Category: What’s New?

Latest posts about what’s on my mind..

Two Fiber Festivals and What Am I Knitting?

So it has been super busy in my world. I am on the the road traveling between Michigan and Pittsburgh for two fiber festivals. I will get into that first and then on to what am I knitting lately.

Michigan Fiber Festival

Michigan Fiber Festival was awesome as always this year. The weather was lovely for most of the weekend. It did rain some on Thursday morning, which was booth set up day, but after that it was sunny and pleasant. Sunday got a bit hot but it wasn’t too bad. The attendance was good and sales were fantastic. It is so satisfying to meet and chat with other knitters and to help them pick out tools and/or yarn that they will enjoy using. It’s the best!

Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival

On Monday morning I drove from Kalamazoo to Pittsburgh. The drive was fine. I took the Ohio Turnpike since it was the most direct and the fastest route, but oh boy! The tolls are nuts! I paid $48 so far and I think I will be getting another bill from Pennsylvania for the 376.

I arrived at the hotel and got settled in for the week. I had one full day off, which I haven’t had for weeks, and I spent that day just hanging out. I did make a short run to a grocery store up the road and got a few supplies but other than that I spent the day reading and knitting. More on the knitting in a moment.

I got the booth set up on Tuesday and Wednesday was when I had a day of rest. Today, Thursday, is opening day at the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. The market is open on Thursday from 12-7, Friday from 10-5, and Saturday from 9-5. I am glad to be here this year. I have been a vendor in this festival since 2008 and only had to miss one year. That was 2021 because of the date change and a prior commitment. I have met many knitters over the years in this area and I look forward to seeing them each year. It’s especially nice when customers show me what they are doing with their yarn from previous years.

What Am I Knitting?

Which brings me to my own knitting. While I was in Michigan, I finished my shawl! Of course I have had no way to block it yet, but I took a picture in the hotel for you.

I haven’t named it yet or written up the pattern, but you will be the first to know when I have that part done. I will be blocking this lovely thing as soon as I return to Nashville. I think that seeing it after it’s blocked will help in picking out a name, but if you have any suggestions I would be happy to hear them.

For the remainder of my down time in Michigan, which was very little mind you, I worked on my second sock in progress.

New Knitting Project

I also picked out a yarn and color to begin a new project. This one is one of Dee O’Keefe’s designs called Saltarello. I decided to use my Classic Merino Superwash Sock yarn this time in Obsidian. Dee used an 80/20 Merino/Silk blend which almost made me choose the Classic Merino Bamboo, which I used for my shawl I just finished above. I has a nice drape which is similar to a wool and silk blend. However, in looking at the stitch pattern, I felt like the crisper hand and better stitch definition of the 100% wool 2 ply spun with a tight twist, would be a nice substitute. I may be crazy for picking the Obsidian, but I think it will be very dramatic if it doesn’t kill me. I am not gonna lie, the garter tab in black was tedious. Once I was past that part it got easier but I definitely need good light to work on it.

I brought my yarn swift and ball winder along because I knew I would be starting this project before I got home. I hadn’t decided on which yarn I was going to use before I left. It is much easier to consider them when I can see them all hanging in the booth. Here I am winding the yarn for Saltarello and the spare skein I need to complete the sock.

This is my progress on the new shawl at the end of the first chart. I think that when it is blocked it will open up and show the stitch pattern well enough. I will reassess after completing a bit more.

Closing Comments

It is getting close to the time I need to head over to the Double Tree for the market opening today. If you are in the area this weekend, come on by and stop in to say hello. I am in the Green Tree Ballroom in booths 25-26.

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Meanwhile Back in Nashville: a visit to the Work Shop

Back in Nashville

I arrived safely back in Nashville on Sunday. The traffic on the drive was light for most of the day until I got to Knoxville. Between Knoxville and Nashville I hit at least 4 slow downs due to who knows what? There were construction zones a few times, but they didn’t have workers present. So, I finally arrived around 3:30 pm just as a rain storm was bearing down on Nashville. I got the trailer turned in the driveway and my luggage out before it poured. I waited for it to stop raining before unhitching though.

Back On the Road

I took the afternoon to unpack and rest a bit. On Monday I did the grocery shopping and some trailer restocking. Today, Tuesday, I washed and gassed up the truck, hitched up the trailer again, and packed for my next trip tomorrow. I am leaving in the morning for Michigan. I will be setting up the booth on Thursday for the Michigan Fiber Festival. I started vending at this festival in 2007. It is a three day show, Friday – Sunday and is at the Allegan County Fairgrounds. I have always liked this festival but improved more now that I am in the new Expo Building. The light and ventilation is much better than the old white building where I was for the first 12 years.

I will be going straight to Pittsburgh from Allegan on Monday next week. I am once again back for the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival in Green Tree, PA. We will be setting up the booths on Wednesday since the dates for the show are now Thursday-Saturday. It just makes more sense not to drive home. I’ll talk more about this show later though, because I wanted to spend some time in this post with a work shop update.

Work Shop Update

If you recall, we were starting a new batch of Yarn Boxes before I left for Charlotte, NC. While I was there, Jerry got the pieces all cut to final dimensions. That means that the next step is to cut ALL the finger joints. This is a time consuming process. Aside from the time involved in making the actual cuts, the jig is tedious to set up and tweak it until everything is lined up exactly right. If that doesn’t happen the joints won’t line up correctly when we start assembling the sides and bottoms together. Prayers for patience and wisdom are appreciated ;-).

While we are on the topic of the work shop and our processes, I’d like to share a new page I have on the website about that. I have had in mind for awhile to write up a gallery type page that not only shows but also informs interested visitors about what goes into making all of our various products. When people come into our booth at festivals or visit our website, they may not already know that almost everything they see there was hand made by us. From the wood knitting tools and accessories, to the hand dyed yarn and knitted samples, it is all us. That is pretty cool to me and I want to share what it takes for that to happen. I hope it will be interesting and informative and a work in progress itself as we add new items or change how we do things. If you’d like to check it out, here’s the link to a Sneak Peek at Our Production. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think. Is there something you’d like to see there that I didn’t include?

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Quickie Post from Charlotte NC

I thought that for a fun change I would share a quickie post from Charlotte, NC.

Rest stop at the NC Welcome Center near Asheville.
Me with the mountains behind me.
Time for lunch!

I’ve safely arrived in Charlotte and am settled in my hotel room for the night. Now, what to order for supper?

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We are Wrapping Up the Summer Break Time

Yarn Dyeing

It’s the end of July and that means we are wrapping up the summer break time. The yarn is all dyed, labeled and in it’s storage bins. About 2/3 of the yarn is in the trailer and the remainder is stowed in the work room as back up to restock the trailer during the late summer and fall show season.

Yarn Bowls

In addition to yarn dyeing, we have some new Yarn Bowls in the works. We will be bringing a selection of these to the festivals and adding them to the website. There are a large variety of woods and sizes, so the best way to see them is in person. The woods used include oak, cherry, walnut, and mahogany. We ended up with so many different sizes that we will have a range of prices to fit most budgets and uses. They will vary from $40 to $70.

Fiber Festivals

I will be heading off to Charlotte, NC on August 9th for the Southern Comforts Fiber Market. The festival will be at the Oasis Shriner’s Auditorium on August 11-12, 2023. We have a full schedule after that, so hopefully you can make it out to one. I would love to see you!

Knitting

I have been working on my new shawl design when I can. I would love to have this finished and ready for displaying in the booth soon. You may recall that I am using my Classic Merino Bamboo yarn for this shawl. The pattern will be forth coming as soon as I decide on a stopping point.

At this point I could work one more repeat of the lace pattern and still have enough yarn left for the edging. I am currently on the the third skein. The shawl measures around 65″ long unblocked. If I add another section and the edging, it will add around 7″. That’s 72″ before blocking. I think I may want it about a foot longer. That’s my indecision at this point. Do I stop at a 3 skein project? Or continue on and use some of a 4th skein?

Is bigger better in this case? ;-)

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A Peek Inside My New Office

In early May our youngest daughter moved out. A few weeks ago we finally got around to turning her room into my new office. I have been putting it to good use ever since then. It’s nice to have a work space where I can leave stuff out if/when I get interrupted from a task in progress. In the past I would have to do most work from the dining table. Having my own office has been a wish that is at last fulfilled.

my desk and sitting area in my new office

I love that I also have this set up as my order filling/shipping station. Everything is at hand which is so wonderful! No more searching for the scissors, tape, packing material, etc.

office and shipping supplies in my new office

This weekend I am working on yarn labels. It’s quite a large batch (1,940 to be exact!) to print, cut and then color label. It is inevitable that I will not get this all done in one sitting so it’s nice to be able to walk away without moving it all to another location.

yarn labels awaiting color name stickers

I hope to get the labels ready to attach to the yarn by Monday. My work room is filled to overflowing at the moment with the yarn that we dyed Thursday, Saturday and Monday.

lots of sorted hand dyed yarn awaiting labels

It took three days of prep work before the first dye day. We also had one prep day in between each of the other two dye days.

soaking yarn for a days work and dye mix buckets
four dye pots set up with tables for sorting and rinsing

We had some rain on Saturday afternoon through Sunday evening. That caused a delay in getting some of the yarn dry but Monday through Wednesday were sunny, so all of the last two days of dyeing were dry by Tuesday evening.

That covers a good bit of what’s been happening around here. I better get busy on those yarn labels. Thanks for reading!

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Time for a Few Much Needed Upgrades

It was time for a few much needed upgrades to our business equipment. A few weeks ago we made a purchase that we put off for too long. We were making do with an under-powered belt sander for ages. We kept tinkering with it to make it work. We finally decided it was time to upgrade. It is so much better and it’s even quieter, which is a bonus. I think it was worth it. We should have done it years ago. We got a small batch of Yarn Boxes sanded on the new machine. Big thumbs up!

time for an overdue upgrade

We have also needed to replace the trailer for awhile. We bought the black 6×12 in 2007. It has seen much service and we have kept it going but on my recent trip to Houston I was having trouble with my back door bar lock. It kept slipping out of the top guard and I had to keep a close eye on it and rig up a bungee cord to make sure it would stay closed. It can be welded at the frame on the bottom to repair the damage. It’s probably best for local use at this point though rather than long distance road trips.

We decided that if we would rather replace it than repair it, why not go ahead and get a larger one? I have been maxed out on space for a long time. This is a picture from a few years ago, but it’s accurate as far as how full it was. The front end was full to the top too.

So on Thursday we got this 7×16 and I am so excited! It is so much easier to access my stock. It has a nice roomy side door with a bar lock which I have wanted for a long time. It even has a work light inside which comes on when the side door is open. In my old trailer, I had to use magnetic flash lights stuck to the roof when I was pulling booth restock after dark.

I hope that the V-front will help some with gas mileage. I have only driven it home from the place we bought it and it was empty at the time, so we’ll see. We spent all day getting all the inventory moved over and I am really pleased with all the room now. This is going to make it so much easier to restock the booth. I will have a much easier time accessing the boxes I need.

When my booth stock and fixtures from the front end, plus those tables and checkout podium at the back right, are unloaded, the restock boxes lining the sides will be easy to access. It’s gonna be awesome! It almost makes me wish my next festival wasn’t almost six weeks away. Nah, just kidding. I am glad for the time at home. However, summer break time means it’s also yarn dyeing time.

We got a bit of a head start before leaving for Houston Fiber Festival. By the way, it was a great show! It was hot as the hinges of hell, but a great show, nonetheless. We will probably be back. But, I digress.

We dyed a new color in all four bases. I decided to call it Wisteria. It is replacing the Lavender in our palette, so all of the skeins left in that color are on sale for $20 while supplies last. We have received our order of yarn from the mill. I am working on dye preparations at the moment. So there will be more yarn on the lines soon!

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A New Acquisition and Other Updates

Last week I went to get my oil changed at the dealership and something caught my eye. We ended up making a new acquisition which wasn’t as spontaneous as it sounds. We have loosely been planning to sell or trade our 2014 F-150 while it still has a good market value. When we spied this little number we decided maybe the time was right.

It was the color that claimed our attention. It looks a bit more orange than this picture depicts. The color is called Red Chili Pepper. This one is Jerry’s since I have my new one from last year. I love the wheels on it! They just go with the color perfectly.

Aren’t they a cute pair? We should be set on vehicles for awhile now.

You may notice my trailer is hitched to my truck. I took this photo the night before I left for Lexington, KY. Last weekend was the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. We had another awesome turn out despite the rainy start on Saturday. The skies cleared out by midday and then Sunday was gorgeous. It was cooler then it usually is too.

I set up our tents and booths under the Pavilion on Friday. When the weather is good, this is a nice spot to be. The natural light accentuates the products. A bonus is having my trailer and truck right next to my location, which is a aid in restocking the booth, as well as making set up and break down more convenient.

I am back home today but I am on the road to Wooster, OH on Thursday. I am setting up on Friday at the Great Lakes Fiber Show. This show is one of the ones I have been attending since our first year of full time festival vending in 2007. It’s one of my favorites. The trailer has been restocked already, including the dye order I did in February for Bare Naked Wools. I will be delivering that to them at the festival.

While I am running around doing the festival end of the business at the moment, Jerry is hard at work at the lathe. He’s been working on new Yarn Bowls for quite a few weeks now.

Here’s a sneak preview of a couple new Yarn Bowls that I will be bringing to the festival.

I am going to close and finishing my packing. Thanks for reading!

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Good Morning From Ann Arbor, Michigan

I am writing to you this morning from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am going to be setting up the booth today for the Spring Fiber Expo. This will be the third festival for us this year. The first two, Carolina Fiber Festival and Middle Tennessee Fiber Festival, were fantastic! They met and exceeded our expectations. So, the year is off to a good start.

I wanted to write a post so many times in the last few weeks but you know how it is I am sure. So, here I am with a couple of hours before set up time and finally the energy to get it done. The weeks have been filled with the usual tasks. I have done a bit more dyeing to restock a few popular yarns that were already getting low. We have some more Shawl and Hair Sticks on the website. Thanks to my husband’s diligence and hard work, we have eight different woods available.

I made the drive up to Ann Arbor yesterday. I had a bit of time last night to knit on my shawl. I am into the second skein of yarn now. Here’s a picture I took this morning in the hotel room. It’s gray and rainy at the moment so it’s not a great one.

I need to get my lunch packed and head over to the fairgrounds in about an hour. See you soon!

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Maize Cowl Knitting Pattern

Maize Cowl Knitting Pattern

I really like my new Maize Cowl. I am pretty sure that it will be my go to scarf when the weather cools off. For Nashville that will be quite awhile yet. I have a project page for it on Ravelry.

Maize Cowl Knitting Pattern

I love the texture and ease of knitting in this design. I wrote it about 8 years ago as pattern support for my Classic Merino Superwash DK yarn. It was a new base that I wanted a one skein project to help promote it. Up until now I have only had it available in my booth. To celebrate my new website however, I have decided to publish it online. It is on my website only, for a $4 download. I haven’t listed it on Ravelry. I may in the future, but for now it’s only on my website or in my booth at festivals.

Speaking of festivals, I am going to be in Charlotte, NC next weekend for the second annual Southern Comforts Fiber Market. I will be leaving on Wednesday and setting up the booth on Thursday. The festival happens on Friday and Saturday. I have really enjoyed my nice long break, but it will also be good to get back to the festivals. I like being with the knitters and talking about yarn.

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What a Week

It has been a full week around here. We finished the yarn dyeing on Monday. That day we dyed greys and teals. It was a half days work.

220 skeins

After we were all cleaned up for the day we got a text from the Ford dealership where we were looking into getting a new truck for me since my beloved 2014 F 150 has 120,000 miles on it now and Jerry wanted me to get a new one. The sales guy had one with the specs we wanted but it had some transportation damage that needed repaired. We went out and took a look and agreed on our terms for the purchase. From there it as a few days wait for the repairs to be completed.

In the mean time my mother, who had rapidly declining health and was in a nursing home took a down turn on Wednesday. We went out there and sat with her for awhile but she was totally unconscious. She passed away later that night. We knew it was coming and most of the arrangements were already taken care of. In a way it was a relief and probably was to her as well since her quality of life was reduced so much in the last two years. I am hopeful she is reunited with my Dad and happy for the first time in I can’t remember when.

Anyway, so around this time I got a contact from the alpaca mill I do dyeing work for that they had work for me. That was delivered to me on Thursday. We also got the call that the truck was ready so we went and finished that purchase. So I have a new ride.

We got the fiber order dyed today and can now get back to work getting all the yarn labeled.

Oh, I almost forgot! I am so close to finished the Midlothian shawl. I haven’t had much knitting time this week but as soon as I can devote a couple hours to do the picot bind off, it’s done. Maybe by my next post I will have a finished project to show you.

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