Wakey Wakey!!!!!

I decided it was high time to wake up the blog and share some pictures of my newly redesigned booth at the Whidbey Weavers’ Guild Spin-In on April 10 & 11, 2010, with thanks to my friend MissouriStar on Ravelry for the picture that actually shows me spinning. The Spin-In was a huge success. The new facility has lots of windows, we had lovely weather, and there were a record number of spinners attending. I doubled my sales over last year, which I totally attribute to the awesome hanging rack my husband made for me. I also added several new fibers to my inventory – I now carry Bluefaced Leicester, a gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester/Silk blend, Polwarth (which is a Merino/Lincoln cross – think soft, longer staple and subtle shine), Wensleydale, plus a few others that you can find listed on my website.

To go along with the booth redesign, we are also doing a major website redesign, including a shopping cart as I have way too much inventory to list on a third party shopping site. The address is http://www.fibermorphosis.com. (Obviously my talents lie in dyeing fiber and not in blog technology, as I can’t figure out how to hot link that!) Feel free to stop by for a sneak peek, but be forewarned that it will be much like peering through the soap covered windows of a store that is being remodeled ~ you will see some products appearing on a daily basis, but the shopping isn’t up and running just yet. But window shopping can be fun!

Stay tuned to the blog for my grand opening announcement and other news!

Whidbey Island Fabulous Fall Fiber Festival

This past Saturday was the 2nd annual fiber festival on Whidbey Island, with 19 local vendors (including me!) I’ve been dyeing yarn and fiber all summer to get ready for this – thus the blog silence.

This is my neat little spot, back by the llama stand. With a little dressing up and modification, it made a great place for one of my cube units.

The weather was horrible (sandwiched in between two gorgeous days) but people still came out to play, and I am happy with my sales. If you live in the PNW, you can’t let a little rain wreck your parade!

I’m still sorting things back into place at home – both from the sale aftermath and from not doing much at all around the house for the past three months! Stay tuned for another post highlighting a new product I’ve come up with, and an Etsy shop update.

I Went, I Saw, I Summited!

I didn’t take any classes, but being so close to Portland, how could I not go to the Sock Summit?

Bright Shiny Objects!

Welcome to the world of automation!

That’s a three-at-a-time electric powered skein winder, and it can do in about 5 minutes what it took me 20 minutes to do by hand! Now I can spend less time winding and more time dyeing! Which is exactly what I’ve done:

All those, plus other bright shiny objects, are available in my shop: www.fibermorphosis.com. Just click the “shop” link in the left hand column! I have an amazing new merino/tencel yarn that takes color beautifully, shines just enough, and feels wonderful – so soft! And don’t overlook the squishy soft superwash wool/nylon blend.

My skein winder has enabled me to offer a new service – custom yardage. Would you prefer a 300 yard skein? Or perhaps a 500 yard skein? Just let me know – I am quite happy to dye custom lengths. I will also dye any combination of the colors that you see on my yarns – mix-and match!

Grand Opening

I’m happy to announce the grand opening of my virtual fiber shop, Fibermorphosis(tm)! Visit my website ~ www.fibermorphosis.com to have a look at some of my yarn and fiber, and click on the “Shop” tab to go to my Etsy shop. Check back soon as I will be adding many skeins of fingering weight yarn (socks and scarves, anybody?) in the near future. It’s taking me a while to stock up because my dyeing process is a little slow. I dye my yarn with very small color repeats rather than using long color blocks. It takes time, but it creates a yarn than doesn’t stripe or pool when you knit, which I think is worth the extra time I spend. I’ll be dyeing in my July colorways: Citrus Twist, Creamsicle, and Transcend, along with some other colors ~ we’ll see where the dyes lead me!

Happy 4th of July!

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The Raven Rocks!

I’m happy to say that as of May 1st, I am a resident artist at Raven Rocks Gallery. I’ll be on their website as soon as I write up an artist’s statement and send them a photo. I’m thinking of using my Ravelry avatar photo of me draped in roving.

The galleries of Greenbank Farm are open late on the first Friday of each month, so I was there last night for my debut – LOL! It was fun to see people admiring the pretty colors.My display at Raven Rocks Gallery
<Two dear friends on flute and drum.
<Pumpkin Patch on top in wool/silk; Coastal Forest on bottom in wool/nylon
<Grapevine in wool/silk on top, wool/nylon on bottom

I am becoming kind of obsessed with dyeing yarn!

And finally, a sock-in-progress:
<Gothic Grape in wool/silk
I have to test out the product line, right?

Close Up

First, I’d like to give a huge thanks to all who commented both on and off the blog. I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement – it means a lot to me!

A few people asked for some close up photos. Well, I’ve been waiting all week for a sunny day to take some pictures, so of course it’s been cloudy and drizzly (except for the one day I was not home). But I did find one shot that I took earlier:
”
I am hoping that the next pictures I’ll have to share with you will be in an Etsy shop!

95 Rovings Later……..

Ninety-five rovings, twenty-four pounds, and one month later, here’s what I had……..

This was the debut of Fibermorphosis ™ Artisan Dyed Fiber, and I am pleased to say that it was a success! Attendance at the event was down from prior years, but I still had good sales, and lots of encouraging comments from the shoppers. The past six weeks have been a whirlwind – huge fiber purchases, designing labels and marketing materials, creating a display, figuring out how to price and track inventory, spinning samples, and coming up with colorways and unique methods of dyeing fiber. Me being me, I couldn’t just dye it in the traditional color block method. Instead, I decided to play with the white space, leaving undyed portions that create highlights in the spun yarn, giving it depth and light. I could write a book on what I learned, and there is still lots more to come!

Sometime soon, there will be a Fibermorphosis ™ blog and Etsy shop, with a website in the more distant future. In the meantime, there are a couple of product ideas that have to get out of my head and onto fiber, my gallery debut on May 1, and the Whidbey Island Fabulous Fall Fiber Sale in September. Stay tuned!

Three Inspirations, One Adventure

Last Friday I took a day off from dyeing to go to the Nordic Heritage Museum, in the Ballard section of Seattle, to see the Elsebeth Lavold Viking Trail knitting exhibit. I can’t come up with words to describe her work, so I’ll just let these photos do the talking.

The afghan is made from her swatches for the Viking Patterns for Knitting book, which just happens to be sitting in my bookcase. I really enjoy knitting cables – once! A whole sweater’s worth doesn’t interest me, but I do like to try them out, so………I think I will borrow her idea and make my own afghan. I just happen to have at least 8 balls of Aran yarn in my stash, so this will be a project I can pick up as the mood strikes, trying out different patterns but not getting bored from having to repeat them ad nauseum!

To continue the knitting theme, the museum was also showing pieces from their collection, which gave me an idea for another project. I love the Nordic mittens and sweaters, but I know I would never wear either. But then I saw these:

Socks! Now that is something that I will wear! Inspiration #2!

There’s no photo for Inspiration #3, but there were some lovely Icelandic wool shawls on display, so I’ve decided that I would like to spin some laceweight Icelandic roving and knit a shawl.

In addition to all the knitted wonders, there was also a whole room devoted to looms, spinning wheels and textile arts. Here’s an overview of the display, showing a gigantic barn loom:

Here’s something I’ve never seen before – it’s kind of like a cobbler’s bench, but for carding wool:

Looks like a good idea that would make hand carding quite a bit easier!

And check out the bed on this spinning wheel!

There were quite a few wheels on display with extremely slanted beds, so that must have been typical for the region, but not something I had ever seen before.

I’ll leave you with this image:

Should you ever run short on project ideas, you can always knit insoles for your slippers!