With all the yarn dying I’ve been a bit lacking in the actual knitting department. Well, the shop I work at got in some fabulous new Noro Yarn called ‘Taiyo’ which is (allegedly) a super bulky silk/wool/cotton/nylon blend in all the yummy colors Noro is fabulous at. I fell in love with it, but didn’t really have much of a plan for it, so I only bought one ball to play with. And came up with these:

Not the greatest pictures but good ones will be forthcoming.

These were great fun and a super fast knit, but sadly they don’t match AT ALL. I don’t mind a little fudging of the color way to make them sort of match, but the first one came out three distinct colors that are all quite pretty, and then the second one is all shades of blue. But they work for keeping your hands warm and that’s the point.

A tiny sort of intuitive pattern:

Hobo Gloves

US7 DPNs (set of 4)

Mitts:
CO 36, join in round (12 sts over 3 needles)
k 2×2 rib for 10 rows
k 1 inch stockinette

Begin thumb gusset:
Round 1:K11, pm, k1fb, k1fb, pm, knit to end of round
Round 2 and every other round: knit even
Round 3: k to m, kfb, knit to 1 before next marker, kfb, knit to end.

Rep round 2 and 3 until there are 12 sts between markers.

Knit one round even

Knit to 1st marker, place sts between markers on scrap yarn, co 3 sts and continue knitting in round.

Knit st st for one inch, decrease 1 st in last round.
Next round: begin working 2×2 rib for desired length of glove. BO loosely (in pattern, preferably)

Knit thumb:
Pick up sts on scrap, 6 sts on two needles, then pick up 6 sts across opening for thumb on a third needle.
K one round even
Next round: decrease evenly around to end up with 10 sts for thumb.
Work a few rounds of 1×1 ribbing until thumb is desired length (just below thumb nail), BO loosely.

Repeat for second glove!

There you have it, proof positive that I do still knit occasionally.

So today I got my new Craft Magazine (www.craftzine.com) and on the back cover there was a big ad for www.artfire.com which heralded the tag line “Sell without fees, create without limits”. Why yes please! Although Etsy has been very good to me, the idea of selling without fees on a site similar to Etsy is awfully enticing. So I set up a shop. (See it here) There are two types of accounts you can have as a seller, the free kind which is pretty limited and then for a $20 subscription fee a month you can have more access to the site and advertising. If I can sell a few things through there and I see I’m getting a decent response I’ll probably upgrade my membership but for now I just listed a few of my yarns, and one of my knit items. We’ll see how it goes.

The site has a nice aesthetic and seems pretty intuitive in how it’s put together. As far as I can tell I’m the only seller with yarn listed at present, but I’m sure as the rest of the magazines with their big ad in it get out to the other crafters around the world that other people will begin signing up too. At least that’s my hope and I’m sure it’s theirs as well.

I haven’t sold much of the last batch of yarn I did, but I’m hopeful that as knitters/crocheters begin to get freaked about the upcoming holiday knitting that I will see a sudden influx of ‘OH CRAP! I need to knit four pairs of distinctive socks for each of my sisters’ orders in the next few weeks. At least that’s what I’m hoping because I have a family full of people who don’t fully appreciate knitted gifts and I need to be able to buy presents for those of my loved ones who are ‘knit immune’ (as the Yarn Harlot calls them).

Also, this new issue of Craft is full of fun things. There’s this silver clay stuff that I want to try and play with soon. Also a recipe for Yerba Mate tea that I think my boss might like for Christmas this year. And then there’s a really cool tutorial on making a stack of books a stash box. All kinds of cross-crafty things I want to mess with. Time/money permitting I’d like to get to them all in the next few months.

As promised I’ve added the worsted weight yarns I dyed this weekend. These yarns are paired up, I dyed each to have a compliment. The idea here is that one hank is hand painted to stripe or pool and the second hank is dipped dyed in one of the dye batches of the hand painted. These yarns are being sold together as a set. I envision these yarns being used together for striped mittens and hats, or yoked baby sweaters, or felted bags or slippers. Any number of things. At almost 400 yards together, it’s plenty enough for a variety  of projects.

On to the pictures!

Sunrise/Sunset

Rivers/Mountains

Sunshine/Foliage

Each of these sets is available in the shop here. I have not listed them in my Etsy Shop as of yet, and I may not at all, I am trying to get everything phased over to the shop here. Though right now there are a few sock yarns listed on the Etsy shop that are not here. Yarns here will be on average a dollar less than on the Etsy shop because I don’t have to pay fees when I sell yarn through  my shop (except to PayPal, but that’s fine.) If there is a yarn you see on the Etsy shop and you’d rather purchase it through my shop here, please email me and I will transfer the listing.

I’d really like to see the Sunrise/Sunset knit up, I have two more balls of this base yarn left undyed I may recreate that set to use as a sample for myself. I’m envisioning a really spectacular baby jacket and hat set. My cousin Heather is having a baby girl this December and I think these bright colors would be excellent on a new baby this winter. I’ve always had an aversion to keeping babies just in pastels. This base yarn is a very nice soft wool and be perfect for garments. Though because it’s 100% wool it would felt well too.

Also, the Modern Romance sock yarn has been snatched up already however since I’ve now been taking notes on my dye batches and colors I can easily recreate something similar if someone else would like a hank. I have decided though because these are hand dyed, each hank will obviously be one of a kind. I can recreate similar colors but the exact hank can never be fully recreated. That’s the beauty of hand painted yarns! I’m looking forward to seeing Modern Romance knit up though, it was my favorite out of this last batch.

Seriously. I woke up early this Sunday morning to get cracking on the next batch of yarns. I dyed 6 hanks of sock yarn, and 6 hanks of worsted weight wool.

The sock yarn is all dry and hanked and ready to go to wherever they may end up. I’m pretty proud of this batch, I’ve tweaked my operation slightly so that I can do two things in the future: a) reproduce colors or colorways if I want/need to. b) do wholesale lots for yarn shops if requested. Gotta think big right?

I’ve got a few of the yarns listed in the shop here and a few new ones listed in my Etsy Shop. But it’s late and I have a math test first thing in the morning and I spent all day today dying, setting, drying, hanking and photographing all these yarns. So I’m going to post some pictures of the ones I did, and then I’ll add the rest of them tomorrow afternoon to the shops. If you see one you want before I get it up and you want to make sure you get it first, just email me and I can create a paypal invoice and just not list it in the shop at all.

And now, on to the yarns!

The first three yarns are named after Yeah Yeah Yeah’s songs, and they’re all variations on similar dye batches.

Date With The Night

Rich

Modern Romance

These ones are named after Rilo Kiley songs and are also all from similar dye baths.

The Angels Hung Around

Wires and Waves

Capturing Moods

Worsted weights coming tomorrow!

So there are 4 new yarns in the shop, and more will be added this weekend. Each hank is hand painted and heat set for color fastness. I’m pretty excited about these yarns, I really like the color ways I came up with this time around.

Two of the color ways are named after Alaskan things; Susitna which is a town, glacier and river. I based this yarn off the river mostly. We used to go camping and fishing off of the Susitna River (there’s the Big Su and the Little Su, by the way.) and I always remember the deep blues of the river. And the flowers that grew everywhere.

Which brings me to the second Alaskan theme yarn, a chunky wool I call “Fireweed”. Fireweed is, in fact, a weed not just a clever name. It’s sort of the unofficial state flower of Alaska.

There you go. Fireweed. It’s pretty, for a weed.

And the yarn after the very same name.

But because I no longer live in Alaska I do derive inspiration from where I currently live.

Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada!

So, I named some yarn after that gorgeous view of the Strip at night.

Vegas Nights.

So there you have it, a few of the new yarns that are up in the shop. Check out the other ones at your leisure!

A little sneak peek of some upcoming yarns that will be in the shop tonight or tomorrow sometime.

It’s worsted weights and chunky weights right now, still waiting on my order of blank sock yarn to arrive.

I’m also kicking around the idea of a Rock n’ Roll Sock Club. A hank of sock yarn a month inspired by a rock band, song or era. Can’t you just imagine some great hair metal socks? Or some Flock of Seagulls inspired yarn? (Does Flock of Seagulls count as rock? I may have to put stricter guidelines on my ideas here.) Either way, what do we think? Is there interest in a Rock n’ Roll Sock club? I’m thinking a three month subscription would be between $90-$120 depending on what kind of sock base people would want, i.e. superwash, bamboo, silk, etc. Plus there would have to be some mix cd’s made to accompy the sock yarn. You need the music that inspired the yarn!

Leave a comment if you think you might be interested in that. And maybe a suggestion for your favorite rock group, time, or song.

Thanks to a great Wordpress plug-in and the genius of Michael I now have a functioning shop here on the site. I’m working on getting it filled out and formatted properly, but as of right now there’s a few of my yarns listed and some of my finished knits as well. If you look to the right of this post, there should be a link in the sidebar called ‘Shop’ (also located at the top of the page under the banner) and you can view the items there. It’s not perfect, but it’s getting there. Now I just need to design some ads to use on Ravelry. Which hopefully I’ll get around to working on sometime between now and next semester.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments on the shop, I know it’s sort of  hard to navigate right now and not terribly pretty but I’m still working the kinks out and I’d love feedback.

So no sooner did I post them but ‘Mojave Sunset’ and ‘Bruised Plum’ sold in my Etsy shop. I’m going to have to figure out how to recreate ‘Mojave Sunset’ because I really liked that yarn.

I’ve ordered more naked hanks of some worsted weight wool and I’m still waiting on my order of sock yarn to come sometime this week as well.

As soon I get the bare stuff in I’ll dye some more and see how that goes. So far though, these two sales have paid for the next batch of blank yarn so at least my little hobby is covering it’s own cost at this point.

Now, if I could just break myself away from the dye pots long enough to get some knitting done! I have two sweaters and a scarf on the needles that I REALLY need to finish.

Having made my first sale yesterday it was time to replenish the shop, so when I got home from class this afternoon I dyed the last undyed hanks I have on hand. I have more coming soon, but I wanted to get some more yarn in the shop.

Here are the four new yarns I dyed today.

Sock yarn:

Field of Daisies. I really like the lime green I got this time.

Twist of Lime. This is just shades of green, and I managed to get a little bit of a speckled heathered look. I dig it.

Worsted Weight yarns.

Bruised Plum. Shades of bright blue to deep purple. Really pretty.

Mojave Sunset. Rusts, purples, golds, red and brown. Really deep rich colors on this one. If it doesn’t sell by the time I finish up the two sweaters I’m working on I’m going to knit this one up myself. So if you like it buy it now!

More coming as soon as the bag of sock yarn comes!

So, this morning I made my first sale of my hand dyed yarn. A whopping $75 worth of the stuff to one customer! Not bad for a first sale and now I’m going to have to dye a whole bunch more because she pretty much cleared out my shop. (Not that I’m complaining, I’m ecstatic!)

That order just paid for more naked yarn hanks that I just ordered.

Also, last night I went out into the backyard to see what we had growing that might make natural dyes. I found some pretty orange flowers that I have steeping right now on the kitchen counter and I’m hoping that tomorrow afternoon I’ll be able to do some natural dye processes to get some new interesting wholly organic colors. I’m pretty excited about it.

I’ve also ordered a book on natural dying as well, I’d really like to move towards a more organic process so that the colors of my yarn are entirely from nature. Though I’ll probably keep the kool-aid and acid dye around for those lime greens and hot pinks that I love so much.