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Still vertiginous but much *much* better. Which is a good thing because DUDE that was getting OLD FAST. I could practically feel a switch flip tonight when I went from fuzzy to clear. I think it's from low blood pressure. I always have lower blood pressure due to being a really mellow person (hey! no skepticism from the peanut gallery!), but currently it's kind of ridiculous due to some careless dehydration. So I'm pounding the fluids and the salt in an effort to bring it up. And if the weather would cooperate, I'd also, you know, exercise. It's not a bad word! But I'd walk to the post office to mail off my yarn, at least. Unfortunately today the sky opened up right before I was going to go. *facepalm* There's a certain window of walking time. It has to be late enough that I don't have to worry if another order comes in, but early enough to not push too close to closing time for the post office. You know, just in case it was like today and it was *packed*. Seriously, I've never seen that many people in there at one time before ever.
Heh, "buy my yarn, I need the exercise." XD
In YARN news, however, which is far more interesting than 98/59, I've got my new yarn bases in and wound and I've got 80+ skeins of yarn. :D So work/play time this week. That would be 20 each of the Jackalope, Jackrabbit 4oz, and March Hare, and 20+ of the Jackrabbit 6oz. Still pondering the colorways I'll do. A number of repeats, definitely, as well as a bunch new. I've started to keep a dye notebook with my "recipes" in them, so I can reference things quickly.
I also got in an order of citric acid, since I ran out of vinegar last time and had to buy more and I really don't feel like having to buy vinegar that often. And I also got two new dye primaries. So I can broaden my dye horizons a little, colorwise. :D I need to test them out and see how they behave. :D
Sock sock sock sock sock....
I'm not chattering as much these days as I'm on Twitter and it satisfies all my content-less post needs in neat 140char tastes. :P Well, that and Ravelry. I spend waaaay too much time in the forums there.status:  amused |
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July 4
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Jul. 4th, 2009 @ 03:28 pm
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We're doing the barbecue thing today with family. The weather is holding, for once. After a month of near solid rain, the sun is nice. Me, I'm having a bout of vertigo, which is annoying. Started yesterday. Whenever I change direction quickly, or get up from lying down, everything spins. :P Luckily it doesn't bother me if I just sit here.
I baked a pie. Don't know how it is yet as it's for dessert tonight, but I'm noting down what I did in case it turns out well. I think it might be a little too sweet, but that's because the berries were quite sweet and not at all tart.
( blueberry pie )
Meanwhile, I have a gecko sitting on my stomach, and I should put the rabbits out for a bit of a run....status:  quixotic |
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So, on June 1, I opened my new Etsy shop. I did a lot of scrambling in May to make it happen, and a lot of scrambling in June to keep it up. Here's some of what I did. ( Read more... )status:  accomplished |
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I realized I never posted pics of the latest batch of yarn. Two have already sold and four are on hold for people in the shop. I'm not sure I like this holding things business, but while I'm small fry I think it's OK. If it gets to be annoying, I'll stop doing it, however. Especially if lots of people hold and then don't come back by the end of a week and actually buy the yarn. I've already had one person back out of a held yarn, but it was less than 24hours so I'm not holding it against her.
Tigers B, Dutch Iris, Fire Nation, Heirloom Tomatoes, Mad Scientist, Purple Prose, Red Desert and Red Desert B, Scoop Shop, Sea Wrack, and Shell.
( more chatter )
Also, today is gorgeous. Simply gorgeous, and a wonderful antidote for something like 3 weeks of nearly perpetual rain. And the tree cutters are coming tomorrow to take down the dead tree! Which is nice as it's rather close to the house and near the driveway, so if parts of it start coming down, it'll make a mess.status: amused |
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I've decided to destash some dyes that I never use anymore. This is to defray costs of buying more dye as I'm almost out of yellow, and I want to get some additional primaries to expand the colorways I can make, as I prefer to mix my colors at this point. So I have 4 tubs of Jacquard Acid Dye to destash.
They're perfectly good and three have had small amounts taken from them. One is unopened. Don't know how much an empty tub weighs, but I do have their total weights. They are all 8oz (227g) tubs. Based on the unopened tub's weight, I think the tubs themselves weigh about 2oz or 57g.
colors are:
Burgundy #610, dye lot #9759 - 280g (Dharma Trading Co's price $13.62) - asking $12
Navy Blue # 626, dye lot #9842 - 268g ($11.97) - asking $10
Emerald #629, dye lot #9732 - 237g ($14.31) - asking $11 (this color doesn't like exhausting, use extra heat and acid)
Spruce #630, dye lot #10527 - unopened and sealed with tape weight 288g ($19.16) - asking $18
+ actual postage, which I'll calculate from the USPS site. Either USPS first class or priority mail, which ever is cheapest.
Asking price or best offer, since I just placed an $90 order with Dharma.
I'll leave this up for a bit. If they don't go, I'll destash them through my etsy shop at some point.status:  awake |
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I've been futzing about for the last few days scrambling to get things done for my shop and I've hit an impasse. You see, I have 4 skeins of yarn in this one color, and I don't have a name for it. Something catchy, and vaguely suggestive of the actual colors would be nice. Something evocative and appealing. I'm completely stumped. Mind you, I named something "mac and cheese" today, so perhaps I should have admitted being stumped earlier.
It's pink, orange, yellow, and the lighter version has some white, too. It's BRIGHT, and I had to tone down the saturation a little in the twisty hank pictures as my camera goes nuts with these colors.
  
and a lighter version which is what I really wanted:
  
Anyone have any name ideas? I've developed a headache, and I've got a crick in my neck, so I'm going to go take a nap before I continue putting labels on all this yarn. Which is what led to the naming impasse. Well, that and I need a name in order to *list* the stuff. :Pstatus:  sleepy |
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Sooooo, tomorrow is the "grand opening" of my new Etsy shop. This is what I've been doing.
( Read more... )
I have a lot to do to get my shop up and going, mostly editing pictures and pulling together what I'm going to list first. I'm going to list about 20 pieces to open, and then add something new from this every day or every other day, to keep it in the Etsy "churn". I still have quite a bit of the Jackrabbit 6oz left undyed, as well as 4 skeins of the Mountain Hare, so I have something to play with if the mood strikes. I'm debating whether to do self striping or graduated colorways, but I'm not so sure about the interval with the larger put-ups since they've quite a bit more yardage than what one normally uses for socks. If I did say 5 colors evenly, there's a possibility that the last color wouldn't even show up on socks, etc. But it would be good for other kinds of clothes. It bears some pondering. Meanwhile, I also have a lot of random stuff I have to dye up and list in my other etsy shop.
Then I have to sit down and actually make and attach labels for all of this stuff. XD
And then I have to sit and hope that it all takes off fast. Free domestic shipping for the entire month of June in both shops! And I'm taking out the cost of domestic shipping from the international shipping, so it's got a decent discount. *attempts to make everything look very attractive and desirable*
OK, time for dinner, and then I decide what to list for tomorrow and get started with the picture editing. XDstatus: sleepy |
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In this case, distilled white vinegar, acid dyes, and yarn bases, nothing dangerous. :P
They look better before reskeining, I think. But the skeins are so very big that it's really impractical leaving them that way.
( pictures and blather )
Advertising kicks in for the shop on June 1, and I'm offering up a shipping discount for the month of June as an incentive to try and get my yarn *out* there into people's hands so they can talk about it and see how it looks and feels in person. So, the entire month of June, everything in both shops will have free US shipping, and international shipping will be less the amount of US shipping.
I really want to get my yarn out there fast, to create some interest. Mostly because the method I use is time consuming and labor intensive, but gives incredible depth to the color and that's really hard to see in the photographs vs in person. I've no doubt many people assume my yarn is hand painted and steamed in a single pass, with perhaps one over dye if I don't like the way it came out. Instead, I do as many as 8 passes of color, waiting for each to strike and exhaust before moving on, and I use resist methods, changed through each pass in order to create the extremely varied color intervals. I think the yarn speaks for itself, but popularity in this sort of thing is really hard to predict.
This entire thing has pretty much eaten me for the last few weeks. I expect that state of being to exist through June. :Pstatus:  hungry |
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( Read more... )
Also, I got my sample pack of yarn, and tomorrow will be a date between me and my dye pot. I'm hoping the skeins will be dry enough on Monday for me to know what I want to order since I need a fairly quick turn around in order to be able to dye up enough to have my new etsy shop well stocked for the June 1 "launch". Which is to say, the day the little bit of advertising I bought kicks in.status: awake |
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I can't believe I forgot to take detail shots of all the hanks yesterday when I was cropping pictures. *facepalm* This means I had to redo them all because they aren't reduced in size at all. *facepalm*
BUT, the new lower price point batch is up in my shop and all the previous batch has been reskeined and now all have white board shots with detail pics. And I've organized the shop to separate the yarn by weight. I wish things could belong in multiple sections, that would be handy....
Also, Dad's working on a standing double reel out of pvc pipe for me, based off of these plans as a starting point. We have lots of pvc pipe, so we just need to get some connectors and some screws and such. It should be fully adjustable, and cost under $10 for all the parts we need to finish the thing. The best thing? Not only will I be able to reel from hank to hank directly on the thing, but I can reel around *both* to make a giant hank suitable for self striping (if I should want). Since they'll be in vertical fixed relationship to each other, the hanks shouldn't slip which is the problem I had the last time I tried this using my two swifts. It's not such a problem when winding into big hanks, the problem is how to *rewind* them into smaller hanks that will fit onto a swift for winding into balls. With an adjustable double reel, I can put it back onto the reel, and then wind off onto one of my swifts.
Oh, and here's the yarn I didn't show pics of before because it wasn't dry yet. Knitpicks silk/merino. Not a superwash.
Sleeping Dragon, per a name suggestion. The purples are really subtle. Reskeining tends to help the more subtly variegated yarns demonstrate their variegation more, which is a good thing, I think.
Now for lunch! :Dstatus: hungry |
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This not having income thing is a real drag. I decided to look into getting yarn from a mill wholesale to try and sell enough product to pay one bill a month. Ideally the big bill, my car payment. This isn't a get rich quick scheme, or even a get rich slow scheme. It's me hoping I can get enough momentum to run out of money more slowly while I look for work that actually has a paycheck attached.
Of course, if I'm lucky, I'll become bigger than Wollmeise before I run out of my first order of yarn, and my second, etc.
... Yeah, I'm not holding my breath.
Still, wholesale will let me have competitive prices and that's a thing of beauty and a joy forever. :P
Sooooo, any color requests? Names to go with them? I have a bunch of ideas I want to try out, but if the whole ordering thing works out, I'll have a lot of yarn to play with. Especially if you consider I can only dye in batches of 2.status:  full |
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If I can sell enough to buy more, I'm pleased. If I could sell enough to pay bills, I'd be even more pleased. ;)
( April and May showers means it takes forever for things to dry )status:  cold |
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2 pounds of Kona superwash sock yarn. I really like this base yarn. Wound up into slightly larger hanks this time. These are all 4oz skeins, actually about 117g each. :)
( Read more... )status: sleepy |
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This is the recent dye job, in bright sunlight which isn't always the best, especially with such lustrous silk, but I still think it gives the clearest idea of the colors. So anyway....
A line up. It's Habu N14 100% tassar silk (tussah), 2ply laceweight. It's lovely stuff. A little stiff still after the dyeing, but not as stiff as when I was reeling it. It softens up beautifully on handling. Bit staticky working with the stuff once it dried.
( beauty shots )
I really like working with silk. No matter what I do to it, it's gorgeous! :D Also, no worries about felting, etc. But it takes a lot of dye to get intense DOS, and it often took leaving the fiber in the pot overnight to cool for the dye bath to exhaust completely. Since I like to dye repeatedly in the same bath with different colors, that complicates matters and everything takes longer. Still, I like all of them.
The ones going up will be listed in my etsy shop tomorrow.status:  pleased |
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Yarn
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Apr. 10th, 2009 @ 05:25 pm
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Listed 2 hanks of sock yarn today. I really like this batch. I call it Hot Springs. One hank is 100g (enough for a pair), and one is 50g. ... Because I kept back the other 100g hank for me. *looks shifty* The base yarn is Kona Superwash from Henry's Attic Yarns, and it's beautiful 100% merino.
If these two sell, I'm thinking of ordering another cone of it and dyeing up some more. I really like the Kona. It's a bit loftier than the Knitpicks merino/nylon, and it doesn't fuzz up as much. No nylon content, but one can't have everything.
I'm going to be dyeing up the silk next, I think.status:  working |
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Foooood. Spring has turned grey and chilly and I want comfort food. Wednesday is my day to cook dinner, so I've decided on mac and cheese. Real mac and cheese.
And coffee cake, damn it.
And maybe a tomato salad, since we have tomatoes that need using up. There's leftover fish for Dad, if he doesn't want the cheese extravaganza.
( Read more... )status: full |
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I had a food idea. Earl Grey cake with lemon glaze. I had this idea a while ago, and today I turned it into reality.
( Read more... )status:  thoughtful |
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fud
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Mar. 25th, 2009 @ 05:29 pm
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I am craving North African food. Craving in a BIG WAY. So, since tonight I'm cooking dinner, I've decided on a menu.
I'm making ful, and lamb stew, and couscous, and salad. I dug up some recipes that looked good and am recording my process below as usual.
( fud )status: hungry |
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so I don't lose them.
The base of a nappa cabbage is quartered, put in a bowl, salted and weighted and chilled until lots of liquid comes out. That liquid is brought to a boil with some sugar, until the sugar is dissolved and then reserved until no longer hot. The nappa cabbage is torn or cut into strips and layered in a jar with slivered carrots, ginger, and broken up dried chili peppers, and then the juices with sugar added is poured over everything and it's let marinate. Keeps a long time in the fridge. |
| » scallion pancakes (tsung yu bing) |
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Hmmmmmm... one of those things it's easier to buy than make, unless you live out in the hinterlands like we do.
( Read more... )
Feb. 10th, 2009 @ 09:05 pm
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| » I am home |
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I am le tired, having realized in the car coming home that I didn't eat lunch. *facepalm*
I think it went well. At least we got the word out, talked to some really nice people and some less than stellar people, but the really nice people outweighed the less than stellar so all told my faith in humanity is still intact. And two people turned around and didn't go in!
I think there were 9 of us at the height of it. And we had a late addition, who helped us stick it out until 4pm. Everyone was a gem and I'm very glad I went. It ended up being actually kind of fun. :)
Now, I'm going to curl up with a hot water bottle and drink a ridiculous quantity of water, because eating doughnuts for breakfast and dinner, both in the car, and managing to take the longest way home ever without a single wrong turn (oh GPS, how you taunt me), means I have a burgeoning headache. Oh, and the fact that the back door was left open (not by me) for something like the last 8 hour. *facepalm* So the house is a bit cold.
Feb. 7th, 2009 @ 06:39 pm
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| » random thought for the day |
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If Hollywood is colorblind, and audiences in general are colorblind, no one would object to someone not Caucasian playing Kal-el, right? Right?
I mean, if they could make John Constantine a dark haired American instead of an Englishman who looks like Sting to no outcry *sarcasm*, no one would mind if Superman wasn't Caucasian. After all, he's from Krypton. He's not Caucasian either.
And yes, I recognize the irony in bringing up Reeves in the role of Constantine, because the problem there wasn't the fact that he's mixed race but because he's a dark haired American. And having not seen the film, I can't speak to how true it otherwise was to the source (having heard rather tepid reviews of it, I had no interest at all.) But culture is as big an issue here as race, ethnicity being what it is, so I think it works well enough as an example of how it matters even in a so-claimed colorblind *cue hysterical laughter* industry.
Mostly, this comes in response to the people who say 1) the Avatar characters are made up from a fictional world so race shouldn't be an issue when casting for them. And 2) they're drawn looking white. And to the second one, I've got to ask, how do you draw a cartoon and make non-Caucasians who are pale look like they're not Caucasian, without, you know, being racist? And, for that matter, why default to assuming they're Caucasian if their skin tone is light? There are plenty of pale people in this world who aren't Caucasian. And yes, this doesn't even consider Katara and Sokka who are drawn with darker skin. Apparently that's just a tan off all the ice? :P
Yes, I know I'm late to the game on complaining about the Avatar casting stuff and everything. Just trying to organize my thoughts for Saturday. ;)
Feb. 5th, 2009 @ 03:33 pm
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| » so, cake |
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I took that pineapple upside down cake recipe and tweaked it because I'm too lazy to find my easy chocolate cake recipe. I have no idea how it will turn out.
... Am I the only one who does that?
Anyway, this is what I did. We shall see:
( recipe-ing )
Oh, also ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) majrgenrl8! Dunkin Donuts? The glazed raised doughnuts and cake doughnuts have "trace" quantities of milk in them, according to the website. As opposed to some of the doughnuts which actually have non-fat dry milk in them. Use this information as you will. ;)
Feb. 4th, 2009 @ 06:23 pm
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| » Things |
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1) Being cranky in public again. Philadelphia, Saturday Feb 7, another Avatar extras casting call. Which means another group of disgusted people making themselves known. A bigger group, this time.
2) meanwhile, the role of Zuko has been recast due to "scheduling conflicts" and is now to be played by Dev Patel, and in the same article Suki (a supporting role) has been cast as Jessica Jade Andres, who is apparently a POC. Which is an improvement but does not remove the massive WTFery of the casting in this film, which is why I'm still doing #1.
3) Signed up for FaceBook. Have no idea why, as I was definitely resisting it before. But I am weak! Weak, I tell you! OK, all it took was 4 independent references to it. :P FB is... eerily transparent. Meanwhile, I think every single knitter and crocheter I know should jump on the Ravelry bandwagon. Mostly because I shouldn't be sucked into it alone. :P
4) I should not put things in safe places, because it takes me 30min to find something I put in a safe place. :P But at least they are found.
5) we need hay.
6) And #5 is a sign that I have nothing to talk about. So, chores! Off to feed things and clean things. Don't burn down the Internets while I'm "gone".
Feb. 2nd, 2009 @ 03:53 pm
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bouncy