This has been a good productive week in the studio! I dyed Monet on several yarn bases. Here it is on Stained Glass Sock for the first time:

Monet looks great with Purple Delight and Epiphany.

I also dyed Monet’s Water Lilies this week, which is an assigned pooling colorway. Here it is on Twinkle Sock:

I love using this colorway with Lilac to match the assigned pooling portion.

After that I dyed After the Rain on several yarn bases, including Buttery Soft DK shown here:

Then yesterday I dyed Peacock Feathers on Twinkle Sock and Stained Glass Sock. Here it is on Stained Glass Sock:

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Making the Yarn Advent Calendars

This week I have really gotten into the rhythm of dyeing the Advent calendar colorways. Each evening I start by prepping all the mini skeins for the next day. Mini skeins are sort of fiddly. I have found that I have to loosen each tie or I end up with white spots, so the prep time is significant. I zip tie them together in sets of five and then I soak them overnight.

The next morning I start dyeing the first colorway in my steamers. When the first colorway is done, I take it out and leave it to cool down to room temperature while starting the second colorway. After that I get started with dyed to order colorways, art batts, and whatever else needs doing. By evening both colorways are cool enough to wash. I use a drop of Dawn detergent and then dip each skein in 6 separate small stainless steel containers of clean water to rinse them. Next I put them in the spin dryer to decrease the dry time and hang them to dry.

Once they are dry, the next step is twisting each mini skein. I am so fortunate to have a handy husband! Last night, I told him that I was worried about twisting all 1200+ mini skeins by hand just because it’s a whole lot of repetitive motion. Last spring I used a drill to twist the minis for the Eight Days of Easter kits, but I still had to hold the drill to make it work. We talked about solutions yesterday evening, and this morning I woke up to this:

It’s a heavy duty drill with a nice slow setting and a bike hook where I hook one end of the hank to twist it. There’s a foot pedal on the floor, so I can start and stop it with that. I can’t even begin to tell you how fantastic this is!

Here is a quick video I made so you can see it in action.

After they are all dyed, dried, and twisted, the next step will be packaging each skein in its numbered gift box. Then each little box is put inside a big box along with the crochet or knitting pattern and a small handmade gift.

I’ll be shipping them off to their new homes to be enjoyed one day at a time throughout December and beyond.

Once these are done, I’ll be getting started on the Advent calendars. I look forward to sharing all the colorways with you here early next year!

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Mystery Art Batts

I have some really beautiful mystery art batts available right now for all the spinners and felters. Mystery art batts are one-of-a-kind art batts made of a little of this and a little of that–all soft luxury fibers and lots of sparkle. This latest batch turned out really, really nicely.

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A Quick Question for Spinners

Speaking of spinning, Spin Together is coming up in a few months. It starts on February 22nd, and it’s lots of fun. I’m one of the organizers, and I’d also like to lead a team if there is enough interest. It’s a week-long spinning competition that’s all about creativity and camaraderie. Please let me know if you would be interested.

I think that’s everything this week. I hope you are enjoying nice calm beautiful fall weather where you are!