A Big Fairy Wonderland

For those of you who think that TNNA is a big fairy wonderland of knit/crochet/needlework goodness to which only a very few are permitted to enter, you are right. It was fun, big, big fun. I went with Mandy, a friend and owner of the fabulous Windy Knitty, fortunately located just a short walk from where I am tethered. If you ever get to go to TNNA, I recommend you get the deal I got, which is I got to tell Mandy how to spend her money! (Since her shop is my LYS, I might have used my influence to encourage her to buy some things that I would like. Okay, that's exactly what I did.) We saw some great new things. My absolute favorite is an accessory that can be a sweater closure, a shawl pin, or just a decorative bauble. I intend to own loads of them. On the dark side of things, I must warn you that novelty yarnageddon once again approaches, though we did not succumb, nor were we even tempted. Be sure to visit Windy Knitty because many, many wonderful new things will soon be on her shelves.

Columbus was lovely, with delicious food and drink within walking distance of the hotel and convention center. All the stories you've ever heard about Jeni's Ice Cream are true. Over the days we were there, Mandy and I tried 13 flavors. My favorite was Goat Cheese with Roasted Cherries. Jeni now has a cookbook out, a copy of which--along with an ice cream maker--will be winging its way to Sir Eli of Northampton, who, I am told, was bemoaning a lack of savory ice creams available on the market. Eli, my friend, Jeni will get you started, but I suspect you will soon be inventing your own concoctions shortly.

The Craft Dungeon has been a hive of activity. I dyed lots of goodies for Mandy's booth at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Fair this past weekend. Now I am stockpiling for The Fold's booth at Sock Summit. I am hoping to get far enough ahead on the keystone base yarns to add a few more exotic selections to the line, including some camel, some additional silk blends, and perhaps some mawata.

In case you haven't heard it yet, Stash and Burn did a very nice bit of commentary on Fleur de Fiber on the most recent podcast (ep. 106). I sponsored a giveaway for them, and they had the chance to knit with some of my yarn. Stash and Burn has been one of my favorite podcasts for some time, and if you've never listened, be sure to give them a go.

Ack! I just looked at the clock at the bottom of the screen, and it has turned into July! So much to do...

What I Learned

Whew! I like to travel and have new experiences, but man-oh-man have I scheduled myself into a few corners.

I just got back from a combined trip to see friends in Northampton, MA and to attend the Squam Arts Workshop. The trip to Northampton was big fun, marked by not one but two home Chopped competitions. (The Reader's Digest version of Chopped is that 4 contestants are presented with a basket of mystery ingredients with which to prepare a course. Pantry items may also be used. In each round, a contestant is eliminated until the dessert course, when a winner is named.) We decided on 4-5 ingredients to make a meal. (Dessert was separate.) Sir Eli directed the competition and chose the teams. On night one, he and his dad shopped, and his mom and I cooked. We were presented with shrimp, calamari, radicchio, chocolate mint, and potato chips. From that came grilled radicchio dressed with balsamic vinaigrette topped with sauteed calamari, shrimp with a chip/cumin/chili crust and a watermelon/strawberry/basil/chocolate mint salsa cruda. Let me tell you, crushed chips give panko a run for its money as a crust. Night two saw his parents confronted with ingredients he and I procured. We presented them with Sockeye salmon, dandelion greens, ginger beer, sunchokes, and cherry fruit leather. The mystery basket produced a ginger/soy/cherry glazed salmon (fruit leather melts in warmed ginger beer and it makes a fab glaze), dandelion greens with a cherry vinaigrette, sunchoke puree, and a ginger beer/lemonade/vodka aperitif. (Sir Eli got a virgin version.) It was great fun, and I recommend it as a fun dinner party activity if you have some adventurous cooks in your crowd. (Ample cocktails are a must.)

From Northampton, I travelled up to Holderness, NH to the Squam Arts Workshop. I learned a few things:

• I get squeamish about anything described as "transformative."



• I have determined that I am a short hugger. I met some long huggers at Squam, and I am decidedly in the short hug range of things.



• I am now excited to sew. The Reinvention sewing class I took got me hyped about uses for that big, white Singer paperweight in the Craft Dungeon.



• My over-packing has reached epic proportions. I had four knit hats with me. Four. Plus a sunhat. It got worse from there.



• I learned a lot about how I want to display my yarns in retail situations.



• You can be 1039 miles from home and meet your neighbor from five houses away for the first time. True story.

More later. I'm off to TNNA.

Hello Again

Sorry to have been absent for so long. It was all for good reason, but I need to be more attentive to the blog lest the corners get as dusty as those in my house!

So, what have I been doing? More dyeing, dyeing, dyeing. I will be trying out some exciting new bases soon, including Frog Tree's Pediboo. It feels divine in the skein, and I can't wait to see what happens when I add color. I also have some new 70/30 Merino/Silk and 50/50 Merino Silk, and 70/20/10 Merino/Cashmere/Silk to play with. I'm waiting for a shipment of silk hankies (aka mawata) and an Angora/Silk yarn. It's a wonder I ever leave the Craft Dungeon!

Leave the Dungeon I did, for my fourth Sock Camp. It was, as ever, a lovely time, with friends old and new. The weather wasn't so delightful this trip, but that's okay. Hula Hooping in the rain adds to one's character. I got to spend my birthday dyeing with Tina Newton, and that's just about as good as it gets. Classes with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Anne Hanson, and JC Briar were just great, too. Anna Zilboorg was a special guest this session, and it was nice to see her once again, having had the pleasure of spending several days with her at the last Cat Bordhi retreat that I attended.

The Husband had a conference in Boston, and I tagged along. I hadn't spent any time in the city (except for a brief stop back in the touring theater days) in about 18 or 19 years, back when I lived in Waltham and worked downtown and in Harvard Square. As in every city, much has changed, yet much remains the same. The swan boats still float in the lagoon in the Public Garden, and the city is still daunting to navigate, but it was great to be there, though the weather was less than welcoming. We were also there on the lead-up weekend to the marathon. We arrived Wednesday, and on Friday--boom!--all these skinny people in Spandex arrived. For a bunch of fast runners, they all walked very slow, and the area we were staying in (Copley, which was also the finish line for the marathon) got terribly crowded. We did catch the Chihuly exhibit at the art museum, and that was more color inspiration that I can describe here. (Those photos are on my phone, and it takes forever to upload from the phone to Flickr, so no snaps here for now, but it was glorious. There is a slideshow on the link I provided.) I have now seen Chihuly installations in two very different venues, a museum and a botanical garden (a glass conservatory), and both have been spectacular. An added bonus to the trip were getting to see Sir Eli of Northampton, who was in Boston overnight with his mom and dad in anticipation of his trip to London with his grandma. (Lucky kid got to go to The Globe, do a Harry Potter walking tour, see the sunflower seed installation at the Tate Modern, and a million other cool things. No word yet on whether a Royal Wedding floaty pen was secured, per my request.) I also took the train to Natick to see my old roommate. I toured the arts school where he heads the Theater Department, and we squeezed as much catching up as we could in the couple of hours before I had to train back and he headed into rehearsal. I did get to visit a delightful new yarn/fabric/crafting shop in the Central Square area called Gather Here. It is a great concept and I hope they're really successful. I wish it were closer so that I could up my sewing skills, which are sorely lacking.

I have finished several projects, but the cutest by far is the kimono I knit for my friend Kelli's new arrival. I will be meeting Eloise next week and will be delivering her new sweater, both knit and dyed by yours truly.

In exactly a month I head to New England again, this time for the Squam Arts Workshop. I am very excited because it will also be my first retail show for my yarns. There is a one-night marketplace at the Workshop, and I am thrilled to get my goods out there! Added bonus: a few days in Northampton with Sir Eli and his folks, a stop at Webs, and who knows what else!

In Clover

Well, I fell off the 30 Lists wagon. Other things have been demanding my attention:

Meet Baby Dill, Clover, and Shiny Happy People, all in Atlantis Silk.

Chicago now has a new LYS, Windy Knitty, and it is open for business. She has a great selection of yarns...including mine! There is also Malabrigo, Cascade, Three Irish Girls, Sweet Georgia, and a whole lot of other fabulous lines.

I will be heading off for Sock Camp soon, and there is homework to be done. I think I know where I am headed on that front, but I've changed my mind a few times now, so we'll see. As always, I am looking forward to my trip to Seattle and Port Ludlow. Perhaps I'll get far enough this weekend to offer a few homework sneak peeks.

Coincidence?

So, while my French press of coffee and chicory was steeping, this is what I posted on Facebook:

"Wishing for warm days so I can knit and spin on the porch and hula hoop outside. I'm getting tired of the hoop bumping into the sofa."

Then, I popped over to the 30 Days of Lists blog to find that today's list is Wishes. Lucky me, I got a jump start!

1. Warm days for the reasons mentioned above.
2. Hoping my husband's weekend trip is less stressful than we anticipate it will be.
3. Hoping to build my business in creative ways. Wishing for inspiration to make it happen!
4. I wish for many more healthy days with my cat, Pitch.
5. Wishing for the opportunity to see as many friends as possible this year.
6. Still wishing for that Estonia trip to happen.
7. I'm hoping my friend's new LYS will be a rousing success--and she will sell lots of my yarn!
8. Hoping for a fab vacation with my husband that is just for us--no business, not knitting-related.

My Favorite Things

Today's list is favorite websites/blogs. Here goes:

• Amazon.com I shop there ALL THE TIME, though I feel guilty because some of the profits end up in the hands of political interests with which I do not agree.
• Sundance Catalog.com Yes, I want to live in that catalog. I want everything, almost.
• Peapod.com Online grocery shopping saves me $$ and keeps me from buying impulse items. I also get to avoid the annoyances of the Jewel. I still shop at a small, independent grocery for some items and am looking forward to the return of the Farmers Market.
• Posie Gets Cozy Her projects, be they knitting, crochet, embroidery, home improvement, cooking, or what have you, are so aesthetically pleasing. She does cute very, very well.
• Etsy 'Nuff said.
• Fryd + Design Short, sweet posts with delightful pics.
• Knitspot Anne Hanson is zooming to the top of my list of favorite designers. I also love her pics, and she is a great teacher.

There are others, too, but I've really pared down my blog reading. It all sort of fell apart during the Blogspot changeover, and I need to reorganize my blog reading mechanisms.

By the way, I added some additional colors of Atlantis Silk to the Etsy shop. Tarnished and Favorite Jeans went up yesterday, and Clover, Pistachio, I Didn't Wear White, A Touch of Envy, Shiny Happy People, and Baby Dill are coming today or tomorrow.

Bagged

What's in my bag? Well, I took a few things out of my purse and threw them in my knitting bag tonight, which has made this less dodgy.

• wallet
• keys
• two project bags in case I couldn't decide what I wanted to work on
• some tissues
• I thought there was lipstuff in there, but when I went digging for it, I was mistaken.

That's it. My purse is another story: 6 lipsticks. It goes downhill from there.

Playing Catch Up

I am behind on my weekend goals and behind on my lists.

Least Favorite Words

My high school friend, Jon Wurster, is the drummer for both Superchunk and The Mountain Goats. He is also a comedian who has been touted as one of the funniest Tweeters/Facebookers out in the Tweetisphere. He has a regular feature called WordHate, where he throws out one of his least favorite words, and hilarity often ensues. Here are a few of my least favorite words:

Squee (Knitters use this all the time, but I cannot abide it.)
Awsomesauce (Not a real word, but this one gets to me.)
Expresso (While a legit spelling & pronunciation, it always reminds me of the common mispronunciation of "expecially" for "especially." Ack.)

Blog Goals

Blog at least twice a week
Add more pictures
Be more entertaining
Activate the blog for Fleur de Fiber

Weekend Goals

1. Dye the skeins of yarn that are already soaking in the bucket.
2. Help my friend price her merchandise so that she can get her store open.
3. Clear off the dining room table.
4. Hang up the clothes that are in a pile upstairs.
5. Pick up the stitches to start the next section of my shawl.
6. Load Quickbooks on laptop and upgrade.
7. Get my yoga stuff together in prep for taking class Monday.
8. Reskein dry yarns and load them into etsy shop.

March Forth

After much ado, the shop is open!

This weekend I am instituting a no green dye zone! I would dye green after green if I could!

Today's List is "My Playlist."This has been the rotation as of late:

1. Whatever is on NPR. (Sadly, it's pledge week, so that limits things)
2. WXRT, Chicago's rock station. They play classic rock to new things. I like the morning DJs, but I usually don't listen that early.
3. Springsteen, always. I can listen to some albums (Greetings from Asbury Park, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born to Run) every day. For others (Nebraska, The River, the non-E Street ones) I have to be in a particular mood.
4. Mumford & Sons, Little Lion Man
5. Podcasts (knitting related, The Moth)
6. David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Jumping on a Bandwagon, Try Again

Okay, if you saw the post from yesterday, ignore it because it has been disappeared. I, apparently, cannot follow instructions.

So, I have decided to jump on the 30 Days of Lists bandwagon (after falling off once already.) Here goes:

#1 A Few Things About Me
Knitter
Dyer
Wife
Cat Person Who Also Loves Dogs
Shoe Enthusiast
Boot Collector
Bad Housekeeper
Good Cook
Former Professional Stage Manager
Former Executive Director of a Not-for-Profit Dance Company
Springsteen Fan

#2 Things I Am Good At
Cooking
Starting Projects
Writing Grants
Bargain Shopping
Finding Something I Have in Common with Almost Everyone I Meet

#3 Thing I Am Looking Forward To
Moving to Another Place When My Husband Retires (PNW, please)
Visiting Boston for the First Time in Forever
Having a New Kitchen
Warm Days on the Porch/Balcony
Walking By the Lake When it Isn't Freezing
Visiting Estonia
Many More Happy, Healthy Days with My Cat, Pitch
A Vacation with My Husband This Year

Soon, My Pretties

I know I have been yammering on about the dyeing forever. Some of you have been hearing about it for forever and a day. I promise that there will be yarn in the etsy shop next week, if not sooner.

This weekend I delivered a wholesale order to a new shop opening here in my neighborhood. I could not be more thrilled. The shop is going to be GORGEOUS. The owner has done a magnificent job, and has done it up right: nice, neutral fixtures, thoughtful space design, great lighting, and well-selected product lines. I am thrilled and honored that I get to be a part of it.

If you would like to be on Fleur de Fiber's notification list, head over to the etsy site and contact me and I will add you.

Root Beer

As of late, my routine is something like this: I get up, throw on my dyeing "costume," which consists of black yoga pants, a black shirt, a fleece jacket, wool socks, dye-spattered Birkenstock clogs, and a wool hat. It's been pretty cold here, and the craft dungeon has been a bit chilly, but there's no question that it's a lot of look.

Tonight the husband picked up dinner and was kind enough to bring me a diet root beer, one of the old-fashioned ones in a vintage-y brown bottle. Those bottles just make you want to blow into them while you're drinking, making crazy wind whistle sounds, which is just what I was doing. My husband looked up from his dinner, saw me in my dyeing get-up and said, "You look like a yarn hobo." I couldn't deny it.

Goodbye, Little Lion

Papel. Pel. Pelly Bel. Babyhead. Little Lion. Trotwood. Little Boy. Little Furry Buddy.

He grew into his ears, but kept his kitten voice. Never walked when he could trot. From the little tuft of hair on his left ear to the "racing stripes" around his back legs to his Q-Tip tail, he was the cutest, sweetest, most lovable tabby cat ever, and we told him so all the time.

Decisions, Decisions

Today I made the decision not to dye. My friend's shop is opening a bit later than I thought, and I have a bit more time to finish her order, which I should be able to do with no problems once the new motor for the electric skein winder gets here, provided I can install it without causing harm to man, beast, or object. My knitting has been sorely neglected, and I have some projects that need to get moving. I designed (on paper) a cowl that needs to be knit up pronto. It's for a swap, and the sooner it gets done, the sooner I can write up the pattern (if it is worthy), and the sooner the package can get mailed. One less thing to cause me distraction.

Other decisions are looming. Our "baby cat" (who is 14) is not doing so well, and we may have to make a decision about that sometime soon. He's been having occasional rough days for some time, but he always seems to bounce back, though he's just a shadow of his former self. The bad days seem to be coming a bit more frequently, and it's clear that, even on a fine day, his batteries are drained. But, every time he trots from one end of the house to the other (he doesn't walk unless he's punky), we look at it as a positive sign. He's been especially chilly, so this morning I wrapped him up in a fleece blanket burrito. Sometimes he still looks like a kitten.

I wish there was a yarn that was as soft as the fur right behind his ears. It is the softest, sweetest thing I've ever touched.

My Dr. Might Sew, But He Doesn't Knit

True story: If you tell your osteopathic surgeon that your hands are blue because you are dyeing, he's going to think you just told him you are dying. Lesson learned. Homonyms will getcha.

I'm Dyein' Here!

I am spending copious amounts of time in the Craft Dungeon. All this dyeing means that there isn't much knitting. Not much at all. As in none. Zip. If not for knit night on Tuesdays, it would be a knitting desert around here.

Today I'm dyeing up a seacell (rayon) and silk blend lace yarn. It is gorgeous, shiny, luxe stuff, but it smells awful--really, really, really awful--while it's being dyed. The end result is so gorgeous that it's worth a bit of suffering on my part.

When I buy yarns, often they arrive packaged with ribbons, tissue paper, and plastic bags in a shipping envelope. The plastic bags seem like overkill, and don't get me started on the ribbons. They are pretty and festive, but they often end up in the trash, and who needs that? My plan is to wrap the yarns in natural, unbleached tissue (recycled and recyclable) tied up with yarn, plenty of which is lying around the Dungeon. I'm going to ship in Tyvek envelopes (unless a box is required), which are water resistant. What are your thoughts on packaging? (I should also note that I'm going to be sending a little extra with the yarn--tea from Steven Smith Teamaker. Their teas are exquisite, and if I like them, I think you will, too!

Comfort Zones and Accidents

We all have them, and we spend time trying to step out of the former and avoid the latter. One that I have been fighting for some time is the concept of dyeing a skein of yarn that isn't my personal cup of tea. I remind myself time and time again that there are infinite combinations and just because a particular skein is not the first one I'd grab doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't fall in love.

In my teens, my friend and I used to mutually despise yellow. We even went as far as to be a bit superstitious about it, blaming unfortunate incidents on the presence of yellow in the immediate surroundings. At some point, that changed for me and, in this house as well as my last, I have had yellow or gold rooms. My current house has four. I am sitting here looking at two balls of golden yarn destined to be a shawl. Yellow has gained ground in my color world.

Dyeing can be thrilling, and sometimes there are unexpected results. A while back, I put some skeins in the pot with the three different dyes that make up the colorway. The secret to that particular colorway is to limit agitation so that there are flashes of color without much mingling and the natural color of the skein still remains visible. For some reason, I stirred the pot, literally. Oops. What came out was a new colorway because it shares very little resemblance to its cousin, and it may just be one of my favorites. And it has yellow in it.

Getting Ahead of Myself

I do it all the time. I get so caught up with the possibilities that the here-and-now gets in my way, and I end up tripping all over myself.

Today I found myself thinking about seeds. Here in Chicago, you really can't plant things outside until after Mother's Day. That's a long way off, and there's much to do between now and then. Additionally, I've not had much luck with my own seedlings. They tend to be spindly, weak, little things that wither in the urban jungle of my backyard. I do, however, have a worm bin just packed full of castings (that's a polite way to say worm poo) that could provide a better starting medium than what I've used in the past. I'm going to be ambitious and try it again.

There are seeds of a different kind that have been germinating here for some time. As you may remember from posts-long-gone, I dubbed the basement The Craft Dungeon, and in said Dungeon, experiments of the dyeing type were taking place. I became more comfortable with my technique and my materials, and I was producing colors that I thought could be attractive to yarnaholics who weren't just me. Last winter's fall and subsequent surgery postponed my plans, but didn't dampen them. So, I finally feel ready to tell you all that there is a new yarn line soon to be out in the world.

I will be launching the etsy store soon. You'll be the first to know.

So You Think You're So Smart...

Okay, about that cowl and my "improvements." Well, I solved a design issue, but I created a construction issue. For some reason that I just can't discern, grafting the two halves--which, theoretically, should have been seamless--caused some areas of the pattern to create weird little poofs. They're a bit too odd to be "design elements" and so it's back to the drawing board. I think what I really need to do is get out some knitting graph paper and design my own cowl. It will be a good exercise for me, and I'll let ya know how that turns out. By the way, do you know how long it takes to kitchener 119 stitches to 119 other stitches? I believe that unit of time is called a foreffingever.

One One One One One

That was predictable, right?



I wish I could say that 2011 has started off with a bang, but, alas, it hasn't. It started out with sniffle, then a whine, then a honk, and it progressed from there. The sofa in the knitting room still has a dent from the three days I spent there, both day and night. Admittedly, I do not suffer illness of any magnitude well, but this cold wiped me out. I am feeling better, but now my sleep rhythms are completely upside-down, and I was fully awake until 5am this morning. Fortunately, though, the calendar has provided me with a do-over of sorts, so I am declaring today the first day of my 2011. It's got an extra "one" in it, so that counts.



I've got some new projects on the needles, both of which have been subjected to my tinkering. I started one of the many pairs of mittens out there that are based on the ubiquitous Owls sweater. After knitting 90% of one mitten, I decided that the construction wasn't making me happy. The thumb was accommodated with a series of increases that essentially followed the lifeline on the palm, and while that sounds interesting, it resulted in a mitten that pulled in an odd way, and so it went to the frog pond. Instead, I am Frankenknitting a few patterns together to make a mitten that's making me a bit happier.



I have signed myself up for a Mardi Gras swap on Ravelry. I have decided to knit my giftee a lacy cowl made with some of my hand dyed yarn. The pattern is pretty (but I shan't name it here because of the Ravtroversey which, apparently, surrounds it), but it isn't symmetrical. The motif at the top and the bottom are mirrored, and the stitch pattern in the middle runs gracefully and logically from one side, but then it kind of slams into the border at the other end. After knitting 75% of it, I decided to frog it and make some changes. I am knitting it in two parts, from the ends in, and I am going to graft the halves in the middle. In the past, I have said my knitting would go faster if I didn't stop to admire every row. It would also go faster if I didn't re-knit every project at least once.



I am doing that "Pay it Forward" thing that's been making the rounds. It's the one where I promise you something handmade if you post on your blog or Facebook page the promise to do the same. I have one more slot open, so if you are interested in receiving something handmade by me in 2011 (it could be anything, mind you, not just knitting, as I wield some mean recipes and I own the Cadillac of hot glue guns), you must promise the same for five others. Comment here or on my Facebook page, and the next person I hear from is in. (If you decide to do it, I can provide you with the "text" for the Pay it Forward promise.) I'm really excited about the folks who are on the journey with me so far. One of them is a male friend from high school who I haven't seen in about 25 years! I have already been plotting and planning about the "right" items for each of them.


It's a beautiful, snowy day here in the city, so I need to do a bit of shovelling. Perhaps I'll take a bit of a snow walk for some exercise and to help ease myself toward being tired enough to fall asleep at a normal hour. Wish me luck, but if you see me Tweeting in the wee hours, you know I'm in deep trouble. (Insomnia often results in reckless internet shoe shopping, and that's just not good...)

One One One One

Hi there. Wow, it's been a long time. I can't promise how often I'll be stopping in, but I'm gonna try to be better.

Since it's 1.1.11, it is de rigeur to set a few goals for the year.

1. Less takeout and more cooking at home.
2. More exercise.
3. Less retail therapy. Shop in my stash more often rather than buy new yarn. Desire a new pair of shoes? Go to the shoe closet and pick out a pair rather than succumb to the temptation for a new pair. (I admit it: this will be a hard one.)
4. Plant the garden this year.
5. Rearrange the rooms I have wanted to revamp for a while: the TV/knitting room, the upstairs living room, the back room upstairs, both pantries, the office area.
6. Purge/clean the basement.
7. Purge the cookbook collection.
8. Hang all art/pictures. If there isn't a place to hang it, purge it.
9. Spin more.
10. Waste less time. Limit computer time. (Use an egg timer if necessary.) Turn on the TV less, but always multi-task when the TV is on.
11. Spend more time on the business.
12. Purge the Ravelry queue, if only a little bit.
13. Fewer pajama days.
14. Spend more time with friends.

All right, y'all, hope to see more of you in he coming year. Happy start to the new year, and see you soon!