Merry Christmas!

Thank you, all who have purchased yarn or scarves from me in the past year. Together, we have created many amazing things! Have a Happy Holiday, and I hope to meet up with you again in 2008!

Whew!

I made it! Scarf season is officially over, and I took my listings down for a week so there won't be any confusion about availability for Christmas. I shipped the last 6 scarves this morning, for a total of 54 scarves I've knit in 2007, most of them in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thank you all who purchased, and I appreciate your kind comments !

Over the weekend, I was featured on the homepage of Etsy for my Tropical Rainbow yarn, and I sold two skeins of that, plus 3 other skeins from my shop. I was glad, as I haven't been promoting my yarn much lately, what with scarves and choir practice taking up much of my time. (Our cantata went fabulously, and no one threw their fruitcake back at us!)

I'm planning to curl up with my favorite Christmas short story book tonight, and take a long deserved break. Hope you are doing some of your favorite things, too!

Traffic and Ice!!

I opened my e-mail from Site Meter, expecting my usual 20 or so visitors in a week. Nope 280 visitors this week. I was sure it was a typo, but no....I managed to sell some things to other bloggers, who blogged about me! Gotta love networking.

So.....here's a post about a pair of socks knit with the yarn below: http://danglingthreads.blogspot.com/2007/12/socks-on-my-feet.html

It's called Turkey Time.

And here's one about a scarf I knit: http://caoine.org/2007/12/05/etsy-home-of-awesome/

This picture is actually of a second one I knit, because the person saw it here on my blog! (Which I really appreciate....I mean, how fun is it to blog when no one is looking at it!)

I've also had a fair amount of traffic from Ravelry. I love that place!!

Otherwise, I am buried both in scarf orders AND the ice storm that is going on today. Here's to hoping we keep our power!!

Finished stockings!

I finally finished the stocking for my friend. I took out the large snowman, and went with some smaller ones for a more vintage look. She was very pleased! I hope to have these up for production next Christmas, with a variety of designs.

This little ornament stocking I knit for the ornament exchange our Mom's group has. It gets rather heated with stealing and such (we do it White Elephant style). This is modified from a full sized stocking idea in the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts edition. It also was well received, but alas, it was opened last so no one got to fight over it. (But I'm still glad one of my friends has it.) Next year I must use more enticing wrapping!!

New Hand Dyed Yarns for Fiber Friday!

Between knitting scarves, I managed to dye up some yarn. Below are more rainbows....the left is Sock weight, and the right is Worsted.

The two below are sock yarns. One a yummy collection of browns, and the other a fun confetti pattern. Neither are rewound yet. All these yarns will appear in my Etsy shop soon, if you want sooner, drop me a line!



I shipped out 5 more custom scarves this morning, and this one was of special note. The skinny stripes are time consuming with tucking ends, but the result is strikingly cool. I apologize for the lousy lighting. It's been freezing and overcast, so you get camera flash! (Edited: Here are a couple outside shots of a second scarf I knit in this pattern).

Scarves, yarn, and packages, oh my!

Black Friday (and the days surrounding it) were good to me! Here is my latest shipment.... 5 scarves, and three skeins of yarn. I'm going to have a similar pile to ship out tomorrow!

The yarn came in for the Christmas Stocking, so I am hoping to get that knit up sometime this weekend. I dyed up oodles of yummy yarn yesterday, and I'll try to post some for you to see tomorrow (it'll be Fiber Friday, after all!).

Christmas Stockings!

Yes, it's time for Christmas again, and I am working on a Christmas stocking for a friend of mine. This is the prototype. I started too late to make many of these for this Christmas, but I hope to take orders for next year.

Otherwise, Black Friday was good to me, I have orders for 8 scarves. I bought a showcase on Etsy today, since it is Cyber Monday, and hope to sell many more. It isn't that long until Dec 10, when I need to stop taking orders for Christmas delivery! Off to knit, hope your Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as mine was!

Rainbows are back!

What you are drooling over at the moment is worsted weight Superwash Merino Wool Yarn, hand dyed in a beautiful Tropical Rainbow. Each color morphs into the next, giving you many shades. I think it is my best rainbow yet, and there are 4 skeins of it. Hat, mittens, and scarf anyone?

If you prefer socks, I made two skeins of Superwash Merino & Nylon (80/20) sock yarn in the exact same dyelot. Those will be listed soon.

As an aside, there has been much....um.....encouragement from the forums community of Etsy for the search function to be improved. With the Christmas season upon us, they do not plan to make any changes now. Please don't be frustrated and not shop on Etsy.....instead please try a Google run search of Etsy. BestySearch was created by Dingo, and is very helpful for finding just what you are looking for on Etsy!! I linked it in my sidebar ------> in case you want to find it another time. Try it, you'll like it!!

Come check out an exciting new project I'm involved with!

The Etsy Mini Blog consists of 1 x 4 Etsy Minis of shops organized by category. Visually browse many shops and find amazing new handmade items.

Are you a shop owner? Please also stop by, read the TOS, and then request your Mini to be listed under the category that most represents you.

The site is run by LittlePutBooks and schOOLOcker, but the categories are managed by volunteers. I am moderating the Glasswares: for the Body category, and am already amazed by the work shown there.

Just for fun, here is a Mini with some of my favorite Etsy items:

I have been soooooo busy!

Yeah, yeah....no 'how busy were you' jokes here. We just had our choir concert for RiverChor (it went fabulously, thank you), and now that I am finished with that I can get back to yarn making. To tide you over until new ones dry, here are a couple hand dyed sock yarns I managed to fit into my schedule. On the left is Turkey Time, and the right is Koi Pond. Below is Springy, and another 'Big' Custom Knit Rugby Scarf. I also made one in white and purple.

The new owner had this testimonial: "an emphatic yahoo! over my new scarf...now that's a scarf...perfect length for wrapping and such nice workmanship...thank you so very much."

On another note, I am now fully set up on Ravelry! Anyone who purchases yarn from ThePaintedTiger has permission to slurp photos for stashing use! Come visit ThePaintedTiger on Ravelry.

Fiber Friday!

I had the opportunity to create two custom order scarves this week. The one above is a Harry Potter style scarf in Gryffindor colors. The buyer wanted wool....so here it is, my first luxuriously soft superwash wool scarf. You can purchase your own custom wool scarf in my Etsy or Ecrater shops. (Well, when I get the listing up later today!)

This custom knit scarf and hat set is for a Christmas gift for a Michigan fan. Go Blue and Maize!

The World’s Greatest Holiday Shopping List
Most of you are all familiar with my Etsy shop, but I wonder how many of you know about a great Etsy feature that you might just use yourself this holiday season?I’m talking about the “Favorites” feature on Etsy. Although it’s not meant to be specifically a wish list for holiday shopping, you can easily use it to your advantage that way.

It’s simple. Just login to your Etsy account (if you don’t have one, registering is simple and requires no detailed personal information beyond your e-mail address and name), and then browse around to find things you love. When you come upon an item of interest, within the listing description you’ll see a link on the lower right side that says “Add Item to Favorites.” Just click that link and the item will be marked as a “favorite.”

Now here’s the fun part. When your husband or sister or best friend or mother asks what you might like as a gift this holiday season, you can point them to your list. All they have to do is type your Etsy ID name in their browser, followed by ".etsy.com." (For example, my username is ThePaintedTiger, so my URL is: http://ThePaintedTiger.etsy.com) Even if you don’t have a shop on Etsy, a page still comes up and on that page there is a link that says, “Favorites.” There, your gift-giving loved ones can find your wish list. How cool is that?!

Once your list is complete, it is a simple to send it on. Got to your favorites list and copy the url. Then simply email it, blog it, or casually mention it in your Christmas letter! Please do update your list regularly, though, and be sure the items are available. Sold and expired items will continue to show in your list, so avoid frustration and keep it clean!

And, of course, if you are more of the giving sort and not so interested in your own wish list, you can ask your friends and family to make their own wish lists to help you out with your shopping this holiday season.
Just thought you all might like to know about this feature. It’s much easier to drop a URL than a subtle hint ;)
This post is highly liberated (with permission) from Deb at Fearless Fibers...I thought you might appreciate a way to tell people about all the great fiber you want for gifts!!

This week, I dabbled in semi-solid hand dyed sock yarn. The random shadings of light and dark are deceptively tricky to produce (and photograph), but I think these turned out well!

From top left, then clockwise:

Wasabi, Cranberry, Indigo, Mandarin Orange, Blue Skies

All of these are in a high quality Superwash Merino and Nylon blend (80/20%). The yarn is on the thick side of fingering (420 yards per 100 grams) for projects that knit up just a bit more quickly, and has a nice twist for good stitch definition. Show off your favorite color AND your favorite new stitch pattern! Jaywalkers, anyone?

In other news, I've finally received my long awaited invite to Ravelry, and look forward to networking with you all! I am ThePaintedTiger there, also, and my yarns are set up as The Painted Tiger (with spaces). I'm working on getting linked so I can get some pics and such up there!

I hadn't done a striping yarn for awhile, so here is the fruit of my effort.

This luscious walk in the woods (or indulgent carmel apples...take your pick!) is available where I sell all my hand dyed yarns.

And remember that pile of cream, tan, and grey yarns? Well here they are with their coats of rainbow! I am listing a color or two a day, and here is where to find these Rainbow hand dyed 100 yard skeins of yarn.

Just for fun, here is a little video showing my ball winder in action. I'm currently out of that rainbow yarn, but will have more soon. I have other great hand dyed yarns in my shop, any of which I would be glad to wind for you prior to shipping.

I've been featured!

If you haven't visited Smidge yet, it is a great blog style site that features indie artists. She also has a monthly give away, so if you would like to contribute or win, check it out and join Smidge's newsletter. She kindly reviewed my Wool/Mohair/Poly Twist bulky hand dyed yarn in Rainbow. The review is here: http://smidge.ca/the_painted_tiger.html Thanks, Smidge!






Smidge is an Etsian, as well, and crochets cotton coasters, scrubbies, and makeup removal pads. Much more fun than the disposable kind! You can purchase her things at http://smidge.etsy.com/ .





Also this week, I was featured on the Etsy homepage. If you blinked, you missed it...I barely got a screenshot and it was down. It was great, since this week I've been dyeing that style of yarn, plus it is giving me incentive to get my homemade light box out again. Man, those pictures were sharp!

It's scarf season again!!

Recently I have begun to receive orders for custom knit scarves. You can see here the black and white scarf in Super Size (or also known as the BIG scarf). It is about 74" x 7" and has a nice floppy drape. The scarves are rib knit, so if you need to cover your head, this large scarf will stretch and fit nicely for that. The Gryffindor style Harry Potter scarf in gold and burgundy is in my regular size, about 64" x 5", with long 7" fringe. It is going to a lucky young lady who is using it as part of her Halloween costume.

This pile of yarn is from my stash of New Zealand yarn. It is a bit scratchy, but felts really nicely, so it is great for felting/fulling projects, as well as rugs and tapestries. I have even had Etsians make Amigurumis with them The white and tan are in Sport weight and the grey is slightly thicker at DK weight. This week I am taking two 100 yard skeins of each and over dyeing them in rainbow colors. I'd done this before, and you can see the whole rainbow in this listing here. I only have the yellow and a couple reds from my previous dyelots, so it is time to redo them. Unfortunately, this will likely be my last batch of the grey, since my supplier is going out of business this month. I do have plenty of the white and tan, so there will be a couple more batches of those. I love seeing how my hand mixed colors take differently as I hand dye these different colored base yarns. Expect more pictures soon!

Hand Dyed Rainbow Yarns are back! This time in Worsted and Bulky weights. On each of these yarns, the rainbow repeats approximately every two yards. My base yarns are purchased from a domestic mill that has been in business for over 100 years.

The lovely above is a bulky weight twist yarn. It is 81% wool, 17% Mohair, and 2% Polyester. The poly wrap string dyes slightly differently, so it adds some kick (and kink) to the yarn. There are 210 yards in each of the two skeins I made, and the gauge is 3-4 st = 1" on US 9-10 needles.

Next is this fabulous worsted sock yarn. It is 100% Superwash Merino wool. I love how superwash takes up the colors so brightly. There are 270 yards per skein (I dyed 4), gauge is 5 st = 1" on US needle 7. Can you imagine mittens and a matching hat made of this?

And finally we have my favorite. This is a bulky, barely spun blend of 60% New Zealand wool and 40% US Domestic wool. It looks hand spun, and some would say this is lopi style (whatever that means). There are 120 yards (I made 2), gauge is 3-4 st = 1" on US needle 9-11. This yarn matches the Mauch Chunky line of yarns available from Kraemer yarns. They only offer solids, so knit up something great and trim it with the rainbow yarn!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my rainbows (ok, I know you do....I can hardly make them fast enough!). These will start appearing in my Etsy shop ( http://www.thepaintedtiger.com/ ) today, and over the next week.

More sock yarn previews!

Crisp Green Apples .............................Blue Lagoon

Fall Aspens ..............................Pine & Burgundy

Mystery .................................Leaf Pile

As you can see, I have been playing around quite a bit with semi-solid yarn dyeing, and random dyeing. These yarns will knit up in random patterns instead of pooling, and the Green Apples and Blue Lagoon yarns will show of stitch patterns beautifully, while still adding life and movement to your project. Come on over! http://www.thepaintedtiger.com/

New yarns for this week!




I'm still playing around with random dyeing, which I have termed "Chaos Dyed" in my shop. I love the colors, and how they can 'play' on the Superwash Merino a little more in this method. Click on any of the pictures to see them larger. I especially love the one on the lower left....browns and burgundies and deep greens! These will be wound and appear in my etsy shop sometime soon. Http://ThePaintedTiger.etsy.com

I've tamed a few of those wild yarns!




Enjoy, and visit www.ThePaintedTiger.com this week to purchase them. A new yarn each day!