Sock Summit

No, I won't be headed to Sock Summit in August. I wish I was. But the lovely Rita, of Yarn Hollow will be and a selection of my spindles are going with her. Look for Yarn Hollow with SpinSanity Spindles in booth #925.

Since I'm a fairly small operation and haven't traveled across country as a vendor, I never really gave it much thought as to how one gets their stock from point A to point B. I have my stuff down to a couple of bins, a table, a large rug (to protect the spindles from concrete floors) that folds down quite small and personal belongings (clothes, toothbrush, spindles/kniting and travel wheel)...with some creative packing, it all fits in the back of my car. But Rita has a huge selection of fibers and yarns. HUGE. And driving that far with truck, trailer or motor home doesn't seem all that cost effective.

So how does it get from MI to OR? It's shipped. Her stock needs to go out on 7/27 in order to be in OR on time. My spindles need to get to her next week, in order to be packed in with her stock.

Yikes.

I'm spindlating as fast as I can.

ad spindles/Cherry Mandala

I've had a lot of questions as to whether the cherry mandala spindle in my banner and Rav ads is still available and when I will list it. Usually, I create (or recycle) ads from spindles I've already made/sold or list them when the ad comes out. And then hear from those disappointed that they're not in my shop.

After much thought, and polling of friends and family, I've settled on this: if I use a new spindle design in ads and banners, I will list that spindle in the shop on the last day of the month the ad runs, at a specified time. I'll put an announcement both here and in an update in my shop.

So this month, the cherry mandala will be listed on Tues, June 30 at 3:00 PM EDT.

I has gallery!

I've been meaning to set up a gallery of spindles that have gone out into the world for some time. I actually have a spindles set on the Flickr account I set up to use with Ravelry. Unfortunately, it's the account I use with Ravelry (and my knit/spin blog and this one)--it's cluttered. Since I have over 200 pics (how did I get over 200 pics?), every new pic I add drops one from view.

OK, so it's a work in progress. It's going to take awhile to fish spindle pics from my network storage drive. I always meant to organize pics in folders by month and year and then specifics within those but didn't start out that way so there's a lot to sort through.

Two Years

It's been two years this month that I opened the Etsy shop. Crazy.

I had half formed a plan to celebrate the anniversary. You know how even the best laid plans go...

This is the kids' last week of school, Emily's graduation from high school is on June 7th, we have my husband's daughter and family coming in from NYC on Friday, my computer took a nose dive, yadayadayada.

I'll see what I can come up with once the dust settles. In the meantime, here's a peek at what I've been working on.

charity Craft In for the National Kidney Foundation

When I offered Holly a custom spindle as a drawing prize for her Craft In to benefit the National Kidney Foundation, I wasn't sure what sort of design to do. Crazy flower? Regular flowers? Zombie Prom Date Knitter themed? Something more specific to the event? I consulted Holly and her dad, Marty (recipient of a donor kidney from his son).

"Put a kidney on it," says Holly.

"Kidneys are ugly," says Marty.

A challenge if ever I heard one...

Em looked at it and said, "Weird."

Abi looked at it and said, 'like...pretty kidneys!"

It's pretty kidneys, tree of life (the renal medulla "leaves" are flower buds for new growth and flames for hope), butterfly-ish (rebirth, new life) with a purple heart for courage and some lime green and orange thrown in because they're Holly's fav colors.

I predicted Holly and Marty would love it. The winner, maybe not so much. I planned to offer the winner a choice of this or a plain one.

As it turned out, a great time was had by all. The winner of quite possibly the only kidney spindle ever (though I have a request from Carina for a single kidney) loves it. She and Linda learned to spindle that day. When Linda's name was drawn for a prize, she was so disappointed the spindle was already snatched up, I had to throw in the one she was learning on as a prize. Of course, there was some fun commentary as to how no one else would want it after she parked it in her arm pit.

SpinSanity takes over the world!

OK, maybe not the entire world but these went out to a fiber shop in Sweden yesterday...

Which is very cool. Especially since one of my mom's best friends when I was a teen was from Sweden (she's in Hawaii now and wants to learn to spin).

And this went off to its new home at the same time...

With winter finally fading, I'm back working on handpaints and you should start seeing them in the shop middle of next week.

St. Distaff's Day at Threadbear!

We will be celebrating St Distaff's Day a bit early-- Sunday, January 4-- at Threadbear Fiber Arts in Lansing. We'll demo spindle spinning and have spindles available to try and/or buy.

It's also my daughter Em's 18th birthday so be sure to stop by and throw fibery gifts at her...or at least wish her a good one.