If you've been following yarn club for a while, you know that even though the current round (May - July) isn't quite over, because of how advertising runs, I have to start advertising yarn club the 1st of July.
You may have also noticed that today is a few days past the 1st, and that you haven't seen an ad on Ravelry, and I'm just now getting to the write-up.
You may also have heard that I've got a broken hand.
You know where this is going, right?
I'm going to have to step back, and not run a yarn club this Fall. You don't know how much that shrivels up my little club-lovin' heart to say that.
At the time I had to commit to buying advertising for yarn club, I was in the world's strangest small town Emergency Room, one-handedly texting my husband and trying to get him to not ask about my broken hand long enough for me to walk him through buying advertising on Ravelry on my computer at home, for my Fall Yarn Club. I was in such pain and shock, and so focused as I always am on the first of the month about buying Ravelry Advertising as soon as it goes up for sale at 1 PM (it sells out in minutes, usually, and I'm always worried I'll miss it)... it didn't really occur to me that by the time it came around for me to actually DYE the yarn... that I might not be physically able to.
At the time the ad was due to be submitted, I was still in a three-finger, whole-hand cast. I couldn't even both hold a plate and spoon food from a casserole dish, let alone trust that I could lift and carry crock pots from the dye bar to the sink. The day I had to upload the ads, I begged my hand to suddenly get 100% better. But in spite of all the science fiction and fantasy I've read, would you believe there is actually no magic space goo or unicorns that can just swoop in and fix broken bones?! So unfair! I have to heal, over time, over weeks - if not months - and not just the bone healing but the tendons in my hand which no longer want to move after weeks of cast inaction. My pinky has been out of a cast for over a week, and I still can't move it independently - the tendon is that frozen.
Everything has to heal before I can do everything I used to do, and while it is slowly getting better (like finally being able to knit) I have to be realistic that there is a long road ahead of me.
A road that might be longer than the last week of August, which is when I would have to start dyeing yarn.
So with a heavy heart two weeks ago, I uploaded not an ad for yarn, and an ad for yarn club, like I'd intended months ago, but an ad for yarn and an ad for fiber.
Yarn Club will be taking a break this Fall, and will return in January... with either a Star Wars, or another Obscure Fairy Tale theme.
MEANWHILE! ALL IS NOT LOST!
There are things I want to do this Fall, even if these things don't start until October, or whenever I can lift dye pots.
Sweet Baby James will be coming back for a limited time.
Back in May, before I broke my hand, I dyed up a sample of Sweet Baby James in eight different base yarns (with plans to bring it back in June... sigh). Above is a picture of it in Tepper. As soon as I am able to dye yarn again, I'll be taking pre-orders (showing samples of each base) and will be bringing it back in extremely limited quantities of Andre, Carolyn, Joy, Lynn, Marion, Tepper, Tiptree, and Yolen.
I also have plans for two entirely new colors, a lovely, rich purple that I have yet to name, and one tentatively called Dorian Gray (a darker gray than everyone's beloved Weathered Wood - similar to former club color Gleipnir, but a titch more darker/blue-ish).
I have plans to bring in Yolen as a base yarn always offered in the shop.
I have plans for a second limited edition colorway, which I will not 100% spill the beans on as far as colorway goes, but it will be a two-color yarn that will match two of my most popular colorways. When I'm ready to announce it, I will do so in a similar fashion to Sweet Baby James - dyeing samples of each base yarn that I'll be bringing in, and taking pre-orders for those who won't want to miss it.
So. At the same time that my heart is breaking at having to step back from yarn club for a while, my heart is also hopeful about what the future brings. I hope that you, too, are more hopeful than heartbroken, and that the things I have planned for when I can dye yarn again, excite you.
xoxo, y'all!