I need a new slogan

For years, the slogan for Jolly Jumbuck has been "For the love of wool". Well it's time to update it as I've also fallen in love with dyeing and using cottons and cotton-blends.

So, I could go with:

"For the love of yarn"
or
"Hand-dyed happiness"
or
"Jolly good yarn"
or
"Bloody good yarn", as in "Jolly Jumbuck - Bloody good yarn!"

Some of these are suggestions from my friends at Jolly Jumbuck Mates on Ravelry. I'm running a little competition to come up with a groovy new slogan for the shop, the person who comes up with the slogan I decide on will win 300g of ARIADNE (100purewool 3ply superwash) custom-dyed just for them. If I choose a slogan that I came up with myself, I will put the names of everyone who suggested a slogan in a hat and draw out a name.

So, please leave a comment on what you think my new slogan should be!

Also, I've noticed that the "Yarnies, know thy yarn!" post has netted some disagree's. Which is fantastic, the world is full of people with differing opinions and a healthy debate is always welcome. But I would really love to know what exactly people are disagreeing with, that is why I've enabled anonymous comments (thank goodness for spam filters though!). Could you leave me a note as to what you are disagreeing with? Is it because I've broken the unspoken taboo of criticising my peers? Or do you think it's not important for a dyer to familiarise themselves with their products? Do you think it's OK to chase the popular yarns based on other peoples' reviews or what other dyers are using? After all, in the current environment yarn bases are pretty transparent (at least I try to inform my customers which yarns I'm using), and with a yarn that is universally available do you think it is OK for the dyer to rely on reviews and word of mouth? Or do you object to my somewhat superior, snobby tone? None of these are going to change my views, and I will continue to use and live with the yarns that I dye, and share my experiences because I owe it to myself as a dyer and a knitter too. But it sure would be nice to know what people are disagreeing with. I look forward to some comments.

Now I shall take my insomniac self off to bed and dream of what I'm going to knit next with from my current batch of yarns.

PS -- Just dyed: "Thanksgiving" from the Circle of Stash yarn club, and a bunch of variegateds with trim on Henry's Attic cottons. 200g variegated, 100g trim. Hopefully some will make it through the Irene-Tax/Market Research checkpoint and onto the shop!

Time for a facelift

All these months away from my blog (previous to the last two posts), I have been thinking about what direction I'm going to go with it. No one reads it any more, this is because I'm so sporadic at posting and it's all drivel anyway LOL

But I decided that it needed a facelift, so I've been mucking around with templates. The old one was really old, at a time when Blogger gave you ten templates to choose from. Well I've found one that's to my liking, but had to do a bit of tinkering to get it to work. That's why it's been set to Private view; the dates and graphics just weren't lining up. I hope you like what I ended up with. I'll be tinkering in the next few weeks to make it just like a "Jolly Jumbuck Journal".

Yarnies, know thy yarn!

Feel it, touch it, fondle it all you want. Even take it to bed with you if you must. But most of all, use it. Knit (or crochet) with it, feel the texture, amount of give, best gauge, etc. Then, wear it. Wash it. Again and again. Live with it. Only then will you get to know the yarn. Not by reading reviews on Ravelry and other places, not by scoping out "the next popular yarn", not going by brand names and what other dyers are using.

Unlike painting, where the composition of the canvas is of minor importance to the art of the piece (although I do like a good oil on canvas, the textures created by brush and knife), dyeing yarn is not just adding colour to strands of white. The yarn itself, the base, is an *integral* part of the final product. To sell it, you need to know it. How many people would eat meat dishes made by a vegetarian chef who hasn't tasted it? Or modern cloth nappies from a WAHM who uses disposables full-time on her own children? Or, heaven forbid, a designer who hasn't actually knit her own pattern? And yet, nobody hesitates to buy yarn from someone who doesn't knit or crochet, or somebody who has had the yarn base for more than a year and yet hasn't knit with it.

I just don't get it. First, how can these dyers be surrounded by such tactile goods as lush yarn, and not want to attack it with needles or hooks? To get to know it, to learn about it, to familiarise herself with it's pro's and con's. Where are they getting feedback on yarn performance over time from -- their customers, members on Ravelry? Even though I myself find this feedback invaluable, it doesn't stop me from wanting to experience it myself. And I am not saying that I knit every colourway that I dye, that would be ludicrous. But I do knit an item of each type of dyeing process, and I knit garments with every one of my many many bases over the years.

That's where I form my opinions on the pro's and con's of each yarn base. They all do have con's, you know. To not have personally used the yarn itself is cheating yourself and your customers of an objective view on the yarn's not-so-good points. This is where I develop my favourites which I will continue to stock and dye, knowing that the yarn itself will perform well over time. There are "popular" yarns out there that I have tried, but decided against for whatever reason. And the yarns I like won't be the yarns everyone else likes, so I do stock yarns that I personally wouldn't seek out to use. Then, once in a while, I hit upon a yarn that even though I have kg's and kg's of and unlimited future access to, in the secret squirrel stasher part of my heart I want to keep all to myself! (But I don't, because that would be selfish!)

I might not have a garment knit and being worn in certain base yarns before selling them, but the avid knitter in me is faster than my hands -- I literally cannot wait to try a new base as a garment. So I will get there, soon. Or I don't feel qualified to judge a yarn's inner qualities as a functional and colourful product.

Now I know this has been a very controversial post, but those who know me will know that over the years I've never been hesitant to speak out about things I am passionate about. And dyeing is my passion, as well as my profession. So I will voice my opinion out loud, here on my blog (who nobody much reads anyway). Anonymous comments are possible.

Chucking a sickie...

Sometimes, despite your best intentions, life just hands you a "free day off" pass and forces you to take it. Today was one of those days. Having planned a day of listing yarn for the next store stocking tomorrow night (as we'll be out all day tomorrow), this morning I got a phone call from kindy to say that Matilda had had very runny poos and please to come and get her.

So, I resigned myself to staying up tonight instead, sat back and enjoyed the day. M was in very good spirits, happy and smiley. It had to happen on a day we were using woollies though... poo explosions are much easier to clean off normal clothes and were very unpleasant on her Flirty Skirty. The washing machine is my friend. So I popped her in a disposable nappy instead in case it happened again.

We then locked ourselves away in her bedroom, all doors closed, as it's the room furthest away from the workshop where dad was hard at work fixing his parent's car. We *hate* loud noises! Turned on the clock radio (which *I* grew up with) to 6IX (80's classics?), sang and boogied a little bit. She did her felt pictures, we're chattering away to each other. I got to work on my Sea Princess jacket -- mmmm great yarn great pattern, thoroughly satisfying cables.

After a bit of this we went and laid down on the couch and cuddled to watch TV. I might have even fallen asleep a little!

And all this also on what was supposed to be "Cleaning Day" for me... I took a sickie off from that too!

By the way, no more poos were forthcoming although she's asking if she can stay home from Star School (early intervention) tomorrow :) I'll think about it!

ETA: Oh I forgot! Guess what she painted this morning before I picked her up... I wish I could show it here as it's hilarious (but still drying at kindy). It was a painting of "me on the potty" and "mummy on the toilet", both of us with huge grins on our faces and rainbow-type bands above our heads... not quite true to life in my case but quite topical.

Hi Nancy :)

Peekaboo I see you! :) :) :)

Hey sis Roy told me that you read my blog and my heart almost stopped! I realise that I may have posted some stuff in the past whingeing about you and your bro but please don't judge me too harshly, this is a place I go to unload. And then there are months in between when I keep it all bottled in, so this blog isn't an indication of my total wellbeing, you know?

Anyway, I hear you're into handbag designs now. Don't forget the cables!!! LOL I actually still have a Intro to Cables book I bought you a long time ago.

And thanks for your invitations to join Facebook. I'm just not going there!!! No FB for me!

xoxo
Your SIL

Inspiration -- West Coast Sunset GG

A shot taken while returning from fishing at Carnac Island last weekend:


The vision: a Gradual Gradient type "set" comprising of starry deep blue skies at the top, ranging towards lighter blue and finally to the magnificent golds and oranges of a west coast sunset. Add a bottom border of black, embroider your choice of silhouette ... it's easier to execute and show than it is to explain! My pattern of choice? Versa! Love the neckline, fits my girl exactly.

Something juicy that's been simmering in my brain for a while now, a great re-introduction to dyeing...

The store will re-open very soon!

Oh, Sox...

*sigh* two posts in one week, it's always feast or famine with my blog posting.

Not a good one this time around either. Sox had another "vestibular episode" last night, and it's quite distressing to see her this way. The head tilt, repeated eye movements, and not being able to walk properly. I see that she's got off the bed and taking refuge in M's room at the back of the house. I've just made her up a bed on the floor next to the heater. She ought to improve enough to get to the litter box and food/water in a day or two but the first few days have been described as like having sea-sickness as her three-dimensional sense of feeling is all out of tilt. This has happened twice before so this time around wasn't quite the shock of her first one in which it was described to us as a "stroke". Sadly there is nothing beyond making her comfortable that we can do, the symptoms do get better gradually.

My girl, my best friend, is about 17 at best guess. She was adopted from an ex-partner so I don't know her exact birth date but it's around 1993. A Californian girl, driven north to Oregon where she lived in town and then the badlands of central Oregon, out-living three other, younger cats from the predatory coyotes around. Shipped half way across the world, 90 days in quarantine here in Byford, and three house moves and she's still going strong. Spends most of her days in bed, most of her nights in my arms.

She pee'd in the bed last night, so a big load of laundry. Pee's and poo's like a greyhound (or so the saying goes), the crystal stuff that is supposed to last one cat, one month, barely makes it through the week. I'm just dreading the conversation tonight, if Roy brings up the "green dream" I am going to have to choke him. I've held pets in my arms for euthanasia, both as a vet nurse and a pet owner. Each time the decision and time was right to say goodbye and let go, but now is not the time for Sox. She is destined to live out her days in lazy comfort, heck it's inconvenient and smelly, but she is in no pain. Gryph and Matilda have both learnt to respect her boundaries, and gosh darn it she just makes me happy. So no, I won't be considering euthanasia for her. There is no pain, just occasional vestibular episodes like this one, her last bloods were completely normal, and she's very well-loved. I'm pretty sure I'm not in denial about this, but if anyone has any comments to make please do so I will consider all points of views.