Shop Update - Hand Dyed Yarn

Over the past weekend, while I was working, Scott put in a big effort into updating the shop. I am very happy to announce that the full range of hand dyed yarn is now available from The Quizzical Owl shop.

I currently have five different sock yarn bases available and have named each one after long-lost civilisations, which were inspired by my museum studies and day job as a museum nerd.

The yarns available from the shop are:

Benin - Sock Weight Yarn, 100% Blue Faced Leicester, 400 Metres/100g

Herculaneum - Sock Weight Yarn, 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon, 400 Metres/100g

Mesopotamia - Sock Weight Yarn, 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Silk, 400 Metres/100g

Pergamon - Sock Weight Yarn, 100% Organic Merino, 400 Metres/100g

Nineveh - Sock Weight Yarn, 75% Superwash Merino, 20% Nylon, 5% Stellina Sparkle, 400 Metres/100g

Published today is the Weekend Edition of map magazine and I am very excited to be featured in their in the Gentlewoman section.

The dye pots have also been fired up again as at the end of May and early June we will be attending two exciting events. The first is on May 27, and is the Queensland Spinners, Weavers and Fibre Artists' Open Day. The second is a special BrisStyle Craft Caravan event on June 1st in King George Square, Brisbane.

I'll have some Double Knit (8 ply) yarn available at these events too. It's a gorgeous mix of Superwash Merino, Cashmere and Nylon. Yum!

Brisstyle Indie Twilight Market April 2012

On Friday the 28th April, The Quizzical Owl attended the Brisstyle Indie Twilight Market. The forecast was for rain so the location of the stall moved onto the terrace in King George Square. I'm so grateful that there is a wet weather option for us and for our customers. Thankfully the weather held off right until the very end of the market.

There were lots of people wandering around the market buying all the handmade lovelies. I was thrilled with the feedback that I received about my hand dyed yarn. This is only the second market I have brought it to, and it's still exciting when somebody loves it as much as I love dyeing it. The jewellery was also very popular. We love hearing people's reactions to the Lego! Most people laugh or giggle at the jewellery, which is the reaction I love the most. I enjoy making people smile with my work - who wouldn't? :-)

I had made some rings from dead Apple keyboards and had them available at this market. The keys were taken from three separate keyboards that had been fried, so rather than throw them away, I made good use of the pieces. The most popular key? The Command key.

Here are a few pics from the night:

Rings made from Apple keyboards

The crowds enjoying the handmade goodies

A whole basket full of hand dyed yarn

Supanova Gold Coast 2012

On the 21st and 22nd April we attended Supanova on the Gold Coast. This was the first time that the event had been held there. It was a huge success with lots of people enjoying themselves and plenty of media coverage of the event as well. I want to share some of the photos that we were able to take from the event.

This was our stall at Supanova, one of the goals for the next event is to have items to hang behind us to sell and make the backing wall look a lot brighter.

I loved these guys. Lots of people had amazingly intricate and accurate costumes but to me these three were typically Australian with their ingenious use of beer cartons.

Scott took the photo of the small boy dressed as Darth Vader taking on Sauron. This was just near our stall and the crowd of people watching this was huge, as you can see in the background of the photo.

The next Supanova that we will be attending will be in Brisbane in November. Can't wait!

Handmade High Street

Handmade High street is a relatively new shop in Annerley. It sells a range of hand made items by crafty Brisbane people.

I am very pleased to say that they are stocking my hand dyed yarn. It's a trial at the moment, to see how well the yarn does in a non-yarn shop. So far it's going smoothly.

I've had such fun experimenting with colour combinations and different dyeing techniques. It is very hard not keeping all of the yarn for myself though!!

Location, Location, Location

Things have been quiet the last couple of months on the blog. The main reason for this is that Scott and I moved house. Since returning from the UK we have been living with my parents, which has been fantastic and very helpful for us to find our feet again in Brisbane.

One of the reasons for the move has been because of a new job and living closer to that job. We have found a nice little house, which we are settling in to well. We've had to acquire a lot of stuff though! For our seven years in the UK we always lived in furnished flats, whereas in Australia most rental houses are unfurnished.

The most exciting thing about the new house is that I will now have a craft room. I have never had one of these before and it is very excited for me. Scott is also very excited as all of the business stuff will be able to be shut away in a room and not be all over the place. Well at least that is what he is hoping, reality may be a little different.

All of this excitement doesn't mean The Quizzical Owl has been neglected at all, it has been a busy few months:

• Attending the first Supanova Expo on the Gold Coast
• Brisstyle Indie Twilight Markets in February and April
• Stocking Hand-Dyed Yarn in Handmade High Street
• Being accepted to my first Australian Wool Show

Now that we are back into some kind of routine I will be blogging about all of these exciting events over the coming week.