Category Archives: Blogging

We’ve only just begun…

Posted on August 6, 2009 | 11 comments

The first day at Sock Summit isn’t the first day. You can pick up your registration packet, and set up your booth if you’re a vendor. Classes start tomorrow (Thursday), and the market opens for a student preview in the afternoon.

Even so, it was a very Sock Summit day today. I started at Deb Accuardi’s pre-summit yarn-tasting luncheon at her restaurant, Gino’s. Lunch was wonderful, four courses paired with wine and yarn. The room was filled with happy knitters.

And the swag was amazing. Chrissy Gardiner donated a copy of her new book, Toe-Up!, for each of the knitters there.

Deb put together swag bags with Portland info, a gift card to Knit/Purl, coffee or tea, and this button.

The yarn was incredible! The yarn with the first course was from Stevanie Pico at Abundant Yarns. It was inspired by a caprese salad, and the colorway is Insalata Accuardi. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of it, because it didn’t make it home with me! I’m hoping it was found under the table, or in Lorajean’s box o’ fun. I’ll find out tomorrow.

Here’s the rest:

The blue/green yarn is “Jules Verne”, dyed by Larissa Brown for Abundant Yarns. The pink/brown/cream is “Ladies Who Lunch” by Knitted Wit (Lorajean). It was inspired by the tiramisu dessert, but to me it looks like chocolate and raspberries with cream. The multi-color brown/green/red/everything is “Pheasant” by Abstract Fibers. It was inspired by Deb’s pheasant, and meant to go with the quail and warm potato salad. And the pink and lavender yarn is “Cherry Mallow” from Crafts Meow. I can’t tell you the story on that, because Lorajean and I had to leave before dessert was served. It was time to set up the booth.

It was pretty quick work! We have Lorajean’s yarn and fiber, felted hats from Attitude Hats, stitch markers from Marilyn (but I don’t know her business name, will find out), books and felting fiber from Leigh Radford, and my patterns. I’m in very good company. We’re ready to roll tomorrow. After set-up, we went to Lantern Moon’s vendor party at McMenamin’s Kennedy School. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. I even met Jess (Frecklegirl) from Ravelry.

And here are the Sox Stix girls! They’ll be roaming the market, creating buzz for Lantern Moon’s sock needles. The needles come in silk taffeta bags, and the Sox Stix girls are wearing taffeta pants inspired by those bags. Same same, but different!

Tomorrow’s agenda: Sock Design Workshop with Star Athena, Hooked on Beads with Sivia Harding, and a tour of the marketplace. But for now, sleep…

11 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, ravelry

Tagged Knit, sock summit

Jiggety-jig

Posted on July 9, 2009 | 12 comments

I’m back at home, after a whirlwind trip through Vietnam and Tokyo. I had a couple little “where in the world” contests while I was gone.

Adam (Knitguy) correctly identified this Buddha statue as being at Long Son Temple in Nha Trang, Vietnam. His prize? Some beautiful chopsticks and chopstick rests! I need to sweep the bamboo leaves in my backyard, but in the meantime, aren’t they a nice Asian backdrop for this picture?

The next picture was a little trickier to identify.

Kaminari-mon Gate (Thunder Gate) is the first gate going up to Senso-Ji Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo. Lots of people take pictures of it, which made it too easy! The second gate, closer to the temple, is Houzou-mon Gate. Courtney (Knitting Siamese) was the first person to correctly identify the photo. Her prize is this silk scarf. Blue, of course. I’ve always got blue on my mind!

I came home to find the blueberry bushes still laden with berries. Last night I picked a half gallon box, and this afternoon I picked two more. I’ll bake with some, give some to my Mom, and freeze the rest. And there are still more out there…

I was going to make Blueberry Boy Bait last night after seeing it on the Smitten Kitchen blog, but I didn’t have enough butter! Maybe tonight.

I’ll blog more about the trip, and knitting, after I work my way through 400 pictures. Don’t worry, I won’t post *all* of them!

12 Comments

Posted in Blogging, travel

Tagged buddha, houzoumon gate, nha trang

Weekend at Menucha

Posted on May 4, 2009 | 12 comments

Not a lot of knitting time last week. I was prepping for our annual women’s retreat at Menucha. The retreat was this past weekend, and we had a great time. No snow this year! But we did have an awesome thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon. The sky was very dark, right about the time we were working on quilt squares, and trying to thread needles in the gloom.

The labyrinth was finished last summer. It’s in a rose garden; it will be gorgeous in June, but right now it’s a little spare. Which is beautiful in its own way.

This was my favorite stone.

Sunday morning was sunny and perfect, so I abandoned my planned program, and we walked the labyrinth instead. I’ve walked labyrinths before, and I always find it very meditative. Sunday’s walk was no exception. It’s interesting how the walk is an individual experience, even when walked in a group. Just like life.

There’s a sculpture garden behind the labyrinth. This piece reminded me of the Venus of Willendorf.

What little knitting I did this past week and weekend was on Ishbel. Once I became accustomed to knitting with really skinny yarn on medium sized needles, it started to flow. But it’s still not my favorite kind of knitting. I do think the effort will be worth it, though. It’s like gossamer. So lovely. No picture yet.

Sunday was apparently pink sock day. Joanne was wearing her Oriel socks from Charlene Schurch’s Sensational Knitted Socks, and I was wearing my Shur’tugals.

Here are a few more pictures from the weekend:

Can you see Vista House out on Crown Point? This is the view from the swimming pool (it’s not pool season yet, though). The swimming pool is right by this fireplace. The fireplace has ovens, and a huge tank on the back for heating water. Clever! JM stands for Julius Meier, of Meier and Frank (Oregon department store, now part of Macy’s). Menucha is the old Julius Meier estate.

I hope your weekend was as nice as mine!

12 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged crown point, Knit, knit socks, labyrinth, Menucha, vista house

Blue, blue, my yarn is blue

Posted on April 25, 2009 | 12 comments

I taught a fun class over at Twisted on Thursday night. “Tink, Drop, Frog: How Do I Fix This?!” It’s aimed at relatively new knitters, and has a lot of hands on practice. We put their swatches through their paces! All the students had taken a class on knitting in the round with me, so it was like a reunion party. I think we all had a good time, and they came away with some new skills. I’m teaching this class again in July, and already looking forward to it.

Before class started, I bought a little something.

One skein of Claudia Hand Painted Yarn, Silk Lace 20/2, 100% silk, 1100 yards/100 grams in Deep Blue. I had to wind it by hand; apparently silk tends to slip off the swift at the shop. Cathy helped me at knit nite, thank goodness; 1100 yards is a lot! I wound most of it, found myself in a tangle, wound another ball from the other end and got most of the rest. One section was beyond my patience that night, but I don’t think I’ll need *all* of the yarn for my project. What project? Ishbel, a lovely shawl by Isolda Teague. I saw this knit up on several other blogs, and it called my name.

The yarn is so much finer than the worsted weight mitered square I’ve been knitting. It will be a shock to the fingers! But the needles aren’t tiny (4 mm/US 6), so that will help!

Here’s my completed mitered square. I used leftovers from the stash: Plymouth Galway in navy, Crystal Palace Taos in a blue variegated.

Isn’t it interesting how subtle the Taos looks when it’s surrounded by navy? Much different than it looked in Athena, where the colors were concentrated in entrelac blocks instead of strung out along a long row.

Unfortunately, I was a little too confident of my gauge, and never re-measured after the first two color stripes. Gauge for worsted before was with KnitPicks Wool of the Andes and Lantern Moon Ebony needles; this square is slightly heavier Plymouth Galway and Clover Bamboo needles. Two variables that I didn’t take into consideration. The 10 inch square measures 11 inches. Since you can block knitting bigger, but not smaller, it’s back to, um, square one! This was a very soothing knit, and I think I just needed to do it for the quiet joy of it all. More joy to come.

12 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged afghan square, ishbel, Knit, yarn

And the winner is…

Posted on April 7, 2009 | 10 comments

Aunt Kathy! Who is not *my* aunt, but just Aunt Kathy. She wins the Lantern Moon Silk Needle Case. Congratulations, Kathy! I will send this off to you this week.

After organizing my needle stash, I found that I only needed two of the four needle cases that my family picked up at the Loop & Hoop event, so I’m giving away one more. Back to the random number generator, and the second winner is Sarah, of Attitude Hats. Go check out Sarah’s creations; they are amazing!

And another winner! DH won an elevator pitch contest, and he’s pretty pleased with himself. What’s an elevator pitch? According to Wikipedia, an elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, 30 seconds & 100-150 words). Congrats, Sweetie!

I think I need a knitting picture now…

I’m knitting the Baby Bolero from One Skein by Leigh Radford. It’s a short and sweet little jacket for a newborn. It will be a bit longer than this when the ribbing is added to the edges. I picked up the sleeves and am knitting them top down instead of knitting them flat and sewing them in.

I love the little motif on the back (I did change some of the k2togs to ssk to enhance the hole-iness):

What I’m not loving is the yarn.

It’s Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, a fluffy cotton core with a wrap which gives it a fun texture. But the fun texture is interfering with my ability to control my tension, I think. I have a horrible column of loose stitches between dpns on the sleeves (see them in the picture?), and I have to go back and adjust everything to even them out. Yuck. I’ve knit with lots of cottons before, and haven’t had this issue. Maybe I should have knit the sleeves flat? But then I’d never sew the sweater up! (I know myself.)

So I guess I’ll finish, since I’m so close to finishing, and give it a soak and see if things block out/even up. Otherwise, I’ll re-knit this with a smooth cotton. It’s a quick knit, except I’m having a hard time sitting down with it!

10 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged contest, Knit, lantern moon, yarn

Pass it on…a giveaway!

Posted on March 30, 2009 | 48 comments

Well, it turns out that I really don’t need all *four* Lantern Moon silk needle cases from the Loop & Hoop event. I already own a matching needle case especially for circulars, so five is over the top! The circular case holds my Lantern Moon ebony and rosewood circulars. One new case holds my 16 inch LM ebony circulars and matching dpns. (These are all size 7 and up; my skinny dpns live in a different case.) Another holds my bamboo (non-LM) circulars. I’m reserving one more because I’m not sure how storage is going to work out, but I still have at least one extra case. Combined with my missing my first blogoversary this month (March 17), I think this means I need to celebrate the anniversary and have a giveaway!

Here’s the inside of the case. There’s a zippered compartment on the left, storage for circulars in the middle, and storage for straight needles on the right.

If you’d like to win this needle case, please leave a comment on this post by April 5. I’ll use the random number generator and pick a winner. Good luck!

In other news, one of my pictures has been published in Schmap Portland Guide. You can see it here, but you saw it on my blog, first! The Schmap people must have found the picture by title from flickr. Schmap seems to be a nice travel guide, and it’s free. Cool!

48 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged Knit, lantern moon, schmap

Keep your eyes on the prize…

Posted on February 16, 2009 | 4 comments

Because you have another chance to win! I received an email from Cristi (Turtlegirl76). Sometimes a comment is just a comment; she didn’t mean to enter the contest. She’s not a dpn knitter (but she does make a lot of socks), and would like me to redraw for the sox stix. I offered her the yarn and cake, but she graciously declined because she thinks it should all go together.

So another trip to the random number generator, and the number is 22, or the 22nd comment. Marie, you’re the new winner! And as a new sock knitter, I hope you enjoy these goodies.

In other news, I finished my fourth Athena yesterday. It looks just like the last one:

Except it has 9 blocks around instead of 8. But no new picture; you know what it looks like!

4 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged entrelac, sox stix

Drum roll for the winner please…

Posted on February 16, 2009 | 9 comments

And the winner of the drawing for the Lantern Moon Sox Stix is…

Turtlegirl76! I’ve added a couple things to the prize package, too. The yarn is fingering weight, hand dyed by Knitted Wit. I love the colors of this yarn, but when I started to knit with it, I realized that I’m just not a skinny yarn knitter. All my socks are sport or DK, or even worsted! Also included is a cute cake keychain, also from Lantern Moon. Have fun, Cristi! Please send me your snail mail addy, and I will send your package out this week.

Edit: It turns out that Cristi’s not a dpn knitter! See the next post for the new winner…after checking out the blogs mentioned below.

And I’m a winner, too! This week, I’ve been nominated by two bloggers, Jeanne Knits and Knitting Siamese, for a Kreativ Blogger Award. Thanks, Jeanne and Courtney!

Here are the rules:

1. Copy the award to your site.
2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those on your blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

And here are the blogs that I think you should check out:

Emilee Knits: Emilee is working her way through the Barbara Walker treasuries, doing a swatch a week. I’m enjoying seein the swatches, and Emilee’s commentary on the stitch patterns.

Earthtones Girl: Denise is a fantastic knitter, and a big fan of Elizabeth Zimmermann. You can see it in her projects. A woman after my own heart!

Princess Pea: Anna lives in the UK, and knits exquisite things. Tea cosies, Jared Flood’s druid mitts, anything! Her photography is lovely.

Turtlegirl76: Cristi (yes, the same Cristi who won the Sox Stix!) is an amazing knitter; I love seeing her projects. And her cats, Ripple and Calvin!

Smariek Knits: Marie loves cables. Me, too. Her scarves and mitts are in many Ravelry queues, and she’s just finished her first socks.

We Do Not Have a Knitting Problem aka IrishGirlieKnits: Carrie is a big fan of BMFA, and I can see why. I love looking at her projects.

What Katy Did: Katy is a local blogger, and I found out last month that we have a mutual friend in real life. Small world. Check out Katy’s Kiki Mariko.

Enjoy!

9 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged lantern moon, sox stix

Sudden stash

Posted on January 28, 2009 | 16 comments

I received a package yesterday. It was full of gorgeous things.

I won a prize on riizu’s blog back in December. One transit strike, an international border, and assorted bits of life later, the package is here!

Let’s start with the non-fiber fun. First up, Rooibos tea! I know what I’m having tomorrow morning at work.

There was this really cute button in the bottom of the bag.

Oh, you’ve gotten a peek at the yarn! It’s Mirasol Hacho. I have a little of this in blues from a trip to the coast last spring, so I knew it was yummy stuff.

Here’s a better look.

One more look, up close and personal.

The Hacho was the only thing I was expecting, so this was all quite a bonanza. But the crowning glory is this.

I’ve never seen it before. It’s Marisol Tupa, 50% merino and 50% silk. This is a glorious shade of red, with that subtle sheen that only comes with silk. It’s beautiful, and there are two skeins. I’ll have to find something worthy to make with it.

Thank you so much, Elizabeth!

16 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit

Tagged Knit, yarn

Leyburn snow

Posted on January 27, 2009 | 12 comments

I woke up to snow this morning. No, that’s not quite right. I woke up to a 6:30 a.m. robo-call from the school district, saying that buses would be on snow routes, but school was open. No snow.

I went back to sleep, and woke up to snow.

Snow is just another photo op for a blogger, right?

I was cruising down the foot of the second Leyburn last night, 2 repeats in (16 rounds), when suddenly I realized that the pattern didn’t match the first sock at the edges of the instep. After comparing with the first sock, trying to figure out what I did the first time, I finally just looked at the directions. Duh! A bit of ripping, and all is back on track now.

In other news, I’m mentioned in Lime & Violet this morning. There’s a picture of the twisted cast on from my Leyburn, and a link. Thanks for the shout-out, Sam!

Here’s a snowy cuff.