My Freak Flag

As some of you may know, I've recently started working as a Virtual Assistant to a variety of awesome and talented creative business owners. One of the tasks I'm taking on in this Gal Friday role is to write posts for the blog at Patterned. Every Friday, we're doing something a little different - we're setting aside time to get creative, think about life and business, and step outside the box. We'd love for you to join us!

In this week's #ThinkCreateReflect post, we're making our own Freak Flags!

In case you're not sure, a Freak Flag is basically an outward expression of whatever makes you a unique, wacky, freaky individual.

One day I might make a giant Freak Flag banner for my Ready Room (aka my craft/sewing/home office room), but in the meantime I think this giant crocheted shawl of mine probably counts as a Freak Flag -

It's crocheted out of several different wild and wacky skeins of handspun. Some I spun myself, and others I got from very wonderful friends. I cherish this shawl not only because it keeps me SUPER warm in the cooler months but because it's like a Freak Flag I can wear - it's thick and thin and slightly garish and definitely weird, just like me at times. :)

What's YOUR Freak Flag? Head on over to Patterned and share it with us, or take a picture and tag it #ThinkCreateReflect on Twitter or Instagram!

How I Fell off the Face of the Planet

Looking for the candle giveaway? It's over here.

Howdy! Today I want to share a little bit about what's been happening around here the past few months (aka, How I Fell Off the Face of the Planet), as well as how I found my way back down to Earth. Please pardon the temporary interruption to the usual yarn-infused posts. :)

Story time!

A few months ago, summer had just started, and I was facing the prospect of having three rowdy kids home all summer while I attempted to work my regular part-time day job AND run Storied Yarns. Every day was chock FULL of To Dos, and plenty of stress.

For my kids, the #1 thing they heard from me earlier this summer was, "Not right now - Mommy's working."

UGH! This was NOT how I wanted things to turn out.

When you run your own business, the To Do list is really never-ending. I struggled to find the time to work on the day job tasks, work on Storied Yarns tasks, and take care of my kids and my household. I was a hot mess; so much so that nothing worked out well, and everything felt like it was falling apart.

Lucky for me, a few months before summer started I made the decision to join Tara Swiger's Starship. In the Starship I've had access to classes and counsel from other creative business owners like me, and I've learned that I can change my business (and really, my LIFE) if I just sit down and take the time to explore what's working - and what isn't working - and map out the steps to make the changes I need in order to get back on track with where I want to be.

So let's go back to earlier this summer. My path from stress to peace basically went something like this:
1. Freak Out.
2. Break down, cry, talk to a very understanding and sympathetic husband.
3. Put 2 + 2 together to figure out that I'm working 40 hours a week to earn about 20 hours' worth of pay.

In case you were wondering, working full-time hours for part-time pay was NOT my idea of a good life. 

4. Explore what's working, and what isn't.
5. Change schedule to focus on day job primarily, with Storied Yarns worked in around the edges.
6. YAY! Peace, yo!

Now, summer is over, and I follow a schedule that works for me: I spend certain hours of the day focused on the kids and the house, and other hours are reserved for work. I haven't turned into June Cleaver overnight, but most of the time I've got clean laundry, clean dishes, and clean floors - which is a lot more than I had back in June. I even get time for a break every day!

I'm not exactly happy that I had to get to such a stressed-out place to make these changes, but I'm glad for the changes nonetheless. That experience has helped me learn that I can handle anything that comes my way. I'm not 100% there yet (I'm still working to transition my existing day job, which is ending soon, to running my own business of a different kind for a day job income - more on that later), but I'm on the path to living the life I want - the life I choose for myself.

I'm still going with Storied Yarns, and I'm hoping that this new schedule will even give me more time to share my adventures here on the blog. I've already found that by not trying to make my business into a full-time job, I have a lot more fun working on it and it helps me feel more creative and inspired. I hope you'll continue to join me in my adventures, and to share with me through the comments!

Thanks for letting me share a little of my behind-the-scenes today! I'll be back later this week to show you what I'm knitting and what I've been cooking up in the dye pots.

NOTE: This blog post has been part of Tara Swiger's Exploration Party - a celebration of inner explorers, led by Tara Swiger of Explore You. You're invited to share your own explorations with us, too! And if you're thinking that there's an area of your business OR your life that could use a little exploration, Tara's new class could be just the thing you need. (Seriously, I don't normally recommend stuff like this, but the Starship has helped me SO much, and this class is like a mini-Starship experience. Also? She makes a lot of Star Trek references, has pink hair, and she's a knitter. She totally gets us.)

Diamond Candles Review & Giveaway!

Update: We have a winner! Congratulations to Cheryl-Anne!

Hello! Guess what? I'm back! I'm going to try to blog more often, though I make no promises about HOW often because I don't want to disappoint you. :)

I thought it might be nice to bring you a present as a welcome-back kind of a gift, so I got you a candle! Well, really I got you a coupon code for a free candle, but that's actually better because now you get to choose your favorite fragrance!

A little while back, Diamond Candles contacted me and asked if I'd like to do a give-away on my blog, and review a candle for myself. I jumped at the chance, because I love to burn candles to make my house smell warm and inviting any day of the week. Plus, Diamond Candles uses 100% soy in their candles so they're all natural, which is a definite bonus. I'll be the first to admit that I don't live a totally environmentally-friendly lifestyle, but I like to do what I can so I like that the (all-American!) soy beans used in Diamond Candles make them a sustainable, earth-friendly product.

I got to choose the fragrance I wanted for my review candle, and it was a tough one! I was tempted by so many - Rosewood, Gingerbread Latte, and Ocean Mist, to name a few - but in the end, I went with a fragrance inspired by one of my favorite indulgences: Cinnamon Tea.

At the end of a long, tiring day, all I want is to relax with a spiced cup of chai or cinnamon tea. I knew that burning that candle would help me relax all throughout my day, and I was right! The fragrance is nicely strong without being overpowering, and the candle smells really good even when it isn't lit!

Of course, the best part about Diamond Candles is that they put an actual RING inside each candle! Since they want the fun of burning a candle to be even more exciting than usual, Diamond Candles hides a ring worth anywhere from $10 to $5,000 inside each candle. When you burn the candle, you can see the ring inside it and after the wax burns down enough you can fish it out!

They take care to protect the rings; they're carefully wrapped in gold foil. After just a few hours of burning time, I was able to use a fork to pull this out of my candle:

I let it cool off for a minute or two, and then I unwrapped it to find this:

If you find "14K" written inside your ring, take it to a jeweler and have it appraised! My ring wasn't a "big winner," but it's still really lovely! I gave it to my daughter, who was just as excited about this whole process as I was. I definitely see more Diamond Candles in our future.

How about you? Do you want a Diamond Candle of your very own? Just enter below! I'll leave the contest up for one week, so it will end Monday, August 19, 2013. The winner will receive a coupon code for the free Diamond Candle of your choosing! This contest is open only to residents of the United States.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: I participated in this review and give-away because I got a free candle for myself and a code for a free one to give away. Diamond Candles sent me my candle for free, but I gave an honest review and the opinions stated in this Diamond Candles review are all mine. 

The Companion Bag: Your New Best Friend

Hello, lovelies! Today I am very excited to introduce you to a new product here at Storied Yarns Central: the Companion bag! Yay (insert Muppet-esqe flail here)!!!!!

This one is made using TARDIS print fabric but I'll be making this same bag in a variety of awesome, nerd-tastic prints!

When I decided to start making project bags on a regular basis, I decided that I wanted to make bigger (on the inside? ha!) bags than most of the ones I own. This bag is large enough to hold a few different skeins of yarn at once or to hold a single-skein project with plenty of room to spare for things like an e-reader, a printed pattern or book, pens, notions, etc.

The Companion bag features double-sewn seams for extra sturdiness as well as interfacing to help the bag stand on its own. It won't let you down with a lot of sagging and slumping while you're trying to knit, that's for sure! It has a wristlet handle, zipper closure and a zipper pull for easy opening and closing.

Inside the bag you will find two snap-open (and closed) yarn guides; this is great for knitting two-at-a-time socks or alternating skeins while you work without tangles. When I knit my socks 2-at-a-time with these bags, I simply turn the bag when I turn my work and it keeps those strands in line.

Here you can see the yarn guides "in action" with two separate yarn cakes. (By the way, that's 8oz of worsted weight yarn in there with plenty of extra room!)

 Here's a shot of the bag holding one of my sweater lots - this is over 1300 yards of DK weight yarn!

Here's a front view so you can see how easily it holds that much yarn:

This is obviously just one of my bags, but I make them all using the same Secret Formula so any Companion bag you buy will have all these awesome features.

Here are the details:
- Dimensions: The Companion is approximately 13 in. wide, 9 in. high, 9 in. across at the base and 4 in. deep (that's approx. 33 cm wide, 24 cm high, 24 cm across at the base and 10.5 cm deep).
- Materials: I use high quality cotton fabrics for the inner and outer portions of the bags. The shell is also lined with heavy interfacing and the bag features a zipper closure. You can machine wash these bags on a cold cycle and tumble dry low if needed, or simply spot clean here and there.
- The bags will all be somewhat limited edition; due to the time consuming nature of creating them, I will not be taking custom orders. I also will not be likely to repeat my fabric choices very often (if at all), so once a particular print sells out then it may never come back. If you see a bag and you want it for your new Companion, you'd better grab it up quickly.
- Each Companion bag sells for $30.

I hope you enjoy my new bags, and that they bring an element of Nerdy Awesomeness to your next WIP! You can find the Companion bags at Storied Yarns and Storied Yarns on Etsy. If you want to see sneak previews of the bags as I create them, follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

She's Baaa-aaack!

I'm back! After a brief experiment posting blogs at another site, I'm back to good ol' Blogger. I hope you didn't miss me too badly! I'm about to re-post a few things from the other site to this one, just to keep everything where it belongs, and then I'll be back to regularly scheduled blogging very soon.

Thanks, everyone!

Knitting a Hand Dyed or Hand Spun Sweater

Hello, everyone! Today I listed some exciting new packages in the Storied Yarns Shop - the Ultimate Fangirl Sweater Kits! These kits will give you plenty of hand dyed yarn (in the colorway and base of your choosing) to knit a sweater, and they're available in DK and Worsted weight yarn options as well as a Combed Top option for you spinners out there. For every kit you get two full pounds of yarn or fiber!

So, how about some suggestions of what to knit with these lovely kits?

First up: the Ultimate Sweater Kits (2 pounds of yarn or fiber) ...

For the DK weight option, you will have 2000 or 2650 yards of DK weight yarn, depending on the base you choose. What sweaters can you knit with that? Quite a few, I should say!

How about a simple cardigan with a pop of textured detail at the collar and sleeves? Roheline should do the trick! This one would look really great in a semi-solid OR a variegated colorway, I think. For something with a little more detail (that would probably work best in a semi-solid "Stock Character" colorway), how about The Archer, a hooded pullover with cable details, or a cabled cardigan - Locke Street Cardigan?

For the worsted weight option, you will get 1696 or 2480 yards. Emilien is a great, basic hoodie pattern that would look awesome striped with two colorways or in one semi-solid or variegated color. Girl Friday has been a favorite pattern of mine for quite some time, and I also really love Dark and Stormy. I think either of those would work best in a semi-solid, stock character shade.

If you're going to buy the fiber option, of course your yardage will vary depending on the weight you spin and the yardage you are able to make. However, a few suggestions might help you narrow down the sweater patterns that would work especially well for handspun yarns. My friend Brittany recently published Libretto, which has a really fun shape and structure that lends itself well to textural yarns. I also really like Idlewood, which would be super cozy in handspun. The clean lines and stockinette body of the Effortless Cardigan and Atelier would also work really well in handspun, colorful yarns.

Next up: The Major Fangirl packages (24oz of yarn or fiber) ...

For the DK weight Major Fangirl sweater kit, you will receive 1500 or 1980 yards. Summer Solstice is a cardigan that would look fantastic in a boldly variegated yarn or a tonal one. Vodka Lemonade is an adorable cropped cardi that would be really nice in almost any color. Gnarled Oak Cardigan has beautiful details which would stand out really well in a semi-solid stock character colorway, and Calligraphy Cardigan, which I totally lust over, would be fantastic in a variegated colorway (note: for the largest sizes you may need to upgrade to Ultimate Fangirl for that one).

For worsted weight, try these on for size: you're going to have either 1272 or 1860 yards to play around with. I love the interesting structure of the Levenwick cardigan. The Brownstone pullover has a male model but I think works really well for either gender, no matter who that sweater will be for! Don't forget Francis Revisited; that one would be great for a colorful worsted weight yarn OR handspun.

For handspun, any of the above suggestions would probably work, too, as would Abalone - it only needs 500 yards! :)

Don't forget to check out my album of available colorways, including the milder Stock Character semi-solids in addition to all the bold, variegated options. If you're interested in a sweater package but not sure which one is right for you, just contact me on Etsy! Together we can make you the fangirl sweater of your dreams. :)

Fiber Friday: Wandering in WIP-Land

psst - Are you looking for information about the Fiber Arts Retreat in April? Read THIS! 

Hello, and Happy Fiber Friday!

This week here at Storied Yarns Central, I feel like I may be slightly drowning in WIPs. I recently cleaned out my personal fiber bin (more on that next week), and inside I found a handful of project bags full of knitting WIPs. Now my WIP bin is overflowing instead of my fiber bin! ACK.

The only WIPs that I'm actually working on at the moment are a crocheted handspun shawl and a hat for my husband.

First up, the shawl - I'm using the Rippled Wrap pattern by Cheri McEwan, and I really like it because once you get past the setup rows, each subsequent row is basically the same as the last so it makes for nice TV crocheting. I also like that it's crochet and I'm using a really big (size US P) hook with super bulky handspun so in theory it will be a fast project (if I ever get the time to work on it, that is!). I'm using a variety of handspun skeins that are all hot pink but each one is unique; originally I made these into a bolero but I didn't like the way it fit, so instead they're going to make me a super cozy shawl for those cold winter nights.

Let's just not talk about the fact that it might be spring before I finish it, okay? 

Here is that lovely shawl in progress:

The hat I'm knitting for my husband was a special request from him. He wanted a "Ron Weasley hat," which to him means a hat with ear flaps and ties. Of course, being ME, I had to dye up a Ron Weasley colorway for his Ron Weasley hat, and then I had to use handspun for the hat instead of regular yarn, because that makes it more complicated more cozy.

Here's a picture of the hat along with the rest of the yarn I have in order to finish it - the yarn is a 2ply of my Ron Weasley colorway on SW BFL with a ply of natural oatmeal colored Icelandic wool. I love how the natural wool kind of mellows out the Ron a little bit, making this hat JUST wild enough for my husband to still wear it (I hope!).

I'm using the basic idea of the pattern, A Practical Animal Cracker Hat, by Becca Evans. This hat was inspired by the actual Ron Weasley hat from the third movie (the one my husband is referring to when he tells me the kind of hat he wants), so it's what I'm modeling my hat after. I had to frog the first one, though, as it turned out several inches too big circumference-wise, so I'm continuing on with my own method of decreasing since my numbers will be off from hers. For that I'm using Crazy Aunt Purl's guide to decreasing the crown of a hat.

The down side of this "quick hat" project is that I'm going to have to line it, because the Icelandic makes this handspun a little scratchy and I don't want the hubster NOT to wear it because it's too scratchy. So I'm going to use a SW Merino/Bamboo blend yarn to line it so it will be nice and soft and double cozy that way, but essentially that means I have to knit two hats. Oh well, at least it's going to be a fun one when it's finished!

The reason for all my rushing on these WIPs is that I'm DYING to cast on for the gorgeous pair of fingerless mitts that my friend Steph designed for quarter one of my A Yarn and a Tale book club. I'm making myself finish at least one of the above projects first, though, preferably the hat. So, there's that.

I did manage to squeeze in a little spinning this week - I spun this corespun yarn from a pair of batts by Ever Improving Me. I plan to knit it into a corespun crown for a KAL in the Funhouse Fibers Ravelry group. Wahoo!

And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you, Fiber Fangirl. I also added some new goodies to the Storied Yarns Shop this week:

So, I guess that's it for me! Watch for an announcement next week about Quarter 2 of A Yarn and a Tale, and to stay the most up to date, hang out in the Storied Yarns Ravelry group.

Happy Stitching!

XOXO,
Jess