Freedom is the topic today on this 4th of July. This quote means to me that every person is part of change and freedom. To attain anything in life means to go after your goals, be active and never give up. Happy 4th of July.
Please post your quote in the comments of this post. Thank you!
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Our “Lucky Draw!” winners for the 1st of July are: J. Thulin and K. Crone.
Congratulations to both of you! A lovely prize is headed your way with your order.
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Welcome to our 4th of July, Freedom Blog Contest:
In honor of Independence Day, here in the US, we’d like to have a little contest. This contest will run on July 4, for 24 hours, starting at midnight. We’d like you to post in the comments your favorite quote about freedom, who it’s from and what it means to you. Every 4 hours (it is the 4th of July after all!) we’ll pick a winner out of the comments to win an extra special yarn prize. Donna will be posting her favorite quote at midnight, after that, we’ll be looking forward to reading your favorite quotes.
After your done posting your comment, stop by the shop and take advantage of our “Freedom to have the Stash You Want”, 4th of July Sale. Everything and anything that has Red, White and Blue will be 30% off. That’s patterns, needles, accessories and every other yarn with red, white or blue, all at 30% off!
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Our new Artist of the Month for July is Mercedes from Kitchen Sink Dyeworks. Let’s see what she’s “cooked” up for us this month!
1. What is your name, company name and which city and state are you from?
Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark, Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, located in Birmingham, Alabama but originally from Connecticut, by way of Savannah, Georgia.
2. How long have you been dying yarn?
On and off for 12 years.
3. How did you get started?
My major in college was fibers and textiles, that’s where I gained my knowledge of dyeing fabrics, fibers and yarns. Once I graduated I picked up knitting and spinning for fun and dyed to create colorful fibers for myself and friends. After working in other parts of the knitting/needlework industry for the last five years, I decided to return to dyeing and designing full time.
4. What motivates you?
I love hands on work, and there’s nothing as satisfying as pulling skeins out of the steamer and seeing all of that glorious color. I know I’ve hit the mark with a new color when I don’t want to let it leave my hands!
5. What is the favorite product you’ve ever made?
I don’t think I have one particular favorite, but I’m really enamored with semi-solids right now, seeing all the subtleties and layers of color. But if you ask me tomorrow I could be just as fired up about a hot new multi palette! (Short attention span)
6. Do you have any advice for other fiber artists?
Keep your eyes open! There are so many unexpected sources of inspiration and creative ideas. A cool sweater on the woman in the supermarket line in front of you, a beautiful flower arrangement, a bright palette on a billboard; you never know where you might find a great idea. Keep your camera and sketchbook handy.
7. Are there any designers, fiber artists or any other artist you consider your role model?
I’ve always loved Kaffe Fassett’s use of complex color palettes, the quilt artist Susan Shie is always inspiring, and I’m always scouring flickr for fun color photos (not yarn related) to provide inspiration.
8. Please share with us a zany or interesting thing about you. It does not have to be fiber related.
I’m sort of a big heap of zany and odd. Some highlights: ~~bellydance for fun~~love single malt scotch and craft beer~~obsessed with old film cameras, I carry an old ‘68 Yashica Electro with me almost everywhere~~raise orchids and carnivorous plants~~favorite movie is The Royal Tenenbaums~~wild about anything related to Sherlock Holmes~~bookbind for fun, love making my own sketchbooks~~originally went to art school to be a comic book artist, took a detour and graduated with a BFA in textiles~~make a rockin’ margarita.
The Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Merino Fine sock yarn is available right now, right here!
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Don’t miss out on our “Lucky Draw!” today July 1st! Out of all the orders of July 1st, we’ll pick 2 lucky winners to win some really cool prizes, you could be a winner too!
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Our next update is going to be on on Sunday June 28 at 9pm EST. There will be lots of new stuff!
All new:
We’re also launching 2 new lines:
Araucania Azapa: this bulky yarn is a blend of 30% alpaca, 45% merino, 15% silk and 10% donegal. It is a tone-on-tone dye coloration with heathered tweed speckles. Very lovely to feel, great for scarves, shawls and garments. See the colorways that will be available right here.
Noro Cash Iroha: this yarn is pure luxury with its exquisite blend of cashmere and silk. Its beautiful sheen and lovely drape will make every sweater, hat, scarf, top and jacket you create spectacular as well. This fine blend of fibers knits up beautifully with an ever so slight thick to thin texture. See the colorways that will be available right here. We’ll have it at a great price too!
MORE:
Sign ups for the August Sock Club are now open. This month’s club is featuring Anni Allis of Anni Design. You might know her as well as the person behind the Sockamania KAL. She will be both designing a pattern and providing us with her yarn. The Element that will be featured is “Air”
On July 1st you will be able to enjoy our latest Artist of the Month, Mercedes from Kitchen Sink Dyeworks. She “cooked” up a lovely assortment of 10 colorways for us. You can get a sneak peek at what will be available in a few days, right here.
Don’t forget our “Lucky Draw!”! 2 winners will be picked out from the orders of July 1st, so you could be a winner too!
Check out our Closeout section for some great deals on Sublime Extra Fine Merino dk and Cashmere Merino Silk dk, Little Dog Design, The Fiber Denn, Yarn Sprout, Yarntini, Araucania Ranco, Ella Rae Jaspe, Kollage Luscious, Noro Kureyon Sock and more!
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Our next update is going to be on on Sunday June 14 at 9pm EST. It’s going to be a big one, you won’t want to miss it!
All NEW:
New colorways of Hand Maiden Casbah, Fleece Artist Merino 2/6, Madelinetosh Sock (see a preview here), Madtosh Worsted (preview here) and Stitchy Mushroom Box Bags (preview here).
Madelinetosh Sock
We’re also launching 2 new lines:
Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy, perfect for all these summer garments. Lightweight but with lots of drape. (Sneak Peek here)
Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran, if you’re already thinking of knitting sweaters for the fall. (Sneak Peek of colorways available here)
MORE:
You’ll also be able to purchase our August Sock Club, featuring Anni Allis of Anni Design. You might know her as well as the person behind the Sockamania KAL. She will be both designing a pattern and providing us with her yarn. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with!
Check out our Closeout section for some great deals on Sublime Extra Fine Merino dk, Araucania Ranco, Ella Rae Jaspe, Kollage Luscious, Noro Kureyon Sock and more!
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First of all I want to thank everyone’s who has participated in our Lace Time contest. There were lots of entries with a lot of you earning more than one chance to win!
Here are some of the shawls that were mentionned:
and much more! For details on these shawls, please follow the links in the comment of the original post.
There were 46 different chances to win. I wrote each name down the required amount of time and put all the names in a hat.
My helpful husband picked a name at random out of the hat and we have our first winner!
Congratulations Elise! Elise suggested Sivia Harding’s Diamond Fantasy Scarf/Shawl [Ravelry link]. The scarf (a petite sized triangular shawl) version is easily done with a skein of sock yarn as it only requires 350 yards. The larger shawl size requires 750 yards so would require two skein of sock yarn. This pattern has been in my pattern library for a couple years now, maybe I’ll do that one next!
To make things even more fun, we decided to pick our favorite suggested pattern and have another winner!
Our second winner is Ikkinlala with her AeRang [Ravelry link] suggestion. This shawl, by Jolene Mosley, is really gorgeous, and requires only 430 yards of fingering weight. Congratulations to you too!
So Elise and Ikkinlala, please expect an email from yarn4socks shortly. If you do not get it, please check your spam!
Again thank you to everyone else!
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Please welcome Carrie from Funky Carolina. Carrie is our June Artist of the Month and she’s dyed for us lots of gorgeous semi-solid colorways in her 100% superwash merino. You’ll find her yarn, starting June 1st, right here at yarn4socks. You can see the colorways that will be available below.
top-blush, witchblood, vampyr, tawny
middle-carolina, funky, cornfed, forsythia
bottom-denim, dragonskin
Here is our interview with her:
1. What is your name, company name and which city and state are you from?
My name is Carrie and my company name is Funky Carolina. I live in Dallas, Texas but I’m originally from North Carolina.
2. How long have you been dying yarn?
I’ve been dyeing for almost 2 and 1/2 years.
3. How did you get started?
I started out dyeing fiber with koolaid because I had just learned to spin and wanted to play with colors. I moved on to yarns when I started knitting more because I had lots of ideas in my head I had to get out!
4. What motivates you?
Color. I’ve always been interested in the way that color behaves with other colors and love expressing myself. Plus, dyeing really helps me therapeutically. It’s a great way to make you happy, cure sadness, and work out anger issues. 
5. What is the favorite product you’ve ever made?
Hmm, that’s a tough one. I think my favorite product is the handdyed fiber that I spun and knit into a feather and fan shawl a couple of years ago. I’d like to do that with the superwash merino/cashmere/nylon worsted base I just got in too.
6. Do you have any advice for other fiber artists?
Just dye what you love, what you see, and never ever dye when you feel uninspired. I learned the hard way that if you don’t feel like dyeing you’ll almost never like the results. If you love your product then other people will as well.
7. Are there any designers, fiber artists or any other artist you consider your role model?
I am constantly amazed at the talent and vision of other fiber artists. Just a few that I love are Adrian of Hello Yarn’s fibers, Krista of Pigeonroof Studios, Michelle of The Sweet Sheep and more recently Laurs of BeeMiceElf. I always enjoy spinning other artist’s fibers and knitting with their yarns. It’s fun to see their creativity and vision unfold in a project.
8. Please share with us a zany or interesting thing about you. It does not have to be fiber related.
Ha. There are too many zany things about me. I think that my favorite though is that my love of music inspires how I dye. Every song has colors that go with it and it’s fun to translate that onto yarn or fiber.
Thank you Carrie!
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Our next update is going to be on on Sunday May 31 at 9pm EST
We will be adding tons of new Fleece Artist kits in lots of new colorways: we’ll have Bias shawls, Criss Cross scarves, Celtic vests, Soft Mitts, Rumple Angels scarves, Coco cowls and more Ana Bandanas. If we didn’t have a color you liked before, I’m sure we will now!
Coco Cowl in Rose
We’ll also be adding one more accessory to our inventory, lovely shawl pins by Perl Grey.
On June 1st we will be launching Funky Carolina as our June Artist of the Month. Make sure to check our blog tomorrow for our interview with Carrie! We will have her superwash merino sock yarn right here in semi-solid colorways in lovely shades of yellows, blues, purples and pinks.
MORE:
We’ll draw our “Lucky Draw!”! winners on June1st out of that day’s orders, you could win something good!
Check out our Closeout section for some great deals on Araucania Ranco, Ella Rae Jaspe, Kollage Luscious, Noro Kureyon Sock and more!
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So in the last post you saw 2 shawls that Donna and I have knit in the last couple months. Now we’re kinda hooked on shawls and want to knit more! We both loved being able to knit a shawl out of one skein of fingering weight yarn, around 450 yds and less. All of us have single skeins of sock yarn that we’d love to knit up in something else than socks, but we don’t always know what to pick.
This is where you come in, we’d like you to tell us of your favorite one skein lace shawl/scarf pattern. I’m sure that you know of patterns that we’ve never heard of, so show us what you know! Share with us all your favorite pattern, (including a link to the pattern or Ravelry pattern if possible) and why you like it so much. You’ll have until May 31 midnight to give us your suggestion in the comments of this post.
We’ll pick at random a winner and the winner will win a skein of Hand Maiden Sea Silk so they can knit their own lace shawl/scarf of their dream!
If you want extra chances to win, you can:
That’s 4 chances to win a beautiful skein of Sea Silk, good luck!
I can’t wait to see all your suggestions, I really hope to find my next lace project in your comments!
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