This week I’m on vacation on the lovely shore of Emerald Isle. But because I love my work, the Boutique is still open with new yarns everyday and I’m still talking to customers via email. So I’m away but still checking in. Each day I’ll be posting a few pictures from the vacation, especially the yarny inspiration.

Today was a beach all-day sort of day. Lounging, soaking, and strolling.

This week I’m on vacation on the lovely shore of Emerald Isle. But because I love my work, the Boutique is still open with new yarns everyday and I’m still talking to customers via email. So I’m away but still checking in. Each day I’ll be posting a few pictures from the vacation, especially the yarny inspiration.

Today (Saturday) we got up early and drove the 8 hours to the coast of North Carolina. We stopped at a…colorful fruit stand, unpacked in our gorgeous beach house and hit the beach

View from the living room

Beach
house at sunset

Thank you, darlings, for all the kind notes about quitting my day job!

This whole yarn-thing is going to be a huge adventure and I want to bring you along!

I was thinking about exploring and summer adventures and I came up with an awesome way for us to do this together – a summer yarn/fiber club!

Each month I’ll send you a skein of yarn (or 4 oz of fiber) – and every month we’ll explore a different eco-friendly fiber!

To help us fully explore that fiber, I’ll send you an email with info on the actual fiber (how it’s harvested, where it comes from, what makes it eco-friendly), tips for working on it and (for the yarn clubs) patterns that suit the skein of yarn you got!

As a little make-sure-your-summer-crafting-is-stress-free-bonus,  we can hook up for a 30 minute help session. We can do this over email, the phone, or whatever chat thingy you use (facebook, gmail, AOL, whatever!). You’ll just shoot me an email when you have an issue and we’ll schedule a time (within 2 days) to work on it.

I first told my VIP list about the Adventure Clubs yesterday and already 3 of the 10 filled up! Some of those adventuresome-members had questions about the club. Below are the questions and answers!

(Of course, if you’re ready to join the Adventure, you can find all the clubs here.)

1. What kind of project can I make of 100 yards yarn?
   100 yards of bulky yarn is enough to make a scarf or hat. I actually have a list of possible patterns on my blog.
2. What do you mean by “30 minute help session with me”?

   The help-session is just for those who want it – you can email me with any question you have – anything knitting or crochet or spinning (whether it’s related to my yarn or not) and we’ll either talk about it over email, or we can schedule a phone chat (the free service Skype would make the call free!)I used to do this at yarn stores – customers would come in with any tricky thing they had during the hours I was there and I would help them with it.I’ve been wondering how I could offer that online and this seemed like a good opportunity to test it out!

3. Do you want to ship to Europe?

   I don’t mind shipping overseas at all! You can see the shipping price at the bottom of the listing (and that price covers ALL of the packages for the entire length of the club)

4. What weight is the yarn that I’ll receive?

   Every month will be different, because they’ll each be a different material. In general, though, my yarn is worsted or heavier.

5. I love bright colors. Is that a problem?

   Bright colors are my specialty! You tell me what color you want and every skein will be in that same range (different materials take the dye differently, so there will be some variation, but they will definitely all go together!)If you really want to be adventurous, then each month you can get a different, surprise color!

6. Can you help me with possible patterns for the yarns I receive from you?

   By the 15th of each month, you’ll receive an email that includes information about the fiber, some pattern ideas (including direct links to patterns that will work!) and how to best work with it. You also might want to make one bigger project using all the yarns together, so I’ll give some ideas for that, too!And here’s a little secret – I really want to make these monthly updates videos! If I can figure out the tech side of it, you’ll get a short little message from me, just talking about the fiber! Either way you’ll always get a written explanation that you can refer to when you don’t feel like watching the whole video!

7. I would be interested in a friend and I doing it together.

   Awesomesauce! I think this would be super-fun to do with a friend! If you want to buy more than one club at once, just add it to your cart, then pick the number you want from the dropdown. If you want more than are available, drop me a note and I’ll list another (if the spots are still available).If you do buy more than one, just make sure to give me both addresses, so your friend gets theirs (or I can send them both to you…just let me know!)

8. What do you mean you have 7 spots left? Is that 7 months?

   I mean that I can only handle 10 people in the club at month – to ensure maximum awesomeness. 3 spots have already sold, so there are 7 spots left for either the fiber or the yarn club.

Any questions I didn’t answer here? Just leave them below email me!!

In our family, jam is more than just a sweet topping for your toast. It’s a little jar of spring sunshine – preserved for the whole year. It’s memory and taste and love.

Jay’s Grandma Mary made jars and jars of jam every year – strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry (after her trips to Oregon). You always knew to take a few jars from the freezer when you ran out.
Knowing how my husband loved Grandma’s jam, I asked her to teach me and she scoffed – “It’s just the Sure-Jell recipe that comes in the box, read it yourself!”

Grandma was straight like that and that’s why we loved her.

When she passed away last October, I knew that this would be the year that I got serious about jam. I bought a few boxes of Sure-Jell and waited for the first strawberries.

They appeared last weekend and I got to work.

Washing

Topping

Mashing

Adding the sugar (4 cups)

And pouring.

I’m particularly smitten with the jewel-y pink in the quilted jars – so beautiful!

The jam turned out perfectly, just like Grandma’s!

PS. Really, if you want to make it, get a box of Sure-Jell and read it yourself (it’s the freezer recipe)!

I’ve tried to write this post for weeks.

I can’t figure out how to say it in a way that conveys the big-ness for me and for Blonde Chicken Boutique. This is a huge, scary, exciting step, but it’s just so hard to express.

So, how about I just say it:

I quit my day job.

June 30th is my last day working in an office, for an employer.

July 1st, I wake up to…Blonde Chicken Boutique!

I’ll be a full-time fiber artist, yarnie, fiberista, spinster – whatever we’re calling it that week – it’ll be my full-time job!

Even though I handed in my resignation a month ago, it still feels crazy and new and exciting!

This will allow me to do SO many new things with BCB, things you’ve asked me to do and things I’ve been waiting to do. More craft shows, more in-person lessons, more yarn!

As I transition into this new role, I’ll be sharing more and more about the business-side of BCB: what systems I use, how I decided to go full-time, all sorts of stuff! I know only some of you might be interested in that, so instead of bore the blog readers, I’ll be writing about it in a little newsletter-y thing. Sign up here if you want to learn more biz-stuff.

Thanks for helping me make all of this possible!

I love the changing season and I love to celebrate each of them with their own fresh, local food, flora and yarn-y inspirations.  Each season I make a little list of the pleasures I want to soak in. I call them manifestos, but they’re really just love letters to the season.

Reading Havi’s list of things-to-do-before-she-dies, I realized that these seasonal lists are my own little things-to-do-before-the-moment-passes. And goodness! Spring is nearly gone without a proper love letter.

I hope to keep listing these, every Thursday, as a reminder to soak it in over the weekend (and as a mid-week cheer-up).

This week,  Spring is feeling like a great time for:

• Finding floral inspiration
• Eating lots of strawberries
• Making jam
• Starting the garden
• Sorting Easter Egg dyes
• Baking tasty things

I did a few of these things last weekend, I’ll be sharing them with you soon!

What do you like to do to celebrate Spring?

The rainy weather hasn’t been that conducive to pretty yarn-pictures, but it has been great for yarn-inspiration, in the form of wildly blooming flowers.

This is right outside my front door. Is it a rhododendron?
Last weekend I needed a lift, so I visited the local garden center to look for inspiration in nature. Here’s a little photo-tour:

Petunias

Delphiniums? I think?

Double Begonias

Sweet William

Geranium

Alyssum

Hope you enjoyed the little flower tour. What’s your favorite?

Today I’m cleaning a fleece from an angora goat. Or a mohair fleece.  I’m never sure what to call it!

The goat breed is angora – but the finished fiber is called mohair.

So, yeah, I’m cleaning that.

This particular fleece comes from Rammings farm and while beautiful and strong it is quite dirty.

While I’ve become more experienced with washing sheepy fleeces, this is my first time washing a goat fleece, so I did a little research.

My fleece is still soaking, so I’m certainly not an expert, but here are the best resources I’ve found:

• Very detailed information all about mohair fiber, including the correct ph balance and water tempature at Fiber2Yarn.
• A much more succinct guide at the Colored Angora Goat Breeder’s Assocation.
• Lots of fleece information from Spinderella.

The main points of concern (although I really recommend reading all of those articles – so full of great info!) are the following:

• Don’t let the temperature get too hot (over 170) or the fibers will be damaged.
• Don’t let the water get too cold (under 110) or the lanolin will re-congeal (ew)
• Don’t agitate the fibers or change the water temperature rapidly (or you’ll get some lovely, hairy felt!)

If you have any tips or experiences washing an angora goat fleece, please share in the comments!

Each year, for the last 3 years my mom and I have loaded my car with knitting projects, magazines, and coffee and driven to Maryland Sheep & Wool. The first year, we drove from Ohio – a 12 hour drive! This year, it was  a much shorter trip, just 5-6 hours (depending on how many times we stop for coffee!)

We left Friday morning, drove to Frederick, MD (note to self:  you must stop at Zazzy’z because there  is not another coffee shop until Staunton).

Frederick’s an adorable town with a nice little downtown with lots of boutiques (like The Muse), restaurants and ice cream.

We met up with Mia and meandered around town.

I don’t eat seafood but my mom loves crabs, so we had dinner at May’s – endless crabs for Mom, a fantastically broiled chicken for me.

Saturday dawned rainy and dreary but I leapt out of bed, excited or the festival! Maryland Sheep & Wool is one of the largest festivals of its kind and frankly, it’s overwhelming. I decided a head of time NOT to try to see it all! The same vendors come every year, so I’ve seen them before. I wanted to spend more time in the barns, talking with the farms, watching the sheep dogs and learning about breeds. Somehow, in years past, I’ve managed to completely miss the Breed Barn, where they have a sheep or two of nearly every breed, along with information about the breed! I am, more than ever, smitten with Jacobs

and Corriedales:

After the breed barn, I scoured the fleece sale and ran into the darling Liz of Hobbledehoy. It was fun to pore over the fleeces with her!

I ended up buying two fleeces and leaving them with Ohio Valley Fiber Mill for processing. I’m excited about my first milling experience!

I’m sad I missed Abby, Lauren, Cosette and Guido and his party! Part of the blame is the weather’s while some of it is my innate shyness; when Amy (of Knitty) walked by, I just completely froze!

But sheep and yarn cheer up anything!

After the festival, we rested and then hit downtown Baltimore. We strolled around the adorable Little Italy neighborhood, ate a pizza at Isabella’s and walked to the Harbor.

I wish I had more pictures of everything, but the rainy-ness continued throughout. So you’ll just have to take my word: a fabulous time and well-worth the drive!