Archive for ‘October, 2007’

Shop Update Today


50/50 wool/soy silk in “Gorge” colorway

Today’s shop update day. Shop away at 2 pm EST.

Look at it all on Flickr.

Um, this one’s a big one. In addition to the fiber club, I somehow managed to dye an awful lot of fiber and yarn, including some new ones. There’s hand-dyed wool/ soy silk fiber (shown above), and a DK weight alpaca yarn. The sad news is, there isn’t any Fat Sock this time, as it’s been back-ordered a painfully long time and I’ve finally run out. I did sub in a DK weight superwash wool that will knit up into lovely machine-washable winter socks. I’ve also dyed up Wensleydale, Merino, 18 micron superfine Merino, and Bluefaced Leicester wool spinning fibers. Sarah from Maisy Day Handspun sent sock, handspun 2 ply (!!!) and handspun thick and thin yarns.

I had been planning to give myself a bit of a raise starting today, but it turns out that any price increase I had planned is now going to go to materials, since my main supplier’s prices went up. So, expect to see a bit of difference in prices from now on. I won’t need to raise them again for quite some time.

Fiber Club:
October’s fiber club offering will be shipping this week. I’ve been spinning it for the last couple of evenings. It’s great stuff and I hope everyone enjoys it.

On Wednesday, the club will open up to new members. Returning memberships are for sale now.

See you at 2!

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Fiber Club Slots Open- Renewals Only

The fiber club renewal subscriptions for November-January are up for sale in the shop. Please note that this is for returning members only. Subscriptions for new members will go on sale on Wednesday the 17th.

There have been some changes to the club. I’ve lowered the amount of fiber to 2-5 oz. per month because I’ve got some fancier, and therefore more expensive, stuff for one of the months. I’ve also added a double dose option. Pay shipping once and get twice as much fiber!

Thank you all!

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Cobblestone: Only a Dead Snail is Slower

Things are looking up, now that knitting with the dread Classic Elite ’03 Tweed is finished, since that made my hands feel dirty, and it’s onto my handspun. I’d have washed the yarn before knitting the sweater, only in a fit of preparation some time ago I’d wound all the skeins into center-pull balls. That wasn’t going to come undone, so I just knit as fast as possible. That got me into trouble when I started the yoke. I just sailed along, not noticing that there was a very distinct gauge change after the yarn switch. When I finally saw the puckering at the edge of the garter stitch, I took the sweater off the needles and found that the shoulders were about 10″ too big around. That’s not something you can fudge, so off the yoke came. Down 2 needle sizes was the ticket and it’s smooth sailing again.

I did some simple waist shaping that worked out very well. My usual waist shaping is 4 sts. per decrease row, 2 on either side of the side seam, every inch until the waist is the proper measurement, knit about 2 inches, and back up again. I am short-waisted, so measure yourself, of course. I waffled about where to do the decreasing on this sweater. Inside the garter strip, so that the strip was shaped like an hourglass or at the outside edge of the strip, not affecting its shape? I opted for the latter, decreasing the last 2 stockinette stitches before and first 2 after the garter strip up the sides. K2TOG before and SSK after gave a nice edge to the stockinette, and picking up the bar between the first and second stockinette stitches after and between the last 2 stockinette stitches before the garter bands made a nice increase.

Reminders:

Friday the 12th (tomorrow): fiber club renewals go on sale
Monday the 15th: shop update
Wednesday the 17th: fiber club on sale for everyone

I’ve decided on another change for the fiber club and will be offering a double dose of fiber for an extra $45. There will be a little option box you can check when ordering.

Pushing Daisies:

Are you watching it? You should be! It’s just the sweetest, most morbid, super-saturated, wonderfully charming show on. Also, in the second episode, there’s KNITTING. Actual knitting, with needles and yarn and proper terminology, and when the garments are tried on, the knitter sees the glory of his projects and utters one word- “Sweet.” It’s funny because that’s what happens in this house, too.

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