Just a friendly little reminder that today is the last day of the Moving Sale!

Get Free Shipping on any domestic order of $25 or more.

Since I’m moving tomorrow morning and my internet service isn’t getting turned on until the 7th, the Boutique will be closed for one week. I’m putting it on “Vacation Mode” tonight, so grab what you want before then!

If you want to be notified of the Boutique’s Grand Reopening, sign up here! The Boutique will be FILLED with brand new yarns and handdyed fibers!

If you need any little thing, feel free to email me (blondechickenboutiqueATyahoo) and I’ll get back to within 2 days.

In one week, I’ll be self-employed.

In one week, I’ll be responsible for my own health insurance.

In one week, I’ll set my own schedule.

In one week, I’ll live in a new house.

Next Wednesday is not only my first day of full-time Blonde Chicken Boutique shenanigans, it’s also Moving Day!

The whole family + the whole Boutique is moving (just across town).

To say I’m overwhelmed in as understatement.

Excited and nervous and scrambly and full of oh-my-goodness-what-did-I-forget sort of thoughts!

Last night I couldn’t sleep and started thinking about ALL the yarn and fiber I need to pack before moving. And the unpacking! The new place will have a dedicated fiber studio (yay!) but I hate to be apart from my fiber for even a day or two.

So instead, instead of moving all that yarn across town,  what if I just send it to you?

How about free (domestic) shipping on any order over $50?

You’ll be cheering up both of our weeks by heading over to the Boutique and stocking up handspun yarn, organic cotton and Spinnables.

(to get the free shipping, just place your Etsy order (of over $50) and wait for a CORRECT Paypal invoice)

This little moving sale will be on for just ONE WEEK and on July 1st, I’m going to close the Boutique until I’m all settled in my new studio.

When it reopens, it’ll be filled with new and different yarns, so if you like what you see, snatch it up now!

Thanks to all who will be joining me on the Adventure Club, they sold out!

If you didn’t get in on the Adventure before it sold out and you’d like to know of upcoming adventures, you might want to join the free Awesomesauce Club.

What makes it Awesomesauce?

It’s free! Each month you’ll get two little notes from me with tips, tricks and discounts!

They are customized to YOUR interests. If you like knitting, learn about knitting! If you love spinning, let’s talk about spinning!

They are helpful! Filled with actual usefull stuff, I know you’re gonna love!

• Once a month you’ll get a tip or trick that I’ve found useful – like my favorite cast-on or dyeing technique.
• Two weeks later you’ll get a little sneak peak into (and discount on) the newest thing in the Boutique.

If you love yarn and knit or crochet it, sign up for Yarntastic:

If you love making yarn (dyeing, carding, spinning), sing up for Spintastic:

I mentioned in my Spring Manifesto that I was going to try to enjoy the huge job of sorting all the Easter egg dyes I purchased.

I had to put it on the list because, oy, what a job.

The above is about HALF of the stash I acquired in the week following Easter.

The boxes are certainly too bulky to keep around and they’re filled with a bunch of stuff I don’t want. Those little metal egg-dippers, wax crayons (kept them for who know’s what craft project), tiny stickers (gave them to every mom-of-a-toddler I know).

Once the boxes are open, I cut open the little plastic package they come in and sort them by color in mason jars.

These jars sit on a shelf in my “dyeing studio” (code name: laundry room) and whenever I need a tablet, I pop it out.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of emptying every grocery store of their egg dye supply, you can pick up just ONE packet in the Boutique. It comes with all the fiber you need and friendly instructions (but NONE of the annoying packaging). Get yours here!

A few months ago, I shot some videos on How to Dye with Easter egg dyes. At the time, it answered the most common question I got:  How do you dye?

Since posting those videos, the questions have switched to  “where can I get those dyes?” “Are THESE the right dyes?” I’ve always answered with a general “Well, this is where I get mine”, but when I got an email from someone in Japan who loved the videos, but couldn’t find the Easter egg dyes at a good price (they go for $4/box on eBay!), I knew I could provide the answer.

I was telling Jay about how exciting it was to send something so American to Japan.

He responded said “So why don’t you offer kits to EVERYone who didn’t stash 1000s of boxes at Easter time?”

Duh! (I’m going to promote him from “tech guy” to “Product Development” although it occurs to me now that this might have been a sneaky plot to “help” me part with my huge stash of Easter egg dyes!)

Quick as a lick, I put together everything you need to dye some fiber using a pack of East Egg dyes.

12 oz of fiber, already divided into the size you need for each tablet + pack of dyes + instructions!

You can find the Make Rainbows kit right here!

And you really lucked out, because the dyes I have the most of come 6 to a pack (last year I only found 5-packs) and they are HUGE. Each tablet dyes 2 oz of fiber!

Your resulting fiber will look something like this:

(of course, if you don’t want to try dyeing, you can find the already-dyed fiber right here)

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. These seasonal lists are my own little things-to-do-before-the-moment-passes.
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 past week has been less-than-fun. With my wheel breaking and just the general blah-ness of re-entry to the real world after a lovely vacation, I need a little cheering up.

And what could be cheery-er than reminding myself of all the  summer-ish activities left to be delighted in?

(and yes, I know it’s technically not Summer, but I can’t believe it’s still Spring when the temperatures top 80 everyday)

Summer Fun that awaits me this week:

• Rekindling my weekly date with the local farmer’s markets
• Checking out the newish  farmer’s market in Jonesborough (perhaps applying to be a vendor there?)
• Visiting my best-est friend and her husband. First time I’ll see their home!
• Begging my best-est friend for one of her life-changing massages
• Enjoying the last of the local strawberries and making some more jam.
• Getting some of these local blueberries!

Monday night, spinning along and *snap*, one of my treadles falls to the ground.
I look down and see this:

Ack! I broke my wheel!

A quick question to Twitter and I soon learned that little broken part is called a conrod.

I ordered a replacement (and an extra!) within minutes but until it comes, my wheel is out of commission.

I was desolate. This week I’d scheduled many spinny hours. After being on vacation last week, I missed my spin-time!

But this could be good

While wondering what I could do to replace spinning, I realized this is the perfect opportunity to focus on making more fiber bundles. These bundles (I’m looking for a better name, any suggestions?) have all the fiber you need to spin one of my favorite yarns.

Like Daffodils:

Available here, it’s all the fiber to spin this:

I have a few more ideas up my sleeve that I’ll share this week but I’d like to hear from you.

What other yarn would you like to see a fiber bundle for? What color combinations do you love?

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 I recovered from a super-mild case of sun poisoning (ugh) by laying around inside: Marathon Scrabble games and piecing a quilt.

My Birthday!
We did it all today: beach-swimming, yarn shopping, flower-sniffing, go-kart-driving, eating on the pier.

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 another beachy-day! Knitting, reading, swimming, shelling. Ending in some cake (tomorrow’s my birthday!) and in-bed reading. The beachhouse has a TV in the bedroom, which feels like pure luxury – to lay in bed and knit and watch TV and read all at once!