Today is a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing...and I'm going to North Carolina! Yessss.

I'm so very excited to visit all my old haunts in Asheville - #1 on my list is, of course, Earth Guild! Oh, the memories. Earth Guild is the store where I bought my very first (and only) drop spindle and my first wool & acid dyes as well. And they have EVERYTHING. Mostly. I'm going to check out their fibers and see if I can find some fun sparkles or something. They used to have raw llama fiber and other interesting bits. I also want to get some candlemaking supplies, since I'm on a big petroleum-free candle kick. And I want to get some scrap leather for the soles on a pair of felt slippers I want to make. What else. I'll probably come back with like half the store.

#2 is the French Broad Food Co-op & Amazing Savings. The Co-op has this big wall of herbs, the best selection I've ever seen. I want to stock up on tea blends & herbs - I need spinning fuel! Amazing Savings is - I don't even know how to describe it. Here's a little blurb about it I found online: "One of Asheville's best kept secrets. Organic and natural foods at 50% to 80% off because they are either almost out of date or they are out of date or just overstocked." Some of our scores at this store in the past included: 30 lbs of organic prunes (for $10!), 25 lbs of raw cashews (free), 50 lbs of whole wheat flour (free), 25 lbs of organic blueberry granola ($25), and 200 lbs of organic refined-sugar-free peanut butter chips (FREE). All the "free" stuff is free because they were throwing it out. They have so much food, they're always throwing stuff out. We used to go pick the big unopened boxes of food out of the dumpster, and they would sometimes leave boxes of organic produce outside of the dumpster for us to pick through. One time I got enough organic apples to brew 3 gallons of apple-mint mead + I dried a ton to take hiking. Just...don't get me started on Amazing Savings.

#3 is the recycling center behind Earth Fare. Yes, it's an odd place to want to go, but you can find so much great stuff there. Although we're usually the only people carrying stuff AWAY from the recycling center...everyone else is dropping stuff off. I want to look for glass gallon jugs for brewing & glass baby food jars or something similar for candlemaking & homemade salves. And occasionally you can find fancy things like blue glass wine bottles that you can use to bottle your own wine/mead/whatever.

#4 is the brewing supply store, which I forgot the name of. I need some airlocks to go with the glass gallon jugs. Homebrew, here I come!

But mostly, I'll probably be out in the woods, climbing mountains and so on.

See you guys when I get back! (Probably around Thursday or so).

Blood, Sweat & Wool

This little video makes me so happy.



I do have a pair of hand shears...

Customer Appreciation #2

There have been more things made from my yarn popping up on etsy recently - here are a few of my favorites. You can click on the pictures to go to the etsy listing for each one.



Remember my crazy post-apocalyptic zombie yarn, All That Remains? This is what became of it - a gorgeous cowl! I'm half-tempted to buy it myself. I'm trying not to think about it too much! I will be jealous of whoever ends up with this one. This was made by SandAndSkyCreations.



This pretty wrap collar was made by CharteChic from my falkland/soysilk Hot Cocoa yarn (with marshmallowy baubles!). I like the design of this - I've been in love with the versatility of rectangles + shawl pins lately.



This is another of Raimbowtree's felted headbands made from my self-striping yarn. This one already sold, but there's another one for sale here. I'm a big fan of the tree applique! Make sure to check out the rest of her shop as well - all her headbands are so gorgeous!

Just Another Day at the Yarn Factory...

Guess who spun up three new patchwork yarns today? I'll be putting them up tomorrow (although two are reserved right now). It'll most likely be the last update for a little while, since I'm leaving for NC on Sunday or Monday.

Has everyone seen the new Etsy t-shirt available in the EtsyLabs shop?



I bought one - I had to! It not only has yarn on it, but it's my favorite color too.

The shop update is finished. But there's only one skein left (geez), so run on over there if you want it!

I got much less done today than I wanted to (as in, I spun most of one skein of patchwork yarn), so I'm going to try to get some late night spinning done and have at least two skeins to show tomorrow.

Also, I got the new pluckyfluff book - a bit bittersweet, as my yarn was supposed to be in it but got lost behind my desk & didn't get sent out. Oh well! The book is so super amazing, so I wasn't sad for long. I've been reading all the spinner's reviews on this book while waiting for it to arrive - which all pretty much say "this book is so super amazing!" - but, well, it's true.

Finally!

That dye draught really threw me off! I had to treadle my heart out yesterday to have something to put in the shop today, and I still only finished 3 patchwork skeins. Here they are:



The one on the top is my favorite from this batch - and I'll be spinning up another identical skein of that one today. The light is horrible for taking pictures today (it's really really overcast), but I'm still going to try to get semi-decent ones.

I've been enjoying my brand new batch of dyes, and I still haven't worked my way through all the fiber I dyed up on Friday & Saturday:



So...I plan on spinning at least 2 more patchwork yarns today, and hopefully at least one novelty skein as well. Which means I should have another shop update tomorrow! I'm trying to spin as much as possible this week, because next week I might be taking a trip down to NC to visit friends & hang out in the woods for a few days.

Those dang dyes finally arrived. So I'm dyeing up a storm today, and hope to be able to replenish my shop sometime early next week! It looks like there's going to be a avalanche of new patchwork yarns fresh off the wheel soon.