Sale in my shop!

Hello blog. I’m back. I took an unannounced, much-needed break from things, and it’s over now.

 

So what’s going on in my Etsy shop? If you pop over to my shop right now, you’ll see that I don’t have much listed, and what I do have listed is currently 20% off! On October 9, I will be closing my shop. I am going to re-launch by Halloween, with new colors, new fibers, new photos and new labels!

 

In my extended blog silence, I finished a lot of knitting.  In fact…I finished the same pattern twice!

I knit two very different versions of a Simple Yet Effective Shawl. While I used the same needles, the yarns are as different as night and day.

My orange shawl is Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm cormo, a worsted weight, plied yarn.  I enjoyed knitting with this yarn and will do so again- I still have three skeins hiding out in my stash! The cormo washes up like butter after a decent soak.

My multi-colored shawl is lace to fingering weight singles, hand spun on a drop spindle, and it is made up of Phat Fiber samples and my left over fiber from color experiments. I knit the first garter section and went for all stockinette after that. The yarn and fiber content in this shawl, plus the large needles, made for an extremely light, soft fabric

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In the midst of my spinning and knitting, I was given a spectacular floor loom.

 

It’s an older loom, but everything is in great shape. The only thing I don’t have is a warping board ;  because of this, I haven’t put a new warp on the loom yet. I did take the old warp off, however.

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Let me also introduce you to my new kitten!

The timing was pretty much perfect to get this guy- he was even born on my birthday! He drives us a little crazy sometimes but he is really a good cat. We named him Logan (yes, after Wolverine)

Been a while

I’ll be honest: I will pretty much blog anything in this post, just to get back in the swing of blogging. I don’t know why I haven’t written more in the last few weeks.

First, a picture:

I am dyeing silk hankies for my July contribution to the Phat Fiber box.  Since the theme for July is non-wool, instead of more a color-driven theme, I dyed up a ton of different colors; now I am working on dyeing more for my shop. 

I am knitting away for Summer of Socks, which kicked off on June 21 (I believe). I have one sock done and I am working on its mate. Last year I set a lofty goal for SOS and failed in every way to make it; this year, I just want to knit up what I can.

Since one –along is not enough, I am going to participate in Tour de Fleece when it kicks off in July. I have lovely fiber to work with, and here’s a short list of what I hope to spin up during TdF:

Extreme Spinning- 4 oz Superwash/glitz blend

North Star Alpacas- 2 oz black alpaca

We Love Thor- 4 oz Perendale

When done with the 10 oz listed above I will start adding new things to the list.

 

That’s it for now.

Guidelines for a successful Etsy shop

The powerhouse behind Twice Sheared Sheep has written an excellent blog post concerning how to run a successful Etsy shop. Go check it out! Dawn makes a lot of points I hope to take to heart with my own shop in the future.

5/25 Shop update!

Shop update over at Infinity yarn and Fiber!

Stone Soup and Alpaca

First, I have joined the Stone Soup Challenge. In a nut shell, this challenge is to encourage indie craftsters and artists to re-invest in the community by purchasing from each other. I…I will have no issue with this, lol. I try to buy my supplies with other small crafters and suppliers when I can’t buy them locally.

 

Second, a total stranger gave me a ton of alpaca fiber! It’s probably something like 6lbs of fiber and some of it is nice blanket fiber. About 2/3 of it is shorter, coarser fiber. I am going to wash and sort it all; whatever is too short or coarse to spin or card will be felted or made into quilt batting. I will try to post some pictures of the mountain of alpaca soon!

Fish!

There is no knitting/fiber content in this post! I went to the Seattle Aquarium last week, and while there, I took the pictures you see below. Enjoy!

Caclulating my success

Well, I am updating a little early on Sunday, but I don’t think I will have time to make any serious progress on my goals for the rest of the day.

Goal #1- dyeing fiber: This goal I knocked out of the park. I have 8oz. of fiber ready to go up in my shop and another 8oz. drying in the bathroom as we speak. I have….at least 12oz of wool and 4oz of ramie ready to hit the dyepots on Monday.

Goal #2- spinning fiber: This goal is nearly knocked out. I finished 4 sublime ounces of Natural Obsessions bamboo top in Tinted Tinytypes, spun as thin singles. I finished 4oz of singles from Susan’s Kitchen as well, but I haven’t finished the plying them yet, so the yarn isn’t exactly done, however, I feel it is close enough to call my “8oz spun” goal accomplished.

Goal #3- sock knitting: Nope. I didn’t finish two pairs. I have 1.8 socks finished so far. I did start and finish a bag for my D&D dice, though, and that took most of a day of knitting time.

 

Not bad for a 4-day weekend, eh?

Ok, a few posts ago, when I said I would post about some pretty handspun lace….I lied. Just a little. I don’t want to post about the lace-weight yarn just yet, not until I have a lot more of it done. I won’t be done for a while- I finished up & sent in my May samples for the Phat Fiber Box last week and since then, I have been taking it easy and working on some “me” projects in the fiber world. And letting my hands rest, for they are cracked and dry and achy. Not that I am complaining, just stating the facts; participating in the Phat Fiber boxes has been the smartest thing I’ve done since opening my etsy shop. I just needed a little rest time.

 

I have some lofty goals for the next five days. I want to dye 16oz of fiber for my shop, spin 8oz of fiber for myself, and finish two pairs of socks. I will update on Sunday with my progress and pictures.