Poof! I return!

Did it really take me a month to recover from the show?

Pretty much.

I totally ghosted on this place, I do apologize!

The show in Sheridan was wonderful. I did well, I can’t complain. I also met a lot of wonderful new people including a brand new wool mill that just opened in that area. I will post a full review about them soon as I gave them the two huge bags of Jacob fleece I got in July to process. Yay! Jacob fleece roving that I don’t have to clean! I suspect they will do amazing work and look forward to telling you all about them.

I’ve only started spinning and dyeing yarns and roving again in the last week or so, I’ve just been so slammed with the upcoming holidays, my day job and trying to keep up with my kid that there hasn’t been room for much else.

One good thing about nearly burning myself out in early November during the stocking for the show process was that I went way, way above what I took the year before and therefore had lots of extra stuff to post in my Etsy store when I came out of my coma a few days after I came back home. So my store has been well stocked and for that I can be truly thankful.

I’m taking a few days off around Christmas, I hope to reorganize my workspace, it’s truly bad.

What, you don’t believe me?

Workspace, meet yarn bomb:

Told you.

In my defense I have already remedied the situation. I have company coming this weekend for my birthday so I had to tidy up. That and I was starting to worry my husband was going to stage an intervention.

Anyway, still here, still doing my thing. If I don’t write again before the end of the year, everyone have a lovely and happy holiday and a festive new year!

Well no wonder

That I’m tired and want to curl up into a ball and sob.

I just counted what I have here and then called my mom to confirm what I left there on Sunday.

111.

One hundred eleven.

Skeins of yarn.

Oh yes, there will be photos. When I get it all in one place, I promise.

For comparison, last year I took 65 skeins.

Still labeling, still cataloging inventory. I finally found a use for my laptop.

Can’t sleep, yarn will eat me.

There is yarn. And not much else. T minus 19 days until the show.

I am very thankful that I have tomorrow off, even if it is going to throw off my entire week!

Progress, I make it.

O.k. I realize that the pile o’yarn probably doesn’t look like it’s expanded much, but since my last update I’ve added 8 new skeins to the pile! I’m getting really tired! The show in Sheridan is exactly a month away. I was thinking of taking a break from spinning and dyeing yarn this weekend but then my eyes landed on the cones of undyed sock yarn, the huge bag of 8 ounce dyed rovings and the stuff that I might have accidentally ordered onlien in a fit of “OMG I NEED THIS STUFF.”

Ahem.

In between all this I’ve managed to squeeze in a custom yarn order at Etsy. I am so flattered that I was chosen to create this yarn! The lovely customer wanted roving dyed in shades of silver and brown and then handspun super bulky and thin. It was hard for me to deliberately place huge slubs into the yarn but the results were so nice! Super soft and an amazing texture. I’m really pleased with it, I can’t wait to see what she makes with it!

300 yards. I never formally named it but started to think of it as Sepia.

And with that, I’m keeping my promise to myself to get to bed at a decent hour tonight so off I go. Goodnight!

Just Keep Swimming

Argh! I’m drowning in yarn over here! Seriously, that show needs to get here now so I can have some space again!

Actually, too much yarn is never a problem. The growing pile makes me feel rather accomplished actually. Though I feel like I’m cheating on my Etsy store!

Updated pile: (Curtains made by Jen, are they not fabulous? I love them!)

And a bunch of handpaint that I need to reskein. *thud*

My favorite of the bunch:

If I could just learn how to spin in my sleep I could take over the world. Actually, scratch that. It reminds me of The Tommyknockers by Stephen King and I really have no desire to turn into an alien.

November Show Prep

I’ve managed to spin nearly every night and quite a bit on the weekends. This doesn’t seem like much to me, but when I consider that my store is already well stocked and will likely remain so by mid-November I dont’t worry too much.

The kettles will be running this weekend anyway, just in case!

It’s supposed to snow tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it is snowing now. I will go look before I call it a night. For some reason I feel totally unprepared for this drastic weather change!

Reminds me of being Jacob’s age and when we lived in North Dakota. It was always snowing or blizzarding on Halloween and my mom would never let me wear my mask (which, let’s face it, those masks sucked so hard anyway!) because she was convinced I’d suffocate. So she’d always buy my costume at least two sizes too big so that she could force me to wear it over a winter coat or snowsuit. Good times.

Hopefully the show will be well attended this year. And if not, then there will be a huge update to my store on November 23!

Rolags!

I somehow was in the right place at the right time at Ravelry a couple weeks ago and managed to score a set of Ashford handcarders, a student set. I love them! Once I figured out how to actually use them I made a bundle of rolags. I quickly ended up with more than I needed so I listed a set of 10 on Etsy tonight. As much as I love my drumcarder, I have to admit that there is something really soothing about sitting down with a big basket of assorted fiber goodies and blending them using the handcarders.

This bundle is 3 ounces and I used a wide variety of fibers to blend them: cormo/romney, merino, angelina fiber, corriedale and rambouillet. Each rolag has some colors in common that would make for a pretty skein of handspun yarn.

Upcycling Halloween

Yet another idea that stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away! Actually, I have to give Jen a lot of the credit for this yarn, I think she thought of it way before I did. Every Halloween you see those bags of spider web material that you can buy and stretch all over the place and then embed the plastic spiders that come with it. To be honest, I’ve never bought a bag! Then this year when Jen was here we discussed what would happen if one were to spin the material and voila, the yarn was born!

I bought purple and green webs and spun each. The green allegedly glows under a black light, but I haven’t tested this theory.

Spooky Kid Smoosh!

The purple yarn is handspun and smoosh plied with a black cotton thread, 30 yards. Bulky art yarn, WPI: 5 to 7.

The purple/green yarn is handspun and plied, 102 yards. WPI: 7 to 10.

Plastic spiders included! They keep startling me so they’ve got to go!

Fly By

Oh hello little yarny blog. Neglected, aren’t you?

So what have I been up to? Lots of stuff, all accomplished on weekends and occasionally late into the night. I’ve been trying to spin every night, so far I’ve managed. I’ve also been making a lot of randomly designed creations on my drum carder that eventually become the base for my Bedlam yarns. I used to spin each batt as it came off the carder, which would create a bunch of low yardage skeins that I’d sell in a bundle.

To be honest, that process was extremely time consuming for me so I’ve taken a break from it. Instead, the Bedlam collections have evolved into Litta Bitta Bedlam. Basically I’m saving up all the batts that become Bedlam yarns and when I’m ready to work with them I pull the batts into roving, toss all the small bundles of roving into a basket and grab them randomly as I spin. This really mixes it up as you can probably imagine and I love the results.

I tend to get paralyzed by certain projects. For me I think it’s just the (perceived, I’m not that arrogant I promise) expectation to produce. It’s of course flattering to get the requests but for some reason it backfires on me and I find myself occasionally unable to move forward. So instead, in the case of Bedlam yarns, I think I’ve found away to avoid that problem. And yarn problems are good to have, don’t get me wrong.

I also don’t actively set out to create any specific batt anymore either. Each batt is a couple days creation, as I gather little bits here and there and card them as they come my way. If it is even remotely spinnable it goes into the carder, the packrat in me won’t let anything go into the trash. When the carder is full, the batt is ready. I pull it off and start over. And I’m always surprised by what is in each layer as I start pulling the batt into the roving, kind of a “Oh! That’s what I did with that scrap!”

Hey, I’m easily amused. It’s all good.

I don’t have any photos of the super top secret roving creation (o.k. it’s not a secret, I just didn’t take photos), but here are some recent results:

In other areas, I’ve been working frantically towards building stock for a show I will be in coming up in November in Sheridan,Wyoming. This will be the second year in a row I’ve gone armed with yarn and other goodies, I hope we are as successful this year as last! If nothing else being able to go and take my wheel with me is always fun, you meet a lot of really interesting people when you roll into a place carrying a spinning wheel.

And, by this time next week my best friend in the whole wide freaking world will be here! Jen is coming in on the 18th and leaving the 28th. Yarn madness and baby smooshing will commence! OMG, I am so excited to have her here! Can you tell?

So next week a bunch of stuff will all happen simultaneously. A metric ton of undyed yarn will arrive (I might have gotten a wee bit carried away, I freely admit it.), Jen will be here and the spinning wheels will be running as the roving stash is busted out. I seriously cannot wait. Vacation and so many good things! I’m so glad I waited to take time off this year. It was hard but in the end it will be so worth it!

Have a great weekend all!

Roving, Roving, Roving…

True: That’s what I sing to myself when I dye roving, to the tune of the Rawhide theme.

I’m fully aware I have issues. And quite possibly have been hanging around the acid dyes for too long!

This weekend my mom and I dyed 20 8-ounce bundles, here are 18 of them, the others have already been on the wheel:

I still have 10 pounds on hand to dye when my friend Jen comes out here in September! I’m so excited! I will also have a recent order of commercial wool yarn in by then, I have a feeling we’re going to be a couple of fiber dyeing fiends while she’s here! I haven’t seen her in over a year, I miss her terribly!

Back to the day job, wheeeee.