I realized I’ve been leaving you in suspense over my purple sweater! It did get finished, and I literally had to take it to Colorado unblocked and block it in a friend’s washing machine, but it got finished. I wore it a lot and really, really enjoyed it. Several people commented on it (in a good way). Yay! The photo, or rather a piece of the photo, I snagged from a friend’s picture of the trip. We were playing an acting game called Freeze.
So my sister got some absolutely fabulous pictures of the many kinds of samples I sent, and I thought I’d share them.
You might remember that, in July, I participated in the Phat Fiber sample boxes. Well, I missed August due to the Colorado trip, so I decided to give it another shot for September. With a few slight changes. 
This time I’m sending in way more then twenty samples, I’m including fiber, and I’m sending in some from Filigree Willow as well.
I would have liked to have some way to track how much business I get from these (other than asking during the checkout process how they found my store) but I ran out of time and motivation to figure out the ramifications of coupons and such.
The last several days I have been measuring, cutting, twisting, and tagging to beat the band. I think it came out to a total of sixty something samples, all needing little hand-written tags.
I finished them up yesterday afternoon and got them shipped off. Yay! And I’m very excited because, if I send in more than fifty units, I’ll receive a Phat Fiber box for the month! Wha-hoo!
I did it again. I let this poor blog languish. I’m sorry! This is just plain ridiculous. All it seems to take is one instance of “I’ll do that later” and the whole blog avalanches over the precipice and into the dye water.
Speaking of, I’ve been very busy dyeing things since I got back from Colorado earlier this month. I haven’t done this large of a dye batch in a long time. 
It stretched over two or three days. The first day was all sorts of fun, ha ha ha. I dyed four batches of various things, and of the four, none of them came out the color I was aiming for. God was so gracious in that they were still usable. They just weren’t coming out as intended. Rather frustrating at the time. I actually found myself not wanting to dye again. Ever. (Scary thought, no?)
But I took a day off from dyeing and tackled the rest with renewed vim, vigor, and some free choice in regards to colorways. In short: I got to play! Well, play with most of it.
When I first began dyeing my own yarn and fiber, some people thought I would never “need” to buy colored stuff again. Ha ha ha ha. That’s like saying “You cook, so you won’t ever need to buy food at a restaurant again.”
Or, if you want to get really out there, it’s like saying, “You stand up, why would you ever want to sit down again?”
There’s so much to be said for dyeing your own stuff, but every so often you want a break. And, as it happened this time, I found this gorgeous braid for sale. It’s a merino/mohair mix (a blend I’ve never bought before) and the colors jumped right off the screen and grabbed me. (Yes, it was scary, but a good scary.)
Isn’t it pretty? I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. The thought of a hat or smooshy cowl crossed my mind, or perhaps a little shawlette. I could go for socks, as it’s a four ounce braid, but I don’t particularly feel like spinning sock yarn right now. Ha, well, true, I probably won’t get around to spinning this until later this year. Oh, I bought it at FiberFancy, if you’d care to take a peek at some of the other lovely stuff there.
I took some time out the other day to dye up a few more rovings for Maiden Yarn. Unfortunately, I didn’t think ahead enough, and I found myself with pre-soaked four ounce bundles of roving, and no foil pans big enough to hold them.
I did have one non-disposable tray left, so I used it for one of the batches: this lovely repeat colorway. (You may recognize the color pattern from way back when. I dyed it first on some of the silver-gray Romney roving I bought at the Yellow Daisy Festival.) The fun thing about the repeats was that it braided up with colors to colors, as you can see. I’m really happy with the way that one turned out.
My spinning has finally picked up again, and I’ve had a few minor victories that put me well on the road to happy spinning again.
I finished the silk laceweight for my sister.
And, while I was at it, I almost finished up the Willow fingering weight. (That’s due to be finished as soon as possible so I can dive into some lovely merino.)
Announcing the grand opening of my second Etsy store — Filigree Willow Laceweights
Come on over and take a peek. I’m so, so excited!
And, on that note, I am so, so loving custom orders. You probably remember my first custom yarn (Raven’s Wing) and the gorgeous yarn that came out of that. Well, prepare for custom order number two.
Absolutely gorgeous emerald yarn. This green took forever to achieve (no less than three times in the dye pot) but it was so worth it. The yarn practically glows from within. And it’s superwash, which means it is very soft.
I can’t wait for the next custom challenge, whatever it may be.
I’m so, so excited! Have you ever heard of Phat Fiber boxes? They’re these fabulous little things that put a whole world of fibery samples at your fingertips. (You can fully investigate them here. )
The idea is that us yarn and fiber dealers send in samples of our work, and the samples are then combined in themed boxes for people to buy. Lovely stuff! I sent in some yarn for the July box, which has the theme of “Seaweed, Ships, and Scallywags.” I wasn’t able to send in quite enough samples to score my own box, but I fully intend to get one in August.
Here’s a little preview of the mini-skeins I sent in as samples. They’re tweedy fingering weights that will be appearing in my Etsy store soon. So cute!
Hello, everyone. I wish I could say I’ve been spending these last months in darkest Peru, learning the secret arts of cochineal dyeing, but that would be far from the truth. The truth of the matter is that . . . (are you sitting down?) I’ve not been knitting or spinning much, if at all.
There. The painful bit is over. And so is the silence of the blogger! I didn’t have many projects of a fibery nature going, therefore I had nothing to blog about, therefore I didn’t blog, which led to more ventures into non-fiber hobbies, and you get the idea. It really was the Bermuda Triangle there for a bit. But, everyone needs a little lull from life-consuming hobbies at least once in a while, and I’ve had my lull. Now clear the pool, I’m coming in!
