Stitches West 2007

Even though I haven't spun in what feels like forever, I spent my time at Stitches drawn to my companion and roving...




FiberFiend.com -- 100% merino, "Mars" 4 oz
(from the BayAreaKnitCoop.com booth)

I think splitting this and spinning it from the fold will give me some amazingly awesome stripy socks. I love the depth of these colors... too much roving I see is almost pastel, and this definitely isn't :) It was the last one left, otherwise I'd have bought a set and tried for kneehighs... still though, with my track record on finishing spinning just 4 oz of yarn, maybe that was okay :)

Not that I didn't fool myself into buying just a bit more than 4 oz...




CarolinaHomespun-- 70/30 merino-silk, 8 oz total

This is a softer color than I usually like, but there's bits of orangish in the pink that made my knees weak. The silk helps, too :)

And more of the same... (couldn't get a long shot, so two closeups)




Angora Cottage-- 70/30 merino-silk, "pewter" 4 oz

I think this is the same wholesale base as the Carolina Homespun stuff, feels the same. A little poking around online today and I think they're both from Ashland Bay-- pricing was still good on both I bought though and I'm happy.

And... that's it!

Seriously? Yup. I didn't get the fire frenzy like last year-- partly because in reorganizing my (sock) stash into Ikea furniture and boxes, I realized that a lot of yarn I'd bought last year was still there. Partly because I really really loved everything I had stored away, just never enough time to knit it all. Its not like I didn't look... I walked the entire floor* but I just wasn't grabbed by the need. Funny since I'm not participating in the knit from your stash-along, but I've bought very little yarn since the new year-- not that I haven't coveted it, but I know that for almost anything I want to make (sock wise), I pretty much have it. Maybe not quantity yarn for knee highs, but then again I didn't see much quantity wise I wanted at the Market.

I guess this means I have to start spinning soon :) I should have looked for more bobbins, I need some more for the Joy to just make my life happier. I also didn't find the color of roving I wanted... a deep, deep burgundy red. I may dye up some roving this week and try and hit that sweet spot color I have in the back of my mind... or try and find it online :)

Speaking of roving (sorta)...




Lime & Violet (etsy!), grape fizz batts. 3.5oz of various wool and locks, and sparkle!

Accidentally liberace, I'm thinking :) Can I spin this into socks? (Can I spin the silk/wool into socks, also?) How do I spin from a batt? More importantly, what am I doing with all of this fiber when I don't know what I'm doing? :) Stay tuned...


* A little insight into the monkey on the keyboard here. I walked into the marketplace on Saturday, and if you were there you know its shaped oddly and was just crawling with people. I tried, I tried my hardest to walk it in some sort of order... but there was too much going on-- too many people, too many things, too much overload. For a girl who spends most of her life in quiet mode (for reals, its not always outside vox with me!)-- it was too much. I had to leave after 6 minutes (it felt like hours) and sit in the lobby to catch my breath and wait for someone to walk the floor with me so I wouldn't have an agoraphobic usually-happens-in-ikea-on-weekends breakdown amongst all the fiber. What a way to go though, eh?

and you've been where?

I've never been a crafty girl. (Or boy for that matter, for those of you still wondering.)



But don't you love these, too?? :) Notwithstanding their crafty aspect, even?


Closeup.

Oh, of what?! :) I've been toying around with the concept of what else could be a stitch marker (besides pearls and semiprecious stones) and have decided to branch out into something I haven't seen offered yet-- resin. I made these myself... this batch above has chiyogami (origami) papers and handmade papers encased in resin. I still need to drill the pendant placements and of course convert them into stitch markers for zeromarkers, but my goodness they're just beautiful to me. Perhaps its the work I know went into them-- they're very labor intensive (when compared to my usual marker making), but I think they'll be worth it. They're much much lighter than glass, so they won't weigh down needles even with some of the larger pieces-- and the options are endless as far as color and encasements go. I've already got some (real) cherry blossoms curing right now, as well as several cuts from the recent anthropologie catalog ("Print")... its just too fun. They won't be up in my shop really soon, but soon.


(untreated, handmade paper almost dissolves...)

I should have been a crafty grrl earlier in life. :)

So, to all of those who were kind enough to worry about me falling off the face of the earth... just been busy :) I finished up Cookie's second German Stocking as well as (gulp) near on a hundred sets of stitch markers to send to Stitches West this weekend-- you'll find all of that AND WAY MORE at Cookie's booth (Bay Area Knit Co-op)... they'll be right across the way from Blue Moon Fiber Arts and their to-be-madrushed Socks That Rock display (oh, you know who they are, yeah?) ;) I'm so going to buy a handful of patterns there-- first stop on my crazy Stitches ride :)

Speaking of Blue Moon... working on a Denmark sock in Mist (the kind, crazy gift from Abigail)...



...with a 4 repeat row counter from zero stitch markers, in white pearls and amethyst. I know some of you have asked about the custom row counters-- I'll be able to take orders say on Tuesday (convo me thru etsy or email addy at bottom of page), I should be free from my fiber coma then :) I'm *not* going crazy at the market like last year... famous last words!

I'll be on the Stitch and Ride amtrak train (#727)-- if you go too, remember to head to the *front* of the train; last year a bunch of us didn't know and they had fun and prizes without us :) Just as well for reticent me, but eh-- now you know :)

Have a great weekend!

german stockings, stitch markers... blip on the radar

Its been so long, I don't even know how to start!

How about with some rainy day pictures...


German Stocking, pattern by Cookie A.
(edit... these are on the wrong foot-- easier for me to take them like this, but this is the right leg stocking. the left will be reversed.)

You may have noticed I've been away from blogging for a while. Its been a combination of things (mainly a touch and go relationship with my pc), but also this stocking :) I'm knitting a sample pair of Cookie's German Stocking for her retail booth debut at Stitches West this year-- I was just tickled red when she asked.



yes Virginia, it *is* hanging on for dear life. This is the XS size and I (ahem) am not... but I couldn't resist the 5 seconds these took. The proportions don't look right on my leg, but it doesn't stop my admiration for twisted stitches, movement, and just plain "wow."



Aside from the obvious wonder of the travelling cable, the heel is just... !!! She really has me thinking about the standard heel treatment-- and how boring it can be. Here you see the edge of the travelling cable down along the side of the heel, and here you see the faux seam down the back...



Lordy.

I love patterns that don't just plug a stitch pattern in that fits the cast on number. I also love when I don't see "repeat for second sock." :) These are really showstoppers, I think... without relying at all upon color or yarn (louet gems pearl) to carry the pattern, it still pops like a mofo. (That's not to say I've not already planned my fantasy pair when this whirlwind is over... in Fearless Fibers' superwash merino, sublime colorway.)

Speaking of etsy, my shop's also been keeping me surprisingly (and happily!) busy...



These are my new favorites... handmade paper beads (long strips of colorful paper taken from magazines and prints, rolled into a bead and varnished shiny and hard) that I've wrapped with copper colored wire. I also have made a few sets of row counters (that have already sold, I should have more up soon and have taken custom orders for them, too)... inspired by the German Stocking and its decreases for the calf shaping...


Grey freshwater pearl and turquoise row counter, 4-row repeat

I don't mean to make this a "look at my shop!" blog, but its been taking quite a bit of my time (in a good way) and I'm also quite proud of the response... I've sold over a hundred stitch marker sets since opening, way more than I ever thought possible, and it just... makes me grin and I like to share :)

(edit-- i just read that paypal is running a $15 rebate for $30+ purchases made thru march 31. its not only my accepted method of payment, but lots of other etsy sellers as well.)

I'm also thrilled that Cookie will be selling zerO stitch markers at Stitches this year... so on top of finishing the German stocking's mate, I'll be literally drowning in stitch markers up til Stitches (February 22-25) and my updates will prolly be just as sporadic. But the good things just keep on coming-- I *just* found out I had something accepted to Knitty so we'll have to have a contest to celebrate when the new issue rolls around! Pinch me! :)

(...and speaking of the mother of all sock yarn contests. April's giving away 30 skeins of sock yarn in February. Not a typo, thirty. Run, run, run.)

I missed you :)

(silent) poetry reading.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

--wm carlos williams, "the red wheelbarrow."

(for second annual brigid in cyberspace (silent) poetry reading.)






more later-- promise. been busy with broken-ish pc, drowning in stitch markers, love-love-hating knee high socks (you'll plotz), and a birthday. oh and the metamorphosis, again (almost appropriate if not self-indulgent)...

"...Her body can't withstand the flash
of force so heavenly; that nuptial gift
consumes her flesh; she is reduced to ash."

--the metamorphosis, ovid (mandelbaum translation). book iii, 311-313 (semele).