These are new stash additions – from JulieSpins and Hedgehog Fibres – to make up for the ones I plan to use up for Tour de Fleece, an annual spinning event that mimics the Tour de France. It’ll be my first time being part of the Tour and I’ve joined two teams – one for JulieSpins and another just for Rookies. Both teams don’t really have any rules save to use JulieSpins’ fibers for the Tour (which makes sense). So at the end of the day, it’s up to us to set our own goals and strive to achieve them. Some people take the opportunity to work on their spinning and spin up sweater quantities. Others opt for spinning challenging fibers or fibers that they have never worked with.

I haven’t really thought about what I’d like to do except spin these braids up into the following weights:

• JulieSpins Roving: 60% SW Merino, 30% Bamboo, 10% Nylon (Blue-Eyed Susan in 3 ply fingering)
• JulieSpins Roving: 85% Humbug BFL, 15% Silk (Whole Grains in 2 ply laceweight)
• JulieSpins Roving: Wensleydale (Raisin in either 2 ply or single ply laceweight)

If I have extra time, I might add another braid or two to the list – I seriously need to destash and make room for more yummy goodies. No, selling them is not an option! In the meantime, let me continue on a roll with my knitting and start working on possible first birthday invitations – if we ever get around to having a party. Heh.

This month’s unclub featured merino-cashmere-nylon bleed rovings and a humbug-silk. I wanted to bulk up my stash with some rovings meant for lace so I’ve been stashing up on silk-blends, and Julie’s colours have been very vibrant and rich. My pretties arrived on Monday but because my postbox can’t take anything thicker than the usual bank bills and such, I got a delivery notice instead, which meant that I’d have to wait till the weekend to get them.

The wait was definitely more excruciating than trying to figure out how to install a home theatre system but definitely worth it. As you can see, they are very pretty and I can’t wait to get started on them…once I finish my Ivy sweater, of course!!!

And from other dyers…

Before we moved to Singapore, I remember going through my shop stock and putting some aside so that I could continue the trade after Eva was born. But things got sidetracked (a lot, I’d say) when she came. Suddenly I was not just swamped with running errands and housechores but tackling a newborn and later an infant. Despite my crazy schedule and breastfeeding, I wasn’t on a quick weight loss diet at all.

So my undyed fiber and yarns sat in its box, waiting to be unpacked. Until today…

I finally got my arse moving and spent some time sorting the store stash before deciding on dyeing up about 900gms of undyed superwash merino. It was a little tough trying to get started, especially with the colour combinations and mixtures but once that was settled, I discovered that dyeing can be quite fun although time-consuming and utterly tiring. It made me feel like a little kid again, playing with all those colours and imagining things again after months of routine and schedules with a child.

As the fibers sit on the clothes dryer, water dripping from its dyed ends, I’m awfully tempted to open up my handdyed fiber and yarn store again. But that’s just the keyword “awfully tempted”. I don’t know if I’ll have the stamina to do this regularly once I start work. Hm. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I’m happy – my dyeing mojo is back!!!

These just arrived and while I’m so so so very tempted to start on the 2nd one from Squoosh, I’m wondering if I should work on the ones that have been part of my stash for a while already.

Yes, I have just finished spinning up my current WIP and will get started on plying it tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be done with it by Friday since we’re leaving for Lyon to spend Easter with Nil’s parents. When we get back, it’ll be up for sale.

Didn’t you know? I have a job and it’s running my shop.

In a nutshell, there are all sorts of wool fibres in there (Gotland, Falkland, Corriedale, Merino, etc), blends like merino/bamboo, merino/seacell, BFL/cashmere, Shetland/silk and then lovely soft stuff like alpaca. To find out more about them, click on the pictures and check out the notes!

And like Nil said, this isn’t junk…it’s money and I’m not kidding.

Despite the snow, I thought it best to whip up the camera and snap some pictures anyway. The keyword, if you will ignore the mention of snow, is SOME.

Yes, my fiber stash is overflowing and right now, it’s for a good reason. But rest assured that unlike my knitting, I spin up stuff relatively quickly.

I thought this blog might be in need of some colour-related cheerfulness. Over the course of a few weeks, I’ve caved and purchased OR handdyed some fibers to spin up for either keeps or the shop. So my fiber stash has grown somewhat considerably, even more than the stock for the shop, dare I say. What’s worse is that I haven’t had the time to photograph them all. ARGH!

On the list of To-Take-A-Snapshot are…

• Romney in Creme Brulee (8 oz) from ironjohn04
• Seawool in Delight (4 oz) from Dyeing For Colour
• Seawool in Scottish Heather (4 oz) from Dyeing For Colour
• Seawool in SR25 (8 oz) from Creatively Dyed
• 60/40 Merino-Bamboo in Evening Shade (4 oz) (FatCatKnits) from a trade on Rav
• 50/50 Merino-Tencel in Green Tea (4 oz) (Pigeon Roof Studios) from a trade on Rav

Of course, I shouldn’t forget the fibers that are supposed to be on their way or will be on their way over the next few months!

On the list of Items-To-Be-Received are…

• A fiber club installment of 4 oz of merino-silk from JulieSpins
• Next year’s 3-month fiber club installment from Ewe Give Me The Knits!

There is a perfectly good explanation for this stash enhancement…

Unfortunately, I can’t say it. You’ll find out soon enough.

More to come…really…just one more!

It was an unexpected purchase really, but since I was branching out into items for the store, I thought why not. You may think it’s strange purchasing items that I could easily dye up for myself but don’t be surprised. Sometimes dyers themselves buy from others…especially when it comes to blends which are hard to come by in this part of the world/Europe. So for your viewing pleasure, may I present some fibrey goodness…which soon will be turned into handspun yarn for the shop.

And oh, another gift that came by my way involves some Swiss/French keys, Vista and a very yummy function. Nil got me this simply because I was hogging his PC for far too long. The timing is right, really. With the shop and all, I am now able to update as and when I like without interfering in his online activities. And of course, I have no excuse when it comes to churning out my wedding dinner album, which is still in the works. Time to kick my own butt, really.

And oh, there is the matter of some gift baskets or such lying around…I ought to take a snapshot of that. When the next gift(s) arrives, you can bet that I’ll blog about it!