The Thrifty Knitter

I’m downsizing the Yarn School wheel stash since so many people bring their own wheels anymore. And I’m selling them cheap, so if you’ve long wanted a wheel but couldn’t spring for the pricetag, I have six available under $300, including free shipping & a little starter fiber. I’ll be able to ship after this coming week–I’ll probably be too busy with prom preparations to pack them up this week, but who knows? You might be the procrastination rush shipment special. :)

Email me (nikol at harveyvilleproject dot com) if you’re interested & I’ll send you a PayPal invoice.

All wheels also include some spinning fiber to get you started!

SOLD #1 Unique handmade Dutch Louet-alike with large paddle treadle & 3 bobbins $195 + $25 shipping:

SOLD #2 Louet-alike handmade Dutch wheel w/ 3 bobbins $195 + $25 shipping:

#3 Louet-alike handmade Louet copy with 2-position lazy kate & 3 bobbins $225 + $25 shipping:

SOLD #4 Older Louet S10 w/ 3 2-speed bobbins $265 + $25 shipping:

SOLD #5 Older Louet S10 w/ 3 bobbins $265 + $25 shipping:

SOLD #6 Older Louet S10 w/ 2 2-speed bobbins + 1 modern 3-speed bobbin $265 + $25 shipping:

SOLD #7 2008 Ashford Joy w/ 3 bobbins & bag $550:

What a month so far! I’ve been nutty busy. We’re getting ready for Prom in less than two weeks. If you are within a drive or a cheap flight, you should definitely come out for Prom! Even with a private room, it’s about the cheapest weekend getaway as you could dream up, and with Kid Congo and the Royal Butchers and Howie Pyro as this year’s entertainment, it will be insanely fun! The theme is Tahitian Holiday (stolen from the 1971 Harveyville Rural High School prom), and we’ll be starting the decorations this weekend. I was hoping I’d be able to shoehorn my fat ass into one of my really fluffy vintage party dresses. Actually, my ass wasn’t the problem–with the full skirts & crinolines, there’s plenty of room for a fat ass–but for some reason, I couldn’t get any of them to zip up. They all seem to have, ahem, shrunk. So it looks like I’ll be going for more of a late 60s cocktail look (thank you, Empire waist!), of course with a big fake tropical flower festooning some part of my person. I’m even cutting off my stupid long hair so I can have a cute flip!

I shipped off 100 Art Club Spin Sacks to Maker Faire. I churned them out in my own little 1-woman sweatshop (actually, it was a 2-woman sweatshop for a couple hours–I’m a captain of industry!). Although with all the television and snack breaks, I don’t know that it really qualifies as a sweatshop. Anyway, I made 100 little double-thickness boxed-bottom drawstring project bags from vintage sheets, screened them with my newly-designed Spin Sack graphic, and stuffed them with spindles, instructions, and yummy handmade fiber. Each got a small cuckoobatt and some hand-dyed combed top. I’m well pleased with them! I actually like them a little better than the last batch. While I liked the sheep-print sheets I was using before (ran out; that’s the nature of using recycled materials), they were flannel, so fiber wants to stick to them, while these are nice, smooth, well-worn cotton or cotton blends. And no nap to the fabric means I got to screen print them instead of the iron-on from the originals. Plus these have boxed bottoms.

It’s freaking Seattle around here lately. I’m well overdue to muck out the boggy barnyard. The sheep spend about half their day on pasture, and the other half in the barnyard, sleeping or lounging, all the while pooping. Healthy sheep poop is a pretty tidy substance. It looks a lot like rabbit poop, only bigger: dense, firm little pebbles that dry out quickly and self-sift through the straw to keep a fairly clean barn all winter. Providing you put down new bedding over top as needed, it stays pretty neat and unstinky. The stuff that sifts down composts below, warming the bedding slightly in winter and keeping everything sanitary and relatively fresh (something about the antimicrobial action of the composting process).

What should happen is that you keep layering it up all winter, and in the spring, you take it all out and make a big compost pile, which heads into the garden the following year (or immediately; sheep poop isn’t as hot as many manures and can go right on the garden).

But this year, we had an early Yarn School followed by rain and rain and rain, followed by a big, time-sensitive print design project for me, more rain, a hard drive failure, more rain, a big Maker Faire order, more rain, and Prom preparations (and, oh yeah, MORE FRACKING RAIN). So instead of raking/shoveling out 3″ of relatively dry composted manure and hay/straw mid-April, I now have 3 inches of mucky, spongy composted manure/hay layered with another inch of soggy hay/straw on top, blanketing my whole barnyard like a mushy, shifting, slippery bog. I’ve managed to keep the barn itself nice and dry and stable inside, but the yard is a nightmare.

Shoveling this stuff is only slightly less laborious than removing sod. It’s heavy, hard work, and it’s messy and every forkful you remove makes this awful sucking noise. And then if it starts raining again (and, of course it has), the whole thing turns to slop. Rolling it uphill in the wheelbarrow is not super fun, either. If I were smart, I’d put a garden in right next to the barnyard. Hm. Maybe I am smart. Maybe this will be my new plan–once I have my poor, dilapidated hay shelter shored up (but that’s another story). Hm. That’s actually kind of brilliant. I could probably have a narrow plot that winds around part of the barnyard, the chicken yard, and the hay shelter. And I could layer spoiled hay over top all winter for mulch.

The other part of my brilliant plan is to put in a French drain around the barnyard. It only needs to avoid the little yard itself and the barn, and can feed right into the pasture. The barnyard is much higher than the pasture, but a good deal lower than the schools, so right now it gets all the building runoff. I’m not looking forward to digging it, but if I’m industrious and dig just a couple feet a day, I could have it done mid June.. Of course, the rains will be over by then, but it’s not like the same thing won’t happen again next spring, and the one after that, and the one after that.

And the last part of my brilliant plan involves something we should have bought  several years ago: a lawn tractor (really just a riding mower–it’s really only tractor-shaped). While we can’t afford anything as luxurious as a Bobcat (the Bobcat Mini Trackloader is my current object de lust)–nor can I rationalize Bobcat-sized debt–roughly the cost of a new car–I was able to rationalize a sale-priced Sears lawn tractor with the 12-month 0% financing on my Sears charge, a card I never use in real life because the interest rate is more on par with a loan shark than a credit card. That feature is actually insurance that I’ll pay it back within the 0% period–I’m not giving mothergrabbing Citibank an extra 29%! (29%, can you believe that shit? They doubled the rate without notice back when the banks were all rushing to screw us over before new restrictive credit card legislation was passed. Luckily, I didn’t have a balance on that card, because I thought 15% was too high already, but I didn’t close the account because it’s supposed to be better for your credit rating. Why having easy access to potential financial ruin is good for your credit rating, I’ll never know.)

So we bought a lawn tractor with a little scoop attachment (not a proper diggy bucket, but according to the reviews, it should be able to do the lifting if I fork it up first–and it’s the lifting that’s back-breaking, not the forking it loose), and a little wheelbarrow thingy for the back, and a little canopy for my lily-white skin, which I plant to decorate with fringe so I can sing Surrey with the Fringe on Top as I mow the yard.

It should help in the barnyard and gardening chores, and it will pay for itself in about 2 years, because we’ve been paying for mowing. Paying for mowing with a yard the size of ours is a luxury we couldn’t really afford, but we did it because we didn’t have a mower and didn’t want to be an eyesore. My average hourly income is  less than we were paying for mowing, so it makes sense for me to take it over. They’re bringing it out on Tuesday.

I’m going to go try out the new iDye and iDye Poly. I might start carrying them in the shop. I’ll report back.

First off, spinning! I spun up some Agnes over the weekend and it was a delight!

Gladys got me psyched about going back to the long draw (though she spins from the fold) during Yarn School, and I’m totally hooked! It’s perfect for the bouncy merino roving, and the VM (this was from her uncoated lamb fleece, so there’s VM) just falls right out, and the occasional nep just sits right on top of the strand, where you can pluck it off without even pausing. I was astonished at how fine and fast I was spinning, and with so little effort. I’m totally back on board with woolen spinning! I got a fingering weight 2-ply spun up during a Breaking Bad mini-marathon on Sunday. Lovely, bouncy stuff.

Washed. 168 yds, 1.4 oz.

Freshly plied

Single

I just listed the last 5 4-oz bags of Aggie Agnes roving in my etsy shop. All the rest of the Cupcake Ranch stuff is gone, except my Fudgy lambswool roving, which I’ve decided to have spun because the other yarn  was lovely and this is just as gorgeous in color, but finer! I’ll post the yarn when it comes back.

Speaking of Yarn School & Gladys, look what I got!

Scrumpy Falklands handspun, a gift from Gladys, spun from Pigeonroof Studios “Dapple.”

Next, sales! I’m doing a big fat destash, so if you want to do some bargains, hit my Ravelry Trade/Sell Page. I’ll be adding new stuff as well.

There’s also an Art Club sale going on, with some of my older combed tops & rovings, plus lots of hand-dyed yarn at bargain prices! Everything in the sale section has been marked down 25% & datebooks are 50% off. I’m also going to be selling some of my older wheels. More and more people are bringing their own wheels to Yarn School, and I’ve acquired way too many!

And some new (regular price) fibers in the Art Club shop.

Queenie, Tru-Blood & Shamrock; wool & silk, $16 for 4 ounces. Kettle-dyed near-solids.

Lost; wool, $12 for 4 oz.

Lurker; mohair top, $14 for 4 oz.

Sno-con, superwash wool, $13 for 4 oz

Orangina, superwash bfl $13 for 4 oz.

More to come as I wrestle with my broken camera!

Knit or spin your own piece of our little ovine playland. On sale now on my etsy site!

Yarn from Fudgy the Whale. 250 yds 2-ply fingering per roughly 2oz skein. $14 ea. Only 4 left!

Uncle Honeybunch 100% Shetland lambswool roving, 4 oz for $10. Only 3 left!

Fudgy the Whale 100% Romney roving. $10 for 4 oz.

Agnes 100% merino lambswool roving. $10 for 4 oz.

The rest sold out at Yarn School, aside from a different batch of Fudgy roving that I’m hemming and hawing about. I’m considering sending it back for more yarn. I was so darn pleased with the yarn.

This year’s shearing day was just 2 days before Yarn School, and my head wasn’t in the game. Next year, I promise to be better prepared, and to take them off feed the night before.  Full sheep are squirmy sheep. Squirmy sheep get nicked. We had several nicks this year (vs. none last year, when I removed their hay), alarming to neurotic novice shepherds like me. Each got a little splash of iodine and scabbed up like a scraped knee within a day.

We don’t have a slab, so for shearing, we just throw down some plywood and run out an extension cord to make a clean, stable working area. We also had a wee makeshift skirting table. Next year, I want a larger skirting table, and I will definitely remember to take away the hay the night before. After shearing each animal, it stayed on its butt a bit longer (they’re more or less passive when seated as above) and Danny gave each its CD/T vaccination and trimmed hooves, and I checked eyes with the FAMACHA score card (which I have since misplaced, arrgh) and wormed if necessary. Interestingly, only the black sheep needed dewormer. I’ll be checking every 2 weeks until winter.

The fruits of our labor: 7 prime fleeces, aggressively skirted:

Seconds (nice wool not covered by jackets, so more hay/dirt than above) 6.5# white mix, 3.5# colored mix:

Last year, I combined all seconds from the flock and had it made into felt. I think I’ll use it to make warm felt slippers, embroidered with year or flock names. If they’re successful, maybe I’ll do it every year!  Here’s the felt from last year’s mixemups:

And lastly, the dregs, which includes both nicer wool that was way too rife with hay to bother with (mostly necks), plus all the (literally) crappy stuff, and the coarse leg and belly wool. There’s 14.5#! I may do a quick sort before I put it on the garden and increase the seconds bags, but most or all of this will become excellent garden mulch!

Comparing crimp, grease & length:

Romneys: Jayne Cobb & Fudgy the Whale; Merinos: Ronnie, Hokey Pokey & Agnes; Shetlands: Mr. Shivers & Uncle Honeybunch.

The Romneys (first pair) are the middle ground in grease, crimp, and length. Jayne may be a Romney-Merino cross; he’s finer and crimpier than mom. Merinos (center 3) are shorter, finer, denser, greasier, and crimpier. The Shetlands (last pair) are the longest, least greasy, and most open, with the least distinct lock formation. Though less crimpy, Shetland fleeces stick together in one big pelt. Merinos look like a heavy, clumpy pelt with cobwebby separations; and the Romeny fleeces kind of tumble apart into thick, chunky locks.

And because I’m bent on obsessive documentation of my fledgling flock, you get the critter-by-critter version as well.

First up:

Jayne Cobb

Yearling wether Romney or Romney X Merino. Mom: Fudgy; Dad: unknown.
Fleece: 3.5#, heavily skirted. He’s about the same size as Agnes, and from a distance they’re hard to tell apart sheared, but there’s an easy trick: Jayne has black hooves and nose; Agnes had a pink nose and white hooves. Also Jayne has a little sheepie pee-pee and Agnes is an innie, but you can’t see that across a field.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Jayne’s elbow nick was the first and the worst. It bled a lot and looked scary and dramatic and made my stomach lurch, but the patch of skin was actually quite small, maybe 1/2″ by 3/4″, but inconveniently placed to stretch with every step. But unlike me, he wasn’t at all bothered by it. A good deal of the menacing red is just iodine. The bright stuff is blood.

A lot of his fleece was much finer than this sample. It looks somewhere between Romney & Merino, and his pops could be Roger the spotted merino ram (making him half-brothers with the twins) or a big white ram lamb that was briefly in his paddock last fall before I got Fudgy. I like the idea of Fudgy being an ovine Mrs. Robinson. This shows the finer, crimpier stuff.

Fudgy the Whale

3-year old registered Romney ewe.
Fleece: 7.5#, heavily skirted.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Ronnette “Ronnie” Wigglesworth

Yearling merino ewe. Mom: Agnes; Dad: Roger the spotted merino. Ronnie’s fleece is so different I started to wonder if maybe she didn’t have a different dad, but then I remembered that her grandma, Ninny, had a very open fleece as well. (I bought Ninny’s beautiful spotted fleece from Tina a couple years ago).

Fleece: 3.5#, heavily skirted.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but she’s quite small, about the same size as the Shetlands. Her nose is so Roman! You couldn’t tell at all when she was in full fleece.

The lighter samples came from those spots on her back. Both Ronnie and Fudgy have light spots I didn’t remember. Ronnie has much less grease than her brother and mom.

Her fleece really reminds me of her grandma’s, which made this beautiful combed top.

Hokey Pokey

Yearling merino wether. Mom: Agnes; Dad: Roger the spotted merino.

Fleece: 4#, heavily skirted.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Hokey Pokey’s fleece ranges from heavily silvered to quite black, with more silvery overall. While it’s heavier than Ronnie’s, it looks smaller, so I’m expecting a higher grease weight and roughly equal overall yield.

Agnes

2-year-old black-factored white Merino ewe.

Fleece: 6.5#, heavily skirted.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Mister Shivers

2-year-old Shetland wether.

Fleece: 3#, heavily skirted.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I was stunned at how long the Shetlands were this year! Lovely!

Uncle Honeybunch

2-year-old Shetland wether.

Fleece: 2.5#, VERY heavily skirted (his fleece was so big his jacket was halfway up the side).

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Once again, Uncle Honeybunch is the fattest. He seems so mild-mannered, but he’s really a grain bully.

And in other Cupcake Ranch, our barn cat (not officially ours–she just showed up and started hunting out back) had kittens, possibly during Yarn School, when they were first heard mewling loudly. They’ve all been tucked away in the hay, but this morning, they were lounging on a bale. Three black kittens + the big gray mama we thought was a boy. Now that there’s a whole family in residence, I guess they’re more or less officially ours. I’m giving them fresh water, but I think we’ll skip the food as long as everyone looks healthy. I don’t want the mousing to stop (and there are plenty of mice to go around!).

Yay! I got a really wonderful assortment of potholders!

Here are the details:

Piglet by Yumee Hong

Look at the little ears! they’re made to flop over! And the curly tail, too!

Wide ride chicken by Brooklyn Irish Girl! This one’s also fantastically practical because it’s so big, and it’s roughly hand-shaped when it’s folded over (with your thumb at the head and your fingers on the butt end.

And the wattle is even floppy!

An incredible pansy from Susann. I was very excited to get this one because mine were pansies, too, but totally different. When Jen told me Susann was making pansy potholders, I was completely crestfallen, because that’s what I was making, and she’s a needlework maniac and I knew nothing of mine could compete. When I saw them on flickr, I was relieved to find they were completely different, and I’m thrilled to have one!

Such a fine gauge, so much color detail. And look at that stunning trim!

Owl from betheany! So cute! And look at the funny little feet!

He looks so concerned!

And finally, the sweet snail by Evonne Wee

He has an almost apologetic grin and floppy little snail antennea.

And look! The other side has a whole other pink snail!

In other news, it’s very busy around here! I’m in that near-panicked pre-Yarn School mode. Jen & I did a ton of early cooking and baking last weekend, and I finished off Sunday by clearing out the ground floor hallway, which was awash in… stuff. Just loads of stuff. Today I focused on boring admin, but I did get to wrap up many loose ends. And Ron’s been working on the courtyard fence, which he’s doing in this gorgeous, thick, irregular local cedar from his friend Ronnie’s sawmill. It’s full of marvelous swirls and knots and holes and marks from the old-fashioned saw mill, just lovely stuff, and the boards range from over a foot wide to just a few inches. I’m really glad Ron opted against the cookie-cutter planks we almost got for speed’s sake. These really suit our style and will make our courtyard really special and beautiful! Hooray!

Just a week more to go before shearing! And boy do they need it!

This year’s shearing will be 3 weeks later than last year, so even Jayne will have a full year of growth, and the adults will have almost 13 months here. I can’t wait to see how the grown lambs look nekked. I wonder if Ronnie will still have that little star on her forehead, and what their fleece looks like near the skin. The merinos are pretty much woolblind, but Fudgy has rubbed off all her face wool. She did the same thing last year–one day, she’s covered in dreadlocks, the next, her eyes are bald and bulging. It gives her a really wild, angry look. The other advantage of the late haircut is that their fleeces will be shorter going into summer, which will be much more comfortable if we have a hot one. I’m going to make them a couple of cattle panel shade houses this summer so they can have shade out in the pasture, where they can still grab a breeze. Last year, they all huddled in the barn, panting. Sometimes Fudgy would get up and press her nose into the big fan and just lean into the electric breeze.

While they’re still munching a bit of hay, I’ve got them set up with 3 nice pastures to rotate through on the portable electric fence, and Ron got me the cheapest power mower from Lowe’s to keep their fencing weed-free. (I gave my reel mower to Sue, who has a small city yard; it was just unrealistic out here, even for odds and ends). With the shorter lines of fencing, the charge is so strong you can hear it popping like crazy! I’ve been very careful not to touch it, as have the sheep.

I was a little worried about Mr. Shivers yesterday. Although he would run like the wind across the pasture, he was limping when walking slowly. When I checked out the iffy foot, I found a little wet abrasion between his toes. I talked to Jennifer and also the Internet. They both recommended roughly the same thing, so I cleaned it out and applied an antiseptic spray and Hoof & Heel, and I’m happy to report he’s fine today, though I’m going to use the spray for the rest of the week and keep an eye on it. Better safe than sorry.

Despite all the mad Yarn School preparations, I have gotten  in some knitting on the Drops 110-2. Ron and I usually watch a show or two each night after dinner, so I get to unwind and knit. This sweater is fun and easy!

I only had 3 balls of the Noro total, so when I was working on the sleeve, I realized I’d have to do the underside in the Fisherman’s wool, and that I’d have to insert some plain sections into the back as well to make the yarn last enough. I had to frog those last 2 colored sections on the right–there was supposed to be another plain section after the 5th Noro repeat. On the sleeves, I just cast on the full number instead of working the increasing rows. In retrospect, I’d probably work it as per the pattern, but when I got started, I didn’t realize I’d be doing the whole underside in solid color. I did have to make the sleeve a bit wider as a result, but I’m still pleased with it. I will definitely make this sweater again, assuming it suits me on.

Tomorrow my goals are: to put together my Costco/Evco orders, to dye 10# of fiber and then completely tidy up the Dye Lab, to file my tax extension, and to compress and cover the sprawling Hoarders-worth pile of randomness in the gym.

With Yarn School less than 3 weeks away, I’m just on the cusp of my usual freakout. Here’s what’s heightening my angst:

1. I broke my camera when I was in Austin. I dropped it. Sigh. This was 2 days after Ron scolded me for never using my case (jinxing me, obviously). It still works to a point, but I think the anti-shake thing is broken, and the picture you compose (viewfinder or LCD) is about 30% off from what you actually get. So the best you can do is kind of guess, shoot, check what you get, guess again, and repeat. And good luck focusing with any accuracy. The repair will be at least $350. Yay. A new body (which could use the same lenses and battery but not the 36Gb in memory I currently have) would be $650 (plus an extra $150 for the accident insurance, which I would obviously purchase this time around–wasn’t an option last time; plus $30-50 for memory; plus another $50 for a case I’ll actually use). For a while I deluded myself that I would buy a new body for me and repair the broken one and give it to Ron. And then I remembered that I don’t have any money.

2. I don’t have any money. Really hating the being broke. The harsh winter heating bills decimated our cushion and we’re back to forced austerity. Bleh.

3. The chaos! After a few giddy flirtations with order, my place has descended into chaos once again. My office looks like a Hoarders “before” shot, the gym is a disgrace, and the back hall is still overflowing with KITH merch. (Knitting in the Heartland was really fun, btw! I’d recommend it next year if you’re in the KC area.) Now, I have made some marvelous improvements (my kitchen’s in fair shape, and the back walls and floors of both my closets are clearly visible; I was beginning to doubt their existence), but it’s a constant, crushing battle and the havoc just seems to want to swallow me whole.

4. With just 2 weeks to go to shearing, the sheep are going out of their way to screw up their lovely, pristine covered fleeces. In the last couple weeks, three of them have managed to wiggle or shred their way out of their coats. Yesterday, Fudgy demolished her coat. She seemed to have burst out of it, Hulk-fashion, and was just trailing the shredded remains around the barnyard. Luckily, I had just ordered some large Sheep Suits and had one left for her to wear, but I’m going to sacrifice about a pound of pristine fleece because the Sheep Suits have less coverage.

(After Yarn School, I’ll write a detailed review of the two sheep coats I use. I love that the style above covers and preserves so much of the coat, but they just do not last. The Rocky Mountain Sheep Suits cover a lot less–they’re the Miami cut, and the others are the Amish cut–but they’re tremendously rugged. I haven’t had to patch a one, while the canvas ones are beat to hell and held together by patches and sheer will. I’m going to try an experiment this spring, treating the canvas ones with a UV stabilizer to see if that helps.)

Okay, that’s all the complaining I feel comfortable with for now. Now the good stuff!

Last week, I finally monkey-groomed last spring’s wool clip and sent it off for processing, and with any luck, at least some of it will be back for Yarn School. I didn’t make the Zeilinger sale deadline, so I decided to blow off the combed top this year, but I got a separate roving made with each animal’s fleece, plus some Fudgy yarn, plus a mix-em-ups roving with all the stuff with a little too much VM, and I’ll use that for roving rugs. I still have Roger’s 2009 clip and Autumn’s and Andy’s 2009 alpaca clips to contend with, but at least my own little beasties on soon to be yarn.

I even made pages for all of the animals so I can compare fleece year-by-year, with room for greasy and washed samples and notes. So far I have 2 Fudgy samples, plus one each for Agnes, Uncle Honeybunch, and Mister Shivers, and I can’t wait to include the lambies. It will be like a fleecy family album. And man, am I a dork.

After sending off my potholders, I tried writing up the pattern, but found the requirements were totally different in MerLin (what I happened to have on hand) than in Sonata, so I decided to wait until after Yarn School to get some more Sonata to write up a proper, reproducable pattern.

And after feeling very out of sorts with nothing on the needles (yay!), I finally jumped into my Drops 110-2 cardigan! It’s a sideways garter number done with short rows. I’m using my remaining 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden Lite leftover from this sweater, plus some natural dark brown Lion Fisherman’s Wool. If the Noro makes it through the sleeve (which is about to commence), then I’ll know I’ll have enough to finish. Otherwise I’ll need to do something tricky in the back to make it work.

My gauge is different than the required  yarn, so I multiplied all the stitches by .75 & that seems to be about right. Rows are measured, not counted, so I don’t need any math there, which simplifies the conversion.

Hm. Less good stuff to report that I thought. I’d better get my ass in gear.

Attention Fiber Vendors! If you want to include samples of your goodies in the Spring 2010 Yarn School goody bags, email me! You’ll need to send 35 samples to arrive by 4/21/10 (UPS Ground map shown below, or Priority Mail shipped by 4/17 should also work). Spinning fiber (batts, top, etc.) should be 1oz+, add-ins (e.g., locks, angora fluff, etc.) can be smaller. Notions and yarn are also welcome! Make sure it’s securely tagged so customers can ID you! You’ll get thanks and a 140 x 40 banner on the Yarn School page and for 6 months here on the Thrifty Knitter!

The Harveyville Project
13149 Harveyville Rd
Harveyville KS 66431

Thanks to Natalia for the goody bag shot! And while I was looking through Yarn School Group photos for goodies, I found some lamby baby pictures from Amy. They’re still adorable to me but holy bananas they were so freaking cute when they were wee.