Color! Part 2

Last week, my sock yarn arrived! I was afraid it wouldn't arrive in time for spring break, because I had it sent to my home address in Cincinnati so I could dye it up at home (where I have a full kitchen and large microwave). But on Friday I had a large squishy package from Australia waiting for me. Boy was I thrilled. I did not hesitate to get to work.

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Boys who knit are hot

The boy has come and gone. We parted, somewhat tearfully, at the airport yesterday evening. He is now back in the UK and I have returned to my dorm in Columbus. Life goes back to normal.

Mostly normal, anyway. The boy is now asking for knitting help from his mum and myself. I still can hardly believe it, but he's got himself the beginnings of a garter stitch scarf.

More below the cut.

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Color!

The offerings in my shop so far have been, yarn-wise at least, a bit drab. Maybe not drab per se, but certainly not colorful. Mostly natural-colored, brown and gray and white. But that all is about to change. Here is the latest colorful handspun yarn I've recently put up:

There's two skeins of this colorful corriedale, about worsted weight but thickish and thinish, that I have dubbed Party Time. Doesn't it just feel like a party?



The roving I started with looks really nothing like the finished product. It started out as a bright braid dyed pink, blue, and yellow, and then in spinning the colors all got mixed together into this happy blend.

Then there's the rambouillet, up for sale as 'Sugar and Spice'.



It's soft and pink, so very very pink. Not exactly something I would use myself, but I know people who would go crazy for it.

Working on my yarnography skills. Since I've been home for spring break this past week, I did some shooting outside.



Turned out interesting I think.

News: The sock yarn is here, and I am busily dyeing it up. Expect me to list some of it next week.

~Joy

Silky green beautifulness

Cami is finished! Ravelry page
Pattern: Lace Nightie from Interweave Knits
Yarn: Mei Mei Bamboo Silk, color Light Green

I adore it, I cannot say how much I adore it. The yarn, the pattern, the quickness (took just over 2 weeks). It's splendifferous.



More below the cut.

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Getting QUALITY traffic with Entrecard

I thought long and hard before I made my decision to start using Entrecard. For one thing, their front page just looks like a spam site. Doesn't it?
"Your bounce rate will skyrocket!" People said. "People won't read your blog, they'll just drop!" "It's a giant blogger circlejerk!" (Okay, no one actually said that last one, but that's the impression I'm getting from some other people.)

But actually, the traffic I'm getting from Entrecard is of a high quality compared to my other visitors. Here's some stats for you, courtesy of Google Analytics:
Average time spent on site
Entrecard: 1:48 All: 1:02
Pages per visit
Entrecard: 1.16 All: 1.16
Bounce rate*
Entrecard: 84% All: 86%

*(this being a blog, I don't take my bounce rate too seriously, since most people will only be reading the posts on the first page anyway.)

So how do I prevent my Entrecard experience from becoming a huge blogger circlejerk? It's simple. I use the site the way it was intended. It's less about dropping cards and getting credits, and more about visiting new blogs. Details below the cut.

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Sneak attack!

Oh wow, I had an amazing surprise last night. The Handmade Movement pulled a sneak attack on me, hosted by Winemakerssister!

I checked my email to find my inbox overflowing with orders, all my very first ones. I want to thank each and every one of you who participated, and everyone who has participated in any other sneak attacks. What you are doing really brightens people's day!

The Etsy community is just outstanding. While I'm not overwhelmed with the design or management of the site itself (I guess Ravelry has spoiled me), the people are great. On big sites like eBay, sellers are more like companies. On Etsy, sellers are people. And I really appreciate that, from the perspective of a buyer as well as a seller.

Last night I spent most of the evening in an excited haze, organizing out my orders. Read more below.

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Using the wheel

The wheel and I are friends now. Our relationship started out rocky, but now we have a sort of understanding with each other. If it doesn't get persnickety with me, I'll spin on it and make pretty yarn. If it starts making trouble, it sits in the corner while I play with my spindle. (does that sound dirty to you?)

Behind the cut is my first honest-to-goodness bobbin of wheelspun yarn.

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Trying new things

It's nice every once in a while to try something outside of your comfort zone. An obvious thing I've done recently, of course, is spinning on the wheel. But I've done a few other spinning projects that have been a bit different than normal, and I totally love the results.

First of all, remember that suri alpaca? I actually got two bags of roving from the same farm: one in brown, one in white. The brown is dedicated to that lace shawl, which is my normal mode of spinning: lots of twist, making sure the yarn doesn't fall apart, pinched, smooth, shiny, plying back really hard to counteract all that twist.

So, for the white bag I wanted to try something different.

I put in as little twist as I possibly could to this yarn, to keep it together. I also spun it a little thicker (somewhere between lace and fingering, as opposed to my cobweb weight singles for the laceweight) to make it easier to spin looser. The results were just titillating.

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*sniff sniff*

The lavender is here!

Oh me oh my, I am thrilled. Not only does my dorm smell AWESOME now, but I can post a whole slew of Etsy listings I've been working on. Two weeks I've waited for this order, which consists of lavender, roses, and organza bags. I'm assembling organza sachets as well as some handknit ones of my own, in all sorts of fun shapes.



Basically I've been working out how to knit various shapes. My knit fruit were the early results of this. "This does not look like a sphere. Oh well, I guess I'll turn it into a pear..."

All my various sachets are knit in the round, on DPNs, and are totally seamless. Because that's how I roll.
Yes, even the pyramid.
I made a seamless pyramid!



I'm thinking about writing up the patterns for these, because they are simpler than you'd think and a really perfect way to use up scrap yarn. Some girls in my knitting group have even given me some of their scraps to use up, since I am going through my own at an alarming rate. These little things are cute, fast, and addictive. And I love lavender, so hopefully other people will like them too.

In other Etsy news, one of my fellow Buckeye knitting girls has opened up an Etsy shop with her man. Check out REminders for all your stitch-marking needs.

~Joy

Pathways

This year, after falling in love with Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters book (bought with Christmas money), I have decided to knit all of the toe-up pathways. Why only the toe-up, you ask? Well...

Toe up versus Cuff Down socks

So far, here is what I have:

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Fiber content: 60% bamboo, 20% silk, 20% heaven

A few weeks ago, I started working on Interweave's Lace Nightie pattern. It's beautiful, and a super-quick knit. For a garment in fingering-weight yarn, anyway.

It's knit in MeiMei Bamboo Silk, a lovely cool yarn that's 60% bamboo, 20% silk, and 20% cotton. It has a lovely hand, smooth but not quite as slippery as 100% bamboo, plus a nice amount of shine.

And that color! I'm in love with that color. It's the perfect mint green. Ordering yarn online is always a gamble, and ordering yarn off Ebay perhaps even more so. But MeiMei is a great seller. I ordered from them before, the 100% bamboo yarn for my Intolerable Cruelty.



When I first received this order, they had sent me the wrong color by mistake (a bright, leafy green instead of pale mint green). I emailed them, and they told me to keep the leafy green and sent me off the mint green soon after. :)



The pattern is really simple, mostly a tube starting with a lace edging and continuing with a lace panel moving up the front. I've almost memorized the lace pattern, and my challenge to myself is to give it some extra shaping. Because, you see, my hips are a size L and my waist is a size M. And my bust is a size L. Ah, curves...

~Joy

Never thought I would see the day...

No thanks to Lianali, queen of eBay and Crazy Town, I have recently (ie yesterday) come into posession of A GODDAMN SPINNING WHEEL.

Ain't she a beaut?

It's small, but honestly just the right size for a college student in a dorm room. I tried spinning on it yesterday, and it was... interesting. I came out with 20-some yards of bulky fluffy alpaca yarn, but I ended up plying it on my spindle.

I know it's going to take some practice, but spinning on the wheel I feel like I just don't have the same control as I do spinning with my spindle. I'm going to have to re-learn to do a lot of things again. It's definitely going to take some patience.

Especially if that #@*$&)#*%# drive band keeps falling off.

Shop news: I have 10 items up now, and my order of lavender and roses just shipped. Once that comes in, I'll be putting up assorted scented sachets - both in organza bags and hand-knit. I'm excited, because I love the smelly things... and even if they don't sell, my dorm room will smell AWESOME for the rest of the quarter.

~Joy

Knitting with balls

Remember this guy?

(Isn't it wonderful to have your knitting appreciated?)



I heard something startling from him recently.

Lewis says (4:50 PM): I have decided that when I'm over your's, I'm going to let you teach me to knit.

So, come spring break (only two weeks!), the boy is gonna learn to knit.





Mere words cannot express my astonishment and excitement.

And we're live!

Well, this past month has been filled with ups as well as downs. For instance, I went to a hockey game and won a skein of buffalo, cashmere, silk yarn:

(I still don't know what I'll do with it. I can hardly bear to knit with it.)

On the other hand, my boss at the library informed me that they had their funding reduced and I didn't make the cut. Next Friday is my last day, but they've already reduced my hours to practically nil anyway.

But for a long time, I've been planning on setting up an Etsy shop to sell dyed yarn, handspun, and little knit items. And finally it is coming together. I just listed my first eight things today: Three skeins of handspun, one dyed skein, and two knit fruit.

Yes, knit fruit.



(Can you find the knitting?)

Originally I was planning on starting it during the summer, when I would have access to a kitchen and a lot of room to knit, spin, and dye. However, this recent job development has caused me to start things up sooner than I expected. I ordered a bunch of sock yarn last week, and over spring break I'll begin dyeing. In the meantime, I am knitting up lots of little trinkets with my leftover sock yarn. Hence the aforementioned fruit, along with lots of little pouches I'm going to fill with lavender (a natural moth repellent, don'chaknow!).



So I'm pretty excited. It's thrilling to be distributing the product of your work to people who will enjoy it. My handknits drawer is starting to get overfull and I feel bad about all the stuff that's accumulating, that I will never have time to use. If I keep knitting at this rate, I could never appreciate each thing I knit.

~Joy wants to share the wealth. And possibly accumulate some wealth herself.