Our Shop, Business Updates & Market Archives

violet bonnet

September 22, 2017 by tarynkae Leave a Comment

My friend has a little girl named Violet and as soon as I saw the Violet Bonnet pattern (in Making Magazine No.1 Flora) I just had to make it for her. I had knit a little something for her brother for his birthday and I had wanted to knit something for her as well, so the bonnet was perfect. It wasn’t finished for her winter birthday last December, but instead over the summer. I made the kid size so she could get more use out of it, hopefully several winters rather than one. I found yarn in the perfect colorway, naturally dyed by Sincere Sheep. I think it turned out so adorable! There’s just something so sweet about a bonnet, isn’t there?

…

P.S. Short and sweet today as we get ready to head out the door to set up our booth, but speaking of yarn and fiber- I wanted to let you local knitters know that we’ll be at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival this weekend. We’ll be in a different location than we’ve been in previously, we’re in the 4-H building this year. We’ve been tying buttons on cards nonstop all week (we have SO many new buttons for this weekend!) I won’t be here for Gratitude Sunday over the weekend, I’ll be back in this space next week. Now, off to fiber land! Yay!

shop update: buttons (& a giveaway)

August 29, 2017 by tarynkae 51 Comments

I did a shop update on Sunday, and then today just finished posting the last few sets of buttons I had photographed for it. A shop update was overdue and it felt good to get some new button sets listed. I listed twenty new sets (it’s a start), choosing a fun variety of woods and designs. Head on over to the shop if you’d like to see what’s new. There are two sets of turtle buttons in Oregon myrtlewood that Jeff carved, special because of all the extra time and energy that went into making them. I adore them. (There’s also a gorgeous carved celtic knot button in black walnut.) I included quite a few mixed sets in this update because I can’t get enough of them. I so enjoy creating the mixed sets and love the way they look on the finished cards. They can be used for projects that require single buttons, but what I really love the mixed button sets for are sweaters with the different buttons down the front. So fun!

And speaking of mixed button sets… Jeff and I thought it would be fun to do a little giveaway here. We’ll be giving away the set of buttons shown above to one lucky reader. The set includes a carved heart button in red cedar wood and another in Oregon juniper, and a chicken button in Oregon myrtlewood. The other buttons are curly maple wood, hickory wood, and black walnut wood. (The buttons range from 3/4 inch wide to between 3/4 and 1 inch wide.) I think it’s a really sweet set and I’m looking forward to seeing what one of you creates with it!

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment in this post. (If you are coming to the main blog URL, click the comments link next to the title of this blog post to leave a comment. If you are coming directly through a link to this particular blog post, the comments will be below the post.) Winner will be chosen by Random Number Generator. I’ll keep the giveaway open through Monday, the 4th and will e-mail the winner with the happy news on Tuesday, September 5th. If you feel like sharing, just for fun, what would you make with this mixed set if you won it?

Comments closed. The winner of the giveaway is Karin who wrote: “I think The buttons are beatiful again and I would love to use them on A Scarf I have been knitting from Wool , I do The proces to get A thread all The way by myself. But I live in The netherlands so thats A bit far away from you xxxx”

mother earth news fair {2017}

August 10, 2017 by tarynkae Leave a Comment

I’m finally getting a chance to pop over and share about the Mother Earth News Fair last weekend. We got home late Sunday night and the first part of the week was spent unpacking all the stuff we brought to the fair, running some errands and restocking our fridge with groceries, giving the garden some love (Jeff did that), and playing catch up around here while we settle back into home. (I’m still getting caught up on laundry.) Sometimes it seems funny to me all the catch up that needs to be done after only three days away from home, but there’s always so much to do in preparation for a fair or festival that when we return there’s catch up to do around here that had been put on the back burner prior to leaving.

But the fair… that’s what I came here to write about. Even though we have really loved our outdoor spot in years past, we were very grateful to have a booth indoors this year. The air conditioned building was a welcome relief from the heat over the weekend. I got to meet a sweet blog reader (hello Sherri!) and we met so many other great folks as well. There are many things our family loves about the Mother Earth News Fair. As we were driving home, Jeff and I were saying how much we love all the inspiration there is to soak up there. There’s inspiration to be found wherever you look- inspiring people, inspiring workshops, and inspiring businesses. I love that so many of the people and companies at the fair are focused on solutions and creating a better future. Imagine all we can accomplish when we work together to make the world a better place!

This year I thought Bracken would enjoy a lot of the hands-on workshops they were offering, rather than sitting through the long talks (which I enjoy.) We went to an aromatherapy workshop about blending basics and he made his very own aromatherapy spray he named “Refreshing Blend.” It smells wonderful and we’ve been using it all the time. He also made an herbal dream pillow with a group of kids, and later learned all about composting with worms. He even got to bring home pet worms for his very own compost pile. (He’s been starting his own worm farms in the garden for years, so that class was right up his alley.) Of course we went to visit the demo garden, like we did last year.

With all the fun things to see and do while we were there, there was one thing in particular that was the highlight of the whole weekend for Bracken- the petting zoo by Heart2Heart Farms. That was so fun! There were piglets, ducks, chickens, bunnies, a calf, baby goats (let me use correct terminology and say kids), and a big wooly sheep. The first time we went it was packed and a bit overwhelming with so many excited kids in a relatively small area, but when we went back there was hardly anyone there and the animals were more relaxed and came up to us more. The piglets were popular because they followed the children around in search of food and the tiniest one in particular was such a love bug and got lots of snuggles.

At one point I was sitting on a straw bale and was completely surrounded by six animals at one time. There was a sheep, two goats, a chicken, a piglet, and a bunny that snuggled up right by my feet. I won’t pretend they were all coming to be with me, the sheep and goats were interested in eating the straw bale I was sitting on and the bunny and chicken I’m sure were in search of shade in that particular spot, but it still felt amazing to have so many different animals around me at one time. I heard someone say something about those animals being good therapy animals, and I agreed that it was so therapeutic to be around all of them, we really enjoyed it.

Yep, days filled with fermentation, organic gardening, kids (of the human kind, that is) digging their hands in the earth, furry friends, and sustainability solutions everywhere… it’s a combination that is sure to make for an inspiring weekend!

{Link Love for some of the booths shown above: adorable little chicken coops by A Piece of the Farm, Sprout! Inspiration at the Scratch and Peck Feeds booth, Bee my hero bag by the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, Sauerkraut demo by NWFerments, & last but not least, the Biodynamic Association.}

P.S. We found a great place to eat not too far from the Expo Center, called Frankie’s. In the background in the picture above was a rooster and a Farm To Table sign. I can’t tell you how happy it makes us when restaurants use farm fresh food from surrounding areas. The food tastes so good when they do!

getting ready for the fair

August 4, 2017 by tarynkae 3 Comments

I was hoping to come back here this week with some more fun posts, but we’ve been too busy getting ready for the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany, Oregon. You can find us there this coming weekend, August 5th and 6th. Every year I look forward to all the workshops, looking through the schedule and trying to pick some favorites, but this year in addition to all the workshops they have so many hands on demonstrations as well. I’m excited about those and all that the fair has to offer this year. If you make it this weekend, ~~you can find us in booth 1034, right inside the front entrance~~. [Edited to add: you can find us in the main building this year!] You can find the program guide, workshops, keynote speakers, schedule, a list of exhibitors and off-stage demonstrations, a map of the fair, and directions at the Mother Earth News Fair site. I hope to see some of your smiling faces there! Have a great weekend everybody!

gigi cardigan kit

July 28, 2017 by tarynkae 6 Comments

I’m so exited to tell you about the Gigi Cardigan Kit, but first I want to tell you how it all came about. I remember years ago packaging up orders for a customer named Susan Anderson in Wisconsin. I would thank her for her support of our family business, and as I do with every package of buttons I mail out, I would wonder what creative things she was going to make with her buttons. One day I received a handful of custom order requests in our shop and one gal mentioned finding out about our buttons on a podcast. I asked her which one, saying I would love to listen to it, and she directed me to Susan B. Anderson’s blog and podcast.

I didn’t know that the customer I had been sending buttons to -Susan Anderson in Wisconsin- was a knitwear designer, and I was delighted looking through all of her beautiful knitting patterns on Ravelry. Turns out Susan is not only an amazing designer, she’s also just one of the sweetest people. When we’ve written back and forth, her kindness shines through every message she sends. I think feeding her creative spirit so often has made her radiate joy and she has a special warmth and glow to her. (I hope we get to meet in person someday.)

Susan told me she found out about our buttons when we advertised on SouleMama blog, and since then she has made so many beautiful projects with WoolyMossRoots buttons. Many times Susan shared her projects on her blog and Instagram, and linked to our buttons and brought us new customers. We were so grateful to her for spreading the word about our little family business!

Recently Susan contacted me and told me about her new yarn, kit, and pattern company she started with her son, called Barrett Wool Co. She said they were about to release a new cardigan kit with their Wisconsin Woolen Spun yarn and wondered if we would be interested in partnering with them and providing the buttons. We were so happy to collaborate with her. We’ve had other companies contact us in the past about making buttons for them, but they wanted us to put their brand name on them, and wanted very uniform buttons. The beautiful buttons that Jeff makes are handmade and they are each unique, so no two sets will be exactly alike, and Susan appreciated that about them. She also wanted to promote our business because she’s wonderful like that.

Jeff was quite busy in his shop working on the black walnut buttons for the kit. Many times Jeff hands me the finished buttons and I tie them on cards, but this time I helped with more stages of the button making process, which was really fun. I helped drill the buttons and cut the wood. As I did that the smell of the black walnut wood transported me to my grandpa’s woodshop when I was a little girl. I was surprised by that because I didn’t remember my grandpa working with black walnut (I always thought of him when I smelled cedar because of the cedar closet he made), but I asked my dad and he told me that black walnut was one of my grandpa’s favorite woods. That was a sweet memory, thinking of my grandpa in his woodshop, while I helped work on the buttons. Jeff put so much love into making the buttons for the kit and then I worked to get them all tied on cards. What a great feeling it was when we got them all packaged up and mailed out. Susan was so patient while we finished the buttons up, knowing how long the process takes.

And the kit… that’s what I came here to tell you about. The Gigi Cardigan Kit is now available! When I first saw the picture of the Gigi Cardigan, I fell in love with it. It’s really a gorgeous cardigan. The kit is available in five different colorways. We feel so honored to have our buttons included! Susan wrote a post introducing the Gigi Cardigan Kit here, and she wrote the sweetest post about our buttons here. I love the kits that Barrett Wool Co. offers because you have everything you need to make your project. I had my eye on a few of the kits from them and they already sold out. Susan sent me a message that said: “Hey! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Black Walnut buttons to no end. I can’t believe how beautiful they are. We are selling lots of kits and buttons.” We couldn’t be more pleased!

{Susan has brought some new people to our shop this last week in search of buttons. I was hoping to squeeze in another shop update with new buttons, but it didn’t happen. We’re getting ready to visit family this weekend and next week we’re busy getting ready for our next festival the following weekend. I’ll be doing a shop update when we return from that and that’s also when Jeff will work on the custom orders for buttons that we’ve received. By the way- I won’t be in this space for Gratitude Sunday this weekend, but I’ll be back here next week with more updates. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead!}

shop update: shawl pins

July 5, 2017 by tarynkae 3 Comments

I’m popping by to let you know that I posted ten new shawl pins in the shop today. I keep getting requests for them, and was asked for more celtic knot ones too. I chose a wide variety of woods, some with designs and some without, and hopefully everyone will find what they had in mind. (If not, send me a message through our Etsy shop and Jeff said he’d be happy to make you a custom one.) I love the shawl pins that Jeff makes and think they’re so beautiful that it makes me want to knit a shawl for myself just to wear one. (His buttons inspired me to start knitting sweaters in the first place!) I knit my first shawl last year, the Pebble Beach Shawl, for my mom for her birthday. Now I’d like to find a pattern to knit for myself. What are your favorite shawl patterns? Come winter time, wrapping myself up in a shawl sounds so cozy.

P.S. When I laid the shawl pins out on a table while I got things organized to start taking pictures, I thought they looked so pretty all lined up there, like a wood rainbow of colors. Madrone, red cedar, myrtlewood, black walnut, mahogany… a beautiful rainbow indeed!

fiber. yarn. and mugs rugs

July 1, 2017 by tarynkae 1 Comment

I love fiber festivals, and when we can have a booth there it becomes a wonderful blend of work and play for me. I work in the booth, chat with customers, search for just the right buttons for someone’s special project, meet new people, and then I walk around (while Jeff watches the booth) to look at familiar booths and new ones, feel fiber, drool over gorgeous yarns in every shade imaginable, and of course visit the animals too. This last weekend we were at the Black Sheep Gathering, a fiber festival that’s closer to home, and doesn’t require as much traveling for us as some of the other festivals we do and have done. There was inspiration to soak up, as there always is when you’re surrounded by so much creativity, and beautiful things to see and enjoy.

Yarn, fiber, and seeing friends is a happy combination I must say. One of the highlights for Bracken and I this year was going to our friend Una’s booth, Wooly Walkers, and making mug rugs for the very first time. Una teaches a rug punching technique in her booth, and you can make a mug rug (it takes about an hour) for only $5. Bracken and I had been wanting to make one the last handful of times we had seen her at fiber festivals, but the timing never worked out. This time we walked up to her booth when it was still early in the morning and the table was open. We had the perfect opportunity so we went for it.

It was so much fun! Bracken really enjoyed it too, he needed a little help finishing his up by the end, but he has asked to do it again. We both discovered a new hobby we enjoy. I thought about gifting mine, it’s the perfect coaster for a steaming mug of goodness, but then a little girl at the booth pointed out that it would make an excellent fairy rug. She was so right. Our mug rugs just might become rugs for Bracken’s toys, we’ll see. I already have dreams of much larger rugs dancing in my head. It’s always fun to learn something new and since I’m obsessed with wool, anytime I learn a new craft surrounding it, I am pleased. (As a sidenote: for those of you planning on going to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon in September, Una will have a booth there (ours will be near hers this year, yay!) and you can make your own mug rug to take home.)

On another note, I’ve limited myself to two tubs for my knitting (yarn and supplies) at home, which means I only have so much space for storing yarn. I came home with some beautiful new skeins of yarn from the Black Sheep Gathering this year, but not too many. The perfect solution occurred to me- I just need to knit up my yarn more quickly so I can bring home more!

{Some booths featured in these photos: …Naturally dyed yarn from Sincere Sheep. Brooke’s booth was right across from ours at the Black Sheep Gathering and it was quite wonderful to be so close to her gorgeous yarn all day. …VoZ Jewelry, stamped metal cuffs at the Stash booth. They are handmade in Portland and some of the sayings- like knitters gonna knit- were cracking me up. …And those mugs? Love, love, love the knitting mugs! I got to see the Creative with Clay booth for the first time and it was quite a delight.}

the preparing {& a button party}

June 29, 2017 by tarynkae Leave a Comment

It’s amazing how much preparation goes into a fiber festival that lasts simply a matter of days and is over in the blink of an eye. For every festival and market we sell at, there’s so much work behind the scenes that happens prior. For over a month before the Black Sheep Gathering came, Jeff was helping me set up our pop up booth in our yard on days when the weather was nice. I would then set up a button tying station out there. When it got too hot, I could move to the shade under our booth.

With the extra long stretch of rainy weather we had over the winter, we could hardly stand to be cooped up in the house on those days that were especially gorgeous since we’d been waiting for that beautiful weather for so long. Jeff and I looked for any work that we could bring outdoors to do, and Bracken was grateful every time we did and would be fully occupied catching lizards, finding caterpillars, and watching ants. (And most recently picking berries.)

As I sat barefoot in the grass, tying buttons on cards and listening to the birds one day, I felt that being outside on a day like that was truly the best work environment ever. Of course I couldn’t be out there every day because I had plenty of other tasks to do, but I looked forward to the button days when Bracken and I would spend hours in the garden together. I actually enjoy tying buttons on cards, I find it peaceful and relaxing, and when I can be outside while I do it, that is the best.

While I certainly do enjoy tying buttons on cards, there are only so many I can get done during a given period of time. Last year, when we were getting ready for our fall fiber festival, my friend and I had a button party and she helped me tie buttons on cards. It was so helpful and I was so grateful to her. This year some friends offered to help, and I invited a few other friends who love and use our buttons, and the button party grew. I set up our pop up booth at a park and all the kids ran around and played together while the ladies talked, laughed, and tied buttons. It was wonderful!

Not only did I enjoy the company of friends and simply being together, we got so much accomplished in the relatively short amount of time we had. When I was packing everything up afterwards and putting it back in our car to go home, I couldn’t believe how many button cards we had collectively done! I had organized all the buttons into families in muffin tins before I came that day (Jeff got me a bunch of muffin tins from the thrift store when he had gone to town a few days prior) and then one friend put the ties through all the buttons while the rest of us tied them on. We had a good system going.

My friends were all commenting on how fun it was to tie buttons on cards and we all agreed that it was satisfying to have something tangible to accomplish. (And we joked, as moms, that it was unlike cleaning the house which lasted for a few moments before it was a mess again. Ha!) Jeff and I offered to pay all our friends in buttons (or earrings or shawl pins…), but they all came simply to help us out, and we’ve had to insist they pick something out, so we’ve been setting them up with new earrings and buttons for their projects.

Any buttons we didn’t sell at the festival over the weekend, will help us build up our stock for the next fiber festival. The help is surely appreciated. It’s wonderful when you ask for help and the ones helping really enjoy it. I heard “Let’s do this again!” and “When’s the next button party?” quite a few times, and I felt the same way because we had such a great time. Thank you, thank you to our friends that helped us out this year, we’re so grateful to you all!

P.S. I’ve been asked about the online shop and when it will open again. I wanted to let you know it’s back open!

black sheep this weekend

June 23, 2017 by tarynkae 2 Comments

I’m popping by for a quick hello. I had such a fun first day at Black Sheep Gathering today and we have two more days yet to enjoy it! You can find us in booth P4 (here is a map) on Saturday and Sunday. The hours and directions are on the site. (I don’t want to tell you the hours for fear I’ll give you false information because I showed up an hour early this morning. Ha!) Oh, our online shop will be closed for the duration of the show and I’ll be skipping Gratitude Sunday on the blog this week. I think that’s all. Now off to bed for me. I have a good feeling I’ll be dreaming of yarn and fiber tonight.

shop update: shawl pins & buttons

June 16, 2017 by tarynkae 1 Comment

I promised you shawl pins in the next shop update, and here they are! 13 of them. (And if you had a particular wood or design in mind that you don’t see currently in the shop, I will be listing more shawl pins after our upcoming fiber festival next weekend.) I also added a bunch of new buttons in this shop update. Last Saturday I posted 33 (!) new sets of buttons in the shop. (I set a new record for how many items I posted in our shop in a single day.) And this week I’ve been busy posting shawl pins. (I LOVE, love that new turtle shawl pin! Jeff was inspired by other wooden turtle shawls pins that he has seen, and is working on more.) It has felt good to fill up the shop with new things. I took pictures with yarn in a wider variety of colors this time because I find it so helpful for visualizing projects when you see how the wood and yarn combinations pair together.

When looking for buttons for your projects, don’t forget about our made to order buttons. We have a section in our shop for the buttons that Jeff creates after you order them, that way you can choose exactly how many you want for your project. Speaking of our made to order buttons, we updated the listing for heart buttons. We’re now offering them in red cedar wood and I just adore how they are turning out in that wood. If you look at what we have currently in the shop, and look through our made to order buttons and still don’t find something that will work for your project, Jeff makes custom orders quite often. (And he’d be happy to do so after our show.)

This will be our last shop update for June. Our next update will be in July. If you see something you love, I would encourage you to get it while you can. We will be bringing everything we have to the Black Sheep Gathering next weekend and if it sells at the show, it will no longer be available in the shop. (Said another way: our online shop will be closed during the show and if something listed in the shop sells at Black Sheep I will delete the listing before I re-open the shop.) That’s the tricky part about updating our shop sometimes, when an item sells at a festival after all of my work photographing and listing it online. I’ve thought about setting aside everything I’ve posted online and not bringing it to shows, but we really like to bring everything we have.

I realize my timing is a bit funny to be doing a shop update right before a festival for that very reason, but I had everything photographed and sometimes you just need to do things when the opportunity arises! All that being said, I would love to sell as many buttons and shawl pins as I can in the shop before our festival begins, to make my efforts of this most recent shop update worth it. (It takes a lot of time to photograph and list everything.) We will be offering 10% off everything in the shop when you use the coupon code: SPRING10 at checkout. The discount will be good through the 21st, the first day of summer. We work very hard to make a living as we do and we’re so grateful for your support of our family business!

Oh, and one more thing before I go- we are having a giveaway over on Ginny’s blog this weekend. We’ll be giving away one set of buttons and one shawl pin, winner’s choice. Head on over this weekend if you’d like to enter!

P.S. Jeff decided he wanted to make a wooden comb one day, he played around in his woodshop to figure it out, and after making a few, now he can’t wait to make more. The ones shown above are the first three that he has made, and they are available for sale in the shop. He’s been really enjoying figuring out his technique. I like that these are the first three he has made and we both agree they could be special heirlooms to pass down for generations.