I heart my help.

I don't talk about my employees very much. Mostly because I don't want to embarrass them with my shenanigans, and because they didn't sign up to have their lives and work habits broadcast on the internet when they agreed to come work for me. I can imagine that I would not be particularly pleased if my boss began blogging about me, even if it was to say good things with an occasional funny thing. I would want my life to be private. So I respect their privacy. Except when we're in the studio together, then I'm my normally nosy self.

But I do heart my assistants. They are extremely hard working.  I have to remind them to eat and take breaks.This is one of the things they help me with:



To the untrained eye, this may look like a pile of yarn. But to me and my peeps, it looks like Adorn, Wexford, McClellan, Springvale. In that order.



And then Carys, Galenas Chunky, Beckon, and Galenas on the right.

Coming to work here means having to absorb massive quantities of information from day one. We have dozens of types of undyed yarn in the studio, and you have to be able to tell the difference between Springvale  and Springvale DK and Springvale Sport.

You need to learn to recognize not just the colorway Liam, but the colorway Liam on Kells Sport vs. Liam on Springvale Sport vs. Liam on Adorn vs. Liam on McClellan vs. the myriad other possible combinations. We're talking thousands of possibilities.

You need to be able to look at a dye color and tell the difference between XYZ manufacturer's fuchsia color and ABC manufacturer's fuchsia color. Needless to say, it takes time to learn everything. I would say it takes a good six months before people start feeling really comfortable.



When the yarn is wet, it's even harder to tell some of them apart. Silk and bamboo have a sheen when dry that isn't there when it's wet. So you have to learn to tell McClellan and Adorn apart (one has bamboo, one doesn't) by looking carefully at the way it's spun. One is slightly flatter than the other.  They're nearly the same color and thickness, too.



I leave a list of yarn that needs to be prepped, and the first person to arrive in the morning gets it ready. We soak all of our yarn, spin most of the water out until it's wet but not dripping, and then it gets laid out on a clean white towel on a special table in the studio.



It gets laid out by yarn type -- all of one type together. It makes it faster to find that way, and it results in less tangling than trying to paw through a giant pile of wet undyed yarn.



One of the reasons I heart my helpers is that they learn how I like things and (usually) indulge my idiosyncrasies. Except when it comes to gloves.  Sometimes it's weird to overhear muffled conversations from the other room,

"Does it matter what order I lay the yarn out in?"

"I don't think so."

"Does she want it organized by weight? What does DK stand for again?"

"I have no idea -- Dear Knitter? Is that right?"

True thing: Most of the people who work for me don't knit. Or crochet.

I KNOW! I was just thinking the same thing. It's crazy.

They like the job, they just have other hobbies. So they don't always come pre-programmed with yarn and knitting parlance -- it has to be installed upon arrival.



Like the difference between chunky and bulky? Kinda hard to explain. What the heck is worsted? And is sport yarn for sports?

One thing we can all tell you for sure, though: Adorn, Wexford, McClellan, Springvale, Carys, Galenas Chunky, Beckon, Galenas.

287!

Two hundred eighty seven awesome projects have so far been added to our Project Gallery. I've loved looking at every single one.

How could I not?

This was knit by Frontier Dreams.



This amazing number is by gretchenknits.



Look at these socks, knit by Elfielori. The pattern is Craic, designed just for us.



Oh dear. Baby clothes get me in trouble. (Knit by kathox)



I may need a paper bag in which to hyperventilate, feydesigns.



I actually for real for real tried to steal these when I visited the home of autumnbriars. They are stunning. She was not very accommodating, sadly. She insisted that she be able to keep these:



I think there should be a new Yarnista rule:  if the Yarnista wants a project you have made, you must give it to her.

I will take one of everything in the project gallery. Please and thank you.

Take a peek and add your projects -- I can't wait to see. Or email me your project pics and I'll put them up for you. threeirishgirls AT gmail DOT com.

Project Gallery!

The view from here.

Is ever changing.






The drying room is visible from nearly everywhere else in the studio. It has three doors, and from my desk I have  a clear view of my babies. 



After the yarn is dyed, it gets washed and then hung up to dry on one of our nine drying lines. Sometimes the yarn has to compete for space with towels, because we don't have a dryer. Sometimes the lines get so crowded they sag and groan and moan and kvetch. I nicely remind them to pipe down. 



As things dry, I take them down, and they get reskeined, which means they get put on a swift and rewound using a yarn winder. This gets rid of all the little hangy down strings that make a skein look unsightly. It also means that if a skein of yarn is tangled -- and they do get tangled, no matter how hard you try -- we deal with it before it gets to you. 





And that's the view from here on a Sunday evening. Tomorrow will be even better.

Many thanks to all of you who've added your projects to our Project Gallery. As of this writing, there are 219 projects to see.

Please take a peek and add yours!

Not only does it smell better, it will make you more attractive.

Or so says Flickr.

I have heard your requests. I have heeded your calls. I have answered your pleas.

I have started a gallery of finished projects so that you can see what you want to see when you want to see it. Isn't that nice of me?

I am a nice person.



In fact, I have already added three pictures to it. Three very special pictures. Three peeks at a certain forthcoming lookbook.



Ever the merciless tease, I have blurred out what the pictures look like in an effort to pique your curiosity long enough to get you to consider posting your pictures on Flickr.

Hey, I said merciless tease. At least I'm transparent about my motives.



What could that be? Hmm... maybe I should join the Flickr gallery to find out!



Is that...? What...? I am confused.

You'll just have to visit the Flickr gallery and see!

It's very easy to join Flickr, if you don't have an account. Go to flickr.com. Click Create Your Account. It takes about 30 seconds.

Once you've logged into your account, go to

http://www.flickr.com/groups/threeirishgirls.

Then click Join Group. Anyone can join.

You can then add your uploaded photos and see what everyone else is knitting!

This gallery is not meant to take the place of your other favorite photo sharing methods, in fact, please feel free to continue doing what you're doing. What I'm hoping for is a central repository of projects that are available for anyone to see. It helps people like me with knitting voyeurism get through the afternoon slump. It helps new knitters see what a certain pattern or colorway might look like. It helps add beauty to the world.

If you are not comfortable adding projects to Flickr, or if your pictures have identifying details that you don't want the rest of the world to see, you can email your pictures to me. I can upload them under my account, and can include or exclude any information you want. I can also edit out certain things like a dorky look on your face or the street number on your house.  I'm not promising spectacular photo editing, just the removal of details you don't want shared. You can email your photos to me at threeirishgirls AT gmail DOT com, and I will happily put them up for you.

Here's the link to the gallery!

Thank you for adding your projects! 

P.S. Feel free to post pictures of projects that use our patterns as well!

Humble pie.

Let's just be honest. There was a time in my yarnista career when things didn't look so hot.



Probably because the yarn didn't look so hot.



Look at that. Is that... a tangled pile of chartreuse and gray?

Oh dear.



I remember actually being moderately pleased with this picture four years ago. I remember thinking, "Well, it's a little blurry, but you can see the colors, and it looks kind of artistic."



I took about 600 shots of this skein of yarn. Reds and purples can be hard for cameras to read accurately. Never mind that the composition is just a trifle horrific. Never mind that it was on a crinkly background with full on flash.  I didn't know any better.  Correction: I didn't know how to do any better. I knew that better photographs existed, I just didn't know how to take them.

And then a miracle occurred.  People bought the yarn anyway.  I don't know why or what possessed them to do it. In fact, I still remember the people that bought these exact skeins. Most of them are still my customers. 

The fact that people bought the yarn in spite of the crappy pictures is one of those things you look back on in retrospect, in the viewfinder of life that displays 20/20, and you can see the invisible thread that began connecting these humble skeins of yarn with what is now part of my life's work.

Who knows what made them buy these skeins all those years ago. Suffice it to say that if they hadn't, you wouldn't be reading this today, because there would be no Three Irish Girls without them. 

So, a tip of the hat and a clap on the back for the girls who saw past the general badness of my early photography and gave this yarn a loving home.  Many thanks, my friends.