New Colorways coming... soonish?

I have been reformulating colorways. As an anal perfectionist this has drained my spirit. I was analyzing some data and got some good news and some bad news. The bad is that it is taking **forever** for each colorway. Well, the 10 to 15 hours version of forever. I love developing colorways. *LOVE* it. But I already did all these. And the forever factor is just being a drag. The good news is that new colorways take way less time and are way more fun. So if you like new colorways, lucky you. If there was an old colorway you are just aching for, um, bummer for you. I'll get to them all. Eventually.

Today I'm going to start a small series about my development process.

I start with a drawer full of tiny skeins dyed in all kinds of colors. Each is neatly labeled and includes shades from light to dark. It's a magic drawer full of intoxicating colors. I love it! If I'm rebooting an old colorway I have something to match to (or at least make a good guess about what might work). For new colorways I might match to something that has inspired me or I could just be pulling ones that catch my eye and trying them out with others until I'm happy. Or I might let my kids loose on them and see what happens. Regardless of the source of inspiration I start finding the formula for a colorway here. Sometimes the drawer stays open most of the day just in case something in there wants to tell me something.

As for Chi, the Studio Ferret. He is fat and sassy! I love that funky dude so much! I don't know how I managed a work day without him. He has his (hopefully) final vet appointment to cover all the crap that went wrong for him when he was out on his own. Poor little guy. His colorway is coming right along. But I cannot come up with the right name for it. All the words that make me think of him just don't sound like good names for a yarn colorway. Take for instance: stinky, monster, weasel, mess, scamper, attack and fidget. On Monday Precious was the colorway's name. But then I was sitting and petting Chi droning "my precious, my sweet sweet precious" and I had a serious Gollum moment. Eeww! So now it's not working for me.

Chi moment: after his last bath he climbed up onto my head to skake himself dry like a dog. Thanks Chi.

DH moment: I was stressed and discouraged yesterday. We were just going to hang out and watch an episode of My Name is Earl. He came to me with not just the DVD but three cookies hot from the oven and a cold glass of milk. He baked three cookies to cheer me up. And he's very strict about his diet so he didn't have any. I love this man.

Development

I'm still mired in colorway development. I still have hundreds of hours of work left to do before I'm back to where I was before I had to change my type of dye. The bright side today is that I'm finally to the point where the old dye is useless (and stinky and in a few cases chunky too) so I get a bunch of shelf space back. (I'm really working to find bright sides here!) However, I want to get some good photos of the dye all together. I fixed the light (I'm using the word "fixed" loosely!) for more studio photo ops! Anyway, dumping that dye is going to be a big deal for me. Maybe I should have some sort of ceremony. Incense will be involved with or without ceremony due to the aforementioned stinkiness. The new dyes are in the red topped squeeze bottles. Ooooh, I love these! With the old dyes it was like trimming your own bangs, first a little too much, then a little too little, blah, blah, blah.

Shelf space. That means I get to have more colorways available. This is good for dyeing on a whim. It might also be helpful with getting my wonderful customers what they want. I keep trying to figure out what people want. I can only dye so much. But everything sells so quickly that I don't get much data to analyze. The only actual conclusion is that if there were eight of me things would work out better. But I'm a wife and mother, so I already knew that one! There is so, so much that I want to do with my dye skills. So very, very much. I'm not good at prioritizing, so I'm working in too many directions at once. But I'm sick of waiting. I have awesome ideas that I know will be loved and appreciated.

Chi found a new thing to love. Starch packing peanuts. (They look like regular ones, but they are biodegradable and safe for him if he eats any.) He swims in them and dumps them out and tosses them about with great abandon. And then attacks me when I clean them up. This doesn't sound like the best deal for me, but he's so fun to watch. And he drags his white board into the mess. What a goof! Why does he love white stuff so much? Not very interesting for photos. But I am keeping track of Chi favorite dyes for a Chi-tastic colorway. I might have to fudge it a bit, five purples all squed toward red/pink isn't really what I do.

This weekend my family had a belt testing at our Tae Kwon Do studio. The kids and I are now just about a third of the way to black belt and DH is going to catch up soon. We are very involved in our martial arts community. I am starting to stress. There is more sparing as you advance. And I suck at sparring. I don't like to hit or kick anyone. And once I get hit or kicked I freeze up like a frightened rabbit. Some of this is leftover from things in my past that just need to stay in the past. I think I need to face these deamons. Yuck. If my kids weren't involved, I'd quit. Or maybe not, but I feel the need to be a good role model for them. TKD is really good for me too. This is the second thing in my life that I'm working hard to develop right now.

Let's just pretend the obligitory "Gee It's been a long time..." stuff is right here. I've been busy. It's a good thing.

For the last few weeks (since I finished the last items from my September update) I've been spending all my work time with my new dye. The old dye is gone. Well, strictly speaking there's still *lots* but not enough to mix each color for any one colorway anymore. There's been work on new colorways and getting the formulas in the new dye for old colorways. This is not exactly fun, but it's not a bad time. It makes me crazy to think how many more I need to do. I just want to dye yarn. It's my destiny!

My sweet Chi continues to gain health and confidence. He gets smooched between each colorway or skein dyed. I love him so much! It's been too long since I've had a pet. He has a thing about white boards. So do I, but I don't drag them around and try to eat the corners off or curl up to sleep with them. I just use them for notes. Chi thinks this is lame and a total waste of a white board. We are learning to share. (I also don't make a tent for my litterbox/toilet with whiteboards, but that one I might try some time) He also likes dye (me too, me too!) but he only likes the magenta-ish colors. He likes to pour them on the floor and run thru them and distribute foot prints everywhere. What a charmer! (Dye is safe! He would have to breath it to get hurt and he shows no signs of that!) He is so hard to photograph. He is either scampering about or asleep in dim lighting conditions. He is chilling here with "the boy." Toby gets him more relaxed and more excited than I do. I love that he has a different vibe/relationship with each of us.

Pictured here is my lovely assistant Hazel. She washes bottles for me. This is a huge job when I spend all day sampling one color after another making small changes each time. I'm looking forward to football season ending (don't tell my husband) so my son can come back to work. He ties knots on all the free samples I send out and puts all the yarn/roving info stickers on bands and tags, but not during football. My husband does the books and taxes. Thank all the powers that be! I think my family is more proud and happy about our small business than I am. They are so sweet! I do not lack for support, ever!

I really need a new knitting project. I'm at difficult points in all my current projects. And I mostly want to knit to relax, so this is icky. So I want something that I am less likely to mess up and that has little shaping or other tricky bits. I also can't wait to use the bag that Keri of 3amEnchantments sent me! I think I'll go with a ginourmous scarf that can just wrap and pile all around my neck and shoulders. I'm getting cold here!

I'll close with a yarn photo:

I love yarn!

Catch Up

OK. Two small businesses, 3 weeks of house guests and my computer's untimely death was too much. We did manage to finish the wet side of my studio (yay!!!) and go on a mellow and cheep vacation. The kids are back in school and I'm back at work. Way back at work. One full time job, one half time job, motherhood, and being married to my dream man takes up a lot of my time. And I've been asked to be the Creative Director for the local theater program that both my kids are involved in.

Here's the big yarn news: I love Ravelry. Almost too much. If you're not on the list run, don't walk to sign up for an invite. They are still testing and developing but it rocks out already. Enough talk. on to the candy...You can get it here starting tomorrow. I'll be sending 20% of the price of each skein sold to Jess and Casey to help with the ginormous price of this awesome free website!

I now have a laptop, a cell phone and an iPod. Wireless internet has worked for one day in the studio. All very well and good, but when did I go from the kid who could program the VCR without thought to the adult who can't even figure out how to move a frickin cursor across a screen? Case in point: I was having trouble with my iPod's shuffle feature. I wanted it to shuffle only the songs and not the chapters of my audiobooks. One of my cousins who came for a visit (and lives in an iPod-free home) fixed in about four jabs of a thumb after my husband and I had been stumped for days (and we were really trying!) Sheesh.

Exciting, New (and really dirty)

I can finally start telling people. Yay, I suck at keeping my own secrets!

My husband has wanted to own or co-own a game/hobby shop since high school or earlier. We have often discussed this for an option in our 50s after an early, well funded retirement (yah, good luck us). But an opportunity to join with another friend (with the same dream) without all the pesky waiting. Great timing, No. Once in a lifetime chance, Yes. The shop is established but has been left to stagnate for the last few years. The owner, a wonderful friend, became a father after years of trying and just wants to be with his sweet little girl. This is lovely for them and he has been wonderfully helpful and supportive. But damn! That place is a pit! The whole place is like the floor and wall behind an old fridge when it finally breaks and you have to get a new one. It's a shock every time I look closely. And nothing is organized. At all. Eeks!

Now yarnporn for you: Sorry I put all that dirty store/dream opportunity stuff first. It's been bursting to get out! This is what I'm putting in the shop today. More than originally planned. I have an emergency room bill to cover now. We used to have better insurance, but it was cut so that people could keep their jobs, so that's OK. Last time our insurance was cut it was due to a budget issue from the Reps giving themselves a raise. grumble, grumble, grrr... Back to the yarn, the ones in the center on top are the new silk/merino single. Yummy. The right side is mostly my new colorway: Talon.

Yarn and Kitchen Demo

I can no longer be accused of not dyeing blue. See?

Top to Bottom: Lizardman, Angst, Giles, Neapolitan.
I love dyeing yarn. A lot. I played with some new colorway ideas last night. That was fun too. Currently I monopolize the entire kitchen when I dye. That's all gonna change. A while back I took over the small rental apartment on the back of my family home. The main loft area got a small makeover and was transformed into a lovely studio where I currently do all the dry parts of running a small dye house. There's a lot more than you'd think... skein from cones, reskein dyed yarn, print yarn bands, attach the yarn bands, all the computer stuff like listing on etsy and yada yada yada.

Now it's time to redo the apartment kitchen into a proper wet side. So naturally we went to IKEA. The ceilings are only 70 inches tall (the apartment is the old servent's quarters in my 150 year old house, they must have had some short staffers!). We had a time of it getting all the shelving I needed that will fit the size dye bottles I use and all that for the money I could spend. But my husband is a super-wiz at that kind of thing and so he's sweating his ... butt off putting my goodies together. He took out all the old kitchen bits: fridge, stove and 3 or so feet of cabinet/sink. Yah, it's dinky. And now it looks like this:

Scary.

We need a new subfloor in one area, there is mystery pluming and it's really, really ugly. Other than that it totally frickin ROCKS! I will get a huge boost to my efficiency and we'll be able to eat at the kitchen table again. Woo Hoo! I think my family is particulary looking forward to being able to use at least one of the three sinks in our kitchen without having to move yarn, mostly empty bottles of dye or whatever out of them first. And yes I do use all three sinks. We only have three because one of the more recent owners of our home was a soap maker. I'm following in the footsteps of a cool indie-artist/work-at-home mom. It's all kinds of good around here.