Thrihyrne

One of my long-time LJ friends from my Tolkien days is a silversmith, jeweler, and has also taken to leatherwork. Each winter season for the past few years she's posted about making things to sell, as well as taking commissions. Like Etsy, but even more direct. So here is this year's post. Just wanted to share and support another artisan. My Dwarvish heart has admired her for a long time. ♥

'Vomiting rainbows', while descriptive, is disturbing to a couple of people on my flist. I'm open to suggestions, because that does appear to be a theme here in my life. And I don't want that to change, I might add.

The weekend was truly lovely. evannichols had Dude Night Friday, which meant that we had a later start to our weekend, but there was still cake to be enjoyed that night— a delicious Carrot Zucchini/Hummingbird gluten- and dairy-free cake from Petunia's Pies and Pastries. Long story short on this: I'd special ordered a unique cake for Evan's 50th birthday and by human error (not on my part), the icing was incorrect. The cake was scrumptious, but Lisa (the founder and pastry chef) felt really badly when she found out and offered up cupcakes or another cake in the future to make things right. So I took her up on it as part of my own recent celebration. Saturday we went out to sushi with grrlpup and sanguinity, which was also delicious. Sunday featured our usual rituals: coffee and online Boggle and an online Tuesday NYTimes crossword in bed; breakfast and internet, domestic chores, a couple of phone calls, some work on personal projects, and as an added bonus, doing Pilates. We didn't so much follow along as use the DVD as a jumping-off point to do our own Pilates with our own music and the DVD on mute. It worked. The weekend was particularly quiet (his sister, BIL and niece were at the coast) and restful; Saturday I even took a nap! This is highly irregular, but apparently much-needed. Yesterday I also had an hour-plus long phone call with emansil_12, which was absolutely wonderful. I'm thrilled to say that she's coming out this way next month and I'll get an entire day to spend with her. :D

This week is my big transition week: I'm still on assignment at the company in Beaverton, but I'm moving up my last day to Wednesday so that I can have a bit of downtime and prep time before jumping headfirst back into full-time work in a new job, in a new work environment for me, and a new field in many ways. I'm terrifically excited!! And also want to make sure I don't start out sleep-deprived and anxious.

And as an aside, I'm so glad that I had a couple of my Etsy sweaters-in-progress to show and tell with grrlpup and sanguinity. sanguinity pointed out something that I knew in my heart to be true with the beginnings of my first sweater with my hand-dyed yarn, which was that with the short variegations and the pattern I'd chosen, it was super busy. She articulated what I knew was the case, so I undid it and am now starting on it as a cuff-to-cuff pullover, which will be different simply because it's cuff-to-cuff, but it will be subtle and showcase the yarn. I'm much more at peace with it now. So, thank you, Sang!! ♥

As noted, this past Monday I got not only a fabulous massage, but I dyed some yarn with my massage therapist (and former big-into-tie-dyeing) friend Joseph. Below the cut is a picture of the yarn which I dyed two colors: one end was fuchsia and the other bright orange, meeting and blending in the middle. I think it turned out marvelously. Nice and bright! The ball of neutral in the middle is what the yarn looked like before. It was taken from a man's large, so I have YARDS of the stuff which I'm going to dye in three different two-color colorway batches to make three different garments. The piece on the right is a gauge swatch both in stockinette but also an overall pattern that I think I'll use with a different set of yarn. :D :D
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I could easily get waaaaaaay into dyeing, though I don't have the facilities here where I live. But Joseph does, and he seems very amenable and encouraging of me doing all the dyeing I want there at his place with double sinks and all that good stuff. Out of the sweaters I currently am taking apart, only the one is one I'd want to dye, but it's good to know that with this experiment that if I find more neutral ones (or not) that I can dye them to make the transformation even more striking.

I'm keeping this one close to my chest, but I wanted to share in a vague way. evannichols' sister and I chatted about various knitting things this past weekend after I tried the baby cardigan I'm knitting on her daughter— with the needle size I used, it actually fits a nearly-four-year-old. !lack of gauge fail. Anyway, a seed was planted about a pursuit in which I could engage and thanks to a visit to one of my favorite places yesterday (with Evan in tow, brave man that he is), I'm getting pretty excited about this particular endeavor. I won't be so coy as all that: it involves knitting and in all likelihood (certainly on the front end) for the infant to age 5 or 6 market. It will involve me designing for only about the second or third time in my 20 year knitting career, as well as reviving my dormant Etsy shop. But it could be really, really cool. With the particulars of this project and creative marketing that's already come to mind, inner SE Portland in specific could be just the place to start out as a potentially rewarding testing ground.

Heeeeeeee! :D May as well be pursuing something as a potential income, whether supplemental or primary, while sending out loads of applications, interviewing and waiting to get closure one way or another for non-self-employment.