Here comes another coffee infused post from yours truly

I'm having a lot of fun photographing yarn. Here is what I'm putting up this week for the Wonderland congo. Its really too bad that calendars are becoming obsolete, I would love to do a yarnie calendar.


I've been putting a lot of effort into the Chickadee Overalls pattern. In fact just as I felt it was finished up I made a major design change and now will need to have the pattern tested again.
I've also knit two samples now, using the same traveling stitch design as the Julian vest. Hopefully during our Seattle getaway this week I can write up the instructions. Here I am modeling the hat. I really wish I had used a different yarn, something I could actually wear. But I'm a total snob and find plain wool to be too scratchy. And red, I am not a fan of red!

Apple Orchard

I tried a new dyeing technique and I am very pleased with the results. I love the control hand painting gives me, but dyeing yarn in repetitive sections can cause pooling in stacking. Of course the best way to create random repeats is to use the kettle dyeing methodology. The downside to kettle dyeing is that it can lead to unintended color mixes and is very difficult to control the final results. So I've been working on a scatter dyeing technique which blends kettle dyeing with hand painting to give myself the control I need while still maintaining random color repeats.

As busy as ever and new colorways!

The Julian vest pattern comes out tomorrow. I'm crazy busy getting ready for the release. I still need to review the pattern one last time and then publish it on Ravelry. I was going to wait until tomorrow morning, but with us having to leave for preschool in the morning I really should have everything ready to go.

I had a very busy day and then I still managed to dye up some yarn after the kids were in bed. I did a new "apple orchard" kettle dyed colorway, a fairly solid "cinnamon" and the ever popular "full bloom". Too bad I won't have time to dry and photograph the yarns for tomorrow's stocking. I seem to do a lot of mini stockings rather than bigger ones. Maybe my new goal will be to wait until I have a whole bunch of stuff saved up.

I have worked with all of the new bases now and I am really enjoying the process of learning how different yarns take up dye. I do have some new things coming up tomorrow, "bewitched" "Esmeralda" and "Phoebe".

Playing catch up

Naughty me forgot to take my laptop along this Monday and so I missed my regularly scheduled Monday morning blog updates.

I've have been knee deep in pattern design and yarn dyeing. I had a really fun time doing a custom job for my auction winner. She settled on bright red, turquoise, brown, orange, pink and white. I did a shorter than normal color repeat to help reduce pooling. I really hope she likes it!


But because of the custom work and other little things (such as horrible tangled skeins that took hours to untangle) I did not get a chance to dye up as much yarn as I was hoping to for tomorrow's stocking. Plus the battery on my scale ran out of juice and I couldn't prep any more yarn.
I must have been in a very green mood as I've realized that 3/4 of the stuff I have listed has some form of green in it!

I am especially fond of my silk skeins. I actually carry the yarn around and pat it every once in a while. I might be addicted to luxury yarns.

'Emerald City'

Rainbow Overalls

I did a super fun trade with a customer. She sent me a box full of really nice kid clothes and I knit a pair of overalls for her!

The Life of a WAHM

Its minutes before the store goes live and I have a few last changes to make. But the baby is fussing and I simply cannot get anything accomplished. I've been up since 6am and coffee is still an hour away and I want to squeeze in a shower.
The three year old is bouncing off the wall, insisting on aggravating the baby over and over again despite my desperate pleas for him to be gentle with his baby brother.
Yes its one of those mornings.... And did I mention I'm trying to get a pattern out?

Finally, 8:50am and I hear a knock on the door. I breathe a deep breath and let the sitter in. Today she's my saving grace and I escape the chaos. Three hours of peace. I sit and sip my coffee. Finishing up patterns and updating the blog. I hear a screaming child at the coffee shop and for once I smile.

Pattern Release Party

So Reid's Romper is ready to be released. I have gone over it with a fine tooth comb, over and over again. I think its ready. Monday is the big day and I'm really excited. I decided to post a last minute $3 off yarn coupon for that day too, plus an auction for a custom dye job, and two pattern giveaways. I admit its kind of fun to watch the store traffic spike.

I'm slowly starting to dye up the new bases. I tried the Dolce BFL first, and dyed "Full Bloom" which is a really gorgeous colorway everyone seems to like. I also tried dyeing twice as much yarn, probably shouldn't experiment so much all at once in the future. But it worked out fine. I changed the color repeat a bit though, and so it has less brown than usual.

Also the new image reflect the change in my yarn photography. I'm really enjoying taking the round bowl shots.



Next I dyed 3 skeins of Eos Merino for my husband's vest gift. He doesn't follow the blog (though he should :P) its going to be his holiday gift. I'm going to attempt at reworking the Julian vest pattern to fit adults. It was my first time working with Eos and wow it did not disappoint. The yarn is as soft as clouds. I kettle dyed it with shades of moss green, going all the way from very dark to very light and some silver. Hopefully I will have some pictures to show soon.