Qiviut is coming...

While the weather is doing this:



I've been skeining yarns for tomorrow's update. I've spent the past week dyeing up some of the limited-edition qiviut blend -- 1/3 alpaca, 1/3 merino and 1/3 qiviut. It's been an interesting experience, as the base yarn is dark: much more of a deep taupe, rather than the ivory yarns I've generally been using. As a result, the colors I've been getting are more muted and subtle.




I quite like them -- but don't look for the brights or pastels in this batch. The finished skeins will be listed tomorrow at my Etsy update, along with some more sock yarns, like these wool/nylon babies:






The update after that will include laceweight yarns, and after Christmas, when all that holiday cash is burning a hole in your pocket, we will see at least one new yarn at BBF . . .

One thing I've noticed since I started dyeing yarns is that I seem to have a limited amount of creative mojo. When I spend a lot of time hunched over the dyepots, I knit less, and when I knit a lot, I tend to have less to give to the dye pots. It's not just a matter of limited time, either; there definitely seems to be a finite amount of creativity that gets "used up" on one or the other. Since I've been focusing on the qiviut, my knitting this week has been rather utilitarian: I've been finishing up a baby blanket for Knittah, who is gathering up some items for an orphanage in Botswana, and am sewing together a baby sweater for a new arrival named after a Pac-Man ghost and a modern French playwright, and have been playing around with a quickie sweater for Her Nibs, who complains frequently of being cold.


And then, this Christmas-present-to-myself arrived:



Noro sock yarn.

I want all the colors.

Seriously.