25 January 2011 · No Comments
The official thread for the February knit along is up on Ravelry. The individual patterns for these two socks are also now available on Ravelry, in case you prefer to get the patterns one by one. Some time between now and the start of February, Shannon and I will come up with official rules and post them in the group. For now, the general idea is: cast on after it gets to be February, finish a pair by the end of March, be entered to win prizes. Use whatever yarn you like, use whatever color you like, make whichever sock you like, make whatever changes you need for fit. Something more official will be coming soon, but we’re not going to go crazy with rules!
Oh, and because I know someone will ask, the sock blockers are from The Loopy Ewe and they are made of awesome!
21 November 2010 · No Comments
The hat thing seems to have stuck. Shortly after finishing my friend’s hat, The Boy cut off all his hair. A day or two later he mentioned that his head was cold and that he could maybe just possibly see the wisdom of a hat. Within minutes yarn was located (we’d picked it out a long time ago when he was thinking of knitting his own hat), balls were wound, and the hat was begun.
That winding part actually proved unexpectedly tricky. This is Nichole by Schaefer Yarn and Hand Paint Sock by Misti Alpaca. I don’t have a lot in the way of thicker yarn, so I decided holding two thinner yarns together was the way to go. I wound each of them into balls, then rewound them into one big ball while holding the two yarns together. I’m not sure it was the best choice. One of the yarns seems to come out of the mega ball just slightly faster than the other one leaving me with an extra loop of yarn that grows ever larger as I get farther and farther along. I’ve tried working with two balls before though, and I don’t care for that either. Perhaps the proper answer is just to find thicker yarn…
Despite the fiddly yarn, the hat was well underway within a few hours. With luck, I’ll finish it tomorrow. With even more luck I might get him to model it for us next week (though my three quart mixing bowl works surprisingly well as a stand in head when needed).
1 June 2010 · 6 Comments
For the last few days my mailbox has been overflowing with a steady stream of some of my favorite yarns. You see, a week or two ago, I gathered up my courage and sent emails off to the folks who make my favorite yarns. I told them I’m working on a book, that I love what they do, and that I was hoping to use their work in my book. Madam Publisher was kind enough to send emails to back me up (ya know, just to prove I’m not just soliciting yarn with no intention of turning out a book). Then, and this is the nifty part, they all said ‘sure!’ and put yarn in the mail. And now…now it’s started to arrive. This makes checking the mail ever so much more rewarding than usual.
And now I get to share some of it with you. I still have to be discrete about the actual content of the book, but Madam Publisher agrees that the use of sock yarn in a sock book is not something we need to keep super secret. So, over the next few weeks I’ll be showing off some of the yarns I’ll be using.
The first to arrive was Nichole by Schaefer. The lovely folks at Schaefer were kind enough to send me two colors, Chamomile and Apple Green.
Now, if you’ve been here for a while you’ll know that this is not my first time working with Schaefer. Two of my earliest patterns, Nugatory and Embonpoint, were made in Nichole and Bines were made in Heather. Nichole is a perfect example of the slightly thicker-than-average yarn I love best. It’s thin enough to fit in shoes, but thick enough to be warm and comfy (and to feel like it’s knitting up quickly). The nylon makes it marvelously long lasting, and the colors are fabulous. It’s always a winner, and I’m thrilled to be working with it again.
15 September 2009 · 2 Comments
Wow, you guys like yarn! The site has been up for about six months and I had almost as many comments on the yarn giveaway post as on all the others put together. I won’t keep you in suspense, the results, as generated by the random number generator on random.org is Ellen at number 31. I will send you an email today to get your address and will have the package in the mail tomorrow or the next day.
This has been fun, I’ll have to see if I can do more of these yarn giveaways in the future. The next socks to be released should be the Xanthophyll socks, and then a free pair for a knit along on Ravelry. More details to come about both as they get closer.
10 September 2009 · 41 Comments
Bines is live!
To celebrate I’m having a giveaway. The Schaefer Yarn Company has graciously donated a skein of their lovely Heather yarn in Dian Fossey (that’s the yarn I knit them in, just to be clear), and I’m giving away a copy of the pattern (or a copy of a different pattern if that’s what the winner would prefer).
If you’d like a chance to win the yarn and pattern, just leave a comment on this post. I will leave comments open till Monday evening. On Tuesday I’ll randomly pick one person from the comments and contact them to get their address and mail them their loot. Just be sure you use a real email address when you leave a comment, or else I won’t have a way to contact you. Don’t worry, I’m not organized enough to do anything nefarious with your email and no one else will see it.
9 September 2009 · 1 Comment
The pattern for Bines is finished, and I will be releasing it tomorrow. Bines was knit with one of the yarns that Schaefer gave me in return for a pattern I designed for them. When they saw Bines, they liked them, so this pattern will be getting added to their library as well.
To celebrate the pattern release I’m having a little give away. The folks at Schaefer have graciously offered to provide a skein of their Heather yarn in the color Dian Fossey (the same color and yarn I used to make the original socks) to one of my readers. I’ll provide a copy of the pattern (or any of my other patterns if you prefer) to go with it. I’ll post the details here tomorrow when the sock pattern goes live.
21 August 2009 · No Comments
The first Bines sock is done. The second was started, suffered a small mishap, and is now in time out for a few days while I work on something else. I finished the first draft of the Bines pattern and have sent it out to a cadre of genius test knitters who are hard at work on it as I type. I hope to have the pattern out in about a month. In the mean time, I’ve got to finish the other sock, take better pictures, and put in the corrections I’m sure my testers will have for me. Perhaps another picture will tide you over till I get all that done.
The yarn is Heather by Schaefer Yarns in the color Dian Fossey. The yarn is 30% silk, which gives it a lovely sheen, and 15% nylon, which makes me worry less about walking holes in them (I’m not bad at math, the other 55% is superwash merino). This is one of the yarns I got in return for designing a sock for Schaefer earlier this year, and I’m very glad I got a chance to use it. It’s definitely one I’ll be looking for in the future.
The socks are on sock blockers I got at Sock Summit. They are basically a sock shaped wire frame with a hanger on the top. They don’t have the cute factor of some of the wooden ones but they are awesome. Socks dry almost instantly, and there are no rough edges or splinters to snag the fabric. To top it off, they were only $16.00 for the pair. I got them at the Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks booth, but I don’t think they made them and I don’t see them on their website. If anybody knows who made them I’d love to know, and if anybody has a chance to buy blockers like this I highly recommend it.
Up next, the first of the yarn reports from Sock Summit.
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