Tour de Fleece!

I'm gearing up for the Tour de Fleece, though I have to confess, my goals are selfish this year - I want to spin enough yarn to make a sweater for myself. I want to make Carol Feller's Iced sweater (Ravelry link) out of some CVM and alpaca I bought far too long ago.

But I'm continuing to enable others in making their goals, by having another sale. 15% off purchases in my Etsy shop, now through the end of the Tour de Fleece. Enter coupon code TDF2011 during checkout for your discount.

Sale! No fooling!

I've finally caught up with listing available items on Etsy! I went on a dyeing binge in February and March, and I have lots of colorful yarn and fiber to show for it. But I want to dye more, which means I need to make some room available.

So I'm having a sale. For the month of April, everything at the shop is 15% off! Just enter the code AprilSaleNoFooling in the Coupon Code box during checkout.

Here are some of my recent additions to the shop.

As promised, I've put up the first batch of my hand-dyed yarn on my Orchid base- 100% superwash merino sock yarn.

I also put up the first few of my Clover base - 100% merino worsted weight yarn. This one is not superwash.

I put up one skein of the Goldthread base sock yarn - 75% superwash merino for softness, 20% nylon for strength, and 5% gold-toned Stellina for sparkle. I'm debating whether to get more of this, and if I do, to stick with gold or go with silver.

I put up spinning fiber - polwarth, targhee, BFL, merino/silk, romney cross, and CVM.

Lots of pretty colors, all available at The Spinning Daisy shop on Etsy!

Coupon Code Fine Print: The discount will not apply to shipping. The coupon code expires at the end of the month.

Shop update

The first five skeins of my new Primrose hand-dyed yarn are up in the shop. There are two skeins of each color, so if you'd like both, convo me and I'll adjust the listing.

I haven't put up the spinning fiber yet, but expect to in the next couple of days.

Next in line is handpainted Orchid yarn - 100% superwash merino sock yarn. They are dyed and drying. If the last couple of weeks were mostly about the warm colors - reds, golds, etc. - Thursday night was all about the cool colors. Of the 11 skeins I painted, 2 were brown and the rest were greens, blues, and purples. No pictures yet - they're still drying. Soon, though.

And I thought my 2 month absense was shameful.

10 months later, here I am again. I've continued to update the shop, just less frequently, and without the blog posts announcing it. I've been completely slacking on the communication. I've started a Twitter account though - it's much easier to post one sentence at a time. :-) I invite you to follow me, DaisySpins, on Twitter.

Since last May, I bought many fleece, a new-to-me Majacraft Rose spinning wheel, a motor for my drum carder, and a whole lot of fiber and dye.

The real news is that I've really started enjoying the dyeing process, combining colors and seeing what happens. Because of that, I've decided to start officially carrying my own lines of hand-dyed yarn in my Etsy shop. My first offerings will be on my Primrose base - 100% superwash Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) 4-ply sock yarn. I'll also be stepping up my dyed spinning fiber offerings - top, batts, and roving. Here are some of the hand-dyed items I'll be offering soon, including BFL, polwarth, romney, and merino/silk top. Look for them on my Etsy shop in the next few days!



There's quite a bit of red in there. I definitely go in color phases. Sometimes, I can't get enough green. These days, red.

I continue to add handspun yarn to the shop. I've also been experimenting with some less standard spinning styles, including corespun and boucle. I hope to put those up soon too.

I hope, but will not promise (based on past experience), to write more often. :-)

Goodness, it has been a long time.

• I keep being busy at work so I don't get to slack off and do personal stuff.
• I've gotten over my fear of ruining pure silk by spinning it. It's turning out to be quite pretty, though I've only spun about half of my first skein.
  
• I received a pair of handknit socks, and loved them so much that I decided to learn how to knit (and to start with socks), after 36 years of indifference to knitting. I started on a toe-up sock, and have just gotten past the heel and am about 2 rows into the leg portion of my first sock.
  
• Shepherds Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival starts in 8 hours!!!

Last year I went to Shepherds Harvest thinking I'd buy one, maybe two fleeces. I came back with the equivalent of 5 from 7 animals (3 full fleeces, 4 half fleeces). I actually worked my way through most of them, one way or another. I also bought small amounts of some of the "weird stuff" - bamboo, ingeo (corn fiber), banana silk, soy, and others I can't even remember. It turns out I don't like the weird stuff all that much. I'd rather spin animal fiber than vegetable or mineral. (But I do like the sparkly stuff.)

I learned a lot from all the things I bought. I know what to expect when I process my fleece. I know some warning signs. I know what types of fleece I like to work with from scratch, and what I would rather buy almost ready to spin. I hope to buy 3-4 this year. I had great experiences with romney and cvm and would like to buy more, and also hope to find a nice BFL fleece. I think I might also try some luxury fibers - already prepped. I don't think I'm ready to try those from scratch yet.

I'll also be taking classes on drumcarding and spinning novelty yarns, and am very excited about both of them.

I'm less excited about the fact that it's supposed to snow tonight.

I promise to post again soon with a full report on Shepherds Harvest and pictures of recent activity.

Today is my birthday!

And even more than that, it's my birthmonth! I believe in celebrating the whole month long. When it's only one day of acknowledgement, there is (for me, at least) a fairly good chance of disappointment and misery (migraines, illness, blizzard, falling down stairs... the list goes on...). So for the rest of March I'm having a birthmonth sale at my Etsy shop - 36% off every purchase, excluding shipping, will be refunded via Paypal. Guess how old I am!

You might also notice I've put up some unspun fiber for sale. I'm finally acknowledging that I'm a member of SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy). I like doing so many things, but can't do all of it all the time. I like dyeing, I like creating fun and pretty batts, and I like spinning. So now I'll be putting results from each of those in my Etsy shop.

Meanwhile, what else have I been up to? Aside from coming down with a cold just in time for my birthday, I've been carding, dyeing, spinning, crocheting, and frogging. And working.

So yes, I did post that I'd ordered a drum carder and was taking a dyeing class, then abandoned the blog for 3 weeks. Sorry about that.

The drum carder arrived 2 days after I ordered it, and I've been having fun making up batts, and being able to experiment with colors and fibers. The first is superwash wool, faux cashmere (nylon) and angelina. The yellow and pink are both anonymous wool blends - the pink also has mohair.

One of the ideas I'd had before buying a carder has turned out to be even nicer than I'd anticipated. Sibling batts use the same fibers in the same colors, but are blended in different ratios. The bottom row of batts above are some of the sibling batts I've created in the past couple of weeks. The first two are 3 colors of merino plus a little firestar. The last is 2 colors of superwash wool plus some angelina. They've seemed pretty popular on Ravelry.

Then I took the dyeing class where I learned to paint fibers instead of kettle-dyeing them. The results from that class:

There's a lot more control with the painting over which colors hit how much of the fiber. Also, one of the things I found interesting was how different fibers absorb the color. The two yellow/green/blue braids on the right were painted at the same time, with the same dyes in the same strengths and using the same technique. The same is true of the purple/peach braids on the bottom row. In both cases, the superwash wool took the colors more strongly and ended up more vibrant than their non-superwash counterparts (merino and corriedale).

At any rate, since I now am having fun creating far more fiber than I can spin, I plan to start selling batts and dyed top in my Etsy shop (which I will update soon, I promise).