My Father brought home some new tea yesterday. Tazo’s “Sweet Cinnamon Spice”, and believe me, it’s wonderful. The perfect thing for a crisp morning when biscuits are in the oven. The tea smells every bit as good as those cinnamon scented pinecones (the ones you walk by in stores and have to remind yourself over and over that they’re not edible) but it doesn’t taste as garishly cinnamon as some other cinnamon drinks. With a touch of honey, it’s beautiful.
This week has been a little more laid back than usual, but I don’t mind that at all. Friday will be a dye day, with some “hired to dye” yarns in various colorways.
But last week I was able to dye a whole bunch of my Fall yarns, and I am thrilled to report that the new yarn bases behaved themselves better than expected. Here are three of the new single-ply fingerings –
And here is one of the two-ply superwash skeins. This one took the colors just like I thought it would – lots of brilliance and depth, and it held color changes quite nicely. I still really want to make something for myself from a skein of this yarn, and I finally found the perfect pattern. Now I just need to decide what color I want!
It suddenly occurred to me that I completely forgot to share pictures of the April Phat box I received! Shame on me. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure. These are the fibers.
I hadn’t been expecting to receive a contributor’s box, as I hadn’t sent in quite enough samples, but it came anyway, to my great delight!
I’ve already started spinning up quite a few of the samples on my drop spindle. (Which I recently went after with my stash of calligraphy pens and inks and decorated it to within an inch of its life.) My current idea is to spin them all up and possibly knit a tam from them and the yarn samples. The colors are fairly well matched. Lots of rainbow-y themes and blues and greens. Sounds like the recipe for a lovely tam to me!
Part of the fun of the Phat Fiber box is seeing what everyone comes up with for samples. I’ve been getting sneak previews of what June’s box is going to be (Science Fiction theme!) and I’d really, really like to be in on it. I’ve got ideas for three Jules Verne batts, and Wall-E sock yarns. Due to lack of time and funds, it’s looking like I might barely be able to squeak into the box with the Jules Verne, but as roving, not batts. We shall see.
Let’s start with the new, shall we? Everyone likes to see pictures of new things.
I recently participated in a trade with a local dyer. MamaJude does simply beautiful work with plant dyes and can also dye cotton. I cannot dye cotton, so we worked out a swap where she would acquire a couple skeins of cotton boucle from me, and I would receive some indigo batts from her.
The batts arrived a few days ago, and they are gorgeous! There are six of them total. I haven’t weighed them, but I’m guessing the batch is in the six-to-eight ounces category. Here’s the best picture I could nab of one in the fading afternoon light.
I keep thinking that I should mix these with some of the lovely soysilk I have stashed away and make something large. But they’re so light and fluffy, I’m wondering if I could find a light spring/early autumn top or cardigan pattern. That might do them more justice. Whatever I decide on, it’s going to have to wait awhile. I’ve got two or three other spinning jobs lined up, plus the BFL lace I’m finishing up now.
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It has been a crazy, crazy last week or two in my little fiber world. Sales practically exploded (hooray!) and I must have had at least an average of one per day.
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.
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I realize that Spring begins in March. But personally, I don’t really count it as Spring until it feels Spring-ish. And yesterday I went on a picnic lunch in a lovely park, and now realize that Spring is fully Spring-ish. So, happy Spring!
I guess the biggest news I have to share is that I’m expanding into the wholesale realm. A local yarn store is going to be carrying six special colorways of my merino/silk laceweight. (Including Dawn Treader!) If you’re in the Athens, GA area, stop by and visit Main Street Yarns to take a peek. It’s a lovely store with all sorts of goodies. (I have to be very strict with my wallet when I’m there.) I just sent off a lovely lineup of twelve skeins, but completely forgot to take a picture of them before they left! Gack!
There’s a chance that I’ll be visiting the yarn store next week, so I’ll have to take my camera and attempt to get a shot of the yarns hanging up on the wall.
Along the same line of “business,” I’m looking into giving my laceweight yarn bases some names. So, instead of calling it “70/30 merino silk” I would call it “Hawthorn Lace” or something like that. I’ve seen this done in various stores and supposedly it helps people remember the yarns. I’m all for it, except that I have to come up with the names. No pressure, right? It just reflects on me and my business if I choose poorly. Yeeks. Some top ideas now are naming them after various vines, or floral/botanical type things.
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For not having dyed in a while, I certainly jumped back in feet first. The ones up above there are my Malabrigo yarns. A friend and I are putting together some Malabrigo sets with matching stitch markers to put in my store, and I’ll be sending some little samples off to the Phat Fiber Boxes for April’s distribution. Lots of fun!
But, besides those, I went through a whole stack of yarns this time around. In fact, I felt like the Brave Little Tailor in one of my favorite old fairy tales. Seventeen yarns processed in one morning. (Yes, but don’t mention that I dyed less than half of those that round. The rest were twist-setting and dye-testing.) Still, I don’t think I’ve done that big of a batch since last year.
I’ve got some lovely laceweight, and a gorgeous set of bulky skeins, plus some odds and ends of other things. I was rather pleasantly surprised at how many I was able to do, what with being out of practice. The last thing I wanted to do was get halfway in and have an energy crash. When yarns are on the stove, there is no way to stop without risking the loss of the yarn. And, by extenuation, sanity.
Here’s the laceweight I dyed. It was supposed to be Dawn Treader, but I got way too much purple in there and came up with these three skeins. As I said before, I have no idea what I’m going to call it—besides gorgeous.
Remember those undyed batts I carded way back when? (A lovely blend of BFL, baby alpaca, and mohair.) Well, those batts are now being used! Yes, it’s been over a year, but I’ve been waiting for just the right project. Handspun yarn for a birthday shawl.
The shawl was supposed to be my dear aunt’s Christmas and birthday present, however both of those dates have passed, so I decided I’d better get hopping. The last thing I want to do is end up like I did with my last two “birthday gift” yarns and not deliver on them until after the next year’s birthday.
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It might just be me, but eighty-degree weather in the middle of March seems a bit early. Not that I’m complaining about all the lovely flowering trees outside. All those white and pink blossoms—not to mention the gorgeous red ones that I don’t know the name of—very lovely stuff.
Spinning and general crafting levels have been down as we’ve had lots of wonderful house guests for the last several weeks, but now things are grinding back towards normal and I can get back to spinning. And dyeing. Lovely dyeing.
Here’s my first stab at dyeing some mohair/silk laceweight in my Blackberry Jam colorway. I still get the yarn quivers whenever I look at this. Gorgeous.
I also managed to get way too much purple on a batch of Dawn Treader lace, and it turned out amazing. My only problem is that now I’ve got to come up with a name for the new colorway.
And then there’s the two-skein set of bulky weight that I just amazed myself with. How does one go about naming a combination of black, emerald green, and purple? I may wind up having to put a picture up here and run a name contest.
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Or “Extreme Excitement.” Take your pick. Yep, I’ve got an invitation to send some yarns up to a fiber and yarn fair in Winterset, IA this March. I’ve picked out a pile from both my Etsy stores, and hopefully I’ll be able to get them tagged and sent in the next couple days. Meanwhile, if you want to grab something in one of my stores, grab it quick, because I’m hoping no yarns will come back from the fair.
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.
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It’s a rather gray day outside this morning, besides the few patches of snow here and there. There’s rain on the way (more than usual) and the atmospheric pressure is resulting in a lovely sinus headache. Plus it seems to be sapping the energy out of me. Even to the point where I don’t want to curl up and knit! Size two double points? Far too heavy.
But, I have made some rather good progress on my second alpaca sock, and I have found the secret to finishing a never-ending pair of extra-tall socks! 
The key is to go and stay in a rather chilly house for a few days. Take the sock knitting, and just barely enough pairs of regular-height socks. By the middle of the first day you’ll find yourself huddled on the couch watching old, instant-stream TV shows off of Netflix and knitting for your life in the hopes of warmer toes.
Unfortunately this knitting streak didn’t cross over to the other pair of unfinished socks I brought along, or the Emily Dickinson shawl that I had hoped to start again. However, I did have a lovely time resting, reading (three whole books!), and movie-watching.
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