Issue 3

Summer in Santa Fe

Summer has definitely arrived in Santa Fe and with it have come hot days, unpredictable monsoon rains, and lots and lots of flowers.

The hollyhocks that grow randomly around town are on full display and are really enjoying the extra rain we’ve been getting from the monsoon season so far this year. I love to collect seeds from the hollyhocks as I walk around our neighborhood and sprinkle them in the yard when I get back home. After a couple of years, we now have a lot of surprise hollyhocks blooming at our house and it’s always exciting to see what colors they turn out to be when they finally start blooming.

I am determined to get some of the really dark purple/black ones to spring up eventually, but they seem to be the rarest ones to find when I’m out “collecting” seeds.

Let's Go for a Spin

Tour de Fleece is in full swing! We’ve just wrapped up week 1 of 3 spinning along with the riders of the Tour de France. I don’t actually watch the Tour de France... I’m just in this for the spinning mojo and getting to see everyone else’s amazing spins.

So far I’ve completed one of my goals for this year’s Tour de Fleece: finish spinning yarn for a knit tee. I’m working on plying up my second skein of Brandywine Pink fiber from June’s Heirloom club and am hoping to cast on with it soon. I haven’t decided what pattern I’m going to use just yet since I haven’t swatched my yarn to find out what gauge I’m working with, but I’m leaning towards something like Tori Yu’s Avenue Tee, which I test knit earlier this spring.

My next spinning goal is to finish spinning the singles for my full sweater spin that I talked about in our last newsletter.

Inspiration Station

Since I have spinning on the mind a lot lately, I’ve been collecting patterns that I think would be perfect for using my handspun yarns. There’s really no better feeling than working with your own handspun yarn. It’s a dopamine hit that I think we could all use more of these days.

One of my favorite ways to use handspun yarn is as a color work accent, and the Spun Flora by Wool & Pine Designs was designed just for that purpose. I’ve got a special braid of fiber tucked away in my stash to make this pattern soon, I hope.

For a full sweater made from handspun, I’ve seen many people use Andrea Mowry’s The Traveler hoodie and they always turn out so beautifully. I haven’t picked out a sweater pattern for my own sweater spin yet, but this one is high on my list to make one day out of some of my own handspun yarn.

News from the Studio

We’re well on our way to finish up dyeing for the Tropical Collection preorder in the next couple of weeks. I am really hoping we can get everyone’s orders shipped out in early August so that there’s still time to cast on some fun summer inspired projects before fall arrives.

At the same time, we are finishing up dyeing July’s Heirloom Club colorways and the Happiest Club on Earth boxes inspired by Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. This quarter’s Happiest Club was the first one where I had to create all 10 colorways from scratch and didn’t have any to pull from our previous Disneyland Collection releases. I cannot wait for subscribers to them! I love all the colors and we also thought up some truly nerdy ideas for the extra goodies that are included in each box.

Join the Club

Sign-ups for the August installment of our Heirloom Club are now open. Next month’s colorway is inspired by the Black Beauty tomato and will be full of rich plum red and deep burgandy purple for an extra moody colorway to get us all ready for autumn.

Our Heirloom Club is available to preorder on both yarn and fiber options, and sign-ups will remain open until July 22.

This club is a mystery, so you’ll only know the general color scheme and inspiration, but the yarn/fiber will be a surprise when it arrives in your mailbox.

In the Garden

Things in the garden are really taking off with summer now in full swing. The tomatoes are all loaded up with fruit and will hopefully be ripening by the end of the month, and it’s finally warm enough for the peppers to be setting some fruit.

I don’t always have the best of luck with peppers because our nights can still be quite cool (in the 50's) and our growing season is so short. But the Big Jim’s (a Hatch variety of hot pepper) all seem to be producing well this year and the jalapeños and sweet banana peppers I planted are going gang busters! I am hoping to try my hand at pickling both of those once I have enough of a harvest.

On My Plate

Is it really even summer if you aren’t stuffing your face with pasta salad at every chance? I love making a big batch of pasta salad on the weekend to enjoy as lunch throughout the week (and it helps guarantee I’ll actually get a decent lunch when I’m in full production mode in the studio).

I don’t really follow a recipe for my pasta salads and just through in whatever I’m feeling like. But one of my key ingredients is using Trader Joe’s marinated mozzarella pearls because I love using the left over marinade to make the dressing by just adding a bit of red wine vinegar. What are your pasta salad must haves?

Your Amazing Makes

How adorable is @rachelisknitting’s Palm Springs Tank? Rachel knit her tank using our summer Cotton Fingering yarn base, a 50/50 blend of Pima cotton and Merino wool. I’ve already mentioned a few times how much I love this yarn for my own summer projects and Rachel’s tank makes me want to cast on one of my own ASAP. Rachel is also a fellow purple girlie. For this project, she used one of my favorite purples that we’ve dyed (just kidding. they are all my favorite), Turn Poison Into Positivity, from last summer’s Our Yarn Means Death Collection.

If you share projects you’ve made using Long Dog Yarn on Instagram, please tag us @longdogyarn so I can see and share your amazing makes.