sneak peak

Tonight, 9pm EST, a huge woolly update will begin (and later continue Saturday night). Tonight I'm adding ArtBatts, Tinies, roving, and ClassicBatts with possibly a few handpsun thrown in. Tomorrow: more handspun, more Tinies, and RollyBatts. The theme is "Fanciful Dreams" since I've been daydreaming while working instead of listening to audiobooks as I usually do. The names range from wild to wacky, and the colorways are mostly vivid and highly saturated!

cyber monday + monstrous update info

This November has been my busiest online month EVER, and I'm loving it! Everything has been running smoothly for the most part and my shipping timetable is still holding steady at 2-3 business days (though I'm often shipping same day with as frequently as I go to the PO).

I'm offering a little Cyber Monday deal: $12 off the HobbledeCLUB and $16 off the ArtBatt Club. The prices have already been discounted, no code needed!

3 months for $72 + shipping

Because my virtual shelves are looking bare at the moment, I'm whipping up a gigantic update for this weekend: 20+ ArtBatts, a dozen new ClassicBatt sets, over a dozen handspun, a huge batch of Tinies, 4 new RollyBatt colorways, and fresh Roving. I missed last week's update because the first half of the week was too rainy for photos and the second half of the week was designated wool-free family time. I'm really trying to focus on creating a large amount of darker jewel-toned items for this next update too, think purples, navy blue, dark spruce green, and saturated dark cherry red, stuff like this popular RollyBatt colorway perhaps:

"Thunder" RollyBatt -- 3.3 oz. last one available

If you are hoping to get a huge batch of Hobbledefluff before Christmas, I'd recommend dropping by this weekend to see what's getting added. As of December 1st, I'll officially have to discontinue accepting custom orders and requests (though any request accepted before then is fine and will not be cancelled).

Though December will be packed with family events, I'll still be rolling out something new: dyed silk hankies! I'm excited to try some of my favorite colorways on them, and to knit with unspun hankies as well.

have a sweet wooly week, friends!
xoxo

anticipation!

If anybody regularly reads my irregular blog, they should know I'm not too much of a braggy person. I think my batts are swell, but I also think that other sellers have terrific batts.

HOWEVER.. This batch of ArtBatts really is crazy awesome. There are 20 of them, all dazzling and twinkling and taunting me! There were 25, but I had to keep an armload of gold/yellow ones.

I've also got 4 new colorways of RollyBatts to rolly on out- some are similar to ones I've done in the past, maybe with different fibers or color orders though.

I dyed up about 35lbs. of assorted fibers for the batts including merino top, cormo fleece, corriedale fleece, baby suri alpaca, bamboo, tencel, tussah silk, tussah silk noil, loose bamboo, soysilk staple, banana silk, milk fiber (my current favorite!) and glitz.  Here's a wee sample of all that, mostly this pic shows tencel top and silk noil.

So here's the details:

BATTY UPDATE: Tomorrow (Saturday) November 19th, starting at 9pm: RollyBatts, ArtBatts, Classic Batts, and several sets of Garden Compost batts. See you there!

so sari

FINALLY. I've gotten my hands on a larger portion of pulled sari silk. I'm going to start importing it next month because I don't think I can keep on chugging along without an occasional rainbow-sprinkled ArtBatt. I listed a few items in my shop last night with the fabulous stuff in it, and most of it sold right away!

Here's an example of that fabulous stuff in action:

"Magician" ArtBatt

And here's how it blends when run through my Strauch Petite twice:

"Good Fortune" classic batts

 I only spun a tiny sample of the stuff so far, though I've got a large box of dyed merino top which is just waiting to get blended with a little bit of tussah silk, sari silk, and milk fiber.

I'm also working on incorporating more hand-processed fleeces into my ArtBatts. I'm very very very  picky when it comes to farm wools, not that I expect perfection, but I've been super-disappointed in the past by breaking fibers, dandruff, or excessive VM in bargain fleeces. I invested in a really sweet Corriedale fleece last week and am ordering Cormo this weekend from a poor ewe who was attacked and needed funds raised for vet bills, so hopefully some super-fluffy-crimpy batts will be in the works!

Oh, I've got an offer for Free Shipping available in my Etsy store. Take a peek if you've got room in the stash ;)

Shop move: Complete!

On Friday, I completed my great e-commerce SWITCHEROO and am now happily settled into Etsy again. My main site is going to take a while to transform, and honestly, it's not at the top of my priority list with the fast sell-out rate of my batts and rovings on Etsy. I've got to replenish the stock already!

During the great change, I deleted about a dozen products that had sat too long in my shop and added them to my personal stash. I have no desire to sell anything that has possibly felted in the bag, so I'll probably spin them myself after assuring the fibers' conditions.

My next project for the week- update my shipping amounts to better reflect actual charges.

I'll also be working on more batts of every type, battlings, rovings, and tinies, and I hope to have a large scheduled update at the end of the week.

On a personal note, I'm still having a bit of a rough time with this mystery illness :( I'm waiting on lab results, though I suspect it's long-term sleep deprivation, thanks to a child who seems to wake frequently at night, feel chipper at 3:30 AM, and spends her nap time protesting sleep. OhmyZZZZzzs. I sometimes feel like I've tried everything: co-sleeping (which had to end because she spends the night pinching me), crying it out, solid routines, quiet activities before bed, warm milk, lovies, white noise, you name it! After nearly two years of sleeplessness, I can't even stay asleep, even when the child spends the night with her grandma. On the flipside, she is very well behaved 90% of the time, which is great for a toddler in my opinion, is extremely verbally advanced, and is a happy little extrovert. I guess I've got to accept the crazies with the awesomes and resign to the probability that "this too shall pass."

HUGE happy CHANGES

Dear friends and customers and fiber-stalkers,
I have a few big announcements to make regarding changes to my business :)

1. I'm moving back to Etsy. I've enjoyed selling off of my own dot.com for a full year, but I've found that the changes Etsy has made to the listing process, order histories, conversation organizing, and tracking information are well worth the switch. Sure, I could implement them into my own site, but Etsy's large and growing customer base and glitch-free shopping carts are well worth the fees.

2. HobbledehoyFibers.com will still exist! It will morph into a portal for all things Hobbledehoy: news and events, customer creations (finally!), pattern suggestions, and a better integrated blog. These changes may take a while, so I'll update my customer base on the time line after I discuss my proposed changes with my programmer.

3. All shipping will include tracking. This is another change I've been meaning to do for a while, but Etsy's changes have made it much easier to keep organized, which has motivated me to make this change. Most of my long term customers know that I love to hand-write addresses on packages. I don't know why, but I get giddy cracking out my sharpie and hand-scrawling your names and addresses. It makes me feel more connected to you. Closer. More familiar. Friendlier. I realize, however, that it is much nicer for the customer (and me!) to know exactly where the package is, and when it has reached its destination-  so within a week, I will have made a full changeover to printed addresses and tracking OR hand-written packages and tracking manually entered into your Etsy order receipts.

4. A new return policy will be in effect. There has been a new buzz of conversation in fibery circles online about industry standards, and the main message that I have taken out of the discussion is that I am responsible for continually increasing the quality of my product as well as my knowledge of how best to use whatever products I create. Also, I have seen that through this discussion, many buyers have come forth claiming to be unsatisfied with fiber or handspun that they have received (though none name the sources). I hope that every customer is satisfied with what they receive from me, and so whether or not you begin spinning or swatching your fiber or yarn from me, you are still eligible for a refund if you are dissatisfied. Yes, the item may not be in its original condition, but if I have misrepresented what my product is or you are simply unsatisfied with the what you receive, I hope you feel comfortable contacting me so that I may resolve the issue for you satisfactorily. I have only ever received one return in the 5+ years I have been selling (the colors for a custom order needed tweaked), and the risk of losing useable product through returns is well worth gaining consumer confidence. I am not enacting any time period for returns, but it would be nice if I were notified as soon as reasonably possible.

I am excited about these changes! I know that many fiber artists aspire to jump off of Etsy onto their own sites, and I think it's a grand idea if they're going to spend the time and money using ad campaigns to maintain site visibility. I would be more than happy to share tips with anyone thinking about branching off onto their own dot.com. For me and my little corner of the wooly universe, however, Etsy's looking mighty cozy, and man of the features on their website are difficult to implement for someone who is programming impaired like myself.

ps. Shop update tonight, starting soon!

I always dread blogging after forgetting to do it for weeks. I think I got lost in the endless rainy days and a lingering ear and sinus infection (seriously, who still gets middle ear infections at my age?).

To be honest, there's not much to catch up on. I finished knitting the Haruni wedding shawl for my best friend (pics coming after I give it to her!), I've been working through a fun list of special orders, and I've been drumming drumming drumming, late into the night. I've really enjoyed working with more texture thanks to the Mad Batt'r, and have definitely fallen in love with lovely loose uncarded bamboo fluff.

Recently, I started spinning again! After the great felting disaster earlier this summer, I haven't wanted to touch my wheels. Thanks to a great queue of Netfix instant crap and a super supportive husband who urged me to try something artsy in order to get out of a funk (caused by rain and the eternal ear infection). I've now got 9 gorgeous new yarns to list, as soon as I can stay up past 9pm without face-planting into my keyboard.

I forgot to mention- my sweet toddler wakes up regularly at 4am! Oh woe! I'd be more frustrated, but our early mornings together are priceless. There's nothing sweeter than snuggling with a nearly two year old and discussing the differences between horses and ponies and then making blueberry pancakes together before the sun even rises. These poor sleeping habits however have sapped my usual work time of late nights, so I've been a little slow at a few things, especially planning updates.

So, there's a super-large update planned for tomorrow! It was postponed twice, but now is cemented. I'm starting tomorrow night and will continue it Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon if necessary. You can expect to find new ArtBatts, Rovings, ClassicBatts, RollyBatts, Tinies, and handspun!