This one is a very smooshy single-ply of a wool and nylon blend. I think it would make gorgeous scarves, cowls, or even a shawl. I’ve already gotten to dye some up as a test, and this yarn is begging to be dyed in rich tones of a kettle-dyed nature.

As a side note – I will also be carrying a more familiar fingering base. The 70/30 merino/silk blend I’ve had in before. It’s a nice four-ply, non-superwash yarn with a little bit of shine to it. Lovely lovely.

In case you’re wondering, I’m moving Maiden Yarn to mainly fingering weight (my favorite to knit with) and spinning fiber at the beginning of October. It’ll simplify things for me, and allow me to offer a wider range of colors in the same weight (if not same fiber blend) of yarn. Plus, who doesn’t like fingering and sock weight?

I’m really rather excited, but I shall try to remain rational.

One moment while I get a grip on myself –

- ahem -

The second new base is this two-ply superwash merino. I’d call it more of a lightweight fingering, but we’ll see what it does after being dyed. I haven’t worked with this particular yarn before, and I’m really eager to see what it does. If I’m reading it right, it will probably have a lovely shine, and look great in variegated tones.

I bet it would do great fingerless gloves. Or maybe a hat. (Ooh, a tam or beret! I must try this now.) The two-ply construction seems fairly durable, while still being plush enough for comfort. (Yes, definitely a beret.)

Alright. Back to the subject at hand.

I have grand plans to have skeins in each of the two new bases dyed and in the stores during the first week of October. We’ll see how it goes! I can hardly wait to get that superwash one in the dye pot.

~Rebekah

After a lovely time together, my “Rondel” base laceweights are retiring. These are the lovely alpaca/silk blends with a unique construction, lots of drape, and a little touch of fuzzy halo. It’s been lovely having them, but it is their time to go.

All that being said, the skeins of Rondel left in my laceweight store are now on sale. So drop on by if you’d like to adopt one before they go away. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

~ Rebekah

I’ve come to the conclusion that fall could use a little shoving along. It’s been in the eighties around here (lovely!) and getting chilly at night. Let’s hear it for the caramel apples, candy corn and peanuts, and cold apple cider.

Wow. Do I sense a food theme here?

Lots and lots of Bluefaced Leicester roving. Yum.

It’s getting towards time to order in lots more undyed materials, and I’ve been trying to narrow down the plethora of ideas I have. Believe me, if I had my way I’d have twenty or thirty pounds of raw materials on their way to my doorstep right now.

One thing I’ve been pondering would be a new line of merino/cashmere/nylon lace in my Laceweight Yarns store. It’s a slightly heavier lace, (extremely soft and squishy) and I think it would make fabulous scarves and such for fall.

The other idea is coming up with a few special colorways on worsted or aran weight yarn, and offering special “sweater’s worth” deals. Something along the lines of “Here’s the yarn, I’ll custom dye it in one of these colorways, and you order eight to ten skeins and get a good sized discount” sort of a thing. As someone who loves knit sweaters, I don’t like the idea that you’d have to pay a couple hundred bucks to get enough gorgeous hand-dyed yarn. I think a discount should definitely be in order for such a large undertaking.

Lots to think about.

This first one ( “Violette” ) is named after a Maxfield Parrish painting. The painting is a rather whimsical piece in which the Knave of Hearts watches Lady Violette baking those famous tarts. But, while the subject matter is more humorous, the colors are downright gorgeous.

This scarlet and sapphire one was inspired by another of Maxfield Parrish’s paintings, but was very difficult to name. I finally settled on “Venice.”

And this one is called “Amber Lily,” and it was purely an accident. But definitely a happy accident!

I’m hoping to get up some pictures of the finished samples I sent off for Phat Fiber, but it’ll be a bit before I’m able to import them from the camera.

June is LaceweightYarns‘ anniversary month, so I’m running a free shipping sale on U.S. and Canadian orders, starting tomorrow night (Sunday) and lasting one week. Other countries will receive discounted rates.

And blog post wise, well, I have lots to share. Hopefully I can snag an hour or two and get you caught up. Gravel roads, fording creeks, a drum carder that won’t keep its claws to itself, and knitwear idea that morphed into five or six items.

I loved every minute of it.

In fact, that’s all the confirmation I need to know that I’m doing what I really want to be doing. Selling fiber and yarn definitely holds enough excitement for me to last as long as God wants me here.

One of those sales was a refilling sale for the local yarn store. They needed more of the wholesale laceweights in certain colors, so I was able to stock them up on those. Here’s a picture of a few of the early colorways we put together. They have since been refined a little bit, and Dawn Treader isn’t pictured, but it’ll give you a general idea.

For the refill, they needed (among other things) six skeins of Dawn Treader. That’s the biggest yarn run in one colorway I have ever done, as of yet. I’ve got a custom Etsy order lined up for eight skeins of Blackberry lace, so that’ll take the record in terms of number of skeins.

I also dyed up my last two braids of Corriedale roving, so be watching for those in the store. One is the fiber version of my new colorway “Ink” (you can see the sock version here), and the other is probably going to be called “Japanese Bridge.” It’s reminiscent of Monet’s famous painting.

I’m discovering that I need to get way more fiber braids in my store ASAP. All the Bluefaced Leicester in Dawn Treader are gone, as are all the other braids I listed at the beginning of the month. I’ve got a bit more of undyed coming in (Wensleydale fiber!) but it’ll be a while before I can place another large fiber order. Hopefully we can hold out long enough.

Between all this order shipping I’ve been working away on a fun spinning project. It’s a llama, silk, and merino (I think) hand spun yarn, and I beaded a portion of it.
This was my first time beading a yarn.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the yarns. I’m just really ready to start dyeing more, and experiment with new yarn bases and all that jazz. (Yep, short interest span. That’s me.) And stuff needs to sell before I buy more yarns. It’s a horrible fact of life.

Not that I’ve had time to dye lately. (I wish.) I’ve been working on putting together some How-To DVDs for my mother’s business, and one of these involves crochet. Yep, I get to play with all these lovelies. (Yes, they’re acrylic, but not all acrylic is bad acrylic! Now I’ll wait for the stones to stop being thrown. )

Ahem. We’re going to be filming the next week or so, which means lots of work and doing tough things. If God brings it to mind, please pray that I’ll be able to just jump in and get stuff done. I’m an expert at sticking a toe in the water of a new project, then whining for a couple days about the temperature.

However, to get to the point, one of his shorter writings features tips on writing letters and contains this little gem: “My second Rule is, don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!” And I have taken this to heart. I think it safe to assume that you’re fed up with my apologies for not having blogged sooner, so I will dispense with them forthwith.

I’ve been keeping pretty busy lately with various fiber projects. One of which was a large undertaking.
Eight ounces of superwash BFL fiber to be handspun and dyed for a Maiden Yarn customer. Oh my goodness – I practically had to fight off my knitting sister to keep the spun yarn. Bluefaced Leicester is rapidly elbowing its soft and lustrous way to the top of the fiber heap, so to speak. It’s simply wonderful stuff.

And, of course, it’s just coincidental that I happen to have more Bluefaced Leicester on my other spinning wheel.

This is the “Violet, You’re Turning Violet!” roving I mentioned earlier. A blend of BFL and silk, dyed by OrangeJello. I’m really enjoying spinning this, especially as I’m spinning it on the wheel that was formerly in disgrace. I hauled the wheel back downstairs from its exile in the bonus room and decided to give it another chance. Mainly because my other two wheels were full of custom BFL, and (amazingly enough) some more BFL that was a gift from my aunt. Do I sense a theme here?

This will most likely end up in the neighborhood of a two-ply fingering weight. I’m rather enjoying the ability to just kick back and spin and not worry about getting the weight exactly right, or making sure there aren’t any weird little bumps and slubs in the fiber. This is fiber for me, and yarn for me, so I will spin in such a way that it promotes my fiber experience. In other words, I’ll spin it the way I choose and pick up the chips later.

Not that I have a project in mind for the finished yarn, though. I’ll have to wait and see for sure what gauge it winds up at and go from there. Oh, and yardage. That’s a bit of a factor. I made the mistake of browsing Ravelry’s patterns again and discovered an interesting fact about myself. Apparently I labor under the delusion that bigger is better. Do I like the little shrugs or lacey half-sweaters? No, of course not! I go for the giant knitted coats with cables and snowflakes, or the shawls the side of bedspreads. Not exactly conducive to the four-ounce braid of roving. And I doubt I’ll have a chance to spin that much yarn anytime this year.

I’m so flabbergasted that we’re almost into December already! And this is a good sort of flabbergasted. This is a “oooh, Christmas is coming” sort of sensation. I’ve already snagged some fun little Christmas-y things for my two stores. Hurrah for half off sales at Hobby Lobby.