Thursday, April 26, 2012

More Tea Towels

The rabbitbrush dyed yarn is ready to weave and I simply cannot get an accurate photo of the color which I think of as gentle gold. You can probably only tell that it's no longer gray. It'll be several more weeks before I get started weaving with it, but I did want to show my results.

The dye bath is brassy gold and another dye bath later in a few months with green plants will be a brighter gold, and then when they're in bloom in September, it will be National Geographic yellow. I'll do it again.
I really need to place an order for more yarns but for now I need inspiration for the colors I do have, which are a lot of purples, yellows and greens. When I was trying to decide how to use them together, I thought of hyacinths, which are blooming now. I found this through Google images.


I was trying to use wefts that were in the warp, but after playing with Weave-Design for a couple hours to plan the next colors, I realized that there's no reason I should be limited to wefts that are in the stripes on my warp. I made that up!

For the last towel, I threw on Prussian blue and got a really interesting teal effect, but then after all, yellow and blue make green. The purples all but disappear. I sold all the Desert Pond towels on the same day I posted them on Facebook. I just put the last three in the mail today.
I finished the Hyacinth series towels today and have started winding more "desert pond" colors - can't argue with success. Kerry made me realize that these are great gifts for Mothers Day so I wanted to get a couple sets in the Artists Co-op for the May show. I had planned to call Cherilyn, the gallery manager, and ask to show them to her, when she called me yesterday. She is taking some sheets to the Goodwill, do I want them to weave with? Yes!!! She's thrilled to have my towels in the show, sight unseen, so in they go on Monday.
Everything has to have a label and be priced to be in the gallery, so I made up these in Publisher today, using the "label's template. I have to increase my price to compensate for the gallery's commission. Ian says tea towels have a nice ring than dish towels, so now they're tea towels.

I have another craft fair May 12th and then again June 2nd. I need to get a few more sets under my belt to feel like I have something to sell, and selling is just an excuse to make more.
I picked up our first CSA box, which stands for commun-
ity supported agricul-
ture, on Tuesday afternoon, which means I'm back to swimming every Tuesday - double win for me. The pool and the pickup are at the same facility.

I am astounded and thrilled at the bounty in our first box, double that of last year, and since we split with another family (Harry, Carol and Kerry), it's fantastic. The carrots were wintered in hoop houses so they could treat us with a surprise in our first box. They were like candy. Carol thought it was last week and was so disappointed. We have been counting the days. Our half of the subscription is $417 and for that Ian and I will get organic produce every week for the next six months. The high desert is such a hostile growing environment and our Fallon farmers are wizards at coaxing this wealth from unwilling earth. We love them!!!!

10 comments:

Maggie said...

I love the variety you got for your towels from one warp. So beautiful!

Hilary said...

The towels and the produce are both lovely........and you're swimming, YAY!

Benita said...

Look at those lovely veggies!!! I miss my CSA shares, but they moved the pick up location to a place less than convenient to get to, so we had to drop it. But then, we have two farmer's markets within 15 minutes of our house and I can hardly wait for them to start.

Hurray on selling the towels. I am so excited for you!

LA said...

The yarn is such a soft yellow! I'm amazed! Your towels are beautiful...I'm not surprised that they are jumping off the shelf. You've got a great thing going with your local produce.

Amanda Cutler said...

I'm not surprised your towels all sold! They are AMAZING! I want to make a set when I'm done with my celebrations towels!

Cindie said...

I love all the colors of your towels - they're beautiful.

Wool Enough said...

The Hyacinth towels are gorgeous. You are a genius with color!

~~Sittin.n.Spinnin said...

Talented lady!
Mim was saying there was a craft thing in May that CSSW was going to have a booth in, but she thought it was the 18th or so? Or is it the one you mention on the 12th? If its the 12th I can try to be there!

Jodi said...

Beautiful tea towels! I think Ian's right that "tea towels" has a nicer ring.

Those carrots sound heavenly! I'm still on the fence about CSA (the one year I did it I was disappointed), and I think I'll stick to just buying what catches my fancy at the farmer's market again this year. One bonus of living in the city is that there's a great farmer's market two blocks away twice a week! This is especially good since we have tons of adorable bunnies in our yard, so growing vegetables would be a challenge.

jack said...

Mim was saying there was a craft thing in May that CSSW was going to have a booth..
microfiber towels