Store Update

A quick update, the colorways that are on clearance are almost out of stock.  I expect to take them off the site by the beginning of next week.  If you are interested in Gecko, Violet Rubies, Holly Berry or Spring Flower they are currently being closed out.  I am making room for our fall colorways.

I currently am working on a new product line for SpinningYarnsOnline.  The colorways are being tested and I expect to be able to unveil our new addition to our products shortly.  I’ll keep you posted on its progress….

 

Middle School Kids are Awesome!

Now that summer is here and I have a few moments…I’d like to tell you about a project that I worked on with some kids from my older daughter’s school. Due to some very severe budget cuts and other issues, the administration had to cut an elective out of the kids’ day. In order to keep the school day schedule intact, the powers that be instituted a “zero period” at the beginning of the school day. From 7:45 am to 8:27 am the kids in the middle school (and high school) were held in either a gym or the cafeteria depending on grade. As a parent, I was less than thrilled (I’m being polite…) with this plan. But, what were they supposed to do? Our state government made some harsh cuts that forced our administrators to make some harsh and very unpopular decisions. I’m not going to go into the politics or even my opinion about this. It’s not worth getting my blood pressure up again… Anyway, after listening to my daughter tell me what she was doing during “zero period”, I called the school principal and basically said, “Don’t you have any parents who have a skill that can volunteer some time to get these kids something to do?!!!” And then I continued with what I meant to be a bit of a joke, I said “I knit, you could have a knitting group” I expected him to say “Ha Ha, that’s so stupid. Knitting, there’s nothing academic about that.” Much to my surprise (and to be honest, at the time, my horror) the principal said, “I would love that. We had to eliminate our Home Ec. department so this would give the kids the opportunity to learn a craft that they can use”….etc., etc. Then, because sometimes my brain forgets to tell my mouth to shut up, I starting telling the principal about how I could teach the kids to knit and they could each make a blanket square and then we could sew them together and then they would send it to Project Linus and on and on and on. And then I basically got the “when can you start”.

After my head stopped spinning it dawned on me that I had just volunteered myself to facilitate a knitting club at our town’s middle school. Yikes!!! Sometimes I get myself into things and I don’t even know how it happened. So before I knew it I was meeting with the principal to put together a program that would work for his school and my schedule. I was then taken through the process of getting fingerprinted and backround checked in order to be able to be a “regular volunteer”. I found this part of the process very amusing because my husband and I have been known to watch the TV show “Cops” and are always dumbfounded and amused when the arresting police officer asks the person he is about to handcuff if he/she has any warrants. I would always turn to my husband and say, “I don’t have any warrants.” I know that doesn’t sound funny at all but at the time it was because I don’t think I have ever met anyone in my life who has had or who has a warrant for his/her arrest. I am pleased to report that my backround report proved my lack of warrants and any felonies or anything of the like. I was approved to volunteer to run this knitting group.

A permission slip was sent home to any kid who wanted to participate. During that time I was busy soliciting donations from knitting friends. I needed needles and yarn for these kids to use. My wonderful friend Joan went through all of her needles and kept herself a set and gave me the rest. It was a huge bag of about 25 lbs. of knitting needles. My daughters and I had a great time sorting through them and separating them by size. I went through my embarrasingly large yarn stash and made a (huge) pile of yarn that I was willing to part with. My friend Pam did the same. Her pile was even huger (not a word, but it works…) than mine. The lovely ladies at my LYS put together another huge bag of yarn they didn’t need or want. It was a nice community effort outfitting the middle school knitting club with needles and yarn.

So, off I went at 7:30 in the morning to meet my room of middle school knitters. I had been told there would be around ten girls. My daughter would be in the room and it was important to me not to embarrass her or become the “dorkmom” that I am trying so hard not to be. As they walked me down to my designated classroom I had this horrible moment of clarity wherein I realized that I would be in a room, alone, with approximately ten 11 to 13 year old girls. Thats a lot of girls. Thats a lot of middle school girls. I’m not sure if you know this, but the pre-teen and teenage years can be kind of difficult for girls. A lot happens during these years. And I was going to be in a classroom, by myself, with 10 of them. As I walked down to the classroom, it was as if I was in a Hitchcock movie where the scary music is blaring and the hallway was getting longer and more narrow. I was so nervous I had sweaty palms. I kept thinking, “Who was the absolute idiot who thought it would be a good idea to have me run a knitting club for middle school age girls???” Oh yeah, right, that was me…

Well, the girls came into the room and I showed them the needles, yarn and books of patterns that I brought. I split them up by skill level. I took the total newbies and off we went. I have to tell you that they were the most wonderful group of young ladies. Their enthusiasm was contagious. They loved to learn and they loved to learn knitting. Mostly, they loved to sit and chat and be with each other and enjoy each other’s company for 42 minutes. They were wonderful. As the weeks went by we even picked up a few more girls who wanted to join the fun. By the end of the year we had at least 16 knitters! The Schools Superintendent popped his head in one day when he had a meeting in the building and was so complimentary to the girls on what they were doing. It was really nice.

We had all different skill levels going on in the room. I made it clear that I could not teach everyone at the same time so the more experienced knitters were happy and willing to pitch in and teach a newer knitter to purl or cast on or bind off. They worked so well together. I was so happy to see a bunch of wonderful girls helping each other and working together to make a great project. They each contributed in their own way, be it a square or two for the blanket, or the dreaded weaving in of about a gabillion ends. They all pitched in with happy faces and tons of enthusiasm! They were a joy. Here are some shots of the blanket during its construction:

Preparing to weave in the ends.

This is the blanket being blocked.

This is some of the girls with the finished product. They were so pleased and proud of their work. They were invited to go to the Board of Ed. meeting and be recognized for their efforts and to show off their great blanket that will be sent to Project Linus to make a kid, who is going through a tough time, feel special. These kids are great!!!

Meet Little Meggie

I got a new toy.  It’s a spinning toy called a Little Meggie.  I bought it from Heavenly Handspinning .  I really like drop spindle-ing but I really don’t like the “drop” part of it.  Whenever I use a drop spindle I always have a feeling of lack of control because you have this weighted spinning wood stick that has to be controlled along with your pre-drafted fiber.  My spindle usually flies all over the place until it gets into its spin.  I was trying to think of a way to eliminate that out of control feeling when I stumbled upon this:

Meet Little Meggie.  Her creator is a genius.  She basically is made of a big, heavy block of wood, a wooden dowl, a ball bearing inserted into a hole, a heavy wood scalloped bottom, a whirl and a hook.  You kick the heavy wood bottom thingy and the spindle stays stationary.  Brilliant! You can watch a YouTube video showing how to use this little piece of genius here:  Little Meggy video.  Heavenly Handspinning  also has some really cool handmade spinning wheels.  I have my eye on the double treadle one.  You all need to buy some more yarn from SpinningYarnsOnline so I can afford a new wheel!! ; - ) 

I’ll be spending some quality time with Little Meggie and will show you what I spin soon.  Here’s one last picture of her:

In other news, the Summer Knitty is up.  There are some great sock patterns that would be wonderful knit up in Spinning Yarns’ hand dyed yarn.  I particularly like the Spring Forward Socks. 

That’s all I got for now. I’ve got to go spin…

The Knitting Monster (…I mean Machine)

My friend Deb gave me a knitting machine a while back.  I thought it was cool and knew that someday I would have time to learn how to use it.  She is a knitting machine whiz and was even on QVC last summer demonstrating this beast, I mean machine.  Anyway, I decided that there might be a use for this knitting machine for a future product for SpinningYarns so I asked Deb to show me how to use the thing.

Deb came to my house, set the monster/machine up and showed me what to do.  She kept politely reminding me to “watch the instructional tape, it will really help you.”  To which I replied, “I’ll be fine, you’re showing me what to do.  I’ll be fine.”  Well we had some fun banging out rows of knitting in seconds flat.  It really is weird to knit a row in 2 seconds.  We ran into a couple of glitches and problems, but they were good; they were learning experiences.  Then Deb left.  (She had to do something important like buying food for her family.  How could that be more important than teaching me how to master a knitting machine/monster???)

So, feeling quite confident and pleased with myself, I sat back down in front of my new knitting toy and moved the carriage and knit a row.  Amazing!!  Then I moved the carriage and knit another row.  Incredible!!  Then the bar weight, hem thingy fell off and hit the floor and my foot and all of the stitches that were on the machine were now off the machine and laying in a heap on the floor.  I said some bad words.  Some really, really bad words.  In fact, I think I may have even made up a few new bad words. 

I had been shown a few times how to set this knitting monster up to get started.  This was a great opportunity to practice setting up and getting started.  There were some more foul words, some sweating and finally I got the monster to knit a few more rows.  I consider this a good first outing with my knitting machine/monster.  I will need to practice if I ever want to use this monster for more than expanding my foul word vocabulary.  I’ll let you know how it goes… 

Hooks vs. Needles

I’m taking a crochet class.  Yeah, I know…  A bunch of knitters just said, “WHY!!???”  The answer is: because I like to learn new things.  So far I have learned the basics like single, double, half double, triple crochet.  I can make a groovy granny square if the pattern is not too complicated.  I can not, however, seem to crochet in rows.  In knitting, when you come to the end of the row, you are at the end of the row.  There is nothing to discuss; you have no more stitches on your needle, you are at the end of the row.  Switch hands and do the next row.  With crochet the end of the row is a much less concrete concept (at least for me…)  I have been taking my crochet class at Knit-A-Bit in Westfield, NJ.  Knit-A-Bit is my LYS and if you are ever in the Westfield, NJ area you must stop by.  They have three rooms of wonderful yarn and one room of books and other fun stuff.  The crochet teacher is a very, very patient woman who has listened to me struggle to figure out what is the end of the row.  She has showed me a gabillion times.  I still manage to create wavy, weird not even or straight rows of stitches.  She has politely suggested using stitch markers to indicate the end of the row (”Stitch markers are your friend…”)  I think I am at the point where I will have to use a stitch marker to show me where the end of my row is because my method of taking a good guess just isn’t working.  My plan is (when I can figure out where the end of the row is…) to knit a scarf in a lacy crochet pattern in one of SpinningYarnsOnline variagated colorways, probably Pool.  When I get started, I’ll have pictures….

There will be a store update later this week.  We are working on more new colorways.  The first batch were a big hit!  Thanks to everyone who bought them.  We have replenished our inventory and will have more new colorways soon. 

Spinning From the Haul

I have begun spinning some of the roving that I bought at the MA Sheep and Wool Festival.  I started with the superwash merino since I have successfully spun merino before.  Here is the first bobbin-ful.

What, you don’t see a picture???  That’s because WordPress is not letting me insert pictures into my post today.   If there was a picture, you would see that I have spun a beautiful bobbinful of a greyish, purple-ish tweedy yarn with some flecks of yellow and green.  I plan on spinning another bobbin and then plying them together to make a nice worsted weight yarn.  I’m not a very experienced ply-er so any tips from you spinners out there would definitely be appreciated.

A quick store update, the new colorway Confetti is a big hit.  I have sold almost the entire first batch.  I will be painting/dyeing another batch soon.  Since I am using a different (and slightly more complicated) painting process, the next batch might be slightly different.  I will update the picture on the website and here (hopefully) accordingly.  Thanks to all you Confetti lovers out there!

Weekend at the Farm

Well, we had a great weekend at the farm.  We road tripped it up to Massachusetts to hang out with my brother and his family and to go to the Mass. Sheep and Wool Festival.  A great weekend was had by all.  The farm was beautiful.

This is a picture of my husband playing Trac Ball with the kids near my brother’s truck and four wheeler thing.  I’m not sure if you can see that my husband had a sweatshirt on with the hood tied up around his face.  It was COLD when we got there.  Spring was having a hard time getting itself together in the Berkshires. 

Friday evening was spent preparing Clover, the Cotswold sheep, to be shown.  Here is how a bunch of kids wash a sheep.  My sister-in-law was the supervisor.

Clover is a very tolerant and polite lady sheep.  She was washed and primped and put in the truck and carted off to the fairgrounds for her big day.  At the fairgrounds we got to meet my niece’s new lamb,  who will go by the name Lilly.  Here is Ella and Lilly in Lilly’s pen at the sheep barn.

Ella got to show her new little lamby the next day.  The sheep is just a little babe and was very well behaved for a first time showing.

 

Here is Ella showing Little Lilly.   The gentleman whose tushy is facing the camera is the judge.  He was very serious about his job and took a great deal of time looking over the sheep and its handler.  At the end he went up to each kid and told them what they were doing right and what they could improve for their next show.

  

This is Jack showing Clover.  The sheep is obviously not a little baby lamby anymore and is practically the same size as my nephew.  Jack showed her like a champ.  I had to politely ask my husband, who thought he was at a major sporting event, to stop shouting, “Show that Sheep!!!, Show that Sheep!!!”  I think the people sitting near us figured out that we were not from around there and that we were kinda new to this sheep showing thing.

At the Ma. Sheep and Wool Festival there were tons of animals, vendors, food and fun.  There were Spinners.

 And there were llamas.  Here are my girls posing with a new llama friend.

But most of all there was stash enhancement.

Above is a picture of what I took home.  The beer was supplied by my husband and was a perfect ending to a great day of sheep, wool, llamas and fun.  The specifics of the haul will be detailed tomorrow.  (Sneak preview:  lots of merino for spinning and a  beautiful new spindle.)

 

 

On Which We Must Learn about Predator vs. Prey

I have two daughters. They are sweet, lovely girls who are heading (way too fast for my liking! Time just flies…) toward becoming terrific, strong young women. As they grow, it amazes me how they handle life’s lessons with courage, dignity and humor.

Yesterday, unfortunately, they had to handle a little life lesson that I wouldn’t have expected them to face. As a reminder, we live in Suburbia (Targets galore, supermarkets, malls, schools close by.) It’s pretty predictable and it works for us. My brother, (whose farm we are going to visit in a few hours) lives in the Middle of Nowhere, Mass.: Big farm (to a Suburbanite’s eye), lots of farm animals, rolling hills, etc., etc. They have nature up there on a different level than we do here in typical suburbia.

Anyway, I was talking to my brother on the computer yesterday a.m. (Instant Messaging) and he casually let me know that the barn cats and three chickens were no longer members of their farm family. These are the same two cats that my daughters have been talking about playing with all week. The cats and chickens got eaten by something (I think he called it a Fisher Cat???, he’ll correct me if I got that wrong.) So now I am left with a major problem. Around here, cats don’t get eaten. How the hell am I going to present this to my daughters??? My husband and I discussed it: Should we tell them the cats “went away”? No, my niece and nephew know what happened to their barn cats so that won’t work. We decided honesty, delicately delivered, would be the best course of action. Of course, I would be the deliverer of this information.

For reasons that I can not explain (and I might have to do some soul searching to figure it out) I dropped the cats no more bomb on them at the the local diner. Maybe I thought the girls wouldn’t freak out in a public place???… These are girls, preteen girls. They freak out wherever and whenever they feel like it! This was not an award winning smart mommy-ing moment on my part. My older daughter dealt ok. She had a look of horror and sadness but held herself together . She can be quite stoic. My little one, the ten year old, was not so stoic. She lost it in the diner and was a crying puddle of a girl, burying her head into my chest, heaving with tears and sorrow. Of course, it was at that moment that the really sweet waitress came over to our table to take our order. This nice waitress, only a teenager herself, gave me a look that said, “Evil Mommy what did you do to that poor little girl”. We had a lovely meal.

More about the farm and the Mass. Sheep and Wool Festival to come. Pictures of stash enhancement will be shared!!

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

I love this time of year.  Spring is such a beautiful time; great weather, fun outdoor stuff. And best of all….Sheep Festivals!!  This coming weekend we are roadtripping it to the Berkshires to hang out with my brother and his family.  That would be fun enough, but it gets even better.  This weekend is the Mass. Sheep and Wool Festival in Cummington, MA.  Their link is http://www.masheepwool.org/aboutus.htm.  We went last year and got to see all the wonders that are sheep shearing and wool spinning.  It was great.  My niece and nephew actually show their  cotswold sheep in some of the competitions.  And of course, there is the shopping!  There are vendors galore selling their spindles and roving and yarn and wheels.  It’s a knitters paradise.  My husband ( a non-knitter) even thought it was pretty cool. 

This sheep show (as my brother calls it) is relatively small compared to Rhinebeck and Maryland but I love it because it is not too overwhelming and I get to see my brother and sister in law and my niece and nephew.  I will have camera in hand to show everyone the sights.  Of course, a full report of stash enhancement will be provided next week!

Sock Yarn’s Not Just For Socks

I believe  most knitters, when they think of hand dyed fingering weight yarn think socks.  The striping pattern of the variegated yarn makes for an interesting, colorful sock that doesn’t have to contain an intricate stitch pattern.  But fingering weight yarn can be knit up into so much more than just socks. 

 The current issue of Vogue Knitting has a great offering of shawls that I think would be perfect knit up in a hand dyed yarn.  Since we have both Variegated Multis and Semi Solids available, your choices are endless.

Let’s take a look at some shawls shall we?

This is a shawl that incorporates beads into the stitch pattern.  This would be wonderful knit up in a Semi Solid.  The stitch pattern and beads would stand out and I think the shawl would be gorgeous.

 This is a circular shawl with a stitch pattern that looks like a starfish to me.  I might just have to put this into my “on deck” pile because this shawl just screams to be knit in our Pool colorway.

This is a stunning square piece of lace.  This is such a beautiful pattern that would be perfect in any colorway. 

So hand dyed yarn is not just for socks!  Shawls and scarves, gloves and mittens, they all would work wonderfully!  Let your imagination run free and pick a winter project that is a little “out of the box”.  You won’t regret it!