Blog Post Wherein the Stash and I Have a Big Meeting--or Three

The Stash and I have been due for some face time for a while now. Yeah, she has been flashing parts of her tarty self around for some time, so a "come to J*sus meeting" was long overdue. For a good part of the last three days, I have been sorting, rearranging, discarding, photographing and databasing. Here's where it gets ugly--I'm not done yet. It's been a bit of a personal archaeological dig. I clearly had a sparkly era (so sue me--you didn't?!), and I have gone through distinct blue-green, pink-brown, and red-olive periods. Here is what I have learned thus far:

• "Pity buys" get me nowhere. You know those "Jeez, I am the only one in this place and I feel like I have to get something" purchases? They are dogs almost every time. So are a lot of clearance bin finds.


• I take a strange amount of comfort from the "virtual" projects in the stash. Just because I haven't actually knit the yarn into the sweater doesn't mean it doesn't exist in my head. (Don't say it--I know what you're thinking.)


• I really, really like sock yarn even though I don't always wear socks, even during Chicago winters.


• One must be very wary of Internet yarn photography.


• I need to knit a whole lot faster. Or maybe shop a whole lot slower...

The husband has often said that he wouldn't know what to do with the yarn if something happened to me. After this weekend, it will all (with the exception of the bin I have set aside for charity projects) be stashed in Ravelry. Should I meet an untimely end, it would be one hell of an eBay listing, that's for sure.

Oh, and YES WE CAN WILL!

Reporting from Camp Crow's Feet

First off, let me start by thanking the travel gods--and their minions at American Airlines--for granting my wishes. Our flights and connections were perfect. Whew.


Having never gone to sleep-away camp as a kid, Sock Camp was a taste of what it must be like. There were contests and relays and crafts and skits (yup. skits.) and even a camp song. There were things that cannot be explained to the outside world. Much of what happens at Sock Camp should stay at Sock Camp.

Craft Day produced Sock Monkeys. Mine is the monkey on my back, My Stash. (Yes, that is a teeny, tiny American Express card.)

Cat Bordhi, The Yarn Harlot, Tina Newton (owner of Blue Moon) and Cockeyed (one of the Sockateers) proving that you can knit with turkey basters. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but they did.

It all started with the homework assignment: make a toilet paper roll cozy. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would ever make/need/use one. Frankly, there isn't much in my life that needs a cozy of any sort. Nonetheless, I happily took on the task.

My Hanging Pot for the Potty, complete with fuzzy caterpillar.

While I was pleased with my end product (yes, I know there is a pun to be found there), I was certain that there would be works of sheer art, cleverness, and great brilliance.

The House of Flusher. Edgar Allen Poo has just released The Tell-Tale Fart.

Stephen of the Y Knit podcast made a Crapotis. Kate Gilbert would be so proud.

The sock-knitting octopus was the hit of the evening.

It would take several posts to fully describe the camp experience, but here are some highlights:

• Not surprisingly, Cat Bordhi is a genius. What I didn't know is that she is also funny, charming, approachable, warm, quirky, and silly. She joins Sally Melville on the list of women I have a knitting crush on.


• Tina Newton and her merry bunch of crack dealers Sockateers are the hardest working women in the yarn business. Planning a large event with lots of moving parts is hard, hard work. Not once did I see them gripe or grumble. They were unfailingly cheerful and helpful and incredibly nice. While we were there for a good time, they were there to work, yet it always seemed like they were having as much fun as we were. I liked Blue Moon's product before, but I now have a connection to the people who design, dye, skein, label and ship it. They are a fabulous bunch of women; buy their crack yarn.


• I have had the experience of overhearing a conversation of businesspeople passionately discussing issues in their field. Whether it be medical or engineering or manufacturing or architectural in nature, because I don't know the lingo, it feels like they are speaking in a foreign tongue. For five days, I was among knitters. I understood the language and spoke it fluently. There was great freedom in that.


• I got to spend quality time with Toni Neil of The Fold. She has always been very helpful when I have seen her at shows and, in particular, when I went out to her shop for a spinning lesson. That day, she spent three hours with me, helping me to take my wheel apart, and even calling Louet for advice. She went above and beyond. Spending time with her as a fellow camper was a delight. People, I saw Toni buy yarn. She owns an amazing shop that carries Blue Moon, yet she bought yarn. I have already used (and, I'm sure, will use again) that fact as a justification for my own yarn purchases.

Scary stash acquisition photo. Bad stash monkey.

• (A)If you needle felt a sock monkey in public, you may scare the non-knitters who think you are performing voodoo. (B)You can do voodoo on a sock monkey. Ask Chappy.

My friend, Liz, and I had a great time. We met many interesting women (and Stephen!) who have so much talent and enthusiasm for fiber. It was an inspirational experience that will stay with me.

There is so much more, but that's a start. I will be uploading pics to Flickr over the next few days and will post the link when I do.

If I Start Knitting Now and I Live to 100...

...I will never complete the projects in my Ravelry queue, never mind the ones that Ravelry couldn't find. There are 168 of them in there and about 40 that I need to add to the database. YEEE-IKES!

So, how did the list get so long? This weekend I went through ALL of my knitting books, magazines, and binders (except the last few months' worth of magazines) and cataloged every project that I might consider making. (Well, I didn't count baby patterns; I generally choose a pattern based on the parents and their style, so I peruse those as the babies appear or threaten to appear.) I purged any magazine devoid of useful patterns. Let me tell you, the early 90s were not always kind to the knitter as my intense review revealed.

A few things did come to light:

• I am so glad I never got around to making some of those ugly-ass projects that I put post-its on.
• Back in the 90s, Nora Gaughan and Teva Durham were doing work that could be published today and no one would know they were old patterns. Each designer has a distinctive style that has the ability to weather trends.
• I have kept all of my Interweave Knits. Even if the issue does not have a pattern that speaks to me, the layouts and the photography are elegant.
• Other magazines have not withstood the test of time nearly so well. Some editors and designers slept around with too many novelty yarns. (Very judicious use of novelty yarns is allowed in my world, but it's like Brylcreme (or is it Dippity Do?): a little dab'll do ya.)
• I am a book, magazine and pattern ho. I am going to be listing books on Amazon and leaflets on eBay in the near future.
• I need to be equally critical of my stash; I should lighten the load there, too. There are some yarns that I will never, ever use, so why am I holding on? (Note to self: sale does not mean it's a bargain if you have no idea what to do with it!)
• I want a queue for everything, especially for cookbooks and recipes. (Maybe there is one that I don't know about.) I probably have about 200 cookbooks and countless clipped recipes. Unless I have used the recipe before or have made a mental note to try a specific dish, most of my cookbooks don't get any action. If I had a recipe queue, I could do what I did this weekend on Ravelry. Hmmm, I feel like chicken. What's in my queue and where can I find it? These days, I end up Googling a dish or checking various food websites if I have a hankering for something. I know I could make my own database with the name of the dish, featured ingredients, and the source, but that could take forever. So, why do I even have cookbooks if I'm not going to utilize them? After all, when I use recipes, I tend to go to the same ones. My copy of New York Cookbook is about to fall apart, as is The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that is nearly as old as I am. But I digress...

Frankly, it's a little disconcerting to think that my project list may outlive me. On the other hand, I suppose it's good to have goals. Oh, and please don't judge me by the contents of my queue. I mean, it's not like I'm ever going to get around to making those 40 felted bags, and really, would I want to?

Stashalot

I haven't posted in a while. It's all Ravelry's fault. (Not really.)

I *think* I have my entire sock yarn collection "stashed" in Ravelry. (Well, there are a few mystery balls. Whatever made me think that I could possibly remember what they were without the ball bands?!) My sock yarn stash is, ahem, plentiful, and it is a pretty fun place to go "shopping" when I need a project. (I believe I may be personally sending at least one of Emily Parson's kids to college.)

One thing that I realized was how much more selective I am now about sock yarn than I was just over a year ago when I started to amass the collection. I went whole-hog crazy on Etsy for a while, and while there are lots of fab indie dyers out there, they are not all using great base yarns. It's tough, I know, because I am in the midst of my own personal yarn tasting, trying to find good base yarns for my own dyeing fun. I've found a couple that I like, but have ended up with a bunch that I don't. (A few still elude me. There are a couple of folks out there with to-die-for-stuff, and I haven't yet figured out what they use. I'm going to keep going until I find my Grail.)

It's back to work tomorrow. Just seven more weeks to go.

Michigan Fiber Festival (Part 2, The Loot)

The part you really want to know about...

The aforementioned niddy noddies.

A needlefelted cat pin that I'm going to convert to a Christmas ornament for the fiber tree. (It looks a bit like our "baby"cat, Papel.) This is the densest needlefelted item I have ever touched -- really well done.

I bought 8 oz. each of Blue Faced Leicester from two different vendors. Neither picture did it justice (it is so soft and so smooth), so here is a picture of an actual Blue Faced Leicester in its place. I'm going to try and get the wheel going and spin some for socks.

Two different colorways of Shelridge Farm sock yarn. (What looks like orange is really brown.) I kind of stalked a woman to get it. She was carrying around all eight skeins of the blue/brown and decided she only needed six. When she put two back, I counted to five and then picked them up. (I didn't want to be grabby!)

Two ounces of dyed mohair ringlets for felting projects.

Briar Rose was my first stop and is often where I do the most damage. She has a website, but it is so different buying it in person. Chris is just darling and the colors just don't show to their best advantage on a computer. These are three small (450 yard) skeins of Briar Rose Grace for socks.

Two large skeins (900 yards each) of Grace for an Icarus Shawl. Briar Rose has the most gorgeous colors, but no two skeins are the same. You can either alternate or let serendipity take hold. My guess is that I'll alternate, but I don't know yet.

I also bought some lovely handmade soaps for my girls, Sandra and SA.

After two weekends in a row of classes and shopping, I need to lay low. There is a thunderstorm and it's pouring here (I'm really glad I came home yesterday rather than driving in this mess today), so I may try to play with the wheel a bit. It's definitely an inside day.

Isn't all yarn p0rn s0ft c0re?

PRESENTING

Stitches: One Girl's Entanglements

The Haul

Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm Merino Sock

Laceweight Merino

(I really lusted for the Quiviut, but it was $56 a ball compared to $9 for the merino. I compromised.)

New Patterns (Note the fishnets on the right.)

STR

There's Shaefer Anne, Lorna's Laces, Tofutsies, Regia's Kaffe Fasset line, Dream in Color Smooshy and Oasis Yarns Aussi Wool in the pile, too. Aside from the laceweight, it is all sock yarn. (A little obsessive, no?)

My Saturday afternoon class on altering garments for length was very good. The session focused on fixing the problem by cutting and grafting rather than ripping. Margaret Fisher is a very clear, methodical teacher and I recommend her classes. (The class on zippers and other closures I took last year was equally helpful.)

I really cut back on my Stitches immersion this year and I'm glad I did. Two classes plus the fashion show was just enough this go 'round. Last year I took five classes plus the fashion show and student banquet. Add Market time in and it was a little intense. This year had the added bonus of spending time with friends. Thursday night, my business associate and friend Liz and I served as mutual enablers. (Liz is now the proud owner of a swift, the knitting equivalent of an in-home washing machine; you can't imagine how you ever lived without it.) On Saturday, I got to spend a few hours with Carey who drove down from Minneapolis. She double-dipped at both the comic conference and Stitches. (I wonder how much crossover there was between the two.) It was great to see her.

Next week, Michigan. I hope it's not sweltering. There is NO air conditioning there and the tent sure can get toasty.

Splurges, Silk, and Southern Ghost Songs

Sometimes a little getaway feels like you've been gone forever--in a good way. On Thursday, I boarded a plane to Chattanooga, TN, the first part of the journey toward the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. (If you haven't already read David Rakoff's great piece in the NYT about his week at the Folk School, do take the time to give it a glance. While my friend, SA, and I only dipped our toes in the water for a weekend experience, he dove in for the week-long adventure. It's a great read.)

SA drove up from Tuscaloosa to meet me in Chattanooga and the fun began. First stop was dinner at the Back Inn Cafe. Set right by the river, the Cafe is surrounded by an incredible array of sculpture. Everything was quite delicious, from the Salmon Cakes with Pickled Green Tomatoes to the Shrimp and Grits to the wine our waiter recommended for us. The menu only listed the wine by the name of the producer, Tait, so we were in for an unexpected surprise when the bottle showed up bearing a more interesting name:

Yeah, it says Ball Buster. Did they see us coming or what?

After a good night's sleep, SA and I ventured out to hit some of Chattanooga's hot spots before heading east to John C. Did we go to Lookout Mountain? Nope. The Lost Sea? Uh, uh. See Rock City? We did not, nor did we buy the t-shirt. Not even Ruby Falls. We went yarn crawling.

First stop, Great Balls of Yarn. Only trouble was it no longer exists. Oh, well. Then, across town to a new shop, a co-op called Yarn Works. It has only been open for a couple of weeks, and it is still seeking its identity. It is a great space in a former saddlery. There are big, comfy chairs, a large workspace they intend to use for workshops, and their neighbors are galleries and working artists. It has the potential to be a very nice destination, but because it is not intended to be strictly a yarn shop, the selection of knitting-related items might not be what you would normally expect. I bought a few skeins of colorful yarns for hats and such, and a lovely beaded necklace. I'm going to keep an eye on their progress and I hope that they develop a supportive clientele. We then headed across river to the AVA Gallery to check out a show that was opening later that night. One of the artists featured is a felter who does unusual wearable pieces. Last stop before heading out of town was Genuine Purl. This shop features needlework supplies as well as a good selection of knitting yarns. They had a nice selection of Koigu, including a newly arrived shipment still in the box that they let me paw through. In brief, Genuine Purl is a jammed-to-the-rafters kind of place that's great for getting many of the basics. Yarn Works has the potential to be the kind of place that you want to hang out in, sipping coffee or wine all evening, talking and working with friends. I recommend both places if you are in town.

After a fun morning of poking around, it was time to head toward our destination. It is a lovely two-hour drive, much of it through the Cherokee National Forest and along the Ocoee River. We passed a bazillion companies that arrange rafting tours and we stopped to watch the rafters at the starting point. (SA and I know nothing about rafting, nor has either of us been rafting, but we both noticed that Wildwater seemed to have the nicest looking equipment, including first aid kits for each raft. Some of the others seemed...well, less nice.)

We arrived at the Folk School at 3:30pm. We checked in, got our schedule for the weekend and our room assignment, and we headed to our home for the next two nights, Rock House. The rooms were clean but sparse. Fortunately, the house was air-conditioned because it was hot and very, very humid.

After making our beds (!), SA went in search of a grocery store while I wandered the grounds. I fell in love with this espalier bench by the flower garden.

After a group orientation, everyone moved to the dining hall for supper. All meals are served family style and are begun with a non-denominational blessing or song. The food was good, basic, homestyle fare. It reminded me of eating at my grandmother's house. Since there were no assigned tables, we met different people at each sitting. Most were from the southern region and most were returning visitors. I heard over and over again how the Folk School was practically an addiction.

Friday night was our first class in Nuno Felting with instructor Geri Forkner. In a little twist of irony, the assistant teacher, Annie, is a partner in Yarn Works and she recognized my new beaded necklace right away. We started learning the technique of working the wool fibers into the silk backing by making little dolls. We quickly leapt into making scarves. Most of us made two or three over the course of the weekend, but SA concentrated on one, painstakingly laying it out, felting it (she used cotton gauze as the background, a more difficult backing to use than silk), needle felting it with Geri's machine, and embellishing it with beads, rusty washers, and other findings.

It was something to behold. It was so wonderful to see how different each piece turned out given that each of us started with the same choices of materials.

In a very short time, I learned a lot about creating different looks and what I liked and didn't like about certain effects. Of the three I made, I would wear two, but it was the one I didn't like that I learned the most from. It was the perfect amount of time to gain just enough knowlege to be dangerous!

We also hit the knitting/weaving/spinning shop in town, The Yarn Circle. Pam, the owner and a resident fiber instructor at the school, has a bit of everything. We went in specifically to stockpile of some of the Merino/Silk roving (Ashland Bay) that Geri had brought for the class.

Our work studio was just below one of the music studios where a musical saw class was happening. It was a mournful sound which inspired the "southern ghost music" comment from SA. They were a dedicated group, and a big hit at the closing ceremony where each group displayed their work from the weekend.

These are the woodturning instructors whose hats are, in fact, made of wood:

There were displays of glass beads, bookmaking, quilts, basketry (incredibly impressive, I must say), bonsai, rug hooking, and more. It was a very productive weekend in Brasstown. (I had a special moment when Merike Saarnit admired the sock I was knitting. She was there to teach the rug class.)

SA and I were in agreement that we would like to go back, but next time we might stay at a hotel in Murphy (a town about 5 miles away) for some additional amenities. It was nice to be so removed from "normal life" and not have television, but the shower was the smallest one I have ever been in--smaller than on a cruise ship--and the beds were a little sprung. (They did offer bed boards if you needed one!) There are a limited number of rooms with two beds and a private bath like the one SA and I stayed in. Many of the accommodations are 4-6 beds and a shared bath--not for me, I gotta say.

We had a fabulous time, and I'm really happy that we went. Now, I've got to get online to buy scarf blanks to use up all the fiber that came home with me! (Nuno felt scarves for everyone this Christmas.)

Out of the Box, uh, Square...

After a few weeks of nothing but miters, I am taking a little break. I have decided to walk down the well-travelled road of the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.




This morning I went down into the basement (otherwise known as the home of the stash) and went shopping in the sock yarn bins. (Yeah, I said bins plural.) I went with the intention of finding something to pair with the Foofaraw that had made me a little bit sad when it went from the swift to the ball winder. It should really be called Peas and Carrots in my humble opinion. (I am a STR fan, but I have discovered that what I love on the skein does not always hold the same magic for me in the ball.) Someone on the Chevron Scarf Flickr group had paired Foofaraw with a skein of Lucy to very nice effect, so I decided to see what I could find down there. Trouble is, I like the Lucy and I didn't want to use it for this project.



While pawing around, I rediscovered another ball with which I had a love/hate relationship. I think it may be Chanticleer or perhaps Rocktober, but I lost the label. When I wound it up, it looked like the skein of multi-colored Red Heart I had through my ENTIRE childhood. (Seriously, that skein never seemed to get smaller no matter how much I used.) The Red Heart had more prominent greens and blues, but it was pretty close. Trouble was I didn't think there was enough contrast between it and the Peas and Carrots. I went through all my STR, but couldn't find two to try together.



So, I suppressed my OCD tendencies and went to the "Miscellaneous Sock Yarn" bins to search for a something from another yarn purveyor. After some fishing about, I pulled out a skein of Sophie's Toes Jean Jacket and thought, "We have a winner!"


The Sophie's Toes is a bit thinner than the medium weight STR, and it took me several rows to come to grips with that. Even though it looked good, my compulsion was to rip because the rows were not exactly the same. The blue rows are a hair lacier than the multi rows. After a few inches, I have come to like texture I'm getting. It might be a little Rainbow Brite-ish, but I think it's workable.





In digging around, I also found a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Super Sock in Indian Summer that I think will look good with the Peas and Carrots for a second scarf.



The squares will just have to take a back seat, at least for a little while.

Less than a week until MDSW!

(I'm not sure what the deal is--probably user error--but I am having a hard time the spaces between paragraphs. Between the time I hit the publish button and the post goes up, they sometimes disappear. It makes me nuts, so I end up editing and republishing several times. Blech.)

Another Fine Pair

I completed these this evening and they are happily blocking.

I finished the first one weeks ago and it sat alone in a project bag while other things took precedence. I vowed to cast on and finish the second one (the left? the right? Thing One...Thing Two?) this weekend. The incredibly nice weather today threatened to do in my plans, but I persevered. I did knit on the front porch for a bit, but the nice weather had everyone out and I ended up talking with my neighbors more than I was knitting. (We hardly see each other in winter, so we had to catch up and share the neighborhood gossip.)

The socks are done in the Crisscross Lace Sock pattern from Briar Rose done with Sophie's Toes Iced Coffee colorway. Here is a close-up:

Sock yarn has truly become an obsession, evidenced by the latest acquisitions:

There are more skeins of Sophie's Toes (I think Emily's color sense is quite fabulous), some STR (missing from the photo shoot is the Lagoon colorway from the recent sock club shipment), Jitterbug, a skein from White Willow (an Etsy seller), and Piece of Beauty, which I cannot wait to knit with. It may be the squishiest sock yarn I have ever felt.

Next up in the queue will be the Rockin' Sock Club socks. (I'm not sure how I feel about the colorway or the pattern, but I am looking forward to trying a toe-up sock.) I've added to the knitting book library recently, so a larger project may be in the offing, as well. I've also ordered bunches and bunches of Elann's Sonata to make a miter square blanket, inspired by Cara's efforts. The Sonata is just a hair thinner than Tahki Cotton Classic and a whole lot less expensive, so I'm hoping it will be a good substitute. They don't have black, though, so that's a bit of a drag. I'm thinking of it as a very long-term project, with squares completed in fits and starts.

Speaking of a bit of a drag (ahem), I am digging The Riches. I love, love, love Eddie Izzard, and he and Minnie Driver are quite fabulous. Try it...you'll like it.