Laceweight Merino Update

I dyed some laceweight singles and listed them on My Etsy Store.



They are all different shades of blues and purples, very saturated. It's 100% Superwash merino, very soft, and a lengthy 500 yards per skein. Check it out- http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

Etsy Shop Update- Yarn and Roving and OMG CASHMERE!

I had a bit of time off around Xmas to putter around the house with a nasty cold keeping me in. While the soulmate decided that the time was for making beer, at one point I jostled him away from the stove to put my dyepots on. Finally, I've got everything photographed and labeled and listed and ready to go! Oh, except for some lovely merino lace yarn that I want to re-photograph. That will be listed very soon.

Here's a few things in the listing.

A few skeins of handspun Shetland:


A couple colors of hand dyed Polworth-Silk top that I'm wild about:




A few colors of Superfine Merino/Superfine Kid Mohair pencil roving:




Laceweight Merino:




A few colors of Superwash BFL roving:


The best is for last (drumroll please...) MONGOLIAN CASHMERE ROVING!



SQUEEEEE! I can't say enough good things about this stuff. It's the softest fiber I've ever touched, and it spins up into a drapey smooth yarn, and then blooms into the most perfect little delicate halo ever. I have a limited amount of this, and I am still having a sale- 30% off! A real bargain as far as cashmere is concerned.

Check it out at KnotMyDayJob.etsy.com. The coupon code for the 30% off is "trente". Happy shopping!

Yarn and Fiber Sale...

I'm having a bit of a sale over at my Etsy store- everything is 30% off when you use the code "TRENTE" at check out. Yarn, jewelry, roving, batts...all of it, on sale. I've also listed the roving from Muriel the Moorit Merino in manageable 3 and 4 oz bumps. I've been spinning and spinning and can't seem to make a dent in it. It's lovely stuff, but I don't think I'll be sitting down to spin and knit multiple sweaters from it anytime soon.

Here's the before processing shot:



The roving:



A bit of a sample that I spindle-spun before I got the wheel out for a big project:



It's super soft and crimpy. It still has a faint sheepy smell as it's not over-processed, and I found the smell goes away after you give it a soak and set the twist on your yarn.

Enjoy!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

Battier than a Belfry

Guess what?



I've updated my Etsy shop with MORE BATTS!





Scoop them up and spin yourself something awesome for fall! All of them are soft and well-blended. Most of the fiber I have hand dyed, and some of it is natural colored (Sheepy brown! Alpaca fawn!). A lot of work goes into each one, and they are completely unique. Some of these have merino, romney, bfl, alpaca, silk, bamboo, Leicester Longwool...really whatever I feel inspired by at the time.

This is the last of the batt updates for a while as I tucked the carder away, bundled up all my fiber and gave the house a good hoovering. I don't know how other batt-makers do it, but usually I end up with bits of fiber tracked all over the house. It seems like the alpaca is the most willing to travel and go places. It's hard to have a lot of company over with all this fluff flying around, and still appear somewhat normal to other people. I'm sure I'll be pulling the carder out again before the end of the year, if only for the selfish reason that I have a hankering to spin a rather gorgeous Rambouillet fleece.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

New Spinning Batts!

I have been going a little crazy with the drum carder lately. The unexpected super high humidity we've been having means that I don't have to deal with the static and flyaways that always seem to end up in my eyeballs or in my dinner, so I will toast to that. A la votre!



I do love blending fiber and colors to make beautiful and unique handspun creations. It's pretty labor intensive...not only does the carding process take quite a bit of monotonous cranking, but I usually make a pretty big mess in the process. I can't just take a few fibers from the pile and blend them; I have to take out my entire scrap and carding stash and lay it all out and pick handfuls of what I feel would match up well together. Once I have all this out and set up, it's impracticable to put it away at the end of the day, so I tend to do my carding in week-long sessions where the dining room table is occupied by piles of fiber, and we have to sit on the floor in the next room to eat. I need to use good judgement as far as my timing goes.



Plus, all the fur flying in the process means that my vacuum cleaner makes a death rattle in protest. Worrisome. I plead with it daily.



After much experimentation, I find that the batts I like best are under 2oz. They just hang together a bit better into compact bundles, and because I'm not jamming so much on the carded, I end up with less waste as well.



Everything can be found in my Etsy Shop, and I will be listing more in the coming days. Each batt is made up of merino or a super luxe blend that might contain merino, alpaca, silk, bamboo, faux cashmere, BFL, cashgora, angora and kid mohair. Most of it I have hand dyed; some of it is natural sheepy colored; still other bits are leftover from spinning projects that have accumulated over the years. All of it is super soft and ready to be made into a special yarn.



Best of all, anything 2oz and under is only $12-$13 as I only have so much space to store big, fluffy batts and I need to move these things so I can make more.

www.KnotMyDayJob.etsy.com

Adorn Yourself!

I just updated my Etsy store with more baubles and finery for your nape. All the foul weather meant I was the queen of TCB and morphed into a whirlwind of productivity. Enjoy!













Plus lots more pretty jewelry. There's still some yarn and roving hidden in the depths of the listings as well.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

FO: Jordan Lace Tank

I have a huge backlog of knitwear to show you. It's embarrassing, really. I made all these cute summery tops and it's been too hot to wear anything but the barest of barely there garments. Most of them require a bit of an undergarment or cami underneath- lace knitwear can be quite revealing and, uh, I just don't want to draw that kind of attention to myself. So camisole layer it will be!

Here's the first one I finished.



It's the Jordan by Wendy Bernard. It's a fun, easy lace knit. You make a tube and then attach two sleeves. Voila! Instant shirt. It's the same front and back, and aside from seaming up the sleeves to the top edge, there is no finishing.



I used 2.5 skeins of Louet Euroflax Sportweight in Aqua for the medium size. Linen is interesting to work with- you get such a nice, crisp lace pattern with really perfect stitch definition. It does show unevenness in your stitches though- any plain stockinette sections irked me. It does work perfectly for lace. I used size US4 needles to get gauge.

It did tend to hurt my hands a bit- it has no give or bounce at all, so I couldn't work on this for long stretches of time without taking a break. The yarn could also be quite slippery. You do not want to drop a stitch with this stuff...you'll find it somewhere near the bottom every single time. Curses.




It did soften up quite a bit after a wash and it's drapey and swinging nicely. I really enjoyed making this and I want to wear it all the time. I have a few more skeins of this in my stash and I'm trying to decide which cute linen top to make next. Ahh, maybe next year. I've already had my non-wool fill.



Linen looks great with a little bit of a tan and a cocktail in hand. I love the way this turned out. The only modification I made is that the sleeves are slightly shorter than as written- I just did one less lace repeat.



Also- the necklace can be had from my Etsy shop. It's a double strand of Garnet gemstones and simply gorgeous.

The Birds and the Beads

There's a park a couple blocks from where I live. Due to the proximity to a wastewater treatment plant, some days there's a really funky odor coming from this park and it's unbearable to go anywhere near it. Other days, it's perfectly pleasant. Yet the malodorous nightmare really keeps people away and this park is fairly deserted. It's too bad because it's right on the water and when it's too hot to move you can usually catch enough of a breeze to want a light sweater.

I was sitting there, keeping cool under the shade of a huge oak tree and this guy pops up nearby.



...and then another and another. A family of four of these odd quails that I have never seen before. At first, I thought they were Bobwhites, which is the only native quail in this area. On second look, they look nothing like a bobwhite at all.



They walk around the park nervously, clucking to each other constantly, pausing to scratch the earth and nibble on the tasty bugs they stir up.



After some consultation with WhatBird.com and a mystery bird flickr pool, it was concluded that this is a family of Chukars. They are native to the Mideast, India and Nepal and there is an intorduced population of them way out west. How they ended up in Brooklyn is a mystery.

Aside for tracking down exotic species, I've been busy listing pretty jewelry on my Etsy site.















Most of them are one of a kind originals- I have a couple reoccurring themes but I tend to not repeat myself. They are all very reasonably priced and rather stunning. I will be listing more in the coming days as I have quite a stack of them to photograph still.

Find them here, along with some yarn and roving and lots of other goodies:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

Enjoy!

Etsy Shop Update! Really!

Some "hurry-up and wait" emergencies at work meant I had some time to sit down and work on a long-overdue Etsy shop updates. Here's a few things that have been listed:


Merino/Silk sock weight yarn that I dyed using Eucalyptus leaves


Merino lace weight in tonal greens and blues


Merino/silk roving. Gorgeous stuff, lovely to spin. I could almost eat it.

Also- I have started a spinning batt club that I have listed in the shop. I have a lot of fiber that needs to be turned into batts, but the batts can not be squished down once I've made them. I live in an apartment that is filled with yarn, fiber and homemade beer.

I. Can. Not. Have. One. More. Fluffy. Fiber. Batt. In. The. House.

Or giant kettles. Dyeing yarn and making beer both require huge kettles, which are hard to store. No more hobbies that involve kettles. Space is my biggest issue when I'm making and trying to store batts, but I can make time to make batts and ship them out once a month. Membership is very limited as is my time, so sign up quick like a bunny!

Brooklyn Flea

I can not think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning than to rifle through treasures and tchotchkes and junk at the Brooklyn Flea.



It is currently still in its winter quarters in the old Williamsburg Savings Bank (which is the tallest skyscraper in Brooklyn). It's a grand old light-filled space. If you care to crane your neck, there are gorgeous tile murals on the vaulted ceilings.

I only bought food items, but they did have some sweet vintage dresses, unique framed prints and lots and lots of jewelry. It's much higher quality than most fleas, and it has a lot of Etsy-type vendors. You probably won't get too many steals, but I think you could find some really unique gifts and home decor items. It's fun to wander around with friends and point out particularly cute or hideous things.

Starting in April, it will move back to it's home on a school playground in Fort Green. Totally uninspiring architecture on the blacktop, but having everything outside is nice as well and feels more like a flea market that I know from my youth. You know the ones where you feel like you might actually have real fleas, or maybe even lice afterward? And there are lots of airbrushed eagles and harley davidson logos and knock-off Ray Bans for $5. Yeah, there's none of that at the Brooklyn Flea unless it's one of those ironic hipster things.

Speaking of Etsy, I am cleaning out some old stock to make room for the new...Everything in my Etsy store is currently 25% off when you use the coupon code "MARCH" when you check out. I have mostly yarn left, but there is still some roving and silk caps to spin as well.

December is the Craziest Month

...but any excuse for latkes is okay with me. Seriously though- every December I get totally overwhelmed by all the stuff there is to do this month. Work, social, family...it all makes for a perfect storm and lots of hangovers that you swore you wouldn't have again.

I know a lot of knitter friends are out straight trying to finish gifts on time. I tend to make gifts year-round and stash the finished product until it's time to put together gift bags (I can only wear so many pairs of socks). I don't like to buy much at all- I prefer to make all my gifts and dealing with the frantic crowds makes me rather cranky. Well, I make the exception of purchasing alcohol. Lots of people appreciate a good bottle of Scotch when they are dealing with family, and my bathtub gin has been known to cause blindness, so I'll let the pros make that for me. Regardless, I have one more pair of socks to make and gift before the looming holiday deadline.

I made an Etsy Shop Update:





I listed some silk bells that I dyed. They are so fun to spin, and I love how much vibrant color they take on. They are a perfect pick-me-up for when a nasty wind blows all the remaining gold leaves off the trees and you are faced with looking at the back of the neighbor's house for the next few months.

Here's what else I have on the needles/bobbins:

I made the Quincy hat by Jared Flood.


I made it with Brown Sheep Bulky (the very last of what was in my stash) and all that thick garter stitch and mobeous fold makes this incredibly warm. It has a cute face-framing effect as well.

This is the Eastlake pullover, which is progressing along nicely:

It's by Norah Gaughan from her "Woodland Gothic" collection. I'm doing a ton of modifications to this to get a better fit. As much as I love Gaughan's patterns, they do not always make sense or have consistent instruction. I've made enough sweaters so that I feel like it's enough for me (and I usually don't take instructions as anything but a suggestion anyway) but I'm really enjoying creating this. I've finished the body and I'm on to the sleeves.

I'm almost done the Lenore socks. I can probably finish them up on my commute tonight.

I've also been doing a bit of spinning...
(These photos are all pre-washing, so all the yarns look a bit more calm now)

Capistrano Superfine Merino:


I'm a big fan of Capistrano Fiber Arts- she has great use of color. That's about 3 oz. I got about 168 yards as a soft, lofty, chunky-weight 2 ply. I'm trying to liberate my spinning and make thicker, chunkier, thick-and-thin and lumpy yarn. These next two are the results:

Capistrano Merino/Silk singles:

The color is "Etoile".

Capistrno BFL singles:

I love the jewel tones in this. This was the toughest of the three to get the loft going. BFL is a long wool, the the fibers really want to pack together. I did get it fairly even. Alas, spinning thick has its charms. This took me all of 20 minutes to get through 2 oz. Instant gratification!

I'm trying to get my stash down using the A-Z method as well. I'm kind of stuck on the "B is for bison" and skipped ahead for a bit. I'm back on the bison now (that sounds like drugs, doesn't it?).

Also, as I was cleaning up around the house, I found a a wax mustache.



It's fabulous, dahhhling, fabulous. I amuse myself too easily.