A (very) small update this week with a few extra threads for the shop.
Limited quantity of Random threads collections
What’s currently in the shop is all I have until later in the spring, so when it’s gone it’s gone.
silk threads, limited quantities remaining
I hope to have a dyeing day next month – or even later this month, if we get lucky with the weather. I need good light and a couple of decent drying days, so let’s see what the weather gods bring us. After dyeing it’ll be a few weeks of winding and labelling skeins, so I’m aiming for new thread in the shop by late March/early April.
In the meantime I’m finding time for a few quilting/couching/stitching lines on the quilt.
I’ve made some new half-skein Randoms thread collections – these are (broadly) colour-coordinated half skeins from my current thread range, in sets of 8-10. Good for small projects, and good for expanding your thread collection. Because we all need more thread, right?
Good for secret Santas and stocking fillers, because we probably have to start talking about Christmas.
I’ll be closing my shop around 10th December-ish, only for the holidays and only for tangible items that need posting; PDFs will continue to be available throughout the holiday period. It seems early to be closing, but I really can’t do the whole panic-last-minute rush thing, spending entire afternoons in a queue at the post office, worrying about whether post is going to arrive in time etc. Last date for overseas orders (that’s outside UK) will be around 2nd December – so if you’re not in the UK, you’ve got about three weeks to buy what you need 😱
Three weeks? Better start writing a few lists myself…
Happy shopping! Get in touch if you have any questions about any of the products, and thank you as always for your valued support. I know I couldn’t do any of this without you.
I have given myself too much to do, as usual. It started as an experiment to see whether I could produce enough hand-dyed thread to sustain a stand at Knit and Stitch in Harrogate next year. It was an idle thought, which I have tested and unfortunately found wanting. The crucial points I hadn’t factored in are that I only have one pair of hands, and there are only twenty-four hours in a day. I haven’t completely given up on the idea, but it will involve a little more rigorous planning and pacing if it’s going to work.
Hey ho. More thread for the shop, then, in the meantime.
There’s a big pile of hanks awaiting winding into skeins:
cotton and silk thread ready for winding
There’s a growing pile of threads that have been wound into skeins and are waiting for labels:
threads awaiting labelling
Apologies for the light, by the way – my north-facing room doesn’t get any sun, and the view from my window is mostly trees. Definitely not complaining about any of that, but the light is decidedly blueish at my desk at this time of year.
And finally there’s a smaller pile of threads being labelled:
labelled thread skeins
These are ‘spares’ that will go into Randoms, which will be in the shop (I hope) some time next month. I’m trialling a new labelling system which so far is working quite well. The swing tags get a bit cumbersome in a set of threads, and it can be fiddly to get them all to lie flat when packaging them for posting. These are smaller and flatter and I hope might work a bit better. I sourced some plastic-free sellotape so the labels and tape will be compostable.
I estimate there’s probably another hundred hours or so of winding/labelling/sorting into groups, so this will keep me busy for another couple of weeks at least.
I’ll be back at the end of the month with October’s daily stitching.
I think we’re nearly about there with the threads update. First I’m taking a couple of days off, so the new batch of threads will be live from Wednesday, ish.
Here’s my dyer’s perks collection, just some of my favourites from the new batch – silk boucle, fine cotton boucle, silk perle 12, silk perle 8, fine silk and cotton perle 8:
a few new threads for me
I still can’t post anything to Europe or USA, I’m afraid. If you live in one of these areas and have family or friends in the UK, they can order for you as a gift using their UK address.
I have some very pretty silk thread collections, if anyone is thinking about (whisper it) Christmas yet. Just saying.
Silk thread collection: silk boucle, silk perle 3/8/12, fine silk
I’ve also got round to making some better labels for the thread tasters:
thread tasters
I increased the number of Randoms, since these are always the first thing to sell out.
Randoms – 10 mini-skeins, roughly colour-coordinated, various types of thread
You can preview the new threads here; when they’re live they’ll be available to purchase.
Having spent most of this week winding thread, I thought a behind-the-scenes glimpse might be interesting.
I dye thread in hanks, then wash and rinse it, letting it dry outside on a sunny day. When it’s all dry it comes in to be sorted into groups.
hand-dyed thread hanks, grouped by type
I then wind each hank into smaller skeins. Hanks will yield anything from four to ten skeins, depending on the thread type. Pictured below is a new fine cotton boucle yarn that I’m trying. I can no longer get the chunkier cotton boucle that I’ve had previously.
cotton boucle yarn, hanks into skeins
When each hank has been turned into skeins, each skein is twisted. This helps to prevent tangling and keeps them neat and easy to pack for shipping. I use a miniaturist’s drill with half a large paperclip glued where the drill bit should be.
twisted skeins
Then I label each skein with the thread type and yardage. I print, cut and hand write each label. Shown below is the new batch of silk perle 8.
labelling skeins
Once each batch has been labelled, the skeins are sorted by colour ready to be counted, numbered, named, photographed, described and listed in the shop.
skeins ready to be counted, numbered, and named
This entire process has to be repeated nine times, since I currently stock nine different types of thread (four silk and five cotton). I can only wind for half a day at a time, to avoid repetitive strain injury, so it does take a few weeks to get all of it into the shop.
The best bit about the whole process is that there is no waste. Any part-skeins go into Randoms, to be gathered into mini-collections, and anything shorter than a yard goes into the ends pot to be used as ties for tags or in daily stitching.
ends pot (left) and Randoms (right)
Did I say that was the best bit? I meant it’s the second-best bit. This is the best bit:
Mine! Dyers’ perks
I only take a few yards for myself, and only in the colours that really appeal to me. These threads are wrapped round paper tubes, made very simply by rolling a 3″ square piece of copy paper and cutting a little notch in one end.
So there it is – the process from start to end. Threads should be available from around mid-September, if all goes to plan. In the meantime there are still some very pretty threads in the shop here.
For me, back to the daily grind. I mean daily wind.
A successful week’s dyeing: over 150 hanks of cotton and silk thread ready for winding into skeins.
18″ square cube full of thread hanks
But I’m not starting any of that until next week. I’ve discussed it with the boss (that’s me) and she’s reluctantly letting me have the bank holiday weekend off.
In the meantime as a special bank holiday treat, there’s about 20% off selected hand-dyed cotton thread in my shopthis weekend only – offer ends around tea-time (UK time) on Monday. Pick yourself a bargain if you like hand-dyed DMC stranded floss, perle cotton (size 5 and 8) and finer cotton. I’ll aim to post weekend orders out on Tuesday next week. I’m so sorry but I can’t currently post items to Europe, Northern Ireland or USA.
Tea-drinking is a national sport here in the UK, but I like it best for dyeing fabric scraps and trimmings.
tea-dyed fabric scraps and threads
I thought while I was about it, I might as well dye some thread for the shop as well. I’m often asked for tea-dyed thread, and my usual answer is ‘dip some white thread in a pot of tea’ – it (almost) is that simple. But if you want the convenience of having it done for you, I now have a few tea-dyed threads in the shop. The silk threads have come out particularly nicely, a lovely golden dark cream. The cottons are much paler – in fact that’s how I like them, very subtly coloured – but if you want them darker, just let them steep in some black tea for a while until you get the colour you want.
I have some lovely space-dyed DMC threads still available, in most of the specified colourways:
Some of the other lines are becoming a little depleted, so I’m in the process of preparing more thread for another dye session, probably later this month. Good job I haven’t got time to sit on this chair, it’s piled high with thread.
thread winding in progress
Very sadly, shipping to the US is suspended for now – I hope temporarily, but we will have to wait and see what options become available. Royal Mail has issued some rules about collecting the necessary tariffs, but with no clear instructions on how to do that. They also make no mention of the $80 admin/customs/processing fee, which to me is much more of a worry than the 10% tariff. If you’re in the US (or anywhere else, for that matter) and you have friends or family here in the UK, there’s nothing stopping them ordering threads for you as a gift to be sent initially to their UK address. Something to bear in mind for birthdays and Christmas, perhaps.
In the meantime, more thread-winding for me. Have a lovely weekend.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks: over 950 skeins of thread, wound and labelled and coming soon. Soon-ish. I’ve just got to list and describe a couple more batches, then I’ll take a couple of days off, and after that they’re all yours.
I picked out some of my favourites – I call it dyer’s perks. Hank ends, oddments and leftovers, and all mine. I wind any skeins that are for me onto rolls of paper to keep them reasonably neat.
threads coming soon
These are some of the thread taster sets:
delicious!
Be patient. Not much longer to wait, maybe a week or so.
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And a reminder that you can watch my Making Zen interview with Kate here
I’ve been busy producing this over the last couple of days:
hand-dyed threads and fabrics
It will take me a while to sort and wind the thread, as each skein has to be made by hand on this rather Heath Robinson contraption:
Patent thread winder
It’s basically an upended chair with a yarn swift fixed onto the seat, from which I can unwind a skein from the hank onto a niddy noddy (and the autocorrect wanted to change that to giddy body, which made me laugh). A niddy noddy is a hand-held frame that allows you to wind a set number of yards of thread into a skein. A somewhat ridiculous name, in my view, for a very useful gadget.
In the meantime, the shop is open for the remains of the last batch of threads and fabrics. A few announcements:
The global price of silk and cotton has completely sky rocketed and I have no choice but to increase my prices when the new batch is listed. I’ve managed to keep prices the same for a couple of years now so an increase is probably overdue. The existing threads in the shop are still at the old prices, so last chance to buy at this price.
Silk perle 3, extra-fine silk, and extra-fine cotton will all be discontinued when current stocks have gone. Silk boucle is currently under consideration but if I can no longer buy it at a reasonable price then that may well be up for the chop too. I haven’t dyed any more silk boucle in this batch, so what’s in the shop is all there is for now.
SLLD and SLLU fabric packs will be discontinued when current stocks are exhausted. Commercial fabrics have increased in price as well, and I have to buy the fabrics for these packs at retail prices because I don’t have the means to store wholesale quantities. I’ll continue to offer general fabric scraps packs when I can, and these will probably have broadly similar content to the SLLD packs.
I am sorry that I am currently unable to post items to Northern Ireland or Europe.
fabrics for ironing and sorting into packs
I don’t know how long it will take to get these fabrics and threads processed, but I would estimate they could be ready somewhere towards the end of the month.
Have a wonderful weekend while I attempt to find a way up the thread mountain. The colour-coded tags that you can see in the picture, by the way, are knitting markers and they’re there to tell me what kind of thread it is. It can be hard to tell what’s what when it comes out a different colour but these make it easy to see at a glance.
thread mountain
PS – If you haven’t got your Making Zen ticket yet (you’ll need it if you want to access the free extras from me and 31 amazing artists at the end of May), then you can get it here:
While we all wait for me to wind the latest batch of newly dyed threads, there are a couple of special offers in the shop right now.
**EDIT/UPDATE – now all sold out, thank you. Your threads are on their way.
These are the perle 8 silk skeins that are discontinued, and are reduced to clear. When they’re gone they’re gone forever as I won’t be buying this particular thread again.
Please read the full post before heading to the links – thank you.
And there are some single skeins (not dyed by me; please read the shop listing for full details) here:
single skeins, perle 8 silk
Please, a caveat if I may – if you are in the US, please check that you’ve picked United States in the drop-down country menu and not United Kingdom. If you accidentally pick the UK option the system will charge the UK postage rate rather than the correct overseas rate, and this causes extra work and stress for me as I then have to email you to explain. Overseas shipping is expensive. I only charge what it actually costs, and I often make a small loss on international postage. The difference between UK and US shipping costs is about £10. This happens surprisingly often – several times a week, sometimes – and I simply can’t afford to lose £10 every time I ship goods to the US because the correct postage hasn’t been paid. It really isn’t fair to make exceptions.
If this continues to happen then I will have no option but to consider – with immense regret – discontinuing overseas shipping altogether.
Also – if you’re in Europe, please be aware that your country will charge import duties. This is an unfortunate consequence of Brexit and nothing to do with me; I have no control over the amount charged and I don’t profit from it in any way. You can use an online import tax checker to estimate what the additional cost will be.
Apologies for the ranting. Of course I could vastly inflate all my prices and call it ‘free’ shipping. I’d be interested to hear your views, particularly if you’re not in the UK.
