KDO 2009

Another year of Knitters’ Day Out is complete!

Kris and I began the weekend with a Knitters’ NIGHT Out.  We ate at Cedars Restaurant in Camp Hill and enjoyed a lovely array of mezza dishes.  Unfortunately, I did not photograph them.  Trust me, they were both beautiful and delicious.  Then we headed to KDO to register and visit the marketplace.  At registration, we learned that everyone won a door prize this year.  I got lucky and won this set of plastic needles in sizes 8-10.5.  These will be perfect for teaching kids.  I’ve already lost most of my straight Brittany needles to beginner knitters who never return them.  This is a very useful door prize for me!

Kris had never seen a sock knitting machine before.  This one as at the Knitters Dream booth.  Fascinating! I ended up picking up a few small things at the market:

- a cute little book from Regia called Flusi and the Sock Yarn (it goes with their new line of sock yarns for kids, which I resisted as I have plenty of stash) – cute illustrations that might make kids ask you to knit socks for them! - a sock pattern that I picked up at The Mannings booth (they had two different samples knitted up that were quite striking, and I thought this would be a great way to knit down some of my handpainted sock yarn):- some 2-ply yarn from Icelandic sheep from Cedarland Farm in Delta, PA (south of Lancaster near the Maryland line, about 60 miles east of Gettysburg).  This is 100% Icelandic wool in its natural color, but I think it will be plenty strong for socks: On Saturday morning, I took Merike Saarniit’s Patent Stitches class.  Patent stitches are a group of Estonian stitches that use a lot of yarn (the patent stitch is composed of a pair of loops over the needle) and which create a really squishy fabric.  Often, garments made from patent stitching were fulled, which made them warmer (Estonia is a very cold place).  The patent stitching creates a more flexible fulled fabric than felted stockinette.

Here are some of the sample garments Merike brought to show.  See the hat knit in orange and blue/purple?  I loved that stitch (the Two Color Full Patent) so much that I bought some Malabrigo Worsted to try making a hat using it.  I offered to knit Ed a hat when I was in Portland last month, and he requested “green.”  I think these two greens together will still be neutral enough to suit his taste. Here is the patent stitch sampler we made in class: I was much more enamored of patent stitches than I expected to be.  They are enticingly squishy, and many of them require no purling, even though they look like ribbing.  The Pearl Patent, for example, creates a dimensional nubbly pattern that gives me the same visual and tactile satisfaction as moss or seed stitch, but it would knit up soooooo much more quickly because it’s all knitting and is knit over fewer stitches.  I plan to knit the hat mentioned above as well as a pair of socks that uses patent stitches on the leg.  Merike recommended reducing the number of stitches considerably, as this fabric is very stretchy.

After a lovely lunch spent catching up with Kris, Julie, and Alison (Julie’s sister, who usually joins her for this event), I hopped off to my afternoon class on ribbing.  We created the following sampler of different rib stitches: This session served to remind me that one should always question the basic 1x1 or 2x2 rib when it is called for in a pattern.  Why go plain if you can go fancy?

Another fun year! 

Introducing Pinky

I’m not quite done with the Mother Outlaw socks, but I started another pair.  This is the Merino Lace Socks pattern from Favorite Socks (Rav link).  The yarn is Stitchjones Glam Sock, a delightful blend of superwash merino/silk/nylon/silver fibers (the percentages are 63/20/14/2).  It’s pink and subtly sparkly.  The recipient is my colleague and Sock Summit registration heroine, Meggan (who could also be described as pink and subtly sparkly).

This is one girly sock!

What you see here is the 5 repeats of a 4-round rib pattern (which has some lace at the edges but also a large panel of 5x2 rib) plus 1 12-round repeat of the main pattern.  I’m showing two views because they look so different.  I really like the second photo – those lacy cable-y bits are squooshy and pleasing.  The jury is still out on the pattern below the rib part.  It’s only one repeat so I don’t think you can see if very well yet.

This is chart knitting, so it’s NOT an office sock.  I’ll have to start another one soon.  Perhaps a pair for my favorite 3-year-old girl…

Stay at home and use me well…

Fellow fiber enthusiast Anne alerted me to a fascinating exhibit that is near enough for me to enjoy!  The National Museum of the American Coverlet (who knew?) in Bedford, PA, is opening an exhibit titled Stay at Home and Use Me Well – Flax & Fleece: Fiber to Fabric.  It focuses on tools used in the home textile production process during the late 18th and early 19th centuries and features objects from The Kitty Bell and Ron Walter Collection of Early Textile Equipment.

Does that sound fun, or what?!?

Bedford is about 80 miles west of Gettysburg on route 30 – I should be able to drive there in about 2 hours.  Field trip, anyone?

The schedule of events for the symposium on Saturday, 9/26, sounds fabulous – but I’ll be at Knitters’ Day Out instead.  Luckily, the exhibit will remain open for about a year.

Read more about this museum if you’re interested.  I just love these kinds of places (remember the Nordic Heritage Museum? LOVED IT! it started me down a road of Nordic reading which I’m still travelling…).  This museum is quite new – established in 2006 and opened in 2007. 

We Got the Beat

I know some of you are (were) loyal listeners of the Y KNIT podcast.  The Y KNIT boys have parted their podcasting ways, but Michael is about to begin a new podcast called Fiber Beat.  Here’s the promo:

Fiber Beat Promo: Homage to Double Indemnity

Subscribe to the feed to stay tuned for Episode One!

While you wait, listen to the 19 episodes of Y KNIT – there are some big chuckles and great interviews there.

KDO is soon!

It’s almost time for this year’s Knitters’ Day Out event in Summerdale, PA (on the campus of Central Pennsylvania College).  I’m registered for 2 classes next Saturday:

Patent Stitches with Merike Saarniit

Supplies: Sharp scissors; blunt tapestry needles (large & small); calculator; pen/pencil/eraser; notebook & paper; stitch markers; flexible tape measure; crochet hooks of various sizes.

1 oz light/medium colored yarn and 1 oz variegated/multi colored yarn in smooth worsted wt or slightly heavier. Straight needles and 16" or 24" circular needle (or double points) in size appropriate to your yarn.

Homework: None

Material Fee: None

Prerequisites: Beginner level skills plus increase, decrease, and follow simple patterns

RIB-IT, RIB-IT with Dottie Kurtz

Supplies: LIGHT-COLORED SMOOTH worsted weight yarn, needle size 7 or 8 (your choice of straight, double pointed

or circular).

Homework: None

Material Fee: None

Prerequisites: Can cast on and bind off, knit, purl, do yarn overs, decrease, and follow simple patterns.

Kris and I are planning to go up Friday evening to check out the marketplace.  Of course, we’ll take this opportunity to have a nice dinner out beforehand.  She has a lead on a (new?) Lebanese place in Camp Hill that we’ll try.

Part of the registration fee is knitting a cap for Caps for Kids.  Here is mine: Poor teddy bear- this really isn’t his best look.  I wanted to try a new technique on this hat: the jogless stripe.  I first read about this on Grumperina’s blog (see her entry on Spiraling for details) and have wanted to try it on socks ever since.  Specifically, I thought this would be a neat way to use some handpainted or self-striping yarn paired with a solid yarn.  I still haven’t tried it on socks, but here it is on a hat.

You can see where the spiral begins if you look carefully at the back: I really enjoyed this technique and will be sure to use it again on socks sometime soon!

I could also make another hat if I wanted to.  These balls of Valley Yarns Sugarloaf yarn were 50 g each to start with; I have 20 g of gray remaining (plus another full ball) and 29 g of green.

K’Nex Kate

I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not… but some rambunctious play in my living room resulted in damage to my spinning wheel.  Nothing too major, but still.  Here’s what my wheel looks like now: Do you see it?  The kate was the victim: The wheel itself works fine – what a relief!

I could buy a new kate (it’s a relatively inexpensive part) … but I have been told more than once (and read) that it’s important for the singles bobbins to be far away from the wheel when plying.  A lot of kates are separate things, not attached to the wheel at all.  I really liked the concept of a built-in kate, but I have grown to see their point.  I figured this was my chance to try a separate kate.

But I haven’t gotten one yet.  So when I was ready to ply that Mohair-Finn blend this weekend, I tried to build one out of K’Nex.  (I regularly use a niddy noddy made out of PVC pipe, and have you seen the swifts and ballwinders made out of Legos?  I should do a whole post of those sometime.  There are many!)  Here is my initial design:Notice how I incorporated the stretchy bands from the Ladybug.  I had to modify this a bit more as I plied (to raise the bobbins so that the tension bands would be parallel to the floor and stabilize the top better), and I had to weigh down the base with big huge books (finally, a post-college use for The Riverside Shakespeare), and it was rather frustrating to use and threatened to snap at many points … but it worked. 

See?  Yarn! This is 3.95 oz (112 g) and 294 yards of 2-ply Finn-Mohair.  I think it’s roughly sportweight – maybe on the border between fingering and sportweight.  I spun it on the fast whorl at a 12.5:1 ratio.

I’m not sure if it’s enough for a pair of socks – but I have 4 more ounces of fiber, so I’ll just spin more.  It’s definitely the skinniest yarn I’ve made yet.  I’m pleased.

He knits

I hope you can see this video – last time I embedded YouTube in the blog, it appeared fine at first but then disappeared later.  If you can’t see it above, try here!

Family Knitting

Yesterday after bathtime, Boy 1 appeared in his PJs and … felted slippers.  I made them back in January 2008 (pre-blog – here’s Rav link) and they still fit him as long as he doesn’t have socks on.  I mentioned that I had fun knitting those for him, and he said he wanted to knit some slippers for me.  Of course, I responded that I would teach him to knit anytime he wanted.

How about now? he says.  Okay!

I never put away my World Record knitting after returning from Sock Summit, so we grabbed that.  It was on short needles I intended to give to kids, anyway.  I had a garter stitch strip started, and he just kept going.  We’re using the rhyme from Kids Knitting: “Through the door, around the back, open the window, and out jumps Jack.”  He’s doing pretty well!

And also, I’ve made some progress on the outlaw socks – one is done:

Kid Cap

Knitters’ Day Out is coming up quickly – just 2.5 more weeks!  Part of the registration “fee” is to knit a hat for Caps for Kids.  I started one last night. 

I’m using Valley Yarns Sugarloaf from my stash.  I bought it for another kid hat project where machine washability was important (it’s 52% superfine merino/48% acrylic microfiber).  It’s interesting!  I’m going to go all Clara Parkes on you and talk about yarn construction.  Look at this:See how it’s made?  10 tiny little double-plies all plied together with a tight twist ratio (Kristina, this reminds me of the white yarn from your yarnstorming box).  The yarn is a heavy worsted weight, but it feels light and squishy – that’s because of all the air trapped in those little 2-ply strands.  It’s actually very soft and quite nice to work with. 

I’m making a simple hat with a solid ribbed band and one row stripes coming out of it.  The stripes have no jog, because I started with one color on one of my two circular needles, and the other color on the second circular.  They spiral around like the stripes on a barber pole. I know you can’t see the jogless stripes in this photo, but you get the idea.  The light is a little off here.  The gray is a nice deep charcoal gray, and the other color is a light springy green.  I think it could potentially work for a boy OR a girl.  What do you think?

I’m working this on 2 circulars, size US 9.  Shouldn’t take long.

Dare to dream – a flock for you?

Did you notice that Susan over at Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm (and Hudson Valley Fiber Farm), the first fiber person to create a fiber CSA, is giving away goats?  That’s right.  She has more than she needs, and she is giving away a handspinner’s flock of Angora goats, complete with a shed in which to house them.

Write an essay about why you want to be a shepherd, and convince Susan and Erin that you have a good plan (it would help, for instance, to have some land), and these lovelies could be yours.  Details here.

I’m blogging about it in a shameless attempt to win the PR helper’s stash of goodies.  (So you may be sure that Steven will do so next.)

C’mon, someone has what it takes to raise goats, right?  My outlaws’ land in Texas would be perfect, no doubt.  Someone else I know has lakefront property in the family……

Mo Finn

I started a new spinning project this past weekend.  I chose some roving I purchased at MDSW just a few months ago, a 50/50 blend of Finn and Mohair in natural brown from Misty Mountain Farm in Virginia. The Finn breed was recommended for spinning sock yarn, and we all know that mohair is “Nature’s Nylon,” so I have high hopes that I might actually be able to make sock yarn with this.

I bought 8 oz.  4 oz should be enough for a pair of socks, if spun finely enough.  Is mine?  We shall see!  I divided the bag into 4 2-oz sections.  I’ll spin two of them onto two bobbins, ply, and evaluate.  Then I’ll probably repeat with the remaining fiber.

So far I have one 2-oz bobbin done:

And look what else I made yesterday: raspberry-blackberry jam from berries we picked at Yellow Hill Farm near Biglerville.  Mmmmmm.  Steven, I had to take off a Black Dog label to reuse a jar.  I’d been hanging onto it for a while, but it’s time for a new life.Currently we have 11 8-oz jars of this yumminess.  I need to make more.  Those berries are taking up freezer space that will need to reallocated to applesauce soon.  Of course, we keep some frozen berries for smoothies and baking… but we have a LOT of berries stored right now.  Enough for more jam!

FO: Wasabi Charade

I’m finally done with these socks.  These were Sock Summit / traveling socks, and then office socks, but I don’t get much office knitting done in the summertime.

I was disappointed to realize that this yarn is really only two shades of green.  In the hank, it looked like more to me.  And then, it striped like a zebra.  And then, the second sock striped like… some other animal.

Look, here they are trying to disguise themselves in the wilds of my backyard!  (But the color is more true in the top photo.) I would knit this pattern again.  It’s super simple but has a bit of interest.  It would look very nice in a solid yarn!

Cloudy with a chance of yarn

Today I was messing around with Wordle, thinking I might use custom word clouds to teach students the difference between keyword and subject searching in library databases.  What a fun tool! Here is a word cloud of my blog, as it stands today: