Die for Glory

The results of the Dye for Glory contest are in (go to the Blue Moon Fiberarts blog). I did not expect to win, and did not win. It's OK. I am still a rookie compared to some of these hardcore dyers!

I've just about finished packing, am nervous as all get out. I am more nervous than when I used to pack up both my children when they were little and go to Germany to see my folks, all by myself, with a baby strapped to my front and a backpack on my back, with layovers in airports that were under construction and you couldn't sit anywhere.

I am so nervous that I almost can't eat. I am so nervous that I look at yarn and needles and say, What's that? What do people do with that? I feel about as upside down as that picture which I can't seem to be able to rotate...

I am hoping that by the time the plane takes off at 6:15 tomorrow morning, I'll have calmed down a little because this kind of excitement is very hard to maintain. There will be lovely lovely people waiting for me once I get to Portland, people that are ready to help set up and decorate the booth. There are people there who will bring me food. There are people there who have knitted more socks we can hang in the booth. One of my helpers' husband made sock blockers to display the socks. She is driving all the way from Idaho!

I think the Sock Summit is truly going to be a summit, with people coming from far away places like Australia and Great Britain. People from all over the United States and Canada.

It's going to be amazing.

I'll see you on the other side.

the time has come

...where I have completely and utterly convinced myself that I am no good, that I do not have enough yarn to sell, that my colors are worthless, and nobody will buy them. (Well, if the colors are worthless, then it's a good thing I don't have enough, right?)

Pre-sock-summit jitters are no fun, I tell you.

I did find a picture I must have taken before I packed everything up, of the lovely balls of roving I got from Eileen Testo of Weston Hill Farm, a 45 min. drive from my house.

She gave me 6 colors of these, handdyed by her from wool from her sheep, to go with the Luminary Colorway line-up. These are in honor of Judy MacKenzie McCcuin, a most excellent spinning teacher. I simply cannot think of a more perfect addition to the collection, because the roving will also represent New York State at the Summit.

And here then are all the Luminary Panel Colorways.

Top row left to right:

Undyed sportweight merino, "alpha", for Elizabeth Zimmermann. I think she would have liked it.
The rest are sock yarns:
- Sun Yellow for Cat Bordhi, a very bright star in the sock knitting universe.
- Lucy's Hot Pink Hair for Lucy Neatby.
- Barbara's Bold Red for Barbara Walker.
- Sophisticated for Nancy Bush.
- Royal Purple for Meg Swansen. (If you're knitting royalty, you need royal purple).

Bottom row left to right:
- Crapshoot for Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.
- Ink for Deborah Robson (she is a book publisher).
- Black/Turquoise for Anna Zilboorg.
- Navy with a Kick for Priscilla Gibson-Roberts.
- Alpha in superwash merino sock for Tina Newton of Blue Moon.

Yes, I decided to have undyed sock yarn in the mix for Tina Newton, who is one of the world's best dyers. I thought to myself, what could I possibly have in common with this outstanding dyer?? Who is running one of the most successful dye businesses? Who organized the Sock Summit? Well, I thought, there is one thing we have in common.

We both start with undyed yarn. It seemed only fitting.

These very skeins and a ball of roving will be donated for the Opening Reception raffle, with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders.

I will have an entire table set up in my booth that will have these colors on display, and part of the proceeds from the sale of the Luminary Panel colorways will go to DWB as well. I pledged up to $300.

The Sock Summit is a mighty good thing for all of us vendors, and I am glad to have a chance to give back a little.

last minute addition

Not sure if I told you, but by the end of the sock yarn I ran out of colors. I ordered more sock yarn. It was backordered, still is. I am hoping it will get here by the time I come back from Portland, so I can stock myself up.

Meanwhile, I still had sweater yarn here: I decided to dye up four colors and send them to Portland. I say sweater yarn, but of course this is a wonderful yarn for any kind of project, large or small.

Periwinkle Sheep merino worsted superwash. Approx 250 yds. 4.5-5 sts/in

juniper

caramel

sweet plum

suede

Here they all are in a group portrait:

Meanwhile, it is way too late to be sending these (I have 95 of them; plusI dyed the very last 5 skeins of sock yarn) to the convention center before their deadline.

Thank goodness, Portland is full of helpful people....one of them being Sarah, whom I met through Ravelry, who is also one of my booth helpers, AND who, it turns out, makes fabulous stitch markers. Of course I had to offer her to sell the markers in my booth when I found out!

Sarah would have graciously accepted shipment of my yarn even without me offering to sell her markers. But now we are both very happy that it worked out that way.

So the last of the yarn is going out this afternoon. I dyed 991 skeins altogether, not all of which made the cut. In addition, I kept some of them for color reference. I am hoping to photograph them within the next few days.

PS: If you are checking out Sarah's etsy store, don't be afraid to look at her sock yarn. Just sayin'.

out the door

Thanks to my friend Kay of Sliver Moon Farms who showed up with her van yesterday, who helped me seal and address these, thanks to Kay and Tall Son who loaded them into the van in the pouring rain while Crafty Girl and I lined them up at the door....

thanks to a huge concerted effort where Dear Husband took over cooking and keeping our kids happy during the dye marathons...18 boxes containing 770 skeins of yarn, display materials and what have you, finally made it out the door yesterday.

We had a couple stowaways, too, but it got so crazy that I did not take any pictures. I will have JessaLu's box bags with me for sale at the Sock Summit, and some wonderful handdyed roving balls from a sheep farm near here to represent New York State sheepy goodness at the summit.

I still have more yarn here and even more waiting to be delivered to me and dyed, but there came a point yesterday where we just had to seal up the boxes and get them out.

I'll figure out what to do next - I needed a breather last night and went to see the new Harry Potter movie, and must have lost my cell phone in the theatre. A call there confirmed they did not find it. As of now, it is temporarily suspended, but I need to get connected sometime very soon.

Keep ya posted, as long as the innernets don't decide to take a breather on me again, too....

what goes around....

The wonderful ladies from my Knit Night group volunteered to make socks from my yarn, so I could take them with me to the Sock Summit and display them. They will get to keep the socks in the end.

Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn Clark, from the book Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Gretchen Mashmann.

Colorway: Fresh Lavender.

Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt, from the book Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Beth Mashmann.

Colorway: Be Green.

Austrian Socks by Candace Eisner Strick, from Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Gretchen Mashmann.

Colorway: undyed 100% superwash merino.

Ribbed Socks based on a Knitting Pure and Simple Pattern.

Knitter: Dorah Bluth.

Colorway: Navy.

Polly Jean Socks by MJ Kim.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Avocado.

Socks with Pennant Pattern.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Teal.

Angee Socks by Cookie A., from the book Sock Innovation.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Lemon Thyme.

Groovy Socks by SockPixie.

Knitter: Iryth Ferrandino.

Colorway: Stonewash Denim.

And that's not all!! There are at least three more coming my way...if you want a preview, here's one.

This week I was also very lucky to have Crafty Girl home and not at camp. On one of my dye days, she fixed me this beautiful salad:

See this??

Alison, well, she alisoned me. If you don't know already, I have to tell you that this is an actual word in knitting circles pretty much everywhere. Alison gives unsuspecting people her knitted gifts, and this time I was the lucky one. It took several days for it to sink in that she made me a shawl. From her book, no less, with my yarn, which I had given her, because SHE deserves gifts, too, you know!

Before I knew it, she had sent me this:

Constance Shawl by Alison Hyde, from her book Wrapped in Comfort.

2 skeins of Periwinkle Sheep 'watercolors' sock yarn.

Colorway: Spilled Wine.

The inside joke here is that Alison loved this color because it goes so well with one of her blouses. Never mind that she is a Mormon and doesn't drink....

I'll be bringing this gorgeous shawl and the beautiful socks with me to Portland.

PS: Thank you to everyone who has left such wonderfully encouraging words for me in the comments the last few days. The skein count is at 891.

Cat and Anna

What you see here, my friends, is the end of the white yarn.

I've dyed 829 skeins to date, or rather since I've kept track for the Sock Summit.



Thing is, I'm running out of yarn, and I still have colors to do. Somewhere in the fivehundreds, I got carried away with a Royal Purple I did in honor of Meg Swansen (still fighting with the camera to get THAT color right). Then I had a really good day where I did a nice bright red, and reds are hard to get right, so when I did, I dyed a whole bunch.
Then I did a tally and an inventory of my colors are realized I am missing some good colors. More yarn is on the way, and this weekend will really be the last dyeing marathon before everything has to be shipped out.


Let me show you two more Luminary Colorways today: this sunny yellow is a color I've had in the line-up before, and I am now dedicating it to Cat Bordhi. She is one of the brightest knitters I have ever had the fortune to meet (well, besides Lucy Neatby and Nancy Bush and Beth Brown Reinsel and Candace Eisner Strick and Norah Gaughan...) <>

Cat's Sun Yellow

This one is for the Knitting Anarchist, Anna Zilboorg; somehow I've always pictured her in black...I'm probably wrong. But I LOVE this new color, where I dip the ends of the yarn in a bright turquoise first, and then I kettle dye the whole bunch in black....no picture in the world will do these justice.

Anna's Black/Turquoise

Let me know what you think.

skein mountain, sock summit

I dyed some navy blue today which looks like a comfortable pair of jeans.

The tally is up to 586. The numbers took a slight backslide because I sold some skeins (thank goodness!) to The Spinning Room, and I gifted three skeins to friends.

After a wonderful Independence Day weekend with company, I got back to work yesterday. While dyeing I started to pack up some of the yarn. It's getting a wee bit crowded in the old dining room around here.

(right to left, fore-to background: paprika; spilled wine; boysenberry; hot pink)

I counted up the number of skeins I still have to dye, and tonight I am confident that I will be able to dye up every single white skein of sock yarn I have in the house.

All 326 of them. I'll keep you posted.

skein-o-meter, part II

As of today, the count is 499 skeins.

We'll just call it the Indie(dyer's) 500.

luminary panel colors

This is a story with an end, a middle, and a beginning.

The Sock Summit will end on August 9th, 2009, with a Luminary Panel on the occasion of Elizabeth Zimmermann's 99th birthday. The Luminary Panel consists of an extraordinary line-up of women:

Cat Bordhi;

Nancy Bush;

Priscilla Gibson-Roberts;

Judith MacKenzie-McCuin;

Lucy Neatby;

Deborah Robson;

Meg Swansen;

Barbara Walker;

Anna Zilboorg.

The event will be moderated by Tina Newton of Blue Moon Fiber Arts, and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot.

I am in the middle of dyeing a series of Luminary Panel Colors, one for each of the panel members and the moderators. My twelfth 'colorway' is an undyed natural sportweight yarn, because I think that EZ would have liked that one best.

The series is a limited edition of colors which will be launched at the sock summit, and depending on how well they sell, I will have them for sale on the website (which is still under construction at this time) afterwards.

To get to the beginning of this tale, the part which inspired the color story, I have to tell you that there is an opening night dinner with a raffle which serves as a fundraiser for Doctors without Borders. I am going to donate a basket of yarn containing the 12 colors of yarn.

I will also donate a portion of the sales of the luminary color series to the same charity.

There are roughly six weeks left until the summit. Starting next week, I will showcase two colorways a week until it's time to go to Portland.

Of course now I need you all to cross your needles for me so I can pull this off!

PS: yes, there is Dye for Glory, too. I'm already getting messages that I should enter. I think I will. Now if I could send my family away on an extended vacation, and I could stop needing to eat and sleep, I'd be all set.

skein-o-meter

Crossing the 300 skein mark today.

Dear Husband was able to safely extract the skein from the fan last night. The yarn was fine, one of the (rubber) blades had a cut in it. That's some strong yarn!

this is where the s**** hits the fan

I want you all to tell me a really funny story about how you had a really funny thing happen to you one time.

make hay

...while the sun shines.

What if the skies are gray?

And the rain falls?

You take some yarn and dye it in sunny, warm colors.

This is trying to dry indoors, with fans just blowing the damp air around. And me trying to take a picture in low light.

Tomorrow morning, my friend Laura who is a photographer by trade and training and art, will come take pictures of my skeins. I'm saved!