Finished goods for Sale!

Several weekends have passed and sadly I have made next to no progress on my knitting - my latest projects seem to have stalled on the needles, and my poor husband keeps inquiring after my hat. Summer is rapidly approaching and the poor man has no hat and my cats will soon no longer care if they have a catbed as they will prefer to lay on the cool tile.

Wondering what I've been up to? I've been swamped making these:


Lovely Luscious Batts - I now have more colors :) I think I've gotten spoiled now - I love spinning batts - they draft so smoothly!


A wonderful one ply :) - this is the Desert Sunset colorway spun into a thick and thin single - I think I still prefer plied yarns, but I am coming to like single/slightly slubby yarn.


And a beaded yarn! 5 plies, believe it or not - with lots of sparkly goodness. I know I said I'd never do another beaded yarn, but I somehow couldn't resist.

All of these items are up at the shop if you care to make any of them your own :)

Introducing Carat!

While I was working on my design for submission to the new eMagazine For the Love of Yarn, I started tossing ideas around in my head for a springtime pattern...and thus Carat was born :)

Carat's pattern also includes the pattern for a Carrot, so you can make him a bountiful harvest to welcome in the spring. Incidentally, if you happen to have cats, Carat might have to share his Carrots, as they are perfect cat toys (or so my household felines attest).

Visit the Shop to see him with a carrot, and to buy your pattern now!

Now with more Mallow

After depleting my stash of handspuns by having them consigned over to Tempe Yarn & Fiber, I felt the urge to try to replenish the bins.

In addition to carding up the batts, I sat myself down and found myself itching to make another skein of Desert Globe Mallow. It reminds me of spring, and I simply adore how it looks. Unfortunately I think this might be the last novelty yarn for a while, as I need to concentrate on getting the store restocked. While I love looking at yarns like this one, they do not lend themselves to production spinning as they are even more labor intensive than regular handspun! This skein is now up and available at the shop, if you're interested!

Sunset Batts

Inspired by the gorgeous and stunning sunsets of the desert, I decided I'd blend up a bunch of merino into some lovely batts. They're nice and fluffy, with a tiny bit of firestar thrown in for some sparkle when spun.

In addition to spinning them, I'm enjoying myself just looking at them and petting them - I think my cats are jealous.

Available at the shop, you can also pop over there for a sample of what it looks like spun up and plied on itself.

In honor of Learn To Spin Day

According to the 2006 Year in Yarn Calendar, last Saturday was Learn to Spin Day.

As I already know how to spin, I decided to teach myself a new technique and see if I could execute a yarn that has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time. For those that are keeping track, last Saturday was the same Saturday that I was possessed to redesign my sweater. All I can say is it was a very very busy day full of fiber artistry!

Inspired by the Desert Globe Mallow, in addition to some supercoils to mimic leaves, I cage spun little bits of pink, orange and yellow onto a single of handblended merino and firestar fiber. It was a bit challenging ensuring the little tufts were securely fastened to the main yarn, but in the end a few passes of a plying thread seemed to do the trick. Out of all the yarns I've turned out thus far, I think this one is my most favorite yet!

While the mallow in the photo above does not have any orange, I should point out that the globe mallow actually has both orange and pink blooms, though not on the same plant.