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Afflicted with colour affection

Colour Affection or what we lovingly referred to it at Sock Camp, Colour Infection, is what is on my needles, in my basket and piled in tonal trio’s around the barn.  Even before Josie showed up at camp with not one, but two shawls, and her wicked, “knit this you know you want to mojo”, that almost turned sock camp into shawl camp, I’d been thinking about knitting this tonal colour study design of Veera’s.



Truth be told, I would like to knit quite a few of Veera’s shawls, they are stunning. I love how her knit brain works.

I think Debbi was the first one to fall under Josie’s enabling spell. It wasn’t long before pretty much, knitter by knitter, the whole camp had caught the bug, as you can see here in Steph’s blog post.

We were joking one of the mornings in the store as we helped pick colours and wound yarn, that affection was an infection and most certainly are far better one to get then the ones we usually walk away from camp with.

Actually I do believe it is the only one we walked away with this time so yeah Josie!!

As everyone else did, I mulled over a few hues and then picked my three colourways and went on my merry way to wind and swatch. Unfortunately…. someone ( I’m not naming names, you know who you are,) beat me to my appropriate needle for this. I tried my level best to get gauge with the size I had with me that was closest, but it was having none of that. Oh well… I’d wait. It’s not like I didn’t have knitting. It worked out for the best in the long run, as these things tend to do, since Stormy needed my Smoke on the Water to complete her trio. Yeah!!  ( yo colour karma fairy! You caught that one right?)

So we wrapped up shawl sock camp and when I got home, I went in search of needles and my missing second colour. While perusing the sock wall of colour with Deb

(Again Accuardi, not Stone or McVae. I can’t even talk about the Deb thing going on here.) she suggested knitting them in Silkie. Being the mercurial soul that I am, I decided to take her suggestion and switch.  In my defense, it has silk in it, what’s not to love about having that draped around you?

Also… I had these beauties hanging on the wall.

I was just not a strong enough woman to resist the scummy pull of this trio.

I’m over the moon thrilled with my choice and I do believe I am going to keep this one for myself.

Don’t worry about the trio I choose at camp, I have a friend I am going to knit that one for, her dark purple heart is going to be tickled.

I started yesterday on the way to the beach with my girls for the day.

A good place for a scummy cast on don’t ya think!

Odd and ends

Really this post is mostly about yardage and price increases, but odds and ends sounds so… much better than, price increase. Nobody really likes to talk about money, especially these days. However, it is a fact of our lives and really, just a means to an end.

After a good many years of resistance on my part, we’ve raised the yardage on both the mediumweight and lightweight sock yarn. So we’re offering both Socks that Rock lightweight and mediumweight in 405 yard skeins, which we feel is more than enough sock yarn for any size foot. (I feel a challenge coming on.)

Along with yardage increase comes a price increase.  I hate raising prices, it gives me a cramp. I work really, really hard to keep our prices reasonable for our knitters, that said, you can’t really add in more yarn without upping the cost. I did my best to keep it as low as I could while still making sure we all got paid.

You’ll also notice that we raised the pricing on a few of the garment yarns.

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that we were headed in this direction. I actually thought, as with the new colourways, that this would be a done deal by now. However,the website upgrade gods had a different plan in mind.  I wish they’d send out memos, it would makes things a whole lot tidier. I believe we’re finally on the tail end of all of this website drama. ( Knock on wood!)

Thank you dear knitters for bearing with us during all of this!

We are packing up and getting ready to head to Port Ludlow for Camp Cast Away today. If you’ve emailed or called in the past few days you’d have noticed that Paula is back. Our lovely Rosie is on vacation visiting her family in Mexico and Paula kindly offered to come fill in while Rosie is away. Yeah Paula!

I had a bit of an epiphany a few weeks after Paula left. I realized that she could easily handle a bunch of our customer service from Missouri and still be a part of our team which made us all very happy.

So Paula is back and we’re all thrilled.

If you have not already seen it the new issue of the Twist Collective is out. I spent an hour with a cup of tea scrolling through all of the really great designs and Spring colour.

There’s two designs with our yarn that are quite wonderful:

Xylem by Rachel Coopey using Socks that Rock Lightweight in The New Colour of Love. I love the lines on this sock, especially the back.

and

Nyame by Julia Trice using Marine Silk Sport in the colourway Nyame.  I love this piece and… more importantly so did both of my daughters!

And… Nyame is on the cover!

Well.. I hear the natives rustling around the kitchen and Debbi will be here in 29 minutes so I better get rolling towards the barn.

Have a lovely Wednesday!

ps. We moved the girls ( baby chickies) to their new digs, the hen house, yesterday. I only got up twice last night to go check on them. I think that’s pretty good. Don’t you?

ps. I might be a wee bit possessed. Don’t tell.

ps again: The sideways pictures, can’t even…

Hunt and Gathering

It’s Friday, which for some strange reason I am thrilled about. I don’t know why, since I have a mega- ton of work to do, so it’s not like I get the time off. I think it’s that all of the people I work with will be off so I feel that I’ll get more done since there will be little to no interruptions. Well… except from my inner self sabotaging demons. Dang demons!

Anyway before we all head off to our weekends, whatever they hold, I wanted to post the chickie photos we hid for our Easter Hunt, as some of you requested.

Aren’t they adorable? I’m so smitten by them I can hardly stand it.

Also I’ve been wanting to put up this list of new colourways for, what feels like an eternity, now. I’ve been waiting for the techies to make triple sure that every little thing in the website upgrade was working properly.

I see now, that this is one of those optimistic pipe dreams that I need to let go of or… I’ll be sitting here, old and gray, waiting on that proverbial cold day in hell.  I seriously think calling this whole process an upgrade needs to be rethought. Upgrade implies better and leads to expectations that, in my not so limited experience, are not usually met.  So maybe we call it change-over and are surprised when it’s an upgrade.

Wow… I sound bitter. Ok, I’ll cop to, it I am a wee bit bitter. 

Maybe I need to work all my web related angst out in a colourway series., Hmm… what would we call that one?

Alright enough bitters.

In the brighter more colour filled part of my world, we have new hues and returning ones.

We actually have quite a few returning colours. We had to, they were banging on the doors, raising such a raucous, that we couldn’t concentrate.

There are also a whole lot of new colour friends to meet and play with.

Multi-colourways:

EOS

Gasropod Shuffle

Supercolourfragilistic

Pussy Broadway

Sea Scum, Sea Scum Run

Smokey Mountain Morn.

Saving Grace

Girl Crush

Just Jack

Moon Jelly

Single Cell Dating Pool

Ooh La Lagoon

Oaks Bottom

Puddle of Bleu

Surf’s U

Blecker

Zest

Shaded Solid:

Sky Blue

Porcini

Smoke on the Water

Watercolourways:

Sky Blue Pink

PDX Rose City (coming on Monday the 16th)

In a total and strange tonal turn of events it seems that I am having a bit of a love affair with purple. Shocking, I know. I’m a bit possessed, especially with the smoky dark side.

I blame my friends Amy and Lara.

I’m on to you two.

If you have or see any issues at all on the website, please do let us know. There’s a gaggle of us editing and testing, nonetheless, things do have a way of slipping through the cracks.

I hope you have a lovely knit filled weekend. 

Easter Hunt Winners

Well… that was a huge amount of fun, we’re going to have to do this more often. I was a little worried that maybe the scope of this hunt was too much. Ha, I of all people should know knitters better. I ‘m sure you’re all waiting to hear who our winners are so, without further ado…

Our winners:

1st place: Sarah Dianne Jones

2nd place: Stariel

3rd place: Michelle Brauner

4th place: Hope Rudolph

5th place: Karen Skriver Lauger

6th place: Jennifer Kim

Congratulations everyone and thanks to all, who joined our baby chick hunt. 

Speaking of chicks it’s time to tuck them in for the night!

Easter Egg Hunt: Hatched

It’s Easter weekend! I love this holiday with its basket carrying, egg delivering bunny, hopping around spreading Spring joy, celebrating rebirth.  Ever since I was a child (still am really), one of my favourite aspects of Easter, was the egg hunt. I like finding things in general, but the excitement and magic of searching for eggs to fill my basket, just charmed the socks of me. I especially loved the one our local fire department hosted in Cabin John along the banks canal and river.

It’s officially spring and I have done something I’ve been wanting to do for years, I got chickens, baby ones. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long. How I have lived my life up until now without chickens? I just don’t know. They are here in the barn, all 20 of them ( I know.) to be exact. I’m working on pictures of each and everyone of them, so I can introduce you to them. You’re going to love them.  And the colour… oh my goodness, the colour.

Anyway… I had this thought, in the wee hours of Friday morning. I was thinking what better way to celebrate the rebirth that is Spring with our very own version of an Easter egg hunt? I don’t think it really matters that our eggs have already hatched. Do you? Chickens hiding amongst yarn and knitting? Serious fun!

So…

Welcome knitters, to our 1st annual Blue Moon Easter Chickie Hunt.

All across the website we’ve hidden 20 chickies for you to find. All 20 are in frames just like all the product pictures. They’re hidden everywhere our twisted brains could think to put them, all tucked in with the yarn, patterns, kits, and roving.  There are circle ones and rectangular ones and square ones.

They look something like this: 

Your mission, should you choose it, is to find all 20 of them, then make a list with the page you found each one on and then send the list with your full name and address to with Easter Hunt in the subject line.

Listing example: Mopsy> Obsidian or if it’s a pattern then the name of the pattern, same is true if it’s a kit.

Easy peasy right? 

The very first person to do this wins a Blue Moon $100.00 gift certificate.

The second person wins a $60.00 gift certificate

After that, the next four, will get 1 skein of lightweight sock yarn in your colourway choice and a pattern (also your choice) to go with it.

You have until Monday at midnight Pacific time to send me your list.

If you have any questions please list them in the comments.

I believe that covers all the bases.

If you’d like a few hints there are some vague ones below:

Yes, I am to blame, since I am the muse of hues. 

My kitty Valla should come with a warning sign, although she looks all cozy and inviting, really what lurks right below that purring calm, is fierce.

I have found my thrill with this fine luxurious goodness, I am loopy with it.

Sheep talk radio: “Look Betty, I know it’s the new fad and all, but really, I feel like such a #1 boobie, strolling the pasture in shoes. Don’t you?”

And the hunt is on!

FYI:  (The picture might not be of the whole chickie. Our Jane has pond scum feet and how could you not want a photo of pond scum chickie feet?)

Happy Easter! Happy Spring!