More Show And Tell

Wheeeee, I love to spin yarn! I had no idea that spinning was so much fun. In my last post, I showed off Little Red Schoolhouse, and then the next day it sold. I was so proud of the little yarn that could. I've been selling yarn for quite a while now, so it's not that big a deal anymore, just a really fun job. But I felt so pleased to list and sell one of my own handspun yarns. I've been learning very quickly, and enjoying every bit of it.

This one is called Marge. I spun some pretty corriedale roving into a thicker strand and some soft merino I dyed orange into a thinner strand and then plied them together. My kids and The Man loved it and said it looked like Marge Simpson. Marge is listed in my shop to rave reviews. Oh Homey.



This one doesn't have a name, but I'm keeping it for now. One strand of merino in Blue Agate, and one strand of merino in a green and purple colorway (remember the roving drying on the rack?). Verrrry soft. I think I'll make a second one, and then we're talking yardage.



This one is MINE, so don't even ask. It took me HOURS to spin. I was testing out a Fishy Wishy theory, and it worked out exactly as I hoped, so I'm thinking socks.

For Me.

I'll have to make a second batch, but I have the roving ready to go.



And speaking of handspun, these are some socks I started on Christmas Day with some lovely bulky handspun from Shunklies.etsy.com. Beautiful, soft and so fun to knit. I got one super quick sock done on The Day, and hoped to finish the second one on Boxing Day. Don't know what happened. Maybe tomorrow. It was while knitting these that I knew I had to get a wheel as soon as possible.

Launching Out

There is is! The first skein of yarn I've deemed fit for listing in my shop. I'm calling it Little Red Schoolhouse, and it is spun thick and thin in 100% Merino, using a roving I dyed in Embers.



I feel all tee hee hee about this. And I have two other yarns that are drying even as I post. And one that I'm spinning for myself. And a pair of mitts I knit with my yarn. And...

Yarn Hangout

Step into my parlour...



So my big son turned 15 and grew another inch. He's now 6' 3" tall, one more inch and he'll top the Big Man around here. Big Man has bitter memories of the little twin bed he cramped himself into as a teen, so when he saw that The Boy was looking squished in his bed, he declared that a change was in order. Boy moved downstairs to our extra room, a much bigger room with a much bigger bed. He moved out one weekend in November, and the following Monday, I moved in. Yes, I took over his upstairs bedroom and turned it into (da da da da)

YARN ROOM!!



I can't tell you how much I love to have my very own yarn room. I have installed all my yarn to dye, my personal stash, my bins of finished yarn, and a beautiful collection of art/hand spun yarns. Shelves are stacked floor to ceiling with yarn for dyeing. My own stash and mailing supplies all fit in the closet. Even my beads and stitch marker supplies have a spot.



The room had a clothesline running along one wall, where The Boy used to hang his artwork. Now I hang long skeins of handspun there. Skeins of handspun and yarn to dye fill little nooks and cubbies. I've decorated with my own paintings, and little goodies from friends and knitters warm up an already very inviting space. I have a comfy chair for sitting and knitting and a good light. And candles. The Man installed huge IKEA hooks along one wall for hanging skeins of yarn that are ready to dye.



Finally, I put a bean bag chair in the room too, just in case I get a guest or two. Sometimes I hang out in there with the door closed, spinning and listening to my iPod. Sometimes I hang out in there with the door open, and one of my kids or The Man himself comes by to hang out and chat. I'm not in there all the time (why not??), but when I am, it seems to be the most popular room in the house.

And many many times a day, I'm in and out of there, or I just stand in the doorway and look. And smile.

I Have A Roving Eye

Roving you say? Why is there dyed roving in my house?

Because of this! (Wheee!! Aren't new toys grand???)



Yup, I'm doing the spinning thing now. I bought my wheel on Friday. It's a Lendrum Double Treadle, and I am having tons of fun plying, um, playing with it. Lendrum wheels are Canadian made (like me), and I found a distributor who lives about half an hour from where I live. She has just started up her home-based business, so if you're interested, send me an email, and I'll give you her number.

You're also getting a few shots of my new yarn room here, but I'll talk about that in a later post. Look, up on the line. See the little white skein hanging proudly between that other more grown up looking spun yarn (not mine). The little white skein is my very very first ever bit of yarn spun by me on my new wheel.



My second and third attempts have had lots of things done to them, so I'll post about those later. Then I dyed some roving in a version of my new colorway Blue Agate Beauty.



Then I got really cheeky and tried spinning some fine yarn. See spool posing next to that gorgeous little sheep (thanks, T!). I plan to spin some more fine later on and then attempt to ply two strands together.



I've done some more things with that Blue Agate roving. You'll just have to stay tuned on that. And if you look back at the photo of the wheel, you'll see Blue Agate chunky on the bobbin.

Benne likes my hams, so I told her I'd post a photo of Daisy enjoying H's cuddly new sweater.



You've probably figured out that my shop is open again. Here is a new pair of mitts I just listed in some more luscious Hobbeldehoy yarn. This one is called HoneyCake.

Not A New Year's Resolution

I plan to blog more this year.

It's not a New Year's Resolution, just a plan I'd like to implement. Even if the posts are short, I'd like to get back to regular posting. Stay tuned to see if I succeed.

I plan to: blog more, knit more, and spin more. YES I said SPIN. More on that...later.

Here is some knitting I did for and over Christmas:

The top photo is a close-up of a pair of socks I knit for my mom for Christmas. My mom got sick in December and will go in for surgery in a few days. I thought she could use something warm and cozy. Here is the complete view:



She loves the socks and has been wearing them night and day with a liner of cotton socks. I knit them with handspun sock yarn that I bought from KnittinPretty at etsy.

The mitts are knit with handspun from Hobbledehoy at etsy. I have a serious addiction to Hobbledehoy's yarn, and I think it is the main reason for my desire to spin my own yarn (so I don't go broke at Hobbledehoy). In the long run, the wheel is cheaper.

I was able to knit three pair of these mitts from the one skein, so I kept a pair, sold a pair, and gifted a pair to my niece for Christmas.



This was supposed to be my cozy Christmas sweater. I knit it with Rowan Big Wool Fusion in a smoky blue/grey colour. I used the Rowan Pattern from Big it Up. The sweater was fun to knit, and quick on 12.75mm needles. And it doesn't really fit me, so it went to Little Miss H (who just turned 11). She loves it and calls it her "sleepover sweater." I wasn't allowed to show her hair 'cuz she was mad at it, and I'm supposed to say that this is her stunt-double posing in the sweater.





This is the yarn I used to knit my nephew a pair of socks for Christmas. Yeah, I know, lame to show the yarn and not the socks. Didn't get a photo. Yeah, I know. Lame. Especially as I have more of the yarn available in my shop, and you'd think that pix of nice socks knit in it would be a great marketing tool. Yeah, I know.



The yarn is called Rusty Camo, and it was fun to knit for socks on size 4.0mm (cuffs) and 3.75mm needles (the rest). I used about 150 grams to knit size-10 men's socks with 10 inch legs. The socks knit up fast, and the yarn striped in chunky stripes of rust and green. They looked great.

I also can't show you the two monster hats that I knit for my other two nephews. They were grand, and so quick and easy to knit. The monster patches just pop right out. The nephews loved them and wore them all through our time at dinner and after. Do you think I got any photos?? Yeah, I know.

New Girl in Town

Meet Mooch!

Mooch is really teeny. We got her a few weeks ago 'cuz we're hamster-lovin' kind of people.



Yes, we still have Daisy. Daisy loves cilantro. Daisy does not love Mooch. We introduced them briefly, and Daisy made it very clear that she was the Alpha-Chick. Then we had to separate the two of them so that it didn't turn into a Sam Peckinpah moment.



Daisy loves Carrots.



Mooch loves to attack the giant sunflower seed head that Grandma sent home with us at Thanksgiving.



This is me waving hello to everyone out there in blogland.

In case you've worried, no I have not been working 24/7. I have been knitting!!! Yes, real knitting has been going on. I can't show you what I'm knitting, unfortunately, but I can show you the secret bag that it's in. Maybe tomorrow. :)

Phew! What a Big 'ol Day

Today, I got my 1000th sale on etsy. Cue the streamers, the balloons, the confetti, the marching band...

This is considered a seriously major landmark over at Etsy, and I am blown away by it.

Etsy counts sales in an interesting way. Etsy does a lot of things in an interesting way. And yes, the word interesting is a bit loaded in this context. If I list five skeins of yarn from one batch, and five different people each buy a skein of yarn, it counts as five sales. If one person comes along and scoops up the whole batch, it counts as one sale. The 25 sets of stitch markers that I listed as a custom order counts as one sale. So, 1000 sales is a whole lot more than 1000 items.

I've had a pretty exciting day. :)

Oh! And I must point you in the direction of DancingMooney at etsy. DancingMooney bought the item that bumped the counter over to 1000. She is a lovely and very friendly etsy seller. She makes sweet jewelry that is well made and affordable. Thanks, DM, you're a doll!!

And thanks too to all of you out there in blogland and beyond, who have encouraged and supported me in all kinds of ways. Thanks to all my buyers! Thanks for blogging about my shop, or the yarn you bought, the socks you knit. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of great ideas (I still want to know who gave me the heads-up about including a different stitch marker in my sets). Thanks for referring me to good yarn sources. I keep telling people over at the etsy forums that knitters are the best!

I'm pretty tired now, but I want to show you what I knitted with that fun orange yarn I blogged about a few days ago.

The skein called October was enough to knit two pairs of these funky cozy fingerless mitts. I listed one pair in my shop, but it sold already. I'm thinking of keeping the second pair, but we'll see.



I forgot to photograph this yarn in the skein, but it is another one from TinyAirplane's yarn club. She called it Fizzlebottom, but I call it Apple Picking. Big poofy merino that knitted up into super cozy mitts. I'm going to get two or three pairs out of this skein. This pair is listed in my shop now. (well, it's there at the point of posting this, at least)



And as a side note, Daisy wants it known for the record that she isn't actually that fat. She just looks that way when her cheek pouches are stuffed full of seeds. Hmph.

I HAZ FATT FASE

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Okay, maybe it's not the Great Pumpkin. It's a skein of hand dyed and hand spun yarn that I bought from Tiny Airplanes where else but at etsy of course. She calls this one October.

Fitting.



The yarn arrived a few days ago as an installment of a six-month yarn club that I bought from Tiny Airplanes. I have never joined a sock yarn club (and probably never will), but I am on my third funky art yarns club. I've done one round of the Insubordiknit art yarn club, and then I signed up with Tiny Airplanes. I think I might be the only person in that club, but hey, it works for me. Then I signed on for another three months with Insubordiknit 'cuz Jacey has me thoroughly addicted to her crazy ass yarns.

I had to wonder about Tiny Airplanes' club. Her yarns are really pretty, soft and fun, but the club was ridiculously cheap. So much so, that I think she is paying me for knitting with her yarn. I feel ever so slightly guilty. For a second or two. And then it passes.

The mystery was solved today. I liked that skein of October so much that I snapped off a quick photo and immediately wound it into a big fat ball. I mean we're talking about 130grams and over 100 yards of this beauty. I had a fun pair of cozy fingerless mitts knitted up in about five minutes. I'm already on my second pair. Then I emailed her to ask if she would mind if I sold mitts made with her yarns in my etsy shop.

She is thrilled with the idea. After all, she doesn't knit. WHAAAAAAAT????

A. How can anyone who isn't a knitter or crocheter create such highly knittable (and I'm assuming crochetable) yarn?

And

B. How can she resist? I mean Sheesh!

Now I know why I'm getting such a deal. Shhhhh....don't tell her.

Hey Buddy, Can You Help a Knitter Out?

Here is a wonderful knitting opportunity for anyone who lives in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver. I know you're out there...

My friend Kirsten is the creative genius behind Yummy Yarn on etsy. The pink socks I blogged about yesterday were knitted with yarn she spun. She dyes, spins, and knits beautifully. She also designed that Full of Holes Triangular Scarf that many of you admired and then promptly went out and purchased the pattern.

Now, how would you like to take a knitting class with a knitter like that????

She just emailed me to ask for my help. She is scheduled to teach a knitting class at our local arts centre in Port Moody. The class is on how to knit sweaters without a pattern, and it will be on Wednesday evenings, starting (I think) this Wednesday.

The problem is that she is short one or two people to make the class full enough for her to teach. If she doesn`t get the extra bodies, they will cancel the class.

If this appeals to you, you will need to contact the arts centre by Tuesday to register. The centre is a fun, relaxed venue for classes. And Kirsten is really nice, I promise.

Here is the detail on the class:

Basic Sweaters (Ages 16+)
Instructor: Kirsten Z.
$75.67 includes registration & tax
7-8:30pm Wed (7 classes Sept 26-Nov 7)
Only recently have knitters been given
painstakingly detailed instructions to work
with. In the past, knitters learned formulas
and techniques rather than patterns, and
they made sweaters to fit the wool, the occasion,
and the person. In this class, you
will be guided through designing and knitting
your own sweater to fit. Students may
choose from one of several basic sweater
types: yoked, raglan, saddle shoulder, or
gansey.
*Supply list available at registration
Pre-req: basic skills of knit, purl, increase,
decrease, cast on, cast off.

So, if this sounds like fun for you or a friend, or you and a friend, or your mother-in-law, or that neighbour down the street who keeps talking about knitting a sweater, then this is a great opportunity to Knit On!

Here is a link to the Port Moody Arts Centre, which will give you all the contact information you need to register.

Sock On!

Yes! Knitting has been happening around here lately.

I finished my socks done in handspun sock yarn that I bought from Yummy Yarn at etsy. I love her handspun and have bought several skeins from her. This skein was called Rosie Toesies. The dark bits you see on one sock's leg and the other's toe came from a second skein of YY that happened to match.



My work requires me to spend a lot of time on the computer, so I have been happy to grab any time away to knit. It is a treat to work with DRY yarn for a change, and I enjoy the simplicity of working on basic socks. Plus I love to wear them when they are finished.

This is my latest pair in progress. I bought this handspun from Knittin Pretty at etsy. The shop is new, and she hasn't posted many yarns, but they are already popular. I bought this blue superwash merino called Lapis and another skein pictured below.



I knit Rosie-Toesies on 4.0mm for the cuffs and 3.75mm for the rest. The Lapis yarn is a bit finer, so I'm knitting them on 3.25mm. I have to admit that I really like slightly heavier sock yarns. I took my Lapis sock and sock in progress over to a friend's house on Thursday. She is a new knitter, but when she tried on the sock, she was hooked on the desire to knit her own socks.

My other yarn from Knittin Pretty is called Wild Thing, and I absolutely LOVE it. My favorite colours. The put up is a whopping 608 yards, which is a really good deal for the price I paid. Keeping in mind that handspun is pricey, of course.



Here is another little goodie that I picked up from etsy. A sock knitting bag that I bought from Stuck in Illinois. This woman makes lovely little sock knitting bags in all kinds of fun fabrics, and she sells them for only $10.00. And that includes shipping!



I bought this Coffee Cups bag first, and it is really well made. Fully lined, light, and just the right size for a sock project. I take it everywhere. It sits on the floor or beside me and holds my ball of yarn while I knit.

I liked it so much that I've ordered a second one. It is in the mail, but you can see it HERE.



And just one more bit of show and tell...

I think this is my favorite skein of yarn ever. Ever. I bought it from an etsy shop in the UK. I love the name of this shop: Shunklies.

She called this skein Walk in the Woods, and it is so soft and squishy and beautifully spun. It has all my favorite yarny colours and in some lovely combinations. The yarn is on the chunky side, and it is a huge skein (200g/220yds). I'm thinking scarf knit on big needles. I can hardly keep my hands off it and can't wait to knit it, but I also can't really bear the thought of rolling it into a ball.



I'm already wearing the pink socks again. They went back on my feet as soon as I finished photographing them. Now I think I want to go and roll around in yarny goodness.

What A Pal!

Ever notice that I measure my "tomorrows" in weeks or months? Seems that way at least. Okay, I promised some action on my sockapalooza bonanza-of-goodies, and here it is!



My sock-pal lives in Anchorage Alaska, and she is wonderfully generous, as I have found other Alaskans to be. You can find her at her blog Knitting Escape, and hey! Look at that. Not only does she blog about as often as I do, but her last entry was about MY socks. You can find all the lovely details there.



Aren't they beauties?? My package arrived and I couldn't believe it. Lacy patterned socks just for me. I only ever knit plain stockinette socks, so my feet were feeling pretty special in their new socks. I had to sit and reflect for a moment that someone I've never met knit me such a lovely pair of socks.

One happy foot:



Two happy feet:



The socks came gift wrapped, and they were not alone. They came with a bunch of Alaskan goodies, including chocolates (notice they are absent from the photos, wonder why?), and yarny gifties.

Thanks, Barbara! You're a peach!!!

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!!!!!

Today, my kids went back to school.

Technically, yesterday was the first day of school, but since they only went for an hour to satisfy some attendance-taking requirement, I call that the bait-and-switch back to school day.

Today was the day that they left the house, caught buses and remained gone until about 4:00. THAT is my definition of the first day of school.

I love my kids, but summer is long, and they get bored.

Today I walked around the house in my underwear.

Okay, I didn't do that, but I could have if had wanted to.

I was supposed to post all the lovely things that my sockapalooza4 pal sent me, but I lost my good photography light, so it will have to happen tomorrow. I'll leave a sticky note on my laptop to remind me.

I will also post progress on my second pink sock, which I'm hoping to finish tonight.

I noticed that a lot of you were interested in the handspun sock yarn. I find that you have to haunt the place (etsy) a bit to nab the really good stuff. Since I'm such a nice person, I will tell you how to haunt some of the best places.

Way #1: Go to Etsy Front Page; click on buy; categories: There are two categories for finding great yarn in the order that it gets listed. Those categories are KNITTING and SUPPLIES/handmade. I scan these listings regularly since those are the categories in which I list my items too.

Way#2: Go to Etsy Front Page; click on buy, and use the search bar. Plug in handspun yarn, and it will show you all the listings from most recent back.

Way#3: Go to my Etsy shop; scroll down, while scanning the right hand sidebar. You will come to a box with my Fishy Wishy avatar, under which will say profile and then favorites. If you click on my favorites (items/sellers), you can see a lot of the yarn shops that I like to say nice things about on my blog. I check those stores fairly regularly for new listings.

If you have your own Etsy account, you can "heart" or favorite shops and items that you like and build up your own library of shops to stalk.

Since this has been a very wordy post with no eye-candy, I will leave you with some eye candy from my own shop.

Canadian Maple: making its debut as a sock yarn


ChocolateBerry Truffle (mmmm)


The cutest stitch markers: Wasabi World (they look like little wasabi planets to me)

Happy Blogiversary Baby

Got you on my mind...

All day I've been reminding myself to blog because it is my BLOGIVERSARY today!!! Yes, one year ago today I started blogging. Imagine that.

I had to get my entry in before the date changed so that it would count. Well it is 9:45pm around here, so I say that counts. Over at Etsy, everything runs on NY time, so people are up very late while it is still pretty early for me.

I have knitty stuff to show off too. This IS a day.

Doug posing in his new socks: He says his feet are very happy.



I knit the first one back in March with (yes) some of my very first hand-dyed yarn. Then the remaining yarn sat around with the orphan sock until about a week ago when I got going on the second one. Doug and I were watching a movie last night, and when he got up to get a snack, I snuck the socks onto his chair. He was so thrilled, he put them on right away and had a big smile on his face for the rest of the movie.



Alas, I did not manage to get a photo of the finished Butterscoth socks for my sock pal. I did get them into the mail though, along with more sock yarn for her to enjoy and some fun stitch markers. And wait'll you see what I got from MY sock pal. Show and tell on that tomorrow. And yes, there will be a tomorrow.

Guess what this is?



Yup! Another finished pair of socks. I finished these up at camp with the handspun sock yarn I bought from rmddesigns at etsy. I have another skein from her and a third on the way. We'll get to some show and tell on that eventually.



I have discovered a great love for knitting socks with handspun sock yarn. Yes, it is ridiculously expensive, but I can think of many many good reasons to do it:

1. Handspun sock yarn is usually a wee bit heavier in gauge so socks fly along.
2. Handspun sock yarn is ridiculously expensive so you buy one of those instead of eight of something else and thus stash stays small and you use up your yarn purchases faster.
3. Handspun sock yarn has this funky colour changing thing going on so you can knit the plainest of socks without ever getting bored, cuz that yarn is always so durn interesting.
4. Every single stitch done with handspun sock yarn is a joy.
5. Um...I like handspun sock yarn.

6. How could you possibly resist something like THIS:



I mean, that is just one hunka hunka burning bliss. I can't wait to knit socks with that yarn. I bought it from a shop called Bizyhands at etsy (natch).

Or how about this one: (alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com)



And one of my favorite hand spinners at etsy is YummyYarn. I've blogged about her before -- she's the one who designed the Full Of Holes Scarf. This is my current sock on the go (one done, one at the cuff stage): 100% BFL Sock Yarn, handspun of course.



So that's me, and a bit of what I've been up to knit-wise. I haven't been blogging 'cuz I hate summer and go into survival mode, which basically means ignoring a lot of things until the kids go back to school.

Back to school in two days...and counting...