Archive for October, 2009

No need to confess that I had already spun a yarn for Halloween.
It was rather wild and was meant to be knitted into a fashion scarf for my sister.
However, I had another yarn in mind: a tweedy yarn spun from merino, silk and sparkle containing some softer Halloween colors.
So, my completed Halloween project for the EtsyBloggers RollCall is now this one:

This yarn will be transformed into a nice hat!
Hope you’ll like it.

Just two lines to tell that I’ve been featured on Etsy’s Home Page with this yarn:

It was and still is a big honour! I’m so thrilled!
Thanks to the Etsy Team and to all the people who came and visited my shop!

This month’s featured EtsyBlogger is madebymelissa
She makes “Handcrafted Jewelry and Crochet Goodness”. I’ve visited her shop many times, even before joining the EtsyBloggers Team. I really admire her handmade creations.
Have a look yourself!
This is her Etsy Shop and this is her blog.
Enjoy!

• Just updated my shop with three new yarns http://zuccherofilato.etsy.com #

It’s not a mistery to anyone who knows me that I hate plying, although I love 2ply fine yarns.
Deciding to spin a 2ply is always a suffering, yet I can’t help it when I feel the softness of a superfine merino roving.
These are the latest adds to my collection:


As soon as I have some decent pictures, I’ll be uploading them to my Etsy shop.

I handspun my first Halloween yarn, as promised.
I love it! It’s so soft, and yet so puckish


Pictures are awful as usual, but I’m preparing for the big shooting tonight!

I write this post just to share the most useful tools I use to have control on my Etsy shop stat.
They are surely already well known, but just in case…
Statsy has many interesting features, like Vutrac, a cool tool which allows you track each of your items’ views and hearts across periods of time, or a Locator, that searches Etsy search results for an item and tells you on which page and what place it is. The Colormatic is a nifty little tool that can show you which color Etsy thinks a listing is. It’s this color value which is used for the Color Search feature. Through Statsy.org you can also see who likes most your Esty products and subscribe to receive an e-mail every time you get featured on Etsy’s front page.
Craftopolis has as slight different approach. It counts your Etsy hearts, but also tells you when you get included in an Etsy treasure. It can give you some nice surprises!
Craftcult is my favorite. Everything here is clean and simple. Do you want to know how many hearts you have? Use Heart-O-Matic and you will now. Do you want to know the hearts number for every single item? Heart-O-Matic can do this as well.
Check it out! It’s addictive!

I just discovered that Northeast Fiberart Center has launched its 3rd Biennal Fiber Challenge.
As stated on the website this challenge is an invitation or call to create something, given a defined set of yarns/fibers that you probably wouldn’t put together on your own (hence, the challenge) thru means of knitting, crocheting, tatting, weaving, felting, hooking, tapestry, bobbin lace, or any other fiber craft by which you are able to transform the set of yarns/fibers into a finished product for which you may win a great prize!
It promises to be very amusing and I’ll try to participate.

Halloween is getting close and I want to spin some themed yarns.
I found this palette on colourlovers:

It matches exactly what I have in mind and these merino rovings I hand dyed two weeks ago are perfect:

I think that I’ll be adding some angelina, just to spice them up.
I don’t want to spin a standard yarn, my 2 ply are very soft but they are killing my wild side…