Some of my amazing supporters have sent me photos of them wearing my creations. This is what I have currently. I may create a separate page dedicated to customer photos. However just as it stands I will continue to update this blog post. If you have purchased anything from me and would like to contribute a picture of you wearing something you bought from me, or have a fish somewhere in your house snap a picture and I will post it. Please send the picture to either my facebook page or my email: [email protected] photo credit: Brayden Kenzidoria photo credit: Carrie Carmody photo credit: Robert Archer photo credit: Carrie Carmody photo credit: Joey Van Deurzen
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I have realized that I have been a little lax about where I am available for people to appreciate and/or purchase my art pieces.
Within the past few weeks I have been updating my website and adding a few other venues for you to follow me and my art. I will always have this website, but a few other places for you to see me is really for your benefit. I have always had a Facebook page, I am sure that most of you follow me and my ramblings there: www.facebook.com/curwhibblecrafts I also have a business page attached to my Pinterest Account. There I post pictures of some of my things and also add pictures and links to new blog posts and new items that are either being worked on or are available for sale. www.pinterest.com/rdanke/curwhibble-crafts My online presence has always included an email, especially for some people who would rather email than use social media. [email protected] For all you that follow Tumblr accounts, I have a newly created account waiting for people to follow it. www.curwhibblecrafts.tumblr.com I will be updating this list often, so please come back to see where I will be located. If there is a piece of social media that you frequent a lot, and you would like to see me there, give me a comment down below and I will be sure to look into it. Ryan Edward Danke Creator and Designer Curwhibble Crafts This is my newest to me wheels. I purchased it from a person on Craigslist. The style of this wheel is a Tyrolean. The Tyrolean Spinning Wheels were made in a Northern Germanic area. This wheel is dated pre-1850s based on a few things that were pointed out to me by a few antique dealers/connoisseurs.
The many years of non use had made all of the oils become a wax like substance and it was black. The bobbin was frozen in place because of the dried up oils. Now that it is cleaned all that it needs is a good oiling all over to reseal the wood and moisturize it.
Also just as an update she spins gorgeous. I have made a pact with her that I will only spin hand processed and natural colored fibers on her. Also this wheel is amazing for spinning lace weight yarn on. have yet to make a complete skein on her as I don't have as much time to play as I would like. So she sits in the studio as a display piece among a few other antique fiber processing tools. Do you have an antique wheel? What kind of condition was it in? Does it spin or is it just a display piece? Comment below with your experiences. Hello Everyone,
It has been a long time since my last blog or Facebook post. However that is all going to change soon. I have had some deep heart to hearts with a few great people in my life that have really inspired me. I really don't feel like getting into the logistics just yet but I made some deep and wonderful realisations about who I am as an artist and as a person in general. Here are some of the low downs of what is in the future for Curwhibble Crafts, myself, and you my awesome followers and supporters; it has been in the back of my mind for a while to start a YouTube channel that would include some awesome how to's, what I am currently working on, a ''meet the animals'', tips and tricks, etc. I want this to become a building block for many awesome opportunities. patterns! I have been designing really awesome items and am always confronted about if the pattern is for sale. Currently 99% of my items are made from a one of a kind perspective, be it the materials or the pattern. So to keep more of my awesome products coming I will be designing some really cool patterns in both knit and crochet and they will be able to be purchased. But to offer these awesome patterns I will need a fantastic board of both knitters and crocheters that will test these patterns. If you are interested in this please email me at [email protected] or use the contact link above. I promise to everyone that I will be more diligent at taking more pictures and listing more on my Facebook and etsy page. if you have been to my etsy page recently it is a dead zone much like my website and facebook and I apologize greatly. fibery goodness! it has been a love affair between me and the fiber world. I will soon be offering all forms of fiber as one man cannot have all this squishy softness for himself. I will be offering all forms of fiber, from straight off the animal to yarn, and in all forms of colors. I am really looking long term right now and I don't expect all this to happen over night. I hope all of you will support me in this time of transition and will enjoy every minute of it just as I will. If you have any suggestions of things you would like to see me do or offer I would love to hear them. Thanks for being patient in my absence, much love, Ryan Edward I recently saw a post on a group on facebook about picking out a raw fleece and I wrote a long comment and decided to share with you all!Here are some tips:1. Unroll the fleece and take a look at both sides
The cut side should be uniform with not a lot of shortcuts on it The tip side should be fairly free of vm, however some of my best fleeces had tons, it just matters depending on how much work you want to put in. Check for creepy crawlies, if there is a moth or larve walk away quickly, their entire stock could be contaminated 2. Snap Crackle Pop test pull out a lock from the tip end and while holding it with both hands quickly "snap" it next to your ear If you hear crackling or tearing noises the animal was sick/malnourished sometime during that fleece growth and won't be very fun to process, if it snaps or pops in your ear it is a good sound fleece. 3. Check your primitive fleeces for breaks This is something that I didnt do with my first primitive fleece, I bought it because it was pretty and bought it on a whim, glad I only paid $10 for it. Back on topic, any primitive sheep breed ie Shetland, Icelandic, Jacob, Navajo Churro, etc will go through a natural shedding during the appropriate season changes, thus, if the shearing is done too late you will find what seems to be short cuts in your finished batts/roving/rolags or a lot of waste left in your combs. This is because the old growth has begun to shed off and the new growth has emerged. A skilled shearer can see this and roo the fiber from the sheep. Which takes the fleece from the sheep without shearing. 4. Color Never shy away from any natural color, some of my best dye jobs are done on other colors besides white like rose gray and caramel colors 5. Know what your getting If you decide to buy more than one fleece open all of them, inspect each one know what you are getting, just because one fleece is nice doesnt mean they all are. (Personal Experience) 6. Just because something is free doesnt mean that you need it Now that you opened up the door to raw wool you will have offers by anyone asking if you want their fiber, most of the time its free because they dont use it. Again check it, make sure its suitable for what you want or if it is trash. 7. How is it priced? Is it priced per pound or per oz or as a complete fleece? If priced per weight ask for it to be skirted before it is weighed. Skirted pieces get tossed, why pay for something to automatically go to the trash. 8. Will it work? Do you have a specific project in mind? Is it soft enough? Is it durable? Longwools are especially useful for socks and outerwear and soft merino type is good for close to skin.These are a few of my pointers. Ryan Curwhibble Crafts Today I am announcing my limited quantity line of freeform crochet jewelry line.How I came about this: I have been looking at some freeform crochet objects since their maiden voyage and have tried before with no success. Then the other day I was working on spinning laceweight and had this great idea to make with the samples that I am making... Freeform Crochet Jewelry. I then grabbed my hook and the sample that I got done spinning and started creating. This is what I came up with: This is still in progress and I would like your input. Would it be more beautiful to add beads to it? Or maybe not... There are also a pair of earrings that go with it as well. It will soon be available for sale. Thanks For Reading
Remember to like my facebook page to get even more updates! Ryan Owner and Creative Designer Today I just finished up this special order for a customer. This hat was originally a bunch of dirty mucky fluff that was straight off the sheep. It is not the softest of fibers since it came off this customers meat sheep, I believe they are Suffolk. The fiber went from a mucky brown color to a beautiful creamy white. Since she gave me a huge lot of fiber in exchange for this hat, I tried out this method of washing that I was told that you couldn't do because it would felt the fiber. Here's what I did: I washed the fiber in the kitchen sink in super hot water until the water ran clear and no more lanolin was present. Then came the part that I was told not to do I put it in the washer to spin out the water and I only have the option of a rinse and spin which the rinse is supposed to felt the fibers. I thought that it couldn't hurt since if this fiber felted it wasn't that much of a loss because of the large amount of fiber I have. Then after the rinse and spin I wanted to play with the fiber right away so I wanted it dry right away. So there sat the empty dryer and so I stuck it in and turned it on fluff and let it go. Guess what! No Felting! There is precautions to this though: this was a medium fleece and the felting risk is not as risky. Do not do this to a fine fleece at all! Anyway, I then carded it into a nice batt and dyed it with kool-aid. Put it in the microwave and then let it dry. Then came the spinning. I left the yarn as a single and let it rest on my niddy noddy overnight. Then today I made it into this beautiful hat. Here are some more pics of the hat. I am in LOVE with the colors of this hat. I have taken note of how I did the dye process so replication is possible. If you would like to have a custom order done by me just email me at [email protected]. You could get a similar product made by me or something completely unique.Ryan
Creative Designer Over the past year I had somehow got bitten by the raw fiber bug, more so not too long ago. I was over my head in raw fiber, over 60+ lbs of raw, unpicked, greasy, awesome fiber. I HAD NO CLUE WHAT TO DO WITH IT ALL!!! Besides the point of having all this fiber I got a bug in my ear from my father about how hard could it be to open a mill of my own.
Then I met Ridgeley. I met her for the first time when I called her mill inquiring about her services when I only had a few lbs of alpaca and a jacob/shetland fleece. I then put off sending it in, and put it off, and soon I came over my head in fibery goodness. I then liked her facebook page and never turned back. Soon we became friends on facebook and chatted for many hours about fiber and everything about carding mills. This was the sad part: we live about 3.5 hours away I couldnt see driving all that way or even to drop these fleeces in the mail and not knowing if this is what I was able to send. I havent even skirted or sorted these fleeces because I had NO idea how to do those two things. So I had to find a way to Blue Hills Fiber Mill. I started to save my pennies to get this mill run underway. In the guild I am in, a good friend of mine has this awesome economical car called a prius and I asked her if she would want to drive me up to this mill with all this stinky fiber in her car and take this trek to the mill and we could both learn a few things. She agreed and we started the trek around 9:00 am and got there around 1:00 pm that was a long drive but that car was extremely comfortable. While at the mill Ridgeley delighted us with a whole tour of her mill and fiber farm. During the mill tour she showed us each one of the integral part of her mill and showed us how each part worked and why each part was important for the next step. It was awesome to see the mill in its entirety and get to see what happens to the fiber between the animal and my wheel in the sense of a fiber mill. I love the entire sense of being completely surrounded by the smell of the raw fiber and fell in love with the process. Then the tour of her animals. She showed us her farm of Alpacas, and her flock of fiber sheep that contained different breeds of sheep and explained each of their fiber to us, which later she showed us exactly what their fiber looked like and acted like in different scenarios. Then came my fiber. I had to skirt sort and label everything! Ridgeley took the time to help explain what was going on with each process of skirting and sorting and bagging. This was the most helpful time that I have had in my entire fibery lifetime. I learned that just because its fiber, doesnt mean that I HAVE to keep it all. It is ok to throw fiber away! I would like to publicly and personally thank Ridgeley for all the time that she spent with me and my friend. Everything was beneficial to our learning more about our craft. I am grateful that I chose you as my mill of choice and now I know that what I send to a mill is what I get back, mills are not miracle workers. She also got me started on washing my own fiber in a technique called Fermented Suint Washing. Yes, when it says fermented, it will STINK. I think I can handle it. Again, thank you Ridgeley, for everything you do and everything that you have done for I have made quite a few fish in the past couple weeks and wanted to show them to you. I have more than what is in the picture but wanted to show a good variety of them to you.
If you would like to have one of your own, email me at [email protected] price $5 plus s/h just ask for either a specific fish, a specific color or color combination, or a specific bag Thanks, Ryan Owner and Creative Designer I started dyeing!
but I'm ok :)I found these beautiful blooms alongside the road. I thought I could get some blue from it... maybe... lets cross our fingers. So this is what I did.
after I picked them I sat down and pulled off all the blooms. Sad, I know. to kill such beautiful flowers but it had to be done. Anyway, I'm not sure what these are. But I found them in the ditch.
Next step: HOT WATER I burnt myself I used two resealable coffee containers with boiling water in them. Then I added the plant materials, flowers in one, stems and leaves in another. Now we wait... Stay tuned for more! |
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March 2015
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