I feel like Britney Spears in that cheesy song "Not a girl, not yet a woman." Gritty Knits has outgrown the baby stage of being just a solitary handspinner, selling a skein or two a month just to make a couple of bucks to buy more wool with. With the support of my awesome husband (and Legal Zoom), I'm "officially" a business as of last year. With the addition of several new product lines and my Amazon.com-esque pricing strategy (picture a cartoon me with out-turned pockets), business has really exploded in the past couple of months. Some days I feel like I'm on my way to being a fiber Goliath... but today I feel like a small fish in a very big pond.

I'm on the hunt for a new product that people have been mentioning in the spinning community. It's recycled, which is not only trendy but satisfies my personal desire to be green. And to top it all off, it's not widely available, so I'd have the market cornered if I stocked it. Feeling chipper, I called up the company and said "Hello! I'd like to carry your product!" Then the nice lady asked me how many SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUND bales of fiber I would like. "Um... 0.26?"

We'll see what Adam says when I tell him I traded in the Tribute for a forklift.

Edited to add: well, it's a few hours later and I'm back to feeling like a Goliath. Because when my next order comes in, I will have SIXTY-SIX colors of angelina in my store! Like whoa, man.

How did I make it 9 days into May without announcing on my blog that I am starting up a FIBER CLUB?! Gah!! I need an electric collar that zaps me every time I say or think "Oh, I'll do that later." Bad blogger!

Anyway... oh hey, I didn't see you there. Did I tell you guys that I'm starting up a monthly fiber club? No? Well I am! We've got three clubs to pick from: merino batts, novelty batts, and merino top braids. Each club has 3 tiers, depending on your budget and how much fiber you'd like to receive each month. Shipping is included in the price. Just buy the subscription here in the store, Paypal charges you automatically on the first of every month, and you can cancel at any time. Easy-Peasy-Japanesey!

The first signer-uppers get a free El Cheapo project bag (of their choosing) with their first month's shipment! Originally I was only going to send them to the first one in each club, but I may just break down and give one to everybody who joins by May 31. Because I'm just so happy to have club members! Yay club! Rah rah rah!

A quick post to show you some new products:

Camel Down:
 

Mohair Top:

Hand Spindles:

8 new colors of Angelina here! Every color is now on sale for $3.50 per 1/2 ounce baggie.

So, I think I am going to try to make it to Stitches Midwest this year. There is a frustrating lack of information about it on Knitting Universe's website, but everyone says I'm really missing out by not attending. I joined all of the Stitches related groups on Ravelry so I can do as much research as possible before committing to a non-refundable credit card deposit on a hotel room.

I wish they would have "Stitches Greater Northwest Houston Area" so I wouldn't have to go so far away.

3 ugly merino braids, 2 episodes of The L Word and a raging headache, and this is what I came up with this afternoon:

I must have been on crack the day I died these, because they were UG!LY! But somehow when I combined them, they looked perfect together. It's like magic.

It was torture to spin them all so thinly and evenly, but I think I've really got the hang of Navajo plying. I do it differently than the lady in the YouTube video, but I came up with my own personal system quickly. There was a lot of stopping and starting of the wheel at first but I was a real navajo-machine by the end of the session. I can't make that loop stay on my wrist, but I have enough finger dexterity that I can hold the loop open with 2 fingers on the same hand that's pinching the twist while my other hand yanks the single through. A tensioned lazy kate would help a lot, because the only real problem I had was my single twisting on itself before I had a chance to stop it.

I just showed the tangled skein to my husband, and he said, "It looks like you need to 'Set' the 'Twist'." He's picking up on more of my lingo, how cute. I, on the other hand, still talk about his programming stuff with words like "thingie", "thingamajig" and "you know, the thing with the thing."

Here's a couple more skeins from recently:

^ Corespun merino, angelina, & sari silk

 
^ 2-ply crazy yarn with every fiber in the world.

I succeeded at navajo plying on the first try! I make my loops too small, but that can be fixed next time when I spin a significant amount of yardage (this little sampler is only a few feet long). I should have tried this a long time ago but I thought it would be more difficult.

It's kind of crummy because I didn't take care to spin evenly... and I didn't choose colors I particularly like either. I was so convinced I would mess up that I didn't want to waste time or effort, now I kind of wish I had picked something pretty. Next time.