Yarn Road Trip!

This not having the laptop thing really sucks. Mom and I are going to take it over to the Geek Squad and see if they can figure out why it wont connect to the Internet. At any rate, not having it sucks. I am on the big computer in my Father's Man Cave and, God love my Father, but trying to write with endless episodes of Law and Order and Blue Bloods rambling on 3 feet from my left ear is kind of difficult. Breaks my trains of thought. I think hes watching Law and Order right now....waiting for Blue Bloods to come on..his favorite show.As soon as the laptop gets fixed it will be SO MUCH EASIER to write on a regular basis again. 

I'd love to know what you all are working on at the moment. Leave me some comments below! I'm working hard on getting my second eBook put together. I am hoping to have it done and ready to go by the end of August. This next eBook, Sexy Spines Vol. 2, will contain three brand new shawls which also be available individually. I am so excited for these shawls I can barely stand it. If you are following me on Facebook than you've seen little sneak peeks here and there. If you missed them I'll show you a few. Here is a the beginning of the border to shawl #1...


After getting a lot of the border done, I put up a bit of a teaser photo....LOL. When I was trying to take the picture Audrey Grace just had to be in it. Its funny, when I'm trying to take a picture of her she's shy and wont let me. When I'm trying to take a formal pic of my knitting for documentation purposes she stretches out like Cleopatra and just stares at me. So, I cropped the photo and put that up for you all to see. I don't want to give away too much before the release...


This shawl #1 was hand dyed especially for me by Skein of Australia and is a collaboration project with them. I cannot wait for it to be revealed to them in August. Shawl #2 is being knit with Plucky Knitter Bello Fingering and is amazing to work with. It isn't necessarily a collaboration but I will let them know of the upcoming release. Here is a picture of the center spine for it. I've only showed, on Facebook, one photo (I think) of this shawl...


This shawl is very exciting for a lot of reasons. This shawl has and will have a lot of Shetland elements knit into it. It will be a bit different than the others I have done and I LOVE that about this shawl!  You are not likely to get another view of it, I really don't want to give anything away with this one. Shawl #3 is a collaborative effort with Yarn Hollow, and again the yarn was dyed especially for me for this project. I have a picture of the Yarn Hollow yarn on the laptop but not here. I will be starting the work on it very soon. I cannot wait to get going on another project! 

A couple days ago, Mom received the newsletter notification from Yarn & Coffee in Santa Fe that they are were having a sale beginning today. We made the quick decision to make the trip up there for the first day of the sale with the hopes of getting our hands on the best of her inventory before she sells of out everything and restocks with new and different product. It was nice to see Deborah today! I hadn't seen her in a while. The last couple of times a trip was made to her shop, I wasn't feeling well enough to go. I've been battling really bad migraines as a result of my Intracranial Hypertension for about a week and a half now but I really wanted to go. My head tolerated the trip alright and didn't start getting bad again until we were on our way home so that was okay. I can tell you that today was crazy. Aunt Betty and Mom went nuts. I only bought 7 skeins. Only. Betty Bought 21 skeins, Mom bought 11 skeins and 2 for our friend Lori. I just don't know what to say to that other than Deborah, the owner, was a happy camper when we left, for sure. Lately, I have been trying to buy colors that I haven't worked with before. I want to expand the color palette of my shawl samples while at the same time, still loving what I buying. Here's what the back of the car looked like with 41 skeins of yarn packed into it...


And here's what came home with me...


Its from Wooly Wonka, Ceridwen Sock in the colorway Brick. Its a true tonal red and I love it. I love anything red. Matches my hair and tattoo...LOL. When I shop for yarns its always because I have some design in mind. I never buy yarn with the thought of knitting someone else commercial pattern. Not that I don't love other patterns, its just all my work nowadays is design related. 


This is Dream In Color Smooshy with Cashmere in the colorway Strange Harvest. I LOVE this colorway. I love the mustardy yellows. A lot.This is the first Smooshy with Cashmere I've ever bought before and I cannot wait to work with it! It is soooo soft! 

In the midst of all this shopping and other people coming and going, Deborah brought over the Cornwall Coast they knitted with 1 skein of Schoppel-Wolle 6 karat yarn. They only did the body of the shawl as one skein wasn't enough to get the border done too. She explained to me that she often wears this shawl around the shop, its lovely and very drapey. She explained that normally when they discontinue carrying a particular yarn, they no longer display the items made with it. But she loves this shawl and she loves my designs and wants to still have that advertisement happening. So sweet. I was very thankful. Then I asked her where this yarn was because I LOVED IT. I hadn't seen it before. Id never even heard of it before...


(After I found my way to the Schoppel-Wolle Deborah talked to me about doing a trunk show this fall at her shop! She thinks its would be a great opportunity to highlight my work and sell some patterns! I was so excited at the thought of finally being able to do a trunk show of my own). This pic is a little light. The colors are much richer than what you see here. There is no name for the colorway. Only a number. It is a cabled yarn and is 80/20 merino and silk. The hand painted colorways were so hard to choose from! Along with reds, I love greens too. I had to have these. And I am seriously contemplating making myself another Cornwall Coast with it. 


Anyone who knows me know that I LOVE a fabulous grey scale gradient yarn. I didn't realize this has 645 yds in it, something like that. Enough for me to design something around it. Says its lace weight but I would work it on a 6 nonetheless. There were so many of these in all sorts of different colors, fabulous. 

This past Tuesday at Knit Night, my friend Flo handed me a bag and said it was for me. I opened it up and it was about 1000-1200 yds of beautiful softly variegated lace weight yarn which she purchased from Galena/ Skaska Designs several years ago and never used it. I love Flo, she's such a sweetie...


We were not alone in our adventures today! Roxane and Selena made the trip separate from up but we ended up shopping together, lunching and having dessert together. It was a lovely afternoon. We ate lunch at Mucho Gusto and had dessert at Kakawa Chocolate. Having Kakawa chocolate is like....very thick chocolate that is drinkable but so rich its like drinking handfuls of truffles.


Betty and Mom

Selena

 and Roxane
 
That about sums up our yarn road trip today. Oh, before I forget, I ordered a fabulous little project nag from That Clever Clementine and I have fallen deeply in love with it. It is just the right size to hold my current shawl project.....


They are such a classy way to keep your projects organized. I plan to get more of them! Go check out her shoppe!

On our way home we had to make a quick stop at Village Wools. I picked up what I needed and then talked to the owners there about a trunk show...to see if they would be open to the idea. They were also just as excited about it as I was! "My" people at Village Wools are the best. Anytime we pop in, whether if its for 5 minutes or if its for s few hours of knitting, they are just awesome. They have been more than supportive of me in my design work and that means so much to me. It seems the best time for my trunk shows will be after the new eBook comes out with the 3 new patterns. Yea!!!

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your summer and knitting on something really cool. I'd love to know what your working on and what yarns you're working with. Is there an indie dyer that you really love that you think I should check out?! Let me know! I will do my best to blog as often as I can given my current circumstances. Wherever you are...Knit On!

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