Vacation Knits & More

August is usually my slowest month, I put the business on simmer and enjoy the sunshine. I spent the last two weeks in Sunriver, OR, climbed a mountain, hiked, canoed, camped, and ate lots of ice cream!

But now it is back to business. I have 2 patterns just about ready to come out the door, as well as two more patterns waiting for final details.

I am really excited about this design. It is a combination of very stretchy and open eyelets with sections of solid stockinette. It does a great job at showcasing immersion dyed yarns. I didn't know what to name it at first. But after a visit to the Painted Hills I knew I had found my match!

One Last Post

Okay I swear this is the last time I mention Sock Summit!

But here are the photos of my booth... I just had to share these....

Sock Summit 2011 Recap

Sorry for such an abrupt post last time. I just ran out of time and had to prioritize other things over blogging.

Sock Summit 2011 was I N S A N E !

- Met repeat customers
- Met lots of new customers
- Sold out of 95% of my sock yarn
- Lots of networking
- Never saw so much yarn in my life!
- Approached by several local stores regarding wholesale/consignment

All in all it was a huge success and I can't wait to do another show!

I think my low point was dragging grid-wall across the convention center 15 minutes before the doors opened for the first buyers. Nothing like doing things in the last minute.... Of course that wasn't by choice, I had to drop the kids off with a friend, switch cars with the husband, and then pickup more show equipment.

Its HERE!

Wow how did it happen so quickly? Time just flew by and tonight I unloaded my boxes of yarn at the convention center.

At home before driving over

Apologies for the photo quality, I forgot to grab my real camera....

Stehekin

Vacation was incredible. We stayed at http://stehekinvalleyranch.com/

An all inclusive rustic ranch resort. As a work at home mom it was nice to take a week off of cooking, doing the dishes, and cleaning.

I've never been good about writing. Here's an excerpt from an article about Stehekin

You can do it all, sample one or two of the activities, or simply do nothing but curl up with a book and doze off in one of the conveniently situated hammocks or Adirondacks at the Ranch. As you breathe in the fresh air and feast your eyes on the glorious scenery, you‘ll realize just how much you needed to disconnect and disengage from that rat race you call life. Your senses will come alive in this natural, unspoiled piece of paradise and you’ll understand why so many folks make Stehekin their annual pilgrimage.

http://www.nwnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4655%3Astehekin-the-jewel-of-the-north-cascades&catid=90%3Atravel&Itemid=125

And the pie was to die for! mmmmmmmmmm pie

Here's my "captain's chair". The Adirondack chair I called home every evening.



And if you're curious about the knitting project. It is the "Dark and Stormy" cardigan, knit with my own yarn.



I hope we can return again next year....

Summer Happenings

Wow has it really been a month since my last blog post??? Summer is here in full force and I am finding myself juggling children, activities and the business.

This past month I finished another coop, and went through several bags of sock yarn for sock summit, finished two more designs (patterns not out yet), and have done several store stockings. I've also spent way too much time watching the first 6 seasons of "The Office" and putting together a last minute vegetable garden.

Here's Eoghan's Knot in the vest style, pattern includes a sweater version as well.

Drawstrings in 3 minutes or less!

Sometimes the i-cord or twist string is the only thing standing between me and a finished project. For some reason I just hate working on the cords as they seem to take so long. One day I thought of using the drill to speed up the process and the results were fantastic!

So what you'll need for this tutorial is: yarn and a drill. You will also need some sort of a peg, like a door knob, or a chair knob; anything that you can loop the yarn over.

Step 1: Cut a strip of yarn, about 6 times longer than your desired drawstring length.

Step 2: Fold yarn in half and tie off the cut ends.

Step 3: Wrap the center fold over a door handle, peg, or chair top. I like to use the top of my son's rocking chair.

Step 4: Stuff the tied off end into the tip of the drill. Make sure the drill is open all the way.

Step 5: Change the drill into forward direction and support yarn and knot while you close off the chuck. This will ensure that the yarn doesn't come out while twisting.

Step 6: Take a few steps back away from the chair/knob so that the yarn is gently stretched. Step up on the trigger and let the drill do all the work. I let mine go for a good 30-60 seconds. The yarn will start to twist on itself.

Step 7: Free the yarn from the drill. Pry the ends open to create a loop, and loop this over the same place where the other end of the cord was looped.

Step 8: Starting with the the end of the drawstring that is looped over the chair begin tugging and pulling on the two cords and help them twist onto each other. Due to the twist in the strings they "want" to do this on their own. So just guide them to twist neatly onto each other.

Step 9: Hold cord with one hand while with the other pull the loops off the chair. Tie off the two loops together and cut off excess yarn. To make the ends match, tie the off the other end of the drawstring and cut the tip.

Voila!

To make a thicker drawstring you can add several strands together.

Honeymustard

I am taking dyeing to the next level (for myself). I started experimenting with mixing custom colors!

They can't all be winner....

I ruined my first dye job. Really, majorly, ruined it. I want to cry. It was a whole pound of yarn too.

I'm going to over-dye it black and make some sweaters for the boys. But it doesn't take away from the sadness, especially since the yarn was for a customer.

But to make myself happy again I'm going to post of some pretties from earlier this week.

aaaaahhhhh I feel better already!

Low Immersion Dyeing

Busy morning. The kids are in school/childcare and I finally have a whole morning to focus on doing what I love best; low immersion dyeing. At first I wasn't a fan of kettle dyeing. My first experiments ended with terrible results and lots of brown and black over-dyeing to salvage the disaster.
But when I discovered the low immersion off-shoot of the kettle technique I was hooked. You might think to yourself, how hard can it be? Fill a pot with water, throw some dye, and voila! But learning how to control water levels, dye application, distribution and concentration, as well as yarn placement is a real form of art.
As much as I enjoy variegated colorways, I find much greater freedom of expression when using some form of an immersion technique.

Can't wait to see how all of these skeins get wound up!

Secret Garden

We built an elf house today under the old grape vine. I can't wait for the leaves to grow in and cover it up. The boys are going to love hiding in there when the summer finally comes.

Working in the garden and getting my hand dirty inspired me to create a 'Secret Garden' colorway. I really love how the colors distributed and how well the cloud cashmere (MCN) took the dye. This MCN is from a different supplier and I am trying to make sense of how I could carry both lines of cashmere in my store. They are different enough that I can't just call them both Cloud MCN, but on the other hand I just don't know if it makes any sense to carry two different types of a luxury cashmere base.

In other news KnitPicks accepted one of my patterns to their IDP program. The pattern is almost written and I just need to finish my final sample.

Lullaby

I am taking my commitment to only knit with my own yarns pretty seriously. What I am discovering is just how much I love using my own yarns, talk about a "farm to table" approach. Now if only I could have my own sheep, and spin my own yarn - a girl can dream right?

This is a colorway that I did using a low immersion technique. What I like about it is that colors maintained their integrity but still mixed to give a random color distribution. This dye was done on a tester skein of organic merino. I am considering adding a supplier to my repertoire but I wanted to test the yarn prior to committing to it. This organic merino is not the same as what many know as "Gaia". I would say the strand is fluffier and reminds me much more of a cashmere/merino blend than a merino. Yes, its that nice.
Since I only had one skein, all I could make was a newborn set.

In other news, I am thoroughly enjoying my first co-op. I was very anxious as I was waiting for the group order to come in. But once the order was in I just settled into a hyper dyeing mode and now two weeks later the 60 skein order is more than 50% finished. I'm a little sad that I am taking the summer off, dyeing is quite an addiction.

Newbie Fluff

Really love how this set turned out!

Made with handspun Mosaic Moon's Selah colorway on merino top.

The Comrade Scarf

This scarf is perfect for worsted/aran/bulky yarns. I chose my Inspire SW base for this project and it is absolutely perfect. The pattern is super easy and uses just one skein.

The scarf creates a very slight triangular shape by making increases and then decreases on every other right side row.

I recommend weighing your skein prior to starting, this will make life a little easier if you want to use up an entire skein.

CO 4 sts using long tail cast on.

All WS rows: K all sts.

Simple Row: K1, yo, k2tog, k to end of row.

Repeat 'Simple Row' 2 more times.

Increase Row 1: K1, yo, k2tog, k to 1 st before end of row, m1, k1.

Increase Row 2: K1, yo, k2tog, k to end of row

Repeat Increase Rows 1-2 for a total of 27 times, or until you are half way through skein.

Work 'Increase Row 1' once more.

Decrease Row 1: K1, yo, k2tog, k to 3 sts before end of row, k2tog, k1.

Decrease Row 2: K1, yo, k2tog, k to end of row

Repeat Decrease Rows 1-2 until 4 sts remain on needles.

Repeat 'Simple Row' 3 times.

Bind off.

Well that was a crazy week!

I have a new goal for 2011 - do better long-term planning! I forgot about spring break and the fact that I would have both kids at home and not have any time to work on custom orders. Then on top of that we left for a weekend getaway, again preventing me from doing any dyeing.

Somehow I still managed to keep my schedule and get everything done, but it was certainly hectic.

At least I have something to show for all this stress. Actually, it wasn't that bad, it was just strange because I didn't have my usual dedicated work time slots. But this week we're mostly back to normal and life is good.

I absolutely love this March club. It came out absolutely drool worthy and of course now I am sad that all of this yarn is going to live somewhere else.

Thinking out loud

So I'm toying with the idea of offering some kind of a small business incentive to other small businesses, specifically other knitters who knit for pay.
When I was predominantly knitting for others I felt the "ouch" of retail cost yarn to my bottom line. Sure I could have raised my prices, but then that would have put woolies out of reach for many. That was of course until I discovered yarn purchasing through co-ops. That made yarn purchasing more bearable on the pocket book and the bottom line, but co-ops took forever to fill and then I had to wait for my items to ship.
- A certain discount on yarn purchases, but also a minimum requirement of some sort.
- No waiting, no co-op fees, ships direct.
- I would require a proof of business in a form of a license or tax EIN.

Sometimes mistakes are meant to happen....

....or why Raya should be labeling her dyes....

Over the weekend I had some spare yarn I wanted to dye up. I had the colorway in mind, I had the name picked out and the dyes that were going to go on it. Well imagine my surprise that as I started rinsing the yarn after the dye has been set when I realized that something wasn't right. My black wasn't black at all, instead it had turned a silvery blue gray. I thought I had made some kind of a mistake, or that perhaps I forgot to set the dye properly. But a closer examination of the dye bottle made me realized that I was never using black, but instead something called "gunmetal" which is exactly what I got. So, silly mistake, but gorgeous results.

So... here is "Fenrir" on Mountain Meadow Rambouillet

Getting ready for sock summit

I could not be more excited when the postman dropped a huge box at my doorstep. My 50/50 silk merino blend finally arrived. It took it about two weeks to get here from Australia.



Can't wait to get started on dyeing this, its going to be so amazing!

Yarn yarn yarn and more yarn!

I have been dyeing up a storm this past week. I try to commit myself to dyeing nightly once the kids are in bed. I have been able to streamline the dyeing process and make myself a little more efficient. Once I can get the sink hooked up in the studio it will make life even easier!

I have been on a girl kick lately with lots of pinks and purples. I discovered an unopened box of magenta dye and I just went crazy with it. How did I ever live without magenta???

Here presenting Novela Rosa

And Very Berry

But no worries, the boys have some fun new colorways too!

Muir

Madrona Fiber Arts Festival 2011

Last week was my first night away from the kids. Well not totally true. Back when I was doing doula work I did have a few nights that I spent at the hospital while others watched Elliot, but somehow that doesn't count ;)
It was certainly the first time away from Reid.

The kids did great, and I wished I could have stayed another day or two. Since I made the reservations in the last minute I couldn't find lodging at the conference hotel and so I had to drive 8mi to the nearest non-slum location.

I spent most of the time knitting by the hotel's fire place and listening to the knitting chatter around. I talked to a lot of interesting people and got some great booth setup ideas from the marketplace.

In other business news, I have 5kg of sock silk coming, as well as a good amount of BFL (finally!), and I have recently opened another wholesale account for some specialty yarns and organic merino.

Vagabond Sweater - Cable Patterns

Hope to continue expanding this entry and offer a variety of modifications to the vagabond sweater!


Cable #1
Round 1-3: P2, k10, p2.
Round 4: P2, k 2, sl 3 sts to dpn and hold in back, k3, k from dpn, k2, p2.
Round 5 - 7: P2, k 10, p 2.
Round 8: P2, sl 2 sts to dpn and hold in front, k2, k from dpn, k2, sl 2 sts to dpn and hold in front, k2, k from dpn, p2.


Cable #2

Round 3: P2, k4, p2, k4, p2.
Round 2: P2, sl 2 sts to dpn and hold in front, k2, k from dpn, k2, sl 2 sts to dpn and hold in
Round 1: P2, k10, p2.
Round 3: P2, k4, p2, k4, p2.
Round 4: P2, k3, p4, k3, p2.
Round 5: P2, k2, p6, k2, p2.
Round 6: Same as Round 4.
Round 7: Same as Round 5.

And the finished result!

Bee Mine

I can't get over how cute this set is! Knit with my Chickadee Overalls pattern. I striped yellow and black cestari (the yellow was dyed by me). On the chest panel I embroidered two flying bees. The hat has little antennas and I'm working on some matching black leg warmers that will have little bees embroidered on them too.

I swear I'm not procrastinating!

I've been so busy working on patterns that I have forgotten to give myself a few extra minutes to write in the blog.

This past week I released the Charlotte Collection pattern, the pattern can be knit as either a tank or a sleeved dress, tunic or sweater. I've been told that it has very modern and stylish lines. I am pretty sure I've shown it off before when I knit up the samples, but here it is anyway.

Tank:

Sleeved:

Both were knit with my Rhea Silk blend yarn.

Of course in parallel I have also been working on a new cardigan design, here's Reid modeling :)

As usual I'm playing catch up

Things have finally settled down around here and I am no longer feeling the pain of saying goodbye to our beloved sitter. The baby is now in childcare twice a week for a total of 6 hours. I have also had the husband help me clear out the garage and now I can officially say I have a studio! It was so much fun moving everything out of the kitchen and into the garage. The biggest perk is that I now have a new microwave and kettle!

My first dye project was Koi Pond, along with other vivid girly colors. I also dyed Princess Buttercup, Wildflowers, Full Bloom, and Spring Delight. I must have hit the spot with these colorways as most sold out within minutes of stocking!


Knitting wise I am an effort to only knit up with my own yarns. So I used Rogue on Licorice Twist to make a super cute pair of overalls.

Weekend update

With so much going on and with me back to dyeing strong I don't even know where to begin.

Last week I stocked a series of sock yarns on MainStreet.


After a nice holiday break I went on a dyeing spree. Here is 'Woodhaven' (it does not actually contain any red). Lots of browns, golds and green. This one is done on a superwash DK yarn and should be stocked sometime next week.


I have probably a gazillion (not really) more colorways coming. I just need to get them all photographed and edited.

On the business side of things there has been much progress done.

• I have been putting together a sample package to take to local yarn stores.
• The Charlotte and Vagabond patterns are now being tested.
• The Wildwood pattern is almost ready for release.
• A third romper pattern is in the works (eventually the patterns will be released together as an e-book).
• A cardigan idea has been born
• I have a new wool supplier of amazing 2 and 3 ply USA grown and spun yarns. They take dye like a dream and are incredibly soft
• I ordered a professional book on size grading for men, women and children. I hope it comes with baby grading too. It cost me a pretty penny but I think its really going to make a huge difference in the way I design patterns.

I feel like I am at a point where I need to "go back to work" one day a week. or a few half or even third days. Right now I am working _all the time_ I try to be efficient with my time. So when I'm playing with the boys I'm knitting, when the boys are asleep I'm dyeing, and when I get "mommy time" I work on patterns.