I usually like winter, and I am usually an upbeat happy person.  Today, as I reflect on the last week and a half, I contemplate the fact that there should only be a few more weeks of winter.  THANK GOD!!!

It seems this winter someone has been sick for the entire time.  Usually me lol.  But, with the trees starting to show their buds, and the plump sheep waddling around, it has turned my mind to the idea that it is almost over.  Flu season has hit hard here in our area.  I have tried to go to the Dr twice, once for me and once for William, and couldn’t get in because they are swamped with flu cases.  Luckily my Dr was kind enough to call a prescription in for my ear infection, and so all is well.  Today William seems better so I decided to not bother with a Dr office visit.  Come on Spring!  I am ready.  Once the doors open and the air warms, it seems that all this goes away.  I hope the rest of you have faired better than us.  This last bout, we all got sick, and Beau missed a whole weeks work.  I don’t remember ever having flu this bad, and he doesn’t either.  I feel even worse for people who had flu and then experienced power outages from the ice storm we had.  That would really stink.  So, I am very thankful that Beau had time to be off work, and that everything is coming out ok.  It just seems like I am a broken record.  Lucky for us, when he was at his worse, I was better and so forth.

On another note I have composed a small list of things to not do when you call people who are very sick.  Kind of funny looking back, but annoying at the time lol.

1. Do not mention that the person wouldn’t be sick if they had had a flu shot.  It’s just mean.  They know that, and besides, this flu strain was not included on this years shot and so we would have gotten it anyway.
2. Do not go on and on about how sick you were when you had the same thing.  Especially, don’t go on and on about how your flu experience was obviously much worse than the sick person’s you are calling.  I mean come on people!  Let that poor sick person feel  sorry for themselves in peace, because DANG, it stinks.  So don’t be trying to get sympathy from someone running 104 temperature who has 4 kids with high temperatures, and a bunch of other stuff going on too.  How about offering to bring some soup and homemade rolls?
3. Do not call during obvious napping times.  This is a good rule of thumb for anyone with napping age children.  The hours from noon to three are nap hours for most young children, so don’t call and wake them up everyday checking on the family, and telling them how they should have had a flu shot, and besides you were 10 times sicker than them anyway.  (heh heh I really am rubbing that one in lol)
4. If you call during nap hours and someone is cross with you, don’t take it personally and bring it up again a week later.  If they were that sick, they probably won’t even remember it.  Besides nobody likes being woke up at a nap, much less when they are so sick.  Somebody that sick isn’t in their right minds, so don’t hold it over their heads later, be a grown up.

Just a few hints, I had never thought of anything like this before ha ha.  It’s annoying, and I never realized it before.  I hope I have never done these things lol.  I have just not had a marathon of flu like this before…

On the plus side, I finished some projects here and there.  I have one finger of the gloves left to do, and I’m done with the pair.  All I have in my bag is half a sock and a ball of lace weight yarn for a shawl/veil that I have an idea for but have ripped out and changed at least a million times :).

So, I am shopping for a new project, what are you guys working on?

I also think I have finally procured a supplier for some specialty fibers that are priced reasonably enough for me to resell.  I could buy them through the ordinary places, then charge like $8 - $15 per ounce for hand dyed silk and such, but really I just don’t think it’s worth that much.  People pay it, but it seems like a rip off to me.  After about a million emails, and lots of googling, I have found two places that might work out very well.  I have to thank my dear friend Heidi for helping me, she has been so supportave and helpful.

So, I was thinking about offering some tussah and mulberry silk, as well as some blends and optim which I LOVE.  They would be dyed in a variety of colors, and I was also asked by several people to consider doing a fiber/batt of the month club.  And maybe a sock of the month club that includes a pairs worth of hand dyed sock yarn each month.  These clubs are fun, and they fill up very fast because most retailers can only handle so many sign ups.  I think I could only manage about 10 - 20, depending on if it was fiber or batts.  The batts of course cost more, because you dye the fibers, then blend them together, so there is more labor.  The fibers are easier, but less exciting as they will not be blends of fun stuff.  The fiber club would be 4 ounces, and probably in the $10 - $20 range including shipping.  The would be fibers such as mulberry silk, tussah silk, noils, blends, optim, 16 micron merino and other really fun stuff.  The batts would be similar, but be in the $15 - $20 range for 4 ounces.  Would you think batts and fibers or just one or the other would be more desirable?

The sock club depends on me finding a reasonable sock yarn to resell.  Does anyone know where to buy quality sock yarn to dye and resell for a reasonable price, I have one place to buy, but who knows?  I would want to be able to sell the dyed skein for less than $10 US I think.  I can get good nylon/superwash yarn, but would that be good enough or would people want more exotic blends?  I really am not wanting to try and sell things for a super high price.  I like to feel like I offer a fair price, and that people can afford to spin and knit.  Some of the products are just out of range for many.  So what do you guys think?  This is also going to allow me to be able to write about these things, and of course offer more tutorials, so it benefits me too.  I have trouble because there are so many fibers I would love to write about, but it gets hard to choose, and hard to pay for the materials.  Some of them are so very high in price, not that I am blaming people for over charging, but I would rather make the products available to everyone.  Most people can afford $20 per month, but it can be hard to spend $40 for enough fiber to make a small project.  I would really like to make these things available for almost every budget, and the best thing is, that I won’t be sacrificing quality.  OOHHH and just think, that stuff will show up in the prizes instead of the normal stuff lol.

It looks like I am going to publish March 15, and perhaps we will just forgo the Jan issue in the future.  This seems to be the best way to deal with it.  I have a good line up and a good start on those articles, I just keep getting interrupted!  Thanks so much for all your input and support.  I have a wonderful product and book review for the next issue, and also plan on doing some specialty fibers.  I am still looking for something to do for the something fun article, any ideas???

I was thinking of shaking things up and going off into another fiber arts area that many people haven’t ever seen or done.   I have contemplated doing some embroidery, and needlework articles for something fun, wouldn’t it be great to do some of the lovely needle work crafts, with hand spun threads and yarns?  And what about felting?  That would be fun too.  I’m tossing it all around, let me know what you think.

OH I FORGOT!!!  We found out that our little baby who has caused me so much grief with morning sickness is a little girl and we have chosen the name Julianna Rose for her.  So little Julianna will be coming along in June to make life more interesting.  It will be fun to see how I manage to deal with that and the magazine.  I think I can do it, but I need to organize my time better, and focus on articles everyday.  I did publish an article outside of S&W on spinning.  You can view it here.   I am always pleased to write to a group of people, who ordinarily wouldn’t consider spinning or knitting.  I will be republishing the article on S&W in next issue.  Mostly I plan on breaking it up in to smaller articles, and fleshing it out some.  As they wanted it, all in one shot, it gets too long imho.  BUT maybe I can rope a few more innocent bystanders into the club eh?

So, that’s the news here, I hope all of you are fairing well, and keeping healthy!