Shawl - almost ready for a milk run

The Milk Run Shawl is almost completed. I'm in the process of binding off now. Took two pictures trying to get the ruffled edge but it only shows so-so in photos.

Had a minor crisis knitting two evenings ago - the cord on my 60" long circular needle pulled out of the end when I only had around 10" left to knit on the last row. Many stitches fell off, and there were yarnovers in those stitches - yikes! So, I gingerly set it aside and shed a few tears wondering how to tackle the repair without having to back out several rows of probably around 1000 stitches (I made my shawl much bigger than the pattern). Yesterday I superglued the cable back in, which I knew wouldn't work for any real knitting but thought it would be ok for trying to work the repair. I kept going back and forth in the area where the stitches had dropped and eventually got everything close to being correct. In the yarn over areas there might be twists in the wrong direction but it will never show because it sits to the back of the ruffle. So, now I'm very carefully binding off with hopes the superglue holds the cable until I'm finished - 1/3 of the way through, so far, so good.

Be still my heart.......

This week, when I was home, was a time for winding warps for painting. I got quite a number of them wound, tied, tagged ready to go......now I just need to find a day to do the dyeing when I have the next day available for rinsing them out.  I also got a warp on the AVL - the same heart pattern out of the Complex Weavers book I did earlier in the year only this time rather than having half-hearts on the edges and 3 full ones in the center I've got 4 complete hearts.....my threading boo-boo last time, point twill starting on harness 1 instead of 24. I liked the first scarves so much that I kept one for myself.

Had a hiccup while threading the AVL, the power blipped and everything turned off.....except my laptop that was on battery backup, thank goodness, that saved my place in the threading. It caused everything to go wack-a-do with the dobby so I had to turn everything off, including getting out of the weaving software on the laptop, and reboot, then all was fine. I know I've mentioned this before but a neat feature of the software/avl/e-lift system of the AVL is that I can set up the draft tromp as writ and then push the pedal to raise the next harness for threading.

Cranberries galore....

This weekend is the Cranberry Festival in Bandon by the Sea. The day started with the oh so fun small town parade. Looked like most of the high school was in the parade either as a football player, cheerleader, volleyball player or in the band. Love the small town atmosphere. No parade pix because I just couldn't be bothered.....  We got our fair share of free cranberry yummies at the fest......

I got to meet Blossom Merz - The Weaving Monk - what a nice person.....so nice to meet him in person after following his blog for a while.

Here he is wearing one of his ruanas in front of a color gamp for the next warp to be woven. I love his color sense and the way he mixes and gradates colors in the warp.

With the chilly marine layer this morning these sure looked toasty. Wish my pictures were better but they were taken with the cell. Oh, and the first pictures I took I forgot to hit the save button so Sam took some more for me.

Some more color choices.

This picture is much clearer. All his colorways are beautiful but I especially like those woven on the mostly black warp, stunning colors. I hope he's very successful this weekend....and hope to see him again in the future as he lives in my region now.

Had a few other things planned this afternoon but we got in the van to find a sensor light on for low tire, which one who knew - Sam pumped up the two front ones and off we went to Les Schwab over 20 miles away. We were concerned because last night we ran over a recently creamed large deer or elk on the road in the dark - we didn't see it until too late to swerve around it without flipping the van. Blood on the tires but no bones stuck in them (gross, huh?) best guess is that the bead was loosened so some air leaked out. Keeping our fingers crossed that all is well now.

Hand-dyed Merino Roving and more changes.....

Finally I finished with the photography work on the recently dyed merino roving, all are listed in my esty shop along with a picture of what each looks like spun. See more hand-dyed roving here.

I'm making a major change in my two etsy shops, and I'm hoping it doesn't backfire on me. I've been finding that my handwovens and other handmade items are getting lost mixed in with all the hand-dyed rovings in the first etsy shop I opened. So, I'm going to be gradually moving all the hand-dyed roving over to my etsy shop where I sell the Ashland Bay Fibers. To start the above rovings are in the second shop. So, for a while there will be hand-dyed roving in each shop which may be a bit confusing but I just can't sit in front of the computer for that long making the change all at one time.....plus I don't want to repay fees I've just paid in the first shop, I'll move them as I renew them or as they get close to renewal. I realize it will take a while for return shoppers to get used to the change but hopefully they will eventually figure out what's going on - I've put notices on my front page of each shop about the change.

the rocker.....and my obsession for little tables....

I had a couple comments on the nice rocker in the post from yesterday - Sam's uncle made that rocker, he worked at Lane Furniture for years making hope chests. Sam's mother gave it to us not long after we were married. It's a beautiful piece of furniture.......unfortunately not so comfortable, even with the added cushions. It's ok for a little while but then the butt falls asleep, pads or not. But we love it anyhow and we need that extra chair in the small living room. 

On my little tables - they all have to be bargains. The one pictured next to the rocker was $20. The one I painted that has carved ends was only $10. I have seen them for much more but I won't pay it. Pretty much everything in the beach cottage had to be a hand-me-down or a bargain......the hunt for furniture has been very fun, painting it too. My best bargain was a $5 small round table with already painted tan legs, it had a piece of cheap couch/upholstery fabric on the top - I pulled that fabric up a bit in the shop and found it was marble underneath....thank goodness they only hot glued the fabric on the underside.....but why even do it to begin with.

Escape to the coast.....

Have so much to do here but escaped to the coast again for the holiday weekend. This little white table is my  newest aquisition. Sam said no more little tables (a weakness of mine) but said sure when we saw this one, it's my favorite style.......although I saw another one in the same shop in a dark wood stain that he drew the line at - I will admit I have no clue where I'd put another one. And I didn't even have to paint this one, it was already white. I have another one of these tables in the bedroom that I painted very pale seaglass teal, it's really special, carvings in the ends.

Here are two bobbins of Karaoke waiting to be plied, it's 50% merino/50% soysilk. It was more challenging to spin but it's lovely fiber, the sheen is incredible. This was out of my stash dyed by Janis Thompson of Dyelots in Eugene. I'll decide what it will grow up to be once I know how many yards I have.

And here's some really ugly stuff I was working on - more stash reduction. There's a booth at Black Sheep and Flock & Fiber that has incredible hand-dyed rovings - I'm a sucker, they draw me in every time - but then when it comes down to actually spinning them I'm not so enamoured with the resulting yarn. This indie dyer is a way more technical and accomplished dyer than I, and does beautiful work, but most of it just doesn't work for what I personally want in a finished handspun. I keep wondering if I'll finish spinning what I've got or just call it quits and ply this - it would make a colorful pair of socks. I'll let others buy her rovings in the future and I'll stick with my way of dyeing where I don't end up with striped yarn, it suits me better. This was marked BFL but I really think it's Wensleydale - maybe that's why it was in the sale bin.

Nothing on the weaving front other than working on twisting fringe on scarves this afternoon. Also spent time braiding, weighing and tagging roving dyed last week - photography work still to come. The shawl I started a while ago in autumn colors is coming along - I'm now in row 4 of 14 of the ruffled border - it will be finished soon, blocked and ready to wear this fall. Winding warps for painting keeps getting pushed aside - hoping to work on that this week.

Dye day....Bailey approved......

I only dyed 6 pounds of merino roving today but it felt like twice that much, guess I was running on empty and moving slow. I always take a picture of my roving soaking wet hanging to dry - I guess sometime I should take a picture of it after it dries when it's all fluffed up and 3 times it's size, so much prettier. Not sure what I did with the lavendar in the center - was originally thinking silver grey with a bit of blue but got carried away and added some lavendar. Bailey was his usual helpful pooch self today.

Dye day......

Today was a dye day as the temps have come down a bit and it was lovely out. This is 8 pounds of merino roving, tomorrow I'll finish up the remaining 6 pounds. Fiber friend Pat came over and overdyed some merino yarn from her sheep of days past, dyed some of her handspun merino and roving too. Nice day.

Thank you to those who have commented on Pinterest from my post yesterday.....hoping to get more feedback, still mulling over the whole idea of being pinned.......hmm, wasn't that a good thing in high school???  Well, at least for some, I was with the counter-culture/flowerchild/hippie/make love, not war crowd and being pinned was not something on my radar.

It's time.......

It's been way past time to review my inventory procedures......it takes me way too long to pull fiber orders for both my Etsy shops, the biggest culprit being the Ashland Bay solid colored merino rovings which there are hundreds of. I thought I was organized having bins marked with type of fiber but once you get up to 6 giant bins of one type of fiber it becomes a time sucker trying to find a particular color. This past weekend I talked over my problems with my husband who is an expert in cutting costs & time so huge corporations make the big bucks.......some of the hints I picked up seemed like they would work great for my little company.

So.....much of today was spent on administrivia counting inventory, numbering bins, changing and updating all info on my spreadsheets and then listing tons more items in the one etsy shop. Another time saver will be that I've now listed all of each color/type of fiber in one of the Etsy shops, not just one of each. Earlier this year Etsy changed the way it handled multiple item listings so fees are only paid as one sells and the other automatically lists - putting all my inventory on etsy will save me re-listing time with each sale. Now if I could just speed up the boxing/printing postage part of the job, I seem pretty efficient there but will talk to my in-house expert to see if there's anything else I can do to save more time. What this all comes down to is finding more time to weave.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with Pinterest. I've gone and looked at it a few times but am trying to ignore it since it would just end up being another sit in front of the computer time sucker for me and I already spend too much time in front of the computer. There has been a lot of controversary over items on blogs and etsy shops being pinned. I just saw that 3 of my handwoven scarves have been pinned and repinned - I'm not sure how I feel about it. I found this out because when I look at my Etsy shop stats every morning I can see where people come from that are looking at my shop - yesterday I saw pinterest.com listed as a source for several looky-loos prospective customers. Of course I went to Pinterest and did a search using my company name and saw the scarves in question pinned by someone I don't know and repinned by others I don't know. On one hand it's a good thing - it brought more people to my shop, and above the photos of my scarves my blog address was listed so it did show the source of the photos. But do we, meaning collective we out there, want anything from our blog/website pinned? I don't know if that's a good thing. Yes, if we put something out there on our blog it's there for the world to see, but maybe we should be able to control where we want our images shown, maybe we don't want them to show up on any old website out there in cyberspace. Something to ponder. I'd love to hear what others think.

handwoven scarves.....

Today a bit more weaving - above I used copper for the weft on the scarf warp - I like it very much, who would have thought copper with a warp that's variegated shades of purple. I think I'll add some copper threads to the twisted fringe to pull that color into the fringe.

I couldn't seem to get a good picture of this one using a black weft - the 'ribbons' do show up, just not in this photo.........and actually out of the 3 scarves this is my favorite.

onward.......

Late this afternoon I got to the AVL and that scarf warp I put on a few weeks ago - first scarf woven using the pale pink weft....next to come is copper weft, then one with black weft. I knew it would be a challenge using a space dyed warp, I think they'll turn out quite ok though.  Towels were hemmed this morning, orders boxed up and mailed, laundry done......

weaving away......

This afternoon I finally got back to the loom and wove the last 5 of 13 on the towel warp. The last 3 I used this pale aqua for weft for a change from the white and natural. Tomorrow I'll get them cut off the loom and in the wash, then comes hemming.....maybe another day for hemming as I've got other things on the long 'to-do' list. I've got a scarf warp on the AVL waiting to be woven, many warps to be pulled for dyeing.......painted warps........actually there are many other things I should be doing before these but they're more fun so they'll move to the top of the list.

I should be dyeing wool roving but it's still too hot for me. I thought if I started very early in the morning I could finish up for the day before the heat set in but I just didn't have it in me this morning. I'll get it done.....eventually.

This is not new.....

This skein is not newly spun, it's from some Lorna's Laces roving I bought and spun a number of years ago. So, why am I posting it? Because I plied it with quilting thread and I wanted Teresa from North Bend to see - hope you check out my blog again Teresa. (click on the picture to see a bigger view) She is working on spinning up some very fun novelty fiber with all sorts of fun accoutrement in it, maybe plying with sewing thread or rayon embroidery thread will work for her fiber. Generally I'd say use a fairly dark color - in her case maybe a dark green/teal or black, many times I use black. In this case I used gray because these colors were so soft, with most other colors this gray would dull them too much. This handspun made a beautiful crocheted shawl for my mother - I've got enough left for at least a couple scarves.....someday.....

It was back into the heat but today only 89 in comparison to well over 100 last week. I spent much of the morning packing up numerous fiber orders, printing postage, doing bookwork and worrying about where that copter was going. I did find out - a small fire at Indian Mary Park not too far from us, they knocked it out quickly. Then right after that another fire out in the Applegate, a bit southeast near where some of my friends live, that one knocked down quickly too.....thank goodness. I hold my breath during fire season - can't wait for rain which could still be another 6+ weeks away. Part of the afternoon was spent weaving on the towel warp, evening will be knitting on the shawl.

another lovely day.....

It's another lovely day on the coast....the sun came out in full force 5 minutes after this picture was taken. This is where we start out our walk along the inlet beach and where we find most of our shells and the critter tracks from yesterday.....then we walk the ocean beach for a while, taking the steps back up the cliff and walking the neighborhood back home. That's the lighthouse up near the breakers leading into the ocean. Lots of small boats out in the inlet as the steelhead are running. For some reason this picture makes the lighthouse look so far away but it really isn't, if a person could stand to get in this cold water it wouldn't be a bad swim across the inlet.

Whose feet are these....and escaping the heat....

I spent 4 days gabbing demonstrating spinning at the county fair. It was a great time spent with wonderful friends and hopefully enlightening the public occasionally. Today is the last day of the fair but last night we skipped town and headed 65 miles west as the crow flies for the coast - temps inland 100+, temp on the coast 60, I'm loving it. Rumor is that temps will come back down to 80's-90's this week....if that really happens maybe I'll get that 14 pounds of merino roving dyed.

This morning's walk on the beach we found more than just the usual shells that I pack home in my windbreaker pocket. These footprints. I have no clue what critter was on the beach leaving these behind. Could it have just been a racoon out for a stroll, or something else? In the picture above there's a faint 2 legged critter footprint to the right that gives an example of how big these footprints are. The picture below shows Bailey's footprint on the upper right in comparison. Anyone have any ideas?  My guess is racoon but who knows......

It's fair time again.....

It's that time of year again - county fair time, and as normal it's hot, over 100 with 105 now forecast for the remainder of the week.....thank goodness we're in one of the two air-conditioned buildings.  This is our display....I guess I should have moved the chairs but we were already setting up our spinning circle when I remembered to get out the camera. It's a sparse year for fleeces turned in for judging - just two of them, then Linda convinced Karen to bring two more which showed up later today. Usually the table is loaded with fleeces as well as 2 tiers in front of the table. Guess those new fees to enter items in the fair are having an impact....and not just in fleeces.....there looked to be half the entries in all the arts/crafts. There were over 10 of us there spinning for much of the day, two more coming later for early evening spinning. Lots of visitors, very fun day, I'm exhausted......

The last of them.....

This is the last of the muffin baking for a while - blueberry struesel muffins - recipe here on the Taste of Home website. I won't be baking anymore muffins until the freezer stash is depleted.......or until autumn when it's time to make pumpkin muffins. Why pumpkin? Because I reorganized the walk-in pantry over the weekend (out of date stuff was cleaned out a few weeks ago) and found 8 cans of pumpkin (3 large, 5 regular size) - yikes. Pantry is looking good, keeping things toward the front of the shelves so I always know what I have and nothing gets lost in the back.......like 8 cans of pumpkin......

Tomorrow our county fair starts - we set up our spinning display Saturday. Par for the course the temp will be 100 tomorrow, 106 forecast for the rest of the week. We're lucky to be in one of two an air-conditioned buildings but it's going to be a tough week for fair-goers and the animals.

Blackberry scones for breakfast......

I am really on a baking kick here the past few days, I think it's all the local berries available now. These blackberry scones just came out of the oven and we haven't had breakfast yet. No recipe link to share for these - just a plain Fair Scone mix that I added the sweetest, almost too juicy, local blackberries to. Off to eat.....

More muffins - yum

I couldn't resist the blackberries at Fort Vannoy Farm this morning - farmer gave me a sample, the sweetest blackberries I've ever eaten and there are a lot of blackberries in in SW Oregon. So, I had to make more muffins - these are the best ever loaded with berries. This recipe is courtesy of Taste of Home website - glad I chose this recipe. Making muffins in the afternoon could get addictive - a warm from the oven muffin makes a nice afternoon snack. Most of these muffins go in the freezer to pop into Sam's lunchbox. I went to the farm for corn, the best corn we've had out here....that's saying a lot since what we have generally found around here is what my Dad called field corn that you feed the pigs......we miss that Silver Queen corn from the east coast but this corn is a good second. Also picked up peppers, 2 kinds of squash, nectarines, peaches, red & black plums.....tomatoes are running behind due to the cool late spring. I love that this farm is 10 minutes from the house since I don't often get to the big Saturday morning grower's market in town.

I did get a bit of time at the loom this afternoon to work on the towel warp - 4 towels woven using a natural weft - think I'll try white next.

Yum

Just made a batch of banana muffins to avoid thowing out those last 3 bananas.....Sam says there's only a very short window for eating a banana before it gets too ripe- sheesh. So, I went looking online for a recipe for a banana struesel muffin. This recipe says it makes 10 muffins - who makes 10 muffins??? muffin tins are made for 12. So, I decided I'd make 12 anyhow and they'd just be smaller. Note to myself for the next time making this recipe - definitely make 12, they overflowed the top of the muffin tin, if I had only made 10 it would have dripped on the bottom of the oven. Taste test - oh my gosh, they are yummy.....but how could they not be with all that good banana flavor and a buttery, sugary struesel topping. Calories could definitely be kept down without the topping and they'd be just as yummy. This recipe is a saver. Next I need to find the perfect blueberry muffin recipe......or maybe just make that lemon blueberry bread I have a recipe for.....

More beachy towels in the works

This 12 yard towel warp seemed like it took forever to get on the loom.....maybe it's because I've been awake since 4:30am, been working in slow motion. This is a turned point twill from the Strickler 8 Harness book. Once again - beach colors. The last towel warp I took 2 towels for the beach cottage kitchen, the rest are for sale or already sold. This warp I'll keep a couple towels for the beach cottage guest bath - I wanted some coral and sand colors in this one.

It's a good feeling to have both floor looms warped up ready to weave on. Now if I could just force myself to weave off the tencel shadow weave scarf on the table loom that's leftover from the shadow weave workshop I attended in the spring......slow weaving on a table loom.....but having it sit in the middle of the floor in the studio is not an option much longer.

Now you can't resist either.....

Ok, so maybe I've enabled some others to buy those Dansko clogs - I sure hope so. There was a question on finding them on the Zappo's website - here's the link.

Today was my spinning get together - great fun, as usual, the greatest group of fiber friends ever. I took knitting today since I was toting tons of newly dyed roving for sale.....my load was lightened by my spinning friends.....many thanks to them all.....

I couldn't resist......

These arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I couldn't resist them when I saw them on another blog last week. They're Dansko's - I bought them at Zappo's. I understand Nordstrom's carries them but we don't have a Nordstrom's here. Now all I need is some cool weather so I can start wearing them.

Audtioning wefts.....

I put a scarf warp on the AVL for the vertical ribbons draft which was the first draft I put on this loom back in January or February. It's a 32 harness draft. I knew working with this space dyed tencel warp was going to be a problem, so hard to find the right weft color so the pattern actually shows.....that's why I only put on enough for 3 scarves. Here I am audtioning wefts - I audition colors I think might work and then those that I'd never usually consider, sometimes I'm surprised by what looks good. In this case I was sure a black weft would work but it does nothing. I would have never guessed these colors would look good - the light pink and silver gray. I also like the light teal and copper even though they don't show off the pattern to it's best. Note to self (as if I shouldn't have learned this years ago from previous experience) generally don't use a space dyed yarn for a draft that's all about structure, it gets lost.....guess I'm a slow learner.....

Merino Bamboo Roving

For those of you who asked to know - a quick note to say the Hand-dyed Merino-Bamboo Roving is up in my etsy shop now.....

Back to the heat from the cool coast over the weekend, I heard it was anywhere from 104-107 here in the valley while I was in the 60's to low 70's just over the coastal range. Today's temps will be in the upper 90's - still too hot for me to be outside dyeing so maybe a warp will get on one of the looms today.....

New on the needles......

New on the needles - an autumn shawl. It's the Milk Run Shawl styled after the shawl Kate Middleton wore while pushing a grocery cart. It's very simple garter stitch with increases on the edge and down the center back, there will be a ruffle along the entire bottom edge of the shawl. I want something very simple since there are so many color changes in my hand- dyed handspun yarn. This is one of those handspuns that for some reason I didn't write on my tag what fiber it was, I occasionally find one of those on the shelf....I think this is colonial wool which is like a corriedale. The pattern is available on Ravelry as a free download.

Handspun done....

I finally finished spinning and plying the merino/tussah silk roving I started a bit ago. It's from some of my hand-dyed roving. This is one monster skein - it's 1810 yards of fingering weight yarn. Not sure what it will become yet....will have to percolate on that for a while.

I was asked by several spinners/felters to let them know when I get to listing recently posted items in my etsy shops. As of today the new Fiber Landscapes Kits are available in my one shop.......and the Merino/Tencel hand-dyed roving is available in my other shop. I don't list every braid as they're all different weights, if someone wants more than what's listed just contact me through etsy and I'll let you know what else I've got in stock. I still have the hand-dyed Merino/Bamboo roving to get listed (won't happen for a few days) and the remainder of the hand-dyed Merino/Tussah Silk roving....well, what's left of that one, much has already sold. Oh, and the hand-dyed silk hankies are showing up here and there in my shop, there are a lot of them to list so they'll go up gradually.

More kits ready.....

This morning I got 24 more of the kits put together, this afternoon all labeling done, boxes closed up and put in a huge, I mean huge, box. In-between there was a Fiber Mania committee meeting which luckily was just a 10 minute drive from my house. Ok, so I changed some of the names - a girl has the right to change her mind, at least before all the labeling and listing in my etsy shop are done. The name of this product is Fiber Landscapes - my friend Yvonne was helping me brainstorm and brought up strata and the earth so that's where I started thinking landscape. So, then I really thought I should change a few names to go with that theme. The purple colorway is now Purple Mountains Majesty, the red is Strawberry Fields Forever. Hopefully these will get listed in the one etsy shop tomorrow.

Waves of Blue

Rain Forest

Down to Earth

Hazelnut Scones

Yum, hazelnut scones for spinning with a friend this afternoon. I cheated this time, I used the Fair Scone mix and added hazelnuts grown by friend Darlene of Peppermint Pasture Pygoras up north in Albany, OR.....I do have a from scratch hazelnut scone recipe, no time this morning. No clotted cream today as I didn't think ahead, but there is my homemade sunshine marmalade with pears, peaches & oranges and huckleberry jelly that was made by friends Diane & Gary in Idaho.

New products unveiled.....

New product development going on here - been thinking on it for a month or so, bought the perfect containers, now in production mode. Yesterday I put together 24 of these felting/spinning kits in these 6"x6" plastic cubes in 3 colorways. I've got 3 more colorways ready to be packaged but probably won't get to them today. I was making these with nuno-felters in mind as they don't want huge amounts of each color so with this they get approximately 1oz of 8 different colors of merino solid, merino multi-colored and merino/tussah roving.......but they're great for spinners too who would like to blend coordinating colors. Being a spinner myself I know I would buy something as pretty looking as these. I'm still working on a name for the kit but have names for the colorways figured out. A bonus is the cute plastic box that can be recycled to use as a gift box - perfect to hold a handwoven or knitted gift.


Purple People Eater





Sand in my Shoes




Ruby Slippers

The names of the other 3 colorways are Blue Bayou, Down to Earth and Green with Envy. I'll start out with these 6 and decide later if I'll add a couple more. Need to see if they sell first. I think they'll sell well locally at Fiber Mania in November, will start listing them in my etsy shop as soon as I finish them all up....or as soon as I figure out a name.

Newly dyed roving ready to sell

Much of today was spent braiding, weighing, tagging and photographing the newly dyed roving. I love all the colorways......sure wish I could spin them all but next best thing is to spin a sample of each to help sell them. I am eyeballing a couple that may be snuck out of the bin into my own stash.

This is the 50% merino/50% tencel blend - the sheen on this is incredible.

And this is the 60% merino/40% bamboo - equal in sheen and just as lovely.

These will all be showing up in my etsy shop eventually, tired of looking at the monitor now after spending so much time editing these pictures plus others of scarves and towels that I have to get away from the computer.......and go spin some samples. If anyone is interested in any of these colorways before they get in the etsy shop or go to my spinning group next week just put a comment below with your email contact info and I'll get back to you.

Another dye day.....

 It was another good dye day, this time merino/bamboo.......Bailey is always a big help

This is where he spends quite a bit of time on dye day laying under the mini japanese maple squishing down flat the hostas and vincas........it's nice and cool in there.......but Bailey look at the camera.....

 "I'm looking now mom but that sun is too bright"

"Did I hear you say we're done mom, we're really really done for the day and I can go inside and sleep on the bed under the ceiling fan with the air conditioning going? Whoo Hoo"

Successful dye day.....

Today was a very fun and very short dye day - here it is 2pm and I'm ready to shower after dyeing 10 pounds of merino/tencel roving. It's hard to show what the roving looks like in a photograph but the sheen is incredible due to the tencel. I'd love to spin each of these colorways....but being realistic I can't spin some of everything I sell, there are not enough hours in my day, let alone lifetime. I do get to spin a little sample of each to help sell it though so I do get satisfaction from that. The one on the far right, the grays and taupes is so beautiful. I can picture it being spun fairly fine and knit or woven into an elegant shawl. I might have to think on saving a bit of that for myself.........or I can just dye something similiar when I tackle the 10 pounds of merino/bamboo on the next dye day.

Handspun samples

Here are some handspun samples for the roving dyed last week.....don't look too closely at my spinning quality, these are 'quick & dirty' samples. Other than the 3rd from the left which was a commission for my Burning Hot colorway all are the type of dyeing technique I devised last year. The aim is for many colors, sometimes analogous colors, sometimes not, but no stripes/high contrast barber poles. I'm happiest knitting or weaving with handspun that does not create stripes so that's what I've been dyeing. I'm not overly concerned if that limits how quickily I sell my roving or how much I sell - if someone is looking for high contrast, strong colors there are plenty of other dyers out there doing that. I'm doing what I enjoy.....

On the weaving front I finally....yes finally....finished that towel warp - 13 towels cut off the loom yesterday, washed and dried awaiting hemming.

Hand-dyed Silk Hankies

The dyed silk hanky photos are ready for listing in the etsy shop. I know this probably looks like a mish-mash of color - it's 20 of the 22 colorways. There approximately 1 ounce of each which spun thread thin will yield a tremendous amount of yarn.

My favorite method for spinning a hanky is to pull off one very thin layer (one cocoon's worth), punch a hole in the center with my finger and then start pulling it out into a large circle eventually breaking it at one end - so what's left is a long length of silk roving ready to spin. In spinning I make sure I hold my hands far apart as the silk fibers are very long and strong. It will want to spin thread thin on it's own.

Oh, just had a thought, some may not know what a silk hanky is. A silk cocoon is degummed and stretched over a square frame with one nail in each corner which is where the hanky shape comes from. Many of these cocoons are layered on top of one another. Usually the hankies are a pretty nice square like some of those above, but my last order of them were pretty weird shaped, not so pretty but will spin just the same. This same process may be done on a form similiar to a hat form which creates what are called silk caps.

Camera duties.....yuck.....

I've said it before the job I dread the most is the photography part of selling my wares. It takes a long time to take multiple pictures to get a decent one, then edit them, then resize them for etsy, then file them. Next was to weigh it all and tag it......then listing in the etsy shop.....long drawn out process after a dye day.....

So today I took pictures of the roving, not a bad job since I only dyed 6 pounds of this merino/tussah last week (2 braids of each). These will be going up for sale in the etsy shop as soon as I find time to list them. 

I took pictures of the silk hankies too - 22 different colorways....finished editing them and found I missed one - argh. Now I have to go open the package and take a picture of that one. Resizing of these photos still needs to be done. Oh, and then there was weighing each, labeling and packaging it. I've now spent the majority of the day on these chores.....I wished I loved this process more than I do.