Seriously, It's Just Yarn

A quick search on Etsy for "sock yarn", and you will find pages upon pages of hand-dyed yarns by aptly labeled "indie" dyers. A little bit of Google-fu for the same search will bring pages and pages more. If you're a sock knitter, you know all about the proliferation of yarnies and their wares. It seems that we are the hottest new ticket in the knitting world, us little guys dyeing out of our kitchens and garages, listing on Etsy and selling to a few local yarn stores.


I have a few thoughts about why it has been so easy for folks like me to get started. My own experience has shown me just how easy it is to find the dye and equipment, to learn the craft quickly, and to find a place to showcase. The yarn, the real starting point, was a total cinch - Louet was an obvious and widely known place to get wholesale-priced yarn. Many others advertise their undyed yarn all over the internet. I was reading blogs a year or more before I started having thoughts of my own about their own dyeing adventures with Louet. If you take a closer look at Etsy, many of those hunderds of sock yarn listings are indeed Louet Gems. It is a fabulous, if omnipresent, place to start. What has been the real challenge is finding base yarns that very few others are working with, and then finding ones that meet my technical expectations. But I will always have Louet to thank for giving me the opportunity to become a small business on minimal start-up capital.


Of course, it certainly helps to have a platform like Etsy - without it I would be nowhere at all. Long before the yarn, I worked with my best friend of nearly twenty years on a jewelry and child-focused goods business out of our homes. We were separated by 3000 miles nearly half the year, so we had to have some place to sell our creations that was easy to maintain and gave us a public face to show retailers. We even went to the trouble of having our artist friend design a logo, and Millie and Duncan was branded. Our first and only online sale went completely ker-blooey, but it taught me quite a few lessons about customers, shipping, and internet traffic. Etsy was still fairly small at this point, but you could feel the momentum building. I grabbed a name for my yarn shop a full four months before actually buying supplies on the off chance someone else might have the same inspiration.


I have had the unfortunate experience of late to notice a small backlash to all the expansion of sock yarn dyeing. An online shop owner, one who has built her business and reputation on carrying an amazing array of indie dyers actually bemoaned the fact that there are so many of us. Other online yarn mavens have suggested that only those who began when the trend was new are really competent and viable. Certainly, there are always going to be dyers out there who don't maintain best practices and the highest quality standards, but surely the market can select out these folks through the mechanics of capitalism. It doesn't seem like a productive discussion to lower the playing field by complaining about your competitors or belittling the works of those who have lots of room to improve. We all started small, either as bloggers, retailers, or dyers, and we can all be made small again.


Long before producing my own yarn seemed like a good idea, my sock yarn stash was gaining control of the bins under my desk. A single skein a week was perfectly doable on our budget, whereas sweater yarn at somewhere between $60 and $100 a project just wasn't. So I exercised my stash building and retail therapy muscles at the same time. In retrospect, I'm not certain how I expected to knit all those pairs of socks in colors I chose mainly for myself. I am quite pleased at the advance of patterns calling for a single skein of, or many skeins in different colors, of sock-weight yarn. Right off the bat, the first two patterns on the Spring '09 Knitty: Shipwreck (a dyers dream-project) and Reverie. Then there's one I'm personally going to be stash-diving for very shortly: Colorflow Wrap - what a fantastic use of small bits of yarn! I love to bits some of the things knitters are doing with all that gorgeous color: Zauberknees, Macchia di Colore, and Punk Rock Chevron. My stash will never look at me the same way again.

So, I say bring it on. It is just yarn after all. I suppose I better mention Sock Summit because it wouldn't be a possibility without us crazy sock knitters - except that I want to throw up every time I contemplate getting ready to go have a both there. I'm sure that just like blogging, and now Twitter, Facebook, and (can you believe crazy high-school students?) sexting, sock yarn dyers and knitters will lose a little bit of their newy sparkle and become just another thing we're doing.

Maybe next time, if I can do it without spitting nails, we'll talk about how dyers can possibly be doing alright while the global economy falls apart.

Bubbles Masala

Every so often, we pop into Uwajimaya to look for a few key grocery items. One, which has always been out in the past, finally made an appearance. Black Tapioca Pearls, commonly used in Thai Bubble Tea, have been hard for me to find. No more - and put to good use in our Bodum Double Wall glasses with some Chai and a little Silk Vanilla. Yum. Now all I need as a big honkin' straw.

Then there's my sock problem. My new favorite sock yarn has to to be Casbah Sock by Handmaiden(ravelry link). This color practically grabbed my collar and said "I'm coming home with you." Seriously, I was at the store to get some Kauni, which wasn't the most economical purchase, and the Casbah jumped into my bag. So now I'm stalking it all over: The Loopy Ewe has it, folks on Ravelry are destashing. I want more. There are lots of indie dyers who use Casbah as one of their bases, though it wouldn't be polite to out them. But here's a hint: if the skein is 115g and has a cashmere content as well as nylon and superwash wool, it's Casbah. For me, though, half the fun is Handmaiden colors. By the way, if anybody has a skein of Casbah in Melon they want to part with, please, get in touch. The pattern I "followed" (aped, copied, simulated, whatever) was Chevvy from the new hand-dyed socks book. I love the added body of the bias, but I'm really going to have to be a good knitter and do the pattern up proper.

This little cake is totally gratuitous yarn pr0n. It's the Silk Maiden in Masala again. Love, love, love that color combo. So much so that I'm stalking a skein of Lady Godiva on another website. I think this is destined to become a drop-stitch scarf very, very soon.

Where've You Been

When you play around on the internet without intent to work, this is what you might find:


visited 17 states (34%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project

I'm missing a few.

Big Orders Out

...Very Little New On For Etsy.

Over the course of having two shops, one successful one not, on Etsy, the thing I've learned that works if you don't have a ginormous advert budget is to post a new thing every day in your primary category. This week at Black Trillium hasn't been the epitome of practicing that knowledge. And actually, that's good news on other fronts.

You know when somebody's opinion means a lot to you because they have accidentally become a rather important part of your life? Well, that would describe my LYS's Knit Night group, and our fearless leader, Jami the Owner. Our lovely Wednesday night soiree is filled with a diverse group of local knitters that are funny, articulate, kind, generous (you should see the blanket they all put together for a new baby in the group!), and talented. So the idea that they get to see my yarn in a retail setting is a bit daunting.

I've been enjoying my time as a customer at The Knitting Bee for about two years. Today, I became one of their wholesalers.



I'll have lots of competition this spring to sell my sock yarn at The Bee: Malabrigo Sock arrives next week, the new Mini Mochi arrived today, Jojoland Melody arrived earlier in the week. I have heard rumors that my old dyeing partners, now known as Frog Creek Fibers, have received an order from Jami, and that she has also ordered Madelainetosh Sock Yarn and a couple of others. All of this fun new yarn coming in makes it all kinds of fun to go in every Wednesday and browse and chat with friends. (I'm secretly hoping those friends don't notice my yarn while I'm there, or I'll get terrible stage fright.) But I'm stoked like all heck that my very own LYS is interested in my Black Trillium Merilon Sock.

So wish me luck, folks, because I've reached my 2-store quota for Portland, and I have my sights set on Seattle next.

Roman Blue Sock - Yum, Yum, Yum

At this moment in my life, I can honestly say there is very little that is more exciting and satisfying than opening a big box of undyed yarn. When that undyed yarn is extra luscious, like this new Blue-Faced Leicester sock yarn I'm testing out, well, that just makes me all squiggly. This stuff is fan-freaking-tastic.

My first impression on the first skein that came to hand was, "Oh, squishy." The second thing I noticed was that it felt a little like silk. Real silk - not just "silky"-feeling. Examining an individual strand - there are 4 plies - gives the impression of a very competent spinnery. The twist is lovely, not at all loose as some superwash blended yarns tend to be. When it comes to knitting a pair of socks, my philosophy is "the closer, the better", regardless of nylon or other reinforcement content. The socks I'm knitting from my new BFL/nylon sock are going to last forever, baby.

So I threw a skein in the pot and picked out a few colors to experiment with and see what would happen inside the fibres. (Fibers. I'm not British, or Canadian, and though I'd like to be either, I use Fibre as my company mainly as a subtle reference to Shakespeare.) The yarn definitely took me by surprise - it didn't behave like Merino wool at all. Merino will take dye immediately, in a way that requires lots of dye for even a medium color. BFL, as I'm finding out, takes dye more slowly so that color spreads into less-defined patches. Some of my favorite colorways depend on the dye fixing straight away, which means a little creative problems solving on my part to affix the right dyes in the right places with the BFL. After a few frustrating attempts with the first skein, I thought I'd come up with an unmitigated disaster. I changed my verdict after I saw how it knits up.

Here we go, about 20 percent finished, with a cute little twist and testing a couple of my crystal stitch markers. I'm not sure how visible it is, but there are small variations of brown, red and burgundy there, and absolutely no pooling. The whole kettle-dyeing thing really makes a difference when I'm looking for skeins that don't pool or stripe in obvious ways. I'm knitting this sock on US 1 needles, and as I knit loose (read continental) I could easily have knit this yarn on Ots or Double Ots. It might take a little longer to finish a pair, but I think squishing in the fibers nice and close will make for a very sturdy garment.

That test skein was a few days ago. Since then, I've dyed and put up two batches. The first batch went within hours of posting. I don't know if this was some happy accident of fate, or if BFL really is that magnetic. I think it helps, and I'm probably going to have to make it a regular practice with all my yarns, to reskein them after they've dried. Live and learn, a cliche for a reason.

I'm already thinking forward to what I'd like to do next, ADD personality that I am. There's a vendor that I can get a Merino and Cashmere blend from and I have been lingering over the samples with embarassing frequency. Madrona is coming up, and I'd like to check it out before I have to be on the spot as an actual vendor at Sock Summit in August. I really, really, really need to order in some more HMS - I love that base yarn so much I bought some that another person had dyed for knitting a Clapotis. I think it's only a matter of time before everyone loves that stuff as much as I do. I just noticed someone stashing my yarn that they purchased from Twisted - oh, how scary and thrilling at the same time.

And, oddly enough, I have a book series review in the works for Joe's site. How's that for fingers in lots of different pies.

Happy Knitting!

Yarn Food.

Make your own.

2008: What I Am Thankful For

1. My husband and my child. Without the two of them, my life would not be meaningful. Everything else comes second.

2. Being a nearly-healthy human. Okay, I could lose a few pounds and I could probably do a whole lot more yoga and eat more veggies. But after the summer we had, in and out of the hospital, I just want to be here and alive and with the people I love.

3. The chance to do what I love for a living. My yarn business has had a few ups and downs since May, when I really started thinking about actually selling my own yarns. But considering how well I've done in an economy where lots of other people are having hard times and losing jobs, I really can't complain. I have wonderful customers to thank for that, many of whom have come back time after time and many of whom have been fantastic to communicate with and have been very patient and understanding.

4. Could we live in a better era? Barack Obama. The right to vote. The internets. Digial music. The public library system. Knitting as a hobby as well as a living. Communication. Enlightenment. Buddhism and yoga in America. Global economy and shopping locally. Etsy. Ravelry. Blogging. David Tennant as The Doctor. I love where I live, in both time and space.

...and maybe a few things I learned the hard way.

1. Don't smack the beast. If you make someone angry or defensive, stop pushing them. I know that I'm going to have to apologize for the rest of my life everywhere I go because I am crappy at being humble and "why why why" doesn't endear me to anybody. Sorry, everybody. And I don't hear subtext very well.

2. Nobody thinks the way that I do. With the notable exception of my husband. The downside to this is that we're constantly looking at each other wondering if we've both lost our minds. Or, if the rest of the world has. It has been brought up that maybe we should just find a remote cabin somewhere and hope that our child doesn't wind up as weird as we are.

3. I am not funny. I can't write funny no matter how badly I'd like to.

Okay, that's all.

Would a yarn sale help with the January blues? If so, I have some at the site.