Introducing...Fine Feathers!

Our talented designer, Janine le Cras, has done it again. Earlier this spring she brought us Autumn Gold and Spring Leaves, and now I'm pleased to introduce Fine Feathers. Fine Feathers can be knit as a stole or as a scarf, using any of our fingering weight yarns.

Inspired by Janine's design, we created two new colorways. Raven's Wing shimmers and shines in a deep blend of a multitude of colors-- just like real Raven feathers. Dove is a soft and subtle tans and grays with just a hint of pink. Both colors are semi-solids, perfect for showing off lace patterns, and are neutral colors that will go with nearly anything.

Autumn Gold Errata

It has come to our attention that some customers are running out of yarn knitting the Autumn Gold Shawl using the yardage listed for the pattern. We understand that nothing is more frustrating than running out of yarn at the end of a project, and hopefully most of you who have bought the pattern haven't started knitting yet! The designer has made some changes to the pattern to minimize the risk of running out and they can be found here, but please still make certain to check gauge before casting on!

World Wide Knit in Public Contest

July 14th has been declared World Wide Knit in Public day. I personally knit in public all the time (at the pub waiting for my food to come, at the ball game, in movie theaters, while waiting in line at Borders...) but for some people it takes a special day to get out there and show people that knitters come in ever shape, size, gender and color and that knitting can be as sexy as a pair of lace panties, as practical as a pair of hiking socks or as uncanny as, um, this.

How do you plan to celebrate WWKIP Day? Are you gathering with yourl stitch n bitch to proudly knit as a group? Are you and a knitting friend planning on camping out at a public park, picnic basket in tow? Or maybe your a lone knitter, bravely taking on the odd looks of passing shoppers while you knit in front of the local shopping center? Whatever you do, take pictures. And when the day is over, send them to us at laura@theuniquesheep.com or add them to our Flickr Group. We will choose our favorite (or if we have too many favorites, draw a name out of a hat) and the lucky winner will receive a free skein of Unique Sheep yarn!

Remember, WWKIP day is June 14th. You will have one week to submit your photos and the winnre will be announced the following weekend.

Spring Cleaning

This evening I've been doing some reorganizing on the website. We have so many colors now that its kind of all a big mess. So I'm experimenting. Take a look at this and let me know if you like it more or less than the way we have it now. Does it take too long to load? What could I do to make it easier to find the colors you want?

Moving

I hope you are all having a great Memorial Day weekend. Anyone traveling? Having cookouts? That sure sounds fun. Instead of doing any of that, I am moving. And because my studio is in my home that means I have to move my entire studio, too! So this weekend I packed up as much as I could into my car and hit the road. Here is a picture of the car full of equipment. I forgot to take pictures of the car full of yarn-- it looked like it was going to explode with white fluff. Two car loads later I found myself staring at an apartment bathroom and bedroom and wondering how to turn it into a dyeing studio.

Let me backtrack for a minute. A year ago my fiance started medical school at the University of Chapel Hill, in Chapel Hill, NC. Previously we had both been living in Winston-Salem where we had gone to undergraduate school at Wake Forest and where I had started The Unique Sheep. I had a beautiful, large, messy studio in Winston that was perfect for all of my dyeing needs except that it was an hour and a half away from my fiance. I stayed in Winston for a year as I finished up some graduate school classes in business and entrepreneurship, but that year ended a few weeks ago. I missed seeing my boy more than a few times a month, plus soon we will be married, so the move is a good thing. But who likes moving? I mean the actual process. Yuck! And leaving my studio where everything was just the way I liked it was tough. But our apartment in Chapel Hill is a 2bed/2bath, meaning that we have an 'extra' bedroom and bathroom to set the studio up in.

Some of my stuff is still in Winston waiting to be moved, but its mainly just big storage boxes full of yarn. Here is what I have in the new studio so far:

In the bathroom I have my steam trays (where I do all the handpainting and initial heatsetting) set up on the counter, the dyes on an above-the-toilet shelf, the microwave on the toilet seat and all my soaking buckets in the bathtub. Ignore the shampoo bottles and bath towels-the bathtub will definitely not be used for bathing anymore! I haven't tried dyeing in here yet but I think it should work out ok. I covered everything in waterproof fabric so hopefully I wont stain the floor or counters. Now I just need to figure out where to put my speakers so I can listen to podcasts while I dye...

In the bedroom I have all the storage, packing supplies and equipment for winding. There is a lot of winding involved in hand dyeing yarn. The yarn arrives on big cones, so we have to preskein it into skeins in order to dye it. Then after its dyed it often looks kind of messy from being squished around, draped over a rope to dry and handled so much, so it has to be reskeined. All this winding takes longer than the actual dyeing, so I'll be spending a lot of time in this room. Once I get everything organized there should be plenty of room, right now its just a mess because I'm still trying to find places for everything. The best part about this room is its WALK IN CLOSET where I can store all of the undyed yarn. Just look at that. Is that a beautiful sight or what?

Now I just need to get the rest of my storage bins, desk and organizational "stuff", and my favorite rolly chair to sit in while I wind, and I'll be in business!!

Introducing...The Spring Leaves Stole

After we introduce the Autumn Gold Shawl we got a lot of requests from people who loved the stitch pattern but just weren't triangular shawl type of people. They preferred rectangular stoles. Well here at The Unique Sheep we work magic and all you have to do is ask and, ta-da, there is your pattern. The Spring Leaves stole uses the same stitch patterns at the Autumn Gold Shawl but in rectangular shape. Like Autumn Gold it can be knit in Tinsel Toes but we also experimented with Leili when we tested this pattern. It looks great! It is a bit more "snuggly" whereas Tinsel Toes gives a more elegant, fancy look. Both are great, it just depends on the look that you prefer or the occasions where you will be wearing it.

I hope you like it!

Dyeing with the Reynolds Highschool Knitting Club

Last week I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon Kool-Aid dyeing with a group of young knitters at Reynolds High School. Reynolds is an arts magnet school, so the school really values creative pursuits such as knitting. They recognize that knitting isn't only a way to express oneself creatively, but has loads of other benefits for high school students (or anyone) including an increased ability to focus, patience, skills and confidence to work through challenges, commitment to finishing a project, etc. As an end of the semester treat, the Knitting Club leader--a math teacher and close friend of mine, Allicat236 on Ravelry--reserved space in the Home Ec room and invited me over for the afternoon. We mixed up stinky jars of vinegar and Kool Aid, donned personalized aprons and got to work. I supplied skeins of undyed Back to Basics and the girls did the rest. The girls all seemed to have so much fun and created beautiful yarn, even with the limited pallet provided by Kool-Aid!

I can't wait to see what they knit out of their custom dyed yarn and I hope that I'm invited back again next spring!!