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!

If you’d like the pattern, you can find it here  on Ravelry. They’re called Easy Handspun Mitts. They use sock yarn. Great for knitting while watching TV.

Finally, when I was done knitting 4000 pairs of fingerless mitts (or three pairs in a row…which feels like 4000 pairs) I got started on the scarf. Click here for the pattern. I used my own Mustard Seed Yarn Lab yarn, a bulky weight I called Triton. I started this scarf over 4 times or more, trying to get the right size, the right density, using different needles and tweaking the pattern just a bit. Wanna see what I have so far?

Oooohhh…cables. I love cables, but I’m not crazy about knitting them. And I have to say I’m horribly nervous that this scarf is going to roll itself up into a tube when it’s done, even after I block it. I keep saying, “No no, once you block it, it will be fine. It will straighten out and lay flat. Don’t worry so much. You are amazing. And those dishes can sit in the sink awhile longer.” But that other voice in my head keeps saying, “If it’s rolling itself into a tube now, blocking will only help it for a little while…and then it will roll up on the poor man once he starts wearing it. What are you going to do, block it for him every week, like a dry cleaning service? And that kitchen is starting to look like a disaster.”

Not sure which voice to listen to, I decided to just keep going. I’ve simply got too much time invested into this scarf, and the thought of ripping it out (again) and trying to figure out a way to make it not curl….sigh….I just don’t want to. (whine) So we’ll see what happens after it’s blocked.

So would you like to see some other people’s creations made with my yarn? I sold my Robot Takeover yarn to my friend Amy a long time ago…in fact, she was one of my very first sales. She finally had a chance to knit it up and I wanted to share her creation:

And then we have Hallie in CT. Hallie bought my Fire Storm yarn and recently sent me this picture of some fingerless mitts she knitted up during Hurricane Sandy as a gift for a cousin.

Hallie doesn’t know this but that yarn was originally dyed by request for Julia Roberts. No really! I got a request one day from a Julia Roberts on Etsy to make some yarn that looked like my Inferno yarn, but with less pink. She wanted to make a poncho for her 7 year old son. There was no personal information about her on her profile, but I had a feeling it could very well be THE Julia Roberts. After all, Julia is a knitter and has a son that age…and a daughter. Twins. So I dyed up 3 skeins of it and thought it came out even better than the original yarn she had liked, but when I sent her the picture, alas, she said her son had changed his mind, and that sometimes he was even pickier than her daughter. So this Julia Roberts was a) a knitter  b) had a son the right age and c) had a daughter too! That’s all the convincing I needed. In my head, it was her. And it’s ok that she ended up not wanting it….I had told her I would dye it up and show her the picture and there was no pressure to take the yarn. And in the end, all worked out for the best, because Hallie bought Julia’s yarn and made something beautiful! So Hallie, if you’re reading this, you can tell your friends you snagged yarn made for Julia Roberts. And that’s not a lie…the person’s name really was Julia Roberts.   I guess we’ll never know for sure  

BTW, I just finished The Kitchen House, which I really liked. Next up : Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I’ve heard good things about it. Anyone else out there read it? Is it as good as all the hype?

Hmmm…so remember when I was going nuts trying to dye up enough yarn over the summer for the two fairs I was doing in the Fall? Well, I managed to dye up somewhere between 150-200 skeins. My booth was lovely….

….but I only sold a couple skeins. Between the cost of the booth fee and the money spent on everything I needed to beautify my booth, I lost money. The same thing happened with my second fair….

…that’s my yarn on the right, and my sister’s yarn on the left. She shared each booth with me. I only sold a couple of skeins during the second fair too, leading me to believe that fairs are just not the venue to sell hand-dyed yarn. Not these types of fairs anyways.

It was a lot of fun though. My mom was there hanging out with us and making friends left and right. My friend Vicki was there showing off her spinning skills and keeping the crowds entertained. And it was all a good experience…one that taught me that selling on Etsy makes way more sense for me than trying to sell in a fair.

So there’s a little catch-up for ya. I think I’ll stop here and just do a little bit each upcoming post so as not to drown myself. Plus, I’m reading a really good book I can barely put down, and I’m itching to get in my jammies and go to bed and read. I highly recommend The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.

Goodnight everyone. 

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!

Sometimes I get really stuck on a name for a yarn I make. The yarn will instantly remind me of something and BOOM…I can’t think of anything else. And I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing to go with the obvious choice, but sometimes I desire something more unique for a colorway I really love. Something a little more special.

Such was the case with this. My very first thought… BOOM… Rose Garden. It’s almost a perfect description and therefore, I naturally wanted to think of something more outside the box. Second thought…BAM…Watermelon. Again, it’s the obvious choice, but lacking the uniqueness I was in the mood for. (Plus I have another skein I’m thinking should be Watermelon, or something close.)  I couldn’t seem to get these two ideas out of my head so I did something I always have fun with, and threw the picture up on FB and asked for suggestions.  (PS, I have my own Mustard Seed Yarn Lab Facebook page now, if you didn’t know already. Feel free to head over there and LIKE me. 

The ideas came fast and furious. I laughed when Alissa also suggested Rose Garden, but then said that was probably too obvious….it’s like she reads my mind! And then came all the Watermelon suggestions…Watermelon Swirl, Watermelon Tourmaline, Seedless (so creative!!!), Rind and All, Melon Sorbet and Twisted Melon. Some of these ideas came from Breida with a b. putting out the call for help on her own FB page (check out her page for a beautiful and inspiring blog!).  And then there’s Kate D. who ALWAYS comes up with something fun and unique for me….this time her thoughts of Christmas inspired her with You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out and Triple Dog Dare. HA!! I love them both!  My cousin Tricia obviously was in need of a drink when she thought of Poinsettia Champagne or Peppermint Martini. Mmmmmm. And how cool is this? Tricia has friends in Italy who saw the  post and gave there own ideas….in ITALIAN…so I was lucky enough to get translations from Tricia and learned they offered Strawberry Sorbet and Unripe Blackberry. Then there were the more poetic suggestions…Now and Later from Denise or Remember Me Summer from Robin. My sister suggested Finnick, which I am totally going to steal for another colorway…maybe even do a few Hunger Games themed skeins. So, you are wondering what I have chosen after all these great ideas?

Well, after all that, my gut keeps telling me to go with my first choice, which was Rose Garden!! (Becky chose that one too.)  I know, I know…I said I wanted something less obvious, and I did, but in my head, I just couldn’t envision anything more perfect than Rose Garden, and heck, what’s so wrong with just going for the obvious every once in awhile?? It just seems to FIT so well. I know someone out there wants to smack me right now 

Thank you for all the great suggestions and thought everyone put into helping me. I will need your help again, probably very soon.  And I’ll be putting up another post soon. I have a lot to talk about.

MWAH!!

So much has been going on. Things have been getting done. Mustard Seed Yarn Lab has become a tiny bit more popular this month with 6 Etsy sales! (I typically have been averaging 2 to 3 Etsy sales a month.) I could spend this entire post catching you up on all the goings-on, but I won’t. That just feels too overwhelming to me and I already feel a little overwhelmed with life as it is, so I’ll just tell you a little bit.

I now have a Facebook page for my business! Please head over to www.facebook.com/mustardseedyarnlab to ‘like’ my page if you’d like to know a bit more about what goes on in the lab from day to day (or at least every few days). I’ve been posting all the new yarn creations there as they come into existence. Sometimes I need name ideas and I love getting feedback.

I have 1000 business cards coming my way. They were designed by my husband, as was my logo. And my blog will soon be undergoing some major changes as well. His graphic design talent never ceases to amaze me. And he’s cheap too! (Well, if you’re married to him.)  If anyone reading this needs something designed, (business cards, a logo, a website) let me know and I can direct you to him.

So last night my friend came over for dinner and for a little catch up time. I told her I could sit and talk with her but I had to dye yarn while she was here, because I’m still desperately trying to finish 200 skeins before September. She offered her help, and MAN, did she help!

The hardest part of dyeing yarn for me is reskeining the skeins that need to be reskeined. Some I leave as is, because I like the way they look the way they are, but most need to have the colors redistributed to really get a better idea of what they’ll look like knitted into something. This hurts my back. A LOT. To do this you use a niddy noddy and wind the yarn around it a million times. I typically won’t reskein more than one a day. Well, Wendy, my strong, volleyball playing friend, wound 10 SKEINS for me in one night!! And all I did was make her soup! Talk about cheap labor. If a bowl of homemade creamy chicken and rice soup gets me 10 skeins reskeined, next time I’m going to make her filet mignon and see what happens.

Above is ‘She Hates to Wear Dresses’.  I painted two of these at the same time so they’d be the same. Do you want to see the magic that happens when one of them is re-skeined and the colors are all jumbled up? Below is the exact same colorway, only the colors have been redistributed.

It gives you a better idea of what the yarn will look like when it is knitted into something. Here are the two of them together:

I can’t decide which I like better, the skein with the colors chunked up together or the skein with the colors jumbled up.

And the second two skeins I dyed are called ‘Abalone’. Here it is below with the colors still together:

And below you can see them jumbled up:

Again, I can’t decide which I like better.

What do YOU think? Would you rather buy the skeins with the colors left as they are, the way they were painted on in patches of color….or do you like the skeins better when the colors are redistributed, to give a better idea of what they’ll look like knitted? I can’t decide the best way to sell them. Maybe I’ll just have to make the decision per each colorway, whether I think it will look better left as is or re-skeined.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment if you’d like to give your two cents!

As you can imagine, I’m going to be spending all my time dyeing up yarn and fiber. I’ve started with a few different colorways already. Wanna see?

Morning Crocus

Robot Takeover II

Her Lips

Holy Moly Guacamole!

Favorite Blue Jeans

It’s next to impossible to tell, but Morning Crocus and Favorite Blue Jeans are made with sparkly yarn. It’s a very subtle sparkle, and I can’t seem to pick it up with my camera. All of the above will be in my Etsy shop for now.

And today I hand painted two colorways that just might end up being my favorite ever. Especially this first one….

Above is how it looked before the steaming. Below is afterwards:

Now, both of the pictures are of the wet yarn, and things tend to lighten more than I expect when they dry, but I’m hoping it stays very close to what you see above.

I call it She Hates to Wear Dresses.

And below we have the second one….unnamed as of yet. But I love it too.

Hand painting the yarn as opposed to immersion dyeing is definitely more time-consuming, but I feel like I have so much more room for creativity.

Holy Moly Guacamole and She Hates to Wear Dresses are made from a yarn with a more defined twist than the others, and I think that’s my favorite base yarn. It’s a Superwash Merino.

So that’s what is going on over here in the Yarn Lab. It’s going to be one incredibly busy summer, cranking out skeins of yarn like it’s my job. I’ll still be putting them in my Etsy shop, so you can buy whatever I make until September, and that’s when I’ll put my shop on vacation and sell whatever I have left.

Now it’s time to get in my jammies and curl up with my book. It’s been a long day.

My little man turned 5 years old on May 12th and we had a small party for him. Here he is the morning of his birthday. A brand new 5 year old! (He loves randomly wearing gardening gloves. He thinks they make him look extra cool.)

He got some really great presents, but one of his favorites is this:

The next day was Mother’s Day, and we had a great dinner at Nana and Grandpa’s house. It was a gorgeous weekend, weather-wise, and a perfect Mother’s Day.

The next day I started my new full time job. I really like it! It’s complicated and harder than I had thought it would be, but I’m slowly getting the hang of it and work with really nice people. PATIENT people. It’s a good atmosphere. But I’m still having a hard time getting used to having a job outside of the house again. The days feel so much shorter, and life feels so much busier. I was only there 4 days before we took off and went to FL to see my mom and go to Epcot for Emmet’s birthday. The best part was that my brother Ricky, his wife and grandkids all came too…from CALIFORNIA! Every day was nothing but fun.

Emmet with Grandma:

The little cousins together…it’s hard to believe my brother is a GRANDPA!

And here’s my brother and mom waiting in line with the kids at Epcot:

Hope and Emmet struck up a special friendship. Emmet says he’s going to marry her someday.

Ricky, Sheree, and Emily and Hope…in Morocco!

We got a wheelchair for my mom while at Epcot, because she was worried she wouldn’t be able to handle all the walking. The kids LOVED it. My mom got to use the wheelchair maybe 30% of the time, and the kids took it over the rest of the day. Here we are at the end of the day…notice who’s in the wheelchair?

And this is us on our last morning at the Caribbean Beach Resort. Emmet took this picture:

The next weekend was a long weekend. Do you know why? Are you guessing Memorial Day? Nope! It was my birthday weekend. Some people think they get Monday off because of the national holiday, but it’s really because of my birthday. You’re welcome.

I threw myself a small BBQ and was joined by a few of my favorite people.

Here are Cooper and Emmet riding Emmet’s Gator. Cooper and Emmet were born one day apart.

My second night in the hospital, Mike went into the hospital kitchen to get me something, and came back and told me that there was some dude in there looking for a corkscrew because he’d just had a baby and he and his wife had a bottle of wine to open. I was very jealous, and joked around with Mike about finding their room and asking them to share their wine with us.  We met them again a few days later at the pediatrician’s office, when we were taking the boys for their first checkups. After a few more chance meetings, I finally asked for their phone number and made a date to hang out. It was the boys’ first playdate ever! 5 years later, the boys are still great buddies and love playing together.

Here is Tim and Maiya, Cooper’s dad and mom:

They also had another baby 2 years ago, and he’s the happiest, cutest little man I know. His name is Bode:

Wendy, Melissa and Evan were also in attendance at my gathering. They are not only my friends, they are my family. I have the greatest friends in the world.

Tomorrow I celebrate 7 years of being married to the love of my life. I hope for many more years with this wonderful guy:

It’s kind of a weird looking picture of both of us, but I like this one anyway. In real life, we’re each much more super-model-ish. 

I will post again soon, as I have many yarny things to show you AND something yarny-exciting to tell you! You’ll have to wait though…this is like a cliff hanger.

Rain rain go away!

The above pictures were a few weeks ago when the sun was shining and we barely needed sweatshirts. It feels like a long time since I’ve been warm, and this rain is not helping….and there’s two more days of it coming. Sigh….I can feel my motivation melting away with the rain.

BUT…I have been getting some dyeing done in between the craziness that has become my current life. Craziness, you ask? Well, I apparently have a shoulder injury of some sort, most likely brought on by Extreme Knitting….(when I hear those two words in my head, they’re spoken by the guy who advertises monster truck shows with a really deep, booming voice.) I’ve been getting physical therapy twice a week and now I need an MRI soon because nothing seems to be helping so far.

I also got myself a new full time job! Yaayyyy!! I love the work from home proofreading job, and trust me, I’m sorely going to miss working from home and making my own hours, but the money was not enough to get us by anymore and the hours were becoming too unstable. So starting next week, I’ll be in a new job, working regular hours and commuting again. I’m also keeping my proofreading job part-time AND I will have my Yarn Lab to attend to as well. So life is about to get much more complicated, but hopefully more fruitful, too. Each weekend is filled with birthday parties, starting last weekend and going all the way through to mid June.

Despite the dreary weather, which seriously reeks havoc with my motivation, I have been dyeing some yarn and roving. Denise, an old friend who I’ve known since middle school, asked if I could make her some blue and green yarn. She wanted a darker blue and green, because although it’s for a baby blanket, she’s hoping the little boy will be able to keep it long past his baby years. She even sent me a picture of the type of blue and green she wanted:

So I accepted the challenge and came up with this:

I call it Planet Earth. It’s so hard to get an accurate picture of color. As you can see, it looks a little different in each picture, but I think it’s closest to the top picture.

After sending her the pictures and getting her OK, I sent them on out to her, and they’re becoming a very special blanket for a lucky little man.  She promised to send a picture when she’s done, and when she does, I’ll be sure to post it here.

I realized how much I enjoyed that; dyeing something specially requested. What a fun challenge!  I would be glad to do that for anyone else wanting something specific.

I liked the blue and green together so much, I decided I wanted something like that for my shop and made a more vibrant version:

I call it Peacock….for obvious reasons. It’s in my Etsy shop, if you’d like some.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m reading the Game of Thrones series, and I’m enthralled. They are the most fun books I’ve read in a looooong time, and each book seems to get better and better! Well, I just finally received my shipment of sparkly yarn and roving. What does this have to do with A Game of Thrones? Well, I’d had a special idea in my head ever since I first ordered it… that I wanted to dye a skein of yarn that was sparkly like snow, and I wanted it to be in the colors of Winterfell,  home to the Starks. Their sigil is a grey direwolf on a white background. I pictured this yarn in my head and exactly what it would look like for about a month before I finally received the yarn I needed to make it happen. And Voila! I am proud to present Winterfell:

It is so hard to see the sparkly silver thread woven into it in pictures, but trust me, it has a subtle glitter  that really does look like fresh fallen snow.

It’s a Superwash Merino/ Silk/ Nylon/ Silver Poly mix. I am in love with it.

I only dyed three in this batch, but this one should be easy enough to recreate. I loved it so much I even dyed some sparkly roving in the same colorway for A Loom With a View in Newburyport, MA. No pictures yet- it’s still drying.

So that’s all for now folks. I’m going to go into hibernation and hide under my covers if I don’t start to see some sunshine soon.