The Periwinkle Sheep

lace yarn sale!

2012-01-26T14:51:00.000-05:00

I've decided to put some lace weight yarns on sale this week.

Turns out that I will not be able to get the merino silk laceweight anymore that had a put up of 1300 yards/100g skein.
It will be slightly heavier in the future, at 875 yards/100g.

I only had a few of them left, and I put them on sale, together with some WINK lace.

So for all you amazing lace knitters, maybe there is something you might like?

sick computer

2012-01-25T11:40:00.001-05:00

I am having laptop issues and am trying to avoid the computer ER...not sure yet.

Hope to be back with you in a few days, meanwhile I'll post to ravelry and Facebook from the family computer.

ETA: back to normal for now.

And now back to your regularly scheduled knitting.

in and out

2012-01-19T12:55:00.001-05:00

A week ago Saturday I went to the Spinning Room in Altamont to bring them some more yarn. They now carry more of my watercolors II, WINK, and also merino dk!!

Here is an intrepid group of knitters gathered at the shop. They are working on a sock KAL. These women never cease to amaze me with their productivity.

Deidre, new and proud shop owner since last summer, is a multitasking talent - giving knitting advice over the phone while winding yarn for another customer.

Meanwhile, I had to do something much less exciting: inventory.

Hopefully soon, I'll be able to put some color on all that white yarn...

I've been dyeing a little bit at a time. Yesterday was a bit tricky. Since I have to turn off the heat in the house and open my back door for ventilation, I wear warm boots and many layers. Which is not so bad, usually. But yesterday whe wind blew so much that the flame under my pots kept being too wiggly. I got as far as one batch. Grateful for having a house and a coat to protect me from the elements.

Soon, there will be a new KAL. This one is in honor of Meagheen's niece Anna, who was taken by cystic fibrosis last fall, at age 11. All the proceeds of the pattern will go to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and I will donate 10% of profits from the sale of the KITS to the foundation as well.

Once again, a project for a good cause, and some cheerful colors to look forward to for spring!

You will receive a Buttercup yellow skein - buttercups were Anna's favorite flowers. And Green Leaf skein. The pattern will have instructions for mother /daughter pairs of socks.

Pre-orders are now available, and after February 1st each color will be available individually also.

Sign-ups to receive the pattern in your email box on February 1st are HERE. Follow the link text at the top of the page, put in your ravelry name and email, and you will be invoiced for the pattern.

Let me know if you have any questions!

yarn berg

2012-01-17T10:40:00.002-05:00

Ever heard of an iceberg made of yarn? Me, neither.

But I had one this morning.

Last week I had washed a bunch of yarn to be dyed, and then didn't get to it. So I stored it in a wash basin on my enclosed front porch, for when I was ready to dye again today.

Except we've had some really cold temps, down to zero yesterday morning. My liquid soap was now solid, and I really should not have been surprised that I had a block of yarn (yeah usually the blocking comes after the knitting, I know....)

block o' yarn, unmolded

2 kilos of skeins, perched on my hand

yarn berg melting in hot water

Speaking of dyeing.....here's what I did last week...

above: merino sport

below: WINK

both in colorway Cloud Dancer.

The merino sport is the colorway and yarn selected by Meagheen for the June bonus battern of the sock club.
The WINK, I did just for fun. ;)

Both are available anytime, sock club or not, HERE.

white stuff

2012-01-14T17:55:00.003-05:00

The week got away from me, the year is gaining momentum and time seems to pass a lot faster already -

but we got a bit of snow.

Well, some colder temperatures to make the puddles freeze after the rain.

And this much snow:

Just kidding, we got this much: ;)

All pictures from my little walk up to the library today.

I have walked by this house and this yard a million times.
Never before have I noticed this birch tree:

How does a free-standing tree grow curves like that?

I have no segway for what comes next, but I do want to show you what came in the mail yesterday: my icelandic fleece. Soon as I opened it, I saw some nice vegetable matter and a dose of sheep poop. The two may have been intermingled a little. I am glad to know "my" little sheep is leading a healthy lifestyle. ;)

It is rolled up really nicely and inside a plastic bag, which is inside a box. I didn't want to disturb the whole fleece, but just peeking in there I found the creamiest softest white fiber...

this is going to be so much fun to spin.

light post

2012-01-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

Crafty Girl and I went for an evening walk to other night, when we had a spell of freezing cold temperatures. She got all dressed up in her ski gear to find out if it would keep her warm enough.

I brought my camera to take some pictures of Christmas decorations, as they are sure to be coming down soon.

our little house

neighbors

do not enter if on a diet

our local branch of the Albany Public Library - we love going there.

Fire House next door to the library

Yesterday, I took some packages to the post office and walked that too. So far I've been able to keep up with the walking.

(We won't talk about how some days I still just end up flat on my back at night. And can. not. move. another step.)

This is what the library looks like during the day:

it has a courtyard on the other side of the round part of the building, which took into consideration the trees which grew on the lot. I'll go and ask permission to take some pictures of it some time, I looks beautiful once there's snow out there...

and speaking of which: what's missing from this image??

Sock Club reminder!

2012-01-04T17:39:00.000-05:00

Today is the day that the Touring Ireland through a Year of Socks pattern club was released - the January pattern is out!

There is a link to the e-book, which will have 12 patterns in it PLUS 2 bonus patterns. Each of the patterns will also be available individually. When you order the whole pattern club, for $36, you will get 14 gorgeous sock patterns. Everything from ankle socks to mid-calf socks to kilt hose....cables, lace, colorwork...so many different patterns, you will never be bored.

Each pattern uses my yarn, and now that the first one was released, you can see the colorway of the sock.

The yarn is available HERE. :)

daily

2012-01-03T16:37:00.000-05:00

It's the time of year for resolutions. Are you making any?

I try to stay away from them because inevitably, I can't keep them. However since I gained a bad back last fall and a wee bit of extra weight (don't tell me I didn't...you're not the one trying to fit into my pants. ;)) - I need to be resolute about walking.

So far I've been good about getting out every single day. Moving makes the back better, and I need to get this back better. I can barely sit through a movie these days, let alone sit and knit for a good spell. I can stand up alright, and I can lie down, everything else in between is no good for longer than an hour.

houses on Glendale St.

My friend Debbie in Seattle is one of my co-mods on the now huge Stash Down forum on ravelry. She has taken on the monumental task of getting us fit and taking care of ourselves, with great gusto and fun ideas. (I'll talk more about the forum itself at a later time).

With her positive energy, she has managed to get me out of my blogging doldrums. I had kind of lost my blogging mojo over the last several months, ....it was nothing I was doing on purpose, I didn't abandon the blog willingly. There was just no energy to spare at all. I had fallen into a black hole for several reasons, but now I am climbing out of it.

Grove Ave. in Albany

Fresh air and walking helps. Walking with an added purpose helps even more. I love to take pictures, and so now when I go out I take my camera. As far as I am able, I am getting out every day. I was going to give it two weeks before I said anything, to see if this new plan would take hold, but here I am.

All of today's pictures are from a very short walk I took in our neighborhood. (It's 19 degrees out and a windchill that goes right through you.)

I love the lawn decorations....we don't see them too much around here anymore, I think they are priceless...

There will be days where I'll be glad if there's one good photograph. But the point is to keep at it and not give up.

be still

2012-01-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

my heart: it appears that I've won a whole unskirted icelandic sheep fleece in a raffle on ravelry.

Dear Husband just said: oh, that will make a nice cat bed! Before saying: it will be a good learning experience for all of us.

Any and all advice, links, You Tube videos you can offer me will be greatly appreciated.

I have never done any skirting/cleaning/carding before.

The fleece will be mostly white with some moorit parts. I could have had a black one (yes! There were choices!), but I figured I'll be able to see the less desirable "additives" like vegetable matter etc. much better on a white fleece.

My biggest question right now: don't Icelandics have guard hairs? How do I deal with them?

new year, new day

2012-01-01T15:05:00.001-05:00

Lots of plans are already being laid out for this year, days marked on the calendar, ranging from appointments to vacations to woolfests. Visits to and from. Yarn plans, knitting plans, travel plans, and plans that don't ask if you agree or not.

How is your brandnew leap/year shaping up? Hopefully there are still lots of days full of freedom to not plan so much, and shape as you go.

Our dinner plan for today -

brown rice, black eyed peas, kale, and cornbread. A tradition I picked up after I moved here, symbolizing the wish for good luck and prosperity in the new year. If other days go as well as this first one, I will consider myself very lucky indeed.

Last Day

2011-12-31T17:41:00.000-05:00

I walked around my neighborhood today and took some pictures.

no luck

friendship garden at the nearby elementary school

each letter has a matching plant that starts with that letter: H stands for Hosta

this year the city replaced all the old trashcans with these

above and below: this building used to be part of a catholic elementary and middle school. It will be razed this year and replaced with a new Mormon church building.

a beam with lichen on it, by my local florist.

even in winter, so many colors:

an elegant bouquet by the side of a building:

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays and all the Best for the New Year! Thank you ever so much for supporting me this past year, for sticking around, for not giving up on me when I wasn't writing much, thank you for being you. Thank you for knitting with my yarn and keeping The Periwinkle Sheep going. I love dyeing more than I can say, and I am looking forward to doing a lot more of it next year.

Enjoy your holidays! May you be surrounded by people who love you, be safe in your travels, and if you have time to knit, enjoy every bit of it.

All my love -

Karin

still good

2011-12-16T09:37:00.001-05:00

UPDATE:

Meggie's brother Murphy told me that the link for the sock club at $24 will remain up until this evening! So you have today, too, to grab a year's worth of awesome, Ireland-inspired (and I mean Inspired!) sock patterns, including 2 bonus patterns, for only $24. AND you'll be donating to a good cause.

The price will go up to $36 after that, which I think is still a bargain.

The way the link works is that you will put in your email, and then Murphy will send you and invoice, to be paid through paypal.

As of tomorrow morning, the club will be live on ravelry and it will be a regular purchase through rav/paypal, but at $36.

Just to entice you a little more, here is the inspiration for February's pattern:

It will be done in watercolors sock yarn, in the colorway Memories of Summer:

Won't that be the best thing to knit in the dead of winter?

OK don't delay now, go get subscribed to the pattern club! You are not required to use my yarn at all, there are other options out there, but I know what I'll be using. ;)

PS: yarn for January and February will go out by December 20th! Order by December 19th. Yarn orders placed after December 20th will go out after Christmas.

Touring Ireland through a Year of Socks

2011-12-15T12:19:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was asked to dye some yarn to go with a sock pattern club! Initially, there were to be 6 colorways from me, and 6 from other sources.

Then Meagheen Ryan decided she wants to have ALL Periwinkle Sheep yarn for her sock pattern club.

It has been a whirlwind of phone calls and discussions and pictures of Ireland sent to me for inspiration.

Of course my back has been giving me trouble this whole time, and Meagheen knew that I would not be able to dye 12 completely new colorways anytime soon. She decided to start with some colorways that I've already done, such as Memories of Summer and her own signature colorway, Meagheen.

When you do a search on ravelry for Meagheen Ryan designs, there will be 11 pages of socks, shawls, scarves, mittens, you name it. Not only are they all beautiful, but every single cent Meggie makes selling her patterns, goes to charity.
Just check out a few patterns, and you will see. That link I gave you is four pages of sock patterns alone.

The Touring Ireland through a Year of Socks pattern and sock club is different from others because it started with the patterns, and all the proceeds go to the Ronald McDonald house.

If you sign up TODAY, you will receive a whole year's worth of sock patterns for only $24!! As of tomorrow, the price will go up to $36. Please go HERE to sign up -- you will have to follow a link at the top of the forum thread. That page will also explain how the sock club works, and what you are going to get. There are not a lot of secrets here - you won't pay money and then hope month after month that something nice will be in your e/mailbox.

You do not have to be a member of the Ryan Eejits forum, though we would love to have you participate in the KAL.

The patterns will be sent out every first Wednesday of the month, and there are bonuses throughout the year.

If you decide to go for the yarn club also, I am sending out the yarn on the 20th of the preceeding month, before the pattern is released, so you will have your yarn in hand when the pattern comes out and are ready to start. Right now I have January and February ready to go, as I was able to dye a bit of yarn the last 2 days. You have different options, individual months or a 6 month subscription for now. The second half of 2012 is still in the works!

But first and foremost -- don't lose out on the pattern subscription!

I will talk about the yarn in the next few days. For my loyal local fans, this club is available online only as of now.

ETA: when you sign up for the club today, just leave your email where it prompts you to. You will then be invoiced. The club will go live tomorrow, and then it will be like any other ravelry purchase.

untold stories

2011-11-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

Good morning everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day was wonderful and you are able to take some time to knit this weekend.

The fall festival season was very busy and I am hugely grateful to everyone who came out to help and most especially to buy my yarns. Your support means more than you can ever imagine. I love dyeing these beautiful yarns and I am just so happy that you like the colors and enjoy knitting with them. Thank you for putting up project pages on ravelry so others can see what Periwinkle Sheep yarns look like knitted up.
Thank you also for recommending my yarns to your local yarn shop, wherever you are. I have gotten some inquiries! Right after Rhinebeck I had to fill several orders.
On October 30th, as I was getting ready to take a couple of knitting classes at one of my LYSs, I threw my back out really badly. It turned out to be annular tears in 2 discs. I was on the road to recovery, well aware that this is a slow process. I thought I was being so good, but just this past Monday I hurt my back again and have been pretty useless ever since.
I am trying to come to grips with this situation, which truthfully could not have come at a worse time. I need to stock up my online shops, I need to fill orders for yarn shops, get color cards out etc. Meanwhile, I can’t even put socks on my own two feet.
My doctor tells me this back issue could take several more weeks to heal. Sitting and knitting is not really an option either, I can’t sit upright for more than it takes to eat a meal at this point. I am learning to knit socks while lying flat on my back. :)My family has been tremendously helpful in the day to day operations of the household, and I am thankful for that.
I am now trying to decide whether to declare a dyeing hiatus for the time being, or at least until after the New Year. I have great things planned for the new year - I am going to introduce a new yarn or two that I am very excited about.
Could I ask you to hang in there with me? I know it never looks good when a dyer just suddenly drops from the face of the earth after being such a presence at various festivals. If you could help spread the word for me that I am temporarily out of commission, that would help me a lot.
Of course I do still have stock here Periwinkle Sheep headquarters, i.e. my home, and I will put yarn up online as soon as possible.
But in order to be able to keep doing what I love doing so much, I need to take this back problem seriously and not lift dyepots too soon.
I know I have your support, and thank you for letting me put my situation out there. Have a great holiday weekend!

eta: this is an adapted version of a note I wrote on the Periwinkle Sheep forum on ravelry.

Rhinebeck 2011 colorway

2011-10-13T17:26:00.000-04:00

This year it took me longer than usual to come up with the special Rhinebeck colorway. Two years in a row I had something with browns. The first year I did it I dyed the skeins in fall colors. (Because Rhinebeck takes place in the fall. That one was easy.) Last year I did pinks and browns. I was a lot better at blogging last year, too, even though I didn't think so at the time...take a look at this!

But finally last week, when we had the best stretch of weather all year, I buckled down, tried a few things, and came up with Rhinebeck 2011.

The Sheep finally got its own signature color. It's a deep periwinkle blue that I concocted myself, staying with my kettle-dyed tradition. This colorway also introduces the new version of watercolors II yarn, which I am now getting from a new distributor and I am in LOVE. Love, I tell you.

This yarn is so soft, I can't wait to sit and knit with it after Rhinebeck is over. I'm going to make a friend a little shawl from one skein...so there's one of the whole batch that's staying home with me!

Here's the Rhinebeck 2011 next to a friend dyed in blue/black.

For the first time ever, I am offering the year's colorway online in my etsy shop. I always get some requests from customers who can't or don't go to Rhinebeck. So here's your chance!

Alright I better get back to packing. I have to be on the road to the New York State Sheep and Woofestival in 36 hours.

See you there, we are the Sliver Moon Farm booth, # 27 A 10.

Is it fall yet?

2011-09-21T13:31:00.001-04:00

How have you been? I mean, besides the earthquake, a hurricane or two, some flooding, the start of school, a death in the family, there really hasn't been much to keep ME occupied...

May I invite you to a festival this weekend?

I will have a booth at the Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival this weekend, at the Washington County Fairgrounds (New York State).

I've dyed up some fall colors for you: chestnut, caramel, and butterscotch.
All three of them together remind me of Indian corn.

samples shown in watercolors sock yarn

Here's a new purple I particularly adore. I also have it in WINK, the yarn with a bit of glitter in it...

Elderberry.

This colorway, called "cloud dancer", came about after a commission to match a shawl pattern "Amelia Earhart" which will be released in January.

Try as I might, every fall I fight the blues. The Blues have gotten me big time this year, summer didn't last long enough for me at all. We had to cancel our vacation due to my husband not getting hired to work the summer and we were without a paycheck for 3 months. All I can say we got through it - somehow, but it took a whole lot out of me. My heart goes out even more to people who have been out of work for months or are getting laid off.

Seems like I fight the Blues with more blue.

This one is called Bavarian blue, it reminds me of the blue in the Bavarian flag. Which get's its inspiration from the stunningly blue sky over southern Bavaria, especially in the fall.

This is WINK in the new colorway "thunderstorm".

But I also have some pretties....like this one, WINK lace, in elderberry...so interesting how it takes the color differently from the sock yarn. Just 20% silk content makes all the difference.

Well there'll be all this and then some...why don't you come see? The festival opens at 10 am on Saturday and Sunday.

I will have some festival specials each day.

ETA: just found out my booth number: Building 32, booth #43.

boys will be boys.

2011-09-16T14:21:00.000-04:00

Do you need a little laugh today?

a day of remembrance

2011-09-11T09:54:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago today. It was a Tuesday morning, one week after school had started. Tall Son, whose name is Jakob, in 6th grade middle school; Crafty Girl, Annemarie, a 4 -year -old in her pre-K/K class. Dear Husband, John, a special ed teacher. They are all safely tucked away at their respective schools.

I'm on the sofa, watching the Today show with Katie Couric. Usually, I never watch morning or daytime TV. But exactly one week before, I had undergone emergency hysterectomy surgery and I was camped out on the sofa for several weeks to come. The next segment was supposed to be an interview with Tracy Ullman, but then Katie Couric came on and said they are interrupting the regularly scheduled program to report some major news.

We all know what happened after that, and our world was never the same.

Shortly after the first plane hit, I called my sister. While we were on the phone, the second plane hit, and she screamed into the phone - A second plane hit! I didn't believe it and told her they are just showing repeats of the same footage of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. Of course I was wrong.

All morning I watched in disbelief. The reporters were making calculations about the buildings, whether they were built to withstand such impacts and explosions. Unable to move from my spot, I kept hoping that the towers would remain standing...worrying about where they would fall and how many other buildings they would take with them.

Meanwhile, as it turned out, my husband and son, at their respective schools, were watching on television. Tall Son tells me he didn't understand the implications at the time. At my daughter's elementary school, the teachers took turns watching the events in the teacher's lounge, breaking down and comforting each other, pulling themselves together before returning to their classrooms. The little ones were safe, unaware of their teacher's anguish, and I credit them to this day that my pre-schooler at the time was not traumatized.

I have since been down to Ground Zero, gazed into the pit. I've met people who've lost loved ones and co-workers. I've watched ceremonies year after year, lit candles when the names were read. My incision has healed, a narrow line of a scar now. I realize today, watching the 10th anniversary memorial ceremonies, that there are some wounds that never ever heal. They hurt a bit less, but we are aware of their presence, and we live with them as best we can.

And I'm still finding out remarkable acts of friendship and caring, like the one about Gander, Newfoundland.

Friends brought us dinner when I had fallen ill so suddenly and my husband was stuck with two kids, a new schoolyear, and a wife in the hospital. 10,000 people in a small Canadian town housed 6,500 airline passengers. The two events cannot of course be compared by any stretch of the imagination, but they boil down to this: all we can ever do is be there for each other.

May you have a peaceful day today.

my sock summit adventure, part four

2011-08-11T17:30:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning of Sock Summit began with a trip to

Mary had in her wisdom dropped Mike off at Voodoo doughnuts early, and by the time she came back with me in the car, the line outside was long.

But Mike was already successful in scoring some treats for a teacher, Deb Barnhill, who had missed out on the doughnuts the day before.( I think I already told you that Mike and Mary are some of the nices people you'll ever meet.)

In case you are not believeing your eyes, here's the maple glazed and bacon adorned doughnut one more time:

During the day, I was able to sneak away and check out the fastest knitter competition. It had been going on with different heats for three days, and now I went and checked out the finals.

There were two groups - here's one. One the far right up on stage, Deb Barnhill, recipient of the Voodoo doughnuts from that morning.

Stephanie is holding up the prize -- a set of Signature dpns.

The knitters were knitting on socks in the round, for three minutes, with their choice of double pointed needles or one or two circulars: hope you get an impression in this video:

Two finalists emerged from the groups: Deb, and Abigail, who was on the design team that won the design contest for Fleece to Foot.

When the winner was announced, it turned out that on average, one of the knitters knitted 57 sts per minute, and the other one knitted 56 sts per minute.

The winner was Deb Barnhill. I do wonder if the Voodoo doughnut she had in the morning had anything to do with her success....

Watching the contest, my hands started itching. If I go again next time, and they have the fastest knitter contest again, I am participating. I already got me some Signature dpns to practice on. :)

The other excitement that almost eluded me was the Fleece to Foot contest, a take on the usual sheep to shawl contest where teams of carders, spinners, pliers, and knitters will take a freshly shorn fleece,

just the remnants here

card and spin it, then knit it up into a complete garment within 6 hours.

The sock needed to be knitted in parts by several knitters and then grafted together.
This team made it quite far!

I could not hang around to see who the winner was. Here are Tina Newton, Donna Druchunas (I found out much later that she was the judge!) Rachel H. and Stephanie.

On my way back to my booth, I spotted cookie a. one more time, as she was teaching a class in a makeshift classroom.

Oh look, a line formed in my booth. Definitely time to get back to work....Debbie had been holding down the fort for me.

Alas, even the best Sock Summit had to come to an end...I barely had time to look at the sock museum, which had been right outside my booth the whole time! Here's Mike, who with Mary was on duty to pack it all up.

My champion booth helpers, Debbie and Nance, and I managed to pack up the booth within 2 hours.....I really honestly don't know what I would have done without them.

Then it was time to leave the sock summit behind, and the convention center.

I was sooo tired. But so happy I got to do this.

The next day, Monday, I spent with Sarah and Miles in Portland.

Yep, another post. Hey, I spared you dozens of pictures from the Sock Museum!

PSA for APL

2011-08-09T19:07:00.000-04:00

I know I said I have a couple more sock summit posts, and if you are not entirely tired of them yet, I will have them.
But I need to stop (after an outing with Crafty Girl and dear friends - after all, it is still summer vacation!) and tell my local knitters something --

I am teaching at a different branch at the Albany Public Library this month, every Wednesday from 5:30 to 7 pm.

a brand new knitter forming her stitches!

Tomorrow I will be at the Arbor Hill / West Hill branch.

On Wednesday, August 17th, at Pine Hills.

On Wednesday, August 24th, Delaware branch.

I have yarn and needles for you. We will be knitting squares, rectangles, freeform, whatever you like. It is lots of fun and I would like there to be a lot of knitters -- the library has secured a grant for this community fiber arts project which includes needle felting (finished in June), beaded cloth (finished in July), and now knitting for the month of August. Any age and any level knitter is welcome. I will be happy to teach you.

In September, an experienced quilter will take over and guide us in putting all the different fiber arts squares and pieces together into a community fiber arts project!!

It would be really cool if the knitters would turn up in great numbers. Hope to see you there!!

my sock summit adventure, part three

2011-08-07T18:55:00.000-04:00

On Saturday morning, I went in nice and early -- thanks to Mike and Mary picking me up from the house again. I sat in my booth, had some tea, and then decided to re-stock a little. After all, Friday had been busy enough that there were some small holes in the display. Because there was nowhere to store any back stock other than stacking up a couple of boxes, covering them with tablecloths, and putting my dress dummy on it (see it on the left in the next picure), I had actually stored some bags with yarn in Mike and Mary's car. It was time to bring it in.

And I did such a fine job, that by 9:00 am I was done and pleased with myself.

At 9:04 am, the whole left wall of my display fell over.

I took a deep breath, or I may have just sucked some air in and put my hands over my face, and walked next door.

Stitchy McYarnpants and Caro had heard something and just had to ask - what happened??

The KnitPrincess aka my friend Alison, one of my long-time customers from home, came running around the corner from her booth.

Stitchy McYarnpants and Knitprincess picking up the pile o' yarn.

I'm just glad nobody got buried under it, or impaled by one of the 12" pegs.

They ordered me out of the booth - never argue with a princess wearing her tiara -

and literally within minutes they had restored order. I wanted to just give them each an armload of yarn...but they didn't take any. Not right then, anyway.

Because I had fabulous help, I was able to get away for a few moments here and there. Don't ask me to recount in detail what I did. Quite honestly it is a blur, and if I didn't have some pictures to look at...who knows what I may be telling you.

I'm sure the geeks out there totally get what this display in the lobby means. I am not a geek.

Lynn Herschberger!!! (middle)

an awsomely beautiful shawl

an amazingly creative freeform crocheter stopped and let us admire her work

Alison aka The KnitPrincess is HAPPY!!!! Yay!!

Debbie my newfound old friend on the left and Teri, Sock Summit veteran and beautiful lace knitter

Mary watched the booth while Debbie and I went outside to witness the Super Secret (not!) Flash Mob. Just minutes before, everybody had stormed to the bathrooms one more time. One lady came running in and yelled "Are you all doing the Flush Mob?"

the mob getting ready for the Flash Mob.

I made my own video, but this one is far better:

Well that was it for Saturday. Debbie and I went out to dinner that night. It had been alll about people and friends that day. We had heard so many amazing stories...like from one lady who was happily spending away and bought a ton of yarn...turned out she had just taken her mother to Vegas and gambled, and won!

Yes, people were having the time of their lives, and my display even remained standing till the very end.

And I thought I'd squeeze Saturday and Sunday into one post, but I won't. This all happened exactly one week ago, and so we will have one more post. Or two.

a wee bit more sock summit, before the grand finale

2011-08-06T18:16:00.000-04:00

More sock summit pictures for you. This is a small post. We are have friends visiting here whom we haven't seen in 15 years, so I won't stay on the computer long. There'll be more sock summit adventures to report in a day or two.

the Plucky Knitter booth

Tactile Fiber studio booth

Sanguine Gryphon

Periwinkle Sheep :)

Lucy Neatby /left and friends at the MAX stop

KIPing at the stop

The Big Pink in Portland, which is a parallelogram.

Tomorrow, bring some knitting and a cup of tea when you check in here. :)

my sock summit adventure, part two

2011-08-05T11:45:00.001-04:00

I arrived in Portland without further incident. I was to stay with friends Paul and Sarah and their baby, Miles. I met them at the last Sock Summit. Well they had their little boy in the meantime and I was looking forward to meeting him. Because my plane was an hour late, Paul graciously picked me up by ZipCar so I didn't have to take the train in.

The next day, Sarah and Miles

Rachel H. letting Miles play with her badge

and I went to the convention center and took a look around. The first person I saw there after checking in

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee at the check-in counter

was Cookie A. I truly had arrived at the biggest convention of sock knitters in the world.

Sarah and Miles were eager to fill the empty booth with yarn!

let's get going, already!

my shipment

Then the helpers arrived!!! Nance (middle) and Mary (right) of Mike and Mary, tore into the first box already.
Miles prefers to look at the world upside down.

Then, Erin from Portland Store Fixtures arrived with my rented booth display grids...she was well prepared with her clipboard -

The next couple of hours are still a blur. We set up the booth display the way I had imagined it, the way I had gone over it with Erin, and, at home, with my mechanical engineering student Tall Son.
The way we had all figured it, it did not work. The grids kept collapsing, even with no yarn on them. Sarah is an architect by trade, and she finally found a solution...it did leave some dead space, but it was workable, and nothing collapsed.

We called it a night, and went to have dinner.

Convention Center MAX stop.

Walk home through Portland.

The next day, I achieved this:

But not before I had another collapse, followed by frantic phone calls, after which one of the owners of the fixtures store spent 45 minutes under the grids as if under the hood of a car. She finally got the walls stabilized enough that I was going to be ready for customers. Oh yeah and in the morning? My palette of boxes had been INSIDE my booth, so I had no way of moving and unpacking. Thank goodness Mary's husband Mike was a volunteer at the loading dock that morning and was able to help me get the boxes and the palette out of my booth.

But finally Finally I was ready for customers! Thanks to my helpers. Melissa showed up, whom I met last time, and whose picture I forgot to take.

My wonderful, kind, funny, friendly booth neighbors, Stitchy McYarnpants and her friend Caro Sheridan, and Caro's mom, were ready too for the market doors to open for the first time on Thrsday afternoon at 4:30 pm.

We had been debating which one was going to be the "it booth" of the summit. Which booth would be stormed by attendees? Last time people were sprinting to the Sanguine Gryphon booth. This time, word had it, it was either the Plucky Knitter, or GothSocks.

GothSocks won.

Within minutes, they were tossing yarn into the mob.

They were sold out about an hour later, and had no yarn to sell for the whole rest of the summit. Three more days with no yarn. I honestly don't know what I would have done.

Meanwhile, people fouond me. Here's Teri making a purchase, who had made a Labyrinth shawl for me to display...and which I also must have forgotten to photograph....but if you click on the link above, you can see her shawl. It's the first photo.

Someone is picking out the perfect skein.

Also the parade of stunning knits coming through was endless.

Here's Kathy, a faithful reader of my blog, who drove up from California to attend. She is showing me her Wandering the Moors shawl she made in five days last summer, with my watercolors II yarn. Please you must read her blog -- she took classes and everything and blogged really nicely about it. She's a fabulous knitter.

Later on, a sighting of Franklin Habit.

And even later, a wonderful dinner with Mike and Mary, and strike three for not taking a picture when I should have. (You can see them here in this post about the last sock summit.)

Mike and Mary adopted me last time I was in Portland, and they did so again this time. Rides every morning from the house where I was staying; use of their car for yarn storage; and dinner at a gluten-free and vegan friendly restaurant which meant I could eat without worrying.

mushroom ragout with white beans on a bed of steamed veggies and sesame sweet potatoes. yum.

Of course we celebrated our reunion with a bottle of wine. Then we called it a night, because the "real" summit was still ahead of us with three whole days of vending on my part, and full days of volunteering for them. You probably saw Mike or Mary everywhere. They guarded the lunch line and the front door. They were teaching assistants. They collected all the donations from the baby shower on Saturday night. No matter what you may have been doing, Mike and Mary were there to assist you!

my sock summit adventure, part one

2011-08-04T21:10:00.000-04:00

A week ago Tuesday, I went to the Albany International Airport, checked my suitcase (for which I had to pay $25 so it was allowed to go to the same place I went), went through security, waved good-bye to my family one more time, and went to my gate to await boarding.

One hour later I sat in a taxi van with a couple that was also supposed to fly to Newark. The plane had been "overbooked" and I was volunteered to go to Newark by taxi, which supposedly was waiting outside to load me in and take me away. Never mind that I had booked my flight in January, reserved my seat then, and made it to the airport in plenty of time. I was identified as a Single Traveler going to Portland, OR with a Significant Lay-Over in Newark, and called to the podium. After much hesitation, feeling the eyes of 50 travelers stabbing me in the back because they wanted to get the heck on this plane and I was the only one holding them up, I agreed to accept the $350 voucher to be used another time.

Outside, there was no taxi. The dispatcher was completely taken by surprise. I may have heard him yell into the radio, "I don't care if you are my wife, I am telling you to come over here and drive these people to Newark!" She showed up, we loaded ourselves into the van, and drove off....to the nearest gas station, where she, the driver, asked us if we could give her some money to help pay for the gas. I very politely pointed out that she was just given a $500 voucher from the airline, and that I had only lunch money with me. She grumbled that she had to go to the ATM.

While the driver took care of business, us passengers introduced ourselves. There was a lady in the front seat who needed to be taken to her doctor's appointment...turns out that the cab was a van conracted by a company that takes disbabled folks to the doctor. We were going to Newark by medivan. Our medivan had very loud and rattly shocks, exactly underneath me.

After we dropped off the poor lady who in turn had to endure a detour to the airport to pick us up, we finally were on our way to Newark. Turns out the driver had never even been to Newark before! I texted my son to look up directions. Newark is 165 miles south of Albany, in New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan. My fellow travellers looked up google directions on their smart phones. The driver did have a gps, but refused to let it talk to her because "it always says the wrong thing". So while she was driving, in between compulsively polishing her sunglasses which she had on over her prescription glasses, she kept trying to read the gps. Thank goodness, I thought, that the New York State Thruway is a pretty straight road.

Also, she kept popping all of her knuckles. She stated that this helps her arthritis. I offered some ibuprofen. She remembered she had some, and after she ate her sandwhich while polishing her glasses and reading her gps, she took some ibuprofen, which reminded her that she had to take some caffeine pills. She had been yawning quite a bit and apologized for it. She said that taxi companies don't like it when their drivers drink too much coffee because that causes too many bathroom breaks and a loss of revenue.

At one point we all needed a bathroom break, taxi cab loss of revenue be darned. During this break we had to wait for the driver to finish her cigarette, and I got a glimpse as to why the taxi cab company looked down on bathroom breaks.

As we went on down the thruway, my fellow traveler had her iphone in her purse and stealthily looked up directions. Her husband did the same thing in the passenger seat. It's not difficult to get to Newark at all, if you know where to turn off, and by the second turn after the toll booths we were all pretty much shouting directions at our driver, at which point she finally conceded, gave up reading the gps and turned it off.

We made it to the right terminal, on time, and we all jumped out of that van the same second it had come to a halt.

I found some dinner, and made my plane just fine.

We only sat on the runway for an hour before take-off.

back

2011-08-02T17:52:00.002-04:00

It's good to be back! Looks like my husband peeked in here while I was gone...and left you with a teaser.
Well I have to let it sit another day. I've been so sleep deprived that I was feeling downright sick today, so I took two naps. Fam is making dinner right now.

Sock Summit was fun, interesting, successful, amazing, inspiring, warm fuzzy, fun, and a lot of hard work. But it was fun. :)

The first knit celeb I saw and talked to was cookie a. who helped set up the booth for 'a verb for keeping warm'.
I saw Amy Singer many times, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee all over the place, Tina Newton ditto, I saw and spoke with Lucy Neatby, one of the few instructors to regularly strolls through the marketplace; and I saw Sivia Harding, Cat Bordhi, Franklin Habit, Anne Hanson. My booth was right next to Stitchy McYarnpants and her friend Caro. The nicest people ever.

And I didn't buy any yarn or fiber. I have no idea how I did it.

guest post

2011-07-28T16:27:00.000-04:00

While Karin is out of town, I'll be looking after the blog. Her trip was, of course, not routine. I'm sure she'll give you the details later. She did arrive safely and is setting up her booth. --John

the road to sock summit 2011

2011-07-25T22:34:00.001-04:00

I am leaving tomorrow, and a week from tomorrow I'll be back home again.

In that week, I will have traveled to Portland, OR, met friends I made last time, made new ones, set up my booth, had 4 days of market, dinners out with ravelry and sock summit friends, and a marvelous time.

The yarn, all 1279 skeins of it, is already there.

My dear friends Iryth (several times!!!) and Amy were here to help tag and pack. They were not afraid of the heat and the mess in my house.

Among other things, I came up with a new colorway, called 'a crack in the sidewalk':

And then, knitters knitted me things to take to the summit, for my booth displays.

Celaeno shawl by Romi Hill, knit by Alison G. in merino silk, colorway "avocado".

Ishbel shawl by Ysolda Teagye, knit by Jody, in sock dream, colorway "sophisticated".

Mulnomah Shawl by Kate Elsa, knit by Alison G. in sock dream, colorway "Yanni T."

Flirtatious Shawl by Jody Mason, knit by Dorah, in 2 skeins of sock dream, colorway "hydrangea".

Flirtatious Shawl by Jody Mason, knit by Jody Mason, in WINK, colorway "girly". This pattern will be for sale at the sock summit, but is also available on ravelry.

Fingerless mitts knit by Karyn (above): Lepidoptera Mitt by Allison Van Zandt and Eliza Mitts by Anne Hanson;

knit with sock dream 'memories of summer'.

Below: Fine Cabled Mitts by Anne Hanson, knit by Carole, in watercolors sock yarn, 'hydrangea'.

Truffle Hat, Bon Bon Mitts, free ravelry downloads, knit by Dina, in watercolors II 'silver lining'.

Ok at this point in the post the picture uploader thingie went a little nuts and most of the pics were sideways or upside down. So sorry!

Left to right: sock knit by Bethm Robena, and Elise, in watercolors 'nutmeg', sock dream 'memories of summer', and watercolors 'past midnight'. Elise and Beth, please leave me a comment telling me what the patterns were!! I forget!!

Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn Clark, watercolors 'cranberry'. This sock and the next one knit by Teri.

Go with the Flow socks by Evelyn Clark, watercolors II in 'tree frog'.

Marilinda Socks by cookie a, knit by Robena, in sock dream 'memories of summer'.

Thank you to every one of my dear knitting friends from Knit Night; The Spinning Room, and Trumpet Hill yarn shops who took the time to make me these fabulous sock summit booth samples. Not pictured here is an Angee sock by cookie a., knit by Laura, in sock dream 'avocado'; and a wee baby sweater made by Teri, in watercolors 'chick'.
I can't wait to display them all and brag about you.

So here I go, and I am sure that I've forgotten to mention a project sample someone made me. I apologize ahead of time. It is always an honor to see my yarn all knit up in beautiful projects!!!

PS: Teri you made a sock out of watercolors II, a crack in the sidewalk. Which pattern?

delicately

2011-07-06T16:10:00.001-04:00

stopping for a moment from the insanity that is dyeing for Sock Summit --

I had a visitor today : right between two drying racks, a supreme master of the fiberarts.

Barely as big as a size 7 / 4.5 mm needle, orange like the color I was dyeing all day...and gone a few hours later, too much traffic and to do where she was, so she relocated herself to where I don't know.

hi

2011-06-22T07:49:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the long silence. I never mean to not blog.
Lots going on here.
Hope to have something for you in the next couple of days.

PS: Picture uploader not working. Blech.

Sock Summit update

2011-06-14T12:35:00.002-04:00

I found out my booth assignment! The Periwinkle Sheep will be in booth #516. This booth is located just a few spaces up from WEBS, and across from the Sock Museum. There is ample aisle space in front of it.

This time I do not have a corner booth, but rather will have neighbors on both sides. I am quite happy about that, as I have been planning my lay-out with three usable sides!

So far I have dyed about 500 skeins of yarn: 3 kinds of laceweight, merino silk, a new BfL sock yarn, a new sportweight, and some sock dream. Yes, pictures, I know you want them. I'll do my best to take them.

Yesterday, I took stock of my beautifully versatile sock yarn called watercolors, and hauled a couple bins out back to spread out the skeins.

This may look ok to you at first sight, but really it is a most pitiful collection! First of all, there are no purples left! Sold out! And no teals and turquoises! Sold out! No tree frog, no embers, or black walnut, nothin'!! So little yarn in stock, so little time to dye it in! I am most woefully behind.

After I took a couple of pictures, I had to run in the house for something.

When I got back:

Good one! That's what I get for setting up right under a tree.

But at least the bird was kind enough

to hit a skein

that I had marked "seconds" already.

I really really appreciated that.

Cummington

2011-06-10T22:54:00.002-04:00

Well it has been two weeks (!!) since I packed up that yarn for Cummington and I have yet to post about it! So sorry.
I am a little exhausted for various reasons so this post is not as comprehensive as I would like it to be.

I want to apologize to Bonnie especially - you'll see her in a minute! - it was SO nice to meet you, talk with you, have dinner! Wish we could have added a couple of hours of knitting.... and more chatting.

Let me get started with the Saturday of the festival, which took place Memorial Day weekend.

rack with my yarn in the Sliver Moon booth - thank you, Kay!

wee bunny in the booth across from us

wee visitor in our booth with a little hand knit dress and hat on. I may have stalked this poor mom a bit.

spinning tent

a glorious day with blue skies and fluffy clouds

I took leave mid-afternoon on the first day to run on down to Northampton and meet Bonnie at WEBS.

(If you have a minute, scroll to her May 29th entry, and you can see her post on our meeting. :))

photographing yarn bombing

at dinner

shawl Bonnie made with my merino silk yarn, colorway "memories of summer". Bonnie please help me remember its name?

Good-bye after a few short hours.

pardon me -

2011-05-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

- while I pack up some yarn

to get ready and go to the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair this weekend, in Cummington, MA!

I am in the Sliver Moon booth, which is in craft barn #2.

Hope to see you there!!!!

desperate times

2011-05-24T16:47:00.000-04:00

I am dyeing lots of yarn. Special orders, webstore, LYSs, festivals - I need to stock up.

It has been raining for at least 10 days. In fact I can't remember a full day without any rain.

One thing that can majorly hamper yarn dyeing is that the yarn doesn't dry fast enough. I have 4 drying racks, which altogether accommodate about 60 skeins, a whole day's worth of work. Usually I take one day's skeins down in the morning and dye the next batch.

This is yesterday's yarn, still not dry. It's getting here, but it's not dry enough to wind into skeins.

There is yarn all over my house, because guess what? It's raining again outside.

Fans are not helping.

Yarny home decor.

These are desperate times, and they call for desperate measures.

I am putting the yarn in the dryer.

I finally remembered that I have one of those shoe shelves for my dryer - you set the item that needs drying (but can't be tumbled) on it, close the door, and turn on the dryer.

3 skeins take 10 minutes on low (don't want to fry the yarn).

I have about 70 skeins to go.

We're having take-out tonight, probably.

sog

2011-05-19T09:28:00.000-04:00

If there's fog after foggy, then there's sog after soggy.

Lots of sog going on - evidently we are trapped under a system that has shower after shower coming though, for the last five days....lots of low grey clouds...with the temps slowly rising.

These blooms haven't seen a ray of sunshine since they opened, practically.

japanese cherry

The wisteria is so wet it is sagging to the ground.

The scent is almost intoxicating though...

The lilac bush is bowing too.

I've had yarn trying to dry for three days now. I have fans on it to help it along.

But once again, I am thankful I'm not losing my house to flooding. I'll take a bit of sog over a flood...

brief

2011-05-18T08:54:00.000-04:00

I went to a Contemplative Photography seminar at the Albany Shambala center last night, with Andy Karr.

You can look at some of his images HERE. I'll wait until you're done.

I went because I had purchased this book a few weeks ago, before I even knew he was coming to town.

During the slide show, I noticed that there were mostly partial images, or rather images of things where not the whole thing was portrayed, but only part of it, and yet we all still knew what the thing was. Pars pro toto. The wheel of a car, not the whole car.

There was tremendous stillness in the photographs. I liked that a lot.

When I left and stepped out the front door of the building, I saw this.

Then I decided to zoom in and do this.

I like both, but can't decide which I like better. I am not even sure that one should have more value than the other. Knowing about both views, I feel compelled to share both.

I'll leave you to contemplate that...I must go and dye yarn.

an outing

2011-05-17T17:08:00.001-04:00

At least once a year every year for the last 10, by friend Anna and I go on an outing together. We decide the general direction, pack a lunch, and off we go. If we happen upon a yarn shop, so much the better.

This year we had to plan a little better, because the second Clermont festival fell on the day of our outing. Anna still wanted to come and sit at the fest with me, but you saw yesterday how we got rained out.

Now I'm going to tell you what else we did.

In the morning, right after it opened, we went to Countrywool. Claudia has been in business for over 20 years, running a lovely shop with all natural fibers, raising angora bunnies, and organizing knitting and spinning retreats. I hadn't been there in way too long!!!!

yes I went home with some of this: Dale of Norway Heilo.

and I went home with some of these cute little spinning fiber packs.

and I went home with a couple of patterns.

I also went home with something I can't talk about yet. It's a stealth project.

After we packed up at Clermont, we found out that Rhinebeck is not far, so we decided to go further south rather than back home.

We've been known to come to a screeching halt when we see a sign that points to a yarn shop - this time there was one near the tiny historic town of Tivoli. I have never been there in my life, and I am glad we turned around.

We found this shop.http://www.fabulousyarn.com/ (ok I'm having trouble with the linky thing. You get the idea.)

It's really a different kind of shop with nothing but the nicest high-end yarns....and some local hand dyed, which of course I had to try.

Then we went on to Rhinebeck.

As you may recall, some of my yarn now lives in the Knitting Garage of a general store.

Here's the store.

Inside, it looks like an old-time Woolworth's store, except this was never a chain store.
I saw some yarn on the way in....but couldn't quite see a "garage".

Kept on going, allll the way to the back,

and voila, there it was. A literal garage, nicely and artfully transformed into a very modern little yarn boutique.

And there was my yarn, right on the shelf. Hi, Periwinkle Sheep!

We just sat in the quiet space, perused some patterns, bought some of them, and then left to explore more of Rhinebeck's lovely shops before we had dinner and went home.

Wing and Clover had a small selection of delicious yarns, too...definitely click on that link. There is a marvelous art scene to behold.

Now if you are in the Hudson Valley and are looking for something to do this coming weekend, here's a suggestion:

I just hope they have good weather.

The rain in Spain, uhm, Clermont, stays mainly in the plains

2011-05-16T20:27:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, we were ready for another fiber-y day at Clermont. A day given to us vendors for free because the previous festival had us endure lots of rain, with half the vendors unable to come and display their wares. This time was supposed to be different.

I'll show you the pretty walk from the parking lot down to the meadow in front of the main house.

Who could ask for a more gorgous setting??

My booth under the tent:

But what can I say.

Two hours into it, the rain started once again. It was blowing a bit sideways, too, so we could not keep our wares dry. We were officially permitted to pack up and leave....since not very many customers ventured out that day.

To the ones that came: thank you for stopping by!!

I'll tell you tomorrow what my friend who came with me and I did before and after.

Because knitters never let the weather get in the way of a little yarn crawling.

stay tuned

2011-05-13T15:50:00.001-04:00

Turns out that yesterday's blogpost was up for a little while and then got lost while blogger was out.

It was about a special order yarn in Sunny Yellow. A customer is using it to make Sun Break.

A match made in heaven, if I may say so myself....hehe.

The beautiful sunshine from the last couple of days has given way to clouds again, with on and off rain....so right now I am waiting to hear from the organizer to see if tomorrow's fiber festival at Clermont will be cancelled.

Stay tuned. I will update this post in a couple of hours to let you know.

PS: we have received an update!! The Fiber Fest WILL go ahead as planned.

The following vendors will be present:

The following people are outside the Clermont tent:

JB Moth Designs & Dizzy Dragonfly

Jill Draper Makes Stuff

Hampton Artistic Yarns

All Things Fiber, Creekside Acres

The following are under the Clermont tent:

The Periwinkle Sheep

Bittersweet Woolery

Three Wise Women

Fenwood Designs

Woodstock Knits

Stitched by Jessalu

Once again, here is the website you need to read for directions, etc. It should be a fun day, I hope to see you there!!!!

sun soleil sol Sonne

2011-05-12T15:54:00.000-04:00

A customer approached me - she had found a skein of watercolors II in the colorway "sunny yellow"....would I be able to dye some dk weight so she could make a throw?

Not a problem! This batch is now up on etsy as a reserved listing.

The yarn will become THIS gorgeous throw. Sunny yellow for "Sun Break". A match made in heaven....

morning visitor

2011-05-10T08:49:00.000-04:00

A few minutes ago, I grabbed my camera to go out front and take pictures of the flowers in my front yard. I stopped at the top of my front steps - something made me halt and look - it seemed like an awfully big bumblebee - but then I realized it was a hummingbird!

I held my breath as I tried to stay frozen in my spot and zoom in on the little guy. They do flit from flower to flower, but then again almost stand still when they get the nectar from a blossom. So I managed to get 3 snapshots before he moved on.

Look for the ruby throat among the flowers.

I've seen him many times in the summer, he comes to our back yard a lot. Never have I gotten a shot at photographing him.

And this came as I had just gotten frustrated again with the weeds...all I can say now: please people, plant as many flowers as you can! Plant with wild abandon. Then take the time to sit quietly among them. You never know what you will see.

a hat

2011-05-09T17:50:00.000-04:00

I needed a quick going-away gift for someone who is moving to northern Vermont - it's going to be cold there in the winter months!

I had a wonderfully quiet Mother's Day and a couple of hours to sit and knit this. It's the Great Meadow's Hat from Green Mountain Spinnery's book "99 yarns". A great pattern for leftovers. I used three shades of Lamb's Pride worsted; plus the blue is Mountain Mohair, fitting I thought, since the yarn is spun in Vermont...

Hope the recipient will like it.

Meanwhile, the garden keeps exploding.
This is the Solomon's Seal I showed you a couple of weeks back. It's now a good 2 feet tall, and about to bloom.

Then we always get these pretty tulips we can't remember planting.

And finally, the lilacs are opening!

Clermont

2011-05-05T09:30:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, April 23rd, 2011, Crafty Girl and I braved the elements and went to the Clermont State Historic Site, where I had signed up as a vendor to attend the Annual Chancellor's Sheep and Wool Showcase. It's a small festival with about 35-40 vendors, in its 10th year.

The weather was cold and rainy, about 47 degrees all day, and it poured buckets when it didn't just drizzle. About half the vendors didn't show up.

It was a lovely setting, right by the Hudson River.

Oh but the mud. Cars were sliding all over the place.

We set up with lots of room all around us, because our neighbors forfeited their space.

Crafty Girl sported the latest fashion in blanket skirts.

Our lovely neighbor, Jessica of Stitched by JessaLu. Love her project bags!!

All pictures from here on down are by Crafty Girl. My dear sweet girl was having some stomach problems that day and yet she was a tropper and nothing but great company and a wonderful helper.

See those wet - and needlefelted nests and chicks? A set of those came home with us...

A customer came by to show me a scarf she was working on for her husband - they had picked out the yarn from me at Rhinebeck last year!! I am always thrilled to see what people are making from my yarn.

In fact if you have Periwinkle Sheep projects you'd like to share, please stop by the Periwinkle Sheep Fan Forum on ravelry and tell us what you are working on!

This colorway was a very limited edition, unfortunately I can't remember its name!

Our neighbor across the way had beautiful pansies and other plants. We went home with some red onion, for our new veggie garden.

See the Hudson River through the trees?

Thank you so much to all the people who ventured out on that day, gruesome as the weather was. You can't stop hardcore knitters from getting their dose of fiber, that's for sure!!!
(Please note that for visitors, there is a beautiful big parking lot with NO MUD at all! This was just the access road for the vendors.)

And thanks to the lovely sheep who keep providing us with said fiber.

Now. At the end of the day, I had a visitor who owns a very special store in Rhinebeck, NY. She is Leah Stickle of Go Monkey Design. She and her husband own a vintage variety store in Rhinebeck, Al Stickle 5 & dime. She recently opened a Knitting Garage right next door. You can guess where this is going?

Well, some of my yarn is now part of Knitting Garage! I can't wait to go down and see the store for myself.

And in even more news, the Clermont State Historic Site has invited vendors back to their next event on May 14th. As a little bonus because the weather (which wasn't even their fault!!) was so bad, they are offering those of us who did show up in April another opportunity to showcase our wares.

So if you couldn't make it, or if you want to come down again, I hope to see you there on May 14th, 12-4.

I just KNOW that the weather is going to be beautiful.

new colorway: tree frog

2011-05-04T16:22:00.000-04:00

watercolors sock yarn: 460 yds 75% sw merino 25% nylon

watercolors II 400 yds 100% sw merino

Let me know if you like it!

even more orchids! other plants, too!

2011-04-29T21:53:00.001-04:00

If you are sick and tired of orchids and don't like flowering trees, you might as well skip this entry, and I'll see you tomorrow. For the rest of you, here you go. :)

I've had a fascination with bougainvillea, just because of the name...I'd never seen one of them in real life, , only read about them in books.

the most amazing scent comes from these flowers...

I'll give you a rest now with the orchids. I'll also skip over the part where we visited a rainforest and a desert. I'll tell you, those glasshouses just went on and on...

We went and sat in the cafe for a bit to rest our feet, then went on a tram tour. Very informative and worth it. I should have given it to you yesterday, but here is the official website of the gardens.

Here are some outdoor shots. Blooming trees....so lovely to behold.

During the tram tour, we passed a magnolia grove. We walked back to it later, over the Bronx River and through a part of the oldest native forest in the Bronx.

I'll leave you among the magnolia trees.

orchids

2011-04-28T19:17:00.001-04:00

Well it turns out I need a whole lot more time to get organized than just a week.

I bet you knew that all along.

I lasted all of three days before I couldn't help it anymore and I HAD to dye some yarn. I also had to do some silk scarf dyeing for a couple of shops in the area which need them for Mother's Day.

Just darting around receiving more shipments of yarn for dyeing, or sitting and spinning, or knitting here and there to get at least one WIP done, well all of that doesn't give you a single word to read on here.

So I am sitting myself down to blog -- how about that orchid show we went to last week? I took about 300 pictures...so bear with me while I sift and just give you a small portion of that gorgeousness. I'm going to tell you right away that by the end of the day, after we had not only seen the orchids but also taken a tour of the gardens, we became members of the New York Botanical Gardens, and are looking forward to going back many more times this year.

OK - here goes, get lost in the pictures!

cloud banks in the Catskills

Tappan Zee bridge

ahhhh....the Gardens.

valley of the daffodils

Haupt Conservatory

Crafty Girl

Well, maybe that's enough for one day.

More tomorrow. :)

one week :: organize

2011-04-25T21:12:00.000-04:00

So much happened again already since my last post.

Last week was spring break at our public schools. We went to an Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Gardens for a day.

On Saturday, Crafty Girl and I went to the Clermont State Historical Site to vend at a teeny but wonderful fiber festival.

Yesterday was Easter.

eggs and picture by Crafty Girl

I am also receiving more Sock Summit mails...it is becoming more and more real that I am indeed going to Portland OR again this year.

April is almost over.

I need to get organized.

All weekend I've been thinking that I need to sort.

Sort my paperwork, old and new. (I hate to admit that there is still a pile somewhere with all the sock summit stuff from 2 years ago. Plus we had a major home repair job done a year ago, my thyroid surgery was May of last year, and somehow I feel like I still haven't caught up from it all.)

Sort my innumerable knitting projects and get them finished.

Sort some of the stash and weed out some yarn I would like to sell.

Sort out what yarn I want to dye in what colors. I have been keeping track of ideas in my color journal.

School is back in session, the fridge and pantry were only partially stocked, so the first thing I did this morning was make a list of dinners to serve this week, and made a shopping list.

Then I paid lots of bills, went to three different banks and took care of business. They call it "running errands", and run I did. Made dinner, went to a meeting (more on that in a later post; more cool knitting related things are in the works).

Now Monday is over, and I am still getting organized. I feel like I am so behind with everything that I need a few days just to find a starting point.

When you work from home, there are many things that kind of flow into each other. When you work from home and work is in large part a creative process, you can't hang a sign on the door that posts office hours and people respect that. When you work in your own house, especially if your family is surrounded by yarn and drying racks and dye stuffs, it is so much becoming part of everyone's life that it seems like it is always just "life", personal, just "there".

It is not always apparent that I constantly juggle several different schedules. I juggle the dye schedule with the design and knitting schedule with the charity knitting schedule and the driving to and picking up from school, homework, soccer practice, grocery shopping, cooking, baking, cleaning, talking, entertainment, driving to places and getting everyone going to church on time schedule. I fit everything neatly into the Grand Puzzle of our Life.

And yesterday something happened where the two other people in my house just could not follow the simple instruction of Please eat breakfast within 30 minutes, so when I get back from the store (where I ran out to get a few things because the Easter dinner plans were changed on me) we can all get ready and leave for church.

Something happened where I was either going to let go of everything and not give a damn about anything and walk away because all the planning and all the Thinking of Everything was nullified at that moment where someone could not remember a very simple thing.

Or I was going to change things around and take care of everything I need to take care of for myself and my business, and draw certain lines. I'm going with that right now. See above.

I'm giving myself a week, maybe two, to gain some control over my stuff, papers, yarn, blog, etsy shop, what have you.

I'm hoping it'll make me feel better, so I can have more patience with the people around me when they are having a moment.

as promised

2011-04-18T17:41:00.000-04:00

The Solomon's Seal has been shooting up under my crabapple tree - this is a week's growth. This plant grows insanely fast once it decides it's ready. I'll bring you a new picture at least every other day until it reaches its height of about 18-24 inches.

There's hosta in the foreground.

I've been working on some greens, too.
I don't know if you are a lover of green. I love many colors, but there are days where I just can't get enough of green.

merino d k in "Cathy O." - named after a friend who loves vibrant greens.

merino d k in "rainforest"

watercolors II in "coniferous"

I will have these at the festival this coming Saturday - along with many more of their brothers and sisters from all across the colorwheel.

what we have here

2011-04-15T20:26:00.001-04:00

...is a bad news good news kind of situation. More good news than bad though, so that's good!

In case anyone is still reading after I've been gone from the blog for so long, I've been busy running around various doctor's offices and labs and such. I've had joint pains and stiffness for almost 3 months now, and got tested for a series of possibilities, the upshot of them being that I have an elevated rheumatoid factor - and can't get into the rheumatologist's office until July 20th. Which is one week before I leave for the Sock Summit.

Also I've had chiropractic treatments, a repeat mammogram and an ultrasound, in a valiant effort to keep as many receptionists, technicians, nurses, and doctors busy. They do say that the health care field is a safe field as far as keeping your job. I thought I'd help out a little.

To make things even more interesting, I now have painful tendonitis (so they tell me) in my right thumb, which makes knitting nearly impossible. I try not to get too depressed over it...in fact I am starting way too many projects. Not knitting = not an option. I wake up every morning (that's a good thing) to stiff hands and a right thumb that doesn't want to move. I gently force it to, and after a warm shower it seems to co-operate again.

But enough of that.

The really good news is that I just got into the

Chancellor's Sheep and Wool Showcase
at the Clermont State Historic Site
in Germantown, NY.

Saturday, April 23rd, from 11-4

I had been talking to Cris from Into the Whirled, and she encouraged me to apply. Lo and behold, there was a spot under the tent still available, and I am so happy for this opportunity. The list of vendors reads like a who's who in the Hudson Valley (and beyond) fiber world. Think 'miniature Rhinebeck'. There will also be spinners and food and music and lots of good times.

Crafty Girl will accompany me this time! She is learning how to spin and wants to spend the day helping her mom out in the booth. Please come by and say hello!!

Tomorrow, in honor of National Poetry Month, I will be participating in a huge poetry event, the

10th Annual Albany Wordfest.

I used to go to poetry readings and open mics all the time, but alas the yarn and the dyepots along with family and household commitments have taken over. So I make sure I at least take part in this one event every year. It should be fun and tremendously inspiring. Come on by of you're in the area, any time of day! My 10 minutes are at 8:30 am. I hope I'm awake.

In even more fiber festival news, I also got into the

3rd annual Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival!!

This takes place on the last weekend in September, and yes I will be sure to tell you more as the time draws near. I've been there, vending, right in the booth of my dear friends from Sliver Moon, but this time I am being adventurous and getting my own booth. Which after Sock Summit should be a piece o' cake.

OK so: tomorrow: poetry. Sunday: Palm Sunday, and going to a quilt show with a friend in the afternoon.

I hope to see you, with pictures and everything, on Monday.

the view from here

2011-03-28T16:12:00.001-04:00

Dyed last week and delivered to Trumpet Hill:

Top to bottom: memories of summer, vanilla frosting, and chai in WINK/gold glitter

top to bottom: sprout, lavender, and khaki in WINK

Dyed today. I do enjoy looking at my drying rack when it has fresh yarn on it....

bottom to top: craving, a new blue (commission), yet to be named, teal, avocado in WINK.

The weather is getting slightly better, so I was able to bring some racks outside today. I am getting geared up for upcoming festivals...hooray!!

And since I am the sole elf around here doing all the dyeing, skeining, labeling, photographing, uploading, posting, and mailing, it may take me a day or so to get caught up with updating the etsy shop. So please if you ever see something on this here blog that hasn't made it into the shop yet, give me a shout! Leave a comment! Get my attention! I'd be happy to put it in the shop for you. Thanks!!

here we snow again

2011-03-24T08:52:00.001-04:00

It was only a dusting, as opposed to the 5 inches of wet snow we were supposed to get. Easily swept off the walk.

That's my mitten in the way of the lens.

A tulip leaf sno cone -

crocuses peeking -

snow drops have been blooming almost a week.
I'm sure they'll open up later today, the sun is coming out.

And Dear Husband rode his bike into work again today, like every single day, whether it snows, or not.

a magical day

2011-03-19T13:58:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I drove to Northampton MA to meet some friends from my ravelry group. That same group that made me my beautiful blanket, which I brought to show to two of the contributors! Jeni came all the way from Scotland to visit a friend in Boston, and of course I had to go and meet her in person. Abby is part of our group also and I have no idea why I didn't catch her in these first photos! She and Jeni traveled together from Boston.

Martha (left) had taken time out of her busy day, driving over from Amherst, to spend a few minutes with us at WEBS.

Us being part of the Stash Down group, we saw a lot of yarn we DIDN'T buy. ;)

After an initial look see, Abby, Jeni and I decided to go out to lunch. As we were walking towards the center of town, we happened by a gallery that had a quilt show. Hungry or not, we had to stop in. Or rather, I great big wind came up and sucked us right into the gallery.

After lunch, where even one of the waitresses stopped to admire Jeni's handknit socks, we discovered an instance of yarn bombing.

On the way back to WEBS, ice cream was comsumed on this beautiful warm springy day. We stopped by Northampton Wools, of course.

Then back to WEBS. Right into the warehouse. Yarn started to jump into our arms.

Those cones of mohair looked way too orderly.

So we had to re-arrange them in an artful way.

You may kow this already, but the staff at WEBS is wonderful. We even met Mary Jane Mucklestone who was teaching a class there (and is a friend of Jeni's), and Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer who is the in-house hand dyer.

After we were done at WEBS, we went to WEBS Beads. It was my first time.
You know what they have there? Lots and lots and lots of beads.

After that, we still didn't want to part ways...so we went to a nearby coffeeshop.

And this is the time where I need to tell you about this lovely lady.

Jeni and I have been talking on ravelry and through our blogs for a couple of years now. She lives in Scotland. I have been to Scotland exactly once in my life, but you know how it goes when you start talking to someone (and read their blog), you find things in common. I have relatives in Scotland, so I asked about the town where she lives and how far it is from the town where my relatives live. I mean, what are the odds?

Not far.

In fact, Jeni's mom was the school nurse where my cousins went to school, in Kirriemuir.

Jeni's uncle owns a wool shop in Kirriemuir.

Jeni goes and minds the shop every Friday.

Just before Jeni went on her trip to the US, and I said I would drive anywhere to meet her, an elderly lady came to the shop and they started talking. After a while, this lady starts talking about her niece who lives in America and dyes yarn.

It was my greataunt Christa. Who has always been an avid knitter, who in fact blessed her nieces with annual jumpers. I remember a pale yellow one with a fair isle yoke.

So my online friend Jeni met my greataunt in a woolshop in Scotland and now I got to meet Jeni in real life.
I feel like we've known each other for a long long time.

Here we were. Spending a lovely day together that felt like magic.

Abby bought a pound of locally roasted coffee to bring home to her husband.

A stealth photo taken by Jeni with my camera, of Abby's fabulous knee highs.

Oh, we just didn't want to part, and made phantastical plans for another get-together sometime in the future.
At least I'll get to see Abby again at Cummington this spring, at the MA sheep and woolfest. I am really looking forward to it!

And here is the loot of the day.

skein of String Theory sock yarn from Northampton Wools

Cascade 220 sport for a couple of pairs of colorwork mittens

sock yarn to help me finish (and then some!) my socks from last year

wool for gift knitting a pair of gloves and a beret

And here, my friends, I'll leave you to ponder all that!

Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan

2011-03-17T23:21:00.001-04:00

I made Katie a Tiny Tea Leaves Cardigan.

I used Periwinkle Sheep merino d k, a washable merino wool. It's the first time I made an entire project out of it, and I must say I really love this yarn. I mean I already love dyeing it -

and I had played with it a little, but now I got to knit with it and it is just wonderful. I easily can get 5 sts/in on a size 7 needle; I would say it qualifies as a light worsted and a dk weight yarn.
It is soft, has good yardage (225 yards/100g), loves the dye....and I love it on my needles.

I came up with a soft palette to complement the hydrangea in the sweater, so my customers would have alternatives.

heather, lemon thyme, mauve, silver lining, hydrangea

But then again, why not some brights?? I delivered these to Trumpet Hill the other day.

periwinkle, hot pink, sunny yellow, turquoise

I am uploading all these colors to my etsy shop one by one, starting today, and continuing over the weekend.

I will be out of town tomorrow, so I thought I'd give you a taste!

rainicesnowstorm

2011-03-07T16:01:00.000-05:00

What started with a horrible rainstorm Saturday night turned into freezing rain Sunday night and then into snow by this morning. School was cancelled once again. The skies cleared this afternoon and I went out back and took some pictures. The wind kicked up too and all the trees sound like giant gentle windchimes, with hundreds of tiny icicles clanging together and breaking.

Some trees can't take it anymore and are shedding branches. I hear chainsaws in the neighborhood above the snoblowers clearing sidewalks and driveways.

hair today

2011-03-01T16:19:00.000-05:00

This morning, I went and got my hair dyed!!! I LOVE it.

reprise and finis

2011-02-25T18:36:00.001-05:00

from dictionary .com:

2. Music .

a. a repetition.

b. a return to the first theme or subject.

Winter came back today.

Finis:

–noun

end; conclusion.

My sister's socks, begun in October last year, finally finished and packed up for sending.

Yarn from HERE.

When I was at her house last fall, she had started knitting socks, too.

Now I'm worried she won't have a need for my hand knit socks anymore.

Better not take so long next time!

But right now, Crafty Girl wants a pair out of THIS . I gave her this skein last year for her birthday, because she loved it so much for the bright colors, "just to look at". One year later, it's time for new socks.

May winter treat you kindly, and may you have colorful socks on your needles!

two and a half pounds

2011-02-20T17:14:00.000-05:00

After I got home a week ago Friday, I stayed up until 12:30 am and finally finished this blanket for the latest Youth Campaign at afghans for Afghans. The deadline was February 14th, and after my dear husband dropped me off at the cookie a. workshop, he went to the post office and mailed the package.

The finished blanket measured 40x45 inches and weighed two and a half pounds!

It all started in December when I volunteered to make a blanket square for a generous soul on ravelry who was collecting them to make blankets for donation. I started the square, which should have taken all of two evenings to complete, set it aside and proptly was sidetracked by The Holidays.

I didn't find the square again until after New Year's, went rummaging for yarn, and decided to keep going and just make a whole blanket myself.

As with all log cabin designs, the first few blocks are a breeze. I knocked one out a night. As the rows got longer, each block took several evenings. The weight of the project was starting to wear on my arms, and I could feel my tendonitis flare up. I went to alternating knitting on this and other projects, plus rest nights.

Meanwhile the deadline kept creeping up faster and faster, until finally I needed to stay up past my bedtime and finish it. I had woven in ends as I went along, which was a blessing in the final minutes as I was getting a bit bleary-eyed.

The thought of being able to help even one child stay warm kept me going the whole time.

I used up about 1850 yards of stash yarn, about half of it was Lamb's Pride Bulky, half of it from a batch of yarn I had gotten a few years back at Rhinebeck for which I just never found the right project. It was a handdyed dk weight yarn that I held double. Then there were some odds and ends too.

leftovers - enough for mittens?

I tucked a bar of chocolate into the package for the volunteers who so lovingly pack everything up for the long journey to Afghanistan. Ann Rubin sent me an email to let me know that everything arrived safely and on time, after my anxious inquiry.

Now they are gearing up for part 2 of this campaign, and I'm thinking I might just have to make some mittens for it.

new tricks, part 3: Sweater Fitness

2011-02-19T12:27:00.002-05:00

Anne Hanson explaining fit

my yarns ready for swatching

Anne swatches copiously to get the fabric right

Anne showing her numerous swatches from various designs

Last Sunday, I took a "Sweater Fitness" workshop with Anne Hanson of knitspot. If you've ever used an Anne Hanson pattern, you know how detailed and exact they are, with many measurements given.

Workshop participants did not have to bring an Anne Hanson pattern, in fact it was quite interesting to see how different designers present their patterns differently.

But to start at the very beginning, we paired up first thing and measured each other very thoroughly. We had a handout from Anne with diagrams and numbers to fill in. It was eye-opening! Right away I want to encourage everyone who knits anything for themselves to actually have a friend measure them top to bottom and left to right and write it all down! Spend some time considering ease in conjunction with looking at ready-to-wear garments in your closet. THEN go find the proper size for your next garment, if you want it to fit right!

After the measurements, Anne spent a lot of time going around the room and helping each knitter select the proper size for themselves, and offering advice on how to adjust garment pieces. While we were waiting, it was really helpful to have swatching yarn on hand and - spend time swatching!

Later in the afternoon, the whole class was given many tips and tricks on how to change a given pattern to suit the individual, including body length and width and what to do if you need more or less fabric in certain places.

Of course fabric - after all, when we knit, we make our own fabric! - and how it performs and hangs is essential in connection with fit, so time was spent on looking at numerous swatches of Anne's own designs. I thought I was a decent swatcher, but again, my eyes were opened to what is really involved. I will be spending much more time on swatching for future projects, especially making separate swatches for different needle sizes and blocking them AND making swatches in the stitch pattern, not just stockinette stitch.

Thank you Cookie and Anne for coming to our parts - thank you Robena for making it all possible. It was fun to be able to take advantage of different design and fit workshops! Even after many years of knitting and also designing my own garments, I learned so much!!

Oh and at this point you are probably waiting to hear which sweater I'm going to make? Oh, it's a tough decision!! But I THINK I fell in love a little with this. I'm going to dye my own yarn for it. AND I want to wear it at Sock Summit.
Wish me luck!

new tricks, part 2: Sock Innovation

2011-02-16T16:19:00.004-05:00

Ok now is the time to tell you about the "new tricks" part of my weekend. I'll tell you about Saturday first.

I took a workshop with cookie a - "sock innovation". We were learning how to design our own socks from a master who has published 56 sock patterns, one more innovative and complicated than the next.

Now I've done some pretty complicated knitting in my time, like lace and colorwork and lots of cables. Except never on a sock. My socks are always plain as can be. cookie promised she could change all that.

Holding up Thelonius from "knit.sock.love." All socks in the following pictures are from that same book, except where otherwise noted.

We learned about re-sizing stitch patterns to make them fit OUR sock.

Lots of sock examples were being passed around. It was so cool to see most all of her socks LIVE!

Hedera

Rhombus

Marilinda with the "3 stitch thingie". If you've ever taken one of cookie's workshops, you know what this means.

After an in depth course on how to use stitch patterns and resize them if necessary, we were handed stitch dictionaries we couldn't read. I loved it. Charts only! There were German and Japanese ones, and I took a Japanese one because I didn't want to cheat. It was the most delightful discovery to see how knitting language is universal. There were pictorials in the back of the book explaining the stitch maneuvers. You bet I am going to hunt for these books now.

I picked number 266 out of 300. The beauty of this was that there were several stitch repeats shown, not just one, so you could see how they spread, and looked in a larger piece of fabric.

Meanwhile, more of cookie's socks were being passed around for inspiration.

Twisted Flower

The class was hard at work.

there were actually lots more students on the other side of the room!

cookie offered and provided plenty of help. Turns out my stitch pattern had double decreases and double increases in it that jumped from round ro round, requiring me to rearrange my stitches after every round. cookie is a mental gymnast that can easily and with a super sense of humor set you straight if your thought process is going in the wrong direction, but also is a superb teacher that gives you just enough help so you can get back on track, and gives you room to figure things out on your own.

I was able to proudly proclaim that I managed all 8 rounds of the pattern repeat on my own in the end. Only thing I was worried about, looking ahead, was that I had 5 stitch repeats going around my sock, ---- so what would have to happen once I needed to divide the sock for the heel?? And me all alone at home, with no cookie at my side? Would I be able to work 2.5 repeats across the top of the sock and it would still look good?? She told me to just do it, it would work out.

I believed her, somehow.

Then it was time for me to go an hour early, because my daughter had a soccer game I wanted to go to. I asked cookie if there was anything I needed to know about the things she was going to teach during the last hour.

She paused for a second, and then proceeded to tell me that she had actually designed a sock with that very same pattern.

It's called Glynis and is published in Sock Innovation.

Now, what are the odds of me picking a pattern out of threehundred Japanese stitch patterns that I had never seen in my life? Of course I have cookie's book, but I don't have all her patterns memorized. I know, as my smart daughter pointed out to me, the odds are exactly 300 to 1. But seriously? What are the odds of that happening?

We laughed and laughed. I was actually so relieved to find out that I didn't have to figure out the whole dividing business myself, that I could just go to the book and read all about it. What I loved about cookie was that she had me work hard to understand the inner workings of sock design, and didn't just tell me in the morning - "oh by the way I already designed this sock so go look for another pattern!" I now have a much better understanding of what goes into designing a sock, because I did it myself; I didn't just copy her. Also of course I can appreciate even more what a sock design genius she is.

Next thing though I need to figure out is the color of my sock.

periwinkle sheep watercolors sock yarn, "nutmeg"

I'm thinking it's a wee bit too dark to show the stitch pattern properly. Somehow I have the feeling that cookie picked the perfect color already!

new tricks, part 1

2011-02-14T21:18:00.001-05:00

One of my LYSs and a shop that carries my yarns,Trumpet Hill, had a couple of very special guests this past Friday:

Anne Hanson of knitspot fame and cookie a. There was a Meet and Greet and booksigning on Friday night.

I decided to surprise them both with a sampler pack of my yarns.

They were like little kids on Chirstmas Day!

I had selected specific colors for cookie and Anne that I thought they might like. I think they were pretty happy. :)

No pressure to design anything with them, just go play!

Here's one of many knitters who had made cookie's famous monkey socks.

When I joined the big knitting circle, I caught Robena, the shop's owner, dancing a little jig in the middle.

Noshes, yummy yarn, famous designers, lovely company, what could be better?

Stay tuned!

a gift of love

2011-02-10T17:24:00.001-05:00

A week ago, right after the latest snowstorm, I received a most wonderful gift in the mail.

It was comprised of many different colorful squares,

see the cat hair? guess who took a nap on the blanket?

surrounded by black crochet for a stained glass effect.

And then surrounded again by miles of I-cord.

It is my new, beautiful, warm, comforting, Stash Knit Down Group Cares! afghan.

By way of offering you a bit of background, I need to tell you that I am the founder and one of the moderators of the Stash Knit Down group on ravelry, which has over 3550 members. Over the last 3 years, a wonderful community has formed. It all began with the desire to knit down the stash. We have lots of monthly and yearly challenges to help us knit up the yarn we already have. We talk about the pitfalls of yarny temptation, growing pattern libraries, Cold Sheeping, even Fabric and Fiber Stashes. Eventually, we got to talking about life and things that life throws at us. Out of that grew yet another thread, called "Stash Knit Down Cares!" where volunteers donate blanket squares for a blanket that goes to someone who is having a tough time.

Last year was not a stellar year for me and a lot of people I love, which was something I shared with the group as events kept unfolding. Last August, a group of members of Stash Knit Down decided that I need to have my own blanket.

They worked very hard on it, and last week it came in the mail, along with cards and yummy treats.

I was simply blown away by so much generosity, beauty, warmth, and love. I love my blanket, and what I love about it other than the fact that I can wrap myself in it and take naps :) is the fact that now I know what it's like to receive a gift like this. It inspires me to keep knitting for others, because I know it will make them happy.

Katie's shawl

2011-02-05T13:31:00.000-05:00

I need to catch you up on a story.

A couple of years ago, I gave a friend one of my shawls. She loved it. Turns out her daughter Katie loved it too, and needed her own shawl - in a kid size! Her mom told me her favorite color is blue. I took 2 skeins of my watercolors worsted, colorway stonewash denim, and made her a little shawl of her own.

Of course I had to add a bit of ruffle for the girl!

When I finally brought the shawl over after Christmas, she put it right on, and was happy to pose for some pictures.

Katie loves dogs and has a collection of stuffed animal ones that she takes very good care of.

In fact she declared that the shawl will make an excellent doggie blanket! I agree!

But I might just have to use the leftover partial skein from the shawl to make her a real doggie blanket. How can I resist so much cuteness?

Shawl specs are a bit rough, I made it up as I went along. It is about 18 inches long, just right for a 4 year-old.

approx. 350 yds worsted weight yarn
size 8 24" circular needle
gauge is: 4 sts/in in garter stitch

Top down construction in garter stitch, with 2 increases at each side and 2 at the center, every right side row.

After 32 garter ridges, work yo, knit 2 across the next RS row, while maintaining the other 4 increases.

After 16 more garter ridges (maintain regular increases!), Kfb into every stitch.
K one row and then bind off.

I did not block this shawl, I know with wash and wear it will stretch and accommodate growth for a while.

antidote

2011-02-03T22:57:00.000-05:00

The antidote to this much snow

is:

beautiful roses, still looking nice from last week's wedding anniversary

lots of wool wound up for new and current projects

a chunky log cabin blanket for Afghans for Afghans,

and a kitty to pose it with.

ice curtain

2011-01-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

This past month, conditions were perfect for some tremendous icicles to build up at the edge of all the roofs.

This view is out my back door.

We had two big ones that were at least 5 feet long.

I'm glad I took those pictures yesterday morning; the temperatures hit 40 degrees in the sun during the day. By evening, this ice curtain had come down.

cool!

2011-01-26T09:24:00.000-05:00

I am working at my food co-op today through Saturday this week (where I am a sub in the deli, and I jump in when someone is sick or takes a day off) - but I wanted to stop and let you know that "crapshoot" was included in another etsy treasury.

Thank you to the creator of the treasury! Her stuff is way cool....SO much more hip than I'll ever be.

better stock up...

2011-01-20T16:02:00.000-05:00

The amazing Anne Hanson mentioned packing some of my yarn up for her month-long trip, which will end right here in Albany at Trumpet Hill - I can't wait to see her again, and also what she will transform the Hydrangea yarn into! Of course I have some yummies in the shop, but not THAT one, of course.

Funny, I've been wanting to knit up a couple of her patterns....the race is on!

ice breaker

2011-01-19T10:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's storm was quite an interesting one. It started with a bit of snow, was followed by sleet and several hours of rain, and topped off with freezing rain in the evening. The result is a thick crust on top of snow, and where the sidewalks were cleared, just a nice layer of ice. Which is now getting covered with more snow. Lovely!

every little branch is covered with ice, and topped with snow falling this morning

There is a major dip in temperature forecast for the weekend, which means if we don't get the ice off the sidewalk now, while it's juuust around freezing, we might have a skating rink outside our door. So I'm out there chipping away, putting down rock salt where there's tough spots, coming in and waiting for a bit of melt, and going back out to clear some more.

It's a layer about 3/4 inch thick.

Meanwhile, I am knitting a nice warm blanket for a kid, to be donated to THIS. Because I once again feel lucky to be able to. Maybe you have time to make a pair of warm socks, a blanket, or some mittens for a kid, and mail them out in early February?

crafters for a cause

2011-01-18T21:56:00.000-05:00

I've just been informed that my yarn is once again included in an etsy treasury by an etsy devotee- this time in the company of crafters who all make beautiful things AND support a cause!!

Thank you so much for including me, and thank you everyone for being so thoughtful and caring.

another snow day!

2011-01-18T11:25:00.000-05:00

We are having a "wintry mix" that started with snow and has changed over to freezing rain. The kids around here (and teacher-husband also) got an even longer holiday weekend.

So I'm checking in on my ravelry group, and am linking my way through to, well, you know how it goes. You have a bit of time on your hands (dyeing was on the schedule today, but with family members home, there is no way I can turn off the heat in the house and start simmering yarn and ventilating my kitchen out the back door), and you start checking a couple things out, put some knitting patterns in your rav shopping cart, read some new blogs, and before you know it, you find something cool.

Like THIS. I hope the link works for you, it's a 6 minute video that explains how self-patterning yarn is made. It's a segment of a kids show in Germany, Die Sendung mit der Maus. Kids get to send in questions, and a guy who always just mimes goes and explores. This time he got a letter from a kid asking how the yarn gets to be so colorful, and included in the letter is a small ball of yarn.

The camera team goes to what turns out to be the Opal sock yarn factory. The commentary is spoken nice and slow and in a fun way, easy for small children to understand. I am hoping that you English speakers will understand what goes on just by seeing the footage.
The final steps involve setting with steam (when they show the thermometer), washing, drying, reeling and rewinding, but I think you'll get the gist of it.

Lastly, the guy knits himself all kinds of items - though he miraculously ends up with socks even though he is knitting flat.

OK, enjoy!

easy way out

2011-01-13T09:34:00.001-05:00

The new year is 13 days old, and I am already falling behind with the blogging.

There's been snow, and more snow.

I've been dyeing yarn like never before: in winter. (Turn off the heat in the house. Seal off the kitchen, open the back door for ventilation. Wear sheepskin shoes and extra layers for warmth. And don't think that the yarn on the racks won't freeze even though it's standing in a patch of sunshine on the back porch. Clean up kitchen at 3 pm when crafty girl comes home from school. Bring yarn in to defrost and dry by the radiators, since the heat has been turned back on.) Yes I usually take a break from dyeing until March, simply because of the cold weather, but the shops need to be restocked (thank heavens for intrepid knitters!) and so I turn my house into a yarn dyeing igloo. Kudos to the family who tolerates the smell of wet wool and silk!

Anyway I was going to just take the easy way out today and show you this gorgeous blanket. (If this link lands you in the comments, just scroll to the top of the page.)

Wow.

The only teensy tine-sy complaint I have is I WANT TO SEE HOW SHE SEAMED THE SUCKER UP!!! I want to know how she got those strips to lie next to each other so very very neatly. Any ideas?

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T12:10:00.000-05:00

2010 was one of those years that I am glad to see come to an end. Not that there's, of course, any guarantee whatsoever that nothing bad will ever happen again just because it all seemed to happen in one year. But our family and our circle of friends had its share of accidents, surgeries, and tragic events that left me breathless at times, not knowing where and whom to help first.

Naturally, what I came to realize over and over again, is that we are not alone, not when bad things happen, and not when we are helping someone. The Pulling Together and Sharing in the Grief was a tremendous experience, and I want to thank you all for being there, and allowing me be to be there for you. It's always such an honor to be permitted to make a difference.

My gratefulness goes out to those of you who are still with me here on this little blog, for hanging in there with me when the words just wouldn't come. I am looking forward to writing and creating more again in the coming year! More yarn will be dyed, the colors are calling already.

I hope you all have a great ending to 2010, and will begin 2011 with renewed energy and outstretched arms, ready to receive whatever may come.

come to mama...

2010-12-28T11:33:00.003-05:00

We got a bit of snow yesterday: this is what it looked like when we opened the front porch door. About 6-8 inches or so, on top of no snow we had before.

The house across the street looked especially wind - and snowblown, but sooo pretty!

Today the skies are clear, and I am looking forward to a walk in some wintry woods. I got up this morning when everyone was still sleeping, and made bread. Thanks to my mom, who gave me some Christmas and birthday money early, I was able to afford THIS baby! I got it for a lot less than is says there, because it was a discontinued color. Hehe. Mine is black metallic which sparkles. Real fancy. But what I care most about is the 6 quart bowl! I can make 2 large loaves of bread in one sitting.

rye bread

same rye bread, with a bit of knitting added while rising

(Project started last night: Cerulean Cardigan, in Ecological Wool)

whole wheat bread

I am also using the mixer to make myself gluten-free bread, which is a whole lot stickier and is harder to mix and knead. But today was baking day for the family. The house smells really nice, and I get to feel all smug and competent. :)

PS: Lyrics.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T11:56:00.001-05:00

felt nativity scene made by dear husband many years ago

the three wise men are almost there!

free form embroidered, pine needle filled tiny pillow made by Crafty Girl
(that's glittery felt!)

From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!!

elf story

2010-12-23T11:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I took an hour in the morning to wrap some gifts.

Tall son was due to come home from college last night, and I was using his room to gather paper, scissors, tape, tags, and: gifts. Had it all nicely together, brought out from various hiding places. This year, I gave myself a break - or rather let myself off the hook - and didn't knit things for everyone. Rather, I went shopping here and there, trying to accommodate the moderate wish lists of a teenage daughter and a son in his third year at college; thinking of what relatives might like. I had already brought gifts to Germany when I went there in October, so that part was done.

I proceeded to wrap the gifts, and knew the whole time I was missing something. One gift card. You know, small, practical. The kind where the recipient can fulfill one larger dream or several small ones. I had gotten it a while back.

First I had kept it in my purse, to remind myself that I had it.

Then I thought that I had better take it out of my purse, because what if it fell out somewhere? So I hid it.

When I went to find it yesterday, it wasn't in the spot I thought I had put it. I proceeded to wrap some more gifts, and thought Oh well, it'll turn up.

By the time I had to go to work at our food co-op, putting in a longish shift all the way till 9 pm, I let the matter rest. I was hoping it would just come to me, that I would suddenly recall where I put it. You know how sometimes the more you try to remember something, the less you do remember? But dinner break came and went, and I was none the wiser. Just more tired. By the time work was finished, I still had no clue.

Crafty Girl was at a friend's house, Tall Son had run out to meet some friends. Once again, I was safely ensconced back in his room, wrapping. I was nearly done. (Not that the pile was so huge. It takes me longer than the average elf to wrap gifts because it is not one of my strong suits. I will never be able to get a job at the Macy's gift wrapping department.)

That dratted card! I needed to find it. Dear husband had by now picked up Crafty Girl. She sat up reading. Where was the card? Everyone was giving me blank stares, including the cat. I finally ran out of places in the house to look, so I went into our bedroom, where dear husband had already gone to bed. Sorry honey, I need to turn the light back on. Can't find a gift card in the dark.

By 11:30 pm, my dresser drawers were very nicely organized. I found socks I thought I had lost, old pantyhose is now in the trash (can't even remember when I last wore hose.) But that card? Still elusive. Hubby snored on.

On to the next drawer-- I was determined, or delirious from being tired, I couldn't tell the difference. That card must be found.

is he laughing at me?

Another set of drawers cleaned out (do I really need to hold on to old sweaters?)

1 am. I finally find the card. Bottom drawer. The last place I was going to look of course. I wrap it up quick, clean up the room, go brush my teeth. The front door clicks downstairs, Tall Son is home. No, I didn't stay up for you, I promise.

Two more days til Christmas. I made a mealplan days ago.

Now where did I put that grocery list?