I have published my pattern for the shawl. I named it Flames and Lace because there were a lot of other designs already that were using my initial idea, Candle Flames. I have it on the website and on Ravelry for $6.
I did get it written in time for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend. I even wore it in the booth and got many compliments on it. We also have a new batch of Yarn Boxes in some woods we have been out of for a time. We have Mahogany, Oak, and Cherry for $60 and Walnut for $65. They were very popular in the booth!
I am currently in Ohio for the Wool Gathering festival at Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs. I will be getting the booth ready tomorrow. This festival is all outdoors in big tents. We usually have pretty nice weather so I hope that holds true this year too. The market opens on Saturday 10-6 and Sunday 10-4.
I have a few hours of downtime this afternoon and hope to get a bit of knitting done on Saltarello. Here’s how it is looking at this point.
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?
How are you all doing today? We are getting through alright here. We are excited to report that we found actual toilet paper for sale in Kroger on Thursday! We were allowed to purchase two packages. My faith in civilization was restored just a little bit. LOL!
Making bread today
So, lots going on here at home to share with you this week. First of all we were notified that Jerry’s truck damage from the tornado was deemed a total loss. We thought it was going to be repaired all this time but the repair shop discovered after they began working on it that nearly everything was worse than they could determine at first. Mostly it was due to glass, probably not the glass from his truck but flying in the atmosphere. There was a huge debris ball and I suspect that was the culprit. Fortunately his truck was worth more than the payoff so we were able to get a replacement. He decided to go with something a bit different. He likes it a lot. It has a pretty awesome sound system!
2019 Nissan Frontier Pro-4x
I have made some progress on my Honeydew Lace Square fingering weight edition. I have five more rounds of the inner border and then it’s on to the edging.
We are trying to make the best use of our time during this quarantine/safer-at-home time. Jerry has been out in the shop a lot in the last week. He did a lot of tidying, re-arranging and de-cluttering. After that he got back to work on a big batch of Yarn Boxes that were all ready for sanding. We have some available on the website now if you were planning to pick up one at a festival this spring.
sanding, sanding, and more sanding
I have not been idle either. I have been cooking and baking more lately as is evidenced by the bread baking above. I have also been out at the dye pots a couple of times this week. New Era Fiber Mill has been keeping my busy (gainful employment which is appreciated more than ever about now). Here’s a batch I did the other day using my new work space, which I love, BTW. Did I mention my husband is amazing? Because he is. <3
Okay, stay well, and safe everyone! Make good use of your time and search for the silver lining! There is always something to be thankful for.
I am about 10 days into my Holbrook Shawl and the progress is encouraging. I have only 3 repeats of the main stitch pattern, which means 18 more rows, if I want to end it there and move on to the border. I had entertained the idea of adding two more repeats to make it a bit larger, but I am probably just going to go with the size as written. I would like to have this one finished in time to have it in the booth at Pittsburgh and Raleigh next month.
Speaking of fiber festivals, I have been working through my other show prep lists when I am not knitting or taking care of the household and family tasks. It has been a challenge with all the rain this winter but I did manage to get some yarn dyeing done on Monday. This is about half of it which I put back out on the lines today during a short respite in the wet weather. My next opportunity to get it all dry will be Sunday and Monday.
There are things that can be done on rainy days too. I have some Yarn Boxes I need to wax, yarn labels that need printed, cut apart and color labeled, patterns to be printed, etc. Of course it’s that time of year that we all dread; tax time. I have done my Federal return, first quarter sales tax returns, and local business personal property return, so that’s at least out of the way. Whew! I also need to take my truck to get some scheduled maintenance done before I hit the road again.
