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I spent all day Saturday and Sunday in the dye studio – what felt like a marathon of dyeing. The result? 7 pounds of roving and 7 skeins of sock yarn dyed up. Saturday, I did BFL roving – restocking some colors that have sold and adding a couple of new ones. Sunday, I dyed up 2 pounds of a special roving that I had in the stash – a fine wool blend of merino, rambouillette and targhee. Its just amazing – soft and squishy, with the springy-ness of the targhee. I’m washing batches of it right now. The yarn is one of my new ones – Painted Sock Too. Its a fingering weight (sock yarn weight) blend of 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon. A true sock yarn – washable, durable and very fine. It soaked up the colors beautifully. Here’s a peek:
I took some time to play with colors too – depending on how things come out, I’ll have 2 or 3 new colorways. Everything will be posted on Etsy and/or the website in the next couple of days.
More inspiration and new colors to come – the official Harrisville countdown is now at 5 days!!! I can count that on one hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have a happy day!
Remember my huge stress from last week? Its getting better. In fact, this week was great, in many, many ways. Good news on several levels on the work front. There is something hopefully “on the horizon” work-wise, that I am very excited about. Details later! Now I’m going to be completed vague and elusive, but my big, huge, I-cannot-believe-this-is-happening stressor from last week is hopefully getting resolved. I can’t get into details now (frankly because its a business issue) but when its all over, I’ll explain. I’m keeping it close for now, only some of those around me know. The good thing that I can say is that I am getting the free help that I needed with it. Woohoo!!! I did the happy dance in my office when I found out on Thursday. Speaking of free help, I met with a small business counselor at the Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Hartford this week. They were able to guide me through a couple of issues that I had questions about, like sole proprietorship vs becoming an LLC (have I mentioned that I got into this thinking that I was just going to dye some wool? seriously). Very, very helpful as I try to wrap my brain around the business stuff. I had to do a quarterly tax form this week for the first time, which actually allowed me to really look at how I’ve done so far. The answer? Great! The thing I found really cool, that as I ship out package after package I never have the time to consider, is this: in our first quarter The Painted Sheep had sales from 19 states and Canada. From my tiny little corner of the world! Very cool!
Now, I’m off to spend the day dyeing. Dear hubby has agreed to help by learning to use the niddy noddy to wind off skeins of sock yarn. Hoping to dye yarn and fiber today. I’m thinking that I’ll do 2 big batches, with a run to the yarn shop in between. Ever since the Knitty Surprise came out on Monday, I’ve been itching to get up there to pick up some hemp to do the Everlasting Bagstopper. Yummy and good for the environment too…
Harrisville countdown: 7 days!!!
Harrisville is now 10 days away. 10 days – 7 of them work days (and the last 1 really doesn’t count, since I’m taking the clients sailing that day – its like a vacation day anyway). I leave on August 5, my class is the 6th through the 10th. I breathed a huge sigh of relief at work this morning. Our staff are unionized and their contract had expired on March 30. They’ve been negotiating since April – things stalled until last week and it was looking like a strike was a realistic possibility. And since I’m in management, I was told in January that should a strike happen, all vacations for that time frame get cancelled. We thought that the contract would be settled by June, so I went ahead and planned this trip. Needless to say, I was getting nervous, especially when things weren’t settled after last week’s negotiations. Still thinking that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be going to Harrisville, if they voted to strike. I found out this morning that they settled last night. Everyone is glad its over! My vacation is safe, the stress of being in the middle of a nasty contract issue is over (especially since I stand firmly on the side of my unionized staff, whether I should or not) and we can now move on with things. I can’t stop smiling… Now I feel like I can count down!
This is the first harvest from our garden, just this afternoon. Zucchini, yellow squash, jalepenos and 3 perfect little cherry tomatoes (eaten as soon as the picture was taken!). And yes the ruler’s in there to show just how big the zucchini are. Still amazed that I can grow anything at all. One of the squash went into a veggie lasagna for tonight’s dinner. The garden looks great. The tomatoes plants are just full – promising wonderful meals for weeks to come. We’ve been picking our herbs, especially the basil and rosemary, for a couple of weeks now. I just love summer meals – so simple and fresh.
We wandered around the yard this afternoon, checking out the flower beds and the bushes around the edge of the yard. My hibiscus are loaded with buds, looking like they’ll open just about when I leave for Harrisville, just like last year. Inspiration for days in the dye studio… I snapped these pictures of the hydrangea and two of my favorite daylilies.
On the fiber front, the first of the Reptilian Lace Socks is done and I’ve started the 2nd one. Hoping to finish it before I go to Harrisville, but we’ll see. My order from the whole saler did come on Wednesday – I got in a fingering weight superwash/nylon sock yarn, a nice basic bulky wool and more of the alpaca/merino/silk blend that I’ve used for my Alpaca Handpaint. I’m thrilled with it – I’ll now have 4 different yarn offerings. I have more of The Painted Sock to skein up later this week and put on the website.
I didn’t end up dyeing this weekend. I did spend some time in the dye studio, making up dyes and getting (sort of) organized. In the end, I found that I needed time to regroup from the week from hell more than I needed to push myself to dye when I wasn’t quite in the right mindset. Regroup I did, by knitting, cooking and spending time with Ev. Next weekend, and maybe even one night this week, will bring time to dye. In the meantime, that Reptilian Lace sock is calling my name…
I realized today that I haven’t posted in a little more than a week – less than is usual for me. Not intentionally – things have been kinda crazy. This summer in general has been rough – Ev’s foot issues, my accident and now the last couple of days have brought another stressor that I won’t even go into here. Work has been more stressful than normal (always staffing issues not clients – funny how that works out). My staff have commented repeatedly over the last week that in 2 years, they’ve never seen me mad – like red in the face, holding back the screams mad. Its gotten ugly. It will pass, in time. Ev’s foot – we’re counting down to each step closer to being able to get around more easily. Next step is getting into an air cast and getting sutures out on Thursday. He’ll be able to get his foot wet, meaning I don’t need to help him as much. The car stuff is getting dealt with slowly – now I’m working on getting the doctor bills to the right people. The other issue will take some time to work out. Things will settle down – I’ll feel like I’ll have more time to blog, dye, spin, everything. My vacation is less than 3 weeks away. This is a real vacation – 6 days on my own in New Hampshire, dyeing, spinning and knitting. No work, no husband, no cell phone/TV/computer. Just what I need. These days when I “go to my happy place” I picture myself getting into my car packed with spinning wheel, dye supplies and knitting bag…
Knitting has been a great source of relief the last few weeks. I find that I crave my knitting when I’m stressed. It helps me refocus and get things in perspective. I have been cruising through the Reptilian Lace socks. I’m on the last of the lace patterns on the foot. Few more inches and the first one’s done. I love them. I had a birthday Saturday so Ev took me on a little detour, to Old Wethersfield so that I could go to Comstock Ferre. Its a well known nursery/seed company – heaven in and of itself. It also happens to have both a gift shop carrying Vera Bradley and a yarn store (Sit N Knit Too) in one building. Shopping doesn’t get much better than that. I never have enough time to browse when I’m up that way, so Ev made a point of stopping. He hung out and people watched while I poked through the plants, the new yarns and books and a preview of the new Vera bags. What a great way to spend the afternoon – the highlight of my week.
Hopefully things will settle down as the week goes on. I’m hoping that this weekend will bring some time to dye. I have an order from the wholesaler coming this week – 4 different yarns coming in. Very exciting – lots of stuff to play with, lots more stuff for The Painted Sheep…
With knitting the Reptilian Lace Socks. The needles I ordered from KnitPicks arrived on Friday and since then, I’ve been slightly obsessed with working on these socks. Every time I have a minute, or can make a minute (what housework?), I’ve been working on them. The new needles make a huge difference, as does working from the written directions rather than the chart. I’ve done the cuff and first of repeat of the leg. Here’s what I have so far:
A few inches done, far more than what it took me weeks to accomplish with the first go around. Finding them less challenging now that I’m not struggling with the chart and the needles.
I managed to get about 2/3 of the foot done on the Toe Up Socks too. Did that while I waited during Ev’s surgery on Friday. Very productive this time. Found that it was a much needed distraction in the waiting room! He’s doing fine now – the tendon in his foot is fixed and he’s immobilized with a hard splint (meaning he really can’t walk on it and do any damage this time!). He has a couple of months of recovery ahead of him now…
I did pull myself away from the socks long enough to make some changes and additions to the website. After getting some feedback that the font was hard to read, I changed it. Should be better now. I added all of the rovings that I dyed last weekend, some on Etsy and some on the website. I kept this roving:
For some reason, the blue dye didn’t set in this one. Some of it set – its really intense. But it bled like crazy when I washed it – turned my hands blue! I have this pet peeve about hand dyed yarn and fiber that bleeds when you wash it. That just irritates me – either the dye isn’t set all the way or its not washed enough or something, but it shouldn’t do that. So I wash my stuff until the water runs clear. I wouldn’t sell a roving that was bleeding. So this one’s mine. I’ve wanted to work on the “Spinning Tips” page that’s under construction on the website – I think this roving will what I play with. I’ll pull it apart and make all kinds of different yarns with it so that you can see the different effects you can make with one roving. The rest of the rovings came out great – there’s eight new ones on the website!
Lastly, it hit me this weekend that my trip to Harrisville is now only 4 weeks away. I can start counting down now! I can’t wait…
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