Hiatus

I'm sorry, I've been on kind of a hiatus. I can't seem to get into the habit of updating a blog on a regular basis. As of right now I haven't done any DIYing or anything crafty (other the the usual knitting and then frogging process). Brett's mom came to visit this last weekend and she took us to the outlet mall (did I mention she's a great lady?) and bought us a knife magnet. I should have prefaced that with "Brett loves kitchen knives and has a ton so...." I made Brett hang it up above our little dish drying area and I must say that I like it. It does look kind of intimidating at first, you know kind of like that scene in "Twister" where they run in the barn with all the knives? Kind of like that, but I've gotten used to it and it is super handy. It's also cleared up another drawer for us in our kitchen!

Here's what he looks like:

Pretty simple design and shockingly heavy duty.

I also must admit that I have abandoned my etsy shop Autumn Fibers. When I opened it I had visions of people loving my yarns and me not being able to keep up with the demand. I really had no idea what I was getting myself in to when I opened it. Now that I do, I am debating on whether or not I should continue to put money into it. I do love the notifications I get when someone buys a yarn or features me in a treasury but it is a financial investment and I'm not sure I am able to take that on right now. I also have a crazy work schedule that normally is positively correlated with a mountain of paperwork (that I normally have to do on my day off). So perhaps in the near future I will be reviving my shop because lets face it, I love yarn and I loved dying yarn.

Dye Fail

Well I have had the last week off from work but I was in Columbia for three days and had a bunch of catching up to do before I could get down to dyeing some new yarns. When I did get around to it I had an epic dye fail. I tried using my regular Jacquard dye on the cotton yarn. I didn't take so when I rinsed the yarn after the dye bath cooled ALL of the dye came out of the yarn. I guess I'll have to get some dye at work and re-do it.

The cotton candy yarn I dyed a few weeks ago might go into the dye bath as well. I'm going to attempt to make a not blinding hot pink yarn and if I put my cotton candy in with it it should go into a half pink half purple yarn. That would be considerably easier to photograph than the super light purple it is now.

In other news I am now in charge of another living thing...my lucky bamboo plant. I named him Brutus and I will love him...and hope that I don't kill him. It shouldn't be a problem this time, the last one I had I put tap water from Columbia in and it killed the whole plant in about 2 days. I've learned my lesson and hope that this one will not peril like the others.

I'm Alive I Promise

So I am a neglectful blog owner. I'm sorry (to the three people who might read this) I'm going to try to do better!

Not much as happened since my last post. I'm officially working for the enemy now, a big dog craft store. I pretty much hate it but I need the money so I'll just have to put up with it until I get a "real" job as I like to call it. I sold my first and most popular set of stitch markers Friday.

Debpolley is now the lucky owner of Naughty Things:

This also happens to be the first order I've had in about two months. I'm hoping that sales pick up for everyone on Etsy. It's pretty slow for a lot of people there. I have been working on a few new things for Autumn Fibers I have a new line of cotton yarns here are a few pictures of what I've done so far:

This is "Pumpkin" it was supposed to be a gold color but ended up being well...a pumpkin color.

This is Amanda's Bright Turquoise. It is my favorite of all the cotton I've got so far. I do have one more but I have yet to photograph it. It's a nice cotton candy combo of light purple and a light sky blue. I have two more skeins to dye, that will probably be my project tomorrow.

Autumn Fibers was also featured on Craftgawker here very exciting. I am also offering small knitted items in my shop now like facial scrubbies and coffee cup sleeves. I'm working on a line of beaded bracelets but haven't been able to master the art of knitting with embroidery floss yet.

Well I'm off to do some knitting while the baby sleeps!

I'm a Georgia Peach!

Well me and the boyfriend made it to Georgia! The drive from Kansas City Missouri to Middle Georgia was 14 hours long. We went through Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The first day we were in the process of traveling for about 8 hours and stayed in Murfreesboro, TN for the night. Second day was 6 hours of driving through the rest of Tennessee and half of Georgia. Needless to say I was very happy to finally see my new apartment!

I was able to finish dying two more yarns before we left though, my silk yarns! I took pictures of the dyeing process for Amy's Azzurro (which can be purchases here) just in case anyone was interested in how I dye my yarns!

(the yarn was pre-soaked before this).

Step 1: Mix up your dye in awesome old school jelly jars with Pooh characters on them

Step 2: Dump yarn dye in pot of water and yarn. Mix!

Step 3: After dye exhausts (water turns clear), put out side in the snowy Missouri weather to cool off.

Step 4: After the dye pot is cool rinse in warm water with Synthopol.

Step 5: After rinsing yarn throughly and running it through the spin cycle of the wash, hang to dry!