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What a perfect day to do some dyeing! The weather is warm, dry and perfectly sunny. I spent the morning and early afternoon in the dye studio. I dyed up 5 pounds of BFL roving, in 8 colorways. I took pictures of the process, start to finish, with one roving. I’ll post them tomorrow after things have been washed and dried in the sun.
Needless to say, there will be a big shop update early next week. Not holding out a lot of hope that we’ll figure out the website issues in time, but definitely an Etsy update.
Well, never completely normal but I’d like to think we’re close 
Things are settling down a bit. I’m done being on call and finished with performance evals, so I no longer feel like I’m tethered to work. Phew! Nice to be able to keep work and home separate again! I’m no longer sore from my accident and the car should be fixed next week – one more issue just about resolved. Dear hubby – he’s another story, though things have settled for the time being. He went to the doctor on Monday and found out that a tendon in his foot snapped, something that had actually been cut and sutured to lengthen it during surgery. It didn’t hold, which caused all of the swelling and some increased pain. So, he’s now on crutches and having another surgery in a week – repair work so to speak. Kind of blew the summer activity-wise, as he’ll be in a cast or something similar to immobilize his foot, along with the crutches for 6-8 weeks. He’s handling all of this remarkably well and without complaint. Think he learned his lesson and gets that he has to stay off it. We did have a “chat” to the effect that his arms still indeed work – think we’re through that too
So, I can focus on some fibery pursuits again. I’m planning to spend time in the dye studio on Saturday, which I can’t wait for. Its been a while and I am just itching to play. Lots of creative energy right now! I am also contemplating my next order from my wholesaler. Thinking about going for a lighter weight sock yarn, along with a couple of other yarns – I’d like to bring in some variety. It won’t be of the magnitude of the last order, but enough to have some new and exciting stuff to offer. A little of this and a little of that, so that I can see what dyes up nicely and what sells. We’re planning on spending Sunday on my parents’ new boat – I have every intention of bringing my knitting. I’ll have plenty of time to relax. I’m almost done with the first of the Toe Up Socks. I’m making steady progress on the Melody Shawl too. I did rip back the Reptilian Lace Socks – decided that instead of going from a 1 to a 2 needle, I’ll try the in between size that Knit Picks is now offering. They have a 2 that’s 2.75 mm, right between the usual 2.5 mm 1’s and 3 mm 2’s. I’m afraid to jump the normal 2’s – too loose. They’re inexpensive enough that its worth trying and I’ve wanted to try their needles for a while.
The website continues to be a work in progress. Everett made up the new pages that I needed. I’ve been playing with adding items to the online shop, but at this point, I can’t figure out how to make the shopping cart work. I’m getting there. We’re thinking that we’ll dedicate some time this weekend to making it work. I think once we figure it out, adding things will be really simple and we’ll be up and running on the site pretty quickly. Its just getting that first one figured out…
We are running a Fourth of July Sale on our Etsy shop. Everything (with the exception of Gift Certificates) is 15% off. Click on the link to the right to check it out!
… to relax, knit a little and then relax some more. This weekend has been far quieter than expected. Hadn’t planned much, with being on call for work and knowing that I had to go in to work on Saturday. Ev and I had each had respective moments of being forced to slow down this week. I had a “fender bender” (that’s my little euphemism for having some jerk driving too fast and not paying attention hit me) on my way home from work on Thursday. Luckily, I’m fine (my car is a little less than fine – but then it did what it was supposed to do and protected me – and its fixable). I was sore enough on Friday to know that pushing myself to do any dyeing, carding or anything else that requires bending over a table would make it worse. Ev had a little set back with his foot on Saturday – maybe the start of an infection or maybe his body’s way of saying SIT, ALREADY. I’ve never before complained about him doing laundry – but I was not happy to find out that he’d been doing exactly that while I was at SnB on Wednesday. So, the universe was clearly telling us to slow it down. And we did. I went into work as planned on Saturday, though late in the morning after I slept in. A little rest did a lot of good – performance evals are finished! Woo hoo! Being on call has been very quiet (I’m knocking on wood – there’s still 4 days in which all hell could break loose!). We’ve done a lot of nothing this weekend. I actually watched a chick flick and painted my nails on Saturday – when was the last time I could do that? I had time to shop online for a bathing suit (more painful than any car accident, BTW!) though I was happy with what I found in Land’s End. Spent far too much of my Sunday contemplating doing the Mystery Shawl 3 and poking around online yarn shops. Decided against it – too complicated for me right now and too many other things going on. Picking up my Reptilian Lace socks confirmed that for me – one focus project is enough. I’m going to have rip them out, as I made a mistake somewhere and can’t find it. Only 18 rows into the first one. I may even go up a needle size while I’m at it. Couldn’t bring myself to rip it out tonight – I’ll do it tomorrow. The Melody’s Shawl grew a whole inch this weekend – good progress considering how much I pick it up and put it down lately. At any rate, if I had accomplished nothing this weekend it would have been fine too. It was good to have some quiet time, no matter how it came to be.
…are finally up on Etsy! Two blends – one is purple merino and black diamond (bamboo) top, the other teal superwash merino lambswool and black mohair. Look!
Both so yummy to spin. I spun samples of both earlier this week. No pictures yet – the purple is still sitting on the bobbin. Apparently a theme for me – couldn’t spin a thing until I wound off 8 bobbins of yarn that I had spun up recently. Guess that startitis I had spilled over to my spinning without my even realizing it. Still washing and skeining some of those handspun yarns, including both samples – I’ll post pictures and details later.
As far as my knitting, I’m alternating between two projects right now (trying to stay focused and finish things) – the toe up socks and the Melody Shawl. Making slow progress on both. I’m itching to work on my Reptilian Lace Socks but I’ve found that the cables, lace and beading require full concentration – I’ll work on them when I have a well rested and quiet moment. I’ve finished one set of Christmas presents, the hat and scarf combos. I need to swatch and plan the next set and pick out something for my niece and nephew. I’ve never done this much Christmas knitting (and frankly, I’ve never started so early) – can’t wait to gift everything, take pictures and post all that I’ve done.
Have a great day!
Ev had foot surgery on Friday, so he’s pretty much off his feet for a couple of weeks. He was told to only walk on it when necessary for the weekend. By Saturday afternoon, he was complaining that he was “bored”. You’re what?!? Tell me to park it for days and I’ll be looking for excuses not to stay there – all that knitting time! Think of all the projects I could get done…
He should be a little more mobile after he sees the doctor this morning. Since he was looking for something to do, he agreed to play with the website. He’s going to do all of the foundation work, like putting new pages together, over the next couple of days. Once that’s done, I’ll work on the online shopping components. Hopefully we’ll have it going by the weekend. We’ll see. Work will have me tethered to desk, pager and cell phone this week – not sure how much I’ll get done. Decided to take today off and work Saturday instead. Ev still needs a hand with stuff and I know it’ll basically be a useless work day. Better to go in on Saturday, when no one knows I’m there and crank out those performance evals. Besides, judging from this glorious morning, its going to be beautiful today – hot and summery. What better place to be than my deck?
I found some time to play with fibery stuff this weekend. I pulled out the drum carder and made up two different blended batts. One is purple merino blended with black diamond top (black diamond is a type of bamboo). Its so pretty. The black diamond is silvery against the merino. I’m going to spin a sample later today and then post it. The other batt I did was a superwash merino and mohair. The merino is mallard green – deep green with some hints of other colors blended in. I dyed the mohair black and blended it so its about 70/30 merino/mohair. It blends so beautifully – going to be a dream to spin. I’ll post after I sample that one too. I carded up a sample of the black border leicester fleece from CT Sheep and Wool too. Its going to be great – tips of the fleece are sun bleached to a light reddish brown – they show up as highlights in the dark brown fleece. I’ll take pictures and post later. Lots of work ahead of me to card 4 pounds of fleece one ounce at a time, but I think I’ll do it over the next several weeks, when I have a minute. I worked away on my Toe Up socks Friday and Saturday. Finished the foot, did the short row heel and started up the cuff. So far, I love this. I didn’t have the problems with the heel that I did with the toe (they’re worked the same way and that toe is the one I started 5 times before I got it right). I did the heel while Ev was in surgery. I was worried enough that I was distracted and had so much trouble with the toe that I actually put in a lifeline for it. I know, I’m a wimp! Figured it would be that much easier when I ripped it back. No need – it came out fine, even with a few interruptions. Now I’m an inch up the cuff with plenty of yarn left to make it nice and long. Plain stockinette – I’ll add a couple of inches of ribbing at the end. Nice, mindless knitting!
I dyed up the last of the sock yarn this weekend. Ended up with an order that necessitated more of it in Blue Note. I decided that I may as well do the other hank that I had left at the same time, so I did that in Autumn. This batch of Blue Note is subtly different from the last – colors are a little bit richer, I think. Could have been the way I mixed the dye or poured the color, not entirely sure. I’m in love with this one. For all of my telling myself that I should not hoard my inventory for myself, that its bad for business, I’m keeping one anyway. Just one little skein. Mine, all mine!
The new Knitty is up, as of Monday. As usual, so many wonderful things. Two of the sock patterns are gorgeous – going into my pattern library. I may have to buy another skein of Socks That Rock to do either the Coupling or the Sweet Pea socks. Maybe I’ll buy 2 and do both.
All this stuff is making me long for more knitting time. Well, that and the fact that I have next to none at this point. Work has me crazed. June is performance evaluation time. I have to write performance evals on all 8 of my staff — yuck. All have to be done by June 30. I set a schedule for myself at the beginning of the month but I’m already a week behind where I wanted to be. I’m on call for work the last week of the month, so I have to be available by phone, 24 hours a day. Being on call is no fun (my SnB group can attest to that – most of them remember last time. Though some of them seemed to enjoy watching me lose it a bit in the middle of Atlanta Bread. Not coming to SnB this time while I’m on call!). Figure I’m basically working anyway, so I’m just going to hole myself up in my office and write the rest of the evals. No knitting time for me that week. I am hoping that I can get a little knitting time in this weekend. Ev’s foot surgery is Friday – guaranteed knitting time while I wait? Hope so. At the very least, we can’t go far with him hobbling around. It promises a low key weekend. Maybe I’ll squeak out so time in between house stuff and helping him. I do hope to pull out the drum carder and do some blended batts this weekend. I dyed some mohair black on Sunday, to blend with some superwash merino that’s been in my stash forever. I also have some other merino to blend with a soysilk-like fiber that’s in my stash. Hoping to have those on the website or Etsy this weekend. We’ll see how much knitting actually happens.
There is light at the end of this tunnel. My trip to Harrisville is getting closer – I go up August 5, so its a little less than 2 months away. Dyeing, spinning, knitting combined with no computer, TV or phone = bliss! Such a relaxing week. So close… can’t wait!
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