September 04, 2012

Indigodragonfly



My friend, Cindi is a member of the Smart-Ass Knitters/World Domination 1 Skein Club.  Quite a mouthful, isn't it?

She is a miraculously talented knitter and has a blog.  She buys wool like the gorgeous skeins shown above from Indigodragonfly and of course, is a member of their knitting club.  She gets a new skein every two months for a one skein project.  Another friend, Linda and I have drooled over the gorgeous colour combinations.  So when Cindi wanted to go to the Haliburton Highlands to interview Kim for her blog, Linda and I were definitely up for the road trip.  This is a little showroom in their house in the country.


The colours literally took my breath away.  It's like being in a candy store.


Some of the wool was made up into garments on display on half-mannequins.


Now that fall is just around the corner, wrapping myself in some lovely coloured wool would be heaven.  I just need to learn to knit like my crazy talented friends, Cindi and Linda.



Isn't this cute?  Skeins of wool hung up just inside the door on a rack with hooks made out of bent silverware.  I'm thinking of raiding the china cabinet!


While Cindi was interviewing Kim in the display room/office, Linda and I wandered into their living room/kitchen area which also serves as the dying, drying, skeining, packing and mailroom.  This a small business operating out of a regular house where wife and husband work 18 hour days trying to keep ahead of all their orders.  It's nice to see how well they are doing.


Because Linda and I are such nosy friendly girls, we were asking Ron about processing the wool.  He described the dying process to us and how they work from "recipes" so their formulations are the same but if there are bits left at the end of the day, they might mix them together and dye wool into one of a kind (or 2 or 3 of a kind colourways).


 After the long flat skeins are dyed, they are put on drying racks to dry.


Then Ron has an ingenious machine that he puts the skeins on and he processes them into the nicely twirled specimens that arrive in the mail.


It is a long hard day for small business men and women and Ron explained that they often work late into the evening.  Then they settle down with a glass of wine and it is often during this short window of relaxation that the wool gets named.


I have to admit that after the lustrous colours (my cheap snap camera does not do them justice), my second favourite thing about the wool are the names.  Check out their amazing colours like...

More Tequila Less Sunrise

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock (for all you Big Bang fans)

As God is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly (remember WKRP?)

And Then Buffy Staked Edward.  The End.

Don't You Just Love This Party? Everything's So Fancy and There's Some Kind Of Hot Cheese Over There.

Sailor Bait: The Official Lipstick of The 2012 Walk of Shame

My favourite was called Vicious Penquin which was actually named by the daughter of Kim and Ron's friends who live in New York.  Vicious Penquin is a school yard game they play and you can understand why the colourway of this skein would bring the game to mind...


Take a minute to visit Indigodragonfly.  If you are a knitter, you will be delighted and if you are a non-knitter like me, you just might be inspired!

Julie

3 comments:

  1. What a fascinating post! I can't knit but passed your link on to my sister who knits for her Etsy shop. Pinning. Thanks!
    Maureen

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  2. I'm a new crocheter and I want to grab all those skeins of yarn. Such luscious colors!

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  3. What a gorgeous array of colours and yarn. I'm drooling.

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