Silk Hankies

Interesting...





...but I don't think they're my thing.


Sorry for the utter lack of interesting updates. I have a ton of things to photograph and write about and what not, and absolutely NO TIME. Arg. So close to the end of thesis hell...so...close....




I've started making myself spin whenever I get too burnt out and stressed to do anything useful or think clearly. I figure I can be pissed off and useless all night and end with nothing, or I can be pissed off and useless all night and end with yarn. The choice is clear. And as you can see by that box of handspun, it's been an obnoxious few weeks. (Can you spot the sly and mysterious giant wooly yarnapillar? I don't think he's allowed over there anymore, since he horked up his breakfast a mere inches away from the handspun box this morning. This dog is determined to make sure I don't get my deposit back.)

Ooh, pretty

So my Phat Fiber sampler box came yesterday:



The picture is terrible because it's dark and gray and yuck here :-( Oh well. You get the idea- many small fibery goodies. I haven't decided yet if I'll spin the samples up individually or just card them into blends with other stuff...

In any case, I have it on good authority that somebody VERY CLOSE to you, someone whom you love DEARLY, will have some samples in April's box, even though she won't have any time to dye until late April/May-ish. Ahem. Cough cough. So, be you a "Phattie", keep your eyes peeled ;-)

Brace yourself....

Alex is actually going to make a sweater.



I've been fawning over this stuff for a while but for some reason (hallucination? Poor reading comprehension?) I thought it was $50. I was bemoaning this fact to my boss yesterday when she said "What? No, it's only $32."

....huh.

The skeins are enormous enough that I only need two- factor in my employee discount and that's a pretty good price for a sweater quantity of yarn. Plus we just got a new shipment and the colors were all luscious and amazing...

Of course the giant-ness of the skeins combined with the craptasticness of my winder (DO NOT BUY THE RED ONE. BUY THE BLUE ONE. TRUST ME) means that I have to hand wind the second half of the 500 yard ball, which is thrilling. Maybe more than half. Feels like more than half. I'll be smart when it comes to the second ball and bring it back into work.

So yes. This should be fun.

Organizing is fun

I got up much earlier than normal to get my hands on a Phat Fiber Box, and then got my thesis-goals-for-the-day done relatively early (I have the next few weeks before the draft deadline organized very, very carefully,) so I spent a while taking stash photos for Ravelry and reorganizing things by color AND weight... (and this from a girl who can barely be bothered to put her laundry in the hamper...I worry about myself, sometimes.)


(the blacks, browns & grays are above that. But they are boring in photographs.)


I've been tragically unproductive lately, at least from a knitting, dyeing, or otherwise-interesting-to-blog-about standpoint. I did, however, use my tax return to acquire one of these babies:



It is a Yudu personal screen printer, and I haven't even pulled it out of the box yet. Sigh. The eventual plan is to add notebooks, t-shirts, bags, and other goodies with knitting-related screens to the shop. I spent an entire 2 hour meditation class thinking up things to print (I am a very, very bad meditator. Meditater? Meditatertot.)
I've got a lot of ideas, which is sort of a shame since the screens are pretty expensive, and the emulsion sheets sort of pricey, so I have to do them all as limited runs instead of made-to-orders, at least in the beginning. (Unlike regular screen printing protocol, these screens are somehow magically reusable.)



"Rocky, none of us believe in God"
-- My boyfriend, to the dog, just now. For no reason I can discern. I'm not even sure who "none of us" is...there's only two of us. Unless he was including the dog (who I'm pretty sure is Catholic. Or possibly something darker.) It's weird, here.

Psssst!

Portlanders will be interested* to know that Twisted just got an outrageous amount of Malabrigo- in good colors, too, which are harder to come by lately. Get 'em quick. (Be gentle with my beautiful 2-days-worth of rainbow order shelving.)


As for the rest of you, if you have one of those weird Tuesday Morning shops near you, you might want to drop by.


Araucania Atacama (100% handdyed alpaca) for $2.99 a skein? Yes please. (And I've heard that it's not just my store, they all got some. They had a few other varieties as well. Ahem.)


*ie "pee their pants with delight"

I Break for Psychology

We interrupt your regularly schedule yarn programming to present:

My Thesis (in online survey format)

If you are in the 18-35 age range and can spare 20 minutes away from your knitting, I could really, really, really use all the help I can get. Otherwise I will have to take a summer extension and this blog will be really boring for EVEN LONGER! Oh my.

Sproinger!

2013 Update: This pattern was one of my older, more amateur efforts, but has been revamped and re-released to meet my current professional standards- I'm pleased to introduce the new and improved Sproinger!

You can see Sproinger on Ravelry here, or

   

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Desperate-need-to-take-a-break-from-my-thesis presents: Sproinger! 'Cause I couldn't think of a better name ;-)

The first few photos show it in it's unblocked, extremely springy state. It's REALLY warm like that too, because the ribbing makes the fabric bunch up all thick and cozy-like. The last photo is closer to my original vision, after blocking it on a roll of paper towel covered in a plastic bag.




(very...flat. Heh. Of course, you, being the stylish cad that you are, wouldn't pull it down over your ear all funny like that.)

Blocked, it's nice and floppy:





And here's a picture of my dog in a hat: