Tag: handdyedyarn

What a Great Week for Dyeing

With the exception of Saturday, we had a great week for dyeing. What is even more exceptional is that it is still only February. The daffodils are in full bloom too. Of course it’s in the upper 40’s today, after a high of 84 degrees yesterday. Yep, that is totally normal for middle Tennessee.

Saturday morning had a very chilly start of 24 degrees, but work must be done. So, we got out there early and got the largest batch of yarn dyed. I forgot to get pictures while it was drying so here’s the buckets after taking them off the lines. The colors were the warm greens, purples, greys, pinks and teals.

We took a day off between batches to allow for drying time and to prep for the next one. Monday was much warmer and we got the second large batch done. The colors we did were cool greens, black, yellows, oranges, reds and neutrals. We took a day off again to let the yarn dry and prep for the last day’s work.

Wednesday was blues day and the weather was even better.

I am very pleased with how great they came out. I am also so glad to put away the dye pots for awhile. LOL!

I am working on labels today while Jerry is back at work in the shop on some new Shawl and Hair Sticks. We are adding back some exotic woods like Purple Heart and Mahogany, as well as restocking the domestic woods.

I have been working on my new design when I can, which is not as much as I would like. Progress has been made though. I completed the edging on the cast on end and have knitted 4 and one half repeats on the main body. The edging will look much better after blocking.

I apologize for the time between posts and for the brevity in this one, but labels await my attention. See you soon!

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It Has Been a Good Week

It has been a good week. Last Saturday, I was at The Yarn Patch in Crossville, TN doing a trunk show. It is a very lovely shop. You should definitely stop in and shop if you are in the area. There’s a bit of my Classic Merino DK there now too. I had a great time meeting knitters and crocheters, helping them select yarn for their projects, and knitting a bit on my latest design. I will get to that in a minute.

On Monday, the weather was finally improved enough to get back out to the dye pots. We dyed the remaining color for the order I showed you last time. It was even dry by the end of the day. That is a bonus this time of year. Once again the color looks a little bit distorted here. It’s actually much greyer in person.

I mentioned above about a new knitting design. I did some preliminary calculations and planning and then cast on with the Classic Merino Bamboo in Ironstone.

The shape is a stole knit from end to end with knitted on edging at each short edge. I began with a provisional cast-on onto a spare circular needle. I dislike this process but it was necessary in order to have live stitches for the edging later. I find it less tedious using a spare needle than using waste yarn when need to use those live stitches later. It saves the effort of putting them onto a needle, which is tedious to me.

I recorded the weight before and after knitting the first two repeats of the body lace chart. That let’s me know how much yardage it will take for a given size shawl. Then, as you can see, I joined a new skein to knit the edging. I want to know how much yardage will be used to knit each edge. I weighed the skein before starting here too. It is a little fiddly with two skeins attached, but it won’t take too long and it is worth it for the information gained. I am happy with how this looks and lace knitting is my happy place!

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A Lot of Dyeing Going On Here

I have knitting to report but before I get to that, here’s what else I’ve been doing. There has been a lot of dyeing going on around here. We will be dyeing our own yarn next month, which is what some of those boxes contain in the back ground. At the moment, however, we are working on a custom dye order for Anne Hanson of Knitspot Designs and Bare Naked Wools.

Before we proceeded with the order, I skeined some of their base to dye samples of the colors they want.

These are the results I sent. The bottom samples are actually less violet in person than they look in the picture. It is actually a silver color. After they approved which colors to use, we spent a couple days getting the dyes mixed and the yarn prepped. We also added a fourth dye pot and propane burner to gain efficiency.

We planned to dye the larger portion, the blue, first. Monday was chilly and damp but was better than Tuesday, so we got the blue yarn dyed before the bad weather started. It will be awhile before we get this fully dry though. We had to bring this all in Monday night. We’ll put it back out ASAP. The silver will get dyed later this week, if possible, but Tuesday was too cold. It makes it difficult to heat the pots and rinse when it below 40 degrees.

It would be great to get the second half of the order dyed by Thursday, if possible, because I am going to The Yarn Patch in Crossville, TN on Friday afternoon. They are hosting a trunk show with our yarns on Saturday, February, 4. I am really excited to be invited. That brings me to the knitting portion of this post. I need some knitting on the needles for the weekend because I will be hanging out all day Saturday at the shop and will want something to knit, right?

If you remember, I worked on a few ideas for shawl designs. I haven’t totally pitched the idea for the triangle one but I am not ready to commit to it yet either. So, I needed something to knit. My son expressed a desire for gloves when I was knitting the ones for Christmas gifts. This began my interim knitting project with some stashed Cascade 220.

This was a quick knit and my needles are once again empty. So, now what to knit? I decided to move on to the other idea I swatched instead. Do you remember this?

My plan is to begin this idea. I am going to knit this design in my Classic Merino Bamboo yarn. I narrowed my color choice down to these three colors: Ironstone on the left, Garnet in the middle, and Fern on the right. I am leaning towards Ironstone. What do you think?

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One More to Go and Other News

In my last post, I was in Asheville for SAFF. We had a local show the next weekend, Fiber in the Boro. Both shows went very well and we now have only one more to go, the East Texas Fiber Festival. I am looking forward to returning to this one since I haven’t been there since 2019. The festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. It was on the way to the festival in 2019 that my trailer broke down. One of the wheel bearings blew and I was never more glad that I have a tandem axle. It could have been much worse if it had happened with a single axle. I was very fortunate that I was less than a mile from a trailer parts supply store who was able to give me a number of a mobile mechanic who was able to get me back on my way in a few hours. After returning home safely, we replaced all the hubs and brakes on the trailer.

Anyway, on to other news. I have been enjoying the two week break from travels. We have been getting some work done, such as restocking some yarns and making more Nostepinnes and Darning Eggs.

There was also finally enough time in my schedule to get some house cleaning done that I have had on my To Do list. Jerry does a great job of keeping the place clean when I am gone, but there were a few jobs that no one had gotten around to for awhile. One of those was the cleaning the windows and curtains. I washed them all on Monday since the weather was still warm and dry. We are getting some rain today and the temperatures are supposed to drop starting tonight. No more open window days for us for awhile. I am glad I could get that task off my list before the cool spell hit. I like when the windows are all clean, especially going into the darker days of winter. It helps brighten up the indoors a bit.

There has been time in the evenings for some knitting too. I have made progress on my Cables and Lace Blanket. The second ball of yarn has been added and I have completed four pattern repeats. That means I am around 25% complete since I plan to do sixteen repeats. I weighed the current ball before beginning the 5th repeat to gauge how much yarn is used per repeat. It weighed 57g.

You may remember that in my last post I was planning to make a new pair of Shapely Mitts with a partial skein of a hand paint from my business stash? The yarn is my Classic Merino Superwash Sock yarn, but the colorway is discontinued.

I have knit one and have started the second. I normally refer tonal solids, but the occasional variegated skein is fun too.

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A Silver Lining and a New Pair of Socks

As I reported in my last post, Hurricane Ian led to a festival cancellation, but there is always a silver lining if you are willing to look for one. If the festival had gone on as planned that would have been great, but only if it wasn’t a wash out. If that had happened though I would have been extremely challenged to get this amount of work done in the two days home I would have had. As it turned out I had four extra days, which was not totally a bad thing after all. What would make it even better is if I managed to make up those lost earnings from the one show in the five remaining, right? One can hope and I am ever hopeful.

So, I have been making good use of those extra days! We got some yarn dyed in some bases and colors that were getting a bit low on stock. In addition to that I also restocked the trailer with more yarn, swifts, darning eggs, and nostepinnes.

I got the dyeing done for New Era Fiber, which would have been put on the back burner for sure if I had only had two days home.

I also hate to get behind in book keeping chores. I am very fortunate that I was able to get all that caught up, including all my quarterly sales tax filings. I almost forgot that I needed to get the oil changed in the truck. I got that done on Monday while I was restocking the trailer. Then on Tuesday I got the groceries and even had time to wash the truck again.

The one thing I haven’t been back to work on yet is my Gansey sweater pattern. I got about 2/3’s of the directions written in the hotel last week for the size I knit. I still have a long way to go so I can see it being maybe next year before it is all written, charted, and tested. I do think I am going to start working on a test knit for one of the smaller sizes I am planning to include, but more on that next time I think.

For now, I do have a finished pair of socks to report. I have already worn them once and I love them! I did run out of yarn but I found a scrap ball from another project in a comparable color. Believe it or not it took all but about two yards even of that yarn, but I made it! The color is a little off here but as you can see the toe on the left sock is close enough don’t you think? I mean when they are in your shoes who sees the toes, right?

I am heading off to Ann Arbor tomorrow for the Fall Fiber Expo. It is supposed to be pretty chilly so all the better to wear all the hand knits!

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Guess What’s Coming to Wisconsin With Me?

I arrived home safely from Pittsburgh last Sunday. It has been enjoyable spending the last week at home. After three weekends in a row, it is a nice break. I’m packing up the truck again tomorrow and leaving Wednesday for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. Can you guess one of the things I will be packing? Do you give up? It’s my newest booth sample, Bensusan.

I took this picture before I put it in the sink for a soak. I used almost all of the three skeins of Classic Merino Superwash DK in Cypress. I came close to running out of yarn. I weighed the finished shawl and it is 297g. I finished the last bit and bound it off last night while Jerry and I were relaxing on Sunday and watching a couple movies.

It is blocking at the moment. It took every one of my Knit Blockers, and I have three boxes. I used a half dozen or so T-pins in addition, to get it all pinned down. I didn’t measure it yet to see if it’s the same size as the one in the pattern for the large directions. It is written for worsted weight yarn and size 8US needles, and I substituted DK weight yarn and size 7US needles.

Now that this project is done I don’t have anything on the needles for my trip. I have the second Gridiron sock that I can start. Maybe that is what I will do.

Tomorrow is a busy day of packing. I plan to get some pictures of my shawl done then. I will be driving all day Wednesday. It’s a 560 mile drive, but at least I stay in my own time zone. Thursday is booth setup day. If I have time in the afternoon or evening, I will write a blog post with a few pictures of Bensusan in the booth. See you soon!

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Midlothian Shawl is Done

This will be a quick update today to show you the finished shots of my Midlothian shawl.

I am very pleased with how this turned out after blocking it. It measured 65″ across the top and 30″ down the center spine. That is smaller than the DK weight version would be, but it is a nice size for a smaller person.

I used almost all of two skeins of Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Cerulean. I made a small modification in size. I worked two extra repeats of the eyelet chart at the top. That was actually good, because I am happy with the size and I had enough yarn. If I had made it any bigger though I would have needed a third skein of yarn.

The picot bind off looks nice but it does require a bit of patience to block them out properly.

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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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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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