tomorrow night at Lettuce Knit

I have a little project for the first person to stick their hand up at tomorrow night's S&B.

It's a top-down sock pattern, to be knit in cotton/lycra [not Fixation]. The pattern was designed for a wool yarn and the manufacturer has asked me to test their pattern with their non-wool. I'm doing one pair [I'm the token toe-up girl], Jacquie [she's our experienced knitter, but a sock newbie] and so I need an experienced top-down sock knitter who can have feedback for me within a week [aka at least one sock done in that time]. You get to keep the pattern and the socks, of course!

Don't write me here. First person to approach me at LK tomorrow night after 7pm* and seriously be able to knit to the schedule above gets the goodies. And trust me...they ARE good.

*7pm. Not earlier. Trying to be fair to those who have to get downtown from wherever they work.

Thank you for the wishes! And a little brain picking for tech advice

You guys! Thank you so much for all the birthday love. You are all amazing and reading the comments and wishes made me warm and fuzzy all weekend, as I tried to recharge my batteries on the couch at my folks' place. All very, very good. I needed that.

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So, the tech thing. I'm travelling every 2 weeks for the next 3 months, and am now faced with the need for ultra-portable access to the web. Here's what I'm trying to put together: a little something that will fit in my purse that I can take wherever I go. It would have wifi, would allow me to edit HTML files [in text mode, not Word's funny HTML editor] and FTP files as well. Doesn't need to be a phone, camera, butler or manicurist. I need to be able to get a large number of html files on the thing from my Mac laptop in some way -- USB or whatever.

I have a laptop, and that's not the solution here. It's got to be a stripped-down marvel of connectivity that can go wherever I do. There are ultraportable laptop solutions, but I don't really want to go into the $1500 land of doom. I can get a new full-featured laptop for that!

Things I've looked at already:
- Newton eMate 300 (don't laugh -- if it weren't for the Newton OS that doesn't save files like a Mac OS does, it might have been the perfect solution! it's certainly cheap enough!)
- various Palm devices. Current leader, the TX, plus an external keyboard
- Blackberry Pearl...can you get an external keyboard for a Blackberry?
- HP Jornada 720 (again an eBay purchase...but would it even work?)

Does anyone use any of these (or other things I haven't mentioned) and have feedback for me? The Palm TX seems to be the winner so far, as long as I watch for the bugs and keep the software lean. I think the FTP and Wifi won't be the hard things to get; it'll be the simple text-editing of HTML files without the complication of Office's faux intelligence.

All input welcome! The comments are at your disposal.

Thank you!

creak. creak. can you hear it?

Those'd be my old bones [a year older today]. Sorry if they disturbed your sleep. :-)

Thank you to everyone for the train of wishes! And to J for driving the train.

I'm in Chicago with the family for the weekend. I managed to find a cheeeeeep flight to Milwaukee [half the price of flying to ORD, for some reason] so I'm hanging with the fam. Today we're going to I'd Rather be Knitting in Long Grove for mom [after Rhinebeck, what could I possibly need?] to get her set up with Noro. Then dinner at our favorite chinese place [mongolian beef. MMMMMMMM.] and Little Miss Sunshine for dessert.

The rest of the weekend is about relaxation, catching up and, honestly, sloth. Perfect.

Morehouse movies!

One thing I didn't mention...Jillian, Carla and I were invited to stay at the Morehouse Merino farm. [I know! How freaking cool!] We shared the charming guest house with Deb Stoller and her assistant, Jennifer [and Chicken, the wee rescued kitty with a dribble problem]. And the highlight of our stay was the last morning, when Albrecht drove us about on bales of hay to feed the sheep. I wish I could have filmed the ride, but Carla and I were hanging on to each other so we wouldn't fall off! I believe there was hooting. :-) Movies of the sheepies on Youtube.


These are the special-needs sheepies -- the pregnant ewes and the older sheep. At the end, two of them are too shy to come in and eat. Albrecht had to go out and herd them into the pen so they could have a nosh.


Watch the dog. That's all I'll say. Just watch the dog. [This is the main flock of ewes...70 or so.]

how do you link to this without feeling pompous?

I dunno. :-) So I'll just give you the link: Venus: Amy R. Singer Knits Her Dream.

Eeep!

my Rhinebeck haul

This year was all about spindles for me. If Chasing Rainbows had come stocked with silk hankies, it would have been about them, too. But they didn't. Oh well. You'll see I didn't suffer. :-)


First, I share with you my birthday present from Jillian. She got herself a Golding recently, and was raving about the infinite length of spin it gives. She is not kidding. This is a 0.9 oz baby and it spins forever. On it, a sacrifical silk cap bought at the show and badly destroyed [I'm way out of practise] to help convince new spinning friends how easy it is. Mostly, i LOVE this spindle. Thank you, J!


Blue Moon Sock Candy [the no-sheep STR] in Carbon


A lone skein in Pretty in Pink


Another tube sock sock tube! I may not knit them as tube socks, but I love these colors together.


My first purchase -- from Mayan Hands. A handwoven cotton bag, perfect to hold my wallet and cell phone so I didn't have to dig in my backpack every time I bought a little something.


Silk caps from Shadeyside farm.


I bought two of these -- silk roving in the Fire colorway from Mountainview Farm.


This stuff smelled so good, I couldn't resist. Cinnamon/oatmeal soap from Got Soap, plus the cute dish.


An experiment...a wee bit of plucked angora fiber that I want to card in with some silk. Lorraine?


I loved the gifted Golding so much, I wanted another one that was significantly heavier. This is 1.5oz.


You know when you make your last purchase, how it's clearly the last purchase? It's enough? This was mine. Two skeins of screaming pink handspun angora. About 100 yards total. I have a few skeins of commercial angora at home and have held them without the burning I get from all other animal fibers. So I wanted to give it an official try. I cast on for a Mimi variation in this crazy pink yarn and so far, my hands tingle but don't burn or hurt. It's not unpleasant, just weird. I can likely wear this as long as I've got a turtleneck on underneath.

So there you have it. A relatively modest collection, I think, but very satisfying. I have a good bit of fiber left from last year, but didn't get to try all the spindles I wanted. Now I have and I'm happy with my new Goldings.

p.s. there's one more spindle I forgot to photograph. It's a Norm Hall. I didn't get the niddy noddy, but I did manage to snag a spindle! I'll report on that one when I've had a chance to test it out. The wood is so beautifully turned and finished. Sigh.

Rhinebeck 2006 in pictures

As Emma Jane said today, often during the weekend, we were too busy doing it to photograph it. Some of the most special moments aren't in my Flickr set, but a lot of good ones are. I've captioned them, so if you have a few minutes, at least you'll know what you're looking at when you see 'em.

Non-photographed highlights:
- finally seeing Leigh again. I have not a single picture of her, but her huge smile is burned in my brain. I haven't seen her look that happy since...I can't remember when. Leigh, you rock.

- when I pulled a spindle [a Grafton fibership that i'd mailordered months ago] out of my bag, proclaiming "the colors they're selling here are so much prettier than this one, so i want to sell it..." And Iris, who I finally got to meet, loved the colors exactly as they were. So SHE bought it from me.

- enabling both Leigh and Iris into spinning silk caps, via a purposeful visit to Shadeyside Fibers.

[I still prefer hankies to caps, btw, but hankies were in short supply this year, for some reason. Chasing Rainbows was there...with not a single bag of hankies. So I was *forced* to place an order with them to finish what I started last year. But I digress...]

- seeing more Clapotiseseses on more necks than I could count. Easily the number one most-seen knitted garment of the festival. Number two most-seen garment? Rogue, IMO.

- spending time with Tara Jon Manning, especially the quality time we had in her car, trying to get out of the Rhinebeck parking lot Saturday night. Wait till you see her new book! Yummmmmmmy.

There's more, but I'll save the what-i-got and the Morehouse Merino movies for tomorrow.

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For some insane reason*, I'm flying [to visit my family] this Wednesday morning. Yes, the day of the Hadassah-Wizo Bazaar -- the number one reason it's cool to be self employed! And yes, the day of the post-Rhinebeck s&b at Lettuce Knit.

I'm kicking myself. Save some recap for me, guys. Snif.

*Of course I want to see my family! But why couldn't I have booked the ticket for Thursday instead? Doi doi doi.

my favorite pic from Rhinebeck

I was coming out of Building A, the legendary home of The Fold [Socks that Rock central] and Grafton Fibers. I met this crew on the way in.

Stephanie did say the words written above her head...and from the looks on the faces of the other three, I think I've captured their mood well. Note Juno's hand, which speaks volumes. Julia and Cassie were equally eager.

I couldn't blame them. It was an amazing weekend, with -- this year -- perfect weather. Not on the way there or the way home, but that never counts, does it?

More later. I'm totally fried. Jillian and Carla are, at this moment driving home the rest of the way to Michigan, so no whining from me. When I'm conscious, pictures and stories. And a movie I took at the Morehouse farm of the gentleman farmer feeding the legendary merinos.

Like I said, amazing.

Yarn Peek Thursday, with a twist!

I don't usually do this, but you need to see this...I scoffed a pic of a new wool/silk laceweight from Schaefer yarns, called Trenna. It's available only at Little Knits. 1250 yards in one skein, for $46. Insane.

It's stuff like this that makes my sheepless bone ache. Those of you lucky enough to use it, please blog your results. I am in love, from afar.

2007 Knitty Calendar...winners here!

This year was a doozy for our calendar contest. Our second year running, I found myself with an inbox overflowing with tantalizing images of every possible description. Narrowing it down to just 12 was painful and took longer than I'd planned, because choosing was just that hard.

Which only means that this year's calendar will, I hope, please you as much or more than last year's!

Congratulate our grand-prize winner: Amanda Hartrich from New York! [september] The image she sent in was so appealing [that's hers up there on the left] that every time I opened the picture to look at it, I felt warm and hugged. How could that face not win the contest?

Amanda wins the coveted position of calendar cover photo, plus a huge box of knitting books and yarn! Amanda, your box will be in the mail as soon as the calendars arrive here...early November.

And the wonderful runner-up winners -- each one will receive a copy of the calendar:
January: Jayne Wagner from South Africa
February: Kathryn Juergens from Georgia
March: Katherine Mok (pinku!) from Japan
April: Alexandra Kowalski from New York
May: Hanna Andersson from Sweden
June: Katie Schu from Massachusetts
July: Laura Middleton from California
August: Kim Laramee from Ontario [the only entry of its kind to this contest!]
September: our cover girl, Amanda Hartrich
October: Angie Moore from Pennsylvania [an instant winner for October the moment I saw it!]
November: Mavis Sew from Alberta
December: Michelle DesGroseilliers from Ontario

The honorable mention gallery will be up after this crazy Rhinebeck weekend is over. There's a ton of really beautiful pictures for you to see, so keep an eye on the blog and I'll write when it's ready.

Thanks to everyone who entered! You make the change of year something to celebrate, and yup, we'll do it again for 2008!

Want your own copy of the calendar? It's in the Knitty store right now! Enjoy!

not so much fear and loathing as sack of potatoness

it has been raining at a constant, incessant pace all day. it's comforting, but completely unmotivating. who wants to go out and do anything when the bed is *so* temptingly close by?

and yet things have been done. the bike is here and is being used daily. i don't particularly like exercising [huge surprise, eh? snork.], but it does work with my work-at-home schedule as i hoped it would. it's a nice transition between checking my morning e-mail and then being awake enough to actually work.

also, the rhinebeck vest is washed and ready to be assembled. just need to find colormatchy yarn, since the araucania nature cotton is suckola for seaming.

nearly ready to publish the 2007 knitty calendar! which means the fall surprise is almost ready too!

denny is brilliant, and because of her, megan and fam have a cabin to stay in at rhinebeck, and jillian and i are off the hook for the rental fee. we love you both, ladies!

boeing is asleep under the dining room hutch [yes, we know how funny it is that our rabbits like sleeping under our hutch] and squeeze is snoring in the cage.

is it that obvious where i'm headed the moment i press "publish"?

i leave you with this: a little hint for those who have the amy/jillian combo square on their blogger bingo card. this is us on the left. [i do NOT have my hand in her underpants.] come & get us, bloggies!

Rhinebeck is calling you-hoo-hoo!

Someone's asked how far Rhinebeck, NY, is from Toronto. It's about 700km. Get a few knitter-friends together, rent a car and take turns driving and knitting. It's the best road trip EVER.

For those who missed it, here's my recap from last year, which I hope captures it: WHY Rhinebeck is so cool. Also see This, and this and of course, a post from the woman who helped start the frenzy.

Also, for anyone who's going and hasn't yet arranged accommodations, we have a credit at the Brooknwood campground for a 2-4 person cabin. We're staying elsewhere, and they don't refund the rental fee we paid, which is CHEEEEEP (but still, it's money we could use back if someone needs the cabin). It's about 20 minutes from Rhinebeck, cozy and yes, the bathroom is a separate building. But it's the nicest campground bathroom I've ever seen -- warm, clean and great showers. If you're seriously interested, drop me a line in the comments and we'll get you set up.

Rhinbeckers...please translate!

in this long list, do you see Norm Hall's company? maybe he operates under another name than his own?

i was hoping to get a niddy noddy from him this year, but if he's not there, there will be weeping! does anyone know the scoop?

query day! whee!

People keep asking. So I ask: is there a men's knitting group in Toronto? Drop me a note in the comments.

Also, it seems to be SNOWING in our fair city. I protest.

Finally, a whine: I have a sort of illness of indeterminate description. Not really a cold, not really allergies. Perhaps a little of both. I am not enjoying it.

Hope you're all doing better.

[and because I have to pass on the insanity, if you're a Flickr user, whatever you do, don't click here. My set's on its way already. God, I'm such a sucker for this stuff.]

Knitty calendar contest

The winners have been chosen and everyone's been e-mailed this evening. Check your e-mail and your spam box, just in case! I'll be waiting to hear from the 12 lucky winners!

And man, let me tell you, this year the winners were harder to pick than last year...and I didn't think that was possible. The honorable mention gallery will be overflowing with gorgeousness.

Wanna see for yourself? The calendar will be ready when the surprise goes live.

Stay tuned!

Oh. Oh. Oh.

I can't speak. Read this: Make One Yarn Studio -- 1st Annual Retreat at Emerald Lake Lodge

A few spots are still available, so if you'd like to come with us on this weekend of knitting indulgence, we'd love to see you there! Details on the Make One blog. All you have to do is get yourself to Calgary and they take care of the rest.

Now where did I toss my winter coat last spring when I was sick of snow?

thanksgiving in the knitty household

maybe not what you expected...

i've lived in this country for a very, very long time. i will not tell you how long, that's how long. and yet, after all this time, i still cannot get used to thanksgiving coming so soon after labo[u]r day.

i understand that we're a wee smidge further north here [and most of this country is WAY further north than my old country], and that harvest time comes sooner. but to me, thanksgiving was always winter-coat weather, mandatory scarves and gloves and frozen ground.

so i'm rarely in the mood for turkey by Canadian thanksgiving. this year, i made good, meaty spaghetti sauce from scratch, and the kitchen, she is a mess. but yum.

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projects started today: 1 [fetching, out of Schulana Supercotton in screaming pink]

projects ignored today: 2 [ongoing widdershins/judy sock in Sock Candy, to be saved for s&b on wednesday; zimmermann vest that just needs seaming, and i don't want to mess it up]

next up, i want to do something with the can of pumpkin i bought yesterday. these look yummy, but i bet you guys have something even better. a little delectable sweetie, cookie, something that i could bake? please feel free to fill the comments with recipes. i do have a vintage 1970s avocado kitchenaid mixer, so i am fully equipped for tough mixing. :-)

also, 18 days till my birthday.

don't you dare say it

i have been thinking about it a *lot*. which means checking craigslist for cheap castoffs. thinking about the kind of ways i want to get my exercise in every day, since i no longer have to walk to and from the bus stop to my day job. i love to walk, but hate to leave the house clean and come back sweaty and have to start all over again. and can't leave the house immediately post-bed, cause that's just gross.

the way my brain works, i want to get up, throw on sweats, crawl downstairs with my ipod and a coffee and start doing *something* that requires little brain power, but enough effort to make it worthwhile. that something seemed, most sensibly, to be pedalling my ass off [literally] on a recumbent bike. easier on the tush, you know. then 20 or more minutes later, i can crawl back upstairs, shower and be DONE for the day with the obligatory shvitz. this i can see myself doing.

nothing affordable at craigslist, but jillian recommended the nordic track, and i'd seen a whole bunch of different affordable models at sears.com, so we went to the store. everything but the nordic track [sl 728, in case anyone cares] looked like rickety pieces of pre-garbage [aka clothes hangers], so i just sat on the posh thang, pedalled for 10 minutes and realized it was the right choice. hub also likes it, and it was marked down about $200, so that was that.

it comes next saturday. the basement spot is ready for it. all i need to do is knit some wristwarmers, because the basement is unheated and winter, she is a-comin. gosh, i wonder where i can find a pattern for wristwarmers? i know how many exercise machines turn into space hogging dustballs. this will not be the case with mine. i thought about the type of machine that would suit my lazyass exerstyle good and hard before we bought. i am really looking forward to getting ON the thang. jillian has one and has set a good example. and that's all i'm saying on the subject.

p.s. the moebius zimmermann vest is fully knit and just needs seaming. i think it's going to be really neat to wear!

evil plan

Rhinebeck.

Now that the BGK2 photoshoot is 90% in the can [we have a few straggly garments to shoot later. Bad, bad designers! Full disclosure: I'm one of them. I feel bad enough already. Don't rub it in. The LK regulars know how hard I tried.], we can turn our attention to what really matters...the glory that is Rhinebeck!

To start it off right, Jillian and I signed up for Blogger Bingo, but with a twist...we're sharing a square. So you'll have to find us *together* for it to count.

Here's our button.



And lest ye think spotting us together will be a piece of cake, let us disabuse you of that notion right now. We love to hang together, but when it comes to fiber, our tastes are different [by necessity, cause of my non-wool thingy], so we'll be spottable, but not all the time. Heeeee hee hee!

having a good team makes all the difference

Doing your own photoshoot when you write a knitting book seems like a really good idea at the time. 10 months from the shoot. And then it comes and omygod -- what the HELL were we thinking?

Except we did good. So maybe it wasn't such an insane idea in the first place? Why did it go so well? We had an amazing team. Like no attitude, all teamwork and stunning results. [You'll have to wait till Big Girl Knits 2 is published to see those.]

Meet our photographer and her lovely assistant:

Lise and Matthew. We could not have hoped for better. We can't praise these guys highly enough. Should we ever do another shoot, they're hired, if they'll have us.


Here are Jillian and model Tamarah [you may recognize her from the most recent issue of Knitty] looking over the day's work. Pictures like this make it clear why *i* didn't shoot this book.


Here is our saviour, our heroine, the best [highly overqualified] PA a pair of knitting book authors could hope for. And she's a knitter, too. Jacquie, we love you. Please come have beer with us.


Shooting a knitting book is hard work.


Here is Ms Jillian taking a well-deserved quick break. Don't you love this porch? You'll have to wait to see more of it when the book comes out in 2008.


The final key member of our team is Rikki. What's that in her hands? Yes, it's yarn. Malabrigo, to be specific. Rikki came in as a crocheter, but watch this...


[Rikki meets the ballwinder and swift, thanks to Laura]


Voila! Rikki's now a continental knitter, after a few short lessons from Jillian. That's Jacquie in the foreground wearing her Iro Clapotis, coveted by all in attendance. You may get to see Rikki again at a future s&b. She fit right in.


And a last shot of the team just after we wrapped the shoot.

What you don't see are the other two models and any of the sweaters. One could say nyaa nyaa, but what we really want to say is that this book...it feels REALLY good. So hopefully the suspense will be worth it.

too busy doing it to blog it!

Jillian and I are hot and heavy into the photoshoot for Big Girl Knits 2 (day 2 is over and last day is tomorrow).

How do you celebrate wrapping your first partnership-managed photoshoot? You spend Wednesday night at the Lettuce Knit s&b, of course!

Always wanted to meet Jillian? Now's your chance. A little bird told me that Amy Swenson will also be in attendance. Come out and make our visitors feel welcome, will you? See you tomorrow!