luxe

the gorgeous lexi of pluckyfluff fame had her little boy!. and his name is atom. pretty cool. i think he is destined to be a rock star or an artist. although if he wants to run for congress, he might need to just use his initials. you know?

i was up until about 6 a this morning, but woke up by 930a which i feel better about than waking up at 1:30p. not cool at all.

ok, i am off to dye fiber, etc. more later. oh, is anyone interested in valentine’s day yarns?
smooooochies!
n.

freshly dyed
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

i updated both luxe and www.luxe.etsy.com, so go check em out. k?

i had a rough night last night, as you know my hands were hurting. they are better today after sleeping with my cock up. those are my wrist thingies, you filthy minded daughter of a something! and that always helps, as miserable as they are. they remind me of the resistance paddles i i used to swim with. so i couldn’t do much of anything.

i didn’t wake up until 1:30 p, which then dashed all of my plans for the day. i did spin a few fat skeins, and i listed new stuff on the sites, got some crocheting done, a will take more photos to-morrow. i left my phone in the kitchen, so not even the usual phone calls woke me up.

i ordered my fiber on saturday night, i think, and it came today, even though it was shipped ground. i told jake that the company is the bizarro twin of littlebarn, the worst service in the world! yeah! i am going to email him and ask him to give me credit for the 30 bucks i blew trying to dye a pound of cotton. asshole.

so to-morrow will be a big dyeing day, which i am excited about.

also, i sold some yarns, and normally when i list stuff, a sell a good bit of them. so that will be nice.

my in-laws, who we go on vacation to the beach with every summer will probably not be able to do it this year, due to their possibly opening a shop, so i was bummed when i found out. i am hoping that we can do something else, maybe with friends, as the beach is something that we really really look forward to. i looooove it. any beach. as long as it is clean and warm. that is all i care about. and not super crowded. and not too windy. and no sharks. and that is it. so we will see. money is tight, as i have been counting on just my art endeavors to earn cash, but….ooooh. ok. enough.

i was contacted by a couple of people about trading yarns for some really cool stuff, more on that later. i love trading! trading=new stuff for little money. yay!

ok, it is 1 a and i need to try to relax enough to sleep.

fuzzy love
n.

so these are some gauntlettes i made for clients…from handspun, of course.

Snuffleupagus You scored 52% Organization, 63% abstract, and 44% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables. First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean. Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type. Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself. You are somewhat organized, both concrete and abstract, and both introverted and extroverted. I bet you didn’t think you were Snuffleupagus. Let’s find out why. You are both somewhat organized. You have a good idea where you put things and you probably keep your place reasonably clean. You aren’t totally obsessed with neatness though. Alloyius Snuffleupagus (and all Snuffleupagus’) is not sloppy by nature, but he moves so incredibly slowly that it is impossible for him to be totally organized. You both are about equally concrete and abstract thinkers. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren’t afraid to explore your dreams and desires… within limits of course. Snuffy generally has very basic interests, but he explores his abstract sensitive side when he plays his snuffleflute. You both are somewhat introverted. Originally Snuffleupagus was very shy and was only Big Bird’s invisible friend. However as he has aged he has started to build new friendships with new characters. Like Snuffy, you probably like to have some time to yourself. However, you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren’t scared of social situations. The other possible characters are Oscar the Grouch Big Bird Cookie Monster Ernie Elmo Kermit the Frog Grover The Count Guy Smiley Bert If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you want to tell me your favorite Sesame Street character, I can total them up and post them here. Perhaps your choice will win!

jan 12
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

why am i not knitting or spinning, it’s 10 p? what gives? my carpal tunnel and/or arthritis is acting up, suddenly, as usual. i started knitting and my left hand started to ache, and then really hurt and then both hands. so i can’t even type very well. not with my splints on.

i have a lot of new yarns to put in the store, and they will be up to-morrow afternoon. i will send an email out, as usual.

what did i learn about the cotton that refused to dye? well, it seems that it is not me, but the cotton, which i got from littlebarn, notorious for jacking things up, so either it is coated with something, which would make sense because it is resisting the dye in a big way, or, it is mismarked and not cotton at all. this is from the same people that sold me turquoise dye that was actually black dye. the same company that says orders are going out to-morrow and three weeks later when it hasn’t come, he tells you that he sent it and it must have gotten lost, like the last one. and the one before that. and when you check, you find out that he didn’t charge your card, which means that he didn’t ship it. but some of the stuff they sell is super cheap. i guess you pay for it in other ways. ok, i cannot type anymore.

send my psychic arm massages, ok?
smooooooochies!
n.

jan 12
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

i am fighting the urge to get up and spin some more. i spun some gorgeous mohairy yarns today, and the colors i blended make me woozy. yum-meeee. that is all i can say. i will update to-morrow, so keep your peeps open. ok.

so. last night heather told me she wants to get a giant william blake tattoo on her back. and as much as i love her, i feel like tattooing is a million years away. butter has a sleeve started and i get depressed just thinking about working on it. i enjoyed it, a lot of the time. i did. especially when i would get into the zone and things would go perfectly. but i absorbed people’s stress and anxiety. i worried about the shop bills. people were rude. plenty of people were really great to me, but more often, overly demanding. people acted like you owed them something, like they owned you. it is a strange thing. they act as badly as they want to. and even when they are trying to do their best, they exude fear and stress. they are in pain. i am causing it. sometimes, they would kick me. at the end of the day, i was tied up in knots. i was exhausted. i felt sick. i felt sick all the time. and then the sign from above came…my hands got weak. i would drop things. then, my hands started to ache. more and more. worse and worse, until it shot up my arms into my shoulders. my doctor told me it was carpal tunnel. i wore the splints, which helped, but it is a frickin splint. it doesn’t give you much mobility. my whole life, i have done everything to protect these little hands. i have known, since i was little, these hands are what i have. no sports. no bikes. no punching. no skating. and then, i had carpal tunnel. what? no. within a month, i decided to quit the shop. and once i decided, a weight was lifted. immediately. i realized that i was trying to fix problems that i had not created. people didn’t take care of piercings, got them done somewhere else, and came to me to fix them. i was tired of it. they came to me because i knew so much about it, yet went somewhere else in the first place because it was 10 bucks cheaper. or whatever. i got sick of being angry, frustrated, paying all the bills and opening and cleaning the shop and doing everything all the time. my ex-partner at the shop did nothing to help. he made the mess, he came in late, smelling like pee and cigarettes and looking like hell, dirtied the whole place and left. i was done. totally done. and when it was over, i thought i would miss it. the quick money, the people…i didn’t. not a bit. and i don’t. ever. friends want me to do stuff for them, and i still get calls from clients, and my mom tried to line up some cosmetic tattoo jobs for me, which pay a lot. i can’t even imagine doing it. trying to put people at ease. trying to act like i feel ok. not sick, not tired.

so, jake told me that when i was still there i was somber, distant and miserable. i didn’t think it was so obvious. i remember that when i got home, i didn’t want to talk. everything annoyed me. and jake is very sensitive to my moods, and leaving me alone if i am in a bad mood. i felt sick all of the time. i had a headache every day. i was exhausted all the time, especially when i woke up.

i feel so different now. i used to think that i was lazy. i could not stand being at work and when i was alone and gabe didn’t come in , it was unbearable. horrible. once i started knitting, it helped a lot. i don’t mind waiting around, or just sitting when i have knitting. you know?

so, i had wanted to learn to knit for a really long time. me granny on my dad’s side was a big knitter, and it made me feel connected to her. anyway, amy had been knitting for a while, and a friend that hung out with me a lot knitted. well, she was the sort of forever beginner knitter and crocheter. you know? anyway, she taught me to cast on knit and purl, bind off. and i changed it into my own strange method, promptly. and after a series of minor tweaks, realized that it was basically continental with a combination twist. and i learned to not twist my stitches, although at the time, i didn’t know why that was really a problem. but, it really is, so i had to relearn how to knit. and i am a slow learner. but obsessive, so it works out fine. but i knew, as soon as i learned to knit, that it was going to be something else. something really really big. huge. the beginning of something amazing. and from that november day that i learned to knit 15 months ago…i have never looked back. and the best is yet to come.

to my loyal readers that were reading my blog when i was bitching and moaning about work, and being sick and showing you my freeform projects, which i did not know had such a cool name as “freeform” and showing them to you all, and getting such rave revues, like i deserved that in any way. nooooo. but i owe so much to you. to helping me realize that i can. it is like having a discussion with myself. ok, the L-word is on, new season…rock! so must go, but please leave comments, i will answer them.

much love.
n.

jan 12
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

first, let me thank the handsome and brainy jason, the master of my web, for cleaning up my blog, and tweaking my website. clap for him! clap for him! and! he is single, ladies. and as i said, handsome, and brainy. nice teeth. clean ears. what more can you ask for, really?

so why was i up all night, you ask? was i getting it on? maybe. not all night though. after going to sleep late last night, after dinner with friends, a jaunt over to barnes and noble, which got me the new fiber arts mag….and it is a good one, and bullfinch bullwinkle’s mythology book, and some quality hanging out time, and then, well, not your business, really, i woke up with a bad patch thing going on and took 3 showers, tried to read, had a snack, took anti-anxiety pills, and lots of em, to try to chill out, and then realized it was the stupid patch. once i switched patches, i was fine, but it was not good sleeping until then. and then i had strange dreams about a coal mine and a man who had sex with his dog. and a snake that looked like pavel that i had to put to sleep because it killed a bunch of animals. and i couldn’t put him to sleep, of course. it was really strange.

ok, so this yarn over here, i have handstrung sequins all through it…strung by me on thread that broke a bunch of times and a strung them again. and again. and again. like a dummy, but it looks really pretty, although in the pic you can’t see that many. it is gorgeous, though. i lurve it. and the yardage is about 100 yards i think. not too shabby.

i have new yarns to put on the site to-morrow, it think, i am really happy with what i have been making, and feeling really good about my progress. i dyed a ton of fiber, including cotton, hemp and linen and for some reason, the cotton didn’t take. i have no clue what that is all about, but i put it back in to stew for another 24 hours. if it didn’t take again, i have no clue what the deal is. everything else took great. once it is dry, i am excited to mess around with it. if anyone has any idea why it wouldn’t take on the cotton, leave me a note, k?

ok, off i go.
smooochies.
n.

jan 12
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

so…full moon makes me feel shitty, and it is, well…a full moon. i hate feeling like this. most of the day i felt jubilant, jubilant? yes. i did. gorgeous and warm outside. sunshine. it was as though it wasn’t even winter at all. i saw tom, the only guy at snb, at michael’s when i stopped to get more sequins, so that was nice. i told him i used to be in the kgb. i came home and spun two fatty skeins, pictured in my flichr account, this one is peachy, there is a pinky one, also, and i hand strung a zillion sequins last night, and then plied them into some yarns, and it looks amazing, a really different look than having chunks of sequins strung in, really sparkly and pretty.

i also decided, early this morning, reveling in the sunshine, that i needed to start getting up early, to appreciate said sunshine. to-morrow, i may not think that anymore.

so i felt really good, and then, i started to feel shitty and edgy and…here i am. full moon, as i said.

there are a few new yarns on luxe and a couple in my etsy store, for those of you interested.

oh, also, i am really interested in greek myths and am looking for input on what is comprehensive, and fun to read, also. modern? i am reading the penelopiad by margaret atwood, as i have said, one of my most favorite writers.

smooooochies. sigh.
n.

jan 10
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

i do. i do. anyway, i finally got the approval for the handspun luxury yarns webring, and when you google handspun art yarns, everyone that comes up is on that ring. so i didn’t. and that pissed me off. big time. i apologize for my rotten mood last night. i sold some yarns, got on the webring, got some advertising lined up, feeling good. i spun a big fat spool so far, and decided to blog while i had it in me, still.

what else? since last night? isn’t that enough? oh, it is super nice outside, and i opened the windows, so that cats are all on a window looking out and smelling the air, except for kahlo, who is serving as a purring headrest for me. as usual. she is a sweet girl. she is the reason i took a spinning break. i try not to let the cats in the studio in the interest of allergic clients, and she cries at the door and scratches and puts her snoot under the door and i cam in to let her fall asleep, so i could go back in silence. i give in and let her in when amy and/or heather are over, because she loves rolling around and hanging with the gals. she especially loves amy. she has known her pretty much her whole life, crazy as that is, and kahlo wants to be a librarian just cause amy is going to be one. copycat.

oh, this here yarn is one of the new ones up on luxe so check em out. also, i am wondering if you guys think that it is easy to see the yarns, or if the photos on my site are too small, or need more photos to really show the yarns. i think that, but i am not sure if it is just me. please feel free to comment. also, right now…free shipping…the code to type in to the coupon thingy is “freeship” appropriately enough.

smoooch!
n.

jan 10
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

i put some new yarns up, really pretty ones, so go and check em! before they are gone.

i made tacos for dinner with a different mix than we usually use. they were mega salty. after eating them, i thought that it probably had msg in it, it was so salty…yeah, it did. so for the rest of the night, i have felt out of sorts, i am hoping i don’t get a migraine. i have a super bad reaction to it. bad. we will see.

i have been spinning a lot, and trying to get my advertising, etc ready to go. i am having trouble getting the handspun luxury web ring to accept my site, cause you know, that isn’t what i sell. i actually sell milk. cat milk. sigh.

my mom-in-law ordered this awesome cat tree thing for us, you know, that cats grow on…nah, that they play on, and it looks like a tree, it is really cute and big and we got it wholesale, so we got an awesome deal on it, and the cats have been taking turns laying on it. there is even a hammock on it. will anyone lie on it? probably not, but they dig it. so that is good.

ok, i am in a bad mood, which i don’t need to spread around, so i will post more to-morrow.

smoochies,
n.

jan 4
Originally uploaded by natashafialkov.

so, i spun some gorgeous stuff last night, even after waking up, i still thought so, out of bits and pieces. amy saw them and said “just bits and pieces?” yes. exactly so.

i dyed a few pounds of fiber today and it all came out gorgeous. the ones that i am sure will be ugly are always the best ones. how does that work? also, i figured out a way to load my giant pot up and only do 1 pot, rather than a zillion batches, and the way i rolled the packets of dyed yarn to go into the pot not only took up less space, but did not leak onto another batch and rinsed almost totally clear. the handwarmers i knitted out of my handspun striped, and i made an effort to dye things to have big fat soft stripes. yummo! that was another case of a yarn looking plain to me and knitting up gorgeous. never judge a yarn by it’s skeining. you know?

ok, i am off to spin and watch rollergirls. i am a badass inside, in my head, maybe i look like a badass to some people, but i am a born and bred pussy when it comes to physical anything. i have been terrified of breaking my hands since i was a really small kid. i understood very early that it was what i had, and i never skated, caught balls, rode a bike…none of it. and then, it became superstition, that i wanted to learn, kind of, but i was sure that if i did it, i totally would break em. also, i am accident prone. i am a ball magnet. if a ball is near, it will peg me. hard. and i am delicate. i break very easily. arm, finger, wrist, ankle, foot, nose a few times. it looks super fun to be in the roller derby, plus to be a total shit talking badass, but i would get an asthma attack and then fall and break my hand. so when it comes to spinning….fearless! art? fearless! there aren’t many people i am afraid of. not many things…just getting my hands busted. oh, and peeing my pants in public. that too. when i was a kid, i was at kennywood, a local amusement park, and saw a biker lady have a seizure and pee her pants. she also was convulsing, but i thought to my young self “oooh no, she peed her pants! how embarrassing!” i even fear getting into an accident and peeing my pants. bungee jumping…and you guessed it. so i won’t do that. afraid of falling? yeah. afraid of peeing my pants? hell yeah.

i made some sweet bread with brown sugar butter in it, and i need to go take it out…pics to-morrow.

and i will be a better blogger, like i used to be. i swear it. now, go watch rollergirls…the holy rollers, rock! and there is a girl called lux!

fuzzy smoochies!
n.