Happy Labor Day!

Here's my date for the three-day weekend.


That would be Kidsilk Haze in color Blushes (583). Oh yeah, life is good. Don't be fooled by the godawful appearance of this color on the Rowan page--the color in my photo is pretty true. I had a terrible time trying to figure out what color to get, since the same color looks totally different on the Rowan site vs. Yarndex. Thank goodness for Yarn Expressions! They were going to order me whatever color I wanted--they have a color card--but it turned out it was love at second site when I looked through their stock again and saw this color.
I wish you all a fabulous holiday weekend--I hope you have as much fun as I do! It's supposed to be a big weekend, yarn-wise. I've heard it said that Labor Day is the start of knitting season? Most knitters I know have been knitting all summer, but for myself, I'm definitely feeling a renewed eagerness to knit. There's probably something to it, especially for folks with cooler climates and late-starting school years. I've heard something big is brewing at Yarny Goodness, but I don't know what, except that my yarn will be featured there soon. Stay tuned for that one. Also, Cherry Tree Hill is having a big Labor Day sale, which I would be all over if I hadn't just bought a ton of their yarn in New Hampshire. Have fun shopping, or just love the yarn you're with!

a little spinning

I wanted to start on the Feathery Lace Stole yesterday--suddenly I'm totally re-obsessed with this--but I left the yarn at work. Darn it! That's the problem with all the yarn being at work.
I did get to spin a little, though.

This is the last of the test roving I dyed. It's brown mix from Sheep Shed Studio, dyed with the dye runoff from the other two sample rovings I dyed.



The yarn seems darker than the roving, but maybe that always happens. I haven't even plied this yet, but it was really nice to do even a tiny bit of spinning. So relaxing. And of course I'm very pleased to report that I didn't mess it all up when I dyed the roving--it's still quite easy to spin. I'm planning to get a whole lot of spinning fiber and start dyeing it, as soon as I catch up on the sock yarn!

knitting, kindness, and inspiration

Last night was knitting night, and although it was totally pouring and I knew it would be freezing in Barnes & Noble, I missed my knitting buddies, so I went. Also, I was very psyched to finish the cozy for my EEE PC. Under the plan to switch direction this would have been possible and is probably done. But one great thing about being around other knitters is that they give you good ideas. (Another is that they loan you gorgeous wool shawls that immediately toast you right up when you come into the psycho air conditioning all wet from the rain.) Two people suggested sticking with the original plan but felting it back down to the size I want, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. This would allow me to incorporate more of the barber pole yarn, which I think is very fetching with the Navajo plied stuff, and it would make the cozy a more protective case. Thus, the new plan is to go back to the old plan, so I'm not done yet. That, too, is a bonus, since this is such a soothing project. And I absolutely adore the way the colors are coming out.


I also got to spin a little. I've got a lot of stressful stuff going on right now, so I'm looking for solace wherever I can find it. Teal carded wool goes a long way.


This is more of the Little Barn wool that I bought as a gift and couldn't resist getting some for myself, too. It's so satisfying. It practically spins itself, and the color is so intense and gorgeous. It's the perfect antidote to too much freaking out.
Things do seem to be turning around, at least in my mind. Here's a symptom: when I look at patterns and yarn that I don't own, I feel covetous again. For a while it was like "ugh, no more yarn, I have way too many project to do now--I can't take on another thing." Of course, this didn't mean I stopped making fiber purchases, it just meant I bought roving instead of yarn. But over the weekend I discovered a pattern I'm totally lusting after: Vanda from the Summer 2008 Knitter's Magazine. In Ravelry, it's green, but in the magazine it's a dusky purple. Total love. And it actually said in the magazine "Easy--go for it!" Wow, don't mind if I do. Of course, to make it out of the yarn used in the patter would require five skeins of Lorna's Laces Green Line Worsted, which comes to about $100. That's a little rich for my blood. I'm considering substitutions. Knitpicks makes their Andean Silk sound like heaven: 55% super fine alpaca, 23% silk, 22% merino wool, and it's very close to the same weight as the original yarn. I'm not sure how much using different fibers would screw up how the sweater came out, though. Another strong candidate is their Wool of the Andes. It's more different in weight from the original and has to be less soft, but look at the color Lullaby. If I could have that color in the Andean Silk, it would already be paid for and on its way to me.
Meanwhile, as I was adding that project to my queue, I rediscovered the Feathery Lace Stole from Exquisite Little Knits. It's the beautiful stole with the two-line pattern repeat. Also, this coincides with unpacking (at work) my fabulous Kid Silk Haze that I bought from Yarn Expressions for this purpose. I love that yarn so much it hurts.
In short, I have two projects that I'm feeling exceedingly inspired to start, plus some good ones currently in progress, and when you come right down to it, life is good.

some updates

Thanks to some inspiration from a comment by Bay Home Stager, I worked my butt off this weekend and got a lot of stuff stowed. I don't know why it never occurred to me before that it's not cheating to get the stuff out of sight by packing it, and then you have a head start on moving! Duh! So that's what I did. The house looks a lot better, and it didn't feel pointless like just redecorating for hypothetical people with no imagination. Also, I took the time to organize stuff as I was sifting through it, so now my life will actually be easier, too. (During the first pass I just kind of madly stashed stuff, which made it really hard to remember where anything was.)
Phyllis asked a question, and I thought others might also be interested in the answer, so I'll address it here. How did I hang the yarn? I went to Lowe's and got some decorative chain that's normally used to hang plants or lights, and I hung that up with a picture hanger--just put the top loop over the hook and let the chain hang down. Then I wanted a whole raft of S-hooks, but I couldn't find any that were cheap enough, so I went to Walmart and got a package of wire from the hardware section. The stuff I got was about $3, it has a galvanized coating, and it's stiff but you can bend it with your fingers. To make each hook, I bent the wire around the round handle of my file, bent it again the other way to form the S, cut it off the spool, and filed the ends. It sounds crazy, but each hook probably took about a minute to make. Then I took the ball band off the yarn, punched a hole in it and hung it on the hook, put the hook through the yarn, and hung it on the chain. I didn't want to see the ball bands, but I also didn't want to forget what yarn was what. For the long stuff, I hung the chain horizontally from three picture hooks and put the yarn so the hanks just hung down next to each other. (The nice thing about making your own hooks is that you can customize them: I made really big ones to hold a whole bunch of my handspun yarn or big things like Cherry Tree Hill stuff.)
It was a very satisfying project, and even including the cost of some really good wire cutters, I think the whole thing was maybe $30. I totally loved being able to see all the yarn at any given time--I knew where everything was, and when I was working on mixed-yarn projects, I could just walk around holding the project up to the yarn until I picked what should go next. I'm definitely doing it again in my next house. The only drawbacks are that the yarn would get dusty eventually, although in the year that mine was up, there was no noticeable accumulation of dust, and that it could fade from the sun. The room where I had mine has only a north-facing window--there's never any direct sunlight in there--so I wasn't too worried about that. In a west-facing room, you might have a problem.
In other news, I took the pretty colors mohair yarn off the bobbin.


The colors are great, but holy crap is that nasty yarn. It feels like rope with little fiberglass shards sticking out everywhere. I have no idea what I'll do with it--even to make a purse or something out of it, you might want to wear gloves while knitting or crocheting. Yikes! That kind of took the thrill off of spinning more of it, but I will eventually. I'll certainly think twice before buying any more mohair, though.
Also, I'm making a lot of progress on the cozy for my EEE PC. I love this project because it's totally mindless, but every row is interesting as the color changes through the yarn. What else can I make out of plain old rectangles?! I did buy Crochet Squared a while back, which is all about making stuff out of only squares and rectangles--I'll have revisit it if I didn't pack it. You have to watch out for this book, though--if you look closely at the garments in the pictures, some of them clearly had some cheating going on. You can see shaping, not a simple rectangle, on a lot of the ones that look good. Yeah, I know shaping makes stuff fit better, that's why people do it. But don't write your whole book around making garments out of squares and rectangles, and then cheat for the pictures! Totally not cool. The people who are likely to buy this book are beginning crocheters, myself included when I bought it, and it's not fair for them to follow the patterns, come out with something much crappier than what you see in the picture, and think it's their fault for being a bad crocheter. I was filled with righteous indignation when I made this discovery, but the book still has use to me as inspiration.
Anyway, as much as I'm enjoying making the cozy, there is one slight problem with it.


It's way too big. The rectangle is actually a slight trapezoid because the later yarn is thicker than the yarn at the beginning, which doesn't help. I think I can work that out with blocking, though, and the whole thing will fit pretty well if I turn it sideways. The stripes won't go the way I wanted them to, but it will still be plenty cool. It's a good thing I checked the fit this morning--suddenly I'm much closer to being done than I thought!

pretty colors

I got myself all worked up into a state again yesterday. But suddenly the Voice of Reason showed up and said, "You know spinning always makes you feel better. Why don't you quit whining and drooping around, and spin some?" For once, I listened.
The new, brightly colored mohair from last weekend called out to me as the perfect antidote to the blues.


It was a little harder to spin than wool--a lot like the alpaca blend I bought a while back, the fibers are slippery, and if you don't really put in a lot of twist, the yarn wants to break. When I was doing the alpaca, every time I put in enough twist for the singles to stay together, it seemed like it was going to be really stiff, hard, loftless yarn. But when I plied it, it came out gorgeous. I applied that lesson to the mohair.


Love! Navajo plying sure is a handy skill. I'm definitely not consistent enough to reliably get the colors to line up in two plies, and I really didn't want barber poling on this yarn--I wanted to preserve the intensity of the colors. This yarn makes me drool.

a sad day in yarn land

My house has been on the market about a month now, and I know it's early to get discouraged, but I'm discouraged. I've been reading about staging your house and companies that will help you and what they charge and how much faster your house will supposedly sell. If it works, it's worth every penny. Also, if they do the work, I'd say it's worth every penny. If they just tell you what to do and you have to do it, not so much. I was looking at some of their before-and-after pictures, and most of them basically look like they picked up and put away the junk the homeowners left scattered around, and added a few plants. That's hardly rocket science.
Anyway, comparing my house with some of the "after" pictures and the well-staged homes I've seen at open houses and in pictures online, I realized that my yarn stash is definitely not helping and needs to be relocated. I find this pretty painful because I have an overly sentimental view of the yarn. Last summer it was basically what kept me from having a total breakdown and losing it completely. I have friends, I have family, they love and support me and did their best, but in the end playing creating with yarn was what kept me clinging to that last thread of reason until I could get strong enough to pull myself back up. Whenever times get tough, I find it comforting to go into the yarn room and look at it and touch it and just be surrounded by it. Well, now you all know I'm crazy, and it really was making the place look "cozy." Everybody knows cozy is bad, and in the end it's more important to facilitate the sale of the house and moving on than to keep the yarn on the walls as a giant security blanket.
It really was cool, though, I thought. Here's what it looked like.




I haven't finished the bookshelf area you see in the first picture, but the rest is gone. And all is not lost--I'm taking it to work to try to alleviate the beigeness there.
Meanwhile, as I was trying to get everything tidy and impersonal, my unfinished hat stood out as something a stager would remove. Here's where we left it in April.


That hat has been sitting around waiting to have six stitches bound off and a seam sewn down the back ever since. What was my problem? Aside from laziness, I couldn't remember how to bind off, and I didn't have a plan for how the heck to sew the seam with this big fat yarn. So last night I looked up how to bind off, which is really so simple, and I decided to crochet the seam. It's not the most elegant way to do it, but it worked out fine. Next time I'd probably use a different yarn--something more normal and thinner in similar colors--and sew the seam. Duh, but I didn't think of that until after I had already finished. Somehow I felt like I should be dissatisfied with it and undo it and redo it some sleeker way--I guess I've been reading too much Yarn Harlot--but I'm tired of being a perfectionist. I like the hat how it is, it fits my head nicely, and I'm planning to keep it, so there is absolutely no reason why it can't stay exactly as it is.


In other news, my head is apparently the same size as a small lamp shade.

festival update

The Michigan Fiber Festival was a blast. There were tons of vendors, more than I even got a chance to see, and lots and lots of animals. The amazing thing was that for such a large festival, it wasn't very crowded--you could still get around and see everything without feeling like part of a herd yourself.
There were bunnies, goats, llamas, and of course sheep.


We also got to see some shearing demonstrations. This little fuzzy creature did not want to be sheared at all and complained bitterly throughout the process. Here's before. (That's her head on the right under the handler's knee, which might explain some of the acrimony. She rather reminds me of Dolores from The Panopticon in this picture.)


And here's mostly done.


When there are a bunch of sheep all waiting to be sheared, the ones who are done look really embarrassed, and ones who are waiting look really nervous. It's difficult to get more than a sideways glance from them--forget about making eye contact.


Showing unusual restraint, I bought only two things. It was strange--there were tons of really beautiful yarns and rovings there, but most of them just weren't speaking to me. This one did, though. It's hand-dyed mohair from Mar-Rita Farm. I've never spun mohair before, so it will be a new adventure for me. I just couldn't resist the colors.

I'm back

I had a blast on my trip. I got to see my best friend and her beautiful, charming children, and I got to go to the Michigan Fiber Festival. How much of a vacation was it? I actually had time to spin! I even got to "teach" my three-year-old honorary niece to spin, which consisted of showing her how it works and then making sure she didn't fall or wreck anything while she treadled a million miles per hour. It was really fun, and she had a total blast. She also "helped" by mushing up pieces of roving for me. I think in a few years we'll have her spinning for real. Before we even started, she already knew that yarn is for knitting, that what I was working with was wool, and that wool comes from sheep. She's a very clever little girl.
No time to write more now, but I do have more to say. Here's a preview.

a bit of spinning

Since I've been noticing such a decline in the quality of my spinning lately--due to lack of practice--I've decided to try to be more regular about it. Besides, it makes me feel so good! Why do I always put the best stuff at lowest priority?
I decided to try out the last of the test rovings I dyed a month or so ago. This is the impromptu one that soaked up the excess dye from the other two (which are now the yarn for my computer cozy).


It didn't get as much soaking time in the acid as the others, so maybe that's why the color isn't as dark, or maybe they sucked up a lot of the color and didn't leave as much for this one. In any case, I love the shade of purple, and I love that you can see some of the original brown through it. (This was brown tones mix from Sheep Shed Studio.)
It's very nice to spin. I had trouble with this wool before it was dyed because it was so darn slippery, almost as if it was alpaca. But the dye stuck everything together a tiny bit, just enough that it's great to spin now.


Very nice yarn. I definitely want to keep this up.

a little crochet

I'm making some progress on the cozy for my teeny computer. I love this project--it is so soothingly simple, and the colors change just enough to keep it interesting.


Here it is up close.


It's small, it's simple, it's pretty, and it shows off my dyeing. What more could I ask in a travel project?

Road trip!

I'm headed out this morning for the Michigan Fiber Festival! So psyched. I'm going to stay with my best friend, who I haven't seen in about a year, and I get to play with yarn! There are supposed to be tons of animals to look at, so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. After last time (and also kind of by accident because I forgot to register), I haven't signed up for any classes at this festival. It's just going to be some chilled out wandering around--just what the doctor ordered. Also, I'm driving, so there shouldn't be any manic panic last-minute yarn-shipping emergencies. Or if there are, I'm really in trouble!
Whenever I go out of town, I always offer free shipping in my Etsy shop to make up for the delay while I'm gone. This time is no exception, so if there's some yarn you've been eyeing, now is a great time to get it and take advantage of the free shipping ($5 to Canada). Everything goes back to normal on Tuesday when I get back.

After sitting around Washington National airport for hours with nothing to do last time, of course I'm overpacking on the yarn this time, even though...um, it's not like I can knit and drive, even if there is a delay.
I've got the red and purple cape, which is so newly started you haven't even seen any pictures yet, and I've got the computer cozy in progress. In case I run out of yarn, I went ahead and wound the yarn from the other matching roving into balls. It's the barber pole one that inspired me to try Navajo plying, except I think I like it better than the Navajo yarn. I'm actually hoping to run out of the Navajo so I can put this yarn in, too. Of course, that's silly--I can just put this yarn in without running out of the other if I want.
I also packed the Mohair Thick N Thin from Cherry Tree Hill. Did that stuff ever make a huge ball! (and another little ball--it was actually two pieces.) I'm really glad to have the jumbo ball winder--I don't think you could have wound this yarn on a regular one without cutting it or putting it under so much tension it would have been no fun to knit after a day or two. (I totally love that ball winder, by the way--it is 100% awesome. Cool design, super smooth, and quiet as a mouse.)
So, in addition to two works in progress, I had to bring this yarn.


For scale, I've posed my full-grown sheep in front of it.


Now that's a lot of yarn!
Since I'm visiting people, I will probably get to little or none of it, but I'll have it if I need it. Besides, I think it's good for yarn to get out of Alabama and see other places--it helps it put its little problems in perspective and stop freaking out so much. Or wait, that's me. Well, I'm sure it helps the yarn, too.

order shipped--phew!

Yesterday I shipped the order that's been taking over my life lately.


Yay! I'm really happy with all of this yarn, and it's so satisfying to send it off to a customer. It's a rush of victory.
I can't rest on my laurels too long--this customer has already ordered more asap!--but I did give myself one evening off. I spun a teeny bit and then went to bed.


This is from a gorgeous carded roving from Little Barn. I bought some as a housewarming present for my department secretary (yes, I am very lucky to work with someone who is cool enough to be delighted with this gift) and of course had to get some for me, too. This part of the yarn came out pretty uniformly teal or turquoise, but the roving looks like an idealized ocean--blues, a little green, a little purple. Total love.
After my experience with the Tour de Fleece, I am completely ignoring the Olympics, Ravelympics and otherwise. I guess I was a little dense last time because it didn't occur to me that part of the point of these things for most people is to give them something fun to do while they watch the events, and that's how they actually finish their stuff--they have that designated time for it. I have the utmost respect for the athletes who compete and all the work they've done and all the ability they have--it's incredible. But I have no interest in watching the events, and I'm too busy dyeing yarn anyway. Besides, my initial impulse was right on--keep the goals out of the yarning.
Thus I was able to spin about 20 yards of pretty colors last night, be very happy, and go to bed. That's the way to do it.

dyeing weekend

I did a whole lot of dyeing over the weekend. I'm really pleased with the results, and as soon as I get them all labeled, my first big wholesale order is ready to ship!
Here's half of the yarn I did this weekend.



As usual, the rest of it is shy. But here are two of my absolute favorites.


Unlike peanut butter and chocolate, there are many examples of two great tastes that don't taste great together. Soy sauce and Mac 'n' cheese. Golden Grahams and Sunday paper perfume ads. Dyeing yarn and trying to sell your house. But what can I do? I had to get this yarn done, and I don't really have anywhere else to go. I managed to time it perfectly this weekend: I dyed like a maniac Friday night and then got up early and did it again Saturday morning. I had just enough time to clean everything up and run out the door before people came to see the house Saturday afternoon. Now, if anyone comes today, they're just going to have to see the piles of yarn waiting to be labeled I guess--I don't know what else to do with it until I ship it tomorrow. This is the problem with trying to live in a house while trying to sell it, at least if you're somebody who has pursuits other than t.v. Even just my stash, which I have hanging all over the walls of the guest room, would probably be the first thing to go if I were to truly stage the house. Well, maybe second, after the gaudy life-size statue of Venus in the middle of the living room.
Seriously, I just made that up about Venus, but I'm thinking about what stuff we should get out of the house and into storage or something for the house to sell quicker. I thought we already had it in great shape, but Saturday's people were only in the house for 15 minutes, so obviously they didn't like it. You're supposed to make it look homey but generic so that buyers come in and think "I could live here." Basically, take all the personality out but stop short of making it cold. On the other hand, I have to live here until the place sells. It's already pretty darn inconvenient with just the few changes we've already made. Feh.

fun new project

At long last, I have started making the cozy for my teeny laptop. Why? It's so much smaller than a normal laptop, all the laptop carrying bags are about twice as big as it. That kind of defeats the purpose of buying a teeny laptop, doesn't it?
Here's what I have so far.


Very exciting, I know. But it's more than it looks like. It's only one row, but I'm done with crocheting into the foundation chain (hate! must learn to make foundation stitches without the chain--I hear it can be done) and I've figured out the plan. I want the rows to run across the laptop shortways, so if you were holding it like a big paperback, the rows would be horizontal. See? (The picture also shows the size of the laptop--that's a normal-sized keyboard in the background.)


I'm just going to keep crocheting this nice rectangle until it's long enough to cover the width of the computer, then I'm going to crochet a little seam down each side and I'll be done. It's a portable, mindless project from here on out--whee! And it's so small, I may actually finish it soon. (Don't talk to me about the hat that's been sitting around for months needing only six stitches bound off and a seam--I don't want to discuss it.)
For once I'm actually using single crochet, the stiffest stitch, and a hook that's only a little bigger than the "proper" size for the yarn. I want this to be sturdy and hold its shape some, usually the opposite of what I'm going for.
This is the first real thing I've made out of my handspun yarn, and I'm very psyched, especially since this is spun from a roving that I hand-dyed myself. Also I'm very curious to see if this is way too much yarn or not enough. I have a coordinating barber pole yarn if I need more, so it's fine either way.

a return to spinning

My old friend insomnia has returned, hopefully for a short visit. I futilely stayed in bed for an hour before surrendering and getting up. I decided that a little spinning would be a nice treat for my bonus time.



This is Indian Summer combed wool from Little Barn. It is gorgeous and a dream to spin. I love their fiber, especially the combed or carded color blends.



The yarn came out well, although I had some breakage with the singles, and I can tell I'm out of practice. I was much more consistent and generally better at this when I was doing it more often. (Gee, ya think?) I definitely want to get back to that.
Also, I finally finished my Tour de Fleece Challenge a few days ago. Remember I stopped in the middle of plying the last single? I went back days later and finished it.



Didn't Lucy in "I Love Lucy" have bangs that looked like that? Well, that's what happens when half the singles were plied while they were active and the rest were plied to match after they got tired. A little wash took care of it.



Not bad for my first Navajo plying project. This yarn is going to be such an awesome cozy for my teeny computer.

what is it about yarn?

Dudes, I woke up feeling really overwhelmed and bummed this morning. Y'all don't need to hear the many ways in which my life is a mess, but suffice it to say, it is. Some of the mess is good and exciting, like holy crap gotta dye more yarn right now for the business! The rest, not so much.
But man, nothing cheers me up like yarn.

This is Wool in the Woods Rubble, dyed by Cherry Tree Hill in colorway Life's a Beach. Oh yeah. It's 78% cotton, 20% rayon, 2% nylon; that with the texture and the colors makes this yarn scream "summer!" And I'm not talking about the kind of summer where you rot in your boring beige office in the air conditioning, either--this is the kind of summer where you have a house by the beach and wear big sunglasses and read shallow novels between swimming and drinking daiquiris. Maybe you're even one of those people (as I've never been) who actually own a beach house and go there every summer with a your best friends and their kids.


This one is a one-of-a-kind designer blend yarn from Valknitz. Love that purple! That is going to make something awesome and rich.


Finally, the one I've been completely obsessed about lately. This is Cherry Tree Hill Mohair Thick n Thin. It's a mill end, so they don't tell me the colorway, which OCD'ically I find maddening. But it makes me drool just looking at it. It actually might be Indian Summer, which is one of my absolute favorites of theirs. Anyway, this is the one that I actually considered staying up late last night to make something out of. For me, that's really saying something. Sleep won out, though.
I've got a list of "gottas" a mile long, but somehow looking at these colors and touching this yarn makes me feel better. Is it just the potential for creativity (yarn as art material) that gets us so hooked on yarn? Or is it something more? Most people use sight as their primary sense, but some people use hearing or touch. Yarn-lovers must be wired for a unique combination of visual and tactile sensing, plus a creative drive and a nesting instinct.

yarn at last

The yarn that I shipped to myself from New Hampshire finally came yesterday. There was quite a joyous reunion, especially since in a moment of what seemed like brilliance at the time, I also shipped most of my shirts back. I figured I wouldn't need them again that trip, since there was only one day left, and that way I'd have space if I went crazy and bought yet more yarn. Well, as the package lingered in the mail system, this began to cause some wardrobe difficulties, especially since I'm behind on the laundry. So now, not only do I have all this gorgeous yarn, I have something to wear!
I really wanted this yarn for knitting night last night. I was feeling whiny about all of my current projects--the seascape shawl should have some lace or something soon, but I don't know how to do that; the summer top that I still want to make would require knowing my measurements; the skew scarf is due to get some crochet added to it, but I think that's going to be a little hairy as far as not losing the live knit stitches; even the hat requires binding off, which I don't remember how to do. I finished my easy projects on the trip, so I was kind of at loose ends. One of my new yarns, which are all planning to be big chunky simple scarves or shawls, would have been the perfect thing. Technically the yarn arrived before knitting night started, but I didn't want to drive all the way home and then all the way back. Told you I was whiny.
It ended up being a fun evening, though. Lots of people were there, telling funny stories and working on pretty things. I hadn't been in a few weeks, so it was really nice to see everyone again.
And when I got home, a whole box of gorgeous yarn awaited me!
Here's my favorite:


It's hand-dyed rayon from The Fiber Studio. It's about half a pound, and it's totally gorgeous and luminous and drapey. Total love. It's going to be a big peacock-inspired shawl, probably crocheted with V-stitches.



This one is Wool in the Woods Wink, hand-dyed by Cherry Tree Hill. I bought three skeins that were all similar colors to this, all gorgeous. All this Cherry Tree Hill stuff is from Discontinued Brand Name Yarn, which absolutely killed me with their incredible deals.



This one is Cherry Tree Hill Alpine Lace. It's a mill end, but still plenty for a fabulous shawl or scarf. It's so grape--I love it.
That's today's yarn treat. More tomorrow!
Also, I did find the orifice hook for my spinning wheel. Definitely the cat. It was under the arm chair, where else?

dye dye dye

I had a great weekend with the dyeing. So glad the yarn came in time!


I am totally in love with this yarn. Here's some of it all tidied up.


Most of this yarn is promised, but I did an extra four skeins for my shop, too. They'll be appearing as soon as they can be reskeined.
Meanwhile, I went to spin, and I couldn't find my orifice hook. What could have become of that?



So far, she's not telling.