last minute addition

Not sure if I told you, but by the end of the sock yarn I ran out of colors. I ordered more sock yarn. It was backordered, still is. I am hoping it will get here by the time I come back from Portland, so I can stock myself up.

Meanwhile, I still had sweater yarn here: I decided to dye up four colors and send them to Portland. I say sweater yarn, but of course this is a wonderful yarn for any kind of project, large or small.

Periwinkle Sheep merino worsted superwash. Approx 250 yds. 4.5-5 sts/in

juniper

caramel

sweet plum

suede

Here they all are in a group portrait:

Meanwhile, it is way too late to be sending these (I have 95 of them; plusI dyed the very last 5 skeins of sock yarn) to the convention center before their deadline.

Thank goodness, Portland is full of helpful people....one of them being Sarah, whom I met through Ravelry, who is also one of my booth helpers, AND who, it turns out, makes fabulous stitch markers. Of course I had to offer her to sell the markers in my booth when I found out!

Sarah would have graciously accepted shipment of my yarn even without me offering to sell her markers. But now we are both very happy that it worked out that way.

So the last of the yarn is going out this afternoon. I dyed 991 skeins altogether, not all of which made the cut. In addition, I kept some of them for color reference. I am hoping to photograph them within the next few days.

PS: If you are checking out Sarah's etsy store, don't be afraid to look at her sock yarn. Just sayin'.

read all about it!

Check THIS out: sock knitting made the fiberarts blog of our local newspaper!!

Thanks, Harriet!

the polls are open, go vote!!

For the hand dyers at the Sock Summit, the ravelry people organized a Dye for Glory contest. Hand dyers could enter colorways that were inspired by the Sock Summit logo, the organizers, Portland, anything to do with the event.

Voting starts today and runs through August 1st. I entered one colorway, into the kettle dyed category, and am calling it Crapshoot. In honor of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, our beloved Yarn Harlot, who occasionally talks about gauge and what a crapshoot it is.

I love this colorway, but the way the dye behaves drives me nuts at times....here it is first dyed as it came out of the kettle, and then re-skeined.

Periwinkle Sheep

watercolors II sock yarn

100% superwash merino, approx. 400 yards

7-8 sts/inch

Colorway: Crapshoot

The yellowish color is more chartreuse in reality, and there are dark eggplanty hues, mauves and greys as the color fades into the green.

Of course I'd love it if you went and voted for me, but there are honestly a ton of amazing colorways to pick from in each category. Go nuts, go vote!

After the Sock Summit, after August 15th, I will be able to dye this yarn for ordering online HERE, or for local-to-me knitters, please ask one of the shops listed in the sidebar to get it for you. You can also pre-order any of my colorways now, either from one of the shop owners or from Dyenamics Yarns, and I will get right on it when I get back.

Thank you and go have fun looking at everybody's entries!!

out the door

Thanks to my friend Kay of Sliver Moon Farms who showed up with her van yesterday, who helped me seal and address these, thanks to Kay and Tall Son who loaded them into the van in the pouring rain while Crafty Girl and I lined them up at the door....

thanks to a huge concerted effort where Dear Husband took over cooking and keeping our kids happy during the dye marathons...18 boxes containing 770 skeins of yarn, display materials and what have you, finally made it out the door yesterday.

We had a couple stowaways, too, but it got so crazy that I did not take any pictures. I will have JessaLu's box bags with me for sale at the Sock Summit, and some wonderful handdyed roving balls from a sheep farm near here to represent New York State sheepy goodness at the summit.

I still have more yarn here and even more waiting to be delivered to me and dyed, but there came a point yesterday where we just had to seal up the boxes and get them out.

I'll figure out what to do next - I needed a breather last night and went to see the new Harry Potter movie, and must have lost my cell phone in the theatre. A call there confirmed they did not find it. As of now, it is temporarily suspended, but I need to get connected sometime very soon.

Keep ya posted, as long as the innernets don't decide to take a breather on me again, too....

tech difficulties

posting from tall son's computer right now -- experiencing no internet on my computer right now and also seem to have lost my cell phone. crazy couple of days. yarn got shipped out yesterday.

please hang in there with me until i'm back online and in touch.

thanks

what goes around....

The wonderful ladies from my Knit Night group volunteered to make socks from my yarn, so I could take them with me to the Sock Summit and display them. They will get to keep the socks in the end.

Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn Clark, from the book Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Gretchen Mashmann.

Colorway: Fresh Lavender.

Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt, from the book Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Beth Mashmann.

Colorway: Be Green.

Austrian Socks by Candace Eisner Strick, from Favorite Socks.

Knitter: Gretchen Mashmann.

Colorway: undyed 100% superwash merino.

Ribbed Socks based on a Knitting Pure and Simple Pattern.

Knitter: Dorah Bluth.

Colorway: Navy.

Polly Jean Socks by MJ Kim.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Avocado.

Socks with Pennant Pattern.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Teal.

Angee Socks by Cookie A., from the book Sock Innovation.

Knitter: Teri Scoville.

Colorway: Lemon Thyme.

Groovy Socks by SockPixie.

Knitter: Iryth Ferrandino.

Colorway: Stonewash Denim.

And that's not all!! There are at least three more coming my way...if you want a preview, here's one.

This week I was also very lucky to have Crafty Girl home and not at camp. On one of my dye days, she fixed me this beautiful salad:

See this??

Alison, well, she alisoned me. If you don't know already, I have to tell you that this is an actual word in knitting circles pretty much everywhere. Alison gives unsuspecting people her knitted gifts, and this time I was the lucky one. It took several days for it to sink in that she made me a shawl. From her book, no less, with my yarn, which I had given her, because SHE deserves gifts, too, you know!

Before I knew it, she had sent me this:

Constance Shawl by Alison Hyde, from her book Wrapped in Comfort.

2 skeins of Periwinkle Sheep 'watercolors' sock yarn.

Colorway: Spilled Wine.

The inside joke here is that Alison loved this color because it goes so well with one of her blouses. Never mind that she is a Mormon and doesn't drink....

I'll be bringing this gorgeous shawl and the beautiful socks with me to Portland.

PS: Thank you to everyone who has left such wonderfully encouraging words for me in the comments the last few days. The skein count is at 891.

Cat and Anna

What you see here, my friends, is the end of the white yarn.

I've dyed 829 skeins to date, or rather since I've kept track for the Sock Summit.



Thing is, I'm running out of yarn, and I still have colors to do. Somewhere in the fivehundreds, I got carried away with a Royal Purple I did in honor of Meg Swansen (still fighting with the camera to get THAT color right). Then I had a really good day where I did a nice bright red, and reds are hard to get right, so when I did, I dyed a whole bunch.
Then I did a tally and an inventory of my colors are realized I am missing some good colors. More yarn is on the way, and this weekend will really be the last dyeing marathon before everything has to be shipped out.


Let me show you two more Luminary Colorways today: this sunny yellow is a color I've had in the line-up before, and I am now dedicating it to Cat Bordhi. She is one of the brightest knitters I have ever had the fortune to meet (well, besides Lucy Neatby and Nancy Bush and Beth Brown Reinsel and Candace Eisner Strick and Norah Gaughan...) <>

Cat's Sun Yellow

This one is for the Knitting Anarchist, Anna Zilboorg; somehow I've always pictured her in black...I'm probably wrong. But I LOVE this new color, where I dip the ends of the yarn in a bright turquoise first, and then I kettle dye the whole bunch in black....no picture in the world will do these justice.

Anna's Black/Turquoise

Let me know what you think.

luminary panel colors: Lucy and Priscilla

If you've ever had the great fortune to meet and take a class with Lucy Neatby, you will know that she likes bright, bold colors -


in her hair. So I just had to do a colorway called "Lucy's hot pink hair" .... a bright fuchsia with a bit of orange added for depth.

While I haven't met Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, I've always pictured her more on the subdued side, based on her designs. The skeins I did in her honor are mostly navy blue with a bit of burnt orange, and some neat things happen where the colors meet:

These two colors also represent the two kinds of sock yarns I carry right now. The top one is a 100% superwash merino with a slightly tighter twist that the one below, which is a blend of 80% superwash merino and 20% nylon. Both yarns are very soft and a delight to knit with.

All Luminary Panel Colors will be launched at the Sock Summit, and will be for sale (if anyone is interested) to everybody afterwards.

skein mountain, sock summit

I dyed some navy blue today which looks like a comfortable pair of jeans.

The tally is up to 586. The numbers took a slight backslide because I sold some skeins (thank goodness!) to The Spinning Room, and I gifted three skeins to friends.

After a wonderful Independence Day weekend with company, I got back to work yesterday. While dyeing I started to pack up some of the yarn. It's getting a wee bit crowded in the old dining room around here.

(right to left, fore-to background: paprika; spilled wine; boysenberry; hot pink)

I counted up the number of skeins I still have to dye, and tonight I am confident that I will be able to dye up every single white skein of sock yarn I have in the house.

All 326 of them. I'll keep you posted.