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Dec 30

A new year, new color and anniversary!

I do not remember when I have been this excited to welcome in a New Year! Partially because 2017 has been one seriously tough year so I am pretty happy to see it end!! I know I am not alone in this experience and feeling. Sorry 2017 but truly you’ve been a bit of a bitch. I will thank you however for constantly teaching me to be in the moment, take one step at a time and to look for the light and love no matter what!

One of the many reasons I am excited to usher in 2018 is that Blue Moon is 18 this year! I know!! And seriously 18 years of doing anything is a long time and something that should be commemorated and in this case celebrated. Which we plan to do in spades! Starting with the serious moon magic that the celestial powers that be are giving us.

We are ushering in 2018 with a Super Full Moon that is called the Wolf Moon and if that were not enough another Full moon on January 30 that is also a super moon and a Lunar Eclipse. A seriously good omen for a new year I think.

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Since we are all about the moon, especially a blue one, we are riding this magical celestial waves of wonder into our anniversary celebration year. Every month we are going to have at least one new Lunar colorway of some sort. We are starting with these two lovelies for our first full moon of the month. Once in A Blue Moon is all pale moon grey and cool blue for our winter moon ( I can’t wait to dye Once in a Blue Moon in Super Sparkle. Oh my!). Blue Moon Rising is a howling hue that rises out of the night and illuminates the darkness! (There will also be some sort of Total Lunar Eclipse Blue Super Moon color translation later in the month!) Along with your colorway you will get a Moon Note. A bit like a tarot card of sorts.

One of my very favorite songs of all time is Once in a Very Blue Moon by Patrick Alger and sung by the lovely Nanci Griffith.

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One of the other things I am super excited about is ….Screen Shot 2017-11-01 at 10.45.27 PM

 

 

 

 

this years Sock Club, our Magical Mystery Tour. We have changed things up quite a bit and it is looking to be a stellar 13th year of sock knitting! Sign-ups are open and we would LOVE to have you join us for all of the knit fun we have planned. We are starting the year of with a very bright and sparkley splash! I mean really if you have the chance to start a new year with a bright sparkley splash why wouldn’t you.

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Are you going to Vogue Knitting LIVE?? If so be sure to check out all of the goodness we have sent Terri O’Brien at FEATHER YOUR NEST Oh my!! I wish I could be there to see! Although it was all hanging from the rafters here for quite awhile. When I have her booth number I will post it. There is a special colorway, gradient kits, kits for The Tracey and Jodi shawls and all kinds of lovely samples! So fun!!

Okay dear knitters I am going to spend the day with my daughter who goes back to New York tomorrow.

Thank you so very much for being our knitters!! You are the very best and we are so grateful to have you in our lives!

Be safe ushering in this New Year!!

xoxoxoxo

 

Dec 23

Make a joyful noise!

NOTE: Read carefully, for hidden in these words of mine this morning is a present you will find towards the end.
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(It’s amazing how many chicken themed ornaments we have. hmm…)

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I picked up number two daughter (Sophia, my youngest) from the airport yesterday and she and I pick up number one daughter (Rabia, my middle child and oldest girl) today!! I have not seem them both in far too long. As you can imagine my heart is pretty flipping full right now. We are a really tight family and having my two girls so far away is not the easiest! Luckily for this mother’s heart my number one and only son, Narayan is here in Portland with lovely wife, Candace and their pooches, Niki and Siena.

I am so looking forward to the time we have together and will cherish every single moment!

I love this holiday season! I love the merry making and crafty creating, all the yummy baking, the giving of love and presents, decorating everything I can with twinkle lights, singing in the barn as we dye your yarn, the winter briskness and longest night and the return of the light!

I know however that this is not the best season for all of us and honestly if any of my kids could not be here it would not be for me either. I have spent the better part of the last 6 months with some pretty intense empty nest loneliness and grief. Who knew?! I know, most of you know. I do not get lonely as a rule. I have a full to brimming life because of all of you (THANK YOU!!) and my friends, and seriously curious, creative mind. So this all hit me pretty hard and made me think a lot about how holidays are for those of us who for whatever reason cannot be with the ones we love and are loved by.

My worker bee Sierra, who is a sweetheart of a person,  and I were chatting about this and wondering what we can do to help. She has a neighbor who just lost her husband and she was wondering what she could do to reach out.. I told her that I thought just about anything that we can do for each other that is reaching out and showing that someone is there and cares lightens the alone feeling and sheds a little light and love!

As makers and creators we tend to spread a little love and light with every stitch of colorful woolly warmness that falls off of our needles I know in my heart that if most of us see a soul in need we respond with kindness and generosity. I know this from my own experience with our creative community. I also know when you are low and not at your best to reach out and say, “hey, I am having a hard time and could use a friendly smile or cup of tea or (fill in the blank)”.

So let us notice those around us and spread a little more light! I will be here with my family all weekend but I do have a computer and for some odd reason have been waking up at 3:00 am every single day!! I am here and will do my best to say hi if a friendly voice would help you! tina@bluemoonfiberarts.com.  It’s not much, but it might be enough! I know it has been for me at times.

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It snowed a wee bit last night!

Well…I can tell you I was not really going here when I sat down this am to write you, which is one of the great things about writing. I was going to tell you all about how excited I am about the Raven gradients and all the goodness we can create with them and remind you School of Yarn fold that your coupon code expires at the end of the month.

School of Yarn discount code expires at the end of this month!!!

And…here is my little color brain’s current pride and joy! A Raven gradient kit in Valkyrie. I know!  Do you love it?? I seriously do and am going to ball one up and cast one some goodness this weekend because I just cannot flippin’ help myself. I just need to figure out what pattern I want to use. I think we are going to have to offer these gradients in larger and or different weight other than fingering weight sizes for sweaters. What do you think??

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So as a little holiday gift from us to you there is a coupon code for 10% off good until midnight on Christmas night. The first 4 letters in the code are all caps and the hints to what they are are below and the last part of the code is 2017

Here are you hints:

Hint #1 which is the first letter of the code: The 1st letter in number one and only son’s name.

Hint #2 which is the second letter of the code: The 1st letter in number one daughter’s name.

Hint #3 which is the third letter of the code: The 1st letter in number two daughter’s name.

Hint #4 which is the fourth letter of the code: The 1st letter in daughter-in-law’s name.

So the code is those 4 letters in caps followed by 2017 with no spaces in between!

Okay I have to get ready to go to the airport to pick up daughter!!!!

Take care of each other, stay warm and safe and loved!!

Peace and so much joy!!

Dec 16

Winter is for wonder and wool!

It is super cold here!! Freezing cold. The ponds all have a thin layer of ice on them and everything is covered with frost. It looks like we live in the land of the frost giants. It’s quite magical.

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Perfect sitting by the fire with a hot cup of tea and one’s knitting weather!

One of the most beautiful moments of my day is when I head out to the dye barn in the wee hours of the morning to get set up for our dye day. Last week was all clear skies and the moon was a crescent with an ethereal halo and so many stars. Stunning. Just stunning and so very peaceful which is a great way to start a day. I have tried to capture a picture but it is just so dark and I just can’t seem to capture that moment in a photo to share. I guess some moments are meant to be in and not captured.

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Last weekend Karen and Maggie and I did all kinds of hatching of plans for the the wonder that we feel 2018 holds. Our 18th Anniversary!! The 13th year of the Rockin’ Sock Club, our 2nd Semester of School of Yarn, getting a little bit back into the show circuit and let us not forget our special magical anniversary Super-Eclipse Blue Moon on the 31st of January!! I can’t help but feel that somehow all of the moon magic is for us! Also…it’s 2018 and our 18th year being Blue Moon! I’m thinking it’s going to be a magical kind of year!

And you would think that we knew about all of this blue moon magic when we chose out Magical Mystery Tour theme for the sock club but we didn’t. I know…go figure. One of you brought it to our attention which I just love!!! Thank you Phaedra!!

Our first sock club design and colorways are so wonderful, bright, sparkly and joyful. I want to share them with you so badly that it hurts a little. Oh my. A spectacular start to the year for sure! So very, very excited and cannot wait for you all to see.

And then there is the second semester of our School of Yarn. Honestly I was not quite as excited about my Merino research as the Targhee (We all know how I feel about Targhee so I feel like that’s fair.) but I have to say I am so loving what I am learning and how all of this is rounding out my own knowledge. I might be a wool science and history nerd. The history of Merino and how it plays out and basically created the wool industry is seriously fascinating. This is my current stack of reading materials.

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See?! Super wool nerd.

Anyway I’m pretty excited to share all of this with you and my chats with a few of our industry stewards. Oh and the colors I made for this one make all three of us happy so I am pretty sure you will love them. They are very Ultra-Royal. (hint hint)

 

If you want to jump on the Super Targhee train I highly recommend it! We still have some left before Maggie, Karen and I dye the rest for ourselves. lol

I mentioned in the fall that we would be seeing an across the board price increase in wool prices especially Merino. We have already experienced some that we have just absorbed as we do to some extent. We are about to get another one and this one we will have to pass some on to you as much as I hate to. So we will be doing this at the beginning of the year as I mentioned when I first told you. We might try an incremental approach (still waiting on some of our prices) like do an increase now and one a little later instead of a big one. Anyway if you want to stash enhance now is the time my wool loving friends! Especially if you have discount codes from us you have yet to use.

So are you caught up on your holiday knitting or madly knitting into the wee hours of the morning to get it all done? What are you knitting on that you love!! Anything planned for yourself?

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Here is my hopeful knit plan for the weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

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I have been toying with the idea of a color club type thing for a few years now and pretty much have what I want to do in mind.  If I did a color club where we just immersed ourselves in everything and anything to do about color form theory to mood to dyes ( natural and synthetic) to history and all of the wheres and hows what would you like to see?? You can comment here or email me if you like info@bluemoonfiberarts.com

Okay it is time to do some shipping and errand running! I’m a little wary of the errand running this close to Christmas.

I leave you with some Super Targhee DK knit thoughts from Maggie.

Kalaloch by Andrea Rangel

Adventurous by Joji Locatelli

Capall Dubh by Carol Feller

Pretty Little Plie by Veer Välimäki

Campside Cardi by Amanda Plummer

Dec 9

New colorways are LIVE!!

I am pretty smitten with most of these but I have to say Welcome to the Jungle and Grandma’s Groovy Sofa are my favs right now. As Debra has pointed out to me on many occasions I am prone toward color crushes that are as fluid as the tide!

I have been on a bit of a color making hiatus until about a week ago. I just was not real inspired. It happens. I was not worried. A little sad maybe but not worried. Creativity is not something that works on a time schedule at least it does not for me. I need to be inspired and have the space in my psyche to let the creative spirit or muse flow and that has just not been the case. Sometimes the running of the business aspect of Blue Moon does affect my color making mojo!! Maggie has been spurring me on and that support and light sure does make a difference.

We do have a few more new ones that we will probably add next week. We’ll see how things go. I am working on Raven gradient kits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See all of those exclamation points?! I am that excited about these. Like over the moon and back excited.

I have started with Valkyrie since it is a favorite. If my last dye test yesterday comes out then we have a winner (and I think it will)!! The art of making gradients is how much of a color shift between each grade is enough to be visible but not so much that it is not cohesive as a whole. I tend toward a smooth subtle transition. These will be a little different because of the layers of color in the Ravens and how I am choosing where and how in those layers to adjust the color so it grades.

Thanks to everyone on Instagram who suggested names! I loved them as you can see and used four of them to name these lovelies. Grandma’s Groovy Sofa is one of the best colorway names ever and…it did not occur to me at the time but totally looks like the sofa my gran Winnie had for years. Too funny.

Okay so a little business we are dyeing and shipping massive amounts of Super Targhee and still have some left if you want some. Oh my goodness it LOVES the dye and takes color so well that it makes me sad that when it si gone then that it the end of it all.

We have shipped both last shipment of the year of the sock club and the last of the first semester of school of yarn!  It’s what happens at the end of the year, the end of things.

Karen is here this weekend and her and Maggie and I are madly planning out the school of yarn year and the sock club year and all kinds of other wonderful goodness.

Like…

2018 is Blue Moon’s 18th Anniversary!! I know right?!

And…if that were not cool enough and for me it is. On January 31st we have the third supermoon in a row, the second one of the year which makes it a blue moon and…it is a flipping lunar eclipse. So I am thinking that is some pretty wicked magic for our Anniversary year and we are going to ride that wave with all sorts of fiber and color fun all year long!

Okay this is getting long and I have to go feed Karen and do something with this hair of mine.

Rockin’ Sock Club 2018 and School of Yarn are both great holiday gifts that keep on giving throughout the year.

We also have Blue Moon Gift Certificates!

I feel like there are things I am forgetting to tell you but for the life of me cannot think of what they are so stay tuned!

Have a lovely weekend my friends!!

Dec 2

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Happy Saturday Knitters!!

I don’t know if you have noticed but we have made a small newsletter timing change. We are now sending the newsletter on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. I hope this is as good for you as it is for me.

For me it means I have Friday to create the newsletter and get it to Jess and then I have Friday evening or Saturday morning before it flies out to you to write a blog post. Which means I end up writing it in bed on Saturday morning with a cup of tea and a cat or two to keep me company. It’s great! Gives me time to mull over the week we just worked through and look at what is coming in the next few weeks in a reasonably relaxed manner so I can then share it all with you, one of my favorite things. So…I get to enjoy one of my favorite things instead of rushing so it fits into a deadline.

 

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Speaking of deadlines, how’s the holiday knitting coming? We are doing our very best to get you your yarn as fast as we can dye it!!  A whole bunch of it will ship out of here today and on Monday. Yay!!!

Sock Club has shipped and the pdf’s are up!!

Rockin’ Whorl Club has shipped and pdf’s mailed out and on Monday we will ship out the School of yarn and… mail the pdf’s.

We were going to ship out the School of Yarn with the sock club but it would have made our tiny little post office cry. When I showed on on Wednesday and with some of the RSC packages and told them what was coming on Friday I thought Donna was going to cry right then and there. I couldn’t bury them on a Friday. They are already short handed and it is the holiday and holy moly I am so very glad I do not work for USPS!!  I need to remember in the next few weeks to show up with treats!! Show your mail carrier and UPS drivers a little extra love right now. After all they do bring us yarn!!

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This is the fifth of the trollies will filled on Friday!

We did some shawl modeling this week. It occurred to me that I never showed you the Find your Fade we made out of 2 of our A Total Eclipse of the Sun Featherlight Gradient Kits.

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It is pretty hard to get a great picture of how pretty and dramatic it is! I so love how this came out and am designing a few other gradient kits that have a similar effect.

Maggie finished knitting her, The Age of Brass and Steam by Orange Flower Knits 

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We are both a little obsessed with Plushy and Feldges right now so she knit this one with Plushy in Valkyrie Fledge.

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We are so obsessed that I have been inspired to create Raven Gradients!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I know…. So stay tuned next week for some of that action. I am so very very excited. I feel like the Raven series is on of my better creative moments as a colorist and I would like to revisit them and maybe create a few more!

Creating color! I have been in a bit of a new colorway slump lately which happens. Creativity is definitely an ebb and flow kind of thing. I have been a bit weighed down with all of the running of things and not as much of the creating. This week that all changed, thanks to that ebb and flow and to Emily at Eat Sleep Knit who is one of my color muses and my Maggie and well that right now is more flow than ebb in my life.

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New colorways!!

These three are probably my favorites of the new ones, although it does constantly change for me. The one on the far right makes so very very happy. This picture does not really do it justice.

What would you name these three colorways? They all need names and I have posted this picture to instagram and asked there so… if you are on instagram you can play along there. New colorways will be up next week! So look for them then.

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Super Targhee!  If you were afraid you missed the boat on this sweet deal of a yarn, you did not!! We still have some in stock! If you are not sure what you want it for well…we have a plan for January’s knitting for ourselves theme. (I know it’s called selfish kitting but I don’t like the negative that implies about knitting for ourselves)

Anyway we are going to do a KAL. The Timeless Sweater KAL that features timeless sweater patterns we all know and love and bucket list knits. Do you have a few of those in your queue?? I bet you do. A sweater that you’ve been wanting to knit just for you but for some reason have not quite gotten to. There are so many stunning sweater designs out there that stand the test of time and transcend design trends like Ysolda’s Pumpkin Ale or Veera’s Breathing Space or Joji’s Manzanilla or Carol’s Pistachio Saffron or Gurdrun’s Audrey in Unst the list goes on and on. I want all of these!! Don’t you?

Okay I think that might cover it for this week. I am going to go for a walk and do some holiday decorating, get groceries (cupboard is so very bare) , make a big pot of soup for the week and then sit and knit and probably hatch a plan.

What’s your plan for the day?

Happy knitting my friends!

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