Today is the last day of our US shipping and sale.

As of tomorrow I will be switching the shop back home so we will probably be down for most of the day, but do not worry, we will be back with a bang very shortly!

In exactly 2 months today I will be on the beach in my dress marrying my best friend.
Time to start the shawl..no?

We have come to our last 8 Days of the sale and US shipping.
Starting back in April we will be shipping from Canada again and going back to our regular operation.
Thank you all for being so supportive while I was away and I am looking forward to getting back to updating the shop with lots of goodies like Yarntini, Lovesticks, Sweet Sheep, Malabrigo sock, YoYo Superwash and Dyed in the Wool Handmade in April. There are lots of goodies waiting here to be updated along with some goodies coming soon from Funky Carolina and Pigeonroof Studios!

Grab some super sale items in the next 8 days and then check back with us in April!
xoxo
Michelle

Now for the knitting portion of the trip!

The second that we left the driveway I had my needles out and did not put them down until we got back home. For a month and a half I think I knit quite a bit.

I have a sweater which is not pictured…it is the Everybody Knows cardigan from knitty that I am just finishing up the collar on. I knit all of the sweater pieces on the trip and will have modeled photos for you soon.

Here we go! First up

Morning surf scarf rav link

Knit with 2 skeins of YoYo in Cashsport

I really enjoyed working with this yarn. The colour is so beautiful and a bit of cashmere?!? How can you go wrong! The scarf is unblocked…I will most likely leave it that way..I love how the YO’s are puffy and squooshy!

Project #2

Hypotenuse by Anne Hanson of Knitspot

My handspun yarn

Carrie and I are doing a shawl exchange so I dyed and spun up a pound of merino bamboo and knit her this stole, as you can see she loved it, as did I, and if she wasn’t knitting one for me I would surely knit this pattern again. For the sake of easy RV knitting I omitted the purl stitches on the right side and had this baby done in a week!

Project #3

One Day Beret by Kristin Kapur

My handspun yarn, roving by Squoosh

This really was an almost one day beret. The pattern was so easy to understand and I loved that it gave you the freedom to  modify the pattern. I was short on yarn so it is a bit less slouchy, but I thought it suited her. Plus spinning from the squoosh roving was a dream!

Project #4

Pattern Coming soon!

I was inspired to spin and design a scarf while in texas. The pattern is on it’s way shortly. It uses 290yds of sport weight yarn. I am also making a second variation with great big sea, which is why it is taking a little bit of time to get this out.

Project #5

Strangling vines scarf by Nicole Hindes

Knit with one skein of Malabrigo sock with lots left over

I love love love this yarn! This scarf was knit for a friend’s birthday. We were hoping to see her along the route but our schedules failed to match up so I will be mailing it. I made the scarf thinner than the pattern suggested…I simply took out a repeat and i am happy with the width.

Project #6

Picture coming: apparently the gloves have run off with the spoon…poor fork.

Toasty

My handspun from a batt that carrie and I worked up together

This was a fun and fast knit which kept my fingers warm as we hit a bit of colder weather. At this point I don’t love spinning from batts but I do LOVE knitting with sparklie yarn…so I am  planning on working on loving batts…because the magpie in me needs some sparklies in my handspun yarns!

Project #7

As mentioned above, this sweater will get it’s own post…because it took that long to knit!

Everybody knows from knitty in Malabrigo worsted.

Oh, and I also started a stole design with my handspun fiber in the “simon” colourway..but no sneak peeks yet!

Now onto wedding knitting…of which I can’t show much because my family has “found” the blog and flickr…but there is wedding knitting and lots of spinning which I have been updating my etsy shop with while my stock is in the USA.

Now back to our regular blogging.

the dyer will play!

**picture heavy post**

C and I had a wonderful time touring around the USA. We learned a lot!

Our first week was spent trying to avoid snow storms across the northern states and then making our way through Oregon and California.

As tree lovers we really enjoyed the redwood forests, the are just simply amazing.

We spent a few days just walking through these amazing forests, but then decided that we were too cold and headed to our next destination…LAS VEGAS!

Vegas is always fun..no matter where you stay or how long..it’s just fun. We spent our first day and night just walking the strip and checking out the casino’s, I had been once before when I was 17, but it was a whole different world to be of age….but I couldn’t really prove it ( this is a whole different story, but in short; my wallet was stolen on the 5th day of our trip. So along with over $100…my license and id was gone…luckily I still had my passport). Anyways, the casino’s were stunning as usual.

This “moving” fountain puts on a show…it was hilarious and so entertaining!

On our second day there we were offered gambling credits for going to a timeshare presentation…Chris couldn’t refuse and I am so glad we went. In an act of total karma we won back the same amount that was taken in my wallet! Who leaves vegas breaking even?? However, it was still cold…so we moved on…

To Texas to visit my very good friend Funky Carolina. We spent almost 2 weeks with the Funky family and it was so nice an relaxing. They cooked all sorts of southern dishes for us to try and I must admit that minus the meat I LOVE southern cooking…and sweet tea…this should be a world wide thing…I had to bring some home!

Carrie and I spent every waking moment with fiber…this is typical of our visits…I think I spun 9-10 yarns while I was there. We had also done a shawl exchange and I had a few hand knit gifts for christmas that I gave her and she so graciously tried them on all at the same time!

After a fun few weeks we moved on south..it was still chilly. Our next stop was New Orleans…we only spent one day there, but we had so much fun. During the day we checked out the french quarter and I really enjoyed my camera time here

This park was beautiful and as always Chris was interested in the trees.

We spent some good time in the bars on burbon street and then chris took me out for a wonderful dinner.

We were just above street level, the food, atmosphere and company were wonderful, but we were still cold..note the sweaters…so we moved on to Florida…it has to be warm in florida right?? Right!

Florida was beautifully warm and we loved it. We spend the first week going down the west coast to tampa where we visited the state fair. Now, we had free tickets because this wonderful man saw a blood donor bus in the WM parking lot and wanted to donate, just in the middle of the day…we stopped to give blood. It was my first time, I have a thing about blood, but I made it through. We were so surprised and excited to receive tickets for donating, we don’t have that at home. After we spent the day at the florida state fair we headed east to visit some more friends…The YoYo family…notice how most of my friends are dyers…I’m a smart friend maker!

Along the way we stopped off at an orange grove…we desperately wanted to stop at an orange grove and I think we may have possibly found the most beautiful grove..and as a bonus it was organic and had overnight rv sites!

Of course we picked oranges the next day and I have to say that Canada is getting a raw deal with their citrus…I have never had fruit that tasted like these

Please excuse the terrible picture..it was hot and I was WAY overdressed!

We spent two relaxing and fun days visiting the YoYo family…we had plans for dinner and ended up taking over their house for a few days..which they were so gracious about. Thank you Alyson, I will make it up to you in smarties!

And somehow this is the only picture I took while we were visiting them

Upon Alyson’s suggestion we headed to St.Augustine to spend some time on the beach. What an amazingly beautiful beach…the sand was incredible and the weather was great. It was incredibly windy and a bit chilly but we went wave jumping anyways while the locals strolled the beach in their parkas! After our swim we spent hours watching the kite surfers

We took every last second we could in the warmth of florida and then started north. Along the route to forida we ran into 4 beautiful Weimaraners that we fell in love with. We started doing our research and made contact with some wonderful people in Michigan who allowed us to adopt our new baby Ryker.

Because of him, coming home from the trip was just as wonderful as leaving for 2 months!

I did quite a bit of knitting while I was gone too and even worked up a new little scarf design in some handspun, I will have a FO parade for you soon!

Now that I am home I have decided to have a HUGE sale in the shop. I don’t want to ship it all back right? I think it is way more fun to just order new colourways and new yarns!

So take a second to check it out…several yarns are deeply discounted.

I have lots of FO’s to show you and trip pictures…but for now..a little picture of something we picked up on our way home