The YumiYarns May 2015 Read-A-Long

Since I work at a bookstore and am constantly wanting to read everything, I thought that it would be fun to have a monthly read-a-long for the Ravelry Group. This month I picked “A Man Named Ove” (pronounced Ooo-V-A) by Fredrik Backman. It will be coming out in paperback on 5/5/15, so there’s no need to worry that you have to spend yarn money on a hard cover book.

Here’s an overview:

In this bestselling and “charming debut” (People) from one of Sweden’s most successful authors, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

A feel-good story in the spirit of “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry” and “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand”, Fredrik Backman’s novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others. “If there was an award for ‘Most Charming Book of the Year,’ this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down” (Booklist, starred review).

This first Read-A-Long will run from May 5 till June 1, 2015. Please join the Ravelry Group and join in on the book discussion, I can't wait to hear everyone's opinion on this book!  ^_^

NCFF - Day 3

Well, this might end up being more of a 1 post per month type blog till I can get myself a bit more organized. (Or until I figure out a way to just not need sleep ever again.) Anyway, back to NCFF...


Day 3 was the one that I was really looking forward to because Katie and I had our Natural Dying class that morning and it was amazing!! The instructor wanted to use up as much of the dye as possible during class because she couldn't take it home to use afterwards so we were told to bring any additional dye-stuffs that we wanted. I, went through my entire stash and pulled out everything that was white/off-white and brought it with me (which ended up being way more than anybody else brought, lol).

The first part of class was super informative, we had to let our items soak in the mordant for awhile before we could start dying so we got a ton of great info on the science behind natural dying while the mordant did it's thing. Our instructor does a lot of natural dying and had some great recommendations for books to read if we wanted to delve into it more. I was pretty excited to see that one of the books that I regularly recommend to customers was one of her favorites as well. (Now I just need to buy my own copy.)

Harvesting Color by Rebecca Burgess

Our kitchen set-up for the dyes from left to right: Cochineal (reds/pinks), Turmeric (yellows), and Black Walnut (browns). There's one more pot on the far right that had the mordent bubbling away.

The dyeables provided by our instructor starting in the top left and going clockwise around: Undyed Wool Yarn, Cotton Fabric treated with a Copper Mordant (the green-tinted one), Cotton Fabric treated with a Rust Mordant (the brown-ish one), Untreated Cotton Fabric, and a White Silk Scarf.

All my dyables tied, banded and knotted into various shapes to create different dye-effects (similar to tye-dying).

Everyone's dyeables in the mordant pot!

Checking the coloring on the items in the Black Walnut Dye Pot. As an aside: Black Walnut is actually a dye that is a mordant, so we didn't need to soak things in a separate mordant before adding them to this pot. We still did pre-soak them, though to develop a deeper color since we only had a few hours for the class. I tossed one of my extra skeins into the Black Walnut Dye Pot without pre-soaking in the mordant first and it came out a light tan rather than a warm brown even though it soaked for the same amount of time.

The Turmeric Dye Pot took forever to create a super deep gold color, but that was my goal so I left mine in for as long as I possibly could.

The Cochineal Dye was intense!! Within minutes the dyables were turning really bright shades of pink and some people took their stuff out pretty quickly after putting it in. This was the pot that almost everyone added their silk scarf to.

All of my things post-dying. The items in the bags are mainly the yarns that I brought from my stash (my silk scarf is the yellow in the top left).

My bits of Wool. I had tied too many tight knots in the brown one and when I took it out initially, it was more like cream yarn with brown spots, so I tossed it back in the dye pot unknotted and let it soak for a bit more. It still isn't my favorite, but it's better than it was!

This was my Untreated Cotton Fabric that I had folded up and banded so tightly that only a chunk in the center soaked up any of the brown dye. I wasn't very happy with it, so I tossed it in the yellow pot after most people took their items out.

I put the Cotton Fabric that had been treated with a Rust Mordant into the Cochineal Dye Pot for a long time and was pretty pleased with this fun tye-dye look that came out.

This was my Cotton Fabric that had been treated with a Rust Mordant. (No, those aren't blood stains. The spots are from the mordant.) This one sat in the Turmeric Dye Pot for as long as I could let it and I'm pretty pleased with how disturbing it looks.  ^_^

After our dye class, we had to make one last trip to the market and came away with even more fiber to add to the stash! Then it was time to pack up and head home. I'm super excited to go back next fall, I'm definitely hooked on these fiber excursions and love the classes that are offered. The 2015 North Country Fiber Fair is being held September 18-20 in Watertown, SD so be sure to mark your calendars and sign up for classes early!

This beautiful skein of loveliness is named Dark Elf and that may have been the tipping point for me to purchase it. (That and the fact that it's a silk/wool blend in amazing colors!!) I'm not sure what I wan to do with it, yet. Originally, I was thinking that I would make a Hitchhiker but now I'm thinking that I may have to make up something as I go. This will be such a fun yarn to play with and I can't wait to see Heather again at next year's NCFF.

Softest, prettiest roving ever!! Seriously, just order everything that you can from Jeanette & James at Willowbrook Farm. The fiber comes from their alpacas and the whole booth was decorated with pictures of the alpacas being adorable. How can you not want to buy everything that they have? I bought 4 oz of this lovely bamboo/alpaca blend and it spins like a dream! (P.S. They sell their alpacas and I have a birthday coming up... Just sayin'.)

Driving home from NCFF with big, fluffy clouds pointing the way.

NCFF - Day 2

Happy New Year!! As this year starts, my work schedule changes so that I'll get to have every other weekend off (Hooray!!). Because of this, I'm going to do my very best to get a post up at least every other weekend. I'm going to start off by finally wrapping up the trip to NCFF  and then I'll be updating more recent happenings.  ^_^

Day 2 started off with us sleeping in late due to our movies, wine and knitting the night before. While we waited for everyone to get ready (Sara let me use some of her shower gel, shampoo and conditioner though I think that the fact that we would all be sharing a car for another 2 days prompted that more than anything.)

The night before we became well acquainted with Pablo (Pabs for short), one of 2 birds in the house who loves flying around the living room and scaring Sara half to death. All night long (and again all morning) Sara would be minding her own business, busily knitting away on her washcloth and suddenly, out of nowhere, Pabs would start zooming around the living room at top speed (usually directly above Sara). Meanwhile, Sara would shreek obsenities at the bird and cower in the corner of the couch while the rest of us laughed at her misfortune. It was immensely entertaining. We're such good friends.  ^_^

The terrifying Pabs is obviously just acting adorable, he is secretly plotting how to best attack Sara when she reaches for her knitting.

We made it back to the fiber fair where things were well underway: the spinners were spinning, the knitters were knitting, and all the vendors were open. Being the fiscally responsible people that we are, we immediately hit up the vendor booths. All the previous day I had been watching one booth in particular (iLOOMinated yarns) that had skein after skein of gorgeous hand-dyed fingering weight yarns (one of my biggest weaknesses)!! I had been trying to find the perfect tonal fingering weight to make my second version of Ysolda's Follow Your Arrow shawl. The first time I knit this pattern last January, I chose all the technically challenging options and now I need to make one using all the lacy options (hence wanting a fun tonal color). I found the perfect yarn at this booth: iLOOMinated yarns' Opal Base in the colorway: Lettuce Cup. It's a fingering weight 50 Merino/50 Silk blend in a non-repeatable colorway that came about from the dyer using up the last little dregs of color in the dye-pot. I can't even tell you how much I love this yarn!! It's super squishy soft and the color is a slightly tonal pale neon green, perfect for a lovely, lacy shawl!!

iLOOMinated yarns had one of my favorite booths at NCFF. This loveliness will soon be my second Follow Your Arrow by Ysolda.

After we exhausted ourselves (and our wallets), Sara convinced Katie and I that we really should all take one class together, so she signed us all up for arm knitting. Since we were late at signing up, we also weren't prepared with yarn for the class, so back to the vendor booths! We all found some really lovely colors of bulky yarns to use in class and after some shenanigans (which may have involved all three of us attempting to wind 4 hanks of yarn into a ball while, literally, running to class), we finally made it. The class was super fun and was taught by another of our knitting buddies, Lindsey. I'm so glad that we all got to attend together and be completely ridiculous in the process.

My leftovers from the Arm Knitting class. If you need to burn up some stash, this is the perfect project!

 Katie busily working on her arm-knit scarf after dinner. (Because, though we tried, we weren't able to wind all 4 hanks of her yarn before class started.)

From left: Katie, Sara, Lindsey and myself showing off our arm knit scarves.

I don't really remember how, but somehow we ended up back at the vendor booths (I have exactly zero willpower when it comes to hand-dyed yarn, apparently) and I may have ended up purchasing this amazingly soft and gorgeous skein from The Dyeing Arts. I've been really trying to expand the colors that I have in my stash because I always gravitate towards shades of green (see my iLOOMinated yarns purchase above) so I thought that this colorway would be perfect for that. Then I realized that it had the exact same colors that I picked out for my arm-knit scarf (also, see above). I'm obviously not good at getting out of color-ruts, lol. I'm still completely in love with this yarn, though and will be making some sort of scarf-thing so that I can snuggle it close to my face and enjoy it's drapey amazing-ness.

My attempt at going outside my usual color range with this gorgeous baby camel/silk blend from The Dyeing Arts.

The evening ended with the the delicious banquet dinner. If you've never gone to it, just sign up now. The food was great and there were tons of door prizes given away, like this amazing hand-dyed roving that I won from Shay Huhta! (Did I mention that my hand-dye addiction extends to roving... and basically anything?) This is definitely on the agenda for my #Spin15in15 goals!!

I love the color blend in this roving, it's very autumnal with a couple pops of salmon pink here and there. I can't wait to see it spun up!

We ended the night back home and watching Stardust while knitting/spinning till we passed out.

Next time: Day 3!!  ^_^