I’ve gotten a couple new yarn bases for Fall, and they are delightful! They’re both fingering weight, and will be carried in my Maiden Yarn store.
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.
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Special update – my Maiden Yarn and Fiber store is having a coupon promotion from now until September 21st. Use the code “FALL25″ during checkout for 25% off the items in your purchase. Some of the items in the store are about to be retired, as I have grand plans on a new direction to take the store, so grab them while you can.
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?
Incase you’re wondering, I wasn’t able to have my little sushi treat for lunch. The grocery store hadn’t made the rolls when I dropped by.
But, I got to spend a good four or five hours dyeing yesterday. Unfortunately, that means most everything is too wet to photograph, but I snagged a few pictures.
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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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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.
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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 have a total of three laceweight spinning projects going on right now. The alpaca and silk you’ve seen, so here’s the new baby.
Angora cobweb fluffy laceweight. Ahhhhhhhh. You cannot believe how soft this yarn is when it’s plied. It’s like the tactile rendition of feeling warm and fuzzy inside!
I’m actually spinning this on a nifty contraption that a friend of mine plans to make available on Etsy. I’m not at liberty to divulge many of the juicy details, but I will say that I could not spin this delicate of a yarn on any of the other tools I have in the house.
The grand Etsy store updates continue! I just listed a couple more yarns, and soon a nice big order of fiber will come in, and I can start all over again. Hooray!
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And here they are, soon-to-be-released sock yarns. They will be going up on Etsy during the next couple of weeks. I am so, so happy with the way they turned out. Who knows, some of them might not make it to the store – they might be diverted into my slowly growing stash!
Really, though, I am even more excited about these sock yarns because of the amazing events leading up to their completion.
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I realize you all might get bored with my constant forays into indigo, but this one was so astonishing in proportion that I can’t help blogging about it. I’m used to two, maybe three hours in the kitchen maximum with a pretty small amount of fibers to be dyed. Throw all that out the window and make room for two pounds of roving and an almost six-hour-long indigo run! There’s the mega bag of roving on the kitchen counter.
Yes, things got a little crazy. (The house smelled rather strongly afterward.) But things went pretty well. I had to dig up a five-gallon bucket to be able to keep enough fiber presoaked, and then I strung up a makeshift clothesline inside to give me enough drip-drying space.
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Beginner’s Info: Part 1
So you want to learn to spin? Good for you. You’re about to be initiated into the wonderful craft of spinning. Or, to turn it into its most basic process, the art of taking a handful of something and making into gorgeous yarns.
If you’re interested in spinning, chances are you’ve at least seen a spinning wheel before. Maybe you watched someone at a Living History demonstration, or perhaps you have a friend who keeps babbling on about their wonderful wheel, or maybe (like me) you picked up a magazine and got sucked into a world of color and texture. However you developed the interest you want to get started. So now is the time for me to stop telling you how much fun you’ll have and give you some hard facts.
What is spinning?
Spinning is putting twist into something to make it form a new, stronger shape. You can spin with three blades of grass and your fingers. You can spin with long strips of fabric and a heavy rock. You can spin with your hair and a messed up curler. But none of these are the cool ways to do it.
If you want to begin spinning, you’re going to need three things. Something to spin into yarn, something with which to spin that thing into yarn, and something to tell you how to do it.
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