WOW! I was blown away the last couple of weeks with pre-orders and dye to orders during the MD Sheep and Wool Virtual show. I was so worried that I was the weird one, the almost blasphemous one. To have a colorway inspired by the Corvid Pandemic, was a crazy idea…it’s not sweet, it’s not “nice”. And yet, it resonated with so many people.
Corona colorway
So I’m keeping the listing alive. It is still dyed to order, because I just don’t know how many people want to have some “souvenir” of this time.
Antibody Colorway
With dyed to order, I will continue to dye daily. You may get your order quickly because I happen to have some already dyeing. Or you may have to wait up to a week (with dyeing, drying and priority mail).
Yes, it’s that good. Actually I’m re-reading it and also listening to it as I work in my studio. What’s the book?
Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee
Read this book!
Why is this book resonating with me? I think because I can see so many textile, yarn, color, dyeing connections. I also think that with all that is happening in the world around us, I need to find some more joy. I need to savor what brings me joy. Bring more of it into my life. I want to examine what brings me joy and do more of it.
Lee organizes the joyful world into 10 aesthetics:
Energy (vibrant color and light), Abundance (lushness, multiplicity and variety), Freedom (nature, wildness and open space), Harmony (balance, symmetry and flow), Play (circles, spheres and bubbly forms), Surprise (contract and whimsy), Transcendence (elevation and lightness), Magic (invisible forces and illusions), Celebration (synchrony, sparkle and bursting shapes), and Renewal (blossoming, expansion and curves).
So for the Energy chapter Lee tells us that it is impossible to separate color and emotions. Just think about blue Mondays and having a sunny disposition. Having a red hot temper and looking for the silver lining in a hard situation (social distancing, perhaps?)
Pandemic Colorways L to R: Antibody, Corona and Vaccine
Color is energy made visible. If I go into my science geek again, well this is proven. Each color has it’s own wavelength. It is energy. And it is color.
And what about Chromophobia? That’s the fear of color, especially seen in our houses. People love colorful spaces but it is really hard to make a choice on a wall or room in your house. I see this fear all the time. I think that some are so afraid of making a mistake that they either decide to pass on the choice, or more likely they rely on their more color confident friends. Do you have to live this way? No you can train your eyes and build your color confidence. It takes looking at lots of colorful art or photos. You can do this in an art museum. You can do that in Pinterest. Get to know what you like. What makes you say “Ahhhh” or what makes you smile.
Pinterest color board
I will be blogging more about this book because it is just so full. So full of interesting ideas and “Aha” moments for me and I think for you.
This year one business goal was to widen out my farm yarn line. I have lots of choices in the Worsted weight yarn. I have Synergy: the marled yarn that looks hand spun. I have LiViLy that is from my fine wool Cormo Sheep. I have Trasna made from the long lustrous fleeces of my BFL Cormo Hybrid sheep. I have Fingals which is from my pure bred BFL sheep. That’s a lot of yarn in one single weight.
So this year, I wanted to add a fingering and a sport weight to my wool yarns. I also wanted to replenish my yearling mohair that is a fingering weight yarn. And I have a LOT of PolyPay wool that I bought from a shepherd in Virginia. I really want it to be a bulky yarn.
So yesterday I unboxed my yarn shipment from the mill. And I was sooooo happy.
I have a beautiful fingering weight wool from the hybrids. there are over 400 yards in a 4 oz skein.
Fingering weight fine wool yarn
I have a lovely sport weight yarn with the cormo wool that has over 300 yards in a skein.
Sport weight fine wool yarn
The yearling mohair came back perfectly matching the previous run.
Fingering weight mohair yarn
The polypay did not come back as bulky. It came back as worsted. But it is lovely. The wool “tells” us how it wants to be spun. And it really didn’t want to be bulky.
Worsted Polypay yarn
Time to get to the dye pots and see how these babies do. I usually don’t list my farm yarns in it’s natural form. But if you see something you really need, just shoot me an email.
First of all, I want to thank all the wonderful knitters, crocheters, spinners and felters who are coming to our online store and finding just the right yarn or roving to express their colorful selves. I hope you are feeling your creativity fill up and overflow. As we are all slowing down, getting out of the traffic, having more time to explore, to take more walks and to play more games or solve more puzzles with our families, it is also time to let our creative juices going.
We have hand dyed roving, yarn and farm yarns from our own fiber flock
This coming weekend, Maryland Sheep and Wool will be managing a virtual marketplace where there are hundreds of vendors. We will be online to answer questions and to fulfill your orders. AND you can also be looking at what we all have to offer right now. Here is the link to our online store.
Many of us are offering discounts and free shipping, some are offering special extras in your bag too.
What do you need to do? You need to be a member of the online community. Find it here. You also need to look at this page….the posts will not come through your own feed.
Have a question? Just ask it and one of us there will be able to help you by answering. So see you there! Have a question now? Just reply to this blog and I’ll find you an answer!
I really love knitting socks, but I don’t spend a lot of time knitting. I always think I will spend the time. I’m at the lightning speed of 1 pair a year. I know, I know….most people do 1 pair per month. Still I love my hand knit socks!
I have 2 pairs going now. One, the bright pink and orange from a sock blank and the other from our chinook yarn…a luscious blend of SW Merino, Cashmere and Nylon in my Nautical colorway.
Palette Perfect by Lauren Wager is a book all about color. It’s really more of a lookbook. I think it took me less than 30 minutes to read, but I have spent a long time studying the palettes that Lauren has put together.
The book concentrates on the moods of your life. Colors that represent those emotions and moods. She then makes palettes of 3-5 colors that represent the mood.
She presents 15 different emotions such as tranquility, curiosity and trendy. Within each chapter she gives images such as paintings, photographs and textiles. Each of these has a “color wheel” of colors shown in that image. The size of the pieces of the wheel represent the amount of color in that image. And then for each color she gives the CMYK percentages and the RBG percentages.
CMYK is used for printed materials. Dyeing can use the CMYK numbers too. But the numbers aren’t a direct % of each color, as the numbers add up to more than 100. But lets say that if the number is 14/0/35/80 You would have a color that is mostly black with about half as much yellow, no magenta and a small amount of cyan. So the color is a deep green color. If you aren’t a math nerd, that’s OK.
I love this book for it’s pure inspiration. Looking through it you can find some combinations that you may not have thought about before. Get yourself a copy here on Amazon. This is just a link, I haven’t received a fee for reviewing or promoting this book. It is merely a good book for those who want to hone their color sense and widen their creative use of color.
If you’ve always wanted to learn to dye, I’m working on a dyeing ecourse that is almost ready to be released in the world. You can find out more here.
I’m loving these colorways and so I’m making them in many of my fingering weight colorways. Our Sparkly yarn is 92% Superwash Merino and 8% Lurex (the man-made sparkly factor). There are 414 yards in each 4oz skein.
Here is the yarn in Sparkly:
Corona Colorway
You can grab these here. I’m dyeing to order and will let you know when to expect your yarn.
Antibody Colorway
Think you want to make a shawl with these? Here are a few suggestions:
So, dear reader, you already know that all the yarn shops are closed. The restaurants are closed. The fiber festivals are closed and going virtual. There aren’t any sports. And our homes are now our offices and schools.
I always do a special colorway for large festivals. And Maryland Sheep and Wool is in 2 weeks. I had to get up off the couch and put together a special colorway.
My wild idea was to make a corona virus colorway. But then I thought, Lisa that’s really weird. Maybe people will be upset or put off about it.
Corona colorway on Chinook
Then I thought some more. I relied on my Biology Major background and thought about viruses. And it lead me to think about how miraculous our bodies are. How our bodies make antibody particles that basically neutralize the virus or bacteria that has invaded the body.
So my corona colorway uses the colors in the electron microscope image that we see online and on the news every day. And my antibody colorway uses complementary colors that “neutralize” the virus colors.
Antibody Colorway on Chinook base
I’m taking pre-orders for these. I am offering them in the Chinook base, Corrie Sock base and Sparkly base. Click here to grab a few for yourself and gifts for your knitting friends. I will be dyeing these to order. I will keep you in the know about when you can expect them. I expect to be able to dye and dry within 3 days of your order, then out in priority mail so from the date of your order you should have this yarn in your hands in one week.
Have you heard? At least the Spring and Summer festivals and tours will be a virtual experience. This is a whole new world for vendors, festival organizers and you, the public. There have been a couple of these so far. And it is really a learning experience. This is what I know to help you have a good experience for Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and my own Fiber Art Studio Tour.
The “festivals” will be held in special facebook groups. Here’s link for MDSW. Here is the link for FAST. Join these groups. You need to be checking on the posts in these groups. Any news, video or discounts won’t just come to your feed. So when you are ready just enter facebook and click on the group.
Many, many vendors will be having special discounts and/or free shipping. The information will be listed during the virtual event. You can also just look at a vendor’s website as well. I will be offering 15% off your entire purchase AND free shipping on orders over $100. Those of you who are on my email list, will be getting the code early for pre-ordering. You can go here to sign up to be on the list.
Many vendors have been making videos so that you can see for yourself what is available. I have a youtube channel where I’ve posted the complete colorways for each base. You can go here to see them.
Many of us yarnies will continue to have a special colorway for the event. Stay tuned. I’m working on mine this week for MDSW.
So I hope you come out and “see” us at the new virtual fiber festival experience!
Where to find us
We are located in Frederick MD. You can stop by during our open studios. Or buy online and stop by to pick up…I’ll run your purchases out to you in your car.
Open by Appointment!!
Monday through Friday 11-3
Closed Saturday and Sunday (Except Open Studio days)
Open Studios with Fiber Art Studio Tour
November 30…. Small Business Saturday open 11-4pm
December 6-8….. Along with CountrySide Artisans… open 10-5pm
