Posts from the ‘Rockin’ Whorl Club’ Category

adventures in healing

Hey all…

I know quite a few of you have been waiting on an update and I fully intended to put at least one up before now however… best laid plans and all.

I think I have mentioned before that I might be a bit delusional optimist. In all honesty I think this is one of my super powers and had gotten me through so very much. As with all super powers it has it’s downside I guess we will call it although I hesitate to do so which is kinda funny. Anyway I thought I could recover so much faster than I have and still am, and…it has taken quite a bit on emotional and psychological strength hence the quiet on all social media fronts. I am sorry for any worry this has caused but I needed the quiet and low input to gather strength.

I am doing quite a bit better and all the docs on my team are thrilled and maybe even a little stunned. I’ve gone from cancer makers that were through the roof in November to very low ones now. I left the hospital at the end of November unable to get in and out of bed by myself with drains on left and right lungs to keep the fluid at bay so I could breath and pretty much no strength.

I am now down to one drain and that will come out really soon!!! YAY!!! I can not only get in and out of bed but I can walk a mile and dye yarn. I can’t work all day everyday. I am pacing myself which is not an easy thing for me to do. I get pretty frustrated and sometimes low but mostly I am grateful to be here and to keep doing what I love with the people I care about.

My family and friends has been amazing!! My daughter Rabia has moved back home to help me which I really have no words to express how that makes me feel. She’s an amazing human, all my kids are. I have said it before and I will keep saying it I am a lucky woman because I am rich in people who love me whom I love!! And really what is better than that?!

So…

What does all this mean for Blue Moon? It means one day at a time. I am taking orders I feel I can fill.

Socks that Rock is still out of stock at the moment and I am working on it with a new mill.I do have 2 substitutes that I like until then if you are interested let me know.

The website is not fixed and I am looking to moving things to another. At the end of this month I will be sending out the last of the sock club 2022. There will not be another sock club or actually any club after I finish up with what I have going. I will be doing other offerings which will be as exciting I think. Some of these changes are health related and some are it’s a very different world out there and it just gets harder and harder to run a small business so… I am going to adjust to what I feel is doable and comfortable and supportive to my community and family.

If you want to order email me: orders@bluemoonfiberarts.com with what you want, your shipping info and phone number and I will send a paypal invoice.

I appreciate so much your patience with me over ALL of this the past few years and your support and well wishes. It means so much to me truly!! It makes me feel like I have the best and creative team for healing with me one this so thank you.

As I mentioned earlier when I first told you about cancer coming back my friend Benjamin Levisay set up a gofundme to help with expenses. It’s very costly to be have cancer. You would pass out if I told you what one of these meds cost. I couldn’t believe it, I honestly thought they were joking.  It feels a bit criminal to charge so much for medicine. Big business should not control out health care. I won’t get started on that topic we would be here for days.

Because a lot of you asked how you can help here is the link to the gofundme.

gofundmelink

Ben is also starting his podcast again. Fiber Hooligan. If you have not listened to it you should he’s really good!! I am the first guest this go around and will send a link to that when he posts it. He is one of my best friends so it should be not only informative but entertaining. We are funny together. Well at least we think we are.

I miss you all!! I miss seeing my people and hearing your voices and all of it! So when I am a bit better I am going to start some sort of zoom chat thing so we can visit. I am hoping to be up to some sort of barn sale dye day thing this late summer and will let you know. I might need a few bodies to help pull it off.

Again my dear fiber and color loving friends I appreciate you sooo very much and am beyond grateful to have been part of your lives even in this small way.

Thank you!!!

Take care!

Oh…look what I saw yesterday. I think it’s magic and a very very good omen.

Sunday are for…

It’s Sunday and I am rinsing all the roving that was dyed yesterday and doing some cleaning because my middle child, my daughter Rabia is coming for a visit. So excited. She’s the one that is teaching and living in Kyrgystan so I have not seen for since last last July.  She will be here for the rest of the month so I have been trying to get as much done as possible so we can spend a lot of time playing!

It’s quite a stunning day here and mostly quiet except for the ravens whose babies are fledgling so every once in awhile there is the raven parent cheering section which is very very loud! we also have a barred owl fledgling whose parents are not putting up quite ruckus that the ravens are. Life in the woods.

I also have baby bunnies everywhere and quite a few baby squirrels. I guess it’s just that time of year but it seriously seems to be a lot more of them than usual.

I have been trying to use Sundays create space for inspiration. I get inspiration from many places and in varied ways all of which require me to be present and open and not occupied so space. Sometimes that looks like a walk or gardening or reading or even doing the dishes. I find you never know when and where a spark is going to fire up. Today it was picking up my CSA for the week which had this beauty in it.

‘

A tiny little head of purple cauliflower. So pretty!! So I got out my camera and spent some time with this little gem before I add it to my dinner salad.

Crazy cool right?

It’s a tiny head of cauliflower and look at that color and patterning… so pretty. Taking the time today to immerse myself in photographing this stunning little gem gave me such a sense of joy and peace.

I sent one of the pics to a friend who I thought would appreciate it. She’s somone who knows me very well.~ she asked me how I was going to cook it. I told her I wasn’t, that I was going to break it into tiny florets and put it in a salad. She laughed and I was  like what’s so funny? She said I know why. You want to be able to absorb that purple don’t you?!! LOL

Why yes, I do. It will also make a stunning salad don’t you think?!

It truly is the little things, especially on a Sunday and especially now.

Hope you are having a good day.

Thanks for listening!!

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So…I have been trying to post this basically since the first. Because of all the snow  and other winter weather issues it’s been touch and go with power and internet. I am trying to get this posted and emails answered as quickly as possible this am since the power has been flickering all morning!!

The snow is finally stopped and it’s warmed up quite a bit in the past day or so. Now we will have flooding and mudslides because the ground is saturated. Right now these is still snow on the ground here and the pond is almost int he front yard. I am goign to go get some sand bags later today just to keep my driveway in tact.

So at least here 2022 is coming in with a bang! Although I will say that it is winter and well it’s pretty much just being winter. U do think that almost 3 feet of snow is a bit extreme but am going to roll with it since really what other choice is there.

Because of the power issues there’s been very little shipping out of here. That should change today. I have help coming this weekend so fingers crossed that the weather powers that be take a break for a few days.

Being stranded here during the holidays was not the best for my mental health so thank you to everyone who checked up on me! I am good!! As soon as I finish this I am out to immerse myself in color and yarn so yay!!!

I am going to leave you with Amanda Gorman’s poem for the New Year. I was trying desperately to find the words to express how I felt about this past year in a hopeful light while welcoming the new year bathed in that same aura. And truly even up to my hips in snow I do feel hopeful most days, even it’s a glimmer. Amanda so eloquently speaks to our hearts and souls acknowledging our collective pain and grief as she reminds us of our strength and resilience. I think I am going print it out and tape it where I can read it at least once a day. Thank you Amanda!!!

Okay l am off to reel, skein, soak, bundle, label, dye, steam, rinse, label, ship and love yarn for the day!!!!!!!

Take care and stay safe!!   Big LOVE!

***********************************

“New Day’s Lyric”

May this be the day
We come together.

Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,

Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.

Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.

Steadily we vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.

So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.

What was plagued, we will prove pure.

Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.

We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on
tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.

Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.

Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.

It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.

For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.

~ Amanda Gorman

New colors or ….

waltzing out of 2021 with a whole lotta of  colorful love LOVE notes!!!

Okay so this is a whole lot to get up on the website so some of these are not up yet. I am working on it. If you want to order and take advantage on the 15% Stash Enhancement Discount that is good for another 48 hours and you want one of these that is not on the website yet just order one that is and then in the notes section of your order let me know the colorway you do want!!

Easy Peasy!

I wanted to get these up here at least since I told a few of you I would!

The discount code is: stashme2021   and since I am still getting a few things caught up ( soooo close) I will not be starting on these orders until the end of January!

Okay look for a New Year message tomorrow!

Take care and be safe!

LOVE!!!!!!

odds and ends…

I took time off to go sit in my favorite coffee place to write you without the most adorable distractions! If you follow Blue Moon on instagram you have seen that I adopted two adorable kittens about a month ago. I have been riding this fine line of inviting more furry folks into my life. I was waiting for the right moment which came one morning when I decided to break out my warmer clothing and discovered mouse nesting material and a ton of cat food. Which means my current feline friend was seriously not doing her job. To be fair she pretty old but still. The next day I went and adopted a sibling pair ~ Fiona and Felix.

They are seriously distracting!!! Especially Felix who really loves the keyboard.  I would say that you will be seeing so many pictures of them but it is seriously difficult to photograph black cats. It’s almost impossible to get a good picture of Fiona.

Okay so my shoulder is better and I have some help this week so we going be dyeing a massive amount of Targhee Worsted.  As I said earlier if you have an order and it is for holiday knitting or another deadline please do let me know.  A lot of you have done so and it is appreciated!

I still have a few RSC to ship for their 4th shipments.I have them here ready to go as of last week but the shipping software had a glitch and the person at Endicia made it worse so after 6 hours on the phone with them it’s almost there but not quite yet. I will ship it just wont then put that info back into the Blue Moon database with the tracking info and we really need it to do that little piece so we can keep track of it all. I called this am but there was not an available techie. And yes I am frustrated!!!

Speaking of sock club I will be sending out dyer’s notes this week. I have decided to keep sock club going. I just can’t not do it. It will be different because well… things are different.  So very different.

I will be shipping the last two sock club offerings together in December and then we will be done with the 2020-2021 Pandemic Rockin’s Sock Club. I am so looking forward to that moment when I ship out that last package! It’s going to feel so satisfying.

I will; be putting 2022 up for presale soon because I am getting lots of emails requests about it.  You will also be seeing that mysterious new project I have been teasing you with. I am so very excited about this one and I really wanted the timing to be right so I could give it the time and attention it deserves. Also wanted to be able to finish some of our other clubs and specials before working towards this one.

With a little help from my friends…I am also revamping the barn to open it up for some community centered projects here in my lovely community.  Change is good and opening space for growth and more making and then being able to share it all! If you are local and are interested please do contact me. tinanewton@gmail.com

We are finally going to get the dye garden going. The beds are being prepped this week for massive amounts of indigo along with  quite a few other types of dye plants that will grow in the very damp but fertile hills of Scappoose. I am going to emphasize dye plants that are native to my area. Like I won’t even have to plant any nettle since there is much growing wild where I am. I have considered calling my place Nettle Bog Farm ~ the farm with a sting!

Hehe…

I feel like there’s a lot more to tell you but I think this is probably  good for now. Thank you so very much for you patience with me and your support of Blue Moon. I am doing my very best to not let you all down!

Oh I did change up the colors on the website moving more towards winter and winter holidays. How are we here already?? I will have a few new colors soon. I have been making new colors but wanted to get more orders out before adding them. If there are colors you would like to see please do let me know!!

Okay back to the dye pots!!

Takc care dear ones and stay safe!

Tuesday morning vibes

How is it already the end of October I do not know. Our wet season has started here which is a welcome relief  from the heat and no rain. I will admit that the grey is a little hard for some of us. I am one of those but I will happily deal with it in order to have the rain we need for all of our lush green goodness.

I am busily dyeing away on your orders and the clubs and making plans for this upcoming season and next year. If you have an order in that you need for HOLIDAY knitting please do let me know!!

I so appreciate those of you that are leaving notes on your orders as to whether it’s needed right away or is stash enhancement and Blue Moon support. You all are the best!

I think I mentioned a few times recently that I might have to raise prices soon since all the mills raised there and shipping costs are also up. I have been holding off ( I hate raising prices) however, I just got news that the propane prices are jumping pretty high and well, that’s the proverbial last straw. I do not have a choice I will have to up prices a bit. I am sorry I have been trying to keep prices as they are but this last puts it over the top. It will be across the board on all yarns and fibers. I will do my best to keep it reasonable for all of us!

Prices will stay as they are for the next two weeks and then the new ones will go live.

Also…the discounts that are out there are all coming to an end in the next month or so. So if you have not used them now is you chance.   thankyou21 for 15% is over on November 1st   ~  the sock club and spinning club ones also are good until the end of November and I will send a reminder this weekend on those. I strained my left shoulder this week so am doing a bunch of writing today to give it a break from the heavy lifting.  Those Targhee Worsted skeins and then the spinning club roving are super heavy and someone might have thought she was super woman and over staked the trays.

Speaking of Targhee Worsted look at this pile of Big Brain Blue that is shipping out on Monday. Big Brain Blue is one of my favorite blues and on Targhee oh my!!!

It’s so pretty and this picture seriously does not do it justice. I almost never dye anything blue for myself but I might need some Big Brian Blue Targhee in my wardrobe. ok don’t laugh but…I have thinking of knitting myself a poncho. I get hot easily so a poncho is often better for me than a sweater. Wouldn’t that blue look great with all of the black and grey I wear. I think it would. Hmmm….. of course not until the shoulder heals al the way back.

Do any of you have a basic diagonal poncho pattern you like. I think if I am remembering correctly there is a really nice Churchmouse one. oh and since we are on color and Targhee. I made a special color for a friend. we were looking for a dirty pink color and while this might be darker than anticipated I absolutely love it.  I would wear this pink!! Here’s a picture of it with a skein of Pond Scum (the pond scum color is a little blown out.

Isn’t it pretty? I was considering pairing it with the Pond Scum but I think Spawn of Scum would be better. Anyway because of ALL of the Targhee orders I am working on there’s so much lovely color in the barn. I will try to take more pics and post them on instagram. The light in the barn is a little weird but I can make it work.

Hmmm….did I post here about the Gaea Fingering  and Silkmo Lace Project I am working on for me. At least right now it’s for me we’ll see. I have a friend who would love it to pieces and she always knits for me so we’ll see. Anyway I dyed the SilkMo first because I just know it would look really wonderful in the “My Euphoria” colorway and it really really does as you can see. It took me forever to photograph this. I just felt the photos never did justice to haw stunning it is.

When I get more of the scarf knit I will post of picture. It’s really pretty. I am big on simple knits that let the yarn and color do the work. Simple and quite beautiful.

I am very happy with it.

I need to do more to promote our Gaea yarns especially the fingering-weight. It’s so lovely and quite the deal with each skein having over 1,000 yards in it. Hard to top that!!!

Okay well I actually started these on Sunday morning but got interrupted by friends coming to help with some reorganizing. So I should end here and get out to start my dye and ship day. I am working on sock yarn orders for the next few days since my shoulder is bothering me from all of the very heavy Targhee Worsted skeins. I might have over loaded the trays a bit to be more efficient forgetting that I do not have a 20 something year old body. lol

Hope you all are well and taking care!

oh and THANK YOU for all of your notes and sharing on grief and loss. I feel like maybe we need to be talking and sharing more about our losses and loves. So much loss in the past few years.

Big loving hugs to you all!!!

Oh…how could I forget!! Meet Fiona and Felix my two new buddies.