Name change!

It’s true: gobstopper has a new name! Please welcome gobsmacked yarn. I’ve been working toward this for a while now, in order to have my own distinctive name and to make space for myself to play with new dyeing techniques.  I’ll have the same great gradients that you know and love, all wrapped in a brand new splattery font that I love.

Gobsmacked yarn is hosted at a new website: www.gobsmackedyarn.ca (note that the address is .ca, not .com).  Please join me there!

Gobstopper is now gobsmacked yarn!

Advertisement

October update

About a month ago, I discovered a 1905 dictionary of slang available, digitized, on-line.  I’ve been rummaging through it ever since, enjoying the random discoveries that I’m making.  Some of the phrases, like “to fall on one’s face” or “things are looking up,” are so familiar that it’s easy to forget that they’re slang at all; others are bizarre and even difficult to comprehend, despite the careful definitions.  I’ve chosen some of the stranger or more appealing ones as names for my most recent batch of gobstoppers.  I hope that they amuse and entertain.  And if you really can’t bear not knowing what one of them means, check out the dictionary here on the marvelous archive.org.Now, down to business:  Every gobstopper is one-of-a-kind; what you see here is what’s available at present.  To claim a cake that you love, email me.  I’ll respond to let you know if you were the first to claim it, and will follow up with a PayPal invoice shortly.  Remember that colours vary across devices, so please do ask if you have any questions.  Yarn details are located here.

Four Quarter (4-ply merino fingering):
Top left: Tickle the Clerk of the Weather;  Top centre: To Talk the Hind Leg Off a Donkey; Top right: To Knap a Hot ‘Un.  Middle left: Couch a Hogshead; Middle centre: A Bit of Miff-Maff ; Middle right: To Earn a Gallon of Oats. Bottom left: Keep Your Weather Eye Open; Bottom centre: To Sport One’s Oak; Bottom right: Who Stole the Donkey?

merino fingering:
Top left: Three Up and a Pie Man; Top centre: Drawing Water With a Sieve; Top right: Stealth Cobalt . Middle left: Cinder-Garbler’s Song; Middle centre: Oh, He Came Down Handsome!; Middle right: To Shake a Fall. Bottom left: A Rattling Pace; Bottom centre: Go It, Boots!; Bottom right: Fordid the Frippery.

merino fingering giant (150g):
The Devil to Pay And No Pitch Hot

MCN giants (150 g):
Top left: To Tumble In; Top centre: Betwixt Cup & Lip; Top right: Blow the Bellows & Stir the Flame. Bottom left: Transcribbler; Bottom centre: If the Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks; Bottom right: Of Grecian Bend & Roman Fall

merino DK:
Top left: To Come Down With a Flump; Top centre: June Waits For Spring. Bottom left: Darwin Drives a Car; Bottom centre: To Lay the Stool’s Foot in the Water. Far right: Sudden & Sounding.

BFL/ silk lace:
Top left: Off To the Land of Nod; Top right: To Boy the Champers; Bottom: A Trip Into the Pease Field.

 

Sept. update

I find myself, just after the autumnal equinox, in the midst of a spell of sultry summer weather.  It’s as if the weather has decided to finally deliver the heat and humidity that we never really had this summer in Ontario.  It’s actually hot enough that it’s a little hard to think of yarn right now– but I’m sure that you’re up to it, right, when there are gobstoppers on the line?

This batch is partly named for Elizabethan slang, and partly from various fetching phrases related to heat from a 1905 dictionary of slang that I recently found online; I’ve only just started to look through it, but I can definitely predict that you’ll be hearing more of it in the future!

As always, every gobstopper is one of a kind, so if you see something that you love, email me to claim it.Remember, colours may vary considerably across different devices, so do email me if you have any questions about the colours of a particular gobstopper.  Yarn details and prices are available here.

Four Quarter: Back: Boon for a Borsholder; Front Left: Like Winking at One O’Clock; Front Right: A Jeeny o’ Water

Four Quarter: Back left: A Murrey Mishtopper; Back right: A Bully Rook Bufe; Front left: Couch a Hogshead; Front right: Apt Arquebus

Sock (matching 50g cakes, sold in pairs): Top: Bosky Bowers; Upper middle: Upon the Gad; Lower middle: Caitiff Caterwauling; Bottom: Dun’s the Mouse

merino-silk (MS-4) fingering: Left: Plume-up the Praetor; Right: Will He, Nill He

MCN giants (150g cakes): Left: Hunt-up the Hurly Burly; Back centre: Dismount Thy Tuck; Back right: Cullionly Barbermonger; Front centre: Woundress Sensible; Front right: A Collied Coystrill

merino DK: Back: When the Garden Went Wild; Front left: June Waits for Spring; Front right: Darwin Drives a Car

merino-silk DK sockstoppers (matching 50g cakes, wound in opposite directions to better show colours): Far left: A Bartholomew, Ostentatiously Displayed; Centre left: To Wabble the Lip; Centre right: He Wears His Blues Open When It’s Hot; Far right: Whence Rampageousness?

BFL-silk laceweight: Left: A Bit of a Hot Brain; Centre: Foot-hot It, Now!; Right: To Drink a Locomotive

merino-cashmere-silk (MCS) lace (a heavy lace to light fingering): Left: She’s Going to Stive a Crowd; Centre: A Flip-Flap Acrobat; Right: The Blazing Habiliments of Flunkeys

What’s next

The next two updates online will be Sunday, Sept. 24th at 7:30 pm Eastern (Toronto/ NY time) and Saturday, October 28th at 6 pm Eastern.  I’ll also be vending at the Ottawa Knitting Guild’s Vendors’ Night on Monday, October 23rd; I don’t have all of the details for that show yet, but will send them via email when everything is finalized.  If you’d like to receive occasional announcements by email, please join my mailing list (information here).

I just finished this stunning version of Around the Bend, by Nim Teasdale; it was a really fun, simple knit with striking results, using two different gobstoppers striped together.  For more pictures and yarn details, check out my Ravelry project page.

August update

Everything from this update is now sold.  I will announce the next update shortly.  If you’d like to receive an email reminder of scheduled updates, please join my mailing list (details here).

Did you have a chance to see the eclipse?  I made myself a very lo-tech pinhole camera with a couple of file folders and spent quite a bit of time on Monday checking to see if the sun was still there.  My favourite effect was the crescent-shaped shadows dancing through the leaves of maple trees in my neighbourhood.  Amazing!

The eclipse has been very much on my mind as I’ve been dyeing and naming gobstoppers, as you’ll see from the following batch.  (And a few special cakes named after characters of my friends’ making have slipped in as well– those monsters and pets and superheros are pesky that way.)  As always, every gobstopper is one of a kind, so if you see something that you love, email me to claim it.Remember, colours may vary considerably across different devices, so do email me if you have any questions about the colours of a particular gobstopper.  Yarn details and prices are available here.

merino fingering:
Left: Eclipsed Rainbow, Inverted Edition; Right: Stealth Mahogany

Four Quarter: Back left: Nerwin Gives a Toast; Back centre: Darwin Learns Portuguese; Back right: Nerwin Swims With the Fishes. Front left: Crescent Shadows; Front centre: Pinhole Camera; Front right: 2:36 pm, 70% Occluded

Four Quarter: Left: Midday Flowers, Eclipse Edition; Right: Euk Dances the Jitterbug

Four Quarter: Totality, Totality!

Four Quarter: Sven & Ole Fly a Kite

ASL (alpaca/ silk/ linen) fingering: Back left: Action Kitty Walks the Dog; Back right: Oz Hits the Big Time; Front left: Action Kitty Explores Krakatoa; Front right: Edwina Packs Her Bags

Tough Yak fingering: Nervous Nematode

Merino heavylace: When the Grackles Called, Eclipse Edition