Dyemergency!

Oopsie. I ran out of dye! This means that I'll only have about 3-4 yarns to list until my new dyes (that I'm about to order tonight) arrive. Oh well. I have some knitting I need to do anyway. Please hurry, UPS!

I listed some new patchwork yarns tonight:



As well as another novelty yarn, but the pictures for that one are so horrible that I'm thinking about putting it in edit mode until I get better ones.

I really want this blog to be more USEFUL to folks and not just about stuff I have for sale. What sort of things would you like to read about? Spinning tips/tutorials? Etsy finds? Fiber artist interviews? Contests?

Baubles!

Well. I spent quite a bit of time making baubles the past two days, and it has paid off:



That right there is a gallon bag, filled with 300+ pretty felty baubles. I'm hoping to start selling them soon. If they don't start showing up in my shop in a week or two, then you will know that I have a real bauble-hoarding problem. You can't see the baubles all that well (if you click on the picture, you can see the bigger version on flickr), but some of them are extra pretty, with fancy bits like kid mohair and sparkle. I want to make some luxurious angora baubles, but I'm anxious about messing them up.

I also did a little experimenting, and come up with two different interesting felty configurations that I plan on incorporating into my yarns:



I have lots more ideas for bauble experiments, but I need to get some supplies first.

SO! Last Sunday, I got to hang out with Molly of mollymillerbyappt. She first contacted me about getting together ages ago, but she planned a big spin-off for last weekend and invited several etsy spinners. Except somehow, I was the only one who made it! But it was a blast - we shared fiber, tried out each other's wheels (she has a Babe production), spun some crazy yarns, and best of all - I got to see her gorgeous, amazing, words-do-not-describe collection of handknit scarves (and a few other things) made from yarn spun by the most famous and talented etsy spinners. Including hobbledehoy, luxe, wooldancer, feltstudiouk, and I'm pleased to say there were a few of mine in there as well. I saw the Riverstone scarf with the felty baubles from my customer appreciation post, and I gotta say, that picture does NOT do it justice. At all. I mean, I spun the yarn and I was sitting there petting it in amazement! I also taught Molly how to make felty baubles, and she emailed me and said she made about 150 of them already! Yes, they are addicting.

I am very proud of myself because I just updated my shop for the second day in a row, PLUS I have yarns (patchwork + 1 or 2 novelty) for an update tomorrow too! Yay productivity! Here's what I listed today (the yarns from yesterday already sold):



Spectra V2 - I was asked to spin a repeat of my Spectra yarn, and since it's two different colorways plied together, it was easier for me to spin two skeins than one. The extra one is up for grabs in my shop.



Green And Speckled Frog - Soft & pretty organic cotton. I won't mind at all if this one doesn't sell! I keep looking at it and thinking I might keep it, so I need to go hide it in my etsy yarn box.

Shop Update + Customer Appreciation

I wanted to share a couple things that were made with my yarn by other etsyians:



A crochet & felted headband with a pretty tree applique made from my Laura self-striping yarn by Raimbowtree.



A scarf knit from my Candy Mountain yarn (with felty baubles!) by Molly Miller.



And, a knit & felted bag made from my Clara self-striping yarn by myfinn.

All of these are for sale on etsy!

I also managed to update my shop today! Three new yarns are up, and I still have two to list later on tonight. I'm saving the best for last! Sneak preview:

Spun seafoam

I'm working on my first yarn spun from the rambouillet:





I carded some up with soysilk this morning, and it makes beautiful fluffy-soft batts. This yarn is being spun from the soysilk/rambouillet batts, raw uncarded rambouillet, and bits of seafoam falkland wool. Hopefully it'll be ready to list tomorrow...

So much wool!

I finally started feeling better, after being pretty much bedridden for a few days, just in time to hang out with my friend. And she has a CAR (I don't - I walk everywhere), and she took us to a rambouillet farm that I've been trying to get to for forever. I've been pining away for some lovely raw wool to work with. And we came home with 4 gigantic bags of soft soft fleece, estimated at ten pounds each, for a price that was so amazing! It's cheap because it's last years wool and he wanted to get rid of it. I contacted him after searching for local rambouillet farms, so I don't think he was really expecting to be able to sell it since it's almost shearing time again.



dark chocolate rambouillet ram fleece (I cannot believe how soft & fine this is):



white ewe, this one is my favorite, super crimpy and soft:



Yay! Look for yarns spun from this lovely local wool soon...but not that soon, because today is post office day.

*EDITED to replace with better photos! I forgot to turn off the micro last time...*

I'm sick.

Bleh. I've been really sick ever since Tuesday or so, plus my partner is home sick, which makes it hard to get things done. And I have a friend coming to visit, so I need to clean, and my shop is empty, so I need to spin. Oh, and I really need to go to the post office. I can probably think of a few million other things I need to get done as well. SO, if you have contacted me recently and don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm sick and busy - not because I'm ignoring you!

But, there will still be a shop update today, with three new skeins:







A REAL scrap yarn, pretty bamboo, and a novelty yarn with my deformed felty baubles. And I have another 1-3 skeins (depending on if I decided to keep any to knit with) to list tomorrow or over the weekend.

Get to work

Somehow my shop ended up really empty. How did that happen?? I spent today packing up lots of yarn to ship and doing some panicky spinning because I don't have much yarn to list! I spun a patchwork yarn on Saturday that I'll be listing later on tonight:





And today I've gotten a skein of bamboo done so far - I'm hoping to finish a novelty yarn and maybe another skein of bamboo tonight. And then I really need to get going the rest of the week - especially since I'll be taking at least one day off, maybe two!

In love!

Ahh...it's the best feeling when you have an idea for a yarn and it works out even more amazing that you imagined. I love this yarn! I put it up for sale, but I definitely need to make more for me to knit with. So sweet!

I've been wanting to keep a LOT of yarns lately. I need to get busy and spin enough to fill up the shop so I can take a break - and spin some for ME!

The singles from my last post, all plied up with invisible thread + felty baubles:



I was going to take some creative pictures of levitating felty baubles after I strung them onto the invisible thread, but I got bored quickly and gave up. Plus I didn't want to tangle the thread - invisible thread is reaaally hard to untangle.

Here is a skein of vegan novelty yarn that I just listed on etsy:



It's mostly bamboo, with some sparkle and lots of big slubs of ingeo. I found the ingeo (a fiber made from corn) in the craft store, being sold as eco-friendly fake snow! I've never worked with it before, so I don't know if all ingeo is like this, but from pictures I've seen I'm guessing it's not. This stuff is sort of tangled/teased fiber in a big batt, and it's very fuzzy and springy and almost wool-like in texture. I haven't decided how much I like it yet - but I plan on attempting to dye some of it and maybe carding it into vegan batts and experimenting some more. It's interesting stuff.