I saw three gifts on Christmas day

Happy holidays everyone! Today is the day! The three winners for our holiday special are chosen.

We had 29 people to reply to the blog posting and who were in the running for the set of stitch markers. I wrote the chronological numbers on lots and the first good luck fairy (my dear boyfriend, so it was a very bearded fairy) drew #17 which is ESME.






Four people sent us back project photos and the winner is MARIE with her "Engel I Snoen" which is really cool and I'm particularly happy for her.

The Tartan&Kilt yarn will stay in Germany and will travel to the North to TIKALINA. She also sent back a photo of her adorable polka dot crochet scarf. There were six customers during the time span of our giveaway and my mother drew the lots.

Congratulations you three and thanks a lot everyone for participating, and even if you did not win we are very thankful to have you as our customers.

The becoming - Part 2

We received back two more project photos.
The first is from Katharine, who bought the "Elinor Dashwood", a yarn which I liked a lot and planned to keep at first, but I could not find a good pattern to work with it for a while. It is made from brown alpaca, merino and baby camel fiber, violet merino and some white merino and silk and contains little seed beads, faceted bohemian glass beads, violet sequins and white faux pearls.
Katherine knitted it up into a lacy cowl which is a really cool project for the yarn, I like a lot how it turned out:



Tikalina made a crochet scarf from the "Polkadot" yarn, which is a cute yarn with fabric stripes. The scarf is really a neat idea and I adore it.



Thanks a lot, guys, for all the pretty photos and for sharing it!

Have yourself a very frosty photoshooting

For at least a year I had this idea - knit a very special hat from a handspun xmas tree art yarn. With glowing fairy lights and lots of sparkling stuff.
Well, I finally did it and it is for sale here in our shop. I had a skein left over from last year, mainly because of bad timing (why must this time of the year go away so quickly??? I could spend at least 4 more weeks with spinning xmassy yarns and also doing other stuff like shopping for the perfect presents and baking cookies).

The yarn is spun from extrafine merino in greens and white, and includes lots of sparkly things like beads, sequins, stars, garland and tinsel.



It turned out to be just perfect for the cause. It was just enough for the hat and the included garland is just placed on the right spot, the repeats of the different coolors right how I hoped they would turn out! The only problem is the tinsel - I was not so convinced about it in the first place and it doesn't stay in. But it could be removed completely or I could also come up with a way to include more.

Here is a close-up:



So one frosty afternoon I braced myself against the cold winter wind and went out into the snowy park to take some photos of it. Please excuse my weird look, being cold, watched by passers-by and trying to get some good shots before my finger freeze was a bit much to manage at the same time.

At least someone was so nice to put up a giant mirror wall in the park - as a part of the annual "Trees & Lights" Festival in Geneva

I also managed to include the chain of lights! It consists of tiny LEDs in red, green and yellow and is powered by two 1,5V AA batteries. It is just a short string and I put in in a spiral on the hat. And it GLOWS!

The becoming - Part 1

First a little reminder for our still ongoing giveaway special. You have one more day to leave a comment to win the set of stitch markers, buy some yarn from our shop or send us back pictures of your project with our yarns.

Here are some pictures we have received - and maybe some inspiration for you if you are looking for some ideas for what to create of our yarns.

First a cape/cozy from Fazzo:
Teetante took part in an art yarn swap with the theme "nature sprites" and sent her the yarn "Tree Spirit". Nice work!



Marie got inspired by the yarn "Silver Frost" - and the song "Angel in the snow" by her favourite (just a little understatement) band A-ha too knit her scarf "Engel i Snoen". She combined several yarns to an a-ma-zing scarf! It turned out like a dream, just look at the details, like the tibetan silver charms she included at the end!




She also knitted another scarf - "Angel's Delight", which she still plans to sell to donate 100% of the price for breast cancer charity. If you are interested, she will be happy to be notifyed.

More pictures soon!

A Feature

Pink (no, not the singer) was so nice to feature our Poinsettia yarn in her blog "That Crafty Bitch"!



Thanks a lot, we are really honored. She also runs two etsy shops, one with nice buttons, recycled clothes and bags and other pretty things, the other one with her handmade pottery. Check it out!

A short lesson on strange Swiss traditions

Once upon a time, in December of 1602, the evil French troops from neighboring Savoy tried to conquer the city of Geneva, which was (and still is) at the southwestern border of Switzerland, surrounded just by French territory and the lake Geneva. They hoped to surprise the Genevans in the middle of the night and tried to climb the wall to open the city gates from within. Just around the place where I sit now and type this, but there was no Starbucks at that time, and no internet of course.

Well, the Genevois noticed it, raised the alarm and defended the city walls. It is also said that there was a woman (la "Mère Royaume") who poured a cauldron of boiling soup over the attackers. In the end the French were defeated and since that time, in Geneva there is he Festival of the "Escalade" (means something like climbing), which is celebrated every December. The funny thing is how they celebrate it. Ok, they have a nice costume parade and bands playing at night, with horses and illuminations by torches. They also have a famous marathon where people run several times through the city, which seems to be quite a big event and for the children there's a Halloween-like disguise thing.


But the strangest thing ever is that they create chocolate cauldrons in best Swiss chocolate, filled with marzipan vegetables, all in remembrance of their favourite weapon to fight foreign troops. They make a huuuuuge one which is smashed in a public event. But you can also buy smaller ones in different sizes, emty or filled, in dark, milk or white chocolate. They are really all over the city, in every chocolaterie the shopping windows are in brown, yellow and red colors.

You may ask why I am telling you all this stuff. The reason is: it seems as if I'm getting a kind of Genevan after all, since I came upon the idea to spin a yarn in remembrance of the chocolate cauldrons in remembrance of the historic one. Therefore I acquired an official Geneva crest, used real Swiss alpaca fiber and some none-Swiss merino and golden angelina (well, Geneva is kind of international anyways...) and created little polymer clay vegetables like mushrooms, radishes, potatoes, gherkins and so on. The yarn is plied with a brown sewing thread and contains some red and yellow 2ply-sections. Here is the finished product:







I brought it over to Tricolaine, but if you are interested in getting in just drop a note.

Pour les Genevoises

Annelis is housing three of my winter yarns at Tricolaine again, here they are:



"Santa's Hat" is made from red extrafine merino and white bluefaced leicester fiber. It contains 3 little santa hats from felted fabric, glass beads and multifaceted sequins.

"Rudolph" is an old friend, I already spun it last year. I really loved it so that I had fun spinning a new skein. I just finished another one which will go to the online shop in a few days. It is spin from red extrafine merino and a mix of hand processed brown alpaca (from a Swiss farm) and brown merino. It contains little brown felted reindeers, red little bells and red pompons.

"Poinsettia" is a new yarn from red extrafine merino and green handcarded merino who also contains some golden angelina and little amounts of red fiber which gives a tweed-like effect. I spun felt flowers, green multifaceted sequins and red rocailles into it. There is also another skein for the etsy shop.

So if you are around and interested, go and check it out!

Have a nice Holiday season!
Teetante

New pics

As some of you might have noticed I had a huge load of problems with my camera lately and the pictures turned out to be blurry and...well... if I would curse in public I would do it now.

Anyway I was able to solve this problem and have taken new pictures for China Jade which is such a gorgeous yarn and appeared crappy in the pictures. But not any more :-)!

Check this out:

I hope you like it as much as I do. It is a handdyed handspun soy silk beauty perfect for wool allergics of any kind (whether you are really allergic or just can't stand the itching).









See ya, Tini

The Biiiiiiig Holiday Giveaway

We decided to make some people happy - because that makes US happy. There will be three lucky winners on Christmas Day, Dec 25th, who we will announce in our blog.

The first one will be the new owner of this absolutely gorgeous skein or art yarn:



It is spun by Tini and she named it "Candle Light". It is a thick, bulky single yarn in orange, yellow and red with some golden glittering angelina fiber. Soooooooo cuddly and soft, you will love it!


The second winner will get this set of 10 stitchmarkers, handmade by Teetante from faceted bohemian glass beads in reds & greens. They are really pretty and are made from a wire sling which makes them usable also for bigger needles and convenient to put on and off the needles.



The third giveaway is another yarn, spun by Teetante. It is the quite famous Tartan&Kilt yarn, Spun from a handcarded merino fiber batt and includes fabric stripes.



So you might ask yourself what you have to do in order to win one of these beauties.
The first will be given to one of the people who send us back a photo of a finished project (ok, almost finished is also right), made from one of our yarns. Just send it to info1234@1234authenticfiction.net (remove all numbers!) with the permission to publish it on our blog or website (with your credits of course!). We are sooooo curious to see what becomes of our yarns that it would really make us happy if you send us loads of photos.

For the stitch markers just answer to this blog post, and if you are lucky we will draw your name. Please make sure to leave your valid email adress or other means to contact you.

Finally, the Tartan&Kilt yarn will be sent to one of our customers in the next month.


For all three things, you have time to participate between now and the midnigt to December 25th (GMT time zone). On Christmas Morning we will draw the winners by lot. One entry per person, and every gift will go to a different winner. So have a nice pre-holiday season and watch out for our Collection of winter yarns, like Rudolph, Midwinter's night, A Hat full of Santa etc. in the next weeks.

A new home

Hello our fellow yarn lovers,

we have found a new home here. I hope you'll enjoy it as we do-

The welcome Christmas party will be announced soon so we'll keep you posted!

Cheers, Tini and Teetante