Knitting and Yarn Dyeing

Things haven’t slowed down much. We have been working on yarn labeling and restocking a lot. We finished that job on Tuesday. I increased our inventory for the fall since I have a very busy show schedule and don’t want to run out of anything that I may not have time to redye until later in the fall. Most of the yarn is in the trailer but we have about 20% of the inventory in our work room storage now since I couldn’t fit it all in the trailer storage anymore. I hitched up the trailer to the new truck and moved it closer to the work room door to make loading easier.

I have been enjoying my new truck. I got a new Rush plate for the front bumper and we got my tonneau cover transferred over from my old truck. Today we also got a new bed liner mat for it so it’s all ready for traveling next month.

One of my daughters has been doing missionary work in Ireland since January 2021. She made the trip home on Monday, so we have enjoyed visiting with her and other family for the last few days. She brought me some presents; handmade jewelry (which I am wearing and didn’t get a picture of, sorry), candy, and some yarn. I already know what I am going to do with the green Donegal tweed. It will be a Maize cowl, which is a pattern I wrote about 8 years ago for my DK weight yarn. The white yarn is some very lovely lanolin rich hand-spun, which I am not sure what I will use it for yet.

I haven’t started the cowl yet but I did finish Midlothian and start a new shawl last week. I was finally able to get Midlothian blocked today because all the yarn is now out of the way in the work room.

More on this later when it’s off the blocking mats.

The new shawl on my needles at the moment is called Bensusan. I am using my Classic Merino Superwash DK for it in Cypress. The color is a bit off in this picture. It is more accurate on my website if you click through and select the color there. It’s an olivey brown. I like the texture of the cables and twisted stitches, which are fun to knit too.

That’s about it for my post today. I need to get school finished with my youngest. We are on the last chapter of The Goblet of Fire for our reading time and I am looking forward to starting The Order of the Phoenix. :-)

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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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Yarn Dyeing Day Two and Three

Yesterday’s yarn dyeing was greens and a few reddish purples. We dyed 465 skeins and then we prepped for last two days work.

Today’s work was dyeing the rest of the purples, oranges, yellows and warm neutrals. The total skeins for this day was 365, which was a half day. :-)

We have one more morning’s work and all the yarn will be dyed for the second half of the fiber festival season. There are more tasks to be done like printing labels, affixing labels and boxing in the trailer, but the hardest part is done.

I’ll have pictures of my knitting and the last day’s yarn dyeing next time. Thanks for reading!

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Dye Day One

I’ll update on my knitting next time since I haven’t taken a progress picture yet. Here’s what we have been busy with this week.

We dyed 565 skeins yesterday to see what the capacity of the new lines is and we found that out. As you can see it pretty much filled all seven of them.

They are awesome! Having them closer to the work area was great. We will take today to prep the next days work which will probably be done tomorrow. See you soon. 😊

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Quick Knitting Update

I am having a busy week, so this will be a short and sweet update on Midlothian shawl.

I just finished chart 3 and am starting the second skein of Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Cerulean.

I am getting ready to begin restocking my yarn inventory asap. I have several days of preparation to do. I am also wrapping up the end of one school year and preparing for the next. We will probably take a couple of weeks off from school starting next week while I work on yarn. I’ll keep you posted as I can.

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Almost Break Time…Sort Of

I am leaving tomorrow for Mid-Ohio Fiber Fair in Newark. It is a one day show, Saturday 9-5. I will be doing the set up before the show Saturday morning and then packing up at 5. It’s a challenge to do that but it will be fine. I did it last year. So I am driving up tomorrow and will be home on Sunday afternoon.

After this I will be home until the second week in August. That sounds like a break, and it is, but while I am home we will be dyeing this yarn that arrived yesterday.

That is over 450 pounds of yarn. I am looking forward to using my new drying lines though, so there is that. 😁

In knitting news, I am about to start chart 2 on my Midlothian shawl. I thought I was done with chart 1 and had done 6 rows of chart 2. I began row 7 and I had too many stitches for it to work. So, after an investigation and ripping out those 6.5 rows, I am ready to go again. I will be doing one more repeat of chart 1 for a total of 23 instead of 21. I really hope this won’t necessitate using more than 2 skeins. It was either this option or I would have to rip back 4 more rows.

I still haven’t started my other shawl or the second sock. I was sorely tempted last night to avoid the ripping back until later but I pushed through. 🙃 See you soon 😊.

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Miscellaneous updates

I am very excited about the new drying lines. We ended up with 7 which is almost double what we had before. But that’s not the best part; the proximity to our work area is going to be awesome. I can even see it from in the house looking out any back window. That’s a big help when rain is threatening or if it’s windy, for checking on things.

This was taken from under the cover where we set out the dye pots. Our old lines were way over on the other side of the work shop (the green sided building). This location cuts the distance in half at least, and that’s just our lines. Our neighbor’s that we used are even farther. We will be putting these new lines to use in just a few weeks. We have an order of new yarn arriving very soon to restock for the second half of the festival season.

Now on to knitting updates. I finished the first Gridiron sock.

I cast on Midlothian with my Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Cerulean. It doesn’t look like much yet. It’s just a wee baby shawl still.

Because I was asked to share booth pictures from the Great Lakes Fiber Show, here ya go. The weather was pretty nice and we had a good turn out, especially on Saturday.

I have today and tomorrow at home and then I am off to Franklin, IN for Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. I got some house cleaning, and school work with my youngest son done today. I also made a pot of spaghetti sauce for dinner. It’s actually good to be able to slow down for a couple days and reconnect with my home and family. It’s nice to travel and meet with the knitters at festivals but it’s even better to come home.

Speaking of home and good things, I want to share one last set of pictures of our garden. I can take absolutely no credit for it. It’s all Jerry’s doing and he is pretty good at it. I can’t wait for fresh veggies. 🙂

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Some Knitting and Dye Studio Upgrade

I have been knitting on my Gridiron sock. I am almost to the toe decreases on this first sock. I have not cast on yet for my two booth samples but as you can see I have wound a skein of each of the yarns and put them in my knitting bag. I brought them along on my trip to Wooster, OH in hopes of a bit of time to start them.

I will be setting up the booth this morning for the Great Lakes Fiber Show but if I get done early enough I can squeeze in some time to knit tonight.

In other news, while I am away this weekend, my husband is busy upgrading our yarn drying lines. Here is what we have so far. I am excited about this. Not only will there be more room but they are right next to our work area instead of on the other side of the yard. It’s going to be great!

He took this picture yesterday. I’ll update when I get home with the progress.

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Gansey and Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival 2022

It has been a challenging weekend in some ways but I am grateful to be here. All is going pretty good despite said challenges.

When I arrived to set up on Friday morning the wind was very strong. We managed to get the tents set up and it took nearly every bungee cord in my arsenal to get everything strapped down.

The wind was too strong to risk putting out my products, so around 1 pm I went to get checked in at the hotel, eat lunch and reassess in the afternoon. I headed back around 3 pm and decided the wind had calmed enough to put out the stuff. I covered everything and clipped down the covers and zipped up the tents for the night.

Yesterday was hot, but at least it was less windy. There was a breeze which helped with the upper 80s temperature, but it was ok. Storms did roll in in the late afternoon, necessitating an hour early shutdown of the festival so we could batten down the hatches again for the night before they hit.

I packed up all the knit samples and stuff on the tables and covered the yarn displays in plastic and shut it up for the night. I am on the way over soon to set back up for today. There is a chance of rain today too but without so much wind I think. I’m sure it will be no problem and I’m looking forward to another good market day. Yesterday was great as far as attendees go until later in the day when it got hotter and storms were threatening.

I hung the gansey in the booth even though I haven’t had time to work on the pattern yet.

I also tried to get a couple modeled shots in the hotel room this morning. Forgive the goofy model, I have never been very photogenic unless caught unaware. It’s kind of hard to do that with a self portrait though. 😉

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Home At Last

I returned from Minnesota last Tuesday. I have been trying to squeeze in time to get my gansey blocked and write a post. I have been working hard to get my website rebuilt plus other stuff. So I am happy to report that the website is done. I will probably do some more tweaking but it’s functional and I am pleased with it so far. My blog is now part of my shop which I have wanted to do for a long time.

So now on to my gansey and current knitting. I have the gansey blocking at the moment. I blocked it out quite a bit so that when it relaxes it will be closer to the finished dimensions I was planning for.

I only got one project started. It’s another Gridiron sock.

I really enjoy this pattern. It’s just interesting enough to be entertaining but not enough to be distracting if you are watching videos or something like that. They are also comfortable to wear. My last pair are my favorite socks.

Ok gotta go for now. I am going to be going to Lexington, KY on Friday for the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival. I don’t know if I will have time to post again before that. We’ll see. Have a great week!

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