there’s a box

There’s a large box to the right of my computer right now. Sealed. The return address is my yarn supplier. I know what’s in it, but I can’t go open it because I’ve got my own private wonder on my lap right now and I’d really rather not wake her up. Still, it’s hard to contain myself. A box. Containing mostly undyed cashmere. and some worsted weight I’d like to dye to make this, even though I’m working on this. That reminds me. Almost out of yarn for the second project there. Seriously, Madeline Tosh? How did I ever believe I could get away with using only one skein!

baby s and the sheep

It’s raining; it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed with a bump on his head
And he won’t get up ’til morning.

That’s they way I remember it anyway.

Josh and I have been singing a lot to Baby S and every day there’s a new nursery rhyme I half-remember. What nursery rhymes do you still remember?

On Saturday we went to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.

This made me think of a few lists.

Things I got to see/do

• Several sheep and rabbits – We tried to show Sasha the sheep.
• The barn raising quilt by Larrisa Brown
• The parents of a member of the knitting group; and her little brother. Her Mom was buying her Blue Moon Socks That Rock, which was great.
• Show off Sasha to Tina and Donna (Tina definitely thought the baby was better than Sock Summit, which is great!)
• My first inflatable mannequin (which led me to a hilarious internet search while I tried to remember the correct search terms, starting with inflatable doll, moving to blow-up dummy and gradually getting to mannequins). I was wondering if they market inflatable legs, which would be a handy thing for sock yarn sales. Or I could make some out of plaster of paris if I happen to know anyone with mannequin shaped legs. I’ve got this plan to be a vendor at Black Sheep or Oregon Flock and Fiber next year.

• Buy some Blue Moon Fiber Arts; this is a ritual. This is when I learned that there won’t be a Barn Sale this year. I’m hoping for a party though. I should have realized that they are a bit burnt from this August.

and now for something completely different

(with apologies to MP).

Today I did something a little differently than I have as of late. I read a book – Julie and Julia in fact. I heartily enjoy reading the occasional food related memoir. I haven’t been reading very much for the past 38 weeks or so, unless you can count the six or seven baby books we’ve been browsing our way through. As a blogger, I emphasized with a lot of the emotions that Julie must have been going through as she worked through her project. And it was lovely to sit down and read again. I was completely taken out of my head with her experiences; something that is lovely when you are 38 weeks pregnant and feeling larger than a house.If you want to read about what inspires bloggers to blog or to take on the projects they do, read Julie and Julia. If you want to read more about her adventures in cooking, than I refer you to her blog archives. I’ll be reading more of them and I expect that a short blog entry will be what my attention span while breastfeeding Sasha after she makes her debut.

Knitting, while it will always be one of my favorite passions, will never replace books for me as my first love. I learned how to read at a very early age (somewhere between 2 and 3) so I could be in the church choir and was instantly taken by the written word. I’ve read fewer books than I might have over the past few years that I’ve been blogging about knitting. Even fewer this last year with the pregnancy and the dyeing, especially if you discount the books on pregnancy and labor.

What’s worse, is I’ve been spending less time writing. I started the blog, believe it or not, to maintain and strengthen my writing skills during one of my hiatuses from paid work. The hope was and still is that someday I’ll kill my writers block sufficiently to write something else. Knitting is a great vehicle for me to focus on the craft of the writing without having to worry so much about the content. Unfortunately for the past couple of years or so, there less of a focus on the writing and and more on knitting and related crafts. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dyeing and the knitting, but it was always about the writing FIRST. I’ll still be dyeing and knitting for the time being, but hopefully this fall I’ll be able to bring a little more to you in terms of writing about the dyeing process.

In the meantime, please feast on Christine’s Stay On Baby Booties [r] by Christine Bourquin. They were knit with Three Fates Yarns Bluefaced Leciester Platinum Sock on Size US 1 needles. Thanks to my husband for the fabulous photographs. It’s 75% Superwash BFL and 25% Nylon and comes in 437 yard hanks that way approximately 100 grams. These were knit in my new Sock Summit inspired colorway, Aqua Vitae in the light version. The remainder of this skein (about 395 yards) can by found at my Etsy Shop, Three Fates Yarns at a discounted price for the yardage. I can only say that this was a fateful project I only did it since the skein broke on my new winder. Can you guess how much yarn was left over when I finished the booties from the lump I left off the finished product? About three inches.

some purples (mostly) reskeined

I finally labeled and named some more yarn that you haven’t seen unless you’ve gone off to my flickr account. Now it’s in the shop or in the box marked “sock summit”.

1. lacheis sock – grapevine, 2. brower – lachesis sock, 3. lachesis sock – star thistle, 4. lachesis sock – magnolia, 5. lachesis sock – summer sandals, 6. lacheis sock – bittersweet, 7. lachesis sock – cranberry bog, 8. lachesis sock – larrkspur, 9. lachesis sock – prince

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

1. lachesis sock – delphinium revisited, 2. lachesis sock – a world of purple, 3. lachesis sock – evil stepmother

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

shop update

I’ve updated the shop with

• BFL Platinum Sock; a 75% Superwash BFL and 25% Nylon Blend.  Most of it is a hybrid kettle-dyed, poured watercolor technique. Some is hand-painted. A few are nearly solids.
• Lachesis Sock; a 100% Superwash Merino that is a little squishier than the HA I was using on Fatalist Sock
• 100% Superwash Australian Merino Top spinning fiber. It’s smooshy and wonderful.
• A couple skeins of Knit Picks Bare in Periwinkle.
• A skein of culture sock in orange crush

I recently entered a new colorway, aqua vitae in[r]  bfl platinum sock, in the Sock Summit contest, Dye for Glory. It’s also available in the shop in lachesis sock and comes in mostly medium and dark shades, occasionally light. My items will be sold at Sock Summit through Knit a Bit, LLC. I also entered a colorway called poodle skirts and saddle shoes [r] in the lachesis sock. So please support me on Ravelry! Since you can’t vote right now, consider eyeing it and pushing the love button for now if you like it.

1. orange crush – culture sock, 2. aqua vitae dark – lachesis sock, 3. under the lilacs – lachesis sock, 4. wisteria lane – lachesis sock, 5. people eater – lachesis sock, 6. grape rocket – lachesis sock, 7. if the devil wore purple, lachesis sock, 8. wisteria lane – lachesis sock, 9. newbury street – lachesis sock, 10. prince – culture sock, 11. sweedish fish – bfl platinum sock, 12. creamsicle – bfl platinum sock, 13. chartreuse – bfl platinum sock, 14. green dreams – bfl platinum sock, 15. aqua vitae light – bfl platinum sock, 16. orange crush – lachesis sock, 17. aqua vitae – bfl platinum sock, 18. pink panther – clotho australian merino top, 19. peppermint stick – clotho australian merino top, 20. phoenix feather – clotho australian merino top, 21. just ducky – clotho australian merino top, 22. prickly pear – clotho australian merino top, 23. laurels – clotho australian merino top, 24. winter plum, 25. marizpan pumpkin, 26. hippie chix – clotho australian merino top, 27. marizpan pumpkin – clotho australian merino top, 28. fox tail – clotho australian merino top

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

I’ve been knitting a pair of baby booties in the light aqua vitae for a display at sock summit. I used just a bit of one skein; the remainder is being sold as a discounted skein. It’s 395 yards. It’s a bit lighter than in this photo as you can see by photo #2.

On a more personal note, here I am full of baby at 35 weeks.

what i’m up to

In knitting news, we had a very nice World Wide Knit in Public Day in Salem this week. I missed most of it, because I picked up pink eye. Mainly because I have sinusitis of some variety, which I still have because we’re working on getting rid of some more thrush first. Thrush probably came back because of last dose of antibiotics, though honestly it never left. It’s all going away very slowly now.

My skein winder came and I have no photos of it, but I worked it very hard only to discover that I really didn’t need a two yard winder. The largest size makes skeins bigger than my own swift. I guess this is sort of okay for sale, but personally, I’d rather purchase a skein that would fit on my own swift. The worst thing is that I didn’t even discover it until I started making skeins straight from the balls I used to make using the old method (cone to ball winder to swift again). They came out a bit loose, so I was planning to put them back onto the swift and re-skein them. Course now they are too big. So I’ve got these messy huge skeins for dyeing. And I did three, because I’ve got a triple winder now. Whee!

Seriously though, the re-skeined yarns look really nice.  There are about 30 or 40 of them and I need to photograph them, run them through some kind of photo editing program and then get them up into Etsy and or label them for sale at Sock Summit. I’m thinking July 1, when the new advertisement goes up on Ravelry.

I also finished 3 lbs of roving. I’ve still got about 40 undyed skeins lying around.

But, most of what I’m doing seems to be contemplating my navel these days. Literally. I’m waiting for the darn thing to pop out and be done with it already. It may not make an appearance; personally, I think there’s a little too much fat there or it to come out. Or the baby is so deep into my hip that she’s not pushing it out or whatever would normally be required. A friend of mine once told me that when hers came out she gave it the cleaning of a lifetime. Apparently this made a big impression on me, because instead of knitting, I’ve been thinking about giving my belly button it’s own cleaning. The upshot? The best place to see what I’m to dyeing or knitting wise for the next oh, three months or so, is probably my flickr page, here. Keep in mind, the photo editing isn’t done yet, but if you see something you think you want, give me a holler and I’ll see if I can get that one through the queue sooner.

i bought it

Well, I did it. I sucked it up and paid a small fortune to Crazy Monkey for a hand-cranked 2 yard skein winder with an electronic counter. I was sitting there and I timed how long it takes me to make a skein from a cone with my current set-up. I’m guessing 21 minutes. Granted, my time isn’t that valuable at the moment, but with the baby coming in 9 weeks give or take a few weeks, I’m starting to feel like I could be getting more done.

I’ve got 20+ skeins dyed up for sock summit. At the moment, I’m still planning on consigning with a local group, although I have my fingers slightly crossed and am hoping something else will turn up.

I’ve got 15 skeins more of ultra-merino and 3 kilos of BFL-nylon coming to the house next week and 3 lbs more of bamboo to dye. Lots of roving to dye left too. Some of this and most of the roving will probably go into the shop. My husband has been graciously mixing all solutions from powders so we can keep baby safe.

Still, I had a dyeing related accident of a sort on Monday night. It was related since I the reason I had wet hands and was in my basement was the roving. Anyway, I touched a lamp to turn it on and got an electric shock. I spent four hours at the local hospital being monitored for contractions and the baby’s heartbeat was also being monitored. I found her heartbeat very soothing. The long and the short of it is, baby is fine. My finger tips felt normalish after about 30 hours and all is well in the world.

more to dye for

In preparation for Sock Summit, where hopefully I’ll be participating on a consignment basis I’ve been dyeing up some yarns. I’m hoping eventually to create repeatable colorways and am getting a little closer. In the mean time, there’s been some older dye solution that needed using up. This resulted in the kettle dyed yarns below. These are “Moirae’s Limited Edition,” which is the name I’m giving to the new 100% merino superwash yarn base I obtained. It’s a every so slightly heavier than the Kona Fingering Weight I was using before for Fatalist Sock and has a tigher twist. I used it to dye my Twilight inspired yarn. I may continue to dye the Fatalist Sock, but am still not sure about it. I’ll be winding this yarn up soon and then it will go into the shop. Some of it might go for samples at Sock Summit.

Below are some more. The first grouping is some kettle dyed yarn where I’ve experimented with Hot Fuschia and Burgundy and have layered in black and brown (in different skeins). I’ve got three more paler one’s in the basement in which I’m layering browns and pumpkin on top. In the middle chair, there’s green, cream and pink and a black white, fuschia and pink yarn. The latter is for Mia. I’m not sure I matched her wild pink crocs. In keeping with the shoe theme, the first two skeins of the  third chair match my own Teva’s. The one’s on the far right represent a darker version, without the teal.

So here’s a question. I’ve got to have some knit samples at Sock Summit. What socks should I make? I’m making Viper Pilots out of my bamboo. I will need to do socks in a semi-solid and in a multi-color yarn. I will probably let the person decide, but any ideas? How about Nebula by Cookie A for the wine colored yarn?

night and day

So, it’s probably worth the $ for me to get Adobe Light Room eventually.

Check out the comparison between what my camera shot and what the shot looks like after development in lightroom. It’s much closer to the actual color now. (We’re looking at the fifth roving here. The ‘blue’ one.)

It’s all named now btw.

1. Brown Betty. 2. Apricot 3. Preserves 4. Marionberry 5. Blueberry Picnic

Uh huh. Something just isn’t right with the color sensor on the camera. It’s what we get for getting a cheaper model I guess. It’s an Olympus Stylus FE-340, quite light weight and it has a great zoom. But it’s ideas on colors are less than stellar, even if you manipulate the white balance. So I’ll add it to the equipment list. Adobe Lightroom and a skein winder. My scale apparently is still quite good, as long as it’s fully charged.

actual size

Currently this blanket is 18″ x 20″ or 360 square inches. According to the pattern for Joseph’s Blankie of Many Colors, the finished size is 47″ x 47″, or 2209 square inches. This means I’m about 16% done.  I’m doing about 40 inches square per stripe at the moment, less than 2% of the total finished product. I guess it’s gonna be a while if I do only one more stripe a day. Good thing the stripes start getting bigger, although not significantly enough to make much of a difference in terms of the percentage of the total. So assuming I’ve got to do 42 more stripes, that’s 10 more rows of stripes, or 4 total repeats of each color. Wonder if there’s enough yarn for that. Well, I’ll knit until I’m done and then decide if I need more yarn from knit picks.

In the mean time, enjoy the parade of partially finished blankie shots. If only those were something you could do like Tequila. Not so quick.

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

more bamboo, dyeing and mittens

This is more culture sock. 430 yards. 80% superwash merino, 20% bamboo.

another semi-rainy semi-sunny day in april

This is the Vintage Baby Cardigan from Shibui Knits. It happens also to be the Staff of the Month pick over at Knit Purl. I’m using the Lorna’s Laces that I got with a birthday gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe. The colorway is pilsen. It’s mindblowingly perfect for someone with pregnancy brain. No thinking. Just pure accomplishment. So there’s 5″ of garter stitch there and I’ve got another 1 3/4″ before I start working on sleeves. It’s the six month size. I’ve got a gorgeous glass button I picked up in California in 2008 and that will finish the whole thing off beautifully. There’s the added bonus of getting me on the board in the Lime and Violet Sock Marathon. I’ve had a lot of trouble finishing a pair of socks since becoming pregnant.

This is some Cascade 220 that I was supposed to be using for the TKGA master’s program, but I reallocated it for my Fiddlehead Mittens. I’m not sure what happened during the measuring processs, but it came out 3 skeins minus the swatch or two I’ve done already. It shouldn’t have. They should have been 50 yards each and one at 60 making 360 yards, not 660. So I don’t know what the heck I did. I’ll weigh it and figure that out later. Because I didn’t have any left over of the original cream, I’m going to use a heather grey for the main color. You’ll notice there’s one extra color there. I wasn’t sure how they’d turn out and wanted to be able to pick and choose. I’m leaving off the last color.

new graphics

I paid a friend a small sum to put together an ad for Ravelry for me. So as soon as I can actually snag a space, it will be running for a month.

Feel free to grab an icon for your own blog. It should link to: http://ThreeFatesKnitting.Etsy.com. The code should look something like this, preferably with your own host for the image.

<a href=”http://ThreeFatesKnitting.Etsy.com” target=”_blank”><img class=”alignleft” src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3565/3428625223_6d90772251.jpg?v=0″ alt=”" width=”70″></a>

That will give you one half as tall like the one in my widgets.

It was put together by Bonnie, aka thebon. She’s one of three graphic artists I know. The first one is my Dad, but he’s semi-retired which only means he’s busier than ever. The third one is my friend Katie and if she comments here I can put up a link.

now introducing bfl platinum sock

75% blue faced leicester (superwash) , 25% nylon, ~437 yards, 100 grams

From left to right top to botton:

1. tropical reef
2. red vine
3. lemon drop
4. english garden
5. fruit loop
6. carribean ripple
7. cadbury
8. whimsy

Recommended cold wash, dry flat

hand painted, fingering weight sock yarn

This is my first sock yarn with any nylon content. Unfortunately there won’t be any more of it until summer. It was an experiment by the person who ships me my yarn. Fortunately she’s decided to carry it permanently. Needless to say, the shop update is complete. I’m going to be out of town until the 28th. Next shipping date will be March 31st.

twilight

Some friends my local knitting group thought it would be cool if they could have some Twilight themed sock yarn.

100% Merino Wool and Hand-painted by me.

This is a new base and I’m thinking of calling the whole thing Evening Sock. Thoughts?

a bit behind

I’m a bit behind on doing stuff for the blog. I did a fair amount of dyeing in January and I’m not done yet. Here’s a shot of the first batch. I gave one skein away, but nothing has been posted yet for sale. If you see something you want, just tell me what it is. It may be a while before I get it together since I’m still dyeing the last half of the order.

Some of them are bamboo and wool blend and some are a merino nylon. Most of the semi-solids are Cauldron sock. The green is gone as is one of the Cauldron sock pinks. So because I’ve got new yarn, I need new yarn line names and so that’s really what the hold up is. I’ll still be using Henry’s Attic too. I just wanted to expand.

shop updates

There are a few new items at the shop including some more stitch markers. The first set of turquoise bears went fast. I made myself a banner. There is some eco-friendly yarn that is all dyed up and drying in my basement. Of course, I can’t skein it until we fix my swift!

This is the accidentally self-striping sock yarn I dyed. Can you believe I didn’t plan the stripes? I think it looks pretty good.

a few pics

You have until Friday to enter the brilliant crafters contest. In the meantime, I will work hard not to buy something from all the great people you mentioned so far.

Here are some more pictures. I divided them into a couple of posts because this was getting very long. I had a very negligent blogging sumer and I’m still catching up.  SPOILER ALERT: If you click on the more link, you will see what I got from Scout’s Swag for the sock yarn club for October.

Happy late Halloween. This is what my husband’s first-year class did.

This is the best picture I have of the Ostritch Plume scarf. I’m knitting it in Ella Rae’s laceweight merino, which is a fingering weight yarn. Basically, it’s sock yarn without the nylon. It’s beautiful and I will enjoy blocking it.

The Coriolis socks are back on track. Once I get the heels done, they will go really fast.

In the category of yarn that I haven’t shown you, when my inlaws were here in July, they bought some yarn for me to make hats for them. My father-in-law has a 24″ head and hats don’t fit him. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do just yet, but I’d better get going!

Here’s some Wollmeise I got from the Loopy Ewe Sock Club. I never photographed it. It was a busy summer. The color is called PIllars of Fire and there is a very generous 540 yards.

preview

Here it is, nearly the end of Socktoberfest and what do I have to show it?

Yes, I’m knitting. I have no knitting photographs. Worse, I have no complete pairs of socks. I’m rotating through my WIPS though, a few rows here and a few rows there. Pretty dull really. I’ve done a few rows of the left front of the Katherine Hepburn Sweater from Lace Style, fixed the Ostrich Plume Scarf so I actually know what row I’m on, cast-on for the Bird In Hand Mittens by Kate Gilbert, bought the Pacific Island Shawl pattern from Fiber Dreams, worked on a pair of plain (striped) socks made from one of my own yarns, untangled a few skeins of yarn, bought another skein of yarn for the EZ February Baby Sweater and knit most of a panel for a Lizard Ridge Afghan.

What I do have to show for it are these. I’m pretty pleased overall.

february baby sweater

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I am doing plenty of knitting. I’m not making a lot of progress on any individual project though. I started on Anne Hanson’s Ostrich Plume Scarf/Stole before getting confused as to what row I was on (in a yarn I’ve yet to show you), ripped and reknit a few roes on my Saffron Cables Blanket [ravelry link] from Interweave Knits, done a ton of work my Juno Regina and decided that my next cast-on is either going to be the Cookie A’s Zanzibar [r] Sock pattern that I got with my last Loopy Ewe Sock Club shipment or a plain sock in my own yarn (edited).

On Friday night / Saturday early in the morning I realized that I was due to attend a baby shower the next morning and that I HAD NOT CAST ON. I rummaged around. Do you know, I do not have enough baby appropriate worsted weight yarn just lying around? Um, if sock yarn isn’t stash, than my stash is small enough to fit in a couple of dresser drawers. (Well, no, but I can rattle off the projects pretty easily: 4 sweaters (2 for frogging), 3 blankets for me, 1 blanket for charity, 2 bags a hat and some odds and ends I think). There were 3 skeins of Brown Sheep, 12 skeins in 2 colors of DK weight Debbie Bliss Cathay, 5 skeins of DK weight Cotton Patine and several color inappropriate skeins of Brown Sheep Cotton Fine as well as a few other odds and ends. I wanted a sort of light worsted. I gave in and used the Dream in Color Classy I had been saving for a hat. It’s that yummy forest green color. I decided on the “Baby Sweater on Two Needles; Practically Seamless” by Elizabeth Zimmerman from her Knitter’s Almanac. I’ve wanted to make this for a while and the fact that a couple of days ago I was listening to Lime N’ Violet talk about the grown-up version aka the February Lady Sweater cinched it.

In progress: Elizabeth Zimmerman's 'Baby Sweater on Two Needles; Practically Seamless', aka the February Baby Sweater from Knitter's Almanac

shop update

I added a lot more of the yarn to the shop. There are about 5 skeins left to go.

I’ve put one line called test sock. These are varying yarn bases and I’m really experimenting with colors here. It’s a lot of work – when I’m feeling like a pro, I will probably develop some actual colorways. In the meantime, benefit from the learning process and get some great yarn at a great price!

I will always be wiling to send your yarn via first-class mail. Just let me know that that’s what you want and I’ll make sure you get the difference in purchase price. The trouble is that it costs another .75 or so for the mailer, so most of the time you might as well have it sent via priority mail.

overdyeing

Ever since my first encounter with hand dyeing last week, I’ve been hunting around for my place undyed yarns that I could dye. Why on earth did I trade away the cream colored Mountain Mohair I have? Couldn’t I break into my Cascade 220 that I bought for the Masters Program? (No.) Who sells cream colored / unbleached sock yarns at a reasonable price?

When I was at TKGA I was surrounded by wonderful blank yarns, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy any of them with a huge order on the way. I haven’t really found much nearby either. I suspect a trip to Abundant Dyeworks could work out once in a while, given a recent conversation I had with the owner. (They can always order it for you too.) And if I really wanted to trek, I could always go to Knot Another Hat in Hood River; however, at that point you might as well go to the place in Washington where I’m ordering my unddyed yarn and do a pick up.

This is just to tide me over until my order shows up in a couple of weeks. There was some Happy Feet at the Purl District nearby but it was $18.75. Just knowing though what a wholesale price I could be paying has put me off buying anything for now.They are having one of their quarterly knitting dinners tomorrow night, which won’t work out since I’ve got other things going on. In addition, I’ve bought too much stuff recently and Oregon Flock and Fiber is coming up next week. And then I thought about overdyeing. Hooray! I have some Nature’s Palette yarn that is too pale a color for me. I fell in love with one of their rich purples yesterday and boy was I jealous.

i am the merry master of the teeny wittle skein

It’s so cute it’s disgusting. I took a skein of Knit Picks super wash and started tying it into little hanks so as to make some sample colors. I’ve got about 50 of them and I plan to try 2 to three dyes on each one so I can get a good idea of what the bleeding what will look like. I also placed a larger order for some undyed sock yarn (not Knit Picks). My plan is to just a couple of those and I should have a good idea of what the relative color difference would look like. At least I hope I would.

On the work front I am finishing up the final details of my document; presentation to be given Sept 22nd. And I got a letter from a state agency telling me that I qualified as an applicant for a job I applied for on July 21st.

dyeing fiber

I started preparing my dyes today. I made red, blue, black and burgudy. I have several other shades of stuff, although I’m not clear on how to prepare the Jacquard Acid Dyes that I got at Knit Picks. The reason I’m not sure is that all the instructions are for kettle dyeing and include the vinegar straight away as opposed to making dye solutions. So I’m wondering what the appropriate ratio of hot water to powder is for those dyes. It’s probably in my hand dyeing book, so I guess I’ll start there.

book review

For me, color is one of the biggest attractions of knitting. In the winter, I practically drown myself in it in an effort to replace sunlight. Unsurprisingly, I’m interested in doing some hand dyeing of my own. If you read this blog regularly, you may remember that I received several jars of jacquard acid dye for Christmas, although I have yet to dye a hank.

Over the past year, I’ve been picking up hand dyeing supplies. Kool-aid here, sponge paintbrushes or gloves there. I’m down to the big one – the pot, microwave or other device I need to actually cook the skein in.

So it was natural that I picked up a copy The Yarn Lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing: Beautiful and Simple Knits by Linda La Belle. This book appears to have slid under the radar. There are three things I really like about it: comprehensive coverage, cute projects and interviews with professional hand dyers. It also happens to have clear instructions and well chosen photographs. Any one of these things alone would make a decent book. All three together make for a magnificent introduction to hand dyeing.

The book covers multiple techniques for hand dyeing – kool-aid acid dyeing, eucalyptus dyeing, cold pad dyeing, ktiton immersion dyeing, jacquard acid dyeing and the list goes on. Yep, it’s all there. It even lets you know the pros and cons of using the different dye types. The book coversJacquard Acid Dyes and Ashford Wool Dyes and Procion mx fiber reactive dyes dyes and you can see some sample results.

There is probably one too many ‘little projects’ in the pattern section, but I enjoy the fact that some are knit BEFORE the dyeing, while others used the finished yarns. All of the projects show the dye job beautifully, which is probably the important thing.

I think my favorite aspect, the one making the book worthy of being a permanent reference book, is the interviews with hand dyers like Cheryl schaefer, Maie, Taiu and Kersti Landra (Koigu), and Nancy Finn (Chasing Rainbow Dyeworks.)

Available through and from Amazon.Com for $15.28 – $19.80 US.

I’ll recommend this book at four and a half yarn cakes. Sweet!

she sells yarn by the seashore

I’m still catching up on my blogging. Just a quick word to my No Sheep for You swap pal in Virginia though. Thank you so much for the Tofutsies! I know it has a little wool in it, but I wanted it anyway, so it’s great to have it. It’s really pretty and I can’t wait to try it (although my queue is huge)! If you have a blog, will you drop me a note with the link, so I can put it here?

In my two weeks in Oregon, I’ve been to three yarn shops in three cities. None of them we’re in Salem. No, it’s not the beginning of a logic problem. The first was in Portland. During the Harry Potter wait, I realized I’d left my size 1 needle behind in the car, but I knew that Knit Purl was nearby, so I used the needles as an excuse to check out the shop. I really liked the variety of yarns they carried. There were several things there that I’d never seen all in one shop, or I’d only seen online, as well as some unique items.