facelift and new fluff

I gave up on trying to coerce this journal into being a three-column format, because I don't know enough about html and css to keep from breaking it on a regular basis. Someday, I will take a class. The problem with the classes I've tried to take is that I know about enough of the basics to get me through the first three or four lessons, and once I've made it through those, I'm bored because I haven't learned much new, and I've lost interest before getting to the useful stuff. I also hope to learn to use Microsoft Access at some point. Not at all intuitive to me, that program.

Anyway, aside from giving in to a new format on this journal, there has been much activity, although not as much fiber-related as I would like. I have managed to procure new balls of colorful and soft merino:



We've sold a few skeins, I've spun up a few more. We dyed lots of merino sock yarn for the store, including this guy:



We also dyed 6 or so skeins of worsted wool yarn for making felted totes. I bought a smallish (16 or so ounce) Nalgene, which I plan to knit a cozy for soon. I also knitted a larger Nalgene-sized cozy, and will felt it up this weekend as a prototype for some of the stock for Crafty Bastards.

So, I guess that's some progress. I'm also learning that there is a lot about knitting that I love, and a lot that I just plain don't like. I'll revisit that later, but for now, I know I don't like ribbing on double pointed needles. I like ribbing, I like dpns, but I just can't deal with both of them together -- too high maintenance, or something.

My favorite thing right now? Simple, memorizable patterns, with some variation in what you do with the rows, but also some plain knit and purl rows to take a break from the patterns. I'm working on a scarf for Tim right now in a woven sort of pattern that only has four different rows, one knit, one purl, and two 2x2 rib variations, and it's easy and it makes a pretty pattern. It's a dark yarn, but I'll try to get a picture up some time soon.