Things That Are Hard to Photograph

Thanks for all the support of my Heifer International project. I'm excited to start! Today! I'll be adding the first handspun to the site tomorrow, 3 skeins of wool/mohair blend, about aran weight:


I begin to understand all too well why people hire professional product photographers. I have some really exciting new kinds of things to add to the site, but they're all very hard to photograph. So, please forgive me for the lousiness of the pictures. All these things are much, much prettier in person.

I have:

Tiny, tiny, wee, little, miniscule supported spindles by Jim Wandell, a local woodworker here on the Eastern Shore. They have wooden shafts and stone whorls between 25 and 40 mm in diameter, weighing .3 to .6 oz. Did I mention that they're really small? For spinning the finest of fine laceweight. I have them in various stones, including sparkly Goldstone, Tiger Eye, White Howlite, and Rose Quartz. Very pretty.


And more spindles! Turkish spindles by Ed Jenkins in two sizes and several exotic woods.


These babies are really gorgeous, spin super fast, and best of all, disassemble when you're finished spinning, leaving you with a ball of yarn. No unwinding!

And remember in August (I think it was August) my friend gave me a Jenkins circular needle and I raved about how it was the greatest knitting needle I'd ever laid yarn to? Of course I had to call Jenkins and get some for the site. I especially wanted US#1 for socks, because these are ideal sock needles - dangerously sharp, very hard woods, and joins so smooth you never notice them - but alas was told that Ed has only ever produced them a twice as a fluke. Size 1 needles are just too tiny. Well, said I, put my name permanently on the size 1 request list; should the magic ever happen again, I'll take them. As of today, I've scored four of them (though two might be in my personal collection). Anyway, the Jenkins needles are finally going up on the site tomorrow, in Bolivian Rosewood, Pink Ivory, and Osage Orange, sizes US #1 - #8.


Another cool feature: the needle size and cable length are painted on one needle and it doesn't rub off. Nice touch.

And finally, yarn keeper bracelets, also by an Eastern Shore maker. I'm a peripatetic knitter, forever trying to stuff balls of yarn in my pocket so I can wander around while I knit, following Lia, or moving around at a show, or just sitting in a place where dropping the ball would be very inconvenient, like a plane or bus. So this thing is an answer to my dreams! It holds the yarn on a little wire on your wrist, so light you can scarcely feel it, and spins as you knit to release more yarn. It's even got an optional counter.


Oh yeah, there's yarn for tomorrow too. Though those photos were giving me more trouble than usual as well.

Eidos: Nyktes (new), Kebes (new), Evenus (new, shown), Bacchic, Pyrrhus, Harmonia (new, shown)


Klee: Contemplating, Highways and Byways (shown), Carnival in the Mountains


Something very funky happened when I was dyeing Highways and Byways - I got a really cool speckling effect that I've never seen before, and the skeins came out totally different from each other (both the above pictures are the same colourway). That second part isn't so great, especially if you wanted to make something that required more than one, but they're all really beautiful. You'd just have to go with the flow on this one. I don't know, maybe I'll just have to keep them all ;-)

A Plan

Last February I held a little fundraiser for some folks in this area who lost their uninsured store in a fire, and I gave 50% of all sales for the month to them. The response was amazing, so many people wanted to help and even gave direct donations, and the final sum of over $1000 collected was really wonderful for the recipients. Since then I've been thinking a lot about doing something like that on an ongoing basis, and it's really time to stop thinking and start doing. I've spent some time looking into various charities and have settled on Heifer International. I had thought to go with Doctors Without Borders, which is a truly amazing organization, but I really like Heifer because they provide people with a means to support themselves in an ongoing way. The basic idea is that they buy animals for poor families all over the world (including the US) - not the half-starved, diseased animals that might be available to those people, but healthy, strong ones - so that they can produce their own sustenance, or sell the products of the animals. Check out their site - there are some amazing stories of lives they've changed.

Obviously I can't give 50% and hope to stay in business, but I think 10% is reasonable. My plan is to keep a count here on the blog every month, and at the end of the month go to the Heifer site and buy the most expensive thing I can with what I've collected. And then report back to you on what we got. So we might buy a llama for a family in South America, or on a really great month a Knitting Basket of four fiber animals (how great is it that we could buy a knitting basket?). In addition to 10% per month, I want to add a handspun skein of the week whose sale will go 100% to Heifer. I think I can keep up with spinning one a week. If anybody wants to donate their handspun to add, I'd be happy to list it! Send it to
6873 Traveler's Rest Pt.
Easton, MD 21601
Please include fiber content and yardage.

So what do you say, shall we join forces and bring more sheep to people in need?

A Studio and A Winner

Woo-hoo, we have a deck!


It has a hatch where the pool ladder is, so the pool itself is still available for storage (though not where the skeins drip, of course).

Here's the historic moment of Rachel hanging the first skein up to dry (yes, that's Bugga! 'Oak Timberworm', headed to The Loopy Ewe soon!)

We have a dehumidifier running non-stop to help dry the yarn faster, but at the rate I fill the air with steam from the pots, the poor little thing is like to die of a stroke.


Here are the dyeing, rinsing, and skeining stations - though there is much reorganising to come.


On to the winner! After careful consultation with my associates, Courtney the Knitting Goddess has been selected as the winner of the 'What's at the other end of the Cormo Wormhole?' contest, with the following entry:

"hahaha, you think there's an end... The Cormo Wormhole leads to the Targhee Wormhole and the bifurcated Romney/Coopworth split. From there, it's anyone's guess.

Some say that if you take the Coopworth leg, you'll end up bypassing the Border Leicester and be hurtled straight to Colonial Williamsburg, VA to help with the Longwools.

There is a story that says a man once made it to the Great White Lands of the Dorset Horn, but he hasn't been heard from since.

There is a 90% probability you will not re-emerge from the wormhole. Should you enter, I encourage you to keep up communication as long as you can. Scientists at the Fiber Wormhole Research Association are standing by to collect your reports. We salute your bravery, Fibernaut."

Many thanks for all the hilarious and charming entries! Courtney, please email me (gryphon AT sanguinegryphon.com) to collect your GC.

And Now For the Pictures

Not just from Stitches, but SAFF too. Remember the wine-and-Cirque-du-Soleil-routine evening I mentioned? Yeah.


Our host, Jason, and his cat-balancing act.


Hosts Liz and Jason, who had clearly been practicing,

unlike their friend Adam and me, who landed in a heap more often than not.

This particular manoeuvre ended badly (note the empty wine glass),


though this one, surprisingly enough, didn't.


It was a heck of a lot of fun, I must say. Notice how Paula carefully remained on the other side of the camera?

On to Stitches.

A couple pictures from Mia:


and one I stole off Sheri's blog (yup, that's the infamous Loopy Ewe herself nestled in my bodice!):

Stitches

I've got about a week of entries worth of news and almost no pictures due to having been unable to locate my camera in the uncharted backwaters of the under the table area of our booth, not a great combination. I'll do my best to keep it succinct. At least Mia and Kate took some, so one can hope I'll have them to add later.

Thank you for all the highly entertaining entries on the Cormo Wormhole contest! I'm going to have to pull somebody else in on the judging, it's too hard. In the meantime, if you haven't entered yet, go ahead, it will probably be a couple days yet.

Right-o, here goes with the Stitches East redux.

1. It was fabulous. And utterly exhausting. I met many very marvelous people, saw a most amazing parade of gorgeous knitwear just by sitting in my booth, and sold a bloody lot of yarn. There's almost nothing left for the site, so much dyeing lies ahead.

2. We were blessed with great helpers. In order of appearance, there was
- Rachel, who came along on Wed to help with set-up. Of course I was paying her, but she was still fabulous.
- Kate, who I think had a better time than usual. This may have had something to do with the fact that she didn't have to be there for all of set-up, didn't let me bully her into wearing a silly costume, and sold lots of yarn.
- Elizabeth, whom I didn't even get to see. She came by unexpectedly during the Thursday night market session and helped Kate who was there by herself.
- Adrienne, my fibery friend from down the road who came Friday to help out.
- Lauren, who helped on Saturday and bravely stuck it out all day despite being very tired. And humoured me with a costume.
- Mia, who helped all day Saturday and Sunday, to the bitter end, and even brought us lunch.
- the convention center staff. We heard horror stories about load in and out and all the restrictions put in place by the union, but I found the whole process to be smooth and efficient, and several staff members helped us, even putting boxes in the van for us. The whole thing was actually much easier than other shows.

3. I met some really incredible people. A few highlights:

a. Sheri, of The Loopy Ewe. That was pretty exciting. She was every bit as sweet as I thought she'd be, though considerably taller than in my head.

b. Karida, of Neighborhood Fiber Co. She's hilarious. Karida and Libby Bruce have a book coming out soon called Pints and Purls, which features knitting designs in order of how drunk you can be and still make them. Kate has a couple contributions in it.

c. Cheryl Potter, of Cherry Tree Hill. Having made it to the big time, she's now helping launch other dyers by buying and reselling their yarns to shops at essentially no profit to herself. She bought a heap of Eidos/Dragon Sock and Sea Sock from Kate and me. Pretty exciting. Did I mention she was really cool too?

d. Cat Bordhi. That's right, The Cat Bordhi. I just about keeled over when she walked into the booth. But I recovered enough to ask her my QUESTION.
See, I have a habit of shamelessly accosting famous fibery people and asking them how I can get where they are. In fact that's how this blog got started, as a result of the advice of Annie Modesitt when I approached her with my questions. It doesn't always work out so well - last year at Stitches East I asked Lily Chin for advice on becoming a big designer with my own yarn lines and she just laughed and told me to forget it. But when I told Cat that I wanted to write a book with my fairy tale sock designs and asked about self-publishing, she was fantastically encouraging. She spent about half an hour filling me with information on how to go about it and made herself available for ongoing help. I've been a huge fan anyway, but in person, well, let's just say I put her in the top ranks of most amazing people I know. And now I have to start writing my book.

Way too many words for no pictures. I better hurry up and show you some yarn before you fall asleep. Here's tomorrow's shop update, beginning the process of reconstructing my inventory.

Kypria: 4 - Irrevocable, 11 - Sharing Immortality, 13 - Thetis


Little Traveller: Abu Dhabi


Eidos: Ion


Gaia Lace: Caribou in Velvet (shown), Cornflower, Goblin's Tree


Gaia DK: Nematocyst (new, shown), Goblin's Tree, Alpine Woods, Acrobatic Snail, Kicking Horse


Gaia Worsted: Kicking Horse, Frozen Creek, Convection at Sunset, Rusty Wheelbarrow (new, shown), Fire Rage (new)


Now to go beg people to send me photos.

Cormo Wormhole

There was an arrival here the other day. A wooly arrival. A Cormo arrival. Specifically, almost 16 lbs of the most fabulous Cormo top, from Nancy Weik's farm in VA. I wish I could begin to describe the softness, but words fail me. However, the top itself demonstrates very eloquently just how attractive it is, literally:


See that? That's a wormhole at the center of the top, a wormhole with a powerful draw. It tried to suck Rachel in and it was only through a great struggle that I was able to get her out again.


The question is, what lies on the other side of the wormhole?? $25 gift certificate for the best answer! (to be judged purely subjectively by the SG team). We'll have to see if the magical properties hold once it's dyed and up for sale on the site.

Check out the speedy deck progress:


But how could they not be inspired when they have a backdrop of yarn against which to work?


Heading off the Baltimore tomorrow morning to start setting up for Stitches. Wish us luck!

PS

I forgot to say, the new stuff will only be up for about half of tomorrow and then I have to take it all back down (and everything else) as it gets packed to got to Stitches. Sorry. Whatever's left will come back Monday.

A Deck!!

Check out what's happening here today!


That's right, those wonderful men are building my studio. It's actually much farther along than that now, but they're so fast, we can't keep up with the pictures. It should be done in three days. Huzzah!!

I had the most marvelous visit yesterday, from Sarah, my beloved friend and third Fate (along with Kate). She's home for a few weeks at the half way point of her year in Afghanistan, and we did a lot of scheming about what will happen when she comes back for good. But my lips are sealed.

On to the yarn preview. It's pretty thin this week, sorry, I'm getting ready for Stitches East.

Little Traveller: Scotland, Nile Delta, Morocco (new!), Lake Baikal (shown, new!), Miletus (new!), Mongolia (shown, new!)


Eidos: Charmides (shown), Calliope