Well, she’s 7 so she doesn’t always get what she wants. In this case though, mom is going to give in. What does she want? She wants her own yarn club, of course. (And a horse. A girl horse, preferrably black, and a puppy she can name Sheba.)
For some time now, she’s been telling me when she grows up, she wants to have a store next to mine so we can visit each other because we’re both dyers. After she started saying this, she was quite miffed with me when she found out I did not rent the booth next to mine for her at Rhinebeck. Quite. Miffed.
It all started, when I laid out some plastic on the kitchen floor and let her give it a go with some food coloring, once upon a time.
Next thing you know, we’ve got yarn the color of her favorite gum, and yarn that every young girl (almost) loves, and Crushed Candy Cane – 2 shades of red, but she was quick to point out… no pink. She cracks me up. Then we had a test of color theory which she passed with flying colors (pun intended) – what do you get when you take neon yellows & green and overdye it in neon pink? Sunset.
Then, one day, the special request came. Georg wanted Nora to dye her some yarn. She took this news very seriously. Thought hard about the color cards and spent some time doing some real thinking. Georg is not a ‘pink’ kinda gal. Nora pretty much nailed Georg with that custom color, aptly named ‘For Georg’.
Every once in a while, she thinks outside the box – or maybe that’s outside the corral? This is the Black Stallion, the whole dye process can be found here.
I started telling Nora the things folks were saying about her colorways. Sometimes, someone would ask for Nora to dye them something. Each time, she took the request with, if possible, more seriousness than the previous one. She began asking me questions like, “Did the person say what their favorite color is?”, and “Did the person say if there was a color they don’t like?”.
Then one day, she said something to me, and I knew I might be in trouble. “Mom, I think some customers might like my colors more than yours.”
I didn’t batt an eye. Looked her up & down, and said with all honesty, “Nora, you might be right.”
This past couple of months there has been the phrase ’sock club’ in just about every conversation around here. The 2009 club was ending, and at the same time, we were gearing up for the 2010 club. That’s when I heard things like ‘Do they want to use my yarn in a sock club?’ I explained how Lisa designed the socks, and I dyed the yarn to match whatever the sock subject was, and showed her pictures of the Cowboy Boot as an example. Her brain went to work. The next thing you know, she’s coming home from school announcing that all her friends want yarn from her yarn club.
So… What’s in a 7 year old’s yarn club, you ask? Well, its 3 months long – one colorway per month and no one but the club can have it until the club is over. And it’s all about the whimsy! This is a 7 year old, after all! She’s asked Georg to make stitch markers for her club. Who knows – maybe they’ll glow in the dark like these glow-in-the-dark-mood-ring-style beads!
And she informs me that if they like her yarn, they might like other things she likes as well (logic is good) like candy…. and who knows what might strike her fancy. (hints: She has been talking about Whales & Mermaids, Watermelons, and HoneyBees, among other things.) It will be fun, it will definately be unique, and it will be an adventure!
We’ve got a 400 yard skein of yarn in a brand new Nora colorway, fun stitch markers, and goodies picked out by the 7 year old – let your inner child hang out on a monthly play-date with my 7 year old. It’ll be great! $80.00 for the 3 month subscription covers it all including postage. Questions? Post them here if you like, and Nora & I will do our best to answer them, or you can email me at jennifer@holidayyarnsDOTcom. I just have one request: Please don’t let Georg tell her about dyeing fabric for quilting. The house just isn’t big enough.
Q & A:
when does the first yarn ship? First installment ships April 1st!
Is it available outside the US? Yes! For some reason, I created the button for international last night, but missed actually getting it put on the post. My apologies, and it has now been added above.
“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” – Buddha
So, here we are with the continueing saga of my Entry In The Contest (or how I refer to it in my head, anyways). I admit to some mild trepidation when faced with the dyeing of the shawl. I couldn’t decide on colors, or patterns, or any plan at all, really. I finally realized, after getting it wet and actually laying it out to dye, that I ought to come up with something, and fairly soon.
I have the same problem with ’sample yarns’ or sample skeins of new types of yarn. I get a single skein of some new, different yarn – mohair boucle, or some other non sock-yarn (it does exist, I swear), and then I never actually dye it. I’ve spent time thinking about this, and I seem to rely on these 4 excuses as reasons I’m not dyeing those skeins.
I don’t have a project in mind, and if I dye it now, a project will come to mind but I would have dyed it the wrong color.
What if I like it so much, a project idea comes to me, but I realize I won’t have enough yarn with just the sample skein, and the color will be impossible to duplicate because I was ‘just playing’ with the dyes…
What if I can’t get anymore and everyone wants it?
What if I ruin it and can’t get any more to redeem myself?
I didn’t used to think this way. This new thought process, stems (I think) partly because so much of what I dye is repeatable and has a ‘recipe’ to create the colorway or pattern. I don’t often give myself the time or freedom or permission to ‘play’ with the dyes… I have one-of-a-kind skeins, and have no problem with those, but they are created with the exhaust or leftover dyes from other projects. I like to be creative within that arena, but it isn’t very often that I go at it to ‘play’ rather than to ‘work’.
So, my mind went through the usual and familiar questions above, but I tried to counter them – to come up with arguments in favor of dyeing this time.
Project: No problem, it’s ready-made and is a shawl, can’t be changed.
I looked at question 2, 3, and 4, was reminded of the quote at the top of this post, and realized something important – the answer to all 3 questions.
I’ve made this out of my sock yarn, and I have several hundred pounds of yarn hanging about waiting to be dyed. If it turns out badly I can bury it in the backyard, pull out the triangle loom and Make Another One.
This seems simple, but it was an idea that really clicked for me. Since then I’ve come to realize that the same answer can be applied to lots of other things that leave me stymied – unable to decide which direction to go with other things in my life. I may not always make the best decision, I may make some ugly ones. But its better to have made a decision – taken action somehow, then to forever think about, ponder on, assess ‘what if’ scenarios… until you realize a decision was made without your realizing it- the opportunity passed you by because you did not act on your idea. (I think this is related to procrastination, but I’ll tell you my thoughts on that another time.)
So, I’ve acted on my idea. I’m even happy with it. I do want to make another one, but will not be burying this one in the backyard anytime soon.
I’ve added fringe to the whole thing, seen below.
Wetted, and layed out pleated for dyeing.
1st color applied
2nd color applied
I wasn’t entirely happy with the results when I opened up the pleats, so I turned up the volume on the ipod and plowed on with the overdyeing & layering, this time via handy dandy plastic tub. It’s difficult to see colors underwater, but I lifted the shawl out of the water, added varying shades of blues and greens in small amounts, letting the shawl absorb the colors between additions.
Steamed, rinsed, dried, steam-pressed, and ready for prime time.
Close-up shot of the weave and the icord top.
So, I’m not sure when I’ll make the next one, but I think I’ll use 5 strands instead of 4, and I’m considering added beads to the fringe. We’ll see.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a contest going on right now, the purpose of which is to weave something with sock yarn. With 2 floor looms, an inkle and a cricket, you’d think I could come up with something, wouldn’t you. I thought so as well, but it seemed that I was going to be thwarted. Both floor looms had student projects on them. The project in mind couldn’t be done on the inkle or a cricket, they weren’t wide enough.
Then, a miracle happened! Student A finished her project – I could use a loom for a week! Then, a disaster happened, completely wiping out the miracle. I threw out my back. (Let me know if you find it, would you?) Have you ever warped a loom? It can be a little hard on the back all by itself. There was no way I would be able to do this. Yesertday, I offically gave up on the whole project for the contest.
But today, I remembered an unfinished project I’d done on the triangle loom. (you be quiet in the back there. I do so finish projects.) Already woven, it just lacks fringe, and color. This, I can handle. Now, while it isn’t the original project I intended for the contest, it is a woven item in sock yarn, and it is off the loom with no pain added to my back.
So, take 4 cones of sock yarn, undyed, 1 triangle loom at it’s largest size, and one crochet hook. If you’ve never woven on a triangle loom, here’s how it looks (over several, pain-free days a couple of months ago):
Now I just need to add fringe, dye it up purty, and I think add some beads to the fringe afterwards, and we’ll be all set. Any suggestions on colors? I haven’t lost my fancy for Ice Bear yet, and am leaning heavily towards that, but I’m open to your ideas – but no solid colors. This one needs some variety. (And it’s also very large so a solid would be…. annoying to dye.)
You work, and you slave. You work some more. You worry and you fret. Late nights, long days, and for what. You hope you’ve made them good enough, and strong enough, and hope they’ll be liked and be productive in their lives.
I don’t know about you, but I think my yarn had a pretty good year. Several new colors were created in 2009!
Can’t believe how quickly time flies (and I’ll try not to mention this alot in the future if I blink and weeks fly by again). As one would expect, I have been busy during the past weeks, no question. Some of you know that there are other yarns that I mess with other than just sock yarn…. there’s lace and worsted as well. I’m not sure why, but they haven’t been added to the website for you. (o.k. we know why. I haven’t gotten to it. Short on time, blah blah blah.) So, this past couple of weeks I actually had some lace orders to fill, I call it ‘Skinny-Ewe’, and it’s a 50/50 blend of merino wool and silk. I put it up in 800+ yd skeins, are $30.00 each and offered here with free shipping. Below are skeins of several colors available in the Skinny-Ewe:
Recently, a very nice lady ordered some yarn. Thrilled to oblige, I wound her a custom size whack o’ yarn in the 1200 yd range for a shawl, and dyed it in the still delightful to dye, ‘Ice Bear’ colorway. (I am still so enamoured with this colorway that I intend to paint a blanket warp for the loom, dig out the silk roving, and set aside some of the 22lbs of superwash BFL roving that came in the mail the other day).
Anyways, I thought it turned out nicely.
Now, long ago when the original idea of ‘Polar Bear in an Ice Storm’ colorway came to mind, it was a white skein, undyed, and was a standing joke around here. Gradually, we began envisioning a whole line of socks designed around this theme, with one being the expected white skein with yellow ’sprinkled’ on it…. lovingly named ‘Polar Bear was Here’. I mention this for a reason, and as I appreciate some good irony in my life now and again, had to share it with you.
Do you see the *&$*#yellow dots? I have a suspicion that a recent dye job involving ‘Juanna Lei’ is partially to blame in contaminating a very large skein of yarn I was immensely proud of and considering filching. I suppose this is where both the dye gods AND the polar bear have the last laugh, while I go skein off a new 1200 yard whack o’ yarn and send a note to the customer about why my homework isn’t done.
So for several days, my knee has been hurting, and getting worse. The kind of thing where it didn’t hurt in the morning, but did by evening… and then after several days, it hurt in the morning and just got worse, with a new level of ‘hurting’ every morning. It was a kind of hurting I was able to ignore for some time – I could kneel, but not tuck my feet underneath me on the couch. I could go up & down the stairs no problem, but could not sit cross-leg on the floor (I know, how often do we do this, really? Well, play with a 7 year old and let me know how that goes). So, standing was fine, but pivoting the knee was not – strong pain in that tendon on the inside of the knee along with the occasional ‘hyperextendish’ sensation when I straightened the knee. And swelling. Delightful.
I gave up and went to the redicare center. X-rays showed nothing, so they gave me this lovely and sexy immobilizer to keep my knee straight and unmoved. For a week. Needless to say, I didn’t do much this weekend in the dye pots, and I must say getting to the dyepots is no easy task now. Whatever you do, when going down the stairs… DO NOT forget you cannot bend the leg because of the 3 steel posts in the brace. Do. Not. Forget.
Anyways. I didn’t do much, but we did have a little required work. Nora had a Birthday Party to go to, and the Birthday Gal likes to knit and wanted yarn. I love my daughter’s choice of friends Anyways, we dyed this, and cast-on for a hat for her (she’s yet to learn to cast-on) to knit.
It was a good party, and she likes the colors. We do as well, come to think of it, and I’ve pictured more than one project with it in worsted ‘Fat-Sheep’ yarn.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to take my motrin and carefully, step down the stairs to the dye pots (I said I was slowed down – not stopped).
I’m calling it ‘Ice Bear’ – frankly, I think it sounds almost mythical, and I likes me some good mythish stuff.
It’s the colorway that spawned it’s cousin (it can so spawn it’s own cousin. it’s all about mythish stuff, remember?), the main color used in Sock 5 of the current 2009 Sock Club (which by the way, you can go sign up for the 2010 club now…) shown here:
It’s a much more subtle, colorway, with mild varigations in shades of blue and hints of turquoise…. But enough about the club kit – this is all about the Ice Bear and how you can Name him George and hug him and pet him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him and… no wait. That’s a Duck and a Abominable Snowman named Hugo.
Anyways, you can have your very own Ice Bear to hug and to love.
Another kit, another color. How hard can it be? As it turns out, it can be a little… difficult. Not every pattern designer out there has the chance to ask for a custom color for their every idea and project. Working to match yarn with imagination can be… tricky. The kind of tricky that knows the limitations of a pantone book, but the limitless sight of the inner eye. Yes Virginia, we can dye a color between 2 pantone shades. Sometimes, it’s a conversation about those pantone shades and interpreting that conversation into the dye pot – which occasionally takes a few skeins or versions to reach the ‘ah-ha!’ moment. Sometimes, it’s more serendipitous – like our first meeting of the minds when the yarn color now called Thalassa inspired the sock kit ‘Poseidon’. This can be good and bad. These colors can sometimes be… um… difficult to recreate. As in ‘I have no idea how I did that – it was 3 different exhaust pots’. We have a standing joke here about skeins we label as ‘Don’t Show This To Lisa’ colors. She sees most of them anyways, but with strict instructions not to get any ideas
So… on to the current Sock. This color has a long and cherished history with us, even though it was never actually a reality until October. It all started… with a Polar Bear. Once upon a time, (well actually, several times a year), I joke that the next sock needs to be a ‘Polar Bear in a Snow Storm’ (i.e. a white skein, unsullied by dye and therefore wickedly easy for the dyer to um, ‘dye’). This idea for some reason, has never quite come about. Options on the Polar Bear concept, have been a white skein with a scattering of yellow… called ‘Polar Bear was Here’, or a white skein with a big black dot on it- ‘Nose of a Polar Bear’… well, you get the idea.
In September or there abouts, somehow the Polar Bear poked his nose back into the conversation and I took him seriously this time. Except, everytime I thought about him… he wasn’t white. Or rather, there wasn’t very much white at all on the skein. When you picture a Polar Bear, what do you think of? I began seeing him in my mind’s eye in his environment. He’s not just a bear – you don’t picture him hanging out in the Cascades hiding in the lush green of the coastal rain forests pretending to be a brown bear or a grizzly bear… just as you don’t picture either of those bears floating comfortably on hunk of ice. Nope, I see him, I see his environment, and I see blues and aqua and a little navy and a smidge of black… and a little white (he is a white bear after all). I see him swimming in the water colored by the ice and the temperatures and the sky and the weather. A Polar Bear spends hours in the water – he’s been seen swimming more than a 60 mile distance, and is so well insulated he swims in the icy waters to keep from overheating. When my bear began invading my vision, he looked more like this:
Definately not just a plain, white skein. So… I dyed a few skeins in my ‘Polar Bear’ colorway, and showed it to Lisa. Here’s where the term ‘eye of the beholder’ gets bandied about. Lisa does not have a Polar Bear hanging out with her. She has something a little more… well, ‘Lisa’ in mind. Something more like one of these, perhaps:
So, after a little tweaking of colors, my ’supposed to be easy’ Polar Bear skein, came to life. Slightly different than I originally dyed it in October, which is fine with me – that one is dear to my heart, and will be available for sale in a couple of days. (I have a club kit to mail out first.)
Regardless… the current Sock 5 main color is on of my top 3 favorite colors of any kit so far in all the club years… I think it’s also taking the longest to dye. ( Am I the only one who sees the irony here?) I’m not entirely positive but it could be because I’m doing it (basically) one skein at a time… Why, you ask? 2 Reasons; Because I’m the Dyer and I Said So, and it just doesn’t look ‘right’ any other way. Actually, most kits/colors do get dyed several at a time, sometimes as many as 9 at a time, spread out on the table, or multiple pots on the stove. This one wouldn’t quite work out that way. The pot had too much water and too small of a space and very little control, and the yarn on the table meant the yarn wouldn’t have enough moisture to ‘wet’ the dye. Someday, Santa will bring me a dye table like the ones we had in art class in grade school – with a 4 inch lip coming up all the way around so the whole gosh darn table is one giant ‘pan’, and with a drain plug at one end – tip table, empty water out. Briliant. But I digress. Basically, without the dream table, I would have been ankle deep in run-off if I’d tried this on a flat surface.
My time-consumer, let me show you it:
Step 3: (Steps 1 & 2 are pretty boring and standard for any kit – skein the yarn, get the yarn wet. We’ve skipped ahead to step 3 in favor of getting to the fun(er) stuff sooner.) ahem. Sorry… where were we? Oh yes.
Step 3: Lay out the yarn in an unorganized but organized manner in appropriately sized tin-pan. It’s unorganized enough to dye more varigated than just laying it out flat, but organized enough to keep in a nice, manag-able skein. The pan? Ubber cheap from the grocery store, lined with plastic. The plastic is critical. Durn acid eats right through the pan without it. Nothing like filling it up with water and finding it’s leaking through several small, pin-prick sized, acid-eaten holes. For this project, the size of the pan was pretty important as well. I wanted it smaller than the skein was so the skein stayed unorganized rather than being able to lay flat and smooth.
Step 4: Sprinkle on powder dye. This step actually has a ‘prep’ step – mix custom recipe of dye powder for appropriate colorway. Anyhow, once you’ve got your ‘new’ color, and your hazmat mask or other appropriate lung protection… we sprinkle on the powder.
Step 5: Smoosh. There’s enough water in with the yarn to be able to dissolve the powder and smoosh the color around. Not so much that the yarn is submersed, but enough. And I can’t tell you how much that is – trade secret (and plus I never measure, I just ‘know’ - ya know?).
Step 6: repeat steps 4 & 5 until it looks ‘right’.
Step 7: Using a syringe, add liquid dye of a different hue/shade etc in random places.
Step 8: While that skein is setting/soaking up the dye, start a 2nd skein in a neighboring pan.
Step 9: Reaching completion of step 7 on the 2nd skein, flip the first skein over carefully. This is an art, do not try this at home. The goal is to flip it over while keeping it intact, front side and back side distinct (and really, is there any other way?). No splashing, no slopping of water. It all stays in the pan, not on the floor, the table, or your clothes. (Anyone who’s dyed with me can tell you this is no easy task – I don’t seem to have a problem with it…) Once it’s flipped over, scrunch to fit it into the pan and create some nice varigation without loosing site of the ‘white’ bits that need color.
Step 9: Repeat step 6 & 7 on skein 1, then repeat steps 8 & 9 on skein 2.
Step 10: Pick up skein 1, squeeze out excess water, and set aside.
Step 11: Repeat steps 3-7.
Step 12: Skip to step 10 on skein 2, and continue until you run out of custom blend of dye powder, or wet yarn. Get more yarn wet, make more custom dye powder blend… repeat. When you’ve got enough skeins to fill the pan you steam to set the color, steam them, then rinse them, then spin out the excess water, then hang them to dry, then wind them up neatly and stuff them and anything else needed for the kit into the package… and send them out the door. (**If at this point, you feel like the guy in those donut commercials from YEARS ago – where he wakes up at dawn and says ‘Time to make the donuts’… then your doing it right.)
Easy-Peasy, no? Now… what are we going to do for sock 6?
child: "I don't want to drink water." me: "what would you do on a deserted island?" child: "fruit juice." me: damn.about 12 hours agofrom web
How did I lose 2 hours to clicking 'refresh' or 'forum' on Ravelry last night? I don't have time for this. I'll just check once more...01:20:15 PM March 10, 2010from web
I would like to say that while I cast on for the knitting olympics, and had to quit temp for back problems, I'm still slogging away at it.03:32:12 AM March 10, 2010from web
had to wait to back out of parking space because moron stopped in the middle of parking lot TO TEXT on his phone. ded much?12:23:22 AM March 10, 2010from web
Anyways, we dyed this, and cast-on for a hat for her (she’s yet to learn to cast-on) to knit. 
It’s a much more subtle, colorway, with mild varigations in shades of blue and hints of turquoise…. But enough about the club kit – this is all about the Ice Bear and how you can Name him George and hug him and pet him and squeeze him and pat him and pet him and… no wait. That’s a Duck and a Abominable Snowman named Hugo. 
So, after a little tweaking of colors, my ’supposed to be easy’ Polar Bear skein, came to life. Slightly different than I originally dyed it in October, which is fine with me – that one is dear to my heart, and will be available for sale in a couple of days. (I have a club kit to mail out first.)
