Baby!!

The other day at lunch I bound off yet another iPod sock.

This one is for my boyfriend’s buddy Kenny, who has a new iPod Touch.  Those things are wicked thin, wow! They’re approximately 5 inches in circumference, which is just a tad more than my BlackBerry. It was pretty easy to figure out how many stitches I needed to cast on, and I worked it until I figured it was pretty close. The next time I saw Kenny, we tried it on (while still on the needles) to see how the length was, and after adding a couple more rows I was ready to finish it up. I’m losing count of how many of these things I’ve made. My iPod is two and a half years old and has spent most of that time in it’s knitted sock, and it has hardly a scratch on it.

I also have a couple other FOs:

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Painter’s Palette Premium Merino from Koigu; P117

Pattern: Saartje’s Bootees by Saartje de Bruijn (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Painter’s Palette Premium Merino from Koigu; P117

These are for my friend Julia, whose first baby is due this Spring! My first Baby Surprise Jacket was just that: a surprise. It looks like a little blob of garter stitch when you cast off:

But once it’s folded together like a little piece of knitted origami, it all comes together:

And the little bootees are just too cute for words. I swear, my ovaries just about exploded while I was knitting these up!

I’m about to start a huge project that may just make me go insane before the end of it. Finding the yarn alone nearly did me in, but a quick call to New York had a package on my doorstep from Habu Textiles in just a few days.

Yeah, I have a feeling they’ll be sending me off to the looney bin before this is all said and done!

Introducing Coraline

Last month, I was talking to my boss who has been shopping around for a loom. (I talked her into taking up weaving again, and she’s been having a blast.) I mentioned that I would love to have a spinning wheel someday, and she suggested that I take a look at craigslist and see what I could find. So I did, and one of the first listings I found was for a 1975 Ashford Traditional that looked to be in pretty fair condition. I went down to South Seattle to have a look at her, and lookie what I came home with!!

The woman selling her is a weaver who had bought her brand new in 1975 with the intent of spinning her own yarn to weave. She ended up using her maybe a few times, and she’s been in storage ever since. I paid a couple hundred bucks less than what a new Traditional would cost. I took her to the Spinning Guru at the Weaving Works, who hooked me up with a spring for the scotch tension, an orifice hook and lots of oil, and I was good to go. I took my first wheel spinning class that night!

I realized just how much easier it was spinning on a wheel after using a drop spindle. Drafting came much more naturally, and I wasn’t having some of the problems the other ladies in the class were having. Don’t get me wrong, my first yarn off of the wheel looked terrible! During the second class a week later, Shirley brought out about 1/3 of a raw fleece:

It was really cool to feel the wool before it’s cleaned and combed. I don’t know if I’ll ever go so far as to buy a raw fleece and go through the whole process of cleaning and preparing it for spinning, but you never know! Maybe someday. But for now, I’ll stick with spinning on Coraline.

I already have about 120 yards of this Coopworth/Corridale white and purple mix, and another skein of medium and dark Coopsworth plied together:

Just what I need, one more thing to eat into my knitting time!

Madrona!

I have several things to blog about, so let’s start with this, shall we?

A couple weeks ago I made the short trek down to Tacoma for the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. Last year I just went down to spend some money at the Marketplace, and this year I signed up for a class on Saturday. I had the great privilege of taking a class taught by the Yarn Harlot herself. Stephanie uses a style of knitting that she calls Irish Cottage Knitting, also known as lever knitting, and I have great respect for her and the patience she has teaching this method! Every single knitter in that class was rendered dumb and our once-agile fingers suddenly were completely useless. We quickly dubbed this style of knitting ‘Crazy Knitting’.

To her credit, Stephanie was incredible patient with us, even when we asked her for the billionth time to demonstrate how to hold and tension the yarn. She went around and devoted her attention to each knitter at least twice, and was very gracious after class to sign books and pose for pictures.

I will sadly admit that I totally dorked out when I talked to her afterwards. It was embarrassing, really, but she was totally cool about it.

Afterwards I jumped into the craziness that was the Marketplace.

So much yummy fiber! I was very good and didn’t spend nearly as much money as I could have, but I still wiped out my yarn budget for the next month, at least!

Starting from the bottom left corner: Two skeins of Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, one skein of Silkie in the Gypsum colorway and one skein of Lightweight in Jubilation; fiber from Tactile Fiber Arts, 2 oz. of Sincere Sheep in Berries & Cream and 2 oz. of Blue Faced Leicester in Orchid; and enough Wooly Singles from Fly Designs to make this.

It was a good day at the Marketplace.

Starting the New Year off right

Last night I was watching Ace of Cakes on Food Network, and Duff’s crew made a yarn basket cake with balls of yarn and knitted things for a lady’s 90th birthday. Probably the coolest cake I’ve ever seen!

To celebrate New Years, my friend Katie and I hit up the two yarn shops in the Seattle area that were actually open on the holiday. Both were having sales, of course, and Katie (who is a relatively new knitter) experienced Crazy Knitter Syndrome for the first time ever. The first shop we stopped at had opened it’s doors maybe ten or fifteen minutes before we got there, and the place was already super packed. Katie was a bit overwhelmed, so I bought what I had been able to snatch up and we headed to the next shop. Luckily, we made it there a few minutes before they opened, and we were two of the ten or so people who were waiting at the front door. Sweet.

I enhanced my stash with yarns that weren’t actually on sale (doh!) but that I’ve been itching to get my hands on for quite a while. First up was some Malabrigo Lace:

Quite possibly some of the softest bit of fluff I’ve ever held. The colors remind me of a beautiful summer day in the Pacific Northwest. Love it.

Next up is a yarn that I’ve been eyeing since I first held it at Madrona last year: Kauni.

I’ve been thinking about delving into the world of fair isle knitting, and I think the Kauni will push me over the edge. I’m eyeing Ruth Sørensen’s hats as my first fair isle projects.

So yes, not as many additions to my stash as the last major stash enhancement mission, but I think Katie’s official initiation into the Wide World of Knitting really made the day. We got her started on her first hat when we got home, and I also have her on the invitation wait list for Ravelry. We’ve already agreed that I created a monster today. Mission complete!

Away I spin

This is my excuse for ignoring my blog, as well as most of what’s on my needles:

A couple weeks ago, I took a spinning class at the Weaving Works. I’ve been experimenting with drop spindling on my own, but I wanted to learn from a pro all of the little tricks that I couldn’t pick up on my own, as well as what to do with it after I’m done spinning. Our teacher was amazing, and she taught us quite a few lovely little tricks.

I made one little mini skein during class, and our teacher sent us home with a handful of roving to practice on.

The picture at the top of this post is going to be my first ‘real’ yarn, hopefully. It’s so nice and relaxing to just sit and spin… Except, of course, when I break my yarn or get the extra roving in my hand mixed up in what’s already spun up! So far, though, this has only happened a couple times. As long as I keep going cool and steady, and don’t try to get ahead of myself, it flows pretty well.

Next week I’m flying to Denver for a conference, and I’m going to try and take my spindle in my carry-on. We’ll see how that flies!

Take me out to the ballgame…

My boyfriend survived Stitch n’ Pitch, and the Mariners actually won. It was a good evening. We were surrounded by hundreds of knitters, hookers and even a few people doing cross stitch. Loads of glorious yarn and other goodies were to be had at the booths, and I ended up walking away with this:

Artisan Sock Yarn from Hazel Knits in the Hometown Baseball colorway. I’ve been itchin’ for this yarn for ages! I’ve wound it up into a ball already, and I’m trying to decide which pattern to use. I would love to do something like Spring Forward, but with these colors I may be better off with a simpler pattern. We shall see. There were several other skeins of yarn that I picked up and fondled, but I held off on spending any more money. My stash really doesn’t need much enhancing right at the moment!

And now for my FO:

Pattern: Cable Rib Socks by Erica Alexander (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts; Carbon Dating

This pattern was simple enough that these things flew off my needles (when I actually had time to work on them) but the cables down the sides add a little pizzaz.

The yarn pooled and striped in all the right places, and were the same on both socks. I am so happy with how these turned out!

The legs are really long, and I was worried with the STR’s yardage that I wouldn’t make it. I went on Ravelry and found another knitter who used STR with this pattern, and she said that she left one cable repeat off of the legs and she was just fine. I think I had about two yards of yarn left after stitching up the second toe. Phew!

Controlled Mayhem

Last weekend was the ginormous post-fire sale at Hilltop Yarn, and I’m still overwhelmed just thinking about it! It was absolutely amazing; the line just to get in the store was going down the block when I got there 10 minutes after they opened the door at 11 am, and I didn’t get rung up and out the door with my loot until around 3:30 pm. The lines were long and plentiful.

We are knitters and hookers, however, so we all had deep reserves of patience to dip into to survive the wait.

I was able to snatch up some lovely yarn and notions, so it was definitely a Saturday well spent, despite the controlled mayhem. (Yes, it was controlled mayhem. Trust me.) At one point, I just put my basket of yarn in one of the classrooms upstairs and went to Tully’s to knit while I waited for the line to go down. While there, I ran into a fellow sock knitter, who revealed the secret of knitting socks on circulars. Seriously, this whole idea has been confounding me for quite a while, and tonight I finally got the chance to give it a try.

So far, it’s been a trial getting used to the metal needles. The ladies at the Fiber Gallery talked me into these over the bamboo, and when they were backed up by a couple of other customers in the store, I felt I had to give them a try. One of the reasons I hate metal is because I can’t for the life of me keep the stitches from slipping off. This is the problem I had when my mom first tried to teach me to knit when I was younger; my stitches would slip off the metal needles, and my tension was far too tight. My tension problems were solved long ago, but the slick metal needles are still my foe. However, these socks (my first Socks that Rock, yay!) are flying along so quickly, which totally makes up for the occasional stitch I have to save from possible suicide off the needles. Don’t get me wrong, I still love knitting on my wooden dpns. But when I need to whip up some socks in a (relative) flash, I think circulars might be the way to go.