There’s nothing like a well-stocked shop, and at present I have nothing like a well-stocked shop. If you did manage to get your hands on some of the latest batch of hand-dyed thread – thank you so much, it’s on its way. If you didn’t, don’t worry – there will be more.
So now I need to start all over again. It takes a long time to hand wind every skein in preparation for dyeing. I wondered if a yarn swift would help to make the process a bit more efficient. They’re designed for hanks of thicker knitting yarns, and I was sceptical about whether it would work for finer embroidery thread, but so far I’m impressed. In the photo below there’s a textured yarn skein in progress, but it also works perfectly well for threads.
For the next batch I’m going to try dyeing larger skeins initially, and then wind them into smaller skeins after dyeing. I’m still trying to figure out what works best here, both for me and for everyone else. I’m not sure that I will continue with so many different textured yarns indefinitely and will probably instead start to focus on just embroidery threads after current stocks run out. I might make an exception for silk boucle, which is one of my favourite textured yarns.
Also I’m not sure that I’m going to do the big announcement thing when threads are ready. While I’m really grateful that there is so much demand, selling everything in a matter of hours is exhausting. Ideally I’d like to keep the shop stocked at all times, so I will add threads as they become available. If you’re interested in buying thread, please bookmark the shop products page here and keep checking regularly. It will be at least a couple of weeks before there are any more, but I’ll be working on it in the meantime.
In other news, March has begun, and the theme for this month is windows.
You can see that I skim off a few of the threads for my own use. Dyer’s perks, I call it. They’re just skein ends and seconds really. The purple cotton slub has a few white bits in it where the dye didn’t quite find all the yarn. This does happen with thicker yarns, and you can easily cover the white bits with couching stitches.
The first two days are based on images seen through windows. The cherry blossom, along with so many other signs of spring, seems very early this year. The wheel is turning and time carries the colours of spring and the changing light.
You make such beautiful threads Ka! I can’t make myself use them yet. 💙
You must! 😆 Thank you 😊
Loving the windows piece, your threads are beautiful, I see I was late to buy so I did book mark and will check back.
Thank you so much. It will probably be another week or two before more thread is ready. If you find some, don’t tell anyone 😆
Your March project is beautiful as usual. 💕 I am a relatively new reader so feel free to direct me to an earlier post if you have already answered this question but what is your background material? It looks textural, soft and yummy to stitch on. Thank you for sharing your work.
Thank you, Barbara. It’s vintage French bed sheet, cotton/linen blend. There’s a stitch journal FAQ page, if you’re interested – depending on what device you’re using (phone, pc, etc) it’s either in the top menu bar, or in the menu box.
Oh it’s an interesting thought not to announce a shop update. I like that idea in a way. (I’m planning on having a shop eventually and paying lots of attention to what other people do.) It will be interesting to see if it works. 😉
I love your windows. They’re delightful!
FWIW, I’m working on pure linen right now and never again! I also have a mix of linen and cotton put aside for my next project (though some may find it’s way in this one) and it is so much more cooperative!
Cotton/linen blend is usually a good choice. With linen, it depends very much on the quality. Vintage linen that has been well washed is usually pretty good, but some linens can be quite scratchy and difficult to manipulate. Will have to wait and see with the shop, but it’s not sustainable doing it this way and it leaves a lot of people disappointed when everything sells so quickly.
I can just imagine how exhausting the instant sell-out must be! Gratifying, but exhausting.
I’ve used a swift for all sorts of thread, right down to metallics for machines, and as long as they are well set up, they should be fine.
Yes, exactly that – very gratifying but completely unsustainable in terms of my energy levels. I was very impressed with the yarn swift, will definitely be making regular use of it. Metallic thread though… 😱