First, the memorial afghan update:

I’ll get photos up soon of the seaming as it processes.

We have: 57 squares
They have arrived from:
(Found the lost envelope for yours, RadarKaty)

USA Kentucky C-Ville
Canada Manitoba Woodlands
USA Utah Logan
USA Texas Katy
USA Arizona Glendale
New Zealand Unknown Wanaka
USA New York New York City
USA Wisconsin Madison
USA Oregon Gearhart
UK Unknown Unknown
USA Florida Crestview
Norway Unknown Bergen
USA New York White Plains
USA New York Endicott
USA Minnesota Columbia Heights
USA Washington Lacey
USA Maryland Columbia
USA California Redlands
USA New York Binghamton
USA Illinois Chicago
USA North Carolina Hendersonville
USA Pennsylvania Conshohocken
USA Washington Tacoma
USA Oklahoma Broken Arrow
USA Alabama Huntsville
USA Maryland Huntingtown
USA Georgia Acworth
USA Indiana Moscow

And now for me and the yarn:

Wheee! I’m slowly… ok, not so slowly going craaaaazy! Ahem… ok, so I was already a little cracked. But I’ve got a big TRAC meeting coming up (Thesis Research Advisory Committee) in a week and a half, and I’m not ready. It could be the biggest, and last one of my grad school career. Eep.

In pursuit of that I’m madly trying to gather data for my paper for publishing, trying to keep myself fed, and as minimally sleep deprived as humanly possible… and keep all my other projects in the air (believe it or not, they help my sanity, hey, you there, stop laughing, right n… ok fine).

I got back to the gym last night. It’s been a few months. Ow. It hurt. A lot. But I need to do it. It keeps my back aligned (something I’ve been having trouble with), is a mild mood enhancer, and generally helps my body keep functioning. The final one is perhaps the most important, since I have kidney difficulties which have been acting up. Working out helps my body clear toxins, and forces me to put large amounts of liquid through the system, all good things for getting my kidneys back in working order. Despite being sore, I am feeling paradoxically a little less haggard today.

I also finished the Dionysus yarn the other day, and it’s finally dry and skeined!
The small skein will be up in the shop shortly. The large skein was commissioned. Sport-weight, Noiled green and purple silk (ivy and wine) plyed with brown beaded serger thread (vine and fruit), skeins are 360yds and 140yds respectively.

Ivy and vines twine with the flowing river of wine that symbolizes this Greek god of epicurean tastes. Spun from hand dyed, noiled silk as soft and decadent as Dionysus could Himself desire, the Dionysus yarn is beaded with dark subtle grapes and shining tempting fruit touched by the madness of the Maenads. Drink deeply, but which fruit will make your wine?

The Gnomespun website and shop:

So, I’m now capable of, and considering at least a trial run of migrating the Gnomespun Shop to the Gnomespun server, instead of hosting it on Etsy.

I don’t think I’m getting that much traffic from there, and it would allow me more freedom in how I organize things.

Now, the first iteration wouldn’t be searchable, most likely, but really neither is the Etsy shop. The question that remains is really whether paypal allows for a way to indicate stock, such that I don’t have a pile of “add to cart” buttons that will only disappoint people because I’m out of stock when they click. Mostly orders aren’t very fast/large so I can keep up with taking things down, but I’d rather not make things harder on customers than needed.

~The Gnome

At least one comment that was not spam was caught by Akismet. The plugin has now been removed, despite it’s convenience because the wordpress dashboard is cranky and doesn’t want to let me change things.

~The Gnome

::waves:: Hallo again!

A special hello to anyone who’s wandered over here from the fabulous Tsock Tsarina’s blog!

Last night I made a new page, with the stories of the Mythic yarns. Check it out. Some of the stories still need a bit more fleshing out, but you can see what’s been done and why.

I’m going to be dyeing (and spinning) a bunch more this weekend (yay! a rare weekend these days I can spend doing what I like), and as soon as that’s dry, they’ll go up in the shop. I really wish I had more time to devote to this, as I’m still recovering my stock size from Rhinebeck, unfortunately, there’s this annoying “job” thing which pays my bills.

Currently, I’m spending a lot of time in the lab, counting thousands (yes, thousands) of yeast (one at a time too), which takes away from the time I’d like to spend on Gnomespun. If things go well, I’ll be writing and publishing my paper come January/February, followed by my dissertation. When that’s done… I will be Dr. Gnome! Also, I’ll have a much more predictable schedule with (hopefully) actual free evenings and weekends.

So until then, please bear with me, check back regularly, and I’ll get as much stuff up as possible!

As for the blog, I hope to do a post about fiber-reactive dye chemistry soon. Because, despite spending all day every day thinking about science… it still interests me.

Rats. I just realized I forgot to pack my lunchtime knitting. I’m designing a scarf. Because, well, I’m never quite happy with the options out there, so why not make my life more difficult? ::chuckles::

~The Gnome

Some details still need editing, I’ve apparently still got problems with “its” vs “it’s” that are unresolved even in my adulthood.

But, it’s up, and there’s even some stock in it! ::gnome dance::

I hope to get my latest Mythic yarn up tonight, “Mother of the Twelve Moons” inspired by Heng O, the Toad/Woman who lives in the moon. I’ll post more details and photos tonight if I can.

Also in the works, a commission in “Lichen” yarn that hasn’t been shown on Gnomespun yet, dyeing of “Amaterasu” and planning the next few adventures to cram in before the holidays smack us in the face!

~The Gnome