Well, it is now 9 days into the new year, and so far has been filled with sickness, dead car batteries, and more illness (we like to share things in our family). Not off to a rocking good start, but there are still blessings. Our bouts with illness have been thankfully short-lived, and I still have my wheel, my fiber, drum carder, knitting needles, and crochet hooks. 

I finally managed to get some more items posted in my shops, and have been coming up with more ideas for batts. There's another guild meeting coming up in February that I'm preparing for, so the creative juices are flowing. And I decided to try offering free Priority mail shipping in my Etsy shop, so we'll see if that's successful. I know I always like to avoid shipping fees when I can.... Ah, the joys of shopping from the comfort of your own computer.

Well, now it's well into December, and we're trying to get ready for Christmas. Unfortunately, due to unexpected circumstances in the last few weeks, I have had to have my store closed down. I'm hoping to get it open later this week, though it may have to be after Christmas. I was hoping to have some lovely Christmas sales, but perhaps there will be some New Year specials instead.

 

The first Saturday of this month I was a vendor at the Nutmeg Spinners Guild, my first time going as a vendor. I had a blast! I'm definitely looking forward to going again in February, and already I've been thinking about some of the new stuff I'll have available for that meeting. If there's anything you'd like to see, or have any other suggestions, let me know at info@dragonmailledesigns.com.

I hope everyone has been having a wonderful start to the holidays, and Merry Christmas to all!

Well, today is the last day of my Halloween sale--just put 'trick or treat' in the notes to seller at either of my stores, and I will give you a treat. You'll get a rebate of a surprise amount--and it's much healthier than buying leftover Halloween candy that's on sale!!

 

Check out my stores at Spindies--Dragonmaille Designs, 

and my Etsy shop. 

 

There's now more stuff on my Etsy shop site too--more hand-dyed milk fiber. This was the talk of the booth at my last fiber show, and is really fun to work with. I'm hoping my next vendor event in December will show it to be just as popular! 

Well, there's still a little more time for my pumpkin sale, but it's not going to be around for long! Check out my Etsy shop and my Spindies shop for my sale items: right now it is my superwash and superwash blend batts that are on sale. Check it out, and don't wait--I'm not telling when the sale is up, but it'll be soon!!

Well, hopefully the technical glitches have been ironed out and I can start posting regularly again. Just updated my Spindies shop and my Etsy shop with some new spinning batts, mostly inspired by this time of year--fall in New England, Halloween, that kind of thing. Just follow the links on my shops page, since I'm too lazy to put any direct links in here. Hey, it is getting late, and I've been sick. Hopefully I'll get pictures up tomorrow, because otherwise they'll have to wait--Saturday I'm going to Rhinebeck! And I'll get to see if I managed to get any prizes for my handspun this year. Here's hoping!

Finally finished spinning my Phat Fiber September samples--just need to cut them up. Since the theme is fantasy based, I decided I was going to start a new line of colorways and yarns. So this will be the launch of 'Lord of the Skeins'. Will post pictures when they get taken. Otherwise you'll have to hope you'll be one of the lucky ones that gets a box with my samples in it!

Well, it's promising to be fall very soon--we went from very hot weather to much much cooler weather. Overnight. Since fall is my favorite time of year, I'm enjoying this immensely.

I just got some new fiber reactive dyes, and as soon as I get some mordant (which I don't have yet because I wasn't in need of it without dyes--so now I have dyes and no mordant), I'll be trying my hand at dyeing some of my bamboo fiber. And I got some carbonized bamboo from the manufacturer recently, and I looking forward to spinning that up into some luscious yarn, and it'll probably end up in my shop. Then someone else can get to enjoy it too! Hopefully I'll have new stuff dyed up soon, and get more pictures posted.

Well, August snuck up on me while I had my back turned. And since I hadn't posted new stuff on my website or in my shops for a while, I decided to post a new item in my Etsy shop. It's one of my first (if not the first) drumcarded batts, and I really wanted to keep it for myself. But, mustn't be selfish, so into my shop it goes. It is a great summertime batt, with the colors of the sea and sky throughout. Check it out, and I'd love to know what everybody thinks of it. More batts coming soon! 

Well, I've been keeping up with my Tour spinning pretty well, and fortunately managed to combine the Tour spinning with preparing my Phat Fiber samples. Since the July box is wool-free, it also gave me an excuse to spin up some of my super yummy mulberry silk brick, some bamboo, and some of my milk fiber. At this point, I've spun up over two pounds of my stash! And still plenty more Tour days to go!

I'm also borrowing a drum carder, and playing around with creating batts using my stash, and soon will post some more of my fiber up for sale in my shops. At this rate, I won't have any stash left! Good thing I still have some fleeces to process....

This year I signed up for Tour de Fleece. My reasons for this are multiple, as I need to get more spinning done, and I need to use up some of my stash. So, I joined the Ravelry Tour de Fleece group, and decided I would join the Climbers and the Stash Busters. I also joined eXtreme Spinning's team because her stuff is just great (she's pretty cool herself, too).

My goal for the Climbers team is to get at least one skein a day done, or at least 2 oz. toward a bigger skein, and for Day 1 I did 4 ounces of dyed coopworth from Sojourner Design that was in my stash, and had to break it into 2 skeins to fit onto my plying bobbin. Yesterday, Day 2, I spun up 2 ounces of black alpaca and plied it with 2 ounces of handpainted BFL from Painted Sheep I've had for about a year. Came out great, super super soft, and I'm sorely tempted to keep it for myself, instead of posting it in my shop.

So, overall, it's a success so far. Now if I can just keep this up....