A lot of randomness Posted by cookie at 6:26 AM (Comments: 12)

There's a lot going on over here and a bunch of things I haven't posted about, so here's an attempt at a round-up of all the stuff that's slipped by.

First, the Moselle socks are now available online. Amy knit the first sample sock, and I am.... what is this? I am knitting the SECOND sock. You see, the left and right socks are mirrored. And besides, how could I resist the Wollmeise?

My gauge is a little different from Amy's, so I am getting different pooling. I'm actually planning to knit a whole third sock with matching gauge because the ball is ginormous. I mean, look at this thing! [As a side note, I also learned how I manage to bend so many metal needles. It's by shoving them over the leg with the super high instep.]

While at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling, I tried to get everybody to feel the Handmaiden Cashmere and Silk because it is absolutely heavenly to touch. Somehow I convinced myself that everybody should have some, including myself, and that there really ought to be a nice project that uses a single skein. So voila! A single skein scarf that uses the same stitch pattern as the Moselle Socks (ignore the unwoven ends, please). Being unimaginative, I'm calling this the Mosella Scarf. I like that it zigs and zags at the edges, even if that meant it was more of a pain in the bum to block. :-)

How's this for a close-up of the cashmere goodness? Mmmmm. I'm not sure what I'll do with the pattern once it's written up. It might be free for a limited time, or free to the first 100 people, or something. I dunno. Stay tuned.

And what's this, have I taken up spinning? Nope. I got this for Kristi because we all know she needs more fiber. I sent it off on Friday as part of a bigger goody package, so it should be getting to her any second now which is good because she could use something nice to look forward to today. It's been a bad weekend, but I won't get into that. :-( The fiber is Gale's Art black blue faced leicester also from The Loopy Ewe.

A bunch of people have asked me how I carry my sock projects around or what this weird contraption I have is, and I love seeing the light bulbs go off when I explain it. It's a Knitzi and it's beautiful wood. I'm a sucker for wooden knitting accessories (except needles). They come in different lengths specifically for your dpn length. Let me demonstrate. First, you screw off the top. Then you stick in your needles along with sock in progress and all. See how the hole is cleverly designed to let it sock dangle out? And screw the top back on. Perfect for travel.

And what else have I been knitting that I can show off? Really boring things apparently.

- A plain ribbed sock using Pagewood Farm handpainted sock yarn from Kristi. I <3 it, and I lovingly refer to the color as baby poop.

- Some would call these single socks, but I prefer to call them a PAIR of mismatching socks. Both stockinette with 2x2 ribbing at the cuff and knit with BMFA STR lightweight. Left sock is the Harlotty colorway, right sock is Prove It All Night. Sorry if my colors are all messed up. I have a new laptop, and the monitor is not calibrated.

- A swatch of the BMFA Woobu in Thraven. I LOVE the drape of this stuff. Can we say sweater?

The hanks are HUGE. Those two balls in the above photo are from one hank. It barely fits on my stool!

More randomness:

- Kristi thinks Debbie has about 20% of her yarn stash in Ravelry now. When she finishes photographing it all and uploading, she is so going to have the biggest stash ever. EVER.

- I can't believe I never blogged this.

- There has been some stash enhancement. I'll have to post that later.

Fridays are for yarn! Posted by Kristi at 11:16 AM (Comments: 7)

Thanks to everyone for all of the feedback on the Froot Loop socks! I'm loving seeing people start to knit them on Ravelry too ... there's even a "Groop" started for a knitalong!

Now, back to our irregularly (at best) scheduled programming. What better than a little Handspun Yarn Friday? This yarn is a 2-ply I made from Yarn Wench merino in the Poodleskirt colorway:

This was my first yarn plied on my new plying head for my Lendrum. My thoughts on the plying head are 1) Wow, awesome, lots of yarn fits on this bobbin and 2) I wish there were more ratios. That's really about it. I'm excited to ply my Rauen S2S kit on it because I'll be able to fit all 8.5 oz. on the one bobbin, I think. BIG hank o' yarn, I will love thee. But my legs will probably be tired from all that treadling (I like my sock yarn tightly plied). On to the next bobbin of Rauen I go!

Presenting Froot Loop! Posted by Kristi at 8:26 AM (Comments: 34)

I'm so excited that the Knitty Spring Surprises went up, and that my sock pattern [Rav link], Froot Loop, is one of them!

The photoshoot for this sock was fun -- Debbie came over to help and Clinton also tried to help. He really couldn't stop getting excited that there was food on the floor. This may have been why the "action shots" with Froot Loops flying didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Oh, well!

Here are a couple of "outtakes" from the photoshoot (more on Flickr):

See the falling Froot Loops in that one? Yeah. Not what I'd hoped for :)

I hope you enjoy knitting them if you decide to!

ETA: Ravelry link!

It's not Spring Fling, but ... Posted by Kristi at 1:41 PM (Comments: 11)

This past weekend, I didn't go do more on the trapeze. I also didn't go to St. Louis to go to Spring Fling with Cookie. Instead I went to an autocross school. Sadly, the pictures from the autocross school didn't turn out that well. I was mostly busy driving or being a passenger. Here's one of Andy before his first run through the course:

On Sunday, I let Clinton do the daredevil stuff. He came with me to Debbie's house and hung out with her Samoyeds while we took pictures of yarn for her stash on Ravelry. Let's just say it's a work in progress. Here's the dogs when they found something they could all agree on: Food is Good. Boris adored Clinton; followed him everywhere like a big fluffy shadow.

I also finally finished the Trystero sock, and it will be shipped off to Shelridge Farm tomorrow:

The Brooklyn Handspun sock yarn is all wound in a ball and ready to be cast on! Now, what should I do this weekend to make up for my Maryland Sheep and Wool envy?

Flingin' it Posted by cookie at 2:09 AM (Comments: 20)

I'm at the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling, and it's been an awesome weekend. This is the first time I ever met Wendy from WendyKnits. This was really cool because the first sock I ever knit was Wendy's Generic Toe-up Sock Pattern. So Wendy has definitely had a part in my current sock obsession.

I got to see Sheri again. She is just the sweetest yarn seller ever. And look at how cute she is! (She wanted me to take a picture of her without glasses, but this one is better. Sorry Sheri!)

I got to sleep in this gorgeous king-sized bed. It was so big I wasn't sure what to do with all that space! You see, normally I share a full-sized bed with the husband and the cat. Those of you who have cats probably know that they somehow end up taking up a HUGE chunk of the bed by pushing you over slowly at night until the next thing you know the humans are all squished on one side, just about ready to fall off. I spent the whole time sleeping on one-third of the bed.

We got goody bags, but I'm going to leave my goodies wrapped until I get home so I can extend the surprise and presents just a little bit longer.

There were also patterns in the goody bags especially designed for the Spring Fling -- one from Wendy and one from me. Mine is on the right and is knit in the wonderful Wollmeise 100% superwash yarn.

It is named Moselle after the Moselle River that runs through Germany (though Moselle is the English name for it). The sample sock was knit by Amy and we IMed one evening brainstorming for names. The German river idea was perfect because the pattern zigs and zags like a river and the yarn is from Germany. The pattern will be available for download from cookiea.com sometime after I get home (expect May 1 or 2).

Claudia, the maker of Wollmeise yarn, flew in from Germany to attend the Fling. She is a riot and just absolutely wonderful. Whenever she gets excited she starts to exclaim "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" It's always three times. We went to a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant and she was in wonder over the tender beef, the flames, and the food tossing. She is camera shy but allowed photos of her beautiful socks. I love the asymmetry of it all!

Of course I headed to Loopy Central. Here are some pictures to show you just how cute it is there.

The sock wall. There are a couple Monkeys there!

Comfy sheep:

And of course, tons of yarn. I especially loved seeing yarns from Indie dyers I've met or have talked to such as Nancy from Chameleon Colorworks. The Evolution is sooooo soft. (We'll be together at TNNA in June.)

Gryphon and I exchanged e-mails back before she started the yarn business to talk about our futures in knitting. Back when we were starry-eyed knitters. Okay, I think we are still starry-eyed knitters in love with all things knitting. It's great to see how popular her yarn has become that this is all that's left:

This was one of the Dream in Color walls at Loopy Central. The gals who run DiC have kids who go to school in the town where I grew up. Small world, eh?

I even got to meet new-to-me dyers like Sarah of Tempted Yarns. Here she is showing off some of her own handpainted yarn.

The Loopy Elves were absolutely wonderful. They made the cutest little cupcakes EVER.

Unfortunately (and I am TOTALLY banging my head over this) I forgot to bring the battery charger for my camera, so I missed all sorts of goodies I wanted to take pictures of including:
- Janice and the other elves
- Webguy, Knitting Daughter, and all-around handy husband
- Allen of Numma Numma yarns
- Kellie from New Zealand!
- Dawne from Winnipeg. She was surprised I've been there!
- Valerie from Toronto. I <3 Toronto.
- Karen's Freshisle Fibers Watermelon sock.
- Capi, the Loopy Legend, and all the other Loopy Groupies
- Knitters singing a song just for Sheri
- The absolutely stunningly beautiful blanket knit for Claudia

I'm sure someone else got pictures, so please send me the links if you have them! I'll take pictures of the goodies and yarns I may have gotten when I get home to recharged batteries. In the meantime, I leave you with this beauty I absolutely could not resist.

And now that I've called security on the party-goers next door to me (strangely blasting rap and singing along with it), it's nice and quiet and perfect for sleeping. Good night!

Springtime! Posted by Kristi at 10:04 AM (Comments: 4)

It's finally Springtime in Colorado. I think. Last time it snowed was last Thursday. I sort of miss the late January - early February start to Spring (but then, what's Winter) from NorCal. The last few times I've been back, it's been full of flowers and smelling just wonderful. But! Here in Colorado we get our own gorgeous flowers. Here's some from the cherry trees on the side of our place. I really loved the cherries when we first got here last year, so seeing these blossoms makes me happy:

If you're into flowers, I put up some more pictures of flowers in our backyard in my Flickr photostream.

I also have some pretty yarn to share. This yarn is from Brooklyn Handspun, and I'll be using it to design a sock (after I finish up the Trystero sample; I got sidetracked by spinning):

She calls this yarn base her Soft Spun Plus. She's not kidding about soft, by the way. This stuff is very soft. The colorway is "Twinkle".

I finished up a bobbin of singles for my Rauen s2s kit, so I started in some Yarn Wench merino. Pictures of that soon!

Tales from Sock Camp Posted by cookie at 7:30 AM (Comments: 17)

By now you've already read all the other blog entries about Sock Camp, I'm sure. But I just don't think the magical wonderfulness of an entire week surrounded by hard core sock knitters can be done justice by the interwebs. It was INSANE! And I mean that in the best possible way, of course.

First we had Alice, originally from Canada, but hailing currently from London, England. Did I mention hardcore? She is wearing a sweater she bought at one of the alpaca farms on the way to sock camp.

Alice was quite the instigator. She had afterparty after afterparty all night long. Those girly looking fruity drinks? They had a big kick and were named the "Ghost of Alice" after the second owner's wife. She was quite the character apparently.

Toilet paper covers were made, but unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them. I really wish I had because they were things of beauty I tell ya. Instead, I think I did manage to get the whole line-up of knitted sock monkeys.

This is me taking a picture of Stephanie taking a picture of me taking.... (you get the idea). You can see her beautiful sock monkey in the foreground. And what is that he's wearing??? Yes, that's right, she stayed up into the wee hours of the night to knit her monkey an argyle vest. An ARGYLE VEST, people! Madness, I tell ya!

All the monkey clothing and accessories were too cute. You'll find in this picture a baseball jersey, a joint, a beret, scarves, bongos, and a cowboy hat.

And Debbie? She might have been the craziest of them all. She wanted to be surrounded by all of the sock monkey love.

In case you didn't get enough sock monkey love, I think I got pictures of all them in my Flickr photoset.

And lest you think all we did was knit sock monkeys, there was lots of other activity going on. Tina, in an attempt to prove that you really can knit with anything, got ten poor knitters to knit with the most absurd knitting "needles" ever, ranging from pepperoni sticks to hangers. Poor Stariel, a vegetarian, knit her fastest with the dreaded stinky pepperoni stick.

Elizabeth (who graciously drove me through the snow to the airport) looks so peaceful knitting with .... what is that? a cake slicer handle?

There were cute shoes and knitterly paraphernalia everywhere you turned.

There was a crazy camp song, written by Stephen. I don't want to know where Chappy's hands are in that photo.

The back-up singers were well choreographed.

Cat, Stephanie, Tina and Debbie attempted to knit with turkey basters.

I managed to knit a sock monkey and a monkey sock. This is the monkey sock in STR mediumweight Ravenscroft (pay no attention to the colors, the lighting there is terrible). I gave it to Cat, and I promised her a non-matching sock in the future.

Here is my one legged monkey with single sock (to go with my one-legged chicken from last year). He's also got only one eye, and he's hanging out with Cat's monkey. Note that her monkey is knitting toe-up sock on two circs. Genius!

And possibly the craziest part of all - it snowed!

Next up? I'm off to the Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling!