Another milestone

I'm trying to be more disciplined about updating my shop and I plan to update about every 2 weeks in the future. In aid of that, I listed everything. And by everything, I mean everything. Even the skeins of Mountain Hare I was holding from 2009 because it sells so slowly is up in the shop. Which takes me to another milestone. I've passed 200 items listed in my shop. I'm at a comfortable 207 and the shop is well and truly full.

This is lucky #200 (linked to the shop):

It's Frou Frou in the Jackalope base. I know I did a lot of this colorway in May, but I love it.

This week I'll be dyeing laceweight and settling in to the new schedule and then next week my nieces visit. Never a dull moment!

Happy Solstice, everyone!

A day late and a...n update!

First things first, I should have done this yesterday but I was figuratively snowed in under digital photographs. The recipient of this month's giveaway of itty bitty needles and yarn miniskeins is Rebecca! I'll be emailing.

Meanwhile, back at this also figurative ranch, I have finally updated the shop again, and will continue to do so as I can get the pictures done. Not with the entire backlog, that's still overflowing. I have pictures for a few more things including Silksheep fiber and some Arctic Hare, and I want to get that done asap. Still, I've listed the entire backlog of Jackrabbit. It feels really good to have 6oz skeins back in the shop.

I'm still amused by the Cobalt colorway in Jackrabbit.

I did a few "looks like a semisolid even if it isn't" in what could be considered a straight "color" instead of a "colorway" for the festival last autumn. Mostly for completeness' sake because I always have big gaps in my spectrum. Of course no one paid any attention to those colorways. I should really stick with my strengths and leave the rainbows to other people.

Still, I'm rather proud of Cobalt as I think it manages to capture that almost cadet blue of the lighter portions but the inky purple tones in the deep parts that cobalt colored glass has. Well, depending on what one considers cobalt blue, of course.

More nattering under the jump cut.

ZOMG

So, yes, it's Wednesday and the GSSB festival has been over for days and I haven't said a peep about it until now because ZOMG I feel a little like a hamster in a ball rolling around with So Much To Do!

First things first, the festival. The festival was wonderful. This was my second year vending at it, and it's bigger, better organized, better advertised, and all around a great weekend for me. I met lots of great people and saw some old friends, bought some incredible fiber for the shop, spent far too much money on treats, and sold twice as much as I did last year. To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

This was the morning of the first day when we were all busting our butts to get set up in time. The weather was gorgeous, brisk and clear and not horribly windy.

Stuff!

I'm a bit swamped right now but I wanted to pop up a post to say that KnittinK and I were accepted to the Boston Bazaar Bizarre in Boston for their Winter Fair.

I'm very excited about this. It's the first festival of its sort that I'll have done, and it's supposed to have great vendors and amazing attendance. This also means I get to go up to Boston and see friends! And, since I poked around with setup today, I realized I can get everything I need into my little car with the gps. So I won't get lost! For me, not getting incurably lost is a requirement for having a good time.

So we will be in Boston on Dec 5th between noon at 7pm at the Cyclorama with much yarn and fibery goodness. If you're in the area, stop by and say 'hello'! :D

Meanwhile, I'm still in the throes of a big update. It's going very slowly as I've proved to be extremely distractable. Also, I took the pictures for these listings over the course of 5 days, so sometimes finding the correct one takes a bit of doing. I realized I had 4 whole colorways (12sk of yarn) that I'd completely neglected to do because I thought I'd already done them *facepalm* So yeah, I'm working on it.

Here are two of my unexpected favorite colorways from July, though. I liked them out of the pot, but they've really grown on me as I've looked at them more and more.


These are Coffee Cup and Asphalt Jungle.

The lighter color on Coffee Cup isn't white. It's actually the palest of pale minty blue. And Asphalt Jungle reminds me of the colors of the movie posters for The Asphalt Jungle. But aside from matching those black and white with splashes of color posters really well, I think it will work up beautifully in a project, with the predominance of the grey.

OK, off back to the Gimp mines. I have something like 43sk of yarn with pictures still to edit. *facepalm* Gimp waits for no one! Or, well it waits, but it doesn't do anything while it's waiting, more's the pity!

Shop update and a note on prices.

The number of times I have to retake pictures because the color temperature is off is really starting to annoy me. I have to retake some pictures this weekend, while I try to finally get all the skeins I dyed in July listed. This, so I can dye up more this week and then list them. I have a lot to dye up before the Garden State Sheep Breeders festival in September (Sept 11 & 12, in Ringoes, NJ).

Additionally, I wanted to give everyone a heads up that my prices are changing. My yarn costs went up considerably in March and sadly, absorbing the difference has become impossible. So a month from now, on Sept 13, I'm going to raise all my yarn prices 6%. For example, Jackalope and March Hare are both going from $18.80 up to $19.95.

I'll be taking all the yarn to the festival in September and vending there with the old prices. The shop will be empty of yarn for the weekend. Then, all the stock returned to the etsy shop on Sept 13, the Monday, will have the new prices. Meanwhile, I do intend to stock the shop as full as I can before the festival so there will be plenty of selection at the current prices.

Please do ask any questions you may have. It's always an uncomfortable sort of thing to have to raise prices, but I'd rather not spring it on people unannounced. This way, it's like a long sale.


Phatfiber colorways, clockwise from the upper left: Red Desert, lapis lazuli and brass widgets, Agate, and Papyrus.  Image links to the shop.

The theme this month was Africa, and these were some of what I contributed.

An update and Ice cream month

I've been updating the shop in bursts for a few days, and last night I finally redid all my listing titles. The old versions were too wordy and it was difficult to keep straight which was which base. Hopefully the more succinct titles will work better.  Let me know what you think!

Picture links to the shop.

Now, on to the sweet, creamy good stuff. Did you know that in the US July is National Ice Cream Month?  I only just found this out.  Not only that, but the third Sunday in July is National Ice Cream Day. That's tomorrow!  So it's very appropriate that I am making ice cream today.  Tomorrow, I'll start the next ice cream giveaway.

But today, my niece and nephew are over and that alone is reason to make ice cream.  I'm using the same recipe I used for the mango ice cream, but I'm using beautiful, ripe peaches instead.


Peach ice cream with cherry topping, in a wine glass so the layers can be seen. It could have been frozen a little longer, but I was impatient.
 
Recipe chatter below the fold.

Dinner and an update

I got my July Phatfiber colorways listed by the skin of my teeth, today, as well as a few other colorways.  I'm still working on editing and then listing the rest of my June yarns.  But first, I have to cook dinner!

This is one of the colorways I listed last night. It's called "Monster under the Bed" and is a combination of a red burgundy or maroon, purple, and bright greens shot through with chartreuse and light blue. The picture will take you to the listing.

Now, on to dinner!  I'm working with not a lot of sleep, so simple was intended as the order of the day.  I was going to do chicken cutlets, but someone cut up my chicken breasts. Needless to say, I couldn't pound them and then coat them with flour and pan fry them anymore.  Add to this that the tooth challenged member of the family requested rice instead of pasta, and my entire plan for the evening was shot.

So, since I couldn't go simple, I went complicated. But not too complicated.  In this case, a kind of chicken croquette.  I ground the chicken breasts with salt, a little thyme and black pepper, added some egg, and wrapped them around a bit of cheddar cheese. Coated with flour since I have no bread crumbs, and then fried in a pan with some oil and finished in the oven, or toaster oven in this case.


Recipe below the fold.

And the random number generator says....

2!  That means Deb is the winner of the July 1 giveaway for some delicious Urbbody products and a KIP bag from Ruddawg.  ... I just noticed the double letter confluence in both shop names. That's pretty funny. :D

Deb, please contact me with your address so I can send out your prize!

Meanwhile, I'm busy making stitch markers, labeling yarn, and editing yarn pictures. But I did get one thing done today.  I've finally listed yarn samplers in my shop. These have the same composition as my Phatfiber Box samples.

A sample booklet with 6 yarn snips and a mini-skein. This picture links to the listing.

These samplers have a mini-skein with about 20yds of yarn, and 6 snips of all the bases at about 2yds each. They cost $4 plus shipping, and they come with a $4 coupon off one's next purchase. The coupon is good for six months, so there's plenty of time to touch the yarn and swatch before deciding. 

I've been thinking about offering samplers for a long time. It's practical and low commitment compared to a full skein of yarn purchased on the merit of pictures and feedback alone.  I know that I'm always curious about the hand of yarns before I buy them.  My Phatfiber Box sample format is perfect for this application as well, so it was a natural extension.

The yarn is all random colorways, assembled from what I have available.  The mini-skein in all of the packets I have right now are in the Dutch Iris colorway on the Jackrabbit base.  I can't guarantee being able to switch out the mini-skein for a different base yarn, but if asked I'll definitely look through the yarn I have reserved for samples and try.

Sometimes

Sometimes I get really tired and discouraged, depressed, frustrated. But sometimes, sometimes things click.

This has been a very busy week, and it's not getting any less busy any time soon. I didn't cook dinner tonight because I had to finish updating the shop so I could finish working on my page for the Fiber Cooperative.  14 colorways went up in the shop, I have another dozen or so to photograph yet, and the end of this week is full of dyeing and sample making.  Meanwhile, tomorrow I'll hold another give-away, and then there's the holiday weekend coming up.

I hit 400 sales this month, another little milestone.  Even with a package missing in the mail, even with several lackluster advertising attempts this month and the bills they generated, I look around and feel proud of my accomplishment this week, and it's good to feel good about this and about myself.

And tonight, as I was editing pictures, I got this:

This is the colorway Starry Night and it is the most perfect example of a desire turned into reality that I have ever managed with my yarn.

Blibbering humdinger

I managed to eat half a pint of ice cream without really noticing how it happened, and take and edit some pictures.  So, I updated the shop with some stitch markers.  I think my favorite this round are the agate ones. They glow in the light, and are just so cheerful.


Clicking on the picture will take you to the stitch marker section of my shop.

I'm not sure if I like how that gallery image turned out. It's a little too busy, and consequently slightly crazy making. But I'm going to leave it as it is, because I still have trouble drawing straight lines in Gimp. :P

This weekend is busy busy busy.  Saturday is the first WWKIP day weekend, and I'm going cherry picking on Sunday.  Cherry picking for sour cherries, mind. Which means I'll be canning cherries when I get home.  I missed sour cherry season last year and was incredibly disappointed. This time I added it to my calendar and then started stalking the u-pick about 2 weeks ago. Between sour cherries and local peaches, a few weekends of canning means I have summer in a bottle all winter long. Now I just need to find all my pint and half pint jars!

Updating in the actual month the yarn was dyed! (And a sale)

Shocking! :P

These are the colorways I've started listing tonight.  All from this month, they fall mostly into two themes.  I will finish listing them some time tonight:

Clicking the image will take you to the shop. It's all Three Hares except Nebula, which is Arctic Hare.

Colonial Day and Kobol were colorways thought up for the BSG FPB group on Ravelry.  Sea Wrack is an old favorite on a new base, and Nebula is another one I've done before.
 
Titania, Bottom, and Peasblossom are my June Phatfiber contribution:


Also, I'm having a sale right now.  The particulars and coupon code after the jump.

Stitch marker update

This is a picture of the lawn. See that stitch marker in my hand?  There's one just like it lost in the grass and weeds. This is why I should never photograph my stitch markers outside. Especially when I put the camera down on my board, causing it to tip over and fling 36 widgets into the lawn.

Especially when the widgets are green and brownish red for the May Phatfiber theme of Blossoms and Bark. 

*facepalm*

I found all of them but one.  I finally gave up when I was starting to lose what light there was, as I had to finish the pictures.  Despite this, I did manage to update the shop with more markers, today. I also relisted the custom set since I mailed out the ones from the weekend.  Pics and links after the jump.

Shop update

Click on the image to go to the shop, as a large version of this collage would be huge.

Colorways are from top to bottom: (in the first row the first three are Jackrabbit 6oz, the last one is Arctic Hare 6oz. The rest are all Three Hares.)
Granite, Moro, Poseidon, Lupines.
Promethean Fire, Moro, Poseidon, Common Violet.
Taiga, Banana Cream Pie, Sand and Sky, Bluebell.
Toffee, Morning Fog, Sunbleached, Silver Lining.

Big update in the shop as I toiled in the GIMP mines all night and finally got most of April edited and listed. It takes up most of the first two pages. I'll move them into color order when I list new things.

300

No, not the stylized movie with lots of oiled pectoral muscles and digital grading. 300th sale. It's an arbitrary milestone but a milestone nonetheless, to count the number of items I sell and think of each century as a significant achievement.

This was 300.


I'm pleased with 300. It's Purple Peacock and I listed it and 12 other skeins last night.

Now, on to listing more yarn. I can't get to 400 without listing stuff, after all. I'm almost done listing everything I dyed up in March. I just have 4 colorways left. Tonight should finish that batch. It's in time for the Phatfiber video, which is always good. Then, a break to work on other critical things (taxes, yipe!), and then I'll get April done and listed.

And then it'll be time to dye more yarn for April, and then on to May. Where does the time go?

Widget removable stitch markers

I introduced Widget stitch markers to the shop last night.  I'm really happy with this design. Been pondering it for a couple weeks, and then spent days working on the actual final result.  Since these are removable markers, they're suitable for both knitting and crocheting.


Dalmatian Jasper and non-tarnishing Nickel (large) and Tiger's Eye and non-tarnishing Brass (small); click on the image to go to the listing.

I love split stitch markers. I use them for all sorts of things other than marking my place, and they make great tiny stitch holders.  I really like dual functionality too, so these fit over the needle and can serve as a regular stitch marker as well.