This Week in Wool

I got a new shipment of supplies on Monday morning, so I spent my two child-free days this week applying dye to wool by means of boiling, acidic water. My house stinks of vinegar, but there are many pretty wooly things to look at. In fact, I've decided to take a new approach to decorating:


It's hard to get the wool fully dry outside in this cool, damp season, so after the wool has dripped outside fora couple days, I move it inside. Through the winter, my railings will form a large part of my drying strategy. It alarms my husband, though, when he walks down to the front entry way and is greeted with the hanging wool-tentacles.



My dyepot has mellowed from the somewhat stormy mood it was apparently in on Tuesday; today I managed to produce a bunch of lovely, sagey green, as well as a marvellous batch of purple.

Awesome socks!

Hey check out these socks, half-knit from some of my yarn! Aren't they gorgeous? I'm gonna dye up a bunch more of the rovings these came from; feel free to email me to reserve one for yourself (in either roving or yarn form)

Well that was nice

I just came home from my last Farmer's Market of the season. The whole Farmer's Market thing -- the whole selling yarn for profit thing, for that matter -- is new this season. I started in March with the idea that maybe it would be fun, and if I could do it without actually losing money then I'd call it a good thing.

I signed up for the whole season of the Coquitlam Farmer's Market, May to October, every other week. Most people don't buy yarn on impulse, so I figured my only shot of making the market work for me was to build a following who could expect me regularly. Come every other week, and fondle the yarn. Go home, consult pattern books, consider potential projects. Come back and fondle again. Maybe ask some questions. Check out my demonstrator projects.

I am completely thrilled with how the whole thing has turned out. Today, it was cold (12 degrees C) and raining -- not a pleasant day for the market. But this market has a regular clientele, people who come every week for the excellent produce, and among the regulars, I seem to have my own regulars. Today, every sale went to someone who has come to my booth before. I talked to two students from the knitting classes I teach -- students who learned about my classes because they met me at the Market. I made tentative arrangements to give a private lesson. I helped one of my first customers, a woman that I taught how to knit in May, finish and cast off her first scarf.

Upcoming dates: Nov 18, Coquitlam Winter Market (www.makebakegrow.com). Nov 24-25, Maternal Creations Fair at Pomegranate Midwives on East Hastings (Vancouver).

Eight Year Old Girl at Heart

Apparently, I'm an eight year-old girl at heart, or else I'm already mourning the end of summer. I honestly didn't set out on Tuesday morning to dye an entire batch of bright pinks, oranges, and yellows. My first batch was going to be bright -- I wanted to do up a whole bunch of The Emperor of Ice Cream for an upcoming craft fair, since I think the babyish colours will sell well to the mothers of babies who attend this fair, but that was all I meant to do in those tones.



While Emperor was cooking, Mary (the knitter of the gorgeous My So-Called Scarf pictured in an earlier entry) came over for a visit, and I just did some simple stuff while she was here -- an orange and pink kettle-dye job, using the dye leftover from Emperor. Then when Mary left, I found a convo from someone who wanted to buy some Barbie Girl but only if she could have more than one skein of it -- enter the three batches of pink I cooked, trying to get a good match to the existing skein. I eventually overdyed one batch with some purples, because there's only so much pink a person needs.



After my pink extravaganza, I tried to duplicate an earlier colourway that's been requested, Maiden and Mother, but I ended up with something a little more asian in flavour (I think I'll call it Paper Cranes).



Anyway, it's not that I"m not happy, heck, I'm *very* happy. I love to dye and spin bright, clear, candy-like colours. And I can only hope that people like to knit with them too, because it's all I'll be doing for a couple of weeks. See this orange? I could eat this orange: