Weekend Fiber Fun

May is one of my favorite months! Spring has usually made herself known in a lilacs are blooming,  birds are singing and sun is shining by now. Since we’re just at the beginning that means it’s time for The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Another reason to love May!!

This year is special because MS&W is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary of serving our fiber community with this festival.  40 years,  that’s along time. I was wondering earlier this week what it would have been like to be at the very first one in 1973 when it was the Carroll County Craft Festival.

As we do every year we’ve sent a mega-ton of yarn with Toni Neil of The Fold .  A whole slew of new colorways ( including the new shaded solids)  and… some  good ol’ color friends, that even I, was hard pressed to remember.  All three of our new yarns are making their debut, the Targhee sisters, worsted and bulky, Victoria, queen of Polwarth and the soft and just flippin’ wonderful BFL Fingering. Toni also has our current trunk show, including but certainly not limited to Karen Alfke’s Ariadne

You’ll also see and carress and try on… :

Sartorial Cowl by Star Athena  in DeVine
Axis Mitts by Sam Roshak  in Twisted
Colour Affection by Veera Valmaki in both Seduction and Silkie Socks that Rock
Pretty Thing Cowl by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee  in our Worthy Fingering

I hope everyone has a great sheepy time!

Toni’s in Barn 3, Booth 18 right across from the food booths!

Things to look forward to for those of us who  can’t get to Maryland this weekend.

Twisted is hosting Amy Singer next weekend for a few very cool classes and a talk Saturday evening that is sure to be a good time. I know I’m going.  If you have not had a chance to meet or hear Amy’s knitty story this is your chance.

You know what’s right around the corner? Next week actually. Another thing to love about May, Mother’s Day!  When I was thinking what I wanted to do this year to pay homage to all that Mother energy, I remembered this gift I made for a dear friend. I took our silk hankies and wrote a wish on it for her ( in dye of course) then, decorated it with a wee bit of color here and there. I then knit it up into a lovely little shawlette.  Since she could not see what the wish was I wrote a little card and put it in the package and mailed it off.  She loved it so much and I loved making it for her just as much. A sentiment dyed and knit into silk.  Pretty sweet.  So sweet that I thought it would be a great Mother’s Day project/present.

So…

I painted a bunch of hankies!!

I decorated the edge with lovely May type hues and wrote MOM in the middle. This is what it looks like before we set the dye. It runs into itself a bit as it steams, which makes the message a hard to read, but gives a great effect for the knitting part and finished object. We’re calling these our Mother’s Day Message in a Hanky and we do have a limited number of them available. It is way harder to write on a silk hanky with dye then one would think. Seriously!  I can’t tell how thrilled Debra was that this little bit of creativity was my job. I love it.  What’s not to love about knitting a message to someone you love that they can wear and have forever – a treasure!

A little knit tip: When knitting these pull from the top and then the bottom of the hanky pile to evenly disperse the color range.

An ordering note:  If you order this by itself it will ship on Monday May 6th. If you add another something else to your order we can’t guarantee Monday shipment.

I hope, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing this weekend, that you have a wonderful one. It’s been seriously beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest so it’s gardening for me! Putting in an asparagus barrel, some new dye plant beds and a dye play date.

A little color therapy

Often, after a my lovely worker bees go home for the day and before I settle into the evening family routine, I head out to the barn to have a little visit with my yarn and colors. I like to see where we are from our day of dyeing, rinsing, skeining and bundling yarn. Quite honestly, I like just to stand in that large space surrounded by wool and color. It’s comforting. If I’ve spent most of the day on the computer or with numbers then it’s not just comforting, it’s life affirming and soul soothing.

One of my very favorite games is to pull skeins of yarn down from the sock wall of color, lay them all out on one of the tables, and then, mix and match them to my hearts content. This is especially fun when there are a lot of new colors and there are.  Last night I mixed and matched just the new colors with each other. I like to think this makes the yarn as happy as it makes me.

I have to say I’m pretty smitten with this latest batch of shaded solids.  I think tonight I’m going to introduce them to all the other shaded solids to see the magic they can make. Are there any combinations you’d like to see.

We are almost finished prepping Webs order. Yesterday was all about skeining their Silkmo.

Isn’t it pretty?! It’s Bag Lady, one of my favorite’s.

Since we’re being all colorful… I made this special colorway in Sock Candy for Twisted and Amy’s gathering. I’m considering calling it Ukelele Singer. Whatcha think?

Have a great day!

Contest results…

or… what happens when you start a list from the bottom up?  Note to me: next time we do a contest like this make sure to photograph the pictures in such a way, that when they are imported into the system number one is actually at the top of the list, not number 11.                                                                                           While I’m sure that starting a numbered list with the top number being the last number in your sequence is some awesome brain exercise it was not my intention here.

We’ve done all kinds of naming contests before (Because they are great fun!) usually though, they involve you suggesting names for colorways and then we pick a winner. I do believe this is the first time we done the match the name to the colorway and as I check the entries daily, and hope, that someone comes close to matching them I think, maybe this way, lies madness.                                                                               It’s that snowflake aspect of us that  leaves us all having differing perspectives and opinions. Add to this snowflake people paradigm the fact that we see and process color differently and what we have, my friends, is a color conundrum of sorts.                                                                                                                                                                                  While both Rhonda and I might think it’s obvious that Gourdy is the orange one, because it’s a pumpkin color and pumpkins are orange, and seriously? How could it be anything different?  Debra and Becky might say, “Hey you loons, gourds are green and not really pumpkins, what the hell with the orange? ”

Color is personal and subjective as you can see from the contest entries below.

I’m going to leave the contest for the weekend and see how we do.  Big hint: I’m a seriously creative type of snowflake tightly plied with kinda bent.  A pumpkin might not technically be a gourd but… .

The colors are live on the website now.

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! It’s sunny and warm here already. I’m hosting and teaching my first surface design class today. Very excited and slightly nervous.

A little shadey match-up contest!

I’ve been in a shaded solid kind of mood and have been working on some lovely subtle hues. I’m done with the first round and since I’m neck deep in rare gem mill end dyeing and short on photography time. I thought maybe this would be a good time for a colorway contest while we wait for me to get these up on the website (by the end of this week). I promise.  Below you’ll find 11 colorways and their names. Yes, we’ve already named them; we couldn’t help ourselves.  Now it’s your turn to have some fun and see if you can get inside our heads (scary proposition, I know) and guess which names go with which colorway. Fun right?  I think it will be great fun.
The first 4 knitters to correctly match each of the 11 colorways  with their appropriate (the ones we gave them) name win their choice of 4 of these gems. Please put your guesses in the comments.

The colorway pictures are numbered for ease of matching!!

List of names: Gourdy
Pistachio
Strawberry Fields Forever
Sea Foam Home
Blade Runner
Mauvelous
Sabertooth Caterpillar
What’saaabi
Chillaxin
Passive Aggressive Green
Big Brain Blue

Ready, set…match!

Coloring

I spent most of this week dyeing rare gems, which is one of  my favorite types of dyeing. As I was musing over blue, while over dyeing the lightweights in the water category, I realized that one of the reasons I love over-dyeing is that it’s coloring outside the lines. There are no limits really and very few, if any, rules.

I spend a lot of my time as a colorist making sure my color concoctions are repeatable. What this means is that everything is measured and marked every single step of the way. Every aspect of the process is carefully considered so that my production dyers can recreate each one as I intended. There are all kinds of things that can step in and mess with my controls (dye changes, yarn changes,water, mood of production dyer…)  but, for the most part, it is my accuracy in making that initial recipe that makes this whole thing work.

I have to tell you that, when I’m in a really inspired place and am focused on getting all the color ideas in my imagination out on yarn, it is seriously challenging to chart every step. It disrupts the flow a bit for me. I have to continually work on convincing myself that the recipe is part of that creative flow. If one’s intention is to share what’s being created then it’s an integral part of the process.

There are also really cool coloring tricks I can’t do because they are not repeatable in a cost effective way or in a make sure every knitter is happy kind of way.

So when I’m dyeing the Rare Gems I kinda feel like a free range dyer. Pretty much anything goes. I think it might be a bit like therapy for me, teaching color and dyeing is that way also. I  get to throw off anything that I feel is binding me or holding me back. I open the doors to those ever present winds of change, and throw the windows wide open, so whatever light is out there that can illuminate my coloring way, and…then I jump, heart and soul first, into each and every skein. It’s a blast

(I do still have a pen and paper right by my side to make hue-notes on, just in case. I’m not a fool.)

All that opening also makes way for some wonderful musing time. Yesterday when I was dyeing earth tone I got to thinking how I taught all three of my children the joy of coloring. We enjoyed outside the lines coloring long before I taught them the importance of color in them. As I watch them go out into the world and make their way I’m getting to see in action just how crucial that one seemingly small step is.  After all, it’s not just easier to see but, also, to appreciate and know, the need for controls and boundaries, when you are familiar with what it looks like without them.

Stay tuned for a huge addition to our Shaded Solids… .

A few special things…

before we head into the weekend.

It was my intention to write a post on Monday, but you can see how well that worked out.  I have my oldest daughter back home for awhile and we’re adjusting to a new schedule. It’s great to have her here, but all three of us are busy people so… lots of  juggling. Luckily I am an expert juggler.

We’ve spent the week starting the dye prep for Maryland Sheep and Wool. If there’s anything you’d like us to send Toni for the booth, please do let us know and we’ll do our best to make sure she has it. We’re sending a ton of new colorways and breaking out some seriously old ones.  It’s been quite amusing going down colorway memory lane.  You know when you hear a song you haven’t heard in awhile, and it makes you feel all nostalgic because the memories associated with that time of your come flooding back in.  It’s like that!  Lots of good stories with each one.

Did you know that it’s Maryland Sheep and Wool’s 40th Anniversary? Impressive and exciting!  I am sure it’s going be to a grand ol’ sheepy time! If you are there, hug a Toni for me.

If you are in New Jersey on April 18th – 20th (next weekend not this weekend), specifically Maplewood, there’s the Garden State Yarn Crawl. We just sent all kinds of pretties to our newest stockist Knitknack along with a trunk show, featuring our newest design by Karen Alfke, Ariadne. Do take a peak. I’m sure Meera and her team has all kinds of knit fun cooked up for you.

Aren’t they adorable?  This is Heather and Paula. Paula on the left and Heather on the right.  Heather joined Blue Moon last March as a temp, to fill in here and there, until  a job she was waiting for in Afghanistan came through. We were very lucky and had Heather with us for a whole year. Her job finally came through a few weeks ago.  Heather is one of those bright and shiny stars that it’s just a joy to be around. She exudes happiness, after her morning coffee that is, and while we wish her the absolute best in doing what she loves, we will miss her a lot.  There is a lot I could thank Heather for, she made me laugh every single day.  She laughed at my jokes, because she really thought they were funny and for that alone, I will love her forever.  The consensus in the barn is the biggest gift we got from Heather was Paula. Paula and Heather were like long lost sisters they immediately bonded and  just “got” each other. Heather brought out a side of Paula we rarely saw and that I love.  And…together? Well take it from me, a force to contend with. Paula has donned her big girl pants and is being brave, but I know that she will miss Heather a whole lot.  Know that you are loved Heather.

To us, Heather is a rare gem, so in honor of her newest life adventure (…and because she threatened us if we did not empty the pod that houses dyed yarns) we are having a RARE GEM MILL END SALE this weekend starting Friday.   We have both lightweight and mediumweight  and they are mill ends ( that’s the sale part). The special part is that they are Rare Gems, one of a kind, usually over dyes, sometimes experiments. Because of this, it is a dye to order sale. I will not dye them until the order is placed. I have done it the other way and ended up with not enough of one kind and too much of another. Lesson learned. Keep in mind that this means it will take a little longer to get from my dye table to your door. I promise it will be worth the wait. I’m feeling some seriously wicked rare gem mojo!  I so love this part of my job.

Remember those new yarns I told you about?

We are going to get them up this weekend.  So keep an eye out for those. Pattern support for them to follow. I promise the new yarns will also be well represented at Maryland.

Last but most certainly not least, it is my friend Anna Zilboorg’s 80th birthday today.  I want to just take a moment and say Happy, Happy Birthday dearest Anna. I hope you had just the best day, filled with light, laughter, love and of course cake and ice cream.  I am so very glad you were born and happily celebrate you gracing the planet!

Have a great weekend!