Category Archives: yarn

High on yarn fumes from Rose City Yarn Crawl

That pretty much sums it up! The Crawl was well attended; I saw lots of very happy yarnophiles. I started the crawl at Twisted, where I had a trunk show on Thursday afternoon, sharing space with Chrissy Gardiner. She brought all the socks from her new book, Indie Socks! (She’s got legs, I’ve got heads, we’ve both got torsos…)

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Even though it was the first day of the crawl, Valerie had already visited nine of the 18 shops.

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I went crawling on Saturday. Cathy and I decided to visit some shops on the west side that we hadn’t seen before or in a while. We visited four. Luckily, I’m local, so I can visit the rest of the shops at any time.

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There should be five buttons (including Twisted) on my bag; I forgot to get a button at one of the shops. I was a little distracted by yarn!

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Aren’t the logo colors pretty? They may have influenced my color choice at For Yarn’s Sake. This is Cascade 220 Superwash, 100g/ball.

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I bought 3 skeins of each of these colors, thinking that I would knit a log cabin baby blanket for an soon-to-be-born cousin. But I must have been high on yarn fumes; there’s no way I can get that much knitting done soon, while still working on my design projects! So some of this will have to go back. I think one ball of pink will become In Threes, a sweet little cardigan.

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Our next stop was at the Knitting Bee, which was new to both me and Cathy. This sweet piece was on the wall, which made me remember that I hadn’t taken any pix at For Yarn’s Sake. High on yarn fumes, I tell ya. The shop was cute! And owner Jami’s pattern for the Vintage Fremont Shawl is lovely. It has an interesting construction and applied lace edging, which is something that I’ve been wanting to try. Winner!

From there we let the car navigation guide us to Northwest Wools. I used to shop there all the time, before there were many yarn shops in town. It’s still a lovely place, organized by yarn weight/fiber and then by color. I couldn’t resist this lovely yarn’s perfect chinaberry red. It’s Cascade Cloud, 70% merino, 30% alpaca.

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Look at the construction of it! It’s cabled, or chain plyed. I love it. It will probably be a squooshy seed stitch cowl, which would really show off the yarn’s structure.

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From there we went to Pearl Fiber Arts, new to Cathy but not to me. There was a lot of pretty yarn! Not being much of a stasher, I settled for the latest Interweave Knits magazine since I had already bought yarn. Cindy had some seriously big yarn, and the needles to match!

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We ended at Twisted, just because it’s home base. And now I’m back to knitting away at my Honey Cardigan. So far, so good!

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Did you participate in the yarn crawl? What was your favorite thing? If you’re not local here, you should come visit for the crawl next year. I think it’s going to be February 27-March 2, 2014. Knit on!

Git ‘er done

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Crafty Moms Weekend was great; it’s always nice to hang out with friends. Our kids have grown up so we’re no longer hanging out at soccer games and school concerts together. That means we were overdue to have the chance to catch up with each other. And I got a lot of knitting done, even if I had to rip out 7452 stitches. That project is finished and blocked, and the pattern is nearly done. But it won’t be a self-published pattern, so it will be a while before I can show it to you. I loved knitting it, and hope you will too, eventually. It was great Downton Abbey knitting! Fairly simple, with just enough going on to keep it interesting.

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I started a sweater for me. This is the beginning of the Honey cardigan by Veera Välimäki. The pattern is pretty straightforward and nicely written. I just haven’t decided if I like the yarn yet. It’s 45⁰ North Worsted in Pinot Noir, 100% Superwash Merino specially dyed for Twisted, but discontinued. I bought it on sale last week, knowing that I wanted a worsted weight cardigan. The yarn is nice, but different. It’s a tightly twisted 3-ply, and it almost feels like knitting with cotton rather than wool. I will knit a little further and see what I think. I am happily cabling along without a cable needle. Do you use a cable needle? For these 2×2 cables, I don’t really need one. Check out the tutorials on the sidebar if you want to know how you can ditch your cable needle, too.

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One more sunset!

CSY Goodness

I caught up with Lorajean of Knitted Wit this week. The last time I saw her, we were in a mad dash to get our Rose City Yarn Crawl project done for the prize baskets. (Don’t forget to get your free copy of my Daffy Taffy Twists pattern!) After we got that done, I went to Hawaii and she went to TNNA. We’re both back now, so I took the opportunity to catch up with her, and I also picked up *two* months worth of CSY:Fingering Edition yarn. Here’s the January skein:

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This variegated makes me think of chocolate and berries. I’ll be looking for a stellar stitch pattern that does it justice. The yarn is Corriedale Socked, 75% super wash Corriedale and 25% nylon, 4 ounces/445 yards. Corriedale is a new breed fiber for me; I’m looking forward to knitting with it. Not sure it will be socks, although the yarn feels like it would make a sturdy but soft and long lasting pair.

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This blue-green is Cashy Light, a 80/10/10 blend of superwash merino, cashmere,and nylon. It has tons of yardage, 496 yards in 4 ounces. I think it would make a generous one skein shawl. The color reminds me of the ocean, way out in the depths.

I have a lot of knitting lined up for this weekend. I need to finish a design, start a new one, and I still want to knit myself a sweater. Remember that January was supposed to be selfish knitting month? I never got it done, too much work knitting. But last week I bought some clearance yarn at Twisted, worsted in pinot noir, enough for a sweater. I’m thinking it will be Veera Välimäki’s Honey Cardigan. Click the link and tell me what you think! I like that the neckline is less relaxed than on the Tea Leaves Cardigan. I want something top-down so I don’t have to commit to the length until the bitter end. And I decided that I didn’t want the big borders on Serra or Rocky Coast right now.

What are you going to knit this weekend?

OFFF 2012

DH and I went globe trotting to celebrate our 30th(!) anniversary: Amsterdam, Bruges, Paris. I’m finally starting to catch up with myself after jet lag plus a busy week at home. We arrived home on Friday night at 11, and I went to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival the next day at noon. I didn’t want to miss my favorite fiber festival of the year, and I couldn’t go on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous: sunny and warm.

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This is the first year since I started going to OFFF that I didn’t help Lorajean (Knitted Wit) set up her booth. Looks like she managed to get it done without me; set-up day was my travel day.

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It was Brooke’s (Sincere Sheep) first OFFF; she came with a beautiful rainbow of yarn and fiber. She and Lorajean are launching more Among Friends fun; check it out here.

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I took my half pi shawl to Abstract Fiber to show Susan what I had made with her lovely laceweight Hepburn yarn. This was the shawl I made for my birthday, but really it was for our anniversary dinner in Paris. Dinner and the shawl were both lovely.

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Yvonne (Lavender Sheep) and her new little one were there. Yvonne is a dyer, and also the organizer of the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival, coming in April.

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Chrissy Gardiner was at the Lavender Sheep booth signing copies of her new book, Indie Socks. This book is full of Chrissy’s beautiful and clever patterns for socks using yarn from indie dyers.

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I caught up with Jen from Andersen Fiber Works. (Love her sweater!)

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And my friend Sarah, who is the fastest knitter I know. And very accomplished, too; her knitting knowledge is encyclopedic. (Do I look a little dazed? Not bad for 4 hours of sleep, after being up 24 hours traveling. Oy!)

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Nadine showed me her handspun sweater project. I last saw it in our steek class last spring. Yes, she cut her handspun knitting! I had a nice chat with her friend Midge, too.

I didn’t make it to the animal barns. I came home with just a little yarn. I wanted some browns, which I’ve never worn before. I’m branching out!

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Lovely warm browns in this Eponymous Sock yarn, color Mulch, from Three Fates Yarn.

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And this cool brown Shine from Knitted Wit.

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This plummy Icicle Creek yarn from Rain City Fiber Arts. I fell for the color, and the golden sparkle of the stellina.

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Did you go to OFFF? What have you been up to while I was gone?

I’ll tell you about my travels in another post. This one is long enough already!

I bought yarn I didn’t need

But wait, I can explain! I did it for the experience. Yes, the experience!

I went to La Droguerie, in Paris. I had read about them online, and it’s a very different experience than visiting a US shop.

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This shop is located at 9 and 11 Rue du Jour, just off Rue Rambuteau, right next to Les Halles. It’s a 15 minute walk from our apartment in le Marais. Pictures are not allowed inside, but here’s a view from across the street.

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You can see that the yarn hangs in hanks along the walls, but these are just samples of the yarn by type and color. I decided I wanted linen, which they carry in about DK weight, in a deep purple (violet, but I think of it as eggplant). I asked for it in French, 200 grams. The clerk went to the back wall, climbed a ladder, brought down a cone, and wound off the required amount.

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It’s really not this blue; I can’t get the camera to capture the eggplant-iness of it.

The rest of the store is lovely, too. There’s a wall of buttons, and if you want some, they get them out of wooden boxes and drawers for you. There are jars of beads, and you have to ask for them; they’ll get those out for you, too. Definitely not US do-it-yourself, but a fun experience. And now I have some lovely French linen to play with!