Lizard Toes

Hooray, I finally got some new yarns up in the shop.  There are 5 new colors of Isobel and 4 new colors of Spanky.  I have 5 or so new colors of Samira, but it likes to take its time drying,  so it’s on vacation in my tropical fiber room (space heater = a dry 80F in there) until it dries out.

We suffered a plumbing emergency in the middle of my dyeing.  We’re on (hard) well water here and our sediment filter broke and dumped 2″ of water all over our 1400sqft basement in just under 45 minutes.  That was a mess and a half.  I lost a lot of books and art supplies, but we’ll recover.  It put me a couple of days behind, though.  But all is well now.  We have a new water softener/filter combo (clean!  I get clean in the shower now!  Soap suds up, it’s wonderful!) I’m caught up and about ready for school to start back up again on Monday.  I can’t believe my break is over.  It doesn’t feel like I had one!

And now I have to go get in the shower so we can take the husband’s car into the shop for a radiator repair.  After that, maybe I can get in some knitting time or something!

Happy new year!

Xmas eve already?  Really?  Wow this past month has flown by.  Between finals and getting the shop updated (which I’m still not done doing!) it’s been a crazy past several weeks.

But I’m on a break from school now and working on a weaving project, waiting on Santa to show up (he looks suspiciously like the USP guy, but we won’t comment on that) and trying not to freeze to death.   It’s a balmy 2.8F this morning here in pretty Harpers Ferry.  We got a buttload of snow dumped on us several days ago and while a bit of it has melted, most of the 20-ish inches we got is still around.  It sure is pretty though!

Stay warm everyone, and have a happy holiday, whatever you celebrate!

I finally updated the shop with 11 new colorways over 4 different yarns.  I had a big, purple bug up my butt apparently since almost all of them either are purple or contain purple.  It is my favorite color, but really, you’d think my muse could branch out a bit.

Here’s a dirty fiber room photo of the yarns I just added:

And for those that are curious.  Here’s my photo set up.  I have to move the light tent when I’m not using it.  It’s pretty cramped in there.

My helper monkey is hard at work making a lot of great new stitch markers for you guys.  I expect to have them sometime this week, but as it’s Thanksgiving and my mom and stepdad are coming in for a visit, don’t expect an update until the week after   Have a great Turkey Day if you celebrate it and if you don’t, then just have a great day period!

So I promised new Dark Matter and other fun colorways for you and then didn’t come through.  See, I thought it would be fun to clean a fleece outside using my giant stock pots, huge tubs and boiling water.  And it was, but it also screwed up my back.  That was over a week ago and I’m still in pain and hobbling around.  Picking up a gallon of milk hurts, sitting too long in my chair hurts, standing on my feet hurts, spinning hurts, combing hurts, it all hurts!  And then on top of it I have finals, go figure.

BUT!  I have plans to either get better by next week so I can dye or to bribe local friends with free yarn to come help me dye.  Either way, dyeing will be getting done, people.  I’m ready to get my hands in some dye pots and make a huge mess (my husband says it looks like a clown threw up all over the counter when I dye).

Stitch marker supplies are in the hands of my helper monkey so large and deluxe markers will be back in the next few weeks.  Keep an eye out, there are some new colors showing up

Isobel and Orio, huge cones of both, just waiting for me to soak them with dye. I can’t wait to get started, hopefully that will be happening in the next few days, which means all you folks waiting on more Dark Matter won’t have to wait much longer. I’m going to dye up 2-3 lbs in that colorway since it’s so popular. I may also be repeating a few other colorways in other yarns.

I need more coffee and for it to warm up. The weather here has been wet and cold for the past 3 days and I’m about over it. Luckily next week is looking to be very pleasant, low 70’s and sunny. Perfect dyeing weather, no?

After much sweating and rushing I got 17 lbs of yarn dyed, put up, photographed and listed in just a few days.  What a marathon!  But there are 3 new yarns in the shop, including yarns for weavers and some luscious silk laceweight.  And best of all I’ve started adding knitting swatches to my yarn listings as I’m able.  Sometimes cones are a bit over a pound and I end up with a few yards left over after putting up into skeins.  When that happens I’m now knitting up swatches on my knitting machine and adding them to the listing.  I’m awaiting some new photography lighting so I can get good pictures of my stitch markers.  I’m also going to be revamping all the st marker listings.  The first thing that will happen is that the large and deluxe markers will be going away for a while.  Not because they’ve been bad, just because I need to have some in stock, as I don’t now, and so have to have my assitant make some for me.  That means my materials will be in her hands, which means I can’t make them on demand as I do now.  But that’s a while away yet, so in the meantime, order all you want!

I’ve had to update my shipping policies.  While shipping to the US and Canada is fairly inexpensive the cost increases exponentially to ship to another continent.  So my shipping policies are the same for the US and Canada – 3.00 to ship all orders under 30.00 and all orders over 30.00 ship free.  But my shipping policies to other continents had to be altered because I was losing a lot of money, so the minmum order for other locations is 75.00 to get free shipping and the shipping cost for under 75.00 is 8.00.  I hated to do, truly I did, but I was losing so much money with overseas orders.  I really appreciate your understanding.

Paula is aware of the fundraising efforts on my part and she wanted to make sure I expressed her gratitude here for you all.  She is very grateful for all the support and help you guys have offered.  It has definitely helped, but she needs more help and I’m still taking 30% of every sale and donating it directly to her for the time being.  And, of course, you can always donate directly to her via PayPal using the button in the last entry.

School has started back up for me.  My break wasn’t very break-ish, I was pretty much going from the time I got up until the time I went to bed.  I used my ‘time off’ to catch up on all the work that’d been backing up.  Hopefully this class will be a bit less hectic and time consuming.

My home state, Georgia, has been flooded.  The county I grew up in was one of the hardest hit.  In that county my best friend has lived as long as I’ve known her.  Her house wasn’t considered to be on a flood plain, so she has no flood insurance.  Almost everything of value she owned has been flooded.  All of her wood working equipment, her glass equipment, it’s all ruined.  She doesn’t know I’m doing this, unless she’s reading, in which case, uh, hi?

I want to do what I can from up here and the only thing I can think to do is try to raise some funds for her so she can try to rebuild a bit of what she lost.  Every sale made from now until, well, whenever will have 30% donated to Paula.  She is my best friend in the whole world and I’ve known her for probably 18 years now.  She’s amazing, smart, funny, fabulous and oh-so-talented.  She’s had a really rough time lately and doesn’t deserve any of it, least of all losing things that are impossible for her to replace right now.   Won’t you help too and get some fantastic yarn and stitch markers in the bargain?  Or, if you want, simply donate directly to my Paypal account using the button below, either way, the money will be going to her directly and every penny is appreciated.

I know stock is a bit low in the shop, I’ll be dyeing more over the next few days and should have more stuff (including new yarns!) going up soon.

I just placed an order with one of my mills and in that order I included quite a bit of 4 new yarns I’m going to try out in the shop.  This is high end luxury stuff here, folks.  Well, mostly, I am going to start carrying an 8/2 weaving cotton, that’s not luxury, but the other stuff – Let’s see, a merino/silk 50/50 blend in a lovely fingering weight, a 65/35 superwash merino/bamboo rayon blend in a light fingering weight (this will be perfect for socks for warmer climates) and finally a 100% Swiss silk laceweight that is to die for.  It’s soft and shiny and so strong.  It could be used for weaving or lace knitting, either way it will be lovely.

I’m excited about getting those in and getting some of it dyed up.  I’ve been exceptionally busy, while this class isn’t as hard as my last one, it’s a LOT of work, and it’s work I’m not very good or fast at, so it’s taking me forever.

I’m also slowly remodeling the shop, or rather reorganizing.  I don’t like the pictures of stitch markers I have up and I don’t like the way they’re organized, so I’m going to photograph new images, change the copy and introduce a lot of new colors.  When it’s all said and done I’ll ahve 41 different color combos just in the standard markers.  Should be fun and sparkly!

Despite my booming little business here, I still have an undergrad program to finish. This past class was HELL. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it out alive, but I’m beginning to think I may.

I’ve been busy at work dyeing up some custom orders when I can snatch bits of time. I’ve also got two new colorways for the shop and if I can find time to skein them up and photograph them I’ll get them put in.

I’ve been busier than I can adequately explain. We’re having painters next weekend come and paint the inside of the house. I’m hoping it won’t take them more than a couple of days and I can have my office and living spaces back. They’ll be doing it all, fiber room and my office, so expect any orders placed after about Thursday of this week to be delayed by a few days.

Earlier this year at Maryland Sheep and Wool I bought a 6.25lb Corrie cross fleece.  I bought it because it varied in color from soft, smoky gray to deep black and even had a bit of brown in it (that wasn’t sheep filth).  It also had great crimp, a long staple length, excellent lock structure and virtually no VM.

I cleaned and spun a handful of it when I first brought it home and it was just as delightful as I’d hoped, but it’s been sitting behind me ever since waiting patiently to be scoured.  It did have plenty of lanolin and no short supply of dirt and sheep poo.  So I tackled it yesterday.

Before:

(This is on a king size fitted sheet.  I didn’t have any flats I could sacrifice.  Click to make it bigger!)

This is after being washed twice and rinsed twice and put through the spin dryer:

And here’s a lock showing structure (lots of the locks came through in one piece despite my less than careful handling) and length:

So what’s the plan for this happy, fabulous wool?  I’m going to knit a sweater, but not just any sweater, oh no, we can’t have that.  I’m going to knit this cardigan:

Those who know me will notice the beavers and understand.  I’m going to dye and spin this wool so I can make this cardigan.  Don’t worry, it won’t be in boring brown

So that’s the new feature, my Sheep to Sweater adventure.  I plan on hand combing the fiber into top.  It was sheared really well so there aren’t many second cuts (I’ve actually found all of 3 or 4 while scouring) and it combs beautifully with little waste.  Plus I seem to like spinning from combed top than carded fiber.

I’ll update as I progress, should be fun!