idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Sometimes I'm a bit sad to know that any future children of mine will live in a house that's quiet and orderly...

because that's certainly the way this house is when my mom's gone for a while and I'm in charge. And it's so different from how I grew up!


My parents are away, going to a conference for my dad's work, and then a few days of tourism. It feels like a vacation here, too, because the sun has returned, and the rhythm is different--I'm getting out and gardening a lot as well as cooking. Trying to get some sort of extra housekeeping task done each day. Today I need to photograph yarn, on my own side...



This is my Hobbit yarn, Smaug Napping. I think he's stinkin' cute, but don't tell him that, at least not in those words...



I have to get more of him, though I spent a good hour (and 217 shots) on it the other day--I hadn't done the step yet of shocking it into place in hot water, and whacking it out to fluff it a bit. He looked pretty good before, so I thought it was okay, but he's a GORGEOUS specimen of dragon now. Feh.

At least I have a completely unphotographed yarn to make it less of a rerun. Another try at an Ashitaka yarn! Still not *quite*...
but let's be honest here.

I have a passion for Ashitaka and Princess Mononoke that can carry me through DOZENS of yarn projects.



Also, I have come up with the perfect rendition on the proposed LJ name, which makes it less of a poetaster and more of a fun change. YAY, now to decide to shell out for it...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


Princess Lolly! Soon to be visible on Etsy, as well! But for now drying after a quick bath.
I had a delightful time combing together the colors for this--trying to go for an iridescent candy look, just like the lollipops on the gameboard I remember. After a few mini-batts I wasn't psyched by I figured out the trick to leaving them kind of painterly in stroke, and just admired the colors going together...



I mention this because it's a detail that's not really obvious in the yarn itself, but is very important to me, stylistically.
... what a stuck up thing to have to say. >,<

It was one of those projects that seems to take way longer than usual--and the reason on this was because I was spinning 300 yards! This is fantastic, for me.

And it just turned out really nicely...

***

Kodama Forest did not quite come out the way I'd wanted it to, but apparently it came out well enough! I sold it this morning after listing it yesterday...to a Ravelry friend, but that totally counts.



I'm going to try again for the same theme--being Ashitaka of Princess Mononoke--but with a roving that's dyed just perfect for him, instead of trying to cobble together his colors from odd ends, and ending up with only the forest colors being really strong.

***

Today I improved on my first sunburn of the year from the other day by doing more garden restructuring--which led to a visit to the store for a new gardening fork, after I busted one. My complete glee to be picking out baby plants to bring home made me realize I've never actually done that before--adopted plants from other homes, yeah, and been handed things to plant, sure. Not the same!

I just HAD to get the dianthus named "Firewitch" and then I bought her a friend, some Irish Moss, because in for a penny...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
I got a picture book out "for Merriwether" the other day. He is feeling oppressed, and leery of my motives:


Little does he know we are grooming him to be a knight-in-shining-armor-bear!
The royal "we" are.



With my overabundance of pastels it *finally* occurred to me to do a Candyland inspired series a couple of ... well, maybe it's months ago now.

So my latest, The Frostine Sea!
This is [livejournal.com profile] fabricalchemist 's piece, which I am relieved to see is indeed in similar blue shades, since she was part inspiration...
Queen Frostine

This yarn is completely gorgeous, though there is a dubious lavender streak that was supposed to link it to the pink one I plan to do. But WHATEVER as they say in the New World.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


This is Inuyasha. YAY I fixed my design flaw that resulted in the previous candy-cane. >,<

I am resisting the temptation to call it Shikon Shard-Shark, and therefore instead telling everyone what I'm *not* naming it. There is even gold for his eyes. The red is much deeper than this wintry photo tells.



Another shot of the store, this time after dark. I was just going to put away the stuff in the windows, to go to [livejournal.com profile] farrandy  and [livejournal.com profile] bat_cheva 's Solstice party and it was so nicely dark I had to snap off a shot. Plus, I didn't know if we'd be busy to the last moment in the days to come...not so much today, tomorrow and the day after remain up in the air.



Did I show off my new spindle yet?  6-6

a~nd someday soon I will be posting about dramas again, this time about the only version of Hana Yori Dango/Boys Before Flowers I feel comfortable watching. And its cons as well as pros, of course.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
look, I've been crying over Up, okay? The gremlin big-sister expression would just not come...


and as [livejournal.com profile] fabricalchemist  knows, when the glasses go on, so does the MEAN
not really
but kinda

I was in a shopping mood at the library today!
I have:
Eighth Grade Bites - Vladimir Todd Chronicles 1
Chalice - Robin McKinley
Yotsuba&!, Vol. 6-7
A Crooked Kind of Perfect - Linda Urban (which is about a girl into playing organ, sounds cool, no?)
Molly and the Magic Wishbone
(picture book)
One Leaf Rides the Wind (picture book which OMG, gorgeous, not to say Molly isn't: I'm a grown up, I get these books for the pictures)
Skippyjon Jones (picture book)
and a non-fic coffee-table type book on the 1920s
as well as from last time
Alfred Kropp - The Seal of Solomon

One of the things I returned beside Rise of Renegade X was The Incorrigables: The Mysterious Howling, which was a charming MG that every time I was afraid it was getting too precious would make me smile with the unknowingly plucky governess's thoughts or actions. (YMMV) Children raised by wolves have been adopted by a gentleman who found them out hunting, for reasons mysterious to all, including his dashing young bride. Things are clearly not how they seem by the end of the book...which is clearly the lead in for a series. This would be fine, except the next one isn't out yet, or at least not at my library.

Which may last me for tomorrow. I am one of those people who the more bustling there is going on, the more I love to be reading tucked away somewhere. Between helping with food-prep. Of course.

***
Now here, have a prettier picture:


This is Luna At Large because it is so cheerfully bright
and slightly insane, too, at least in some of the color-combos.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


Now named Revival of the Death Eaters


18. Post something that makes you laugh!



Funny/Bad parking jobs?
It really looks like the car is thinking about coming down the walkway, but trying to figure out how that will happen...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


I would like those of you not on any of my other networking interfaces to meet--Pheonix Spiral. This yarn actually goes from void-black, into ashy tones, to the pearly white of an egg, up into flame and then to the red of a Phoenix–and then after another third of the yarn has passed, it burst back into flame, settling down into smoke and ash, and a black void.

If you click the photo, you will be magically conveyed to a blog post that goes on at too much length for the subject, but can be skipped for the pictures. Your choice.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


Day 23

Autumn books would be?

The Bartimaeus Trilogy
, particularly The Golem's Eye. All of them are wintry, but a bit too vivid...

I said Patricia McKillip's books, but of note particularly is The Forest of Serre and Od Magic

The Perilous Gard

(ahem:



The Dancing Tree! Fanart Yarn for Perilous Gard! also, I got some new pictures)

 

Day 24

And winter is the best time for books (unless they have too much ice in them), so what kind say winter to you?


I Capture The Castle
--just spare enough a whole run of seasons stay in the cold that set the tone for the beginning. It's Gothic feel in the storyline helps loads...

Jane Eyre, for the same reason. There is a Spartan edge to the whole of the world surrounding the characters, though the high-feeling of the MCs contrasts--it's the contrast that makes it stand out.

The Hobbit for a different one: it feels much like being drawn close to a fireplace, the outside dark but inside warm and cozy in sweaters and lapblankets with tea.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Etsy Feature!

But not here, on my GossamerSong blog...
Some silvery, cobwebby things I really loved themed on Etsy while building a Treasury over there...

like this photo:



A Tiny Tree, by Meganzii
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
just when that ohforgoodnesssakes feeling is threatening to make you hate Etsy more than you can love it, you come across something that turns the day around...



by beanforest who has a webcomic sense of humor, and a geekery button shop to match

***

of course, there is also genuine art that's amazing like these "ties that don't suck" by toybreaker (whose name also doesn't suck):




Since I pretty much love ties, you can imagine these are like a little window of joy for me.
Seriously, go check out the shop, there is no way it can't make you happy:
Cyberoptix TieLab!
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


This is the yarn I made as one of my pieces in response to a prompt I shared with [livejournal.com profile] fabricalchemist  -- a letter arrives in the mail...but inside the envelope is only one leaf of the autumn foliage. She finished both her story and a gorgeous illustration for it, but both stories inspired by it for me are still in their beginning pages, and only the yarn is complete. It's for both, really--but the white is for the envelopes and the brown for leaves, and the red for rose petals. Because the other story it's petals being sent instead of leaves.



The colors of this actually make me think of the reflections on New England ponds, surrounded by trees, with the leaf-covered bottoms, and the glare of pale sunshine on them...

***

I guess I'm testing the theory that the more you post, the more people come and talk to you? This sounds like a dangerously erroneous theory to me, but if I post every day about books, then when I have other things to post about, it will have to be posting more than once a day.
I suppose I should have thought  this through. XD
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)




These are two practice runs for my new shop banner and a potential ad.

I like the slogan "Every Skein A Story", and I think it works for what I'm doing.
The colors on these, however aren't quite striking enough for me.

I have one picture I really would like to use, but the manipulation required was giving me a headache. And I am a wuss.


My "Croquet Party" treasury was featured on the FAEteam blog today (Fantasy Artists of Etsy)
because this darling painting is by one of their members:



Croquet by studiorayyan

They put a space between "Gossamer" and "Song" so when I searched for it by my own name, I found nothing.
It's sorta embarrassing to do a whostalking.com search and only find yourself talking about yourself.
X)
But. That doesn't mean it isn't fun!

:has a twisted sense of fun:
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)


With fog and cobweb glinting among the blooms and leaves, the magic settles over the roses in the Beast's garden. Just one bloom is all it takes to bring Beauty to him--but every one of them is needed to reveal the true heart of the Beast to her.


My latest yarn project: A Beast's Roses



This was based off of the "Beauty and the Beast" roving hand-dyed especially for me by theprincessrooms for a Ravelry swap. I added another batt for the third strand, which had more outright green, and ended up with a yarn that looked amazingly like the palette of the picture book she had sent me with it.

Spring '10 Swap: fiber &amp; book Sorry about the photo quality, but I think you can see it...

and this is Merlin, of The Sword in the Stone particularly. he's kinda cute, too...

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
Etsy
Buy Handmade
gossamersong
So yeah. It was time I spammed you with some Etsy goodness.

I've also got a Treasury up, Fibers Exotic, which is all kinds of handcrafted fiber stuff in summer colors as I like them...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
snow white, rose red

Snow White and Rose Red yarn is live to Etsy, currently called The Bear Prince and His Brother

because the less creative I feel, the more obscure I get.

 

excerpt from the retelling I'm working on, where the brother is not just a postscript... )

 




idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)

This is the knife I bought at the con. I like it alot.


I was in a "yarn ball" swap, where you wind up a bunch of little things into a ball of yarn.



This card's concept is now asking to be a quilt-block.

It's based out of George MacDonald's fairy tale "Cross Purposes". An black umbrella and a sunset out the window are two of the very important opening images.



This is my latest yarn--Snow White and Rose Red. I'll post about it again when I do the shoot and have it all ready to go. But I love this one.

I'm also pretty happy with the retelling I'm finishing today...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
I was a bit pleased by a Criminal Minds quote while surfing some fan videos to get acquainted with [livejournal.com profile] fabricalchemist  's Spencer Reid that went something like this:

"Amazing what he knows, and he's just 24." "Imagine what he'll know by 40..."


Last year the Anberlin lyric "So beautiful and only 23" was my theme, and I was afraid the only 24 theme I would know for this year was Switchfoot's rather melancholy ballad that goes "24 failures, 24 tries. 24 finds me in 24th place, 24 drop-outs at the end of the day..."


Meet Sabriel.



The Abhorsen tunic and her bells are the primary inspirations here. She's prettier in person.

And this:




This is Love Me! Kyoko.

It's a progressing yarn, a little like The Thief, though not quite so specific. She goes between really good times of learning, and dark times, where vengeance is her obsession. For that first era of being consumed with rage, I've got smears of dark colors, like her swirling hate-imps. There are other seasons with a little gray, but it ends light and happy.

Here's hoping!

...oh, I gotta go get these guys out of the freezer now. I'd forgotten they were in there...
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (Default)
I culled my interests list for LJ the other day.

No one surfs interest, really, and most of mine were painfully obvious, if not repetitive. So now they're more the kind of list I'd actually write up, if I were compiling interests that would surprise people and entertain them.

(I love making lists like that, by the way. It's one of those little broken things in my personality...)



Patrolling Gotham
A yarn to debut at Conestoga and no sooner, if my will-power holds...



This yarn is much superior in person, because the nuance of the color is hard to capture, first of all. Black is deucedly hard to photograph, two shades of it even moreso.

It's also the softest, most fluffy yarn I have ever made, which can only be experienced by holding it.
I can't even describe it. Just wow.

When spinning up the deep purple-black side, I was much amused by the steampunk look of it...just being a sepia-tone sort of color made it automatically steampunk to my mind.
Which led to the idea that Batman would lend himself to steampunk--which started firing neurons like you wouldn't believe.

There was a suppression of that, since I'm not ready to write more fan-fic until I've finished this Skip-Beat nonsense...

  Which is actually the next yarn I'm working on. That exact pink...

idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (mAgus?)


In the mail today there was a package the size and shape of a book.
My heart-rate went through the roof--
there was only one thing we were waiting for in that particular book-size.

The Conspiracy of Kings!
fourth of Megan Whalen Turner's series starting with The Thief.
Because MWT writes books so deeply you can find new indications of what's going on in the fourth read, without having been lost in the first pass, she takes years to write new books.

You can imagine the release furor among her fans.

Welcome to my little release party!

A Fan-Art Mini-Gallery to highlight the fandom's talent )

Landmark for Methana, by [livejournal.com profile] irrel , post here (my title)

Presents! )

Some Bargains, too )



I'm actually kind of nervous about reading this. I posted this first, since I'd been intending to do so for some time.
idiosyncreant: cartoon avatar of blue eyed redhead with curly hair, underdyed with black (genviper)
Sadly:
Sid Fleischman passed away the other day, an amazing 90 years old. I would never have known he was so venerably age'd from the playful, energetic books coming out recently. I hope he fit in all the books he wanted into that full life!
The Whipping Boy is one of his more beloved books.

randomly: I seem to have returned to the dark ages of double-parking my books. *sigh* I am spring-cleaning, though, we'll see what I manage...

I'm, um, a little proud of this photograph...

This yarn is Spring in the Hephestial Mts., which you haven't seen because I haven't put it up for sale.
 >,<
Anyway, springing out of my Queen's Thief FanArt Yarns, a fellow Reprobate of Sounis (trans: fan of the books, on the LJ fan community) said, "Hey, wanna collaborate to make something for the author?"

I wanted to do a Release Day present for Megan Whalen Turner, so I said, "Sure, if it can be sent to her for March 23rd!"



She somehow accomplished this. Not only that, she was creating a pattern to reflect the geography of the books, particularly the Hephestial Mountains, like I had themed the yarn on.

Go to her post on Sounis to see a close-up of the pattern (which is awesome) and more of the great shots she got of the shawl in action. [In the dead of winter Michigan has an uncanny resemblance to Oklahoma...]

This was my first time sending anything to an author I admire. I'm so glad [livejournal.com profile] mortalasabee  did such a great job, I'm really quite unjustly rewarded...

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