Our booth at the Townsend Fiber Fest.  For Stitches, take this and imagine it HUGE.  *grin*

See us at Stitches South

Visit KSD this weekend, April 22nd -25th, at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, GA, for Stitches South, in booth 232.

Mercedes will be there with heaps of yarn in your favorite KSD colorways, and lots of bright new colors, too!  The booth will be stocked with beautiful projects to fire up your imagination and set your needles in motion.

Win $50 Gift Certificate!

Stop by our booth (232) this weekend to enter to win a $50 Gift Certificate to the KSD online shop!

See you in Atlanta!

I’ve been dyeing up yarn all day to be sure we have plenty of goodies to bring to Atlanta for Stitches South next week. I’m so excited!  I kept piling up fresh yarns until I ran out of room on the cooling racks, and dyed up plenty of skeins of new colorways.

Now on to washing, drying, and reskeining. Whew!  I think for now, it’s beer o’ clock.

Quick note, the KSD website is down temporarily (I hope!). I’m
researching the bug and will try to sort it out tonight.

Fixed it! (Obviously, because you can read this now, instead of seeing a pesky error message. Yeah! *fist pump*)

All photos by Chris Clark, motionmind on flickr

KSD hit the road last week for the inaugural Smoky Mountain Fiber Arts Festival in Townsend, TN.  It was a small event, but was so much fun!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more enthusiastic crowd of participants.  I talked to so many excited, interesting knitters, crocheters, spinners, and fiber folk.  The vibe was so happy!

The festival had a small selection of vendors (that’s our booth, in the Townsend Elementary School Gym), and with the overwhelmingly positive response and turn-out, the organizers expect a much bigger second year, and I definitely agree.  I met some wonderful fellow vendors, including Walter Turpening, who crafts the most beautiful, comfortable handwoven chairs and benches for knitters, spinners, and weavers.  He’s old school, with no website, but you can see one of his coveted knitter’s rockers at my friend Kristin’s blog.  I need to sell more yarn so that I can get one of these amazing chairs!

There were spinning, weaving, sheep shearing, livestock, and herding dog demonstrations (I didn’t get to see!  I was too busy in the booth.) And the organizers had great kid’s activities for all ages, even my friend Julie’s toddler had things she could make, including an ingenious soda straw weaving project.  This simple project completely mesmerized all of the kids who were working on it, and you could see groups of children (including teens) with heads bent over their work, happily weaving headbands and chunky bookmarks.  I saw a few kids wearing their finished pieces around the event later!

Chris and I borrowed a pop-up camper and camped at a nearby campground for the weekend, the Mountaineer Campground.  It was so quiet and peaceful, and a wonderful mini-vacation.  I could see why people call Townsend, TN the “Peaceful Side of the Smokies”.  And the campground had pet chickens!

So if you get a chance to visit the beautiful Smoky Mountains next spring, mark you calendar for this fiber fest.  This first year was so great, I can’t wait to see next year’s event!

For information, visit www.smfaf.org

Toronto Island Sheep by Duchamp

Southerners, come see us at SAFF in Fletcher, NC, the great gathering of fiber folk for the Southeast!

We’ll have tons of yarns and spinning fibers in booth #113 in the Sales Arena, and we’d love to see you there!  Last year Kristin (Girl Friday) and I visited and had so much fun visiting with sheep and alpaca herders, and seeing all the amazing fiber offerings.  Someone even came home with an angora rabbit, but you didn’t hear it from me!

Sheep at watering hole by Crowt59

alpaca's Delight by woodleywonderworks

Seriously, you haven’t lived until you’ve met an alpaca (or six).  I hung out in the alpaca shed talking to the herders for hours last year.

Sheep Stampede by pussnboots

I’m finally settled back in from our trip to Renegade Craft fair in Chicago this past weekend, and it was so much fun!  Kristin Rengren, of Retro Knit, the author of Vintage Baby Knits, helped me in the booth on Saturday and my lovely friend Amanda pitched in on Sunday, and it was so much fun to talk to all the Chicago area knitters and crocheters who stopped by.

The weather was sunny and beautiful!  I even came home with a tan!

On the drive up, Chris and I fit in some photography:

And of course some beer!

I snuck away from the booth to do a bit of shopping and came away with some lovely, delicate porcelain earrings from Red Raven Studios.

And a “librarian squid” from Cleo Dee, who stitches up squids for every occasion:

I picked up some sweet block printed tea towels as gifts from Artgoodies:

The shear numbers of amazing, talented artists and crafters at Renegade was mind-blowing!  If you ever get a chance to go to a Renegade event near you, I highly recommend it, although your wallet may be a little sore afterwards.

Our Luxe Merino Fine was as popular as ever, and many, many skeins found happy new homes in the Midwest.  I just listed stock of Luxe in the etsy shop, which is dyed up and ready for immediate shipment.

Morel Socks by shannon okey, shown in Merino Fine 'Morel' colorway

 I’m happy to announce a cooperative project between Shannon Okey of Knitgrrl Studios, Andi Smith of Knit Brit, and Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, debuting next week at Sock Summit!

Shannon and Andi’s lovely sock designs, Morel, Sunny-Side-Up, and Toad in the Hole,  have been collected into one booklet that will be available in Kitchen Sink’s booth, #113.  Come see the socks knit in our yarns, in brand new colorways!

Sunny-Side-Up socks by Andi Smith, shown in Merino Fine 'Charlotte' colorway

Toad in the Hole socks by Andi Smith, shown in Merino Fine 'Benjamin' colorway

These new colorways, along with dozens of others, will be posted in our etsy shop shortly.  In the meantime, if you’d like to order any of these colorways, drop me a line!

Barefoot is entered in the Watercolors category, and Grass is entered in the Painted category.  Voting for the contest begind July 23rd; put in a vote for Kitchen Sink Dyeworks, pretty please!

The party will be held from 10am to 4pm; this is an open house style event, so come any time you like during the event.  Refreshments will be served, so stay and enjoy the party, but if you only have a short time to spare, please pop in for as long as you like!

I’ll be bringing lots of sock yarns, worsted weights, and spinning fibers for you to choose from.  Payment can be made with cash, check, or Visa and Mastercard.

E-mail me at mail (at) kitchensinkdyeworks.com for directions and map link.

Elwood the intrepid mascot.