New Things and Back to the Old, Too

I've been branching out again...introducing my new hand-dyed laceweight yarns!

This one is Berry Bright

and this is Carousel, which has already sold

These yarns are 100% merino wool, 2 ply, and their softness and springiness is very pleasant. I can't wait to dye more, and to someday have the time and patience to use some to make one of those amazing "wedding ring" shawls I so admire!

In other news, I have lifted my self-imposed forum ban. I calmed down, recentered myself, and cautiously waded back in. (So far so good.) Another reason that I returned, though, is that during the ban I made absolutely no sales. When I went back, the sales returned too. Good to know, but it also tells me that I am not doing enough off-Etsy promotion. That's going to be one of my big goals for the next year.

Trying new things

I started out a knitter. Then I learned to crochet. After that, I took up dyeing superwash wool yarns. So, I've now taken the next step in my fibery journey: dyeing non-superwash wool roving! This is something I've wanted to try for a while, but after an early bad experience in which I attempted to dye a skein of non-superwash wool yarn and felted it into one big useless blob, I was a bit daunted. But I read lots of tutorials, and worked up my courage, and finally found a good deal on roving so I had to try it. The result:
The colors didn't turn out exactly as I'd intended, but I'm still very pleased with it. I'm not sure why the colors did that but I suspect it has something to do with the (lack of) superwash treatment on the yarn. My biggest moment of accomplishment, though, was when I took it out of the steamer and saw that it didn't felt!
So, hopefully soon I'll be offering rovings in my Etsy shop. The bit of roving shown in this post is only a quarter of the one pound lot I got (and that was huge, let me tell you!), So hopefully I'll have continued success and be able to share it with my customers.