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.

note to self: dye more fiber

Yesterday, when I stocked some fiber at Etsy, I set a new record for number of visitors--triple my previous daily record. Thanks so much, and I'll list more fiber after my January 8 show, if there's any left. I tend to sell out my roving/top at shows, and it takes me a while to build my stock back up so I rarely have any to list online. Must figure out way to up my production ...

2011 shows

Here are the shows where I'll have a booth in 2011:

January 8 ~ St. Distaff's Day Spin-In, Everett, WA
April 2-3 ~ Whidbey Weavers Guild Spin-In, Oak Harbor, WA
June 24-26 ~ Black Sheep Gathering, Eugene, OR
July 28-31 ~ Sock Summit, Portland, OR
September 24-25 ~ Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, Canby, OR
October 14-15 ~ Fibers and Beyond, Bellingham, WA (I will be attending Rhinebeck instead)

I had a fantastic time being on the show circuit in 2010, and I'm really excited about hitting the road again in 2011. I love talking with customers, meeting online friends for the first time, and being with happy, fiber-loving people. Thank you if you came by my booth in 2010, and I hope to see you again in the coming year!

time flies when you're buying yarn

It's been a surprisingly long time since I blogged. I've been busy with wholesale orders for my LYS, Apple Yarns, including a limited edition sock colorway for the holidays. Andrea, the owner, asked for something that would evoke toys under the Christmas tree, and this is what I came up with:




This is Toy Chest, hand-painted on Willow sock yarn (80% superwash BFL, 20% nylon). It's only available on sock yarn during the holidays from Apple Yarns.

What else have I been doing? Besides catching up on my knitting, I've been buying yarn.



Not shown: three other boxes that showed up the following week. We had a highly unusual cold snap (down into the teens) and yes, I actually did use a few of the boxes as insulation. I noticed a frigid breeze blowing through the front door jamb, so I dragged a couple of boxes in front of it. Problem solved, at least till we had to leave the house.

So my supply of undyed yarn is, um, adequately restocked now. I'm celebrating by listing four different colorways on Silk & Silver and a stray skein of Toy Chest at the annual Festivus stocking of Venus Vanguard. Y'all come by now, you hear?