Good morning, everyone! I have several different things to share with you this week. I have a sale going on. I also have a few WIPs to show you, and I want to tell you about all the fun we had last week when I was the “artist of the month” at our local library. I also want to tell you about a couple of new yarn bases that are on their way.

Sale

First off, as I mentioned, I have a 20% off sale going on for the rest of the week in order to make some room for the new spring yummies that I’ll tell you about shortly. All my sock blanks are on sale as are a few handspun and millspun skeins. You can find all the goodies right here. Here’s a sample of 9 out of the 36 items I have for sale right now. As you can see, I even have a couple skeins of beaded handspun for sale!

Works in Progress

Next up, I have a couple Works in Progress to show you. I’m continuing to work on my Handspun Highlight Scarf that I told you about last week. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but one of my favorite parts about Cindy’s design (besides the fact that it is drop-dead gorgeous) is that you don’t have to count rows or stitches after the first few rows. Instead, her instructions say to continue on a particular section until there are, for example, 6 stitches after the handspun yarn, so it is a very easy project to work on a little at a time. I don’t know about you, but much of my knitting time happens while I’m waiting to pick up one of my kids at their various activities, which explains why projects take so long! Anyway, here’s a picture of the finished object in Lilac & Highland Heather once again…

…and here’s the one I’m working on in Annunciation Blue and Wonder.

These unique and wonderful kits are available in several different colors in my shop. Cindy from Orange Smoothie designed both a scarf and a cowl, and I dyed the millspun yarn and spun mini skeins to match each colorway. You can find them both here.

The other knitting project I have been working on is a scarf for my 12-year-old son. He loves bright blue, and he loves the softness of bamboo fiber, so I decided to combine the two as a scarf for him. I thought all blue would be a little boring, so I added some teal green as well. Instead of having to switch colors, I decided to spin the two colors into one skein of yarn. I decided to do 3/4ths blue and 1/4th teal green, so I weighed out 1 ounce of green and 3 ounces of blue, and then as I spun, I spun I think 0.6 ounces of blue and then 0.2 ounces of green. The yardage is not exactly the same for each section, but it’s close, and it worked out nicely and prevented the need to change colors.

After spinning it, I had to find the perfect pattern. I wanted something that wasn’t just knits and purls but also was masculine enough. I found this brilliant pattern from Yarn Harlot, whom I have admired for years. It is a 1-row pattern that is easy to memorize, but it’s also fun to do, and the results are lovely. When I want to just knit and not have to think about the pattern, I turn to this project. Hopefully I will actually manage to finish it before it’s too hot for my son to wear it this year. Here it is:

Artist of the Month

I also wanted to tell you about my experience as “artist of the month” at our local library last week. Honestly, I have a hard time considering myself to be an artist. The term sounds too exalted for what I do, and I tend to prefer the term artisan.

Nonetheless, our little town has a monthly series where a local artist comes and demonstrates his or her art. Painters paint, people who draw draw, and I came and spent a few hours spinning yarn and talking to people about yarn and fiber and dyeing and weaving and knitting. I decided to bring a bunch of samples of different kinds of natural fiber for people to feel. I brought merino, polwarth, and BFL for wool as well as tussah, mulberry, and muga silk so people could feel the differences. I also brought alpaca and camel down and even a skein of acrylic yarn too so people could feel how different and lovely natural fibers are. My husband suggested I call it the “petting zoo,” and lots of people came and felt and commented on the different fiber. I think the overall favorite was the camel down, which is the undercoat of the camel so much softer than anything you would think would come from a camel!

I also brought a few favorite skeins of handspun and handdyed yarn as well as some samples of my woven and knit items so people could see how they worked up. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post here about color using my very bright Scandinavia colorway, and I brought the art batts, the handspun yarn, and the knit sample I made, all in that colorway. Lots of people commented that they would not have looked twice at the art batts, but when they saw the knit sample, they just loved it.

It was quite the success with lots of people stopping by. At one point, the librarian actually had to ask us to be quieter, which I thought was sort of funny because, well, we fiber artist types are such a rowdy bunch, right?

One person said he hadn’t seen anyone spin since his grandmother did it. Lots of people asked about how the spinning wheel worked, and the children of a friend who came by got to “take a spin” on the wheel. I handled the fiber while they pedaled. I brought 3 different colorways to spin up but only got through one because I was busy talking to people most of the time.

One lady even came with her own spindle after hearing I would be there. She does creative reenactments and spins as part of that. We had a lovely conversation about everything from spinning techniques to the natural dyes that she uses to a variety of different looms, some of which I had never heard of. One of my favorite things about fiber arts is that there is such depth and breadth that I’m quite sure I will never run out of new things to learn and try.

A local newspaper reporter came by, and I saw a couple photos in the paper a few days later. It’s sort of funny. I’m really very much an introvert, but when it comes to talking to people about fiber arts, I can go on and on. I guess this blog is proof of that, isn’t it?

New Yarn Bases

Last but not least, I have a couple of new yarn bases on the way. I got samples of 7 different bases last week, and I’m pretty sure my family must have thought it was a life-and-death decision choosing two of them! They heard about little else until the decision was made.

The first base I chose is a 2-ply heavy laceweight made of 75% merino, 20% silk, and 5% stellina. It’s so lovely and soft and will be great for spring and summer. I wanted to dye up the samples and then decide. Here’s a photo of the laceweight:

Here’s a closeup. I wish you could see the sparkle a little better, but it’s hard to capture in the morning light.

The other base was even harder to choose. I had to decide between a merino-cashmere-nylon (MCN) fingering-weight yarn and one that was even more luxurious–a merino-silk-cashmere (MSC) fingering weight. Well, the MCN was a bit less expensive and really lovely, and I was tempted to go with it, but one with silk was to dye for–I mean to die for! Also, some fellow knitters told me that they have had problems with MCN pilling whereas MSC does not, so I splurged on the true luxury yarn, and I hope you love it as much as I do.

I dyed the sample in a soft mint green. Here are a couple photos of it:

I wish there was a way to let you feel it through the screen. It is just so lusciously soft. It’s a 3-ply yarn with a firm twist. When I was seeking opinions about the MCN versus MSC question, one person told me she had just finished making a baby dress using MSC, and she believed it to be heirloom quality. I think that’s what pushed me over the edge to choosing the one with silk instead of nylon.

I am currently working on a new colorway collection for spring. Each colorway will be drawn from a different female character from Jane Austen. They will all be variegated skeins because Jane Austen’s characters are wonderfully complex, and all eight will be made to match each other so they can be used together or individually. I’m actually still trying to decide whether to use the lace weight, the sock weight, or both for this collection. If you have an opinion, please share it with me.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a wonderful fiber-filled week, and I hope spring comes soon for you.

Happy fiber artistry!