What I've been up to

I've had a productive weekend. Ian was taken on a fishing trip by a business associate (and came home with about 50lb of fish) so I had the house to myself and managed to get quite a lot done.

I caught up on all my silk dyeing, sorted out a huge bag of silks for the winding ladies, dyed the first of the box of yarn I have and even managed to do some stitching.

I have dyed some yarn before but forgot how different it is to dyeing silk. You have to be really careful not to felt it but you also need to turn it to make sure there are no white spots. Yes, I have a few white spots on the blue yarn so will need to re-dye those patches tomorrow.

There is a variety of yarn but my favourite is the merino and silk sock yarn with a silver thread running though it. I dyed some a variegated turquoise colour today and I love it. I plan on having a variety of different yarn for sale at Hershey CATS. If I remember correctly I have quite a few different hanks of different silk blend yarn. Well, of course everyone knows how much I love silk!

Oh yes, the stitching. I have been working on Love by Papillon Designs. I love the way this design flows and I am using 3 colours of silk. A new variegated silk #137 Riverina (combination of #119, #132,#136 and blue) that will be released in October, 139 Boulia (a deep purple) a Nashville 2008 release solid silk and #136 Sea Grass. I love the way these colours look together. Riverina was dyed especially for my friend Debbie from My Big Toe Designs and will be seen in a design that will be released in October.

Back to the dyeing. I recently dyed a Limited Edition silk to celebrate our 5th birthday in business. A special promotion began in The Gift of Stitching this month and you will find out more about the LE silk next month. Don't have a subscription? That can be easily fixed. Just follow this link or have your needlework shop contact me about subscription cards.

Last week I had a couple of visitors from College Station. I won't mention any names because I didn't ask if I could do that but I did see some wonderful stitching that used Dinky-Dyes silks. The following designs have either #85 Fantasy Blues or #96 Christmas Pines in them. They are Majesty, part of the 'Legends of the Dragons' collaboration by Teresa Wentzler, Jen Aikman-Smith and Karen Weaver, Dragon Dreams 'I Believe' and a lovely Celtic knotwork piece whose designer I don't know, sorry.





Oh, did I mention that I don't eat fish???