Good morning! I hope you are doing well and continuing to find some joy in the fiber arts.

I got all of my club colorways sent out earlier this week, and I’m looking forward to sharing a photo of them with you once all the club members have them.

I am a bit frustrated by the mail of late. It’s really important to me to get your squishy mail into your hands as soon as possible, but COVID-19 is affecting the mail here in Texas more than it was in Arizona it would seem. I apologize for the extra time and hope it’s only temporary. A friend who is a mail carrier told me it has been like Christmas in terms of the quantity of packages but with the addition of heat.

Serendipitous Colorways

I spent yesterday dyeing up some out-of-stock colorways, and I’ll be doing more today. I have had a couple serendipitous events of late where I did something a little different to one of my regular colorways and ended up with something new and different. Now I just hope I can replicate them!

Here’s the first one:

I named it Moria. My husband quipped that it was too pretty to be called Moria, but if you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, you’ll recall that the dwarves had created a whole beautiful underground kingdom there before they delved too deep. This would go beautifully with Epiphany, A Little Princess, and Monet’s Cathedral. It’s similar to all of them but with the addition of several shades of soft green.

Last week, I dyed up a new batch of Midsummer Night’s Dream on So Silky Sock. I think it was the best batch ever! Here that is:

However, that photo above was actually my second try. On the first one, I added too much blue and ended up with this:

I am really excited about this new colorway! The moment I saw it, I decided that it would be called Pagliacci after the title character of the opera about a clown. I don’t have this listed in the shop yet, but I’m planning to try to make more today, and if I succeed I will list them all. Wish me luck!

In addition to these two serendipitous colorways, I have dyed up more Little Black Dress, Beautiful Universe, Grand Old Flag, Enchanted Forest, Complications, and Dreams of the Sea. You can see all of those and more in the New This Month section of my shop.

I’ll leave you with one more new-old colorway. I just dyed up more of Eowyn’s Mantle on Sparkly Merino Sock yesterday. Here that is:

Spin Together

We are hard at work getting Spin Together together for its second year. It’s a spinning competition that I started with a few other fiber artists last year, and it was a ton of work, but it went really well. It makes me really happy that this is one thing that can go on as usual, and with Zoom meetings becoming so common, hopefully there will be lots of virtual meet-ups among the teams. If you are interested in creating a team or sponsoring a prize, you can do so through August 27th. If you want to join a team, you’ll be able to do that throughout September.

If you are a spinner, feel free to come hang out in the fabulous FB group even if you aren’t interested in joining the competition. There are spinners of every level of expertise sharing what they make and what they know, and it’s a very friendly place.

A New Assistant

My 15-year-old son, Joseph, is a carder extraordinaire and often makes and designs art batts. He has been expressing an interest in learning to dye yarn as well, so he’s going to be hanging out with me starting to learn the basics today. I’m delighted to have his help and know that he will do a great job!