Momentum

It is probably too late at night to be writing a blog...but I am anyways. I have been so excited about selling yarn that I have been telling everyone I meet and handing out cards. The problem being I haven't got my detail pictures of the yarn to post on Etsy. So no goods on Etsy. Oops. This week looks like a small tornado going through my life, but I have made it through day 1. I am waiting for the technical yarn guru who lives deep within to come to the surface and give me some words to say about all my yarn. For now I am satisfied with words like soft, squishy, smooth, fantastical, fluffy...words that might describe a small dog or one of my skeins of yarn. Enjoy a picture of Lupine Valley (above) and Blue Fire (below). Both are hand-dyed, but only Blue Fire by myself.

Crafty! Crafty! Splat.

I did a craft fair! I came early. Set up my table with my pop-up yarn holder, nice tablecloth, pretty lamps and spinning wheel. Then I waited. I spun while I waited. This meant that every kid who came to the crafty day stopped by my table and asked what I was doing. I lost count of parents who told their kids I was weaving. (I will refrain from stating my opinion on mistaking spinning for weaving.) I was asked what the yarn on my table was for. I stopped small children from putting their finger into the flyer of my spinning wheel after I asked them not too. I laughed with friends. I found another really cool vendor, Smudge Monkey.I want almost everything she makes. I oggled Le Filigree jewelry.

I sold a skein of yarn!

I gave one skein as a birthday present and the recipient bought the other skein in that colorway. So, all told, I sold 2 skeins of yarn.

Now, I realized when I signed up for this day, that an elementary school first annual craft fair is not the ideal place for my yarn to sell. I thought it would be a good challenge for me. Get my ducks in a row and all that. And I think it was. I was so organized after the fair that I finally called my LYS, The Tangled Skein, and made an appointment to show her my yarns. She then purchased a bunch of my Exotic Mongolian yarns that I hand-dye & ply. See, the craft fair was WORTH THE TIME. Then, I got home so pumped from selling yarn to a yarn shop that I finally began setting up my Etsy store for the handspun that I can't wholesale. (I already price it at impoverished worker labor prices and dropping the price would equal slave labor wages.) I now have a shop with a simple banner at snarldesign.etsy.com. I will be loading up the shop with goodies this week. I have to take more pictures!

note: I moved the lamps off the front of my booth shortly after this picture was taken. They hung out on the sides of the booth, shining across the yarn. I never did like their placement much, but oh well, I really don't think the lamps hurt or helped my yarn sales.

extra sad note: Not even the hat I knit for charity sold. sniff.

Where Has My Yarn Gone?

I am so excited!! For the first time I have heard back from someone who bought my yarn and showed me a picture of the finished product!! Granite Beanies are fabulous hats that Bri from Juneau whips up. She ordered some of my yarn at the Salmon Jam in Cordova and turned them into cool tuques for the back country. My yarn is definitely seeing some tougher terrain than I am these days. Check out her way cool web site and products at www.granitegoodness.com!

Hand-dyed & spun by Yours Truly. I really love this yarn. I might not sell it. I might keep it for myself and my own selfish knitting. But I think I will still put it out at the craft fair. It is superwash fiber that I hand-painted and wrote about in the post "Dyeing to Tell". The fiber started as a bright saffron. The original dye job spun up very dark as a single, so I dyed more with lots more space between the colors. Used the same colors and got a much brighter single and plyed together they created this lovely skein. I have around 250 g of this colorway. Enough for an actual project!

Now, the 2 skeins below are the sky blue fiber I dyed. The picture on top is the roving with red that I added and didn't know if I would like. The bottom picture is the roving with blues, purples & black in it. I plyed both with the original plain blue roving. This is where spinning gets interesting. I wanted to see how they both looked plyed with the same fiber. I like the muted one. But the one with the red is not quite on my palate. I like neither as much as the top picture. My mom, who is not an orange fan, loved the blues. So, I trust that there are more people like her out there in the world and that they will like the blue yarn.

Crafty Adventures

If I was a technical genius I could figure out how to post the really cool poster for the craft fair I am going to do this Saturday. But I am not, so I will tell you about it.

I am doing a Craft Fair. Isn't that special? I try not to do these things, but my friend Joni is co-ordinating this lil' fair. She has a fabulous line of jewelry, Le Filigree, that she sells at local, high-end clothing stores and I figured with her good taste we couldn't go too wrong. Word has it there is about half n half really cool stuff and grandma's pot holders. There will also be hats for sale to raise money for a little girl we know going through Cancer treatments. Knitting hats for kids is fun because they are small, cute & quick!
Lil' Pea is modeling the Chunky Newsboy hat I knit for the charity sale.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday doing something I thought would take maybe 2 hours and turned into 5 hours! Classic story--I seem to have difficulties estimating tasks. Harry, my lil' Angora cross bunny needed a haircut. Badly. Here he is before the haircut. It warmed up yesterday and I whipped him on into the house and started cutting. and cutting. and cutting. It turns out he had a lot of mats I hadn't caught on too. I heavily blamed myself. Until I brought in Sally for her haircut. She had almost NO mats. I treat these 2 little ones pretty equal. When one gets brushed, so does the other. I have no idea why Harry matted up so badly and Sally didn't mat at all. But I was interested to see that the fiber I took off them is very different. Harry's is long and silky. Sally's is short and extremely soft. It doesn't drape over your finger like Harry's hair. These 2 are rescues, so I don't know their background in detail. I know that, as of August, they are supposed to be under a year old, Harry has had 1 cut, Sally has never been cut. And they are not related. hmmm, maybe they are different kinds of Angora crosses? Maybe Sally is English, Hairy is German? They are really similar in size...I don't know. I do know I have a lot of gorgeous fiber. It is perfectly white and so clean I could spin it straight out of the bag I clipped it into. No vege matter and no flakes! The sweaters I put on the lil' guys to keep them warm didn't stay on, but I noticed Harry used his as a nest last night and neither bunny is eating the sweater, so I left them in the pens for warmth. On the right is Sally after her haircut. It was so exciting to see my dream of having Angora fiber to spin come true. These lil' lovelies are well worth having around. And if you want a hit of Angora--give me a call!