what did I bring home from MDSW?

In the big barn, the booth that grabbed my eye [on setup Friday before the fair was open] was Bullens Wullens. I might have grabbed the big bag on the right on that day. They've just started offering tussah roving, and in so many colors, I can't begin to describe them all. I went all bluey-greeny this time and found things I wanted to spin in random sequence. A tuft of this, a tuft of that. See what comes of it. The pale blue/green on the left is a direct result of watching Dawn spin her bag of same and finding it irresistable, going back at the end of the show and buying the other three.

What else?



Well, since I finished that 5-year-old skein of Tess Designer Yarns' Cascade Silk, I thought I deserved something to replace it with. These are 400ish-yard skeins of tussah [$20/ea!] that will become an Ishbel. The solid color for the lace section and the variegated for the stockinette section, with some sort of alternating transitioning to get from one to the other.

Also got a few bits of MDSW shwag [shirts] and that's about it. Was too busy having fun selling Jennie's pottery, meeting knitters and spinners and poking about the barns to see what was there for a non-woolly knitter and spinner [lots!]. And yes, had to remind myself more than once about the more than 20 spindles I already had at home. I brought the last two I'd bought at Rhinebeck last fall along with on this trip to remind me that I was not lacking in spindle power.

New lace, and it's not Tuscany.

I started something new on the weekend and it felt so strange. After a little knitting, I realized this: I have not knit any lace of any sort except Tuscany...for 2 years. (I don't count Montego Bay as lace).

So clearly it was time I shook my head loose and saw what would come out. It looked like this:



Can you identify it? It's quite famous, designed by someone famous for lace triangles. Here, have a closer look:



Puckery! Swirly! Yes, it's a Shetland Triangle. I have wanted to knit one for at least two years and don't know what took me so long.

The yarn is a skein of Tess Designer Yarns' Cascade Silk that's been marinating in the stash for -- no exaggeration -- FIVE YEARS. It may be a little too variegated for this shawl, but I think it works just fine. I've wanted this pattern and this yarn made real for a long time, so might as well do them together and cross two things off my list!



I'm liberating another skein of laceweight [though this is arguably heavier than average laceweight, it is being knit into lace and that counts].

The yarn was in my stash so very long because I really wanted to design something original with it. I was unsuccessful, more than once. Just another reminder of the kind of mind and skill it takes to be a knitting designer more than once every other 2 years. You real designers rock, you know.

Knitty Yarn Roundtable Nights top 10 list!

Top 10 reasons you want to go to one of the upcoming Knitty Yarn Roundtable Nights, held in Toronto each month.

10. There is yarn there.

9. You get to knit with the new! yarn and no one yells at you for playing with stuff you didn't buy.

8. It's a little like speed dating, but with yarn.

7. And nibbles.

6. And REALLY good coffee [the Purple Purl makes an excellent latte, or perhaps you want to try a Purly Fog?]

5. You get to play with ALL the yarn at the event, not just some of it.

4. At the end of the evening, there are door prizes and a lot of them, too. We try to work it so that no one leaves empty handed. How rockin is that?

3. The Purple Purl is a great place to hang out, and if you've never been, this is a great reason to visit!

2. There are other secret benefits to attending, but you have to actually come to find out what they are.

1. There is absolutely not a large dish of mashed rutabagas you must eat in order to participate. [I'm sorry, but I'm just not a fan of the rutabaga. The word rutabaga, though? That I love.]

So there you have it.

All Yarn Roundtable events are held at
The Purple Purl
1162 Queen St. E.
Toronto, ON
416 463 1162

How can you be a part of this rutabaga-free event? Simple! Just visit the Knitty Yarn Roundtable Nights blog and leave a comment on one of our three upcoming events. All the rest of the details are on the blog postings.

See you there!

would you like a little Broccowli with your knitting?

A lot of wonderful things came about as a result of this pattern.

First, the yarn...a special gift from Chris, the star behind Briar Rose Fibers. Until now, her yarn could never be on my needles, since Briar Rose was a 100% wool shop. But thanks to some persistent prodding by my friend, Jennie the Potter, Chris has now added silk to her shop! You can find the new yarn here.

It's called Penny Lane, and it's really awesome. 2ply silk, thicker than what you usually find done by hand dyers, and of course [!!] the colors are Chris' signature Briar Rose deliciousness. The cowl only takes one skein, so you can indulge without guilt!

Then, after a blog post requesting test-knitter help, Jenny stepped up and has been just super-fabulous and awesome. Her handspun -- which is what she test-knit the pattern with -- is impeccable. And her cowl, since it was knit in a creamy color, isn't Broccowli. It's Cowliflower! Oh, heavens, I love a good vegetable pun any day. Turns out Jenny sells her handspun and other goodies at her Etsy shop. Yum.

So there you go. No longer is Montego Bay the only lonely pattern in my shop. Now you too can knit your vegetables and then wear them! To get your copy of Broccowli, visit Amy's Mindless Knitting. Both patterns are a modest $3. Happy knitting!

um, holy crap.

Well, Wednesday was a fun day, eh? We went live after spending months getting the brand new, super-powerful server ready for you all and BOOM, she sploded.

[If you had any idea of the difference between what we had been running on for 6 years and the exponential improvement in hardware, capacity and pipeline with the new server, you'd be as frustrated as we were when it still wasn't enough to handle you all!]

Hub spent yesterday/yesterevening further tweaking the server settings, trying to make sure everyone could get in and by 11pm eastern time last night, we'd solved most of it. The server seems to be running smoothly now, and I find the download super-fast compared to an average day on the old server.

Thanks to 99% of you who understood we were doing our best to get it right! We'll be doing more prep behind the scenes before we go live with the surprise in 2009 and hopefully this won't happen again. But hey -- there are worse things than being so popular no one can get at your site, right?

---

Guess what I'm going to do today? I'm going to a small PJ sewing party with my friend Jen. I'm going to pull out my Featherweight and dig into my stash of quilting fabric and make as many pairs of ridiculous PJ bottoms as I can.

---

I've also got something to show you:

What's the yarn? Dudes. It's silk. From Briar Rose.

But Briar Rose doesn't do silk? They do now! Thanks to gentle persuasion from my friend, Jennie and yours truly, Chris at Briar Rose has finally added silk to her previously all-wool lineup! She gave me a gift of some of this gorgeousness at Rhinebeck and I wouldn't stop browbeating her until she agreed to put it in the shop, because I knew you'd want it too.

What's the pattern? It's a little something I've worked up for y'all. The whole thing will be available shortly, but I thought you might want a peek at the stitch pattern now. It explains why I'm calling the pattern Broccowli.

You may groan, and I wouldn't blame you.

---

Me? I'm going to dig through a bag of fabric. Wheeeeee!

The story in photos

This is Lake Louise, Alberta. It is possibly the most breathtaking place I've ever been to. Even prettier than Emerald Lake, if that's possible.

Lots of pictures for you to peek at, including Banff and -- most importantly -- the reason I was there: the Make 1 Yarns Fall Retreat students, teachers, their knitting and lots of fun. There's also the special Make 1 Retreat colorway on Lorna's Laces Amy-Friendly Yarn [!], in case a little yarn pr0n will help get you through your day. The other instructors at the event were Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Stefanie Japel, Nancy Bush and Cookie A, and everyone came out of their classes glowing and motivated. It was really exciting to see.

I taught my Plug & Play class, and it was great to see the students grabbing on to the concept and running with it. One of them [Jeneane] even got so far in her shawl that she snapped a picture and uploaded it to Ravelry before the class was over!

It was an absolutely fabulous retreat, super-organized and fun, because of Amy and Sandra, the owners of Make 1 Yarns, organizers of this retreat. They took care of every detail and are most generous hostesses. 92 happy, smiling students can't be wrong.

I hope I get the chance to do it again next year!

nu-uh she di-n't!

Okay, I didn't realize. The non-wool yarn that Beth at Lorna's Laces is using for my colorway? She's been calling it "Amy Friendly Yarn" in messages to me.

But dudes. That's its official name in stores and everything. I'm sure it's the height of ego to be amused by this, but I can't help it.

Proof? Here's the stuff for sale and everything:
- at The Loopy Ewe

- at Jimmy Beans Wool

There is giggling on this side of the keyboard.

knitting! in progress! um, wow!

this would be Gretel-in-progress, being knit in Handmaiden Swiss Mountain Silk Cotton in [probably] Dandelion. have i made errors following the chart? yup. do i care? not enough to frog. soldiering on. i actually started this hat about 15 times with different yarns and needles, so now that i'm this far, i'm going on until absolute folly is apparent, or i end up with a hat.

[i find the best way for me to get accurate gauge swatches for hats is to start the hats, knit an inch or so and then pull from the needles and try on. nothing else works for me.]



this is the gorgeousness of Amy-Friendly Yarn [named by Beth] from Lorna's Laces [silk/bamboo] in Amy's Vintage Office. top-down raglan has begun. LOVING the fabric. yum.

pattern i'm using is based on Stef Japel's top-down raglan formula. i'm trying to understand garment shaping a little better, so i decided it was time to use the formula, not follow a pattern. will this actually result in a wearable sweater? we'll see, won't we? :-)

another Vintage Office sighting in the wild!

A big wave and e-hug to Zonda for a lovely post, with great pics, of her new woolly skeins of Amy's Vintage Office. Thank you, Zonda!

Blue Moon nooz!

Did you wonder how my Blue Moon sweater was going? I can't imagine you did, but for the sake of ongoing knitting content -- and because it's SO GORGEOUS -- here's where I'm at. This picture is quite color accurate -- the colorway is Gypsum, and the yarn is Luscious Silk, a recent addition to the line at Blue Moon! [I get very excited when my favorite yarn companies start adding Amy-friendly yarns to their lines, as you can tell.]


Sadly for me, I didn't start knitting from two different skeins until, well, you can see where I did, and that's just life. It'll make the right front look like an, um, art piece. Yeah, that's just what I meant to do! [snork.] The pattern is Kristi Porter's Sonnet, transfigured into lace to make the yarn I have go further, and because silk is warmer than wool, so solid silk would be steamy to wear! Toes included in the shot for scale.

I'm halfway [or more] through the back and progress is quite speedy. I keep getting motivated to get to the solid-knit row pair in the super-simple lace repeat, which keeps moving me forward.

---

Speaking of all things Blue Moon, have you heard about this? It's going to be so insanely cool. Sounds like a cannot-miss event of a lifetime! I wanna go.

Amy's Vintage Office on Silk/Bamboo

I can't hold this in any longer.

This is the Lorna's Laces colorway on the gorgeousness that is 51% silk, 49% bamboo and oh.

Just oh.

This colorway was inspired by vintage enamelled steel office furniture and accessories in a variety of shimmery, glowing colors, and this shimmery silk/bamboo version is exactly what I had hoped for. Better, even, with Beth's exquisite sense of color, flow and balance. I am in deep love. Click the picture to see it larger. Yum.

Read more about this yarn and how it will only be available for a limited time from Lorna's Laces.*

Contact your LYS and ask them to get it for you. And then come back here and show me what you knit with it! I'm multitasking, but promise to show a knitted swatch asap!

*if this stuff sells really well, it might encourage Beth to keep it in the lineup full time. I dream of being able to get Lorna's Laces colorways on Amy-friendly yarn and I can't be the only one. Speak with your wallets, knitters, and tell Beth you love the new non-woolly Lorna's and want to see more of it!

---

eta: Kim Werker, crochet goddess and editor, was at Lorna's this week, and look at the pic she took! I forgot my camera on the Chicago trip, so even though she didn't do it for me, thanks for taking this pic, Kim!

i has a color.

And it has a name: Amy's Vintage Office. Have you seen the new Color Commentary series from Lorna's Laces? Well, it was just one color until we got mine done -- Franklin's Panopticon, which is an insanely cool combination of yumminess, was the first. Now that there are two of us, it's definitely a series! [I hear there are many more colors to come from famous knitting folk all over the place!]

So Beth, who runs Lorna's, asked me to describe my dream colorway to her, and as she writes, it took us a while to get there. I thought I wanted one thing, which was bright and crazy. But then it turned out that what I really wanted was for Beth to encapsulate one of my big loves -- vintage office furniture -- into yarn colors. The mainstay, of course, is my huge charcoal steel desk. The rest are aspirational items -- things that aren't yet in my office, but I would love to have them here. The tones of vintage powdercoated steel make my heart beat faster at a flea market, and now that I see them in yarn form, I am just as enamored.

Why is there no knitted swatch here like there is on Franklin's post? Well, that's because Lorna's Laces is pretty much a 100% woolly house of yarn. All the protoypes I got to see were on wool, and I even borrowed a group of Purple Purl knitters including a visiting author-friend to help test knit swatches so I could choose the final color. Adrienne took home two different colorways, one of which turned out to be the final Amy's Vintage Office.

Beth will be dyeing up some of my colorway on Amy-friendly yarn and I promise to share a big swatch with you the moment it arrives. Will she be selling this Amy-friendly yarn? She might, if enough of you ask for it. Go visit Beth's blog and tell her what you think of the colorway!

[Lorna's Laces retailers will be able to order the colorway for you. Just sayin.]

knitting! really! actual knitting!

a little yarn pr0n to get you in the Saturday knitting mood. last time you saw this yarn, it looked like this. i am so deeply in love with this yarn. as are all the people who've been lucky enough to touch it. there is always a little soft moaning accompanied by noticeably dilated pupils. :-)

i'm knitting Sonnet, but with lace instead of garter and moss stitch. it's a sexy, slippery silk. the finished fabric will, without question, stretch. why am i going on?

i have decided to keep knitting in an act of blind-but-with-a-little-experience-faith. i have mentally upsized my gauge from the actual 4.5sts/in to 4 sts/in, in order to accommodate the fabric growth that we all know will happen. i reduced the needle size so that the fabric is tightly constructed [yet still drapey and lovely] before it gets a chance to grow when worn.

it all sounds like a crapshoot, yes? but it's fast knitting, so i'm not dedicating months of my life to a potential future frogfest.



i'm already at the first armhole, and the fabric is gorgeous. sizewise, i think it will be fine, especially since the lace feels infinitely flexible. in No Sheep, i wrote about how to test your geeky thing before you start knitting to get a good idea of what might happen to the finished fabric. no, i haven't done any of those things. because i'm quite sure that this sweater will either work or it won't, and i just won't know until the body is done. this huge mass of gorgeousness in 2-ply hand dyed silk will do whatever the hell it wants to, and until i've shaped it into a sweater body, no amount of swatching, pre-washing and blocking in advance will predict the result.

and i'm okay with that.

can somebody please remove these cutleries from my knees?

and now, i end the teasing. look what arrived in my mailbox last week.





4 skeins of sex brand-new Blue Moon Luscious Silk in the colorway Gypsum. i had no idea it was coming. so i opened the package and then i had to sit down because all the blood drained out of my head. i rubbed it all over the public parts of myself [don't get gross now] and made soft moaning noises.

if you haven't been stalking the Blue Moon website [or the new development, Tina's blog!], you might not have noticed the new additions to the site. silk. one or two-ply and worsted-weightish. can you stand it? more stunningly, 360 yards of this gorgeous hand-dyed-by-Tina silk is only $28.

then i ran to the swift and turned the first skein into a cake and started swatching.

jillian has taught me that long stretches of color aren't going to work so well horizontally on my bod, but if i knit side to side...



and when i think side to side, of course i think of kristi porter, which is why a lacy variation of Sonnet is going to be the next thing on my needles. lace because it's cooler [and silk is warmer than wool, so coolness must be factored in to the design plan!] and because 4 skeins of this sex gorgeous 2-ply silk = 1440 yards means it needs to be lacy if i want it to be long-sleeved. and i do.

i'm knitting something for fall Knitty as well, and it's damned hard to concentrate on deadline knitting with this stuff looking at me and winking seductively. oh, my life is so hard, isn't it?

knitting math

+

+

+
a mystery ingredient =
the newest thing on my needles.


how's that for a weekend-eve teaser?

a little more of TNNA

So you saw I got to spend a little time with Franklin. Then I read his blog and found the image at left...which was part of the best post on TNNA I've ever read. You must read it. It's here. The cartoons made me snort in my chair. Out loud, even. I believe I scared the rabbits.

As usual, lots of the stuff I got to peek at will become parts of future issues of Knitty, so I can't talk about them here. Here's what I can tell you.

I lost my voice suddenly, while talking to co-zone-of-funner Shannon Okey on Friday night. Yes, the night before the trade show. It just suddenly went pop, and was gone. Some time after this photo was taken. [BTW, I may look pensive in the shot, but really, I'm just thinking. :-)]

This photo shows that I didn't need to have a voice to have fun. This is the gang at the Tip Top again, posing for miss Mim.

Meanwhile, between the shmoozing and the business card swapping and much of what Franklin chronicles in that blog post above, there was also some surprise gifting.

Beth, who owns and operates the delightful Spinning Loft in Howell, MI brought little pouches, branded with her adorable shop logo [my favorite sheepies!] for a whole bunch of us. My pouch was filled with 2 oz of undyed Seacell. Yes, I buried my nose in it. I can't wait to spin it. On a spindle, even. I wrote more about my new love affair with my spindles in my most recent Knittyspin column, in case you missed it. So Beth, thank you for a kickass and super-timely present!

And then there's Abby, she of Abby's Yarns? I have no idea what I did to deserve this [probably nothing :-)], but she gifted me with her handspun. HER. HANDSPUN. There was nearly an embarrassing moment which involved plotzing and the aftermath there of, but I managed to hold it together.

Hang on. You can't really see the yarn [did I mention it is Abby's handspun?] in that shot. Look here:

Laceweight singles so delicious you could eat them with a tiny laceweight-enabled spoon. Public additional thanks [beyond my hugging and stuff] to Abby for this beauteous eye candy.

And now, I've got to run out to The Purple Purl [this is not a hardship, let's be clear on that]. It's time for the June Yarn Roundtable and just WAIT till the knitters see what I've got for them tonight!

[Tomorrow is all about the Harlot, Franklin and knitting in public. Let's hope the rain holds off, because wet knitters make a funny noise when you squeeze them.]

---

p.s.! did you know? The Purple Purl is having a KIP day event tomorrow, too! So after I go nuts at Lettuce Knit, I'll be heading back to the Purl to knit in the park with my girls. Join us!

Shazam! with extra pinkness at the end

When I visited Scout on her home turf last year, we had a massive dye party and the result was a new colorway we called ZuluKnitty -- a collaboration between the two of us. She offers it in her shop, and I've seen many skeins pass through her Flickr stream, so I know people are ordering it, and that makes me happy and proud. :-)

Well, someone special was having a birthday and I wanted her to have some Scoutness, so we put our heads together again and here's what Scout came up with: ZuluKnitty Shazam [it's the skein on the left]! The same basic color palette as the original ZuluKnitty, but with extra shazam, oomph and general joie de vivre.

You'll also notice that the yarns look different. That's because, when Scout painted the first skein of ZuluKnitty [on the right], she didn't yet offer silk in her shop, so we bought retail stuff. You can now get this gorgeous 2-ply cascade silk directly in her store, in whatever colorway you choose. And she has a lot of them. Power couple is my new favorite.

Thank you, Ms Scout! This skein will be the one I use to teach my special SeaSocks class with.

---

I didn't mean to fall in love, but I did. Apple released a new pink [peeeeeeeeeeenk!] version of the new Nano just in time for Valentine's Day. And I might have walked around, squeeing "peeeeeeeeeeenk!" for an entire day. Okay, I actually did.

So when a small box came from Apple today, addressed to hub, I should have known, but I didn't. This little pink jewel was inside. He spoils me, my boy, and I am very grateful.

The first thing I listened to was Cast On. It's fabulous, and now holds my favorite playlist, a few choice movies I've yet to watch and lots of Neil Gaiman.

Life, she good.

perl grey makes my head hurt

what kind of deranged mind comes up with sweater construction like this? why, Perl Grey, that's who!

i'm not saying it's not brilliant. it just makes my head hurt trying to envision this sort-of-closing-in cocoon turning into anything wearable. EXCEPT that, before i picked up the sts for the front section of the sweater, which is the part that makes my heart beat faster [not kidding, i love it that much], i tried it on and it fits. so i will trust in the Perl and in Jacquie B who told me, "just keep going. it'll work out." and i believe it will.

can you even tell what you're looking at? it's a side-to-side knitted cardigan with integrated sleeves. i'm just now knitting the fronts and the collar at once, with short rows. [for those who will ask, and i don't blame you, this is discontinued Artfibers Gypsy, colorway 11, which is knitting up at exactly pattern gauge, and doesn't that blow my mind? yes, it does. [Kira tells me that Artfibers Bambusa or Sumo would make good subs.]

i am also driven with the fire of a well-trained team of dragons to finish this baby and get it on me! finishing the duvet covers has reminded me of the pleasures of the FO, and though i do love a good knit as it goes along, i'm all about the FO.

you wanna see progress?

i'll give you some progress, baby.



that's about 2-2.5 hours of knitting. see? not so bad at all. i am past the danger zone [aka dropped stitches running right to the cast on and causing me to shave my head], so i just keep a small crochet hook nearby for the occasional stitch that slips off the needle and keep on trucking. it's a great KIP project, and as my imogen sweater gets bigger [i'm at the first sleeve already!], it's much more portable, too.

are you knitting along with me? i've made a button for us that you may feel free to poach and use at will.



free a laceweight prisoner from your stash!
choose one, wind it into a ball and cast on!
just because it's tiny and delicate doesn't mean it won't be fun to knit!

Liberate Your Laceweight!

a smack on the head with a can of vegetable juice

that is such a convoluted 70s pop-culture reference, i can't even stand it.

but seriously.

last night, i reached, again, for my new favorite scarf. it looks like this:



clearly, i didn't knit it. i bought it, while in London, at Muji. [it's not on their website...sorry] it's made from recycled cotton, woven into supersoft jersey, and it was cheap and i loved it instantly. it came in the recycled cardboard tube which i re-recycled when i gifted Noah's baby hats to his parents. :-) i wore the scarf everywhere. see?

my husband laughed at me. i'm a knitter, and my favorite scarf is store-bought? ah, poo.

i wore it out for the billionth time again last night to knit night at the Purple Purl. and suddenly realized. i reach for this scarf because it's light, it's cool, it feels good against my neck and it's made of SUPERFINE yarn.

wait a minute. i have lots of laceweight in my stash that i have no idea what to do with. guess what i cracked open when i got home?



i believe this may be an ongoing project of stockinetty love. it will certainly require very small needles. :-)

a nice fresh year

happy around these parts. calm [unusually so.] TNNA is coming up [the big knitting (etc) trade show] and this time, I'm not going. I just need to sit still for a while and work on Knitty from my desk, not from a trade show floor. I feel simultaneously sad [not to see all the knitting peeps I love and missing out on seeing what's new in the biz firsthand] and relieved [knowing I'm taking care of business and my sanity at the same time]. I think I'm a little travelled out. :-)

I've already booked my flight to TNNA Columbus in June, though. I wouldn't miss the June show for anything.

---

Meanwhile, around these parts, things are starting, continuing, finishing, in all the best ways.

- Jan 1, I cast on for Imogen. I'm knitting it in a discontinued yarn that I'm lucky enough to have gotten before it went byebye. It's Artfibers Gypsy [of course - you know how much I love the stuff]. Kira tells me that Artfibers Bambusa or Sumo would make good subs. It's colorway 11 -- they'll likely dye almost any of their yarns in this luscious colorway if you ask nicely.



Imogen looks like it will be my ideal sweater -- cozy but still flattering and adjustable to fit whatever my body throws at it that day. Gypsy is my favorite yarn. Damn, I wish they hadn't discontinued it! [Should we start begging in unison?]

- Incoming Blue Moon goodies! First, I finally got my hands on a skein of the Raven series -- Silk Thread in Valkyrie. It's insanely beautiful and these lame pictures don't even come close to showing the subtlety of color change.



The Charlie Brown gang are looking on in silent awe. No, I'm not sure what this will be just yet.

- More from Blue Moon! They're now offering EZ's surprise jacket-friendly kits in my favorite non-wool sock yarn, Sock Candy!



This stuff is heavenly and I love how Tina puts the colors together. And you can get two jackets from one kit, if you alternate the colors. Brilliant. I'd better get knitting!

- the last thing that's got the fire under my arse are the duvet-covers-in-progress.



This is, I'm guessing, about half of what I'll need to make two twin duvet covers [just the TOPS, mind you -- the bottoms will be nice white sheets]. I'm cutting a bunch of 11.5" wide strips every night, and then will start assembling these strips into random assortments, lengthwise. I need 6 strips per top. I wanted to do 5, but didn't want ridiculously wide strips, and 7 was more piecing and cutting than I'm in the mood for.

I almost sound like I know what I'm doing here, eh? Well, I used to quilt. Rather a lot. In fact, I didn't knit when I was quilting. Here's what I saved up for over two years in the late 1990s:



It's my Bernina. If I'm lucky, it should last me the rest of my life!

One thing, though: just before I veered away from quilting all the time, I bought this fabric at the big October quilting and needlework festival in Toronto.



I love it, and want to get more. I think it would make great pillowcases! Does anyone know where I might find some? Web searches are proving fruitless and there is no identifying text on the selvedge to help me figure out who made it, even. Help?

special friends

I think there's something in the water in Sunnyvale, CA. I actually cried when I left my new Sunnyvale friends at the curb at the airport last month. I really love these guys.

So you can imagine the huge lump of mush I turned into when a box arrived at my house yesterday, and it was from my Sunnyvale girls. Kelli, CJ, Kathy, Sandi, Nathania and Chloe sent me...well, look!


First, this bag. Which Kelli owned a twin of, and which I loudly and annoyingly coveted until she filled her car full of me and the rest of the crew and we went to buy one for me. And when I got there, I promptly remembered all the bags I have at home and chickened out, leaving it behind.

Turns out, they grabbed it when I wasn't looking and bought it for me. And when my innards exploded, they filled it full of yarn, Jujyfruits and my very first pair of Addi Lace [!] turbos and sent it to me as a get well gift. [I popped on the scrabble stitch marker that Caro gave me in Austin and it suits it perfectly. Thanks, Caro!]



What's that?



Two of my favorite yarns in the world. On the left, Artful Yarns Fable [cotton/silk] and on the right, the only bling yarn I covet, and covet so deeply that I might have just a few skeins in other colors already in my stash: Blue Heron Rayon Metallic in BLUEBERRY, which I didn't have and DEEPLY LOVE. The whole bag is full of purple, and everyone at the shop is all about the purple, so this couldn't be a more special reminder of my special friends.

I love you all. Thank you. And a special thank you to Kelli, who arranged the whole shipping thing. Why the hell don't you women live closer? Think of the trouble we could get into on a regular basis!

artfibers, I love you

Here's how it starts. [Excuse the nasty photoshoppies. My camera refuses to accurately capture purples, so this is my best approximation.]

Left: Golden Siam, color 37 [a deep bluey purple]
Right: Gypsy, color 4 [a purple that goes from palest lilac to medium purple with hints of red]


[this picture is unretouched -- and pretty color accurate, too. weird.]

[I've jonesed for Gypsy ever since Jillian designed this wrap for Knitty. It's amazing stuff...feels like multiple layers of silk hankies shredded into strips and twisted a little. I wonder how they make it?] It was a bit too cutesy-purple for me on its own, but adding the deeper purple Golden Siam made it just right.

I'm knitting it into an opaque fabric [but it still flows nicely], one strand of each, on US 10 needles. Here's the ribbing:



And here's what it'll look like, sort of, one day:


I've shortened the overall length to match my own height and may not do a double cuff, since the fabric is pretty thick already. Then again, I might! I've also changed the 1x1 rib to a 2x2 and am not knitting it on smaller needles as the pattern prescribes. There will be no ass cupping if I can help it!

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Also purchased on this trip, FABRIC. Yes, fabric. Don't faint.

I couldn't help myself. Right next to Knit/Purl in lovely Portland was Josephine's Dry Goods. They had Amy Butler fabric in the window and I just went in to look. And came out with ITALIAN LINEN instead.



The fact that I suck at sewing clothing didn't stop me. The linen is soft, thick and reminded me of the house we stayed at in Montalcino [the house belongs to the owner of C&C Milano, a company that makes Italian linen...every couch and bed in the place was covered with the stuff!]. I couldn't leave it there. It was also a mere $53 for a whole jacket's worth.

I hope to show you a finished jacket sometime soon. It will likely involve bribery and grovelling. I'm fine with that.

Oh, for those that wish to know, the pattern is from here. Lots of cool patterns on the site, actually.

yarny souvenirs

Because I'm me with the non-wool thingy, I make it a point to try to find something unique and non-woolly when i travel to a shop. It's getting harder as my stash grows, but Churchmouse made it easy:



Shoalwater Bay laceweight silk, color: pond. 1200 yards that I plan to ply again, making 600 yards of 4-ply silk.

The only place you can get this stuff [as far as I know] is at Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. Here, peek at the other colorways I didn't buy.



Knowing I was going to Artfibers, I saved the rest of my budget for that stop. I had planned to buy a sweater's worth of silk, no matter what it cost. This is not something I do often, and if you've read this blog for a while, you probably can't remember the last time I bought a sweater's worth of ANYTHING.

Here's what I got:


That's one strand of Gypsy [col 4]+ one strand of Golden Siam [col 37] held together. It's actually more purple than the pic shows, but my camera has a buggery time capturing purples. Not sure why.

The swatch is a bit of a mess. Why? Because Kira, who is supercool and very skilled at this, measured my swatch and unravelled it to get the most accurate possible estimate of how much yarn I'd need. For this -- slightly shorter [as I am slightly shorter], no turned-back cuff, since the fabric is thick enough, but otherwise, as pictured. Notice the waist shaping, Jillian [!] and the deep-v formed by wearing the big collar open to the 2nd button.

It may be too bulky to be uberflattering on me, but I am choosing to believe that, because it's an outer layer, some slack may be cut me in this case. Also, the total cost was in the area of $200, which seemed quite fine for pure silk. I was very pleased.

Also, if you haven't had a sweater pattern made for you at Artfibers, it's a real treat. They use the Knitscape software, plus Kira's very experienced at tailoring each pattern to the knitter, so she made sure the sleeves were the right circumference at all the right places, and all sorts of other fit issues, too. Extremely cool.

I also grabbed this in a last-minute panic, because it was too beautiful to leave behind.

for a lace shawl of some sort, one day in the future. Of course. It's actually a reddier-purple than the pic shows, and a little more variegated in tone.

Oh, and that person I had lunch with in Portland? Tina, the goddess of Blue Moon Fiber Arts.

These are the hands that dye Socks that Rock.

She sent me home with an obscenely delicious bag of Sock Candy and other sweet things. I'm going to hang it on the wall and just LOOK at it for a while. Just getting to have lunch with Tina and talk with her in person after a few years of e-mails was gift enough. She's an amazing person, which is probably why her yarn is so cool.

More later. I have notes for people who took my classes and can't remember that thing I recommended, etc. :-)

I got me some Zuluknitty

You know Scout? You know she dyes yarn, right? Beautiful yarn. Fat lot of good that did me. Until today, she didn't dye silk.

She does now. And I get the first skein...544 yards of delicious mulberry silk in a brand new Scout's Swag colorway, designed by Scout and I. We used my favorite Zulugrass bracelets as the inspiration, and voila...Zuluknitty!



To see how she did this amazing thing, check out the dye party pics.

Scout has ordered some uberdyable silk [even nicer than what I have] and will soon be making her colorways available on this gorgeous stuff as well as the yummy [so I hear] merinos and tencels and bamboos she already offers. That includes Zuluknitty. No, I don't mind sharing with y'all. I'm a generous soul, ain't i?

Scout, you rock. Thank you for turning my colors into my colors on silk. I very happy.

post-issue randomness

Ah, the relief of another issue gone live without accidental amputation [it could happen, you know. one must be careful].

Here are the latest things on my mind:

1. When will I hear a yes or no from the SOAR people? I am on the edge of my seat with the waiting! Certainly no one would argue that I need me some serious spinning lessons. Today, maybe? Perhaps I'll hear today?
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2. Chiao Goo makes one hell of a small-gauge crochet hook. For some reason, above a size E [like I even know what that is yet], they change from this loveliness...



to a solid bamboo crochet hook that looks just about like every other. A plain ole bamboo round stick with the hook on the end. Why? I think they did the smaller ones in metal because they couldn't do them in solid bamboo, and as a result, have come up with something magical. The metal/bamboo hook is light, comfortable to hold and ridiculously affordable (suggested retail is below $4 a hook!). If they came in a full range of sizes, I'd buy a whole set. You may quote me on this.

So people...do you crochet? Do you agree with me that the bamboo/metal is an amazing thing? Write the company! I told them this on the floor at TNNA, but if a lot of you write them, they might actually add larger sizes to their metal/bamboo line. Here, this is their parent company's web page -- with an e-mail addy right there for you to use! Their sales manager's name is Juliana -- write and tell her what you think!
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3. My feet. Longtime readers know I've got crappy feet and Birkenstocks have been my salvation. A few good friends have been raving about the superiority of Danskos, so I finally sucked it up and bought a pair. In PINK leather.

Seriously. It's fuschia leather.

The arch is noticeably higher than in Birkenstocks, but not uncomfortably so. I find the height of these shoes amusing [I usually wear flat things] and have worn the shoes twice with socks with absolutely no discomfort. Early verdict: love.

For those who need similar footy gratification, see ShoeDawg.com.
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4. No one prodded about the Americo, but don't tell me you didn't want a little yarn pr0n with your Tuesday coffee.

Cotton wrapped in silk in charcoal and ice green-blue. 1 each. Yum. Don't ask what they're for yet. I don't know. That's half the fun.

And now, more knitting!

I'm knitting another Tuscany. For those counting, this would be #3. I wanted to do a summer-weight one, so of course I reached for the Seasilk. In fact, when I saw the super-sized skeins that somehow leaked into the yarnstream [for sale at The Sweet Sheep], I snapped one up pronto. Because people have told me it takes a skein and a half of seasilk to do a nice-sized Tuscany, and that's the yardage in these larger skeins. Again with the two ends to weave in. Happy happy me.


Did you know? Americo got their summer yarns [aka the non-woolly kind] in stock recently, and I grabbed three skeins of the cotton/silk in sky blue. This bundle is all three skeins twisted together. I love that they do this at Americo. Dammit, I love everything at Americo. The yarn even smells good...delicately botanical. I think it just picks it up from being in the store, but it lasts a while as you knit, and even sensitive-nose me likes the aroma. Mmm.


The puffy part is cotton. The shimmery binder thread is silk. What will this be? Can you say moebius? I thought you could.

They have this yarn in a billion colors [almost] and variations on it as well -- lumpier, bumpier, smoother and the new stuff - cream or black laceweight pure silk. Desirable? I think you know. I loves me the Americo. If you're in town to see Ms Harlot tonight, be sure to stop at Americo before you leave the city limits. Promise me.

Thank you.

more happy sheepless yarn pr0n

Last fall at Rhinebeck, I got to meet Mama E. She was one of those people you want to knit with right away, but we never got the chance. You know how Rhinebeck is -- meet, hug, shop, meet up again, more hugging, more shopping. And then it's over.

Anyway, one of the offshoots of our meeting came in my mailbox yesterday. Wanna see?


Your eyes are not deceiving you. That's another coolio colorway done just for me! It's called "Sheepless in Toronto" [snort!] Lest you think I take this generosity for granted, be assured I know how lucky I am. :-)

This is a gorgeous 98.3% cotton/1.7% lycra yarn, hand dyed by Mama E herself in soft springy green, periwinkle and muted indigo. Perfect for socks, of course. But what will I knit from it? Another beret, I think! It's already wound and ready for my kamikaze trip to see J and her kids tomorrow. I love the pink one and I'd love to have another for my less-pink days.

Mama E also included this cool thing:

A big project bag [the size of a large hardcover book!] covered in the coolest Mod Squad fabric. You can find the bags here, and the yarn here -- plus another colorway, too.

Thank you so much to Mama E, and here's hoping we get to knit together soon!