What are you doing Friday Night?

Come Dye with us! May 1st, from 6pm - 8pm you can come in to the Holiday Yarns Fiber Arts Center in Shoppingtown Mall and dye your own yarn. 2 (two) 400 yard skeins of superwash treated FlockSock Sock Yarn just for you to do as you please. You'll paint your yarn, and then we'll steam it, rinse it, and you take it home that evening. 2 skeins all your own, in your own colors, never to be repeated (unless you take notes).

RSVP by 4pm Friday the 1st - space is limited. Cost for the 2 skeins of yarn and access to all of the dyes: $45.00.
Questions? Just ask!
Want to set up a time for you and your friends? Let me know and we'll arrange it.

Open For Business

Wait. First you have to take down the window covers.

Ok, NOW you can come in.

Check out the pottery!

Salt & Pepper Shakers in sheep and alpaca. Each curl on the sheep? Hand made and applied, one at a time.

A little yarn graffiti on the wall o' yarn...

and lots of dyed roving.

And there are handspun yarns, felted bags, purses and hats, Icelandic pelts, hand-carded batts, needles & notions (including The Knit Kit), hand-dyed worsted weight yarns and lace yarns, Tsock Kits by the Tsock Tsarina... and even a place you can pick your own fibers to be blended for you into custom spinning or felting batts.

So, Saturday the 25th we opened and it was a wonderful day. We met lots of invisible friends from Ravelry, and had tons of fun dyeing yarn. We had a couple from as far away as Ohio - Thank you Miss 'Cubed for making the trip, we were glad you made it - and I'm glad you brought Miss Swords with you. (her new hubby made no-bake cookies to take to the party. we love him.)

Special thanks go to Twiggi and Georg for helping out in getting things ready and running on Saturday.

I think all of those who dyed yarn can agree with me on the need for more 'containers' though - and so I've stopped by the dollar store for trusty measuring cups for the next go-round.

Thank you Enigma, Maker-of-Excellent-Beer for the Excellent Beer, Awesome Homeade Ice Cream AND toppings (cherries... chocolate... nomnomnom) and thank you for putting the dye-day idea in our heads.

I leave you with this important and thought-provoking question:

deadlines.

So, I'v spent the day at the store with family, working out where to put everything. Big stuff was easy to figure out, and I felt like progress was being made every few minutes. Looms go there, yarns hang on that wall, kits go over there... easy-peasy.
Then things slowed down a little. Put up pegs, decide in what order to hang the yarn... by color family? by patterns? 'Donkey-on-the-tail' throw it on the wall version? What about the kits? Medium vs large? all the mediums on one side, and the larges on the opposite side? Would the customer understand it? In a couple of days, the basics had been established.
Then the little things. Where does the shelf of soap go? What about the Lavender Tea? Buttons? Does all this stuff have price tags yet? argh. Woven Scarves. Those should go by the looms... no rack by the looms. hmm. Rearrange fixtures... oh look! New fixtures we bought from another store! Swap fixtures, rearrange more... argh again. Where's the drill? Flat head screwdriver? Those are both at home. With the stapler. double-argh.

Anyways, things are progressing, pictures in the next day or so. Tomorrow I'm not at the store, I'll be here with Twiggi getting some multi-tasking dyeing done, so I'll have some pictures of that as well. There are several new yarn colorways ready to go, and tons of roving.

And, if you haven't heard... we're having a party for Ravelers at the store on Saturday the 25th which maks the 23rd my 'deadline' date for being ready to go. If you Ravel, and you'll be in the area of ShoppingTown Mall on April 25th after 2pm, stop in for a visit and say hello!

There have been Rumors...

...and innuendo. I would like to take a moment and give some credence to those rumors. Some fire, with that smoke. Put on something a little more.... revealing.

How does this grab you?

That's the quick & dirty 'Coming Soon' window display in what will be a brand new Fiber Arts Center here in Syracuse, NY at Shoppingtown Mall.
Nora took my picture out in front. You know, she's always said that she wants to have a store next to mine because we're both dyers and that way we can visit each other...
But, it's a pretty big space. We've decided to share.