Early Spring

Spring has come early to the mountains this year.  Although the nights are chilly, the days have been warm and sunny.  A few of my bulb-like friends have come up early, like these tiny iris.  Yesterday the first daffodil bloomed.  I put in a row of peas and planted some onion sets & the fall planted greens (collards and turnips) are up and happy - tasty too!  But as lovely as it is, I am resisting the temptation to get too carried away this early.  I'm afraid that I'll clean up all the old leaves and other litter only to get some serious cold.  We have had some of our worst snows in March.  Still, I spent a few hours in the garden this weekend.

But I'm spinning and dyeing and knitting, as evidenced by this tiny still life.  The rust colored yarn is the merino silk roving that I have been spinning for a future sweater.  The creamy yarn on the bobbin is part of the everlasting Falklands wool that I spin for both my own knitting and for the local shops.  The dark brown is a sweet lamb's fleece that I purchased at last year's fleece show and am hand processing.  It is also destined to be a sweater, though no time soon. The small skein of purple yarn is a sample for the local fiber shop.  I have nearly finished the tiny baby cardi.  Just a few bits left to do.  The I'd better send it off before he grows out of it.

This week the design work continues and the day job will keep me hopping, but in a good way.  My students have an assignment due and so do I!

Happy Etsy - Versary!

This week marks my 4th year using the handmade marketplace, www.etsy.com.  Back in 2006, Etsy was a still a fairly new site, but I guessed that if it took off, it would be a great place to sell, yarns and fiber and hats.  At first it was slow.  I watched my views night and day, posting hats, hand-dyed and handspun yarns, hand dyed sock yarns, and roving.  With in a few weeks I was getting sales, though not always what I expected.

Roving took off  and looking back at my colorways, I can see why.  My colorways were subtle and lovely - I was trying a lot of variations and was on a creative streak.  I remember someone buying my whole shop (about 10 hanks of roving!) at once and how excited I was. This photo is Rose Gold.  Although the photo is a bit blurry, I like this colorway and may just bring it back.   At this time I was still in grad school, my soft-money job was always in danger of disappearing, so it looked like Smoky Mountain Fibers was going to be my real job.

Etsy has gotten bigger and better.  My dyework is more predictable if a bit less experimental.   In addition to dyed fiber, I am selling undyed fiber, patterns, dyed mohair locks (when I can get them), knitting and felting needles and have used Etsy as a way to destash when the fiber and yarn get a bit out of hand.  I have not been successful selling hats (maybe you should try on a hat!) and I no longer sell much hand dyed sock yarn.  There is a lot of sock yarn out there and I find it hard to photograph.

Etsy has become a more crowded market place for handmade goods and supplies for artisans. I don't have to maintain my own website - Etsy bring more customers to me than I could have imagined.  But I have built up an excellent customer base and they come back  I am very grateful for the feedback that I get from my customers.

Now, how do we celebrate milestones in Etsy?  With a sale of course!  In this case, 20% off everything in my shop.  Go to www.smokymountainfibers.etsy.com.  Leave a note in the 'note to seller' area with the code, Happy Anniversary.  I'll refund 20% of the sale price (excluding shipping and handling) via PayPal.  Offer expires on July 31, 2010.

By the way, my job has not ceased to exist but has expanded.  I am happy that I went back to school  to pursue my professional goals.  I'm also very happy that I continue to pursue my creative side as well.  Thanks, Etsy!

Renate Hiller - "On Handwork"

This video is making the rounds of knitting blogs of late.  Sweet and simple and making lots of sense, I'm posting it here as well.  I like what Ms. Hiller has to say about making things.  Why do we make yarn by hand? Why do we knit socks, when we can buy them at almost any local store?  Why am I knitting a sweater in July?  I can easily buy one for 1/2 the price.  

Speaking of sweaters, here is a bit of progress on my Mossy Cardi, now up to nearly 9 inches (23 cm).  That's a good bit of knitting and it's going faster than I expected.  Love the yarn, love the color, love the semi-mindless knitting.  Usually I'm seeking purl-avoidance, but I don't even mind the purl rows.  I switched from my usual Addi-Turbo needles to bamboo.  The sharper points of the turbos were snagging the plies.  The blunt-tipped bamboos, don't do that. 

I think my progress comes from being slightly sidelined by a summer cold.  Instead of party-ing with friends I was quite happy to stay home and finish watching the the HBO miniseries John Adams on Netflicks. Gotta say - loved it!  Now I knew about as much about John Adams as the next non-history major - almost nothing!  Now I know that historical biopics can be a wee bit revisionist - after all it's TV.  But still a nice look at American history and probably worth watching.

Labor Day - When the Work is Fun!

When Labor Day consists of doing the creative and self-sustaining work that you love, it's more than labor.  It is the good work that makes us know that we are alive and contributing to the universe.

I didn't go to the college today, but I did respond to my student's concerns and questions.  I find that working on Labor Day goes against all that I was taught by my union-card carrying parents.  So I take a vacation day. 

I stopped by both my retail accounts today to say hello and check on my goodies - even chatted with a new needle felter.

I did a bit of drum carding - made some batts that I can't wait to spin.  Dyed roving too.

I spent some quality time in the garden, pulling weeds and tired tomatoes, planted collard greens for fall, harvested lots of green beans, tomatoes, eggplants and the entire potato crop - 7 volunteer spuds!  

After a small get together with friends, I'm off to host the Monday night contra dance.  No dancing on my bum knee, but I'll knit a Trailside hat and chat with friends.

Andromeda Shades: Mercury!

As I continue to grow my fiber business, I have been brainstorming to come up with new names for colorways and color families.

I have relied primarily on plants or descriptions based on the colors themselves: blueberry, marigold, bronze, etc. But as I continue to expand, I find I want to create series of color families. I engaged J in a brainstorming session a week or so back some overall families for both roving and yarns. One of us came up with the sky - I think the first thought was Celestial Shades, but although I like the alliteration, it was a bit to 'angelic.' That led to stars, planets, constellations and other heavenly bodies and eventually to Andromeda Shades.

I decided that Andromeda Shades would be a specific line of Romney rovings beginning with the planets. I've had 'Blue Planet' up for a week or two - I've already sold one and it was chosen for an Etsy Treasury with andEarth theme. Today I launched 'Mercury.' As I was brainstorming on the naming of the colors for each planets, some were very easy - Mars is the red planet - actually red-orange. Veus is pink, because of its 'female' connotation. Mercury made me think of the element - slinky, silver gray, but my first experiments were not pretty. The grey dye has a tendency to split into the dye colors that are combined to make them. but when I took the 'fawn' roving and over dyed it with purple and blue, I got the depth I was looking for. I posted it this morning. Venus and Mars are right behind; I did the first Saturn experiment yesterday - it's sort of a gold with plum. I think I like it, but I'll have to see it dry and photographed.

I am still thinking of a name for the family of 'semi-solid' sock yarns. Subtle Shades? Harmonious Hues? Contribute your ideas here!

Great weekend calling the excellent contradance in Blacksburg, VA. The band was long time friends Skylark out of Chapel Hill and we stayed at the home of Shawn and Matt; both terrific musicians and extremely cool people. I drove home in the snow (at least in Virginia) happy and remembering why I call dances. Tonight I'm calling at the Grey Eagle in Asheville with Chicken Tractor - Laurie Fisher's new band.

Goal Setting

My mission for SmokyMountainFibers has always been very simple:

Use high quality materials.
Make beautiful things.
Ship tomorrow.
If you make a mistake, admit it, apologize and fix it for free.
That should keep me from making too many.

But I have been lately thinking about my fiber business and how I can make the business end better while keeping the creative part fun. I want to be sure that I am happy and connected with the fiber community, while building my business in an increasingly uncertain time. I also want to do other things - garden, hike, dance - oh, and there is the day job! Here are my thoughts...

Selling my work - I set sales goals on Etsy by month and by year. For example, in 2009 I hope to sell 1000 items. That means I have to sell about 85 (actually 83.33) things per month. In my private world, I’ve rounded that up to 100 items per month to stay ahead of schedule. That is highly doable, as the warmer months are slower and things really kick up in the fall. And since I ended 2008 with just about 1000 items sold, it’s easy to keep track.

Selling at the B&M accounts is a bit trickier because they sell different things - mostly hats and handspun yarns. But because the 2 shops can sell all the hats I can make, I just have to decide what & how much I want to make. The yarns are easy - Make what I want, deliver as much as I want, knit up the rest!

Colorways – I’d like to round out the color selection in the Etsy shop to be sure that I always have a full complement around the spectrum. I tend to have reds , blues and greens, but can frequently run low on minor colors and there are colors that I can’t seem to photograph well, so they don’t get posted. I either spin them up or sell them locally.

Sock yarns – Although these are NOT my strength on Etsy, they have a steady turnover at both B&M shops. Work on semi-solids. Think up a catchy name for same. This is Rosewood as knitted by Mickie.

Etsy FAST –Get involved in the team again. Join in the challenges, stay active on FiberFriday

Ravelry - SMF group – Start it - Easy! Maintain it - a bit harder! What if nobody joins? Yikes!

Patterns – Shall I give one away? Free patterns posted to blog? Posted on Ravelry as a free download? Hmm…

Website: SmokyMountainFibers.com – This is the year!

I Feel Honored!

I feel that I am lucky in so many ways, large and small. My online business is an Etsy shop , SmokyMountainFibers where I sell natural and hand-dyed fiber for spinners and feltmakers, hand-spun and hand-dyed yarns (though I am seriously behind) and patterns for my hat designs. I also sell knitted hats in a couple of brick & mortar stores along with my fibers and yarns. Etsy has a system whereby members can build 'Treasuries' - themed collections that are online for just a few days. Etsy selects Treasures to be rotated onto the front page of the site - always changing; always interesting.

This week I had my work featured in 2 different treasuries, curated by different members, my 'Guy Hat' pattern of which I have knit VERY many, and a hank of hand-dyed roving in a particularly vivid green I called 'Limey,' shown here. Although this doesn't always result in sales, it is very gratifying to be chosen by one's peers! No point in putting in links to the treasuries - they'll be gone soon.

Another wonderful thing happened today. At my day job, I had a meeting this morning with a national organization to co-develop curriculum materials for possible publication. I dare not give any more information, but this is very exciting!

Both these delights come after calling the Old Farmers Ball New Years Eve Dance - Huge fun! Without ever really making big important plans and setting well though out long-range goals, my life has found an amazing track that has led me to a new and fulfilling career and creative joy and personal happiness in a beautiful setting. I love my life!

In with the New!

Happy New Year!

New Years weekend has gotten off to a fine start here in SmokyMountainFiber land in all the parts of my life. The dance scene was terrific. I called the New Years Eve Masquerade Ball contradance at the Old Farmers Ball at the Fairview (NC) Community Center. The homely basketball gym was transformed into a marvelous space, thanks to the creative vision of board member and artist Jonathan Gilbert. A crew of painters painted 4 murals, 3 of which featured lifesize dancers - totally changing the bare brick walls. A set of draperies hung from the center of the ceiling and hung with lights changed both the look and the acoutics of the room, making the sound infinitely better. We has a wonderful turnout too - nearly 400 people. The band, Fiddlewitch was in fine form as well. There are a number of photos on the web already, even a YouTube video. Check out the slide show behind the band! This is from the photo booth, set up in the back of the hall. Thanks, John!

It has also been a dyeing weekend. After taking a few weeks off to knit for family and friends (with still a few gifts left to go), the Etsy shop is in full force. I've got dyepots on the stove and in the crockpot and a couple of new patterns floating in the brain trying to get out. I hope to knit a test today. I won't give away my idea, yet though.

I do make New Years Resolutions, though they are usually the same: get more exercise; back to the South Beach diet for a month or so, build the business, blog more regularly! But this year I want to set some creative goals as well.

I want to be a better spinner. My spinning tends to be a bit lazy lately. I spin in public a god bit, usually fairly bulky yarn from prepared roving. It's easier to spin when I am distracted. But I would love to spin finer, more interesting yarns with a purpose.

I want to continue to dye roving and sock yarns, with an emphasis on the colorways that sell well. I'd like to dye more repeatable colors in larger quantities. This may require new equipment as well as a improved technique.

I would like to expand my pattern line - that means think more creatively about my knitting.

I would like to begin leading English Coutry dances. I went out on a limb to force this one, offering to lead a workshop at next years Contadancer's Delight. Yikes!

I have work goals too, but they have no place on this blog.

Today I am tending the Farmer's market gallery, Locally Grown. Rain is predicted, making this a quiet day, but good for spinning and knitting. Rain can be good though, trapping people in the market!

Out with the Old Year!

As we get ready to say farewell to 2009, I can honestly say it's been a heck of a year! My fiber work has taken on a new complexity in both the business and creative aspects. I have worked on my dyeing process, my spinning quality, and gotten my patterns in brick and mortar stores as well as on the Etsy shop. Although I have not knit as many hats as in past years, the sales on dyed fiber have more than made up for it. Becoming involved with Sally's gallery, Locally Grown has given me another venue for my work. Though not quit-your-day-job fabulous, it has allowed me to sell more yarn, particularly the hand-dyed sock yarn and handdyed, handspun yarns. Asheville HomeCrafts continues to be a steady source of fiber income. In addition to expanding my hand-dyed fiber presence, they sell my hats, patterns and yarns. They have done well selling the sock yarns and would like more 'semi-solids.'

The dance scene has been strong - lots of calling gigs (and a heck of a spring coming up) and I'll close out 2008 by calling the New Year's Eve dance at the Old Farmer's Ball in Asheville. The English country dance continues to grow and I have begun leading English dances. Because it takes a different piece of brain that calling contras, my repertoire is still limited. J and I attended the Contradancers Delight last week and I spoke with Warren about adding an English workshop next year. Sounds like a wee bit of a resolution, eh? While on holiday in Columbus Ohio, I called a dance at the Big Scioty Barn Dance - great fun to show off to a new group. I must admit I used the cheapest trick in the book - I called Trip to Lambertville, an easy fun dance, that is not in the repertoire of the local callers. Did a fine job too, if I say so myself!

Work has been a year of changes as well. I began teaching CS200, the technology integration class for Teacher Education majors. With 6 sections (2 semesters and a summer session) behind me, I can now begin to design the class I really want it to be. The adult evening course starts January 6th and I'm ready to take off! The call from the Library of Congress inviting us into the TPS program has totally changed my outlook as well. With 3 more years of grant-funded professional development, I can continue to do the work that I love on all 4 fronts! I love my life!

Dyeing in a Minor Key

Recently my dying work has taken on a darker tone. The bright, clear, vibrant colors have been replaced by shades that some might call murkier (?). Sounds so negative! I'm my usual energetic self - happy, feeling positive about life and love. Only a wee bit guilty about things I don't seem to get done - housework, early gardening chores, the bathroom floor. But this version of 'Plums and Berries' is definitely different.

As in my earlier post I talked about having all my creativity sucked into my work life and I wonder if that's not finding its way into my dyeing work as well. I like what I'm doing. It's just different. I am drying some killer blue/green/yellow roving that I dyed last evening, but it's not the clear colors I so often make. The greens are mossy, the yellow is bronze. That's the way hand dyeing is a lot of the time, so it's not scary!

In Sockworld, I finished the toes of the Knitpicks Parade and wore them to work today. I finished the first ColorJoy sock and started the second.

Plans for the weekend: Dye, spin, knit and build the quiz for Tuesday's class. Maybe read a book. Right now, I'm off to Sit 'n' Knit with the other sock!