Piquant Pam

You may be wondering what ever happened to Pam’s prize socks.  I sent her a bunch of links and a few questions to begin what I assumed would be a lengthy consultation about what type of socks she would love.  She emailed me back super fast (in way under an hour) and sent a link for a Knitty.com pattern called Tangled Garden: Knitty.com readers know that the difficulty index goes like this:

THE KNITTY LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY INDEX [Kind of like a menu. But not really.]

Suitable for beginners.
Relaxing, not mentally taxing.
Knitting as therapy.

Tired of scarves? Ready for something more challenging? Try these.
Fun things with zing. A twist, even.

A little something for the seasoned knitter.
Daring but not exhausting.

Suitable for those with a lot of experience. Or patience. Or both.
These babies have teeth.
Hoo boy.

All I have to say is, thank goodness Pam is only Piquant and not Extraspicy!

Seriously, though, this pattern will stretch my skills a bit and be really fun to knit.  Plus, I can use Allison’s Simply Sock Yarn Solids for them, which is completely fitting, given that the Summer of Color contest also utilized that yarn.

Pam wanted pink and green, as shown in the pattern photo, but she deferred to S1 to select the yarns from the color cards (which Pam can’t see herself as she is in Cleveland).  S1 deemed Pink and Wheatgrass to be best, so that is how we shall proceed.  Here is what the sample yarns look like when I scan them (I think they’re a little more vibrant in real life): I will need to place an order soon!

Circles

Earlier this week, I hastily employed a random number generator to select winners of the “thanks for voting for my socks” contest – but I haven’t had time to tell you all about them until now.  PAM (#3) wins the socks and HEIDI (#16) wins the jam!  I’ve been musing on how appropriate it is that they both got prizes, as we share many connections through yarn, knitting, Gettysburg, and libraries.  Will you indulge me as I stroll down memory lane?

I first met Pam when she started working at my library.  She moved to Gettysburg from somewhere in Maryland that was very near the Howard County Fairgrounds, which is how she knew about the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  When she and Dave became friends with Sweetie and me, they took us to the next Fest.  I’m pretty sure this was in 2001.  I was instantly smitten.  Sweetie caught me in a booth (which I now recognize as The Yarn Barn booth in the main exhibit hall) clutching a book about teaching kids to knit and some needles (wonder what size they were?).  She laughed and said I wasn’t going to learn to knit.  I wasn’t sure, so I put everything back.  Maybe it was just the wool fumes getting to me.  Anyway, something was triggered inside that day and before the next Fest rolled around, I took a beginning knitting class at The Mannings in nearby East Berlin.  The class was definitely in early 2002 – I was hugely pregnant with Boy 1 and developed an unconventional knitting technique based on resting the end of one needle on my big belly.  We went to the Fest again in 2002 (weeks before Boy 1 was born) but I honestly don’t remember if I bought any yarn.  My scrapbook doesn’t reveal any serious Fest activity until 2003, when Pam and Dave (who had since moved to Cleveland) returned for a visit over MDSW weekend.  Here is one of my scrapbook pages from that visit, when Boy 1 was almost 12 months old:That’s Pam in the red fleece jacket.  The scrapbook also says that I bought some Tess yarn to make Boy 1 a sweater (which turned out to be this one.   (Of course, I gave up scrapbooking at some point in order to devote full attention to knitting and spinning!)

Who knows how I would have made my way to knitting if it weren’t for Pam and Dave?

Heidi is someone I met through my local knitting group.  A mutual friend brought her along once.  She got awfully busy with her kids and homeschooling and stopped coming to group, so I sort of lost track of her.  For a while, I saw more of her husband, who was on the local public library board at the same time I was (actually, he’s now the president!).  Time passed.  Then one day, I saw her in my campus dining hall, and it turns out she started working part-time at Gettysburg College.  Instant reconnect!  We now have lunch regularly and talk about knitting, among many other things.  Here’s Heidi looking pretty excited about her jar of jam (she chose blackberry-peach).  And where is she?  In Musselman Library. Libraries, knitting, yarn, Gettysburg, Pam, and Heidi… these are a few of my favorite things!

Thanks again to everyone who voted for Socks 12 in the Summer of Color contest.  I’ll keep you posted on what type of socks Pam picks and how they come along.  I plan to have them done by Christmas at the latest and hopefully sooner.  First, I need to whip out a hat for Knitters’ Day Out (donating a hat is part of the registration fee), and I can’t lose sight of a pair of Christmas socks for my mom, either.  I might reprise the Pansy design with another yarn.

Please vote for my socks!

Okay y’all, the Summer of Color entries have been posted on Allison’s Simply Socks Yarn Company website, and the voting has begun.  There is a $200 yarn gift certificate waiting for the winner of the popular vote.  Won’t you please take a few minutes to vote for my Fjordland socks?

Remember these cuties I knit for Boy 2 out of the new SSYC solid sock yarns? 

There are 15 pairs of lovely socks in the contest.  Mine are #12, so scroll down.  To vote, all you need to do is email Allison at allison@simplysockyarn.com with the subject line VOTE and the message Socks 12.  Emails will be accepted through Friday, 8/6/10, midnight EST.

Man, I could make a LOT of cool socks from $200 worth of sock yarn.  S1 is very interested in the new Mad for Plaid design from Knitty.com, and that would be the first thing I’d knit from my new yarn if I won!

Thank you!

Purplicious

I’ve read the children’s book Pinkalicious.  I understand that Purplicious is its sequel; I haven’t read it yet. But purple seems to be my color lately!

The first Pansy Sock is done, and I’m almost ready to begin the heel on #2.  Here’s #1:Then I reached into my basket of spinning fiber and came up with this:  I knew this was top by the way it was arranged, but it didn’t have a label on it.  I got this earlier this spring when I placed an order with The Spinning Loft.  I had a gift certificate to use with them and wanted to get a smaller whorl for my Ladybug (as part of my quest to spin a good 3-ply sock yarn).  I’m sure I knew what it was when I ordered it, but I’d forgotten.  I managed to find my receipt online and have decided that this is a merino silk blend.  I have 4.75 oz and I’m spinning is rather fine to make a 2-ply.

The receipt says “Louet merino silk McKensie,” but I can’t find a colorway called McKensie on the Louet website.  Ashland Bay makes a 70/30 merino silk blend called Mckenzie, so this might be it.  The colors online look more gray than purple, but that could just be the photography.  Then again, I think my fiber really looks like the Ashland Bay blend called Purple.  So, whatever…

At any rate, it’s pretty and I like it.  And spinning on the wheel is sooooooooo much faster than spinning on the spindle!

In other fun news, I won a contest on the Novamade blog and got this fabulous BFL dyed by Cloverleaf Farms.  The colorway is “Golden Oaks” – isn’t it gorgeous?This was waiting in the mail when I returned from NC – what a treat.  (Ironically, Cloverleaf Farms is located in Hendersonville, NC, one of the towns we spent a bit of time in during our trip.)  I thought about spinning it next, but I decided to wait until I feel that first chill in the air since it’s so autumnal.  The chill is decidedly NOT here now – we’ve been having highs in the mid-upper 90s every day. 

If you aren’t already familiar with Nova’s blog, I encourage you to visit – she takes fabulous photos and always has beautiful things to show (fiber-y things as well as her adorable children)!