You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
A happy weekend it was! I dyed up lots and lots of wonderful new stuff. There’s Painted Sock Too, Alpaca Handpaint yarn, superwash merino/tencel roving and BFL roving. Here’s a peek: 
It was warm enough to dry yarn and roving on the deck yesterday! Woo hoo! Of all the stuff I dyed, this was my favorite:
I love the way merino/tencel takes color!
I also dyed up a skein of yarn for myself, in a new colorway. I got completely unexpected results. I wanted a deep, rich shaded combination of blues and charcoal. I mixed colors carefully, starting by adding small amounts of black to a bright blue, then shading by adding more black and then diluting with water. The skein was initially too blue for me and had some white spots. Yesterday, I overdyed with a deeper blue-black shade – for what looked like the exact combination of colors that I wanted. Here’s what I ended up with:
After all that and frankly, thinking I was a brilliant dyer, I made NAVY. 
Oh well – it’ll make for some nice, basic (if not utterly boring) socks. The more successful dyeing is coming with me to the Nutmeg Spinner’s Guild on Saturday.
I’ve just updated my Etsy shop with 15 skeins of The Painted Sock. There’s lots of great colorways for spring – Birch Mountain, Spring, Playful and Larkspur. I also debuted a new colorway – Grateful Dyed! It has turquoise, purple and bright green, with white in between each – it reminds me of a tie-dye t-shirt!
You’ll notice that most of my updates are going onto my Etsy shop right now. One of my plans for the coming months is a revamp of thepaintedsheep.com, including a more user-friendly online shop. It’ll be a bit before I get around to working on the website, so for now all new items will be added to Etsy.
There are more new sock yarns coming next Sunday – I’ll be dyeing up a batch of Painted Sock Too this morning! If you can make the Nutmeg Spinner’s Guild meeting next Saturday, you’ll have first dibs!
Progress is slow. If I ever had two completely opposite projects to work on, its these.
The Melody Shawl is huge, 200-something stitches and row after row of stockinette stitch. Mindless – it begs for a good movie, an exciting basketball game or a night out with the girls.
The Reptilian Lace Socks have alternating rows, one lace and cables, the other beads. I need quiet for this one. The only TV I manage to watch while working on it is the morning news – because I can listen to it and focus and my coffee is by my side.
I’m poking along on both, determined to finish them. My goal for the week – to get past the heel on the socks and add a couple of inches to the shawl. Onward!
I’m thrilled to announce that a fabulous new yarn shop has just opened. Knit Wit Yarns is an online shop that carries a great selection of products. They have a variety of yarn and rovings, knitting needles, patterns, bags, stitch markers and spindles. They carry several of The Painted Sheep’s yarns and rovings! Christy, the owner, is a delight!
Click this link to check out this new shop and support Christy’s Grand Opening!
Lots going on here – work (fabulous!), dyeing, knitting, etc, etc, etc. The last few weeks have been busy. I have many random updates, but I’ll start with the knitting/crocheting.
I finished two projects today! The Tilted Duster – just in time for Easter, as I promised myself. 
I finished this afternoon, so I haven’t wet blocked it yet. It wouldn’t have dried in time – tomorrow night it will get the full treatment. I think the mohair will really bloom, making it even softer and fuzzier. Hmmm – its already a treat to wear. I just love it, especially how well the shawl pin closure worked.
The second FO is a little purse for my niece, who turned 2 today. 
Its a simple crocheted bag with a scalloped edge and single crochet strap, in Sugar ‘n Cream cotton. It matches the little dress I picked up for her!
I am stopping myself from starting something else. I have a serious urge to finish up long-on-hold projects lately. My next to finish projects are the Melody shawl and the Reptilian Lace socks.
I did, however, have a long awaited stash enhancement this morning. Michael’s had a great coupon for use this morning only – 30% off your whole purchase. I took advantage of it and picked up this: 
Soy Wool Stripes in Natural Earth and Natural Garden for a Lady Eleanor Shawl. I love the way the two colors compliment each other – they’ll add a great depth to the entrelac pattern in the shawl. NOT casting on yet!
On a completely unrelated note (I said random, didn’t I?), we have good news on the kitty front – we finally found a great vet. We’ve been here in CT for almost 3 years, had difficulty finding a vet and then had serious misgivings about the vet we ended up with. Our choices were somewhat limited by our feeling strongly about going to a cats only vet, who needed to be local. We started the process of switching about a year ago, only to put it off after only taking Tigger in to see the new vet. Today we took Maggie and Jasmine in to the new vet but saw a different doctor. She was wonderful – right up there with the great vet we had in Syracuse. We are so thrilled. Maggie was wholly uncooperative from start to finish. The vet was nothing but patient and gentle with her. We had a great talk about our feelings around treatment of serious issues and found that we are on exactly the same page. She was very respectful of our choices for our guys. What a relief! If you are in the Hartford area, I’d be happy to pass along her name.
As far as the new job – I don’t remember the last time I was this happy at work. Its going great! Every day I’m excited to go to work. The next couple of weeks will be busy with more training, along with my first experience at grant writing. I’m really looking forward to it – a whole new learning process. Very exciting!
Lastly, a Painted Sheep update. I have been dyeing, most recently 15 skeins of sock yarn (Painted Sock, my sport weight). I hope to have them listed by Thursday of next week. There’s a couple of new colorways in this batch. Next weekend I’ll dye up more sock yarn (Painted Sock Too), merino/tencel roving and another big pile of BFL rovings. I’ll again have a booth at the Nutmeg Spinning Guild on April 5. Mark your calendars now for June – the first week of June means the opening day of Coventry Regional Farmer’s Market (I’ll be doing the opening day event and the fiber festival in September) and another Guild meeting. Also, there’s a brand new online shop opening on Monday – who carries yarn and roving from The Painted Sheep! I’ll make an official announcement, including links, on Monday. Lots of opportunities to stock up!
I’m off to prepare Creme Brulee French Toast and finish up making Grammy’s bread for our Easter and birthday celebration tomorrow. Have a very Happy Easter!
Its officially here! It may not look or feel like it in the northeast today, as handknit weather is still upon us, but I can finally say its SPRING! Horray!!!!!!!!!!
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