I'm such a business wo-man

Holy shit! I'm all giddy with the wonderousness-osity of the world. I had my meeting at my LYS about her carrying my yarns yesterday and it went swimmingly. This is what I took to show her. A good deal of my stash, stuff that wasn't listed in my shop yet. This is what I came back with! That's right fiber fans, she bought me out and ordered 16 monster hat kits and 10 raggamuffin-mitten kits. Plus, more, more, more! Like I'm a regular supplier for her shop now! How crazy and wonderful is that? I'm serioulsy shocked and happy and humbled. I can't believe my good fortune. Wowsa. And it's such a great shop and she's so incredibly sweet and supra-cool. If you're local to baltimore, stop by A Good Yarn at Anne street and Aliceanna in Fell's Point.

Werd to ya mutha. Heh. It makes me laugh everytime I say that. Can you say it without laughing? No, really, go ahead and try?

Told ya.

I sent out a huge batch of orders. And here they are all wrapped up in my fancy-ass packaging. People like recycled wrapping, right? Sometimes even pay extra for it, no? But really, I do it to protect the innocent, so people's neighbors and spouses will think you're receiving mail order sex toys instead of the ever embarrasing more yarn purchase.

Then there's the dyeing. I did these 4 lbs last night and here they are all dumped on the table. Here it is all rolled and balled. All the stuff on the left in merino, the right back is romney, right front is falklands and the tiny balls in the middle are yearling mohair. Yep. Lotsa, lotsa. It's my 2nd dye batch this week. As a bee, I say, as a bee.

And finally, knitting. I've been doing a bit here and there. I started a branching out scarf, my first scarf ever, in fact. I've completed 10 repeats so far out of a single I made several months ago. So far it's lovely.

Sid, seattle weather, and soysilk batts

It came in the big brown truck yesterday and nothing has been the same since. Midnight alley, brick wall, your thrall is almost lost! This monstrosity is what's makin' me hot now! O, shiny, spiky goodness, how you make me ache in all the right places. I'll call you Sid. I threw some green domestic fluff on Sid with smallest bits of green/blue soysilk and hot damn, I had beautiful, fluffy bat of shiny, green goodness in no time flat. I also did some old redish falklands with some shiny red firestar. It didn't take long to get a handle on it, the perfect mixture of rough and gentle.

Damn.

And if that wan't enough, my SP sent me a package! a wonderful package of all the right stuff. I must not be maintaining the level of vauge-ity and secretiveness I intend, because people are getting to know me and shit. Look at this load! It's perfect. I've never knitted with bamboo (outside of what I've spun) so I can't wait, and those just happen to be my favorite color combo, strange, eh? Plus the wonderful book and rockin' tape measure, both of which will get worn out with use, I can assure. My own poor SP, I sent her a package 3 weeks ago and it just got returned to me yesterday (she moved, I think), the only mar on my perfect mail experience. I'll just add some stuff and send it out again.

I spent the other evening doing this. It's four pounds. The freakin' weather change is making the drying process a bit tedious. I don't care for the hot and my fiber doesn't care for the cold, but we all have out crosses to bear, right? I haven't spun any of that load up yet but I've spun others. Here's some of it that's currently stuggleing to dry in my rainy, chilly kitchen (and yes, my kitchen is still rainy, though Christine offerend to come fix it while wearing pasties and a cape, that's how it was gonna work, right? 'Cause that would be the shit!). Hanging there is 400 yards of the most lovely, earthy 2-ply, all the rest are self-striping hat kit yarns, which will be available soon. I've already knitted up 4 of them, they look great! If you look closely, you can see the 2 yarns that contain the fiber that's been through Sid, the sparkly reddish in the front, and the green in the black and green to the right. So cool, though I do need to get used to spinning outta bats rather than top.

Finally, for those of you that come for the cute kid, here's my boy, of his own accord --

Do Something

So, you've all heard of this huge natural disaster, right? and then the man-made on that quickly followed? I don't have a Tv so many of the images, I've been spared, it's own kind of backwards privilege, yeah? The radio stories leave my eyes puffy and the internet news leave my fists clenched. I haven't talked about it, nor do I really plan to here, except just to say:

Get involved. Do something to help. Then do something else. Then do something to tear down this system that we've stood by and let become, it can't be rebuilt, it's gotta go.

Shit, I just heard that rehnquist is dead. Now bush's got another chance to make his lawless, renegade, compassionless creedo a lasting part of this uh...land of the brave. Here's hoping he's not got the political capital to push through Thomas or Scalia and here's to knowing that he does. Fuck.

In the world that is immediately mine, far from too much water and a fucked up president, it was dye day. It's all still hangin' on the porch (it's now 6 am) and I with my fingers crossed that some little yellow finch doesn't decide to take up reisidence. I did 3 lbs, hoping that'll last me at least 2 weeks. These dye days have gotta get further apart, hot and long as they are. I also did some vegetable fiber, 2 lbs of bamboo, ramie, tencel, and soy silk. They're hiding out in their own plastic tub, counting the minutes until their debut.

I'd have secret and obtuse visions of hidden knitting to show but just realized a substantial part of the covert project, somehow, got knit on the wrong circ. needle. How the hell does that happen, you ask? It takes much skill. It takes less skill to rip it all out. Argh. Knitting news soon. Really, though it is a bit slower lately, school is kicking knitting's ass.

Me and my madness

I'm insane. Mad, I tell ya. Completely. And there's many people who no longer call me friend that will, no doubt, back me up. I'm going to my mom's for 2 weeks and from the state of our luggage, you'd think we were starting a whole new life. Of course, our new life would have to be built around fiber and spinning wheels, but hey, I'm okay with that.

Here's the first layer of my 66 quart taget box, followed by the second layer, and the third. It took my ass and b-ill with duck tape to get it closed.

There's another box with Pablo. Yeah, I plan on spinning while I'm there. There's also a bag of yarn for 2 designing projects and a few books thrown to, you know, make me look all scolastic and shit.

In the knitterific news, last night I started and finished testing Glampyre's fabulous pennywise scarf. It was fun, fast, and well-written. Both yarns are from my early handspun collection. I wore it to trader joe's today and got several compliments. If you've about 25 yards of some fun handspun, knit this! The pictures don't do it justice, the whole thing evokes hanging ivy and flowers.

Yesterday I traveled to both my LYS to pic up a few things for the trip and took a collection of my yarns for them to look at (as one shopowner gave me my 1 hour spinning lesson, and the other is a knitting friend) and they both made me feel so good. It was wonderful. They both thought I should be selling my yarn! In fact, one shop said if I created little hat and scarf kits, she's sell 'em! Exciting eh? So, when I return, the shit is on! and the yarn is going on sale!

See ya!

The evolution of UM pt.1

Here starts the slow growth of the Union Market Sweater that's on the cover of the new IK. I plan to meticulously document every detail so that future generation (or at least y'all) look back and see exactly where it all went straight to hell. Alright, it starts with 16 oz, or 450 grams of (happy, 'cause as a vegan, my wool's gotta come from the happy sheep) merino wool for the main color. The pattern calls for only 400 grams but I'm covering my ass. This will be dark greens with a little of the lighter green for matchiness, and hopefully spin up to a whopping 1400 yards. The contrast color is lighter greens with a bit of the darker and starts as 3.5 oz or 100 grams which will (fingers crossed) spin up to 400 yards.

First I dyed the roving, using the oven method I learned from Hello yarn. I like this method for colors you want to mix and meld and get all cuddly-wuddly with each other. For the MC I used 6 different colors of dark greens, 2 light greens from the CC roving, a bit of yellow and a bit of blue for contrast. I actually measured my dye out and shit. Went for a dos (depth of shade) of 2, taking a total of 6 cups of dye and 3 cups of water (though I let the water in the wool from soaking count for that). The CC took only 7 oz of dye and a cup of water to reach a dos of 1, this was split up between 5 light greens, 2 dark greens, yellow, and a bit of light blue for contrast. Then I washed, rinsed, and spun it dry-ish in my thrift-store salad spinner.

After it dried, and I quit freaking out by the though of my giant camoflauge sweater, I split the rovings into 3 foot sections and then split them length-wise into thin strips so the color mishes instead of pools. Each roving roving was split in half and each half into 7 pieces, making 7 piles.

It took a long time.

Finally I made balls out of each pile, making sure to mix the tones up so that there's not a long patch of one or the other.

Tomorrow I'll spin a bit and see if I can get the guage right, 27 st to 4". WTF, it's a sweater, not socks!

Homespun school-boy

School-boy is done! It looks and fits pretty well for my first go at a sweatery-type designing. It only took 2 days to knit! It's knit in the round with no seaming but for 16 kitchner stitches at the shoulders. The monogram is double-stitched and was a total after thought. I'll post the pattern later. More importantly, check myhomespun yarn out! It's the beat me brown and blue from a few weeks ago. How freakin' nice is that, like he should be carrying a copy of 14th century Estonian Poetry (and yes, I know. I was going for stodgy and impossible to learn and that fits the bill - lol) and headin off to Oxford. He loves it and keeps thanking me thank you for knitting me a sweatervest mama, now will you knit me a tam? A tam! How does a three year old in America know what a Tam is, you ask? Well, my friend G (who is now boyfriends with the girl I used to crush hard on), who's aspiration it is to be the self-proclaimed gayest knitter in America, left his How to knit Tams so you can be the gayest knitter in America book here last night. He already is well on his way, he was featured in the City Paper's big bad GAY ISSUE, though I don't think he mentioned knitting. Oh well, I'm still proud. So, thanks G, now I've gotta figure out how to make one of those crazy things!

Yesterday B-ill and I dyed up a bunch of roving for this weeks spinning adventures. The orangey-red on the left was oven dyed, the next two bits, the blue/green/yellow and the orange/gray were done in the steamer, the lightish blue/purple was done submerged on the stove, and the pink/green on the far right was done in the crock pot. I spun it all out in my thrift store salad spinner and hung it out so all my neighbors can gaze upon it while smoking their ganja and flashing the peace sign. I can't wait to start spinning. The question is, where's it all gonna go?

Roving, Roving, send ugly roving right over

Quickity quick yarn posting --

This yarn began as the ugliest roving you've ever seen. A crockpot dye-job gone terribly wrong. It was supposed to be reds and yellows with a bit of blue but as you can see, color theory reared it's (un)predictable head and gave me, what forever will be known as -- crockpot brown. Clearly my crockpot method needs some tweaking. Luckily, the yarn, though not what I planned, turned out pretty nice, if not a bit boring. It's 200 yrds of bulky worsted from a wool/mohair top

here's a roving I dyed yesterday and plan to spin up today. It was dyed in the handy dandy steamer basket, wrapped in plastic, on the stove. Ha, not that I wrapped the steamer basket in plastic, you feel me, right? I'm gonna try out some new tricks with it, thanks to some guidance from the...wait, I better not give my source away yet, if it turns out horrible, she shouldn't be to blame.

hey, there's merino in my oven!

Yesterday I spun this lovely purple wool/mohair mix. Little Bit helped me dye it a few weeks ago. And when I say he helped me dye it, I mean he picked out the colors and stood across the room while I did the mixing and pouring. I tried to get him to put some other colors in it but he insisted purples and blues only, so that's what I did and it's just freakin' goergous. He thinks it's his though, and I let him, 'cause I'm good and generous mama. Of course, anyone else try and claim my fiber and your lookin' for some scrappin, sista!

My plan was to do it thick and worsted-ish as practice for this large chunk of merino I also dyed yesterday. I want to spin it (the merino) up and knit a variation on Cleaves from knitty. Little Bit's is hanging on the rack in all it's blue/purple goodness. I post pics and details later.

As for the merino, it was my first experience dying merino, and like the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants gal that I pretend to be, it was also my first time dying it in the oven. I followed little miss hello yarn's step by step instructions, kept my colors in the same value range and general mood, and jumped offa the cliff, holding tightly to 2 lbs of fluffy merino top. Yeah. I was unsure about how much liquid was supposed to be in the pan when it went in the oven and I think I may have used a bit much dye, like always, because I poured quite a bit out. It was like little merino mush when it emerged all hot and steamy after 25 minutes, and I have to admit I was a bit scared. However, once I layed it out and then up, it dried up just like I wanted.

Now let's just hope it spins up the same. I usually don't use so many colors in such little sections but I've been reading this book, spinning with color (which I'll tell ya about soon), and it seems like this will get me the final result I want. I split it 2 times, wrapped it in balls and am ready to start spinning like the motherfuckin' wind. werd.

Real quick before I head to air and space for a day of free rockin' fun with two three year olds, for those with eyes that only see knitty-goodness, all my secret knitting is ovah! so keep your eyes peeled for lotsa knitting ahead!

dye you till you're brown and blue

Here's some pencil roving I dyed, I think for socks for my pop. I wanted it to be mostly light and dark chocolate with spots of cornflower blue. I'm not sure I nailed it, but I think it'll make a pretty yarn and hopefully a pretty eh, manly pair of socks.

In knitty news, I've cast on and knit 6 inchs of my sweater, 5 inches red, 1 inch pink, now for some of my baby, I can't wait to see it!

I also cast on for a pair of socks for myself. I'm trying some mosaic knitting, more on that soon!

Best laid Roving

So my best laid plan is to use this roving, which I cold poured using mixed lanaset colors in oranges, pinks is to use it in a sweater with some bemidji wool I dyed (500yrds) red and (250 yrds) pink. I'm hoping the roving spins up mostly orange but with some red and pink to tie in. I'm also hoping for about 200 yrds.

It's almost time for the wool and sheep festival -- my first. I'm excited and a bit nervous.

Twisted sister

In my youth Twisted Sister meant we're not gonna take it. Now it means new and fanciful techniques of dying and spinning. Oh, how far I've fallen...er...risen.

Socks are the newest notch in my bedpost. I learned to knit 'em and now I'm gonna learn how to dye and spin 'em. See ya kool aid, hello lanaset.

and here is some dyed rovings using the cold pour method (paint with dye, wrap in palstic and steam) hanging in the kitchen, along with some yarn that's drying after I set the twist --

More victims for my learning curve.