Sock Summit Recap

It was great!!!

I took a class on knitting and designing fair isle socks with Janel Laidman.

Great class, already designing a sock, here's the swatch.

I volunteered as a TA for Syne Mitchell in an eTextiles class, also very cool, working on putting some lights into my knitting (no swatches yet).

I got to meet Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

I had VooDoo Donughts.

I finished knitting a pair of stripy socks for me.

And, of course, I shopped!

Hand knit green cowl (made by me, worn at Sock Summit), yellow fluff is a verb for keeping warm BFL roving in the Nugget colorway, blue fluff is Sincere Sheep BFL roving (they are destined to go together in some project or other), and the yellow yarn is Jezebel in colorway 710.

Earrings by Jennie the Potter.

Blue and white merino/bamboo blend sock yarn.

The Jezebel 710 pictured above, this time on it's own on my desk.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, rare gem colorway in Earth.

Hand dyed alpaca lace weight yarn in the limited edition (oh my) colorway Broadway from my new local yarn shop Yarn Garden.

More alpaca lace wight in Silver.

And yet more in Provence.

And some merino lace weight from the Carolina Homespun booth, this is going to be knit up into a stripy shawl with the Silver alpaca.

I had a great time all weekend, it was like summer camp.

Updates

Because I've been lax.

I knit up these cute little garter stitch elephants for a coworker's new nephew.

And the edge of another shawl/wrap/scarf that I knit for myself. It's the Bitteroot pattern from Knitty out of some lovely alpaca yarn that Sandy and Derrick brought me from upstate NY.

The alpaca is all warm and soft, the beads aren't as noticeable in the finished product as they look here. They're subtle. It's a little sheddy, but I'm hoping it will stop at some point soon.

Handspun!!!

This past Sunday Loopy Yarns held a spin in. It was great. They had a table of free fiber, two drum carders, and snacks. I made a crazy batt of stuff from the free table, and I carded up my alpaca fleece. And I spun like crazy. Look at all this yarn!

This is Peanut, partway through being plied up. Not sure how many yards of Peanut I've got. I plied it further and will wait until it's dry to try to figure it out.

This is the crazy skein made from all kinds of stuff from the free fiber table, about 30 yards. It has some merino, some tencel, several colors of angelina (the sparkle), some mohair (I think), and some mystery wool. Pretty random and pretty awesome.

This is a merino/tencel skein, about 140 yards. I bought the roving from Miss. Babs at Stitches last fall.

This is the skein of mostly alpaca, about 75 yards. Sandy's dad brought me a bunch of alpaca that I had no way to card. Luckily Loopy had those drum carders out. I threw in some dark brown wool, some purple wool, and some angelina (the sparkle).

The alpaca on the wheel.

Yay! So much fun.

More Mittens

I started the mitten part of my mitten last night!
Still obsessed.

Mitten number one, thumb gusset created & held on thread untill I can come back and knit it. Hand progressing nicely, almost time to work on the flip top that I'm planning. These are mittens for a girl who needs to use her fingertips in a cold, cold city.

These are also mittens for an ambitious knitter who thinks the mitten part of this pair needs to live up to the cuff part of this pair. They must be fancy with couture details, just like a Bohus sweater.

Malika's Aeolian Shawl

I used a beautiful lace weight alpaca to knit this for Malika.  In my mind this is like a long distance hug of fibery goodness.    

All done, un-blocked in it's "cat yack" stage.  I had to use a contrasting merino lace yarn to bind off the edge because I ran out of the main yarn.     

Soaked, squeezed dry, and stretched to within an inch of it's life!  Pinned out to dry on our futon.  It's beautiful, I love it and can't wait to see how mine comes out.  

The yucca leaf pattern that makes up the main part of the shawl.  

The agave and flower edging, pinned out to dry in perfect little points.  

Another shot of the  flower edging.  

There are actually little tiny glass beads in the flower that didn't show up in any of these photos.  They are very nice and add just a touch of glitz.  

Stash Enhancement!

Purchases at Stitches Midwest this weekend.


Wool/Mohair roving. The pink is the mohair.



I'm planning on spinning the pink as it's own single, then splitting the brown and spinning two more singles and plying all three together.





Happy Feet sock yarn, I bought what should (crossing fingers) be a sweaters worth.






Alpaca, yum. Black, brown, and camel plied together.






Some wool/nylon sock yarn to knit Josh a pair of gloves with.