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.

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.

Before I got started on the shawl yarn I had to reel off the cinnamon alpaca that was already on my favorite spinning wheel. (This photo only strengthens my mental connection between brown alpaca and herringbone. For some odd reason I think they were made for each other.)

Once I got all that reeled off the bobbin, I went ahead and started spinning up samples. This was a little more difficult than I bargained for, as the original pattern calls for a worsted weight yarn made of llama. Llama is rather heavy and drapey, but my batts are not. They are wonderfully springy and fluff up like you wouldn’t believe. So it took me a good four or five tries to nail a proper sort of worsted weight. (More of the fiber being used!)

I’m hoping against hope that I have enough of these batts to finish out the shawl. There are all these abstract variables floating about.

After getting the right weight (or so I hoped), I gave the little piece of sample yarn to my sister, who will be doing the actual knitting of shawl, and she knit up a tiny swatch. Thankfully it was bang on with blocking. Hurrah for gauges that actually work!

I’ve got a half of a bobbin of this lovely stuff at the moment, and I intend to add to it pretty soon. The shawl calls for 820 yards of worsted weight, and I have twelve(ish) ounces of batt. This is going to be close. If all else fails, I can get a few ounces of something else and spin one of the yarn plies with it, then stick it in with two of the batt plies.

First, admire the lovely flowers the little boy I babysit gave me for Valentine’s Day, and consider making him a crocheted blanket (not alpaca) since he took such a shine to the last crocheted blanket project I took along to work on. It might be a good idea to do that sometime soon. I mean, when he likes the blanket enough to ask if it’s for him, for his mom, for his little brother, or for his big brother, I can kind of see a broad hint in the there.

Second, relegate the blanket thoughts to the back of my mind and transfer my attention to this . . .
(I will wait for the ooohs and aaahs to die down.)

These are sections of the fleece that I carefully detached from the bag-full and laid on end in a nice green tray. Not only does it keep the fibers neat, it collects the dust, and doesn’t look half bad to boot. Hooray for being crafty and, at the same time, looking sharp.

Third, choose a small section of the locks and hang on for dear life while combing and fluffing up one end.

And I pay special attention to not let the comb pull the fiber from my hand. Then it gets messy. Then I repeat the process for the other end so the entire lock is beautiful and soft and any bits of hay have fallen out.

Fourth, having amassed a few handfuls or so of these fluffed-up locks, I lay them all on top of each other (ends still pointing the same way) and roll them up from side to side like a scroll. Actually, more like a cinnamon roll.

Then I pull it out into a gorgeous, fluffy, lighter-than-air mini-roving.

This, of course, goes onto the spinning wheel with eager anticipation.

I’ve gotten only a few spare moments here and there to work on it, but I’m very excited to see how this yarn turns out. I’m spinning it low-twist, so it’ll be a very soft yarn. Or smooshy, if you want the highly technical term.

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.

If I’d been thinking I would have taken along the Fall Shawl and a large needle for “weaving in the ends” purposes. Oh well. It’ll get done eventually.
As you may be able to see, I didn’t quite finish the pattern. Due to my scandalous “departing of the text” and “altering,” the final project was smaller than I thought. So, I stopped knitting a ways from the end of the neck and left myself a handy little notch out of the middle. That way it actually stays on for the most part. I think a really interesting shawl pin or button will be in order for this. The best way to wear it is with the two edges meeting in the front like the front of a cardigan. It keeps my shoulders and neck warm and doesn’t look half bad—once you learn to ignore the gazillion and three little bits of yarn dangling off of it.

Yes, I think a button and loop would be the best way to keep it on in the front. I know of some rather fun buttons at JoAnn Etc. They’re wooden, and not quite square. Or I could purchase some from this interesting shop - We shall see what comes.

Speaking of buttons, I still don’t have them for the Sky Pirate gloves! They shall have to languish under my desk a while longer.

But, on the bright side, here’s one of my more recent yarn creations. It sold right away, but I will definitely be making the colorway again.

When I first made it, I didn’t keep track of how I did the colors, so I thought it was non-reproducible. Then a good friend asked me to pretty-please try again for her sake, and I tried, and (praise God!) it worked! So, it is now fully reproducible. Allow me to introduce, the Dawn Treader yarn!

Shortly after I recreated that, my friend with the drum carder came for a visit. We had to cut things short, due to the threat of impending snow, (Yes, snow here in the Southeast. Lots of it.) but we still got ten batts of the Iowa fleece all carded up. I have some interesting plans for these. Hopefully it will work out.

And, as a fun note to end the post on, my knitting sister (who is also my amazing yarn photographer for the Etsy sites) put together a collage of all the products I made and listed last year. Quite a few, eh?

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.

I’m contributing to the September Phat Fiber samples, so some of the fibers needed to be inspired by “Farmers Market.” I actually wound up doing four or five different things I could send in samples from, but one of them is this Blackberry Jam superwash fingering weight.

Gorgeous! I dyed two skeins worth. One for the shop and the other to chop up into little 15-20 yard samples.

A couple of other highlights from the dye run, all alpaca laceweights—

And some more big news, I won a batt! It’s pretty and pink, and I have no clue what I’m going to do with it. I have been stalking Ravelry hat and cowl patterns, though. (I figure they’re something I can knit with stashed stuff, wear often as the weather gets cooler, and they won’t take long to knit!) Perhaps I can spin this up and turn it into a nice tam.

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.

And, along a different train of thought, I paid for not blogging recently. I skeined up this gorgeous single ply laceweight (the one I was spinning on my English wheel) and it turned out to be about thirty-five grams/440 yards. In short, a nice size. It washed up beautifully and bloomed into this amazingly soft fluffy single ply. I was so proud of it. Then I listed it on Etsy and it sold before I could tell you I had even finished it! So, here’s the picture of the now long-gone yarn.

On the home knitting front: Raveling is in the offing. Remember that purple sweater I made? The cowl neck? Well, it was far too big in the body, so about a week or so ago I raveled it clear back to the armpits and commenced re-knitting it in a smaller size. I’m now about six to eight inches from the bottom, and hoping it will somehow finish knitting itself so I can take it along to Colorado in the beginning of August. Things are looking pretty close, but I might just finish in time.

On the one wheel I have this gorgeous stuff. It’s the laceweight silk I promised my sister a year ago.

And on the other I have this. Cinnamon alpaca laceweight that will probably wind up in Filigree Willow Laceweights. (Sorry about the nasty photo. I have concluded that TV rooms are out to sabotage photography everywhere.)

The only problem with this new obsession is that I have multiple spinning projects calling out in their plaintive, soft voices for me to come console them after their long imprisonment in my closet. Stuff like this unfinished indigo and cochineal dyed sock yarn.

And this.

And my soysilk. And those batts I’ve been hoarding. And some of the black llama.

And you get the idea.

Here’s hoping I’m able to spin a lot these next couple of weeks!

But, for spinners there is a magic about garbage bags because, when found in the right places, they usually contain fiber in vast quantities. Quantities so large, your ordinary bag won’t hold them. Sound exciting?

Well, while in Texas I was given an early birthday present. Two garbage bags full of cinnamon colored alpaca. Oh my goodness. Major fluffy soft.

And I even have a project idea for it! But, before I get to new project time, I have to overcome another project. Remember the indigo dyed merino? It’s decided to haunt me for some reason.

I had four lovely full bobbins spun and reeled off, awaiting their moment to shine. Imagine my dismay when I began plying them only to discover that something had happened. Somewhere along the line they had lost a large amount of their twist to the point of not being able to wrap around each other. Easily fixed, right? Just run them through the wheel again?

It wasn’t that simple. Because somehow, someway, I had spun every single one of those spools in the wrong direction.

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I must have begun spinning it before I learned the proper direction to spin the singles. Technically you can spin them both ways, yes, but commercial yarns stick to one way because – according to my sources – that’s the easiest way to work with as a knitter or crocheter. Something to do with the way the yarn behaves when it’s wrapped around the needle.

Sigh.

So. I’m over five months and four bobbins into it and having to start again. I’m seriously thinking I’ll make it a three ply instead of trying to manage a five ply. That would make things go a little quicker, but it would mean a less finely plied yarn. MamaMentor, do you have a preference?

I finished yet another hat! This is a gray alpaca version of the first tam I made. It’s knit from KnitPicks Andean Treasure. Baby alpaca, sport weight, great stuff!

Technically this is the second time I’ve finished it, as I had to knit the ribbing twice. The yarn just wasn’t elastic in 2 x 2 ribbing form! That, and it draped so much it would have fit Barney the Dinosaur. Enlarging the rest of the pattern has definite drawbacks. I solved the problem (with help from the knitting sister!) by raveling back — which was painful, but not too scary — and then going to size 1 needles, as well as decreasing a little more. It worked very well, and I had hoped to deliver it to the recipient at church today, but she wasn’t there.

And, lest you think the lack of recent posts means I haven’t been doing anything fiber-related, let me inform you that I have enough material for two posts now. Part B will go up tomorrow.

The spinning front had been deceptively quiet for the last week or so, and I was getting to feel like it was just lurking around the corner waiting for me to come by so it could jump out and trip me into paying it attention. In fact, I knew something was up with the fiber fairies, because my closet threw a pack of dpns at me and hit my knee with a dye pot when I wasn’t looking. (Well, I was looking, but for something else.) However, I placed a megaload of audiobooks on hold at the local library and now they are in, and spinning no longer feels neglected.

Thanks to The Book of Three audio, I wound off an entire finished bobbin of indigo merino, and now I’m halfway into a new one. I also wound off the silk laceweight I had on my cream-colored wheel. That was to free it up for a really neat special-order yarn inspired by ravens’ wings. Here’s a little taste of what the fibers look like.

And I’ve gotten started on the cowl neck sweater. Several times now, in fact. The first surprise came when I learned that, just because the pattern calls for worsted weight, you should still look at the numbers for the gauge swatch before ordering. Come to find out it would take a pretty beefy worsted weight to make three and a quarter stitches an inch on size ten needles. I ordered worsted from KnitPicks, which tends to run a little thin anyway, so I am now getting five stitches an inch on size eights. Care to do the math, anyone? Thankfully my knitting sister came to the rescue and knocked the first bits of the pattern into shape.

Then I got my usual miscalculations on how long the yarn needed to be for the cast on, and then I got it twisted, but fixed, and then I started putting in too many increases. So, two tries down the tubes. Then my sister taught me the cable cast on, which is my new friend. I don’t have to guess how much yarn to use and it’s just like crochet! Turns out I had been casting on the wrong amount of stitches anyway, so it was all for the best.

I’ve learned two new knitting things now. The cable cast on, and KFB. I had to ask about the KFB. And I was greeted with “Of course you know how to do the KFB. Everyone knows how to do the KFB. It’s knit front and back.” Well, excuse me! Although everyone does now, because I have been enlightened. And once I figured out to keep the working yarn well away from the needle while going for the back knit, it worked pretty well.

I shall leave you with a photo of my official gauge swatch. I knit it carefully, bound it off, and washed it, thus bowing to the rigorous standards of the higher order of knitters. However, I kept my own flavor in there and knit a three and a half inch swatch instead of four, just because I didn’t know any better.

Picture of the finished Blue Baroness Beret tomorrow, as well as sundry other fun things.

Well, for my New Year’s Dash I got the sum total of about three quarters of the superwash merino sock yarn spun. Ta-da!

Next year, I start earlier.

I did, however, get the start of the first draft of that spinning article I mentioned. And I also got a pretty good chunk of the black llama deguarded. That wasn’t on my list, I know, but hey, it’s still spinning related.

The nice pile of chosen and selected fibers is still teetering on my desk, so I have decided that this month shall be a spinning month. The idea is to see how much of that pile I can spin before February, while keeping things fun. If spinning becomes a stress factor we have a major problem.

And, on the complete opposite of a problem, look at what came in a surprise package from a very dear friend! (Thank you, Lina!) A skein of KnitPicks Palette yarn in marine heather, and some beautiful scraps of various KnitPicks Shimmer yarns. Yum yum yum. And beads. I love beads.

I have to admit, of the bunch I’m most drawn to the this gorgeous one at the moment. Allow me a very long, contented sigh.

Today was washing day for the various hand knitted items I have accumulated over the last year or so. The two pairs of socks I made, and the two pairs of socks and pink sweater that my sister made for me. The Mini Moochi socks got really hairy after being washed. I must have roughed them up a bit in the water. They’re superwash, so no one panic. I may go through and snip off some of the biggest bumps, just because no one wants hairy socks. Yuck.

A couple days ago I went to JoAnn Etc. and bought knitting needles! So much for trying not to spend anything this month.
But I needed them for a couple of projects. Remember that cowl neck sweater I talked about a while ago? Well, two of these needles will go to that. Now I’m all ready for the yarn to get here! I wound up going with Knitpicks Swish yarn instead of the Webs variety, for various and sundry reason. A good one being that the Swish yarn is superwash.

The yarn will be in the clematis heather colorway… as long as Knitpicks doesn’t pull a surprise switch-a-roo or the mail truck doesn’t get held up by rabid New Year stash builders.