WIP Wednesday

I was hoping to be able to show you at least one finished thing today, but instead I’ll show you 3 unfinished thing.

Up first are my Knitterly Things Vesper socks with afterthought heel. I’ve reached the cuff on the second sock and once that is done I’ll just have the heel to add and I’ll have a finished pair!

In second place is my Pomatomus sock. I really was hoping to have it done by today but didn’t get to knit on it much the last few days. I’ve only a few more rows left to knit before I start the ribbing.

And the reason why both of the previous socks aren’t done is mainly because of this:

My fingers have been itching to sew a quick and easy quilt top and this weekend I finally had some time and I just started cutting and sewing. I just have to add a top and bottom border and the quilt top will be finished. I also have to piece the back but that can wait until after Stitches East!

I also made sure to finish all these box bags that I’ll be bringing to Baltimore. Thank you all for your wonderful comments about my bags!

Knitting will resume its pace once we get back from Stitches… I can’t wait!

Monday Favorites

It’s time again for a Monday Faves’s post. Enjoy!

1. more folktale handspun mittens, 2. SAFF 2008 – stash, 3. Amy Butler Birdie Sling with Heather Bailey fabric, 4. 3 palettes, 5. colors of rhinebeck, 6. Olivia Block 3, 7. Middle, 8. witch by mimi kirchner, 9. blackcurrant, 10. Quilt – WIP, 11. drying in the sun, 12. po calendar, 13. swan-pick, 14. Swoon…, 15. Yellow Flower Top, 16. cutesypoo deer embroidery, 17. WIP Zig Zag Quilt, 18. Log Cabin Quilt, 19. wall o fabric, 20. Pop Garden and Bijoux, 21. big sky, 22. chocqua, lime, and olive, 23. Feltbeads, 24. Mini BSJ in Wollmiese

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

1. chicken, 2. Close-Up of Selvedge, 3. Keeping the skin pristine, 4. preen pear!, 5. special SP yarn, 6. The gnome had it coming, 7. plain spoken quilt, 8. tomte Alfred, 9. fabric-covered-stag, 10. Geninne’s Illustrated Wall of Curiosities, 11. WIP: Fishtail Wristwarmers, 12. mitten circle, 13. lilly, 14. dahlias from the garden – arranged, 15. Giveaway goodies close up, 16. more fall, 17. My New Quilt Top!, 18. Done! Scrap Project Pillow – Group Two, 19. Vesper Mittens, 20. Granny Square Scarf

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

1. owlies for tomorrow’s update, 2. Fall Picnic, 3. handspun_skein, 4. button palette, pt. 2, 5. little-yellow-hen, 6. Pears!, 7. Heather Ross Fat Quarters, 8. wool eater, 9. bartlett pears and damson plums, 10. Road cushon 1, 11. joni [365.298], 12. repurposed-charm-pin, 13. Esther socks, 14. things i like, 15. The little socks that could, 16. Rainbow rectangles, 17. Vintage Bias Tapes, 18. fairy princess, 19. found, 20. I had a much more productive day today, 21. Olivia’s rag rug, 22. sunny notes, 23. s i x patchwork pincushions., 24. Stanley R. Hooper, 25. r e d patchwork pincushion., 26. Gerberas, 27. full pincushion, 28. common ground : fiber tent

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Make sure to click on the links for more details. And you can see all my Monday Favorites here.

Getting ready, again

The countdown has started, only 12 days left.

12 days left to what you ask?

12 days left until

Yup, yarn4socks will be at Stitches East this year, which means that we’ve been crazy busy getting everything ready for it.

• Knit 8 samples socks – check

Oops, there’s one missing…

There it is! I don’t know why I thought that a Pomatomus would be a good deadline knitting sock but it ended up being better than I anticipated. I’ve only 2 repeats to go on the leg and then I’ll be all set for the ribbing. So it should be finished in time.

• Sock blockers for all of our sample socks – check

You can’t really tell but there are at least 16 sock blockers there.

• 17 box bags to sell at the show – not check

These 6 are pretty much done

The remainder are still in need of a bit of finishing. You can see them there assembly line style (my sewing machine is right off picture).

I still have a couple things to do to them before they’re completely finished but they should be done in time too.

• Signs for our booth and for the shelving units – not done at all

Guess what I’m going to be doing this weekend!

All silliness aside, if you’re in the Baltimore area and are planning to go to Stitches East, please come and say hi!

Rhinebeck recap

The drive up to Rhinebeck was pretty uneventful, except for some cows crossing the road and lots of trafic just before arriving to the fairgrounds. Even though I wasn’t really planning to get any Socks that Rocks, my friend Carol wanted some so we first headed to their booth. Carol and I made a few selections and then headed for the line. We had to wait about 30 minutes before we were able to pay and in the mean time our selections ended up changing entirely. I ended up purchasing 2 mill ends skeins, one in Silkie and one medium weight.

STR Silkie in Lover’s Leap, STR medium weight in Oregon Honey Clover and on the right, Holiday Yarns FlockSock sock yarn in Yarn Fairy

After a successful STR purchase we made our way to the Ravelry meet up where we were witness to some acrobatics on the part of some Ravelry staff to be able to take a group picture.

Later, we met Franklin at his book signing.

We also met Mason-Dixon’s Ann and Kay and we admired their beautiful Belinda scarves.

I bought more yarn, see sock yarn above on the right, and single skeins for a hat and cowl project.

On left Northern Lights Yarn (mohair, kid mohair and rambouillet blend) and on right Alpaca with a Twist Highlander a baby alpaca, merino, microfiber and viscose blend)

I didn’t end up buying either a shawl pin or buttons for my Calvert (I totally forgot about it and didn’t bring my swatch to match buttons) but I guess I did buy sock yarn!

After a full afternoon of wooly fun/fumes, we went to the Ravelry party for a bit of fun and had a chance to meet and chat with friends. Sadly, we had to leave early and we missed the prize drawings and more times to spend with friends. But I’ll make sure to be there next year!

Getting ready for Rhinebeck

Am I ready yet?

New shoes – check

Dansko Marcelle Cabrio

New shirt – almost, still got to iron on the logo

New business cards – check

Cute buttons to give out – check

Knitting – check

Good friend to go with – check

I’m really looking forward to going to Rhinebeck this year. I don’t really have plans for any purchase, maybe a shawl pin and some sock yarn of course. I’ll be giving out some of our really cute new buttons so if you see me, come and ask me for one. See you there!

In Greens and Pinks

It seems like my last two projects have something in common, they’re almost the same color! I didn’t really realize that fact until they were both done and side by side.

Here’s my first square for the Michele Project, click here if you want to help and need more information. I knit it out of Twisted Fiber Art Arial in the Sherwood colorway, a beautiful mix of greens and pinks.

The square is 9″ wide and I ended up increasing from 12 stitches at the beginning to 220 stitches around. It really didn’t take that long so I’ll definitely try to knit one or more for the blanket. I have plenty sock yarn leftovers for that!

My other project that I want to show you is a finished K1C2 Ty-Dy sock.

I love the big sections of green with the smaller sections of pink and brown. The pattern is something I made up on the fly, nothing very fancy and I think it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate on sock #2. I really liked knitting up the sock and look forward to having a pair to wear. Here‘s another picture if you’re interested.

Eye Candy Friday

Sweet, sweet sock yarn…

From left: Ball and Skein Sock yarn in Sunrise, Shivaya Naturals Fingering Merino in Camellia and Hello Yarn Sock in Sour. Now if I could only get my hand on some Mama Blue…

FO Wednesday

Instead of my usual WIP Wednesday, I’ll show you some Finished Objects for once. My latest two finished knits were accessories, knit in thicker yarn and bigger needles than my usual socks.

Back in September I knit a Stacked Eyelet Cowl. It took me just a few days to finish it and I’ve been wearing it pretty much non stop since then. I used just over one skein of Mirasol Yarn Chirapa and knit 20 rounds between each eyelet row. I will definitely be knitting more of these… One in every color! I find cowls really nice to wear, and they take so much less time to knit then scarves!

Details here on Ravelry.

My next FO was for DH. I knit him the Turn A Square hat by Jared Flood. I had some issues with the carrying the yarns on the inside and the tension in the same area but overall, the hat is a much better success than the latest hat I knit for DH. He likes it and has been wearing it since it’s been done. I’ve enough yarn to knit him one, maybe two hats, so I’ll probably do that sometimes this fall.

Ravelry details here.

Hopefully more FOs next week!

Knitting for a cause

A dear friend of mine, Michele, was diagnosed with cancer 6 months ago. Michele is a wonderful woman who loves to knit and share her love of knitting with others. Cancer has been really hard on her these last few months. She’s been through chemo and is now going through radiation therapy and it’s really tough on her and her family. Donna, my boss from yarn4socks (Michele is one of her best friends) and I, have decided that we wanted to knit Michele a blanket knit out of sock yarn squares. This is where I need your help in knitting squares for this blanket.

Here are the details:

We’ve decided to go with squares knit out of this pattern by Knit me a River out of superwash fingering weight yarn. Each square should block out to about 9″. Michele likes warm colors so we thought that the yarns used should be in the warm tones of the colors. To give you an idea, here are the colorways I picked out of my leftover sock yarn stash that I thought would be appropriate.

We’d like to be able to give her this blanket at Thanksgiving, November 27, so if we could get all the squares in by November 15 that would give us time to seam them all together. If you’d like to send a square, or two,  just write a comment and I’ll send you the address where to send the square(s). If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment too! : )

I want to thank all of you who will help out in advance on behalf of Michele, I know that she will love her blanket.

*******

If you don’t want to knit a square but still want to help out, my friend Carol from Mad for Knit, is looking for donations. The last few months she’s been training like crazy for the October 12 half-marathon for the Dana-Farber foundation and cancer research. She’s still a couple hundred dollars short of her fundraising goal, so if you’d like to help, you can donate here.

THANK YOU!