the mid-week update...

Yesterday I missed my usual blog post day. That's because I got the chance to give a talk about Knit Green: 20 Projects and Ideas for Sustainability for the Manitoba Eco-Network! The talk went very well and I enjoyed myself. However, between getting downtown on time and my usual pre-talk jitters, it exhausted me for anything else! Had to have a quiet afternoon and a large cup of tea to recover.

However, continuing with the green Earth Day theme, here is my new summer dress. Yesterday was also the warmest day this year so far in Manitoba. It hit a high of 21 C! (above 70F.) Although many people stripped down to shorts and sandals, there was a stiff wind, so my dress will wait for another day. In the meanwhile, here's what a little green dye can do for a buttercup yellow dress. The dye was probably a buck or so, and then there's my time to dye it, but all in all, I'm enjoying good value here with this recycled outfit!

Lately I have been pondering how much my time is worth, and what I should spend that time on. As a freelancer, I manage my work schedule and I decide how to allot my work hours. For instance--I figure --aside from knitting--that I spent about 8 hours getting The Winnipegger scarf ready for sale. That included things like formatting the pattern, proofreading it, getting outside tech editing support, doing the photo-shoot, etc. I was lucky that the professor could shoot the photos, as then I didn't have to pay a photographer as well-another expense. Anyhow, I was so pleased to post the pattern for sale on Ravelry.

So far? Not one single purchase. Nada. Nothing.

I know as a designer and writer that a portion of my work is just a business risk. This appears to be part of that risk. Whether my work is calculated at $9 (minimum wage in Manitoba) or $20-30+ (teaching rates) or $35 (editing rates)---well, I just have to hope someone is interested in buying a pattern I post or I lose 8 hours of that income. Never mind the knitting time! For now, it's just available via Ravelry as I don't want to waste the time of my webmaster (another small business owner) in terms of posting it on my site too. We'll see how things go. I remain hopeful that someone will like the pattern enough to consider purchasing it.

The books I wrote are another kind of risk--and this morning, I heard of this kind review! Hurray!

I haven't had a lot of time for spinning lately. However, when I've spun, it's been exclusively on spindles. Here's a shot of my SpindleWood spindle, complete with a rich brown alpaca/silk blend yarn. This blend of fiber is slick and I had little luck using my Great Wheel to spin some of it up when I got it--nearly a year and a half ago. I'm not sure if it was my inexperience with my new Great Wheel or the tendency of this fiber to drift apart. It lacks the "grab" that wool fibers have. With the control of a fine spindle, it's speedily becoming yarn! I hope these singles will become a luxury sport to dk weight 2 ply in the weeks to come.

Oh, one more neat bit of local news. Check out this article--soon the Muslims of Inuvik (that's in the Arctic) will have a place to worship, thanks to those here on the prairies! What a wonderful way to reach out to others. In a place so cold, it is an amazing gift to get an indoor location to gather.
That's the news from here!

and the winner is...

Shari, congratulations! You've won a subscription to Living Crafts Magazine! I'll be emailing you as soon as I finish this post. Other contenders might wonder how I choose these things. I used to print out all the comments, cut them up so each comment was on a different scrap of paper, fold those up and put them into a large bowl. Then I made the professor choose the winner.

That was a lot of paper to waste, and I don't always have the professor around to do the drawing, so I now use one of the random number generators on the web instead. I put in 1-15 as my numbers, since one of the commenters didn't want a magazine. (even folks who weren't from North America were eligible for the prize) Then it popped up 14 and starting from the first comment and counting down--skipping those who didn't want a subscription--that's how I got our winner. Truly random. :)

Less random was the contest I had a couple of weeks ago to figure out a name for The Winnipegger scarf. I have now posted it on Ravelry for sale. Even if you're not on Ravelry, you can purchase it here. The winners have all been sent their free pattern already! It will also likely be available on my website sometime, too, but for now, Ravelry's the place to go shopping for a downloadable pdf if you're interested. (I hope you're interested!)

In other news, weaving has been going slowly, so no new warp for April as of yet. I did several roving rugs and I'm using the last of this warp on some curtain fabric. I'm thinking of making curtains for my kitchen with this.

Although you can't tell from the photo, I'm making a striped fabric. One stripe of weft is a cream colored wool yarn I got from the Scrap Exchange in Durham, North Carolina. (the warp is from there, too) Since I lived in Durham from 1998 to 2002, this stuff has been marinating in my stash a long time! The same stripe has bits of a nylon white ribbon from Sweden as an accent. I got this at a yarn swap in Winnipeg last summer. The other stripe uses the same cream colored nubby cotton as the warp. I'm hoping this stripe works as a more "see through" option so that hopefully some sunlight will shine through. If you've noticed--I haven't bought a thing yet that was particularly for weaving. It's all from my stash!

In the same vein, I went to the Artsjunktion in Winnipeg's Exchange district for the first time last week. This is a nonprofit venture much like the Scrap Exchange--its goal is to keep useful stuff out of the landfill! It's a great resource for artists, teachers, and crafters. I could not believe my luck. I found cotton yarn (a future warp?), colored cotton thread, several lengths of lovely wool fabric--great for weaving into rugs or sewing into something else, some spools of ribbon, some binding tape, and and....a brand new yellow summer dress in my size. Now, yellow doesn't look good on me, but I am not letting that get in the way.

Free is free...might as well make into something I'll use. One yellow empire waist dress went for a swim in a dye bath last Friday. I meant to shoot a photo, but it's already hanging in my closet!

I did pay for parking and donated some old records and $5 towards the rent of the warehouse space. That said, I felt a bit guilty taking away all this loot. One man's trash is most definitely another woman's treasure!

Is there a reuse depot for industrial and crafting discards in your area? How about a yarn swap in your guild/knitting group? I'm curious...please feel free to let me know or comment on something else below...