Trying to take inventory

Not an inventory of merchandise or supplies or anything tangible.  I'm trying to take an inventory of my business options.  And it's all wide open.  I can continue in the direction I've started (and which has been a lot of work, but successful).  But a lot of the work is tedious and I would really like to have an assistant to take on the tedious, less than artful, tasks.  And in addition to my online presence, I would love, Love, LOVE! to have a brick & mortar store.  And then there are all my other interests.  I just want to do it all!

Now to find a way to successfully combine my love of fiber (dyeing, knitting, spinning), my love of papercrafts (stamping, scrapping, bookmaking), my love of sewing (quilting, fashion), my love of photography (portrait, landscape, stock), my love of vintage (particularly vintage Pyrex), and bath & spa products (hand made soap, candles, etc.) Oh, and throw in the occasional jewelry making and whatever else strikes my fancy at the time.

Can you picture a shop that would include all, or maybe just most, of these interests?  Would you shop at my store?  Would I be trying to do too much?

I need to get my thoughts written down.  And organized. Any suggestions for organization tools to make sense of this stuff?

Comments are most welcome.  Please share a link to my blog so your friends can give me some input, too.

Day 7 of 300 Days of Dyeing And FAF

Yes, it happened.  I set a goal. I made a commitment.  I announced it to the world.

And then Life happened.  I got sick.  My mother got sick. My mother-in-law got sick.  There was a race to photograph. There was a Fiber Fest to prepare for (and then cancel-see above.) And right now, I don't even remember what else.  But dyeing has been put on hold - temporarily.  I'm planning to back in full swing soon.  In the meantime, I'm taking it slow and easy and one day at a time.

Today I am dyeing with onion skins.  I don't do this very often,  but it is one of the few 'natural' dyes I use. (I put 'natural' in semi-quotes because most dyes are natural, they are just prepared for us rather than us having to go out to collect the ingredients and prepare them for use. Someone else does that for us and packages them in an easy to use form.)

Dyeing with onion skins is pretty simple.  Collect the skins from yellow onions.  I have about four of the little net bags they come in from the grocery store crammed full of skins.  I have no idea how many onions it took to get them.  And I didn't weigh them.  This is a very non-scientific method.  I boiled the onions in my pot with a strainer insert. After the onion skins boiled a few minutes (a while, again I didn't time anything) and the water had turned a rich red (and smelled delicious like onion soup!), I removed the insert with the bags of onion skins.  I then added my prepared wool.  I generally soak my wool in a little detergent before dyeing.

There are discussions and misconceptions about mordants. My personal experience is that mordants are required to make onion skins permanent.  I generally add a little vinegar (acid) to the pot out of habit, but it's not required.  Time in the post seems to be a bigger factor.  My results have been both light fast and wash fast (though you should always take care when washing and storing hand dyed fibers of any kind). Adding other mordants may change the resulting colors a bit, but aren't necessary.

My wool is in the pot now.  If I remember, I will take photos and add them to this post later. In the meantime, here are a couple of  photos of previously dyed wool.

ETA: It's Fiber Arts Friday! Check out WonderWhyGal's FAF links and feel free to leave a link to your blog in the comments here.  There's enough fiber in the world to share the Fiber Arts Friday love!

Do You Know How Difficult It Is To Photograph Socks - While You're Wearing Them?

That's why I don't have good photos of this pair yet.  One day, maybe.  But until then, I'll show you a couple of shots.  The yarn is "Nottingham" from the "If Robin Hood Knit Socks" yarn club.  It's the "Rehoboth" line.  This is suppose to be fingering weight, but it's a little heavier than I'm used to.  It knit up into a nice squishy sock, but just a little on the thick side.  That's ok with me, I just can't wear them with my boots.  The yarn is 100% Merino, 8 ply.  It has very nice stitch definition and was easy to work with.

The pattern is my Bamboo Socks.  The 'bamboo' is the stitch pattern and not the fiber.  If I come up with a really catchy name, I'll change it.  This pattern isn't available to the public yet.  I'm planning to get a pattern page set up so .pdf files can be purchased and downloaded from my website.  But I have so many plans right now, I'm not sure when that one will happen.

This One Is For Me!

 

The results of Day 6 of 300 Days of Dyeing:

I over dyed the Day 1 yarn again and I am satisfied.  This is the depth of color that I was seeking.  I don't mean a 'dark' color.  It is many layers, building on one another, achieving an organic character, revealing the life of the yarn that gives it depth.

Though this yarn would show off a lovely lace stitch pattern, I think I'm going to use a simple pattern that will give the layers of color the respect due.

A Little Bit of Luxury

Do you deserve a little luxury?  Just for yourself?  Of course, you do! And you know it, too.  But you've probably been denying yourself so you can do something a little extra for someone else. 

I know because everyone does that.  It's just human nature.  Well, everyone does that except me.  I'm not denying myself.  I've found a way to treat myself and someone else, too.  You see, it's this yarn that I ordered. When I was told by the sales rep that it was 'luxury' yarn, I was thinking to myself, "OK.  But it's still yarn." And then it arrived and I knew beyond a doubt  . . . well, after I let my husband cut the box open because he was afraid my shaking hands would cut myself and then I ripped open the bag  . . . then, I knew beyond a doubt that when it came to luxury, this was the real deal!

Since then, I have been treating myself by handling this silky soft, just the right balance of body and drape, I-just-want-to-touch-you yarn every chance I get.  Through every step of the dyeing process, I have caressed this twisted fluff and let it caress me back.  (Am I in love?) And I know that as soon as it's dry I'm going to wind a skein into a ball and cast on.  And I'll treat myself all over again while knitting.  I don't have a clue yet what I'll make.  It will probably become a gift to someone else and they will be treated to luxury for the long life of the item made.

Do you want to see what I'm making such a fuss about? Well, you'll have to wait, like everyone else, for the big reveal. To be one of the very first to see this yarn, sign up for my email newsletter before September 2.  Just to make sure you get signed up, go ahead and do it now. 

Now, for 300 Days of Dyeing . . . Days 4 and 5 have been spent dyeing my new yarn line, so I can't post photos now.  Just rest assured that I'm (mostly) keeping up and I only have 295 Days to go. At this rate, I'll be finished by this time next year.

The green/gray/brown in the lower right was the color of the shawl.

Since I can't give you a peek at the new yarn, I'll show you a photo of one my current projects.  Last year I knit a shawl in a colorway that I simply loved.  I used worsted weight yarn.  Though it knit up quickly (which was good), I never wore it (which was bad.)  The shawl ended up across the end of my bed one cold night and I tucked my feet up underneath it.  It was so warm, I decided to use the same yarn base to knit an afghan for the bed.  Then I decided that since I loved the colorway and it was just sitting there, I would unravel it and add (many) more colors.

It is a simple mitered square pattern.  I'm not sure how large I'll make it. Right now it covers my legs without much left over.  But my husband felt it and decided we should keep it for our bed (my plans all along!), so I'll need to keep knitting.  Speaking of which, I think I'll watch a movie now and work on it little more tonight.

Until tomorrow,
Enjoy!

300 Days of Dyeing - Day 3

Well, I made it to day three.  Let's see if I can come up with something for Day 4 before it's over.

Day 3's experiment turned out quite nice, I think.  It is a fat quarter of 100% Cotton print, suggested use: quilting. For those of you not into quilting, a fat quarter is a quarter of a yard of fabric in which the yard was cut or torn in half in one direction and then the halves were cut or torn in half in the other direction.  Instead of having a quarter of yard that measures 9" X 44" (that's one quarter length X the typical width of quilting cotton), you have a rectangle that is 18" X 22".  This is a good size for quilters who need just a small amount of a particular color or pattern. Some quilters will use a lot of different fat quarters to make a quilt with a 'scrappy' personality.

Anyway. This is what I started with:

And this is what I finished with:

The white printed hearts did not take the dye, just as I suspected.  (Did you notice that they were photographed right side up this time? Woohoo! ) The shading is irregular.  It almost seems that the brown dye 'split'.  Most dyes are made up of mixtures of primary color dyes.  Depending on many factors (insert lots of chemistry here), the dye may split or break and the results are unpredictable.  I rather like the variation in this and changing from one shade to another. This could be very useful in an applique application. The changing shades could give dimension and life to quilt or mixed media art ware instead of a flat monotone image.

I've been on the computer a lot today.  I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about the business side of an art oriented business.  There is a vast amount of information out on the internet, but only a small part of it is directly applicable to me.  Some is more general in nature and some information can be skewed to apply to me.  So I'm slowly sifting through it, trying to find the gems among the stones.

One gem I've already found is "The Creative Empire."  If you have your own creative business or you are contemplating beginning one, I highly recommend The Creative Empire as a place to connect with other similar to you and who are willing to share ideas and information. It's a great group of small business owners who are there to motivate and support one another.


Now, I think I'm going to throw another piece of cotton fabric in the dye pot (or baggie) and see what comes out tomorrow. Y'all take care and enjoy!

300 Days of Dyeing - Day 2

Day 2 of 300 Days of Dyeing . . . I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping up - so far. I finished the dyeing, drying, and photographing the Day 1 victim.  Day 2 suspect is in the dye pot. Or dye baggie rather.  It's a fat quarter of cotton fabric.  I'm trying a little bit of a different technique-on a very small scale.  It's nothing new, just a new little twist on an old idea. This is what I started with last night. I had to soak it in Soda Ash solution before dyeing, so I threw it in a the Soda Ash bucket last night. It is a light tan with tiny white hearts.  The hearts appear to be printed on the fabric, so I'm not sure how they will take the dye, if they take it at all.  And of course, I followed the 14th Rule of Photography, take the photo with the hearts upside down, and not noticing till I was ready to post the photo.  Since the orientation of the hearts really isn't relevant to the activity, I let it go.

Yesterday, Day 1 of 300 Days of Dyeing, began with a couple of skeins of 8ply Super Wash Merino yarn.  This is Fingering Weight (Sock Yarn), 100g/420 yards.  I thought I had listed these in my Etsy store and for some reason no one wanted them.  But when I was looking for them so I could 'unlist' them, I couldn't find them.  So it wasn't the creamy tangerine that turned off the customers.  It just wasn't there for them to begin with.  Anyway.  That's neither here nor there. I started out with one thing.  Added some Fuchsia Red (I love that color!), and came out with something I'm not sure I'm crazy about.  I may have to over dye it again.  I'm thinking some charcoal gray might be just the thing.  What do you think?

This is what I started with yesterday:                                                              












And this is what I have  today:     
Since neither of these are listed, you can save me the trouble if you are interested in either of them.  I can sell them for $18 each.  Send me an email and I'll send you an invoice.

I've still got lots to do today. I'm wanting to write another blog post that's not directly related to the 300 day challenge.  I may try to squeeze that in later today.


                                                                                    Until then, take care and enjoy!

Oops! It's Wordless Wednesday - On Thursday!

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