Hi There Hammy

Zounds! I’ve been slacking off with my Gigposter posts! Luckily, this week I remembered. H is a disappointing category for designers on Gigposters.com. Out of a couple hundred there were only a couple really great bits. My eyes are not happy with me for subjecting them to some of the really really bad ones. Yawn. However, now they can rest easy when they look at these puppies! Here you go! Enjoy!

Zach Hobbs

I really like the mad jumble of his posters. He does some interesting things with faces and colors, but this is by far my favorite. The colors, line quality and chunky nature of this one is really great. I love how the band name nestles into itself and creates a nice blocky chunk. And how can you not love a cyclops?!

Lewis Heriz

This particular poster is interesting because it mimics a newspaper ad, cramming all sorts of extraneous information into a small space and yet the band name and important information is still dominant. That, my friends, is hard to do in black and white. His other posters play with color and shape much more so than this one would make you think. Check them out if you’re curious…

Josh J. Holinaty

He only has three posters and all three feature beautiful illustrations and color. This one is my favorite for three reasons:

I like the color blue and goats

The way he treats type by putting it into ribbons and cutouts is fabulous

I REALLY like blue and goats.

Hula Hula

This is the only poster they have up on gigposter. I don’t usually like posters that feature photographs but this is a rare exception. The movement through the poster is nice and strong, the colors are good and, most of all, the photograph plays such a minor roll that I can ignore it. I like that.

Dan Harrill

There are only two posters by Dan on Gigposter, but they’re both great. This particular one reminds me of Terry Gilliam’s work

Bennett Holzworth

Again, the screen printed look and the interesting typography hooks me in every time. Oh so nice. Bennett features the screen printed look throughout most of his posters.

So. I unpacked my funky wool package and sorted the baddies from the goodies. If you’re going to start sorting wool, why not start right after you wake up? Preferably while you’re still in your jammies? No reason not to. So the baddies are in the trash can to my right and the good bits are piled into the TWO trash cans to my left. I tried to wash a fleece in the bathtub upstairs yesterday… turns out it’s very hard and it never really get clean… just wet and soggy. So, that being said, I called a lady at From Barn to Yarn over in Boring who specializes in cleaning wool fleeces. Lucky day! I can take it to her and in 8-10 weeks (I know, that’s a hella long time to wait) I get it back clean, carded and ready to be spun. It would probably take me an entire year to do all of that by hand and it’s only $8 a pound to have her do the heavy, dirty work. Unfortunately I have about 40 pounds of wool that I’ll be taking in. Sigh… that’s quite a dent in the teeny tiny bit of money I have scrooged away. I think I can sell whatever I don’t want for enough to make that back, so that’s good.

By the time I was finished sorting and picking the bottoms of my feet were black (shoes would have been a good idea.. but really, who has time for shoes?) and my hands were covered in oily lanolin. It’s a very good thing I don’t mind that smell.

Have you ever smelled unwashed fleece? It’s a tangy, musky, fetid smell… especially when they’re as dirty as these are. The guy who owns the sheep isn’t doing it for the wool, so they’re not very clean. That’s where the $8 a pound comes in. The fleeces have been airing out on the porch all day, hopefully they’re a little dryer and a little less smelly. Now I’m going to stuff them back into their trashcans for the night.

I found this little video on Le Love today called My First Crush by Julia Pott. I love her work (and I suspected this was the same lady who does all of the intros for the Etsy videos I love so dearly… and it is!) and this video is one of the sweetest things I’ve seen. I want to crawl inside of it and live with the polar bear and birdie.

My neighbor Andy had a friend with sheep, but no reason to keep the wool. The lady he usually gives his fleece to didn’t want it this time. This all came up in casual conversation and I almost passed out when I realized that maybe, just maybe I could get my hands on this fleece. A month went by before I saw Andy again to ask him about it and when I finally did he said he’d look into it and bring them to me if his friend still had it. There were a lot of ifs and maybes so I didn’t get my hopes up. A whole fleece could fetch $30 or more raw and much more if it’s been processed into something you could spin right away so you can probably understand why I got a little excited.

I went on a camping trip this weekend on the coast, had fun and came home dirty and tired. My first stop was Monty’s cage (which has been relegated to the back deck now that the weather is nice). I had to step around this big blue tarp squatting on the deck to get to his cage and I thought “Well now, that’s a lot of disgusting insulation… I wonder how long THAT’S going to be here. Hurumph…” and didn’t think about it again until Mom and Dad came home. “Oh, so did you see your fleece out there?” Dad asked when they walked in the door. What I thought was a pile of nasty insulation was, in fact, a pile of skanky wool. Six fleeces, to be exact.

Now, I’ve never carded or washed a fleece before… and all I have is a little hand spindle for spinning it. I walked up to the tumorous mound very very carefully… I didn’t want to startle it in case it was really some sort of dead mountain beast hanging out on the porch. I opened the tarp and started picking through the pile, trying to determine where one fleece started and where the next ended. I couldn’t really, so I just pulled a large hank out onto the table. Underneath the… stuff… is some really really nice wool! I did a little research to figure out how exactly to go about making that huge pile into a nice, clean pile, and I found a nice little description on Fuzzy Galore. I went around the edges, pulling off the especially nasty bits and stuff about four pounds of fleece into a mesh laundry bag. Now I’ve got it soaking in the upstairs bathtub and hopefully, it’ll turn out well enough to card, spin, knit and then wear! How COOL would that be!? For free!

I don’t know what kind of sheep they are, or how much is here, but it’s probably just under 50 pounds.

I swear, it’s not a tumor.

This is where you can see the part of the wool that was closest to the sheep’s skin (the whiter half) and the part that was exposed to the elements and… other things less pleasant (the darker portion).
Look how crimpy the fibers are! So cool. Everything is covered in lanolin and a little bit damp but after I’m done washing it all (which will take all darn summer if I do it in the tub like I am now) it will be a big fluffy cloud of wonderful. Oh I’m so happy!

So these are the socks I knit during the recent + epic road trip with Tyler. Nice, huh? I thought so. I just finished the second one this morning (the socks/mile isn’t particularly efficient… I finished one during the whole road trip).

And no, for all of you concerned for my fashion well being, I didn’t wear that outside. This is one of those outfits I contemplate and then ask myself “What would Jessie do…?” and then change my mind. Ok? Ok.

The people over at Xylocopa have done some amazing woodwork with instruments, jewelry and everything in between. This Moustaches of the world Ukelele is my favorite. At first I thought they’d painted them on and that was sweet, but now that I know they’ve each been carefully inlayed into the original instrument my mind has been blown away.

“This Complete Guide features complete coverage of the 25 major moustache groups, enabling you to instantly identify any moustache you spot without even putting down your ukulele.”

Fantastic!

I just put up a new recipe over on the cooking blog! Today it’s Dutch Baby Pancake… check it out, or be square (and minus a good breakfast recipe).

DUTCH BAAAABY PANCAKE TUMMY TIME!

I used to LOVE playing the sims. Not so much playing with them, but decorating things and building the houses. Anywho, they’ve just come out with SIMS 3 (bigger, better and with more detail). Today I stumbled on the little social experiment Robin Burkinshaw has been conducting. She has created two homeless SIMS (something you couldn’t do in earlier games), taken their money and more or less recreated the basic conditions of homelessness. The SIMS took it from there. There are some really terrible things that happen. You can read the many posts about her experiment and the progress her Sims are making over on her blog: Alice and Kev.

All adults in The Sims 3 have a lifetime wish. An ultimate goal that they want to achieve before the end of their life. Usually this is to reach the top of a particular career path, or become the best at a particular set of skills. When you create an adult Sim, you’re given a selection of lifetime wishes to choose from, which change depending on that Sim’s personality traits.

When I made Kev, choosing a lifetime wish was a little difficult. I knew that he was never going to be successful in a career, which meant that almost all of the options the game offered me weren’t going to be possible. The only lifetime wish available to him that I thought he could aspire towards while still remaining homeless was to become a ‘heartbreaker’. He wants to be the boyfriend of 10 different sims.

So while Alice is asleep on a bench somewhere, I send Kev to the park to try to find him some romance. However, due to either his inappropriate or insane trait, he turns up without his clothes.image from Alice and Kev

VIA (boingboing)

I’ve been putting some of my crafty things in Twelve Mile Market where I work and every once in a while something sells. It’s a nice little surprise, but it’s also (sort of) getting my things out there for people to enjoy. Anywho, I was perusing Twelve Mile’s local harvest page when I noticed a little comment button. “Oh?” I thought, “What’s this?”. Click click, and tadah! There were some glowing reviews and comments and, tucked away in one, a felted hen mention! WOW! That feels so great. Here’s the comment, and I’ll bold the special part:

It was such a pleasure to make it over to 12 Mile Market with my family last Saturday. Farmer Dave is such a genuinely nice, engaging human being and proprietor! He told us the story of how he and his family came to operate Bumblebee Farm (and eventually the market) and answered all of our various questions.

He was so great with our 19 month old daughter — from the complimentary banana, to the craft play (a handmade felt hen complete with baby chick and egg), to the pasta demonstration…

We got to chat as we watched him make the fresh lemon and thyme pasta we had for dinner that night! Needless to say, it was quite delicious We were sorry we didn’t get some ravioli too

We also got a dozen farm fresh eggs and a quart of raw wild flower honey (both from other Troutdale farms) that we enjoyed the next morning with some heart-shaped homemade herb biscuits!!! A rare and welcomed treat indeed!

Dave made sure that we knew the market is “for the people, by the people” so to speak and said he encouraged & welcomed any ‘n all suggestions and special requests. Not only that, he offered me some of his very own compost worms for my vermicomposting bin. Now how awesome is that!?!

I believe the market has the potential to be a 5 star co-op grocery store in no time, but that will in large part be up to the People! The more we go the more it will grow, so let’s help this fledgling market along… go support Farmer Dave and tell yer friends and family to visit too! We will definitely be back fro more!!!

Now THAT’S a lovely review! Thank you to everyone who have seen my shop, who have gone to Twelve Mile and who have supported their local crafters. Kudos to you!

I’ve been working at Twelve Mile Market since Christmas and I have yet to get myself down to Bob’s Red Mill in Clackamas. Sad, isn’t it? Yes, it is. For those of you who haven’t heard of Bob’s or have and just haven’t been to their store or purchased any of their products, listen up, I’m about to tell ya’ll about it. ‘Kay?

Bob’s Red Mill mainly produces grains but there are TONS of other products like beans and lentils and mixes to choose from. They have an impressive selection of gluten free and organic products in addition to their regular food stuffs. Mom and I walked in and my brain let out a little “Ooooohhhhh! Loook!” They have over 400 products and a very good bulk section, everything from muesli to chickpea flower. Mom and I had a very good breakfast there and spent about two hours wandering around collecting a mountain of stuff in the cart. We even got a pasta machine! Woot! I even found some unsweetened coconut (which I’ve had a really hard time finding).

Check out all the bulk grains we got! This cost about $20 and the pasta machine was only $30. Everything is really reasonably priced and it’s right down the road from our nearest Trader Joe’s, so anything we can’t get at Bob’s or Twelve Mile, we can get at Joe’s. Nice, huh? I would definitely recommend Bob’s 10 grain cereal and 5 grain rolled oats mixed together in hot cereal for breakfast the mornings.