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.