So most, if not all, of the Mythic Club people should have received their first club entry by now.

It was, as the title suggests, Anubis, the psychopomp (guide of the dead) of ancient Egypt, and one time King of the Underworld (abdicating as Osiris grew in popularity). (For those who missed it, that’s what the random odd “clues” were on the blog before)

Beyond the, “Ooh shiny” the club actually does affect the regular storegoers of Gnomespun. Why?

Recipes.

This is my first experience with doing large batches of an identical (within reason) colorway, and thus I have actually begun to develop repeatable recipes for some colorways. This is a good thing for you! It means I can actually do large batches, and when you get “Falling In” it’ll be basically the same as any other time you get it, rather than variable!

Of course there will still be *some* variation, but not nearly what there’s been in the past. But don’t worry! Not all the colorways will be reciped, I’ll still be doing plenty of colors by the slap-dash creative methods I’ve used in the past.

So, anyway, Anubis.

Here, he is represented in wensleydale, a longwool with a luster befitting the pharaohs in rich pure jackal head black, lapis blue, and gold.

Recipe dyeing as an interesting experience. There’s always one batch that decide to not quite look right.

Then of course I had to make the stitch markers I promised. In obsidian or lava, lapis, and brass.

Then time to bag up the fiber and markers…

Then get the description all written out.

And send it out!

Then, all that remained was to wait and see what people did with it! Here’s some examples so far…

Rhynwa split her fiber down the middle to preserve color changes. Rhynwa’s Anubis, in a lovely montage:

PaA split his for “Fractal Spinning” (which is really more like an exponential progression). ProgrammerAtArms’ Anubis:

ABA also split hers for fractal spinning, but spun a slightly thicker yarn for a different effect. AbqBalancingAct’s Anubis:

So that’s the first club! First clue for the second club is that one of the stones for the stitch markers is carnelian. More clues to follow.

And your gratuitous puppy! BAAAAAAAALL!

Shop is, as always, here

Fibers: Silk, Southdown, Dorset, Rambouillet, Shetland, BFL, Wensleydale, Gotland, Finn, Phouka

Colorways: Sapphire Swirl, Into the Green, Old Gold, Grand Canyon, Red Wine, Nightmare, Leprechaun, Llyn-dhu, Peach Sorbet, The Tide Rolls In, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, On the Lathe, Among the Aspens, Fae Queen, Falling In, Spanish Shawl, Daylillies, Stormclouds, Forest Shadows, The Ashes of Roses, A Heady Brew, Ruby Fires, Pretend, House Mouse, Nightmare, Witness to Your Life

And a hat!

That’s all for now! Real posts about festivals and things will come!

Now I have to get the club fiber dyed.

Gratuitous puppy!

~The Gnome

An update to the shop!

Fibers: Wensleydale, Shetland, Masham/Massam

Colorways: Daylillies, Through a Rain Drenched Window, Summer Sun, Heart of the Fire, Deepest Amethyst, Growing Season, Smoke and Ashes, Amaryllis, Mud Season, Sapphire Swirl, Old Stone Wall, The River Flows, Moose, Heather Broom and Gorse, Mossy Rock.

And a gratuitous puppy photo! No, Dad, this is TOTALLY comfy!

That’s all for now! More actual blogging later, really, no really!

The shop is, as always, here

A shop update! With an entirely new to the shop fiber, coopworth! Also an answer to a question at the end of the post.

Fibers: BFL, Shetland, Polwarth, Perendale, Coopworth, Corriedale, Jacob, Rambouillet, and Dorset

Colorways: Rusalka, Springtime, Fiddler’s Green, Sparrow’s Wing, Cupcakes, Sunburst, Spring Flowers, A Heady Brew, Stonework, Waterfall, Soft Tidepool, The Tide Turns, Moose, Walnut, Garnet Shadows, The Salmon of Knowledge, Crocus, Bluejeans, Shadows of the Green, and The Shore at Fife.

Handspun Yarns: Snowstorm, Rust, Sandstorm, Midnight Magic, Across the Sea, and Sunrise

Question: Diane asks – A question related to the protein fibers – do you know how the presence of the medula (sheep) vs a hollow core (alpaca) effects the dye take up? I’m assuming there are just fewer sites for the dyes to attach to but didn’t know if that was a simplistic explanation.

Answer: Not simplistic at all. The big difference is that alpaca scales are much shorter and less numerous than on wool. This provides less binding locations, but also makes the fiber less likely to felt and feel more silky.

That’s all for now, more coming!

~The Gnome

Knitting again!

A friend of mine is in Afghanistan, being a Corpsman and keeping people duct taped together. But it’s been cold there in the winter!

So, I set out to make a hat. But unlike my other hats, this one needed to be as durable as possible. Ideally it would hold up to regular hot washing and drying in the military dryers…

So I knitted myself up a swatch of a couple of the superwash yarns I have marinating in my stash and ran them through the washer on hot and then the dryer on hot with jeans and towels. I eliminated a few of them just during the knitting for falling apart while knitting.

I wasn’t terribly impressed. I tried three yarns, and they all felted some, and all of them got very fuzzy very quickly. You can see one example where the curling and fuzzing is pretty evident. The felting is less obvious in this one.

So, someone pointed out I have, you know, yarn. Oh, yeah, right! I’m a dyer! And that’d mean I could do it in whatever colors I want! Why didn’t I think of that?! I knit up a swatch of that in double-knit and sent it through the washer/dryer a bunch of times. It survived MUCH better, being a sock yarn designed for hard wearing!

So, I skeined up some double-strand skeins, and dyed up some yarn! The Phouka is a sock weight yarn, so I figured a double knit would work. Look everyone, it’s a hat! Ok, so it’s a Schroedinger’s Hat, a collection of yarn the quantum waveform of which might collapse into the “hat” superposition (Ok, all you normal people can look back now, nerd joke over).

So I started to knit! This is a lighter hat. If I wanted a slightly heavier hat, I could have trebled the yarn, but I didn’t want it to be too heavy. Lookin’ good, quantum wave function is collapsing…

Woot, it appears to be collapsing to “hat” and not to “yarn barf madness!”

Yay, it’s a hat! Yes, it’s a simple hat. I tend to make those because the people I mostly make them for like simple hats. This is a 3×2 rib hat. I do need to learn to make them six to six-and-a-half inches before making the crown… though the recipient has… much less hair than I do.

So that’s my latest knitting. I’ve also had some other projects in the works. More about those later.

And, because everything is cuter with a puppy… Mokey hat!

That’s all for now!

~The Gnome