Homespun Yarn Party, Hurray!

Second Annual Homespun Yarn Party! March 15, 2009
We had a great time last year - this year will be bigger and better!

What: Yarn Party! Check out local yarn vendors, sit and knit, meet new people!

Who: All your favorite local yarn dyers and spinners, plus some extra crafty goodness! And all our knitting/crocheting/spinning friends (you!) of course!!

Where: Historic Savage Mill 8600 Foundry Street, Savage, MD 20763 Just off I-95, plenty of parking!

When: Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 12 PM to 4 PM (watch the blog - hours may be extended)

Why: Who needs an excuse to get together and craft?! We wanted to get together and spread some fiber love!

In addition to some great crafty vendors, we'll also have:
free lessons on knitting, crochet, spinning, and maybe more
fabulous door prizes to be given away throughout the event
crafty goody bags for participants (while supplies last)
weather-permitting, a sit and spin/crochet/knit area out on the deck. And we'll be collecting knitted and crocheted items for local charities.

No, I'm afraid the the Sanguine Gryphon's Lia will not be there this year, but I just couldn't resist showing this picture again from last year's show. We did have a great time and I know we;ll have a great time this year, too. Don't forget to keep up with the Homespun Yarn Party blog for updates and even cool prizes.

I'm planning to have hand dyed yarn and spinning fiber, and maybe some hand dyed locks for your art yarn spinning enjoyment, oh, and even a batt or two.

It has been an exciting time around Dragonfly headquarters! First, new labels, and now this! That's right, Dragonfly Fibers has hit the big time and is listed on the Loopy Ewe. Thanks so much to Sheri, queen of Loopy herself! And to Gryphon, who introduced us in more ways than one!

These lovelies are part of an order going to Cheryl at Cherry Tree Hill. The skein above is Sea sock in the Rocky Top colorway and below are sea sock and dragon sock select .in Vintage pink colorways. lovely all nestled together, aren't they? I just LOVE the way the select takes color. YUM!

Okay, on to knitting. This fabulous hat is knit from a beautiful yarn I made from some sticky white merino and red and pink and gold sarisilk.

As white is not a good color for me, i overdyed it a "light brown". Surprisingly, the yarn appeared washed out and sickly rather than the lovely rustic rich brown i was going for. It happens. After looking at it for nearly a year, i chose to overdye it Again. This time in a rich burgundy wine color. Bingo! It is perfect for my coloring, so I knit it into a bulky hat with corners. As you can see, I ran out of yarn right at the end. But who knew burgundy would look so good with violet?

Sorry it is not modeled. I can't seem to find a photographer who will take good pictures of me.

This cool thing is a sock in my Maggie May colorway on Sea Sock. I am knitting a toe up sock starting with Cat Bordhi's standard toe. I am knitting this for my good friend Maggie's birthday and, rather than take proper measurements, i decided it would be a ggod idea to guess her shoe size. the first try turned out to be too tight even for my skinny foot, so i frogged and started again. All i knew was that her foot was bigger than mine. Goofy way to start a sock yes?

We had Maggie over for dinner last night, as her birthday was the 14th (yes, she is a valentine's baby) and she tried on the sock. Shockingly enough, she found the width just right. She did giggle when i measured her foot length but she will be glad in the end. It's better to have custom knit socks fit, I think.

Also, and this is embarrassing, while i have knit a few socks and i have knit with my yarn before, this is the first time i have knit socks with my sock yarn. High time i found out how my sock yarns knit up, don't you think? i must say i'm pleased. And i like the little slubs of sea cell.

Here is Archangel sock progress. It's a bit slow, i'm afraid. And i can't wait to wear this sock!

Finally, i want to show you my new toy that the lovely Jack gave me for Christmas. These are Contraman Comfort Combs, purchsed from Carolina Homespun, my most favorite spinning store. Nice and sharp.

I have been using them to prepare this gorgeous but very full of veggie matter black merino fleece that i bought late last year, for some crazy reason. The combs are a thousand times slower and more fussy than the drum carder, but boy do they yield soft, fluffy, sliver that is a joy to spin.

The locks are true black with brown, sun-bleached tips and spin into a pretty soft black. this black merino will be used as an accent yarn in the Jack sweater, which i have not abandoned.

In fact, I have returned to my original idea, which is a bohus-inspired sweater knit in all natural colored hand spun yarns. i just need to prep and spin enough of this black and i'll be about ready to swatch and start.

In the meantime, i may have started a hoodie for the boy. A black hoodie with a skull on the front, per his request. Hopefully, I'll show you soon. Have a great fiberfull week!

Love completed

And here it is, finally in the finished pile. I followed Mia's advice and lightly overdyed the sweater. Who knew that they make an "ecru" colored dye? I used about a quarter of an oz of dye as the sweater is roughly two pounds and then blocked after rinsing with lavender Eucalan. I then followed my own directions (when one is complelled always to deisgn everything from scratch, it can be very nice to follow someone else's patterns, even if they are one's own!) and picked up the neck and armholes and finished them with very tennis-like bands of burgundy and navy ribbing. All in all, a very satisfying end to a ridiculously long and complicated story.

I'm pleased to report that my father has received it in the mail and tried it on, and pronounced it "perfect". The beauty of knitting for one's dad, especially as a "Daddy's girl", is that it would be perfect even if it had two neck openings and no armholes! At least at first. I hope it warms him well and is at least stylish enough that he can brag about it in the locker room and not have his friends laugh at him (and me) behind his back. It does represent nearly four years of my learning to knit, and if you look closely at it, you can see how far i've come.

Now in the yarn dyeing department, we've had to interrupt our normally scheduled programming due to snow days

and sick days.

But somehow, drumroll, Dragonfly Fibers had managed to ship off its very first Loopy Ewe order, along with a smaller wholesale order to Cherry Tree Hill.

Complete with

new labels!

Aren't they gorgeous?! After quite a few tries and paying several web design people and graphic design people, and not paying some very good friends who also happened to be talented artists, and getting some nice logo type things that weren't exactly right, the lovely and talented Gryphon (yes, That Gryphon) designed the perfect thing for Dragonfly Fibers. Of course, it helps that Gryphon is not only a talented visual artist and skilled at computer image manipulation, but that she knows me and mybusiness better than most. And, being an Indie herself, she knows what makes a good yarn tag.

And, as Len Rizzi pointed out when I stumbled into his shop, I learned something from every attempt at getting a logo design done, so the money and time is not wasted. In fact, there are elements of the very first logo, done by my dear friend Mary Logan in these tags (and soon to be banner, etc). My friend Maggie gave me the dragonfly paperweight that Gryphon sketched for the actual image used. In fact, I found that with the business in general. I've made quite a few false starts and wrong turns, and have become lost in the haze of confusion only to come out clearer on the other end I still wonder every day if I should stick with it, or give the time back to my family, but now I realize these thoughts are part of the process. And let's face it, I am a natural doubter. Do you cherish your skepticism as well? Or is that just my cowardice showing again?

Two things did not make it into the Cherry Tree Hill box. When I was gleefully tagging the Sea Sock, I notices two skeins were missing. There had been many crazy boys in my house and I havd terrible visions of them using the yarn to tie each other up or as the base of really big snow balls. After looking all over, Iwound up dying two extras and blowdrying one skein to get it in the mail! After mailing all the boxes to their respective locations, my little boy said, "Mom, i found your missing skeins! Out here, in the bushes."

Luckily, after defrosting, drying, and removing all plant material, they are sitting happily in the Stitches South box. Look at that sweet little azalea bud.

And finally, more love. We are coming up on Trudgie's first anniversary with our crazy family. Despite the week we had an extra dog around here, putting his nose out of joint for a bit, I'm fairly sure he'd tell you he's very happy here.

Ignore his grumpy expression. He just doesn't want his girl to be too confident in his affections. They were obviously meant for each other; they even match!

My sweet wild child turned 8 in January and had a good old-fashioned sleep over to celebrate with all of his best buds. His father piped out a monster truck ramp in chocolate icing-yum!

There was wrestling, rude noises, silly stories and "truth or dare" at bedtime. And even, Twister! You are looking at the Twister Queen, and the toughest of all the buds.