It's still Wednesday, I swear.

I know I said Wednesday, I know. Let's pretend it's Wednesday now (couldn't we all use the extra day anyays?) and announce happily that more kits than you can shake a dpn at are now available.


The Nine Tailors with it's amazing Change-Ringing meets Color-Work and Cabling:
(btw, did you know we had a change-ringing sock coming out? Just kidding.)

Turandot poses her Riddles:
(our first kit released to the public in our Bamboo-Ewe yarn.)



And The Iceman Cometh:
It's Ice Cream - 3 scoops on a waffle cone and it's got ZERO calories!)


Want more? Okee dokee, I've got more:


Finally, due to popular demand... The Vintage Leaf.


Have you knit a leaf yet?

(*Please note: Club members! Your discounts will be refunded when I process your order to ship to you.)

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And I would like to apologize to Caroline M of the comments. She not only did not get linked, but is feeling left out. She nicely sent me tea all the way from the other side of the world, and I somehow neglected to link to her, leaving her out of the link-love-fest. Please now go and visit her blog and say hello, would you? Oh and look! You can visit her flickr pictures as well!

(I like to think it was purely an accident, my forgetting her link. Subconciously though, I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm jealous that her blog has finished objects on it, and projects that actually show progress... I'm working on my issues.)

Get Ready, Get Set.... Oh wait - It's Over.

Got your cup of tea and comfy seat? I'll wait, go get your tea.
I wanted to post before we went to Rhinebeck, about getting ready for Rhinebeck.... but it took every ounce of energy to Get. Ready. For. Rhinebeck.

New colors, new kits, new displays, new pixie... well, there were lots of new things going on. So, here are a few pics of the pre-party after the fact.

That's 'Teenage Romance' and 'Rose Garden' drying in the sun.

This is how we packed up kits this time around. It saved a ton of space over using the Rubbermaid containers. See that reddish-brown color under the gold for Oktoberfest? Those are for Oktoberfest... in an Irish Red, followed under that by Chocolate Stout, both new colors for that kit this year (and both expected up on the website this week). We seem to favor the alcoholic socks around here... go figure.

Yes Waldmaus, Christmas-Yarn does exist. This is 'Candy-Cane' and yes, it sold out and yes I'm making more.

At Rhinebeck, we found that all of our imaginary friends really DO exist! Here's a few pics for proof:

This would be BrewerGnome folks. In full Kilt-mode. And what's that in his hands, you ask?

Well that would be his brand new spindle. TsockTsarina a-spinnerated him in about 4 seconds flat. She handed him her spindle with a length of spun yarn to wind on and asked him to hold it for just a minute (subtle she ain't). A minute later & he'd wound it on and was spinning away. Her work finished, I'm sure she moved on to her next victim.


Kathe & Mardi debate the benefits of french fries verses fried dough or some such critical question.

Juno explains once again that she is not taking interviews and cannot be bothered with paparazzi or pepperoni or whatever famous people talk about on their cell phone... Kelley does some shopping... or not.

Stephanie & Cassie enjoy the sunshine... do either of these women look sleep or caffeine-deprived? I think not. The very picture of calm and poise. (We shall not be showing the picture of ME with them. I am the very picture of dazed and under-caffeinated. And it's my blog so I get to post only good pictures of me.)

This person here? This gal who calmly surveys her domain, sizing up any & all? This would be Jesh. Jesh is most formidable in her mad super-awesome spindle-making skillz. (btw, if the blue gloves on the hands next to Jesh look familiar, they should. Glenna borrowed them from Lisa as it was a bit chilly over the weekend. Even with the cold, I think Glenna had an awesome time meeting everyone - I know we're glad she came.)

Anyways, See what I mean about the spindles? (Jesh, I borrowed this pic from your blog.)

We had them in the booth for sale - if you missed them, cry for they are worthy.

This handsome young man is modeling a sweater made from handspun wool from our own Buddy... a beautiful natural colored Border Leicester ram we had on the farm a couple of years ago. Buddy has passed away, but his sweater lives on. And apparently, hangs out with famous folks because 'small-bob' gave in to be part of the photo-shoot.

Let's see... zuzusunshine brought us cupcakes - we adore her. Another raveler (who's name escaped my short-term memory short-circuit) stopped by with even more cupcakes that had creamcheese frosting and I dunno what else but they were cupcakes and we adore her as well.

Someone from Canada brought chocolates - very good but I wish I could remember WHO so I could ACTUALLY thank her... oh the lack of short term memory skills when sleep deprived! Anyone remember who that was?

The delightful dmcubed stopped by the booth for what could be the best 4 minutes of the entire festival and made me SIT DOWN for a backrub with something called 'nukkles'. If you ever get the chance to be nukkled.... drop whatever your doing and give yourself over to the dark side - or at least, to whoever is doing the nukkling.

The lovely knitterotica brought me tea... all the way from Hong Kong. How cool is that? Dragon Pearl. Awesome.

BrewerGnome brought me Pickles & Jam - very good I might ad.. as well as a delicate Jasmine Tea I am enjoying as I type this monster of a post...

And when I got up Monday morning after falling asleep around 1am (wicked drive home)... I found this on the counter waiting for me and I wept tears of joy and gratitude. Caroline in the UK has rescued me (again). She wondered in the comments of my recent tea-less post about how I'd come to miss the general order of things... in that you generally ORDER more tea before it's all gone. I say to her now so there is no question that I am the queen of de nile. Queen, I tell you. I refused to actually LOOK in the bag because that would have been proof that I'd consumed more than my fair share in the recent weeks and couldn't face the reality of the dwindling supply. (I'm the sort of gal who puts off procrastination. Honestly. I'll tell you all about it later when we have more time.)

Anyhoo, at Rhinebeck I also found these (the socks, not the feet) tucked inside a 6pack of home-brew:
Knit for me by Georg who is the beloved Tserf. The colorway is one of Nora's, and I have already been asked to ask Nora to dye more of it. They fit perfectly, and I love them. Thank you, Georg (and thank you for loaning me your jacket Saturday. I would have been hypothermic if not for you.)

Also at Rhinebeck, I bought this and think it is absolutely surreal.
Let's see... what else went on at Rhinebeck.... Anyone care to guess what these are?

Or this. Anyone want to guess what this is?

Well, if you guessed Turandot, and then Nine Tailors (you guys knew we had a change-ringing sock coming out, right?) and lastly The Iceman Cometh for the first picture, you'd be correct. If you are hoping that the small leaf-colored packet is the Vintage Leaf as a stand-alone kit.... your prayers have been answered. I expect to have all 4 up on the website tomorrow available, yea, they are ALL even in stock waiting to ship out to you as we speak. How about we all meet back here tomorrow to go over the details on those little rays of sunshine, hmm? Great. Now I'm off to bed because tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

Acts of Kindness

I have about 7.2 minutes to make a blog post (about how long for the next round of dye pots to heat up), so let's cut to it, eh?

DING! We have a winner! A TsockFlock Club contest winner!
The question (asked via email): In the 1967 movie/musical of Camelot, what is Guinevere doing at the beginning of the song 'Take me to the Fair', and who was she doing it with (character name)?
The Answer, provided correctly first was Enjay: "She's winding a ball of yarn with sir Lionel." Wanna see? Here, let me show you:

See?

New Business:

Guess what this is:

Give up? It's the empty bag of this:


Ty-phoo tea sent to me from club member Caroline in the UK and it's downright awesome. I know, because we did taste tests. There were 160 teabags in this set, bundled in smaller groups... I thought surely it would take me longer to go through that much tea but I guess I underestimated myself (over-achiever that I am, apparently). It is, alas, completely empty and sniffing the tea dust does little to help. I must give in and order more as I am now drinking a runner-up in the taste tests and miss my OO greatly.

This does bring up a point of thanks I think I missed out on while a bit busy early on in the year. I wanted to thank several folks for sending me wonderful things during a sleepless period of dye pots earlier... I'd show you pictures of wonderful tea blossoms and German chocolate and Gummibärchen... but those wrappers are dust and the contents enjoyed and remembered happily. So, not only was I so busy I never quite got around to the public thank-you's but now that we've moved and had to pack up (and since lost track of) my squirreled-away notes... I've forgotten who sent which and don't want to get it all wrong. (except the Gummibärchen. That could only have been Waldmaus.)

I do have pictures of a non-edible that requires thanking and is worth talking about though! This came in the mail recently, and I was delighted.

This is a Scentsy Wickless Candle. The 'candle' is a ceramic pot and warming dish with a small lightbulb to melt the scented wax in the dish that sits on top. The pot is called 'Merino' and I wish I had a merino sheep this color! It came with 3 different scented wax bits for the candle, and the Nutmeg & Orange Zest is delightful. You can get yours from Jan here. Thank you very much for mine, Jan!

Now, I have not been sitting around sniffing wax & drinking tea as tempting an idea as that is. I've done a little dyeing, here & there as well. Who am I kidding, I've dyed A TON of yarn in the past couple of weeks, though once it's all neatly wound, labeled and hanging on a rack it doesn't look to me like much of a dent has been made in the 'to-dye' list. I guess we shall find out soon enough as it's 4 days to be done & ready for Rhinebeck... (Excuse me. I need to sit down for a moment, the room just spun.)
Random Yarn Sighting: Look! Bubble-Gum!

There's tons of other new colors, (below the Bubble-Gum is a hint of Chai...)but the dye pots have reached 'optimum dye the yarn temperature' so it looks like my 7.2 minutes are officially up and there's about 16 days' worth of yarn to finish today.