The Newest Solids & We Have a Winner

So if you missed the new colors I have something pretty for you to look at!
Let me introduce the new solids to you Carmine, Blue Steel, Olivine and Rosewood.

On the giveaway note:
Imaginativeknits won the giveaway! Shoot me an email at lindsay@thefiberseed.com with your name and address and I'll ship out your special skein of yarn.

Birthday Giveaway!

So I know I took a hiatus from blogging, which is horrible, but I haven't been a total sloth.  I've been weaving, knitting, sewing and dyeing-of course!   I've been getting ready for the Holiday Market, Dec. 1st at the Knit 'n Knibble.  Baby blankets, cowls, hats, needle rolls, crochet rolls, projects bags- that's what I'll be selling, handcrafted.

On the dye front I have over 50 colorways for Sprout now, I'll have to post some of the newest and my absolute favorites.  Maybe I'll have a count down to Christmas using my colorways, I'll get to look at something pretty each day!

Anyway the whole reason for this post is that I'm GIVING AWAY A ONE OF A KIND (OOAK) SKEIN OF YARN!  That's right, it's my birthday and I'll do what I want to!  All you have to do is comment on this post telling me what project you would make with this skein of yarn and you get entered into the giveaway!  One week from now, Monday Nov. 26th I will announce the winner!  That's 480 yds of fingering weight goodness!

Crafting and Extreme Multitasking

I sat infront of my computer moments ago and almost had my mind split into a thousand different pieces.  I'll explain, keep in mind I am a crafter and a multi-tasker, so this all happened at once.  

I'm sitting here working on a sock for my husband, boring gray. So I figure lets make it interesting I'll put Cat Bordhi's Sweet Tomato Heel on it...that I haven't actually done before.  

I'm watching/listening to podcasts, playing Words with Friends on Facebook, and reading blogs. (Things I normally don't have time for, I somehow think I have that now.)

 

I'm thinking about new colorways for Sprout.  I'm leaking the name for one, Savannah.  I like my colorways to have stories behind the name.  I'll tell that story later.  

Then the thing that does me in...I want to listen to Pandora, now I'm thinking about a blog post, oh I want to make some button earrings, I need to make some project bags, where can I get fabric labels with my logo printed on them, I wonder if Perlina has leaf beads for me to make some stitch markers...alskjdfhlkasdhfli, if a mind could yell that mine did.  But since that isn't a word we'll translate it to STOP THINKING!! 

So now I sit in silence with my sock on the desk.  New singular idea, "There isn't enough productive time left in the day go to bed.  You will screw up something, it's after midnight you know the rule."  

I suppose I should sleep but I still have to finish my wedge on the heel of the sock...I'll post a picture when the heel is finished.

On a happy note, here is a picture of a modified Afternoon Tea Shawl from the Spring/Summer Knitty.com that is made from Sprout in color Ruby Slippers.

We have SOLIDS!!!

So I have been crazy busy.  That is so much more busy than regular busy.  I've been creating solids! I have nine so far but there are many more to come.  They will available tomorrow at the Knit 'n Knibble for purchase.   Colors are Deep Cerulean (my favorite), Amethyst, Sanguis, Cobalt, Elephant, Sunflower, French Rose, Tangelo, Lime Green.  Here's a teaser.  I'm going to have more accurate color when I add them to my website.  Well enjoy!

Mad scientist sydrome

I have been playing a mad color scientist the past few weeks and I've come up with over 30 colors I can use to create great colorways.  The colorways that I have come up with are pretty spectacular! Here are the newest - Sunset, Watermelon, and Glasz! Three more multicolored colorways and I'm rolling out the solids!

My Yarn Debut!

Wow web silence is hard.  I was bursting at the seams for almost a month waiting to show and tell everyone my colorways and so on.  But my debut at my first retail shop on Saturday May 12th was more amazing than I had hoped.  There were people lined up outside waiting for the store to open.  I started out with 68 skeins in the store.  By the end of the day I only had 4 skeins left at the store but I had more than 10 people pre-order yarn!  The 4 skeins that were left we gone a few days later!It was such an amazing day.  I really appreciate all the support from everyone, I couldn't have done it without you.

So, on to the fun stuff.  I have 15 colorways.  9 are color studies, so they are monochromatic and 6 are variegated.  I'm working on 6 more as we speak.  Oh and I have one colorway, Bougainvillea, that is exclusively sold at the Knit 'n Knibble.  You can find their online store here.  As I come up with new colors I'll be sure to let you know.  My website is up and running if you want to check out the colorways here.

First Batch Dye Week One- Posted a few weeks late....

Haha I was looking through the posts and this was still a draft, I give you my thoughts from 3 weeks ago......
So I sit here somewhat proud in the fact that I'm absolutely exhausted.  Yesterday I powered out 7 hand painted skeins in 8 hours.  Not bad for a first time with a large quantity of yarn.  I'm working out the kinks     , streamlining the process and so on.  I'm figuring out what I can and can't do with the dyeing process that is in my head as a humble dyer.
Today however I cranked out one skein in only a half hour, which tells me once a colorway is created, there is no stopping me.
Other observations:  even if you change your gloves out three times in 8 hours that is not good enough.  You end up with red irritated hands, or at least I do.

The Lock Out

The first thing you think when something embarrassing happens is, tell the whole world on my blog. Not.  Well, your laughter at my expense is just more important than my pride at this point so I give you a hilarious tale of the Lock Out.
I was house and dog sitting for a friend.  It was morning, I was in my pajama shirt and I decided I need to take out the trash, which is in the garage.  Now I know that the doors to the outside will let you out of them even if they are locked and I had always unlocked the doors before going out of them.
Side note: Coffee is a vital part of my day, I hadn't had any yet.
Anyway, I was by myself, Jordan had left for work with the only key to the house.  Out to the garage I go in my jammers, toss the trash in the can, turn around and wait....the door knob isn't turning.  Thoughts that flood through my mind..."You idiot, well this is what you get for letting Jordan lock himself out of this house for 20 minutes while you were upstairs the whole time, and oh crap I'm in my jams without a phone and I can't get in the house."  I frantically look for a spare key, nope.  I try every window and door, nothing.  So I weighed out my options, sit outside in my pajamas until my husband came back in 3 hours or go to a next door neighbor and use their phone.  Well, I wasn't about to sit there for 3 hours, I had yarn to dye.  So down the driveway I go into the street up the driveway next door, ring the door bell.  Boy was the little old woman who answered the door shocked to see a me in my pajama shirt on her front porch.  She was kind enough to let me come in and use her phone to call Jordan, getting a good chuckle out of my predicament.  After 5 minutes of persistent calling he finally picked up and said he would come and unlock the door for me.  He got a good laugh out of it too.  The first thing I did when I got inside, put on pants.
Hopefully my day brightened yours or put a smile on your face.

The first color ways have been named!

Real quick update on the name of the first two color ways. My husband suggested Peacock Feathers-the aqua, brown, and amethyst.  My friend Jenna thought up Embers for the red gray and black.
Good news on the yarn front-yarn comes Friday for the dyeing extravaganza and I have so many colorways planned! Stay tuned!

First hand paints! Introducing Sprout!

In the past couple of days I've tried two different dye techniques with my new dyes and I have to say I like one more than the other.  You decide. 
These are a part of my first yarn line-Sprout. Sprout is a fingering weight yarn-8 sts=1 in, 90% superwash wool 10% nylon, 480yds. Remember the dyes I use don't contain any harsh chemicals or heavy metals.

This yarn will be available soon in my shop thefiberseed.etsy.com.

If you have an idea for a color name and want to see what I come up with, leave a comment.

New line in development

So a little teaser, I'm starting a new hand painted sock line up, it's not natural dyeing, but it is green dyeing-so never fear. I ordered my dye today and my super wash sock yarns arriving soon. Once that get's rolling some natural surprises will be coming...so keep your eyes peeled for that secret to escape. 

Madder root dye bath no. 2

After letting my dyestuff soak in a fresh water bath overnight and putting two new premordanted skeins in and lightest colored skein from the first dyebath I have found two things: that changing the water out after you've dyed yarn won't yield a redder color but a paler orange rust and you can't over dye with the second dye bath. I did find however that by using little mini skeins youcan test hypotheses quick.  I get the reddest rust with the first dyebath, medium tone rust from letting yarn sit in the soaking water in the sun all day adding some 1st dye bath letting the mixture sit over night, and getting the lightest rust from the second dye bath.  I think I want to do a blue or purple next in natural dyes.  I've been reading about greener shades dyes and I might have to retract my statement about them. They are green and allow for hand painted yan to be worked encredibly.  Here's the picture of the yarns.

Madder dyebath

Natural dye number 2: madder root.  So I did two dye bath tests.  Same madder two different baths.  The first trial I used three different yarns Plymouth's happy feet, dancing toes, and Cestari superfine merino sock yarn. They yielded a brick(happy feet) to rust red, both on the orange end of red.  The second dye bath, which I'm still waiting on to finish, I put 2 Cestari 3ply dk and reintroduced the dancing toes to see what a second soak would do. So far I'm getting oranges from the Cestari and the dancing toes has deepened in its redness.  Unless I use a cream of tartar and iron mordant I'm not going to have any type of blue introduced. Even then it would be a purple brown.
I think the only way to get a red on the blue end of the spectrum I'll have to break down and buy cochineal extract, which is on the higher end of the price scale for dyes, and its crushed bugs, which I didn't really want to use anyway. But if I want to offer a proper red in my yarn line I'll have to bite the bullet and get it. Anyway here is the picture of the first dyebath.

Dye results

So they are dry, my dye blanks are ready for their close up. I'm really pleased with the way the dye turned out on the large one. I'm so overwhelmed and tired from tnna but this was such a great opportunity and I can never thank my boss at the Knit 'n Knibble enough.

Dye class

So what do you get when you cross an armoire, dye, yarn and a bath tub? My freshly dyed yarn hanging in the hotel armoire after being rinsed in the hotel bath tub.  Yes in the pursuit of furthing my yarn dyeing business I decided I needed to drop a little extra knowledge in the mix. 
I used Greener Dyes which I think I will use to hand paint a line of superwash sock yarn.  I highly recommend using these if you want a low environmental impact acid dye.
I kind of went a little crazy with the experimentation of pictoral dyeing but I think that yarn blank turned out well, I'll call it my Arizona Sunset.  The other two blanks are complimentary colors, each blank being split complimentary or analogous. I think they turned out real well, but I still need to do a more in depth color study soon.  Also if any one knows of a good yarn base thats a 100% wool I would think you are awesome. Anyway, here's the parting shot of the armoire. I'll upload the pic of the finished product later, once it dries.