November Colorway Reveal

Now that all packages have been received from the November shipment, here they all are: 

 

You can buy more yarn and roving from all 6 dyers here. Enjoy!

January Vote Results

This was a CLOSE vote! In fact, only one point separated the top two choices. Inspiration #4 received 16 votes and Inspiration #9 received 15 votes. The second runner up was #8 with 6 votes (all out of a total of 59 votes). So congratulations to Jane for her winning photograph! Now I am off to start playing with dye to come up with the new colorway. I can't wait!

January Signups

For current club members (i.e. those of you who received packages in November) please let us know if you'd like to change from yarn to roving or vice versa. You can send us an email (laura@theuniquesheep.com) or make a note of it in the "comments" section on the paypal bill payment page. If we don't hear from you we will assume that you want to stick with whatever you got in November. Please let us know by December 7th, as thats when we'll start working on the January packages. 

Also, if you want to sign up for 2 packages and you only got a bill for one, you can buy another one (or two, or three...) on the website. Just make sure to let us know whether you want them from the same dyer or from different dyers, and if you want them all yarn/roving or a mix. 

Thanks!

January Color Vote

 

These are the submissions for January's colorway. We had a lot of great submissions this month, so I saved some of them for upcoming shipments. If you hold your curser over the images you'll see the title of each photo. Choose your favorite and then click the link below to vote for your favorite. Remember, ONLY club members are eligible to vote and you can only vote once.  


Cast Your Vote

Reminder: January Inspiration Deadline is Dec 1

Just a reminder for those of you wishing to send in a submission for January's inspiration vote-- the deadline is December 1st. The slide show will be posted on December 2nd and you'll have one week to vote-- voting will close December 8th and the winner will be announced December 9th. Once the slideshow is posted we'll send an email out to remind you to come over to the blog and vote. 

November Shipments are on the Way!

The November shipments are now winging their way to your doorstop! Because we have club members all over the world, packages will be arriving at different times and it may take a few weeks to arrive for some people. So please keep that in mind and resist posting pictures of descriptions on this blog. We have set up a "Spoiler Thread" in the Ravelry group for sharing pictures, descriptions and general excitement! Once all members have received their packages we'll post photos of all 6 colorways here on the blog.

Vote Results

I hope everyone who wanted to has had a chance to vote!  Here are the results:

#1: 6 votes

#2: 13 votes

#3: 4 votes

#4: 4 votes

#5: 5 votes

#6: 1 vote

#7: 3 votes

#8: 2 votes

#9: 6 votes

#10: 3 votes

#11: 3 votes

All the photos submitted were great, and would have made great colorways, but its pretty clear who our winner is. Congratulations Mary Anne!

Inspiration Voting - Take 2

Okay, lets try this again! Voting is only open to club members and each member can only vote once. To vote, please click here. You'll see that you have to enter your name and email address, thats so that we can make sure that only members vote, and no one votes multiple times. So please use the name/email address that you used to sign up for the club (i.e. whatever your paypal account is set up with)!

I'm so sorry for this inconvenience. What do you think would be a fair time to run this second vote. I'm sending out a newsletter now to let all the members know to revote. Can everyone get their vote in by Friday evening? That gives everyone 2 days. 

The photos are in the slideshow below. 

Inspiration Voting Problems

Ok. I screwed up. When I created the poll to vote for the winning inspiration I did not consider several things. I had assumed that a) only members of the club would vote and b) no one would vote more than once. However, I did not state that only members were allowed to vote, or that people could only vote once. The purpose of having inspiration submissions voted on is so that club members can have a say in what colorways are created for them. Since non-members won't be recieving the colorways (in fact, can't even order them yet since the colorways are exclusive to the club). So it doesn't really make sense for non-members to vote. But I didn't make that clear, and thats my fault. Sooo unfortunatley I think we are going to have to have a re-vote. I hope that this hasn't upset anyone or hurt any feelings. I was unclear, and thats my fault. But its not fair to club members if non-members control the outcome of the vote. I am going to do some investigating to find a more secure poll where I can keep better track of who is voting, maybe make it password protected or something (anyone have ideas? I'm open to them!). We are going to have to make the second vote quick because we need to be able to start dyeing soon if we want to get the yarn shipped to you all in a timely manner. 

Again, I'm very sorry for the confusion. 

Inspiration Slide Show

Please take a minute to look through all the photographs submitted. If you place your pointer over the image the slide show will pause and the name of the photo (Inspiration #1-11) will be shown. One of the photos will be used to inspire the November colorway, so choose carefully! Once you've made up your mind you can vote using the poll on the left. If you can't see the images or have any questions please let us know! You have one week to vote, polls will close at 7pm EST on Oct 15th. 

 

Welcome to the Color Co-op- A Multi- Dyer Club!

A group of six hand dyers has gathered for this club. For each shipment we will all dye a colorway which is inspired by one piece of artwork that is submitted by club subscribers. These could be photos you have personally have taken, or even artwork you have created like paintings, drawings, or even collages.

Each month we will post 4-5 of these submissions and let subscribers vote on which is to be our inspiration for that shipment. The winner who produces the chosen artwork will get their shipment free that month. (Subscribers would be limited to winning only one time every 6 months)

Members will rotate through the 6 dyers so after 6 shipments you will have recieved one skein from each dyer, then you'll start over

A Multi Dyer Club like this has not been done before—most multi dyer clubs are run by retailers and most other yarn clubs are run by the individual hand dyer alone. We think it will be a lot of fun to see how each of us is inspired by the same piece of art work. I bet all of our colorways will be very different!

The colorways will be exclusive to club members for 6 months. BUT, all club members will have the option of ordering more skeins in any of the 6 colorways that are created for each shipment, since they will only receive one of the six as part of their membership.

As a member, you have the option of receiving yarn OR roving. That can be a hard choice, I know, but don't worry- you can change your mind every month if you'd like!

All the skeins will be 4oz and will come in a variety of base yarns (dyers choice!), but they will all be appropriate for socks. It will mostly be fingering weight, but we might have some sport or dk thrown in for variety.

Roving will be an equivalent amount (at least 4oz, sometimes more) of roving in a variety of fibers and blends. 

Shipments will arrive every other month beginning in November.

Cost - $33 per shipment. First shipment's payment is due when you sign up, after that you will be billed a month prior to each shipment. We hope that you will continue with the club for the full series of 6 shipments (or longer!) but if you need to discontinue your subscription please let us know as soon as possible.
International Customers (Outside of the US & Canada): Please purchase the International memberships which include extra shipping costs of $5 per shipment. Thanks!

Click here to sign up!

Upcoming Deadlines

Art submissions for the November shipment are due by October 7th, giving you about two more weeks to send in your submission. Submissions can be emailed to Laura@theuniquesheep.com and can be any medium (photography, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, etc) as long as it was done by you, or someone close to you who gave you permission to use their art. On October 8th we will post all the submissions here on the blog for members to vote on. The piece of art selected will become the inspiration for the November shipment. We've only recieved a few submissions so far, so if you have an idea please don't hesitate to submit it. Also, be thinking about submissions for future months as well. We will need a different piece of art to inspire each and every shipment, giving you LOTS of chances to win!

The other deadline is the deadline to sign up. Signups for the November shipment end October 15th. If you sign up after that you will have to wait until January for your first shipment. Also, if you would like to change your membership to Roving rather than Yarn we'll need to know before the 15th. To make things easy to remember, October 15th will also be the day that voting on the art submissions ends, but we'll post a reminder about that on the blog. 

Now with Roving!

For all you spinners our there, we've decided to expand the Color Co-op to include a roving option! The price and everything else remains the same, but instead of recieving a skein of hand dyed sock yarn you recieve an equivalent amount of hand dyed roving. And to make things even easier, you don't have to commit to yarn or fiber for more than a month at a time. Each shipment you'll have the option of yarn or fiber. Heck, if you just can't decide, order two subscriptions and get one of each! If you've already signed up and would like to switch to fiber, just send us an email at laura@theuniquesheep.com and let us know. If you haven't signed up yet, I'll be adding an option box to the sign up form. 

Allergies

If you have joined this club and are allergic to anything commonly found in yarn (i.e. mohair, alpaca, etc) please leave a comment or email Laura at laura@theuniquesheep.com. Some of the base yarns that we may use contain different fibers and we don't want to send you something that makes you itchy (or worse). We can easily substitute a skein of yarn that you won't react to, as long as we know in advance. All the yarns will contain wool, so hopefully no one here is allergic to that! :)

Mama Llama

Hi, my name is Catherine Kerth and I am really excited for Mama Llama to be apart of such an amazing club! I started knitting over 4 years ago, and dyeing 2yrs ago. I work mostly at night after the family goes to sleep so I can concentrate on my work. I am very dedicated to Mama Llama and hope it will grow over the years.

It's exciting to be working with such talented ladies and I look forward to all the inspiration in the next year.

Take Care,
Catherine

Tactile: A Fiber Arts Studio

Tactile was started by Maia & Brooke out of a love for all things fibery and a desire to work with what we love. Learn more about us here and read our store blog here.

We do all our dyeing with natural dyes, meaning they are all plant or insect derived. Natural dyes are an adventure; like wine they vary from year to year and place to place. Our dyes are organic, sustainably sourced, and fair trade. We currently use 5 sock yarn bases, 3 fingering weight and 2 sport weight. We also dye spinning/felting fiber and other yarns.

We are very excited to be a part of this sock club. It is such a fun idea.

The Unique Sheep

The Unique Sheep was started in 2007 by Laura while she was working at her LYS, Knit Picky. The Unique Sheep quickly spread beyond Knit Picky and in Jan '08 Kelly joined The Unique Sheep as Laura's partner. Before joining The Unique Sheep, Kelly sold a line of hand painted yarns under the name Liisu Yarns. Laura and Kelly are now both working at The Unique Sheep full time to bring you new colors, exciting yarn clubs and an ever growing collection of patterns. You can track them down on Ravelry as Painty (Laura) and TheUniqueSheep (Kelly). A little bit more about our "philosophy" can be found here.

Hello

I'm Tyler Macek of Macek Desgins. I started to knit about 5 years ago, and things have gone from there. I am an indie dyer and spinner who loves to play with color. I am the only one in my business who does the dyeing, however I did have to get someone to help me with the orders I'm getting.

I am really excited to be a dyer in this club.

What to expect of my colorways: I love to use multiple shades of colors in the yarns I dye, and I hand-paint the yarns I dye.


I hope you will all enjoy the yarns as much as I will to dye them, and participate in this and work with all of the indie dyers.

Inspiration Submissions

Now that we have people starting to join and think about what they want to submit as "inspiration", its time to post some rules.

1) all art work has to be original. Collages can incorporate images/etc published by others, but you need to have made significant changes to make it your own.

2) we welcome submissions of photographs, paintings, drawings, collages, paper art, digital illustrations, etc. If you have an idea for something not mentioned, just ask. As long as its original and colorful its probably fine.

3) Submissions can be made digitally by emailing lbullins@bellsouth.net or can be mailed to 222 Old Fayetteville Rd, #G207, Carrboro, NC 27510

4) By submitting your artwork, you are giving us the right to publish it on our websites and blogs and use it for future promotion of this club and the colorways that are inspired by it.

Have I missed anything?

Ravelry Group

In our other clubs we have found that Ravelry discussion groups are great for sharing news and chit chat about the club. So, we started a group over on Ravelry-- just search for "Color Co-op" and look for our logo! If you aren't on Ravelry yet, you are missing out! Go join now.