new superwash worsted yarn and thoughts about Japan

For the past year, I've been trying out different superwash worsted yarns. I have Trillium, which I love for its softness and amiability during dyeing; it is very gracious about accepting dye, unlike some yarns that need to be coaxed, begged, or threatened. And it's one of the few truly squishy yarns that I've encountered--four plies, so it's very smooth, tight enough to avoid splittiness, yet with plenty of give. Its one flaw is that it's aran weight, and a bit heavy for some sweater patterns.

I've had a custom mill run done for me, in addition to trying most of the ones on the market. None have yet had the perfect combination of twist, hand, and general knitting enjoyment that I'm looking for.

Yet another candidate arrived today, and I think this might be The One, at last. It will go into the dyepot this week; I have high hopes for this base.

It does feel terribly trivial to be thinking about yarn, given what's happening in Japan. I gave some money to one of my favorite charities, International Medical Corps, which has a tsunami relief fund. I'd like to give more, but I'm not really sure which organization is best equipped to help right now. And I am transfixed by the struggle to keep the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from complete failure. I still have intermittent daydreams of working in emergency management (I was a public information officer for my county's EM department for years), so I have a professional perspective that's slowly coming to bear as I work through some of my emotional and visceral reactions.

As usual, the NY Times has some incredible interactive graphics. Before and after satellite photos that show the impact of the tsunami and what happens during a reactor meltdown are two really good ones.

knitting news, for a change

I finished Rogue's first sleeve! I may really end up with a completed sweater this time. Though for some reason, I keep thinking about the Grimm's fairy tale where seven (six?) brothers are turned into swans, and their poor sister has to sew them all shirts by the appointed day, or else they'll stay swans forever. To add insult to injury, the poor girl has to remain mute for the seven years that she has to work on the shirts; she can't even complain about how unfair it is, or how her shoulders hurt from hunching over her sewing all that time. At any rate, she manages to finish them all except for one sleeve on the last shirt, and that brother has a swan's wing instead of an arm for the rest of his life.

This fairy tale has been intruding on my thoughts ever since I started working on the sleeve, and I've decided to interpret it as a cautionary tale from my subconscious. I don't want to have to sprout down feathers to stay warm because I was struck down by Second Sleeve Syndrome.

In other news, I signed up for a class at the end of March with Cookie A at Wild Fibers in Mt Vernon. It's Knitting on the Bias. When I called, there was still one spot left in Cookie's Advanced Cables class in the morning, as well as spaces in the afternoon class that I'm taking, in case you're local.

introducing the Huckleberry Knits fiber club

Nothing surprised me more last year than how well my spinning fibers sold at shows. It was amazing, and humbling.

It does leave me in a bit of a bind for online sales; since my fiber essentially sells out at each show, I'm always building up inventory for the next show, and don't have much to list at Etsy.

So I'm introducing a fiber club, beginning this month. The subscription is for three months. Each three-month period will have one untreated fiber, one superwash, and one luxury or exotic fiber.

I'm excited about the club--I love dyeing fiber and watching the colors meld. Happy spinning!

the first week

The first week as my own full-time boss has been pretty tiring. I split skeins and otherwise wrapped up a group order, tinkered (again) with my photography setup, took many, many pictures of yarn, edited photos, put up some listings at Etsy, dyed a sock club order, and squandered countless hours on the internet reading reviews of the Aubrey-Maturin series. I also finished reading Life by Keith Richards, in which I learned he is also a Patrick O'Brian fan. Though I admit that I fail to understand his claim that Aubrey and Maturin remind him of his relationship with Mick Jagger. I just don't see it.

Tomorrow I'm rewarding myself with a trip down to Madrona. I'm not a vendor this year (or I would have quit my job in January in order to prepare) but NW Handspun Yarns is carrying some of my BFL and BFL/silk fiber in their booth. Looking forward to seeing friends, browsing for shawl pins and buttons, and just generally soaking in all the fibery goodness.

Next week, I ought to have a bit more breathing room, so I'm planning to get back to my obsession with silk hankies.



Love dyeing them, love knitting with them. When I was in China several years back, I went on a tour of a silk factory and watched them stretch cocoons, but I'd forgotten how long the silk strands are. Amazing stuff.

a new chapter

Friday is my last day at my job. I have been there for 11 years, but for many good reasons--dyeing yarn is way more fun, I was tired of people hating me just because I worked for a government agency (at least hate me for something personal I did to you), we refinanced our house at an absurdly low rate that opened up our financial options--I will now be a full-time dyer!

I am so excited. I'm bursting with ideas for developing and marketing my business. And interestingly, this has spilled over into my last three weeks at my job. I've astonished myself with the creative ideas and approaches that I've come up with for tackling some of the same issues that I've been working on for years.

This also means that I've been busy on a number of fronts. In my February newsletter, I promised a Feb 10 stocking at Etsy, but I've been juggling a lot of things, including an avalanche of fiber for Madrona. (I didn't get a booth this year, but NW Handspun Yarns will have my BFL and BFL/silk fiber for sale.) I'm afraid that stocking my store has been forced to take a back seat with all the craziness that's happening. Look for a stocking on Feb 17 instead.

Taking the leap has opened all sorts of possibilities to me, even just within my own mind. What have you been wanting to do? You only live once. And life is too short to not be happy.

change in store return policy

Since August, I have been dealing with a headache of a return, for a transaction that occurred at Midwest Folk & Fiber. I had already paid the state of Illinois the sales tax that I collected for all of my transactions there. I contacted the Special Events division of their dept of revenue, and she made it sound like it would be simple to get my sales tax refunded for that transaction--just get a state business license and she could cut me a check. So I went ahead and refunded that to my customer.

Five months later, I am still dealing with the fallout from this. Right now, I'm still too enraged over the latest salvo from the state of Illinois, which I got today, to get into the details. However, I do know that effective immediately, I will no longer accept any returns on sales made at shows. I will accept exchanges for the duration of the show. (I am still determining how my return policy for online sales will be affected.) I think this change is fair, as buyers are able to touch and see my products in person at shows, so they know exactly what they're buying.

The other change I will be making is to never do business with the state of Illinois again.

my oldest WIP

Last week I visited my parents in Massachusetts. While I was there, my mother asked me if I wanted any of my old yarn. I couldn't remember buying yarn as a kid, but apparently my stashing instincts started young.

I think back then, given my 50-cent weekly allowance, my main consideration was price. Sparkly was a bonus. That must have been during my rainbows and unicorns glitter sticker phase.

"You can toss it all," I said to my mother. "It's all acrylic and I don't really use that any more."

"What about this skein?" she asked. "I remember you couldn't decide whether to spend that much money on yarn."

I stared at it. I couldn't remember buying it, why I would have wanted that color, or what I was planning to use it for. Yet my mother remembered me agonizing over it. "It probably cost $3."

"That was probably a lot of money to you back then," she said. I thought about the $70 skein of Buffalo Gold in my current stash, which I'd thought was a bargain at $45 and bought with nary a flinch (though I did just get released from a vow of stash chastity). My, how times have changed.

But some things haven't. The bag included the beginnings of a project. Apparently at some point I decided to make a crocheted afghan. Didn't get very far, though.

Unlike some of my current WIPs that have been in progress for, oh, three or four years, I was able to instruct my mother to throw it out with the lot without a qualm. She wanted to give all of it to a local senior center, but that stuff has been sitting untouched for over 20 years and I would have hated to infest their yarn with any unwanted visitors. After having opened my clarinet case for the first time since 1988, to discover that tiny grubs had chewed away half of every reed in the case and had probably had a go at the instrument cork too, I was a little paranoid about the state of the yarn. Yech.