Crazy 8 Yarn ... welcome to Wool2Dye4

We have a winner in the Name-That-Yarn contest and it is ... Crazy Eight.
Natasha Laity-Snyder sent us the name, and it struck as just right. Here is my reasoning ... This yarn is an 8-ply, but not the expected 8 plies. There are four cabled plies of two plies each, making 8. Sort of odd, sort of crazy, huh? So ... Crazy Eight.

Most of my customers rename my yarns anyway, so Crazy Eight will remind them that this is our 8 ply sport yarn. The eight plies were arrived at in that unique cabling, and it's also the name of a really fun card game! So a delightful, eight-plied yarn.

I really liked lots of the names -- OctoPly was a contender, and Quick Sock was another and Lucky 8 -- really close to Crazy 8, but more refined -- and SportCaster, a good descriptor built in as sport weight, and cast-on. There were lots of great ones suggested, and I thank everyone who entered the contest!

We kept coming back to Crazy Eight. It fits!

A little more about the new 8-ply sport yarn ...

Interest in this new yarn is immediate and vibrant, and this surprises me a little. The reason is that folks never seem to follow up on their interest in a sport yarn with much enthusiasm. Something is different this time, though, and I think we may have found a winner in this one.

The yardage is 1,245 yards per pound, which puts it at the high end of the sport category. The stock is coming on traditional 100gr skeins (of 274 yards) and kilo cones (of 2,739 yards). I have been sending out little sample butterflies of about 8-10 yards and feedback is starting to come in. They like it, I am glad to say. Also, this is one of those yarns which needs to be dyed and dried to be appreciated. It looks like and acts like a typical sport weight. The ply format is interesting and adds to the cabled look, as it is actually a cabled yarn. Four plies of two cabled plies are spun together, and that's how we get this 8-ply to curl around itself in a beautiful pattern. Really pretty yarn.

Arrival date is early October. If you are interested in a sample, please eMail me: Yarnie@wool2dye4.com and we'll get out a sample right away!

Name-That-Yarn Contest!

I have been posting on Ravelry about the news of our next new yarn, and yesterday we began to send out samples with wholesalers' orders. This one is going to be another winner, and the sport weight will appeal to folks who like to knit sturdy socks, the slightly cabled look of the yarn will attract those who like a slight texture to their yarn, superwash to folks who really like to knit their socks in our superwash yarns, and our springy merino for folks who have grown to love that soft luxurious yarn which has so much natural strength to the fiber.

Here's the surprise, though. It is not, as I have been saying, a 4-Ply yarn. It's a 2 x 4-Ply yarn, aka 8-Ply. The construction of this one lends so much texture to the yarn, that same look which is so attractive in our recently introduced yarn, Sheila's Sock. Each of the four main plies are double-plied themselves, making this baby an 8-Ply yarn. So, if you have been wanting to enter the 8-Ply superwash merino craze, here's an entry for you but with the advantages listed above.

We don't yet have a name for this yarn! So ........ Contest!!!

Name-That-Yarn Contest!

Name our new sock yarn and win a kilo of it.

eMail up to 5 entries to Yarnie@Wool2Dye4.com

Deadline: September 27th.

International Year of Natural Fibers

The editor of Wildfibers Magazine sent a link to a wonderous site today, and I have to share it.
Please do check it out. http://www.naturalfibres2009.org
You will get lost in the enormity of fiber possibilities.

Stock Arrival at end of the week

This month's stock arrival is certainly welcome! Wholesalers have made huge demands on what I had thought would be a growing store of the most popular yarns to have ready for fall festival orders. Instead, Sock Summit put a dent into the plan, and we are busy getting more yarn in even as I write.

Actually, the next order should be here by the end of the week, and we will ship out immediately. Cash Sock did become popular immediately from the samples we sent all last month, and I think from the craze that this MCN blend (merino/cashmere/nylon) has enjoyed for several months. We feel that our MCN is well received because of the nice combing of the fibers, and none of them, especially the cashmere, comes to the top. Plus, our merino is that nice springy stuff that is the signature of the Wool2Dye4 line.

So, here is what is coming in .........
Skeins and Cones ...
-- Platinum Sock
-- Sheila's Sock (limited cones)
--Ultra Merino 3Ply

Skeins Only ...
--Angel Lace
--Angel Sock
--Bamboo TwoStep
--Butterfly Lace
--Cash Sock (sold out on pre-orders)
--Merino/Tencel

These yarns are now being shown as in stock, but most from this list will be shipped from the incoming stock order. Go ahead and place an order for any of these yarns, and we will ship out as soon as the shipment arrives.

Inventory Showing on Website now ... We activated the capability of showing our stock figures on the website. Now, to see what amount of yarn is available, just click on the Category view and a full list of all yarns available will come up, and you'll see a column headed 'Quantity,' and that is the number of items available for that yarn or presentation. If the product title includes 'Set of 5 skeins' then we have whatever the quantity shows of sets of five skeins, not individual skeins. Don't overthink this. It's pretty simple, and must say that many customers have written to tell me that they like seeing how much is available, and that it helps them shop.

Good luck!!! and... as always I thank my customers for their business.
Sheila

Samples, Samples, and more Samples

We are at the time of year where requests for samples hits an alltime high, so we spend every free moment winding up little butterflies. Round and round, 35 times between little finger and thumb, and then wind a dyed sample around all, if we have made it that far. Some of the yarns actually look different -- once dyed and dried -- so it is helpful for us to dye up maybe 50 yards at a time from the sample cones. Right now we are about to put one or two yarns back into service ... Tencel/Merino and BFL Platinum, so those two are definitely going to be in demand.

The only problem is that I do not have even one skein of BFL Platinum in my secret stash. And that is saying something! Usually, I pull a couple of skeins of each yarn and hold it where it is out of sight and out of mind. It almost always comes in handy, too! Someone will write and say that they have a special customer that wants one skein of one of their reproducable colors, and they absolutely must have that skein. Secret stash has come to the rescue more than once!

We even have a little of a couple of the older yarns we used to carry, like Ultra Merino 2-Ply, a yarn which had a split personality. The lace knitters loved it; sock knitters, though, could take it or leave it. And for a long time after Merino Lace was taken from the line, I was winding off skeins for absolutely necessary demands, until it ate through secret stash and now is totally gone.

Right now, we are winding off butterflies of Cash Sock, our MCN which we feel is an improvement on what is currently out there. (MCN is superwash Merino with Cashmere and Nylon, at an 80/10/10 blend.) I say this because our merino is soft and combed and the cashmere, which has a tendency to come to the front in any blend, does not pill on our yarn. We are sending out Cash Sock samples with all the orders, and to a long list of folks who requested samples.

Cash Sock looks like it will immediately join the Wool2Dye4 family. My wool supplier says it is so popular in Europe that he cannot keep enough stock of it, and the last time he expected some in, he put out the word, and it was snapped up in two days. Two days! Amazing! My regular stock will not get here for about six weeks, but at the end of August we are going to receive around 30 kilos. I don't know how to deal with the demand on this one and am thinking of asking folks to limit their purchases to five kilos until we get real stock in. It's the new craze in sock yarn, it seems, and I like it!

If, for some reason, you have not yet requested a sample, send me an eMail at ... Yarnie@Wool2Dye4.com ..

Ever need a Colonial costume quickly?

Every once in a while, I am invited to dress up in costume and represent the early American crafts of spinning and/or weaving/knitting, etc. The first event was in the springtime, and the dress I made kept me warm on a cool day; however, that same dress seemed like a huge punishment when worn last summer on a sweltering August afternoon in the sun.

This coming weekend -- another August day in the humid Virginia weather -- I am going to join my guild in demonstrating the domestic arts (ahem!) at the Albemarle County Fair. A group called Backyard Revolution has created a settlement which will attempt to replicate life in the agrarian economy of the late 1700's through the 1800's. There will be natural dyeing of fibers, spinning and weaving along with blacksmithing, log-home building .. oh, lots of things that those folks had to do every day of the week just to subsist.

I will be spinning. Usually I sneak in my plastic spinning wheel, a little jewel from Babe's Fiber Garden, but this group sounds like they might be a little strict on period interpretation. My PVC plastic frame with a stainless steel wheel from a wheelchair will probably not cut it, pass muster. So, I am taking a couple drop spindles and some fleece from a Virginia flock which a girlfriend manages. They are Leicester Longwools, a cousin of my beloved Bluefaced Leicester, so that will fit in nicely. And, I will be working with fiber from Central Virginia, too.

But, back to my costume! I mentioned that I had made a dress for my first appearance in Colonial garb. That thing was ugly, plus it really did not fit and I had positioned safety pins along the bust to create pleats. In preparation for the upcoming fair, I decided to cut off the top and make a skirt and then to just buy a white blouson sleeved blouse (something like a peasant blouse) and an English vest. All of this brings me to the point, which is that I have a great recommendation for anyone needing to put together a costume to approximate early American dress.

It is Jas Townsend & Son, inc. They have a good selection of clothing for men, women and children plus several little accessories, such as the pockets which were worn under aprons mostly. They are muslin pockets with a cotton twill tape running through a little band on the top, but I saw several women in costume who wore theirs on the outside of their skirt, with no apron, and adapted this idea. I sewed my pocket onto the side of my new skirt ... made from the ugly dress. Great solution.

Here is the link to Jas Townsend & Son website: jas-townsend.com. I give them top recommendation!

Next was footwear. My old Berkinstock sandals sort of remind me of pieces of leather which women might have wrapped around their feet during the Middle Ages. I am now in possession of a pair of Mary Janes, by Naot. They work fine, but what about socks? To knit a pair of knee length natural socks in four days is pretty much impossible for me, so I decided to drag out the antique circular sock machine. Within two hours and a couple of setbacks which taught me to check my equipment before launching into a project, I was in possession of a pair of kneesocks done in my lovely BFL Ultra! They were both too long, though, so I have had to unwind the toes and finish them off by hand, but much less trouble and work than handknitting! I have two days to go, and one toe to go, and then must wash out the machine oil. That was the result of over-oiling a reluctant sock machine into movement.

I'm looking forward now to getting dressed up for this shindig on Saturday. The weatherman, though, is calling for a week of solid rain. So, we shall see how the sky looks that morning.

Yarnie says, 'Sock Summit ... or bust!'

Sock Summit: August 6 - 9, 2009

We are ready and waiting to ship our booth yarn to Sock Summit today. I can hardly believe that the long days of prep, counting and recounting, thinking of what nifty little tool you always wish you had at a booth but had forgotten, and, of course, some snacks. We have closed the boxes and ordered in FedEx to pick up.



Off go the hand-dyed yarns from UptownStitches.com, our sister website, to Portland Oregon's Raintree Convention Center for Sock Summit. The organizers have no idea how many attendees will attend, and estimates are at 50,000 by some counts. Just imagine what it is like to guestimate how much yarn to send for a booth at such an event! Impossible. My partner in crime is Barb Brown, owner of Wild Geese Fibres (http://www.wildgeesefibres.com/), and she is the actual attendee. Due to a long list of regulations which basically mean that taxes and finances would preclude much profit for Canadian vendors to bring in their own stock, she needed our help in stocking her booth. Barb, sock pattern designer extraordinaire, turned to us and we were happy to help her out.



We sent either way too much yarn, or hardly enough ... and we won't know until after Sock Summit is over, whether or not Barb will be kept busy. She's got an American helper at her booth, so she will be able to slip away and take a few of the advanced classes. Lucky her! Must admit that I all put stripped the shelves of Uptown Stitches to stock that booth, so I sure do hope we have some takers!



If you are going to Sock Summit, please do check out Barb's Wild Geese Fibres booth to see the Uptown Stitches yarns in person. We even have a kilo of skeins of one of the Dye for Glory entries, by Laura Schickli. Just absolutely beautiful work on our base, BFL-4 Socking. Each skein will sell for $25.



All of our handdyes will sell at one of two pricepoints: merinos at $20 per skein, and BFL's at $25 per skein. If you get to meet Barb, tell her Sheila sent you!

Web of Trust ... help rate Wool2Dye4?

Yesterday afternoon, we received a note from a potential customer who attached a negative rating from Web of Trust, an internet company which reports on the security of individual websites. They mistakenly gave our home page a bad review ... but high reviews for all other pages ... because of a parking page which our server uses. It's called Website Welcome, and it's a 'nothing page,' and is only there so people can have a secure checkout on their sites. There is a possibility that one customer somewhere could have been unhappy with the shopping cart for another company which is serviced by my server company. Who knows? As WebGuy #2 says, 'One bad apple ...'

Anyway, what I am hoping will happen is that if anyone is already using Web of Trust that they will give my two websites (www.Wool2Dye4.com and www.UptownStitches.com) a positive rating, to dispell that negative vibe going on.

We've got the security and backup and incripted credit card service and all that good stuff, and that one page of the site does not warrant a negative rating. So, if you see a warning notice from Web of Trust, please do take the time to rate us, and may I ask you to rate us positively?

My thanks to anyone who may see this and actually do this for me.

We've only received the one letter from one customer, but if it happened once to her, then it could happen as the popularity of security sites grows. Maybe it's time for us to get a dedicated server for the sites.

Canadian Kool Aid???

One of my fiber friends sent me this note in today's eMail ...

Ever since your kool aid dying program at the Stewartsville Library (3 years ago ?) I've asked my Canadian sister-in-law to please bring some creative Canadian kool aid colors back when she goes to visit her parents. She kept forgetting. I saw her this past weekend and she said - okay finally I remembered and she handed me 6 boxes of.....Jello.

My assumption is that Jello won't work because of the gelatin. Will they work?

Sock Summit puts their handdyers to the test!

Sock Summit -- what a great name! -- has grown exponentially into a huge machine. Now, they've come up with a terrific contest. Not for just any dyer, but for dyers associated with the event itself. This includes the organizers -- who number among the Who's Who of our fiber arts worls -- the vendors, advertisers, etc. Here is some must-read material on the contest.

http://blog.ravelry.com/2009/06/25/dye-for-glory/
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/

... and, if you are a Ravelry member, log on and then check out this thread ...
http://ravelry.com/discuss/sock-smmit-2009/topics/698417

Haven't heard of Ravelry?

Several times I have mentioned that my blogging time started to get eaten up by Ravelry. What I have been reminded of recently is that everyone in the world has probably heard of blogs, but not everyone in the world has heard of Ravelry. So, to clarify ... Ravelry is an online community devoted to knitting and crochet enthusiasts. For me, this includes handdyers of my natural wool yarns, and especially sock knitting affectionados.

On Ravelry, there are groups created by either individuals or companies. One of my customers told me about Ravelry, and so I checked it out only to discover that it was in beta version, and that there was a couple month wait to get accepted into the fold. Someone must have contacted the folks at Ravelry, because we received an invitation to join as a potential group moderator for Wool2Dye4. So, we jumped to the front of the line, became a member of the online knitting community and started a group called Friends of Wool2Dye4.

Amazing. Just amazing amount of contacts immediately began to fly back and forth. I had a quick look around the site, and quickly found out that it is like any large group of many people with varied interests and that discussions could quickly turn to things other than wool. For me, the value in maintaining a group was not to discuss cooking, children, navel gazing, or --worse! -- politics and religion. No. Immediately I decided to guide the discussions, as much as possible, to be on-topic .. the topic being my yarn, right?

People's personalities come out in informal little posts. Their humor, their approach to business, to the scope of their businesses, to what they consider a lot or a little business, method, etc. '

It's fun. I like logging on and seeing the discussion of my yarns, the expected new yarns on the delivery schedule, suggestions for yarns and fibers to add to the lineup. Last summer when my British Wool supplier came to work with me for a week, we held a quasi Cyber Open House on Ravelry on a July Sunday afternoon. I was so surprised that within just the one hour of our Open House, we had more than 100 posts back and forth. It was exhilarating to be tapping away, the two of us sitting side by side, and calling out, 'Hey, I'll get this one!' and 'Oh, look who it is!' We truly did have almost instantaneous interaction with some people halfway round the world.

But, of course, it is not all fun and games. Like last month, for instance, I had the brilliant idea that I did not want to carry spinning fibers any more on the Wool2Dye4 website. There were very good reasons, which do not need to be repeated because I was called down good and proper. My customers practically told me that they were disappointed in me.... a sure way to get my attention. They had their say both on Ravelry and in personal eMails, which, I may say, were even more pointedly worded than the publicly posted Ravelry discussion. And, yes, I backtracked and am still carrying spinning fibers. What else could I do? In a way, I was irritated that I couldn't do what I wanted to do, and in another very big way, I was proud that so many people felt so strongly about the site and the products that they had to resort to strong language to make their point.

Ravelry is good for my business, and I buy adversing, of course, and also support the owners' efforts by sending a small gift of cash every once in a while. A sort of general 'thank you' for the opportunity to interact with my customers, to get to know them better, to see pictures of their dogs and cats and kids and hubbies. And of their knitting, their dye jobs on my wool, their designs. Many times a customer will write a private eMail to find out more about a wool or when new stock is expected, or just how a particular fiber reacts to a method or expected wear. And, many of these eMails end with, 'Whatever did we do before Ravelry?' Must say that Ravelry has given me a chance to get to know my customers in a way that mere eMails do not afford, and I like it.

There is a down side to almost everything! Maintaining an active group with viable questions and discussions takes an awful lot of time to keep up with! As a result, other forms of communication have suffered, including ... yes, the blog. I was thinking that this will be a good spot to introduce the fiber artists who are supplying the lovely yarns for the new website, Uptown Stitches, in the next weeks. I've started a new Ravelry group, Friends of Uptown Stitches, and am introducing the artists there, but sometimes I worry that I may be preaching to the crowd there.

Sheila's Sock is a hit ... and hasn't even arrived yet!

Happily, we ordered Sheila's Sock twice! I thought that the first order would be a nice introductory order, just enough to get a few folks interested in what I think is a great yarn with a great future. Evidently, lots of folks must have had the very same reaction to this 100% superwash in our springy merino, because we have pre-sold the entire first order. All of it! It hasn't even arrived yet, either.

Not to worry, though! We have a nice sized stock order coming the middle of July, and again in August.

This week I am spending my spare moments winding up little butteflies of this yarn so that we can drop them into outgoing orders. Every time I wind up this yarn, I want to fire up the dyepot and try out a full-sized skein, instead of the tiny one I allowed myself to dye for samples. This year definitely looks different when it is dyed and dried! The two firmly twisted plies swell up against each other, giving a nice cabled sort of look.

I will have to wait for the mid-July shipment before I can afford to take some of this yarn out of stock and experiment. Nice stuff, this!

Noted added: June 19, 2009
One of the comments is a question, actually, and it is about Sheila's Sock being presented on cones. Yes! We expect the cones (and more skeins!) mid-July. I will start crowing when I hear they have passed through Customs, and will let all know.

The first shipment of this new yarn came and went within 8 hours! We worked like demons here turning around orders which ate up every single skein. Well, I admit that even though I was shorted 100 skeins from my original order, there was a little package of 4 skeins which I secreted away. At least, I think I did, but will know when things calm down. Corwin, my Studio Assistant, could have parcelled them out. As it was, we had to ask two customers to give up a couple of kilos so that we could make good on our promises to those other folks who expected some of the 100 lost skeins.

That is the way of orders and measures at our end of the market. The entire shipment is weighed within a reasonable margin of the original order. We are lucky that the skeins from this mill are consistently weighed, but in the grand scheme of things, 100 skeins in either direction is to be expected. It's been a couple of years since we pre-sold a new yarn and had to ship every single skein which arrived. I think it was Ultra Merino 3-Ply, the last time this happened.

No worries, though. The next shipment will be here in just a few weeks ... cones and skeins. We are taking pre-orders now on the website, by the way.

Many thanks to all who took the plunge to try the new formulation of our springy superwash merino and on the new size skein.

GreenerShades - more thoughts on these nice dyes ...

GreenerShades acid dyes are a new set of dyes on the market, and I recommend giving them a try. For a list of re-sellers of GreenerShades, follow this link:

http://greenershades.stillrivermill.com/wheretobuy.php

I wrote to Greg Driscoll at Still River Mill/GreenerShades, and he gave me more information about their approach to working with dyes and fibers. As owners of Still River Mill, they process all sorts of fibers. Here is some of what he had to say:

"In keeping with our environmentally friendly philosophy, we really try to do things as nontoxicly as possible here in the mill, hence the GreenerShades dyes in the first place. The dyes have been tested on a lot of different fibers, including nylon swimsuits, and they outperform other dyes in most cases. "

(Sheila's note: I wrote to Greg and mentioned that in my experiment I had used some superwash/nylon yarn, and his answer gives us more insight into the reactions of fiber to process. Read on ...)

"Thank you very much for the writeup on your blog and the link on your site. The superwash process is quite toxic, so we don't purchase superwash fibers. The process uses several chemicals to clean the wool and then applies a synthetic resin to essentially glue down the scales of the wool. (This lessens the felting that happens when you wash and dry wool.) This process adds many more dyepoints to the fiber, allowing the fiber to absorb a lot more dye. Hence your deeper shade on the superwash.

The light spots on your yarns are usually caused by the skeins not being clean enough before you dyed them. There is something on the wool and usually it is the oils applied in the spinning process, natural lanolin, or scouring agents that prohibit absorption of the dye."

Greener Shades - Experiment
Still need to do a similar experiment with my old dyes from ProChem, but I did want to post this picture. There are three fibers dyed with each of the nine colors. The little sock yarn on the right side of each bundle is superwash merino with nylon. The middle bundle is regular merino, the mini on the left is Bluefaced Leicester.

As you can see (and please click on the picture to enlarge it and get a better view), there is little to no difference in the colors of the non-superwash fibers (merino and BFL). There is shade change and difference in absorption with the superwash/nylon fiber on a few of the colors: Yellow, Orange, Black, Aqua, Green. By no means is this a scientific experiment, and I think I should do this again. Also, I will push myself to do the same exercise with my ProChem dyed.

All this said, I would not hesitate to use Greener Shades dyes. The colors are vibrant, truly, and since most of us are in the habit of testing before jumping into the dyepot, I think the more intense absorption of the colors listed above can be taken into account when we dye. My mind is not made up, but I have nothing negative to say about Greener Shades.

If anyone else has tried this brand, please speak up!

The new site is open ... http://www.uptownstitches.com/ ... and we are offering free shipping

through July 31, 2009 to customers within the Continental U.S.

At checkout, enter Coupon Code: W2D4-06.

I have no idea why the picture is turned sideways, but you can still see that it is a Starter Kit from Greener Shades. The kind folks at Greener Shades sent me this sampler so that I could try the dyes out myself. They are acid dyes which are formulated to be absorbed with greater intensity by the fibers, and to leave less metals in the dyebath which gets integrated into our water system.

Yesterday I did a little test using mini skeins of Bluefaced Leicester and Merino and another of a superwash merino with nylon. My test actually brought up more questions than answers, and I now realize that I have nothing to compare the results to, so it's time to do a test on the regular dyes I normally use, i.e., ProChem, and the same fiber combo. Initially I saw that the superwash with nylon changed hues with the yellow and orange, and absorbed much more dye in the blue and black than the non-superwash yarns. I know that superwash yarns do absorb more color than non-superwash yarns, but I am talking a major difference in the amount of absorbed color.

Using a set of three little measuring spoons with denotations of A Pinch, A Smidgen, and A Dash, I did not follow the set of instructions which came with the samples, but used my old quick and tried routine of a little dye, a splash of white vinegar, a cup of hot water all into a zip-bag and into the microwave for two sessions of two minutes, with a rest in between. Colors were nice and clear, and most of the color was absorbed from the mini-bath.

I will say that my first impression of Greener Shades is that the colors are vibrant and lovely. Ever since the experiment, I have been daydreaming of dyeing up some of the limited British Merino in SW DK and making a one-of-a-kind sweater for next year. Maybe a sleeveless vest, even, since I've picked up Barbara Walker's book, Knitting From the Top, and am becoming obsessed with some of her ideas. She and Elizabeth Zimmerman can just put me into that wonderful zone where ideas flow, there are no dropped stitches, and long swaths of plain knitting go by effortlessly.

Will post a picture of the results of both experiments in the next few days, but wanted to see if anyone else has used Greener Shades with success? They look good, so far. Good enough to have me daydreaming about an Amethyst vest, knit from the top down.

Wish I could remember where I got those little measuring spoons. They come in handy when mixing colors and I recall that I found them just after buying Maryanne Lincoln's book, Recipes from the Dye Kitchen. She is a rug hooker, but that doesn't matter. She is a genius at mixing color, mostly for wool fabric swatches, but wool is wool and her recipes are wonderful. She does mention the TOD brand dye measuring spoons, which are calibrated scoops at both ends measuring down to 1/32 of a teaspoon. Also the Grey brand of spoons which go to 1/128th of a teaspoon! Maybe they are the Grey spoons. If so, I have only this information for the hunt (though the internet will surely yield some better results -- this book was written ten years ago when we didn't think to look on the internet as a natural reaction): Ralph Grey: 4877 Ashworth Road; Mariposa CA 95338. Happy hunting!
Here's a link ... http://www.iloverughooking.com/grdyemesp.html (the tiny ones!)
Found them: http://www.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?kw=Pinch-Dash-Smidgen-Measuring-Spoons&ic=6005-01203-0000&eq=&utm_source=google-base&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=6005-01203-0000&utm_term=Pinch-Dash-Smidgen-M

Schedule of new arrivals

I thought I would post the anticipated arrival dates of some of the new yarns, and some which have been out of stock, either in the cone form or in skeins.

Next week, the first week in June, these yarns will be here ...
Angel Lace, Platinum Sock cones, Ultra Merino 3Ply cones, and W2D4 Merino DK-SW on skeins.

June 9th-ish, we expect ...
the new Sheila's Sock (on 72" skeins), the new W2D4 Merino Worsted-SW on both skeins and cones

June 27th-ish/end of June ...
more Ultra Merino 3Ply cones, the new W2D4 Merino Sport-SW on cones, more Platinum Sock cones, and some W2D4 Merino Worsted on both cones and skeins

Around July 4th, look for ...
more Sheila's Sock on cones and those 72" skeins, Ultra Merino 3Ply on cones and skeins, and a healthy amount of Platinum Sock on cones and skeins, and a bit of Bamboo Two-Step on cones.

Uptown Stitches is Live!

We are live, at last! ................ http://www.UptownStitches.com

Go see, and be sure to let me know of any glitches you may come across.

Also, know that we are adding to the site every day ... yarn and patterns, too.

Thanks all for the wonderful notes of encouragement you have sent me!

Sheila

So, here is the official shot of The Uptown Sweater, designed by Shawn Glidden. It appears on the Home page of our new website, www.UptownStitches.com. Launch date: May 18, 2009!

Everything has not yet arrived for the new shop, but there is enough to open, so we are going ahead and will be beefing up categories as we go. Patterns, for instance, will be uploaded this week. We are going to have quite a few wonderful sock patterns from Barb Brown. Barb has the wonderful ability to make use of a yarn's intrinsic qualities as she creates unique patterns. For instance, color variations of handdyed yarns used against black or white solids in patterns which are really not difficult to knit; they only look that way. I am very happy with all of Barb's work, and always eager to see her next design.

Shawn Glidden, too, is the same sort of designer and when I hear what she is thinking up next, it is such a pleasure. She, too, is a careful designer (like Barb) and her sense of style is young and well-considered at the same time giving us designs which are classic in line and creative in pattern.

I have to say that I am enjoying meeting the designers and dyers and getting to know more about them as time goes on. Babies, hobbies, talents in other-than-fiber areas, etc. This is another perk of working on the Internet and creating new working relationships across the globe!