Once again I have been home (for a full six weeks no less – though the time passed so quickly that I’m not sure I believe it) and now I am back on the boat, in Southeast Alaska – Misty Fjords National Monument to be exact.

Back in June Sam and I moved from Newcastle Maine down to the comparatively big city of Portland Maine. Our move from a house to a small apartment meant that dyeing in the kitchen, and worse setting up yarn drying racks everywhere, was no longer an option. Luckily Portland has a vibrant fiber scene, and even better, a whole maker space devoted entirely to textiles and textile arts. So, the Upton Yarns workspace has moved from my kitchen to a lovely bench and common work space at A Gathering of Stitches. (And for anyone in the Portland area, A Gathering a Stitches also hosts a variety of classes in everything from dyeing to dressmaking – I want to take all of them). I do not miss dyeing out of my kitchen one bit. Not only is in the community at A Gathering of Stitches lovely and supportive, but at the end of the day I can walk away from my workspace in whatever state it happens to be in, rather than tidying it all away so it can go back to being a kitchen.

And by the end of my time home I had literally dyed up a mess of yarn.

As per usual, I completely underestimated the amount of time it takes to turn a finished skein of yarn into something I can actually post for sale (tagging yarn always takes longer than I remember) so some of the yarn in the above photo won’t be officially available until October. But, I also have a number of new yarns which are currently available.

Gansey yarn spun from 2014 Buckwheat Blossom Farm Coopworth Fleece is available in two colors, Pomegranate (dye lot of 20 skeins) and Frederick Sound (two nearly identical dye lots of 20 skein each).

3-Ply Cotswold x Romney fingering weight yarns in Pine green , Natural white, and Pomegranate are back in stock.

And I have a new base yarn. There are four light gray Cotswold x Romney crosses at Liberty Wool farm. I had their fleeces spun to the same fingering weight yarn as my other 3-Ply Cotwsold x Romney yarn, but due to the differences in exact cross, or just individual variation in sheep, this yarn is a little bit loftier and a little bit softer than my other 3-Ply Cotswold x Romney yarn. When dyed, the darker grays in the yarn produce a slightly heathered effect. I’m calling the yarn by the descriptive but clumsy “3-Ply Cotswold x Romney Silver Base: fingering weight”. It is currently available in Granite (undyed), Garnet (red) and Dark Indigo (yup, dark blue).

I am currently knitting up a pair of Beth Brown Reinsel’s Compass Rose Sanquhar gloves using Granite and Dark Indigo. I could not be happier with the pattern or with the yarn.

Beth Brown Reinsel's Compass Rose Sanquhar gloves in 3-Ply Cotswold x Romney Silver Base fingering weight in Granite and Dark Indigo

And in other news, on my last rotation to Alaska I foolishly failed to pack my zoom lens. Thankfully this rotation I remembered it. A few days ago we were in Glacier Bay, just off the aptly named “Gloom Knob” spying on mountain goats.