Interview with a star - Adina

Today we present you interview with our team member Adina (daisiescrochet).

Hello! My name is Adina and I live in Virginia, USA.

I spent my childhood in a beautiful small town on the coast of the Black sea in Russia. Our house was surrounded by gardens with flowers and fruit trees and forests. For me as a child there was nothing better than to quietly sit in a cozy corner of our garden and work on a craft project.

I was interested in anything handmade, anything I could make myself. I got introduced to knitting at age 5 by my mother, and later I learned to crochet using crocheting magazines from the school library. I think that my love for everything natural and organic took its root there, in my childhood. This has become a great influence on my life. My other biggest passion has always been reading.

Now I am 34 years old and happily married. I have 4 sons and a baby daughter. My little princess inspired me to open my store. I sell various knit and crocheted baby items mostly made from organic yarn.

I strive to create unique and unusual items made from organic materials for my children and I would love to share them with you through my store. In my store you will find photo props and various hats and beanies for babies, toddlers and older kids. My store also carries some Bath and Beauty items. I am now working on patterns for my items. I think many mothers and grandmothers will gladly use my tutorials to make something for their little ones.

Every baby hat and even the smallest flower are saturated with my love for children. I am very happy to see happy children and their mothers satisfied with their purchases. I am very thankful to all my customers who leave comments about my work and especially to those who send me photos of their kids wearing my items. This is the best prize and such an inspiration for me.

I would love it if you visited my store Daisiecrochet.
You can also follow me on Facebook where I post all my new items and promotions.
www.facebook.com/kostadinav#!/daisiescrochet

Best wishes, Adina

Translated by Alla (FleetingStillness)

Felting Defined

Fulled knitting:
The process of knitting something with wool yarn, usually with large, open stitches, then shrinking it by throwing it into the washing machine. This process, commonly called felting, is actually fulling.


Feltmaking:
The ancient process of beginning with loose wool fibers, adding water (and, more recently, soup), then pressing the fibers together, followed by a more vigorous working of the cloth to shrink and stregthen it. Also known as traditional felting or wet felting.


Needle felting:
A process in which sharp, barbed needled are poked down through loose fibers, entangling them into a dense mat.This process has been adapted by crafters, doll makers, and other fiber artists surface embellishment, "painting" with wool, and for sculpting felted figures. Also called dry felting.


Nuno felting:
A technique, named by Polly Stirling in the mid-1990s, that involves feltingh loose wool fibers into cloth, usually silk. The fibers travel through the weave of the cloth and entangle on the back side; as the fibers shrink, a strongly textured felt/fabric hybrid is generated.


Cobweb felting:
A technique in felt making in which very small amounts of fiber are used to create an extremely sheer felt that contains holes as a textural effect.


Carved felt:
A technique of carving away layers from a thick, durable felt, usually to expose multicolored wool layers within the felt.


Yarn felts:
Felted fabric made with preexisting wool yarns, sometimes with small amounts of woo; roving. These include lattice or grid felts (crisscrossing yarns in a grid) and free lace (laying the yarn a freestyle pattern).


Sincerely,
HappyfrogfromAlaska

Creative Spinning

Handspun yarn is more than simply yarn. It is a creative endeavor. It has an intrinsic integrity that is built into the yarn by the very act of spinning. Every inch has been fed through the hand of the craftsperson. Formed. Changed. Created. Thought-through. Felt.
Handspun yarns are made by conscious beings, not unconscious machines. This imbues them with an internal energy, giving them character and uniqueness. Each yarn is a reflection of the individual spinner who made it. It is quality that makes handspun yarn so amazing to work with. As you work through a skein, you can see, inch by inch, the decisions that the spinner made. It passes before you just like a story...


Some people ask me why hand spun yarn is so expensive. The answer I found in old fairy tale of Brothers Grimm:)....
***********
There was once a girl who was lazy and would not spin, and her mother could not persuade her to it, do what she would. At last the mother became angry and out of patience, and gave her a good beating, so that she cried out loudly. At the moment the Queen was going by; as she heard the crying, she stopped; and, going into the house, she asked the mother why she was beating her daughter, so that every one outside in the street could hear her cries.The woman was ashamed to tell of her daughter's laziness, so she said, "I cannot stop her from spinning; she is forever at it.." Then Queen answered, "I like nothing better then the sound of the spinning-wheel; let me take your daughter with me in castle - she shall spin there to her heart's content."
When they reached the castle the Queen showed her 3 rooms which were filled with the finest flax as full as they could hold. "Now you can spin me this flax and when you can show it me all done you'll have my eldest son for bridegroom!' The girl was inwardly terrified, for she could not spun the flax, even if she were to live to be a hundred years old, and were to sit spinning every day of her life from morning to evening. The girl gazed out of the window...There she saw 3 woman passing by, and the first of them had a broad flat foot, the second had a big under-lip that hung down over her chin, the third had a remarkably broad thumb. They helped girl to spin all flax in well-spun yarn and girl invited them on her wedding. So when the feast began, in came the 3 spinsters...Bridegroom went up to the first spinster and said, "how is it that you have such a broad flat foot?" -"With treading", answered she. Then he went up to the second and said, "How is it that you have such a great hanging lip?" "With licking," answered she. Then she asked the third, "How is it that you have such a broad thumb?" "With twisting thread." answered she.
Then the bridegroom said that from that time forward his beatiful bride should never touch a spinning-wheel!
****
Enjoy completely unique texture and colors.
Sincerely,
HappyfrogfromAlaska