I hope you are doing really well! This has been a very interesting week on my end.

Let’s start with some more new fall yarn colorways, and then I’ll tell you my tale of woe.

Yesterday I dyed up a new colorway. I was thinking of that same beautiful Michigan forest in autumn that I inspired my new Autumn Leaves colorway that I showed you a couple weeks ago. I finished a swatch of Autumn Leaves, so you can see the swatch and the yarn on all the different yarn bases right here:

With this next colorway, I was thinking of that same beautiful Michigan forest where we lived, but on a windy, blustery day just after the first snowfall when the wind is making all the leaves swirl around and fall eventually onto the new snow. After I dyed it, I thought of a poem that represents what I had in mind perfectly. It is Shelley’s “Ode to a West Wind,” so that is what I named the colorway.

It is white with speckles for every color leaves turn in autumn–magenta, red, orange, several shades of yellow, gold, light green, and purple. I just made 2 on Sock Perfection and 2 on Squoosh DK to see how it turned out, and I really love it. I hope you do too. I think it would look fantastic with my Jackson Pollock colorway.

Here’s the first stanza of Shelley’s poem:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

I also had a lovely customer ask if I was planning to make more Pumpkin Spice Latte anytime soon, so I made enough for her and for you too. I dyed it on Sock Perfection and Squoosh DK.

I love Pumpkin Spice Latte with Copper Roof and either Turquoise or Chocolate.

Don’t forget that I have the Dyed to Order section of my shop up and running again, so if you don’t see all the colorways in stock on the yarn base you want, check out the Dyed to Order collection. I’m still in the process of adding more colorways to the Dyed to Order section, so don’t hesitate to ask if you don’t see it there.

Tale of Woe

If you’re still with me, I will tell you my tale of woe from this week. It’s really not a big deal in 2020 terms I guess, but as you may have heard me mention, I am running a spinning contest for the second year called Spin Together. Thursday was the last day for yarn shop owners and guilds to create their teams. Each new team requires quite a bit of set up from me or one of the other organizers. Unfortunately, I woke up that morning to discover that not only was my computer having serious issues (blue screen of death on steroids), but I also had no internet.

The biggest worry was the fact that between our move and COVID and all the things, I had not backed anything up for several months. Fortunately, one of my sons was able to drive home from his college apartment and help me get the data, which still existed, so I could use the kids’ computer to keep setting up the last teams for Spin Together while the internet kept going in and out. He also got it running briefly, and then it stopped again. The next day, the internet folks came and got us set up with a new router.

I contacted the people who refurbished my computer and was just about to send it back when I thought I would try one more thing–reinstalling Windows as per their first recommendation. I was just about to do that when it actually booted up. I’m working on it now after updating Windows. I am hoping that the issue was an update that got stuck halfway through due to the internet issues. I don’t know if it will keep working or not, but I am determined to be more consistent about backing everything up.

Tuesday is the beginning of team signup, so if you are a spinner who would enjoy the camaraderie of a friendly spinning contest, I would love to see you there! It’s all online and everywhere, and it’s lots of fun. You can sign up throughout September at www.spintogether.org.

Joseph’s New Art Batt Colorway

A couple days ago while all the computer stuff was going on, I wanted to practice working with rolags, which I don’t use often, so I asked Joseph, our 15-year-old art batt master if he would make a new colorway with lots of texture for me. Well, he did, and it was really stunning and deserved more than being a one-off colorway. Fortunately, he had written down “the recipe,” so he was able to make more, and we added it to the shop. We named it The Garden at Bag End,  thinking of Bilbo and Frodo’s garden tended carefully by Sam Gamgee. The colors are green, orange, purple, and gold for the garden and blue for the sky. I had to dye up some gorgeous long first-clip teeswater locks for the texture. I love that I can share what I do with my kids. Some are more interested than others, but Joseph is truly a master art-batt maker. Here is the art batt of which I speak:

I’m heading back out to the dye pots now. I’m dyeing up all of my remaining Wonderful Worsted and lots of other goodies too today. They should be in the shop on Monday.

One last thing–a bunch of other indie dyers and I got together a new hashtag for instagram. It’s #fallisforfiberarts. If you’re on Instagram, go take a look at all the pretty colorways from many different indie dyers. We just got that going this week, so consider following the hashtag.

Have a wonderful, safe, blessed weekend.