Preview

I dyed a bunch of things on Tuesday and Wednesday, which I have yet to list on Etsy, since I need to name them and whatnot. But I figured I'd give you all a preview of some of them:






Also, I spent the day carding and spinning. I'm hoping to get a bunch of skeins done between now and the craft show, though it's seeming less likely, considering the craft show is in 3 weeks. A skein a day would give me 21 skeins, but I doubt I can be that productive, especially once my classes start up. I'll have a lot of roving to sell, but I feel like there are more knitters in the world than there are spinners, and that the yarn will sell better. But I can always offer to do a custom spinning job if people wanted to commission me to spin up one of my rovings.

Also, carding until you injure yourself is not a good idea.

German Wool

I got back from my week and a half long Europe trip on Thursday afternoon. It was a trip in which I bought few souvenirs, but I did manage to visit a yarn store in Germany.









The first two skeins are sock yarn from Italy, the second two are handspun/hand dyed local yarn from Germany.

There were so many pretty things in the store, and part of me wishes I had bought more, but I think what I got is sufficient, considering that I had to get it back to the States. Had we more time, I would have gone back to the store with my mom, but other things ended up taking forever, so no second visit for me. Oh well.

And of course, by bringing extra projects, I ensured that I would not actually finish the Traveling Woman Shawl. I'm near the end of repeat 3 of chart a, and there are only 2 charts (a repeats as many times as you'd like/have the yarn for, b is the border). I'm definitely doing a 4th repeat of it, but I'm not sure if I have the yarn for more than that. I really don't want to run out of yarn. Maybe 600 yards actually isn't enough...

Two Treasuries

Treasury East is my new best friend. You can make a treasury whenever you want, you can make as many as you want, and they stay there as opposed to disappearing in 2-3 days. Of course, this leads to there being over 10,000 treasuries now (I think) and there being some with no items in them. People should really delete their treasuries when they stop having items in them. I probably would be in favor of the treasuries lasting for 4 months and then getting deleted so as not to be too overwhelming, or maybe capping the number of treasuries each seller can have.

Anyways, I have 2 treasuries up right now, one I made about a week ago, and one I made yesterday:

Dragons:



No Two People are Not on Fire (awww):


I think I might have created the second one solely because I thought that would be the best name for a treasury, ever. (It's a reference to this Strong Bad's E-mail)

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In other news, I'm going to Europe on Monday (France and Germany) for a period of 10 days. The most time-consuming part of packing for me is figuring out what knitting/spinning projects to bring. The Traveling Woman shawl is going pretty quickly; I'm done with the center, and am now on repeat 2 of chart A. (There are 2 charts: chart A, which is the one that gets repeated x number of times, and chart B, which is the border. The person who made the pattern used 300 yards and did chart A twice. I want a larger shawl than that and have 600 yards of yarn, so I was thinking of doing chart A 4 times, maybe 5 if I think I have enough yarn. I would hate to run out before the end.) And chart A has 12 rows. So I think there's a good chance I could finish while I'm there.

Details of knittingness: the flight there is 7 hours, the flight back is 8. (I might sleep some of that time, but certainly not all of it.) Wednesday and Thursday are the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, so I won't be knitting then, and I also won't be knitting on Shabbat, so that leaves about 5 actual days of knitting, though I'll be doing other things as well (such as attending a wedding). But there will be a lot of transit time while in Europe.

I don't have another project I'm actively working on. I have a cabled scarf that I hardly work on, but don't want to bring, and a big Dr. Who-like scarf made of crazy yarns, but that one is too big. So I need a new project.

I'm also almost done spinning the More Purple yarn for my Etsy shop, so wouldn't bring that. Nor do I really have time to dye something else before I go. I suppose I could spin things for me.

Too much thinking. I probably just need to get over myself and start a new project. Usually I'm in the opposite situation, with a bunch of things going at once and taking forever to finish them since there are so many. At a certain point I used my magical willpower skills to finish things, and now I have this.

Maybe I'll bring the yarn for another shawl. You can never have too many hand-knit shawls, right?

10 sponge brushes

I like to use sponge brushes when I dye roving or yarn. They're good at soaking up the dye and transferring it onto the fiber. However, after a few uses and cleanings, the foam top starts to come off, and then you have to fight the brush to get it back on and stay there. This starts to get annoying. The brushes are very cheap, though, so it's not such a big deal for me.

For me, the brushes are actually free, because my dad owns a hardware store. It's quite a useful thing. I was going to go to the store last weekend when I was in RI (which is where the store is), but we ended up not visiting the store while I was there. So I called my dad and asked if he could send me 10 sponge brushes.

I got the package today, and opened it up. And there were 48 sponge brushes!!!

(That's just the top layer)

I guess this was just a case of them. I'm set for a really long time. Yay!

Also, 29.5 lbs of wool, since I never put up the pictures:
And since the yarn desk has morphed a bit, I took new photos, though they are sad, night time, badly-lit photos:

And finally, the shawl I'm working on. I got this yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm and am in love with it:
This is before I started the lace part. I'm only 4 rows into the lace, but it's pretty easy. Maybe I'll have a new shawl soon.

More purple

This past Thursday I managed to do some dyeing for the first time in several weeks. The new batch will be on Etsy soon (once I finish the backlog of work I need to do for library school, and catch up on sleep after last night's all-nighter).







I decided on cool colors because it had been a while since I had dyed cool colors. Also, I realized I was severely lacking in the purple department. I dyed 3 purple rovings, though one will probably turn into purple yarn, for a bit of diversity.

I like how this batch turned out. Hopefully other people will like it, too.

In which the Knitter of Shiny Things almost wins the Vericon art show

What could be more awesome than a laundry rack full of yarn and roving?
This is what I brought with me to the Vericon art show.

Side 1:














Side 2:















And a view from the inside:
















[Insert Wings Here]:


I managed to finish the skein I had been working on in time to bring it with me to the art show. I called it "[Insert Wings Here]" because most of the Vericon art has wings on it, and none of mine did, so I had to fix that.

I ended up selling 3 rovings and the [Insert Wings Here] yarn. I was only second to John Kaufmann for how much money's worth of art I sold. Though unfortunately this was due to not that many people buying art this year.

But 4 items is a lot for one art show for me, especially when I was already going to the con, and entering the art show only cost $5. For minimal effort I managed to get a few sales, and also lots of people admiring the shinyness.

Weather win

After 3 full days of non-stop downpours, it finally stopped raining some time last night. And today there was sun. And because of daylight savings time, when I got home at 5:30 it was still sunny out. Thus I could photograph my new wool on the porch instead of using the makeshift light box, which is made of sad. It does the job, but natural lighting gives me far better results.









So now I have pictures for the new update to the Etsy shop. I haven't added new wool in a while. But soon I'll be adding tons of wool, once my 27lbs of merino comes in. Yes, I did order 27 lbs of wool. It was with free shipping! How could I not?

It's a tie!

Because Riv was lazy about blocking her shawl, I was able to catch up. I cast of last night, and then tonight we both blocked our shawls:




























Riv's is on the left, mine is on the right. I actually cast off too tightly, but I didn't want to re-do it. So my shawl is less pointy than hers. But it's okay, because it's done and I'm happy, and everyone who saw it today really liked it.

Now I'm in the annoying stage where I don't have any knitting projects going. I was concentrating on the shawl because I wanted it to be finished so I could wear it. But now winter is coming to an end, so I'm less motivated to make myself the warmer hat that I'd like to have. I might make another shawl, but I'm not sure I want to do that yet. And I'm a bit discouraged with socks because I tried to make a Hedera, but it ended up being too loose even on small needles, because my feet are small. I want to make socks with an actual pattern, since those are more interesting than plain socks, but that involves deciding on one first.

And I could start my sweater, but that's not such a portable project. I should probably start it anyways.

Maybe I'll just stick with the drop spindle for now, and spin up the baby llama I dyed for myself. Or sit at my wheel and spin the wool I pre-drafted. But the wheel is really not portable.

Must find project!

I has a treasury

It's a treasury!

It's really hard to get an Etsy treasury. You need to know when enough lists will expire so that the number is down to less than 333. Then you have to be at the site and click to create it as soon as it opens up. They let everyone who is there in time create one, and then the number of lists goes up to ~900 or something ridiculous.

However, they do have a tool called Poster Sketch that allows you to prepare a treasury in advance, and will automatically save what you put in. Of course, there's no actual link to it from the main site; it is hidden inside a tutorial on how to make a treasury.

Seriously, Etsy, why don't you have a link to the poster sketch?

Hopefully people will look at my treasury and buy stuff from it (especially my yarn and Riv's earrings). Some of the things in my poster sketch actually were purchased between when I created the list and when I posted it, so I had to put in alternates. Maybe my list is good luck!

Screen shot since the treasury will disappear on Saturday evening:

In which the Knitter of Shiny Things loses the Knitting Olympics

I had intended on doing the Knitting Olympics this year. I was going to spin up this lovely baby llama roving that I dyed myself (Ravelry link) and knit an Alienor sweater (also a Ravelry link).

For the sweater, my main goal was just to cast on, because I've never knitted a sweater before and once I cast on it would become a lot easier for me to actually knit it.

However, life got in the way, and I wasn't even able to complete that modest goal. I had to finish a pair of gloves which were a birthday present for a friend. Her birthday was February 12, but I didn't finish them until last Wednesday. Part of this is because I actually had her try on the first glove a billion times so I could make sure everything was sized correctly. I wasn't using a pattern and I wanted them to fit perfectly, since what's the point of custom handmade gloves if they don't fit perfectly? Part of it was also when I was trying to decide whether it would be better to have the present be a surprise or to have the gloves fit perfectly. I asked her boyfriend, who said either would work, so I ended up sacrificing the surprise in favor of the fit. After all, a surprise is a short-term thing, while those gloves will last for a really long time. I definitely made the right decision.

(The second glove went much more quickly since it was the exact same thing as the first.)

So I never ended up casting on for the sweater. I should really get around to doing that. I really want to make my own sweaters, because I'm just not finding ones in stores that I actually like. And the sweaters that I own are getting to be too big, since I used to be a medium and now I'm a small. I really do need to make my own sweaters.

In other news, I might actually still win the Great Shawl Race that I thought I lost. One a technicality. Riv hasn't blocked her shawl yet. If I finish mine and block it before she does, then I totally win.

More info on the wool

It turns out that the woman who owns the 3 sheep has two breeds, Lincoln and something starting with a B that my mom couldn't remember. This is what a Lincoln sheep looks like:



So in a few weeks there will be lots of wool for me! Yay!

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Also, last week one of my yarns got featured in an Etsy treasury. Unfortunately the treasuries only last for 2 days, so I don't have the link any more. Or rather, I could give you a link, and you'd get an error message. But still, it was pretty cool. It got me a lot of item views. Alas, no purchases.

Gloves and wool!

I finished the gloves. And they fit! Yay, gloves!



I'm not sure if i can make gloves for people whose hands I do not have frequent access to. I made these by having Riv first trace her hand and measure the wrist circumference, and then at various points I had her try them on. So the whole idea of following a pattern and having gloves fit seems foreign to me. Maybe it works for other people, but I have not tried it yet, and am kind of afraid to.

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In completely unrelated news, my mom called me tonight; it turns out one of her coworkers has a farm with 3 sheep, and has wool lying around that is currently being unused. So I can have it for free! I'll have to card it myself, but I have a drum carder, which I haven't use much yet, but I want to try it out. Hopefully the wool will be of good quality, and then I could sell batts or yarn in my Etsy store. Or I could at least spin it for myself and have a sweater or something. (I didn't bother asking what kind of sheep, since my guess is my mom wouldn't have known the answer. I guess I can ask her to ask the coworker.)

Yarn Desk

I have a lot of yarn and fiber. The majority of it is in a bunch of huge bins up in my closet. However, I also have a desk downstairs. This is what it currently looks like:






Most of the stuff there is spun and/or dyed by me. I also have some leftover dyes from last session which sit in tupperware containers on top.

I hadn't intended it to become a yarn desk, but as I worked on projects I started leaving stuff there, and it's also right near where I dye things, so gradually stuff accumulated until the point where I decided that it was, in fact, a yarn desk. I'm not sure where I'm going to do work once classes start, but it isn't going to be here.

In which the Knitter of Shiny Things loses the Great Shawl Race

Some time in November, Riv wanted to make a lace shawl, and had me print out some patterns for her, since she lacks a printer. She decided to make the Northern Lights shawl. The pattern was actually pretty easy, and so I decided that I, too, would make this shawl.

So I cast on, already a couple of weeks behind Riv. Much unlike me, Riv likes to work on one knitting project at a time. I, on the other hand, was working on a bunch of spinning commissions (see previous post), a hat that was a Channukah present for a friend, a sock, a cowl, and gloves for Riv (which I'm almost finished with).

I'm about halfway through chart 2. Here's a kinda blurry photo of it, taken recently:



Riv just finished the shawl today, minus blocking, since our blocking wires have not arrived in the mail yet. So I have lost the race. I knew it was a losing battle, what with the head start on her part and the zillion other projects on my part, but still, I wish I could have done a little better. After all, she has a job and I'm still unemployed and haven't started library school yet. Shouldn't I be spending all my free time knitting?

Nope. I do actually have a life outside of knitting, and outside of the shawl. Now that she's finished hers, there's less of a rush on mine. I'm hoping to finish the gloves tomorrow.

And I dyed a bunch of things on Friday, and will photograph them at some point in the near future.

Lots of spinning

About a month ago, Riv was at a craft show. In addition to her shiny jewelry, she also took along a bunch of my yarn and roving to sell. And my business cards came a few days before the show, so I gave a bunch of those to her as well.

Unfortunately, no one bought any of my stuff, but some people took my business card, and one person was interested in commissioning me to spin up some of my rovings.

So I contacted the woman who was interested in the yarn a few days later, and she commissioned me to spin up three rovings.

Peacock Feathers:




More Leaves:




and Jewels:




I think Jewels was my favorite, and it was really nice to be able to spin with it.

So now they are pretty yarn. Huzzah!

I still have more things to spin! And my last dyeing session had some felted rovings, so in order to salvage them I might spin them myself and sell the yarn, since the yarn will be fine (though the spinning will be annoying). Or maybe I'll give it all away to my friends who are spinners. There are only 4 of them, so it's not so bad.

Etsy update coming soon

I did a ton of dyeing last night. Here are some of the finished products.



Most of it is going to the Etsy shop, though I did dye one roving which will turn into a skein of yarn that was a charity prize, and there's one that will be gloves or a hat or something for a friend, and there's also baby llama that I got for myself. It came yesterday as I was between batches of dyeing, so it ended up getting dyed.

The ones below will go in the shop. I'm going to wait until I can get pictures with natural lighting before I put them up, since these pictures don't do the fibers justice.

[Not sure what to name this one]


Straw into Gold


Purple Shiny
(She's my house mate, and the colorway would be something she'd spin with, so I named it after her.)


Peacock



I think I dyed 13 things total, which is my largest dyeing session ever. There were 3 batches! 3!

Interior Decorating Revolution!

We finally got around to putting up the artwork in my house today. We have a sad common room, which is less sad now that it has a giant couch and a TV table, but still lacked color.

So we added some paintings:



However, the room still lacks color. Specifically, the trim on the windows is really sad. Some of the paint is peeling off. So either we could cover it up with curtains, or we could paint the trim.

But what color(s)?

We lacked paint chips, however, I had a full palette of colors. Behold, interior decorating with wool!

Maybe we could do purple:


or red:


or turquoise-ish-purple-blue-something-or-other:


or light green:


I think you can probably do the same thing with different colors of yarn. Now you don't need to go get paint chips! And wool is so much softer than paint chips. Maybe we should just put the wool up. Except then I can't spin it...

We still haven't decided what color to paint the trim or what kind of curtains we want, but there might be some purple. Also, our floor is sad, too, and needs a big purple rug. Maybe we'll even paint the ceiling fan.