New For Black Trillium Fibre Studio

Not that dyeing yarn isn't enough, but I thought it might be fun to add some variety to my Etsy shop. I've done stitch markers before, and of course I chose itty bitty crystals and the smallest gauge wire known to man. The entire project was ridiculously time consuming, and my photography sucked as per usual. Project bags, though, that's more my style: useful, fun to make, and cheerful (when using my preferred nutty bright colors). I could even hand-dye the cotton, although that's another can of worms for a different day.



Red Coral project bag with Dinnerplate Dahlia in Merilon Sock. That skein of yarn, incidentally, is named for the amazing Dahlias coming out of my friend Shelby's garden - some of them were bigger than my head and just amazing colors the way that only Dahlias can be.

I'm also very pleased to get to share Squire Country Crafts' sock blockers with my customers. I discovered these lovely creations at Twisted a while back, and watching the way people lit up over them at Sock Summit really made me sit up and take notice. To make them a Black Trillium exclusive, the trillium part of my logo has been stamped onto the top of each one.



My next project today will be to finish writing up the September newsletter for my shop, including a sneak preview of this coming month's color exclusive. Tomorrow, I will get to post the exclusive in Merilon, BFL Sock and Roman Blue Sock. No stragglers, this time.

Cheers!

Sidetracked

A friend brought by his hand-sewn great coat to show off this weekend, and it was a total of about a minute after he left before I started to feel the burn on getting out my own sewing machine. This coat project was one I helped cut out in preparation for the Portland Pirate Festival, which is part of the why on show-and-tell, and so you can imagine yards of charcoal felt and shiny pewter buttons. Its an amazing period piece and apparently an infectious agent as well.



My first quilt top has been in progress for a very, very long time. Longer than the Lizard Ridge blanket, I expect. The colors totally scream "kid's room", which is good because this is supposed to be for my son's bed. I didn't do as much border as I originally planned in the interest of actually finishing the thing, so it won't quite cover the hand-me-down Queen that is supposed to be where my son sleeps. I'm hoping something new and fun for his room will induce the Dude to consider his own bed a good place to crash.



We finished up the last border yesterday afternoon, so as soon as my husband was home and dinner was over, the little guy and I ran over to the fabric store to get a backing. I chose something rather unexpected that will be a fun surprise every time the quilt gets turned down, and since red is my son's favorite color, I think it works. Don't ask me to make matching curtains, though.



There are probably as many people making project bags on Etsy as there are indie yarn dyers, yeah? I've bought a couple, but for years have avoided draw-string bags thinking they weren't the most sensible option. Zipper box bags had a more finished look to me, and struck me as more practical. Then I got my little Rav Party Swag Bag during Summit, and found the little guy very addicting. How smooth is that opening! If I have a bag for every sock project that means no more tangled needles and wondering where my ball of yarn got off to. So I made a few.





Now that the kid's quilt top is finished, I'd like to start one for the family bed. I have an older quilt from my BF's grandmother, and it was made for a Queen bed in grass green, ecru and pink. Not. My. Colors. I've been playing online w/swatches (first pic) and with patterns (second pic). I could buy half a couch for the price of the fabric I'd need for a king-sized quilt, so this project might go on a while.



And all of that sewing means this is all I've finished on the Christmas knitting.

Christmas Is Already Too Close

If you read the same knitting blogs I do in about mid-November, you will find that 90% of the post subjects will be about how far behind the author is on their gift knitting. For two years running, I've been right there with everyone else. This year, I defy tradition.


From left to right: Louet Gems Fingering in black, Black Trillium Meriamboo in some random moss-green color, Liza Souza Timaru in Agate, Madelinetosh Sock in Oxblood, STR Light in Spacedust, STR Light in Knitters w/o Borders, Fly Designs Monarch in Fire, STR Light in Korppi. (Yes, I could link to all of these, but honestly, you could also google them. I'd rather knit than write html.)

I made a mental accumulation of how many people I wanted to give knitted socks to this year. As its possible that some of them might view this post, I'm not talking about who they are. Chances are pretty high (like 99.9%) that if you've gotten socks from me before, you're going to get another pair this year. Rather, that's what I plan to do. I'm open to a few other big things getting in the way.

My list is about *counts on fingers* six or seven people long. Not too bad, eh? One of those lovely folks (move along, Joe, nothing to see here) is pretty overdue for several pair at once, so maybe eight or nine pairs of socks. I'm going to be smart about this and make a plan. To that end, I went through my sock yarn stash and nominated all the things that I think are ready to go. This happens to include all my STR Lightweight, which I've found since casting on yesterday for the first pair, that it knits up very fast with 60 stitches on US 2's. Scary fast, in fact. I cast on last night while we watched a show and finished about an hour ago. Sock-in-a-day. I thought knitting STR Medium was speedy-licous enough. Hah.

So, step 1: start a project to get the ball rolling. Chee-eck.
Step 2: choose yarn for the rest of the group. Chee-eck.
Step 3: document my craziness w/photos and a blog post. Chee-eck.

Now for the hard part: all that knitting.

An August Yarn Sale

Hi all, I'm at it again. It seems like when there's just a little too much yarn hanging around, I feel compelled to put some of it on sale. So, two of my base yarns are 25% off until Sunday.


Merino Sport
Meriamboo II

....

Black Trillium just got mentioned in another podcast! It's a short mention, along the lines of "I saw Coraline", but as a long-term lurker on Jessica's blog, its very fun to hear my yarns mentioned outside of my teeny-weeny Portland knitting community. Thanks, Jessica & Erin!

A friend came by with some lovely flowers from her garden. This little guy broke, but he looks pretty fun floating in one of my random teacups. Among the flowers now gracing my table are some amazing (and huge) dahlias, and their colors are driving me to try and get a similar effect in the dyepot. I suspect a merino/cashmere/nylon base would get me one step closer, and, tra la la, I have a new wholesaler who sells just the thing.
Now that the Lizard Ridge is done (well, still missing the crocheted border, but who's counting?), I'm taking a break from longer-term projects. Things that take more than a year to complete. Hah, you believed me there for sec, didn't you. I might have even believed myself for about six minutes after posting photos my King-sized blankie.

I pulled out all of my Dream In Color Smooshy stash, and found that the color combo worked. All six skeins. I did some yardage calculations against my first square knit up on US 4's. If I want a blanket that is about 50"x50", I need 3100 yards, or seven skeins. And my local yarn store was happy to oblige. An additional skein in Plum Paisley has thus joined the team. In the log cabin spirit, and with a twist of Moderne Log Cabin from the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book, I cast on and am knitting away at large swaths of color. I'm already 5% of the way done! (feel free to snort, snicker, or otherwise doubt my sanity - I do)

A sneak peek of September's exclusive. The first test went so-so, tweaking will ensue. If you'd like to hear the full details when they're ready, give me a holler at blacktrillium@popculturezoo.com and I'll add you to the mailing list.

Lizard Ridge - King Sized

Alright - that's it! There's no more knitting involved in this project! All the ends are sewn, the borders crocheted on, and then sewn together. There's one final step before I block it - a border on the entire blanket, but I couldn't resist getting some pictures up anyway.

Finding a way to photograph this puppy is giving me a headache. Getting the angles right, getting the whole thing in the frame, trying not to get too much else. I think the only way a good square-on picture is going to happen is if I suspend myself from the ceiling. That makes sense, doesn't it? So yeah, my photo, big hack job. Oh well.

A note on scale: I had no idea how large this thing was going to be. I added pattern repeats, entire squares, several borders. Unblocked, that baby covers my entire king sized bed. Not all the way over the pillows. Yet. That's what, 76" wide and 80" long? No wonder it took two years.

Round and Round

Here we go, I'm going to be skeining and skeining, followed by a flurry of labeling, and then it will be time to set up for Sock Summit. Cutting this a little close? I never miss a deadline, but that doesn't mean I get a full night's sleep beforehand.

Things I've learned thus far:

1. Portland is *not* near the ocean. If it were, we wouldn't get heatwaves reaching nearly 110 degrees. Okay, maybe it got hot in Seattle and at the coast as well this last week. I am tempted to insert a few key swear words right here. +100 degrees outside (and inside, no A/C) isn't conducive to dyeing loads of yarn.

2. I'm ready for the next step. Meaning, I've sort out a lot of what it means to sell my yarn wholesale as well as retail. I'm very happy to keep selling my yarn on Etsy, although I can't see myself starting up a proper website with a shopping cart and all the coding headaches involved therein. I'm also quite happy to have several well-placed and very fun-to-work-with wholesale customers. I wouldn't be able to be at Sock Summit without them.

To add to that, I've had several inquiries lately regarding expanding to more stores, and these conversations have sparked some very interesting thought processes for me. For instance, am I comfortable working with a store where I really have to become somebody other than myself in order to live up to the retailer's perceptions of a wholesale relationship? I think not. My wholesale policies are getting a lot more detailed and much clearer as I work through some of these quandaries.

3. I may not be as ready as I thought to have another baby. I'm spending all kinds of time building up this business, and really having fun doing it. I'm nervous about starting from square one with a new youngling. I'm also nervous I'd get all this biz stuff started and then have to watch while I lost traffic, customers, and wholesale accounts because I couldn't keep up with my mom jobs as well as my business. Lucky for me I have time to think about this some more. Sometimes the getting the second one started isn't as "whoops" as the first, if you get my drift.

4. I'm a sucker. As long as I don't really think about it, I can feel okay about having just set us up to pay our cellular carrier *even more* moolah because I fell for the Crackberry Storm a little too hard. Alright, the truth is that anybody who knows me very well knows for a fact that I'm a sucker. It's why I'm normally such a tightwad control freak. One look at the closet in my son's room and you'll see that I can't say no to a sweet face and a few batty eyelashes.

I'm doing my best to stay *up* on things, and I know I'm not really present where I could be more so right now. I think the Yarn Harlot just put it very well on Twitter tonight: do you want Sock Summit or do you want sleep? Some good things will come of all this sleeplessness, that's the feeling I get.

*Mwah*

Nighty-night. (see you on Twitter, my fellow insomniacs)

Dyed and Gone

I keep getting funny looks from non-knitters when I try to explain what it is that is keeping me so friggin' busy these days. I've been absolutely no help to pretty much anyone but myself. Here's part of it:



I have a new base yarn that is going to be great - my first real "hard twist" sock weight - and I've been dyeing it up like mad to deliver a wholesale order to Knitty Noddy before Joe, the kid and I go off for a week and I must refrain from dyeing because I'm in someone else's house. There's a single lonely skein of it listed on my site as well. I promise there's more to come, but a few hurdles must be gotten over first.



There's an event in the yarnie-verse coming up called "Dye For Glory", where those of us whose yarns will be sold at Sock Summit will get to enter a special new color we've just developed into a contest to be judged by the nearly 400K people on Ravelry. Let Coraline (the above) not be found wanting. I'm doing a presale for both the colors I've put together on my Etsy site, in their own little section.

There is also a wonderful new wholesale customer in Canada to fulfill an order for, and of course the massive order I promised to have for Twisted at their Summit booth.

I am learning very quickly just what it means to be busy with my yarn dyeing business. I know lots of folks in my life who've know me since before I was a knitter aren't really going to see the appeal of all this yarn, but that's okay. I am having fun, in spite of being a little chicken without a head. I guess that a forced vacay probably isn't a bad idea, either.

Black Trillium Sale - Comicon or Bust

San Diego Comicon 2009 is a month away for my dear husband and his website, Pop Culture Zoo. This is the biggest news event of the year for him, where he gets to talk to actors from shows such as Twilight, Battlestar Galactica, Leverage, and Doctor Who, as well as writers, directors, and various other VIP in the pop media world. I'm doing my part to send him there, by fund raising through my yarn business. Please, check out the sale - 25% off all yarns - and help us get where we need to go this year.

Thanks, and spread the word.

Roman Blue Sock in Rainier

Roman Blue Sock in Rainier - I am so loving this color combo that I might just have to knit some for myself!

Maybe I Needed To Hear This

I've been getting reminders from my own sense of indignation at the words and actions of others that anger is not the best medium to react from. Therefore, this will be my mantra:

Act so as to encourage the best in others, and by so doing you will develop the best in yourself. - Felix Adler

With that reminder to myself, I still want to know how the creativity of one person, while being similar, can be threatening to another when they themselves feel secure in what they are doing? Creativity is not insular in a highly virtual world, as demonstrated by the necessity of the Creative Commons Copyrights. Someone is bound to do something like mine, sooner or later. To think that that person owes me a debt of deference is absurd, egotistical and unrealistic. Prior knowledge would have to have occurred, and that's just to begin with.

I want to encourage others to express their creativity. If what they do happens to mimic mine because what I do inspires them, fantastic. I would be hurt by being directly referenced without credit, as might happen if someone used my yarn photos to stash a yarn I dyed in Ravelry and called it their own. But if the world can be a better place with my work in it, all the better. There is more than enough room for us all, and to some degree the market will determine whose work continues to grow.

I can be hurt, feel anger and pain as well as any. I am not always the kindest with my words, either (see Sara Mosle post for embarrassing examples). We are all human. And I will continue to do my work the way that suits my sense of personal expression. Along with my mantra of encouragement, I will also do my best not to engage in or create drama. Felix, buddy, help me through this rather frustrating time.

Between the Actual and the Virtual

A fourth dimension has developed between the true color of the yarn I'm trying to post and the color picked up by the camera and then displayed by my computer. Into that nebulous place goes all the light, life and variation of a skein of yarn and out the other side comes something considerably more drab and unimaginative than I like to believe I'm dyeing. To say this process is frustrating to me would be the grossest of understatements.

I have studied much in the way of science my whole life. For me the comfort of science is that when you have a clear understanding of the right process, you can repeat that process over and over with the same result. This is true of chemistry in the most reassuring way, and cooking and dyeing are chemistry. Which means I can mix the same amounts of flour, cream, butter, sugar and salt and I will get scones consistently.

Photography is not a science I excel at. It feels more like a lottery, where I put in time, energy, money, and I get back something very flat. Granted, the real yarn is still around and I can keep trying. But in the end, I eventually have to pick the least bad of the end product photos and use something to post new things on Etsy. I want my work represented to the best of my ability, and in this I am sorely deficient.

It has been pointed out to me, with examples, just how deficient I am. That wasn't a fun moment for me, as I'm very conscious of my own lack of talent and knowledge. I like being good at something. Which I think means investing in photography classes and another, more powerful, digital SLR camera and some lenses. I'll get a better set-up eventually.

Thanks to all my customers that have bought my yarn in spite of my crappy photography. I have only had one less-than-positive feedback and I feel I have done what I can to address it. As with all things, there is a learning curve, and right now I'm feeling it. If I suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, it's because that black hole between the yarn and my camera has finally swallowed me up.



The dude. He doesn't care what comes out the other end, as long he's in at least one shot.

My Hero

I love doing these bright colors. But I don't much care for space dyeing. Still, want to keep this one. See Superhero here.

Meriamboo II Comparisons

Blush, Ginger, Mocha

Mocha, Shy Violet, Ginger

Glacier, Ginger, Mocha

Lahki, Ginger, Mocha

Earl Grey, Ginger, Mocha
Bella, Ginger, Mocha
Ginger, Mocha, Casey
Ginger, Mocha, Corona
Dirt, Ginger, Mocha

Sock Summit Mania

After months of build-up and tense announcements, the class registration went up for Sock Summit. The rest is history - crashed servers, violently disappointed knitters, emails flying, chat threads extending into the sunset. I may not do this very well, and be warned I am not a kind person by nature, but I think there is some evidence that this could all have been a little less nutty.

The facts are these:

1. Check the stash listings for Socks That Rock. With more stashes and projects listed than any other sock yarn, I think that says something for the popularity of Tina's dyeing. From my own experience, the amount stashed on Ravelry is about one tenth of the actual yarn sold.

2. Two years ago at Blue Moon's annual "destash" in Scappoose knitters were fighting each other to get to the yarn. I wasn't there, but I surely won't be going in the future if that's the atmosphere. The Blue Moon booths at events like OFFF and Madrona are bad enough.

3. Every time the Yarn Harlot does a talk or a signing, the event is obscenely over capacity.
Two years running, Powell's here in Portland was inundated, so finally Tina helped get Stephanie booked at World Forestry Center's 300-person hall and it was still packed beyond fire code.

4. When the Yarn Harlot tries a new sock yarn and blogs about it, that dyer gets inundated, becoming a star overnight, though sometimes only for just a few days. This phenomena has its over verb: getting Harlotted. Examples: Fiber Optic, Sereknity, and Crash Into Ewe, to name a recent few.

This, I think, begins to demonstrate the power of Tina and Stephanie. Not the power of the sock. Let me say that again - it isn't really just about socks anymore.

The pressure in the air has been building about the Sock Summit since the idea was first introduced. When the list of teachers went up, I think it occurred to all of us that SS09 might turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There are yarn dyers out there that believe that getting a booth at Summit will be the thing that transforms their dyeing "hobby" into a full-time job.

The combined popularity of Tina and Stephanie seems to have brought some folks to the point of hysteria. Are they The Beattles of the yarn world? Either way, I am sad to find that people were downright nasty when they didn't get the classes they wanted. Seriously, folks, we're knitters, we know better. Apologize and GET A FRAKKING GRIP.

If there is a next time, ladies, please, Please, don't let anybody talk you out of what you should know by now is true. Over prepare, if you can afford it. And then redouble your efforts, just in case. Neither of you seems to do things by halves anyway. Just saying. From my perspective it seems that none of the organizers should have been shocked by the response, although they didn't deserve to get slammed by crazies for making a simple mistake.

Baby Soft Merino Sport

I wanted to share a small moment with you that is currently happening on my couch. My son doesn't like wool next to his skin - not even superwash or wool heavily mitigated by cotton or acrylic. Right now he is curled up with my Second Wool Peddler's Shawl, made entirely out of Black Trillium Fibre Studio Merino Sport, wrapped around his pajama-less body and loving it. We're talking full body wool-next-to-skin contact and he's pleased as punch. Of course, I won't tell him what the thing is made of.

Thinking Inside the Box: a contest of sorts

I've been thinking a lot about what I do with the insides of my yarn orders as I pack them up and send them off to their future homes. I decided to start a contest for ideas in my Black Trillium yarn group. Check it out here if you're interested in chiming in and getting your idea in the hat for a fun yarnie prize.



Today, I very casually listed a few more skeins of Meriamboo II, including the one pictured above. Within an hour, said skein, christened Tank Grrl by my dear sweet hubby, was gonzo. Well, it's technically still "here", but not for long. So, I'll be dyeing Tank Grrl up again and posting it next week, if not earlier.

Messires Merino Sport and Meriamboo

I have been deeply remiss in talking about my two new base yarns, meanwhile dyeing them both up and incredible speeds. The last couple weeks have been a very good start for both my Etsy site, and since I have only finished projects in one, the Merino Sport Sock, I will wait just a bit longer to truly "review" both yarns and post photos. While the wait continues, I will share this photo that has me dazzled from a color perspective:



I also want to share two things that are going on outside my yarn business interests. First, I am really enjoying writing about books at the mo', so my husband and I have started talking about a regular column involving books that have already been published but are very big in terms of public discussion and effect. Second, I have officially gotten word that one of my wholesale customers is committed to having my yarns in their Sock Summit booth. I'm excited for the prospects of these disparate projects and the work that lies ahead for this summer.

I have no news, yet, on the official arrival of more Roman Blue Sock. Since I find this a bit frustrating, I probably shouldn't comment further, but suffice to say I will have a pretty good stock in hand once Roman Blue becomes available once more. Once that has been addressed I plan to return some more attention to restocking the Merilon Sock and bringing back the HMS.

Take care and happy knitting!

Only Merino....

Several weeks back, my husband finally blew through the pair of Dream In Color socks I'd made for him in Cocoa Kiss. The skein was bought before their production went into massive quantities, so the colors were really spectacular and subtle. Don't get me wrong, I really like the DIC colors still, but they're a bit more beat-you-over-the-head now, in my humble opinion. Of course I adore Smooshy for its softness and the yardage is unbeatable, but I'm beginning to wonder about making plain vanilla socks with it. I have a few strategies I'm going to try - afterthought heel, two-color stranded socks to double thickness, maybe even the dreaded reinforcement thread - and we'll see how long that makes a pair last. The point of my going on and on about DIC Smooshy is that I've finally clued in to wool-only sock yarns - they either burn through too fast or they felt (on my feet). So, I pledged to myself that I was off 100% sock yarns in fingering weight for both my shop and my stash.

And then this happened.

And this.

The problem is that Merino, especially the Louet base (which these either are, or they're near enough as to be pointlessly alike), takes dye in such a spectacular way that, well, coveting things is already in my nature, and I suck at self-control. We've talked about the omnipresence of Louet, right? Well, I'm starting to not care. It's almost worth not having an original base yarn (boy, I'm stuck up today) to be able to play with color on that gorgeous Merino medium.

By the way, the Madelinetosh isn't for me. I swear.

Let's Move This Offline

Okay, one last self-indulgent update and then its back to using Outlook.

...Did I forget to mention filing taxes?...
- Federal is easy, but I don't like the state tax thing, so I put it off. Done now. Until next year, nemesis.

...make list of "needs" for Sock Summit Booth...
- We reached a decision two days ago, and since then I'm so relieved that I know I'm making the right decision. I'm not going to bother with Sock Summit. Yes, I'll go and see, but I don't want to take on the burdens that come with this behemoth event. I would probably have received some good exposure from being a vendor there, but Pop Culture Zoo will be covering some major events this summer and we're planning to get pregnant again. Who wants the burden of morning sickness on top of negotiating a stressful weekend.

2. Start socks for Mother's Day gift. Size 2's and vanilla basic sock. Should only take a few days to finish these.
- Plain socks on US 2.5 needles, and Shepherd Sock Sport in Black Purl. Going to be pretty.

5. Scrub the pink out of the bathtub before it gets unsightly.
- Did one better: cleaned the whole bathroom.

9. Start packing up April birthday gifts to be sent out.
- one down, two to go.

16. Post uberlate review of Fast & Furious.
- nevermind. it's silly.