Miss Babs Blog

Babs

Back home last night with Jen. We left Portland at 6 a.m. yesterday morning and drove up my driveway about 8:30 after having to circle Charlotte for an hour or thereabouts due to runway construction. Greeted by the furry friends and husband, and collapsed into bed soon thereafter! Slept almost 9 hours (which is incredible for me!) and am still pooped!! Glad to be back in my regular time zone - amazing how difficult it is to accustom yourself to other time zones. Sock Summit was great! Meeting so many... Read More

Frog Princess!! is Our New Colorway's Name!

Babs

Frog Princess was the leader in the poll from the start and maintained its position throughout the voting! Wildflower Meadow came in second and Hollyhocks came in third. I will be notifying winners today and will post the names of winners along with pictures of the prizes in the next day! I want to thank each of you who came to vote! Thanks for helping us Name the Colorway! Read More

Colorway Naming Contest - Time to Vote!!

Babs

The Colorway Naming Contest has been incredible!! Over 1000 great name suggestions from over 800 people! Amazing! Just to review: The winner gets a choice of 2 skeins of sock yarn while the second and third place names each get 1 skein. Each winner will also get goodies! Also please remember, a number of the entry names were submitted by more than one person, so....if the winning names are one of those names, we will use randomly generated numbers to select which person will win the prize. (Hope that is... Read More

Spinning Green Kettle-Dyed Fiber!!

Babs

Well, I am not sure if you realize it or not, but I LOVE the color green! I dyed this fiber about a month ago, right before Stitches South. I thought I would spin some for socks. This may take me awhile, but I thought you might like to see how it spins and knits up. Here is a picture of the top before I started doing anything to it. BFL stands for Blue Face Leicester, which is a breed of sheep. [caption id="attachment_53" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="BFL Top in Three... Read More

Sun Made a Showing!

Babs

Yesterday started out the same as so many days lately - rainy! I know I should not complain about the rain, and how it is restoring water levels to the good finally. However, the Great Golden Orb did show up in the afternoon. I was able to take a walk around the property and assess what needs to be done (some will get done and some won't!!) Here's some of the gardens that obviously need some cleaning out. That's the studio in the background. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Studio Gardens"][/caption] [caption... Read More

New Shawl on the Needles

Babs

I have been holding onto this fiber for a while...some of it sold, but it was a slow seller. Its name was Jester. It sort of reminded me of a Jester in the old courts. Red and gold, with a bit of purple and some green. All colors that could have been achieved using natural dyes. Well I finally spun the piece of it that was left (and I do have a bit more) and this is what I got. This will be another spin and knit along shawl that... Read More

Next Year's Shows and Plans

Babs

The shows this year were good for me and I am planning to do a busy show schedule for next year. I will be doing 3 of the Stitches events - West, South, and Midwest. I hope to do Maryland Sheep and Wool...keep your fingers crossed for me!! Then the Sock Summit in Portland, OR and SAFF. I am also applying to New York Sheep and Wool - so we'll see!! I hope to add some patterns for socks this year, along with having samples of more sweaters and other... Read More

Getting Ready for Winter, Stitches East, and Ramblings

Babs

11-14-08 Today is a warm day, so it is hard to think of snow coming sometime soon, or that Thanksgiving is 2 weeks away, or that Stitches West is 3 months away and I have a lot of work to do between now and then!! But I am looking forward to some downtime in front of the wood stove with my spinning wheel and my knitting needles. On the needles right now is a sock in the Lilacs monochrome using my Waterfall sock pattern. Hopefully, I will get 2 socks... Read More

Cleopatra Colorway

Babs

This post was on my front page and I need to change that for some new information, so I thought I would transfer it here to my blog. Knit Scene has recently honored me with a yarn review in their Fall 2008 issue. The colorway reviewed is Cleopatra. This issue is loaded with great patterns. Check it out! Above is a picture of a shawl that I have started knitting with the 2-ply. And here is a sock in the same colorway! You can view the Cleopatra colorway in either... Read More

New Idea for a Yarn Club - A Dyer's Co-op

Babs

I am joining with 5 other indie dyers to create the Color Co-Op, a yarn club that starts in November! Here's what the bit on Ravelry says: A multi-dyer club called The Color Co-op. Six dyers: The Unique Sheep, Sanguine Gryphon, Macek Designs, Mama Llama, Miss Babs, and Tactile Fiber Arts dye yarn inspired by the same piece of visual art. Each month club members will receive a yarn from one of the dyers. After 6 months, you will have received a yarn from each dyer and the cycle starts... Read More

Packed and Almost Ready to Go!!! Chicago or Bust!!

Babs

We finished packing the yarn, the fiber, all of the booth "stuff". Now we gotta pack ourselves. We're taking two days to travel north and west...it's only 700 miles, but when you are pulling a trailer it is more work and you go slower than you do (at least I do) than when I am traveling without an attachment on the back!! Hopefully taking our time this will give us a little time to rest up before we get to the show. Who's coming?? Well Jen who works with me,... Read More

Show Preparations...Getting Ready to Go....

Babs

We have been busy dyeing and reskeining and labeling and just generally in the last throes of heading to a show. Here's some of the yarn we will be bringing to the show. and more yarn: and some fiber: I have been trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that we are taking "everything" to the show, and whether to "zero" all quantities available to buy on the website as they may be gone by the end of the show. I don't have a separate inventory for... Read More