weeeee!!!

Scene: Yarnista up at 4:00 after sleeping for three hours, drinking black coffee at her studio desk while yarn spins, papers print, and
R-E-S-P-E-C-T plays on the iPod docking station.  Adrenaline jolts through her veins as she realizes her months of preparation are about to come to fruition and simultaneously spin out of control. Her plane leaves in just a few hours, and she is nowhere near ready.

She has no time to celebrate now, although she does give herself a small pat on the back for winning four Dye for Glory categories.









One of her favorite babies -- Sea Anemone -- took second place. She murmurs in sweet tones to the skeins who didn't win. She loves them unconditionally. 



The Yarnista collects her things -- her vacuum sealed bags of yarn stuffed into a large duffel bag, her iPod that's now playing We Didn't Start the Fire, her printed labels and example socks, her thoughts. Soon, she will drive an hour to the airport and travel eight hours in a sealed metal tube at 27,000 feet up in the air to the opposite coast, hoping to take sock knitting just a little too far. 

Glory, glory hallelujah!

So, as most of you know by now, I'm attending this nifty, small little soiree called Sock Summit, which is actually quite nifty, but far from small.  I'll be in booth #315, and I will have on a raspberry colored T-shirt.  You can't miss me, I'm the one with the yarn.


Dublin Bay Knitting Company, booth 827, will also have a large selection of our things.

I'm entering a competition specifically for people whose yarn is being sold at the Summit, called Dye for Glory. It's a bit like a State Fair competition, you enter your item in a category, and then it's judged against others in that category. Except instead of Mabel winning a blue ribbon for her boysenberry pie, Yarnista is attempting to win for her Sea Anemone yarn. If you win, you win exactly what the contest title suggests: Glory.

Never one to shy away from a little friendly competition, except for all sports, mathlete events, invention conventions and anything related to physics, I decided to enter.

There is one thing you can rest assured of when you see something I've made: I never just throw some sugar and milk in a bowl and call it creme brulee. I don't know how to type accent marks, but I'm sure creme brulee needs some.  I never just buy some brandy, splash it on some cookies, and call it tiramisu. Does tiramisu need accent marks? No matter, I can't type them anyway.

Perhaps this is my overly perfectionistic nature in things that are not related to inventions, math, physics, or athletics, but colorways take me a long time to perfect. Have I mentioned this before? I feel like I have. A colorway has to strike the right note for me in order to be offered for sale in any way, whether it be a club colorway, something for a spring fall collection, or for a competition.

Many people have asked about what happens to all of my rejected yarn, or if they can buy or have my rejects.  Let me just be clear: THE REJECTS ARE REJECTS FOR A REASON. You don't want them, just trust me.

Veering abruptly back on course: here are my long-labored over submissions to the Dye for Glory contest. These are all in different categories, so they're not competing against each other, they're competing against other entries in the same categories. Mabel's boysenberry pie doesn't compete against Edith's pickles, it competes against Millie's strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Starry Starry Night. Inspired by the synonymous painting. This is dyed in a new technique that will result in a highly varied finished product. The skeins are all one of a kind and very labor intensive to make -- they probably take ten times as long to make as a regular skein of yarn.

I stumbled upon this technique and finished product after making yet another blue and purple colorway that was completely uninspired and just picking up my tools and adding things to the yarn in a random way. That led to further ideas and prototypes, which led to the yarn you see now.



Several of you have already asked where you can get this colorway. I've decided to offer it here in an extremely limited edition of 20 skeins. This yarn will also only be available on superwash yarns, because that's going to give you the best result with the most dynamic color variation.

I've added a button for purchasing below. Please get this colorway while you can, it's very special, I promise. You may notice that the price is higher than our usual prices -- this is due to the extremely labor-intensive method of dyeing these skeins.

This is a pre-order. The skeins will be available to ship in September.

 

SOLD OUT -- thank you, everyone! I hope you'll enjoy your Starry Starry Night!

 

My other baby is Sea Anemone. This was inspired by a book I was reading to my young daughters, and I fell in love with the illustrations -- they were so vibrant and whimsical but retained some of the characteristics of the real under-sea creatures they depicted.

Take note of the marbling in the pink and orange sections. This is also a very labor intensive process, as the marbling has to be created by hand to ensure two distinct colors, and not just the by-product of bright pink and bright orange mixing together (red). We're taking limited edition pre-orders of Sea Anemone, for shipment in September.

SOLD OUT -- Thank you, everyone! I hope you'll love your Sea Anemone!

 

Zephyr. I love the sound of the word, and I love the colorway.

 

It has some touches of grey. Does this look turquoise to you? Because it shouldn't. It's a medium blue. Adjust your monitors.

 

Want some Zephyr for yourself? It will be available for a limited time, and then it will go back into the vault.

 

Click here for Zephyr.

 

Next is Alchemy. Alchemy definitely has a magical feel with its deep purples, touches of green, and mosaics of black.

 

 

Alchemy should pool very little when you're knitting. If you're familiar with our dyeing techniques, this is similar to Madigan.

 

 

 

If you want some Alchemy for yourself, please visit this link.

 

Masquerade uses another technique to mitigate pooling, a phenomenon that I love but some people loathe.

 

Deep cobalt blue, purple, pink, and amber gold.

 

I used blue instead of black to accent these colors.

 

 

Here's where you go to get some Masquerade.

 

This is one of my favorites. Georgia Peach. I love foodie colorways.

 

 

Mmmmm.

 

 

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Georgia!

 

Father Time reminds me of something very retro-mod masculine. I heart it.

 

It looks quite different twisted this way, doesn't it?

 

 

Here's where you can find Father Time.

 

And finally, Estuary. Because I think it's Estuary-ish, don't you? I love the melding of these shades.

 

 

 

Anything with aqua makes me happy. Perhaps you feel differently. You're entitled to your wrong opinion, that's OK with me. Whoops, did I say what I was thinking again?

 

 

To see more about Estuary, visit this page. 

 

If you've gotten to the end of this tome, thank you for reading. And thank you for voting in Dye for Glory, a competition which involves neither physics nor athletics, but a good competition all the same.

(Voting has started and lasts until August 1st! Click here to vote for your favorites.)

See this?

This is but one hand of a very tired Yarnista. Notice the little cuts. Notice the blue-tinged fingertips, courtesy of a spilled bottle of turquoise dye. You can't see the burn on the inside of my wrist, but it's there. (PSA: steam burns can be as bad as burns from direct heat.)

Try not to notice the bad stuff about this hand. Think nice things, if you can manage.




Notice the ring: vintage. I can't wear my regular wedding/engagement ring most of the time, because it rips holes in my gloves, and I wear gloves for hours every day. I wanted something smoother that I could wear all the time.

But back the yarnista part. Here is one half of a pair of hard working hands. These hands may be a little funny looking, but they can type 80+ words a minute and hold a chunky baby girl and dye many many thousands of skeins of yarn. Tomorrow, I'll show you more of what these hands can do, if you're not sick of me yet.

Reversing course.

I have decided not to panic. While one part of my brain wants to lie in bed eating miniature Snickers bars and swabbing my eyes with a tissue, I've given some careful thought to the issue, and have decided that that may not be the most productive course of action.

New course of action:

"Don't ask for a light load. Instead, ask for a strong back." -- Unknown

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas Edison

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." -- Henry Ford

Off to make it happen!

Oh dear.

Activate panic mode.  Activate panic and thumb sucking and hiding in the closet.

I have no time left. No time left at all before I leave for Sock Summit. And before I leave I have to... well, let's just not go down that road. That will just activate more panic, and lord knows that is just not attractive on anyone, especially a grown Yarnista.

I will distract myself! I will distract myself with yarn pictures, that usually works.

Arboretum. I could really use a good Arboretum right about now.



Northwoods. Wouldn't a nice lodge in the Northwoods be nice? No one would see the panic mode out there in the middle of nowhere.



Lagoon. You know what would really rock? A mermaid lagoon. They have those in Neverland. Cartoon Neverland, not Neverland Ranch.



I think it might be time for more coffee. That usually calms me. I will panic more later.

Yarn pictures here.