Still Knitting in Secrecy

So, the gift knitting continues, and probably will for quite some time. So, still no pictures of the current knitting.

However, I did visit a new-to-me yarn shop this weekend. Mind's Eye Yarns, in Cambridge, MA is a shop I've been wanting to visit for quite some time. I have called the shop on a couple different occasions when I was having "fiber emergencies" and was always met with such amazing helpfulness and courtesy that I've felt awful having never even been in to see the store.

The very first time I called was the day I bought my spinning wheel. Still knowing next to nothing about spinning wheels, I thought the lack of a drive band was going to be a big problem, and given the hour on a Saturday I was in a near panic to find one. I had gone to Waltham, MA to pick up the wheel, and I went directly from there to Gerry's house (1.5 hours closer than mine) to look up Ashford dealers in the area. Mind's Eye was the closest one. I called and was told while they had the drive band in stock I should save myself the drive, and use cotton kitchen twine. I was in awe! Obviously this shop was not out to make a quick sale, just for the sake of doing so. I have great respect for a business that will offer good advice at the risk of losing a sale. I know that the purchase of a drive band would not have bought the shop owner's next trip to Europe, or even enough yarn for her next sweater, but I still appreciated the help, and ethics involved.

Since I had plans to meet a friend in Boston for Dinner on Saturday I decided it would be the day I finally made it in to see the store. Somehow I had had the impression that it would be a sprawling expanse of yarn, roving, and wheels, but when I arrived the reality of the store's being in the heart of the metropolitan Boston area sunk in. Of course you wouldn't find a LYS the size of Walmart in the city- space is just too expensive. I did however find a very nice shop. In the bottom floor of the owner's home the store had several windows providing plenty of natural sunlight (very important for colour selections) and was well organized with a very nice selection of yarn, and a rather impressive selection of spinning fibers.

Of course I buy fiber and yarn about 100x faster than I can use it, and I'm running out of space to store it, but I had to have some of this merino/tencel roving

Also, I thought I would share a little more recent spinning. This is about 2 oz of white wool scraps that I decided to use to play with some dyes. One ply I used Cushings acid dye in plum, and the other ply I used Wilton's cake dye in black. The wool I dyed with the Wilton's ended up having mainly shades of a dark green with spots of a deep purple. When each of these were just tiny blobs of wool I wasn't sure that I cared much for either of them, and therefore didn't take much note of exactly how much dye I used, but now that I see them spun up and plied, I want more! I'm fairly certain I will never match this yarn (a shame that I only have 100 yards) but I'm sure I will be playing more with the dyes in the future.