

Crafty Links - (tardis socks!)

Ah, I love the internet. I'm also occasionally mad at the internet for reminding me that I can't try every craft project I see.

Here's a few that have caught my attention lately:

• I can't do origami, so my head hurts just looking at the instructions for this Kawasaki-Rose but I'd still like to try.
• These are quilled felt hearts are very cute. I recently sat next to a quiller at a craft night, it's amazing what you can do with just paper.
• Tardis socks! Ahh! ok, so I do have to make these.
• How to screen print T-shirts. You'd need some screen printing ink, but other than that it seems like a very low-budget way.
• Crochet Dune! Not a tutorial, but I had actually been thinking about how it might be funny to felt a sandworm.
• A wind powered walking creature!

So one out of six that are within my making-capabilities isn't too bad, I think.

Mid-January resolutions

I can't remember the last time I made a New Year's resolution.

I normally just make resolutions throughout the year which I then promptly abandon or fail. And I don't subscribe to the idea that it's a new year and therefore there should be new changes. When I'm writing down dates I still write the old year until like 3 weeks into January.

So I'm finding it rather odd that I'm giving myself two new goals to achieve so early in the year. I'm going to be trying to list something new on etsy each day, and I'm going to be going on more walks. Hopefully. That is, unless it snows...

So far I've listed something each day from last Wednesday to today. And today is my second day of going on a morning walks. Today I walked to the foot of Arthur's Seat. I'm hoping to walk a little further up the hill each day...


The weather at least is supposed to be sunny this week (um, ya, I think no rain constitutes as being sunny over here).

At least it's not supposed to snow this week! Here's what Arthur's Seat looked like last month:


What about you? Do you make resolutions?

Patron of the Craft

Recently there was an interesting post about sustainability and free over on the CraftyPod blog. One of the issues she raised (and to really greatly oversimplify it), is that although non-monetary goodies (like comments on a blog) is nice and appreciated, money is also nice and appreciated.

And because of that post I decided today to do something to monetarily support a member of the online creative community.

I rejected the idea of buying something on etsy since I'll be moving within a year and I don't want yet another thing I need to ship off or throw away. Then I flirted with the idea of sending a blogger I admire a few bucks via Flattr. But then an interesting comment on that post by Kirsty Hall mentioning "patron to the arts" got me thinking... I have $10. There's no reason why I can't actually sponsor a crafty project. Sooo....

I have $10 burning in my PayPal account. I'd like to use that money to sponsor a crafty project by a crafty person.

A short project. One that will take you maybe an hour. If the end result is something that will be posted online for free then that's even better!

If you're interested in being considered for a $10 sponsorship (who doesn't love an extra $10!) just send me an email to thea.yarnstore gmail dot com with your crafty idea. The deadline to send in an email is January 27th, 2011.

I will of course post about the results ...

(yay!)

Letter to My Sweater

Dear sweater,

I'm sorry, but things just aren't working out between us. Yes, we had fun at first with a mini cabled neck hole, but things are different now.

It's not you, it's me, really. I knew it was a bad idea to just hope the gauge would be correct by going down a needle size and not doing another swatch. I knew switching from bamboo on the gauge swatch to metal needles was foolish. But I didn't care. And now, well, now look at us. When I try you on I get weird bulges around the armpits and in the back I have more bulges, as if I'm trying to be Angel from X-Men.

I had a feeling something was wrong for a while now, and avoiding it didn't help. We have to part ways today, now. And please don't call, I'm moving back in with the half-finished Jaywalker socks.

Thea

Happy New Year! Bye Old Year.

Wow, 2011!!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all have a wonderful (and productive) year!

It's already started to look like a new city and a new year in Edinburgh.

The snow that once graced the tops of buildings and covered the ground



melted last week.

A few Christmas inspired things are still around, but they just don't give off the same enthusiasm as before Christmas.


The German Christmas Market with the awesome sugary goodies is gone.

For a brief day they were replaced with these:

Those food stalls are for the big Hogmanay (New Years Eve) party.

So is this huge screen:

But they too are gone, and now the lovely old city is back, ready for whatever the new year may bring.