What the heck's happening?

Not a lot, really. The family is slowly going broke, but so is most of the country. We've been selling off a lot of stuff trying to stay afloat. Sigh.

I'm still knitting and designing, albeit somewhat slowly. The latest is my Spiral Twist Hat, just published to Ravelry. I made up a new one in Patons Mosaic (love this yarn, even though I'm something of a yarn snob) and am saving it for Ali's boyfriend for Christmas. I'm hoping he'll like it.

I've been doing a lot of dyeing recently and have managed to take over the kitchen table for a dyeworks. It's much fun, and, as the holidays approach, sales are picking up a wee bit. In fact, I need to run to the Post office today.

If anyone needs/wants a 36" 8-harness loom (see pics below), I need to sell it. :-( I'd prefer to sell it somewhere near to San Diego. I can only imagine what shipping would cost on this beast!

Here's the latest from my Etsy Shop, "A Spinner's Palette"

A New Site to Sell on = Bonanza

So ebaY is upping it's fees, my Etsy store is moving really slowly. I'm giving Bonanza a go. So far it seems to have an extremely friendly community. The tools are great and pretty intuitive as is site navigation and FAQs. I posted a few miscellaneous items just to see what traffic is like. The experiment begins.

Here's a cute little widget they provided for my blog:





Wish me luck!

My New Fiber Studio - Yay!

OK. So having been laid off, fired or whatever from my job at St.Gregory's has had at least some advantages. Sure, we may lose the house at some point, but for now, I've organized my fiber studio in hopes of making some money to help replace the salary I no longer bring in.

The Storage Bins

 The loom has come out of the corner and moved into center stage where it could actually be used. The yarns all came out, were inventoried into Ravelry (Thank you Gabrielle, couldn't have done it without you!!!), what needed to be frogged was, yarns were re-skeined, washed and inventoried as needed. Fresh sachets were added to bins to keep nasty critters at bay.

Bookcases & worktable

All the books, booklets and magazines were inventoried into Ravelry as well. Most of the non-craft books were moved out into other bookcases throughout the house. A worktable was set up with a thin top that allows me to attach the skein winder and ball winders. This is also where I will set up a weekly photography station and my light box as needed. Marge stands guard in the corner.

I love these spacious cupboards from Ikea. See how tall they are? They're really deep, too! Look below at the big tubs that fit in them.  My daughters sneak in here every morning as they're getting dressed for the large mirrors. The right side cabinets have more tubs, sewing machines and serger, drum carder, and files.

Cupboard

Cupboard interior

ReIn-Yarn-ated™Yarn waiting to be re-skeined

Ashford Traddy with all the extras 

The Spinning wheel is back out of it lonely corner in the bedroom and will be ready for action soon. It needs a nice polish and probably a new drive string. I'll use my handy dandy padded fake leather storage bench as a spinning stool for the time being.



All in all, the room is large, but crowded. It's a great space with tons of light. One window faces north (by the work table), and the other faces east (the back of the loom). There are also small light high above the bookcases on the west wall that let in the afternoon sunlight. I should be able to get some great work done in here. All I'm missing is a real office chair and a comfy, cosy chair for knitting. I have no idea where I would put said chair, but alas, tis a dream.

Enough for today. Time to get some actual work done. Can I really call it work?

Something completely Random

I have a Fairy!

My fairy name is Nettle Hailshimmer
She protects and comforts the lonely.
She lives in brambles and blackberry bushes.
She is only seen when the first flowers begin to blossom.
She wears purple and green like berries and leaves and has cheery turquoise wings like a butterfly.
Get your own fairy name from The Fairy Name Generator!

I'll have to get Ali to paint me a picture!

Just checking in!

Although I have not finished anything lately, I have slowly been plugging along on the baby coat, the duck socks,  and Ali's mitts. It just depends on what project is closest at hand when I decide to knit.


Mostly, though, I've been in the process of designing new knit projects. I've put pencil to paper and have been poring through my most inspirational photo books to begin designing a few socks and children's clothes to begin with. I have a tea cosy partially planned out that needs to be written up and test knit. As progress is made, I'll fill you in. In the meantime, forgive me if posts are slow - the design phase is probably boring to look at! I'm sure enjoying the process. 

Forget the UFO's - I started (and finished) something new. :-)

I admit it. I needed another fix of instant gratification and my other projects seemed to be moving kind of sluggishly. My headaches have been rather bad lately and working with the smaller yarns has been difficult. I perused the baby patterns in my queue for one with larger yarns and found this (in aran weight.) A day later - voila! A wonderful, suggly-soft sweater in merlot red made with Elsbeth Lavold's "Angora" for Leisl's baby-to-be. We still don't know the gender but this seems to be suitable unisex. It was fun and easy to knit and the yarn was lovely to work with. I can't wait for her to see it!