MY ETSY SHOP IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS !!

I finally decided to see what all the hubbub was about ETSY so I signed up and posted some of my rovings. Whoa! ETSY is very cool. There are so many great handcrafted items on the site and now, my handpainted rovings are for sale in my ETSY shop. Soon, I'll post some of my handpainted yarns and handspuns, too. It's so darn easy and the site keeps track of sales and let's you know when you have an order and you get an automatic payment through Paypal. It's fantastic. I had two nice sales within the first day, one from Jan of Ontario, Canada and one from Laura of Albuquerque. Thanks Jan and Laura for being my first customers. Here's the web address: http://capistranofiberarts.etsy.com/ WhooHoo!

My inventory of rovings had been suffering after a big shipment went out to Linda LaBelle at The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn in January, so I have been dyeing up a storm this past week. This is some Blueface Leicester roving that just came out of the dyepot this evening. Oh, so pretty and colorful. These two colorways would be incredible plied on each other.

Here's the rest of what I did today hanging on the drying rack, all BFL.

OFF TO STITCHES WEST THIS WEEK

Pam and I, along with Karen, will be flying up to San Jose this Thursday to go to Stitches West, an annual knitting conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center. There are so many vendors, your head starts to swim after a while. Overstimulation.

I am so happy to have some of my yarns in a couple of the booths at Stitches. Morgaine Wilder of Carolina Homespun will have my handpainted fingering weight merino sock yarn in her booth, along with Nature's Palette and Claudia Handpaints. So, sock knitters, you must make a trip to the Carolina Homespun booth.

And, I'll also have some handpainted yarns in HABU's booth. The yarns I have dyed for HABU include a tassar silk boucle and a laceweight silk/kid mohair. I will also have a lace scarf pattern that uses those two yarns stranded together. As always, the HABU booth is a must since Takako always has some of the most unusual yarns as well as beautiful kits. Here are a couple of the colors that will be available and a knitted swatch.

I am hoping to run into lots of friends at Stitches. Pam and I had a great time last year and I'm sure it will be the same this year. Another must will be Melissa Sheppard's Argosy Luxury Yarns. I hear her cashmere calling to me. Toots LeBlanc is another stop.

SPINNING AT COMMON THREADS, ENCINITAS

I motored down to Encinitas last Friday with Pam and Karen for a little spin-in at Commons Threads. They were launching spinning in their shop. There were lots of spinners, including our friend, Nancy, who we hadn't seen for a spell. So good to see her. There were many people who came just to see what spinning was all about and many were very interested in learning. We set a spinning meet-up for the third Friday of the next three months, March 21st, April 18th, and May 16th, so anyone who wants to join us or who wants to learn more about spinning, we'll be there from about 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. I'll also teach a drop spindle class on March 26th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Common Threads.