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.
So, my little toe dipping in the yarn dying realm has gone pretty well and I’ve dyed more yarn and put some of them up for sale in my Etsy shop. Check out my new stuff:
Sock yarns I’ve dyed:
This one is called ‘Azul’
This one is ‘Catastrophe’ because I was trying a different method with the dye process and it was kind of ugly for awhile and a huge mess, and then all of a sudden as it was drying I decided I liked it.
This one is called ‘Laura’ currently because I dyed is specifically for Laura Marie (New and Horrible Blog). It’s not for sale, since I gave it to Laura already.
This is ‘Loud’ because well, it’s loud. It was supposed to be for Laura, but I decided it didn’t suit her and I put it up for sale instead.
These are some worsted weight ones I did.
This is ‘Dusk’ because the oranges, blues and purples look like sunset here in the desert.
And this one is ‘Fire Bug’ because it’s all flame colors. Reds, hot pinks and oranges. I almost didn’t want to put this one up for sale, but my stash is already so big, I really didn’t need another ball of worsted weight wool.
And finally some cottons I did, which are not for sale because they are going to be used to make some baby items.
I’ve also just learned about this great new subscription based service for fiber fanatics that will be rolling out in January. It’s call Phat Fiber (Phat Fiber Blog) and the premise is this; the gal who’s putting it together is getting a bunch of fiber related businesses and artisans to contribute samples, coupons and other little fiber related things to put in a box, you pay a subscription for the box and each month you get this box full of all kinds of fun fiber-y stuff. Some ideas of contributions could be stitch markers, roving, yarn, knitting needles, patterns, tutorials, etc.
The cost of the box is pretty low I think, between $20-$40, which is pretty awesome considering all the loot and coupons you’ll be getting.
I’m going to be participating by contributing some yarn samples, patterns and coupons to it to market my Etsy shop a little more and maybe sell some of my hand dyed yarns. Check out the Phat Fiber blog for more information about the sample boxes, how to contribute or how to get on the waiting list for the boxes.
In other knitting related news, I’ve started on my Master Hand Knitter Level 1 through the Knitting Guild Association. I’m pretty excited about it, I’ve already powered through the first four swatches (but I’ll probably re-knit them before I send out my packet to be judged.) and I’m feeling pretty good about it. We’ll see how I feel as I get to some of the harder swatches and then the questions and the report. (Yup, it’s just like a college course!)
So, any recommendations or ideas for the kinds of yarn/patterns I should contribute to Phat Fiber? If you were receiving a box of goodies like that what would you want to get?
So, my darling boy recently went to New York City to be on the game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I really wanted him to go with something hand knit so that he had part of me with him when he went for good luck. Because I didn’t have time to knit him a sweater I settled on socks.
I ran out of time though, so they ended up being short socks. But they are socks none the less. I call them "Love on his Feet" socks.
Now, since I’m not the only knitter who knows and loves my Michael, he was also gifted with a hat and mittens for his trip to NYC from our friends Laura! and Christina. You can see from the picture below that our dear Michael was very pleased with his knitted gifts.
Now, keep in mind that in Vegas right now it’s still in the high 90’s, which is why he’s wearing shorts and a tee shirt in this photo. Sadly it wasn’t very cold in NYC this week either, so he did not get a chance to walk around Manhattan looking a fool in his knitted love tokens. But, it does get chilly here in the winter and I will make sure that he wears this entire get up at least once this winter.
I cannot disclose how he did on the show, but the good news is he is home now and I and our dogs missed him dearly.
I also knit up a pair of baby socks out of the yarn I dyed last week.
So, I don’t have a baby to gift these to, but I’m sure one will come along shortly since I’m at the age where most of my friends are breeding like bunny rabbits. (Too bad they’re not actually breeding bunny rabbits….)
That’s it for now, other than another cute picture of my adorable honey:
There’s Mike, my adorable boyfriend/fiance thing with Binky my new favorite knitted toy, sporting a Ravelry shirt. It’s like, cuteness on top of cuteness on top of MORE ADORABLE SHORT DARK AND HAIRY man.
I call this one Phoenix Rising. Because I like fancy sounding yarn names.
And this one is Vintage Pinks because…well, it looks like pinks that have been worn and washed for about 100 years.
Vintage Pinks is for sale in my Etsy Shop, because I don’t have much use for pastel colorways but Phoenix Rising is going to end up a pair of wildly dashing socks for myself.
Just as soon as I finish the two sweaters and Mikes socks I have on the needles right now.
Verdict anyone? Should I keep at it or hang up my kool-aid gloves and let the pros stick to it?
I do. I do get a lot done when I can’t do anything but lay in bed.
So early last week I threw my back out while I was working out. Further evidence that I should never ever exercise. I am now on doctors orders not to. Perfect!
Just as my back was getting better and I was able to actually bend and move on my own and without the aid of muscle relaxers I started thinking my allergies were maybe a little worse than usual. Until I woke up yesterday morning to discover that I have a full fledged cold. And a bad one. Chills, fever, sweats, coughing, congestion, goopy eyes. The whole she-bang.
Last week while I was just sitting around trying not to move my back I made some more progress on my Braided Pullover I’m working on.
And it’s lovely and I adore it. I’m making the medium size with Karabella Aurora 8 merino and it is absolutely gorgeous. It goes pretty quickly too and stays very interesting because there are sections of purl, sections of ribbing and then the super interesting cable that’s tons of fun to try to keep track of which row of the chart you’re on.
I also cast on for a store sample sweater to be knit up in some new yarn we got in at the shop, Wisdom Poems. It’s 100% wool and it does the Noro-esque gorgeous long color changes but it doesn’t have twigs and berries in it and it’s a much more even twist so it doesn’t create a lumpy or uneven fabric.
That is the back panel of the sweater I’m knitting up for the store. It’s an adaptation of a Noro pattern by Jane Ellison.
Saturday I was flipping through the new Interweave Felts magazine and fell in love with Nora Bellows Polar Bear pattern in that issue.
So I had to immediately cast on for one.
I have named him Binky, after the polar bear that lived in the Alaska State Zoo when I was a child. He was much loved by Alaskan residents. This Binky is much loved by the residents of my house, my yarn shop and mostly my dogs who think I made him for them as a toy.
He was a nice distraction but I should probably get back to one of the two sweaters I have on the needles.
I have finished my sweater for the Ravelympics. I finished it last Thursday evening on the way to the library to see a documentary about Wizard Rock bands. (The Wizard Rockumentary)
Mods: Added an inch to the length and omitted the ribbing below the lace portion.
This knit up in just under a week, started on Friday August 8th and finished Thursday August 14th.
I’ve also worked up two little scarflette/ascot thingies too in the last two days.
These are Tunisian crochet on a size N hook, the brown one is made from some Berroco and the pink one is Araucania Nature Cotton. Both have vintage buttons on them as well. They’re both for sale in my Etsy Shop (click here!)
I’m working on a pair of socks for Mike and a purse right now.
Yesterday I whacked my foot on the side of a hard plastic baby gate and bruised the top of my foot pretty bad, then last night I did it AGAIN to the lower part of the same foot so today I’m pretty much sticking to bed with it elevated.
I’ve got an idea kicking around in my head for a sweater design that I think I might start sketching out and swatching for.
