It will be going out in tomorrow morning’s mail and I hope to soon post pictures of her modeling her new shawl … especially since she and Tony run a professional studio and have all the equipment necessary to make a smashingly awesome modeling spread!

And Thank You to the other participants as well.  There were a total of 41 slots purchased by a total of 12 individuals, whose names were entered in the order of their purchase, just like numbered raffle tickets torn off a roll in order.

And the suppliers are going to be on vacation through the 18th, and I’m guessing they won’t show up in the shop until the next Monday (the 21st).   But prices go up on the 14th, so I hope I got in just under the wire because I just ordered 2 MORE cones of lace and 2 MORE cones of sock.

Figure there are 12 hanks per cone.  So this week I’ll have 132 hanks to pull and dye, plus another 48 coming when tonight’s order gets processed.

This has been my greatest mental and emotional and financial hindrance:  having yarns already in-house so that I could take orders, dye orders from yarns in-house, and replenish the stock with the payments from the new orders.    That works WAY much more better than getting orders, scrambling to find and order the yarn, waiting for it to show up, getting behinder and behinder in case yarns weren’t readily available.

The last few weeks have seen an awesome turn-about, and it could not have happened without a lot of amazing people supporting me in many ways.

I won’t say all of the things that have been happening, but Just this week I have

• Finished a shawl, gotten the pattern written and posted, and running a raffle to award the actual original piece to someone.
• I’ve ordered more yarn than what I have orders for (which means there will be lots of BRS coming this coming week as well next Friday!)
• I’ve been able to order the digital counter for the electric skein winder, so I will finally be free of the task of manually winding yarns.
• Ordered a new pair of glasses (my current ones are 6 years old!)  (I got my Rx from the vision center at Walmart,  ordered the glasses from Zenni Optical. (I’ve never ordered online, but this place comes HIGHLY recommended by several happy customers, so I thought I’d give it a try — way much less expensive than the price quoted at the Walmart vision center!!!)  (and yes, I’ll give a report when they arrive)

Follow this link to the Art Deco II Shawl Raffle page.

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EEEEK!    I just discovered that the original button to purchase raffle tickets was also adding a shipping charge.   That is SO WRONG!!!!  I’ve fixed the link (the “buy now” button) so it doesn’t do that, but if I see shipping charges, they will be refunded, immediately!

But they said it is THIRTY EIGHT POUNDS!!!  YIKES!!!!   That’s SO MUCH YARN!!!

I imagine the box itself is several pounds, but that still works up to approximately 120-140 skeins I will have to skein up and prep for dyeing.  That covers all of this past week’s orders (back to April 25), plus several pending orders that need to be done ASAP-ly.  And there will absolutely be a bunch of BRS that will allow me to order more yarn to make more money to buy more yarn to make more money to buy more yarn to make more money to buy more yarn to make more money to buy more ……

Well, you get the idea….  I HAVE to keep the flow going.

I mentioned on Facebook that the digital counter is about to come.  I’ve already received the invoice for it, although I told him before he sent it that it may be a week or so before I can pay it.  He said once the invoice is paid it will take about a week to manufacture the new leg, so it won’t be here in time for  all of this incoming shipment.  I’ll just do what can be done to keep things going in the right direction. That’s all I can do, right?

So anyway…  WOO-HOO!!!!  New Yarns are coming and I’ll be making ready for them between now and then.

OH! and another thing … There is an amazing shawl pattern being designed by a young knitter.   I’ve seen the sample, and the pattern is gone out for testing, so it should be available soon.   I am very excited about it, but until it’s available I can’t reveal too much.

And that’s besides the Art Deco II shawl that I’ve been working on myself.  I only have 4 more rows and then 4-6 rows for the top border and bind-off.

And, seriously, a 38-pound shipment is about 2/3s of what I was hoping to get, but it is an amazing start, and it is enough to pay for the the rest of what I want.

All in all, it’s a good time at Casa Knitterman.   Not totally great, but far better than it has been for quite a while.  And for today, that is good enough.

But I now discover they also offer a different laceweight that is 80% Merino/20% extra bleached Tussah Silk.  It is marked at 2976 ypp, or approx 745yards per skein, but the same price to me, so it would be the same price to you as my Primo Lace.    I don’t know if the base difference is worth giving up 250 yards…?

They have also added another lace weight with 0% Baby Alpaca/30% cultivated silk, which would also work up to about 745 yards per skein, but for a price of $33 per skein.

And, of course, these prices will be increasing next week!

I can’t predict what people will want, so I’d appreciate some feedback:  I want to try the alpaca silk blend ASAP, of course, and hope to get at least one cone this week, but I’m wondering if people want to pay the same price for less yardage in exchange for a more-white base yarn before dyeing?

I especially like ordering cones in multiples of 3 - since I manually count out the yardage for each skein, and I have a 3-skein skein-winder, I can get the maximum utility for the least amount of effort.   My hand, wrist, arm, and shoulder get the exact same work-out whether I’m winding off of 1 cone or 3, so if I have to do it at all I might as well go for 3 at a time, right?

Jim (at my supplier) said they’re running 2-3 days out on shipping orders, so I hope that means my order will be shipped by Wednesday (the 9th) which would mean delivery here on the 16th.    If I can get another similar-size order in on Monday or Tuesday, they may be able to ship by the 11th, which I’d get a week or so after that.

In an ideal world, I would have 8 or 10 cones each of a dozen or more different types of yarns I’d like to try.   However, I do not live in an ideal world, so I make do with what is on hand.  And that’s okay.    Thanks to a cadre of amazing patrons, friends, and encouragers, things ARE moving forward, and (more importantly?) I am moving forward into a better position.

So, anyway, if you know of someone who wants/needs to get the summer/fall knitting lined up, feel free to send them here to this page for the link or send them directly to  the Yarns Page.  And be sure to tell them to let me know with their first order that you referred them.  That way you’ll get the 10% referral bonus on your next order.

Also, if you are part of a local group, and you all want to place an order, you can combine your group order so that it all ships to one address and you can save on shipping!   This doesn’t have to be all the same yarn or same colorway, just all going to a single address.

And now, with yarns coming, I have a bunch of work to do in preparation for it.   Along with finishing the Art Deco II shawl, and writing the pattern, I might as well use the ‘down time’ to do some spring cleaning and make this place look like a production center again, right?

and several people have requested I dye up sock yarns to make it.  Per the instructions, it calls for two skeins of sock yarn.

So I went to investigate and learned that this is the “official” Tardis Blue pantone colorchip:

So, I posted a special link for this to be dyed up over on the yarns page.  I’ve included this in the “Gotta Build a Big Order” discount pricing good through this weekend.

Claim them by the Name Indicated Like This, when you email me,

If you wish to combine several items, feel free to make an offer.  :-)

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Mardi Gras bundle.  All 100% worsted weight wool.  4 green, 2 gold, 3 purple.  Whole collection $40.00 (this includes a Flat Rate Priority box at $10.80) SOLD (d.c.)

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Deep Coral, worsted weight, $10.00

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Delicate Dusty Rose bundle, worsted weight, $12.50

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Assorted Sport Weights - 18.00.     (the two on the right were originally a single ball but there was a knot that released so in re-balling it came apart…. but they are a single dye job)

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Blue-and-Green Pair,  worsted weight, undyed spots along the strand.  $12.00 SOLD (m.w.)

=———-
Wine and Cheese, worsted weight, undyed spots along the strand.  $10.00

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4 Balls Enchanted Forest, worsted weight 100% wool - $20.00 SOLD (c.f.)

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1 Ball, Superwash Worsted Weight, Navy, $10.00

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4 Balls O’Fun, assorted experimental dye jobs, assorted weights, $20.00  (GREAT for kids hats!)

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1 Ball Pale Journal, pale dye job, SPORT weight - $10.00 SOLD (v.r.s.)

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Purple Dura-Lace,  (75% superwash wool/25% nylon) - 7.0 ounces.  $30.00 SOLD (J.i.n.)

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Fairyland pair, 2 balls - wool fingering, $15.00. SOLD (v.r.s.)

Was supposed to be just the lavender and blue, but you can see some visible yellow streaks where it picked up dye off the workbench.

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Marshmallow and chocolate, almost a pound and a half of this, can’t tell if this is a heavy sock yarn or a sport weight, but it feels yummy, like a Merino or Merino sock.   $45.00 SOLD (a.c.)

It started when I got a notice about my web hosting service, they needed payment.   Fortunately there was money in the PayPal, so I printed out the credit card payment form.  In order to get it to them, I had to scan it into a PDF, which meant I had to close Ubuntu, boot up Windows and scan it (for some reason the scanner driver didn’t work in Ubuntu).   No biggie.   Got it scanned and made into a PDF.

Then I shut down Windows and tried to boot back into Ubuntu.   Nothing.  The boot sequence hung up, repeatedly.   Ohhhhhh sh***********TTT!   (What? doesn’t everyone speak in asterisks??).    Long story short, most of Thursday and Friday I was online with a couple of really computer-smart guys who know how to get around in Linux/Ubuntu and they guided me through diagnosing things.

Thanks to their help I was able to (finally) retrieve my working files from the Ubunto side and thus I got my websites, pictures, and major documents.  <*whew*>   The guys assured me it was all still there, just needed to find a way to get it all out.  And it worked.

My emails *seem* to have come over …. alll in a HUGE directory, and each email is identified by just a number.  And they are in a proprietary, apparently non-standard format, so when I open them I get ALL the headers and gobble-de-gook and I have to dig through to find the parts I need.    OMG, that’s gong to take a while to figure out.  Three in particular (among literally ThOUSANDS) that I really need this weekend.

I WAS able to get the payment processed to keep the Web site active <*whew*>, and got all my email accounts now feeding into my gmail account.  And all my other working files are going to my cloud account.  So now, wherever I go, on whatever computer, I can go onto the Web and get pretty much anything done.   This is a good thing.  At least for most of what I need.

All of this comes back to the knitting and dyeing and making money.   I’ve lost two days on the Art Deco II project, but hope to have it knitted by tomorrow night, and written up to sell the pattern by Monday.    But it requires focus and no distractions.  And fingers with sincere endurance (which has always been a problem for me — my fingers just quit working after a while).

So… wish me luck on making up for lost time.