Anyone getting excited for Valentine’s Day? I am.

1.) I made this little stuffed heart from this free pattern on Ravelry. It’s called My Whole Heart. It was fun and quick and now I’m addicted. I made another today but with bigger needles and thicker yarn. I’ll take a picture of that other one soon and post it to my FaceBook page.

2.) Remember the scarf I was working on for what seemed like forever? Ta Da!!!

This is Mustard Seed Yarn Lab superwash wool in bulky….named Triton. I only have one skein left and I’m unsure of whether to keep it or put it up in my shop. Hmmm…

And the proud recipient:

I think it looks like it was made for him. Ha! Mr. Stich patiently waited a very long time for his scarf, and the day I gave it to him was a freakish 60 degrees.  Thankfully, the weather soon got back to normal (aka: freezing) so he was able to wear it the next day.

3.) I sell some of my hand dyed roving in a great yarn shop in Newburyport, MA…. A Loom with a View. Quite a while ago, a very nice woman named Helene contacted me to let me know she had bought some of my roving there and she had showed me a picture of the roving after she had spun it. I had called this colorway Emmet.

 Then she turned it into this!

This is the Thermis Cowl.  Is there anything cooler than seeing roving turn into yarn turn into something beautiful? And I love those buttons, too.

4.) Marisa from CA bought my yarn called North Woods and she made this:

Wow. Right?

It’s like looking at knitter’s porn. Seriously.

This shawl is called Pogona, by Stephen West.  I soon realized that Marisa is quite the knitter. She has more of her lovely projects on her blog: Fat Button Girl. And she has bought another skein of my yarn so maybe at some point I’ll have another Fat Button Girl creation to show off. 

Well, it’s late and I’m signing off now. My book and my bed await me. A big thank you to Helene and Marisa for sharing with me!

Good night all!

So what’s the coolest part of making yarn and selling it? You are going to think I’m going to say something like ‘getting paid’ right? Although that is definitely helpful, the COOLEST part is when I get to see my yarn all grown up into something. Up until recently, I’ve only gotten to see my yarn grown up into creations I made. I never got to see what other people have done with it. I will often send a note along to the people who buy my yarn, letting them know if they’d like to share a picture of what they make, I’d love to post it to my blog. Well, are you ready to see some beauties that have been knitted with Mustard Seed Yarn Lab yarn?

Above we have a shawl made by Patti from Denver. The name of the pattern is Rockefeller by Stephen West. Patti had bought my sock yarn called “Holy Moly Guacamole” and incorporated it into this super cool shawl. This was the colorway she bought:

 She said she had so much left over that she was able to use it to make these mittens:

I only WISH I could knit something as complicated as these! I have yet to try mixing colors to make anything other than stripes.  Above are the Woodland Winter Mittens. I’m so proud! You’d think I made them myself or something. Thank you, Patti, for sharing with me! You were the first person to do that!

And many months ago my friend Denise from Schenectady asked me to dye two skeins a blue and green combo. She sent me a picture to try to copy the colors from. I wrote about the process in this blog post. I did my best and sent her the colorway I called “Earth”. She was making a baby blanket with them. Well a couple days ago, Denise shared the completed blanket with me and here it is:

WooHoo!! It looks so great! I think she’s going to block it to make it even bigger. That will be one lucky baby boy. Thanks for sharing Denise!

So do you see what I mean? The most fun part of all of this is making something I know that someone else will turn into something even more beautiful. I look forward to seeing and sharing more pictures from people who’ve chosen my yarn. I have met so many super nice people buying my yarn on Etsy. I’ve even made few new friends.

So if you are reading this and you have bought any Mustard Seed Yarn Lab yarn, please feel free to share a picture of the finished project with me. I’m sure everyone would love to see it, and I would love to show it off for you!

This is what I looked at all day. I sat at my dining room table, hands poised over my keyboard, staring out this window at my very favorite pink blossomed tree. Sun streamed through my house and the temperature was perfect outside and I DID NOT WANT TO WORK.

My mind was jumping back and forth to everything else I wanted to be doing and my heart was lounging in a big box in the corner of the room. A big box filled with 50 skeins of white yarn and 1 lb of roving. All I want to do is touch it. Spread it out all over the table and lay my head on it. And it scares me a little…all that WHITE. So many pounds of fiber just waiting for me to change it, hopefully into something beautiful, something other people will love. And more is coming. I’m expecting 10 more skeins with sparkle and 2 more lbs of roving, also with sparkle. The sparkly fiber was on back order, but should be with me next week and when I think of it, I squeak a little with excitement.

I have more exciting news. My favorite local yarn shop in Newburyport, A Loom with a View, has agreed to sell my roving! Betsy is the store owner, and she said she wants at least two of each colorway I make for her. So I’ll be dyeing in double batches. I started one colorway on Sunday. Here are the 2 rovings laid out and ready to be dyed, below.

And here is the finished product:

They should be almost exactly the same, as I painted them together as one. I haven’t named this colorway yet. Any ideas anyone want to throw out there? Opinions? Feel free to leave me a comment! I have to be honest, I’m not in love with this colorway. I just don’t like blue and pink together, and there’s more blue and pink than I had originally intended. None of the colors came out as dark as I had hoped either. I will do better with the next ones. I’m sure there is someone out there who these will appeal to.

I have not gotten too much knitting done. Here is where I’m at with the Juneberry Shawl:

And here is where I’m at with the Glynis socks (which is a torturous pattern, btw):

The other red socks have been put on hold until I can finish either one of these.

I’m done with A Clash of Kings and onto A Storm of Swords. My GOD those books are horribly addictive. Sometimes there are nights where I don’t even want to knit, I just want to go in bed and read. I know! Blasphemy, right?? I can’t help it. George R.R. Martin is brilliant!

It’s late now, and I just ate a chocolate chip cookie that I was craving all day (I just baked them at 10pm) and I think it’s time to go to bed and read. Today was my Friday. Tomorrow I have off completely, and I will spend the day dyeing fiber. I’ll take as many pictures as possible and try to give you all an idea of how it comes out. I’m a very slow, meticulous dyer, so don’t get too excited. A day of dyeing may only bring forth a few skeins or a few rovings, but I’m sure going to try and be quicker. I’m a girl on a mission. Not only do I have my Etsy shop to stock, but I have two shops willing to sell my roving, and I don’t want to disappoint. I better get my butt moving! Fiber, here I come!

YAWN…after I get some sleep. 

I decided on a name for the blue and green roving from the last post. I decided on Toxic Mayhem…it just seemed to fit better than anything else.

Today is Saturday, and we have no plans other than going out to buy a birthday present for a little cousin turning 3. Other than that, it’s going to be a rare day filled with no obligations. My excitement is hard to contain, as yesterday I received my order of bare roving, and it’s all waiting to be dyed. It’s going to be a productive day! I look forward to showing you the fruits of my labor next week!

In knitting news, I’ve started yet another pair of socks. No, I haven’t finished the Lace and Cable socks yet. And no, I haven’t gotten very far on my shawl. And starting another pair of socks doesn’t really make any sense right now….but I have my knitting group to blame. We’ve decided to start a sock KAL, and our aim is to knit one pair every month, and we’re going to start with the first pair in Cookie A.’s Sock Innovation, Glynis. Then we’re going to move through the book and knit every single pair of socks in there. Now this all sounds good in theory, and I MIGHT be able to keep up if I had nothing else to knit, but that’s not the case. I have so many other projects I also want to work on, and if I did nothing but the socks, well, that would be it. It easily takes me a month for a pair of socks, and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with these knitting ninjas I hang out with. Even if I could keep up, I wouldn’t be able to work on anything else…so I didn’t commit myself, but I gave an honest, “I’ll try.” And so I already cast on and finished the cuff of the first sock, hoping to get a head start.

Have I mentioned that our fearless leader, Vicki, is also working on a sweater on SIZE 0 NEEDLES??? Look at this crazy thing:

I’m very lucky to have found such a talented group of knitters to play with.  Now I just have to try to keep up!

I’ve been itching to knit another shawl for awhile now, but other projects kept getting in the way. (Projects I was actually getting paid to make, so those totally take priority… and happily.)  Have I ever mentioned how much I love knitting shawls? You know,… I don’t wear them. I wish I was one of those fashionable girls who can throw a cute outfit together and wrap a lovely shawl around it all and make it come together. I am not one of those girls. I wear jeans everyday (which I can do because I work from home.) If I’m going somewhere nice, I throw a nice shirt on with my jeans, instead of my usual plain V neck T-shirt. I just can’t be bothered, really. Skirts are too cold in the winter (which lasts about 9 months in the Northeast) and in the summer, I opt for capris instead of skirts (just more practical, and I’m not fond of my stubby legs in shorts). I go to clothing stores and leave with nothing, complaining about how everything in there is so ugly. And when I do see something nice, it usually fits me all wrong or looks too girly or whatever.

But I love knitting shawls. I’ve only made 4 so far, but each was so much fun, I just couldn’t stop once I started. I gifted 3 of them, and kept one for myself. I wore it once to a wedding, but now it sits at the bottom of a huge Tupperware bin, where no harm can come to it. I’ve been told I should display it somewhere at least, and I’d like to, but it would get dusty or dirty, and eventually need a washing. A washing would mean blocking it all over again and I am NOT going to do that twice.

So, although I have no real reason to keep making shawls, I just can’t help myself. Last night I started the Juneberry Triangle by Jared Flood. I’ve been wanting to make this one for over a year. My sister gave me all the yarn to make it with for Christmas.

This is what it should look like when it’s done:

If mine comes out looking anywhere near this good, I just might have to buy an outfit to go with it.

My Lace and Cable sock is coming along. I guess I’m in a red kind of mood.