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Big Changes at Gynx Yarns.

There are going to be some changes here at Gynx Yarns.

One standard I have always had is that I would only buy yarn bases from what I believed were ethically-treated sheep. For over a year now, I have been using one base in three different weights (sock, DK, aran) that was certified organic. However, yesterday I was told that the source I buy my yarns from is no longer able to get this wool. They have found a replacement that they believe will be almost identical to what I am using now, but it would be a few months before they would be able to get any to me. There will also be a small price increase with this new source of organic wool.

So I was in a bit of a dilemma yesterday. How will I get through the next few months until this new yarn is released? What if I don’t even like the new yarn? After some conversations with a few people whose opinions I trust, I believe I have come to a solution, and honestly, it could lead to some exciting things.

I have found another source that gets their merino from ethical sources. Are they certified organic? No. Do they still care about the welfare of their sheep? Yes. What has always been important to me and my company is not a certification, but just that the animals that we receive wool from have been treated well and are cared for. This new source would allow me to add things like superwash bases, nylon blends, even some blends with a bit of sparkle. If, once I examine this new organic yarn, I decide that it is on par with what I have been selling, I will continue to have organic yarns in the shop as well.

One thing that is for certain is that the Gynx Sock, Gynx DK, and Gynx Aran lines will no longer be produced once my supply runs out. Because of this, I will no longer be taking custom orders until I have everything figured out. While this new organic base may very well be indistinguishable from my current bases, I just can’t know for sure, so I can’t promise anything. If you have enjoyed working with these bases or have wanted to try them, it would be highly recommended that you get what you want now.

I want to know what you, my customers and supporters, think about all of this. How do you feel about non-organic, but still ethically-sourced wools? The possibility of superwash or other additions? Please feel free to tell me your opinion either on the blog, on Ravelry, or email me at gynxyarns@gmail.com

I look forward to seeing what the future holds for Gynx Yarns, and I thank all of you who have helped me get to this point.

Recent Stash Enhancements.

There has been a wee amount of stash enhancement over here lately...

First, I won this batt of Bramble Lane fiber from the Phat Fiber blog, and it arrived in the mail yesterday. I was so excited to grab the squishy package out of my mailbox! This is White Finn and natural colored wool, and it's called Chocolate-Vanilla Swirl. I'm not sure how much it weighs yet.

I think I might separate the white from the brown, and if they weigh about the same, spin them separately and ply them together.

MadTosh is having a sale this weekend, so since I still had a Groupon, I had to indulge a bit. Last night at the knitting group at MadTosh, a few of us sat around the bins of yarn going on sale and claimed the ones we wanted, although we had to wait until today to buy them on sale.

This is Tosh Lace in Rosewood. I see it as a very delicate lace shawlette.

This one is Tosh Merino Light in Cove. Probably another shawlette.

That's probably the only stash enhancing I'll do for a bit. I need to get through the seven works in progress I have!

Yarnography: June 26, 2012

Dyeing up some yarn for the shop.

Stash Enhancement: MadTosh Sport.

This past Thursday, my friend Lindsay came over to visit and to check out the new MadTosh store. I decided that this would be a good time to buy a sweater's worth of yarn, as I rarely ever do. I looked in my Ravelry queue and the patterns in my library and decided that the Lowry Pullover from Knitscene Fall 2011 would be perfect.

source: Knitting Daily

I decided on madelinetosh 80/10/10 sport weight, but then it took me a long time to pick a color. I needed five skeins, and almost all the colors I wanted had only four available at the time. After some help from Lindsay and the women working in the shop, I picked the colorway Rosegold, which is definitely not something I would normally pick.

 

As the name implies, it's shades of rosey-pink and gold. The more I look at it, the more I like it. I've told myself I can't cast this on until I at least finish my Tempest Cardigan, of which I have the sleeves, button band, and hem left to knit. It will probably be a while. I might cheat a bit though and knit up my gauge swatch before I'm done with it, though.

My First Experience With Malabrigo.

There are several yarns that many knitters just seem to be obsessed with, whether it's the feel, colorways, or fiber content. Wollmeise (note to husband: You will be taking me to Germany for this one reason). Noro. Madeline Tosh. Gynx Yarns (Oh wait, no?).

Malabrigo is also on the list. I picked up a skein of Malabrigo Rios about half a year ago, but I never got around to doing anything with it until this past Monday when I decided to cast on for a cowl.

I'll post details about this project later when it's finished, but I just could not wait to discuss this yarn. The moment I started using it, I realized it felt unlike any other yarn I had worked with before. The first thought that came to my mind as I was knitting with it was that it felt like butter, if that makes any sense. It is so incredibly soft and smooth that I almost couldn't believe it. I want to sleep on a pillow of this stuff.

I'm not done with the cowl yet, so I still have no idea how it wears. I've heard talk about some of the other Malabrigo yarns that they have a tendency to pill, but I think that since this is a cowl and won't have a lot of friction applied to it, it should be just fine.

On another topic, some of you might remember that I finished my Featherweight cardigan and promised photos. I actually have 2 other finished objects that I haven't posted in addition to the cardigan. Well, I have been waiting for the opportunity to get some good photos taken, and the only person I have to take photos of me is Jose. He actually really likes taking photos and playing with my camera, but he's been working a lot and we haven't had the chance to take any with the sun out.

Sorry, but you're going to have to wait a bit, otherwise, the only photo you'd see of the cardigan is this:

Yarnography: February 28, 2012

I take a lot of yarn photos, both of my own yarn for my Etsy or of yarn in my stash. I end up liking a lot of them too much not to share, but I don't really have any reason to show them other than they're pretty. So, welcome to my newest feature of the blog: "Yarnography", in which I show off pictures I like of yarn.

 

The yarn in these photos is Gynx Aran in the colorway "Totoro #2".

Organizing My Handspuns.

I was inspired by a recent episode of the Electric Sheep podcast to completely organize my stash. Organizing things and keeping them that way is not something I'm particularly good at, so I've been working on it a little each day when I'm tired of trying to put my new office/studio together.

Today I found myself trying to make sense of random handspun skeins that either I had made or someone else had made, and I found some things that I had completely forgotten about. I got my ball winder and swift out and put them to work.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with any of these. I have a much harder time deciding on projects for handspun yarn for some reason.

First, I'll show off the yarn that was spun by me:

I don't know the fiber content of this, and honestly, I don't even remember spinning it. I do remember that I bought the fiber from Butterfly Girl Designs at last year's DFW Fiber Fest and the colorway was called something like "Golden Harvest." 2 ply.

This was another purchase from Fiber Fest last year, this time from Stone and String Studio. This one is 100% Polwarth, and it's another 2 ply.

I bought this fiber at White Rock Weaving Center in Dallas. If I remember correctly, the tag just said 100% wool. I don't remember spinning this one either, but it must have been earlier in my spinning career as it doesn't look too beautiful. Single ply.

Funny story about this fiber though: I had this skeined up laying out somewhere for the longest time. One day Jose used a heat gun for something, and for whatever reason set the gun down on my fiber when he was done with it. Well, it was still quite hot, and a few moments later we both smelled burning hair. He burnt my handspun yarn in several places, and it had to be spliced together at maybe 10 different points. He's lucky I still married him after that.

Now, on to the yarn spun by other people (and therefore much better quality yarn):

I won this yarn from a blog giveaway. The yarn is from CompassioKnit (whose Etsy shop is not working for me today for whatever reason...) in the colorway "Fairy Godmother." The contents are wool, bamboo, cotton, and angelina. This is not normally my color, but I like it for some reason.

My friend Hope spun this yarn from one of my favorite fiber stores, SpunRightRound. She gave it to me in a recent fiber swap because she said she didn't know what to do with it. I am absolutely in love with it.

Finally, this is my most recent handspun to acquire. My friend Lindsay gave this merino to me at my wedding, which she spun for me. I carried it around and pet it at my wedding for a little while because I didn't want to put it down! It's gorgeous, right? Well wait, let's get a different view on this...

Bam! Color gradients! My weakness. Love love love.

Gynx Yarns Giveaway!

Recently I did an interview with Kristin of the Yarngasm podcast and Knitnook.net. I also sent her a skein to give away on her podcast, and the episode is now up! You can enter to win the skein in the photo above (Lemon Berry Parfait in sock/fingering weight) on her blog here!

Yarnography.

The sun finally came out of hiding yesterday, so I was able to use natural lighting for redoing my yarn photos! I've redone almost every yarn in the shop and I love how much nicer everything looks. There's so much more texture!

Here's a few of my favorite shots. My photos will probably always need improving and I'm going to continue working on them, but these are already such a big improvement that I had to show them off.

Click on any of the pictures to go to that yarn's page.

My Final Surface Design Piece.

Last Thursday was my final critique in my Surface Design class. It was bittersweet, because while I'm exited to be done and focus on my yarn full time, I am going to miss several things about school.

This was my final project. I decided to go back to three-dimensional projects in the end, because my two-dimensional pieces this semester have been pretty meh.

If I put this in a gallery space, I'd want to cover a whole wall with these. In the meantime, I think I'll put these up in my studio (away from cats!) when I finally move.

More Frustrations, a Surprise FO, and Eddie Izzard.

I've been spending a bit more time than normal knitting lately, because I've been home alone a lot more. While it's not ideal, at least I'm getting more stitches in a day :)

Eddie Izzard has been keeping me company the past few days. Tons of his videos are on Netflix instant streaming, so there has been a lot of this lately:

I finished the first sock again, after I had ripped out the first one because it was too small. This time, I knitted the large size. It fits much better, but it is still very tight in the top of the foot because of the cables. Sigh. I'm going to finish the other one and wear them, but they probably won't be as loved as I had hoped.

Needless to say, I needed a break from those stupid socks. I dug out some yarn I spun up back in February, and oh man, there has been a huge difference in the quality of my spinning. I got the batt from SpunRightRound, which is home to some of the brightest, most fun fiber around. I really need to order some more so I can spin a much nicer yarn.

It was a glasses kind of day today...

I barely had any yardage, and normally my go-to project for small yardage is a cowl, but I didn't even have enough for that. My solution? Make a cowl anyway, and switch to some bulky black yarn I had laying around when I ran out. This yarn was so bold and bulky that I decided it needed to be one solid mass of knitting (i.e. no lace) and it needed to be thick. I cast on 96 stitches onto a circular needle and did a very basic 2x2 rib pattern (knit 2, purl 2, knit 2, purl 2...), and added black when I was out of handspun.

I started this yesterday and finished today. Just the instant gratification I needed. I am in love with this. It is so bulky and warm and I did not enjoy wearing it while taking pictures (it's summer, for crying out loud!), but it is so fun. Too bad I won't be able to wear it until... January, or whenever it gets cold in Texas.

Cake Adventures and a Yarn Shop.

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend (who was my yearbook adviser/teacher back in high school) at my favorite restaurant: Spiral Diner. Spiral is 100% vegan and everything is so delicious! My favorite thing to order is a Spiral burger with a nut patty plus cheese with potato salad on the side. Yum!

Jose and I are getting the wedding/grooms cakes there, and because they don't do cake testings I snagged one of each flavor they offered today: red velvet, chocolate, and strawberry. I knew we didn't want chocolate or strawberry for the wedding, but it was an excuse to eat cake ;) I think I'm going to ask if they can make chai cupcakes, so if they do I'll have to special order a dozen so I can taste them pre-wedding.

After Spiral, my friend and I headed over to JenningStreet Yarns, which is only a few minutes away from Spiral. My friend is going to become a grandma in November and wanted to find some cool (i.e. not pastel and pink) yarn to make things for her future granddaughter. I didn't know what I wanted, but I had fun fondling every skein of yarn.

I had been to JenningStreet before, but it had been a couple of years so it was fun to re-explore. That is probably going to become my local yarn shop when Jose and I move in January (I don't have one now in Denton). I found this super soft yarn that I fell in love with, and even though it was in tiny skeins I decided that I didn't care how much it cost, I wanted one or two. I flipped it over to see the contents, and it had bison, cashmere, and I think silk. I flip it a bit more, and each of the tiny skeins was $52! I know I said I didn't care about the cost, but there is no way I could make something with just one skein. I "settled" for some Cascade Heritage Paints sock yarn in Londonberry. Yep, more sock yarn. That seems to be my go-to lately when I don't know what to make.

Until next time,

Laura

Organic Yarn.

I've never done a shop update on here before, but I've added a new line of yarn that I'd like to share.

If you're familiar with my shop, you know that I unravel thrift store sweaters, skein them up and dye them. The process is exhausting and time-consuming, but I love it all the same. That being said, it was taking me way too long to get anything done. As a way to combat that, I decided to add a line of organic wool to my shop.

Why organic wool? Well, one of the main reasons I like recycling yarn is because 1. I'm not supporting the cruel practices towards sheep at many big wool companies (this is not the place to get into that, but if you're interested you can Google it) and 2. I'm being more environmentally friendly. I can accomplish both of those with organic yarn. When a yarn is called organic, it refers to every stage of the fiber process, from when it is on the animal to when it is being processed when it's off the animal. The animals aren't put through pesticide dips, and it also refers to the chemicals used when cleaning and processing the wool.

This yarn that I have been dyeing is so incredibly soft. It's 100% organic merino wool, and right now all I have is in sock weight. Each skein has enough yardage to make one average pair of adult socks. I have several more colors coming, so if you're interested in organic yarn be sure to check back. You can also join my email list by sending an email to gynxyarns@gmail.com and get notices about new products, sales, and discount codes.

I should be back tomorrow or the next day with a review of my book I've been reading!

Introduction.

I love to make things. Whether it's crafting, making art, or cooking a delicious, vegan dinner for me and my fiance, I love it all. The satisfaction of spending hours, days, or even months working on something and having it finished is one that can't be beat easily. Even better when I can use recycled materials, because transforming something old into something new just adds to the fun.

What This Blog Will be About

Yarn Things

If you haven't figured it out already, this blog will mainly be about things I create. My main craft of choice is knitting. I have been knitting since I was 15 (I just turned 21 about a month ago) and am obsessed with it. I also dye yarn, which I sell in my Etsy shop (www.gynxyarns.com) so there will occasionally be updates about that. I can crochet, but I prefer to knit if I can. Most things I knit are from yarn I recycle from thrift store sweaters, both to benefit my wallet and my environment. I also started spinning yarn about a year ago. The only thing I haven't done is sheared a sheep! You can expect pictures of projects, tutorials/patterns as I come up with them, links to patterns I'm working on, and anything else yarn related as it comes up.

This is the first sweater I ever knitted back in 2007. It's an altered version of the Big Sack Sweater from the Stitch n Bitch book.

Other Crafts

I also sew a bit and reconstruct clothing on occasion, but not too terribly often. I have really gotten into the idea of restoring and re-purposing furniture, and am currently working on a table that I will post as soon as it's done. I just got engaged to the future Mr. Gynx (a.k.a. Jose) on June 10th and we are having our wedding in January hopefully, so you can expect some wedding crafts as well in the coming months. Here you can expect more of the same: pictures, tutorials, links, etc.

Food

I love cooking and baking, so there will be some deliciousness from time to time. I'm not too terribly creative in the kitchen and tend to loosely follow recipes instead of try to create my own new recipe, but there will be some original recipes along with links to others that I love. Oh, and everything I eat is vegan. If you're not vegetarian or vegan though, don't let that scare you away from trying things!

Vegan chocolate/raspberry cake from Vegan With A Vengance for my 19th birthday.

Handmade Goodies

I love my own handmade swag, but I also love supporting other artists. I will from time to time feature artists or products as I come across them that I think are worthy of having a shout-out. Anything I post is because I truly do love it, not an endorsement.

Life

I'll keep the personal stuff to a minimum, but there will probably be a fairly regular mention of my two cats, so I should probably introduce them.

This is Othello. Othello is just a bit over a year old and is an orange male tabby. We adopted him from a shelter when he was about 7 weeks old.

This is Augustus. He's just under a year (his birthday is next month!) and is a male tuxedo cat. He was adopted from the same shelter Othello was.

This post has already been quite long, so I will leave it there for now.

-- Laura