shop update for the weekend!

Since March was such a crazy month, not too many updates in the shop. But last week I put together another shop update and I love the yarns and fiber that got listed. Handspun loveliness with yak, sari silk, and American Finn wool, as well as some hand-carded batts! If you have been thinking about trying your hand at spinning and want to know where to start, I highly recommend batts. They look beautiful thin or chunky, and draft beautifully. I love 'em. 

I've started weaving this month as a way to distract my mind from some stressful life circumstances...let's just say the housing market in our area is a bit insane! It makes me even more excited to start spinning yarns for weaving and using these batts in chunky tapestries this spring and summer. I've never liked spinning or knitting with much other than wool or alpaca, so weaving with these yarns might be my answer for using these warm materials in the summer months! 

the month of march

Radio silence in March was not something I was anticipating! It was a much busier month than I was clearly prepared for, but for many good reasons. I've been going through some professional transitions, and the Mr. and I found out that we'll be here for his residency training at the University of North Carolina. We're ecstatic! We are also in the process of looking for a home to buy, and the market has been one of the craziest our realtor has ever seen. It's caused a lot of anxiety and feelings of uncertainty and has been VERY time consuming! 

During all of this we also got to take a half-week mini vacation to NY, which was so so wonderful. We ate our way around Brooklyn and Manhattan and managed to make it to Brooklyn General Store and Purl Soho (pure magic). Being a long-time follower and fan of the blog, it was so great to see a lot of the samples up close and personal, and the ladies there were so nice. Of course, I came home with yarn, including some of Brooklyn General's own NY raised Brooklyn Barnwool, and Purl's Worsted Twist and new Linen Quill (it's so wonderful). I also got to meet the wonderful, talented, lovely Gina Rockenwagner for brunch one day, she's been an IG crush of mine for a long time and I have loved getting to know her! 

As much as you can anticipate certain seasons being times of transition, there's only so much you can do to prepare for them. We are definitely in one of those seasons and I hope you can be patient with this blog of mine while we're figuring it out. Lots of wonderful things are ahead for this business and I can't wait to share them with you. 

Weaver's Packs and a new logo

As warmer months are approaching and I'm thinking about my fiber practices as I try to keep wool off of my lap, I have put together some natural weaving packs for Goodstitch Fibers! These were so fun to put together. Each one has three mini skeins included, a natural gradient pack, natural texture pack, and a love & chocolate pack. They contain handspun, naturally colored or naturally dyed yarns and come ready to gift tied with a ribbon. 

The raspberry-dyed yarn is beautiful and variegated, and no two yarns are alike. I can't wait to do more solar dyes this summer and experiment with different fruits and dye plants, and am creating a list of the dye plants I'd love to grow in my garden. In the natural texture pack are a few mini skeins of some Corriedale wool that has been raised and processed all within a 50 mile radius of my studio! They're the first products from the fleece that I am working with from Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty, NC, and are crazy textured, variegated grey. I love them. 

I have also been working recently with Julia of WoodFolk Knits to design a new logo for the shop. Her artwork is incredible, organic and expressive, and when I found her I knew I wanted her to work with me on this project. You should absolutely check out her work on Instagram and her online shop. Even her sketches seem like gorgeous works of art. 

Have a wonderful week!

handspun & naturally dyed: blackberry love

I want to start out this post by saying that this might be one of my favorite yarns I've ever made, and the pictures truly do not do it justice. A couple of weeks ago I started experimenting with solar dyes. I wanted to keep my fiber soft, and removing heat from the equation seemed like a good way to achieve that. Once again, I was surprised and delighted. Natural dyes are the best! 

This particular batch of dyes were made with local blackberries interspersed with the Rambouillet wool in a jar for about 3 days. The water turned this crazy, vibrant purple, but the fiber itself turned pale lavender, with pops of grey and bright purple and even a bit of pink. So wild! I love the patterning in this wool, the areas where the blackberries rested created this beautiful painterly effect in what would have taken many colors to dye chemically. After the fiber had time to dry, I spun it and plied it with a heathered grey eco wool blend. The subtle shifting shades of the blackberry dyed yarn pop out so beautifully against it, and I couldn't be more happy with how it turned out. 

The resulting yarn is drapey and smooth, you'd guess that it was a wool/silk blend, and not the 100% wool that it is! I'm so tempted to keep this skein for myself, but instead I'll hopefully have it listed in the shop sometime tomorrow. 

More solar dyeing is definitely in my future, and gives me a hope for spring during the freezing rain that is hitting North Carolina right now; the last bitter storms of winter that we'll likely see as March quickly approaches. 

a birthday sale!

On Friday I'm turning 25! All jokes about a quarter-life crisis aside, I'm so grateful to be where I am in life right now, even in the midst of a lot of transitions, and am excited for what is ahead this year. 

My poor Mr. has been sick with pneumonia the past two weeks and we are finally getting to the end of it (hooray!) so I haven't updated the shop this week like I had planned (including these two bulky beauties!) but for my blog readers I wanted to give an extra day's heads up about a birthday sale I'm having this weekend! Starting today, take 15% off your order at Goodstitch with code 'BIRTHDAYGIRL' and get an upgraded free priority shipping for your normal shipping rate (US only for the shipping upgrade). The sale is good through Sunday, 2/14, so I hope that you show yourself or a crafty person in your life some love with sustainable yarns this weekend! 

Wishing you lots of love, today and all year round <3