We're pretty excited around here

We have exciting news. Take a look at the Black Pearl Yarns and One Planet Yarn and Fiber blogs!

There are more and more patterns coming over the next month, a few each week.

And we came to several agreements today with some of our very favorite designers to do patterns for the Lanas Puras yarns. There are some very cool things planned.

I got some other great news I can't post about yet. We'll just have to wait.

Boy am I tired. I was trying to figure out if it was PMS week or not because at night I just sit and stare at the walls. I can hardly speak! Really, I can't even formulate sentences! I am so tired. I am worried I have been overdoing it a bit. This is my typical pattern of doing too much and then crashing and burning. I have to be a bit careful. I know a few friends of mine are upset with me for not calling them back and I am sorry to those of you if you read this. I will get to you. I just have not been 100% this week at all. Not even close..... I need a week or at least a weekend somewhere to relax. And I am planning that, so that is good.

I was really excited to hear that my good friend Andrea and her husband Taylor found out that they are definitely adopting a little boy from Guatemala. I could not believe all that they have gone through. I am going to start work on a baby blanket for them soon. I am thinking of doing one of the log cabin baby blanket designs in the Mason Dixie book. Andrea wants primary colors and mainly blues and greens..... I wonder if I could find a pretty crochet version of this because I am into crochet lately. I'll do a search but if any of you have seen anything like this let me know. Of course with a log cabin design, I could just make it up, right? Hmmmm

Good night.......

How are things going?

Not to brag (HONEST!) but this is my blog right? These are just this mornings orders from One Planet Yarn and Fiber. And there are still more to pack up. I need a nap now.


This leads me to these thoughts of how amazing the blog world is. Do you know that knit bloggers are really only 5% of the total knitters/crocheters market? I learned this in Estes Park last year. Yet the blog world is powerful!

The Lanas Puras yarns are selling like hot cakes since Wendy mentioned the Desert Bloom yarn on her blog and Yarn Pirate is having her contest. Thanks you two!!! Did you play the pirate's contest!?? I just sent her prizes!! (Mini soaks, Chiagoo needles and a Sheep Shop Yarn! so go play!!) There are still a lot of Lanas Puras colors left, but some of the prettiest ones are gone.... Here is Desert Bloom followed by Raspberry Ginger Tea and Mountain Sky because I think those are all gone. But I'll place another order this week. Also we are going to be getting in other weights of yarns AND we have about six patterns planned so far-kids sweaters, skirts, fun accessories, felted items and more sweaters of course.




This is what we have looked like at night around here. I nod off around 8 pm so tired, with my baby spread out in the chair across from me!

I also can't leave out my other sweetie and so here is his photo!


How many of you ate too much last week and are going through sugar withdrawl this week like I am! I WANT M & Ms!

OOPS, I digressed..back to fiber. Coming soon..this week and next........ incredible pattern releases for Black Pearl Yarns cashmere and a big box in the mail from Yarn Pirate. Her yarns are great and so is she!!! I nabbed another photo from her site!!

Yarn Pirate and her Blog Contest

Oh, how exciting. A big box of new yarns from Yarn Pirate is arriving this week. If you haven't seen her yarn, it is wonderful! Great colorways and super soft base yarn! Plus she is truly wonderful to work with! Make sure to go check out the One Planet Yarn and Fiber contest she is having on her blog right now!!

It is so much fun! Win prizes and learn fun things!!!




PS Soon all these kinds of things will be on the One Planet Yarn and Fiber blog so sign up there on bloglines, ok? Thanks!Until then I am sorry for the double posts to those of you read! Really I am...........

Don't forget! Sign up on the One Planet Yarn and Fiber mailing list and receive special coupon codes in your email!

Spin Off Magazine

Wow, pretty cool!! This issue just came out, and its on the newstands Dec 6th...... The spindle kits are already selling like hotcakes.... (Isn't that the right expression? Hmmmm.. where did that come from?)

Happy Thanksgiving......

I just saw Dani post on her blog a great post entitled "The Important Things" and she is really right, you know. Just before I read it, I was sitting here fretting about what a complete disaster my house is right now. I have never let it go quite this long without a real clean up. And I was also feeling bad about the weight I have gained (while eating a piece of chocolate, I admit).

It really is true that, attitude is everything. So I am going to try to turn this around and think of the important things and how grateful I am for so much. How lucky I am that I even have a house all to myself when so many in this country are homeless, or when people in Dafur or many other places are starving and living in such awful conditions. How lucky I am that I have family, my wonderful sister who is patient with me, my niece and nephew that I love to pieces and my mom, who drives me crazy, but still I am so lucky to still have a mom when others have lost theirs. I am grateful for the good friends that I have. I am lucky that I have so many good friends. People that even if I don't see often, are there for me and hopefully vice versa. I am grateful for all the food that I can eat whenever I want to, when others don't have that choice. I am grateful that it is 80 degrees outside and sunny and just beautiful! And I am grateful for the huge room full of yarn and fiber in the spare bedroom! I can walk in, and pick out whatever I would like to knit!!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thanks to all of you who registered on the new web site One Planet Yarn and Fiber. We had a great turn out actually and amazing amount of visitors. Are there really that many knitters out there?? Please don't forget to go to the site and sign up for the mailing list. When you do that, you'll get a coupon for a discount off a number of items in the store. The coupon is good until the end of December by the way!!

Back to cleaning, but first I'll leave you with something very interesting I saw on Kirsten's blog. The results were so incredibly accurate for me! I did grow up and live in Wisconsin but then moved to the Northeast for a long time before moving west! I'd love to see your results if you post them along with your grateful list! Let me know! And Happy Thanksgiving!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Sunshine Yarns at One Planet Yarn and Fiber

We are so lucky to have Sunshine yarns at One Planet Yarn and Fiber! I realized I did not post about them before the store opening announcment. Dani's yarns are amazing!! Come take a look:

HERE

A photo or two of my favorite of her colorways! Each skein of Dani's yarn is just perfect and it is such soft soft yarn! I love it!

The Store is OPEN

The new store is OPEN!

Please come take a look at our new online store!

There are still items and photos to add and more things to do, but still you can register please and take a look.

One Planet Yarn and Fiber at http://oneplanetyarnandfiber.com.

We feature yarns, knitting and crochet items, spinning stuff, patterns and all kinds of other fun things from around the world!!!

Please register on the site to be on our mailing list to receive special promotions and information, and to provide product reviews. New items are still coming in and will be added continuously.

For those of you who register by , we will send you a special discount code to use for a discount on several brands of yarns and other items, which will be good until 12/31/2006. You must register by entering your first and last name, email address, and full address. This information is totally private and will never be given out or sold! Really, it won't be!

Thanks for visiting! Let us know what you think. Leave a few product reviews if you have used any of these products before which I know you have. We have yarns and other items from some of the best indie people in the world (we think!)

We'll be looking for your complete registration! And we'll send you a discount code with more information! Thanks!

Bad Bad Dog!!

What a night I had the other night.

This is Bailie:


Now...see this beautiful pretty perfectly braided and dyed roving from Heather of Sereknity? I loved this!:


I woke up at 1:30 in the am to lots of scuffling and noise. My house, and in particular, the "yarn room" looked like a dozen 3 three year olds had a party in there. I have never seen anything like it. See what happened to the pretty fiber?


After a lot of clean up (and screaming), luckily there were only two permanent casulties including this roving. I do think I can wash it though and spin up a skein for Heather for being so nice about it....

I didn't get much sleep though!

Could a few of you do me a favor? Please check out the One Planet Yarn and Fiber blog to see if it is fixed now. Some people who had firefox could not read the print and the designer figured out why and it should be fixed now! Would love a comment on there!! I will put a test post on there with a pretty picture so please go look!

Thanks!

Open Sesame

A glimpse of what is in some of this week's boxes......

Yarn and patterns from the Sheep Shop Yarn Company

This color is GORGEOUS!! This is one of their Sheep One yarns in worsted weight:

And here is another favorite of mine:

Incredible Handspun and Handpainted yarns from Daniela Kloppman of Felt Studio Co in England. Daniela is an amazing fiber artist..
This handspun is called Fruity and I am in love with it. I am tempted to steal it (I will pay her though!!) and make a pair of socks with this around each top in about a one inch band..


I need to learn how to spin these great coils like she does.

This one is called Da Funk and it has beads, glitter thread and coils!




And lots of fun things from Heather of SereknityBoutique-cool needles, kits, rovings and yarns.
I love these needles she made:


This kit is too much. Heather, you outdid yourself here!! Your talent shines!!! I tried to take a good photo. Can you see the little high heel shoe stitch markers?? Too cute!


My eyes hurt from photographing and listing stuff....

More soon..... I did knit two more tiers of the Lady Eleanor Shawl last night. I just had to! And tonight is nip and tuck night so I will relax!

No No Knitting....

I am in knitting withdrawl because I have just been opening boxes and entering items into the inventory for One Planet Yarn and Fiber which should be open by next week by the way. I know the blog is still hard to read for some, but it will be fixed soon! It appears to affect Mac and Firefox users but no one else.

I love knitting and find it so relaxing so I miss it. But I have to say it is fun opening these boxes too. I'll show you some of the stuff that showed up in the mail last week. And more photos all week.

First, from A Piece of Vermont beautiful hand dyed yarns. I always loved reading Jessie's blog and we got to know each other a bit when she was selling her beautiful Vermont farmhouse and I wanted to buy it! I wish! Her yarns are beautiful. Here is just one to show you....


What I find amazing about all the yarns I am seeing is there are really only so many dye methods, or dyes or yarns out there, yet everyone does it so uniquely. Jessie has this way of getting tiny bits of different colors throughout her yarns and it is just so incredibly beautiful. Jessie, I want to sometime come dye with you up in your new house and I want to feed the chickens while I am there!

I then unpacked these amazing yarns from a lovely woman named Manasi who owns Monsoon Winds at ETSY.com. She also goes by the name Yarnahoy. I will come back and put the link here, because ETSY is down right now. Manasi grew up in India and it refects in all the fiber that she does. Her yarns are simply beautiful and they are very varied. Here is one my favorite of her handspun yarns.



Manasi also does beautiful weaving. She is going to be getting some other items for us from India for the store. Chakras, Tahkli spindles and handwovens from India to add to our One Planet international mode.

One more photo. A photo of one of the incredible Needle Rolls from Honeycake Designs, also on ETSY. Jen is an amazing young woman! We met when she first opened her ETSY shop and I drooled over her items. She makes beautiful containers for dpns, crochet hooks, straight needles etc. You'll see them all at the new site, but here is just one of my favorites. This one is for storing circular needles:


One thing I feel incredibly lucky about are the people that are working with us or supplying to us. They are the nicest, as well as the most talented group of people, I have ever met. How lucky we are.

More later, yarns from England, patterns, more incredible needles and kits, etc.....

I have to go take more photos...

I wish I could just knit today!

Needle Felting Pattern and Kit

More in the mail:

Wow, the boxes are piling up and I am in the middle of dyeing. Too much to do! So just a few glimpses for all of you as I can't give away all the surpises right? Also this same post will be on the new store blog One Planet Yarn and Fiber so check it out and please subscribe via bloglines or whatever you use.. so eventually, this can be my personal knitting blog again ! With dyeing and spinning thrown in of course.

I worked with Laura (yarn thrower) in the development of a needle felting kit. Someone told me they were all the rage, so I did a blog search and found Laura's oopsie bag which I thought was so cute and asked her would she want to do a pattern for us for a kit. She really did an unbelievable job. First of all, the pattern is just incredible. It gives you complete directions for making the felted bag in several different styles..with long handles, with commercial handles and with several designs. It shows you how to do the needle felting too. She sent me the final bag with the long straps and I gasped when I took it out of the box because it is gorgeous in person. First, it is HUGE and wonderful for carrying my knitting in so that is what I will be using from now on! The photos don't do it justice. Here is the front and the back of the bag hanging on my door.......

The pattern is for sale in our ETSY shop alone and also with a complete needle felting kit. You know....I used to think needle felting involved heat, but not so!! The kit contains really everything you need to complete the design..different colored rovings, felting needles and a foam block, plus the pattern.

We are looking for other cool needle felting kits to carry at One Planet. We have one really neat one coming from England that I fell in love with, but still we are on the look out for more. If you know of any, let us know.

I have three more boxes of things to open up and photograph so there will be a few more posts this week.....

Back to the dyepot.....
YarnB

Every day feels like a holiday

Every day now a package seems to come to either my house or my sisters house. It really is quite fun opening these things up!

By the way, the new blog is set up. Take a peek!!!! Put it on bloglines, please!! Then I can go back eventually to Yarn Botanika being my knitting blog!

There is also a pretty button here that you can put on your site if you are so inclined! The store is so cool, with stuff from all around the planet, that believe me you will want to at least look!



Here is a peek at a few things that came in this week.

Lots of Chiagoo knitting needles, made in China of mosa bamboo, which I just love for some reason. I once tried the other "C" bamboo needles and I hated them. The finish wore off really quickly. These are great and the finish so far has not worn off and I have been knitting with one pair for months now...


Some fantastic wool wash from SOAK in Canada arrived. It comes in incredible fragrances, no rinsing required and great packaging too.

And the most fun, although this is just glimpse,the amazing new Lanas Pura Yarns from Uruguay. This is our new line of yarns, handpainted by artisans just for us in about every knitting weight imaginable. We started with just the lace and fingering, but we'll be adding quite a bit more in solids and handpainted. Here are photos of the lace weight in "periwinkle rose" and the fingering in "desert bloom." Many many more to come!


Back to trying to get the shop open!

Show and Tell

Sometimes I do feel like my blog consists of show and tell posts. I am always amazed by others who write so cleverly about interesting topics each time they post and then they get 20 or 30 or 40 comments as well! I just don't feel that clever all the time. I think that is why my blog feels more like a show and tell blog.

Anyhow, let's see it is 3:30 am and I am again up with a night of insomnia along with a killer headache and neck pain. If any of you suffer from chronic pain, you know what it is like.

Soon we will have the new One Planet Yarn and Fiber blog open and I'll post on there some of the new products for the store as we get them in. It will be a bit confusing having three or more blogs to post on, but this one will come back more to the personal blog. Black Pearl yarns blog will be for the development of that luxury yarn line from Asia with patterns, etc..

The new website is coming along (some of you asked) and hopefully it will be open within a few weeks. We have so many great things for sale from all over the world. It really has been incredible speaking with so many talented people.

Here are some glimpses of a few things coming in the mail.

I am in love totally with these knitting needles handcarved by Lee Chesson studios. The photos don't do them justice. He uses beautiful woods and they are very lightweight and have an incredible point on the end. They are the perfect length for straight needles. I just admire people who are so good with wood or any craft. I am trying to convince Lee to make spindles, which he has before...

Here is one of my favorite pairs made of birch wood with zebrawood ends.


We are carrying all the yarns and patterns from this new yarn company called Sheep Shop Yarn company. I read an article about the owner Fonnie, and I so admired what she was doing that we took on her product line. Look how cute this bag is. Her colorways are incredible and many more patterns are coming soon.


This is my absolute favorite Sheep Shop pattern but then again, I am a total green lover.....


More soon.. I received four huge boxes of yarn today from Uruguay. We have another one of our own lines in development called Lanas Puras yarns. The yarns are all handpainted and soft soft soft. I'll show some photo glimpses soon. I can't wait until the whole One Planet Yarn & Fiber site is released...!


More soon, I think it is time to try and sleep some more.