The Website!

Its done!  I’ve finally finished (ish – I’ll get to that) the redesign of the website.  Its all uploaded and ready for you.

Go check it out!!!

Much better, huh?  I do love it.  Of course, the self-critical part of me would love to see more of this and more of that, some different things here and there.  Until I can afford to hire a web designer, I’m doing it myself and I’m happy with this result – finally!  It was a LOT of trial and error to get here.   I like the look and feel of it a lot more than the old site, especially the stark background.  I think the new design fits better with my logo.   And the pictures are better quality throughout the site, which is something I really strived for.  ETA: I forgot – there’s an RSS feed now!  I think there’s one for every page, but the one’s you’ll want to bookmark are the home page and the Gallery.  I’m a technical genius – I finally noticed that button in my software

The thing I’m most thrilled with is the Gallery.  Aside from the actual dyeing process, my favorite part of this whole Painted Sheep thing is seeing what people do with my yarns and roving.  Its so much fun for me – if you’ve gotten to show off your work in person to me, you know how I kinda light up when I see my stuff “in action”.  Makes my day every time!  My customers are so creative – I just love that!  So, having a place to show off all of your work was a big thing in this redesign and part of my planning for more than a year.  The Gallery is just that – you’ll find pictures and details from my customers’ projects – handknit items mostly, some with my yarns, some knit with handspun from my rovings and also some beautiful skeins of handspun yarn.  I received a great variety of items to showcase.  Know that the Gallery is intended to be a rotating showcase – I’ll change up the items periodically so that any customer who wants to show off their work can do so.  If you sent something to me and it didn’t make it this time, it’ll be in soon!  And please, keep those pictures coming!

As for my comment above about it being “finished-ish”, it means that I’ve completed everything but the colorways pages.  With somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 colorways (I’ve actually lost count), I need some time to get all of my pictures and descriptions together.  Its coming!  Now that everything else is finally done, I can focus on it and finish it in the next couple of weeks.  Soon, promise!

I’m off to knit, then work on some tax stuff.  Happy Saturday!

25 Random Things

My inner narcissist loves these things.  I’ll try to be creative and come up with stuff that you might not know yet.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

Feeling lazy, so I’m not going to tag people.  Play along if you want – I do love to read about others though, so leave a comment for me so I can check your post out.

25 Random Things About Me

1. Fiber is a huge part of my life.  10 years ago, I thought fiber was something I needed to eat more of.  My only exposure to anything yarn-y was from my grandmother who tried to teach me to crochet when I was a kid.  I failed miserably.
2. I got glasses when I was in 3rd grade.
3. I also grew out of child size shoes and started wearing woman’s size shoes in 3rd grade.  It was a rough year.
4. I have 2 tattoos – that bit you might have known.  I have plans for 2 more.  Both will mark big things in my life.  One, I hope to be able to get in the next several weeks, depending on if/when something happens.  The other, I will get within the next couple of years, depending on when I achieve a big life goal.  Not telling what these “big things” are…
5. I’m scared shitless of how much tattoo #3 will hurt.  I was much younger and stupid-er when I got the first ones.
6. I love E!’s live from the red carpet stuff.  Its the pretty dresses.
7. I have a Master’s in Rehabilitation Counseling.
8. I should have a Master’s in Procrastination.
9. The closing on our first house was on a Friday.  My last graduate school class was the following Monday.  I couldn’t go to the house I had just signed my life away for on the day/weekend of our closing because I was still writing my last paper for grad school.   It sucked.  See #8.
10. Nothing’s changed.  Today I drove 80 mph to deliver a grant application by its deadline.
11. I’m trying to convince my husband that I’m afraid of the vacuum cleaner.  12 years and it hasn’t worked, but still trying…
12. I met my husband when we worked at the same group home.   I grew up 10 minutes from him in neighboring small towns but didn’t meet him until I was 21 and he was 25 and we were working on the opposite end of the state from our home towns.
13. Harrisville, New Hampshire is my happy place.  If I ever run screaming from my life, look for me on the front porch of the General Store.  I’ll be eating quiche, drinking fabulous wine and hoping there’s a good class starting soon.
14. I would love to have a sheep farm.  Except for the sheep shit.  And the coyotes.  And living in the country/suburbs.  But pretty sheep (and alpacas and goats and sheep dogs) in a field and my own supply of fiber (’cause seriously, I need more) would be very cool.
15. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my career, having my dream job in an amazing non-profit, doing the woman-centered, empowerment-focused work that I love full time and playing with fiber in my own business “part time”.
16. I hated my last job like no other, especially for the last 6 months.
17. I met Gloria Steinem at my first protest.  It was in front of the White House.
18. I met Hillary Clinton at another rally, this one in Seneca Falls, New York, home of National Women’s Hall of Fame.
19. I’ll likely never knit through my yarn stash, nor spin through my fiber stash.  I couldn’t care less.  Last week, my husband suggested that rather than hitting a yarn sale, I go shopping in the yarn shop that exists in our attic.  I believe my exact words to him were “BITE ME”.
20. I grow beautiful, lush roses, perennials that flourish and more veggies in my garden than we can eat and yet I can’t keep a house plant alive for a month.
21. I love wine and going wine tasting.
22. April 15, 2007 was one of the proudest days of my life – it was the day The Painted Sheep was officially opened and I sold my first item – handpainted Rambouillet/Corriedale blend in Raspberry Sorbet.  I cried happy tears when the email for the sale came in.
23. I don’t have a passport and I’ve traveled very little, outside of New England.  The only time I’ve ever been out of the country is on my honeymoon to Aruba.
24. I moved to Syracuse 5 weeks after getting accepted to grad school there, never having been there and only with some vague notion about ” a lot of snow”.  Our first apartment was in a horrible neighborhood.  The landlord talked us into it with some b.s. about it being “up and coming”.  Ha!  Pretty quickly, we met the homeless guy who liked to hang out on our doorstep and smoke blunts.  Fun times.
25. I badly miss the kind snow we had in Syracuse, even the white outs.  That said, I hope I never see a “roof rake” again in my life.

Before & After

Before: 

After:  

I’ve wanted fun glasses again for the longest time!  My choices for the last few years have been pretty sedate.  Not any more!  Fun!  My favorite thing about these is that while they look red-brown in color, they are full on Sally-Jesse-Raphael-red on the inside.  (and I just realized that some people reading this blog are too young to know who she is and what the hell I’m talking about.  ack!  google it – I’m not explaining the 80s to you)  Oh, and I can see again – bonus!

Happy Friday!

WIP Wednesday – January 28, 2009

I have an FO to show off! I finished my Charades on Tuesday night.  Goal #1, check!

The important stuff:

• Yarn: BMFA Socks That Rock Mediumweight, colorway Rooster Rock
• Pattern: Charade by Sandra Park
• Needles: size 2, my usual 2 circulars
• Started: August 10, 2008; Finished: January 27, 2009

They fit perfectly.  And when I say perfectly, that means that they’re a hair snug right now.  I finally figured out something to make my socks fit perfectly: when I use superwash yarn, make them a bit short to accommodate the inevitable lengthwise stretching (superwash is known for it); for “regular” non-superwash yarns, make them a bit long to accommodate the bit of felting that comes from the friction of my shoes.  Even a 1/4 inch short or long makes a big difference.  Works every time.

As for my other goal for the week, to knit 4 or 5 pattern repeats on Mr. Greenjeans – not!  I did one repeat, at SnB last week.  This week – really.

First, though, must cast on another pair of socks.  There’s no socks on the needles at the moment, meaning that my world is slightly off kilter…  The goals for the week – work on Mr. Greenjeans, start that pair of socks (most definitely the Malabrigo socks).

Happy Wednesday!  For those of you in New England and nearby, stay safe in today’s weather (whatever it may bring)!

Ten on Tuesday

10 Favorite Articles of Clothing That You Own

(this one begs for pictures but I’m being just plain lazy today) In no particular order:

1. mmmmMalabrigo sweater
2. Big Wool sweater – I’ve never posted a picture of this one, for good reason.  First off, its pink – Merry Berry, the colorway was called.  More like bright pink, in neon berry kind of way.  Secondly, there was sort of a problem with my knitting.  One of those fine lessons in gauge.  Measure!  Again!  If it looks freakin’ huge, its NOT in my head – its ginormous.  Also I distinctly remember coming to the realization (when it was finished) that so long as I was willing to keep showing up at my LYS to buy $15 a skein Big Wool every time I ran out, the owner wasn’t about to explain that it wasn’t the yarn requirements that were grossly off – it was me, the one with the puzzled look and the open wallet.  Anywhoo, the-most-expensive-sweater-ever-that-I-won’t-wear-out-of-the-house-because-its-a-giant-pink-monstrosity just so happens to be the very coziest thing I own and my favorite handknit.  Its a wool hug.  I wear it on freezing cold winter days at home – over my jammies and my bathrobe
3. My red LL Bean dress – the one I’m determined to fit into again this summer.  Probably the only piece of summer clothing that I love – never needs ironing, super comfortable and works equally well with heels and my Birks.
4. My handknit socks – all of them.
5. My Mo sweater – oversized, supersoft Morehouse Merino in natural oatmeal.
6. My “soft pants” – JJill yoga pants found in the clearance area out their outlet.  About the best $5 I ever spent…
7. My bathrobe
8. My Dansko Merries
9. My Uggs – clogs lined with wool.  Heaven in a pair of shoes.
10. My Magnificent Mittens – the fair isle mitts I made years ago, complete with gauntlets and alpaca lining.

Yep, I like three things in my clothing: comfort, warmth and preferably, handknit…

fall down

Oops.  One of my local yarn shops – Village Wools in Glastonbury, CT, if you interested – is having a great sale.  You know where this post is going.  Fill a bag and get 50% whatever’s in the bag.  The bags, BTW, are not very big – I went in thinking at least it would be a good sized shopping bag, but not so.  There were two sizes – small and large, neither of which was difficult to fill.  It was nice not having to spend a lot to take advantage of the sale.  Being one who needs more yarn, ahem (just go with it), I happily went with the “large” bag – feeling like it wouldn’t even be a challenge to fill that and then some.

I made a beeline for the Malabrigo.  Wearing my cozy red Malabrigo sweater last weekend is having the effect of wanting more – what I really want right now is another sweater just like it.   No such luck – the only colors they had in sweater quantities were bright yellow and something akin to cooked apple-color.  Nah.  I did however find this: Mmmmm!  4 skeins of Malabrigo worsted in the prettiest shades of pink – called Damask.  No idea what I’m doing with it yet.  I’m thinking something to curl up in – something sleeveless, a vest, a heavy wrap?  Or maybe I’ll see if I can the dye lot at Webs and get the other 6 skeins I’ll need for another sweater.   Maybe…

There were a couple of other things too – The top picture is Berroco Ultra Alpaca – for a Central Park (non) Hoodie.  Great sweater – admittedly, I wasn’t into it until Norma and Karen did non-hooded versions.  Love!  It took it from a too casual/young for my taste (I think my interest in “hoodies” ended when I was um, 10?) to a great basic that I can wear equally well with jeans on a Saturday grocery run or dressed up a bit with slacks at work.  The yarn is a great heathered blue, almost cobalt.  All I need now is some great buttons – maybe pewter?  Oh, and time to knit the thing…    The second picture is Berroco Peruvia.  Nice basic wool, heavy worsted weight.  I’m going to attempt some boot socks for Ev.  Poor guy – I’ve never knit him a pair of socks.  My usual excuse is his rather large feet.  That and he’s pretty hard on socks.  Now Peruvia is not what immediately comes to mind for socks – its pretty softly spun.  I’m hoping to knit it on the tight side, carry along a nylon reinforcing thread on the heels and foot and pray he is as gentle as he says he’ll be.  We’ll see.  If nothing else, he’ll have handknit socks to wear around the house!

That’s all for now – time to stop stalling and head to work.  Happy Monday!